Adela Curtis Centenary Celebrations

Thu 8 July - Mon 12 July 2021

Space is available on this event! :-D

In 1921 Adela Curtis – Christian mystic, vegetarian pioneer, community founder – bought 17 acres of land on the Dorset coast. Her aim was to be as self-sufficient as possible.

She hadn’t intended to found a community (having led a much larger one at Coldash in Berkshire). But as more of her former students came and started living on site, their community eventually became known as the Christian Contemplatives Charity.

Miss Curtis died in 1960 at the age of 92 and the hub of her buildings and land were passed on to Othona in 1965.

In recent months Othona core member Liz Howlett has uncovered fascinating material – letters, diaries, photos – filling in the picture of what we know about Miss Curtis and her community. She’ll share many of her findings in three illustrated talks over this long weekend.

We’ll also welcome Jane Shaw to speak about Adela Curtis’ spirituality: Community, Meditation and Self-Sufficiency: Adela Curtis and the 'White Ladies' in early Twentieth-Century Britain.

Jane is Principal of Harris Manchester College, Professor of the History of Religion and Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the University of Oxford. Prior to that she taught at Stanford University, and before that was Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. She is the author of Pioneers in Modern Spirituality (2018); A Practical Christianity (2012); Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers (2011) and Miracles in Enlightenment England (2006). She is currently completing a book on the revival of mysticism in the early twentieth century, in which she writes about Adela Curtis and her communities. 

Residential places at this special event are likely to be oversubscribed. And we want to celebrate it as widely as possible with Othona’s scattered network of supporters. So parts of it will be available by live-stream on Zoom and on Youtube afterwards.

PLEASE VISIT OUR COVID-19 PAGE FOR CHANGES FROM OUR USUAL TERMS. :-)

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