Like many of us, Sarah Edmondson was on a quest of self improvement and betterment in her career and general life path. This self discovery led her to the cult NXIVM. It wasn’t long before Edmondson was opening her very own chapter of NXIVM in Vancouver, British Columbia. But things were not as they appeared and Edmondson’s life drastically changed.

Edmondson studied theatre and theatre performance in Vancouver as well as Montreal. Once finished with her studies, she began receiving small parts on TV shows broadcast on YTV (canadian broadcasting station). It did not take long for Edmondson to become dissatisfied with her career. Feeling unfulfilled in her career and general life, she seeked advice from friends. One of these important encounters was with an acquaintance, Mark Vicente. Vicente was a writer, director, and cinematographer and was already involved with NXIVM. Throughout his encounters with Edmondson, Vicente started to talk about NXIVM more and more. This drew Edmondson in and ultimately led her to her first weekend seminar.

At the beginning, one of the biggest roles Edmondson had in NXIVM was recruiting. She was a star recruiter. With her conenctions in the film industry and charming disposition, Edmondson was able to draw people in and provided a sense of trust. The more Edmondson recruited for NXIVM, the higher up in rank she went. 

As Edmondson became more and more involved in NXIVM, she was given more responsibilities from Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman. One of her biggest responsibilities was opening up her very own chapter of NXIVM in Vancouver, British Columbia. NXIVM was mostly based in Albany, New York. As all great cult leaders know, it is important to try and influence as many people around the world as possible. Thus the Vancouver chapter of NXIVM was born. Not only was Edmondson in charge of running the Vancouver chapter as well as staffing trustworthy people, she was also becoming a teacher of the NXIVM strategies and leading her own seminars.

Being a well-likeed person, Edmondson formed bonds with many of the NXIVM members. One of these members was Lauren Salzman. Salzman was the daughter of Nancy Salzman, the leader of NXIVM. This friendship quickly blossomed into something morbid. The “sorority” was called DOS. This sorority was one of the many, smaller sub-groups that were part of NXIVM. Yes, many if not all sub-groups of NXIVM were problematic, but this one most definitely took the cake. DOS was centered around a “slave and master” ranking system, where the more important members of the group were masters and they would accumulate a number of slaves as they recruited more women to the sub-group. 

Edmondson first joined DOS as a “slave” to Lauren Salzman. She had full trust and faith in Lauren Salzman and agreed to all the terms given to her in order to join DOS. One of the requirements of joining was to give her “master” collateral. This seemed strange to Edmondson but she completed the task as she had a bond with Lauren Salzman and trusted her completely. It wasn’t until Edmondson was branded and was hearing whisperings of the DOS members sleeping with Raniere that she became suspicious and uncomfortable. It did not take long after that for Edmondson to defect from NXIVM with her husband and fellow NXIVM member, Anthony Ames.

Edmondson, Ames and many of the other defectors from NXIVM played a crucial role in the take down of NXIVM. Working with the police and FBI, documenting everything, having their facts in order led to the crumbling of NXIVM. The domino effect started when Raniere was arrested in Mexico in 2018. This was a huge win for Edmondson, her family and the other NXIVM defectors.

Being one of the individuals who had a hand in taking down Raniere and NXIVM, Edmondson was overjoyed that the whole nightmare was seemingly over. Many of the past NXIVM members (India Oxenberg, Mark Vicente) read out victim impact statements at Raniere’s sentencing. Edmondson also participated in this, sending a video to the court describing the negative impact that Raniere and NXIVM has had on her life. 

As the sentencing of the members of NXIVM are slowly coming to a close, Edmondson can close this chapter of her life and return to a somewhat normal life with her husband and two children.