Keith Raniere started Consumer Buyline, an alleged pyramid scheme, in 1990.
Raniere ("Vanguard") and Nancy Salzman ("Prefect") founded NXIVM in 1998 and offered Executive Success Programs and personal improvement programs.
Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman joined and began bankrolling NXIVM in the early 2000s. At one point, they took out a $2 million line of credit to loan to NXIVM, payable in sessions.
The programs themselves are protected by NDAs, but one person leaked the manual to Rick Alan Ross in 2003, who described them as "expensive brainwashing."
Allison Mack joined in 2006 at the behest of actress Kristin Kreuk, who later left.
Mack got way into it.
Several exposes were written from 2017-2018, wherein former members and journalists characterized NXIVM as a cult.
NYT, in oct 2017, the DOS (Dominus Obsequious Sororium, broken Latin for “lord over the obedient female companions,” sometimes called "the Vow") was first exposed. Female members were branded and made sex slaves for Raniere. Mack led and recruited for the DOS. Girls in the DOS had to provide Raniere and Mack nudes and other blackmail material, and were branded with the initials of the two.
In March 2018, two decades after NXIVM's founding, Raniere was arrested and indicted for sex trafficking, conspiracy related to sex trafficking, and conspiracy to commit forced labor.
In April 2018, Mack was arrested on similar charges, released on $5 million bond, and placed under house arrest.
Mack was described as second in command, and the primary recruiter for DOS.
In May 2018, NXIVM suspended all ESP enrollment.
In July 2018, Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren, Clare Bronfman, and another employee Kathy Russell, were arrested and charged with racketeering.
Salzman pled guilty on March 13, 2019. Testifying on behalf of the state was apparently not part of the plea deal.
Shortly after Salzman's guilty plea in March 2019, Raniere was charged with posession of CP (nudes from two 15 year old girls).
The self-help system NXIVM used was called "Rational Inquiry," and was described as a "patent-pending technology" (shades of LRH's "Study Technology" in Scientology).
6https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2002021481A1/en?inventor=Keith+Raniere&oq=Keith+Raniere&page=3
From the above patent filing (hold on to your tits): "...the present invention provides a method of rational inquiry. Rational inquiry includes a plurality of questions and observations leading to answers and a greater awareness. The questions and observations in the method are provided to the individual in a matrix or a plurality of modules, including practices and inquiries. The matrix or modules, including practices and inquiries are the framework to assist the individual in providing, determining and utilizing a matrix of consistent human internal existence and providing, determining and utilizing a matrix of consistent reality. If through comparison of the matrices, a difference is detected, a disintegration is said to occur.