Catherine Oxenberg
Autor(a) de Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult
Obras de Catherine Oxenberg
Associated Works
Sleeping Beauty [2014 TV movie] — Actor — 2 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Sexo
- female
Membros
Resenhas
Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter From a Terrifying Cult by Catherine Oxenberg is a 2018 Simon & Schuster publication.
I only follow the news sparingly these days. However, even if one only pops over to Facebook or Twitter for a moment, headlines and trending news or topics are unavoidable. I had seen the story about an actress involved in a sex cult, but didn’t take the bait. However, the story remained a hot topic for several days.
But, when I saw this book popping up here and there, it never even crossed my mind that the ‘terrifying cult’ spoken of here, was the same one making headlines a few weeks back. Wow.
I was a big fan of the night time soaps for a while in the early eighties. I did watch ‘Dynasty’ for a while, and vaguely remember Catherine Oxenberg from that show. However, I hadn’t thought of her since, well, the early eighties. In fact, it took me a little while to make the connection. So, it wasn't so much that the book was written by a quasi-famous person, but the topic of the book that piqued my curiosity. Cults??
Are cults still a thing? Apparently so.
While they no longer make headlines, well, besides ‘Scientology’, there are still more cults out there than I’d realized.
This one was called NXIVM/ESP. It is marketed as a professional development group, sponsoring seminars designed for self-improvement.
Catherine and her daughter, India, joined the group, but as Catherine remained a skeptic, India bought into the whole ideology hook, line and sinker.
Of course, we all know now that the group was a cult- a sex cult to be more precise, in which women were enslaved and even branded- yes, you read that right- branded!!
I’d never heard of this group until I picked up this book, so all the information provided was news to me. Some readers may have been following those aforementioned news stories about the cult, and as such may not discover anything here you didn’t already know about it.
But, even if you have been keeping up with the headlines and are familiar with the lurid goings on in the cult, this book will give you a look at how the brainwashing operation works and the will and tenacity it required for Catherine to get people to listen to her, to see that crimes were being committed, and to hopefully save her daughter in the process.
I added audio for this book, which is narrated by the author. I found Catherine’s British accent to be appealing, and I think she did a good job at keeping her voice and emotions tempered and even.
I’m about as far removed from the life Catherine has led as one could possibly get. This made it hard for me to relate to her and her approach to life and parenting. She admits to having spent a great deal of time on self-help groups, constantly in search of some kind of pat answers, which of course there is none. Yet, she seemed to try everything under the sun, and although she claimed to have finally realized she was wasting her time with all that, she still joined NXIVM with India and remained a part of it for a lot longer than she should have, especially since she blatantly balked at their practices. She may have stayed because India was so involved, but I found myself questioning her actions on more than one occasion. Of course, it’s easy to armchair quarterback, and I did try not to pass judgement- but only won out half the time.
However, once she realized the hold the group had on her daughter, and the true nature of the organization, it would appear she at long last found her life’s purpose- to expose the cult and hopefully free her daughter in the process.
Once she began working to get India away from Keith Raniere, Catherine, whether she realized it or not, seemed to morph into a person with stronger backbone, became more disciplined, focused, and emotionally mature. While I still questioned the approach she took with her daughter, I couldn’t help but admire her determination. By the time all was said and done, she’d begun to prevent other women from falling into Keith’s trap, making it her ultimate goal to see the cult shut down, to free as many women as possible, with the fervent hope her daughter might be one of them. The reality was, though, that her daughter was so entrenched into the cult, she might be one of those facing criminal charges.
Catherine did not give up, and her work to get the media’s attention, to shine a spotlight on this eerie and bizarre cult finally paid off.
The book is not as organized as I’d have liked, and Catherine does spend a lot of time explaining herself or justifying her actions. I think she is grappling with her role in India’s susceptibility to this type of brainwashing, and her initial participation obviously weighs on her.
But, one only need look at the list of people who have at one time or another been associated with NXIVM to see that anyone, no matter what their background, social standing, financial situation, or popularity, might be open to groups like this.
How people become so brainwashed, why they stay in these situations, and why it is so hard to get them to leave, to see reason, is still a mystery, and is beyond my ability to understand. I don’t suppose cults like one will ever go away, as long as people are in search of some kind of enlightenment or way to find peace and fulfillment, or ways to make them more successful or to make them become better people. It is truly frightening, though, to see powerful leaders and businessmen have been a part of this organization, as well as other influential people whose popularity or occupation had the capacity to lure others into the lair of sex trafficking and slavery and forced labor.
Despite some issues with the writing and organization of the book, it is still a chilling story, which prompted me to do some Google searches and additional reading. I’m glad people like Oxenberg fought against this group and am happy to see her efforts rewarded. I hope India, all those victimized, will come around and find a meaningful and productive way to live life from here on out.
3.5 stars… (mais)
I only follow the news sparingly these days. However, even if one only pops over to Facebook or Twitter for a moment, headlines and trending news or topics are unavoidable. I had seen the story about an actress involved in a sex cult, but didn’t take the bait. However, the story remained a hot topic for several days.
But, when I saw this book popping up here and there, it never even crossed my mind that the ‘terrifying cult’ spoken of here, was the same one making headlines a few weeks back. Wow.
I was a big fan of the night time soaps for a while in the early eighties. I did watch ‘Dynasty’ for a while, and vaguely remember Catherine Oxenberg from that show. However, I hadn’t thought of her since, well, the early eighties. In fact, it took me a little while to make the connection. So, it wasn't so much that the book was written by a quasi-famous person, but the topic of the book that piqued my curiosity. Cults??
Are cults still a thing? Apparently so.
While they no longer make headlines, well, besides ‘Scientology’, there are still more cults out there than I’d realized.
This one was called NXIVM/ESP. It is marketed as a professional development group, sponsoring seminars designed for self-improvement.
Catherine and her daughter, India, joined the group, but as Catherine remained a skeptic, India bought into the whole ideology hook, line and sinker.
Of course, we all know now that the group was a cult- a sex cult to be more precise, in which women were enslaved and even branded- yes, you read that right- branded!!
I’d never heard of this group until I picked up this book, so all the information provided was news to me. Some readers may have been following those aforementioned news stories about the cult, and as such may not discover anything here you didn’t already know about it.
But, even if you have been keeping up with the headlines and are familiar with the lurid goings on in the cult, this book will give you a look at how the brainwashing operation works and the will and tenacity it required for Catherine to get people to listen to her, to see that crimes were being committed, and to hopefully save her daughter in the process.
I added audio for this book, which is narrated by the author. I found Catherine’s British accent to be appealing, and I think she did a good job at keeping her voice and emotions tempered and even.
I’m about as far removed from the life Catherine has led as one could possibly get. This made it hard for me to relate to her and her approach to life and parenting. She admits to having spent a great deal of time on self-help groups, constantly in search of some kind of pat answers, which of course there is none. Yet, she seemed to try everything under the sun, and although she claimed to have finally realized she was wasting her time with all that, she still joined NXIVM with India and remained a part of it for a lot longer than she should have, especially since she blatantly balked at their practices. She may have stayed because India was so involved, but I found myself questioning her actions on more than one occasion. Of course, it’s easy to armchair quarterback, and I did try not to pass judgement- but only won out half the time.
However, once she realized the hold the group had on her daughter, and the true nature of the organization, it would appear she at long last found her life’s purpose- to expose the cult and hopefully free her daughter in the process.
Once she began working to get India away from Keith Raniere, Catherine, whether she realized it or not, seemed to morph into a person with stronger backbone, became more disciplined, focused, and emotionally mature. While I still questioned the approach she took with her daughter, I couldn’t help but admire her determination. By the time all was said and done, she’d begun to prevent other women from falling into Keith’s trap, making it her ultimate goal to see the cult shut down, to free as many women as possible, with the fervent hope her daughter might be one of them. The reality was, though, that her daughter was so entrenched into the cult, she might be one of those facing criminal charges.
Catherine did not give up, and her work to get the media’s attention, to shine a spotlight on this eerie and bizarre cult finally paid off.
The book is not as organized as I’d have liked, and Catherine does spend a lot of time explaining herself or justifying her actions. I think she is grappling with her role in India’s susceptibility to this type of brainwashing, and her initial participation obviously weighs on her.
But, one only need look at the list of people who have at one time or another been associated with NXIVM to see that anyone, no matter what their background, social standing, financial situation, or popularity, might be open to groups like this.
How people become so brainwashed, why they stay in these situations, and why it is so hard to get them to leave, to see reason, is still a mystery, and is beyond my ability to understand. I don’t suppose cults like one will ever go away, as long as people are in search of some kind of enlightenment or way to find peace and fulfillment, or ways to make them more successful or to make them become better people. It is truly frightening, though, to see powerful leaders and businessmen have been a part of this organization, as well as other influential people whose popularity or occupation had the capacity to lure others into the lair of sex trafficking and slavery and forced labor.
Despite some issues with the writing and organization of the book, it is still a chilling story, which prompted me to do some Google searches and additional reading. I’m glad people like Oxenberg fought against this group and am happy to see her efforts rewarded. I hope India, all those victimized, will come around and find a meaningful and productive way to live life from here on out.
3.5 stars… (mais)
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How is it possible to write a book about a cult that’s BORING?!
It’s almost impressive that Oxenberg managed to write a book without a cohesive narrative; I can’t help but wonder what her ghost writer was doing. Captive is so disjointed and poorly structured that it loses much of its message. And what is it’s message? It is difficult to tease out a central, unifying them: on one hand, we have the book’s subtitle, which promises a mother’s journey to rescue her daughter from the clutches of Nxivm. On the other hand, we have Oxenberg’s separate journey to “bring down” the cult by using negative media coverage to encourage law enforcement to step in. The problem is that saving her daughter and bringing down the cult are two separate journeys that rarely intersect.
Oxenberg tries to hook her readers in the prologue with shock factor:
If you knew one thing about Nxivm before picking up this book, it was that they were running around branding people. Of course it would be a horrible shock for a mother to find out that her daughter had let another person brand her with a cauterizing pen. I’m not trying to discount her emotional reaction. But it felt like a cheap ploy to start her book by talking about the branding, especially since the branding is what’s creating so much of the buzz behind Nxivm. She didn’t have to start the story there, especially since she copies and pastes this scene from another passage in the book where it fits in to the timeline.
Oxenberg and her daughter, India, were introduced to Nxivm when they took a class together. Oxenberg left the group after a few years, but India became deeply involved. From the beginning, Oxenberg makes sure her readers know that she wasn’t fooled. She discusses at length how silly the lessons were and how horrified she was at the blatant sexism behind the doctrine, which just doesn’t ring true. If you thought the group was so stupid from day one, why did you spend thousands of dollars taking classes and making trips to Albany? Her viewpoint also bars the reader from really connecting with the story. If she’d structured the narrative in a more sympathetic way, maybe we would be able to see what it was about Nxivm that drew so many people in, including India. Sadly, Oxenberg never gives that to us.
Likewise, Oxenberg has a lot to say about her daughter’s involvement in the group. She tells us how horrified she was to have a child involved with a cult, but again, it just didn’t feel genuine. Interspersed in the narrative is the recurring phrase “a cult expert told me” followed by a dry statement about an abstract cult member’s psyche. The analysis is clearly not her own and is just too clinical and detached. What mother would talk about her child like that? This information is helpful, but it could have been included in a way that felt more natural.
Notably, Oxenberg never actually does anything, at least at first, about her daughter being in a cult. She passively watches as India’s bank account runs dry, and never criticizes her involvement with Nxivm or her choices. Dropping out of college? Breaking up with her longtime boyfriend? Moving to Albany? Possibly sleeping with the cult leader? Oxenberg doesn’t make a peep. And it’s almost contradictory – one page Oxenberg is telling us how worried she is that her daughter is $130,000 in debt thanks to all the Nxivm classes she’s taking, and on literally the next page, in response to a worried friend’s phone call (“You have to save India”), she’s like, “[W]hat do you mean? . . . Save India from what? From whom?”
Oxenberg eventually bands together with a few other people who left Nxivm and begins her “crusade” to tear down the group and save her daughter. This is where the narrative becomes hopelessly disjointed. Oxenberg herself had left Nxivm years earlier, so she isn’t an eyewitness to any of the drama as the group untangles. She tells us what’s happening “inside,” quoting many sources, both named and unnamed. She also does a lot of Googling to tell her readers about Keith Raniere’s background and the history of the group. None of this works for the format: a memoir is supposed to be a deeply personal story, but Oxenberg’s involvement is so limited that she is unable to deliver and is forced to rely on outside sources. Many of these passages felt like they were haphazardly copied and pasted, with no cohesive story.
Something else that is missing from the book is India herself. Oxenberg barely talks to her daughter, minus a few text message conversations, which Oxenberg for some reason included in the book. India’s involvement with the cult is what this book is supposedly about, but India never tells her mother what exactly is going on, and Oxenberg uses third party sources to fill in the gaps. A conversation with her daughter discussing her personal experience is one thing, but the memoir quickly falls apart when the only sources Oxenberg has are friends who tell her what they’ve heard India is going through. By the end of the book, India is still involved with Nxivm, so we never hear her side of the story. I can’t help but wonder how Oxenberg thinks writing this book will effect any future relationship with her daughter.
Because India is still involved with Nxivm when this book wraps up, and because the legal system isn’t finished with Keith Raniere or his cronies, there really isn’t much of a conclusion to this book. The ending is more than abrupt, it’s jarring, introducing a self-serving element that doesn’t work at all with the rest of the book.
And… Interestingly, Oxenberg’s main criticism with Nxivm has something to do with her ex-husband…
Casper was a good athlete, known mostly for his enthusiasm – he’d won awards for his enthusiasm. He wasn’t a regular volleyball player, but he’d played one in a movie, Kill Shot, more than a decade earlier, which is almost as good.
Casper tried to be a good sport and follow Keith’s nonsensical instructions, but fifteen minutes into the game he leapt high into the air to take a shot and accidentally rammed his elbow into another player’s head . . . You might say Casper made a Kill Shot . . . The rest of the players – all nonviolent, non-meat-eating pacifists – were horrified by such uncouth, aggressive barbarianism. They didn’t understand he was just being enthusiastic. I couldn’t help but think: That’s what happens when you pit a real man against a team of beta males.
Here was Casper – a hunky Hollywood celebrity in a gym in suburban Albany, New York – with dozens of female groupies in the room, and none of them gave him a single glance. Not one! I had never seen this happen before; he might as well have been invisible.
The men swarmed him, and he thought for sure someone was going to throw a punch. He was ready if they did: although Casper wasn’t a martial artist, he’d played one in the TV series Mortal Kombat: Legacy – just as good.
They were still beta males, just flustered ones. Not only did we notice that the men seemed more feminized the longer they spent in ESP, but we also observed that, conversely, the women became more masculine. . . [they] all gave off a bit of a butch vibe to Casper and me – especially to my husband, who fancied himself a female sex appeal whisperer.
Now, suddenly Casper’s breakout groups all week consisted of young, attractive women who fawned over him and hung on to his every word – which had never happened before in class.
We really need a book about Nxivm. But this is not that book.… (mais)