The Youtube video is down. Raniere took it down at the request of Park after I broke the branding story.
Happily, before the videos were taken down, I took the liberty of copying them.
Clik here to view.
There are several hours of interviews with Park. And when I get a chance, I will go through them and perhaps post some of the most poignant moments. I am not interested in embarrassing Park – now that Raniere is convicted. Indeed, I had asked her to help me take him down when we were in the thick of the fight – before the FBI investigation and before the New York Times story.
She politely declined.
For now, I just want to print a few words that the lordly one said about himself. This is important not so much because we need to know more about Raniere to stop him, for he is finished. All that remains for him is for the judge to sentence him to a virtual or actual life sentence. The soon-to-be 59-year-old Raniere cannot get less than 15 years for just one of his charges, sex trafficking – and he has numerous other felony counts.
The reason it is important to hear his words, in my opinion, is that there are others like Raniere out there who are currently preying on gullible followers and using these followers to persuade others to follow.
Raniere’s method was to teach that he was sublime and supreme; that you should stop thinking for yourself, stop being independent, and start obeying – for your own sake.
And it began and ended with self acclamation, something Raniere was good at – bragging about himself.
In the interview with Park, Raniere said: “I did things very early. I spoke very early. I had some really deep, profound thoughts at an early age.”
Here the fool is trying to brag about his intellect from an early age. He has said in his bio that he started speaking deep thoughts at age one. He wants Park and the viewers to realize he is supremely intelligent, that he was always intelligent, far more so than any other child. He is not teaching you how to become intelligent. He is declaring his intelligence is rare. So, you should follow and listen to him.
Next, he talks about what a great heart he has.
Raniere: “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.”
It is easy to mock this. For he cared so much about pets and inanimate things, but not much about women whom he starved, branded, blackmailed, punished and fleeced. But there is a deeper point: This rascal is trying to convince his audience [and Park] that he is very empathetic. He even cares about pets, toys, inanimate things. He is preaching about his great heart.
He speaks about his concern for a toy.
Raniere tells how in first grade in Brooklyn, the children in his class were required to bring one of their used toys for a fundraising sale.
Raniere says, “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.”
Raniere made himself the hero of his toy sale. It was almost certainly meant to evoke a reaction of “He even cared about little toys.”
He neglects to mention that as a child, his father had a good income and that he had a generous allowance and that his parents would buy him expensive toys and gifts and pets – on demand.
The point of his story is [and it may not be even true] is that he cares – he personalized his little toy and he knew no one could ever love his toy as much as he did.
His toy could never be with a better person than himself – so he rescued his toy.
The lesson here, I think, is more than one of bad manners – this desire to brag about oneself is common even among people who do not aspire to lead a cult. I think the lesson here is to beware of anyone who speaks of his own intelligence or compassion – and then wants you to do what that person says because of their superior intelligence.
But Raniere was selling the idea that he was a great soul, a supreme mind and people should want to hear about him, much like they would, if only they could, know more of the details of the young Jesus.
Raniere next spoke about how “very early on” his desire for getting Christmas and birthday presents lessened, He said, “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.”
This is coming from a man who had fuck toys and sex slaves.
He claimed to have been a 10-year-old who saw through the vanity of toys. He worked the whole summer for a trip to the toy store and then saw through the need to possess toys.
Raniere claims that at the age of 12, he had a recognition that “the only thing that mattered really in life was … why I like this and why I dislike that.”
He said, “The other day I was at Clare’s [Bronfman] 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 car and nothing about the sound at all was annoying. I went through a number of things in that exploration. Now when I hear a sound like that it brings back the car. It’s really great.”
If any of the stories are true, they are not terribly unusual. In many ways, he seems like a boring child.
He cared about a toy he already owned and did not want anyone else to havel. Later, he did not care to possess anything a toy store had for sale.
He made an obnoxious sound pleasant to himself.
The man is a bore, true. But a dangerous bore.