TONI: I was a former girlfriend of Keith Raniere.
I started to feel uncomfortable with things that were going on
with the company.
He took my shame, and he figured out a way
to use it to control me.
I thought, I'm gonna break up with him
and that's gonna be the end of the relationship.
That was just kind of the beginning of hell.
What we need is evidence of criminality.
Who can we bring in to help us?
CATHERINE: We have the same agenda.
He'a helped a lot of people get out.
FRANK PARLATO: They're starving your daughter.
They're making her sleep deprived.
We need more people to come out on the record.
I'm gonna start a list. Who wants to help?
CATHERINE: I never assumed that I would be responsible
for so much of this.
This is a horrible situation for a parent to be in.
(gears clicking)
(high-pitched whine)
Keith Raniere: You know, I watched my--
the way my father treated my mother,
and I wanted to model my father,
so I treated my mother that way.
But when I get on the playground,
and some little girl takes my things and hits me with a bucket,
if I hit back, I'm punished.
Normally, it's a father, or a brother, or another man
grabs the little boy's wrist and holds him back.
And normally, we're something like two.
And that first time, when that happens to us,
it is unjust.
♪♪
We don't have the ability to reason this out.
All we're seeing is, that person can do, and we can't.
I'm not loved. I'm not the loved one, here.
I'm not the one that gets cared for.
And all of us, as little boys,
to some degree, we experience what I call a wound.
The indirect wound that a woman feels is
as she's a little girl, her life is protected.
And she lives in this
protected life, protected life, protected life.
And suddenly, as she gets a little older,
she starts hitting up against reality,
and against being suppressed,
put in a glass box,
and that is, that is a, a shock.
And what is the wound? The wound is she's been overprotected.
But as men, we have a very direct wound.
It's an ache, a hurt, a sadness.
And maybe you can't even quite put your finger on it.
But all the way back to the end,
there was an inherent unfairness that we lived.
This wound is something that is very deep,
and very emotional, and something we have to come to grips with. Why?
Because it can be the foundation
of an anger and a hate towards women.
(boys yelling)
("Dream State" by Son Lux playing)
♪ Days we were young ♪
♪ We took photographs of everything we could see ♪
♪ We had to run from it ♪
♪ Priest and prophetess ♪
♪ We were nothing we would defy ♪
♪ Oh, invisible skin ♪
♪ Where is the world within ♪
♪ Invincible skin ♪
♪ It's how we all begin ♪
Catherine Oxenberg: Thank you so much.
Frank?
Oxenberg: Hey. I think it went really well.
-(Frank Parlato speaking) -And it looks like
they may be, um, assigning a task force.
FBI task force.
(Parlato speaking)
Yeah.
It's good, it's good news.
And they want to focus on DOS.
The coercive aspect of it.
The trafficking, and, um,
they want to speak to witnesses immediately.
(Parlato speaking)
Thank you, Frank.
Okay.
(line ringing)
India Oxenberg: (on voicemail) Hi, you've reached India Oxenberg.
Please leave a voicemail, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
Have a great day.
Oxenberg: I sent her a really strong tet this morning
saying, "Get out of there.
You're going to go down for human trafficking."
Bonnie Piesse: No, I've, I've been thinking about her a lot today
and thinking she's walking into all these traps.
She's trusting Keith.
She thinks he's trustworthy.
Oxenberg: Well, I've been warning her about the FBI,
so the fact that I actually-- you know,
-in the beginning, I was just making shit up. -Piesse: Right.
Because I wanted to scare her, but now it's really happening.
It's insane.
What they want to do is focus on DOS,
and then once they've got something,
-then open it up. -Mark Vicente: Expand it.
-Yeah. -Piesse: And they can make arrests for DOS,
-I think. -Apparently so. I mean,
-I was-- -Vicente: I was surprised by that.
Oxenberg: Yeah, because when you guys dealt with this,
-you went to the FBI. -Vicente: Yeah.
They said it's consensual. There's nothing we can do.
-So, at a certain point-- -Vicente: I think though--
It's because of the whole women's rights thing...
-that's going on. It must be. -Oxenberg: That's crazy.
Vicente: They may have leverage right now,
-because of that. That they have a way in. -Yeah.
-Piesse: It'll be high-profile right now. -Vicente: Yeah.
Oxenberg: But why it's relevant
is people were conditioned...
-Yeah. Yeah. -...to accept that type of mistreatment.
Oxenberg: I think that there was things you learned
for you to normalize the DOS stuff.
-Vicente: Yep. -I would give them the curriculum.
-Yep. -Vicente: We have videos of these things.
-You need to hand over all of that material. -Piesse: Yeah. Yeah.
Oxenberg: So you're having to bring the whole story together.
Your psyche's going to be fighting this.
Piesse: I don't feel that in my heart at all.
-But my brain has been, you know. -Well--
Your heart hasn't been tampered with.
-Piesse: No. -The circuitry is a bit messed.
Raniere: If someone thinks they can be brainwashed,
or is worried about brainwashing,
-then they definitely shouldn't come to our program. -Woman: Mm-hmm.
Our program has nothing to do with brainwashing,
but if someone holds those sort of beliefs,
they're probably better either in other sorts of problem programs,
or maybe being with a therapist
if they feel they have been brainwashed, or whatever.
But then again, you'd have people walk into Walmart and have a heart attack.
And does that mean that Walmart caused the heart attack?
-(footsteps) -(keys jangling)
Piesse: Okay. (clears throat)
(exhales)
I've been going through the documents
and audio and video files
that I want to take with me to testify.
I'm really seeing how as much as I thought
this was a curriculum for growth,
it's really just, it's, it's a weapon.
Raniere: I consider myself
more credentialed as a, a scientist, I guess.
And I don't have a lot of high-level credentials,
but I think I'm a good scientific thinker.
I think that my credentials ae
I'm an interesting person, I'm a controversial person,
but most importantly,
I'm an unconventional person.
And when conventional solutions don't work,
maybe the unconventional way of thinking does.
This is all a big experiment that we're doing.
You're part of it.
Piesse: I did start reflecting on Jness,
which was the women's movement that Keith started.
And I did have, like, an upheaval inside.
So, I'm this guy
putting together this training.
I'm gonna somehow bring to light
how women are taught
about being a woman, when I have no idea what it's like
being a woman.
But from Jness zero through Jness 8 now,
is a type of evolutionary process.
I can't say exactly what's gonna happen.
And maybe some day,
there will be a women's organization
that will be truly potent.
Do you all agree it has to be done?
I don't know. Any of you want to step up and do that,
or do you wanna just sit back?
I think that there's a specific reason why
the 12 of us are here.
Given the nature of our personalities,
what we've done in the company so far,
and our apparent values.
If 12 women who are strong, who are powerful,
hold this vision as important,
that in and of itself will have a ripple effect, I believe,
on the company, and on how we relate to one another.
-Yeah. -Women work best together when we're together.
(women laughing)
Piesse: Allison was kind of a head of Jness.
And so, for me, I think that kept me removed from Jness.
I always got weird feelings around Allison.
You have to know another human
to experience once ourselves.
Is that the right line?
-Woman: Close. Yeah, pretty much. -Hey!
I'm paraphrasing Keith Raniere quotes. Why not?
Piesse: And I felt like I was the only one who had that,
'cause people seemed to really like her.
Like, she's quite, she was quite seductive.
And so, she used Jness to make a little fan club of, of women,
that were bowing down to Allison.
And I'd also seen her telling young girls
to count their calories and get really skinny.
And she was actually being rewarded and promoted.
It was just like, what is going on?
For a while, she didn't want to listen to me at all,
and everyone just kind of made it my problem.
And eventually, Keith offered to run, like a, kind of a mediation.
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
Allison Mack: Mm-hmm.
Piesse: Looking back, I think the women in DOS were, like,
using Jness as a way to recruit all these girls.
Vicente: I don't know what the FBI's like,
but I don't know that I'm ready for this meeting.
I have, like, a thumb drive here.
You know, stuff about fraud, human trafficking, money laundering.
All of these things help establish a pattern.
And the pattern is what establishes, like, you know, bad intent.
But because they want to focus on DOS,
I want them to understand that DOS is an effect
of a bigger problem.
DOS happened because
of years of indoctrination that people have.
And I always say the curriculum teaches me.
I'm the creator of the curriculum.
I would like to think it is something that is useful.
But really, if you want to be a true scientist,
there has to be a base belief that you don't know.
Maybe even can't know,
but you're gonna fumble around and enjoy it.
You understand?
Yeah.
We were led to believe that he, as a scientist,
had a way to look at things.
Woman: Okay.
Vicente: And he would say pretty shocking stuff.
But we were like, "It's a study. Oh, we're experimenting."
Mm-hmm. For men, ally is functional.
Okay.
For women, ally is social.
That women aren't inherently reliable.
Women aren't inherently loyal.
Women aren't, um,
they don't keep secrets. They talk amongst themselves, or whatever.
But it's like thinking a child is your ally.
Vicente: The idea I was told
was that they were being pushed to define themselves
without being under our thumb, so to speak.
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
Raniere: So you need a certain emotional experience when you're a girl.
-Woman: Yes. -Raniere: A little girl.
Vicente: And at first, I thought
women were actually having a deep understanding of themselves.
Mack: And I feel like I have
no fear in shooting for what I want, ideally.
There's no reason to settle.
And I see this really...
positively affecting my job.
And in interactions out-- just in the world.
And it feels like there's such a supportive, team feeling to it.
Vicente: And I think, to some degree, I was, like,
"God, I wish we had that."
My upbringing, as a young boy,
honestly, I thought to myself, "Why am I so different from other men?"
I was a deeply sensitive kid.
And I could not understand machismo at all.
And I just honestly hated it.
I wasn't an athletic guy.
I was, I was kinda a girly guy.
And I, I didn't make male friends very easily.
I was teased relentlessly.
So I don't think I had a very clear idea of who I wanted to be as a man.
Mark. Mark, Mark.
Vicente: I went to Keith and I remember saying to him,
"Men need education, too.
Men need, like, understanding themselves."
And then he said something like, you know,
"Wouldn't it be great if we were the Society of Protectors?"
And when I made sense of it for myself,
it felt like a wonderful, noble thing.
Hello. My name is Keith Raniere,
and I'm the origin of the Society of Protectors,
or more commonly known as SOP.
As men, we're the ones who hold the doors,
and pick up the bags.
And more seriously, we're the ones who go to war,
and we're taught that we're to leave the ship last.
We are the doers. The providers. We're the protectors.
But unfortunately, the world is getting more and more comfortable.
And as a result, there are more and more men
that are literally just boys in adult male bodies.
And even if we live a sedentary, comfortable life,
I think there's a part of us that rises to the occasion.
To stand for something that's important.
And our group is such a thing.
-(applauding) -I don't know what to say. Um...
I guess the "please be seated" thing works.
(applause continues)
Wow, that's loud. This is good.
-(laughter) -Good.
We were born, to a degree, as males,
and we inherit this whole thing in our culture of masculinity.
It's not something that's bad.
Power is not bad.
Even aggression, things like that, are not bad.
That's what armies are made of. That's what teams are made of.
That's one of the wonderful benefits
of being in a male body.
And learning ideology from the time you were young.
Because you can subjugate your emotions.
You can subjugate your comfort.
You can subjugate all of those needs to a purpose.
Vicente: And the reason I'm taking in the SOP stuff
is because the readiness drills and the different drills we did,
I believe got used
for DOS.
There are adversities that are bigger than the individual.
And some day, that call's gonna come
at 4:00 in the morning, and are you ready?
Are you ready to push aside sleep,
push aside all your other concerns,
organize what needs to be done, and be there.
Man: What do you think, man?
-Fucking cold, man. -Man: Fucking cold, right?
All: Yeah!
Raniere: The only way you know you have character
is when every fiber in your body,
you're screaming from pain,
and yet, you stay.
Our commitment is our power.
Vicente: And there was penances,
and like, you know, punishments and things like that if you fucked up.
You know, you plank for three minutes, you know.
Everything became about a code of conduct.
The idea was this Society of Protectors,
like, to protect the world against evil.
But, uh, everything was designed to protect him.
Raniere: What does our male sex drive feel like?
Anyone here.
(Man 1 speaking)
-(Man 2 speaking) -(Man 3 speaking)
-Yes. All, all of those things. -(Man 4 speaking)
-It's this-- -(Man 5 speaking)
It is urgent.
So there's a very basic part of us that just wants to
fuck something to get that release.
For us, fucking, sex,
has nothing to do with the other person, per se.
It's what's gonna feel good.
The primitive parts of us
are hungry, fucky beasties.
I mean, that's what we wanna do. This...
I wanna fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I feel like fucking something today.
God, I'm pissed! I wanna fuck something, you know.
-(men laughing) -Our basic nature is we earn things.
We are always testing if we're worthy.
To be accepted in any way.
If we conquer a woman,
if we grab the thing we wanna fuck, whatever it is,
and fuck it, that's a type of acceptance.
And you know what's a better acceptance?
That in our most angry thing, if they enjoy it.
And if we do whatever we want,
with our stuff...
And they like it.
That's acceptance.
Vicente: I, at first, I was like, Jesus Christ.
Can't we get to, like, the deeper shit?
And I said to him, like, "Keith,
why does this have to be, like, the porn weekend?"
And he said to me, "Because men repress all these things they have.
"We have to clear out the base issues
before we can get to the higher aspirations."
♪ ♪
Troy: (laughing) I wanna be a dinosaur.
-Rawr! -Are you a dinosaur?
I'm your, I'm your dinosaur mommy.
So one thing that I-- that ESP was never able to cure me of
is my obsession about packing.
And, like, wanting to have everything I could possibly need at all times.
I can probably use 33 percent less
of what you're gonna put.
-You think? -Yeah.
You see that? He doesn't trust my packing.
(Troy chattering)
Sarah Edmondson: So I'm packing for myself. And for Nippy.
He's going to LA to visit Mark
and I'm heading to New York to testify for the FBI.
Fuck.
Troy: No, no, please put me down!
Edmondson: I'm realizing I'm actually, like,
more anxious than I thought about this trip.
Just like, ugh.
It's like looking back on an old relationship,
and, like, reliving every painful component of it.
-Troy: Daddy, stop! -Nippy Ames: Hey, buddy.
Edmondson: One of the things I'm gonna submit
are my calls with Lauren.
(exhales) I'm gonna skip towards the end.
-Edmondson: Mm-hmm. -(Lauren Salzman continues)
Okay.
I have a-- somebody's nude photos in here.
What am I supposed to do with those? Give them to the FBI?
Is that evidence?
Oh, here's something.
Lauren had sent a text.
"In our lives as women, we always have a back door.
"Keeping the back door open gives us the wiggle room
"to never have discipline or follow through.
"We need to learn commitment, and there's no place in society to get it,
because we can get out of anything. Everything."
So, Lauren's saying... Oh, my God.
Um...
that we're weak, that we're princesses.
That we have no character.
We're sitting here with a bunch of princes and princesses.
And we look at each other that way.
The princesses look at the princes to go and slay the dragons,
and the princes look at the princesses to,
to be kept in a bubble and to look pretty,
but never to really achieve anything. Much.
But men have a type of hardship that women don't understand,
and yes, women have a hardship that men don't understand.
Edmondson: Really like in 2012,
Jness opened up to men and women.
This is going to be quite a wonderful forum.
-(laughter) -Edmondson: It was pitched to us
to understand the opposite se, and, like,
why don't men and women get along?
I want to ask you about a particular word.
It's a word that is used against us
in a sort of weaponized, mad-dogging sort of way.
-And that word is "crazy." -Raniere: Mm-hmm.
-Yes. -Edmondson: I feel like this word embodies
a lot of what we're talking about here.
Raniere: I was looking at
what's known as the Stanford Prison project.
They took what they thought were a very good,
normal group of students,
and they made half of them prison guards,
and half of them prisoners.
And they took the psych department basement
in Stanford University
and made it into a little mock prison.
I have a video here from YouTube that describes this.
Raniere: So, they started to play the roles,
and the roles were mutually reinforcing.
And the more they believed themselves to be prisoners,
the more the guards believed themselves to be guards.
...you can't hold your emotions in check.
Can't keep your emotions out of your decision.
Do what you feel, as opposed to do what is right.
From our perspective,
you can't keep your feelings out of it.
And on the other hand,
us guys, we are oafs.
We are brutish machines.
We've been brought up to take those emotions,
and bottle them.
All of our emotions bottled so deep,
most of us don't even recognize them.
Ames: I grew up with four boys,
and there's always pressure to perform and be the best.
You know, I played sports, and sports fortified that right away,
you know, and I played quarterback.
When you play quarterback, you don't show emotion.
You have to be Joe Cool.
And I was pushing myself,
but in a way that wasn't particularly nice to myself.
And consequently, I felt like I was trained to hide my sensitivity.
And that behavior was rewarde.
And I just think that's a time bomb.
So the Jness tracks, how they were sold to us,
was using the strengths, generally speaking, of women...
(Edmondson laughing)
Helping men where they felt emotionally blocked,
to feel safe in evolving.
Ames: And so the idea is,
if women could have more compassion
for what it must be like for us,
then men could have a deeper understanding
of what it must be like to be women.
You know, for example, what they struggle with.
And what it's like to be suppressed by men.
And then we could understand how we participate in doing i,
develop a sensitivity to it, and then we can evolve it.
I'm gonna apologize ahead of time
to all the women,
because I'm going to really...
say things that are inflammatory.
Is everyone okay with that?
-Group: Yes. -Now...
All the women in here.
Do you understand...
All right. I have to get in the right frame of mind for this.
Do you understand why we hate you?
Do you understand why you're obnoxious bothers?
Why all your little whining and complaining,
and all this, this garbage that you do
and how much you, you think you do,
and it's just all a bunch of crap.
Male perspective.
That's not saying that is true.
I'm giving you the broad strokes of the thing.
You're outrageously entitled, you're spoiled,
and no, you don't earn shit. Do you get it?
So, when you go and you put on those tears,
there's part of us that absolutely hates you.
You are the source of all our punishment.
You are the source of all our liability.
You are the source of all our pain.
You're the source of all our aloneness.
Everything that we're about,
you go against by going, "Wah, wah, wah, wah."
Deep inside all men, when you cry,
we remember back,
part of us, even if it's not consciously, I believe,
subconsciously, the time when we were a little boy,
and we just wanted Mommy's approval.
We just wanted to be held.
We wanted to be taken care of.
We just wanted love.
Do you understand, though,
that that's not allowed to little boys?
Men, we take women's power away,
and we hold them as prisoners.
Can any woman here say how she holds
men as prisoners?
Do you know what the force is?
-(participant speaking) -Yes.
-And it's control through... -(participant 2 speaking)
Sex.
'Cause the reason why you,
you hold on to the sex thing
is it's the only way you believe you can survive.
Edmondson: We thought it was helping us
become more aware of the things we do as women
that don't serve us.
Piesse: The more we went into this curriculum,
it became really misogynistic.
But, like, still in the name of empowerment.
Crowd: Woo!
Have you seen my boots?
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
Raniere: But no, it's the--
Raniere: Yeah!
Raniere: Mm-hmm.
-Edmondson: No-- -(Raniere continues)
(audience chuckling uncomfortably)
-Raniere: Mm-hmm. -Edmondson: Um...
...if I do.
(crowd laughing)
Edmondson: All of these things, if you assume good intent,
may be weird, may be extreme.
But it's always to help you grow.
I didn't understand what I was doing,
actually, to undermine myself.
I've never experienced that kind of strength
and solidity in myself as a woman.
I w-- I wish it for all my women friends.
It's why I'm such an advocate for Jness,
and I can't speak more highly of it.
Yeah, and it's great, 'cause I feel not only
that can I appreciate him more,
but I feel so much more appreciated.
Like, just, it-- It's so much more loving.
Edmondson: As soon as you recognize
that the person masterminding it
has bad intent,
and is manipulating women for his own pleasure,
everything changes.
When I went into the Jness tracks, I carried with me
years and years and years and years and years
wrought with insecurity and confusion,
covered up by a whole heck of a lot of ego and pride.
I've left the Jness tracks with a clearer sense of me.
A true experience of success.
And a lot of hope for my relationships in the future.
Edmondson: Allie and I were close.
And then she moved to Albany.
She, you know, put her career on hold.
I think she thought that that was where she was gonna get the growth.
And Keith was gonna help her.
Man: Welcome to "Family Feud," ESP style!
-(crowd cheering) -Edmondson: She had had a lot of success
early on as a child actor,
and I think, flaunted that. She was very self-assured.
If somebody was prideful or arrogant,
he would do whatever he thought was necessary
to break them of that.
(sniffles)
We are humble.
(pained laughter)
(voice shaking): And without pride.
(Raniere speaking)
(exhales, sniffles)
Edmondson: And I think once he broke someone's pride,
they were more susceptible to being molded
into whoever he wanted them to be.
Love comes not from the receiving.
It comes from the giving.
It comes from the sacrifice and the pain.
-That's how we know it. -Mm-hmm.
That isn't to say it doesn't exist in joy and in happiness.
-But we know it through our pain. -Mm-hmm.
And if you have a fear of pain,
you have a fear of knowing your own love.
We experience our love not needing return.
We find love is its own gift.
And the great pain experienced through love...
Mm. Actually deep joy.
She just went straight in.
We never-- And never came back.
Vicente: Come on, get in here.
Camera's rolling. Camera's rolling.
Edmondson: I don't really have a sense of, like, the decline,
but I remember a couple key moments,
like asking her to come to our wedding,
and she said that she had to check with Keith.
And I was like, "Is he, is he your dad?
Like, why do you, why do you need to check with him?"
And she's like, "Oh, you know, I make a lot of impulsive decisions,
and I told him that I would check with him before I ever leave home."
When we left, I did text her.
"Listen, if you ever want to talk, call me.
"I'm not your enemy. I won't punish you or blame you.
"I heard you're gonna take the hit for Keith for DOS.
"We all know that's a load of shit.
"I have your back on this, Allie.
"Stop with the penance. Stop with the lies.
I love you and care for you, and I'll always be here for you."
(car door closing)
(car alarm beeps)
Vicente: Catherine's coming.
Oxenberg: Okay, so now they've expanded the investigation.
They've expanded their team
of people whose-- the task force is now bigger.
Vicente: (laughing) It is.
-Because this is the only place-- -(producer speaking)
-Vicente: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. -We are Deep Throating it.
(all laughing)
Oxenberg: The person that I spoke with who is
one of their star witnesses,
she kept stressing
that it was-- that they kept questioning her
about Allison Mack's involvement.
They kept ma-- They kept asking her,
"Well, do you think Allison instigated this,
"or was this Keith who asked--
you know, was Keith--"
-That was very important to them. -Piesse: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it was a lot of stress on her.
I, I swear to God, I think Allison is going to be arrested
for sex trafficking.
♪♪
Edmondson: I'm heading to New York City to testify for the FBI.
I didn't sleep. I think I was sort of...
in my head, kind of...
hashing out what's about to happen.
I'm the only one with a high rank--
that was a high rank and was in DOS, so...
That's a unique situation. I have lots to tell them about how the company was run.
I have lots to tell them about,
you know, things that Lauren said.
As much as I see her as a victim of Keith,
I also think that what she's done is awful.
-(indistinct announcement over PA) -(Edmondson exhales)
Ames: Society of Protectors.
But I didn't hold the leader accountable.
I didn't call him out on his shit.
I got played, and I helped this guy build
whatever the shit he was building around him.
And I was part of that, and I was complicit to it.
-Ames: No. -Vicente: Okay. I still have 'em.
At the time, I felt purposeful.
But afterwards, I thought, "What a fucking waste of my life." You know?
-Well, it was always nebulous. It was a concept. -To build obedience.
-Right. -You're enrolling people into a concept,
-and asking them to have blind faith in something. -Right.
But for whatever reason, that was intriguing to me.
And the opportunity of like, "Dude, I can lead this. This is in my wheelhouse."
-And it's fuckin' stupid. It's embarrassing. -Yeah.
He used all of our reputations to shore himself up.
'Cause really, he's, he's got nothing.
He was a judo champion at age 11.
Come on, Mark. Judo champion. Age 11.
I bought it, though.
He can roll around the floor
and pretend to do judo.
And he can hit a volleyball.
-And he can head-fuck you. -Listen...
To think that we were unwittingly a part of some sort of abuse...
-That's the thing I struggle with. -Yeah.
And it's not that I-- it poisoned me,
-because I am a good man. -Mm-hmm.
-Just messes me up. -Don't you want me to-- Can I...
Can I put it in something that--
-Reframe it for you? -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
The arrogance, pride,
and the sanctimonious nature
in which we went about
-what we thought we were building... -Mm-hmm.
Our pride is the thing that helped facilitate it.
And, and, and we fucked up.
Boldface fucking lying.
-Thinking you're doing something noble. -Mm-hmm.
So...
(clears throat)
I don't know how you un-fuck your head
from doing stuff like-- you know.
I'm having a hard time un-fucking my head.
I trained people
to heil Hitler.
How do you un-ring that bell in your own psyche?
(cawing)
So abuse is, is a made-up human construct.
And a lot of times, the screaming of abuse is abuse in itself.
How we illustrate human nobility,
how we are noble,
is to get rid of the concept of victim, like that.
-Woman: Right. -There are things that are terribly wrongful.
But the person receiving it
only decides they're a victim if they accept that.
♪♪
Vicente: Keith said to me one day, he said,
"Uh, the women would like to do SOP." And I'm like, "What?"
And Raniere would say, "Look, you know,
they do need to know what it's like to grow up like a little boy."
The idea we were being sold was,
you need to walk in each other's shoes
to truly respect and love each other.
Raniere: I'm asking the women first.
How bad do you want this to be?
(women chattering)
No, I mean-- This... There's gonna be...
Women: Rough. Rough.
Rough?
Piesse: And the women signed up for SOP complete,
knowing that it was gonna be a rough run.
But I thought that it was something that would help me
understand men more.
In this position, you do a wall sit.
And get ready.
And go.
Edmondson: Keith always taught us that men get their pride broken
you know, in the, um, locker room or on the sports field.
And women somehow get away with not being humiliated,
which is what makes them so prideful and princess-y,
and stuff like this.
I mean, essentially, we were subjecting ourselves
to the men being in charge.
Not unlike the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Let's put people in these, in these roles and see where it will go.
Raniere: When a man looks at you,
all of you women, what we see is a bunch of little kids.
We see little kindergarteners.
And when you try to do something physical, it's cute as hell.
Can you come up a second? Just wanted to...
to demonstrate one thing. 'Cause men are always, as I said, sussing out--
you know, are we--
(yells loudly) She's pretty good!
But she went...
That's good. You do that back to me.
(yells)
(imitating weak yell)
No, really. (yells)
(screams)
Do it.
(yells)
I don't take you seriously.
(woman laughing softly)
Edmondson: We didn't want to be princess-y.
We wanted to be strong.
Man: Yeah.
-Woman: Yeah. -(man speaking)
Woman: Yeah.
Raniere: When you're a little boy,
if you're weak, you get picked on,
and you get picked on more, and if you tell,
you get picked on more.
Man: So remember, this is to help.
Edmondson: I got brought up to the front of the room
and humiliated with a prize ribbon.
"Ms. Edmondson: Best Display of Ass,"
because my jeans were too tight.
Piesse: We were basically punished
in all kinds of ways. Like, for example,
I remember sitting in a group with a lot of women and one man.
And he basically would fault you.
Like, give you negative points for anything.
(man speaking)
(men laughing)
Piesse: And the thinking was that
this is what women do to men all day long.
Complaining and nitpicking.
Raniere: Women, you have to learn to yield.
When you're a little boy,
a matter of fact, you yield all the time.
You yield to adults, you yield to women,
and you yield to all little girls.
Piesse: For some of the men, I think it was a power trip.
They enjoyed it.
Piesse: But for a lot of the men, I know it was hard for them.
Vicente: I can argue that I wasn't an asshole
like some of the other guys.
But I showed up.
And that's a hard pill to swallow.
And I would talk to, to Keith about it.
(indistinct chatter)
Vicente: And he goes, "Yeah, but...
"You... You guys are...
You guys aren't willing to do what's required to help people."
Vicente: He'd say, "It's your own weakness.
"You identify yourself as a little boy.
"Grow up.
Grow up."
And the reason we trusted his bizarre experiment,
and the reason it's so important for the FBI to understand,
is because he showed us all these things,
like the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Guard: (on video) So, just get used to it.
Vicente: And then it was sort of like,
"Okay, well, we don't want to have those bad things happen.
Don't get lost, you know, in the roles."
And yet, he would demand that we play these roles
that were horrible.
Edmondson: I think this was all his way of seeing
how much power does he have with men and women.
Who's willing to do what?
Who's willing to put themselvs in uncomfortable situations,
so he could take advantage of it.
Raniere: Women, I've already determined
you won't be able to handle 1.
You want me to tell you what 10 is like?
-Women: Yes. -Okay.
Let's say you wore an extra tight shirt or whatever.
Like, uh, there's a woman here, let's say,
who has her breasts showing.
All the guys will grab them.
-Woman: That's a 10? -That's a 10.
That's what happens to little boys.
(thunder rumbling)
Troy: Daddy!
Piesse: It's been so long!
-Fuji. Cutie. -Oh, I missed you, Fuji!
-What a cutie. -Yeah.
-Come on! -Vicente: Come on.
Oxenberg: Fuji! Away! Away, dog.
-Away! -Vicente: Come on, Fuji!
Oxenberg: The first time I went to Albany,
Mark and Bonnie generously hosted us.
So I saw, because they left the door open, that there was like--
I, you would have thought, like, a Great Dane's bed
-next to, next to the marital bed on the floor. -(laughs) Come on!
-It wasn't a dog's bed. -Well, it's like the size of a dog's bed.
Like a large dog, that was like, on the floor.
And I thought to myself, I don't remember them having a pet.
-(laughing) -Who the fuck is sleeping on the floor?
Oxenberg: Did I ask you?
Piesse: I don't remember,
but I do remember that I was doing that.
She did admit it to me that she was--
It's not an admission. Like, I was probably proud of it.
Like, yeah, I'm trying to, like, give myself some discipline.
'Cause I, I spoke out against Mark,
so I'm gonna sleep on the floor for three days.
(women laughing)
-That you would be-- -To be honest,
-I was... -sleeping on the floor next to your husband.
I'm like, oh, my God. This is so messed up.
-I didn't like it, but I had to. -I just-- I won't--
I will remember not to become part of this community.
(laughter)
Piesse: I just thought there was something wrong with me
that I didn't like penance.
Vicente: You okay? Yeah, she's not okay,
-by the way. -Piesse: Yeah, I'm not feeling great right now.
Vicente: She's being re-traumatized. I can feel it right now.
-I'm not. -Vicente: So this is like,
-a super bad idea right this second. -That's true.
Vicente: It's so easy to, to shame. You know?
We're not at the point we can make fun of these things.
We're not.
It's not funny that she made a bed on the floor.
That's not funny for me.
'Cause I'm the guy that sat there and thought,
"Well, I guess that's a good idea. I guess.
"I mean, my wife's sleeping on the floor.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe that's-- I guess that's good."
What, am I fuckin' stupid?
Of course I'm fuckin' stupid!
I know that already.
I'm okay right now, just so you know.
-But thank you. -Vicente: I understand, but I'm not.
We're not fucked up, strange monsters
that made bad choices our whole life.
We didn't join a cult.
Nobody joins a cult.
Nobody.
They join a good thing.
And then they realize they were fucked.
Nobody's saying, "Yes! Let me go and join
"this stupid, fuckin' thing that's gonna destroy my life,
and everybody I love."
Nobody does that!
(sobbing softly)
I'm hurting so fuckin' bad.
I wanted to be a good guy.
I still wanna be-- I don't give--
I don't know what a good guy is anymore. I have no idea.
I helped create a men's movement,
and those techniques were used against all these girls.
Raniere: Do you women want respect?
How are you gonna get respect being,
"Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme"?
When all of the guys perceive themselves as,
we're lifting the weight!
And you say, "Well, look, I go out there and I do this,
and I do that and (babbling). I could be just as good as you."
No, you can't.
You can't be as good as men. You know why?
We won't let you.
(Mack sobbing)
Edmondson: Isn't that crazy?
That one's almost gone.
But that one was-- This was always very thin.
Like even on the day of, it was thinner.
So I don't think that's gonna get to that,
but at least it'll get flat.
It's more flat. It's not as keloid.
This should be an ad for Dermatix.
How to get rid of your sex cult scar brand.
Sex cult brand scar.
How to get rid of your sex "crult"--
Would you like to get rid of your sex cult brand scar?
This is how.
With Dermatix.
Just a few motions every day. Rubbing it in...
makes that sex cult brand scar go away,
just easily over time.
Then I just rub the shit out of it. (chuckling)
This will capture what Sarah's life is like.
(chuckling)
I just had my meeting with the FBI today.
I gave them all my evidence on Lauren, Keith, DOS, everything.
So relieved it's over.
♪ Pick it up ♪
♪ Pick it all up ♪
♪ And start again ♪
(camera shutter clicking)
♪ You've got a second chance ♪
♪ You could go home, escape it all ♪
♪ It's just irrelevant ♪
♪ It's just medicine ♪
Vicente: The shame in our marriage is so profound, because...
it's so personal.
Because I watched the-- I watched the damage.
And I'm trying desperately to find some dignity.
But, like, I just hear damage everywhere.
♪ You could still be what you want to ♪
♪ What you said you were ♪
♪ When I met you ♪
♪ When you met me, when I met you ♪
-All right. -Okay?
Mm-hmm.
Piesse: Don't fucking hold anything back.
Tell the truth.
♪♪
♪ Aah ♪
♪ Ooh-ooh ♪
♪♪