Sarah Berman

I've watched multiple docuseries about NXIVM, but this book laid out everything Keith Raniere from the beginning, not just focusing on the sex slave DOS group.

Keith Raniere is so much more evil than these docuseries like The Vow show. Berman starts with Raniere's early scams, lays out the aspects of NXIVM that were stolen wholesale from Scientology, and manipulative ways they garner support.

About halfway through the book, a Mexican family is introduced. They have three smart, talented and beautiful teenage daughters and a young son. Raniere grooms them all to be his girlfriend, manipulating them into sex, forcing them to have abortions, and generally controlling their behaviour. He groomed the middle sister, Daniela, for two years until she turned 18, at which point he immediately manipulated her into a sexual relationship. She didn't know that he was doing the same thing to her sisters, including the youngest who was only 15 when Raniere began a sexual relationship with her. Daniela eventually, in her 20s, decided she no longer wanted to one of dozens of girlfriends to Raniere and attempted to leave him. His control over her family was so strong that they went along with locking Daniela in a room with nothing in it, no bed, no furniture, nothing. They did not speak to Daniela and she only saw Lauren Salzman's face for nearly 2 years. Literal serial killers get treated better in prison solitary confinement than Daniela was treated for wanting to break up with Raniere. I could barely contain my fury at these chapters.

I liked this book a lot, it went into a lot of aspects of NXIVM, some I was familiar with and some I wasn't. I actually wish it was longer.… (altro)

A solid, fast-moving account of the bewilderingly strange NXIVM cult, its followers -- some of whom were beautiful, wealthy, and talented -- and Keith Raniere, its shockingly unimpressive leader. Berman, a journalist who covered the story for Vice, describes Rainere as a teenage try-hard who slapped together some shoddy ideas he mostly borrowed from Scientology and some very basic psychological gamesmanship to come up with his own cult. Despite the fact that he was neither physically impressive nor a particularly magnetic personality, he managed to grow this into an organization that swallowed multiple millions of its followers' money and, often as not, years of their lives. In retrospect, it's rather amazing that such a nonentity managed all of this: Rainere seems to have declared himself the smartest man in the world and gone about finding others who'd buy this line of bullhockey. Like Scientology, he seems to have attracted young actors desperate to get ahead and, like many other cults, he drew young heirs who felt guilty about the ultra-privileged lives that they were born into.

The evil that eventually followed seems to have deepened as things went on, however. What started off as a buyers' club Ponzi scheme eventually become a sex cult that involved real physical and sexual abuse, and Rainere's fantasies and ambitions seem to have grown weirder and much more ambitious over time. It's an indisputably good thing that he was stopped when he was. Berman's book is clearly a journalistic account and not a theoretical or forensic take on the cult: it's still difficult to understand why a number of successful actors and other talented professionals agreed to injure others on Rainere's behalf. Despite the crimes the committed, one gets the idea that his followers might have genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. It's a shame that they ever met Rainere, or that they didn't show even a gram of prudence when they did. "Don't Call It A Cult" is a useful document of our time, from an era that seems to be overrun by scammers, conmen and, tragically, a seemingly infinite supply of unsuspecting victims. Recommended.… (altro)

My TV viewing is usually minimal, sports and nature, history documentaries in the main. So, I knew little of this cult, case nor of the famous people that were involved. I do remember hearing that Raniere received 120 years as the leader. I do, however, have an interest in cults, or rather the psychology of the people who fully embrace this mindset. I think it's doubly important now, as it is my opinion and many others, that a part of our country is now embracing a cultist mindset, believing things that rational people can truly see as lies.

This book and the reporting on this case was well done and informative. Telling the stories of the people involved brought home how insidious the tactics used brought them slowly into a net from which they found not escape. How Raniere used his supposed magnetic personality to convince each woman they were special to him. Branding them with an iron to mark them, unbelievable that this didn't send them running. It would for me. Unbelievable the extent some will go for power over others, and that so many would allow themselves to become victims.

ARC from Edelweiss… (altro)