[Zimahl]

NVIXM wasn't as salacious of an organization as it has been portrayed in the media. It was a self-help organization. The leader was a loon, a non-monogamist, and built himself up as a pseudo-spiritual leader/guru. Not that it makes it right but the branding and the 'slavery' only occurred to a handful of women at the top of the organization. I don't think there was any 'sex trafficking'. Very few people saw the sexual stuff because only specific individuals were groomed to make it to that level.

The CBC produced a podcast[1] which talks with one of the women who was branded. What is intriguing is no one wants to talk bad about the teachings of the organization because they felt they got something positive out of it. But the crazy shit at the top is what crashed the organization.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/current-affairs-informatio...

[cat199]

> NVIXM wasn't as salacious of an organization as it has been portrayed in the media. It was a self-help organization. The leader was a loon, a non-monogamist, and built himself up as a pseudo-spiritual leader/guru. Not that it makes it right but the branding and the 'slavery' only occurred to a handful of women at the top of the organization.

And how exactly do you think a loon can pull off a sex slavery operation without having all of this tiered and staged brainwashing? Just go up to random people on the street and ask 'hey, I'd like to brand you and make you my sex slave, interested?'

[Zimahl]

You completely missed the point. Almost all of the NVIXM followers had no clue this stuff was going on at the very top of the organization. Yes, specific individuals were groomed to move up in the organization, but the leader wasn't grooming them for 'sex slavery'. The high-ups knew that the leader was non-monogamous and slept with women from the organization, but even the woman from the podcast who talks about being branded hadn't ever been approached by the leader.

The media just loved to jump on the 'sex cult' idea and then portrayed it as that's what it was. The branding had nothing to do with anything sexual - it was done as a 'sorority'-type initiation for the higher-up women. The slavery was also part of the 'sorority' and didn't really have anything to do with the leader.

Listen to the podcast and you'll understand.

[GauntletWizard]

You're the one who is not understanding here. All of this "nothing to do with anything sexual" grooming had one specific, simple goal: Make these women feel both powerful and powerless: That they had been chosen and been given gifts, and that their life would fall apart without the approval of their benefactors. These grooming behaviors can be leveraged into the salacious story that was NVIXM's downfall.

[liability]

And almost all scientologists don't/didn't know the volcano nukes story. Rather they were getting fed bullshit about self-improvement and hero-worship of their fraud 'guru'. That's how cults typically work, NVIXM was no different.

NVIXM was in fact a rum of the mill sex-cult and plenty of people were pointing it out 15+ years ago.

[rdtsc]

At first I thought it was kind of overblown but these people pleaded guilty to things like:

* Sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography

* Conspiracy to conceal and harbor illegal aliens for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification.

* Sex trafficking

* Attempted sex trafficking

* Trafficking for labor and services

* Conspiracy to alter records for use in an official proceeding

* Sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy

Yeah one can argue that US prosecution is overzealous and forces people to plead to stuff they are not guilty of. But I don't think it applies here as much. These are famous actresses and other wealthy people. They definitely have enough money for top lawyers.

[liability]

From self-describing as self-help to the 'guru' leader having a veritable harem, the whole thing was very typical of modern cults, which NVIXM has been widely considered as for years before the arrests.

[rdtsc]

> It was a self-help organization.

Of course. With some exceptions most cults are.

Do you see him approaching Allison Mack and saying "How about joining this cool organization where we'll brand you and then we'll have undocumented immigrant slaves doing labor for us, and produce blackmail and CP?". Of course it had to be some self-actualization or self-help bullshit.