People somehow turn up in Glastonbury when they are at a crossroads in their life: lost their home, their job, their spouse, their wits, their health, their faith, their sense of purpose … in Quest, they were sent to us, and we would do what we could … I could put myself in the shoes of most of the people who came to Quest for help: I’d been there myself. And I knew that if I sat with problems patiently, God would start to help.
When Quest came to Glastonbury, I felt I’d come home … for the first time in my life, after childhood … there was room for me to help, to discuss, to listen and be listened-to. Again and again it was ticking my check-boxes and I was so excited, sure that this was what I’d been preparing to do for some time.
Quest was an obviously Christian thing to do. John Sumner, an Anglican minister, and his faithful dynamic and creative wife Alice, had been called to start something like the Iona Community, but in England. It had to be Glastonbury. John was called by surprise, on a chance day visit to Iona; the call would not go away, so he consulted his bishop … he came down here to meet local people, which included James Turnbull, another Anglican minister of Scottish origin, whom God had also called here, in faith. James Turnbull was Scottish and a sensitive. He later led wonderful pilgrimages to ancient Celtic holy places. And here in Glastonbury, he’d joined the Assembly Rooms team, as treasurer, to relate to Glastonbury’s “alternative” spiritual community. So many people have been drawn here over the years, often without knowing why.
People are drawn to Glastonbury because of the “odour of sanctity” from ancient times, stretching back even further than Christianity, that many can sense. There are many extraordinary stories of significant spiritual encounters and awakenings here, far too many to describe – another post is needed.
We saw enough answers to prayer to keep faith in our work. And though that community did not, eventually, last as a formal entity, the blueprint was right. It still lives – I hold it. But whether it be “Quest the Next Generation” – or “Camphill Renewed” – or “Iona the Next Age” – or “Company of Avalon Reborn” – whether it happens in my lifetime or not – I’m going to do my best to see that the visions are passed on and that others take them up.
In promising to feed back to the Churches the hidden and forgotten truths learned through our work, Quest absolutely had the right vision. And what Christianity needs, if it is to come up to date with Spirit, is to develop this vision further: to feed back to the Churches many hidden and forgotten truths.
This is what my “spiritual scientific” research has been about, essentials of which I’m now writing up on this website. I’ve now been, as it were, forty years in the wilderness doing inner preparation and building up my research. And I have ten years of hands-on experience from Quest. Now I’m looking for Church people who also realize the need “to feed back to the Churches hidden and forgotten truths”, with whom I can work regarding all my research. I have collected a library of some excellence, with an eye to building up research in the future.
A Once and Future Blueprint
I’m still working out of the Quest blueprint, in essence. I have a household of people I try to work with as family. I try to help people in need on my doorstep. I spend time with God. I use all my spare resources for Spiritual Scientific Research. Essentially I am asking all the time “What Is Needed Now? Next? and next?” and these questions apply at many levels of reality.
My vision aligns with Celtic Christian monasticism altogether; and also with the Essene community at Qumran, and the Catechetical School in Alexandria. My ability to help people directly at the physical level has lessened since my days in Quest, being now on my own, and somewhat older. But the spiritual principles are stronger than ever. And since after all this time I’ve had to recognize that it is “new skins for new wine”, I cannot work “under” the Church, as did Quest; but I hope and plan to collaborate with all …
I’ve worked in Steiner-inspired communities for handicapped adults, and stayed in Camphill communities: I love them. But I knew my work ultimately had to be here in Glastonbury, where Saint Patrick had persuaded twelve hermits to come together to form a community in “this holyest erthe” where, venerable and well-researched tradition asserts, Joseph of Arimathea had already founded the first church in Christendom and organized its buildings on the principles of sacred geometry.
I trust that my vision will, in time, speak to enough Steiner-inspired people to build a community here, poarticularly in order to develop the “missing” spiritual-scientific research called for today – drawing also on Camphill Village Community visions and practice. I believe it is no accident that there has been no anthroposophical foundation so far in Glastonbury. I dare to think that this special place is waiting for the next generation of anthroposophists, who, like Sir George Trevelyan, while rooted in Steiner’s Anthroposophy, also are called to develop Spiritual Science beyond Steiner, to be fully awake to the needs and spiritual revelations of our times, and to be willing to disagree with Steiner if serious evidence leads that way.
I’m sounding the call to go beyond Steiner, paradoxically, by going further within. I am inviting people to study the spiritual-scientific discoveries I’ve made, to discover their beauty, and to see how well they relate to other departments of knowledge, other people’s research. I invite you to help develop the quintessential science of responsiveness-to-need at the highest, most spiritual levels that each of us can work with.
Self-sustaining Spiritual Community
This needs a basis in community that is self-sustaining and not only helps people in need but also uses shared resources to undertake spiritual-scientific research targeted at whatever is most in need of redemption at any time. This is a constantly moving focus! Hence prayer! And in order to develop community, this needs a framework, a contemporary recasting of traditional Rule and Liturgy. Research for all this is precisely what I am doing here, alongside running my household. Spiritual communities need active prayer and research, and openness and attention to many needs at many levels, to overcome the ever-present tendency to fossilise, to become cult-like, to avoid pressing issues, to become dogmatic, to stop working with the Spirit of Truth that is, as Jesus said, constantly liable to change direction. We have to Pay Attention.
Of course, with what the Internet offers positively, and what Lockdown threatens negatively, there is much creative thought afoot on the ways in which we can build community both online, and in small house units. I believe that the Extended Family model is essential for the future. It’s what we did in Quest; it’s what I see Anthroposophists already developing beyond Camphill; it belongs to the spirit of the coming Star Age.
And I look forward to the building of a truly spiritually-based wiki online, linking lots of little light centres, to handle spiritual-scientific Research and link to an extraordinary amount of research that is already happening. From Homeopathy to Climate Science to Curing Covid, so much is needed of sufficient excellence to go beyond the pejorative “pseudoscience” labels. I would do it myself but have to start with what I can manage without a community.
I am mindful of Jesus’ last words as a free man. Not just the fullness of his words at the Last Supper, but specifically the words he speaks to Pilate: “For this I was sent, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to truth”. In this light, I cannot emphasise too strongly the importance of Research, Spiritual Scientific Research, as the cardinal way to carry Christ’s work forwards today.
I’m open to visitors, if you want to meet me, visit Glastonbury, see my library, and experience my life and visions direct! to check if they are real and feasible! if they speak to you! if they sing! if they have any unseen downsides! if they are worth giving up at least part of your current life, to pursue and develop!
