This is an interview I conducted in February 2016, more than two years before Keith Raniere was arrested and more than a year before I broke the DOS story.
At the time, I was looking for anything I could find out about Raniere. People were starting to come to me and giving me information.
Numerous former harem members contacted me. Here is what one harem member, who asked not to be named, had to say. In retrospect, considering how much she said that was novel then, but later proven to be true, it makes this a very interesting read.
At the time of the interview, Keith was at the top of his game. Many of his enemies were indicted, – John Tighe, Joe O’Hara, Barbara Bouchey, Toni Natalie, and myself. Jim Odato had been sued and resigned. No other media was writing about him.
He had already started DOS; he had numerous sex slaves – which, at the time, was still a secret. He had the heiresses at his beck and call and lived the life of total satiation. He even had a 10-day birthday celebration later that year where more than 450 attended, most of them paying more than $2,000 to be there. Life was good. I was the sole voice against him. And a harem member dares to speak out against him, telling me the following:
By a Harem Member
What Keith does sometimes may seem foolish and idiotic, but it is genius.
It is such a brilliant psychological entrapment. It’s hypnosis. It is evil. You can’t imagine what he can do. He spent his whole life studying subliminal suggestion. The harem [members] really are brainwashed and once the spell breaks, once you start to recapitulate, it is like a horror.
Then you know what his power is. You lost everything.
I believe what Keith does is all a distorted lie to harm people. It is like a mental rape. Intelligent people understand it. But the harem doesn’t question Keith.
They take what he says as truth and nobody evaluates their firsthand experience against what he says.
Nobody evaluates the [ex-harem] women who had close relationships with Keith who come forward [to tell their stories about Raniere] and the harem [members] all dismiss it and they take his word as fact, not opinion.
If they start to question anything Keith says as not to be a fact, Keith will systemically disrespect people behind their backs.
He sabotages them so disastrously to the whole organization behind their back that nobody believes anything they say. He did that to Barbara Bouchey for years [before she left]. She had no idea he was destroying her credibility for years.
He started right after the first time she objected to something. Then he started undermining her. As if he was planning in advance for her to go – setting up a plan that when she ultimately spoke against him, no one in his group would believe her. He had destroyed her credibility before she left. It is genius – but in an evil way.
Do I think he is a loving person? No, not in the way that I see love.
I think that he cares for things, for people, for concepts. The way I see love is personal. He is not loving. In every loving person when they see something wrong, there comes a point where loving overcomes the problem and everybody grows.
Keith’s method is a very black and white system of punishment. I don’t think he is loving. I don’t know what to call it. In his harem, they call it compassionate. But what good is it to understand a person if you don’t accept them? No, I don’t think he’s a loving person.
Is he a cruel person? Maybe I am biased because of my relationship with him. There are a lot of occasions where I would call his actions cruel. He would say things to me, attributing the wrong meanings of my beliefs or attributing wrong intentions of my actions – his misunderstanding – applied in the wrong way to make it appear as though something was wrong.
Keith is a dangerous guy in an unsuspecting way. I would not advise a woman to be in a relationship with him. I know he can be very charming in an intellectual way, but not in a romantic way. His way of living and treating women, what women get out of the relationship is not good. It is not good for a person to have to be “healed” in that way. I think he means to harm people. I think he is so radical in the way he has built his worldview, his ethics, his view of right and wrong. It is so black and white. It can be very hurtful to people around him.
Of course, none of the black and white rules apply to himself: those very punishing, very cause-and-effect punishments apply to other people, not him.
Other people might have to spend years in their room like Daniela to make things right, or like Ivy might have to grow their hair long, do any kind of activities to pay for their supposed offense – – even if they are ridiculous in the extreme.
But none of this applies to him. That is why it is very unhealthy for someone to associate with him: he is someone who does not see himself like any other person.
He is above you and that is – in his hands – since he is cruel and not loving – a recipe for disaster.
