The Beshara Trust: Early history and activities

Swyre Farm

In the early seventies, the Trust established an open centre at Swyre Farm in the Cotswolds where programmes of study and spiritual work were developed and run throughout the year. People came to Swyre Farm from all over the world, to work and study. (see  Swyre Farm on Facebook)

Chisholme House

It soon became evident that a place was needed where more intensive direct immersion in the matter of the Unity of Existence would be possible, and in 1973 work started on restoring the then derelict Chisholme House in the Borders of Scotland, and the Beshara School ran its first course of Intensive Esoteric Education there in 1975, with 36 students.

Sherborne House

In 1976 a greater number of applicants for the course meant that it was necessary to develop a larger centre. Sherborne House in Gloucestershire, close to Swyre Farm and the previous home of courses run by the well-known J.G. Bennett, was ideal for this purpose. The Trust had enjoyed a close relationship with J.G. Bennett who, from 1972 to 1974 had given a series of talks to students at Swyre Farm published as Intimations by Beshara Publications.

Swyre Farm was sold in 1978 and the Trust concentrated its activities in the converted stables at Sherborne for many years and later at Frilford Grange in Oxfordshire,where it operated from 1988 until 1990. Since then the main focus of the Beshara School has been The Chisholme Institute, though there are also courses in Australia, Indonesia and the United States.

The Chisholme Institute

In 1979 a new charity, the Chisholme Institute, was set up. This took over ownership of Chisholme House and was licensed by the Trust to run Beshara courses there.

Beshara Magazine

There were 13 issues of Beshara Magazine, which appeared between 1987 and 1991. It was an attempt to express the principles of Beshara in the widest possible context. Its subtitle on later issues, 'A unified perspective in the contemporary world', expressed its basic purpose: to look at the way that the principle of unity was emerging in all sorts of different ways in our time – in science, in politics and economics, in religions in terms of ecumenical movements and in spirituality in terms of the increasing awareness of the esoteric wisdom traditions.

When the magazine started in 1987, the Beshara Trust had a centre at Sherborne, Gloucestershire. Here seminars were held with invited speakers from different fields with the aim of developing a dialogue between these specific areas of expertise and the more general 'self-knowledge' established at the Beshara School. Over the next few years, at Sherborne and at Frilford, there were meetings with scientists such as Rupert Sheldrake, John Barrow, Brian Goodwin and Mae Wan Ho; with ecologists and economists such as Jonathan Porrit and Paul Ekins, and with representatives of the religious traditions such as Dom Sylvester Houedard and Bishop Kallistos Ware. Seminars took place on particular themes such as 'Creativity' and 'Education', which aimed to explore important contemporary issues.

The magazine was a highly regarded and successful attempt to take extend this dialogue further, both in terms of reaching out to an even wider group of specialists, and in terms of audience, so that people who could not attend a seminar would nevertheless have the opportunity to participate in the dialogue.

Beshara Trust Archive

In November 2010 Lyndon Antle volunteered his services as Archivist to the Beshara Trust, to begin establishing a working archive from the 40 years of records that have been preserved. In January 2011 he was co-opted as a Trustee for this purpose.

The task of gathering all this material has begun. Contact has been established with the Borders Archive at the Hub in Hawick, and supportive links formed with the Scottish National Council on Archives.

There are a substantial number of Beshara records held in various places, many at Chisholme, dating back to the earliest years of Swyre Farm. Some 400 items have been thus far recorded. These include material on the first Trustees; the purchase of Swyre Farm; Sherborne House and the Chisholme estate; and courses held over the years. There are also documents relating to developments such as Beshara Publications, Beshara Printing, Beshara Crafts, Beshara Frilford, and the Beshara magazines, plus a plethora of other material marking the passage of the decades of activity since the beginning of the Beshara Trust.

The archive has already received donations of private papers, including correspondence between Bulent Rauf, his friends and students. The Trust recognizes that there is a special responsibility to preserve these.

Establishing such an Archive on the foundations of this material is not merely about a record of the past but, as the inspiration of Beshara works its effect in the lives of our own and future generations, of bringing into an ordered relationship all the past and future evidences of this work for posterity.

Any contributions of documents, pictures or other media (e.g. audiovisual recordings) would be gratefully received. Setting in place such an Archive will perhaps prove a wonderful resource for the future in ways we cannot at this time imagine.