‘The Vow’s Latest Episode Explores the Extent of Keith Raniere’s Abuse

Ever since it premiered HBO’s The Vow has given viewers a rarely seen guide to how regular people can become part of cults. But “The Dossier” offers a different look into these types of organizations. Episode 7 traces Keith Raniere’s beginnings, explaining how this formerly disgraced businessman came to one day lead a massive multilevel marketing company that would one day be accused of housing a sex cult.

Instead of following The Vow‘s typical collection of whistleblowers, the most compelling interviews in “The Dossier” come from a new source: Raniere’s ex-girlfriend Toni Natalie. It’s through her story that The Vow chronicles Raniere’s early forays into manipulation. Even more disturbingly their breakup uncovers just how powerful and vindictive this man could be.

Natalie and Raniere met while Raniere was the president of his first company, Consumer’s Buyline Inc. Natalie was a new member when she first met Raniere, and he treated her in a way that would echo how he recruited women into his inner circle. He brought Natalie into his office and talked to her for hours about her goals and inner life, using this intense conversation to manufacture intimacy and trust. “Keith and I had a bit of a different relationship. He wasn’t Vanguard. He was Keith. He was a businessman when I met him,” Natalie says in the documentary.

The now defunct Consumer’s Buyline Inc. asked its members to band together to increase their buying power. Then members would be able to purchase goods or services closer to wholesale prices, saving its members money. The company didn’t last long. In 1993 it was shut down in 20 states after an investigation; New York even filed a lawsuit claiming that Consumer’s Buyline Inc. was a pyramid scheme.

That’s the reputation Keith Raniere had when he first tried to found NXIVM. As Natalie recalls, when co-founder Nancy Salzman first started pitching investors on their new company NXIVM, she was approved on one condition: that Keith Raniere stay far away.

Natalie’s interviews paint Raniere as a snake oil salesman from day one. But it’s his personal attacks on her that are the most horrifying. According to Natalie, Raniere would often use her insecurity about her lack of formal education to manipulate her. This was one of the ways in which he used the contents of their deep conversations against the people around him. It was when Natalie was feeling her most vulnerable and inadequate that Raniere would pit her against the other women in his life, arguing that it was unfair for him to be tied down to one person. Polygamy would become another theme in Raniere’s life as DOS revolved around women in NXIVM recruiting and finding new women to sleep with Raniere.

Natalie was able to escape the abusive relationship but it came at a cost. Natalie alleges that after their breakup Raniere would constantly send her threatening notes that often referenced her death. But it was his followers that took the abuse to the next level. Raniere led NXIVM’s highest members to believe that Natalie was a threat to the organization. They would steal Natalie’s mail and use that information to cancel her children’s school and cause Natalie to miss bills. All of this was done under the belief these members were saving the organization they so loved. Instead of playing heroes the only thing these people were doing was torturing a woman in the midst of a breakup.

The Vow has done a remarkable job showing how people come to be involved in cults, but “The Dossier” is the first episode to examine the other side of this coin. It’s an episode that’s equally about its members and NXIVM’s casualties. Even when Toni Natalie is detailing the most horrific forms of abuse in her life, one thing is clear. This organization and its leader led to far more victims than most people understand.

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