WeLive in a NXIVM World: New Communal Models for the New Economy

Communities led by charismatic spiritual leaders—abbots, prophets, gurus, and mediums—have been central to the study of intentional communities from its inception. The 1960s golden age of gurus in the West seems to have passed, with seemingly fewer young people devoting their lives to specific teachers of esotericism, mysticism, and Eastern spirituality. However, perhaps the new charismatic leaders have traded their flowing robes for fleece sweater vests as the popular messages evolved toward innovations of technology and mind to transform the world. Keith Raniere of NXIVM and Adam Neumann of WeWork both created quasi-spiritual movements that led to conscious communities being formed around them and their visions for a new future. The resultant communities straddle the line between spiritual/self-help intentional communities and cohousing, while rejecting both labels. WeWork created WeLive in an attempt to extend its business principles into a vision for communal living; NXIVM followers moved together to a modest apartment complex in Knox Woods, New York in order to extend further Raniere’s self-help practices into semi-communal living. This paper will examine the communal forms of living that emerged out of these movements and consider the implications for the future of communal living environments led by the newest iteration of charismatic figures.