Over the next nine weeks, and as NXIVM founder and convicted felon Keith Raniere awaits sentencing for charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy, HBO will air its recent documentary, The Vow, which examines the founding of NXIVM as well as Raniere's own criminal behavior.

The documentary features interviews with former NXIVM members, most notably Mark Vicente and Sarah Edmondson, who discuss their membership to NXIVM and relationship with Raniere. The documentary's existence has already provoked current NXIVM members, many of who have called for other members to petition HBO to remove their likenesses from the documentary.

Though the activities of Raniere and the NXIVM organization are by now widely known, The Vow will provide viewers with additional footage from inside the organization's seminars and will feature more damning interviews.

In the documentary's first episode, we're clued into the early cult of personality, which quickly developed around Raniere, based on claims of aberrational I.Q. scores and musical and athletic abilities. Raniere wasn't merely a leader, members believed, but a genius and visionary. They referred to him, just as he asked, as "Vanguard."

Here's what lay behind Vanguard's veneer.

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Raniere grew up in upstate New York in the 1960s and 70s. His former partner, Barbara Bouchey, later told CBC that Raniere said he first became enlightened at age 13. Bouchey described manipulative behavior even then, with Raniere taking calls from multiple girls, telling each that he loved her. (Bouchey learned this through Raniere's mother.)

Even as he got older, Raniere apparently continued relations with this age group. When he was 24, Raniere had a sexual relationship with at least one 15-year-old girl.

In his 20s, Raniere began developing a personal ethos modeled, in part, on Ayn Rand's objectivismmost notably, the idea that individuals ought to aggressively pursue personal goals.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Raniere worked in marketing and founded his own company, which would later be shut down after a civil suit alleged the company to be a pyramid scheme.

In 1998, Raniere created the Executive Success Program (ESP), a motivational group targeting business leaders and rich professionals, offering something of that Ayn Rand-inspired egoism. Five-day lectures could run upwards to $10,000. Word of mouth helped recruit more than 3,000 people to the program over the next five years.

Amy Luke

In a 2003 cover story, Forbes wrote that Raniere had cashed in on the "high-profit fad of executive coaching." The story also noted troubling behavior, as reported by families of ESP members (the organization was by then called NXIVM). These behaviors included alleged psychological manipulation and separation of members from their own families.

NXIVM expanded worldwide. Members then began observing some of Raniere's darker, misogynistic practices. Witnesses at Raniere's trial said he began having sexual relationships with NXIVM members. The women were told that they could only have sex with Raniere, who also ordered women to starve themselves and, according to testimony, made women snort like pigs when eating.

In 2015 Rainere created a special division of NXVIM called "D.O.S.," the acronym based on a Latin phrase. It's rough translation: "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions."

During Raniere's trial, various women testified how they were lured into NXIVM's D.O.S. They said they had been told it was a women's empowerment sorority and that it required "collateral" of them, including explicit photos and information on their families, which could be used to damage their reputations. These women were later branded in ceremonies with a cauterized pen. Their brand: Raniere's name.

According to testimony, Raniere had sexual relationships with more than 20 women of the NXIVM organization, multiple who became impregnated and required abortions. One girl was as young as 15.

Spencer Platt

Raniere then began recruiting "first-line masters," women who, according to witnesses, would help procure women for D.O.S. One notable first-line master was Allison Mack, an actor known for her role in the TV show Smallville. (Mack would plead guilty to federal charges before trial; Raniere would plead not guilty.)

In 2017, the Justice Department launched an investigation into NXIVM.

In March 2018, Raniere was arrested at a Mexican resort and brought back to the United States to face federal charges. Raniere would ultimately be charged with racketeering, forced labor conspiracy, sex trafficking, and human trafficking.

In June 2019, Raniere was found guilty of all charges.

After the trial, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said the trial "revealed that Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact, a master manipulator, a con man and the crime boss of a cult-like organization involved in sex trafficking, child pornography, extortion, compelled abortions, branding, degradation and humiliation."

Keith Raniere Conversations via YouTube

Raniere has since been awaiting sentencing in New York. As of earlier this year, Raniere was being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn, with his sentencing pushed back from March due to COVID-19.

Raniere is now scheduled to be sentenced on October 27. He faces a potential life imprisonment.

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Who Is Keith Raniere of 'The Vow' - Where Is He Now? - Men's Health