The guest view below compares Keith Alan Raniere [born August 26, 1960] with William James Mitchell, Jr. (born July 16, 1965).
Readers unfamiliar with Mitchell or Raniere might want to know something about them and how their bios compare.
Mitchell is an American video game player who became a prominent restaurateur. Raniere was also an American video game player who rose to become the Vanguard of a life coaching group that achieved great fame.
In 1999, Mitchell became the first person to record a perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the arcade game, Pac-Man.
In 1983, Raniere told a TV news interviewer that he achieved a score of over 2 million on Pac-Man.
Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records recognized Mitchell as the holder of several records on classic video games including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.
Keith Raniere when he was a college student and player of the game Pac Man.
Raniere was listed in the 1989 Australian edition of the Guinness Book of Records for his high score on an IQ test.
A 2007 documentary, “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”, follows Mitchell’s attempts to maintain the highest score on Donkey Kong after being challenged by newcomer Steve Wiebe.
Two 2020 docuseries, The Vow and Seduced, and a 2019 documentary, The Lost Women of Nxivm, follow Raniere as the Vanguard and the challenges he faced from defectors, former lovers and even women who died mysteriously.
Mitchell’s records in Guinness and Twin Galaxies were disputed. His detractors said he used emulation software to falsify his high score. Both Twin Galaxies and Guinness invalided all of Mitchell’s records.
Raniere’s high IQ record was deemed to be dubious by the Guinness publishers, and they retired the category of “Highest IQ” the same year they published his record [1989], in part because Raniere’s IQ test was a take home test.
Some of Raniere’s other accomplishments have been disputed, such as his being an East Coast Judo Champion at age 11, a concert-level pianist at age 12, tying the New York State record for the 100 yard dash, and his having a net worth of $50 million by age 32. But those records still stand strong in the minds of his followers.
Mitchell successfully appealed to reverse the Guinness removals in June 2020. Twin Galaxies did not reverse their disqualifications, leading Mitchell to file defamation lawsuits against Twin Galaxies in 2020.
Raniere was involved in some 50 lawsuits against former followers, lovers, and business associates. Most of these were unsuccessful, but were often able to bankrupt the individual he was suing, which, his detractors say, was all he was trying to accomplish.
The US government successfully prosecuted Raniere on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and other crimes in 2019. He was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison in October 2020. Raniere is appealing the case to the US Appeals Court, seeking to reverse his conviction and get a new trial.
Mitchell’s family owns the Rickey’s restaurants in Hollywood, Florida, and Pembroke Pines, Florida, and he sells Rickey’s World Famous Hot Sauce.
Raniere still owns numerous patents, including one amazing patent that will show you if a person is a Luciferian. He also used to sell word salad to anyone who would listen.
Now that readers know a little about the two men, here is the guest view:
By WHS
This is in response to Key Questions for Raniere Supporter, Eduardo Asunsolo.
I think it’s a waste of time trying to convince a sycophant such as Eduardo Asunsolo. He thinks he is not brainwashed but it is possible for certain types of people to be manipulated and not realize it.
Derren Brown did a psychological experiment to show this in one of his TV series. Asunsolo is likely not even a truth seeker – which means it will take him a long time to realize the truth (possibly many years).
To understand what goes on, you don’t need to know anything about cults, just about how people can be influenced, and how narcissists (even psychopathic narcissists) behave to make people think that they are ‘great’.
Example: I see a lot of parallels between the case of Raniere and Billy Mitchell, who got notoriety in the “King of Kong” (it is a docudrama, some stuff was edited to imply certain things that are not correct), which is about high scores of the classic arcade game “Donkey Kong”.
When I watched it, I felt “This guy is a psychopath”. On the other hand, people who knew him personally usually told how he was positive, friendly, did things for charity, etc. – and they said Mitchell was portrayed as the villain in the film, but I saw the unfriendly jokes and facial expression that shows what he is actually like.
Pac Man is a video game that both Billy Mitchell and Keith Raniere excelled in.
About two years ago, it was also suggested that Mitchell is a liar who created fake performances via an emulator, and his behavior towards people in interviews during and after this process to find the truth, shows exactly what he is like.
I believe the positive experiences that people have of Mitchell come from him being a narcissist who wants to be idolized and seen as ‘the greatest’ and thus he spends time and effort on making people think that.
The whole story is very long and only interesting if you’re interested in old-style computer games and the technology involved in the evolution of computers and emulators, but I will point to a segment of a video with four people, 3 of whom initially supported Mitchell and thought the issues brought up were fake and that it was a witch hunt by people going after Mitchell because they didn’t like him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ww2ytE9758
One of them was simply interested in analyzing the facts and from knowing Mitchell’s friends tried to defend him, two others didn’t believe the accusations of fake performances or had a conspiracy theory to explain the criticism, but in the end, they all found out the truth. One of them took a long time to realize the truth, almost two years, still believing up to then that someone may have altered evidence until there was evidence that showed that to be impossible.
One of the persons who was a friend of Mitchell says at ca. 1:45:00:
“It’s unbelievable, I don’t get it, how there are certain people, now, a few people, who are so loyal to Bill. It’s like, I know they are smart enough to understand what the facts and the truth are of this situation. I don’t get it. They must think they are getting something out of it.”
Well, a combination of factors (including that many people disregard negative stories about their friends) may lead them to disregard evidence in both cases – both Mitchell and Raniere.
END OF GUEST VIEW
Editor’s note: While our guest view writer seems pretty convinced that Mitchell cheated to get his video game records, Frank Report neither endorses or rejects his view. Without reviewing the body of evidence concerning Mitchell’s disputed records, Frank Report is in no position to even attempt to judge the veracity of any claims.
Guinness restored Mitchell’s records, after removing them and Guinness may be the world’s leading judge of records.
The mere fact of the dispute however places a dark cloud on Mitchell’s reputation. He may always live under this shadow.
If Mitchell did indeed break the records, he has had a terrible injustice done to him. On the other hand, if he cheated to get his name in the record books, no amount of vindication or restoration will ever quiet his conscience and bring him the joy of honor and glory one gets from deserving success.
