Eileen Caddy

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.

Soon she met an RAF officer, Squadron Leader Andrew Combe, whom she married in 1939, just months before the beginning of the Second World War; subsequently she travelled to London and America with him, and lastly to Iraq,[5] and had a son and four daughters.

Their friend Dorothy Maclean later recalled that Sheena had declared that she was no longer her husband's "other half", and that soon Peter would meet his "true partner".

Early in 1962, the couple along with most of the staff were sent by the management to resurrect another of their properties, the Trossachs Hotel, at Perthshire, but when they pleaded to be shifted back to Forres closer to their "mission", they were fired.

The garden flourished to such a remarkable extent with the help of what they claimed were plant spirit and devas[11] that it eventually attracted national attention, and was featured in a 1965 BBC radio programme.

Beginning in 1965 a community, eventually known as the Findhorn Foundation, began to form around the work and spiritual practices of Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean.

[8][13] Meanwhile, all through the 1980s, Eileen travelled across the world speaking at spiritual gathers, and also writing several books, including her "compendium of daily guidance", "Opening Doors Within", which went on to be translated in 30 languages.

[9] Her 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.

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