Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM

Today’s post is on Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman. It is 321 pages long and is published by Steer Forth Press. The cover is a picture of a road with a washed out house on the left side. The intended reader is someone who is interested in true crime, cults, and women’s survival stories. There is foul language, sex, sexuality, rape, and violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- They draw you in with the promise of empowerment, self-discovery, women helping women. The more secretive those connections are, the more exclusive you feel. Little did you know, you just joined a cult.

Sex trafficking. Self-help coaching. Forced labour. Mentorship. Multi-level marketing. Gaslighting. Investigative journalist Sarah Berman explores the shocking practices of NXIVM, a global organization run by Keith Raniere and his high-profile enablers (Seagram heir Clare Bronfman; Smallville actor Allison Mack; Battlestar Galactica actor Nicki Clyne). Through the accounts of central NXIVM figures, Berman unravels how young women seeking creative coaching and networking opportunities found themselves blackmailed, literally branded, near-starved, and enslaved. With the help of the Bronfman fortune Raniere built a wall of silence around these abuses, leveraging the legal system to go after enemies and whistleblowers.

Don't Call It a Cult shows that these abuses looked very different from the inside, where young women initially received mentorship and protection. Don't Call It a Cult is a riveting account of NXIVM's rise to power, its ability to evade prosecution for decades, and the investigation that finally revealed its dark secrets to the world. It explores why so many were drawn to its message of empowerment yet could not recognize its manipulative and harmful leader for what he was—a criminal.

Review- A well-written if horrifying book about a cult that almost got away with everything from blackmail to sex trafficking's. Berman, as an investigative journalist, can get access to the former members of NXIVM and they are more than willing to talk to her about everything they survived. At times this is a very hard book to read because Berman makes it so clear that anyone  could be these women. Keith Raniere studied other cults and MLM practices to perfect his art and for more than twenty years, it worked just fine. But like many cult leaders before him, Raniere thought he was untouchable. He began to push the inner circle of women too far and everything he worked for came down. Berman’s notes are an excellent resource at the end of the book.  I would recommend this book if you are interested in cults or just want to know about NXIVM in particular. 

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.