The Findhorn Foundation

[Caz]

For those who aren't aware of Findhorn, it describes itself as a spiritual community, an ecovillage and an education centre: http://www.findhorn.org/index.php

I was there early last year, my experience was more like the video posted here: http://www.doyouknowyourdead.com/?page_id=28

I was more interested though when I read that 'The Psychosynthesis Education Trust' runs 'Essentials' courses at the 'prestigious' Findhorn Foundation. So, these are those who founded Findhorn:

Eileen Caddy

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070105/ai_n17112043

[Caz]

Deerfield Academy, which David Spangler attended for a period of time.

Deerfield Academy costs considerable money to attend and has produced some prominent figures:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Deerfield-Academy

[Caz]

CIFAL Findhorn; the first UN Training Centre in Northern Europe.

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache...%3Fdocid%3D208

[Caz]

David Spangler on Al Gore:

http://www.findhorn.org/forums/global/docs/Planetary%20Emergence.pdf

[isfahan]

I know the FF very well, having lived near it for several years as well as being associated with it at a distance. In the introductory videos, one of the FF's policemen, Richard, the guy who does the talking and shows people around, mentions that "the real antagonists have either died off or gone away". I would be one of those in the second category.

It's a long story but basically the place was originally known as the Findhorn Community and adopted the name Foundation when it started to go commercial around 1986, the year the commercial wing, New Findhorn Directions, was founded.

The place was founded in 1962 and for the first decade or so the founder members, Eileen and Peter Caddy, ran things more or less their way. Then came the well-heeled Vietnam draft-dodgers from the US who introduced a completely different cultural tone to the place. Finally, Peter Caddy, who until then had run the place as if he was still an RAF squadron-leader with trenches being dug, regular runs along the beach and skinny dipping in the sea on New Year's Day, was given his marching orders. The Yanks took over.

The place retained its eccentricities. One story is that, before wiring-up the place they used pendulum dowsers 'to identify leylines in order to tap into nature's electricity.' Once the wiring had been done it was discovered that constant overloads were burning-up the thin wires that had been laid! The entire job had to be repeated using proper cables. The community was considered by its RAF neighbours next door to be a bunch of 'harmless eccentrics.'

It was a fairly apt description ... in the early years.

But in 1986 the management of the commercial wing, NFD, started to get heavy with private caravan and chalet owners on its land, putting unbearable pressure on them to sell out at a pittance so that the new 'Ecohouses' --£300 thousand and upwards to buy-- could be built. The NFD had a distinct tinge of mafia bullying about it. Senior community members, little old ladies some in their eighties, were bullied by NFD into selling their chalets.

Whereas before the place could be described to be a meeting-place for 'harmless eccentrics' --evidently the label given it by the government spooks-- after it went commercial it began to develop a really insidious character. As the place became commercialised it lost its old community spirit and became a cold, heartless place.

A major aspect of exploitation by the NFD management concerned the renting of sub-standard caravans to the unemployed, the incapacitated and single parents at extortionate rents. This provided the NFD with a large and regular annual income.

Whilst the Foundation was more than happy to milk the public purse in this manner it resented the stigma it felt was attached to the large number of 'undesirables' which it found itself hosting 'on the other side of the tracks.' During the early 'nineties the NFD management found itself constantly at loggerheads with a community within a community whose existence it resented but which it desperately needed for revenue.

Rumours abounded that the core management who ran the place were using the occult not only to attract money but to control the minds and behaviour of people. It was widely believed that the Community's library secretly held the entire collection of Alistair Crowley's books on the occult and that these were only available to the select few. While I must point out that these were only rumours my experience of the manner in which the FF was run tended to confirm the likelihood that cult-behaviour was being quietly promoted and that negative occult practices were being used, at least by some individuals in positions of power.

More humorously, I was once told by a FF-watcher that he wouldn't mind them so much "if only they weren't so bloody solemn about everything, turning life into a funeral"!

With the development of the commercial wing came a new generation of community members whose attitudes had very little to do with spirituality and everything to do with crass materialism. All the old spiritual values that the founding Caddys had tried to instil in the place were abandoned one-by-one and replaced with brazen Thatcherism.

Just before Peter Caddy was killed in a motor accident in Germany in the early 'nineties I remember him making a final visit to the FF where it was widely believed that he had had one helluva row with the Management about how they were running things. It wasn't only Caddy who fell out with them. Several old Findhorn hands, many of them on the international lecture circuit, denounced the new materialism that had taken over the place.

One of these celebs, Caroline Myss, had a major article published in the FF's magazine, One Earth, in which she derided the new attitudes and named individuals. Not long after, One Earth was shut down as being 'economically unviable'.

I remember the change very well. It was as if a darkness had fallen over the place. These were no longer harmless eccentrics . The place was being managed and led by opportunists who had carefully cultivated support in high places. The FF could do no wrong, especially at local government level where they attracted every grant that was going. Corruption attracts corruption.

The place had become a living replica of Animal Farm with a couple of hundred, mostly well-intentioned community members working very hard for either a pittance of a wage or guests actually paying to work there, and a small select minority who ran the place secretively and milked the funds for their own purposes when necessary.

While it was commonly put about that no psychtropic substances were allowed on the FF's premises in practice there were those who indulged, including those in the management. As usual there were two laws, one for the proles and another for the leaders. Animal Farm to a tee.

The message must have gone out to the world that all was not well for even Prince Charles, who had been widely advertised as a conference guest, had a change of heart and never turned-up! That was in the mid-'nineties. The FF has, I believe, remained a major stopping-off point for speakers touring the international New Age conference circuit with regular, twice-yearly conferences bringing in 'spiritual tourists' from all over the world fooled by the fakery of its 'prestigious' brand name.

Since those days I have had had no contact with the FF. But I don't think it has changed very much, only become more staid and geriatric in its materialist ways. It constantly astounds me that even now the place continues to attract interest and tourists. But then, there're always suckers if you know where and how to find them.

[Frazzel]

Excellent post from caz. the findhorn lot are anti-democratic, believing in the ruling elites so-called chanelling of higher(?? more like lower) spiritual forces as a means of reaching decisions. All their courses are extremely expensive, and if you question the cost, they will accuse you of suffering from poverty conciousness!!! Me thinks the shoe is on the other foot - ie they suffer from greedy conciousness! You will hear such nonsense alot in the so called new age movement, that money is an exchange of energy, but it sems to be the only form of energy they wish to exchange in their favour! Yet not surprisingly, they dont see the act of giving or generosity, as a form of energy exchange. This attitude shows them up for what they are - captains of new age capitalism more like it!
A sociologist wrote a very good critical book on findhorn. Tony can you remember the author?

[Frazzel]

also for more critiques of findhorn, look up monica sjoo. a feminist perspective.