A short history of the creation and publication of Eileen Caddy‘s first book of guidance.

In 1965 the Findhorn Community comprised 5 adults and 6 children living in 3 caravans around a garden. 4 of the adults; Eileen Caddy, Dorothy Maclean, Lena Lamont and Anne ‘Naomi‘ Edwards were ‘sensitives’, individuals able to receive messages from non-physical levels of existence.

The fifth adult was Peter Caddy, the man of action, who sent out typed carbon copies of the guidance, also called transmissions, received by Eileen, Dorothy and Naomi to the Community’s small mailing list of kindred spirits.

At this time, Peter began travelling widely throughout Britain, linking up with other groups in the then nascent British new age movement. Among the people and organisations with which he connected was The Universal Link, a Lancashire-based group headed by a spiritual teacher named Liebie Pugh. Two members of Universal Link were Iris Ratsey and Ellie Beevers, who also ran their own group from their home The Red House, in Cheltenham.

Iris and Ellie were among the first visitors to the Findhorn Community, and in early 1966 Iris suggested to Peter and Eileen that Eileen’s guidance was worthy of proper publication. She offered to edit the daily transmissions received by Eileen into monthly editions for distribution, and she and Ellie backed up this offer by using £55 from their “healing fund” to purchase a Roneo duplicating machine for the Community.

Peter began sending Eileen’s daily guidance to Iris, who edited out material personal to Eileen or to Community members, compiled what she felt to be the best sections into monthly editions, and sent the completed texts back to Peter in Findhorn.

The texts were typed by Dorothy Maclean, who, as well as receiving her own guidance, was a trained secretary. Peter duplicated the typescripts on the donated machine with the help of his friend R. Ogilvie Crombie (ROC), and distributed them to the mailing list, by this time including the contact lists of both Universal Link and Attingham Park, the adult education college run by Sir George Trevelyan.

The first edition was titled God Told Me, was credited to Elixir, Eileen’s spiritual name, and dated March 1966. It was printed on cream-coloured paper, with blue type, and stapled. It included 31 page-long pieces of the guidance Eileen had received daily during March, each item titled, dated and given a subtitle ending in the words ‘in action’, for example: faith in action, attunement in action etc. It was distributed on 24th July.

April and May’s guidance was compiled for a second edition, mailed out on 9th August and re-named God Spoke To Me – the first appearance of the famous title. These selections, 30 from April and 17 from May, were shorter and printed 3 or 4 to a page. From this edition onwards subtitles were omitted.

The June edition, comprising 22 longer pieces, was distributed on 30th August, and was titled God Spoke To Me: The New Dispensation. This name, acknowledging the shift into group consciousness and new age energy the Findhorn group experienced during Whitsun 1966 (see Peter Caddy’s In Perfect Timing and Eileen’s Flight Into Freedom), was retained for the rest of the series. This edition marked the commencement of sequential numbering of the items of guidance, carried on from issue to issue.

Distribution proceeded with editions being mailed out approximately 6-8 weeks after Peter had sent each month’s texts to Iris for editing. Separate issues were published monthly from July to October, until November & December 1966 formed another combined edition, the 8th and last in the series.

Meanwhile, the idea of compiling the best of the material into a properly published “spiritual book of gems”, first discussed by Peter and Iris in the Spring of 1966, was being planned. Iris suggested various titles, including The Voice Of God, A Bedside Book Of Gems, A Book Of Gems, The New Dispensation and The Shepherd’s Code : A Way Of Life.

(Ideas discussed at this time also included a book of daily guidance, with a message for every day of the year. Though this was decided against, such a book was finally published twenty years later in 1987 : Eileen’s best-seller, Opening Doors Within).

Eileen received in guidance, however, that the name God Spoke To Me should be used again, and in July 1967, 1,000 copies of the slender booklet God Spoke To Me Part 1, were printed and mailed out, the texts selected from from the 1966 monthly editions.

To browse through the booklets please use the < > arrows at the left and right of the window. For easier reading, use the buttons at the bottom of the window: use Zoom (the + and – buttons) or Toggle Fullscreen (the four arrows pointing outwards).

2,000 further copies of Part 1 were printed in November, and were followed by 3,000 copies each of Part 2 in December 1967, Part 3 in July 1968 and Part 4 in August, compiled by Iris from guidance received through Eileen during 1967 and ’68.

Each booklet had a glossy plain white cover with the title and Elixir in simple pale blue lettering. The text inside was blue on white paper. The items of guidance were numbered.

The printing was done by Horace Weaver’s of St Anne’s, Lancashire, who had previously printed Universal Link’s literature. The contact with Weaver’s was made through Joan Hartnell-Beavis, a former Link member who moved to Findhorn in 1967, and who herself financed the printing and publication of the booklets. (‘Joanie’ became the Community’s treasurer and served as one of the Foundation’s Trustees for many years. Until her death in 1996 she was Eileen’s closest companion).

No charge was made for the booklets. They were sent out all over the world on the basis of voluntary financial donations referred to as “love offerings”, a system used by several other networking spiritual groups of the time, including Universal Link, Heralds Of The New Age (New Zealand) and Magnificent Consummation (Arizona), with all of whom the Findhorn group were in contact.

In 1968 a further 3,000 copies each were printed of God Spoke To Me Parts 1 & 2, making a total of 18,000 booklets by the end of that year.

Further copies were printed over the next four years, but no new volumes of God Spoke to Me were compiled. Meanwhile, the practice of monthly editions was revived. Monthly booklets of daily guidance and visions received by Eileen, and read out by her or Peter each morning in Sanctuary, were distributed from January 1970.

These were titled God’s Word Through Elixir and were edited, typed and printed in the Community. They were published till September 1971, then discontinued when Eileen was directed from within to stop receiving guidance for the Community, in order to allow members to learn to find and follow their own inner direction.

However, there continued to be demand from beyond the Community for Eileen’s guidance, and this was met by reprints of the four booklets, until in April 1973 the first complete book-sized edition of God Spoke To Me, collecting all the material contained in the original four parts, was compiled and published.

This first complete edition is often stated as having been published in 1971. In fact this is an error which appeared for the first time in the credits of the 1977 printing, and which has since been perpetuated in several subsequent books about the Community.

The Community had indeed published its first full-length books in the Autumn of 1971. But these were David Spangler‘s Revelation : The Birth Of A New Age and Dorothy Maclean’s The Living Silence, published under her spiritual name Divina.

The edition of God Spoke To Me which followed them 18 months later was re-edited by an American Community member named Ed Maxcy, who had already worked as typist of the monthly editions of God’s Word Through Elixir.

As part of his editing, Ed removed the emphatic capital letters and bold highlights into which Iris Ratsey had set many words and phrases. He also wrote the Foreword originally credited to “The Editor”, but which has been mis-credited to the late Roy McVicar since the 1981 printing.

Roy, a writer himself, and the director of Findhorn Publications in the late 1970s, was in fact Eileen’s next editor, editing The Spirit of Findhorn, Foundations Of Findhorn, The Living Word, Footprints On The Path and The Dawn Of Change between 1976 and 1979.

The 1973 edition of God Spoke To Me retained the style of the glossy white cover, but with the addition of a symbolic illustration showing a luminous fountain pouring its blessings over the world. The contents were divided into the same four parts as the booklets, and the system of numbering each item of guidance was kept. The text was printed in dark red.

Almost every subsequent printing has had a new cover illustration, and those in the 1970s continued to have coloured text – blue, red or purple. From the 1981 edition onwards the author has been credited as Eileen Caddy instead of Elixir. Numbering of the pieces of guidance was dispensed with from the 1992 edition onwards. In all other respects the contents are unchanged.

At the time of writing, God Spoke To Me has been in catalogue in its various forms for 38 years. It is still one of Eileen’s most popular and beloved books, and a well-thumbed copy sits on the little bookshelf in Park Sanctuary at this very moment.

Iris Ratsey and Ellie Beevers remained in contact with Findhorn for many years and helped edit the first edition of The Findhorn Garden, published in 1969. They went on to found the spiritual movement Universal World Harmony, also in 1969, which merged with Universal Link in 1972. The name was changed to Universal World Harmony Through Service in 1987. Towards the end of their lives Iris and Ellie moved to South Africa and Canada respectively. They both died, after long lifetimes of spiritual service, in the 1990s.

Ed Maxcy left Findhorn in 1974. A book of his poetry, Guidelines, written under his spiritual name Alexis, was published by Findhorn Publications that year. Ed returned to Findhorn for a short spell in the late ’70s. Later he lived for many years in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Ed died in 2006.

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Notes: On The Distribution Of Guidance

The early Findhorn books of the late 1960s didn’t emerge from a vacuum. They were the first public evidence of a culture of recording inner guidance and visions that had been developed and sustained by the Findhorn founders from the mid 1950s onwards, long before the famous caravan came to rest at Findhorn Bay in 1962.

A vast amount of material was inwardly received and committed to paper by Eileen Caddy (Elixir, from 1953), Dorothy Maclean (Divina, from 1954), Anne Edwards (Naomi/Miriam, who lived with the group for a brief period in 1962 and again from 1965 to 1967) and Lena Lamont (from 1957 when she joined Peter, Eileen and Dorothy at Cluny Hill Hotel).

Much of this body of material, plus further material received through Naomi before she joined the group, is held in the Foundation’s archive at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Eileen, Dorothy and Lena had been trained by Peter’s former wife Sheena Govan to sit in regular disciplined meditation to faithfully write down the guidance they received, and never to break their “appointment with God”.

The messages or ‘transmissions’ received were recorded by hand, typed, filed, read within the group (and later the Community), distributed by mail to friends (and later to the Community’s mailing list), and from 1966 distributed round the world; first in pamphlets, then in booklets, then in books, all the way to Opening Doors Within, the best-selling volume of Eileen Caddy’s guidance, published in 1987 and so far translated into over 20 languages.

Guidance and visions received by other members and visitors to the Community including R. Ogilvie Crombie, Kathleen Fleming, Kathy Sparks and many others, were also faithfully recorded.

The growth of the recording, publication and distribution of messages received from the still, small voice within can be charted as follows :

1. Original hand-written Guidance and visions, recorded as received in notebooks, jotters and on loose paper. For example, Eileen’s diaries and carbon receipt books filled with guidance in her own handwriting, beginning in 1953.
2. Handwritten or typed, often duplicated, transcripts of guidance and visions, passed around within the group. These were single pages bearing the name of the receiver (eg Elixir, Divina etc), and date, followed by the text of guidance, beginning circa 1957 when the group began running Cluny Hill Hotel. Dorothy Maclean typed and collated these.
3. Duplicated typed transcripts distributed within and beyond the group. These comprised extracts of guidance sent out with correspondence by Peter from the late 1950s onward.
4. Duplicated typed transcripts gathered into selections and stapled together for irregular distribution beyond the group. For example, collections of Eileen’s guidance, sometimes in monthly ‘files’, distributed by Peter circa 1965/6, often by hand, to his contacts in the British New Age movement.
5. Edited periodical selections, titled, duplicated, stapled and distributed beyond the group/Community. Specifically, Eileen’s God Told Me and God Spoke To Me; 8 monthly selections, sent out from Findhorn by mail (1966-7).
6. Selections contained in newsletters, pamphlets and periodicals distributed beyond the Community. For example, items of Eileen’s guidance included in newsletters (1966-68) and early issues of the periodical Findhorn News (1969-70).
7. Edited selections, titled, duplicated, stapled, published as pamphlets and distributed beyond the Community. Specifically, Dorothy’s Choose Freedom and Practising The Presence (1967) and Within This Moment (1968).
8. Edited selections published as printed booklets and distributed beyond the Community. Specifically, Eileen’s God Spoke To Me parts 1-4 (1967-8), and Dorothy’s God’s Word Through Divina – 1970 (1971).
9. Monthly collections, bound, printed and distributed beyond the Community. Specifically, Eileen’s God’s Word Through Elixir (21 issues, 1970-71).
10. Edited collections published as books and distributed beyond the Community. For example, Dorothy’s The Living Silence and Wisdoms (1971), Eileen’s God Spoke To Me (1973).
11. Book collections published worldwide. For example, Eileen’s The Spirit of Findhorn (1976) and Foundations of Findhorn (1978).
12. Books published worldwide and translated into multiple languages. For example, Eileen’s Opening Doors Within (1987).

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For further information please see Our Bibliography.

Note. Guidance received by Eileen was also distributed on audio tape. The earliest of these, three volumes of Messages And Visions Through Elixir, read by both Peter and Eileen, were published in late 1969 and early 1970. 5 years later the Words To Live By series was recorded and issued – 6 tapes of Eileen reading the guidance herself. 5 further tapes followed in the early 1980s, containing a mixture of talks, guidance and meditations.

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God Spoke to Me is still in print and available from Findhorn Press.