The Gallery Of Control : How Power Paints the Body

                                                     

                                                           

Trigger Warning : This piece discusses instances of sexual exploitation of adults and children, psychological manipulation, abuse, and trauma. 

The Body as a Canvas.

Our body is like a canvas, the paintbrush in our hand

The Art comes to life from the world we understand.

We learn to paint, what we feel is right

With art from mind, and art from sight

Slowly we sketch with love and care

Ensuring that every bit of ourselves is there. 

But when we falter, unsure from within

Another hand will reach out, and show us to begin. 

It will hold your brush, make your canvas whole 

And paint its own vision with growing control. 

Because a canvas is never left bare or free, 

The only question is whose art do we come to be. 

A quick introduction to cults! 

The word Cult stems from the Latin word ‘cultus’, which means to worship. Cults do not have much detailed studies and hence the variation differs. However cults are generally seen as groups of people secluded from the outside world, led by a charismatic authoritarian leader, that often follow atypical routines or beliefs viewed as socially deviant. In this blog we will discuss 2 cults – NXIVM and Rajneeshi Osho Cult. Two prominent groups that transformed individual canvases into a gallery of control and manipulation. 

NXIVM was founded by Keith Raniere in the USA as a self help and personal growth organization. However behind its positive facade, it functioned through a rigid hierarchy, sexual exploitation, emotional manipulation, and coercive control. Heavy emphasis was placed on ‘bodily discipline’ which consisted of performing sexual favours for the leaders, and branding on the body to give members a sense of identity and direction in life. However, cults aren't just a western phenomenon. 

The Rajneeshi movement was founded by Bhagwan Rajneeshi Osho in Pune. The movement drew people from around the world with its promise of spiritual liberation, meditation, and freedom beyond conventional religion and social regulation. The community encouraged the idea of free love, with many cases reported of sexual abuse of children within the commune (KGW news, 2025). This blog is not a case study on the functioning of these cults. It is an analysis of how they used the body of members as a site of control, and a canvas for propagating the ideologies of the cult. 

Individual Canvas to a Gallery of Control - How Cults exert Power over others.

Cults will rarely seize complete control at once. They slowly and subtly reorganize an individual's world by decreasing their personal autonomy and aligning it with the group ideology. An individual canvas may be messy, flawed, unfinished, and personal. But it gradually shifts to become part of a larger gallery of control, repainted and reinterpreted by another artist. Power begins subtly, but eventually engulfs a person completely. 

Surveillance - It's not your studio anymore! 

Michel Foucault spoke of the panopticon, a towering pillar of surveillance that monitors every action. In cults, this surveillance is overtly carried out, but sometimes might not even be necessary! Through subtle ways of controlling behaviour, information, thoughts, and emotions, cult systems create systems of obedience and control that internalize surveillance. Individuals begin to regulate their actions themselves because of the feeling of surveillance (Wood, 2002). 

In NXIVM, women were monitored excessively by peers, mentors, and higher members. They were also  expected to report any of their shortcomings to the leader and receive absolution through various sexual favours for the leaders. In the Osho movement, this was seen slightly differently through the communal upbringing of the children under the surveillance of elders, instilling in them the ways of the commune from a young age. These create a system where explicit surveillance and implicit biopower act together on the members, reducing their autonomy and inadvertently telling them, “This is not your private studio anymore. Your space is our space!” 

Dependence - It's not your brush anymore!

From the Marxist view, cult power is sustained by controlling material life. Individual brushes are taken over by leaders who will now be the hand that controls the brush. Cult leaders manufacture dependence in the group by encouraging members to surrender their money, property, and other assets to the group under the guise of detachment from worldly pleasures and collective equality in the group. Members are gradually stripped off their personal resources through escalating requests, while the leadership creates helplessness and complete dependence. This process is also reinforced by false consciousness where exploitation is disguised as virtue. Self sacrifice, exploitation, and coercion is reframed as devotion, trust, and service. 

In NXIVM and the Osho group, members were taught to reinterpret the loss of personal autonomy as a step towards enlightenment. As resources began concentrating at the top of the hierarchy, the polarization between the people increased. Leaders gained power and all means of capital, while followers systematically lost independence and security. Leaving the group then becomes extremely difficult, not just psychologically but materially as individuals are left with nowhere to go and nothing to rebuild their life with, because your brush is not your property anymore… 

Sex - It's not your canvas anymore! 

The theory of terror, love, and attachment highlights the glue that holds the toxic relationships in cults together (Stein, 2021). The oscillation between fear of the leader and affection or lovebombing from them serves as a mixed signal that holds the people in the cult. Leaders alternate between punishment and validation or lovebombing, which creates intense emotional bonds closely resembling toxic or abusive relationships. Along with this, sexual relations between the leader and the members plays a major role in creating an emotional bond formed during intimacy which makes detachment more difficult. 

In NXIVM, sexual favours for Raniere was portrayed as privilege, discipline, and an honour. Individuals in the lower ranks of the cult were branded with the initials of Keith Raniere, basically equating them to the property of the leader. In the Osho cult, sexual openness was seen as liberation which blurred the boundaries of devotion and desire. The intimacy creates attachment, attachment creates loyalty, and loyalty keeps members compliant due to fear of being abandoned. In the end, the canvas becomes property of the leader and your canvas is just another fabric to promote the group ideology. 

Foreclosure - It's not your painting anymore! 

Erikson (1959) writes that identity is built through exploration and commitment. When this process is cut short by a ready made identity being handed to someone without adequate exposure to other alternatives, it is called identity foreclosure. 

NXIVM encouraged members to conform to the identity that they meted out, where sexual coercion is framed as liberation and identity is linked to the group. Being a member of the group did not become merely a part of life but the identity of the member itself. In the Osho commune, identity was dissolved. Followers were encouraged to leave their past life to attain spiritual rebirth. Sarito Carroll, an ex-member described how the surrender felt liberating at first but slowly erased her boundaries for independent thought. The loss of identity makes detachment extremely difficult, at the risk of shattering their identity. 

In either case, the canvas now becomes the property of the cult leader and there is very little autonomy or individuality left. The individual canvas becomes just another painting in the whole gallery of control curated by the leader. 

Reclaiming the Canvas.

According to James Scott (1989), the idea of everyday forms of resistance help us to understand one of the ways of how to loosen the grip of authoritarian systems on our brush, without overt confrontation which might be risky. In environments where dissent can be punished, resistance takes the form of subtle, almost invisible acts like hesitation, withdrawal, silence, delay, or selective compliance. 

In NXIVM some members talked about resisting through non-disclosure of failure, withholding information and emotional disengagement with the ideals of the cult. This helped individuals gain a sense of autonomy. In the Osho cult, former members spoke about resistance to sexual coercion and underperforming manual labour.

Scott's framework reminds us that resistance does not always have to be bold and overt. Often, even the small acts in private spaces, in thoughts and actions help to disengage with the rigid cult structures and slowly take control of our lives. The brush might not be fully reclaimed but the hands begin to twitch and reach the brush. These micro forms of resistance weaken total control by restoring our brush and canvas in the pursuit of creating our own art. 

Together, NXIVM and the Rajneeshi Osho cult highlight how cults are defined by their structure and mechanisms. Despite different time frames, geographical locations, and ideologies, both relied on similar mechanisms of control to curate individual canvases into pieces for their gallery. Understanding cults in this way helps us to move beyond the mystery and critically analyze the influence of power on members. Keep in mind, the gallery of control is not just limited to cults. It exists wherever bodies are manipulated to serve power. The final question, then, is not whether the canvas is painted or not.

“Because a canvas is never left bare or free, 

The only question is whose art do we come to be.”

References.

Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle.

KGW News. (2025, April 24). Rajneesh Survivor: Full interview with Sarito Carroll [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0yBxRhNUWc

NXIVM, Religion, and “Cults”: Keith Raniere as Charismatic Leader and  Transgressive Criminal. (2022). Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies, 2(1), 3. https://share.google/Gy0wUmOiu74LYl3uo

Scott, J. C. (1989). Everyday forms of resistance. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, 4, 33. https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v4i1.1765

Stein, A. (2021). Terror, love and brainwashing. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003030959

Wood, D. (2002). Foucault and panopticism revisited. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 234–239. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v1i3.3338