There are around 2,000 cults in the UK. Which were inspiration for Netflix’s latest drama Unchosen?

The more you learn about cults, the harder it is to imagine them existing in the modern world. And yet, so many do – you might just not know about them, unless you happen to be in one yourself.

This stark reminder came via a new Netflix series, Unchosen, which depicts a fictional cult called the Fellowship of the Divine (led by Mr Phillips, played by a ‘gripping’ Christopher Ecclestone according to The Times) in which technology of any kind is banned (‘pipelines of pornography and sewage to our souls!’) and men are superior to women in just about every way possible. They have agency and get to prance around working and feeling important, while women have none and are bound to the home. Classic!

The show centres around one couple in the cult: the increasingly devout – and dare I say misogynistic – Adam (played by Asa Butterfield) and his wife, Rosie (Molly Windsor), who starts doubting her position after their daughter, Grace (Olivia Pickering), runs to hide in the woods during a thunderstorm, which she mistakes for the Rapture, and nearly drowns. The child, who is deaf, is discovered by Rosie and saved by a handsome, and conveniently muscular, stranger (Fra Fee), who vanishes almost as mysteriously as he arrives.

Adam and his brother, Isaac (Aston McAuley), arrive to find Rosie trying to revive Grace, who needs an ambulance. Isaac takes out a smartphone and makes the call. The drama unfolds from there, with Rosie becoming more skeptical of her oppressive lifestyle.

Perhaps the worst moment of all comes when Adam has sex with Rosie – I’ve phrased it that way for a reason – when she is clearly not into it. Still, like everything else, sex is something she’s simply expected to allow as one of her wifely duties. If her husband is in the mood, so is she. Think Margaret Atwood, but with simpler headscarves.

Rooted in Christian ideologies, Fellowship of the Divine was invented by the show’s writer, Julie Gearey, but she has spoken about her inspiration from real-life groups; Gearey told Netflix that she had reached out to former members of such communities through social media and online forums.

The show’s director Jim Loach has also talked about what drew him to the project: ‘[Gearey] actually grew up in an area in the south of England where some people at school were going home to mums and dads who were in cults,” he told The Independent. ‘I was really fascinated by that, because she’d spoken to people who’d come out of being in a cult about their experiences. I thought there was a huge amount in the script that resonated with contemporary society, and I felt it was a really brilliant time to do a story about people living in a cult.’

One of the groups in the south of England which has had media attention before is Bruderhof, a Christian community with two branches comprising roughly 300 people each – there is one in Nonington, Kent and another in Robertsbridge, East Sussex.

In these communities, which developed from a pacifist German movement in 1920, members are encouraged to live like early Christians. Modern technology is limited, women must dress modestly (they have to wear head coverings), and everyone shares resources, including income. While Gearey doesn’t represent Bruderhof in Unchosen, which is a fictional take on what a cult could look like in the UK, previous members have claimed they were publicly humiliated for breaking the rules.

‘I remember being stood up at a lunchtime meal… and told I needed to apologise for my behaviour, that I was the spawn of Satan, that I was a parasite on the commune and that I would end up as a whore on the street, that I was a vampire and an evil, evil child – and a witch,’ one former member, Cecily, told the BBC. Her crime? Speaking to boys outside of the Bruderhof community.

As part of his research for the role, Butterfield watched the BBC’s recent documentary on the Bruderhof. ‘I remember there was this one man who was so precise and considered in everything he did that he was a bit like a robot,’ the actor told Netflix. ‘Even walking up the steps, he would take it one at a time, almost as though he was scared of falling.

Many people typically associate cults with the US. But as part of her own research for the show, Gearey uncovered around 2,000 cults currently operating in the UK, drawing on the experiences of members who’d escaped for material. ‘There are tiny cults that are no more than an extended family,’ she told Netflix. ‘When society is going through a period of extreme uncertainty – like we are now – that’s when these cults rise up.’

For the role, Butterfield also said that he had watched documentaries on the 200-year-old Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (PBCC), which is viewed by some as a cult, also follows a patriarchal structure, as well as a strict policy of no tech devices and limited internet – although, confusingly, the group does have a YouTube channel and a website: ‘We use technology for business, education and household reasons,’ it states. With around 55,000 global members, the group encourages modest clothing and makeup for women, as well as head coverings during church services.

According to an interview with The Sunday Times, he also watched Netflix’s own recent series, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, which is about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous Mormon denomination based in Arizona whose president, Warren Jeffs, is currently serving a life sentence in Texas after being convicted for two separate child sexual assault cases.

Yeah, this is grim stuff. Once you’re in a cult, it’s easy to lose your grip on reality – a vulnerability that predators and abusers can all too easily exploit. Cult stories have always been ripe for TV. It’s what makes Unchosen all the more gripping.