By Dianne Lipson
Lauren Salzman testified today – her second day on the witness stand. She had much to say about Keith Alan Raniere and his brainchild – DOS.
Lauren was wearing a white top and black pants. Her clothing was loose. She is thin, but not emaciated. Her hips look quite thin.
She was examined by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Hajjar.
Lauren testified:
Growing DOS
Keith Raniere was pushing for DOS to grow quickly. At first, he wanted 100 people, then pushed Lauren to get 100 people in her slave group alone.
“He was pushing me specifically to have 100” slaves, Salzman said. She had six.
Salzman said “every person who becomes a slave should make a whole list of all the people they know — mother included — who should be enrolled.”
Raniere’s involvement was to be kept secret to all but first line slaves.
Raniere recruited eight first-line slaves and considered them his slaves. Each of the eight recruited slaves, in separate lineages. Those slaves in turn recruited more slaves.
Keith wanted “sorority’’ chapters across the country, and to recruit “people of power and influence”.
“I think he envisioned that there would be thousands or millions of people in it,” Lauren said. “We might be able to have a candidate, a DOS candidate, for political office.”
Better collateral
DOS required a “lifetime of obedience to your master,” Lauren said.
Women offered “collateral” such as naked photos or false information about themselves, for example, that they had been prostitutes.
You were not considered enrolled in DOS until you had completely collateralized your life, had been branded, and wore the collar. [The collar was a piece of jewelry – belly chain, necklace or anklet – that you wore 24/7].
When women ran out of actual collateral [they had to provide new collateral monthly] Keith told them to be creative. He suggested they “stage crimes” and videotape them to incriminate themselves.
Who thought up branding?
Lauren testified that, after Raniere’s arrest in March 2018, a DOS woman told her that the women did not come up with the idea of branding.
“The women didn’t choose it — who would ever choose it? … That’s crazy,” the woman told Salzman.
It was Raniere’s idea.
Sorority House
The daughter of Mexican billionaire Alejandro Junco — Rosa Laura Junco was a first line DOS slave. She bought a “sorority house” at 9 Milltowne Drive in Halfmoon NY [a suburb of Albany NY.]
They held secret meetings and took nude group pictures to send to Raniere.
Lauren said she felt jealous of the other women while taking nude photos because Raniere was no longer having sex with her but was having sex with almost every one of the other seven “first line slaves”.
It was “painful” because she had to undress and pose “with the people he was choosing to have sex with instead of me.”
In the sorority house, Raniere wanted a dungeon with its own jail cell.
“He said (the jail cell) was for the people most committed to growth. They would get locked in a cage.”
Raniere also wanted “sex torture things” such as nipple clamps, handcuffs and a net.
The Dungeon
The dungeon was to be in the basement of the sorority house and was to include a cage in which women were to “surrender,” in the interest of personal growth. A woman might be locked for hours or days or longer.
[This was never executed because Frank Report revealed the existence of DOS and recruitment stopped in June 2017]
Dani Padilla said she ordered items for the dungeon. But when DOS became public [in June 2017 through the Frank Report] Dani cancelled the order.
Lauren felt concerned about being locked in the cage since she didn’t know how long she would be locked up. But that’s the whole point of surrender, Lauren said.
Still, she wondered, ‘What if you had to go to the bathroom when you’re in the cage?’
But complete surrender meant you had to be willing to go through anything. If someone didn’t want to do something, it showed they weren’t committed to their growth.
Readiness
Raniere wanted members to respond to “readiness drills,” 24/7. Readiness drills require a slave to respond to her master by text within 60 seconds any time day or night or be punished.
The aim of the drills was to teach slaves that responding to a master was the most important part of a slave’s life.
How Lauren got to join DOS
Raniere invited Lauren to join DOS when they attended the memorial for Pam Cafritz who died in Nov. 2016. Cafrtiz was his top wing woman.
Keith approached Lauren and said he wanted to bring their relationship closer together. He asked her, ‘What are you willing to do for your growth?” Lauren said anything.
He said she would be approached by somebody. That person was the billionaire’s daughter, Rosa Laura Junco.
Rosa Laura told her that Keith started DOS because of a struggle that had come up. It was the suicide attempt of Camila [the woman who Keith first starting having sex with when she was 13 and took naked photographs – now in evidence – of her when she was 15].
Keith felt that DOS would prevent this kind of problem from occurring in the future.
Lauren’s first collateral was rejected because it had to do with the force feeding of drugs to a woman who had taken an intensive. Lauren had participated in force feeding the woman Valium because she had a psychotic breakdown after taking Nxivm classes. She was given Valium to put her to sleep instead of bringing her to the hospital where there might have been some bad publicity.
The problem with this collateral was that Keith had overseen the force feeding of Valium that Lauren had participated in. Keith wanted the woman to have Valium and felt if the woman fell asleep, she would be lucid again.
This was therefore bad collateral because it implicated not only Lauren but Keith.
Rosa Laura suggested Lauren submit naked pictures. Lauren didn’t want to do it. Rosa Laura said she had done it herself.
Lauren was impressed because Rosa Laura was a very conservative person. [She was married at the time with children and was the daughter of the world-famous newspaper magnate and Mexican billionaire Alejandro Junco de la Vega].
Lauren took the naked pictures. Rosa Laura then explained to Lauren about DOS.
She said ‘we’re all slaves to something. We could learn to serve our issues, or we could learn to serve our principles.’
The pubic brand was to memorialize the commitment on their body to become a noble person. You had to go through painful hard experiences. The idea, Rosa Laura explained, was to overcome pain for our principles.
Lauren found this compelling.
Rosa Laura showed Lauren her own brand and that it was Keith’s initials. Lauren agreed to be branded.
Lauren’s additional collateral included turning over to Keith everything she owned. This was memorialized on a document.
Punishment and Penance
Penance is something in DOS which is supposed to be painful or difficult. It was to build consciousness about upholding your values. Penance could be a cold shower, planking or standing barefoot in the snow. Bare ass paddling was a form of penance.
Failing at readiness drills required penance.
Keith’s idea was that all DOS slaves had to be on call 24/7. To test this, masters would text their slaves at any hour [frequently in the middle of the night] and the slave had to text back within 60 seconds ‘ready M’ [M for master. Slaves kept their phones at their bedsides, with the ringer on maximum volume.]
Paddling
Lauren said DOS women had to punish each other at Raniere’s behest, sometimes through “paddling” on their bare buttocks with a leather strap.
One time “he called in and wanted to make sure we were flicking our wrists hard enough. It should be something that really hurts,” she said of the paddling.
“It didn’t sound like anything I ever wanted,” Lauren said. “These things started to become scary for me. I was concerned about failing.”
Keith sometimes oversaw the paddling. He wanted to make sure the women doing the paddling flicked their wrists in a certain way so that the paddling would really hurt.
Daniela Padilla, a first line slave, told Lauren that Keith paddled her personally, because of her pride because she was arrogant and not humble.
Lauren was really scared to learn about his. She didn’t want to be paddled. Dani also said that Keith kicked her when she was on the ground and it was painful.
Lauren thought that she really didn’t want this to happen to her. Raniere said acts of penance in DOS “should be something that really hurts.”
The secret DOS Guidebook
There was considerable discussion about a DOS manual or bible, a book, which Lauren worked on, working off transcripts of what the Vanguard said. The book was meant to be kept in a secret location and secured in a way that it couldn’t be removed by anybody.
It contained the secret DOS teachings of Raniere.
Prosecutors projected onto a screen excerpts from the manuscript.
Lauren helped edit the DOS guidebook, which referred to women as “miraculous excuse finders.”
Lauren’s interpretation is that women are coddled by society by men. Women have to become self-reliant like men. If they have reactions to things, it is because they are women. Women always find excuses, saying they can’t do something; they can’t do things. It’s accepted by society. But there should be no excuses for women.
Here are some important teachings from the book of Raniere:
Your highest desire must be to further your master.
If you believe something must be, you allow for no excuses.
The most important lineage is your master and slave lineage.
You must constantly contemplate that your master is better than all other people.
You must rather die than break your word to your master.
Your collateral should be so distasteful that you would rather die than have it released.
You should do one act of self-denial every day in honor of your master.
You should surrender yourself to your master.
It doesn’t matter what you think about a command. It matters that you obey.
It doesn’t matter if you understand the command. It matters that you obey.
Your greatest joy is to surrender completely your life – mind, body and possessions for unconditional use of your master.
You should be completely exposed and completely vulnerable.
Always make your master look good.
The best slave derives the highest pleasure from being her master’s ultimate tool.
The joy of obedience is far greater than the distaste of any command.
Lauren explained her view on being such a slave: If you were concerned about what you were ordered to do, that was your pride. A slave should only care about furthering her master.
Lauren said you’re always looking to make sure you’re making your master more successful and potent. You should be proactive on this.
You should always look for opportunities to be a tool for your master as the greatest opportunity for growth in yourself.
Lauren said you serve your master as much as you can regardless of what it is.
Lauren said that was to build joy in obeying, no matter what the command.
If you were asked to run outside naked, you shouldn’t worry about that. Just obey.
Lauren’s interpretation is that you should do the command before you question the command.
The book taught women not to be hung up on “goodness or badness.” Lauren’s interpretation is that getting hung up on goodness and badness is limiting. You should be able to transcend your social indoctrination regarding goodness and badness.
From the DOS book: You must give your master your very best, the highest quality you could offer. A good slave gives the master a competitive advantage.
Lauren said in DOS Keith wanted to find intellectual people. When you enroll somebody, you give your master a gift. Your slave was your master’s slave.
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More on Lauren’s testimony tonight.