I didn't watch the 1st 2 episodes I had no idea what it was about. I happened to catch the end of the 3rd episode and watched the entire 4th episode. This is some interesting stuff. The art of manipulation.

‘The Vow’ Filmmakers on Showing NXIVM as More Than a ‘Sex Cult’
By Danielle Turchiano
https://www.google.com/am...66987/amp/
Although NXIVM made major news headlines three years ago, first with a New York Times story about DOS, a group-within-the-group that was collecting embarrassing material on its members (called “collateral”), as well as branding them and in some cases allegedly manipulating them into sexual situations, the group itself was founded in 1998 as a self-proclaimed “multi-level marketing company.” Co-founder Keith Raniere led thousands of workshops and classes on self-improvement and self-actualization, and the company opened centers around the world. To label it just a sex cult now, Amer tells Variety, is “deeply problematic.”

“The people I had met were not drawn to a sex cult. Eighteen-thousand people took self-improvement classes; there was a small number that joined DOS. So many of the people that knew me, knew that my intention was understanding, rather than some kind of take-down film,” she says.

Using such footage was essential to the filmmakers to put the audience inside their subjects’ experiences. “You have the chance to feel what it might actually be like to be there,” she explains. “The first priority with making the show is humanizing the story: To take an issue that people think they understand — that has been plastered and sensationalized across the headlines — and to try and put a nuanced, human face to it. And to take our time doing it. That’s the luxury we have as filmmakers, rather than journalists.”

https://youtu.be/31rSR0w0z30

Seems the search for self-actualization is riddled with pitfalls.

It's a trip because these kinds of things are usually attributed to religious group but this wasn't religion at all. These were business seminars for the most part.
An essential tenet of NXIVM, according to ex-members who spoke with CBC, is that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life — all your successes and failures, every thought and emotion. The problem is that your belief system is full of faulty "programming" that has accumulated since childhood and holds you back with fear and other unnecessary emotions.

Raniere’s "rational inquiry" system can fix it, members are told, but it's a very long — and expensive — process that requires exploring and sharing your deepest thoughts and darkest secrets. If anything you're asked to do as part of the training seems odd or ill-advised — like paying thousands of dollars for more training, or allowing your "coach" to discipline you for failing to meet your goals — well, that's probably just your faulty programming talking, and is precisely why you need to stick with the lessons.