The Vow

My first goal was "get out."

My plan was to leave ESP quietly.

It was just about escaping.

Preservation of my family.

But when I realized how many women that I'd brought to the community,

who were in DOS,

I mean, that was a whole,

a whole different level of, "what the fuck?"

I decided to start calling people and getting them out.

And part of that was to make sure there weren't more branding sessions.

I brought in so many people to ESP,

so I feel a responsibility.

You need to email her,

and say, "You enrolled me into this based on a lie."

"I want my photos back, I want my videos back,

before I go to a lawyer."

You have a feeling, like, get the fuck out of here.

Those feelings are there to protect you. It's part of being human.

You're going to be okay, and the question for you is,

do you want to help get other people out?

When you start telling people, they're going to be outraged.

"You agreed to being a slave?"

"Yeah, but it was an exercise." To be a slave?

What do you... There's no exercise. You are now somebody's slave.

What does that even fucking mean?

Right. So then I think what we'll do is, we'll talk to Catherine.

Okay, great.

The parents are the way to get to the kids.

Yep.

Mom, hi.

I got a call from Bonnie,

who was involved in NXIVM.

And she said that she was extremely worried about India.

That she... India had been one of her closest friends.

And she said, "You need to save her."

I was like, "Well, I always assumed that

"India would wake up one day on her own,

"and I wanted to respect her and not

criticize her life choice."

But she said, "You know, Catherine,

I don't know if you know what's really going on right now."

And apparently, there's a secret organization within NXIVM.

It's a supposed sisterhood.

They sign a lifetime vow of obedience.

They have to provide blackmail

that would compromise them or their families,

and they're branding girls.

Yes.

I mean, it's so far... This is not my child.

This is not anything that my child would do.

I felt like India was my little sister.

I first met her at an intro that Mark and Sarah were doing.

For us, it's really helpful to know

who you are, and what it is that you want.

She was very sweet, but she was quite shy.

And I really liked her. But we didn't get close

until she started spending more time doing ESP stuff.

My belief in myself.

I think I'm scared of...

not doing well.

In the beginning, I felt that she was

settling for, like, a small life.

And as she continued in ESP, she started blossoming.

I never pushed the stripe path on her,

but when she expressed that she might want to do it,

I wanted to take her under my wing

and guide her through that process.

I thought we could do this journey together.

But I started to see really concerning behavior with India.

I noticed she was counting calories.

It seemed like she was starving herself.

I would catch her in lies, which was strange to me.

And then, she told me that she was gonna move to Albany.

That she'd been working on a secret project

with Keith and Allison.

I believe India's in danger.

So I got in touch with Catherine.

I never go through people's stuff.

So I'm very conflicted,

because I'm violating her privacy right now.

But, if any of this information could actually help us get her out,

I'm willing to do that.

- April of 2016. - Okay.

So, had she moved there yet?

I believe she moved to Albany in May.

She started going to intensives there and just kind of stayed there.

There's a bunch of notes that she wrote,

so I don't know if any of this stuff could give us some insight into...

- Can I see this bottom? - Yeah. Look at all of this.

"Personal mission statement for the rest of my life.

"Willing to put in the effort to make things better for the future,

"because you have a vision for the world.

"Willing to put in the work now,

and protect the innocence in the world."

"I will not be the kind of woman who spends my life believing..."

Is that "fact" or "fear"? See?

"Believing fear"?

Here she says, "What is my motivation?

"How will I use the tool of a low-cal diet

"to build the me that I want?

"Plan attachment collateral write-up.

KR talk. Vow."

- Oh, really? - Oh, it's in there?

Oh, my God.

"KR intimacy."

- KR. That's Keith. - Yep.

The women vow something to Keith.

Their understanding is that he's giving such a gift to them

that they're helping themselves.

They wear a chain to symbolize whatever that vow is.

Yeah, chain.

- Chain. - Mm-hmm.

This is India.

- Aw. - She's so cute.

I love that. That's the India I know.

She's pretending to meditate, right?

- She's got an eye open. - Right, exactly. That's who she was.

She was like the cheeky girl.

That's pre-ESP.

- And then, cult. - That's more recent. Yeah.

And I was really worried about her behavior there, actually.

'Cause she was very distracted.

She was on two phones the whole time.

I'm trying to find a reason why.

I thought she was the happiest,

most evolved, well-adjusted child imaginable.

How about that's why?

- They're the people they go for. - What?

Yeah People keep trying to fucking tell me it's because you're deficient,

and you're weird and you're damaged and you're vulnerable.

No, they go for the people who are successful,

easy people to get along with.

Capable of doing things. That's, that's who they want to run their cult.

Especially if you're trying to get credibility. Look at this.

- She's beautiful. - Mm-hmm.

They go after beautiful people, too.

People don't understand what it's like to be in this thing.

Like, how could you, you know?

And that's why I think people getting to tell their story

is the most important thing.

Since leaving DOS, I've noticed that it's easy for people

to put things in categories.

Like this is all bad, or this is all good.

And I tend to keep weighing

the complexities of this whole situation.

What is manipulation and what is consent?

What motivations are pure?

And the reason I don't want you to know my real name

or see my real face,

is that I don't want to be defined

by those who would judge me for the choices that I made.

Anyone can make the decisions that I made.

Anyone can be Jane.

So, I'm just gonna start from the very beginning...

before I became a part of DOS.

I was living in New York City trying to make it and hustle

as a freelance filmmaker.

And I had been getting work,

but I wasn't necessarily getting any happier.

I would wake up unsure why there still was something lacking.

And I felt lonely.

Struggling with certain friendships with women.

But things changed when I met Rachel.

I wanted to make a documentary about a female urban farmer.

And someone told me, "I know exactly who you're looking for."

She was so honest and seemed so comfortable in her skin.

We had this immediate connection.

It sounds kind of simple,

but I really liked her as a person and I wanted her in my life.

"She said," There's something that I'm involved in

"that I think you would be really interested in."

"And it's really changed my life."

"But before I share it with you, it's very confidential,

"and I need you to come up with some collateral

"to prove that you won't share

any of this information with anyone else."

And I was like, "Are you kidding me?"

She said, "What are you so scared of?

"If you trusted your word, you could put this stuff easily down

"and know that you would never break it.

"Can you see how this is potentially why

"you're failing in other areas of your life?

You just can't trust yourself."

So, I gave her videos and photos.

A letter to my brother about his girlfriend cheating on him.

And passwords to all of my social media accounts.

She accepted that.

And then she told me about DOS.

But she called it "the vow."

It was a vow to grow beyond your excuses,

and challenge all of your fears.

And to accept her as, like, my teacher and my guide.

But it would be under the name of something a bit more controversial

which was "master" and "slave."

And that definitely threw me.

I'm surprised. This is a black woman who's agreed to do this.

And I'm a little shocked that this is something she's accepting.

And she said, "You know, trust me.

I've worked through a lot of reactions to this."

And then she said, "You know, you're already a slave to your fear.