From Findhorn Beach

In November that year, Peter and Eileen Caddy settled in a caravan at Findhorn Bay near the village of Findhorn. In early 1963 an annexe was built so that Dorothy Maclean could come and live close to them at the place.

They grew their own food, and were publicly recognised for producing "exceptionally large vegetables". Peter Caddy travelled in British New Age circles, and met Robert Ogilvie Crombie (ROC); Sir George Trevelyan and others. And people came to live at the caravan park, eventually forming the Findhorn Trust.

American David Spangler (1945-) became co-director of Education at Findhorn almost at once after he came there in 1970. He helped turning Findhorn into a centre of residential spiritual education with a permanent staff of over 100, and the setting up of the Findhorn Foundation in 1972, registered as a Scottish charitable trust. In 1973 David Spangler and Dorothy MacLean with several other members of the Findhorn Foundation left to found the Lorian Association, near Seattle, USA.

By 1979 Peter and Eileen's marriage had disintegrated and he left the Foundation. He died in a car crash in Germany in 1994. Eileen Caddy remained, and in 2004 was appointed as a member of the Order of the British Empire. She died at home in 2006.

Dorothy Maclean continued to give talks and workshops worldwide, visiting Findhorn regularly, and in August 2009 returned to Findhorn to live there. The Findhorn Community had become quite large.

In our days

The Findhorn Foundation is surrounded by the Findhorn Ecovillage community at The Park, Findhorn. The Findhorn Ecovillage, a village in Moray, Scotland, and at Cluny Hill in Forres are homes to more than 400 people. That makes Findhorn one of the largest intentional communities in Britain. It has been home to thousands of residents from more than forty countries.

The Findhorn Foundation runs various educational programmes for the Findhorn community; it also houses about forty community businesses such as the Findhorn Press and an alternative medicine centre.

The Findhorn Foundation and the surrounding community have no formal doctrine or creed, but, rather, represents contemporary religious individualism, confirms a study. About 3000 residential participants from around the world take part in programmes each year.

From the 1980s numerous organisations started up nearby Findhorn, and are affiliated with the Findhorn Foundation. These include Moray Steiner School and Trees for Life (Scotland). Collectively they form an ecovillage. The 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.

A wide variety of courses and conferences on offer 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.

Persons involved in the community present are supposed to seek and find goodwill within themselves first, and should go for outcomes that serve as the best for all.

The Findhorn community includes an arts centre, shop, pottery, bakery, publishing company, printing company and other charitable organisations. All aim to practice the founding principles of the community and together make up the New Findhorn Association (NFA), which was formed in 1999 to provide a structure for all the people and organisations in the community. It includes people from within a 50-mile radius of The Park, at Findhorn.

In December 1997 the Findhorn Foundation was approved for formal Association with the UN Department of Public Information as an NGO and is active at the UN Headquarters in New York.

That sort of Findhorn did Dorothy return to in 2009. She has lived there since (2014).

(WP, "Findhorn Community")

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Findhorn Garden Lore

Gnomes, elves, other spirits and Pan himself, do they belong solely to folklore and mythology? The Findhorn Garden Story (2008) focuses on a formerly barren plot in the sand dunes of northern Scotland and presents another picture and a more contemparary setting for Pan and the others:

We are informed that in the Findhorn Garden, fruits grew huge through the founders' growing contact with nature spirits and beings of other realms. "The seeds are beginning to germinate. Tend them with the greatest care . . . Water them . . . Let the light . . . shine upon them gently to begin with, gradually becoming stronger as they become stronger. Be good gardeners . . ." (Findhorn Community, 2008, 50)

The Findhorn Garden

The founders of Findhorn came to cooperate with thoughts that Dorothy Maclean had got when giving due attention to fruits, plants, and further, as The Findhorn Garden Story goes on to shows. The explanation given in the book is that with some people nature spirits will cooperate when invoked.

Findhorn vegetables were growing to extraordinary sizes - including a 21 kg cabbage. Fruit trees thrived, many herbs and flowers thrived, and word got around that something surprising was happening. Experts came, and a compost expert and Soil Association member wrote: "...'By their fruits shall ye know them.'"

Good-natured nature spirits took part in raising them, Dorothy was told from within. From 1970 people were showing up to be a part of the Findhorn endeavour, and some stayed. It changed Findhorn into a community and school. Dorothy's communications from arch-angelic devas had gone beyond gardens and to what was possible for humanity. Findhorn soon became a community which included areas for arts and crafts, printing and publishing, construction, communications and a college program. Today the Findhorn Community has become an eco-village conference centre.

ROC

Robert Ogilvie Crombie (1899–1975) (called ROC) began to see and talk with "the 'smaller' nature spirits" or 'elementals'" shortly after visiting Findhorn for the first time in 1966 at around the age of 75. The "larger" nature spirits that Dorothy contacted stood out as "the architects who have the plan and pattern for Nature", while the elementals were the blue collar workers that did the actual work, they tell. [See Findhorn Community 2008, or Crombie books on Amazon.co.uk.]

Ogilvie never lived at Findhorn, but he had to explain to the nature spirits there the behaviour of mankind in general and Peter Caddy in particular and beg for forgiveness and patience from them, "telling them that the offending people were well-intended, just ignorant." His interventions, we are told, included preventing a nature spirit strike at Findhorn when Peter cut plants in full bloom. Ogilvie was told that flowers should never be cut down while in bloom.

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From Little Acorns -

From little acorns tall oaks grow. Backed up by many seed thoughts the Findhorn garden developed, and since then, a large community. If that happens it depends to no small degree on who give the lead and what lead it is, and it depends on those who accommodate to that again, or develop it.

Dorothy Maclean and Findhorn

Dorothy Maclean

Dorothy Maclean (1920-) with a 3-year Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario was one of the first three who gave the lead through deva messages, angelic messages, or arch-angelic messages that she dressed in words in the way she describes in The Findhorn Garden Story. The texts she wrote or wrote out, has given her ample space, and today she is described as a writer and educator on spiritual subjects.

From her history: From 1941 onwards she worked for the British Security Coordination in New York. After being posted to Panama, she met and married her man. The couple divorced in 1951.

Dorothy Maclean initially followed practices from a group formed by the poet and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927). From this she developed her contact with the divine to focus upon communication with 'nature spirits' which she named as devas - for she became involved in the spiritual practices of Sheena Govan and Peter and eventually Eileen Caddy. The Caddys were then appointed to manage a hotel in Scotland. Dorothy joined them as the hotel's secretary.

The Caddys became unemployed in 1962 and moved into a travel trailer near the village of Findhorn. In 1963 an annexe was built, so Dorothy could continue to live close to them. A ◦community eventually grew up around the three, and has since 1972 been known as the Findhorn Foundation.

Dorothy Maclean left Findhorn in 1973 for North America. Her childhood home has since been designated a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act. She has been living at Findhorn since 2009.

[WP, sv. "Dorothy Maclean"]

A Certain Challenge Called Elf Messages

Life carries intelligence. What is called angels and devas (Sanskrit: 'shining ones') by Dorothy Maclean, are beings that hold energetic patterns. Advances may come from tuning into the intelligence of nature. [◦More]

Dorothy Maclean's first teacher at Findhorn was a favourite vegetable, the garden pea. She took down notes of what she felt and thought while her attention was on it. One of the results is in her book To hear the Angels Sing (2007).

Dorothy Maclean was told over and over about life in a wider perspective - not leaving out elves or gnomes - and published in books at least parts of what she had been told. The life-supporting messages are eco-friendly.

Dorothy was first told from deep within such as: "Feel into the wind [and] its purpose." She was told to feel its essence and harmonise with that essence of the wind, and other nature forces, and that many beings of those forces would be glad to feel a friendly power. Moreover, "All forces are to be felt into . . . the sea, the trees, the very grass."

When she told Peter Caddy about it, he said: "You can use that to help with the garden!" He was somewhat practical minded.

Next day Dorothy got another message from deep within: She might begin by thinking about the nature spirits - of clouds, rain and vegetables - and tune in to them, for they would be overjoyed to find a human eager for their help. She was told to seek with sympathy, for although beings would be largely willing to help, they might also be suspicious of humans and on the outlook for snags, like "Greeks carrying gifts", one may add. The proverb referst to the Trojan horse ploy at Troy.

Then, shortly afterwards, Dorothy took a pea in hand and treated it the way she had been told also a pea should be - with sympathy. The response of thought and feeling she dressed in words. The first one was: "I can speak to you . . ."

Well done! It had to be mental speech, in case, for there may be no pea teeth, tongues and mouths to be found. Another part of the garden pea message was that vegetables felt strangely hostile to thankless humans who grabbed and grabbed only. Also: "Humans generally seem not to know where they are going or why" - but not the well focused angels of various vegetables. (Findhorn Community 2008, 55-57).

Now, who or what is the source of sane and good ideas may not be as significant as the messages themselves. The same goes for learning, wit and wisdom: It is not the size and condition of a philosopher's beard and brain that matters the most, hopefully, but rather the chain of thrilling ideas. This is to say a message can or should be ranked above those who bring it about or pass it on somehow, one way or other. It is the same with apple juice - the outward look of its vessel is hardly our main concern if we are thirsty. Good juice should be.

Two of the Findhorn founders - Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean - wrote books. As for other texts, it helps to distinguish between bright and trite ideas. But business-focused people who slowly pollute and debase, may not welcome Dorothy's deva messages at all, for their whole life-style may not be halo-wise, but otherwise -

But look to the state of earth, consider how green your fingers or footprints should be, try to plant a tree or something. That may be well in tune with the essence of many deva message, actually.

Recap

Findhorn Community is north in Scotland, quite near Forres. On 8 May 1963 its co-founder Dorothy Maclean was told from deep within to feel into the wind there.

She started to write down ideas that she got from the guiding spirits of vegetables and other spirits. And Peter Caddy made a list of questions she was to ask different vegetable devas (lit. "shining ones", devas, in Sanskrit).

She wrote down what came through to her. She and Peter Caddy sought to cooperate with the messages, and soon the garden that they worked on, began to bear strangely large vegetables. Nature spirits had taken a stronger than usual intererst in raising them, we are told. Also mentioned: "The smaller individual nature spirits are under [the] jurisdiction of" "the spirits of clouds, of rain, and of vegetables".

The other founder, Eileen Caddy, was the second wife of Peter. Her and Dorothy's inner voices brought them to the location - next to the town's dump - and encouraged them throughout. Dorothy: "We didn't have the slightest idea what we were creating."

After those early years at Findhorn, Dorothy has written several books. Many of them are in the book list at bottom. And The Findhorn Garden Story (2008) tells about Findhorn founders, the garden, deva communications, Robert Ogilvie Crombie, David Spangler and others.

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Core Ideas of Dorothy Maclean ☼

Dorothy Maclean was one of the founders of the Findhorn Community in northeast Scotland. She is today renowned as an author and worldwide lecturer.

1. The outer discipline includes: Stop condemning that you have free will

The critical analyzing mind is a wonderful servant. [Abr]

Choose to be in higher, more loving energies. [Mod]

I had to have an outer discipline . . . I didn't have the inner discipline . . . Fortunately I had someone I respected to give me the outer discipline . . . The word discipline has got a bad name . . . but I had someone help me.

One of the things about Findhorn [is] that people [hardly] realize the work we had to go through . . . but we had many years of preparation.

Our higher self or inner core or the divine within . . . the personality can be aligned with it.

It's a strange thing having free will. It gets us in all sorts of good and bad places.

Another form of selfishness [can be] thinking of oneself as unable to do anything.

When we stop condemning ourselves we stop condemning others [Yet "You don't have to be ill to be a doctor."] ◇

We want wealth, shall we say, and we get it and find we're still not happy. So we keep on. [Both Hinduism and Buddhism say wealth is good and fit for a balanced development. It does not have to be any either wealth or happy, but a both-and.]

2. Accept what you are and give it time to blossom and then get fruitful

A part of the game of living is to learn to deal with the own negativities. We can't run away from them very well, so better learn to resist them. [Mod]

What we think is evil could have some got good in it. That's true. [Mod]

You may accept what you are in all parts of yourselves, and your highest feelings. We all need to give what is central, good time to blossom in a life. ◇

3. Go the Way toward Conscious Self

How do you change the world? By changing our own consciousness. . . be nearer to that core and work with your own divinity.

Get to Consciousness of the planet. [Abr]

Find out what you really want to connect with your personality or your central, inner selfhood. [Abr]

No country, no body stays the same. ◇

We've been given this wonderful opportunity of free will to learn.

It's got to be lived in one's life.

So

Give what you are, fit conditions, and time to blossom and set fruit in abundance. Also go the Way toward Conscious Self. It is turning the Wheel of Dharma in Buddha's central teachings.

A will that goes for abundance and good conditions can assist against depletions along the path toward the Goal. ⚴

If we get out of step with the largely exploitative society, are we eco-friendly tree-huggers and flower-lovers?

Works that contain deva messages by Dorothy Maclean and the book about the Findhorn garden, offer helpful perspectives. Interestingly, if you follow them up a lot, your mate might think you have become a crazy "flowers lover", and filled with eco-friendly perspectives. On the other hand, very common adaptations tend to make you leave your heart behind somehow and often rests on overuse of the domineering, exploitative kind that many people are glad to adapt to a long way until beset by troubles.

If you get out of step with nearly everyone around you or care about, better guard yourself very well, or down and out you may soon go.