By AnonyMaker
This is in response to Ain’t Nobody Gonna Worship Legatus, That’s for Damn Sure
A good point was made that NXIVM has lost its charismatic and revered leader, Keith Raniere.
Frank’s piece about Raniere’s hagiography gets to the importance in the dynamics of these types of groups, of having a guru who can be put on a pedestal – and that there aren’t any good candidates to take over the role and keep things going.
There might be [redacted] in one Mexican center.
But my guess is that [redacted]’s more likely to just take any remaining followers in some new direction – and that way he gets to be the leader himself, and doesn’t have to send money “upline.”
That points to another problem that hasn’t been considered with respect to how NXIVM might carry on, if at all.
In other examples, such as Scientology, there’s often long-simmering resentment about upper-level management that seems to be misguided and greedy (typically those around the guru are assumed to be to blame, even though the top figure was actually responsible), and so there may be more of an impetus for remaining die-hards to splinter off.
When Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard passed away, there were fights for control of Scientology and the losers splintered off into new groups.
The remaining, dedicated members are stuck with the problem of trying to rationalize some effort to hang on to the “good”.
Scapegoating the Albany-based headquarters would provide a way to lay blame without questioning the “tech” itself (a similar dynamic is often at work in Scientology splinter groups).
Alejandro Betancourt, Nancy Salzman and Emiliano Salinas toast the wonder that is Keith Raniere and his creation – Nxivm.
Plus there’s also currently the problem of rights to use NXIVM’s intellectual property, which has been seized by the government.
[The US government has moved to seize First Principles LLC which reputedly owns or controls the Nxivm tech].
I’m not sure how, if at all, that affects things in Mexico. Ultimately, I expect that Clare Bronfman may buy the rights back, unless she undergoes a jailhouse conversion to some other sect, but, as we see here, a scenario that ends up with her in charge is not exactly promising.
Marie White’s A Glimpse of Clare Bronfman.
