CADDELL, Christian see CALDWELL, Christian (f l. 1660 s)

CADDY, Eileen Marion,‡ n. Jessop, mi Combe, m2 Caddy, MBE, born Alexandria, Egypt 26 Aug. 1917, died Findhorn 13 Dec. 2006. Co-founder of the Findhorn Foundation. Daughter of Muriel Bull, and Albert Jessop, Director of Barclays Bank DCO in Alexandria.

The second child of four, six-year-old Eileen Jessop was sent to Ireland for school, and later attended a domestic college. She married RAF officer Squadron Leader Andrew Combe and had five children, but in 1953 she met and fell in love with Peter Caddy (1917—94) while she and her husband were posted in Iraq. When she asked Andrew for a divorce, she lost access to the children until the late 1960s. Distressed, she visited a Glastonbury private sanctuary with Peter Caddy, where, while meditating, she first heard ‘the still small voice within’ which said: ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Caddy 2002, p. 33), and in time she came to accept its guidance.

In March 1957, the couple, their three sons and their friend Dorothy Maclean moved to Forres in Morayshire to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel. Five years later, after an interval running a hotel in Perthshire, they all moved to a caravan park near Findhorn, Morayshire. The organic garden they planted there, attributing its spectacular results to the help of plant spirits, attracted national attention.

The three of them began what became the Findhorn Foundation, a residential community founded on the founders’ spiritual beliefs and practices. The divine briefings received by Eileen Caddy, and the disciplined approach of Peter Caddy, gave direction to the nature and work of the Community which grew and flourished, attracting residents and visitors from around the world. In 1975, to house a college, the Community bought Cluny Hill Hotel; in 1983 they purchased the Findhorn Bay caravan park. By 1979, the Community numbered 300 and is still flourishing.

Eileen Caddy stopped receiving guidance for the Community in 1971, Dorothy Maclean left in 1973 and Peter Caddy in 1978. Eileen Caddy travelled worldwide in the 1980s, speaking at spiritual gatherings. She wrote several books, one of which, Opening Doors Within (1986), was translated into 30 languages. In 2004 she was awarded an MBE for service to spiritual inquiry. She lived in the Findhorn Community until her death.