In an interview with what appears to be a female devotee, identified as Grace Park, Keith Raniere, AKA Vanguard, talks about a favorite topic – his amazing childhood.
Raniere youtube an odd type of intelligence early on
Raniere says, “I did things very early. I spoke very early. (at age one) I had some really deep profound thoughts at an early age .”
“I had a real almost like in a way it would be considered something odd but I had a very strong personification of even objects, pets, things like that. I was very concerned about the way they felt.”
Raniere illustrates his concern for his own toy by telling how in first grade in Brooklyn the children in class were all required to bring in a used toy for a fund raising sale.
“I brought my little toy and I bought my toy back … the reason I wanted it was in a way it was like rescuing the toy… that was how I felt about it. I didn’t care about normal things like that as a little kid.”
No Raniere knew his toy could never be with a better teacher than himself.
Raniere spoke about how “very early on” his desire for getting Christmas and birthday presents lessened, “rapidly that wasn’t so interesting to me.”
He was beyond the need for material things at such an early age.
At age 10, Raniere said he “worked for a whole summer to earn points go to the toy store” and “when it came time to collect I had a recognition that the toy store did not hold anything I really cared about. It’s not what interests me …there’s nothing there, it’s not where happiness comes from.”
So amazing, is’t it. A 10 year old who saw through the vanity of toys. He worked for the sake of working. He eschewed the need to be paid in toys, at such a young age too.
This is a very odd intelligence. A toyless boy. A boy beyond toys.
At age 12 Raniere had a recognition that “the only thing that mattered really in life was … why I like this and why I dislike that” and Raniere displayed his amazing profound ability to make things he disliked into things he liked at will, so strong a mind had he.
He said, “The other day I was at Clare’s house and there was a sound, a siren type of sound and most people were cringing and at the time I felt really good.”
Raniere explained, “it brought me back to this time when I was 12. One of the cars my father owned, my parents actually were separated and when you open the door…[Raniere makes a horn sound] and liked that bothered me so I sat there one day for like 20 minutes listening to the sound saying ‘why does this bother me?’ and then thinking of other sounds that I liked and attributing those feelings to the sound and things like ultimately really feeling a sense of that the sound reminded me of my father and my father’s a car and nothing about the sound at all was annoying — I went through a number of things nn that exploration. Now when I hear a sound like that it brings back that it brings back the car it’s really great…”
While all of his stories are meant to support his theory that he had an odd type of intelligence early on, if any of the stories are true, they are really not terribly odd or unusual and in many ways he seems like rather a boring little child.
That Raniere cared about a toy he already owned and did not want to sell; he did not care to possess toys his schoolmates or the toy store were selling; was able to make an obnoxious sound pleasant to himself, despite it being, at one time, annoying to him and typically annoying to others, is not proof of anything extraordinary. Indeed all children have unusual feelings about strange and odd things.
He doesn’t really seem to make the point. But perhaps readers will find a deeper more profound truth that I entirely missed.
