The Angel of Findhorn is one of the most defining and unique aspects of the Community’s spiritual history.
Whilst it is not unusual for any collective human endeavour to have an overlighting angelic presence, there are not very many places where that presence is as consciously included in daily life as at Findhorn, and by people connected to the Community all around the world.
Another unique aspect is that the Angel of Findhorn is a ‘cross-breed angel’, a being awakened and shaped, in part, by human consciousness. The Community at that time, motivated by the founders’ guidance and encouragement, worked consciously with showering everything with an abundance of love. In doing so, this small group of people became a partner in creating an evolving, multi-dimensional and conscious field established through the collaboration between the spiritual realms and human intention.
In 1969 Dorothy wrote about the Angel of Findhorn:
it is unique because we humans were co-creators of it. It is thus a people angel, and its job is to reach people all over the planet, to draw from the consciousness of all of us who are connected with Findhorn, from the pool of our wisdom, awareness and experience, and spread that to other people in the world; in fact, to help open humanity to know that God is within and can be contacted consciously, and that from that inner contact we can also contact the intelligence of other life on the planet and beyond.
This Topic explores its origin, its distinction from the Landscape Angel, its evolution, and the different ways people engage with it.
Angel illustration by Tordis Schlag incorporating the original drawing by Barbara Thomas
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1. Beginnings
The story begins with Dorothy Maclean‘s early experiences in the Findhorn Garden. After establishing telepathic contact with the Deva of the Pea, she perceived two angelic presences:
- The Landscape Angel (The Mentor): For Dorothy the prominent guide, the Landscape Angel became her mentor and companion, introducing her to many beings of the subtle worlds of nature, who continued to work with her through the decades. Dorothy has recorded hundreds of messages from the Landscape Angel.
- The Angel of Findhorn (The Cross-Breed): Dorothy experienced this presence initially as a “Sleeping Beauty,” a being that was ‘dormant’ and only later became accessible. The Landscape Angel conveyed that the Angel of Findhorn was a new kind of entity. When Dorothy first communicated directly with it, the Angel of Findhorn called itself a “cross-breed angel”. It was a being awakened and shaped, in part, by human consciousness.
Dorothy distinguished Devas as having no human component and being connected only to the natural world.
2. Evolution and Complexity
Over the decades, the Angel of Findhorn has been experienced as a dynamic, developing presence. David Spangler recalls his initial experience of the Angel in 1970 as being like a “zygote”, a single cell holding the patterning of its unique work, requiring time to divide and become more complex. As more people visited and connected with the Community at Findhorn, the Angel evolved from a local presence to a Planetary Angel.
To help people connect with this complexity, David Spangler offers three “faces” or levels of engagement as aspects of one multi-dimensional being: Personal, Place and Planetary.
Fire Angel 2012 photo Cornelia Featherstone
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Delving Deeper
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1. Beginnings
The story of the ‘birth’ of the Angel of Findhorn is fascinating as it was observed and recorded at the time with great sensitivity and diligence.
The founders of the Community, Eileen and Peter Caddy, Lena Lamont and Dorothy Maclean had a strict spiritual practice where they trained their different ways of ‘inner listening’. Dorothy and Eileen recorded what they received and shared it in their daily meetings, thus developing trust and confidence in the work they were doing together.
It was on 5th July 1963, that Dorothy “got the impression of a sleeping-beauty beingness lying on its back at Findhorn.”
In 1999, in a personal letter to Michael Hawkins Dorothy lists the different notes she collected in those early years. She wrote: “I asked the Landscape Angel, who was my general intermediary into the angelic realm, what this meant, and was told that the various life-forces of the garden were settling in, rather like a birth of a being that needs coordination.”
In this letter which she wrote in preparation for the Angels@Findhorn2000 conference, she recounts the slow progress and that “It was not until 26th Feb. ’67 that I made direct contact with the Findhorn Angel”.
This letter formed the inspiration for Michael Hawkins to write a beautiful play entitled The Cross-breed Angel which dramatises Dorothy’s accounts with sensitivity, and makes them accessible in a new way.
Dorothy recounted the story of the Angel of Findhorn also in her book To Hear The Angels Sing. She received the following from the Angel of Findhorn: “From an unawakened godling I have grown to a stature reaching up to the highest, for the spirit of a place does not depend on the physical size of the land. Many factors come into my makeup, but now my greatest characteristic is height — up, up and up. I can mean many things to various souls, but all would be directed in a straight line to the heights. That straight line leads to the heart of all things, to God, to be found high up, or deep within, in the Sun itself, whatever way your consciousness is tuned. I would lift you out of yourself into your Self; for that purpose was I brought into being.”
2. Evolution and Complexity
Over the decades we have various people reflecting on the evolution of the Angel of Findhorn.
Dorothy Maclean and Judy McAllister
In 1983, for the 3rd World Wilderness Congress, Dorothy returned to Findhorn for the first time since she left in 1973. The One Earth Magazine published the article Talking of Angels, drawing on her presentations, “as it sheds light on where her understanding has led, including the presence of angels in more unlikely places than the garden …”.
Internet Archive free download
In 2004 Dorothy compiled a paper to help clarify the Community’s understanding of the different roles of the angelic entities known as the Landscape Angel and the Angel of Findhorn. It concludes with an additional clarification written by long time community member Judy McAllister.
During the Community Gathering 2025 Judy and Mary Inglis were allocated one hour to provide a glimpse of what is a vast subject. They touched on how the Landscape Angel and the Angel of Findhorn came into our history and conveyed their own personal understanding/perception/experience/observations.
David Spangler
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In 1994 David describes how he was in contact with the Angel of Findhorn. He wrote: “I had been shown one of the services that this Community provides, drawing upon the on-going inner and outer work of the Community, as well as upon its own spiritual connections with the sacred, to send streams of light into the world that served those on both inner and outer levels who work to heal humanity from its ancient wounds and their modern eruptions.”
In an article from 2001 entitled Will there be Angels in the 21st Century David reflects on the nature of angels, he doesn’t specifically refer to the Angel of Findhorn but his perceptions are pertinent to our exploration.
In The Angel of Findhorn and the Landscape Angel (2017) David explores the differences between those two beings. He reflects on the connection of the Angel of Findhorn to the purpose of the Community: “It was born as a spiritual community to demonstrate a way of being on the earth that dealt with the wholeness of things and with the partnership between the physical and subtle worlds. It was formed as a harbinger and demonstration of new cultural and new consciousness possibilities, however imperfectly it may actually embody them at any given time. […] The Angel of Findhorn could be said to be tied into and itself overlighted by an Angel of the New Age or an Angel of a new humanity or a new planetary culture or a Gaian culture or a holistic sacred culture,”
Differentiating between the Landscape Angel and the Angel of Findhorn, he writes
“as a rule of thumb, if you are attempting to attune to the life and spirit of the land around you, the nature spirits, the elementals, the spirits of stone and wood, water and earth, and so on, then your best bet is to align with the Landscape Angel; that is its ‘wheelhouse.’ If you are attuning to the spiritual mission, the consciousness, the subtle energies of the community and the humans within it – the work of Findhorn in the world – then the Angel of Findhorn is your better bet for it is structured, if you will, to deal with and assist that kind of activity and manifestation.”
Responding to the dramatic organisational changes in the Community with the closing down of the operational parts of the Findhorn Foundation in 2023, David reflected on his sense that despite the loss and disruption on the form level, the energetic field continued to be strong: “The angelic impulse has spread itself out so that the Earth can be its place, humanity its emerging community.”
He deepened that reflection in 2024 when he wrote: “…with the proliferation of different “communities” within the larger Findhorn umbrella, the full “multi-cellular” nature of the Findhorn Angel has a chance to manifest. The more complex, in the sense of interconnected, interrelated and collaborative, the different elements within the overall Findhorn identity can be, the more the complex nature of the Angel can connect and manifest.” He spoke then about the planetary nature of the Angel of Findhorn.
When we invited David to contribute to this Topic, he responded with the observation of “three possible modes of consciousness (or with some combination of these three, including all three at once). I think of these three as Personal, Place, and Planetary. Depending on which of these I engage, the “shape” of the Angel can be different.”
Personal: “The point is that at this level of consciousness, will, focus, and engagement, the Angel is sensitive to and concerned with the nature of the relationship the individual has as a unique person to the energy field of Findhorn.”
Place: “In this mode, the Angel of Findhorn is similar to the being Dorothy Maclean called the Landscape Angel or the local Deva overlighting the area.”
Planetary: “This aspect of the Angel deals with the relationship of humanity to the larger planetary ecology of the subtle dimensions and the spiritual lifeforms that inhabit that ecology in service to Gaia.”
At the same time he encourages the reader to “Let your imagination remain fluid and your heart open to what may seem like “shaped shapelessness” or “indeterminate determination.” In other words, open to paradox!”
Click here to read the full article.
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In 2023 William wrote an intriguing blog where he encouraged an enquiry into the nature of the Angel of Findhorn. In summary he offered “some interesting possibilities for understanding the Angel of Findhorn. It is:
- The thought-form created by the combined energies of the founders
- The spirits and angels that incarnated into this thought-form and energy field
- The Avatar of Synthesis
- All three working in synergy together
- A mystery”
Angel drawing by Barbara Thomas
In 2000 William and Michael Hawkins organised the Angels@Findhorn2000 conference, and they boldly named the Angel of Findhorn as their co-focaliser. During that Easter Week many aspects of Angels, Spirits and Nature were explored and the Conference Guide listed a fascinating range of presentations and workshops. Reflections following the conference give a glimpse of the impact it had at the time. Click here for the Conference Report.
The ripples from that conference may still be felt today as Michael reflects on his work with the Angel of Findhorn and the 25th Anniversary of the conference.
Granville has maintained a strong connection with the inner worlds from early childhood and has tracked his relationship with the Angel of Findhorn through his work with the network of Resource People of the Findhorn Foundation. In 2023 he posed the question “Is the Angel of Findhorn now an Archangel?” and describes his experiences and insights in the post.
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You can follow the footsteps of the Angel of Findhorn further in your own exploration of this chapter in the ‘Mystery School’ by using the tag Angel of Findhorn which leads to the collection of the stories listed above as well as some others.
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This Topic is the result of many inspired synchronicities and wonderful collaborations. Indeed there were so many of them in the two months before publishing it that we couldn’t refuse the ‘call from the angel’ to create this post. We want to thank in particular Michael Hawkins, Judy McAllister, and David Spangler, for their contributions and their editorial support.
Photo credits: image on top by Mark Richards of Aurora Imaging.
Inspired by CommUnity, a group of NFA volunteers, manages this website. Hearing each others stories, and learning about the history of this community can help us all to find more cohesion and a sense of belonging. Read more.<
What is our dear Angel of Findhorn up to these days?
To provide the answer, I need to step back to 2019, the year following the last RP Gathering, to when I’d arranged and reviewed the diary pages of the three events, an exercise that stimulated a flow of insight which brought into stark reality the enormity of what had taken place and the important part RPs had played in collaboration with the Angelic Kingdom.
Though I was taken by surprise by what was revealed to my inner eye at the time of the gatherings, the outer programme unfolded a series of beautifully orchestrated events, successfully directed by joint Focaliser’s Christine Lines and Dominique Remi, took centre stage and to add to this success were the very powerful intentions these two amazing people had envisioned to guide each of the gatherings, which with hindsight, had synchronised the outer activities with inner ‘happenings’, particularly the intention held during the 2016 Gathering: ‘To embody the three founding principles of this centre of love and light, to serve the transformational field of the Angel of Findhorn throughout the world’ – Wow! – and then followed up by the intention of 2018: To know the effect the Angel of Findhorn was having in the world’ – Double Wow!
The detail of the insight perceived when reviewing the events, revealed how each RP had, by their attendance, lodged an energetic link between their home country and the transformational field of Findhorn, a link that somehow enabled the overlighting Angel of each home country to join the ceremony in which our dear Angel of Findhorn was ‘raised up’ to become an Archangel whose transformational field has now become global in size and influence, with the essence that is the Spirit of Findhorn retained and has been quietly influencing the collective consciousness of humanity ever since..
Love & Blessings
Granville 💞
In 1989 I asked myself whether or not stay at Findhorn after my 2 years ‘apprenticeship’, and took the (for me very unusual) step to seek a reading from a psychic living in Wales. I received my cassette tape recorded reading in September 1989 and he referred to two huge energy beings, and he emphasised, ‘I mean HUGE!’ around me.
I knew that he referred to the Angel of Findhorn and the Landscape Angel. To be honest, I was rather intimidated by this vision – and yet – I have stayed, and have come to develop a very personal and direct relationship with both those beings over the years. I am deeply grateful for this access to the subtle realms, as it feels so near, like in the family.