April 15, 2022 • 45 mins
In this first part of Surviving a Sex Cult ft. Sylvie Lloyd, we learn about the “cult” called NXIUM: how Sylvie got involved, her first introduction to Keith, and how her reality was warped by his “teachings”. Sylvie was the first witness to testify against Keith: she shares the humiliating story behind the trial and why she’s stayed away from the media since. She also shares why she’s sharing her story with us and has a message for all victims.
Content Warning: Sexual Abuse
Sylvie Lloyd is now a mother to a beautiful baby girl. From ages 18-32, she was a member of NXIUM + DOS, described as “an American cult that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor and racketeering.” Her brain was molded by the teachings of the convicted Keith Reineire, and she was the first witness in the federal case. She is a powerful woman we can expect A LOT from in our lifetime.
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Edited by Houston Tilley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hm a no fio right. Even when time's gtheart
and feuck, you're in the ducusy. Just how beautiful laugh
can be. When you sophen your heart, you can find
(00:23):
star to fire to Seius Life. Welcome back to the
Truthius Life. It's your host, Lisa Ham and I'm humbled
and honored to bring you this conversation with Sylvie Lloyd,
ex member of an organization called Nexium and Doss, which
are often referred to as a cult or a sex cult.
(00:46):
I'm honored and humbled because Sylvie is one of us.
She's a listener of The Truthius Life, and she's also
an online friend of mine for a lot of years.
For most of our friendship, I actually didn't know that
she had any affiliation to Exium or Doss. It was
only when the documentaries started to come out that Sylvie
confided in me that she was part of this and
(01:07):
that she wanted to come on The Truthius Life to
share her story. Sylvie has not shared her story with
the media. She was not part of these documentaries. She's
not somebody that is trying to push anything on anybody.
She simply is here because she wants to heal, be
healed and heal other victims who may feel some of
(01:27):
the shame that she was left with. This is going
to be a two part episode, so expect one episode
this week and one the following. And in the first episode,
Sylvie's going to break down how she got involved with Nexium,
how she got pulled in, and in the second part,
we're going to hear about Doss, the sub organization often
referred to as the sex cult part of it that
(01:48):
she was also a part of. This may be the
first time that you're even hearing these words next Um
or DUSS. So just to orient you, Nextium is an
organization that was founded by Keith Ranieri, and Nexium was
under this guy's of being a self improvement, self development
program organization, and they offered classes and things like ESP.
ESP stands for Executive Success Programs, and these courses were
(02:12):
sold to you as if you want to better your life,
if you want to get more joy, be more successful,
take these courses. And at the time, a lot of
successful people were doing these programs. They were endorsed by billionaires,
they were endorsed by celebrities, and so when we understand
that they didn't have the label cult or we didn't
know that Keith was this bad man. We could understand
(02:34):
maybe how all of us were kind of susceptible to
being part of this if we were to learn about
it at the time. I at least know that somebody
who loves self development work courses programs, I feel like
I easily could have been pulled into these types of programs.
It's important to understand that people don't just join cults willingly.
There's often something that pulls them in and before they
(02:55):
know it, they're part of a cult. And to the
outside looking in, it might be really obvious, but the
inside looking out, there's so much mental manipulation and brainwashing
that has already happened that you defend it and you
protect it because it becomes your community and your knowing
and your beliefs. DOSS is the subgroup that started long
after next e Um, So a lot of people hear
(03:17):
the words next Sum and they just think sex cult
and they think that people just joined willingly. Sylvia was
a part of both Nexium and DOSS, and she's so
brave to tell her story. She's part of Nextium for
twelve years, ten years before DOSS even came to be,
and she was the first witness to testify against her neary.
Sylvie's now a new mom and truly one of the
(03:37):
most special people that I know. This episode is really
important and I hope that you listen with open ears
and an open heart as we really understand the psychology
of cults, how they begin, and how they affect people
long after they fall apart. And just as a little
content warning, the story does involve sexual abuse. Thank you
(03:57):
all for listening and supporting Sylvia. She's as her story.
As a reminder, this is going to be a two
part episode, so this week we'll hear all about Nexium
and how Sylvie became a part of it, and next
week we'll learn more about dust. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Sylvie.
I'm so excited to see you get a break from
(04:18):
momm ng with you, my first actual break. Yeah like this,
you have no help, right, Well, I mean I feel
like bad saying that that. Yeah, I look after her
full time. You're doing You're doing the most out there,
and it's been really fun to mom with you have
babies almost exactly the same age, and watch you really
(04:39):
step into this this new role. It's a big one
for you and for me, but really for you, I
feel like, well yeah, no, completely different and breath of
fresh air after sure. So today's episode is going to
be I think, really interesting for me and the listeners.
I know that this is probably scary to talk about
(05:01):
for all of our listeners. Sylvie and I have had
pre calls before, so that I can, you know, better
understand and create a safe place for Sylvie to speak
about these things. Today we are talking about your experience
with nexium with dos with um am I saying those
words even right, No, you actually are completely okay, yeah,
(05:25):
that's right on. These are topics that have been exploited.
I feel like, for lack of a better word, in
the media, your words were this is a salacious story
and you're not a salacious person. No, no, I don't,
well that's not how I identified myself listening myself. No, right,
(05:46):
There's been a lot of opportunities for you to be
in the media, for you to tell your story to
millions of people. Um and yet you're coming on this
podcast specifically, which you know, we've got a nice reach,
but we're not big media over here. When I get them,
I kidding, but why here? What do you want our
audience to take away from this episode, Um, well, I
(06:08):
think that the story of Nexium, of the arsenal, all
these different things has been told. Obviously, there's an HBO series,
there's another series that was on Stars, there's a million
different nomillion, but there's a lot of podcasts out there
speaking about the Nexium and dust story. And I think
that the thing that's a little bit different from my
(06:30):
perspective is that, yeah, I never chose to go public
with what happened. Obviously, I'm so glad that the FBI
and the government stepped in and took the whole thing down,
and unbelievably grateful for them. But if I'd have had
a choice, I wouldn't have been like, Hey, I volunteered
to be a witness in the trial, and for sure
not the first witness, and it was almost as traumatic
(06:53):
as everything I went through. So it's very different for me.
And for that reason, and advised by therapists and psychologists
at the time, it wasn't a good idea for me
to be public and didn't want to be, so I
think I never had a chance to sort of speak
about this on my own terms, not that I would
have planned on doing it. But having gone through the trial,
(07:17):
been the witness in a trial, being the first witness
in the trial, and feeling like it was an exercise
and public humiliation. Honestly, it gave me such immense amounts
of empathy for anybody that's had to advocate for themselves
on the stand, and probably the number of people that
I say, in these kinds of cases or situations that
(07:39):
have advocated for themselves and then not one It's not
like there it's gone the way that they would have wanted.
And and my story alone for sure didn't do that
on the stands. There was other witnesses. There were many
other witnesses and other girls within the US that spoke
on the stand, but none of our me and those
other girls have not spoke and publicly, and I think
(08:01):
it's a different story, a different through line, and a
different recovery to have been in it and then also
been involved in the trial. So it was a really
long winded answer, but I think essentially, if this podcast
could speak to anybody who has been a victim and
then had to also testify and stand up and feel
the weight of that and what everything that comes in
(08:24):
the aftermath of that, I would love to help them
feel not alone in that part of the struggle, because
that's my experience, and so yeah, if this could speak
to anybody in that way, that's what I would love
to do. I think, you know, that's the part that
nobody I'm speaking for myself. You know when I watched
I watched that HBO documentary over a year ago, and
(08:46):
I purposely didn't want to go back and watch it
again before doing this interview. I kind of just wanted
to move forward with what my memory left with me, because,
like you said, you know, we watched these documentaries and
then the rest of us get to move on with
our lives and we have taken ways. But never was
my takeaway that the trial the part that's supposed to
give you freedom, a break, to feel good, to feel heard,
(09:10):
to feel like justice is being served. You know, Never
did I think that that could add to what was
already very traumatic with dust. We heard about, you know,
sex trafficking, we heard about branding, like really very traumatic
things that you experienced. Never did I think that the
trial itself could be, as you said, possibly more traumatic.
(09:32):
So I actually think that's a really interesting unexplored area
and as well as your goal of who you want
to kind of help here. You keep kind of saying
I was the first witness? What did it mean to
be the first witness? Does that mean that? Yeah, I
guess I don't think I even realized her like how
much of a big deal that was to me in
speaking here. But I'm so the reason why I think
(09:53):
if you knew my personality, I don't identify as a
leader in anything, and I'm always like I don't want
that responsibilit I don't want to be a leader. I'm
happy being a follower. Although obviously since the whole cult thing,
I'm like, I need to rethink that strategy, Like what
are you following? Is a good thing to to really
look into. But never want to go first in anything.
(10:16):
I'm the youngest of four children in my family, and
like I'm so used to going last, or like watching
everyone else get through something safely and then being like okay,
now I'll trite, like that's kind of more my strategy.
And I think also given the whole breadth of Nexium
and the other women in Dust and everything that each
(10:37):
individual went through, it was shocking to me that they
wanted my testimony in the trial anyway, And I love
more Repentza, who is the who was the prosecutor I
worked with the most, Like I genuinely just feel like
she's one of the most strongest, amazing women out there
and you can listen to her on other podcasts if
(10:57):
people want to hear from her and a sort of
approach to the trial. But I wish I could say
to her, ask her like why, like why was my
story so relevant to the bigger picture? And why first too,
because I just I feel like the way that trials work,
and I learned a lot about that as things went along,
(11:18):
is that they're kind of like making decisions about what's
allowed to be included and what's not allowed to be
included as they go along, so that the different sides
of the trial, the prosecutors and the defense are kind
of presenting things to the judge like we want to
like we should be allowed to talk about this, and
then there's like a sidebar and you don't know what
the outcome of that can be and you're just like
(11:39):
sat on the stand being like I don't even know
what they're arguing about or what's about to happen and
come from that. So I felt like as the first person.
There was a lot of things still being figured out
about what could be even spoken about in general during
the whole trial, and so I just felt like a
little bit of a guinea pick, like in so many ways,
I would just if I had gone last. For some
(12:00):
inn I feel like that might have been easier, but
maybe it was. I'm sure it was just as hard
for the last person as it was for the first person.
But I think just in my personality, I was like, what, No,
the one just would never choose to do this and
to going first. It's like my neighbor. From a juror's
(12:27):
point of view, that first witness is going to be
the memory. Yeah, yeah, And and basically I think you
are on the stand for quite a long time because
you're giving context to the entire story. And so that
meant that I needed to speak on things that were
more general to how Nexian worked. And I can see
from that perspective why I was a good person for that,
(12:50):
because of the amount of time I was in the
organization and how Keith threw an Area, who led the organization,
kind of groomed me over so many years. Like I
came in age eighteen, by the time this whole thing
fell apart. I was thirty two, so it's a long time.
I saw a lot of things. I experienced a lot
of things, And it's not like I rocked up one
(13:12):
day and he was like, Hey, why don't we do
dost like come and join me with dust? And that
never happened. Just for context, I never knew that Keith
was involved from the beginning, Like I mean, I did
obviously find out through it, but that's not how it
was ever presented to me. And I think that that's
kind of been talked about in these HBO series a
bit about how dust was presented to each woman. But
(13:34):
essentially I was like, and they used to use this
analogy in nexium, but they talk about a frog in
boiling water, like you could put a frog in tepid
water and raise the temperature and raise the tempature and
raise the temperature until it boils itself alive and it
would never jump out. And they would actually teach us
this this metaphor, and I think, yeah, that was me
and other people. But like, things got more weird and
(13:57):
more traumatic over time, but you just even it is
to the point where my friends post esp are like, oh,
wasn't this a red flag? Or wasn't that a red flag?
And I'll be like, well no, because by that point
you're so numb to what is normal that yeah. I
mean that's the way he had structured the whole thing,
(14:19):
is like doing whatever he wants and setting it up
in a way that we would actually agree that it
was a good idea. Things that are wrong, right, So,
I mean, there's so much to break down here, and
for our listeners that are like, what's next, M what's does?
Just to stay focused on the trial for one second,
then we'll kind of move out to how you even
got to the to the stand to begin with? Yeah,
(14:42):
I just want to ask why was that publicly humiliating?
My testimony is public knowledge, Like if you know how
to find people's testimonies, you can read it. So the
reason why I don't have a problem sharing it, I
don't feel publicly humiliated by sharing it right now. But
one of the things in Dusk was that we had
Sam Keith or these naked photos and so there were
(15:03):
literally hundreds and hundreds of photos of my vagina, like
just my vagina, not my face, nothing, And I'd had
no prior warning that this was going to be included
in the trial, and actually it was something that Keith's
lawyer didn't submit as evidence for the trial, so he'd
(15:24):
found a loophole of how he could present this at
trial without having given the prosecution any warning, without having
given the judge warning, which normally you have to say
what you're going to use as evidence. But because he
was like, this isn't for evidence, this is but identification
purposes only he spent I don't know how long it
was because in my head it was like hours and
hours and hours, But it doesn't really matter how long
(15:45):
it was. It was many, many photos that were presented
to me on a screen in front of me, where
I had to say, yes, this is my vagina, Yes
I sent it to Keith rniary, and there's the judge
looking at pictures of my vagina to my left that
the prosecution in front of me, Keith is looking at
these photos again like it's obviously Like I used to
(16:07):
not be able to speak about this without crying because
it was the most deeply humiliating thing ever to me.
It still is. I mean, I've had a very amazing
the therapist that has sort of put a different spin
on it for me. Which is like, your vagina is
so powerful through are Like the first time she said
(16:27):
it made me laugh so much, it lifted like a
giant weight off my shoulders. She's like, no, your vagina
is amazing, Like you've got to celebrate that. But at
the time, obviously and my dad and John are both
in the courtroom. You know, it's just like every that
those tons of media there's always always say this is
(16:48):
not I'm not sure that there would anyone that would
be like, hey, I would love to have that happened.
Let me have a go with that. So it was awful.
My jo has dropped because when asking that question, why
was it publicly humiliating? I was expecting you to say
just telling your story and the things you had to
do would be humiliating. What you're saying, my stomach. Listen.
(17:12):
I agree with your therapist. Your vagina did an incredible job.
It put right. I do stand behind that. But that
was not public humiliating because you felt it was publicly humiliating.
It was public humilian because it was designed to be
publicly humiliating. It was a tactic. No, it was, And
(17:33):
then he went into his questioning this was like the
start of his questioning, and the questioning went on. I
mean I was on the stand for a day and
a half, so that's how long that went on. And say,
I mean that's not how long the started part was,
but that's how he started as far as I couldn't remember,
but obviously that stood out that that's felt like the stop.
(17:54):
But that was that's mental manipulation, because I mean, for anybody,
all of us listening, you know, and something like mortifying happens,
whether like new burp or past gas in like an
area that like you don't want anyone to be, you know,
all of a sudden, your body turns on you and
your brain turns black when you are humiliated, when you
are made that nervous, it takes at least for me
(18:16):
time to regulate, to get back into my rational brain
to speak from a factual place. So that was I
mean the lawyer himself should be in jail. Yeah, I
mean I have. I I try not to hate people,
but I do. I don't hatred towards him so much,
but it just makes me like I that must have
(18:39):
been a tactic from Keith. That is so Keith like
Keith is written all over that type of behavior. That
I'm like, of course, it makes sense that you did that,
knowing everything that I know, and if you knew me,
if people knew me, you'd know that I'm not an
exhibitionist in any way. So it's like that literally couldn't
(19:00):
be anything worse as well for me than something like that.
And it was humiliating enough to say to keep those
photos in the first place, but having to re look
at them again and then know that he's looking at
them right now, all his lawyers are looking at them
and he had like so many lawyers on his table.
The FBI agents that I've worked with are looking at
me again, and there was people the jurors were not
(19:21):
allowed to look at the photos that they've decided that
and so they weren't showing them to the drawers. But
there are a couple of men in the front row
that was like, I'm kind of going to do the
thing to you, and I think you call it like
a smug but we're like, you know, like laughing, and
so it was just like the whole thing. I was like, WHOA,
I really want to like die? Basically is how extreme
it felt in that moment. And it's not a situation
(19:44):
where you can be like, you know what, I tap out,
I don't want to do this anymore, Like I'm done.
And there's just so many layers to it because you're,
you know, I want to pursue yourself. You're trying to
think like I have to remember everything as clearly as
I can, Like there are so many things that that
feel at stake. It's just like, wow, that was like
a big punch in the gap, like right before we
(20:06):
even get going, and the like you said, you're the
first one. So maybe they're also trying to scare away
the other witnesses. Yeah right, I mean, I'm sure you
know there's other witnesses that aren't gonna want to step
up to that stand after they saw what they just
did to you. I think it's a witness you're not
allowed to be in any way privy to what the
other witnesses have said, and so I don't think they
(20:29):
could have known, but it would for sure put people
off being public about supporting you know. So let's back
up a little bit to kind of give our audience
the broader understanding of what ESP is, what Nextium is,
and what DOS are, and how the three kind of
played together. Nextium was like an umbrella organization for a
(20:59):
bunch of different organizations underneath it. So I think everyone
uses Nexium as the name because it's the easiest way
to describe how Keith had this organization on and all
these different trainings within the organization so that he could
almost appeal to any kind of person. So there was
a women's organization called Janesse and then he'd bring women
(21:21):
in through Janets. And then there was a men's organization
called Society of Protectors, which is hilarious, um, and he'd
bring in men through that. And then there was like
an acting organization and a different and then so there's
all these different things that sit under executive Success Programs
was more like the kind of business. Yeah, and so
(21:44):
there was all these different things that sat under Nexium,
that's one. And Nexium was, like I'd say, what it
was sold as is like personal growth, bettering yourself, becoming
the person you've always wanted to be, blah blah blah
blah blah. Right, like just explain it enough. So next
to him is the big organization created by Keith Rannery. Yeah,
(22:07):
and within this big organization that he created, he's created
sub organizations that you could join in to be part
of whether it's a women's society, men's society business, which
is what ESP was, And I think why a lot
of a lot of big businessmen maybe took classes, came through,
so it got a lot of press that way. And
then there was Dust. Maybe we should saved us for
(22:29):
a second. Yeah, because Dust was not like a public
organization that you could sign up for, So that was like,
that was a different thing. So what did you come
in under? This is a backstory I left. I grew
up riding horses. My family had horses before I even remember.
I competed in show jumping specifically, which is I don't
(22:50):
know if I need to describe what that is, but
jumping fences on horses the best way that I can
describe it. I competed in that from when I was tiny,
and I was trying to become like an elite show
jumping rider. So basically an elite athlete would be the
same as in any sport. And you grew up not
in the U s right, not in the US. In
(23:10):
the UK, i'd say privileged, a normal privileged slash normal childhood.
I don't really know how the weather those two words
go together. But I had a good childhood and I
was given the freedom to pursue something that was important
to me, which was trying to become an elite show
jumping writer. So I left school at sixteen. I trained
(23:30):
with some writers in the UK for a couple of years. Um,
so I left home as well, stationed with them, and
then I kind of long story short, came to America
to train with an American show jumping rider who also
happened to be taking classes with ESP and very involved
in next very close to Keith. So what year was this.
(23:52):
That was two thousand and five, so I was eighteen.
So eighteen, you come to the US, you are training
somebody who is already affiliated with ESP. Yeah, I'm training
with them. I'm not training them. They were rode for
the US, so they were like very they were like elite.
(24:12):
They were what I wanted to be basically, and I
felt like this was an amazing opportunity for me to
achieve my dreams essentially. But this person was like heavily
entrenched in next year, and all the people that worked
for her also took the classes, so it was kind
of it was just kind of expected that you take
the classes and and the person who I was training
(24:35):
with actually paid for them for you to take them,
so it was very It wasn't a difficult decision for me.
I was like, yeah, okay, for sure, I'll take them.
These were just described as personal development classes. This wasn't
that's not growth, yeah right, This wasn't about you know,
joining a cult or anything like that. No, And honestly
it was kind of a foreign thing that made me
(24:56):
very curious. I thought it was a very American thing
to want to better yourself and just like kind of
makes me laugh now, but I was like, wow, I
was kind of apprehensive going in just because there was
some and that's the sad thing to me. Right on
the first few days there were there worse, some genuinely
major red flags. But I think I got talked out
(25:17):
of my gut feelings right there and then, and it
just that just took me through the rest of the time,
which sounds not but in those original classes the first
two days, I was so because it was a five
day course, and for the first two days I didn't
speak at all because I was so nervous and so
weirded out by what was happening. Well, were those red
(25:38):
flags The way that they talked about Keith Rendery freaked
me out because I think in I hate to speak
to for all of English culture, but my experience of
English culture is like you don't really have idols, Like
you don't overly idolize someone. We just don't. People are
a lot more like self deprecating in general, like that's
(25:59):
our It's more my my experience of growing up in
England is like you didn't make idols of of just
normal people. And there was this person that we're like,
we call him the vanguard is what they had this
word for him, and he was like the most amazing
intelligent man in the world, and like you didn't even
meet him. This was like them talking about this like
(26:21):
ethereal creature. It was so it was just it was
very strange to me right from the start that there
was kind of this person that's like the greatest in
the universe. Was the way that he was talked about
and that he's created We're so lucky to be taking
these classes because he's created all this curriculum and you
can become the person that you're going to be. It
(26:41):
just sort of freaked me out. And then on top
of that, some of the classes themselves were really freaking
me out. Like one of the first things that I
remembered that you were supposed to do is like an
excited state, and you were supposed to come up with
an excited state and act out to the whole class,
And like I said, not an exhibition is always like
oh my god, Like, for one, I'd never spoken about
(27:02):
my feelings in general. I think that is another English
culture thing. So I was like, I can't even think
of the time I was exciting. Obviously I've been, I've
been excited before, but it's just like it just wasn't
in my my remit to like really even think that way.
I just couldn't participate. I was just terrified the whole time.
(27:22):
So that was like the first couple of days. And
then on the third day there was this class and
this has been spoken about in the HBO series because
this happened to a lot of people. But on the
third day of this five day course, there was a
class where they talk about the suppressives, which are like
the bad people that when they see something good in
the world, they want to squash it. But then there's
(27:44):
like these different levels of who are suppressive person could
be and the path that takes you down to being
a suppressive person. And part of the way that they
pitched this thing was like, if you feel uncomfortable around
Kitten Fat, the Vanguard, Keith Rniery, like you could be
one at those people. And so then I was like,
oh my god, like I have to you, I might
(28:04):
be a bad person, like I might be as suppressive,
and it really terrified me. Like it's not it's funny now,
but as an eighteen year old never exposed to any
of this, that is the thing that really hooked me.
It's like, I'm worried I'm as suppressive and I don't
want to be as suppressive, so like I will do
anything to try and be a good person like I
(28:26):
Really that was what really hooked me in. You stayed
from eighteen to thirty two, which I think you know
is it's not just the length of time, it's the when,
as we've talked about in our in our pre call,
and you explaining to me like you don't just sign
up for a cult because you want to be in
a cult. It's the fact that your brain was modeled
(28:48):
by these Keith the Vanguards teaching and I won't even
call it that as a him, that as a joke,
but Keith's made up world. He created a made up
world and convinced thousands of people that this is right,
this is wrong, and restructured their brains and believing this
was real. It sounds like is that accurate? No, A d.
(29:09):
Because the other thing that he did is he really
had a whole class on what he could. I think
it was even called good and Bad or something like that,
where he literally redefines good and bad, what's a good
thing and what's a bad thing, and leads like the
door wide open for basically his own immorality to run
(29:30):
rain free because he changed the definition of those things.
And we would take these like I literally took these
same classes hundreds and hundreds of times because that's the
way that they would have you do it. They were like,
for sure, you have to take it twice, this five
day course, but the more you take it the better. Basically,
so we were kind of like channeled into these classes
(29:51):
over and over again to the point where I know
all of the stories and the metaphors used in the teachings,
and like sometimes we'll I say it was a joke,
although not so much anymore, but was like different little
stories just I know those classes so well, and so yeah,
that's had an effect on my brain. It's had an
effect on my thinking, and it takes a lot of
(30:11):
undoing to try not to do this kind of automatic
thinking that's been programmed into my head. This is so
kind of confused me when I watched the documentary and
hearing your story to you know, you being part of
something for twelve years, and seeing like you said, you've
taken the classes so many times. I know that the facility,
I don't know if that's right word, was in Upstate
(30:32):
New York. Did everybody live there in Upstate New York?
Where did some people just come take a class and
then leave? Like? How did that? By the end of
next year, they had sent they called them centers. They
had the center in Upstate New York. They had one
in New York City, they had one in Mexico City, Guatemala, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mexico, Canada,
(30:56):
in Vancouver, Miami, lay like they were everywhere. Got it
by the end and at the beginning, But right in
that very beginning, I think there were only two centers.
When I was there, there was like one in Seattle
and one in Albany, and yeah, people would fly in
to take the classes, but not everybody who took a
(31:17):
class stayed like you did, right, No, I don't even
want to try and get into Geth's head. But there
were certain people that he would really push to, like
you need to move to Albany, And he'd kind of
do that with a lot of people, but I'm pretty
sure it was mostly the younger women looking at it
in retresement, just like and this is why some of
(31:38):
it I almost laugh because I'm like, oh, I wish
I could have seen things differently, because it's almost so
obvious and sick in the end that it's like he
kind of surrounded himself with women that he wanted in
his under his control basically, But that doesn't mean there
weren't also other families or men that moved to next
(31:59):
move there is I think that understanding that And I'm
not the person that has diagnosed him this way, but
many other professionals has is like a sociopathic narcissist or
malignant narcissist, I think is the word that's used a lot.
I think that everybody had a purpose that he had
around him, and you might not know what that purpose
was or what how you fit into the puzzle. That
(32:21):
everyone was like a tool to his game and what
he wanted. Um, so yeah, there was kind of a
mix of people up there, but there were certain people
that he pushed really hard to try and get them
to move to Albany and was successful with someone not
with others. So after those those red flags who were
really uncomfortable the first few days, what influences did you
(32:41):
have around you that said, I'm going to keep going
with this even though it feels wrong. Well, the person
that that I came in under, I was like a
hundred percent deferential to her as an authority. I would
describe it as in love with Keith and still is
in my perspective, would like it's still a d P.
Supports him, would do anything for him. And so to
(33:04):
have you know the person that you kind of also
want to impress because I was working for her and
training under her, and I wanted to get opportunities. I
wanted to be considered like I wanted to do a
good job. I always wanted to do a good job.
That's like a huge drive for me. It was just
kind of like I wouldn't hurt. It felt like I'm sorry,
(33:24):
I'm just not even being super clear. But maybe that
gives a sense of what was going on with me
at the time, because she's paying for these classes. I've
moved my life to America to train with her. This
is two days in. It didn't I couldn't feel like
I could just quit that class without there being major repercussions.
That was meant saying goodbye to my dreams in my head.
(33:46):
So there was that huge pressure and then yeah that
I felt like I didn't have anything else. It felt
like I didn't have another option at that time, and
going back to England after having only been there for
a couple of weeks felt like of failure to me,
like I wouldn't have you know, made it, if you
know what I mean. And then I did multiple things
that took me in more and more deep, like we
(34:08):
flew my horse out from the UK to the US
to train with her and things like that, where it's
like another layer, that's another hook that like, you know,
I'm not going to back out at that point. My
horse is here, my life is now suddenly here. It
kind of felt like a runaway train. Honestly, and then
before too long that there were multiple times where I
(34:29):
actually tried to break free from living in America and
I'd always end up coming back because of things that
Keith would say to me and things that this person
would say to me. And there was this line of
accusation that was used with me, and I think everybody
had a different one, from from the people, from the
leaders of Next Sea, and I was like, why they
(34:51):
needed to stay in next Seam or why they needed
to be in Albany. And for me, Keith would describe
me as that I was just a row, but to
my indoctrination, this was a word that he used a lot,
and that at one point he even told me that
if I ever had children, they wouldn't love me because
I was so cold. Things like that, where I say
(35:12):
then and their answer to not be in that way
was to take more classes, was to stay in next year,
and was to move to Albany like he was the
cure to all of my ailments, was how he described it.
And then that was then supported by the person who
I saw as the biggest authority of my life for
the majority of those years, like I was a hundred
(35:32):
percent felt like she had all the answers, and that
she would even say things like I know you better
than you do, and that I believe that I did
believe that I didn't know myself, and I don't think
I did, just to be honest, because I was so
disconnected and disassociated. But it's not that I don't know myself.
(35:52):
I think I was just traumatized and I didn't even
see it at the time when you were your eighteen
you know, living in another cun treef who knows themselves
at eighteen? First of all, you know, and if somebody
says I know you better than you know you. I
think if anybody said that to me at eighteen, I
would believe that too, especially when you've left so much behind,
you are trying still to pursue your career, and it's
(36:16):
it all falls in line with believing that these people
have the answers. It's all like I said to you
in our pre call, I feel like it could have
been me. Yeah, I do feel like, yeah, it could
have been a lot of people, and I'm really glad
it wasn't. But yeah, I think if people can step
into that kind of thinking of that age or maybe
(36:37):
if they were that age, they would kind of get it. Well,
I feel like, I mean, I could get it with
someone else telling me the story at different times. I
also went back to live in the UK for like
a year at a time or whatever, but I'd always
be I was still taking classes all the time. I
still had an ESP coach. I was still I was
supposed to check in with Keith and the other us
(37:00):
and every day, So every single day by email and phone,
I would check in with them wherever I was in
the world, and may not have been in Albany for
every second, but I was never not in Albany in
my head. Right. So when you took that first ESP class,
you said, the teacher described the Vanguard and Keith and
(37:21):
you know this mystical creature that knew everything about every
you know, he was so smart and amazing. At what
point did you actually meet him. I think I met
him pretty soon, so it was maybe like a week later,
and I did actually have to tell this story on
the stand, and I think it was kind of funny
because he had this like weird thing where he liked
to play volleyball in the middle of the night, so
(37:42):
he would rent out him. I know there's been some
funny memes done on it. I think I was even
an SML skit done of him is in his volleyball outfit.
I just think he'd just like to do weird things
and make people do them for him so we don't
have to. Well, he would he wanted people to come
and watch and play volleyball with a group of other people,
but it would be like from midnight to like five
(38:04):
in the morning or something like that. And so I
was encouraged greatly to come to volleyball to meet with Keith,
like this is like a grand honor type thing. So
I remember showing up. It was like ABC Fitness in Albany,
I think that's what it was called, at like two
in the morning, and there's this like tiny man with
(38:26):
a like seventies sweat band on a ponytail, and he's
like tiny and sweaty and creepy, and and that was
my first experience of him, and he would just come
up and kiss you on the lips. And I thought, again,
like it just even in English culture, that's like whoa
like these monst's not invited, But then that was the
(38:48):
standard that was setting. It's so gross. I just can't
even it makes me want to thinking about it's not
UK culture and it's also not American culture. I put
so many things down to this must be an American thing,
which now I'm like, I kind of laugh at, but
I sometimes I think I still get it wrong where
I'm like, maybe this is an American thing about and
(39:10):
it probably really was a key thing not an American thing.
I mean, it just goes to show that your reality
is what you're surrounded by by even a short amount
of time. You know, if you're surrounded if if you
walk into that two am volleyball thing and everybody that
you know is is doing this two am volleyball you
go there and he's kissing someone else on the lips
(39:31):
when they see them, and then you see him and
he kisses you. You're just you know, you you don't.
You go along with it, you don't, you don't question
it because that you've seen that this is the normal,
in this pseudo reality that's been manufactured by him himself.
So he kisses you on the lips immediately. Yeah, and
all the women, like he said, and just there were
(39:52):
so many things about that experience that we're weird to me.
And it's not that they didn't continue to be with
me all along, because I mean, he lift in a
house with two other women, and I always like it
was like I would try and refriend things in my
mind or like make them more palatable to me, where
I was like, oh, one of them is his friend,
(40:12):
and the other ones like, you know, I just wouldn't
ask any questions. I just didn't want to think about
things as being weird. And you'd see him walking around
the neighborhood with like all these women and always surrounding
himself of all these women all the time, and I'd
always think, well, he's helping them, or like you try
and think that, but really underneath, I'd be like, that's creepy.
(40:33):
That's creepy. This is creepy. I find him creepy. But
that voice, I think became snow quiet. It wasn't that
it was never there, but I was like, there's no
one that I can say this too that's going to
agree with me. And I think hundreds of people felt
the same way in next year, because yeah, no one
would speak like blasphemy of Keith. That was just not
(40:56):
the way it worked. So I think loads of us
were probably like, Wow, this is really weird and and
didn't say anything about it. And there were a lot
of smart people that would go to ESP classes. You know,
if you google next um an ESP, you hear a
lot of big business people were taking the classes. There.
There's a lot of celebrities, female celebrities associated with Nexium,
(41:17):
Like you knew a lot of celebrities just being part
of it, I assume, right, yeah I did, And I
think that, yeah, all of that it normalized things. And
also because like the party line was always that Keith
was making people more successful and he actually wasn't. He
was attracting successful people and then they were becoming less
successful through staying in next year. Like that's the reality
(41:40):
toe of it looking back on it, but that's his
spin on it. And you kind of felt like that
it was a very like idealistic environment. People would be
going after their goals and nobody was a cheating and
I think that's the thing that we were all blind to,
which is nuts in retrospect, But it was kind of
(42:01):
like you had this huge community of friends around you
that was like a really strange eclectic mix looking back
on it, because it was people from all different random
walks of life. But at least you were kind of
felt like you had friends and you were surrounded by people,
And I think that was another huge hook, and that
was kind of addressed a lot in the HBO series,
(42:22):
I think, because that is probably what kept a lot
of people, was like, well, all my friends are even
in this and and I'm part of something that's bigger
than me, and yeah, so it had that aspect to
it too, that kind of just would they would get
all these testimonials from the successful people and have them
on video being like, you know, Keith, your an area
(42:42):
has changed my life and la la la la la,
And I've never been in one of those videos. Hilarious, Like, obviously,
I think if you really literally keeps me nearly made
my life so much worse and there's nothing that I
could really show for that. But yeah, I was never
in one of those tests many of the years, which
I do find quite funny considering the amount of time
(43:03):
that I was there. Not that I would have wanted
to be, but I'm just saying, like the people that
I've been around for a really long time were not
often the people that were the face of things. I understand, right,
because you're really the most enamored when you're not in
so deep. When you're in so deep, you know a
little bit too much exactly. Yeah, and the reality of
(43:26):
what Maxime does to you has started to kick in.
And that's not as impressive as someone who's like, I'm
a famous actress and yeah, maybe they've only been there
a year or even less, and they saying like this
has really done so much for me. Their life still
looks very appealing to a lot of people in the public,
and they don't know what's on the other side of that. Well,
(43:49):
Sylvia is clearly the bravest person that I know, and
I hope that your eyes and ears are a little
bit more open, and most importantly, your heart is a
little bit more open after hearing this part of her story.
As a reminder, next week we're going to hear the
rest of this episode, where we learned how she got
affiliated with Dus, the sex cult part of Nexium, and
(44:11):
how it also fell apart. Here's a little clip so
you can be prepared for what's coming next. Nobody can
know about this. Apparently nobody can know about this. This
is a completely secret project and all my collateral, which
by that point she'd already collected a couple of naked
photos of me, but again she was like, they're just
going in a safe I'm not even going to look
(44:31):
at them. And I was like, okay, super weird, but
they were going to Keith, like and I just didn't
know that at the time. Yeah, and then basically one
of the first things that I was asked to do
was I need you to seduce Keith, was what she said.
And I was like, seduce Keith, Like what, like why,
like does he know? You know? It was so far
(44:54):
out there for me. I'll see you next week back
here on The Truth's Life. M
M hm a no fio right. Even when time's gtheart
and feuck, you're in the ducusy. Just how beautiful laugh
can be. When you sophen your heart, you can find
(00:23):
star to fire to Seius Life. Welcome back to the
Truthius Life. It's your host, Lisa Ham and I'm humbled
and honored to bring you this conversation with Sylvie Lloyd,
ex member of an organization called Nexium and Doss, which
are often referred to as a cult or a sex cult.
(00:46):
I'm honored and humbled because Sylvie is one of us.
She's a listener of The Truthius Life, and she's also
an online friend of mine for a lot of years.
For most of our friendship, I actually didn't know that
she had any affiliation to Exium or Doss. It was
only when the documentaries started to come out that Sylvie
confided in me that she was part of this and
(01:07):
that she wanted to come on The Truthius Life to
share her story. Sylvie has not shared her story with
the media. She was not part of these documentaries. She's
not somebody that is trying to push anything on anybody.
She simply is here because she wants to heal, be
healed and heal other victims who may feel some of
(01:27):
the shame that she was left with. This is going
to be a two part episode, so expect one episode
this week and one the following. And in the first episode,
Sylvie's going to break down how she got involved with Nexium,
how she got pulled in, and in the second part,
we're going to hear about Doss, the sub organization often
referred to as the sex cult part of it that
(01:48):
she was also a part of. This may be the
first time that you're even hearing these words next Um
or DUSS. So just to orient you, Nextium is an
organization that was founded by Keith Ranieri, and Nexium was
under this guy's of being a self improvement, self development
program organization, and they offered classes and things like ESP.
ESP stands for Executive Success Programs, and these courses were
(02:12):
sold to you as if you want to better your life,
if you want to get more joy, be more successful,
take these courses. And at the time, a lot of
successful people were doing these programs. They were endorsed by billionaires,
they were endorsed by celebrities, and so when we understand
that they didn't have the label cult or we didn't
know that Keith was this bad man. We could understand
(02:34):
maybe how all of us were kind of susceptible to
being part of this if we were to learn about
it at the time. I at least know that somebody
who loves self development work courses programs, I feel like
I easily could have been pulled into these types of programs.
It's important to understand that people don't just join cults willingly.
There's often something that pulls them in and before they
(02:55):
know it, they're part of a cult. And to the
outside looking in, it might be really obvious, but the
inside looking out, there's so much mental manipulation and brainwashing
that has already happened that you defend it and you
protect it because it becomes your community and your knowing
and your beliefs. DOSS is the subgroup that started long
after next e Um, So a lot of people hear
(03:17):
the words next Sum and they just think sex cult
and they think that people just joined willingly. Sylvia was
a part of both Nexium and DOSS, and she's so
brave to tell her story. She's part of Nextium for
twelve years, ten years before DOSS even came to be,
and she was the first witness to testify against her neary.
Sylvie's now a new mom and truly one of the
(03:37):
most special people that I know. This episode is really
important and I hope that you listen with open ears
and an open heart as we really understand the psychology
of cults, how they begin, and how they affect people
long after they fall apart. And just as a little
content warning, the story does involve sexual abuse. Thank you
(03:57):
all for listening and supporting Sylvia. She's as her story.
As a reminder, this is going to be a two
part episode, so this week we'll hear all about Nexium
and how Sylvie became a part of it, and next
week we'll learn more about dust. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Sylvie.
I'm so excited to see you get a break from
(04:18):
momm ng with you, my first actual break. Yeah like this,
you have no help, right, Well, I mean I feel
like bad saying that that. Yeah, I look after her
full time. You're doing You're doing the most out there,
and it's been really fun to mom with you have
babies almost exactly the same age, and watch you really
(04:39):
step into this this new role. It's a big one
for you and for me, but really for you, I
feel like, well yeah, no, completely different and breath of
fresh air after sure. So today's episode is going to
be I think, really interesting for me and the listeners.
I know that this is probably scary to talk about
(05:01):
for all of our listeners. Sylvie and I have had
pre calls before, so that I can, you know, better
understand and create a safe place for Sylvie to speak
about these things. Today we are talking about your experience
with nexium with dos with um am I saying those
words even right, No, you actually are completely okay, yeah,
(05:25):
that's right on. These are topics that have been exploited.
I feel like, for lack of a better word, in
the media, your words were this is a salacious story
and you're not a salacious person. No, no, I don't,
well that's not how I identified myself listening myself. No, right,
(05:46):
There's been a lot of opportunities for you to be
in the media, for you to tell your story to
millions of people. Um and yet you're coming on this
podcast specifically, which you know, we've got a nice reach,
but we're not big media over here. When I get them,
I kidding, but why here? What do you want our
audience to take away from this episode, Um, well, I
(06:08):
think that the story of Nexium, of the arsenal, all
these different things has been told. Obviously, there's an HBO series,
there's another series that was on Stars, there's a million
different nomillion, but there's a lot of podcasts out there
speaking about the Nexium and dust story. And I think
that the thing that's a little bit different from my
(06:30):
perspective is that, yeah, I never chose to go public
with what happened. Obviously, I'm so glad that the FBI
and the government stepped in and took the whole thing down,
and unbelievably grateful for them. But if I'd have had
a choice, I wouldn't have been like, Hey, I volunteered
to be a witness in the trial, and for sure
not the first witness, and it was almost as traumatic
(06:53):
as everything I went through. So it's very different for me.
And for that reason, and advised by therapists and psychologists
at the time, it wasn't a good idea for me
to be public and didn't want to be, so I
think I never had a chance to sort of speak
about this on my own terms, not that I would
have planned on doing it. But having gone through the trial,
(07:17):
been the witness in a trial, being the first witness
in the trial, and feeling like it was an exercise
and public humiliation. Honestly, it gave me such immense amounts
of empathy for anybody that's had to advocate for themselves
on the stand, and probably the number of people that
I say, in these kinds of cases or situations that
(07:39):
have advocated for themselves and then not one It's not
like there it's gone the way that they would have wanted.
And and my story alone for sure didn't do that
on the stands. There was other witnesses. There were many
other witnesses and other girls within the US that spoke
on the stand, but none of our me and those
other girls have not spoke and publicly, and I think
(08:01):
it's a different story, a different through line, and a
different recovery to have been in it and then also
been involved in the trial. So it was a really
long winded answer, but I think essentially, if this podcast
could speak to anybody who has been a victim and
then had to also testify and stand up and feel
the weight of that and what everything that comes in
(08:24):
the aftermath of that, I would love to help them
feel not alone in that part of the struggle, because
that's my experience, and so yeah, if this could speak
to anybody in that way, that's what I would love
to do. I think, you know, that's the part that
nobody I'm speaking for myself. You know when I watched
I watched that HBO documentary over a year ago, and
(08:46):
I purposely didn't want to go back and watch it
again before doing this interview. I kind of just wanted
to move forward with what my memory left with me, because,
like you said, you know, we watched these documentaries and
then the rest of us get to move on with
our lives and we have taken ways. But never was
my takeaway that the trial the part that's supposed to
give you freedom, a break, to feel good, to feel heard,
(09:10):
to feel like justice is being served. You know, Never
did I think that that could add to what was
already very traumatic with dust. We heard about, you know,
sex trafficking, we heard about branding, like really very traumatic
things that you experienced. Never did I think that the
trial itself could be, as you said, possibly more traumatic.
(09:32):
So I actually think that's a really interesting unexplored area
and as well as your goal of who you want
to kind of help here. You keep kind of saying
I was the first witness? What did it mean to
be the first witness? Does that mean that? Yeah, I
guess I don't think I even realized her like how
much of a big deal that was to me in
speaking here. But I'm so the reason why I think
(09:53):
if you knew my personality, I don't identify as a
leader in anything, and I'm always like I don't want
that responsibilit I don't want to be a leader. I'm
happy being a follower. Although obviously since the whole cult thing,
I'm like, I need to rethink that strategy, Like what
are you following? Is a good thing to to really
look into. But never want to go first in anything.
(10:16):
I'm the youngest of four children in my family, and
like I'm so used to going last, or like watching
everyone else get through something safely and then being like okay,
now I'll trite, like that's kind of more my strategy.
And I think also given the whole breadth of Nexium
and the other women in Dust and everything that each
(10:37):
individual went through, it was shocking to me that they
wanted my testimony in the trial anyway, And I love
more Repentza, who is the who was the prosecutor I
worked with the most, Like I genuinely just feel like
she's one of the most strongest, amazing women out there
and you can listen to her on other podcasts if
(10:57):
people want to hear from her and a sort of
approach to the trial. But I wish I could say
to her, ask her like why, like why was my
story so relevant to the bigger picture? And why first too,
because I just I feel like the way that trials work,
and I learned a lot about that as things went along,
(11:18):
is that they're kind of like making decisions about what's
allowed to be included and what's not allowed to be
included as they go along, so that the different sides
of the trial, the prosecutors and the defense are kind
of presenting things to the judge like we want to
like we should be allowed to talk about this, and
then there's like a sidebar and you don't know what
the outcome of that can be and you're just like
(11:39):
sat on the stand being like I don't even know
what they're arguing about or what's about to happen and
come from that. So I felt like as the first person.
There was a lot of things still being figured out
about what could be even spoken about in general during
the whole trial, and so I just felt like a
little bit of a guinea pick, like in so many ways,
I would just if I had gone last. For some
(12:00):
inn I feel like that might have been easier, but
maybe it was. I'm sure it was just as hard
for the last person as it was for the first person.
But I think just in my personality, I was like, what, No,
the one just would never choose to do this and
to going first. It's like my neighbor. From a juror's
(12:27):
point of view, that first witness is going to be
the memory. Yeah, yeah, And and basically I think you
are on the stand for quite a long time because
you're giving context to the entire story. And so that
meant that I needed to speak on things that were
more general to how Nexian worked. And I can see
from that perspective why I was a good person for that,
(12:50):
because of the amount of time I was in the
organization and how Keith threw an Area, who led the organization,
kind of groomed me over so many years. Like I
came in age eighteen, by the time this whole thing
fell apart. I was thirty two, so it's a long time.
I saw a lot of things. I experienced a lot
of things, And it's not like I rocked up one
(13:12):
day and he was like, Hey, why don't we do
dost like come and join me with dust? And that
never happened. Just for context, I never knew that Keith
was involved from the beginning, Like I mean, I did
obviously find out through it, but that's not how it
was ever presented to me. And I think that that's
kind of been talked about in these HBO series a
bit about how dust was presented to each woman. But
(13:34):
essentially I was like, and they used to use this
analogy in nexium, but they talk about a frog in
boiling water, like you could put a frog in tepid
water and raise the temperature and raise the tempature and
raise the temperature until it boils itself alive and it
would never jump out. And they would actually teach us
this this metaphor, and I think, yeah, that was me
and other people. But like, things got more weird and
(13:57):
more traumatic over time, but you just even it is
to the point where my friends post esp are like, oh,
wasn't this a red flag? Or wasn't that a red flag?
And I'll be like, well no, because by that point
you're so numb to what is normal that yeah. I
mean that's the way he had structured the whole thing,
(14:19):
is like doing whatever he wants and setting it up
in a way that we would actually agree that it
was a good idea. Things that are wrong, right, So,
I mean, there's so much to break down here, and
for our listeners that are like, what's next, M what's does?
Just to stay focused on the trial for one second,
then we'll kind of move out to how you even
got to the to the stand to begin with? Yeah,
(14:42):
I just want to ask why was that publicly humiliating?
My testimony is public knowledge, Like if you know how
to find people's testimonies, you can read it. So the
reason why I don't have a problem sharing it, I
don't feel publicly humiliated by sharing it right now. But
one of the things in Dusk was that we had
Sam Keith or these naked photos and so there were
(15:03):
literally hundreds and hundreds of photos of my vagina, like
just my vagina, not my face, nothing, And I'd had
no prior warning that this was going to be included
in the trial, and actually it was something that Keith's
lawyer didn't submit as evidence for the trial, so he'd
(15:24):
found a loophole of how he could present this at
trial without having given the prosecution any warning, without having
given the judge warning, which normally you have to say
what you're going to use as evidence. But because he
was like, this isn't for evidence, this is but identification
purposes only he spent I don't know how long it
was because in my head it was like hours and
hours and hours, But it doesn't really matter how long
(15:45):
it was. It was many, many photos that were presented
to me on a screen in front of me, where
I had to say, yes, this is my vagina, Yes
I sent it to Keith rniary, and there's the judge
looking at pictures of my vagina to my left that
the prosecution in front of me, Keith is looking at
these photos again like it's obviously Like I used to
(16:07):
not be able to speak about this without crying because
it was the most deeply humiliating thing ever to me.
It still is. I mean, I've had a very amazing
the therapist that has sort of put a different spin
on it for me. Which is like, your vagina is
so powerful through are Like the first time she said
(16:27):
it made me laugh so much, it lifted like a
giant weight off my shoulders. She's like, no, your vagina
is amazing, Like you've got to celebrate that. But at
the time, obviously and my dad and John are both
in the courtroom. You know, it's just like every that
those tons of media there's always always say this is
(16:48):
not I'm not sure that there would anyone that would
be like, hey, I would love to have that happened.
Let me have a go with that. So it was awful.
My jo has dropped because when asking that question, why
was it publicly humiliating? I was expecting you to say
just telling your story and the things you had to
do would be humiliating. What you're saying, my stomach. Listen.
(17:12):
I agree with your therapist. Your vagina did an incredible job.
It put right. I do stand behind that. But that
was not public humiliating because you felt it was publicly humiliating.
It was public humilian because it was designed to be
publicly humiliating. It was a tactic. No, it was, And
(17:33):
then he went into his questioning this was like the
start of his questioning, and the questioning went on. I
mean I was on the stand for a day and
a half, so that's how long that went on. And say,
I mean that's not how long the started part was,
but that's how he started as far as I couldn't remember,
but obviously that stood out that that's felt like the stop.
(17:54):
But that was that's mental manipulation, because I mean, for anybody,
all of us listening, you know, and something like mortifying happens,
whether like new burp or past gas in like an
area that like you don't want anyone to be, you know,
all of a sudden, your body turns on you and
your brain turns black when you are humiliated, when you
are made that nervous, it takes at least for me
(18:16):
time to regulate, to get back into my rational brain
to speak from a factual place. So that was I
mean the lawyer himself should be in jail. Yeah, I
mean I have. I I try not to hate people,
but I do. I don't hatred towards him so much,
but it just makes me like I that must have
(18:39):
been a tactic from Keith. That is so Keith like
Keith is written all over that type of behavior. That
I'm like, of course, it makes sense that you did that,
knowing everything that I know, and if you knew me,
if people knew me, you'd know that I'm not an
exhibitionist in any way. So it's like that literally couldn't
(19:00):
be anything worse as well for me than something like that.
And it was humiliating enough to say to keep those
photos in the first place, but having to re look
at them again and then know that he's looking at
them right now, all his lawyers are looking at them
and he had like so many lawyers on his table.
The FBI agents that I've worked with are looking at
me again, and there was people the jurors were not
(19:21):
allowed to look at the photos that they've decided that
and so they weren't showing them to the drawers. But
there are a couple of men in the front row
that was like, I'm kind of going to do the
thing to you, and I think you call it like
a smug but we're like, you know, like laughing, and
so it was just like the whole thing. I was like, WHOA,
I really want to like die? Basically is how extreme
it felt in that moment. And it's not a situation
(19:44):
where you can be like, you know what, I tap out,
I don't want to do this anymore, Like I'm done.
And there's just so many layers to it because you're,
you know, I want to pursue yourself. You're trying to
think like I have to remember everything as clearly as
I can, Like there are so many things that that
feel at stake. It's just like, wow, that was like
a big punch in the gap, like right before we
(20:06):
even get going, and the like you said, you're the
first one. So maybe they're also trying to scare away
the other witnesses. Yeah right, I mean, I'm sure you
know there's other witnesses that aren't gonna want to step
up to that stand after they saw what they just
did to you. I think it's a witness you're not
allowed to be in any way privy to what the
other witnesses have said, and so I don't think they
(20:29):
could have known, but it would for sure put people
off being public about supporting you know. So let's back
up a little bit to kind of give our audience
the broader understanding of what ESP is, what Nextium is,
and what DOS are, and how the three kind of
played together. Nextium was like an umbrella organization for a
(20:59):
bunch of different organizations underneath it. So I think everyone
uses Nexium as the name because it's the easiest way
to describe how Keith had this organization on and all
these different trainings within the organization so that he could
almost appeal to any kind of person. So there was
a women's organization called Janesse and then he'd bring women
(21:21):
in through Janets. And then there was a men's organization
called Society of Protectors, which is hilarious, um, and he'd
bring in men through that. And then there was like
an acting organization and a different and then so there's
all these different things that sit under executive Success Programs
was more like the kind of business. Yeah, and so
(21:44):
there was all these different things that sat under Nexium,
that's one. And Nexium was, like I'd say, what it
was sold as is like personal growth, bettering yourself, becoming
the person you've always wanted to be, blah blah blah
blah blah. Right, like just explain it enough. So next
to him is the big organization created by Keith Rannery. Yeah,
(22:07):
and within this big organization that he created, he's created
sub organizations that you could join in to be part
of whether it's a women's society, men's society business, which
is what ESP was, And I think why a lot
of a lot of big businessmen maybe took classes, came through,
so it got a lot of press that way. And
then there was Dust. Maybe we should saved us for
(22:29):
a second. Yeah, because Dust was not like a public
organization that you could sign up for, So that was like,
that was a different thing. So what did you come
in under? This is a backstory I left. I grew
up riding horses. My family had horses before I even remember.
I competed in show jumping specifically, which is I don't
(22:50):
know if I need to describe what that is, but
jumping fences on horses the best way that I can
describe it. I competed in that from when I was tiny,
and I was trying to become like an elite show
jumping rider. So basically an elite athlete would be the
same as in any sport. And you grew up not
in the U s right, not in the US. In
(23:10):
the UK, i'd say privileged, a normal privileged slash normal childhood.
I don't really know how the weather those two words
go together. But I had a good childhood and I
was given the freedom to pursue something that was important
to me, which was trying to become an elite show
jumping writer. So I left school at sixteen. I trained
(23:30):
with some writers in the UK for a couple of years. Um,
so I left home as well, stationed with them, and
then I kind of long story short, came to America
to train with an American show jumping rider who also
happened to be taking classes with ESP and very involved
in next very close to Keith. So what year was this.
(23:52):
That was two thousand and five, so I was eighteen.
So eighteen, you come to the US, you are training
somebody who is already affiliated with ESP. Yeah, I'm training
with them. I'm not training them. They were rode for
the US, so they were like very they were like elite.
(24:12):
They were what I wanted to be basically, and I
felt like this was an amazing opportunity for me to
achieve my dreams essentially. But this person was like heavily
entrenched in next year, and all the people that worked
for her also took the classes, so it was kind
of it was just kind of expected that you take
the classes and and the person who I was training
(24:35):
with actually paid for them for you to take them,
so it was very It wasn't a difficult decision for me.
I was like, yeah, okay, for sure, I'll take them.
These were just described as personal development classes. This wasn't
that's not growth, yeah right, This wasn't about you know,
joining a cult or anything like that. No, And honestly
it was kind of a foreign thing that made me
(24:56):
very curious. I thought it was a very American thing
to want to better yourself and just like kind of
makes me laugh now, but I was like, wow, I
was kind of apprehensive going in just because there was
some and that's the sad thing to me. Right on
the first few days there were there worse, some genuinely
major red flags. But I think I got talked out
(25:17):
of my gut feelings right there and then, and it
just that just took me through the rest of the time,
which sounds not but in those original classes the first
two days, I was so because it was a five
day course, and for the first two days I didn't
speak at all because I was so nervous and so
weirded out by what was happening. Well, were those red
(25:38):
flags The way that they talked about Keith Rendery freaked
me out because I think in I hate to speak
to for all of English culture, but my experience of
English culture is like you don't really have idols, Like
you don't overly idolize someone. We just don't. People are
a lot more like self deprecating in general, like that's
(25:59):
our It's more my my experience of growing up in
England is like you didn't make idols of of just
normal people. And there was this person that we're like,
we call him the vanguard is what they had this
word for him, and he was like the most amazing
intelligent man in the world, and like you didn't even
meet him. This was like them talking about this like
(26:21):
ethereal creature. It was so it was just it was
very strange to me right from the start that there
was kind of this person that's like the greatest in
the universe. Was the way that he was talked about
and that he's created We're so lucky to be taking
these classes because he's created all this curriculum and you
can become the person that you're going to be. It
(26:41):
just sort of freaked me out. And then on top
of that, some of the classes themselves were really freaking
me out. Like one of the first things that I
remembered that you were supposed to do is like an
excited state, and you were supposed to come up with
an excited state and act out to the whole class,
And like I said, not an exhibition is always like
oh my god, Like, for one, I'd never spoken about
(27:02):
my feelings in general. I think that is another English
culture thing. So I was like, I can't even think
of the time I was exciting. Obviously I've been, I've
been excited before, but it's just like it just wasn't
in my my remit to like really even think that way.
I just couldn't participate. I was just terrified the whole time.
(27:22):
So that was like the first couple of days. And
then on the third day there was this class and
this has been spoken about in the HBO series because
this happened to a lot of people. But on the
third day of this five day course, there was a
class where they talk about the suppressives, which are like
the bad people that when they see something good in
the world, they want to squash it. But then there's
(27:44):
like these different levels of who are suppressive person could
be and the path that takes you down to being
a suppressive person. And part of the way that they
pitched this thing was like, if you feel uncomfortable around
Kitten Fat, the Vanguard, Keith Rniery, like you could be
one at those people. And so then I was like,
oh my god, like I have to you, I might
(28:04):
be a bad person, like I might be as suppressive,
and it really terrified me. Like it's not it's funny now,
but as an eighteen year old never exposed to any
of this, that is the thing that really hooked me.
It's like, I'm worried I'm as suppressive and I don't
want to be as suppressive, so like I will do
anything to try and be a good person like I
(28:26):
Really that was what really hooked me in. You stayed
from eighteen to thirty two, which I think you know
is it's not just the length of time, it's the when,
as we've talked about in our in our pre call,
and you explaining to me like you don't just sign
up for a cult because you want to be in
a cult. It's the fact that your brain was modeled
(28:48):
by these Keith the Vanguards teaching and I won't even
call it that as a him, that as a joke,
but Keith's made up world. He created a made up
world and convinced thousands of people that this is right,
this is wrong, and restructured their brains and believing this
was real. It sounds like is that accurate? No, A d.
(29:09):
Because the other thing that he did is he really
had a whole class on what he could. I think
it was even called good and Bad or something like that,
where he literally redefines good and bad, what's a good
thing and what's a bad thing, and leads like the
door wide open for basically his own immorality to run
(29:30):
rain free because he changed the definition of those things.
And we would take these like I literally took these
same classes hundreds and hundreds of times because that's the
way that they would have you do it. They were like,
for sure, you have to take it twice, this five
day course, but the more you take it the better. Basically,
so we were kind of like channeled into these classes
(29:51):
over and over again to the point where I know
all of the stories and the metaphors used in the teachings,
and like sometimes we'll I say it was a joke,
although not so much anymore, but was like different little
stories just I know those classes so well, and so yeah,
that's had an effect on my brain. It's had an
effect on my thinking, and it takes a lot of
(30:11):
undoing to try not to do this kind of automatic
thinking that's been programmed into my head. This is so
kind of confused me when I watched the documentary and
hearing your story to you know, you being part of
something for twelve years, and seeing like you said, you've
taken the classes so many times. I know that the facility,
I don't know if that's right word, was in Upstate
(30:32):
New York. Did everybody live there in Upstate New York?
Where did some people just come take a class and
then leave? Like? How did that? By the end of
next year, they had sent they called them centers. They
had the center in Upstate New York. They had one
in New York City, they had one in Mexico City, Guatemala, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mexico, Canada,
(30:56):
in Vancouver, Miami, lay like they were everywhere. Got it
by the end and at the beginning, But right in
that very beginning, I think there were only two centers.
When I was there, there was like one in Seattle
and one in Albany, and yeah, people would fly in
to take the classes, but not everybody who took a
(31:17):
class stayed like you did, right, No, I don't even
want to try and get into Geth's head. But there
were certain people that he would really push to, like
you need to move to Albany, And he'd kind of
do that with a lot of people, but I'm pretty
sure it was mostly the younger women looking at it
in retresement, just like and this is why some of
(31:38):
it I almost laugh because I'm like, oh, I wish
I could have seen things differently, because it's almost so
obvious and sick in the end that it's like he
kind of surrounded himself with women that he wanted in
his under his control basically, But that doesn't mean there
weren't also other families or men that moved to next
(31:59):
move there is I think that understanding that And I'm
not the person that has diagnosed him this way, but
many other professionals has is like a sociopathic narcissist or
malignant narcissist, I think is the word that's used a lot.
I think that everybody had a purpose that he had
around him, and you might not know what that purpose
was or what how you fit into the puzzle. That
(32:21):
everyone was like a tool to his game and what
he wanted. Um, so yeah, there was kind of a
mix of people up there, but there were certain people
that he pushed really hard to try and get them
to move to Albany and was successful with someone not
with others. So after those those red flags who were
really uncomfortable the first few days, what influences did you
(32:41):
have around you that said, I'm going to keep going
with this even though it feels wrong. Well, the person
that that I came in under, I was like a
hundred percent deferential to her as an authority. I would
describe it as in love with Keith and still is
in my perspective, would like it's still a d P.
Supports him, would do anything for him. And so to
(33:04):
have you know the person that you kind of also
want to impress because I was working for her and
training under her, and I wanted to get opportunities. I
wanted to be considered like I wanted to do a
good job. I always wanted to do a good job.
That's like a huge drive for me. It was just
kind of like I wouldn't hurt. It felt like I'm sorry,
(33:24):
I'm just not even being super clear. But maybe that
gives a sense of what was going on with me
at the time, because she's paying for these classes. I've
moved my life to America to train with her. This
is two days in. It didn't I couldn't feel like
I could just quit that class without there being major repercussions.
That was meant saying goodbye to my dreams in my head.
(33:46):
So there was that huge pressure and then yeah that
I felt like I didn't have anything else. It felt
like I didn't have another option at that time, and
going back to England after having only been there for
a couple of weeks felt like of failure to me,
like I wouldn't have you know, made it, if you
know what I mean. And then I did multiple things
that took me in more and more deep, like we
(34:08):
flew my horse out from the UK to the US
to train with her and things like that, where it's
like another layer, that's another hook that like, you know,
I'm not going to back out at that point. My
horse is here, my life is now suddenly here. It
kind of felt like a runaway train. Honestly, and then
before too long that there were multiple times where I
(34:29):
actually tried to break free from living in America and
I'd always end up coming back because of things that
Keith would say to me and things that this person
would say to me. And there was this line of
accusation that was used with me, and I think everybody
had a different one, from from the people, from the
leaders of Next Sea, and I was like, why they
(34:51):
needed to stay in next Seam or why they needed
to be in Albany. And for me, Keith would describe
me as that I was just a row, but to
my indoctrination, this was a word that he used a lot,
and that at one point he even told me that
if I ever had children, they wouldn't love me because
I was so cold. Things like that, where I say
(35:12):
then and their answer to not be in that way
was to take more classes, was to stay in next year,
and was to move to Albany like he was the
cure to all of my ailments, was how he described it.
And then that was then supported by the person who
I saw as the biggest authority of my life for
the majority of those years, like I was a hundred
(35:32):
percent felt like she had all the answers, and that
she would even say things like I know you better
than you do, and that I believe that I did
believe that I didn't know myself, and I don't think
I did, just to be honest, because I was so
disconnected and disassociated. But it's not that I don't know myself.
(35:52):
I think I was just traumatized and I didn't even
see it at the time when you were your eighteen
you know, living in another cun treef who knows themselves
at eighteen? First of all, you know, and if somebody
says I know you better than you know you. I
think if anybody said that to me at eighteen, I
would believe that too, especially when you've left so much behind,
you are trying still to pursue your career, and it's
(36:16):
it all falls in line with believing that these people
have the answers. It's all like I said to you
in our pre call, I feel like it could have
been me. Yeah, I do feel like, yeah, it could
have been a lot of people, and I'm really glad
it wasn't. But yeah, I think if people can step
into that kind of thinking of that age or maybe
(36:37):
if they were that age, they would kind of get it. Well,
I feel like, I mean, I could get it with
someone else telling me the story at different times. I
also went back to live in the UK for like
a year at a time or whatever, but I'd always
be I was still taking classes all the time. I
still had an ESP coach. I was still I was
supposed to check in with Keith and the other us
(37:00):
and every day, So every single day by email and phone,
I would check in with them wherever I was in
the world, and may not have been in Albany for
every second, but I was never not in Albany in
my head. Right. So when you took that first ESP class,
you said, the teacher described the Vanguard and Keith and
(37:21):
you know this mystical creature that knew everything about every
you know, he was so smart and amazing. At what
point did you actually meet him. I think I met
him pretty soon, so it was maybe like a week later,
and I did actually have to tell this story on
the stand, and I think it was kind of funny
because he had this like weird thing where he liked
to play volleyball in the middle of the night, so
(37:42):
he would rent out him. I know there's been some
funny memes done on it. I think I was even
an SML skit done of him is in his volleyball outfit.
I just think he'd just like to do weird things
and make people do them for him so we don't
have to. Well, he would he wanted people to come
and watch and play volleyball with a group of other people,
but it would be like from midnight to like five
(38:04):
in the morning or something like that. And so I
was encouraged greatly to come to volleyball to meet with Keith,
like this is like a grand honor type thing. So
I remember showing up. It was like ABC Fitness in Albany,
I think that's what it was called, at like two
in the morning, and there's this like tiny man with
(38:26):
a like seventies sweat band on a ponytail, and he's
like tiny and sweaty and creepy, and and that was
my first experience of him, and he would just come
up and kiss you on the lips. And I thought, again,
like it just even in English culture, that's like whoa
like these monst's not invited, But then that was the
(38:48):
standard that was setting. It's so gross. I just can't
even it makes me want to thinking about it's not
UK culture and it's also not American culture. I put
so many things down to this must be an American thing,
which now I'm like, I kind of laugh at, but
I sometimes I think I still get it wrong where
I'm like, maybe this is an American thing about and
(39:10):
it probably really was a key thing not an American thing.
I mean, it just goes to show that your reality
is what you're surrounded by by even a short amount
of time. You know, if you're surrounded if if you
walk into that two am volleyball thing and everybody that
you know is is doing this two am volleyball you
go there and he's kissing someone else on the lips
(39:31):
when they see them, and then you see him and
he kisses you. You're just you know, you you don't.
You go along with it, you don't, you don't question
it because that you've seen that this is the normal,
in this pseudo reality that's been manufactured by him himself.
So he kisses you on the lips immediately. Yeah, and
all the women, like he said, and just there were
(39:52):
so many things about that experience that we're weird to me.
And it's not that they didn't continue to be with
me all along, because I mean, he lift in a
house with two other women, and I always like it
was like I would try and refriend things in my
mind or like make them more palatable to me, where
I was like, oh, one of them is his friend,
(40:12):
and the other ones like, you know, I just wouldn't
ask any questions. I just didn't want to think about
things as being weird. And you'd see him walking around
the neighborhood with like all these women and always surrounding
himself of all these women all the time, and I'd
always think, well, he's helping them, or like you try
and think that, but really underneath, I'd be like, that's creepy.
(40:33):
That's creepy. This is creepy. I find him creepy. But
that voice, I think became snow quiet. It wasn't that
it was never there, but I was like, there's no
one that I can say this too that's going to
agree with me. And I think hundreds of people felt
the same way in next year, because yeah, no one
would speak like blasphemy of Keith. That was just not
(40:56):
the way it worked. So I think loads of us
were probably like, Wow, this is really weird and and
didn't say anything about it. And there were a lot
of smart people that would go to ESP classes. You know,
if you google next um an ESP, you hear a
lot of big business people were taking the classes. There.
There's a lot of celebrities, female celebrities associated with Nexium,
(41:17):
Like you knew a lot of celebrities just being part
of it, I assume, right, yeah I did, And I
think that, yeah, all of that it normalized things. And
also because like the party line was always that Keith
was making people more successful and he actually wasn't. He
was attracting successful people and then they were becoming less
successful through staying in next year. Like that's the reality
(41:40):
toe of it looking back on it, but that's his
spin on it. And you kind of felt like that
it was a very like idealistic environment. People would be
going after their goals and nobody was a cheating and
I think that's the thing that we were all blind to,
which is nuts in retrospect, But it was kind of
(42:01):
like you had this huge community of friends around you
that was like a really strange eclectic mix looking back
on it, because it was people from all different random
walks of life. But at least you were kind of
felt like you had friends and you were surrounded by people,
And I think that was another huge hook, and that
was kind of addressed a lot in the HBO series,
(42:22):
I think, because that is probably what kept a lot
of people, was like, well, all my friends are even
in this and and I'm part of something that's bigger
than me, and yeah, so it had that aspect to
it too, that kind of just would they would get
all these testimonials from the successful people and have them
on video being like, you know, Keith, your an area
(42:42):
has changed my life and la la la la la,
And I've never been in one of those videos. Hilarious, Like, obviously,
I think if you really literally keeps me nearly made
my life so much worse and there's nothing that I
could really show for that. But yeah, I was never
in one of those tests many of the years, which
I do find quite funny considering the amount of time
(43:03):
that I was there. Not that I would have wanted
to be, but I'm just saying, like the people that
I've been around for a really long time were not
often the people that were the face of things. I understand, right,
because you're really the most enamored when you're not in
so deep. When you're in so deep, you know a
little bit too much exactly. Yeah, and the reality of
(43:26):
what Maxime does to you has started to kick in.
And that's not as impressive as someone who's like, I'm
a famous actress and yeah, maybe they've only been there
a year or even less, and they saying like this
has really done so much for me. Their life still
looks very appealing to a lot of people in the public,
and they don't know what's on the other side of that. Well,
(43:49):
Sylvia is clearly the bravest person that I know, and
I hope that your eyes and ears are a little
bit more open, and most importantly, your heart is a
little bit more open after hearing this part of her story.
As a reminder, next week we're going to hear the
rest of this episode, where we learned how she got
affiliated with Dus, the sex cult part of Nexium, and
(44:11):
how it also fell apart. Here's a little clip so
you can be prepared for what's coming next. Nobody can
know about this. Apparently nobody can know about this. This
is a completely secret project and all my collateral, which
by that point she'd already collected a couple of naked
photos of me, but again she was like, they're just
going in a safe I'm not even going to look
(44:31):
at them. And I was like, okay, super weird, but
they were going to Keith, like and I just didn't
know that at the time. Yeah, and then basically one
of the first things that I was asked to do
was I need you to seduce Keith, was what she said.
And I was like, seduce Keith, Like what, like why,
like does he know? You know? It was so far
(44:54):
out there for me. I'll see you next week back
here on The Truth's Life. M
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