RARE: Paradise and Promises: Chronicles of my life with a self-declared, modern-day Buddha (Paperback) by Marlowe Sand

In this memoir, Marlowe Sand recounts a fifteen-year journey shaped by an intense pursuit of spiritual freedom under the guidance of Andrew Cohen. Raised with expectations of a conventional life in the English countryside, her encounter with a radical teacher leads her into a path that profoundly affects both her own life and that of her children.

With measured and thoughtful prose, she describes the gradual pull into a tightly structured spiritual community led by a charismatic and demanding figure. The account brings the reader into her lived experience, moving through moments of devotion and aspiration, as well as periods of hardship, inner conflict and eventual disillusionment.

The narrative avoids simple judgement, instead offering a reflective and layered portrayal of a complex situation. While recognising the damaging aspects of the environment and the shared responsibility within it, the author turns her attention inward, examining her own decisions and their consequences. Paradise and Promises emerges as both a personal reckoning and a broader meditation on choice, responsibility and the search for meaning.