Never-before-seen footage shows inside the NXIVM sex cult

The darkest secrets of New York sex cult NXIVM are expected to be brought to light on Sunday, with the launch of a new nine-part documentary.

The Vow, which will air on HBO, features previously unseen footage filmed by one of the group's senior figures.

Mark Vicente, a former high-ranking member of the group, handed over a wealth of archival footage to Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning directors Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer - the team behind The Great Hack and Control Room.

The series follows a number of people deeply involved in the self-improvement group over the course of several years.

It also shows the scene in April 2009, when the Dalai Lama - who received a $1 million donation for his time - addressed a NXIVM-organized event in Albany, blessing the cult's organizers.

The Dalai Lama is shown garlanding NXIVM founder Keith Raniere in the new documentary

Raniere, the NXIVM founder, was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges in June 2019

'I have a vision of what it could be like to be a human - to experience connection, passion, love,' said Keith Raniere, the founder, in a clip from the trailer.

He describes NXIVM as 'a methodology for enhancing human experience and behavior.'

Raniere, 59, is currently in jail awaiting sentencing, having been found guilty in June 2019 of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, human trafficking and multiple counts of racketeering — including sexual exploitation of a child.

Mark Vicente, a former high-ranking member of the group, provided much of the footage

Former NXIVM members have spoken about the New York company, known as Executive Success Programs, or ESP, offered lessons on how to change habitual behaviors, reject needless fear, and gain full control over their response to any situation.

In 2017, it was revealed that the workshops, operating near Albany under an umbrella group called NXIVM, were concealing a sex cult.

Members were turned into slaves, made to eat restricted-calorie diets, forced into bed with the company's founder and branded on their pelvis with the Raniere's initials.

'This actually helps you so you can build love,' says one woman in the trailer.

Another describes NXIVM as 'the family I have been looking for my whole life'.

A third states: 'It is manipulative, but it's a good manipulation.'

In the documentary, previewed by the New York Post, Vicente says of his first meeting with Raniere: 'There was part of me that was like, "This is the dude?" '

A pianist, judo master and self-styled scientist, Raniere kissed everybody on the lips as a greeting.

'If this guy created all these things that are helping so many people, who cares about the kissing-on-the-lips thing?,' said Bonnie Piesse, the actress who played young Aunt Beru in 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith,' in the documentary.

NXIVM recruited successful actresses, such as members Allison Mack (right) and Nicki Clyne

Smallville actress Mack was one of the most senior members of the sex cult

Mack, arriving at court in May 2018. She pled guilty to sex trafficking and conspiracy charges

Vicente recruited Piesse, and eventually married her.

Piesse recorded a conversation with Raniere, in which she was expressing to him her concerns about her job as a 'proctor,' working 23-hour days for no money with little time to eat, leading her to nearly pass out during a NXIVM singing rehearsal.

'If you pass out, you pass out,' Raniere said. 'I’ve done that. But when there are higher values, when you’re connecting with people, when you are serving humanity, which is serving your inner self? And that sort of servitude is not slavery.'

Piesse, Vicente and Canadian actress Sarah Edmondson left NXIVM in 2017.

Their move was risky because the group is known for being highly litigious, breaking and entering into former employees’ homes and seeking revenge.

Edmondson described in the documentary how she was taken blindfolded to Smallville actress Allison Mack’s house for a two-hour ritual, and then forced to watch her friends scream as they were branded with Raniere's initials.

'I was just thinking, "How the f*** am I gonna get out?,"' she said.

'And they weren’t doing well. They were squirming, they were crying, they were twitching, they were sweating.'