"Smallville" actress Allison Mack is accused of recruiting women to join a sex slave cult. (Reuters)
"Smallville" actress Allison Mack, who allegedly acted like a slave "master" and recruited women to the cult-like group NXIVM, is seen in a recently resurfaced bizarre video where she raves about being a compassionate person, praises Lena Dunham and brags about belonging to a "women's empowerment group."
In the YouTube video entitled "Allison Mack Q&A – You Asked, I Answered" posted on Oct. 6, 2013, the 35-year-old can be seen sitting in an overgrown garden with an old wooden fence in the background. The video starts off with jazz music and then turns into a series of questions and answers, posed and answered, by Mack.
"I want to be remembered for my joy," she says in the video. "I want to be remembered for my spirit. I want to be remembered for my compassion and my passion.
"I want to be remembered for the things that are important to me. I want to be remembered for the way I impacted people. I want to be remembered as a woman who was honest and true and joyful. Committed. And loving."
Mack then goes on to laud Jness, a subsect of NXIVM that the star described as a "women's empowerment group."
"Working for Jness is the most gratifying thing I've ever done," she gushed while speaking from a leafy background. "It’s the most challenging because it consists of working with a group of people who are interdependent. No one is ever punished or told that they’re wrong or they’re bad."
A smiling Mack continued, “Working for Jness is the most purposeful and satisfying thing I’ve ever done. Watching the women who are in Jness completely transform and evolve in a way that’s so pure – it’s such a privilege.
"Seeing people’s life paths completely turn 180 degrees when in one moment they felt like this was all they had and this was all that they could do and then they come through Jness and our community and it’s like a whole ‘nother life is born from their new experience of themselves."
Mack even insisted the group helps women find themselves after facing any obstacles in their lives, such as a painful breakup.
“Working for Jness is grounding and satisfying and humbling and wonderful,” she declared.
However, Mack gave little details on how Jness exactly operates or specifically empowers women. She did encourage viewers to keep submitting questions about her life and work using the hashtag #AskAllison.
In the video, Mack later hails Lena Dunham as her hero, as well as Miranda July as an inspiration for being creative “without any fear.”
She also discusses her favorite snacks which include roasted kabocha squash, her favorite poets like E. E. Cummings and William Shakespeare and her love for lilies.
This isn’t the first time Mack has praised Jness in a public platform. In an undated post on her blog titled “Jness,” Mack described how she has always been “attracted” to women’s issues, which compelled her to join “a women’s movement.”
“A collective inspiring a community of strong, authentically empowered women to own themselves in a way that has never been seen or understood before?” she wrote. “It sounded like the perfect blend of what I was looking for! So I took the leap and enrolled in a weekend workshop and within the first few hours I knew I had found my people.”
(AllisonMack.com)
“Many years later, the curriculum continues to guide me through the maze of my inner world shining light on the dark corners of my psychodynamic revealing confusions and insecurities that have hindered the expression of the authentic, empowered woman I have always sought to embody. I embrace so much more of myself now and am beginning to understand what it takes to grow into the vision of the woman of our times.”
(AllisonMack.com)
The site, AllisonMack.com, which was linked to her verified Twitter page, has since been taken down.
Mack pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking on Friday after federal prosecutors said she worked as a slave "master" recruiting unsuspecting women to the cult-like group led by a man who sold himself as a self-improvement guru to the stars.
Keith Raniere, the co-founder of NXIVM, stands accused of keeping numerous women as slaves and branding his initials into their skin. In March, Mack was seen running after him as police hauled him away from a $10,000-a-week Mexican villa where the pair had reportedly been hiding out.
Prosecutors said Mack required women she recruited to engage in sexual activity with Raniere, who paid Mack in return.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Kim Penza said in court that "under the guise of female empowerment" Mack "starved women until they fit her co-defendant's sexual ideal."
Founded in 1998, NXIVM promoted Raniere's teachings as a kind of mystical, executive coaching designed to help people get the most out of life. Enrollees in its Executive Success Programs paid handsomely for his advice. The organization also drew criticism from people who likened it to a cult.
Last year, the accusations took a new twist, with women who were part of a NXIVM subgroup coming forward to say that they had been physically branded with a surgical tool against their will.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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