Brilliantly human and uncompromisingly honest!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 December 2025, by Dora
Format: Paperback, Verified Purchase
Brilliantly human and uncompromisingly honest! Philippe doesn’t do BS. He says what he thinks as it is, and what he feels as it is – in his raw, disarming, yet poetic way.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading his memoir and resonated deeply with his inner and outer journey through sometimes ecstatic, sometimes cruelly painful experiences. A journey rich both in light and shadow, as much on the outside as on the inside.
He touches on deep topics and important questions that anyone on the spiritual path would grapple with – the thirst for truth, the inner battles, the disillusionment, the healing and rebirth. He serves as a great example of allowing life to shape him, and of continuously reflecting, discerning and distilling what rings true to the core of his being.
I was especially touched by his implicit trust in life itself, the knowing that every event – whether good or bad – has happened for a reason. A valuable message of embracing it all, riding the waves as they come, and showing up to meet life as it is.
This quote from the book summarises the essence for me: “Maybe the real path of a disciple isn’t about following someone else, but walking your own road with courage, trust, and a wild, tender heart.”
Looking forward to more of Philippe’s writings.
Dora
***
What a beautiful and brutal book. It took me to India, to Japan, to mountain paths and inner deserts. The descriptions are so vivid I could smell the rain and incense. But more than that, it made me look at my own illusions. Thank you for daring to tell the truth.
Tomasz, Berlin
***
This book clearly supports the fact that every human being is a universe of its own and the universe of this author is grand. The story is captivating, rich, colourful and above all true and authentic like the author’s exquisite painted work. It arises questions, feelings and recognitions about very important topics in life – uncovering deep wounds, belonging, spiritual searching, belief and shines a soft but piercing light on the truth behind the Osho commune and teachings with incredible depth and maturity one desperately needs in order to make peace with recognising and exiting a cult. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and I can’t wait for the next one, whatever the topic may be!”
Lučka Zajec Bole, Arillas, Corfu
***
Reviewed in the United States on November 11 2025– Format: Paperback
I was completely drawn into Daring the Truth. The writing is beautiful, descriptive, lyrical, and full of emotional honesty. I loved how the author captures both the outer and inner journeys of his life with such clarity and humility. Each scene—from his childhood memories in France to his time in India and the Himalayas—felt alive, not just for its detail but for the meaning he draws from it.
What moved me also is his honesty in exploring the Osho movement—how he shows both the depth of his devotion and the painful process of waking up from illusion. I am impressed with the courage he has taken to look at himself and write so openly and deeply about his disillusionments with OSHO and with the same community that shaped his life. I appreciated so much how he tells the unfolding of what happened, the good and the shadow, and does so with compassion and clarity. There is a rare balance in everything he writes that begins and ends with honesty, truth, and love. It is a beautiful memoir.
By the end, I so admired his journey. This book lingers in your heart and makes you reflect on your own path, your own longing, and the courage it takes to truly see.
Tania
***
This book is a tour de force. An epic quest to find meaning and healing following a creative life that spans many eras. I was swept away on adventures to the Himalayan peaks that became feats of incredible endurance. I was taken to places that took my breath away and left me in tears and profound awe at the depth of beauty and heartbreak. Philippe’s writing is a balance between gentle observation and piercing honesty as he shines his insight beyond the surface. An incredibly uplifting and inspiring story about the resilience of the human spirit searching for belonging. A masterclass in how to trust your instincts and follow your hearts calling for freedom. Full of juicy life bursting from the pages, infused with passion, connection, vulnerability and strength. Wow I wasn’t expecting the positive impact on me that has awoken my passion and longing to step into my own life adventure. His courage and authenticity to face and speak about the hard truths of systemic abuse of children at the Osho ashram is a healing panacea for the collective and helps me feel safer in this world.
Sarah, UK, Nov 20th 2025
***
Rarely do I read a book that feels so alive. Every chapter breathes. Every mistake, every revelation feels earned. I think many people will see a part of themselves in Philippe’s courage to face what others prefer to hide. It’s not a “spiritual book,” it’s a human one, and that’s what makes it so powerful.
Carla
***
Essential Reading for Anyone on a Spiritual Path
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2025
Poetic, eloquent and deeply insightful, this book is essential reading for anyone on a spiritual path, especially Osho sanyassins. It’s a epic sweeping spiritual travelogue of all the things you’ll never read in a guide book. I almost couldn’t put it down. I resonated and recognise myself in some of his words. He takes us on a magical journey of sight, sound and smell from Europe to India and beyond in search of freedom, belonging and spiritual liberation. His brutal honesty and raw descriptions are captivating and made me wish I was 20 years younger and awoke my longing to go to India. Phillippe’s deep honesty lets us witness his awakenings and journey into self-awareness first hand, and the risks he survived made him sound like a cat with nine lives. I found his unflinching expose of the dark side of spiritual surrender shocking and saddening, yet I’m grateful for his bravery in writing truths that need to be heard and acted upon.
Clíona O’Conaill, author of Ever The Sea Calls Me Home – A Pilgrimage of Awakening
***
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2025–Format: Paperback
I absolutely loved Daring the Truth. It gripped me from the very first page. It’s raw, luminous, and deeply human. Being an artist, traveler, and free spirit myself, I found myself mirrored in Philippe’s story, the ache for truth, the collapse, the rebirth. He illuminates the story of being human, of searching for belonging, by daring to share his own. His words peel back the noise of modern life and touch something essential, something alive. Philippe writes with the sensitivity of an artist and the courage of a truth-teller, inviting you to question, to feel, to remember what’s real. A rare book that doesn’t just tell a story, it awakens one in you. I highly recommend this book to anyone walking the path of self-discovery, healing, or spiritual awakening or simply yearning to live a more truthful, soulful life.
Luna Joy
***
I wasn’t prepared for what this book would do to me.
I opened it expecting a travel memoir, something gentle and reflective. What I found instead was a mirror that didn’t flatter, didn’t distort, but invited me to see the contours of my own inner life with rare clarity. Philippe writes with the precision of someone who has paid for every insight with real experience. The India he describes is not the postcard India of Western spirituality. it is the India I know: chaotic, tender, contradictory, alive. His journey through ashrams, mountains, and inner landscapes felt familiar, yet utterly unique.
What struck me most is the grace with which he writes about disillusionment. There is no bitterness, no sensationalism, just an unveiling of what happens when devotion meets reality. The courage to tell this story is immense; the generosity to tell it with compassion is even greater.
When I finished the last chapter, I didn’t close the book. I held it for a while, breathing.
Some stories stay on the page.
This one travels with you.
An extraordinary memoir. one that will be read, reread, and remembered.
Asha Menon, writer & meditation teacher, India
***
Reviewed in Austria on 10 November 2025–Format: Paperback
„WHAT A LIFE!“ – This sentence was on my mind like a mantra while reading this book. And what a gift to put it in words so beautifully and almost poetic.
Philippe takes you on his personal and spiritual hero’s journey. Leaving his family as a teenager as an escape from his traumatic family background, travelling the world as a hippie in the post hippie era, dancing with death and experiencing life to the fullest in love, sex, art & spirituality. Eventually discovering more of his essence by losing what was once most essential to him. Stripped naked by life he is forced to meet all the pain that he tried to leave behind as a young adult.
Was he betrayed or did he betray himself? Is there a black and white or is it just all different shades of grey? And what kind of colors show your true essence?
These and many more question come up when you travel with Philippe through the places and times. A story that shows that waking up always also means growing up. And that both growing up and waking up only come by opening to love and truth, facing disillusionment and embracing not less than ALL of life.
By reading “Daring the Truth” you might start questioning yourself what YOUR truth actually is. And WHO is the one, that is longing for it in the first place?
Manuel Harand 48, therapist, father, meditator & lover of life
***
What a journey! I cried, laughed, and sat still for long moments after closing the book. Daring the Truth is not only Philippe’s story it’s an invitation to face your own. There’s something so disarming in the way he writes, no drama, just truth unfolding. I felt like I was walking barefoot beside him through each chapter of his life. Thank you for your courage to share so nakedly.
Sophie, 37, yoga teacher, France
***
Philippe’s artistic nature bursts from these pages — as he reveals his most intimate realizations (awakenings, if you prefer) about the complexities of living, giving, believing, trusting. And among this path of transformation, heartbreak and resilience, the painful discovery that wisdom can sometimes hide indoctrination—”which by the time you see it, is already speaking as your voice.” A memoir of facing the truth, speaking out and rebirthing.
Janja Lalich, PhD–Author of Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships
***
Man, this book… it messed with me (in a good way). I thought I was just gonna read a travel memoir, but it’s so much deeper. The way Philippe talks about devotion and disillusionment hit something real. It’s not a “spiritual book” like the ones that tell you how to be… it’s more like watching someone become. Honest, raw, and weirdly comforting.
Jonas, 52, artist, Berlin
***
I finished this book last night and couldn’t sleep for a while. It stirred something deep…memories, questions, gratitude. Philippe writes like someone who has truly lived, and not always beautifully or neatly, but honestly. His journey through the world mirrors an inner pilgrimage that many of us secretly long for but rarely dare to take. What makes this memoir so different is that it doesn’t glorify “the spiritual path.” It shows both the light and the shadow the ecstasy, the manipulation, the heartbreak, and the liberation.
There were moments I wanted to shout, “Leave! Wake up!” and others where I found myself in tears at the tenderness of it all. By the end, I felt both heartbroken and healed.
If you’ve ever searched for truth in a teacher, a lover, a movement … read this. It might just bring you back to yourself.
Isabelle C., Paris
***
Philippe’s story is both intimate and universal. His ability to hold paradox ( beauty and pain, awakening and disillusionment …) gives this memoir a rare depth. I found myself underlining sentences again and again. It’s the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish, reshaping the way you see your own past.
Tanya, 43, psychotherapist, UK
***
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 November 2025–Format: Paperback
This is a rich immersion into the India of the seeker, full of wonderful stories and adventures – I read most of it on the plane and coming off the plane I felt I had been there!
I was taken into the experience of the author, with great honesty and depth. It’s as much a journey through various continents as an inner journey through seeking, finding and losing, with the author coming to a place full of questions rather than answers.
I loved reading about the authors travel adventures as much as his development as a seeker of great courage and openness.
If you are looking for a book on spirituality, exploration and growth, I would highly recommend this.
At a time when I find finishing books often hard I couldn’t put this down.
Angelika Wienrich, therapist, London
***
Reviewed in Italy on 11 November 2025, Format: Paperback
What struck me most whilst reading this unwaveringly powerful memoir was the author’s emotional candour. He writes about his spiritual quest, his trials, loves and desires with refreshing honesty, neither romanticising nor apologising. There is a sense of privilege in being entrusted to read this often visceral account. There is sensory beauty too – the narrative transports the reader alongside Philippe to the places where he has lived and travelled. The descriptions of India and the Far East are so evocative that I found myself pausing to breathe in the incense smoke of a temple courtyard, listen to the clamour of exotic markets, and bask in the silence of a mountain dawn.
But Philippe’s idealism eventually gives way to a mighty reckoning. His realisation that he had been part of a cult for decades hits with quiet devastation. You can simply feel the enormity of the betrayal. Yet his account never sinks into bitterness. Instead, he continues to write with his characteristic authenticity about his disillusionment – (in both senses of the word)- as he journeys towards clarity and a more grounded kind of freedom. By the last page, I felt that I had travelled not only across continents but through the entire arc of an exceptional human life – from innocence to experience. It’s a book that lingers, gently inviting readers to question what they seek, and even more poignantly, how they go about seeking it.
Cathy R., Glastonbury UK
***
I’ve read countless memoirs from seekers, wanderers, mystics, rebels. Very few have the courage to do what this book does: it doesn’t ask you to believe anything. It asks you to see.
Reading DARING THE TRUTH felt like someone opening a window in a room I didn’t realize had grown stale. Philippe doesn’t glorify awakening or dramatize suffering, he simply shows what happens when a human being follows sincerity all the way to the end, even when it dismantles everything they once held sacred.
Some passages stopped me cold. Others made me close the book and put a hand on my heart. Not because they were shocking, but because they were true. The kind of truth you only recognize if you’ve lived long enough to deceive yourself and long enough to outgrow those deceptions.
This memoir is not about Osho and it’s not about spirituality, it’s about the terrifying beauty of becoming honest with oneself. Few stories carry that kind of weight.
If you have ever left a belief system, a teacher, a family story, or a version of yourself behind, this book will meet you where you are. And if you haven’t, it might just show you the door.
Marco, 61, former monk & psychotherapist, Lisbon
***
Reading Daring the Truth touched me in a way I did not expect. The voice in this book feels very close, almost like someone sitting at my kitchen table, speaking with honesty and without fear.
There is a lot of courage in these pages, and a tenderness also, that stays with you after you close the book. I felt many times that the author was writing things that we often feel inside but do not dare to say aloud.
Some of the truths revealed here are very intense… sometimes a little unsettling in their clarity… but they are shared with such openness that they feel like invitations to look deeper, not reasons to step back. They continue to work inside you after reading.
The journey is intense, yes, but it is also full of sensitivity and a kind of simple beauty. It made me reflect on my own life, on the choices I have made, and on the truth I carry with me.
A very human, very sincere book. I am grateful to have discovered it.
Jivana
***
Daring the Truth: A Journey of Devotion, Disillusionment, and Spiritual Liberation
Vera Bergerfurth‘s review Nov 25, 2025
Mich hat Philippes Buch auf vielen Ebenen sehr bereichert und tief beeindruckt. Sowohl seine große Offenheit, über seine sehr persönlichen Entwicklungsprozesse und Einsichten zu schreiben hat mich tief berührt; mindestens aber auch genauso auch sein Mut, so ehrlich über seine Zeit in der Osho Gemeinschaft zu schreiben. Am Ende des Buches wird sehr deutlich, wie groß sein Schrecken und Entsetzen sind, als ihm bewußt wird, wieviel menschenverachtende und mißbräuchliche Praktiken in der Osho Welt zur Tagesordnung gehörten. Ohne dass es Philippe bewußt war.
Ich denke, es ist vor allem für andere Opfer des Osho Kults sehr hilfreich, dieses Buch zu lesen. Es kann Mut machen, der eigenen Geschichte zu begegnen und die Schattenseiten zu betrachten. Philippe zeigt durch seinen Lebensweg, dass es möglich ist, dem großen Schmerz der Enttäuschung zu begegnen und sich therapeutische Hilfe zu holen, wenn nötig.
Mein Mantra, das ich mitnehme aus dem Buch ist: “Dem Unbekannten vertrauen.” Es passt gerade perfekt, um meine Fragen, die ich ans Leben habe, zu beantworten und Frieden im Herzen zu finden. Dass alles sich stetig wandelt.
Ich mag dieses Buch sehr, denn es lädt mich kontinuierlich dazu ein, auch mein Leben ehrlich zu betrachten und mich zu fragen: okay, wie steht es denn um mich bei den Themen, die Philippe so mutig und beherzt anspricht?
Ich kann dieses Buch allen empfehlen, die Interesse haben, sich inspirieren zu lassen bei den Themen: Liebe, Kunst, Leben in einer Sekte, Sinnlichkeit, Reisen, Berge, Zweifel, Transformation, Fragen, Frieden, Kreativität und “dem Unbekannten vertrauen.”
Vor allem ist Philippes Buch ein Zeugnis eines Menschen, der immer mutig voran geschritten ist und nie aufgehört hat, sich selbst offen und ehrlich zu begegnen.
Vera, Germany
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