We all have some heroes, some people that we enjoy.
Some people have great character.
Some people have great compassion.
Some people have great charisma.
Some people...
They have a quality where they're just deeply soulful.
♪
Imagine if there were those traits that you might want for yourself.
ESP NXIVM
is a methodology
that allows people to optimize
their experience and behavior.
("Safe With Me" by Soap&Skin playing)
♪ No love can be ♪
♪ Safe with me ♪
♪ No love can be ♪
♪ Safe with me ♪
♪ No love can be ♪
♪ Safe with me ♪
♪ No love can be ♪
♪ Safe with me ♪
♪
Mark Vicente: All right. So this is, to some degree,
somewhat of a test.
I originally wanted to record this
because I had a very strong suspicion that I would be attacked
when I left the organization.
Attacked could be legally,
it could be private investigators,
it could be bugging,
it could be, you know, uh, destroying my name.
It could be a series of things, and I wanted it to be understood that...
It was... It's never been my intention
to try and destroy this organization.
And some of you that are still in may think that.
It's more, uh, uh...
It's more that I saw what was really going on.
And what was really going on
basically just fucked with my head.
But we never thought it would lead to this.
(gavel bangs)
Judge: Okay.
Newscaster: 58-year-old Keith Raniere,
the former leader of the upstate New York sex cult NXIVM
was found guilty on all counts.
Newscaster 2: Guilty of racketeering, guilty of conspiracy,
wire fraud, and sex trafficking.
Newscaster 3: The first question a lot of people have
when they hear about what he allegedly did to dozens of women
is why didn't these women see what was happening to them?
- (indistinct chatter, laughter) - (pop song playing on radio)
Woman: Mark Vicente!
(laughing, chattering)
- Let's start again. - Yeah.
(laughs)
(both grunt)
It's not working. Hold on.
-♪ Everybody's talkin' 'bout... ♪ -No, no, back!
You could do it. You could do it.
Sarah Edmondson: I was 27, just turning 28, when I met Mark.
I was living in Vancouver.
This is around the time when I was into setting intentions.
My boyfriend at the time was a filmmaker.
He had made a film that got accepted into
the Spiritual Cinema Circle Festival-at-Sea,
on a cruise.
So I set the intention that I was gonna go on this cruise
and figure out my purpose in life.
My real purpose.
'Cause I was challenged in my relationship,
challenged in my career.
I had this idea that maybe I'd become a famous actor
and use my celebrity to have a voice,
or have impact in the world.
It... That wasn't happening.
Man: Oh, yes. Yes.
Edmondson: That was like beer commercials.
TV shows about vampires.
Blood on my taffeta, Carl. Blood!
Well, you were going to the prom with my best friend.
-(groans) -Edmondson: It's like it wasn't the,
the life that I had imagined.
And then we got on the cruise, and the guest of honor,
and the judge of all the films was gonna be Mark Vicente,
the director of the film "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"
Narrator: Where do we come from?
What should we do?
And where are we going?
The more you look at quantum physics,
the more mysterious and wondrous it becomes.
There was something really magnificent about science
that I found intoxicating, because
if we understood the world in a better way,
and, and if we understood ourselves in a better way,
we may be able to understand how all of this works.
Edmondson: I mean, "What the Bleep" was one of
the highest-grossing documentaries of all time.
And then that night, I sat across from Mark Vicente.
At first, I didn't know Mark was Mark,
but when I figured out he was the director of "What the Bleep,"
I was gushing about his film,
and at that time, I was really sick.
I had a really bad cough.
Like, a really bad, loud cough.
And Mark asked me something like,
"What would you lose..."
This is an ESP-framed question...
"What do you lose if you stop coughing?"
And I had the awareness instantly that I had linked
sickness and attention.
I was trying to get my boyfriend's attention.
I was like, "Oh, my gosh.
My whole life, I've been so sick as a means for attention."
Then, you know, the next day I got better right away,
and all I knew at that point
was that I really liked and respected Mark.
And Mark very casually talked about NXIVM,
and, you know, there's this guy,
he's the smartest man in the world, and...
He's doing this and that, and there's this community, and, you know,
he, he was... He underplayed it.
If anything, I was more interested in working with him,
and doing whatever he was doing.
Keep in mind, I'd just put it out there to the universe,
"What's my purpose?"
Oh, maybe this is my purpose.
(laughter, chatter)
All right, guys. Let's settle in.
(sighs)
Is it rolling?
There was always a preamble
that I would always do.
I'm gonna talk about an extraordinary company,
that I began working with a number of years ago
that helped me overcome a great many difficulties
and achieve an even greater level of success than I already had.
And everybody can do with tools that helps them do better, right?
♪ ♪
So understand, NXIVM, N-X-I-V-M,
is the umbrella company.
ESP was the thing that I got involved in.
ESP stands for Executive Success Programs.
Keith Raniere: Executive Success Programs, ESP, NXIVM...
is a methodology
for optimizing or enhancing
human experience and behavior.
Executive Success Programs is a human potential program.
We called it Executive Success Programs
not because it's only geared for executives in business,
although it's very good for executives in business.
What we want to do is we want to be successful
by executing, by following through,
by being proactive in our lives.
That's what ESP is.
Edmondson: At that time, I was living in a basement suite
where my rent was $400 a month.
So for me to spend thousands of dollars
on my personal growth was obscene.
But I really wanted to change.
And I really wanted to make that... that leap,
so I put it on my credit card and signed up for the next training.
♪ ♪
My first five-day,
I was picturing a large,
stadium-type of Tony Robbins forum
with hundreds of people... Rah, rah, rah.
I walk into a, a run-down Holiday Inn.
You guys hearing okay?
Nod if you can hear me.
It's just totally underwhelming.
Everyone's power suits are weird.
And Nancy's first intro video, where she's like, "Hi."
Hello. I'm Nancy Salzman.
Welcome to your first origins class.
Edmondson: Meanwhile, I'm like, staring at her eyebrows.
Did you ever see the carnival game Whack-a-Mole?
There's this little mole, and he pops up,
and he has this, like, little grassy hat on.
Just the whole, like, the whole aesthetic
and the presentation of the material was totally '80s.
So you take the sledgehammer and you knock down this mole,
and you knock down this one, and you knock one down
and another one pops up, and another one pops up, and... and...
Does this sound like your life?
I was like, "What? Where am I?"
And I was sort of like,
you know, "My parents are therapists. What are you gonna teach me?"
(speaking)
All right. So here's rules and rituals.
This is the first class we do.
And they said right from the beginning
that we were gonna be uncomfortable.
That the most growth happens outside your comfort zone.
-Give me your hand. Shake my hand. -Okay.
So, we learn how to shake hands.
We shake like this.
You know, it was just weird.
(all clapping)
(Kamaraj speaking)
(group speaking)
Edmondson: I didn't like calling Nancy "Prefect"
and Keith "Vanguard."
Computer voice: Vanguard.
(Keith Raniere speaking)
Edmondson: And I was like,
"What the fuck?" regarding the sashes.
I called Mark at the end of that day.
And I was like, "What the fuck did you get me involved with?"
Vicente: I mean, I wasn't on board at first. I'll be honest.
But, look, I can understand.
I'm used to ranking systems, you know. I was in,
I was in boarding schools. I was in the Boy Scouts.
I hated how short the fucking things were. They were stupid.
But you know what? It's a silly piece of silk
that represents an idea. That's all.
But the ranking system is a way to recognize
the value people bring to the world.
And what would make the world better
is if people valued each other.
And give people tribute for what they're capable of and what they do,
and what if this thing you're looking for, this, this dark lining,
what if it's not here?
But what if you feel it inside of yourself?
Let me tell you just a little bit about the reaction
that people have to our program.
Occasionally, we have a person who comes in,
and in the first couple of sessions,
they begin to really see themselves for the first time.
And when they really see themselves,
they don't see what they thought they wanted to see.
And these people want to leave the program right way.
You know, you have skeptics,
and you have cynics, and I define them.
I say a skeptic
is someone who seeks to turn magic into science.
- And I'm one of them. - Mmm.
A cynic is someone who seeks to turn good to bad.
And I kept on saying, "Well, just do another day. What's one more day?"
He said, "Wait till day three.
"Everyone has a huge shift in day three.
Day three's, like, really big."
And it was sort of also, like, "Well, I'm here."
You know?
"Let's just ride it out."
And it was true. On day three is when I had my first big,
like, "Holy shit."
And that was in the self-esteem module.
Nancy Salzman: What is self-esteem?
And how do we measure it?
Are there specific ways of raising one's self-esteem?
Many people talk about self-esteem.
But very few people really know what it is.
Self-esteem was explained in,
the working definition we use in ESP was,
self-esteem is the range of options that you have in a given circumstance.
People with high self-esteem see possibilities.
But most of the time, you can't see those options
because of what they called your limiting beliefs.
Salzman: All of us have a certain number of these limiting beliefs
which is what we call "disintegrations."
The things that keep you from being all that you can be
and from reaching your full potential as a human being...
The example I remember... I think Mark taught me this...
If someone's a photographer,
and they have a fear of heights,
they're limited to what they can photograph on the ground floor.
That's their potential.
If you unhook their fear of heights,
now they can go on the Eiffel Tower,
and then there's more possibilities.
Now, the average person has probably
between two and 300 of these limiting beliefs.
There wasn't, like, a limiting belief that was unlocked.
It was multiple limiting beliefs.
I can be Sarah who's not controlling.
I can have a great relationship.
I can have the best career. I can have all these things.
It was different beliefs I had around money, my potential.
I didn't have love for myself.
- Hello? - I didn't have belief in myself.
Salzman: And we talk about getting lost in the movie.
We're kind of lost in the role of our life.
What you have to do is stop believing that that's who you are.
Edmondson: I thought that was just the way that I was.
And then all of a sudden, like, oh, I can systematically
evolve to be the ideal version of myself.
To write my own character,
versus, "Well, that's the way I am."
Like if I ever heard anyone go,
"Well, I'm just not, you know, I'm just not a morning person."
I'm like, "That just a limiting belief."
When you recognize that everyone has limiting beliefs,
you just walk around going, "Oh, that's a limiting belief.
"That's not true. That's bullshit. He could change that.
I could change that for him in 45 minutes if he'd let me."
(laughs)
We believe that you can actually
get rid of all your disintegrations.
Every single time
you integrate a disintegrated belief,
you become more full.
More whole. More rich.
And become what we call unified.
Edmondson: ESP and NXIVM was a tool set to help people get there.
And that's where I feel like I got hooked,
and a lot of people got hooked where ESP looked for,
and for Mark as well, like, he had a...
I should not speak for Mark. I don't know why, why he got hooked.
I think the person that convinced me was Nancy Salzman.
Salzman: I want you to consider
what sorts of changes
would you really like to make in your life?
If you could have, or do, or be anything,
what would that look like?
What would that feel like?
Vicente: I'd just released "What the Bleep."
A lot of doors were opening to me.
I could pretty much call, you know,
any production company, any studio,
and they would fuckin' take my call and meet with me.
One day, I get an email
from this woman called Barbara Bouchey.
So, I call. There's two women on the other end:
Barbara Bouchey and Nancy Salzman.
Vicente: They said, "Can we come meet you?"
And I'm like, "Sure. That sounds great."
The day that they were flying in,
I said to them, "So, what airline?"
They said, "No, no, no. We're at the, the private thing."
And I was like, "Huh."
So I remember them getting off the plane,
and realizing, "Oh, it's like, a Learjet.
Oh. That's, that's nice that they have, you know, you have this jet."
I remember both of them asking me what I wanted.
They said they loved my film. What else did I want to do?
Which of course was, I want to make movies.
I want to change the world, you know, and,
and the impression I got from them is,
"We will help you do all those things.
We have the resources, we have the connections, we have the people."
'Cause they have, like, billionaires in their group.
There's an expression in Afrikaans...
(speaking Afrikaans)
Which basically means, "You landed with your ass in the butter."
And they said to me, you know,
"Just come and take an intensive with us.
Come and see what it is that we do."
And the headquarters is in Albany.
Our curriculum creates perceptual shifts.
A perceptual shift is something
that when you have it, nothing is ever the same.
You know, Nancy was in full force.
This woman is like, sharp,
and she's energetic,
and she's warm, and she's connecting.
But the thing that began to grow on me bit by bit
is everybody was so kind.
And it's this weird, like, incredible, idyllic type of society,
where everybody's rooting for everybody.
I went into Nancy's office, and I said,
"You guys have an ulterior motive.
Something's not right here."
And she goes, "What do you mean?" I go,
"Everybody, everybody's too nice, too kind.
So full of shit. Something's not right."
And she goes, "Huh. Really.
"What if it's you that's looking for that problem?
What if it doesn't exist?"
Salzman: Keith developed a model called "Rational Inquiry,"
which is the model that we use in this program.
We refer to rational inquiry as a technology.
Vicente: It was a process designed to produce
quantifiable results.
And understand how profound this thing is that he's created.
It's filed in the patent office
under artificial intelligence.
This isn't about, like, mystical beliefs,
and howling at the moon, and holding a crystal,
and doing this... This was like, science,
and I was like, "Okay, this is... This is what I want."
There was a particular method that they used
to help people overcome phobias.
An EM.
"Exploration of Meaning" is the unique methodology
that's designed to uncover the fear
behind a specific issue a person was having.
The beliefs that we formed when we were small children
stay with us.
And do you know what that means?
It means that on some levels,
six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds,
are running the world.
Our programs are programs where
we begin to reevaluate
those very early conclusions we came to.
Vicente: Nancy says, "Who wants to work on something?"
And I go, "Yeah, I have really bad panic attacks on the freeway."
And she's like, "Great. Let's do that one."
So, I go to the front of the class,
and we're sitting opposite of each other in, like, what they call a demo,
an EM demo.
What's the first thought you have?
If you focus on it,
can you bring up an associated memory?
A time in the past when you had that feeling?
What's scary about it?
And she had said, "There comes a certain point
"when we get into a part of your brain
"that is non-logical,
where it's gonna s... It's gonna feel weird."
And that's what it felt like. I didn't even know what language she's speaking.
It sounds like what she's saying
is just this garbled something.
But I just remember suddenly, like,
all the noise starts to quiet down.
(serene music playing)
And I'm, like, "What? What? What just happened? That's it?"
She goes, "No, no, no. This, that's not it. I mean, this is a science,
"so next time you're in that situation,
you're gonna check the results and you're gonna report to me."
I went back to LA, and I was on a freeway,
and I realized, strangely enough,
that I was sitting in traffic and I was feeling nothing.
And I remember thinking, "Wait, wait, wait."
Like, I remembered that I was supposed to feel panicked.
And I tried to find the panic. I tried to bring it up,
and I couldn't bring it up, and I'm like, "Whoa."
And then I asked her a question, "When's it gonna come back?"
And she said, "What do you mean, 'When's it gonna come back?'"
She says, "It can't come back."
Now, the difference between having an integration
and other processes is when it's gone, it's gone.
With an integration, you can't even remember what it used to be like.
It changes your whole experience of existence forever.
Vicente: And a lot of these explorations of meanings,
when you had the revelation, whatever it was,
the missing something that you couldn't see,
you felt high.
It's like a peak experience.
So you start to have a bunch of peak experiences, you're like, "This is the shit."
Like, we're not taking drugs,
we're not, like, blindfolded,
we're not doing sensory deprivation.
We're just having conversations.
This is almost sci-fi.
This is, like, beyond what I thought was possible.
Like, I've arrived at the Federation,
50 years in the future,
and they have hacked the human brain.
And I remember after that first intensive,
I was working on a screenplay which I'd struggled with for a long time.
I wrote it in three and a half weeks.
And it was good.
I was like, "I'm in."
♪
Edmondson: I felt like I was soaring.
It was like almost like a magic.
I felt like I was getting downloaded a,
a book of knowledge
about people, about society,
about the world in general.
I really felt like I had this secret potion of understanding.
I had all this theory about how to change stuff.
Stuff in here, stuff in here.
But I didn't know how to do it.
And for the first time, I saw a way, a tool, to actually do it.
Edmondson: I loved watching people have breakthroughs.
I remember there was one woman who was EMing somebody
on an issue they've had for 25 years,
and have them have a massive integration
and cry, and, um, laugh.
And go, like, "Oh, my God.
"Like, I feel like I could...
"I'm gonna call my dad now.
I haven't talked to him since I was 15."
Or whatever. Like, those moments
were so beautiful, and so inspiring,
and so much more efficient than therapy.
Our main emphasis, our main belief,
is to have people experience more joy in their lives.
And from that,
all sorts of interesting effects appear to happen.
Raniere proposed this map of how everything worked.
It was a unified theory to explain
why people do what they do and how to change that.
If you can work your disintegrations
so that you arrive at this integrated map, you will be integrated.
And what does it mean if you're integrated? You're joyful.
And part of it was like, "This is fuckin' cool.
This is a code to understand myself."
That I'm no longer such a terrible mystery to myself.
And it is kind of a relief of like,
"Well, what if everything is explainable?"
Most of what we say makes sense.
It's not grounded in mysticism at all.
It's not grounded in a lot of things that
maybe are highly effective but are unexplainable.
I think we have quite potent tools,
and I think our tools are unique.
I think they said to me, you know, "At some point,
you're gonna meet Keith." And I go, "When?"
"Oh, we'll see," you know.
And the way they painted, who's this Keith Raniere?
Like, who's this Vanguard guy?
You know, I was told things like...
"The Guinness Book of World Records" said that
he was one of the top scorers on an IQ test ever given.
One of the top three problem solvers in the world.
Vicente: He went to college at RPI...
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute... when he was 16.
Also, they told me he had triple majors
in mathematics, biology, and computer science.
Vicente: He was a concert double pianist.
And then finally, they decide I'm ready.
(laughing)
I was staying at Nancy Salzman's house,
and this guy walks in...
Woo!
Vicente: ...who's like, short, and like, bouncy,
and he's like, an odd guy.
There was a part of me that was like,
"This-this is the dude?"
Raniere: Breakfast.
-You can't come to Nancy's house without breakfast. -(laughter)
Vicente: But you never know where wisdom comes from, you know?
Well, who's to say that this guy, who's just like,
really strange and interesting
might not be in fact, like,
somebody that could actually help the world?
-Raniere: So shall we sit down? -(indistinct dialogue)
Vicente: And so, we begin having a conversation.
And that conversation lasts for five hours.
- Raniere: You all set? - Vicente: Mm-hmm.
And in that five hours, I'm asking him about
dark matter or quantum mechanics, a whole bunch of things.
And he's telling me stuff that's just blowing my mind.
And I'm saying to him, "I've never heard these ideas before."
He goes, "Well, it's based on a new mathematics that I've developed."
And I said, like, "You've developed a new mathematics?"
He goes, "Y-Yeah."
But he was, like, super, super gentle about all these things, you know?
So, he starts asking me questions about my life.
♪ ♪
(Vicente speaking on tape)
(Vicente speaking)
(Vicente speaking on tape)
Raniere: Hmm.
(Vicente speaking on tape)
- Raniere: Why? - (Vicente speaking)
Raniere: Hmm.
(Vicente speaking on tape)
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
Vicente: And he says to me,
"I think that you feel a deep responsibility for humanity."
He says, "I think because of your upbringing,
"and what you saw in your country...
"...you wanna, like, do something that's really gonna help the world,
"and you're scared that you'll do damage.
"Is that why you're scared?
Is that why you're afraid to hit hard?"
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
(Vicente sobbing softly)
(Raniere speaking)
Vicente: It's almost like he's showing me
the movie version of what I could be like.
And at that point, he had me.
(gentle instrumental music playing)
Vicente: I think in the first year,
I thought to myself, "I could see myself being part of this forever."
And he kept on saying, "We will help you
with your dream of using media to change the world."
(people laughing, chattering)
The one and only Nancy Salzman.
(cheering, applause)
Edmondson: I remember meeting Nancy for the first time,
and it was pretty cool, because, you know,
I'd gone from, like, judging her
to thinking she was a rock star.
Uh, a lot of people who've never seen me teach before
are waiting for the video to go on,
- but, like, I'm the video. - (class laughing)
Edmondson: It was, like, really like meeting a celebrity.
And then having her know who I was,
and welcoming me into the community was...
I felt very special.
People can come, they can take classes
as much as they want, forever and ever and ever.
They can satiate in our curriculum,
but what Vanguard has wanted us to do for a very long time
is have people working the Stripe Path.
Edmondson: "Stripe Path" is the term we used for the ranking system,
the sashes.
It represented you moving up within the company,
and in order to go up the Stripe Path,
you had to keep taking curriculum, enroll people,
and most importantly, you had to get rid of your disintegrations.
Vicente: So, part of my journey is to go up the levels and learn.
I started as a yellow...
First stripe, second stripe, third stripe.
In a year, I'd become a proctor,
and eventually, I'm a senior proctor, a green.
All: Hi, Senior Proctor Vicente!
(laughing)
Hello, Senior Proctor Mark Vicente.
(cheering, applause)
(Vicente speaking)
You know, I hated wearing my sash at the beginning.
I hated it. It was like, "What is this piece of fabric?
It doesn't match my outfit. It's uncomfortable."
It didn't mean anything to me.
But by the time I became a coach,
yellow sash,
and went up the Stripe Path and earned my four stripes,
and worked my butt off to get to proctor,
what this meant to me, this little piece of fabric,
it meant my growth, it meant my commitment to myself.
It meant me pushing through adversity, not giving up.
Getting to proctor was the first thing in my life
that I felt like I really earned.
And it wasn't just about my growth.
It was so rewarding to share ESP with people.
Thank you, uh, Senior Proctor Edmondson,
for your support. You're such a humble pillar.
You know, it's because of you
that I'm in this crazy organization. (laughs)
And lastly, thank you so much to Prefect and Vanguard
for creating this amazing organization. Thank you.
(all applauding)
Edmondson: That's why ESP became more important to me than acting.
You ready?
It was very rewarding for me.
I want to welcome you to the rank of coach,
with all the rights, responsibilities,
and privileges that entail. Congratulations.
-Aah! -(audience cheering and clapping)
Vicente: To those of us that were facilitating,
people would say shit like, "You guys are like Jedis," you know.
And there was a part of me that'd be like,
"Yeah, I've always wanted to be a Jedi."
But really, what was cool about it was like, that
- people would come in... - (applauding)
...so concerned about something in their life.
And we would help them get clarity.
(cheering and applause)
- Woman: This is so exciting. - (people laughing)
Vicente: And it wasn't so much like, "Oh, I did it."
It's very clear that that's not how it worked.
But I do remember the deep sense of privilege
that I could help people.
♪ ♪
(playing notes)
I think the first time I met Bonnie
would have been 2000... maybe 7.
I'm not sure of the exact date.
A friend of mine was on "Battlestar Galactica."
Bonnie had been in "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith"
and "Attack of the Clones."
- This is my girlfriend, Beru. - Hello.
Vicente: And so they met at a sci-fi convention.
"Oh, my God. You have to meet this girl. She's a singer.
She's a fan of your movie, you're a fan of "Star Wars." You guys have gotta meet."
So I met her in Hollywood.
And she was, like, you know, record deals,
and, like, pinnacle of her career and the whole thing.
And then, a few years later,
I connected with her again, and I said,
you know, something like, you know, "Let's have tea."
And then I said to her, you know, "I've never heard your music."
So we went up to the place I was staying,
she took a guitar, we made tea,
and she began playing a song.
♪ I don't want to ♪
♪ Show you ♪
♪ The sadness in my heart ♪
And I remember thinking, "Oh, my fucking God."
Like, when you suddenly realize, like, oh, dear.
I'm feeling so many things right now
that I can't... I can't keep them in.
They're just, they're just bubbling, bubbling out of me.
And I remember she said to me at one point,
"I'm thinking of giving up music."
And I said to her,
"Give me five days of your life,
"and then if you decide to give up music, go for it.
Give me five days, though."
And she said yes.
Bonnie Piesse: Before I signed up for my first five-day,
I was in a transition.
For me, growing up,
one of the ways that I really expressed myself
was to make music.
I'd been very serious about my music career,
but things were kind of falling apart
with the record label that I was with,
and I was struggling with fear and anxiety,
and just not feeling very happy.
So, I was looking for something to relieve that,
and to give me a deeper understanding of life.
And that's what I met Mark.
I instantly trusted Mark,
and I thought he was a really good person.
Like, it's something that I don't really know how to describe,
but, like, I would look in his eyes
and I just felt like he really cares.
I said, like, "I'm trying to find this feeling,"
and I described, like, a peaceful, calm joy.
He totally got it. He was like, "Right. That feeling."
That struck me.
I had never had anyone pinpoint,
like, a feeling like that for me.
I took my five-day in 2010.
I remember some of the questions that the coaches asked,
and some of the ways that they described
how they thought that I felt
were just so spot on.
The whole five-day was set up with these deep questions.
Like, you start right from the beginning.
Things like, "What's the thing you most regret in your life?
Who do you most love in the world?"
Or, "Who do you feel you need to make something right with?"
So you're really going into the deepest feelings
that you've had about anything.
And the coaches encourage you to kind of let down your guard.
They say it in a really nice way,
and they're like teasing you in a way that feels like tough love.
Piesse: And everyone's doing it,
and you get encouraged if you
show vulnerability, too.
I knew that I wanted to be a coach right away.
(laughter)
(indistinct chatter)
Piesse: Within a week, I had gone to Albany already and met Keith.
I was amazed by the EM tech, and I wanted to do that.
The path to become an EMP
was you had to get on the Stripe Path,
then go out and practice.
And so I, I practiced.
And I loved it.
It was, like, my favorite thing in the world.
I loved it.
I felt like, yeah, the most deeply understood I had ever felt.
I felt like I'd found my people.
And they just felt like such good vibes
compared to
the situations I'd been dealing with
in the music industry.
Here were people who were, like,
really enjoying themselves,
and working on their internal world.
And it felt much more meaningful.
Raniere: When we start to understand principles,
and in our new global world,
there needs to be the ethical humanitarian
who is more ecological. More visionary.
More compassionate.
And takes others into account.
♪ ♪
Piesse: In the beginning,
I never actually did really resonate
with the word "ethics," or "ethical mission."
But then, there were different classes where you'd actually learn
why bad things were happening in the world.
Like, why there was corruption and unrest.
This is the world.
We have starving people, right?
I'll just put starve. "Strave."
Strave!
And then we have... the whales.
We have abused animals in movies.
(class laughing)
We have crime, murder, all that sort of thing.
All of these are effects.
The problem's right here. Let me...
That's the problem.
Blow it up.
(class laughing)
Right?
There's no problem with the planet.
It's the stuff we do.
You will be as ethical as possible.
You will be that which you want to see in the world.
If everyone was integrated to some degree,
do you think someone who's integrated
would go and steal from someone else?
Piesse: The ethical mission that I did resonate with
was this mission of helping people integrate
emotional reactions,
so that they could live the best life.
Vicente: Marc Elliot comes into ESP,
and Marc Elliot has a pretty severe case of Tourette's.
(teeth clicking)
And in his first intensive, he's ticking like crazy,
and saying all kinds of words on two people, and it's just a mess.
(muttering, teeth clicking) Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I have Tourette's, by the way. Just wanna throw that out there, okay?
Vicente: Nancy Salzman and Keith Raniere, I believe,
tried to figure out, "What if we could cure this?"
So they begin working with him, documenting his progress.
And we start talking about, "Okay, let's turn this into a film."
Salzman: Keith Raniere thought it would be a good idea
for us to study other people with Tourette's
to see if we could have an effect in a consistent way.
The participants came to Albany.
We filmed them working with Nancy Salzman and the team.
Salzman: When I met Isabella, she had Tourette's,
and she had a lot of obsessive compulsive disorder
with the Tourette's.
We don't use any drugs.
The only thing that we use is a talk approach.
I listen to where I think that their beliefs are limited.
And then I look at the stimulus response patterns that they have,
and I systematically disconnect them.
Isabella Constantino: I did some EMs with Nancy, and...
that went well.
Uh, she said I seemed like a real person. (laughs)
I talked with my dad last night for like 20 minutes, and it was really good.
He called my mom. He said, "It was really great
having such a fluid conversation with her."
As soon as I experienced these tools,
I found that I was able to change something
that most people believe is unchangeable.
And now I live a life without Tourette's.
Vicente: The difference is staggering.
It's miraculous. You go like, "How the fuck is this possible?"
You know, if you've never seen a saw before,
suddenly the cut piece of log seems like a miracle.
It isn't. It's a tool.
And in some cases,
when conventional solutions don't work,
maybe the unconventional way of thinking does.
Edmondson: Keith had found a cure for Tourette's,
which is a heightened version
of what any of us do in ESP.
You teach yourself that you're in full control
of your emotions at all times.
In full control of your responses at all times.
♪ ♪
Edmondson: There was such a hopeful possibility
of what we could do, 'cause if we can cure Tourette's,
that it would give ESP and NXIVM validity,
especially in the scientific world.
That could change everything.
I want to move the world.
I want to change the way it works.
I want to have this revolution work.
The mission was,
how could you get people all over the world
in positions of leadership and power and influence
to take this education, to learn value,
and learn to be humans.
And then change companies and change governments.
We should be building ethicists.
People are gonna elect ethicists to be President.
Vicente: And he would say, we first have to reach
the people that run the motor of the world,
to use Ayn Rand's term.
We need the people that run the motor.
You know, Mark and I kind of brought Hollywood to ESP, and...
I wasn't famous in that world, but in this case, I was the...
entry point, with Mark, to that world.
Vicente: Basically, what happened is
Sarah and I had started, like, enrolling all the celebrities.
Richard Branson let us host an intensive on Necker Island.
We had Catherine Oxenberg, the star of the TV show "Dynasty,"
take classes with her daughter, India.
I spent most of my time working on strategy.
Sarah said she wanted to talk to, like,
as many people as possible.
Sometimes people can surprise you.
I think it's kind of cool.
I'm Kristin, as you know. Um, I'm excited to work with you guys,
-and I don't know what else to say. -(group laughing)
Romeo 1, Raptor 312.
I'm back, and I brought a friend.
If I were to describe Keith to someone who'd never met him,
I would probably express
almost how surprised I was how open he is.
I hate this part.
I struggle sometimes, a lot of times,
to really push myself,
and it's that. It's that extra push.
It's that, you know, really
owning what's important to me in my life.
Raniere: We have many, many people
who have taken great values from our program
and their association with us.
Hello. My name is Emiliano Salinas.
I come from a political family.
My father was President of Mexico
from 1988 to 1994,
a time of tremendous transformation for my country,
which inspired me to pursue a deeper understanding
of human and social transformation.
Vicente: When I joined NXIVM, I found that
it was already backed by two extremely wealthy women,
Sara Bronfman and Clare Bronfman,
who were the heiresses to the Seagram's empire.
Sara and Clare went out looking for powerful people.
Sara Bronfman: I grew up with resources,
and it was very scary for me to know
how to best use those resources in the world to do good things.
Vicente: And it was Sara that actually arranged for the Dalai Lama
to come to Albany.
It was a very big deal that the Dalai Lama was coming,
'cause he was endorsing NXIVM.
It is my moral responsibility
to support any movement
who are working for ethics.
That was, I mean, mind-blowing,
the possibility of what could happen with that.
Never found in my life
a place where you can meet amazing individuals
that, like me, are looking to create a better world.
This was something, that, it was in my heart, always,
you know, that, "How do I do better?"
Before, I felt this kind of ongoing stress.
I was constantly working, and I felt like I was just scrambling all the time.
It was Harvard Business School. I thought you couldn't get better than that.
I was never any better than that of my next job.
A lot of people that I know were facing that.
A lot of women, in particular.
Vicente: What if it doesn't have to be that way?
Edmondson: I felt like I was finding it all.
Meaning...
Community...
Oh, this is the family, this is the group of people
that I've been looking for my whole life
that actually are gonna have impact.
- Hi! - Hey!
This actually helps you, so that you can build love.
And I think that's the most valuable thing.
That, that changes the world.
Vicente: There's another way to live.
There's another way to relate.
So when you can get tools that allow you to do that,
that's worth everything.
When I first came to ESP,
I had, on the surface, something
that seemed to be, like, the perfect life, or a pretty good life.
Like, superficially, materialistically, I was very successful.
Edmondson: Um...
Allie Mack.
I remember when she did our first training,
and then she hopped on a plane and went right back
after the training with Nancy and Lauren to meet Keith.
I think that was pretty...
exciting for the company.
I mean, she was... She had her own show,
and she had a little following of young women
who looked up to her.
- Hi. - Hey.
- You know me. - You... (laughs)
You know me. Um, I'm Allison.
I've been an actress since I was four years old,
and I moved here from New York City,
and really, my pursuit in ESP
has been one really about my relationships.
I wanted to be this, like, loving, compassionate woman
that I played on TV, and, like, have all these noble characteristics
that I did really well when I had a script in front of me.
Vicente: Allison was the life of the party.
We would talk about art and movies,
and creating this community of artists.
And the house that we all moved into,
the townhouse, which was three floors, was, was to be that.
You know, it was, top floor was me and Bonnie,
she was in the middle floor, and in the basement was like, you know,
screening room and the editing rooms, and all... It was great.
I had this dream, as well, of like,
okay, it's great to just have ESP,
but we need different things for different people.
As the years go by,
you know, we have individual companies
that people are starting up.
When you came into the organization,
ESP was generally the gateway.
And then there was this whole, a whole entire civilization.
You know, we have Jness happening for women.
We were probably six or seven years into ESP
when Jness came around.
Keith started talking about the fact that
the women could change the world.
I put on the very first women's only Jness training in 2006.
There was about 40 or 50 women in that training.
And I loved it. I thought, I thought it was beautiful.
I thought it was great.
Vicente: We have SOP happening for men.
Can you imagine a close-knit team of reliable men
working together to have better lives, and a better world.
Vicente: You know, if you wanted to work on your body,
on fitness, there was exo/eso.
Exo/eso is what Bonnie started with five other women.
Piesse: It was like a yoga class.
I felt like that was more closer to my purpose
of, like, a performing arts technique,
and tools to help actors and singers
and all these things, so I was really excited about that.
Vicente: If you wanted to work on
performance and public speaking, there was The Source.
Hi. I'm Allison Mack and I'm the president of The Source.
Don't worry if you feel like, "I'm not an actor. What am I doing here?"
'Cause this is really a study of compassion, empathy.
Your whole being is gonna change.
Vicente: We have Rainbow Cultural Garden,
a daycare program for children
where they're taught multiple languages from an early age.
(child speaking Hindi)
Vicente: There's just this array of stuff happening,
so it's like an empire.
So when people say, like, "How did you spend 12 years?"
Because there was a lot of shit to work on.
I had a vision and, and Mark and I,
you know, have been talking about this from the beginning,
of creating a center.
That was, that was our dream.
When I come into ESP in 2005,
there's a center in Albany,
there's a center in Saratoga Springs,
and there's the center in Seattle.
And as the years ago by, there's all this growth that happens.
New York City center opens.
Orange County is wanting to have a center.
LA has a center. San Francisco's building a center.
Miami, we're working on having a center.
London, we're working on having a center.
Then we have Mexico City center opens.
Guadalajara opens. Monterrey opens. Leon opens.
And pretty much the entire Mexican ESP community began.
(Edgar Boone speaking Spanish)
Vicente: And everybody wants to open the next center.
And then I got asked to be on the executive board.
"Now you can open centers." And I'm like, "This is great!"
I call Sarah up and I say, "We're doing it."
- Edmondson: Oh, my God! - Vicente: Ready? Ready?
- Edmondson: Yeah. - Vicente: Here we go.
- (crowd laughing, cheering) - This could not have been built
had, um, Prefect Nancy Salzman not existed.
And had Vanguard not existed.
So, know that we are...
We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
(crowd clapping)
Salzman: I just want to say something. This is so cool.
-(crowd laughing) -Being here is so much fun for me.
I have nothing but...
the highest esteem for Mark Vicente.
And I know that you know that.
I mean, I hope that you know that.
He's one of my dearest friends in the entire world.
And so it's just a real joy for me
to support you,
and to support you...
Proctor Edmondson.
I have said in the past
if I had a couple more teams like this,
-I know I could change the entire world. -(audience clapping)
Edmondson: I worked for a company
that had practices that were not traditional.
But everything made sense
once you understood the meaning and what the purpose was.
And that company was teaching ethics,
and human potential, and professional development.
- Vicente: Bonnie and I went to Keith. - Okay, ask me.
Vicente: And we basically said, "We're gonna get married."
And so we're trying to figure out, like, how would we craft our vows?
(footsteps approaching)
Raniere: This will help.
Vicente: I think he actually suggested that he could write the vows.
Raniere: Do you understand?
(Raniere continues speaking)
Vicente: It was pretty much only NXIVM at the wedding,
other than, uh, Bonnie's mom.
(camera shutter clicking)
We realized later we'd never had a honeymoon.
♪ ♪
(sniffles)
(whispers): It always gets me by surprise.
I feel like my life with Bonnie was stolen.
And I wanna have that life. I wanna get it back.
♪ ♪
Bonnie got there first.
(gasps)
It took me longer.
(phone line ringing)
♪ ♪
♪ (WOMAN SINGS) ♪
WOMAN: Keith used to teach some of us that
on the path to enlightenment,
you'd reach this barren wasteland,
just space of nothing, before you find this...
ultimate joy.
WOMAN 2: I'm having a number of flashbacks.
(OVER PHONE) That only seem bad to me.
WOMAN 3: Transition to the feeling of suffering.
My body was starting to fall apart.
MAN: (OVER PHONE) Freedom's not gonna happen
in the monastery.
WOMAN: (OVER PHONE) Well, it's not in a monastery.
It is a prison.
So you're gonna have to do
that part of your life without me.
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
There's no way out.
It was like, there was a crack in the dam.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org