NEW YORK — Keith Raniere told top NXIVM disciples that some small children are "perfectly happy" having sexual experiences with adults and that it is "society" that considers it abuse, according to a video shown Friday at his trial.

Raniere, 58, also dictated curriculum in NXIVM teachings that asserted women have reported an "unexpected experience of freedom which occurs during rape."

The man known as "Vanguard" confidently asserted that standards that define abuse — and sexual abuse of children — vary greatly depending on where and when one lived. He noted various ages of consent to sex, which in New York is 17.

"In some states, it's 17, in other parts of the world it's 12," an unshaven Raniere, clad in a black jacket, told a group of acolytes including actress Allison Mack, a top member of his secret "master/slave" club within NXIVM.

"What's abuse in one area is not abuse in another. And what is it really?" Raniere asked. "Is the person a child or is the person adult-like? Does the person have a certain type of cognition, morality to make such a choice?"

Raniere's remarks on video, played during the testimony of FBI agent Michael Weginer, represent the final piece of evidence that prosecutors presented at the NXIVM's co-founder's trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

The defendant's comments about pedophilia and rape could make for a powerful exclamation point in a case in which prosecutors have painted Raniere as a narcissistic conman and sexual predator.

Raniere pontificated in the video-chat exchange that many people who "scream abuse" do not understand what they're talking about. He suggested that just because standards classify something as abuse does not mean it is is abuse.

"So they abuse abuse," he said.

Raniere authoritatively spoke on the topic of sex abuse.

"Often when you counsel people who were, say, children of what you call abuse ... some little children are perfectly happy with it," Raniere said, "until they find out what happened later in life and then it's more society that abuses them than actually parents because in societies in the past, like in Rome or whatever, the standards were extremely different. But we're not in Rome and we should know that."

Prosecutors and witnesses allege the self-help guru had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old Mexican girl and kept pornographic images of her in a townhouse on Hale Drive in the Knox Woods development in Halfmoon.

During cross-examination, Raniere attorney Marc Agnifilo noted in his questioning that comments about rape and sex abuse were a minuscule part of NXIVM's overall curriculum.

Earlier Friday, Judge Nicholas Garaufis scheduled closing arguments for Monday, which will mark the start of the trial's seventh week.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza also played a video of NXIVM president Nancy Salzman speaking at a meeting at the former Apropos restaurant on Halfmoon. On the video, Salzman parroted what Raniere had previously said. Salzman made the remarks during a meeting of Jness, a women's group within NXIVM.

Salzman, who pleaded guilty in March to federal offenses connected to the federal investigation of NXIVM, suggested that the blame in cases of child sex abuse should, in some cases, be something NXIVM students "have to think out for themselves.

Penza showed literature from NXIVM described as "The Human Experience."

"If someone comes from a country where adults orally stimulate children and they find out, according to American culture they have been abused. Have they? Who did the abusing?" the literature asked.

"The abuser is our culture. Our society," it answered.

Raniere is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor and conspiracy. The racketeering charges include underlying alleged acts of possession of child pornography, sexual exploitation of a child, extortion, identity theft and fraud.

In addition to the the video, Penza showed jurors a copy of Raniere's biography from NXIVM's now-shuttered website. It described Raniere as a star student and three-subject major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.

The prosecutor then showed copies of Raniere's grades which showed he had a 2.26 grade point average (a C student) who failed general physiology, quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, was placed on probation and faced academic dismissal in 1988.