Reshad Feild

Reshad Feild
Born Richard Timothy Feild
(1934-04-15)April 15, 1934
Hascombe, Surrey, England [1]
Died May 31, 2016(2016-05-31) (aged 82)
Devon, England
Nationality English
Other names Tim Feild
Alma mater Eton College
Occupation author, musician
Known for books on Sufism, musician of The Springfields
Children JJ Feild (son)

Reshad Feild (born Richard Timothy Feild; 15 April 1934 – 31 May 2016) was an English mystic, author, spiritual teacher, and musician, who, as Tim Feild, originally came to prominence as a founder member of folk-pop group The Springfields. He was later the author of more than a dozen books about spirituality, and Sufism in particular.[2]

Life and career

As a young, upper-class Englishman, Feild was educated at Eton and served in the Royal Navy, where he had an undistinguished career. In the early 1960s, Feild formed a folk duo, the Kensington Squares, with Dion O'Brien, later known as Tom Springfield. When the duo added Dion's sister Mary, they became the Springfields, with Mary becoming known as Dusty Springfield. The trio had minor pop hits in Britain before Feild left in late 1962; he was replaced by Mike Hurst.[3]

Feild was influenced by the spiritual teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and others. He studied spiritual healing, and was involved with the Alice Bailey community. In the late 1960s, he was initiated as a sheikh in the Sufi Order International by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Feild studied with Bulent Rauf, a Turkish author and translator descended from a line of Sufi masters going back to the Andalusian mystic Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165–1240). He established the Beshara Centre at Swyre Farm in Aldsworth, England, in 1970. A description of events at this center is given in the books I, Wabenzi and Beshara and Ibn 'Arabi: A Movement of Sufi Spirituality in the Modern World, by Rafi Zabor.

In December 1971, he and a group of students went to Konya, Turkey, to meet Bulent and the sema of the Mevlevi order of Dervishes. While there, he met former sheikh, Suleiman Dede. In 1972 Feild resigned his role in the Sufi Order. In 1973, he resigned his role leading the Beshara Centre [4] and went to Los Angeles, Tepoztlan, Mexico, and Vancouver Island, BC, where he taught on his own. In 1976, he was made a sheikh in the Mevlevi order by Suleiman Dede, and moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he started a small centre. In Boulder Reshad assisted in introducing the sema ceremony – which was declared a cultural world heritage activity by UNESCO in 2004 – to America and Europe, and made it available to women for the first time in recent history, as well as non-Muslim participants (i.e. students).

Later, Feild taught on the essence of the universality of Sufi teachings, making them available to people of all religious and spiritual backgrounds. He published more than a dozen books, some of which have been translated into many languages. In his autobiographical novel The Last Barrier, he gave a fictionalized account of how he met Bulent Rauf.

He was the father of the actor JJ Feild.

Published works

References

  1. ↑ Feild, Reshad, A Travelling People's Feild Guide, Element Books, May 1, 2006. Cf. page v.
  2. ↑ "Tributes to Reshad Feild - Beshara". beshara.org. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  3. ↑ Mark Deming, "The Springfields", Allmusic.com. Retrieved 4 October 2016
  4. ↑ Beshara moved to Scotland in 1975. Cf. www.beshara.org.
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