Alleged sex cult leader Keith Raniere expected his female followers to be as obedient as “hungry dogs” whether he wanted nude photos on demand, or food paid for out of their pockets, his trial has heard.

Former devotee Lauren Salzman told a New York City jury that members of secret master-slave society Nxivm were brainwashed to respond at all hours when asked for “acts of care”.

Among the written instructions for those in the “sorority” were: “You should be a hungry dog for your master.”

Mr Raniere, 58, a purported self-help guru, sometimes ordered the women to paddle each other if they disobeyed his rules, Ms Salzman said.

Her testimony came in the second week of a trial in which Mr Raniere’s lawyers have claimed his contact with Nxivm’s members was consensual and intended to help with their personal growth.

The world of Cults: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 The world of Cults: in pictures The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as ‘Comrade Bala’ within the women-only collective he founded 40 years ago, carried out a brutal campaign of sexual degradation against the women over several decades. In this picture, he stands with some of his cult followers including his daughter. Rex/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Balakrishnan brainwashed the cult into thinking he had God-like powers and that he could read their minds, as a means of subjecting them to years of abuse. Metropolitan Police/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Katy Morgan-Davies, 33, formerly known as Rosie Davies, who was kept as a prisoner by her father Aravindan Balakrishnan. Revealing her real identity, Miss Morgan-Davies said that waiving her anonymity was an important step – “to retrieve the identity the cult tried to steal from me”. During his trial the judge said he had treated his daughter like “an experiment”. She said: “Your treatment of her from her birth to the age of 26 was a catalogue of mental and physical abuse. “She was slapped with slippers or a stick from a McDonald's balloon you kept for the purpose.” PA/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Evidence picture showing the bedroom of the imprisoned daughter of Aravindan Balakrishnan. She was banned from leaving the house unaccompanied and routinely psychologically and physically abused. As a child, she became so lonely she would talk to the taps in the bathroom, and tried to make friends with the rats and mice that scuttled into the kitchen. After 30 years of being kept as a “slave”, she managed to escape in 2013 after memorising the number for an anti-slavery charity she saw on the news. Rex/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Boarded up windows in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London. Aravindan Balakrishnan was jailed for 23 years in 2016. To keep his devotees in check, Balakrishnan invented 'Jackie', which he said could kill or trigger earthquakes if anyone went against his will. He claimed that a challenge to his leadership resulted in the 1986 space shuttle disaster and Jackie, an invisible war machine, was responsible for the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader. PA/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The People’s Temple - Guyana, South America Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple sect in Jonestown, north Guyana, in 1978. Believers of the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ followed Reverend Jones to Guyana in the Seventies, hoping to create a utopia in the jungle. Jonestown was envisaged as a “rainbow family” of all ages and races, the preacher had promised them: “Divine principles. Total equality. A society where people own all things in common, where there is no rich or poor, where there are no races.” AP/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures The People’s Temple - Guyana, South America Reverend Jones wanted to create a glorious sacrifice, a defiant act of “revolutionary suicide” that would echo through history. Some disciples willingly colluded, cheering as he exhorted them to kill themselves and their children. But the bodies found with bent needles in their arms testified to the fact that some refused and were forcibly injected. Rex/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures The People’s Temple - Guyana, South America When they finally counted the bodies after what would become known as the Jonestown massacre of 18 November 1978, the total came to 918, of whom 304 were children. They had been persuaded to “drink the Kool-Aid”, Flavor Aid, used to mask the bitter taste of cyanide, mixed with a dash of Valium. AP/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures Freemasonry cult - France Maude Julien, now 60, was forced to hold onto an electric fence for without showing feeling as a child. The ritual was considered to be a test of her willpower by her father, who wanted to make her “superhuman”. She says she was subjected to 18 years of controlling and manipulative behaviour by her father Louis Didier, an alcoholic who belonged to an esoteric lodge of Freemasonry which believed in the occult. He reportedly believed his daughter had been chosen as his protector, so sought to indoctrinate her and make her withstand torment by making her participate in cruel experiments. She says she was locked overnight in a rat-infested cellar to “meditate about death”. He forced her to drink whiskey before making her walk in a straight line, which she says led to the liver damage she lives with to this day. Didier adopted a 6-year-old girl, who he groomed to become his wife. The three lived in a remote mansion in northern France, which Ms Julien was forbidden to leave for a decade. YouTube/librairie mollat The world of Cults: in pictures Rajneesh movement Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, and the free-love community which was built up around him in Oregon in the 1980s. Rajneesh, who died in 1990, was a charismatic Indian guru (who relocated to the US after the Indian government frowned upon his activities). His disciples gave huge amounts of cash to their figurehead and lost contact with their families. Netflix

Ms Salzman, 42, took the stand as part of a plea deal in which she admitted keeping a lower-ranking member of the upstate New York group captive in a bedroom for two years as a form of discipline.

Allison Mack, an actor best known for her role as the friend of a young Superman in the Smallville series, has also pleaded guilty to collecting of embarrassing material – referred to as “collateral” – used to blackmail “slaves” into silence about the society’s practices. It remains unclear if Ms Mack will testify in the trial.

Ms Salzman said the “collateral” included nude photos with forced smiles that the women took of themselves when they met three times a week in their “sorority house”.

Mr Raniere would sometimes demand they reshoot the photos if they did not turn out the way he wanted, she said.

“The elephant in the room was that he was having sex with lots of these people,” Ms Salzman said.

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The women were branded as part of the initiation into the group, but only senior members were allowed to know the brand represented Mr Raniere’s initials, she added.

She and others expressed concerns about keeping members in the dark about the meaning of the brands, Ms Salzman said, but Mr Raniere told them “it shouldn’t matter” and that “we were making problems”.

Ms Salzman has previously told the court Mr Raniere would would hold meetings during which he would sit fully clothed in a chair and give lectures on philosophy while female “slaves” sat naked on the floor around him.

The women were instructed to make sure their branding was visible and that they “looked happy”, the court heard.