There has been much debate of late as to whether Allison Mack should be regarded more as a perpetrator or a victim (I suppose that in some sense, every “Master” in DOS probably could be considered a combination of the two).
To help sort this out, we’re going to go back and revisit the testimony of Nicole and Jaye – two of the women that were part of Allison’s slave pod.
We’ll start tonight with Nicole.
*****
To refresh everyone’s memory, here are a few pertinent facts about Nicole:
– She’s 31 years old.
– She grew up in Northern California.
– She’s a middle child – with an older sister and a younger brother.
– She attended summer acting schools throughout the time she was growing up.
– She attended college for one year – and then moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.
– She decided to move to New York City in 2015.
– One of her ex-boyfriends, Mark Hildreth, told her about an acting program called “The Source” – and encouraged her to sign up for the 5-week course.
– She did so – and borrowed the money for the tuition from her parents.
*****
The Source & V-Week 2015
Allison Mack was the host for “The Source” classes.
And Keith Raniere AKA Vanguard appeared in all the training videos that were shown throughout the course.
After she completed the program and moved to New York City, Nicole was invited to attend V-Week 2015.
She did so – and ended up sharing a room with Allison and Rebecca (Because there were only two beds in the room, she ended up sleeping with Allison).
One of her primary recollections from V-Week is how often Nancy Salzman referred to as Keith Raniere as “…the smartest man in the world”.
As she described it, that was “…weird because how would you know who the smartest man in the world is? And anyone who says that — it just sounds like bullshit to me”.
The courtroom erupted in laughter.
*****
Part 2 Of “The Source” – And Allison To The Rescue
Allison and Nicole stayed in touch after V-Week 2015 – and Allison convinced her to take Part 2 of the “The Source” in October 2015. Allison even lent her $4,000 to cover the tuition.
Eventually, Nicole became a teacher of classes for “The Source”.
But Nicole was struggling as she tried to adapt to her new life in New York City – and by February 2016, she sent an email to Nicole in which she says that she’s thinking very seriously about committing suicide.
Allison immediately came down to New York City to comfort Nicole – and to encourage her to become a member of DOS.
Allison told her DOS “… did not have anything to do with NXIVM”.
Allison also talked Nicole into providing “collateral” so that she could become a member of DOS.
For her collateral, Nicole handed over several letters that implicated her parents in a series of crimes.
Nicole described her understanding of DOS as follows: “A women’s mentorship where Allison would mentor me in life and that was going to, like, push me into my fears so that I could build the kind of career that I wanted and become the kind of woman that I wanted to be; that it was a secret, I wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but that it was – like, it was a women’s organization that also – that the women were pushing through their fears to be strong and build the life they wanted to build so that they could help people”.
Allison never mentioned to Nicole that Keith Raniere was the ultimate head of DOS.
Had she done so, Nicole said she would never have joined the organization.
Allison gave Nicole her first “assignment” as a DOS slave – which was to stop having sex with Mark Hildreth.
Her next assignment was “…to be celibate for three months” – which she also agreed to do.
*****
Quitting DOS IS Not An Option – And Nicole’s Next Assignment Is Contacting Keith Raniere
Eventually, Nicole decided that DOS was not for her – and she told Allison that she was quitting the group.
Allison immediately told her that “…wasn’t an option”.
She also told Nicole that if she ever left DOS, her collateral would be released.
Allison then gave Nicole her second assignment – which was to contact Keith Raniere and get him to respond to her.
After several futile attempts, Nicole eventually got Raniere to respond.
Raniere’s response is one of his classic word salad/ Chinese fortune cookie/bullshit/deep-thought messages: “True freedom in the physical world comes from absolute commitment to a principal (sic) with no tolerance for excuses or an out, escape. Only then do we find freedom does not depend on being able to do what we want; it depends on not being able to do what we want yet still experiencing self. Love is only measured through pain. Our ability to feel human pain determines the depth and strength of our love”.
[Not surprisingly, Raniere didn’t even know the difference between a “principal” and a “principle” – which, given his 2.26 college GPA, isn’t all that surprising].
*****
So, let’s see what we’ve learned so far about Allison Mack.
She’s an actor who walked away from her career in order to become involved with Keith Raniere and his Rational Inquiry
training program.
She started a new program to train wannabe actors called “The Source”.
She responded to a potentially suicidal woman by recruiting her to become a member of DOS.
She threatened to release Nicole’s initial collateral when Nicole announced that she wanted to quit DOS.
And she targeted Nicole to be another of Keith Raniere’s sexual conquests.
What a peach of a gal Allison is
And we haven’t gotten to the really good stuff yet…
In our next posts in the series we will actually delve into the real testimony on Allison Mack and you can judge for yourself whether she is a victim or a perpetrator – or possibly both.