There are three of us who work together to run the Silent Eye. It started with one when Steve took the decision to build the School. I was drafted in soon afterwards and Stuart, who had been working with us from the start, was eventually persuaded to make the position official. Working as we do with the triangle at the heart of the symbol of the enneagram, three was a perfect number. It ensures that there is a constant cross-fertilisation of ideas, as well as echoing the spirit and the form of the equilateral triangle.

One of the things about which we have always been adamant is that we did not want to build a school built around a single personage… the cult of personality is too prevalent in our society and seldom has a happy outcome. On the other hand, the people who run a school such as ours should, we believe, be both approachable and visible. No student should be asked to entrust themselves to a nebulous shadow. Nor should we ask students to look at their own personalities if we are not prepared to share our own.

We all three have our own, personal blogs, where we share and explore our own ideas and beliefs. The Silent Eye subscribes to no single religious or political viewpoint and both we and our students are free to follow the dictates of heart and conscience. We also share some of our personal perspecives here on the Silent Eye’s blog, in that same spirit of openness.

So, some time ago, I thought it would be a good idea for each of us to tell our stories… and after a little prodding, the gentlemen sent me their tales to which I added mine. Our journeys have been very different, yet our paths have come close to crossing so many times over the years that there is a strange feeling of inevitability about where we now find ourselves. I have a feeling we are exactly where we are supposed to be… The stories were duly filed on the website, somewhere behind the Menu button, and barely saw the light of day again. I thought it might be of interest to share them here…

Steve Tanham

I was born in May 1954. I came into the world (with the help of my mother and a good midwife), in a terraced house belonging to my grandparents in a working-class district of Bolton. I had the good fortune to be born into a Rosicrucian family. My father had come across an advert for AMORC (one of the best-known Rosicrucian Schools) in a magazine he was reading while waiting at a railway station. He was on his way to carry out his basic training at an army camp. Later, he became the spiritual beacon of our family, and my mother married him, largely, she claims, because he was “different” from other men in this respect…

Continue reading Steve’s story here

Stuart France

I grew up in a religiously tolerant family which knew a thing or two about love and faith. Nan left the Catholic Church to marry Gramps and their eldest son, Uncle Geoff, my mum’s little brother eventually rejoined the Catholic Church in order to marry Aunty Cath which meant that when we went to spend holidays with Little Geoff and Janet and Mandy we went to their Church with them which was Catholic and when Little Geoff, Janet and Mandy came to spend the holidays with us they came to our church which was Church of England. It didn’t seem odd to do this and it came as something of a shock to realise that in olden times people had lost their lives for less.

Continue reading Stuart’s story here

Sue Vincent

My grandfather gave me his annotated copy of the Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune when I was 15. “This is the only magical book that you will ever need,” he told me. “But you’ll fill a good many bookshelves before you get there.” He was right. It was all in that first book; but learning is a spiral and you have to come back to the same point over and over again, bringing new knowledge and understanding each time before you can really see what lies in your hand.

Continue reading Sue’s story here