A Teacher
Eileen Caddy
Inner guidance from the ‘still small voice within’
The transmission
Eileen Caddy, MBE (1917-2006) was a British spiritual teacher and author and a co-founder, with her husband Peter Caddy and their colleague Dorothy Maclean, of the Findhorn community in the north of Scotland.
From 1953 she reported receiving inner direction from a source she called “the still small voice within” or “the God within,” and she set aside daily time for what she described as her “appointments with God.” In 1962 the three founders, then living in a caravan at the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, began the garden that made the community famous, with Eileen’s guidance directing many practical decisions of the fledgling settlement.
Eileen Caddy’s place in this Atlas rests on more than fifty years of received inner guidance, which she recorded and shared in books such as God Spoke to Me and the daily-meditation collection Opening Doors Within.
Her life’s work was to encourage people to be still, turn within, and find and follow their own source of inner direction. These are foundational New Age figures. Presented as a sincere experiment, her contribution is a disciplined practice of inner listening offered as a teachable path.
What they gave
Inner guidance practice: Modelled a daily discipline of stillness and listening to a “still small voice” as a source of direction.
- Findhorn co-founding: Helped establish one of the most influential New Age communities, where her guidance shaped early decisions.
- Opening Doors Within: Produced a widely used book of daily meditations on turning within.
- Self-sourced authority: Taught that each person can find their own inner guidance rather than depend on external authorities.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Christian contemplative and devotional practice; the spiritual circle around Sheena Govan; and mid-century esoteric and New Age currents.
- Influenced: the Findhorn Foundation community; New Age inner-guidance practice; and later contemplative-listening movements.