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In the sixties the Community was a magical place, but one where the expectations were no less than a full day’s work, seven days a week and a serious minded commitment to both work and spiritual practice. 1970 saw the arrival of David Spangler and Myrtle Glines, and this event ushered in a whole new era in which education rather than the gardens became the focus of activity, and a younger generation of new members began to take themselves more lightly.

David was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1945, but he spent six formative years in Morocco from 1951-57. During this period he began having intense mystical experiences, and contacts with spiritual beings. He began a course in bio-chemistry at Arizona State university, but his inner experiences prompted him to leave and begin a career as a lecturer and philosopher. His intellectual influence on the Community’s development in the seventies was enormous. To him we owe the idea of the Community as a college, and the wealth of written and lecture material he contributed over the three years of his residence here, and occasions subsequent to that, is prodigious.

His lectures and study papers cover a wide range of topics including education, esoterics, art, nature, sexuality, government, etc. According to an early Foundation pamphlet his book ‘Revelation; the Birth of a New Age’, which contains transmissions from a source known as ‘Limitless Love and Truth‘ “contains, more than any other, the philosophical basis for what is evolving in the Foundation. With all this expansion into the realm of the intellect, David also reminded us constantly that, above all, life is the school, and work and relationships are as good a teacher as any classroom. David helped to expand our consciousness, and bring into it an awareness of the Community’s planetary and universal role in the new age.”

The impact of all this work was evident from the growth in Community size. In 1970 there were about 20 members, by 1972 there were 120, and by 1974 over 150, with 25 guests per week arriving in the summer months. These changes did not suit everyone. Lena, an intensely shy woman, moved first to Pineridge, and then left the Community altogether sometime in 1971.

Also in 1971 Eileen was told in meditation that she should cease giving out guidance for the Community, a state of affairs that has, with rare exceptions, remained to this day.

In 1972, acting on legal advice that the deed of the original trust was not really adequate to encompass the work of the Community, the Findhorn Foundation was created on 9th May, (which date is therefore the Foundations’ birthday). The first trustees were Captain Robert Ross Stewart, Sir George Trevelyan, Pauline Tawse (who was later to donate the Park Building[1] to the Foundation) John Hilton and Joannie Hartnell Beavis. In the same year a house on Iona – Traigh Bhan, meaning white beach – was gifted to the Foundation by Jessica Ferrara who had lived there for some years.[2] [1]Then the residence of Alex and May Gibson, the owners of Findhorn Bay caravan park. After they sold the Park Building , they moved to Cullerne House.
[2]Katherine Collis was intimately involved in this process, and the Foundation continues to honour the connection between Traigh Bhan and the Lorians.