Eileen Caddy
Eileen Caddy is best known as one of the founders of the
Findhorn Foundation community near the village of
Findhorn on the
Moray Firth in northeast
Scotland.
She was born Eileen Jessop in
Alexandria,
Egypt, in
1917, daughter of a director of
Barclays Bank DCO.
She married
Squadron Leader Andrew Combe in 1939 and, following a divorce, subsequently married Squadron Leader
Peter Caddy in 1953.
In the early 1950s Eileen Caddy was in the circle that formed around
Sheena Govan, daughter of the founders of the
Faith Mission, and a former wife of Peter Caddy. From 1957 until 1962 Eileen Caddy co-managed hotels in Scotland including the Cluny Hill Hotel near
Forres,
Moray.
Following a period of unemployment from 1962 onwards, Eileen Caddy and her husband Peter and their colleague Dorothy Maclean began to practice
organic gardening as a means of supplementing their family's food supply. The garden flourished to such a remarkable extent that it eventually attracted national attention. The garden was featured in a
BBC radio programme of 1965. The garden's supporters included Sir
George Trevelyan and
Lady Eve Balfour of the
Soil Association.
Beginning in 1965 a community, eventually known as the Findhorn Foundation community, began to form around the work and spiritual practices of Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean. The community was featured in several television documentaries by the BBC, starting in 1969. Most recently it was profiled by the
Channel 4 documentary series,
The Haven, in 2004.
Eileen Caddy's works include
God Spoke to Me, a volume of inspirational messages published in various formats from 1965 onwards, and an autobiography titled
Flight into Freedom and Beyond.
For services to spiritual inquiry, Eileen Caddy was in 2004 awarded the
MBE by Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The award was presented the
Lord-Lieutenant of Moray,
Air Vice-Marshal George Chesworth.
Her works include:
*
Opening Doors Within (1996) ISBN 0905249682
*
www.findhorn.org official
Findhorn Foundation website
*
www.eileen-caddy.net Unofficial site devoted to Eileen Caddy
