Click to view e-book

Click to view e-book

(First appeared as ‘Findhorn and the Western Mystery Tradition”, One Earth Volume 2 Issue 6, 1982.)

When I first came to the Findhorn Community some seven years ago, one of the regular events was Peter Caddy giving talks on the ‘Foundations of Findhorn’. He would bring a most amazing range of stories and experiences into these talks, including masters and magic rings, power points, travels in Tibet and UFOs. Sometimes I had to keep my mind very open: file the information ‘for future reference’ as it were. One of the things he would say almost casually, was that the Foundation was of course a mystery school in the Pythagorean tradition — and everyone would nod as he then moved on to another subject and we were all swept on to the vaster vistas of the universal cosmic role of the Community.

It wasn’t clear to me at the time how the Foundation fitted in with the ancient wisdom teachings that have come down through the centuries, but I have long been interested in the so called mystery tradition and during my time here I have given attention to where the Foundation stands within that tradition. And I can now see how much I have come to experience the Foundation as part of the continuous revelation of the spirit in daily life in a form appropriate to our age.

There are various theories about the nature of evolution. Perhaps the simplest is the Darwinian one, in which it appears that through a process of natural selection the pinnacle or crown of evolution is humanity. Teilhard de Chardin adds to this theory the idea that behind the scenes there is a spiritual blueprint seeking to come into full manifestation. As life forms become increasingly complexified, so there is an equivalent growth in spiritual consciousness. According to him, there is an archetypal image of the perfect humanity – Omega Man – which has never yet been fully born but towards which we are evolving. Sri Aurobindo says- something very similar. He talks about the pinnacle of the evolutionary wave being the Supra-Mental manifestation – again the spiritual archetype or ideal of humanity which we have never yet been able fully to incarnate, largely because the life-forms or the substance have not been responsive or adaptable enough really to manifest the body of light.

One way of looking at evolving humanity is to see it like a child growing up. Many of the mystery teachings say that at some point in time the evolving life forms on this planet became sufficiently complex for the spark of individuality and spirit to be inseminated into them – rather like a soul coming into a baby. And at that stage there needed to be parents, guardians and wise teachers to guide the growth of infant humanity. The mystery tradition goes back certainly as far as the schools of ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian civilisation, which was extremely stable for almost a thousand years, can be seen as an example of the parent-child relationship. It aimed to be a manifestation on earth of the spiritual realms, and the Pharaoh was seen as being the embodiment of the divine on earth. Every facet of society corresponded with spiritual law. The buildings reflected divine proportion and each person knew their place in a very structured hierarchical order.

This rich reservoir of spiritual teachings had a profound influence on the Hebrews, who went on to ground the monotheistic concept of one creator, which seemed to be a necessary preparation for the coming incarnation of the Christ and the birth of Christianity.

In the centuries prior to the birth of Christ there was a great proliferation of mystery schools and spiritual teachings. In the 6th century BC, for example. Pythagoras, Confucius. Lao Tzu and Buddha were all living at the same time. In the mystery schools great emphasis was laid first on the lesser mysteries – the integration of the personality, the balancing of the elemental essence within the body and the preparation of the personality as a chalice – and then on initiation into the greater mysteries. Initiates were taught to open themselves to the higher soul qualities, to align themselves with the power of spirit and to bring that spiritual power into the personality vehicle and out into daily life. However. these mystery schools were very much for the elect and remained the privilege of the few. There were stringent and difficult initiation rites, and the heart of the mystery teaching remained secret and hidden from the multitude.

This changed with the advent of Christianity. In the life of Jesus we have what the mystery tradition calls the exemplar pattern of initiation, someone who through the example of his own life showed us the Way—which was how to purify and align the personality with the soul and then, through an act of sacrifice to make that substance holy. The essential message of Jesus seems to be that initiation is for all, that the kingdom of God is within and that we are all potentially gods in the making. There is also a strong emphasis on groups—’Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them’. It seems that at this time the seed was being sown for the next step humanity needed to take, which was the development of brotherhood, and a sense of the oneness of humanity. The message of Jesus was taken up by the early Christian communities, which despite attack and persecution seemed to embody the essence of the Christian teachings. Certainly the gifts of the spirit were made manifest in a very powerful way.

However, with the growth of the Roman Empire and Constantine’s taking on of Christianity as the official religion, much of the original purity of these early groups was lost. Christianity became institutionalised and then with the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire there came the entry into the Dark Ages, and the flame of the spirit seemed to burn very dimly in Europe.

Towards the end of the 11th century there was a rekindling of the light by groups like the builders of the Gothic cathedrals, who through the use of the flying buttress created huge soaring buildings that seemed to transcend the heaviness of stone and reach up into the heavens. There was also the advent of the Troubadours, many of whom were said to be initiates, who travelled round Europe with songs that were essentially subversive. Some of their songs were of the Reynard the Fox type, little fables about the fox who got the better of the establishment. They were underground revolutionary material attacking the powerful structures of a materialistic society and church. This was part of a general erosion of the feudal and monarchical patterns of the establishment which were essentially keeping the evolution of consciousness in a parent/child position. The Troubadours also had songs dealing with the courtly chivalric tradition, of knights and imprisoned damsels who needed rescuing, and these were symbolic of the longing of the personality to be reunited with the soul – the soul being seen as feminine according to the ancient wisdoms.

Then there were the Knights Templar, who travelled through the East keeping the routes open for the Crusaders, and in their travels coming into contact with groups like the Essenes and the Sufi orders who had kept the flame of the ancient traditions alive. Many of them became initiated in these traditions and through their own fraternities brought the teachings back to the West.

All this led up to the Renaissance when there was a rebirth and return to many of the Hermetic and mystery teachings which had existed before Christianity. In the early 1600s the Rosicrucian manifestos appeared which put forward a new pattern for initiation in which the individual initiated himself through study, self-observation and experimentation. The Rosicrucians also taught the qualities of liberty, equality and fraternity, which were of course absolutely necessary if there was ever to be a unified field of consciousness. This was very threatening to the crystallised monarchical patterns in Europe and so you had the founding fathers going off to try to ground those qualities in the supposedly virgin territory of America. In Europe itself it took the French revolution to begin to shatter the old patterns.

In the centuries following the Renaissance we can see an increasing division between science and religion, and the very rapid growth of materialism. In one way this allowed us to explore the mysteries of matter very extensively, but it also created an increasing identification with matter, with the subsequent loss of connection with our real source. However, alongside this there were always groups keeping the mystery tradition alive, such as the Rosicrucians, Alchemists, and Freemasons.

In the last century or so the mystery teachings have become increasingly popularised, and it seems we are coming out of this period of deep materialism and beginning once again to re-identify ourselves as spiritual beings. The early 19th century saw a revival of the magical tradition through an intense interest in spiritualistic phenomena, and in 1875 there was the founding of the Theosophical Society, which through the work of Madame Blavatsky brought many of the Eastern teachings to the West, particularly the ideas of reincarnation and of the masters of the spiritual hierarchy. At the same time there was the founding of the Order of the Golden Dawn, which drew together many of the threads of the Western mystery tradition, including the Pythagorean, Hermetic, Gnostic and Rosicrucian teachings, numerology, astrology and the Kabbalah.

Both of these groups acted as seed points for the development of other groups and teachings. The Order of the Golden Dawn splintered into a number of occult groups that are still active today. Out of the Theosophical Society came the work of Rudolf Steiner and his anthroposophical teachings. He broke away partly because he felt the Theosophical system didn’t state the centrality of the mystery of the Christ and the crucifixion, which he felt were of tremendous importance. Another elaboration from the Theosophical system were the Alice Bailey and Arcane School teachings.

What is the relevance of all these teachings to the Community? It is interesting to see how in the persons of the founding group, many of the themes of the mystery tradition are blended together. Eileen is obviously very much in the mystical tradition, concerned primarily with union with the source. Significantly her first book was called God Spoke to Me – not an angel or a guide or anyone else, but God. Peter, on the other hand, is clearly an exponent of the occult method. The mystery teachings associated with this path are those concerned with the creative use of the mind, with learning about the machinery of creation and the workings of the intermediate realms between spirit and matter, with ceremonial magic and ritual, and working with the masters of the spiritual hierarchy.

Roc was also very much in the magical tradition. Part of his role in the Foundation in the early days was to be the guardian of the Community on the inner planes. He was very much the magician. He also had a close contact with the elemental kingdoms, but generally his world was more in the Hermetic tradition, while Dorothy Maclean, through her attunement to the devas and the nature kingdoms, was able to present much of the Orphic tradition, which is associated with the nature mysteries.

Through the coming together of these very diverse personalities and approaches it was as if the role of the Foundation as a place of synthesis was being formed. Part of the difficulty in the past has been that the different religions, different mystery traditions, different paths – all different aspects of the universal truth – have seen themselves as separate and alienated from each other, and have had problems communicating. Part of the challenge in the world today is to help nourish the concept of universality and the qualities of liberty, equality and fraternity for the whole of humanity. With the incoming of the Aquarian energies it seems that the time is now ripe for a greater understanding of group consciousness and the overcoming of the apparent differences that separate us, with a recognition of the underlying unity in diversity that surrounds us. And the Foundation, in attempting to blend the paths of the mystic, the occultist and the nature mysteries, is contributing to this.

One of the main features of the mystery traditions is that they all come out of a consciousness of wholeness and a knowledge of the reality of the spiritual realms. All the maps that were produced – whether these were the Hermetic sciences, the astrological or alchemical symbolism, the Rosicrucian teachings, or even some of the pre-Christian approaches – sprang from the idea of oneness and the inter-relatedness of the spiritual reality and the material world. Our culture has lost that awareness. but we are now trying to regain it in ways that are appropriate to our age. And certainly that is the consciousness that underlies the work at the Findhorn Foundation.

So the Community brings together many of the themes of the mystery tradition and also represents a return to the essential core of the mystery teachings; and it is clear to me that this centre is very much part of the ongoing revelation of spirit and of the evolving spiritual consciousness of humanity. But how about the Foundation as a mystery school in its own right? What are the lessons here that in the mystery schools of old would have been associated both with the lesser and the greater mysteries?

The lessons of the lesser mysteries were concerned primarily with initiations of the personality . with the integration of mind, emotions and the subconscious aspects of ourselves and then the grounding of that in the elemental essence of the body. Many of these lessons have now become externalised in the world today, largely through the development of psychology and the different psychotherapeutic approaches. At the Foundation, much of the work of the lesser mysteries goes on just through the process of living in the Community – the rubbing off of rough edges, the gradual shaping and pruning as people increasingly take responsibility for their own realities, for what they draw to themselves and for what they express, and as they stop blaming others or their environment and do the necessary work in character training and personality integration. But that is only the first stage of the work.

The second stage is one of re-identifying ourselves as spiritual beings, of shifting from a personality level orientation to a soul level orientation, and of opening ourselves up as a chalice to the life of the spirit. It is the shift that David Spangler describes of moving from the old laws of manifestation, which are personality based, to the new laws, which are soul based. Very often, as people make that shift, whether on an individual or a collective level, we enter into a difficult transitional period, a period of dryness, doubt and despondency, when the old patterns no longer seem to work. In some ways the Foundation as a collective entity has been working with this over the last five to ten years. The old patterns of splendid manifestation which worked so well in the early days of the Community no longer seem to be effective, and it is as if a different level of consciousness is being asked of us.

The switch is rather like the experience one has in changing from two-finger typing to touch-typing. As a two-finger typist you are able to produce a reasonable result, but you are very conscious of machinery and the process is rather slow. Nevertheless, it works. Then when you begin to learn to touch-type you are told “Cover the keys”, and suddenly you enter a period of helplessness: you fumble around and seem to produce nothing. But if you persevere you begin to get a new creativity till you find you are far surpassing your previous capabilities. You are still using exactly the same machinery but you are no longer so conscious of it and you have much greater freedom.

In the Community I have seen this process at work again and again. There is a lot of what can be called ‘heart energy’ here, and as people join the Community they begin to soften and open and reveal much of who they are. An opening of the heart centre takes place – which in the mystery teachings is associated with the birth of the Christ within, a movement of consciousness in which we dis-identify from the personality centre and re-identify with the soul centre. At the same time part of the process often involves this period of doubt and disorientation. People catch the vision and respond to it, and then somehow it seems to get lost and they find themselves in the middle of a wilderness experience. Luckily we don’t all go through this period simultaneously, and so we are able to support one another; moving through it, encouraging people stay with it till they come through with new insights and a knowledge of the spiritual truths that are rooted in their actual beings rather than just in their minds.

And that is really what I see as the main function of the Foundation as a mystery school – the work to re-align ourselves with the soul centre. The personality work is important, but we have to watch that we don’t get bogged down in it. We need to do our character work and integrate our personalities, supporting one another in this process, but we also need to open ourselves up, constantly and consistently, to the inflowing of inspiration. As we take responsibility for our personal universes in this way, we then move on to take responsibility for the universe of the group, then the universe of the Community—and so on out to the universe and the planet. Because as the connection with the soul is made and strengthened, we move to a state of consciousness that is naturally group conscious. It is naturally inclusive, it naturally sees the connectedness and relationship between apparently separate groupings, and it naturally perceives a much clearer image of the divine pattern. From that level we are automatically able to help bring through the archetypal blueprint for humanity and this planet. And as more and more people do that, both in the Community and elsewhere, the combined power that is generated will transform the planet.