How did this twisted ’sex cult guru’ brainwash some of America’s most privileged actresses, models and heiresses?
slave told prosecutors she repeatedly met Raniere for sex in the ‘library’ of his mansion near Albany in New York state, where there was a whirlpool bath and a bed.
Some female members moved into the mansion in order to be closer to Raniere. Others lived in the area and used a former restaurant, Apropos, as a meeting centre. The alleged cult’s rituals, such as the brandings, would take place in the homes of various ‘masters’.
According to court papers, another former ‘slave’ alleged she had once seen a message exchange on a phone owned by her ‘master’, in which the latter had sent Rainiere nude photos of various new slaves.
He wrote back: ‘All mine?’ with a smiling devil emoji. Under-performing slaves were threatened with being smacked with a paddle or put in a cage, say court papers. By the time they reached the stage when they were branded, insiders recall, they were mental wrecks far too mentally crushed to resist or even complain.
POSITIVELYmedieval in its brutality, the ordeal seems hardly credible. Yet there are pictures to prove it.The ‘slave’ would be summoned to her ‘master’s’ home, blindfolded and led to a candle-lit ‘ceremony’ on a massage table.
Ordered to strip, she and four other fully naked initiates would take it in turns to hold each other down on the table to receive what they had been reassured would merely be a ‘small tattoo’.
Another slave would film it to provide further blackmail material. When it was their turn, each woman would have to say: ‘Master, please brand me, it would be an honour.’ A family doctor who was allegedly in the sisterhood would use a red-hot cauterising tool to brand a two-inch wide symbol composed of Raniere’s initials into the skin near their pubic region.
The stench of burning flesh was so intense they had to wear surgical masks for a procedure that would involve no anaesthetic and take up to 30 minutes.
‘it was like a bad horror movie,’ an actress named Sarah edmondson said of the perverse ritual she underwent last year.
‘We were crying, we were shaking, we were holding each other,’ she recalled. ‘it was horrific. i felt petrified. i felt, every part of my body was like: get out of here. Run.’
Former Nxivm publicist Frank Parlato, who first exposed the branding, believes he knows of 54 women scarred in this way. Despite such shocking abuse, some cult members remain loyal to Raniere. Catherine Oxenberg — the Dynasty star and daughter of Princess elizabeth of Yugoslavia — says her daughter india, 26, has been brainwashed.
She rejected claims that the group’s alarming behaviour was consensual. ‘Ultimately, they’re all victims of Keith Raniere,’ she says.
For years, ex- members and mental health experts have accused Nxivm of using textbook cult techniques such as sensory deprivation, brainwashing and isolating members from their friends and family.
Yet U.S. law enforcement agencies always concluded that any behaviour was consensual.
But the authorities decided to act late last year when details emerged about the branding.
Now, as this lurid trial continues to reveal ever-more disturbing stories, the question remains: how on earth would any woman agree to be enslaved and branded?
Several ex- members have compared their predicament to a frog jumping into a pan of water.
A frog would jump out immediately if the water was hot — but heat it gradually and the frog won’t realise its peril until it’s too late.
The women were corrupted slowly, they say. Slowly but surely.