Women branded with initials of ‘cult leader’ and traumatised by ‘self-help’ group’s doctors

Women say they were branded and traumatised by doctors in a secretive group, and state officials will review why authorities didn’t act sooner on the women’s reports, a spokesman for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.

State officials will examine whether the women’s complaints warrant an investigation now, the Democratic governor’s spokesman Richard Azzopardi said.

The action comes after The New York Times reported on complaints about a group affiliated with the self-help organisation NXIVM, which is based in suburban Albany and has chapters across the country. Wikipedia describes NXIVM as a “pyramid selling organisation”. On its website, NXIVM calls the women’s complaints “lies”.

In a complaint filed with the state Department of Health over the summer and shared with the Times, a woman said Dr Brandon Porter, of the Albany suburb Clifton Park, did studies on behalf of NXIVM’s personal development programme. In one study, she said, Porter connected her to brainwave monitoring equipment and without warning showed her film clips depicting extreme violence including gang rape. She said she has been haunted by the images for almost a year.