Our coverage of the Western Mystery Tradition is quite extensive, and this article is intended as an introduction to the range of coverage on the site, and to provide some pointers to the articles covered under this topic, including a wealth of links to additional articles for further reading.

In this article:

  • About the Western Mystery Tradition – what is it, how did it develop, and what is its history?
  • Philosophical foundations of the Findhorn Foundation Community – The Community is not so much the product of the New Age, but one of its progenitors
  • Peter Caddy, The Rosicrucians and The Laws of Manifestation – it’s not widely known that co-Founder Peter Caddy’s original spiritual training was as a member of a “Rosicrucian” Order. But what were – or are – the Rosicrucians, and what was the Order to which Caddy belonged?
  • Links to the New Age – The Community has been a part of a vast network of New Age links since the beginning. Here we look at some of the people and organisations with whom we have been connected.
  • Guidance and Esoteric Myths – and last but not least, guidance on how to live as a Community member (in 1987), and a fascinating esoteric foundation myth.

But before we have a look in more detail at what’s in store, what, exactly, is the “Western Mystery Tradition”, and what does the Findhorn Foundation Community have to do with it?

About the Western Mystery Tradition

Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus

Western Esotericism, to give it another of its names, (esoteric from the Ancient Greek esôterikós, “belonging to an inner circle”) comprises a number of concepts that arose in Western society, initially primarily in the Eastern Mediterranean region, that were not aligned with the conventional Judeo-Christian religion. However it was only in the late 18th century that the various threads were grouped together as a single field of study.

The “Traditions” of the title included such subjects as Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism and came to be of particular interest to Renaissance scholars, such as Dr John Dee, who were also interested in a number of additional philosophies such as the Hebrew and the later Christian Kabbalah. These ideas were widely studied and influenced later scholars and influenced the growth of philosophical and scientific thought in the 18th century in the Age of Enlightenment. The following century saw the advent of several metaphysical and esoteric Christian groups, with the founding of a number of organisations such as H P Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society, Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, that extended into the 20th century and, with a number of sometimes counter-cultural spinoff organisations, provided the foundations of the New Age movement of the late 1960s – and in many cases continue to exist today.

Philosophical foundations of the Community

While the Findhorn Foundation Community is probably widely regarded as a product of the New Age movement, its roots go a great deal further back, not merely to the mid-20th or late 19th century esoteric groups, but back to the very foundations of the Western Tradition – so much so that we can say that the Founders of the Community and their colleagues were irrefutably responsible for creating many aspects of the New Age movement rather than merely following it.

The influence of these traditions can be seen in many of the wide-ranging articles included under this Topic. Explicitly describing how the Findhorn Foundation Community fits in with the ancient wisdom, and why it can be described as a “Mystery School”, we have a piece by Nick Rose, Esoteric Influences: The Western Mystery Tradition, which originally appeared in OneEarth Magazine in 1982. It provides a useful overview of the Western Tradition and, importantly, the Community’s place within it. Also originally from One Earth Magazine, this time in Spring 1978, Paul Solomon discusses his journey to locate the Planetary Mystery Schools. Both these articles are included in Alex Walker’s 1994 anthology The Kingdom Within, available in full on this site. 

If you would like a more detailed discussion of the teachings of Classical times, then you will find a great deal to interest you in Keith Armstrong’s The Perennial Wisdom. He is also the author of Changes of Age – Avatar of Aquarius, which attempts to answer the question “What is the Christ and what is the nature of the Second Coming?”, in the context of the Community and the state of the world today, and in doing so touches many of the themes that characterise this Topic. A remarkable piece in addition is a 2017 talk by Dennis Evenson on The Esoteric Roots of the Findhorn Foundation. It’s a video record of the lecture, shot in the upstairs room in the old Community Centre, and also includes contributions by Jonathan Caddy and Ralph White, while Keith Armstrong relates a mystery concerning Liebe Pugh and the Universal Link.

Peter Caddy, The Rosicrucians and The Laws of Manifestation

The Hermetic Triumph

The Hermetic Triumph

The links between the Community and the Western Tradition are not particularly well-known, and in particular, the fact that Peter Caddy was a member of a “Rosicrucian” order that provided him with vital teachings that he brought with him to Findhorn and which formed one of the pillars of the “Foundations of Findhorn” sessions that he held in the mid-Seventies. Peter presented the material essentially as “The Power of Positive Thinking” – one might call it “The Laws of Manifestation” – but in fact what the lectures embodied was basic Rosicrucian philosophy. These lectures are titled Soul Science and were created by Dr Sullivan (aka Aureolis), Peter Caddy’s first spiritual teacher and founder of the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship (ROCF). You can read them here: Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3.

Then there is a comprehensive  article, Aureolis and the ROCF, which provides an overview of the subject matter that can be accessed in more detail in some of the articles discussed below.

Jeremy Slocombe further describes Peter’s Rosicrucian background and its influence on the other co-founders of the Community in a paper, Peter Caddy, The Rosicrucians and the Foundations of the Findhorn Community, originally circulated at a 1995 conference on The Western Mysteries.  Then for a brief history of the Rosicrucians, and their connections to other organisations such as Freemasonry and the Royal Society, and their relation to the Order to which Peter belonged, read The Rosicrucian Connection, which looks at Rosicrucianism from the original 17th Century Manifestos to modern groups, including the ROCF. For an overview of Rosicrucian philosophy as interpreted by the ROCF, see Mystery Science of the Ages, by Dr Sullivan.

For more on Peter Caddy’s background and personal story, read A Short Biography of Peter Caddy. And while we are considering the stories of various luminaries associated with the Community, we have a biography of Robert Ogilvy Crombie (aka ROC). Although today his importance is underestimated by some, he was the community’s protector, teacher and friend from 1966, when he first visited, until his death in 1975. His relationship with the elementals, the nature spirits ruled by Pan, is one of the pillars on which the community is built.

Links to the New Age

Rather less well-known in the context of the Community is Anthony Brooke. With Monica Parish, he founded The Universal Foundation in 1966, a group dedicated to the dissemination of new age ideas and information. Anthony Brooke, formerly the ruler of Sarawak (now part of Malaysia), used his contacts among the royalty and politicians of many nations to spread the word of the New Age, travelling worldwide and linking up with many spiritual and esoteric groups. Anthony and Monica first met Peter Caddy in late 1965 at Sir George Trevelyan’s Attingham Park Conference, The Significance Of The Group In The New Age. Thus began a long association. You can learn more about Anthony Brooke and his work in the article Sir Anthony Brooke – an Introduction. 

Sir George Trevelyan was, of course, a major figure in the New Age movement and we have his extensive Bibliography from the Living Record.

The Universal Foundation had a base at Findhorn between 1968 and 1972 in the cedarwood bungalow that still bears the name “Universal”. This bungalow became their main headquarters in August 1971. In association with the Findhorn Trust (predecessor of the Findhorn Foundation), Universal Foundation published several of the early Community books.

Similarly named, but distinct, the Universal Link, founded in 1961 – of which the Foundation’s early Treasurer, Joanie Hartnell-Beavis, was a key member – was a network of individuals and small groups inspired by the spiritual information coming from Liebie Pugh and her colleagues in St Annes-on-Sea, Lancashire. The Findhorn Community founders were among the groups who were in contact with Liebie. Our article on The Universal Link is taken from The Living Record, and includes an extensive bibliography.

Guidance and Esoteric Myths

This Topic also includes some additional material of interest. A unique document titled The Spirit of Findhorn and consisting of “Guidance received concerning the purpose of the Findhorn Foundation and how to live as a member”, compiled by Michael Dawson in 1987, makes fascinating reading from today’s perspective. Another article from the 1994 anthology The Kingdom Within is a piece by William Bloom, Esoteric Influences: The Avatar of Synthesis in which he tells “An Esoteric Myth About the Foundation of the Community”. The Avatar of Synthesis, he writes, brings into Earth and humanity the principle of Synergy. The Great White Lodge of saints, adepts and rishis planned to build some centres made of human beings through whom the Avatar of Synthesis could incarnate. “They were also, at the same time, planning the recreation of certain mystery schools,” he goes on. “Perhaps it was possible that one centre could serve both purposes. ‘Whom shall we use to set this up?’ they asked. Ah ha! They spotted three disciplined and willing disciples who would make a perfect seed-group and who would see the founding of the project through to completion…”

Find your own path

We hope you enjoy the wide ranging articles that make up this Topic. There is, of course, much more – indeed our whole website could be considered a classroom of the Mystery School. Simply pick up a story and go ‘down a rabbit hole’, and, by following the wealth of embedded links, you may find your own path. As a starting point, you may find Alex Walker’s 1994 anthology, The Kingdom Within, available in full on this web site (either as an e-book or as individual articles), a useful place to start your own voyages of discovery through the Mysteries. In addition, search this site for relevant tags such as Mystery School, Rosicrucian and Anthroposophy.

Lead image: The Flammarion engraving [“Universum”] is a wood engraving by an unknown artist that first appeared in Camille Flammarion’s L’atmosphère: météorologie populaire (1888). The image depicts a man crawling under the edge of the sky, depicted as if it were a solid hemisphere, to look at the mysterious Empyrean beyond. The caption underneath the engraving (not shown here) translates to “A medieval missionary tells that he has found the point where heaven and Earth meet…” (Wikipedia). This coloured version from Wikimedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Author: Hugo Heikenwaelder, Austria, heikenwaelder@aon.at. All other images in this article are in the public domain.

Topics are a ‘reader’s digest’, a summary of essential Community facets offering a compilation of posts for further information. Click here for a list of Topics we have produced so far.

This Topic was compiled by Leona Graham & Richard Elen, with superb assistance and support from the COIF team at large, without whom this would not have been possible. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.