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Heidi Hutchinson recalls that in his pre-NXIVM days Raniere was also researching Scientology and neuro-linguistic programming. At one point, he handed her a book on NLP, and later, when she lived in Los Angeles, he asked her to mail him all the teaching materials she could find at the [..]. Celebrity Centre in Hollywood. In letters to his inner circle, he used Scientology terminology and later adapted some of it into NXIVM teachings—though in court battles, he later denied being influenced by Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard's pseudoscientific theory of mental health. Both NLP and Dianetics were marketed as "tech" that could be used to eliminate bad thoughts and behaviors [...].
— Don't Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman (16%)
All these cults feed off each other, and even later Raniere's going to use terms such as "distortion" that pop up in contemporary evangelical and fundamentalist Christian and Mormon groups. (See the ongoing Jodi Hildebrandt trial.)