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Author’s note 2023

The Changing Nature of Governance

A Brief Historical Perspective

When Cornelia asked me to look into some archival material that she was interested in adding to COIF’s store of knowledge on this subject, I came across a document that listed various challenges that the community was facing. There were over a dozen topics under three headings – Economy & Development, Identity & Relationship, and Governance. Below are those listed in that last category. As you can see, they are hardly unfamiliar, although the date the document was produced was the 1st of May 2012.

  • Non-inclusive structure of the Foundation
  • Lack of tangible benefits of NFA ownership.
  • Those who live at The Park but who are not either landowners or members of the Foundation have no genuine say in its organisation.
  • Perception that too few people hold too many key positions.
  • The existing structures at The Park are complex.

The document was modified for a meeting the following month and a few items were added, including “Perception that money gives you influence and power.”

The obvious question that arises is then ‘Why are these issues so difficult to resolve?’

Some Observations

There would seem to be at least three main reasons for this state of affairs.

  1. As is the wider world, some things are subject to a form of democratic control, but many are not.
  2. Grappling with complex issues of this nature is probably part of the curriculum.
  3. Our expectations are unrealistic.

How then can we proceed in these circumstances, aiming as best we can to resolve whatever tensions exist, while at the same time recognising that there are always likely to be challenges that cannot be fully resolved? Here are some suggestions.

  1. Let us temper our desire for simplicity with a recognition that the world is complex. If we are indeed to fully emerge from the phase of ‘community’ to that of a village and beyond it is likely that our opportunities for work, social interaction, spiritual practice etc. will increase in number. Our decision-making procedures will no doubt change in response to that and I hope they will be effective – but we are unlikely to become somewhere with a single set of decision-makers taking responsibility for a very wide range of activities. That is what the Foundation circa 1985 was and few of us would wish to return there. Indeed the Foundation slowly released that role over time in part because having so much under one roof was ‘too complex’.
  2. There are several ‘communities’ that would like to have a greater say in our collective affairs. For example, Park residents, community members who live elsewhere locally and our international community – and within each one there will be sub-sets of interest groups. There is no one single identity for our collective life. This need not prevent us from trying to improve matters but this should be tempered by realism.
  3. There is a big difference between having a voice and having a vote. Being consulted is not the same as being asked to decide and you are unlikely to be asked to decide on something unless you have some kind of formal authority to do so. Let’s not confuse these two things (as we so often have in the past).
  4. Voting may prove to be necessary from time to time but we should aim a lot higher. Alastair McIntosh has, with excellent timing, had some very useful things to say about that recently. We should of course strive to avoid the kind of process which can, on occasion, result in a tiny number of objections holding up progress. Nonetheless, it is a key part of our history and culture that we usually see votes on key subjects in which a majority overrules a minority as a kind of failure on the relatively rare occasions when it happens.
  5. Above all, collaborate. I am sure we can, as individuals and organisations, find ways to meaningfully work with one another in a spirit of oneness and harmony. Indeed, if we cannot then the entire experiment we are living in may be relatively short-lived. Perhaps I should say more about this but I am pretty certain that most of us do not have great difficulty in telling the difference between collaboration and confrontation and between empathy and callous indifference.

Yours hopefully,

Alex Walker September 2023

“In genuine community there are no sides. it is not always easy, but by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other. Sometimes consensus in the community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But at other times it is arrived at only after lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is however, a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is a group that can fight gracefully.”
M. Scott Peck, ‘The Different Drum’

This section is different from all the others in the collection for it is intended to be a solution to a problem, not just a description or statement of existing philosophy, history or practice. Before going on to describe what this problem is, and how it came to be, we begin with a brief overview of the subject of decision making as experienced in the Community.

There is then an extract from David Spangler’s paper on ‘Growth, Authority and Power’ (The GAP) which provided much of the philosophical framework for dealing with these issues during the nineteen seventies and eighties. For two years this formed the basis of regular seminars where most of the membership worked out their authority issues. The lessons learned in those heated discussions were to carry the Community long after they ceased being held.

The next section is a history of decision making procedures in the Foundation prior to 1994 by Gordon Cutler. Gordon has been a member of the Community for nearly twenty years and has given frequent talks on the history of the Community.

There then follows a short paper on personal decision making authored by the ‘Centre for the Living Force’. This is another study paper from the seventies but one which strikes a quite different tone from the GAP paper. Some may find its tone verges on the patronising, but its simple wisdom provided considerable inspiration during the work which was required to complete the final paper in this Section.

The subsequent piece on ‘The Problem of Individual Empowerment versus Collective Responsibility’ identifies reasons why even those with a comprehensive understanding of the above ideas were experiencing confusion when it came to the details of carrying out important decisions in the Community of the 1990s. During the spring of 1994 the Foundation carried out a fairly lengthy exercise designed to clarify all major decision making systems. This paper also outlines the attempts that were made to find answers to these challenges during this period, and contains a commentary on the agreed procedures.

There is then a listing of the details of these Agreed Decision-Making Procedures for reference purposes.

At the time of writing it is far to early to tell whether these agreements will resolve the difficulties they address. No doubt many amendments will be made in the future. Certainly those familiar with the constitutions of less experimental organisations will shake their heads in disbelief at some of the provisions. It does however seem to me that their existence is a testimony to the high levels of goodwill and dedication to the creation of a workable collective lifestyle which exist in the Foundation.

Reading List

Roger Benson (editor); From Organisation ….To Organism: A New View of Business and Management; Findhorn Foundation; 1988. Proceedings of the 1987 conference of the same name. See particularly Gerard Endenburg’s paper on ‘A Model of Sociocracy’.
Roger Benson; Leadership and Community; Foundation audio tape of talk given on 6.2.94
Stephen R. Covey and A. Roger Merrill; First Things First; Simon and Schuster; 1994
Jim Maynard; New Age Governance at Findhorn; Foundation Early Study Paper; circa 1975.
Corinne McLaughlin & Gordon Davidson; Spiritual Politics; Findhorn Press; 1994
M. Scott Peck; The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace; Arrow; 1990. The quotation is from page 71.
Anne Wilson Schaeff and Diane Fassel; The Addictive Organisation; Harper and Row; 1990
Peter Senge; The Fifth Discipline; Century Business; 1992
David Spangler; The Politics of Synergy; Original Series Study Paper.
– “Within a group, synthesis of consciousness does not mean the same thing as democracy… we have group of people coming together to blend themselves. They have a will to become one, not to find out what the majority thinks.” Evolution of Government; Original Series Study Paper. “The concept of a spiritual elite ruling the world is one of man’s dreams but is not a reality. The concept of spiritual educators uplifting the world is the reality.” Growth, Authority and Power – The GAP; Original Series Study Paper.
David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson; Re-Imagination of the World; Bear and Co; 1991. Also appearing in the Section 1 reading list, this volume has some pithy comments to make about the psycho-social dynamics of spiritual communities. See particularly ‘Sixteen Years of the New Age’ by William Irwin Thompson.
Chogyam Trungpa; Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; Shambhala; 1973
Dick Anthony, Bruce Ecker and Ken Wilber (editors); Spiritual Choices: The Problem of Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner Transformation; Paragon House; 1987. This work contains a wide variety of articles which address the difficulties confronting a spiritual seeker attempting to recognise unhealthy cults from authentic spiritual traditions. Particularly useful, (although somewhat weighty and academic in tone) is Ken Wilber’s chapter on ‘The Spectrum Model’ which provides some insight into evaluating decision-making procedures. He identifies three main pitfalls to be avoided, namely the suppression of free and rational enquiry into the teachings offered, the existence of permanent authority figures, and the perpetuation of isolated legitimacy without reference to either external or historical criteria.