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• Cult Capitalism
• Lyra Walsh Fuchs (bio)

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Ex-NXIVM member Sarah Edmondson holds one of the colored sashes that she earned while ascending the ranks of the cult. (Warner Media/courtesy of HBO)

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In October 2017, the New York Times broke the news that NXIVM, an Albany-based company that peddled self-help and professional success courses, contained a secret women’s group that branded its members in a painful ceremony. “For hours muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room,” the Times reported, as a leader’s initials were carved into the women’s skin. The branding, it turns out, was the tip of the iceberg. Several of NXIVM’s inner circle now face prosecution for an array of garish crimes. As the court cases unfold, interest in the company and its downfall has proliferated, resulting in several front-page investigations, two documentary television shows, a hit pod-cast series, multiple made-for-TV movies, and several tell-all memoirs. The Vow, an HBO series that first aired last summer, garnered the most attention; it attempted to relate what it was about the group that appealed to so many. Seduced, which broadcast a few months later, focused on one young survivor’s story and provided revelations about abuses that were glaringly absent from The Vow.

Commentators seeking to understand how things got so bad inside NXIVM often gesture toward QAnon and our larger conspiratorial moment. “As dangerous conspiracy theories rise to shocking prominence in American life,” a review in the Times reads, “‘The Vow’ examines why people are so primed to fall for the kind of tempting but perilous psychological traps that skilled manipulators use to lure and catch their idealistic prey.” But there’s less to this parallel than first appears. QAnon projects a shadowy otherworld upon the one we live in, translating decades of moral panic into anti-government rabidity and hoping for an apocalyptic rupture. NXIVM, with its focus on networking and professional success, promised to help its adherents better themselves—and thus the world. Its perilous psychological traps, in other words, are not outliers but, rather, all around us.

In a video advertising NXIVM that appears in The Vow, actor and higher-up Allison Mack waxes rapturous on the revolutionary potential of empathy: “If we actually understood compassion the world would be a much better place. Not even the world. Like .003 percent of the world, if they could just have a little dose of love, everything would change. Everything.” Former NXVIM propaganda master Mark Vicente doubles down on this philosophy later in the series. “The only sustainable way to change a society,” he says, “is if the wealthiest, most powerful people meet with this education and this will trickle down to everything else.” It’s a theory of change similar to what Tressie McMillan Cottom calls “trickle-down feminism,” in which wealthy women, correctly diagnosing that the world is full of injustice, posit that their own success and happiness will benefit all others that are oppressed. They can “make the world a better place”—a phrase that litters NXIVM [End Page 7] media—while furthering, rather than threatening, their status.

Mack and Vicente’s theories about empathy would not sound out of place coming from the CEO of any wellness start-up or Silicon Valley consultancy. In that familiarity lies the secret to understanding NXIVM: how its members slipped from the apparently innocent pursuit of professional success to facilitating and enduring horrific wrongs, and how its leader Keith Raniere was, for a time, able to shape a persona of innovative brilliance.

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NXIVM was founded in 1998, when Raniere, fresh out of things to do after an earlier pyramid scheme was shut down by the State of New York, met Nancy Salzman, a nurse and self-professed hypnotist. Together they created a self-improvement course called Executive Success Programs (ESP). ESP combined cognitive-behavioral therapy with group therapy and a sprinkling of Steiner seminars, Ayn Rand, pop psychoanalysis, and Scientololgy. Hardly anything in NXIVM was original, but the course was styled as the expression of Raniere’s unique genius. Committed adherents progressed...

中文翻译：

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邪教资本主义

代替摘要，这里是内容的简要摘录：

• 邪教资本主义
• 天琴座沃尔什·福克斯（生物学）

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前NXIVM成员莎拉·埃德蒙森（Sarah Edmondson）拥有她在提升邪教队伍时获得的彩色腰带之一。（华纳媒体/ HBO提供）

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2017年10月，《纽约时报》爆料称，总部位于奥尔巴尼的NXIVM公司兜售自助和专业成功课程，其中包括一个秘密的妇女团体，在痛苦的仪式上为其成员打上烙印。《纽约时报》报道：“长达数小时的低沉尖叫声和燃烧的组织气味弥漫整个房间，”这位领导人的姓名缩写刻在妇女的皮肤上。事实证明，品牌只是冰山一角。NXIVM的几个内部圈子现在因一系列轻罪被起诉。随着法院案件的展开，对公司及其倒闭的兴趣激增，导致进行了几次头版调查，两次纪录片电视节目，一部热门播客连续剧，多部为电视制作的电影以及几本通俗易懂的回忆录。誓言，是去年夏天首次播出的HBO系列，获得了最多的关注；它试图将吸引这么多人的群体的含义与之联系起来。几个月后播出的《诱惑》（Seduced）着重讲述了一位年轻幸存者的故事，并揭示了《誓言》（The Vow）中明显缺乏的虐待行为。

试图了解NXIVM内部情况如何变得如此糟糕的评论员经常向QAnon和我们更大的阴谋时刻示意。“随着危险的阴谋论在美国生活中引起人们的关注，”《泰晤士报》评论写道：“《誓言》探讨了为什么人们如此诱人地陷入那种诱人却危险的心理陷阱，熟练的机械手用来吸引和捕捉理想主义的猎物。” 但是，这种并行性要比第一次出现的要少。QAnon在我们所生活的世界上投射了一个阴暗的异世界，将数十年的道德恐慌转化为反政府的狂热，并希望世界末日破裂。NXIVM致力于网络和专业上的成功，承诺将帮助其拥护者更好地改善自己，从而改善整个世界。换句话说，它的危险心理陷阱不是离群值，而是我们周围的人。

在出现在视频广告NXIVM誓言，演员和上流社会人士艾里森·麦克（Allison Mack）对移情的革命潜力赞不绝口：“如果我们真正了解同情心，那么世界将会变得更加美好。甚至没有这个世界。就像世界上0.003％的人口一样，如果他们只有一点点的爱，一切都会改变。一切。” NXVIM的前宣传大师Mark Vicente在本系列的稍后版本中将这一哲学加倍了。他说：“改变社会的唯一可持续方法是，如果最富有，最有权力的人接受这种教育，这将滴滴涕带到其他一切。” 这是一种变革理论，类似于特雷西·麦克米兰（Tressie McMillan Cottom）所说的“ tri脚的女权主义”，其中富有的女性正确地诊断出世界充满了不公正，并认为自己的成功和幸福会使受压迫的所有人受益。[结束第7页]媒体-在促进而不是威胁其地位的同时。

马克和维森特关于同理心的理论听起来并不是来自任何一家健康初创公司或硅谷咨询公司的首席执行官。在熟悉中，这是理解NXIVM的秘诀：其成员如何从表面上无辜的追求专业成功滑向促进和忍受可怕的错误，以及其领导者Keith Raniere曾经如何能够塑造创新才能。

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NXIVM成立于1998年，当时Raniere在纽约州关闭较早的金字塔计划后一无所获，遇到了一名护士和自称是催眠师的Nancy Salzman。他们共同创建了一个名为“执行成功计划”（ESP）的自我完善课程。ESP将认知行为疗法与团体疗法相结合，并结合了一些Steiner研讨会，Ayn Rand，流行心理分析和科学科学。NXIVM中几乎没有任何东西是原创的，但是该课程的风格是Raniere独特天才的表达。忠实的信徒进展顺利...