Tag Archives: cults

190 – NXIVM: Inside the Self-Help Celebrity Sex Cult

News just came this week that they arrested Keith Raniere in Mexico City. Keith was the founder and leader of the NXIVM organization which started as a series of self-help seminars attended by people as successful as Richard Branson, a former US Surgeon General, the daughters of Edgar Bronfman Sr., the Seagrams billionaire, two children of Mexican presidents, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, and many more. In 2009, Raniere even sponsored a visit to Albany, New York from the Dalai Lama.

Which made it all the more shocking this week when he was arrested for sex trafficking and it was alleged that former Smallville star Allison Mack was his second-in-command for luring women into a special branch of his Executive Success Programs (ESP, get it?). In this special “sorority”, there was a hierarchy of women who performed slave labor and sexual acts for their master (Raniere made everyone call him “Vanguard”.)

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Who wants to join a sex cult? Superman will be there!

Now, there’s been rumors of NXIVM basically being a cult since at least 2003 with an article in Forbes magazine and in this episode we go through a newspaper article written  by Rick Ross (no, not the rapper!) about the tell-tale signs of a cult and we compare those signs to the reports about what was going on inside the NXIVM organization. Who knew that the real secret to a successful Multi-Level Marketing downline was blackmail? Keith Raniere did!

So what does MKUltra, A Clockwork Orange, L. Ron Hubbard, The Manchurian Candidate, and Dionysus have to do with the NXIVM cult? Well, you’ll have to listen to find out!

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I’m like the Jesus who brands people…

One of the nastiest stories about the NXIVM cult is how the women thought they would be getting a tattoo when they joined his secret sex organization and instead they were branded. There were also reports of extremely restrictive calorie diets (because the Vanguard liked ’em thin), forced labor, and sick experiments showing women scenes of violence while observing their brainwaves. One of the aspects of a cult is that “you’re never good enough for the leader” and that’s what Raniere was certainly doing to these women.

That’s what this week’s song is about, when a man just can’t handle a woman as she is and thinks that he can tame her like his pet. Like he can swat her with a newspaper and say “Bad Girl”…

And you’re so cold they take your temperature in Kelvin
But I’ll steal you, I’m Menelaus and you’re Helen
It’d take Captain Scott to find your heart
a place that’s so far off the chart,
There be monsters!You’ve been a bad bad bad bad girl
I’m gonna ride you like a mule
You’ve been bad my pet and it’s time to tame this shrew
Bad bad bad bad girl
I’m gonna housebreak you

I’m sick of dealing with your lack of basic reason
you say that you don’t have to care because you’re bleeding
I bet you wish you were hitched
to a guy that was rich
G$%d%^# you love to b!#$%

Bad bad bad bad girl
you’re going to obedience school
You’ve been bad my pet and it’s time to tame this shrew
Bad bad bad bad girl
I’m gonna housebreak you

Your changing moods
your attitudes
the way you look at other dudes
gimme time I’ll change you
just a little more I’ll change you

your overbite
your cellulite
the way you dress on Friday night
I’m gonna change you
don’t you worry now I’ll change you
I’ll mother^&*!# change you

You’ve been a bad bad bad bad girl
You’ve been a bad bad bad bad girl
You’ve been a bad bad bad bad girl
I’m gonna ride you like a mule
You’ve been bad my pet and it’s time to tame this shrew
Bad bad bad bad girl
I’m gonna housebreak you