A Video on My Life at Findhorn and Other Things

My latest video is unusually personal and autobiographical. Here it seemed fitting to talk about my life more than any video so far, particularly going into the nearly three years I lived at Findhorn in Scotland.

What is Findhorn in Scotland, some may well ask. A quote from my new book Cor Jesu Sacratissimum should provide a short answer to that question:

The Findhorn Community … has provided a major inspiration for the entire New Age movement. Indeed, according to Vatican document Jesus Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life, the New Age movement had two major sources of formative inspiration:

‘The two centres which were the initial power-houses of the New Age, and to a certain extent still are, were the Garden community at Findhorn in North-East Scotland, and the Centre for the development of human potential at Esalen in Big Sur, California, in the United States of America.’

At any rate, Findhorn is a place, which has wielded astonishing influence – out of all proportion to immediate appearances. For it is a small community of a few hundred (at best) located in a remote part of the British Isles – further north than Juneau, Alaska. Yet Findhorn exerted a strange, attractive power. People from the far reaches of the world have expended significant time, energy and money to wend their way up to its lonely, windswept peninsula in the far north of Scotland.

For them, Findhorn became a contemporary centre of pilgrimage. Some spoke of it as a modern ‘Mystery School’, where one could undergo processes of spiritual initiation – which in ages past, took place in hidden enclaves, sheltered from the world. For others, Findhorn represented a nascent ‘City of Light’ – an outpost for a new ‘Planetary Civilisation’.

At least, all this is in keeping with numerous images I heard (and used myself!) throughout long years. That is, I do not speak only of the years that I actually resided there – because for nearly two decades of my life, Findhorn was at the centre of all my inspiration and aspiration for a better world.

Yes, before I encountered the Catholic Mystery, Findhorn, or at least what Findhorn represented, embodied my my greatest hope for humanity. I first encountered the community at age sixteen in 1980 – the community was still relatively young back then – and in this video, I try to explain why Findhorn and the New Age purchased such a powerful hold on my soul and countless souls like mine.

I also try to explain Findhorn’s strange origins in the lives of Peter Caddy and his wife Eileen as well as David Spangler, all people I interacted with, at least a little, in my New Age youth.

We will not say too much more here, but leave that for the video itself to say. Much more can also be found in the archives at this site tagged Findhorn and likewise New Age.

I shall only explain that Helena P. Blavatsky, whose visage is pictured here, was never part of Findhorn, having died decades before Findhorn’s birth in 1962. However, as I explain in my book, she may be seen as the “grandmother” of today’s mighty New Age movement and her Eastern esoteric ideas most definitely permeated Peter Caddy, David Spangler and many, many more of the people who pioneered Findhorn in the early days.

Books from Roger Buck