A former English teacher has described how she used to get up at 3.30am, wear white clothes and meditate as part of a spiritual “cult” – all before she started work.

Anthea Church, from Tunbridge Wells, has released a new book inspired by her 20-year experience in the group Brahma Kumaris.

Brahma Kumaris believe in complete celibacy, early morning meditation and wearing white clothes to symbolise purity.

Members have to stick to a lacto-vegetarian diet, cooked only by themselves or those in the group.

They also follow the discipline of bathing or showering after every bowel movement.

“In the first ten years I was happy and glad to be free of the mundane aspects of life,” the 66-year-old explained. “Later on I couldn't sleep at all.

“It became very difficult to get up. The whole thing unravelled for me because it was just too hard to sustain that routine.”

“I know it sounds mad, but I really loved it,” she added.

“It was incredibly magical at the beginning. I liked the certainty, the clarity and the structure.”

Brahma Kumaris is a spiritual community based in India, but has a number of centres across the globe.

Founded in 1937, they believe in “personal transformation and world renewal”.

The group teaches a type of meditation that identifies humans as souls rather than bodies.

Anthea’s new novel, called Liftman, tells the story of a seven-year-old boy from London who is taken away by his mother without explanation to live in India.

It explores the repercussions that result from him being deprived of a traditional Western education.

Anthea says the story is about his search for home, belonging, identity and truth.

It is entirely fictional, but it is based on her own personal experiences. It is Anthea’s third novel and she describes it as the “hardest” book she has ever written.

Anthea first joined the group in 1980 after stumbling across it during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

She was 20 years old and had just left Oxford University after studying English language and literature.

“That's where I came across the group or cult – whatever you want to call it,” she said.

“I thought they were completely bonkers, but I had been taught at Oxford to deconstruct every theory.

“We spoke about the soul and then completed a meditation. It was a spiritual experience that I could not argue with.”

For the next 20 years Anthea lived at a communal house in Willesden Green, London.

Her family, who lived in Devon at the time, were extremely worried.

Anthea said: “My mother rang up the BBC and said ‘my daughter's been kidnapped’.

“They were absolutely traumatised. They didn’t really talk to me about it, they obviously thought it was very weird, but loved me throughout.”

Following the beliefs, Anthea would continue to work as a teacher while completing a “punishing” daily routine.

At 3.30am she would get up, put on white clothing and drive to a meditation centre.

“You were expected to continue with your professional life, or some would surrender to the whole thing and not have a job.”

Afterwards she would have a shower, change into another outfit and repeat.

By 7am, she would be back home dressed in her professional clothes – ready to leave to begin teaching at Parliament Hill School in Camden.

In the evening, she would have another shower, change into white clothes and go to another meditation class.

Anthea added: “I’d go to bed relatively early. You were expected to continue with your professional life, or some would surrender to the whole thing and not have a job.

“They would just work to keep the community going.”

On August 30, 1997, Anthea moved out of her communal lodgings and became head of English at Kent College Pembury independent school.

She said: “I remember the day I left and I had all my possessions in one car.

“A lot of people who left either fell in love or started to think that the teachings were not right.

“I didn't think I was leaving – I just thought I was getting a new job. I would go back to London sometimes and still participate in their teachings.

“However I was extremely tired and not well. I started to gradually distance myself.”

“...I was extremely tired and not well. I started to gradually distance myself.”

Anthea retired from her job last July and now does private teaching.

Despite it being a “huge struggle” to write the book, she hopes it will resonate with some.

“Part of me felt like I was betraying that group by writing that story,” she explained. “I do scrutinise and show the dangers of it.

“I hope that it might allow people who are on the edge of that group to feel validated in questioning the teachings.”

Liftman was released on January 30.