Puyallup woman once part of NXIVM helped take down the cult and its infamous leader
The subject of multiple documentary series and a New York Times investigation, the alleged self-help group NXIVM has been identified as a cult by many of its former members, including one who lives in Pierce County.
Susan Dones, 64, was a member of the now infamous group and started a NXIVM center in 2001. She now lives in Puyallup and is medically retired from the Department of Defense.
NXIVM was started in 1998 by Keith Raniere after his previous venture, Consumers Buyline, was shut down by the New York Attorney General over allegations of it being a pyramid scheme. NXIVM billed itself as being a “self-improvement” group that could help attendees build tools to find personal success.
Raniere pitched that the program’s “main emphasis is to have people experience more joy in their lives.” According to The New York Times, “an estimated 18,000 people enrolled in the group’s workshops.”
According to the investigative CBC podcast Uncover: Escaping NXIVM, the group said it had a philosophy of “personal and professional development” which it offered to members through “workshops called Executive Success Programs (ESP).“ The development was measured using “a sash system called the ‘stripe path’ to signify ranks in the organization” which is “similar to the belt system in martial arts.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone, cult expert Diane Benscoter boiled down NXIVM to being “an old bag of tricks, repackaged,” which regurgitated “universal truths about how to improve yourself and how to look closer at the things that are getting in your way of success and your fears.”
That initially appealed to Dones who told The News Tribune she got involved in the genuine hopes of helping people and thought the group would be a positive force in people’s lives. She set up a center near South 72nd Street and Vickery in Tacoma where interested people could take classes.
“When we bought it, it had previously been a chiropractic office,” Dones said. “We never put out signs like ‘The NXIVM center’ or any of that kind of stuff. People had the address and knew how to get there.
“We were never secretive with what we were doing. I didn’t know it was a cult. I just thought it was a training program.”
Raniere later was put on trial for charges of sex-trafficking, forced labor, racketeering and other felonies connected to the group. He was sentenced in October to 120 years in prison.
Dones said she always had a bad feeling about Raniere.
“I couldn’t stand Keith. I never liked him from the very beginning, and they knew that. They kept me away from Keith,” Dones said. “To me, he was just creepy.”
Intrigued with NXIVM
Dones said she initially was intrigued with the group but began to notice some concerning signs.
“My only question was, was like, ‘Why is it so expensive?’ Because most self-help programs weren’t that expensive,” Dones said.
Despite reservations, Dones got involved in other groups.
“Some people from Canada came down,” Dones said. “They asked me if I would come up to Canada to teach some day programs. So I started working in the Vancouver, Canada area, also. I’d drive up like once a month, teach some one-day classes.”
Dones helped set up the Vancouver chapter. It was there she learned of some of the harmful ideologies of the group.
Dones told the Hollywood reporter she was alarmed in 2006 by comments she heard when she attended a meeting in Vancouver with NXIVM’s president, Nancy Salzman. The meeting was for the “Jness program,” which was billed as a “women’s movement” within NXIVM.
“She (Salzman) talked about how women have been raised to be monogamous and how men’s general nature is to be more polygamous, to spread their seed,” Dones said. “I found it really archaic.”
In 2019, Salzman pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and is awaiting sentencing.
Dones said that these newer classes, which were seen in the HBO series “The Vow,” were not something she signed up for when she started.
“All they had then was the 16-day program. They didn’t have all these ridiculous courses that you saw on ‘The Vow,’ ” Dones said.
Ponzi scheme ‘comes into play’
Dones said she soon worked her way up to being a field trainer, putting her in charge of salespeople getting enrollments. It was from there that she got her own center.
“I became a center owner, but a center owner doesn’t make any money as a center owner until you enroll 100 Ethos students, which took me four years to do,” Dones said.
The “Ethos” program was a weekly class that ran year-round, costing about $1,800 annually, according to the Times Union in Colonie, New York.
Getting that many enrollments was not easy and left Dones in a precarious financial situation.
“The whole time I’m paying for my center out of my other commissions,” Dones said. “That’s where the Ponzi scheme kind of thing comes into play, which I didn’t realize was happening. I didn’t realize that until after I left.”
Dones didn’t leave alone.
“I called my coach, who was Barbara Bouchey, and I knew she was thinking of leaving because she had told me that,” Dones said.
Bouchey, another former member of NXIVM who was close with Raniere, would be part of the group that left with Dones. They became known as the “NXIVM Nine” and left in April 2009.
“We pulled as many people out as we could,” Dones said. “They sued us to try to shut us up, which didn’t work.
“I never stopped trying to expose them.”
Dones was sued by the group in 2010. According to Oxygen.com, Dones wrote a letter with the other eight members “asking for money that they thought they were owed,” which NXIVM argued was attempted extortion.
Dones considered the lawsuit, which she would win after nine months, an attempt at retribution.
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Raniere ‘manipulating people’
After leaving, Dones still had concerns about the group’s control over its members.
In 2017, she appeared on the Dr. Oz show, where she said she was fearful for the women still involved in the group.
“When I left, (Raniere) was just manipulating people to have sex with him,” Dones said. “Now he’s branding women and putting them on diets that are going to kill them.”
Dones tried to keep her identity and past with the group a secret locally as she was concerned about getting undue attention.
“This is the first local interview that I’ve done. Thank God when NXIVM was on top, I stayed under the radar locally,” Dones said.
It was members like Dones both leaving and speaking out about the group over the years which led to the steady unraveling of NXIVM.
That unraveling culminated in Raniere’s sentencing. Dones was present and spoke at the legal proceedings with many other former members.
“When I spoke at his sentencing, it was more for me and other victims,” Dones said. “I knew whatever I said was not going to matter to him. … It was more for me to put the finishing touches on my time with being tortured by him for 20 years.”
According to The New York Times, Raniere is said to have expressed no remorse.
“He is not sorry for his conduct or his choices,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Dones’ Tacoma center
Dones said she never let her center in Tacoma become part of the problem.
“There were actually a lot of people from the Tacoma area that came,” Dones said. “But I kept my training facility clean. I never forced people into taking training.”
That sentiment was echoed by some former Tacoma members.
One is Angela Parisotto, 45, who still lives in Tacoma and joined the NXIVM group in 2004. Parisotto stayed involved until the local center closed.
Parisotto says she was always discerning about the group and that her experience was a positive one, at least when it came to Tacoma.
“It was great for the most part,” Parisotto told The News Tribune. “I’ve managed to avoid cult life for this much of my life. I think if you’re a cult, I’m going to know it and not come back.”
Parisotto disliked when leaders at the national level would make an appearance in Tacoma as they would tell her how to behave.
“It wasn’t until towards the end that it got a bit weird,” Parisotto said. “I wear bright colors, big hats, whatever. I mean, I was a professional clown for a decade of my life, that was my full-time career. For me, the judginess of ‘you should calm yourself down’ kind of pissed me off.”
Parisotto also had misgivings about Raniere.
“I’d always had a bit of an issue with this treating Keith like a guru. There was a picture of him in the office that always made me a little uncomfortable,” Parisotto said. “Keith was this background character that for the most I didn’t think about because if I had thought about it, I would have asked more questions.”
Now, Parisotto has mixed feelings about her time with NXIVM, though she is glad to have left.
“I really had some strong friendships and I’m thankful for those friendships to this day. But I am so sorry that I had supported a bad organization and that bad organization went on to hurt people,” Parisotto said. “I’m glad I got out when I did and I thank Susan for closing the center when she realized all of this happened and really overall protecting us from New York.”
Kristi Lahusen, 45, was living in Portland when she first got involved in 2005 and would drive to Tacoma specifically to attend the group.
When Lahusen first inquired about the program, she was told she had to experience it for herself though she soon noticed a fixation on Raniere, who the group called “Vanguard.”
“They would do this sales pitch about this man, this so called ‘Vanguard,’ who is the smartest man in the world,” Lahusen said. “Even then, I kind of had the awakening that this sounds like a multilevel marketing company.
“I had the gut instinct that something doesn’t feel right.”
Lahusen said she still went to her first event despite concerns.
“I still had a bit of tentativeness, but I can tell you what I honored and respected the most was Susan,” Lahusen said. “What Susan did differently is really captured that the curriculum was really what you made of it.
“I went up to Tacoma for the first five days and then not too long after that I finished the remaining 11 days. It didn’t feel cultish or misleading.”
Lahusen said she began to have concerns as she made her way up within the organization.
“I struggled with the gesturing and various rituals that to me did not seem congruent with my own values,” Lahusen said.
Lahusen said the moment that began to change her mind was when she read a piece in Vanity Fair detailing some of the accusations now being litigated.
“I read that and I went down the rabbit hole and just started reading,” Lahusen said. “Multiple other series of journalistic pieces called this organization dangerous.”
Lahusen left shortly after. She has since returned to graduate school and is looking to put the past behind her.
She says she has no regrets and is glad justice has been served.
“I’m grateful for the experience and the person that I am that can stand up for truth,” Lahusen said. “I just always honestly waited for the day when Keith was sentenced.
“I think everybody needs to be held accountable.”
Dones on healing path
Dones said she now sees how the group attempted to control and manipulate her.
“There is a lot you can see when you leave in retrospect of how they tried to gather collateral over people,” Dones said. “My collateral that they had over me was the debt of setting up my center.”
As for what her future holds, Dones is set to be featured in the second part of the HBO series, though she isn’t sure what that will look like as it is still in production.
“I was asked to be in ‘The Vow,’ and they’re still doing some filming of me,” Dones said. “I don’t know what part I’ll play in ‘The Vow Part 2.’ It’s going to take a different course.”
In her personal life, Dones has been on a long road to recovering from her time in the group.
“I’ve found a really good therapist that is really well-trained in PTSD and anxiety, has some experience in cults,” Dones said. “She’s been my saving grace.”
Dones said her work of healing is not done.
“I suffered terribly from night terrors. They just persecuted the hell out of me,” Dones said. “I think it’s a lifelong healing thing. A lot of my triggers I’ve worked through — some of them I still haven’t.”
She hopes that the future legal resolutions will help her to put that past behind her.
“I think making it through the next few sentences will be good closure for me,” Dones said.
Beyond that, Dones had one thing she wanted people to know.
“It took a village to take this idiot down and we did it. We dismantled one of the worst cult leaders there is out there,” Dones said. “If they can just understand, that gives me peace.”
