The NXIVM cult

This is a good video report on the NXIVM cult that achieved particular notoriety because of the involvement of former Smallville actress Allison Mack, Escaping NXIVM: Behind the investigation of the alleged sex cult CBC News 10/05/2018:



The Hollywood Reporter carried this early story about Mack's involvement after she was arrested: Scott Johnson, Her Darkest Role: Actress Allison Mack's Descent From 'Smallville' to Sex Cult 08/16/2018.

CBC News also has this very current report: Josh Bloch et al, Escaping NXIVM; How a Vancouver actor joined a self-help group and ended up in an alleged sex cult 09/05/2019. They describe the cult's recruiting pitch this way:

Headquartered in Albany, NXIVM billed itself as a personal development training organization with a humanitarian mission that, according to the FBI, operated similar to a pyramid-shaped multi-level marketing business. It relied on its members to recruit new members and to convince them to continually sign up for expensive training based on [cult leader] Raniere's teachings.

Its stated mission was to save the world by training ethical leaders.

It recruited members in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, including a pair of wealthy heiresses, Clare and Sara Bronfman; Emiliano Salinas, the son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari; and several young TV actors, including Mack.

The courses preach an individualistic philosophy that seems inspired by Russian-American novelist and activist Ayn Rand. The intense introspection is reminiscent of Scientology.

Cults are experts at recruiting. In that sense, there is a cult for everyone. That's why public awareness of their presence and the dangers they present are important. NXIVM wasn't recruiting aimless teenagers. Their recruits were more like Allison Mack, career women with experience in their business fields.

The authors also write:

Daniel Shaw, a New York-based psychoanalyst and psychotherapist who has helped cult survivors and their families for 20 years and has spoken with more than a dozen ex-NXIVM members, compares the recruitment by a charismatic leader to falling in love.

"There are red flags, but you don’t want to see them," he says. "And you learn to sort of put those things somewhere in the back of your mind.

"And the more you want to stay involved … the more you have to disassociate, so the mind becomes very disconnected."

... "You're solving a lot of problems for yourself just by walking in the door," Shaw says. "You're finding a community that you feel contains like-minded people. You're seeing success stories that model the kind of success you yourself might be able to attain."