User:Landover(g)/Findhorn Foundation

The Findhorn Foundation is a Scottish charitable trust registered in 1972, formed by the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest intentional communities in Britain.

The Foundation offers a range of workshops, programmes and events in the environment of a working ecovillage. The programmes are intended to give participants practical experience of how to apply spiritual values in daily life. Approximately 3000 residential participants from around the world take part in programmes each year. It also houses about 40 community businesses like the Findhorn Press, and an alternative medicine centre.

The Community is located on a territorial that belongs to the village of Findhorn at the Moray Firth in the Northeast of Scotland. Because of this localisation in the village of Findhorn, the designation for the Community is "Findhorn Community", and for the localisation within the Village the terms "Ecovillage" or "The Park" (see History).

Localized centre of the guest programmes is the Cluny Hill College in the nearby town of Forres (app. a 10 minutes drive away).

In addition the community runs two Retreat-Centre on the islands Iona and Erraid.

Beginnings from 1962


The Community was founded in 1962 by the couple [Eileen Caddy]] (*August 26, 1917, † December 13, 2006) and Peter Caddy (*March 20, 1917, † February 18, 1994), as well as a friend Dorothy MacLean (*1920). The three founders were previously working in a Gulf Hotel, the Cluny Hill Hotel in Forres. After a discord with the owners they were fired and moved to a trailer lot in the nearby village of Findhorn. Eileen Caddy communicates her ability to receive direct messages from god. In her autobiography she describes how these advises started some years earlier with the words Be still and know that I am God. She published a lot of these messages in her books.

In these conversations she (and the others) was advised to move to that Trailer Park and start a community. A growing number of followers, appealed by the publications, joined the group.

Dorothy McLean confides her ability to communicate with Devas, responsible for the growth of plants. Therefore they started planting vegetables and flowers.

The Community built the first of many community buildings on the area of the park, namely the Community Centre and the Main Sanctuary.

In 1967 Findhorn Press was founded.

At the beginning of the 70s Eileen Caddy received the advice, not to communicate her messages to the community any longer, to avoid a dependency of the community from her and to enforce people to develop a deep listening of their own.

1970s
In 1970, American David Spangler (January 7, 1945) became a member for a short, but important phase and shortly after his arrival he took over the organisation and the transformation into a guest and seminar centre. It was his vision that people came there to enforce their development and then to carry that spark into the world. Within a couple of years the community grew to more than 100 members with several hundreds of guests each year. In 1973 Spangler, together with MacLean, returned to the United States. His book The Dawning of a New Age became an anthem for the new rising New Age movement.

In 1972 the Findhorn Foundation was founded.

To meet the requirements of a growing number of guests and to expand the programmes, the meanwhile vacant Cluny Hill Hotel in Forres was purchased in 1975, and turned into the seminar centre Cluny Hill College. Here is where the majority of guest programmes take place.

The private island Erraid, property of a dutch family, is given under the communities' aegis, since then a small retreat centre is operated on the island.

1980s
In 1982 the Trailer Park is purchased and operated autonomously (Findhorn Bay Holiday Park).

In 1883 the New Findhorn Directions Ltd. (NFD) is founded, an affiliate of the foundation, whose tasks are economical projects aside from the guest programmes. So for instance the operation of the trailer park.

The "Cullerne House", a large mansion next to the park, is purchased and the gardens used for planting. Primarily the office of the Findhorn Flower Essences Company is accommodated in this house.

In 1985 the Moray Steiner School is founded in Forres, to be modelled on the Rudolf Steiner Schools, better known as Waldorfschools. It is accommodated in the old "Drumduan House" on Cluny Hill (Forres), where also the College is located.

In 1989 Trees for Life (Scotland) was founded by Alan Watson Featherstone as part of the foundation, to assist the natural regeneration of the Caledonian Forest.

1990s


The Communities development is partly vivid in the development of the community's area. The Style of (private as well as public) Buildings, which emerged during the 1990s, signify a shift of interests of a larger part of the community from an earlier emphasis on spirituality to more ecological issues and a multigenerational lifestyle.

Part of the ecological lifestyle are the structure of the houses and the ecologic management (for instance heat insulation, solar energy for water heating), the operation of wind turbines and the operation of an ecological sewage treatment facility on a biological basis (so called Living Machine).

In 1996/1997 the Dunelands Ltd. (DL) is founded, a company which aims the protection and development of the dunelands of the half-island, where Findhorn is located.

In 1997 the Foundation was approved as an NGO.

In 1999 another organisation was founded, the New Findhorn Association (NFA). Inducement was the circumstance, that during the 1990s an increasingly number of people weren't living on the area in Findhorn but in surrounding villages from within a 50-mile radius of The Park. For a better integration of these people and to enable better flow of information, the NFFA was founded, which publishes a magazine as well as a website, which provides news and lists a calendar of events. Each year a council and two listener-conveners are elected by the membership of the NFA, who organise monthly community meetings to decide upon community-wide issues.

2000s
In 2001 the Findhorn College was founded. It aims the offer of longer running programmes. The College doesn't maintain a building but uses existing premises. The Administration is located in Forres.

As of 2005, Findhorn Ecovillage has around 450 resident members, and its residents have the lowest recorded ecological footprint of any community in the industrialised or the developed world, and also half of the UK average.

In September 2006 a new education building for sustainable development was introduced, the CIFAL Findhorn (Centre International de Formation des Autorités/Acteurs Locaux). Besides the Foundation the Moray Council, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Global Ecovillage Network are involved.

In 2007 the Moray Art Centre, located in the Ecovillage, was opened.

The founders
In the late 1940s Sheena Govan emerged as an informal spiritual teacher to a small circle that included her then-husband, Peter Caddy, and Dorothy Maclean. Eileen Caddy, as she became, who had a background in the Moral Rearmament movement, joined them in the early 1950s. The group's principal focus was dedication to the 'Christ Within' and following God's guidance. In 1957 Peter and Eileen Caddy were appointed to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel near Forres, Maclean joining them as the hotel's secretary. Though now separated from Sheena Govan, whose relationship with Eileen Caddy had deteriorated, they continued with the practices she taught.

In late 1962, following concerns by the hotel's owners over adverse publicity, Caddy's employment was terminated. He and Eileen settled in a caravan near the village of Findhorn; in early 1963 an annexe was built so that Dorothy Maclean could live close to the Caddy family. Eileen Caddy's direct relationship with God, began with an experience in Glastonbury where she heard a voice say "Be Still and Know that I am God". Peter Caddy followed "an intuitive spontaneous inner knowing" and had many other influences from theosophy to the moral rearmament movement from which he developed methods of positive thinking and other methods he had learned in the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship. Dorothy Maclean initially followed practices from the Sufi group centered on the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan and from this developed her contact with the divine to focus upon communication with 'nature spirits' which she named as devas. Peter told her that these contacts should be made useful for the growing of food which was supplementing their income (the family at this point being entirely supported by Family Allowance). The Caddy's credited the garden's success of producing "exceptionally large vegetables" – on these practices. More conventional explanations have been suggested by locals from outside the community who feel that the garden's successes can be explained by the unique microclimate of Moray or the substantial amounts of horse manure donated by a local farmer.

There were many other people who were involved with varying importance and different influences in the early years, from Lena Lamont, part of Sheena Govan's circle, who lived in her caravan with her family and who shunned publicity to those whom Peter Caddy met as he traveled in British New Age circles: R.Oglivie Crombie (ROC); Sir George Trevelyan who formed the Wrekin Trust; Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke, Liebie Pugh, Joan Hartnell-Beavis of  Universal Link and many others. From connections such as these, the distribution of Eileen Caddy's writings to a New Age mailing list in the form of a booklet titled God Spoke to Me and the death of Liebie Pugh in 1968 people came to live on the Caravan Park eventually forming the 'Findhorn Trust' and the nascent shape to the 'Findhorn Community'.

From 1969, following Eileen's guidance, Peter Caddy slowly devolved his day to day command. David Spangler became co-director of Education almost immediately after he arrived in 1970 which resulted in the gradual transformation  into a centre of residential spiritual education with a permanent staff of over 100 and the setting up of the Findhorn Foundation in 1972. In 1973 David Spangler and Dorothy MacLean with several other FF members formed the Lorian Association and left the Foundation settling near Seattle, USA. By 1979 Peter and Eileen's marriage had disintegrated and he left the Foundation. Eileen Caddy remained, and in 2004 was awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth II. Peter Caddy died in a car crash in Germany on 18 February 1994. Eileen Caddy died at home on 13 December 2006. Dorothy Maclean continued to give talks and workshops worldwide, visiting Findhorn regularly, and in August 2009 returned to Findhorn to live.

Self-conception


The self-conception of the community shows three areas: Living in community, Sustainability and Spirituality. The Foundation names the aims as "helping to unfold a new human consciousness and create a positive and sustainable future". .

Living in community contains joint working, eating, activities in a an extensive calendar of events.

Sustainability is aimed-at in the aforementioned ecological construction of buildings, energy-efficient management, ecological agriculture and gardening, the use of regenerative energy from wind turbines, waste avoidance, biological sewage treatment and other points.

As for Spirituality, there are no ruled belief systems, it is not a creed community. Therefore people of different religious-ideological beliefs live in the community. The books of Caddy give orientation, but are not dogmatically teached. Spiritual principles are for instance "deep inner listening, and acting from that source of wisdom, co-creation with the intelligence of nature, service to the world", with the latter being elucidated as "Our service to the world is to be a centre of learning, practice, exploration and demonstration. . A "Study Paper on the Basis of Spirituality at the Findhorn Community" off long-time member Carol Riddell can be found on her website. She also provides one of her books online (see external links).

A centre of education


There are now a wide variety of courses and conferences on offer and this remains the Findhorn Foundation’s core activity. The Findhorn Foundation College was established in 2001. The Universal Hall, Findhorn's theatre and concert hall, was built between the years 1974 and 1984. The musical group The Waterboys, who have performed a number of concerts in it, named their album Universal Hall after the structure.

Links with the United Nations
In December 1997 the Findhorn Foundation was approved for formal Association with the UN Department of Public Information as an NGO. The Findhorn Foundation is a member of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO), attends the Sustainable Development Committee meetings and is a founding member of the following NGO groups active at the UN Headquarters in New York: The Earth Values Caucus The Spiritual Caucus and the The NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns In September 2006 a new sustainable development training facility, CIFAL Findhorn was launched. This is a joint initiative between The Moray Council, the Global Ecovillage Network, the Findhorn Foundation and UNITAR. Findhorn Ecovillage has been awarded UN Habitat Best Practice designation from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), and regularly holds seminars of 'CIFAL Findhorn', a United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), affiliated training centre for Northern Europe.

Controversy
There have been many critics of and controversies surrounding the work of the Findhorn Foundation since 1962. In the early 1990s workshops on Holotropic Breathwork developed by Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof concerned Dr Linda Watt, a Glasgow psychiatrist in medical management, who was worried about the effects of hyperventilation upon vulnerable people.