Crucible Centre history
In 1990 John and Hilary turned their old house in Leura into a private centre for inner work. We called it the Broomelea Centre. To start with we ran a variety of workshops on personal development and higher consciousness. These were quickly enlarged into ongoing weekly gatherings. We catered for individual clients and children.
After school a stream of children called in to have Sandplay sessions with Hilary. In time Hilary expanded this work to include on-going kid’s groups. Through this children very naturally discovered consciousness, and so more able to be responsible for their lives and actions. As adults they now look back with affection on those experiences.
Since 1991 we have been training therapists in the use of Active Sandplay. This was one of the first Sandplay courses offered in Australia. These began with a twelve-day course, and over time expanded into the 30-day course now being offered by Marg Garvan through Sandplay Australia. We also trained students in Facilitation techniques, Voice Dialogue, Meditation and Breathwork. At that time we kept numbers down to maintain an intimate and personal nature.
Work with human energies and soul is called Transpersonal Psychology, and over the years John and Hilary developed a set of courses and workshops to restore connections with soul and spirit. [phot of broomlea]
Much of our philosophy is contained in John's book Notes to Transformation that was published during this time.
In 1996 we sold Broomelea and moved to a pristine valley near Hartley Vale where we built a new home. We called our valley house Rest And Be Thankful, and our workshops The Crucible Centre to honour the nurturing quality of this valley.
During these years we had been offering workshops with specific titles, but as they were developed we realised that the range of information and the depth of work being offered expanded beyond a series of small courses, and that these should be expanded into a more formal teaching mode.
John spent twelve months devising and writing a 3-year course in Transpersonal Psychology at a university Graduate Diploma level, and application was made to the government regulatory body VETAB. When approval was granted for this course in November 1999 the role of the Crucible Centre changed, and its workshops became primarily a medium for teaching.
Within the Graduate Diploma was nested Training Programs in Sandplay, Voice Dialogue and Energetic Processing. This was the first time that a government-recognised course in Sandplay had been offered anywhere in Australia.
Marg Garvan first came to us as a full-time student from 1995. In 1999 John and Hilary invited Marg to join them in the Work, in a partnership that has proven very successful over eleven years.
With her husband Michael we formed and incorporated The Crucible Centre Pty Ltd.
We built up a library of over 600 books on Transpersonal Psychology, which is still available for use by students and seekers.
To describe our work in energy and to investigate the nature of the soul John wrote The Great Field, The soul at play in a conscious universe, which was published in the US and won the Award for the Best Spiritual Book for 2008. If you want to own this book click here.
However, we did not stop our private practice with individuals. These clients were seamlessly woven into the workshops by adapting our workshop structure so that students could be mixed with those coming for their own personal development.
We had to develop the methods needed for simultaneous teaching and providing personal development at a number of levels in an experiential setting. This was enormously stimulating and extremely valuable, as people with very different levels of skill and development could learn from each other.
We have always formed a friendly social group in the gatherings in the Valley. Laughter and Joy are natural tools for healing. Eating delicious healthy meals together and enjoying deep friendships bring lasting benefits to us all. For more on being sustainable.
We have always been open to adventure and new experiences. Above all, when we hired a whole island and held a dozen week-long workshops there. This was Pumpkin Island, a private 12-acre place near Rockhampton. It was a stunning time for us all (as you can see in the photo), and everyone has amazing stories to tell about when we had an island of our own! Such deep inner work we did there, for it gave us a profound sense of privacy, and contact with the sacredness of the land.
After five successful years the Graduate Diploma course was allowed to lapse as the government imposed crippling fees for registration, a deliberate policy intended to eliminate the holistic and innovative work run by small establishments in favour of training in narrow specialities through the larger schools.
This did not impede the continuing development of the studies offered by the Crucible Centre nor the quality of the work. We continued to offer the same three-year training course under the title of Professional Diploma in Transpersonal Psychology registered y the Australian Counsellors Association, until once more officialdom stepped in.
During these eleven years many students have become practitioners using the transpersonal skills developed at the Crucible Centre. We are proud to be able to list some of them elsewhere on this site.
A testimonial from a graduate: "I have gained an enormous amount from the course, which has been an amazing experience, one which I am grateful to you both."
In 2010 we were compelled to abandon this course as we would have been required to register as an RTO, or Recognised Training Organisation, a bureaucratic step that would have mired us in paperwork and cost a huge sum every year that was beyond us or our students.
Nevertheless, we continued to offer personal development in our workshops to fulfil the great need for wholeness and spiritual depth in our times.
For a while we opened a second campus at Bilpin at Marg and Michael's property primarily for Sandplay trainings. This continued until they bought new premises in Woodford called the Ghandarva Centre. She is now working on her own from Woodford and Richmond, while John and Hilary continue to offer personal development workshops in Hartley Vale. Marg continues to train professionals in the methods developed at the Crucible Centre over the previous 20 years, while we move in a new direction.
We are grateful for the richness we have brought to the Work and each other over the past fifteen years.
for a map on how to get here, and for how we plan the day.
The new work expresses our creativity. This is needed in therapy as professionals know very little about the way the psyche develops, its energetic structures and the impact of soul and other spiritual entities on each individual. Creativity is needed to discover new processes to deal with what our times present.
We are gradually learning how the influence of cultural agendas and great historic events shape people. We have become extremely sensitive to the impact of personal traumas, such as incest and abandonment, and through this have developed the sacred and respectful tools people need to move beyond the traumas these events have created. Above all, we recognise that the great questions of life are best understood through consciousness and connection with our souls.
In this way the Crucible Centre will continue to offer the most meaningful level of work in a way that maintains the close, personal and friendly relationship between us all.
It is appropriate to say that the future of humanity depends on developing the highest level of consciousness in as many of us as possible.