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Who was Nancy Salzman and how powerful was she in the NXIVM cult? Discover Keith Raniere's co-founder and the brainwashing programs she created.

NXIVM recruiter Nancy Salzman has pleaded guilty: What happens next?

Last year, former nurse and hypnotherapist Nancy Salzman pled guilty to racketeering in connection with NXIVM. Victims of NXIVM’s leadership describe NXIVM as a sex cult that brainwashed its victims and ran like a pyramid scheme. Like the NXIVM cult’s main founder Keith Raniere, Salzman is still awaiting sentencing. 

According to former members, NXIVM cult co-founder Nancy Salzman designed many of the courses meant to brainwash its members herself. However, until the premiere of The Vow’s first episode on HBO, no one knew who she was or about her contribution to NXIVM. Here’s what we know so far. 

NXIVM’s mission

NXIVM formed in the 1990s with the stated mission of “building a better world.” Their full mission statement was a twelve-point oath recited by members where they promised to rid themselves of “all parasitic and envy-based habits.” This would apparently allow them to use their wealth wisely, for themselves and the world. 

The full NXIVM cult vow seems innocuous enough. It reads like any other New Age-inspired text about taking radical responsibility for one’s actions and raising oneself to a higher vibration. However, the second point sticks out: “There are no ultimate victims; therefore, I will not choose to be a victim.” 

Given the NXIVM cult’s history of victimizing members through sexual exploitation and financial abuse, the point reads more like gaslighting than an innocent attempt to empower members. 

Nancy Salzman’s program developments

Nancy Salzman was a hypnotist before she co-founded NXIVM with Keith Raniere. In 1997, Nancy Salzman founded ESP, the Executive Success Program. The techniques she employed were marketed as “self-improvement,” and thousands of wealthy people signed up, including famous actors. 

However, in 2002, articles began appearing criticizing Nancy Salzman’s methods. Part of NXIVM’s training used tactics like “rational inquiry,” which trained members to gain higher understandings by “rationalizing” their more basic wants. Later that year and in 2003, Vanity Fair and Forbes would publish articles critical of NXIVM. 

Cult experts and a psychiatrist described NXIVM’s programs as “expensive brainwashing.” Psychiatrist Rick Ross was one of the first people to decry Nancy Salzman’s tactics in a 2002 paper examining the techniques NXIVM used. Keith Raniere sued him for publishing the paper since he trademarked his programs. The legal battle would last until 2017. 

Testimony on Nancy Salzman’s programs

Ross testified to the jury during Keith Raniere’s trial that he believed the ESP program Salzman developed could cause great harm on a massive scale. Ross had been hired by the parents of an NXIVM member to extract and “deprogram” their adult children. It was one of over 500 cult deprogramming Ross conducted over his career. 

“It became clear to me that this was a personality-driven group defined by its leader — eerily reminiscent to Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard,” Ross told the jury at Keith Raniere’s trial. 

Nancy Salzman’s guilty plea

The criminal charges were brought after several victims came forward claiming Keith Raniere sexually abused them, branded his sigil on them with a pen, and extorted money from them. One victim even said NXIVM locked her in a room for two years for “non-compliance.” 

After investigations by journalists and police, Raniere was arrested in 2018 in Mexico. Shortly after, Nancy Salzman’s home was raided and she was arrested. She pled guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge in March 2019. The charge specifically outlined that Salzman hacked into emails to destroy evidence of NXIVM’s wrongdoing. 

“I justified them by saying that what we were doing was for the greater good,” she tearfully told the court during her plea. She apologized for the trouble she caused and to her daughter Lauren, who was a high-ranking member NXIVM. Lauren faced indictments for her role in DOS, NXIVM’s elite branch responsible for sex trafficking. 

Has Nancy Salzman been sentenced? 

Like other NXIVM cult members awaiting sentencing, Salzman’s sentence has been pushed back indefinitely. Like Keith Raniere’s second-in-command Allison Mack, her sentencing was scheduled for July. Mack’s sentencing was pushed back so her attorneys could gather evidence showing her “good character,” then again due to COVID. 

Salzman is at home with her daughter in New York while she awaits sentencing. Raniere is housed in a federal detention facility in Brooklyn while he awaits his sentence. 

Salzman could face up to forty-one months in jail and a $250,o00 fine. She is on a curfew which she asked to be lifted, and cannot have contact with anyone in NXIVM. The court denied her request to lift her curfew and remove her ankle bracelet but allowed her to contact one person from NXIVM, her daughter Lauren. 

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  • Keith Raniere should be housed in the same cell as “Toss Salad Man.” Further, he needs to be paddled and branded while he’s incarcerated.

    September 17, 2020
  • Saltzman, Raniere, Mack should all do a min 25 years. They should get 10 years each of every woman who was branded. No plea deals, especially for Salzman who knew exactly what she was doing.

    September 21, 2020
  • I second those comments! Especially after watching the first5 episodes of The Vow on HBO, what they did to all those people is sickening to say the least

    September 22, 2020
  • These are sick people who preyed on vulnerable people. Raniere is a sick puppy.

    September 28, 2020
  • Que injusto, y todo el dinero que esos dos robaron de la gente. No sólo con sus programas de porquería, sino también las varias demandas que sostuvieron con personas que abandonaron o huyeron de esa empresa. Muchas de esas víctimas se tuvieron que declararse en quiebra.

    October 7, 2020
  • It’s amazing that this women has dedicated years and years to illegally manipulating and destroying hundreds, maybe thousands, of people’s lives and she will do time better measured in months than years.

    October 7, 2020
    • I agree! To me she and the Bronfman sisters belong right next to him. Shame on them all!

      October 24, 2020
  • The thought they were doing good . Unlocking the mind . Helping people . The people Who need to be locked up are the friends Who went to the feds

    October 13, 2020
    • They deserve medals for bravery and taking responsibility. Not letting fear overtake them or limit them. Isn’t that what this inferior complex if a little man, Who was bullied, thought he was victimized by girls since he was a little boy and who HATES WOMEN. Anyone who does all he did was never the intention to empower women. Like he said in one of his seasons, men just was to have sex with them.

      October 13, 2020
    • I guess that we can tell who the “brainwashed one“ is here! Sucking away people’s money with promises of well being and riches is a CRIME! And the people that ran this phony organization ‘new exactly what they were doing! WAKE UP!

      October 17, 2020
    • Well, that’s NUTS, in my opinion. KUDOS to those who called the authorities and/or the press that exposed this entity which is being called a cult.

      I believe that Jim Jones began with good intention, however…

      October 26, 2020
    • Yes; well, you should line up for a branding then.

      October 27, 2020
    • They should have went to the feds earlier, but doing good, not!! They weren’t thinking at all.

      November 6, 2020
  • Sad to see how women can let themselves be used and abused. I find it funny that these people believe all the crap that was fed to them. As I watch The Vow and listen to this man, he makes no sense in what he says. Then I see these women crying and hanging on to his every stupid word this man was saying, honestly I had to laugh in anger. Are we so lost as a society that we are willing to let someone take advantage of you just to feel something. To those who still follow this idiot, you need help more than you realize. All who cheered this idiot on, well now cheer him straight to life in prison and from there to hell. How is that helping you? To can get your life back.

    October 13, 2020
  • Really wanna see how the Starz docuseries plays out, feels like Nancy’s role in NXVIM goes much deeper than her charges and plea. With a background like hers, it’s odd that The Vow didn’t cover her more. Maybe in season 2?

    October 19, 2020
  • Notice that no-one in this madness was from Brooklyn or Queens. They are too smart and see through all of his mindless, double talk in circles bullsh*t. Absurd. Have a nice life in Terra-Haute.

    October 24, 2020
    • Raniere was from Brooklyn goofball.

      October 28, 2020
  • Hopefully Raniere will be some big guy’s little bitch in prison!

    October 26, 2020
    • Oh, he will. Guys like that do what they need to “thrive” in prison environments.

      October 27, 2020
  • Hopefully he doesn’t convert a bunch of gullible inmates. That would be crazy. All running around like zombies. 🤪

    November 9, 2020
  • Kiedy piszesz historie swojego zycia, nie pozwll, aby ktos inny trzymal pilro

    November 30, 2020
  • Wszyscy umrzemy. Celem nie jest zyc wiecznie, celem jest stworzyc cos, co bedzie zylo. – Chuck Palahniuk

    November 30, 2020

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