In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Findhorn yielded 40 pound cabbages and other plants and flowers that sometimes grew twice their normal size. Findhorn residents claimed that they received the directions for planting, cultivating, and managing their gardens from nature spirits that inhabit the natural world.

The Findhorn experiment has come to be viewed as a demonstration of the power and potential of human beings and the natural world living and working together in harmony. Those who established the first garden on the site, Peter Caddy and coworker Dorothy Maclean, claimed to have established contact with a spirit of the plant kingdom, called a 'deva'. These devas were said to have provided specific information about every aspect of the garden: how far apart to plant seeds, how often to water, and how to remedy problems. Within a year, the gardens of Findhorn had been transformed. The cabbages were over ten times their usual weight. Broccoli grew so large the plants were too heavy to lift from the ground.

Eventually, Findorn became a model community for proponents of the New Age Movement. By the early 1970s, more than three hundred people lived, worked, and studied in Findhorn. Residents viewed themselves as the forerunners of a 'new world society' based on the principles of cooperation between people and the kingdom of nature.