Part Two: The Child Molester Whose Sex Cult Taught Women Friendship

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mmm, hello friends, I'm Robert Evans and this is again
Behind the Bastards. We're doing part two of our series
on Keith Ranieri, creator of the Nexium sex cult, child molester,
judo champion and humanitarian. My guest for part two, as

(00:20):
with part one, is on a Salinas judast comedianist, creative earist.
Uh So, thank you for joining me again on thank you.
Thank you for listing all my official titles. Creative earist
is the one that I'm most proud of. Yeah, I
could tell that from the business cards. Yeah. Uh so

(00:41):
we're gonna get Are you excited to get back into
talking about Keith red deary? I am. I feel like
we did all this like homework to get up to
the juiciest part. Oh boy, I mean it's been juicy.
It's been juicy, but well it's crazy to say it's
been tamed because he's been molesting left and right, three women. Yes,
he's he's sexually assaulted three children, and he's built his call. Yeah,

(01:05):
but I don't want to know that crazy stuff. It
did well buckle up. By two three, over thirty seven
people had enrolled in Keith seminars, including some famous Ish people,
the co founder of b ET, a former U S
Surgeon General, the daughter of one Mexican president, and the
son of another for whatever reason, a lot of success
with the children of Mexican presidents. Keith Neary was good

(01:28):
at that. The young female heirs to the Seagram's vodka
fortune were also big fans of his his work, as
well as Steven Cooper, the acting chief executive of Enron.
Uh whoa, yeah, it's her huge get. There's some big
gets in there. Although two thousand three is not the
best year to have the CEO of It's not it's not.

(01:52):
But the son and daughter of a Mexican president, two
different Mexican presidents, two different ones. Yeah, yeah, one of
them is the daughter Vincent A. Fox and the other
his name was Selina's. I'm not great, Carlos Selena, Carlos Salinas.
I should know that because Selinas is my last name.
I know Vincent A. Fox really well, because he has
probably the best name of any president. Fantastic name and

(02:13):
a vocal antagonist Trump. Yeah, he's He's definitely been a
big daughter was in this cult that's huge. Well, okay,
so I want to be fair to the people who
remembers this. When I say that these were enrolled in
his seminars, This isn't the same as like being a
scientologist or in the Heaven's Gate. These people are spending
a lot of money. They probably think Keith's great. They

(02:35):
may have bought into some aspects of it, but they're
not worshiping anything, like they're paying into his money schemes.
So some of these people, like the heirs to the
Seagram's vodka fortune, this couple of these two sisters, are
definitely in the cult full on. I don't know if
that's the case with all of these people, And in fact,
I think for most of them they just treated it
like a professional development thing and they had money to burn, right,

(02:58):
they had money to burn. That's still so wild. I mean,
like he was he was normalized. Yeah, yeah, and he was.
He didn't have like you'll notice, there's that huge numbers
of people. I think maybe seventeen thousand people took a
seminars at the Max. But they're paying a lot of
money and yeah yeah, and they're doing classes over and

(03:19):
over again. Um, because that's something he insists, is that
like if you you got to retake the classes. A
bunch of times really get the maximum benefit out of
it does sound like UCB and that sounds uncomfortably similar
to the Upright Citizens Brigade approach to improv comedy. Well
what that's what that was co created by? Um? Was
the lady on thirty Rock a polar? Okay, so maybe

(03:41):
we'll do an Amy polar episode. Oh god, I don't
want to be responsible for throwing any pol or under
the bus. But if you find something. The next time
you see her, ask how she shakes hands, and then
I'll tell you what you need to know about whether
or not she's starting a cult. I will if she
puts out her right foot and then immediately makes a

(04:01):
right angle with her thumb. And that's as much as
I remember. Yeah, though, there's so much to keep track
of with a handshake kindlines tilted wrist, Yeah that the
risk tilt about the wrist tilt? Yeah yeah. But anyway,
two three Keith nar he's doing great. That is the
same year that a reporter from Forbes asked to interview him.

(04:22):
He was delighted. Who wouldn't be, You know, that's weird
having having Forbes he was going to be on the
cover of Forbes. It's a big that's a big get
the sort of thing he would make up. Yeah, that's
the sort of thing he would lie about shamelessly. Yeah.
Unfortunately for Keith and Nexingum, the article that ran in
October two thousand three, titled Cult of Personality was not
positive towards Forbes. Unfortunately for Keith, were actual journalists, and

(04:47):
they did some actual journalism. Uh, and they found a
number of fun things in Keith's past, including an ex
girlfriend who was in the process of suing him. She
claims he had harassed her, disrupted her business, and manipulated
her into giving up her ten year old son to
the boy's father. This woman, Tony F. Natalie, told Forbes
that she believed Ranieri brainwashed her, telling her that, you know,
she had to give up her son to her son's

(05:08):
father because she was put on earth to carry his
baby and this was quote the baby who would alter
the course of history. Um. Now, Rainey called this claim
ridiculous and not rational, which it's certainly not rational. But
I'm a hundred percent sure he made this claim Nerve
based on some stuff that's going to happen next. Spoiler alert,

(05:28):
this is not the last time we're gonna hear about
Keith Ranary trying to steal a baby. No, it really
has been building in craziness because first she was like, well,
what if I just like have sex with kids. Now
it's like or I could make my own or steal them,

(05:49):
make my own child. Who's going to alter the course
of history? Yeah? Oh wow? So I mean Forbes runs
the story and here refused, sit does the company take
a hit? No? No, no, So we're not even through
everything that's in the story at this point when Forbes
Forbes is being legitimate journalists. So they meet this woman

(06:09):
and she has the story about Keith Raneary trying to
like manipulate her into giving up her kids so she
can have another kid for him. And they go to
Ranieri and they say, these are the allegations someone's making,
and he refutes it. Um So, the author of the
Forbes article did spend a lot of time talking to Keith.
It's clear that Ranieri really played up the enigmatic guru
portions of his personality while they were together. Here's a

(06:30):
quote from the article that I think uh presents Keith
the way that he was trying to present himself for this.
He has no driver's license, relying on friends for rides
and walking up to twelve miles a day. He says
he has no bank account and that he foregoes any
salary from the four million a year coaching program he created.

(06:53):
I consider everything payment for what I've done. Though he
co owns a small home near Albany, New York with
a female friend, he spends most nights at one or
another of three friends homes. He claims not to own
a bed. I live, he says, with a disarmingly warm smile,
a somewhat church mouse type existence. I'm gonna go ahead

(07:13):
and call out this journalist for saying he had a
disarmingly charming smile. I think that's probably fair. And you
saw a little bit of the video. We're gonna watch
some more later. This is what he's good at. Got
a good voice. Yeah, And in fairness to the journalists,
the journalist didn't just take this like he dug up
a shiploaded dirt on. It's true that the writer was

(07:33):
just pointing out Keith's good at being charming. He's good, yeah,
But I don't believe that whole Jesus. Yeah, I don't
have money. I don't have a bad thing. He's really
going for the Jesus e vibe. Yeah, which is smart.
If you're being accused of things, it's like, oh, no,
I misunderstood. So the Forbes article brought more insights into

(07:55):
Keith Ranieries view of the world. Uh. It revealed that
he believes most non esp people try to quote destroy
each other's steel, from each other, down each other, and
rejoice at another's demise. And so it is essential for
the survival of humankind that as much money as possible
be controlled by successful, ethical people like the folks trained
in his seminars. Uh. Now, the Forbes article may have

(08:16):
been inspired by someone with an e vendetta. One of
the article's main anti Nexium sources was a guy named
Edgar Bronfman, Sr. Former head of the Seagram's company and
patriarch of the family fortune. Edgar Bronfman's daughters wound up
being the two big whales of Keith Naris con Man life,
putting tens of millions of dollars into cays of ventures.
And these poor girls were definitely in the cult side

(08:37):
of things. Um. Yeah. Like the now, I don't know
if he ever did anything on towards with him, but
he for sure built them out of a fortune. Um,
and I wonder, so where did all that money go? Well,
that's what we're about to get into. You have eight
pages we're about Yeah. Uh ESP next, SAME's particular line

(08:57):
of bullshit seemed Taylor made to ensnare young, rich, naive people.
Keith was a big Line Rand fan, so his philosophy
simultaneously elevated wealth to virtue while also letting people feel
like they were saving the world just by being rich
and buying into Keith's bullshit. ESP had a sash ranking
system where different colors and bands on your sash would
signify if you were a coach or whatever. So they
were like sixty total different types of sashes, and by

(09:19):
going to the same class over and over again and
going to multiple classes taking you would get better sashes.
So yeah, similar to u c B. U c B
is the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. They do a bunch
of classes on improv and being funny people. Yeah, are
there sashes? We don't have sashes, but there's levels one

(09:39):
oh one too oh one three one four oh one
Advanced Study and then you get on a house team,
which is like a sash because you get to go
into shows for free. I Um, I'm on a team there.
I spent a lot of time there. But man, if
there were a checklist of is this a cult? They'd
be checking off. Those boxes were at like seven out

(10:00):
of ten. And it's you know, there's a thin line
between a successful business that relies on repeat customers and
teaches things and a cult. You're always going to use
some of the same tactics. Uh. So, you know, they
had these sashes that had a bunch of ranks, and
this was like a reward people got for paying an

(10:22):
enormous amount of money to take classes. And this is
probably why the programs were so addictive to people like
the Bronfman sisters. Here's a quote from Sarah Bronfman, uh,
one of the heirs to the Seagram's vodka fortune. I
don't know how much you know about my family, but
coming from a family where I've never had to earn
anything before in my life, it was a very very
moving experience for me to be awarded this yellow sash.

(10:44):
It was the first thing that I had earned on
just my merits. So keeps making these, you know, young
women who grew up super rich and for whom money
isn't really a thing, Like, they don't have a concept
of money, but they want to feel like they've accomplished something. Yeah,
and he's giving that them that opportunity. I mean, if
there's anyone who is an heiress out there listening and

(11:06):
they want to feel like they've earned something, feel free
to end Momi any amount of money. She has so
many sashes for you. Yeah, filthy with I'll make a sash.
I'll get one on Etsy. It will be hand embroidered.
Uh yeah, that's Hey, it's smart. The guy I doubted
his intelligence at the top of them. He is a

(11:29):
deeply smart man who works in the art of total bullshit. Yeah,
of bilking people out of money. Yeah, that's his genius.
But his scam wasn't just timelessly ripping off rich families.
Forbes interviewed former students who reported aspects of the training
that sounded quite abusive. Um. So to start off here,

(11:51):
some background. UM. One of the different types of classes
that you had different courses was just called money. And
in money, students were taught that every dollar spent represented
a portion of effort and that quote. Vanguard identified the
concept of giving and taking with integrity. Coaches were supposed
to urge students to take each sessions several times at
a cost of several thousand dollars each. Each dollar spent

(12:13):
was seen as a representation of the effort they were
putting into the class and a core piece of the
program known as exploration of meaning. Teachers are supposed to
basically get into students beliefs and backgrounds and look for
emotional buttons. Students are encouraged to reveal negative habits or
negative behaviors from their past, describe how like why they
think they started doing that thing and then pledged to

(12:34):
replace it, which both seems like it might be a
reasonable thing. You know, you're getting to this thing, you're
trying to purge yourself of your negative behaviors, but also
kind of gives them leverage on you. That's scientology. That's scientology.
It's exactly the same thing they do where you would
go in and you'd have the E meter and you'd
have to tell them things you feel guilty. Isn't that
what they say is going on with John Travolta. I

(12:56):
mean probably right, John Travolta is definitely killed a man.
That's not a legal claim. Allegedly definitely killed a man.
Oh yeah, he has allegedly, without a shadow of a doubt,
killed a human being, allegedly allegedly, but without a shadow
with no not a doubt in my mind. No, I
mean they say there's secrets about like his sexuality and

(13:16):
Tom Cruises, and that's how they keep them. I'm going
to be so sad if we find out the truth
and all it's been for this whole time is that
he's gay. Yeah, dude, you didn't No one would have cared. Yeah,
just as much. Yeah, we're fine with it. No, I
don't know. I wonder if it's more than that though, too.

(13:38):
Who knows. Um, I mean, maybe he really likes it.
It may just because I feel like with the celebrities
in scientology, like Tom Cruise, they treat them well exactly.
Maybe there's no bilking going right. There's like two tracks
in scientology. There's the people that they like trapp in
rooms I saw going clear, this is all very factual. No,

(13:59):
But there's the people that they really milk for their
money and then put into those brutal conditions. And every
good cult needs also people who are genuinely having a
good time to sell the colt. Yeah, or maybe a
mixture of the two. Yeah, I think it. It takes.
It takes both because even the people having a great
time are being manipulated to some degree and maybe abused.

(14:23):
The Bronfman's sisters are having a great time with us. Yeah. Um,
so basically, uh, you were supposed to spend a lot
of time and money sitting around in a group telling
a coach all the bad things you did. Uh. In
two thousand and three, a thirty five year old woman
named Christian Snyder went missing after a Nextime session in Alaska.
A note was found in her truck. It read, I
was brainwashed in my emotional center of the brain was

(14:45):
killed turned off. Please contact my parents if you find
me or this note. I am sorry. I didn't know
I was already dead. She's presumed dead. Oh my god,
did they kill her? I mean I think she killed herself.
I think she would. And we're going to get into
some more of the abusive ship because this is just
like the top of the barrel where they're having you
talk about all the bad things that you've done. Um,

(15:08):
there's seem to have been things that happened during some
of these training sessions that really fucked with some people's heads. Um.
So the Forbes article kicked off years of dogged coverage
of Keith re Neeries World. The Observer published an article
a few years later calling out billionaire Richard Branson as
affiliated with Nexium. Well, branson spokesman was forced to deny

(15:29):
it anything to do with the group. Nexium, using the
Brontman sisters money, had hired an island that he owned
to host an event. Branson. Yeah, well, I mean these
girls are putting a shipload of money into into Keith.
I mean millions, tens of millions, tens of millions. Um,
we'll get into exactly how much in a little bit
would I join a cult If they hired out an island,

(15:52):
I would definitely go to their island. I would go.
And then that's the creepiest place to be if it's
a cult. It is on island with these fox but
everything's free. It's Richard Branson's island, so it's probably a
nice island. Yeah, he's so personal. He seems like he
has good taste in islands. Oh yeah, he has a bathtub.

(16:14):
At the end of the I realized I'm pulling this
from like a VH. One Love Lives of Billionaires or
whatever from like two thousand two. But he has a
bathtub on an outdoor balcony overlooking the ocean. I thought
at first you were just saying he has a bathtub,
and I felt really bad for you. He has a bathtub.

(16:34):
So many of us have shower bathtub combos, not just
a hose outside. He's got a bathtub. He fills it
up and he sits like a Richard. Yeah he stews
in as well. Okay, um, so yeah. In two and ten,
Vanity Fair published an article that expanded on allegations of

(16:56):
mental abuse in ESP seminars, which helps to give a
little bit more con x to Christian Snyder's disappearance quote.
Today people will describe Nexican therapy sessions in which they
were convinced that they are reincarnated Nazis or responsible for
nine eleven. Looking back on her experience, Natalie says, Keith
finds your vulnerabilities and then he prays on them. He
broke them, Yeah, some of them at least. Yeah, he

(17:19):
broke her. Yeah, I mean that's what it seems like happens.
Who knows, maybe it was something else, but telling people
their Nazis probably doesn't help. And we all have that
I feel like and responsible for nine eleven. Yeah, like, man,
there are things I feel guilty about that if you
tugged on that thread, you might be able to get
me to think I am responsible for bad things. I mean,

(17:42):
I've been blaming nine eleven on you for a while. Yeah,
and I'm getting a lot of negative tweets about it. People.
People don't feel great about it. Shouldn't leven I take responsibility? Fine? Finally, yes,
justice has been done. I'm sorry. Uh so I should

(18:03):
probably point out here. Uh, this seems like an appropriate
point to say that Gina, who remember from earlier the
young lady Keith started seeing when she was sixteen, she
ran off to a Buddhist monastery and committed suicide at
age three. Uh so that's two deaths we can link,
at least tentatively to Keith rn Eery. Um. Of course,
nothing that would legally implicate him, but two people he

(18:25):
had a big influence on who wound up you know. Yeah,
that sucks that there's not more you can do when
it's such a clear link. Yeah, and this is a
girl he claimed was like a Buddhist princess. Your goddess.
Oh no, it's real. This is so bad because that

(18:48):
must have been such a loaded statement for him to
say she's a Buddhist goddess and then she goes after
she's been totally broken down, to a Buddhist monastery. He
was doing something very dark to her. He was, yeah,
in somehow combination with whatever version of Buddhism he was
selling her. I have read so much about Keith Ranieri

(19:09):
at this point, and I suspect at most I've got
about thirty of the fund up stuff he did, like
because most of its no one's ever found out about.
It's in these poor dead girls as heads a couple
of other people who aren't willing to say anything about it. Um,
that's such a sad ending to that. Yeah. So that

(19:29):
two Vanity Fair article, The Heiresses and the Cult, gave
the first full accounting of just how heavily Keith Renary
had milked the Bronchman family. The So, if you bought
Seagram's vodka, you were supporting that you were sporting. I did,
Oh god, I bought a case of Seagram's vodka. Once
I didn't buy it, I stole it. Okay, Well, no,

(19:49):
then you hurt Keith Ranieri. I heard him. You were
on the right side of his was it was already purchased.
It was at like a music festival the morning after.
It was a very backwards music festival. And there are
all these cases of sea grams and we just took one. Yeah,
so we drank sea grams for a while. That makes
you the hero of this story. Yeah, yeah, I'm reconciling.

(20:16):
Never feel bad about stealing vodka from a music festival.
That's one of my very few rules. They were rich
in it. Yeah, always steal liquor from music festivals. Yeah,
they can take it. They charge you. And Norman Alec
Yeah for sure, it's fair. Um. Anyway, here's a quote
from the vanity fair article. According to legal filings and

(20:36):
public documents, in the last six years, as much as
a hundred and fifty million was taken out of the
Bronfman's trusts and bank accounts, including sixty six million allegedly
used to cover keithrew Neeries failed bets in the commodities market,
thirty million to buy real estate in Los Angeles and
around Albany, eleven million for twenty two seat two engine
Canada or c L six hundred jet and millions more

(20:56):
to support a barrage of lawsuits across the country against
Nexium's enemies. We're going to get into after some ads,
the story of how Keith ran He used segrams of
vodka money to back his second attempt to raise a
perfect child. But first, here are the good people who
support our show with products, indoor services, and we're back.

(21:22):
We're talking about how Keith Ranieri stole like a hundred
and fifty million dollars from the heirrors to the seagrams
of vodka fortune uh, and he used a chunk of
that money to back his second attempt at raising a
perfect child who would change the course of human history. Man,
I got so many questions, that's so much money. I
under that if you have that much money, you're renting

(21:42):
an island. Yeah, you rent yourself some islands for sure.
But what was their facility? Like it was in l
a right, They had a number of facilities, I think,
And I think a lot of this real estate was
like essentially just bets because that was like the thing
that Keith rear He lost sixty six million dollars betting
on the commodities market. Oh yeah, I think he important
to him that everyone knows he's super smart and so like,

(22:03):
he was trying to prove that he could make a
shipload of money if he just got a nest egg
from these rich girls, could turn it into more. He
could be mismanaging it because he's not very smart at
this stuff. He's only smart at manipulating rich girls, which
he's a genius at. He is a genius at it
because a hundred and fifty million dollars that is a
successful con. That's that's an a list con. And they

(22:27):
had a plane, they bought a plane. He was living
a rich life. He super was How could he say
he didn't own a bed because he probably did. There
was probably nothing in his name. That's part of how
you keep the heat off of it. It's all the company.
It's all the company. Keith Rewniery is a poor church

(22:49):
mouse type man who is just dedicated to thinking about learning. Yeah,
what a saint. We're going to talk about this second
child he tried to steal from no uh So. Joehara,
former Nexium consultant, wrote to the New York Attorney General
to allege that Bronfman money had paid for the care
of a boy named Galen, who was a mysterious three

(23:10):
year old being raised to Keith's specifications. Now no one
seemed to know Galen's real name. The story among Nexium
was that his mother had died and his father had
given the infant to the care of one of Rani's
long term followers, Keith Nari, apparently decided to make the
boy his heir, and in accordance to his theories on
child development, the boy was fed a raw diet, isolated

(23:33):
from other children, and cared for by a team of
five Nanni's who each spoke to him in a different language.
Oh no, oh, no, no, no, no, this is is
his kid. Okay, he's not with Keith anymore. I don't
know if he's okay. I mean yeah, I mean he
was three, so you gotta hope he can. So Frank Parlato,

(23:55):
if you remember Frank from the Frank Report, I remember Frank,
good old Frank good Old Frank so wrote an article
for the Niagara Falls Reporter where he claimed to know
that Galen was actually just the child of Keith Reniery
and a woman named Christine Keith, who was the long
term follower who was caring for the kid. According to Frank,
the adoption story was necessary because number one, it added

(24:16):
like a layer of mystique that this child's real parents
died Keith took him under his wing, but also because
Keith's followers believed him to be celibate. Um oh yeah,
so do you believe that it was his real son?
I don't know. I have no way to figure that out.
That's a very um journalistic response. Yeah, Now, I am

(24:36):
not a journalist. I'm going to go ahead and make
some wild speculative claims. Roll with it. I think he
was having all kinds of sex. I think he definitely
gave birth to this sun. But I also bet there
was a lot of like group sex going on and
mixing of partners, because that happens in cults. So like
maybe it wasn't even his son. Is probably unclear. But

(24:57):
see I don't think that. And we'll get into a
little but I definitely there was a lot of groups
that's going on. I don't think Keith was letting any
other men be involved in the group sex. This isn't
like one of those cults where everybody's got free love.
That's a good point, is yes, this is that kind
of call. Uh, So here's a quote from Frank Parletta,
who again was a member of Nexium for like a

(25:17):
year or two. Um quote. Some of his inner circle
knew he wasn't celibate because they'd had sexual relations with him.
They knew he wasn't celibate, and they believed he would
when the time was ripe, have a special child with
a chosen woman who he had preordained would be the
mother of a child who would carry on Raine's work
to save the world. Uh. Frank alleges that, you know,
Keith getting uh this woman pregnant was an accident, and

(25:38):
she wasn't someone he viewed as special enough to be
his Mary Magdalen or no, not Magdalen. What's the Mary
that had Jesus virgin Mary, that's the Mary. Uh. Frank
of the Frank Report says that he didn't want to
get this one pregnant, and so he just told her
to lie and say the real mother was someone else
who died. Uh. Quote from Frank Rainey immediately required Keith

(26:01):
to lie about her maternity. He helped her hide her pregnancy,
and being thin, she hardly showed for months. When her
pregnancy became visible, he told people she was severely ill
and could not be seen. Um again, Frank Parlato is
a guy with a real grudge against Keith Nari and Nexium.
I also believe a dent of that. I believe of that.
It jells with everything else we know about. The more

(26:22):
we hear about Frank, the more we hear from the
Frank Report, the more I like this guy. You're a
fan of the Frank Report. Yeah, he also stole a
million dollars maybe from the Bronchman sisters. They sued him
over it. It's hard to say what happened. I really
I didn't. There's so much to dig in here. I
didn't get into that that much. No, and I don't.
It seems like they were just giving away money. Girls

(26:44):
are given it away. They've got tens of thousands of
I'm just saying numbers and got enough. He may have
been innocent of this. I really have no idea what happened.
I didn't look into the case. I'm still pro Frank.
If you're out there, UH, tweet at me, let me
know your side of the million dollar story. You can
read his side on the Frank Report. There are literally

(27:06):
hundreds of articles on that plain text website. No, No,
this isn't the planet that was the weird i Q website.
I had to do a lot of strange digging for this.
Frank's website looks like a website that an individual person
would make to settle a grudge. But it is just
articles about Nexium and Keith Ranieri in the bronxans. Yeah,
it's like he copied a real looking website. It's something else.

(27:31):
Put the name Frank in the Yeah, it's something else. Um,
But I don't think he's lying about this. This seems
completely in line with everything else about Keith Raniary, including
the fact this woman he got pregnant was normally dangerously thin.
Oh yeah, which will get Yeah that he really likes that.
So eventually Keith left the cult and took her son

(27:51):
with her, So we will never know how well Keith
Ranieri is remarkable child reading strategies actually worked. I hope
nothing but the best for that poor kid. Wow. Yeah,
that kid has scars. I hope his mom got the
matter early enough that maybe he doesn't have Especially the
mom left so she probably kind of woke up. Yeah.

(28:13):
I don't want to say woke up because I'm like
my victim blaming, but I'm not. She got out and
I'm not. I don't want to be blaming her any
other women in this story, except maybe Allison mac oh.
I want to blame her hard. Yeah. First I want
to know everything she did. Yeah, this woman just seems
like she got caught in for a while and then
she woke up and got her kid the hell out

(28:33):
of there, which is the responsible thing to do. That
is so good on you, miss Keith or Kefie. It's
k E F F E, which is I've never seen
that last name before, so I'm just gonna say Keith
um now. In spite of the mixed press coverage Nexium received,
it was a big financial success, and Keith made millions,
mostly from grifting his wealthiest adherents. He wasn't the kind
of man to sit on his laurels, though. Over the years,

(28:55):
a number of different spinoff groups joined Nexium's executive success programs.
The nearest and dearest to Keith's heart and his other
parts was the Woman's group Janesse j N E S
S usually all caps. So what is Jeness exactly? I
can see that question on your face on it. Yeah,
it sounds like a birth control pill. It does sound
like a birth control pill like tines stops the babies

(29:20):
real fast. That's how all birth control commercials do sound.
Tell us about Janette. Yeah, let's talk about Janess. Uh, well,
you know what, I'll let Janesse themselves explain what they are.
Are you ready for this? Our Jenness is our highly
personal version of being a woman. It is an affirmation
of our independent life journey with its lessons, tragedies, and magnificence.

(29:44):
No two women are the same. Each of us has
a unique, powerful, self secret formed from our experiences in life.
No one said of words can quite quantify us, and
no collection of rules can categorize us. Janesse in general
is the personal work of empowered women in this world.
You got a clear idea of what is Yeah, yeah,
really because that seems like nonsense. It's nonsense, but I

(30:06):
can sort of like imagine them writing that up, you
know what I mean? Like they're all sort of gathering around,
they've they've ordered food, probably Italian food from like a corrabas, uh,
and they're like, oh yeah, but oh yeah, we we
uplift each other. I I feel guilty making fun of

(30:28):
this women's group. I don't think any woman wrote any
word of that statement. I think this is all Keith Ray,
but I don't know. We'll see, we'll get into this. Oh,
I have so many questions. That's my theory. I really
have no idea. Um, oh, it's his HiT's his trademark,
vague style, and there's some other stuff that makes me
think if he maybe he had some input from some

(30:49):
ladies on this, but he definitely exercised a strong editorial hand.
I think, Um, because Keith he's a control freak. Yeah,
that's true. I was going to say, well, who knows,
maybe he had some right hand women, uh speaking like him,
imitating his voice. But well, the Jenness website gives the
whole story of how Janness was conceived of and founded.

(31:10):
And I would be doing you on a and the
whole internetitive service if I didn't read this story in
its entirety. So take a moment to think about some
of the most meaningful needs of society. From your perspective,
is one of those needs world hunger, or possibly more pressing,
is the issue of abuse of power and government, or
maybe even more important, is a war in a foreign country.

(31:31):
Or you might focus upon difficulties closer to home, such
as the lack of community in your community, or possibly
some type of social prejudice, or for some just the
simple lack of carrying amongst friends and neighbors as most disturbing.
There are many, many other equally important challenges in the world,
but what is a primary concern is which issues are
more important to you directly personally. On a spring day

(31:54):
in two thousand six, in a car driving down the highway,
this was the topic of discussion among three dearest friends, Pam, Marianna,
and Keith Keith authored Keith offered an expertise and educational
methodology along with a body of knowledge relating to the
human dynamic. The most essential thing for Pam and Marianna

(32:16):
was their struggles as women in a world where women's
values are distorted. Over the next few days, the initial
codification for a new method of gender transformation JANESS was
born from the loving intent of three people who desire
to create something meaningful together to make the world a
better place. Wow Wow, Indeed the beginning sounds like a

(32:37):
Miss America pageant answer, because it's like it's what it's
if you asked someone who hasn't read the news ever
in their life. What are problems in the world to
be like, there's war in places, government, bad people not
talking talking. Yeah, it's just so yeah, like there's actual

(32:58):
war as you could drop like the actual problems in
the world that you could be specific about to like
make this seem a little bit less like a moon
man wrote it. I think that Keith fancies himself a
bit of a poet. Yeah, I think he thinks he
has a writer early literary touch to his work. Why

(33:18):
else would he paint such a vivid picture like on
a spring day and driving down the highway. I really
saw it. I saw the scene unfolding. I felt like
I was there. I felt like I was one of
these two generically named women um and being enchanted by

(33:39):
his new methodology of generality. Well, what I love is
that the creation of this woman's group. What the two
women bring to the table is their struggles as women,
And what Keith says he brings to the table is knowledge. Yeah,
he's there's one thing he's good at, and it's man's blaming.

(34:01):
He is the embodiment of it. He is. But what
did what did this group do? We'll let me man
explain that for you. It's not man splaining if I'm
inviting it. I know, well do I do you? I
don't know. I didn't even know myself until I said that.
I don't know. I just felt really guilty after this
paragraph that I'm about to read another six pages. Oh no, um, so,

(34:27):
I bet you're probably still curious as to what exactly
Janesse does. It feels very foreboding. Yeah, well, I think
what Janess is is Keith believing he invented the concept
of women having friends. Uh so, I'm going to quote
to you again from the website Janet's Friendships. At the
foundation of this movement, women start their journey with Janessee
by attending an introductory weekend. The weekend is two and

(34:50):
a half days packed full of powerful and engaging curriculum.
At the close of the weekend, your weekend facilitator will
guide women in the process of joining or creating a
new friendship. So at the end of my seminar, you
will make friends. You'll know how to have friends. Wow, yeah,

(35:10):
you know, I get it. He spent his career up
until this point pitting women against each other. To some degree,
it sounds like, um like isolating them and brainwashing them
and having sex with them when they were children. When
they were children, So yeah, he's probably like, you know what,

(35:33):
now it's time for me to allow them to be friends.
And Janessee had a lot of powerful positive impacts and
a lot of women, which I know because there are
testimonials on the Jenness' website, like this one from Marissa Zaragoza.
Since I was little, I remember my goal was to
be like my father. He is an engineer. So when

(35:54):
the time came to pick a profession, that path was
natural to me. There I was graduating on electrical engineering
on a last where only eight percent were women. I
learned to work with men and among men, always competing
to demonstrate my abilities and earn their approval. Years past,
I decided to get married and create a family. I
understood that those developed abilities were not enough for my
new role as a mother. I decided to disguise my incapacity,

(36:15):
covering it up with my professional success and depriving myself
of enjoying the first years of my two children. When
I met Janess, I started a journey to make amends
with myself. With a sensible and motherly woman within me,
I stopped trying to run away from myself and built
the strength to face my fears, evaluate and surrender to
my true passion, which is having kids and not a career.

(36:36):
A woman didn't write that, no, Like I think Keith
Rawnery wrote basically all of this. Yes, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
That sounds like Keith Renari pretending to be a woman
in Mexico. Uh this feels relevant to Handmaid's Tale. Oh yeah, yeah,
I think he was trying to create a Handmaid's Tale right,

(36:57):
because in his worldview, everyone has an amazing potential and
should be fabulously wealthy. But also women's main calling is
to have children. Well, his children were about to get
into that right now. So in the actual sessions themselves,
Near re posited some pretty radical theories on gender. He
believes men are unable to enjoy the world with as

(37:19):
much depth and complexity as women, but men know the
difference between right and wrong. Women lead rich lives, but
they're prone to tantrums and using bad behavior to get
what they want. According to Keith, men are naturally polyamorous,
while women are naturally monogamous. If you're keeping track, that's
just polygamy. Wow, man, I was giving him so much credit.

(37:40):
He's such a bad person, but I was truly giving
him credit. I was like, at least he's still hanging
onto this pseudo intellectualism. But he, uh, come on. That's
why I don't think anyone else at the Orgies that
was a man was getting involved. Oh, they definitely were
there men, But there were men, and there was a
men's group. I don't even talk about the men's up
in this because there was just so much it to

(38:01):
talk about. There was a men's group. He was bilking
men out of money, but it doesn't seem like it
was nearly as abusive to the men. Women. Well, I
can't say I disagree with him. I mean, I know
that I myself am prone to emotional outbursts and tantrums,
and all the men in my life are steady hands

(38:23):
of guidance. If there's one thing the last couple of
years have taught us, it's that men always know the
difference between right and wrong. Yeah, yeah, I would say
the last year. That's really the message of this podcast too,
is that men know the difference between right and wrong,
and women need help, and women need help and also
be polygamists, but don't call it that, but only if

(38:44):
you're a man everyone, but women aren't. Yeah, all right, Um,
we have to break for some ads. When we get back, though,
we're finally going to get Alison Mac small Bill start.
I know, I know it took a while, right, it
really did. Yeah, now we're ready to get into that.

(39:06):
So all that and more after we talk about products
which are available for purchase. We're back. The podcast is back.
Everyone's okay. It's been an emotional roller coaster. It's caused

(39:28):
me to question my own, um potential involvement in cults. Uh.
But one thing I can say for certain, I am
so excited to hear what Alison Mac did. Boy. So,
Alison Mac small Fille actress, presumably actress on other things,

(39:50):
but everyone just says, I'm tempted to say, no real
other credits. I have no idea. She was definitely on
small Bill. She was such a big character on small Ville.
But then she never did anything else, And now I
know why. Well, she started attending Nexium sessions in two
thousand seven once her career hit a plateau. Keith apparently
took an interest in her. She begged him to quote,

(40:11):
make me a great actress again. Uh, okay, okay, I
don't know if i'd say she was ever great. Look,
the standout on small Ville was Amy Adams. I don't
know who Amy Adams is either. Oh my gosh, really
I'm super pop culture ignorant. She is a rival. Oh

(40:35):
that's a great movie. Yeah, she was scientist Okay, Yeah,
she's really good. Um, she's phenomenal. And she was on
an episode of small Ville and played this like crazy
monstrous person who like desperately wanted to lose weight. So
she drank something or something that was an accident and
then she started losing weight, but had an insatiable appetite

(40:58):
that eventually causes her to eat people. Um. I do
want to set the record straight. Okay. Alison mac has
had other credits, unfortunately, quite a few good ones. She
was on Wilfred Oh Ship, that's a great show. Yeah,
the following another good show. Other things. I don't know.

(41:19):
She's been She's had a solid career. Yeah, like she was,
she was on her way, for sure. She was on
her way. So she joins Nexium, gets really involved with Nexium.
She wound up helping to start a subcult within Geness
called Dominus obsequious Sororium or doss, which I think means
master over submissives and master in Latin. Dominus in Latin

(41:42):
is like a masculine. The masculine version of that word
would be the feminine. So yeah, it's like at this
point they're not trying to fight the creepiness, their wholeheartedly
embracing it. Some Yeah, yeah, let's cut straight to the point.
Has anything good ever come from the Latin language? No?
Moving on, so this little subcult deep Doss, is anything

(42:03):
good ever come from Doss? No? The band Doss, okay, fair,
one good thing, but not the computer thing. I don't
know what you're talking about. So no, I don't even
really know what I'm talking about. Uh So, this subcult
eventually consisted of around a hundred and fifty women who
were sort of the elite lady cult members of Nexium.
The New York Times revealed how it all worked in

(42:25):
an interview with Mac Quote, the woman who invited you
to the group was your master, Max said, tucking in
her blue socked feet under her, or the representation of
your conscience. You're higher self. Your most ideal masters would
help slaves count calories to save them from the trap
of emotional eating. According to other women in the group. Again,
Keith three neared, that's always a big focus on women

(42:45):
being thin. Oh no, there's so much wrong with this. Yeah,
masters would dictate an act of self denial, like cold showers,
a rousing yourself from bed at four am, and standing
stock still for a time. Slaves were told to do
acts of care for masters, perhaps bringing them coffee. Slaves
might be told to abstain from orgasms, ostensibly to heal
their negative sexual patterns. Max said that this was about

(43:07):
devotion and like any spiritual practice or religion, I thought
about free will. Did she believe in that? She said,
you're dedicating your life one way or another. So Alice
and Mac why did they have to Why did it
have to go to orgasm denial? I don't know, Like
they already have the creepy Latin name. Now they're like,

(43:31):
let's just call it slaves and masters, and wow, this
is so bad. Yeah, it's it's gotten really bad, real fast.
I mean it's been bad the whole time. And just
what r Kelly sex call was like, are you guys
going to do them? I mean I should at some point.
I have not done any research into that. I've read

(43:52):
like one article about Yeah, I mean if this is
what a sex call is, like, this is definitely a
sex call at this point. Um, also abstained from orgasm.
I feel like that is such a small piece of
whatever was going on in that situation. Yeah, that's not
the only creepy orgasm based rule. If there's one creepy
orgasm based rule in a cult, there's a lot of

(44:14):
feel like that's a cut rule. Yeah. Yeah, uh, it's
a sub category, there's it sprawls out. Yeah, there was
like a fucking list. Yeah yeah. Um. Extreme weight loss
was encouraged within Dows, especially for the women Raney fancied.
Here's the ap quote. Investigators said Rainey preferred exceptionally thin women,
so slaves had to stick to very low calorie diets

(44:36):
and document every food they ate. As punishment for not
following orders, women were forced to attend classes where they
were forced to wear fake cow utters over their breast
while people called them derogatory names or threatened with being
put in cages. Oh my god. This is around the
same time. He's also hooking women's heads up to brain
scanners and showing them video of women being cut apart.
Stuff like that. Yeah, it's real messed up. Now, Raineery

(44:56):
only acknowledged having sexual relationships with two members of e
O S or DOSS or whatever. Um. This is like
he acknowledged in the New York Times, like he did
this miacole where like, yeah, I've been bad, but you
know it was it was like it was not like
really bad. It was just like like I couldn't control
myself and they cared about me so much, right, I Oh,
he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. Is he a sociopath?

(45:19):
He might be. Usually I'm I really hesitant to call
people associate. I don't know, because it's a right, it's
a but it's a real thing. And he certainly that
would be a thing to check on if you were
a psychiatrist working on Keith Rawnary. He's certainly there's some
morning signs here, yea or maybe just a narcissist definitely

(45:41):
to accept no responsibility like that. But the cow waters, Yeah,
the cow wathers like that. So the women were in
a state of starvation, yeah, so already a deeply altered
state and then being fed those images. Yeah, they had
lost their minds. Yeah. In interviews with other members of
the of DOST, the New York Times reported that quote

(46:03):
promising to seduce Ranieri, which was apparently the way he
preferred to be approached sexually rather than putting himself on
the line, was also one of the ways some women
later said they were told to show commitment to the sisterhood.
So at some point, the women of d Os started
branding each other with hot metal pokers, possibly in the
shape of Keithrewni's initials. The branding sessions would last thirty

(46:25):
to forty five minutes and where apparently as painful as
you would imagine a forty five minute branding session would be.
What do you do for forty five minutes? You're in
horrible pain? Like my understanding of branding as it relates
to livestock is it's like I've never branded cattle, neither
of I. But I don't know if it's fast and

(46:46):
thought about it. You think a lot about that. I
think a lot about it. No, I mean, I've I'm
a vegetarian. I've thought about things we do to animals,
and branding always seemed weird. It doesn't seem like a
nice thing. I think they usually do a chip now anyway,
that sounds much worse. Really, I don't know. I think
the cows prefer the chip. Yeah, they prefer not being

(47:09):
eaten probably, who knows. Yeah, I don't though I don't
eat them, but who knows? Yeah? Um so, the forty
five minutes of having a fucking hot metal poker shoved
into your skin until it burns you horribly. There's pictures
in the New York Times article of one of these
women's brands. It definitely looks like it's Keith Nari's initials.
What else would it be? What are they claiming? I

(47:31):
don't know. I haven't heard a direct claim for what
the branding symbolically. At that point, it's like, why are
you even denying it? Yeah? I mean Alison Mac says
that she came up with it because basically she thought
a tattoo wasn't enough of a commitment. Which, oh, I'm
looking at the image, hold on, and it's a big
brand like you again, the pictures are online, you look

(47:53):
at them. These are not like a tiny it's not
getting a little bitty tattoo or whatever, like this is
a substantial thing to have, deeply painful, yeah, agonizing. Um so,
Alison Mac again says that she came up with the
idea herself. Here's another quote from the New York Times article.

(48:13):
It was a scary experience, like any real rite of passage.
But some of them kidded around through it, even if
they cried when they were getting the brand, even if
they wore surgical masks to help them with breathing in
the smell of burning flesh, even if the brand was
much larger than they were told it would be and
looked like an ancient hieroglyph, Even if they were in
a state of sheer terror, they were still able to
transcend the fear and cry out to one another, badass

(48:33):
warrior bitches, let's get strong together. Who Yeah, it's like
they're using pop feminists are jargon to validate the most
degrading to humanizing practice. We're badasses because we're going to
get this man's initials branded onto our crotches. To seventeen,

(48:54):
I think, is when this has happened. Okay, this is
two seventeen UM. So now that paragraph right there makes
me think back to a quote in those Nextican Packets
from two thousand three, where Keith Renary wrote that complaining
about pain or expressing hunger were both examples of parasitic behavior.
His specific example of the parasitic statement was the sentence
I know I promised, but I had no idea how

(49:16):
hard or painful this was going to be. So what's
interesting is Alison mack was seemingly like a crazy person
who by serendipity, came into contact with this already insane
group and then was able to like enact her craziness

(49:38):
through it. But is there more to the story. I mean,
there's no definitive answer on that. It is possible that
Alison mac just was a looney person who had her
leoninus opened up by this. I don't think she came
up with a branding idea. I think she's dedicated to
Keith R. Neary and he told her to say that
it was her idea. I feel like it's the kind

(49:59):
of thing Keith Earie would do. She's drinking, she has
hugged the kool aid. She's but jugging the kool aid
at the point like she's she's saying yea um. But
I don't think she came up with this idea. When
you look at the pictures and stuff of her most
recently being led into court, like her lawyers are holding
her up she can barely walk. She's so scared. She's

(50:20):
culpable to an extent because she helped do some bad
things here. But I also think she's more of a
victim of Keith Rinieri than anything else. That's that's my thinking.
I may be being too charitable here, But that's interesting
because all this time I had been sort of thinking,
it really goes to show you that women can be horrible.

(50:42):
She definitely did, because I think she was active in
this um. But yeah, I can see how she was
brainwashed by especially I mean, actresses are already so primed
to be um obsessed about their weight in a way
that's already I think, making them kind of insane. Yeah, um,

(51:03):
maybe I'll went in to something. I mean, especially living
in l A. I like, I get some of that.
I'm a fucking dude. Yeah, it's crazy the images we
receive coupled with the messages. Um, I can see her
being a victim to him. She's definitely both a victim
and a perpetrator. Yeah, but what's going to happen to her,

(51:25):
We don't know. We are now into the stuff that
Keith Nari is most famous for, the stuff that the
most recent new York Times articles talked about Keith and
Alison Mack had both been charged with sex trafficking. Oh right,
this is the headline that made its way to This
is the headline that made its way to you. But
before everything fell apart, before the New York Times articles,

(51:46):
Keith Reniery used Allison's legit actresshood to help him produce
ads for his seminars. Here's one she put together for
ESP in two thousand fourteen. When I first came to ESP,
I had, on the surface is something that seemed to
be like the perfect life for a pretty good life,
like superficially materialistically, I was very successful. I had the job,

(52:07):
I had the dog, I had the car, I had
the boyfriend, I had the blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah, the clothes, everything that I thought
I needed in order to be okay. And yet I
couldn't stand to be with my family for more than
two hours at a time. And the idea of being
honest with even my best friend was something that was
so far outside the realm of possibility that I just
kind of thought, you always lived your life in authentically, um,

(52:28):
And when I came to ESP and I started to
do the work in the goals lab, do the work
in the classes. I started to transform in a way
that I never expected. Like I literally didn't know that
you could spend time with someone and not be nervous.
I literally didn't know that it was possible to have
a week with your family where you didn't feel like leaving.

(52:51):
I just thought that that wasn't really possible. I thought
it happened in the movies. And now that's my life,
that's my reality. I have an experience of my only
that is nothing but joy, and it's it's astounding. So
that's her ad for executive success programs. And I tell you,
when you read it on paper, it sounds so crazy,

(53:12):
especially if I read it to you. Yeah, and so evil.
But she too, like seasoned actress that she is. She's good.
You feel it, I mean, and she's making it feel relatable. Um.
But to know that that is the woman who was
leading branding fashion, even if it wasn't her idea. Oh

(53:35):
my god, people are wearing masks because the stinch of
burning human flesh is so thick in the air. She
willingly gave those details. I don't think she gave the details.
I think it was other women who had been branded
who talked about how awful it was. But she willingly
admitted to The New York Times that that was my
idea because I thought it was more badass than a tattoo. Man,

(53:56):
that's crazy, it's wild. But the biggest mind buck of
all of this is going this deep into it. I
don't know, I'm like starting to empathize a little bit
with her, and I don't like how comfortably close I
am to understanding how these people did these things. But
that's it makes me feel close. I think it's important

(54:18):
to get there though, Like that's my whole motivation with
this show, with any of these episodes, is to try
to get you a little closer to like something fucked
up that somebody just you can understand how these things happen,
because then maybe you're a little omis mean, But then
you read the headline and it's like that's crazy. Yeah,
this is crazy. This is only crazy. People will get
involved and it's like, well, no, Alison mac it's hard

(54:41):
to get a regular role on a big TV show
in Hollywood. That's an achievement. She had a career. She
is a smart person who set her mind you a
goal and accomplished things and also bought into this weird
cult and maybe had them start branding women like and
it made sense to her at the time. Yeah, And
I especially seeing her talk just now, how she was saying, Oh,

(55:04):
I can connect with my family now, I don't have
that social anxiety. There's like a part of me that's like, Okay,
I can see how, in a really fucked up way,
if you impose great suffering on people with this guy's
of like pop feminism, there's some level on which they
feel bonded and are so broken that they don't maybe

(55:27):
feel certain anxieties anymore. But I don't know, I kind
of get it. Yeah. She also put together a number
of other video interviews for Jeness And this is an
awkward segue, but I had to make it somehow. They
all consist of Keith Ranieri and Alison Max sitting at
a table and talking to each other. I think these
videos are fascinating, both for the looks on Alison's face,

(55:48):
which sadly won't transmit over the podcast, so you can
look at the video online. Will post it on behind
the Baschard's dot com. But they're most interesting for the
insights they give as to how Keith Ranieri works, as
to how he's sort of you can kind of see
how he ensnares people on a one on one level.
Here's him talking about gender in a twenty six minute
long video called Beyond Age Your Gender Human First. We're

(56:10):
not gonna play all twenty six minute. I was thinking,
there's a push right now, just culturally, similar to like
the creativity push. It feels like a lot of people
are talking about reading books about and doing things studies
on this idea of like the need for more female
strength in the world. You know, we have like the
elections happening with Hillary Clinton is being a candidate and

(56:31):
all this, and everybody's like women need to take more
leadership roles and things like that. And I was just wondering,
like what your take was on that, given that your
perspective more humanists. I'm going to give you a short thing.
You're using a lot of male language and male male
things to describe this, and that's disrespectful to women. Now,

(56:53):
you know, should women be in leadership roles? I think
women are in certain types of lead ship roles. Unfortunately
it is controlled a lot by men. Can women rise
to be fuller in the world and in the principles
that they experience and bringing that wisdom they're unique upbringing,

(57:15):
and even the cultural poison that they have to transform
the world. Absolutely, they have to become aware of it,
and they have to have that desire and they have
to struggle. It's going to be a big struggle, and
it's a type of struggle because they have to struggle
about against the type of oppression, a type of box
that they've been placed in by men, if you will,

(57:39):
And you know, it's it's not just men now, it's
men that were formed by literature that were formed by men,
that was formed by literature that was formed by men,
was formed by the jungle and sort of that, and uh,
you know, men need to change in a different way.
But both sexes have to become more self aware and

(58:00):
understand outside of gender, outside of sex, there's human and
there are things that are transcendent as human. I'll say this,
if you saw that clip or listened to it um
without any context, even if you weren't half listening, if

(58:26):
you were listening, and I see you, but I mean me,
I might go along with it. I mean, he is
using the language of contemporary gender thought in a very
vague and sort of wishy washy way, I suppose um,
and that alone is kind of chilling. It's like, I

(58:48):
think it makes me think about so many of the
conversations I've had that sounded like that. Yeah, it's the
only thing type place where it slips in there for
me where he's not making a good impression of like
a super woke intellectual dude is when he chastises her
for being disrespectful to women. Yeah, that was That's like
the part where it's like, wait, what the funk? But

(59:10):
then he immediately moves on to talking about how we
all have toxicity in us because of the literature were
raised on and stuff, And it's like, but I've I've
heard men talk like that, like and and not always
in a way that isn't raging. It is true that
we have gendered language. And cutting to her smiling very pleasantly,

(59:30):
like deeply taking it in sort of though it like
it did bump me. There was a part of me
that was like cool, but she gets it. She doesn't
feel like she's being man's plain. It was chilling. It
is chilling. There are so many of these videos out there.
I've watched an uncomfortable amount of them to make this podcast.
There's a part of me that almost wants to just

(59:52):
run that one to completion, but obviously that would be
really boring on a podcast. They are cheesy and uncomfortable
and also oddly compelling and hard to watch past a
certain point. Um, I'm only gonna play a clip from
one more because I think it really emphasizes the culti
nature of Keith's Crazy Empire. We've been talking a lot
about what makes something a cult. One of the really
critical things to make something a cult is developing your

(01:00:15):
own language. Scientology does this a lot. You know, sp
suppressive person. You know, you've got your OT levels and whatnot,
but you know other you can talk about like weird
um snake handling. Christian cults within parts of the United
States do this to every Every cult does this where
they try to create different terms for things than the
majority of society uses. Because cults are all that isolation.

(01:00:38):
They're all about separating you from everybody else. So if
you can create a different sort of vocabulary for your cult,
then you can isolate people very effectively without them even
knowing that. That's what you're doing, which is something that
social groups do. Yeah, absolutely, which makes the line feel
so fine. It does because you do this with your friends,

(01:00:59):
you have inside joke in terms that would be nonsense
to anybody else but means something to you. All the
stuff like, there's none of the cult making techniques at
their most basic level are inherently toxic. They're successful in
helping to make a cult because they're all things that
people do normally. You know, there's a lot of used
to talk about the similarities between U. C. B uh.

(01:01:21):
If you talk to anyone honestly who was in a
combat unit in the military, they will talk about a
lot of CULTI kind of behavior and different terms that
people come and like. Because whenever you're isolated with a
group of people, whether it's a friend group or you're
all studying to be an improv or you're in battle together,
you develop certain bonds and you become isolated from the
rest of society to a certain extent. And that's normal.

(01:01:42):
That's what families are too. Cults utilize these as weapons
in order to take people's free will away in a sense.
And I think this clip what's interesting to me about it,
it's it's called journeying through the stages of development. And
it's nonsense. The conversation they're having is nonsense because the

(01:02:04):
terms that they are using don't mean the same thing
to them that they do to us. Oh so, like
stages of development, I assume to them have some slightly
more specific meaning, you know, no, because they're they're talking
about little little little be the easiest way to get across.
I'm trying to stay here. I've been thinking a lot

(01:02:25):
about just the concept of um, like compulsion, like, uh,
something is good, something is nice, something is pleasant, something
is lots of self through the emotions. Yeah, yeah, And
I just I'm curious about that because it seems like
something that's a reverence issue. It is um. It's interesting.

(01:02:51):
You know, we're born as bodies and emotions and not
much cognitive facility. You know, people don't realize that there's
even something called mind of other there's a whole progression
of our self awareness. You ask a young child, and
so he t he starts talking about stages the belt.

(01:03:12):
He dropped some actual educational psychology after that point. But
that early thing where they're talking about it's a reverence
issue and the loss of the body through like that's
all nonsense. It's nonsense, but yeah, you can really feel
that they have these constructed uh meanings behind them, like
how she's searching for the word compulsion. Yeah, that's in
their core curriculous exactly. And he responds with the definition

(01:03:34):
from the curriculum and she said, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
yeah yeah. So I don't know. I'm sure at this
point some of you are pulling out your credit cards
to go book an ESP training seminar because this is
some compelling ship. And I mean, I get it. I
listened to some self help stuff. I think Ted Radio
our feels like a self help our. It's all pelling,

(01:04:00):
and I think that the toxic parts of this happens
number one when it's centered around one person. So, you know,
UCB may have some culty aspects to it, but Amy
Poehler isn't asking you to give her money directly and
follow her guidelines on life and dress the way that
she dresses and believe the things that she believes. You're right,

(01:04:21):
that is and it it is a company that is
taking all of this money, which I think unsettle some people.
UCB sure does this, but what truly makes this ac
cult and not just a hack self help group. Is
all the dark stuff. That's the big part of it
is is it maladaptive? Is it hurting people? Yeah? Um

(01:04:44):
so uh spoiler alert. Executive Success Programs is no longer
hosting seminars. They're not taking Yeah, they've got it. If
you go to their website, I'm going to show you
what their website looks like, because it's as pretentious as
everything else Keith Renier he has ever made in his life.
I love the first thing on the website is a
picture of Albert Einstein, and up, we cannot solve our

(01:05:08):
problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Hey,
I that's him. He's trying to tell you that everything
you know is wrong. We'll have a picture from the
website up on our website, which is not a cult website. Although,
if you want to pay me seven thousand dollars, I
will talk to you for a week. Okay, absolutely, So

(01:05:29):
that's an offer on the table. If I were the
heir to the Seagroom's fortune, Brontman's sisters, look me up.
I will not charge a hundred and fifty million, ten
million dollars. You know what, I'll give you all the sashes. Man.
I wonder what their life is right now. They're probably
still super rich and fine. Yeah right, I'm sure they're Okay,
they're fine. Yeah, they're not the people like hopefully they

(01:05:51):
weren't physically or sexually abused. If they were, then I
feel terrible about this, Um. But I think they're still rich, Okay,
I think the justice of the world, they kind of
just hopefully they're wiser now and will not fall for
occult again. Uh So, The New York Times published their
first article on Keith Reniery and next um in October.

(01:06:12):
This led to a federal investigation. Uh. Mr Reynieri fled
to Mexico, ditched his cell phone, and only communicated to
his followers through encrypted messaging apps. He was arrested in
late March in Port of Art, to Mexico because encrypted
messaging apps aren't as encrypted or secure as people pretend
they are, which Paul Manaford also learned recently. Yeah another

(01:06:35):
great guy. Yeah, don't commit crimes and assume that your
encrypted Messaging act will protect you. So this is so
messed up, But a part of me was kind of
hoping that he was still in Mexico and like this
was still ongoing, and know that I could like get
in there, you know, like oh and learn how to
reverence issue, get into the vigilante just oh like oh,

(01:07:01):
like throwing pipe bombs at him. You're still out there,
let's go. Yeah, um, but he's the he's been caught.
I'll find one of these guys who hasn't been caught
and we can go Windo, blow up someone's car. Yeah, yeah,
that's fine. But he was caught, so he's he's in
process right now, I assume, Yeah, so he Allison Mack

(01:07:21):
was arrested a few weeks later. She was released on
five million dollars bail. Last I checked, which was like
Wednesday when I was finishing writing this. He is still
in jail. US attorney Richard Donna Hue, when they were
both arrested, stated as a legend the indictment, Alison Mack
recruited women to join what was purported to be a
female mentorship group that was in fact created and led
by Keith Raneery. The victims were exploited both sexually and

(01:07:42):
for their labor to the defendants benefit, which seems like
an accurate statement, the most accurate statement anything so far
of all the quotes I've read, this is the Rhney
does not appear to have taken to prison. Well. On
June six, the day I finished writing this, Keat's lawyers
as the court to allow him to pay ten million
dollars bond to be released. He even agreed to live

(01:08:04):
under armed security until his court date in October. As
far as I know, he hasn't been released, although maybe
something happened the last day or so, but you should
check up on that. I think he's still in jail,
and hopefully they don't let him pay ten million dollars bond.
I don't believe he left one exactly. He's definitely a
flight risk. Ranieri's attorneys referred to the US Justice Department

(01:08:24):
as the quote morality police. Uh. They accused them of
wrongly implicating raneery and sex trafficking. They said their client,
who is being held without bond since his the rest
three months ago, as an accomplished ethicist who is not
a danger and should be released from custody. Uh So,
I don't trust anyone who calls themselves an accomplished ethicist,
humanitarian judo champion. Okay, yeah you will, judo champion. I'll

(01:08:51):
believe I'll just think very little of them. Yeah, so
that should be the end of what I have to
say about Keith Raney. But there's so much more. And
again I didn't even talk about the men's groups. There's
other there's so much ship going on here. But there
is one more thing I have to talk about. You
remember earlier in the episode how I talked about Elon
Musk being taken in by that weird website called the Knife. Well,

(01:09:12):
let's start talking about There's no more about Elon Musk here.
This podcast isn't about attacking Elon. I can't protect him anymore. No,
he's not one of the bad people in this thing.
So fake news became a buzzword in two thousand and sixteen.
Obviously it's been a thing for as long as there's
been news, what with the Spanish American War. Uh, but

(01:09:33):
you know, it became a buzzword after the election. And
in two thousands seventeen, Nextium launched a pretentiously named website
called The Knife of Aristotle. Come on the n the
Knife of fucking Aristotle. Their initial ad campaign just said,
subscribe to the Knife of Aristotle and see what it is,
which fuck you? Um on seventeen. Recently, unemployed journalist Brock

(01:09:58):
Wilbert published an article paste magazine called The Knife of
Aristotle isn't just a fake fake news site, It's a cult.
Brock and his wife found a job opportunity at a
legitimate journalism job opportunity site, and it took them to
a website called Ethical Media dot Org. Journalists were being
recruited on a to a team that would evaluate news
articles based on an objective system of measurement, which was,

(01:10:19):
of course proprietary. UH. Brock sent them an inquiry and
they responded right away, offering him three to five thousand
per month to let him work remotely. But there was
a catch quote. We use a proprietary methodology to carry
out our writing an analysis process. Our writers are required
to have a working knowledge of our rating system and standards.
In order to learn this, they attend five weeks of
advanced training and Communication Logic and Ethics. The first week

(01:10:42):
of the training is focused on personal development and ethics.
Are analysts get to deeply explore their belief systems and
gain an understanding of the human mechanisms of perception that
influenced our communication and culture. So UH five weeks of
training was required to get this job in New York.
It was not paid the training. Brock kept looking into
the group and found out that they seemed to have

(01:11:03):
a weird right wing bias and evaluated news sites using
an unclear rubric. They had a staff page and many
of the people on it seemed questionably real. Of course,
Brock Wilbur elected not to go. He wrote an article
about it instead and delved into a bird's ivy of
the Keith Renery story. He notes in a postcript that
The Knife of Aristotle removed their staff page after his article. Um,
the staff stuff on there sounds exactly like the jenness.

(01:11:24):
It does. I was gonna say, like one of the
journalists talks about how I went to school in Mexico
and worked for Mexican magazine. You Mexican, Mexican magazines, that's
how you talk about your professional career. I worked in
American magazines. They had Keith had some something going on
with Mexico. He really did. He really likes Mexico and

(01:11:46):
seems to be good at getting the children of Mexican
presidents to give him that. I guess he was rich
by that point. I will say he is definitely the
world's number one authority on getting children of Mexican presidents
to pay him several thousand dollars as far as I'm
aware of that, and that is a credential he can
list on his web Absolutely, it's specific credential. It is.
If I saw that, I'd be like, that's that's something

(01:12:09):
I too would like to grift the children of Mexican politicians. Yeah,
they're not an essential Yeah politicians. Yeah, uh so um Brock.
Wilbur's article went relatively viral and did some damage to
the Knife of Aristotle's reputation. But if you think Keith
Ranieri is the kind of man who would give up
on a good scam opportunity just because a journalist caught him,

(01:12:31):
you don't know Keith Ranieri. The Knife of Aristotle continued instead,
billing itself as a scholarship opportunity rather than a job.
Egyptian American author Yahia Labba Beatie was browsing a journalism
job board one day when he came across a posting
for an Ethical media scholarship. They claim to be a
media watchdog working to revolutionize the way we read news.
Winners would receive full admission to their training seminar and

(01:12:53):
cash prizes of ten thousand, three thousand, or one thousand dollars.
Yahia applied and arranged a skype interview with the journalist
who work for this watchdog. The guy claimed that quote,
we want the news to read more like science, less
like fiction. A few days after that, Yahia received a
letter awarding him a three thousand dollar scholarship as long
as he met the work requirement with eighteen hours per

(01:13:14):
week for a minimum of one year. Of course, this
guy was a journalist too, and he did some digging
and quickly discovered the Keith three Neery connection. Yeah heah
didn't take the scholarship, but the Knife of Aristotle is
still active today. They've rebranded, of course, and now call
themselves just the Knife. They look pretty legitimate if you
just skimmed them, like I can't blame Elon Musk for
running across an article and not thinking too much. I

(01:13:36):
can Okay, I probably could too. I'm judged out right now.
You wouldn't believe the Knife, No, no, but I I've
been working in journalism for years, so I would be like,
this is a news side I've never heard of. How
are they saying the New York Times is thirty seven
percent reliable? What is their rubric? And you look into

(01:13:57):
it and stuff. If you're having a fight with the
New York Town Times, Yeah that's true. Yeah, maybe you don't,
you'd let it go. He's not a hero for following
a dumb news site, but like, you know, yeah, it's understandable.
He's yet another person who fell for Keith Renieri's bullshit.
So the knife should be shut down. The knife is
still operating right now. Uh. You can find their rankings

(01:14:21):
on articles using their supposedly scientific system today. I found
no direct references to Keith Renieri on the site, but
I did find one indirect reference. So there is a
series that the site does, called with Prejudice, where they
rehabilitate unfairly maligned thinkers like Google engineer James Namore or
New York Times columns editor Barry Weiss. The series stars

(01:14:41):
Jen's Eric Gould, who is their editor in chief. The
best way I could describe Jen's Eric Gould is discount
Ben Shapiro, and Ben Shapiro himself as discount Ben Shapiro.
So you're really getting um, Yeah, Jen's Eric Gould, who
also appears to be the main force behind the website.
The series with Prejudice, though was not originally called that.

(01:15:03):
It used to be called Blacklisted, but someone complained, and
there is a note on that section of the site
that says this series was previously titled Blacklisted. We received
feedback from our primary advisor that the name was inappropriately
spun and failed to include additional perspectives. You can decide
for yourself if this primary advisor exercising minute control over
the Knife's operation is Keith Ranieri, I'm going to say yes.

(01:15:25):
Their patreon currently has a hundred and four backers. Wow,
that's more than mine does. Well. Yeah, they got a
lot of money behind them, that's true. Yeah, wow, So
that's everything. I'm exhausted now I'm too. I do see it.
I see the board with the pictures and read thread.

(01:15:46):
Now good. That was my whole goal here. I apologize
that some of this was confusing. There's so much to
keep track of. It made sense of speaking story, yea um,
but that is almost everything about Keith Ranieri that I
thought was relevant. I hope bad things happened to him.
He's in prison. I hope bad things happened to him.
Not necessarily when he's I would be fine if just

(01:16:08):
a rock fell out of this guy and hit him,
that would be okay. Yeah, I'd be fine with that.
But it's crazy to think too, like he's touched so much,
so who has totally internalized his crazy way of thinking
and will continue it. I mean, I suppose, like without
the charismatic leader, I don't know how much you have.
I don't think Nexim's got much of a future. But

(01:16:29):
there will be another Keith rawn Eerie. Maybe it will
be someone who took some of his classes and does
it a little better and a little bigger. Maybe it'll
just be some other random guy. But or lady or
lady or lady with an i Q of two forty
and a judo championship when she was eleven, ye could
be Yeah, it would be nice for one of these

(01:16:51):
creepy cult leaders to be a lady soon. Well, Alice,
we got close, Alison Mac we've ever and I think, yeah, yeah,
and she's breaking barriers. She is. We didn't get a
lady president, but we got a lady co cult leader. Yeah.
Kind of the best part of it is that she
cited Hillary Clinton in her like yeah, women Row hashtag

(01:17:15):
girl power. Yeah, interview badass bitches, you know do stuff. Man,
this makes me so disenchanted with pop feminism and the
way we talk about feminism now, Like, yeah, bad bitches,
we got this girls stick together. Jenner as a construct,
it's not real. That's how I feel, well how he

(01:17:36):
feels too. Yeah. My big thing like, always be scared
of slogans. If somebody tells you you're a warrior a
bunch of times, they're probably lying to you to get
you to do something. For Uh, if somebody tells you
you're a badass and you're not doing anything badass or
the thing that you're doing is just letting someone hurt you, Yeah,

(01:17:56):
then get the funk out. Yeah. Be afraid of catchy
slogans that make you feel cool, because when people try
to make you feel cool, they're trying to get you
to do something. Definitely, and to realize that these kinds
of people are not as obvious as we think from

(01:18:17):
the outside. Man, I feel bad for bringing UCB into this. Yeah,
I don't think you used to be. If you're listening,
you guys are fine. Yeah, you do great shows, the
Aspennies Classic unless we find out that Alison mac secretly
the force behind all comedy theaters. That's entirely possible. Yeah, no,

(01:18:41):
one's disproved it. I do want to say that while
you shouldn't trust anyone who calls you a badass, I
think you are all badasses for listening to my show.
So please download it and buy products that we advertise.
This has been great and deeply unsettling good. That's what
we shoot for here. You want to plug your things? Yeah. Um,
I'm Anna and I am on Instagram. I make a

(01:19:05):
web comic about things that make me sad but also cheese.
It's called Bad Comics with an X by Anna with
two ends. Uh and I'm also bad Comics by Anna
on Twitter. Tweet at me. I'm currently in a feud
with my uh nemesis and also boyfriend edgar Mon Plazier.

(01:19:25):
I'm always looking for support because I drag him on
Twitter a lot, so feel free to support me. Excellent.
Uh and I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on
Twitter at I write okay to letters. I don't currently
have any enemies, but if you would like to be
my enemy, I am auditioning them. I've got a book
called a Brief History of Ice you can find on Amazon.
I also show up on the game Fully Employed podcast

(01:19:46):
network stuff, so check them out. Uh. Now you can
find Behind the Bastards online Behind the Bastards dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at at Bastard's pod our.
Twitter also does not have an enemy, so you know
you're welcome to do that to. Uh. This has been
Behind the Bastards. We're back every Tuesday, and we will
be back next Tuesday. We get another bastard, so check

(01:20:09):
us out. H h h h h

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