By Shivani
Sometimes it seems like Keith Raniere was really just Madam Nancy Salzman’s long-term project, German shepherd show dog, battering ram. She was willing to compromise anyone, including two who came out of her womb, to achieve some form of grotesque overall status and dominance, as if people were merchandise or her personal “assets.” She used people’s vulnerability and even their idealism to bargain against them psychologically and to do harm, all the while maintaining an image as though she was actually qualified to be a leader and was acting as a generous and benevolent guide. She was very invested in being seen as superior, uncontestable, perfect, being the star, with Raniere as the supposed silver lining, the bait.
Did Nancy Salzman take advantage of Raniere’s evil ways?
Raniere has been diabolical but he cannot even recognize the inner madnesses driving him. Nancy Salzman has been consciously and deliberately taking advantage of these dynamics for a generation. It’s sickening. Her utter hypocrisy and the harm which she has done to one person after another won’t be erased by an ankle monitor or by a prison sentence.
And it has all been for her own false glorification and for profit. One wonders how honest Nancy Salzman has been or ever will be, with herself. She will have to be ready to examine and to shred her own character and motivations. Does she have the courage to be honest with herself?
Will Nancy Salzman be able to unearth the honesty that it is going to take her, to be able to tap into enough courage of the heart and of the mind…to really help herself? It is up to her. So far she has a rotten track record.
Salzman is at least in her mid-sixties and is in similar straits as a witch who has been kicked out of town. She has claimed to be against Raniere now and wants people to assume that Raniere deceived her for all of these years. Bullshit. Nancy was not even deceiving herself about his or her motivations. Her big illusion has been her NEED to be queen, regardless of the cost of her lording it over anyone whom she could fool.
The problem with this attempt to salvage or to revamp her image is that a whole lot of the rest of the human race were not born yesterday. Nancy Salzman is a type of foulness, the opposite of a loving mother or woman, but she is also a type of individual who has been behaving in a pattern of recognizable behavior, which has been seen and studied before, and in many, many instances. Nancy might not be able to see “her” pattern, her choices in life. She is going to learn, though. One way or another.
As a woman, as a mama and grandma, it is almost (for me) impossible to view Nancy Salzman’s actions with calm detachment. The precious trust, the sweetness and the hopes of people seem to have meant nothing to her. Rather than serving anyone, those whom Nancy PRETENDED to be serving or trying to “help,” now are still trying to recover. From her usury and from her abuse, many are still contending with a loss of balance, as well as with a severance of trust.
Really, it looks as though only a fool could trust Nancy Salzman now that she is, at least partially, exposed for who she really has been all along. The monster “wife” behind the Shogun of self-destruction.
Salzman: monster “wife” behind the Shogun of self-destruction?
MK10ART’s The Three Faces of Nancy Salzman.
