please other people<\/a> suddenly felt undone, as if she had bombed a test she hadn\u2019t known she was taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBack in the BMW, still shaken, she tried to ask why she was expected to come up with questions in the first place. \u201cHe\u2019s like the smartest man in the world,\u201d she was told. \u201cUsually when people meet the smartest man in the world, they may have questions.\u201d That did it. \u201cThen I do have a question,\u201d she said, demanding to return to the gym, even though it was now 3 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside, she tried again. \u201cI said, \u2018I thought of a question,\u2019\u201d Mack would later recall. Raniere made her wait an hour, to finish the volleyball game. But as he settled down beside her, the entire room descended to the floor around them. Cameras rolled because, as someone said, \u201cwe film everything Keith says because he\u2019s so brilliant.\u201d Mack asked, *What is art? * Raniere\u2019s response felt to her like a revelation. \u201cNo one had ever turned anything around \u2026 the idea that what I was seeing outside \u2026 was a reflection of me inside was like blew my mind.\u201d She felt \u201cdiscombobulated,\u201d \u201cdisoriented,\u201d as if \u201cthe ground was shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, that same need to please would find Mack in a much more sinister room. Gone were the bright courts and the thump of volleyball. In its place: a quiet house, a massage table, and low lights. \u201cIn a quiet house, one woman lays on a massage table,\u201d the host narrates. \u201cThe smell of singed human flesh is in the air.\u201d Women were being branded above the hipbone with a cautery pen, the fine point of burning metal pressed into skin until it \u201csizzles.\u201d These women were her \u201cslaves,\u201d the enslaved people of a modern-day cult. They were bound by oaths of loyalty, believing that they were joining a secret sisterhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The initials were those of the same man who had sat next to her on that gym bench, while a roomful of devotees formed a circle around them. Mack stood nearby, instructing, encouraging, and repeating the cycle she had once submitted to herself, as a twenty-year-old, when she let a boyfriend carve an initial into her chest after he said, \u201cIf you loved me, you would do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside NXIVM, Mack would later insist, she had believed she was helping. She believed she was guiding women toward the enlightenment that she herself had once pursued. Yet the moment she began to brand her slaves, the line between devotion and destruction snapped. Victims would later stand in court and shake with rage as they accused Mack of destroying lives, of being a monster. Mack sat \u201cstone faced\u201d through it all, she said, thinking only of her mother and brother behind her. \u201cI don\u2019t see myself as innocent,\u201d she later admitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Allison Mack\u2019s enlightenment did not come in a classroom, a seminar, or a self-help retreat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186664079,"featured_media":1163967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[603230776,603230771],"tags":[603230721,603230245],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[603229555],"class_list":["post-1163966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pop-culture","tag-cults","tag-true-crime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-9.24.37-AM.png","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186664079"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1163969,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163966\/revisions\/1163969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1163967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163966"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=1163966"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=1163966"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=1163966"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1163966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}