(quick digest / TL;DR: NXIVM tried to infiltrate the a capella world in 2008, shilled the hell out of a legitimate forum, got spanked.)

(and i dropped this in the wrong forum a few minutes ago, a thousand apologies. I believe this ties in to pizzagate because mack was arrested for sex trafficking of (at least) one child younger than 14)

In 2007, Keith Raniere brought five of his NXIVM members together to form "Simply Human". Siobahn Hotaling, Mike Baker, Bonnie Piesse, Mark Hildreth and Allison Mack.

https://kek.gg/i/8mMys.jpg

In 2008, NXIVM hosted "A Capella Innovations", and invited several a capella groups to attend, for free. lodging, food, seminars - all paid for.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090312034907/http://acappellainnovations.com:80/acappella-innovations.php

Benefactors?

• Sir Richard Bronson
• Sara Bronfman
• Barbara Bouchey

Scheduled to appear?

• Blake Lews
• Allison Mack
• Fork
• (and eventually) The House Jacks

The a capella world is fantastic. lots of passion for their art. a festival popping up out of nowhere caught lots of attention at RARB/CASA, a jointly run website/forum for real, professional, semi-professional, and aspiring collegiate a capella artists.

the initial take? this is a cult, this is a scam. cover blown!

http://archive.is/F74xJ (four pages, you can click through the archive)

very quickly, (what we can now recognize as) shills come out of the woodwork to defend the seminar.

flash forward to after the seminar, and there's a hotbed of activity in another thread on the same site. kids complaining about intrusive personal questions, creepy-constant-monitoring, and general cult-like behavior.

i've gone through and cataloged all of the commenters, and from that thread, there are still 18 people (aside from raniere himself!) who are friends with not-involved-with-acapella-at-all clare bronfman.

here's the follow up thread:

http://archive.is/v3csy

again, you can click through all 14 pages. it's a fun read.

One of the greatest names in a capella, deke sharon, speaks out loudly against NXIVM throughout the thread. He's clearly figured out that this is not a 'genuine' attempt to join the community, but there are tons of voices shouting him down.

Statements in the thread are made by (allegedly):

• Clare Bronfman
• Keith Raniere
• Mark Vicente
• Allison Mack
• Kristin Kreuk
• Larua Salzman
• Nicki Clyne

later, in 2013, deke posts this retrospective: http://archive.is/hZGor

lost about 50 friends in the debacle.

in retrospect, you'd think those staunch supporters of the festival might distance themselves from Bronfman, et al, right?

Nope.

read through the thread, and bear in mind that these folks:

• livingfiction
• playdeep
• siobahn
• mikey10101
• bstevens
• borski
• liquid5thcarl
• thatwesguy
• dpm
• vkolko
• aroz21

and a handful of other more obviously named are still FB friends with Clare, 10 years later.

classic shill techniques in play - and remember this is all in 2008! anyway - the conversation is fascinating, and you can see how the group operated.