Findhorn: A Global Laboratory for Cultural Evolution

by Ron Miller

The Findhorn community, located on the northeastern coast of Scotland near Moray, is one of the world’s best known and most influential centers for personal and cultural transformation. Over the past forty years, Findhorn has attracted spiritual teachers, gifted healers, ecological and holistic thinkers, and thousands of people exploring every facet of an emerging “new age” or post-industrial culture.

The community was founded in 1962 near the quiet Scottish village of Findhorn by visionaries Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean, who had experienced a spiritual calling to root themselves in the land and align with the unseen energies of the place. Working with the “devas” (spiritual energies) of the plant kingdom, they established an astoundingly productive garden in what had been a barren sandy campground, and soon attracted curious visitors, including some who published articles and books about the experiment. By the late 1960s, Findhorn became a site of pilgrimage for the global counterculture, a place to experience spiritual renewal, attunement with nature, and fellowship with other seekers.

Over 100,000 people have come to Findhorn for weeklong workshops or extended retreats, while many have settled there more or less permanently. Today, about 500 people live in or near the community, and thousands of others, who have either resided or attended programs there, remain part of a global network pursuing various paths of conscious evolution. Findhorn people have pioneered technologies for sustainable development, personal growth tools (such as the Game of Transformation with its popular Angel Cards), and community building processes, and brought these to many places around the planet.

Two hundred week-long programs are offered on site each year. The community is active in the Global Ecovillage Network (which began after a conference at Findhorn), and the Foundation maintains a representative at the United Nations as a non-governmental organization. The UN has designated Findhorn as one of twelve training centers for sustainable development. In addition, the Foundation has launched an international college program that brings young people to Findhorn for courses and semester abroad programs.

Visitors new to Findhorn are encouraged to participate in Experience Week, an intensive workshop that enables them to sample common group processes and community activities. Participants will typically come from several countries, so like Findhorn itself, an Experience Week session brings people from many cultures, nationalities and religious backgrounds together to celebrate the earth and explore human potentials.

The Foundation has run its own publishing operation for many years, and has hosted or inspired many authors who are at the forefront of holistic thinking, including Paul Hawken, David Spangler, James Twyman, William Bloom, and Malcolm Hollick (whose recent book The Science of Oneness is reviewed in this issue).

One element of Findhorn’s universal appeal is its all-embracing spirituality. There is no dogmatic creed or scripture. The community honors diverse religious and philosophical paths, and its people participate in an endless variety of rituals from many cultures. There are several sanctuaries on the grounds, where various kinds of meditation are practiced daily. Skilled practitioners teach artistic forms of worship and celebration, such as sacred dance and singing.

At Findhorn, communal work has been refined into an art form. The gardens, the community center kitchen, and the grounds crew bring people together into spirited teams devoted to service. They begin their tasks by “attuning”—taking several moments of silence and stated intention to consciously align with each other and the work at hand. The Findhorn culture supports purposeful ways of living; whether one is chopping vegetables for dinner or traveling across the planet to promote ecological methods of water treatment, one’s work is regarded as a source of joy and deeper presence, as well as service to the planet.

Findhorn Ecovillage scores record low ecological footprint

The Findhorn Foundation community has recorded the lowest-ever ecological footprint for any community in the industrialized world. Ecological footprinting is a tool to measure the consumption of resources and the creation of wastes in commercial and residential buildings, as well as the overall consumption of resources and environmental impact of corporations and businesses. Footprinting is increasingly relevant to today’s world where energy efficiency and sustainability are critical to efforts to combat climate change.

The community’s footprint is a fraction over half the national average, meaning that the average resident in the community consumes just one half of the resources and generates one half of the waste of the average citizen of the UK.

Numerous homes and community buildings incorporate solar panels for hot water heating. Most new community buildings incorporate design features that invite passive solar radiation to reduce building heating needs, such as south-facing windows and conservatories and minimal wall openings on north walls. Sustainably harvested wood provides space heating for both new and older homes.

The four community-owned wind turbines, which have a total capacity of 750kW, supply more than 100% of the community's electricity needs. The system is unusual in that the community owns its own private electricity grid, the main campus having originally been a private caravan park. The electricity produced by the turbines is sent to a substation that meters the flows, alters the transmission voltages and acts as a switching station. When the wind blows the electricity is used on-site. If production exceeds demand the surplus is exported to the grid. If the wind does not blow, the site imports from the grid. Overall Findhorn community is a net exporter of electricity, and green electricity generation is one of their successful community businesses.

The guidelines for new buildings in the ecovillage encourage very high levels of insulation, and double- or triple-glazed windows with low-emission window coatings. Architects are encouraged to incorporate energy efficiency considerations into every building design. Energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs are installed in many residences, businesses and community buildings. The ecovillage is a test case for a research project on the feasibility of using load management technology, which is equipment that helps match the electricity output of the wind turbines with the electricity requirements of community homes and businesses Energy running costs for newer houses are many times less than the running costs for the original old caravans.

Using solar, wind and wood, combined with highly energy-efficient features in the new buildings, the Findhorn ecovillage now receives 28% of its total non-transportation energy from renewable sources. They expect to increase this percentage as caravans are gradually replaced with energy-efficient new houses.

The footprinting study was undertaken by GEN-Europe (the Global Ecovillage Network) in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Research Centre (SDRC) in Forres. Technical support was provided by the internationally-recognized footprinting consultants, the Stockholm Environment Institute based at the University of York.

More information about the Findhorn Foundation is posted on its website, www.findhorn.org/home_new.php