11 Facts About Eileen Caddy

Eileen Caddy MBE was a British spiritual teacher and New Age writer, best known as one of the founders of the Findhorn Foundation community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, near the village of Findhorn, Moray Firth, in northeast Scotland.

The commune she started in 1962 with husband Peter Caddy and friend Dorothy Maclean was an early New Age intentional community where thousands of people from dozens of countries have resided in years since.

Eileen Caddy was born Eileen Marion Jessop in Alexandria, Egypt, the second of four children of Albert Jessop, an Irishman, and the director of Barclays Bank DCO; her mother Muriel was English.

In 1952, while posted at RAF Habbaniya, in Iraq, Combe read an article written by Squadron Leader Peter Caddy who was posted, met him, and became interested in bringing him into the MRA fold; subsequently Eileen was introduced to Peter and his wife, Sheena Govan, daughter of the founders of the Faith Mission.

Soon Eileen Caddy was in the circle that formed around Sheena Govan.

Subsequently, from 1957, Peter and Eileen Caddy co-managed a run-down hotel in Scotland, the Cluny Hill Hotel in Forres, Moray, which they reportedly resurrected and turned into a four star hotel following practical guidance given by the "voice".

In 1971 Eileen Caddy, as "guided" by her inner voice, stopped receiving guidance for the community and from then on remained as an inspiring figure within the community.

Meanwhile, all through the 1980s, Eileen Caddy travelled across the world speaking at spiritual gathers, and writing several books, including her "compendium of daily guidance", "Opening Doors Within", which went on to be translated in 30 languages.

Eileen Caddy's works include God Spoke to Me, a volume of inspirational messages published in various formats from 1966 onwards, and an autobiography titled Flight into Freedom and Beyond.

Finally in 1996 at the age of 76, Eileen Caddy stopped giving workshops, as her inner voice "suggested".

For services to spiritual inquiry, Eileen Caddy was in 2004 awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.