On June 5, 2017, Frank Report broke the news of a secret sorority comprised of NXIVM women and secretly led by Keith Raniere called DOS. This story and a series of follow-up stories shut down DOS and soon afterward cratered NXIVM.
This led to a New York Times story that sparked worldwide interest and an FBI investigation that led to the arrest and conviction of six NXIVM leaders.
Before the Times story came out, NXIVM and DOS had only Frank Report to contend with, it being the only outlet writing about NXIVM and DOS from June 5 to the date of the Times story, Oct. 17, 2017. Then, all hell broke loose in the media. Five months later, NXIVM leader Keith Raniere was arrested,
The entire summer of 2017, however, saw only a small group of people feeding a single source, the Frank Report, information about DOS and NXIVM. The sources for DOS were Catherine Oxenberg, Sarah Edmondson, Mark Vicente, Bonnie Piesse, Anthony Ames, all of whom have been featured extensively on HBO’s docuseries, “The Vow,” and numerous other women who quit DOS and who came forward to tell their stories to Frank Report including Nicole, who testified at the trial of Raniere as a victim of sex trafficking.
During those summer months, Raniere, Clare Bronfman, Emiliano Salinas, Alex Betancourt and others in NXIVM actively worked to silence the opposition.
Lauren Salzman, a leader of DOS and Edmondson’s slavemaster, went around lying to rank and file NXIVM members, denying the truth that DOS existed and claiming that Frank Parlato made up the branding story. There were no brandings, she said to concerned NXIVM members, while wearing a brand herself on her pubic area.
When that failed, the DOS leaders tried another tact. Admit DOS existed, but deny Raniere’s role in it.
It was then said to be Allison Mack’s idea and that Raniere either knew nothing about it, or that he knew vaguely something about it, but because it was a women’s empowerment group, he chose not to weigh in since women should be in charge of their own sorority.
This was said by DOS women who knew full well that Raniere was the one and only leader of DOS, the ultimate master, who devised the entire DOS plan from branding to collateral.
At some point during the summer of 2017, the female leaders of DOS, its eight founding sisters or First Line Masters, wrote, possibly with Raniere’s editorial assistance and almost certainly with his approval, a Mission Statement.
They planned to publish this on a website about DOS. It was never published, the website never developed, quite possibly because Raniere did not approve.
DOS First-Line Masters, with their own master, Keith Raniere, in the center.
The following is the DOS Mission Statement, written in 2017, but not published:
Dominus
Obsequium
Sororum
(Master / Allegiance / Sisterhood)
We are a sorority of women seeking to bring out the best women can be, working together to become wise and principled. We are bonded by our shared values: strengthening our word and directing our will to better our lives and those of the people we love.
Despite material abundance, we live in a world where children starve to death. A great portion of humanity does not benefit from technological advances. Abuse and violence are still prominent in society. The world still utilizes war and killing as a means to resolve disputes. We believe this lack of humanity is wrong. This needs to change — and it starts with each one of us.
We, the women of the world, have a capacity to harmonize and work together that is underutilized. We have a keen ability to be empathetic and nurturing, and have a clear moral compass toward ecological living. Yet women have been kept as the weak and the protected, less able to deal with the world, reactive to male-dominated society. Our communities cannot truly evolve without the growth of its women.
For our communities, for our husbands, for our children, but mostly for ourselves, the women of our sisterhood make a solemn vow to become the best version of ourselves.
We believe discipline and accountability are key in our success. We practice discipline and accountability with each other. We believe humility and service build empathy and compassion. We practice humility and service with each other. We believe leadership and authority are needed to guide ourselves and others in authoring moral lives. We practice authority and leadership with each other. We do it in an environment that fosters connection and trust, and enables us to build the moral character the world needs.
We put our hearts, minds, and bodies in alignment toward creating our best selves, and we become empowered to uphold our families and our communities.
We uphold true freedom, which is earned through building self-reliance and a strong will. Only then can we live proactive, purposeful lives that allow for a principled existence.
Some women have broken their word and disclosed information about us that has been distorted in the most dishonorable of ways: twisting honor and nobility and presenting it as evil. This, we believe, is the worst of crimes, as it tarnishes goodness itself.
We reach out to you to put a stop to the destruction. May the freedom and honor of human spirit triumph over fear and hate; may the dishonor be exposed and devalued as such.
***
Would have it been better for the DOS first-line leaders to have published this Mission Statement on a website explaining their view of DOS? Would it have slowed the exodus of DOS and NXIVM members?
It certainly could not have been worse, and certainly no better than lying and denying. A true candid revelation that Raniere was atop this sorority would have been better still.
Best yet, and the probable reason for the downfall of everything, would have been for Raniere and Bronfman not to go after defectors. They tried to get Sarah Edmondson arrested in Vancouver, they tried to get Catherine and others arrested in Mexico. They threatened all the “escaped slaves” with legal measures, criminal and civil. They tried to have Mexican whistleblower Toni Zarattini arrested. And, of course, they continued their threats to me. It was a foolish mistake.
To their credit, there was no wholesale release of collateral. While Sarah’s branding video was released, to the best of my knowledge, nothing else was released to the public.
The Dossier Project, founded in 2021, by eight loyal members of the now-defunct DOS, first published the above Mission Statement
Th eight DOS women from the website DOSsierproject.com are not the same eight women who were the First Line Masters of DOS. Only Nicki Clyne was part of both.
Their introduction is as follows:
“In the summer of 2017, when false and defamatory information starting coming out in the media about DOS, the women in the “first line” intended to speak out. They were preparing to launch a website that detailed the essential information about DOS, and clarifying what it was, and what it wasn’t. They also wrote a Mission Statement for the organization that reflected its intent and purpose, and acknowledged the attacks. Below is this never-before-published statement in its raw form.”
So now that Frank Report readers have it in its raw form, what do you think? Would it have been better to have tried to explain what DOS was supposedly was instead of lying and trying to punish those who exposed it and opposed it?
It does seem that the Mission Statement, as written presumably by the women leaders of DOS, has a tone of sincerity to it. It may be that they thought that DOS had its advantageous side and truly believed in it.
It was deeply flawed, however, founded on lies and perhaps the bad intent of one man. The branding and the collateral were doomed to fail. Did the world’s smartest man not know that?
