In his youngest years, following parental example, Trevelyan had been an agnostic, but in 1942 he attended a lecture that revealed to him the spiritual dimension of the world. Thereafter his study of anthroposophy profoundly altered his view of life and laid the basis for much of his future work.

After World War II he became the Principal of a college of adult education in Shropshire, where he spent 24 years. The college drew large and enthusiastic audiences for courses on subjects such as ‘Frontiers of Reality’ and ‘Spiritual Awakening’. Trevelyan attracted leading speakers and took an active part himself in almost all the courses.

When he retired in 1971, he founded the Wrekin Trust to continue this work. An educational charity, the Trust did not espouse any single doctrine or dogma; its purpose, rather, was to help people find the path most suited to them, organising conferences – including meetings of mystics and scientists, doctors and healers – on the holistic world view, introductory approaches to various disciplines and a curriculum for ongoing spiritual training.

His inspiration was derived from the medieval concept of the university, which was concerned to find methods and systems of knowledge leading to union with the One – as revealed by the Latin word universus, meaning ‘turned to the one’.

Trevelyan invented ‘the network’, encouraging the setting up of small energy centres, which could draw strength from one another. Among those he helped to inspire were the Soil Association, the Findhorn Trust, the Teilhard de Chardin Society and the Essene Network. The last 15 years of his active life were spent in a ceaseless round of lecture tours and meetings. During his time he wrote three books: A Vision of the Aquarian Age (1977), Operation Redemption (1981) and Summons to a High Crusade (1985). He saw his later years as an Exploration into God, which was also the title of his last book, published in 1991.

‘Man as a spiritual being chose to use his intellect to render matter into its smallest condition and master it. The price we had to pay was the loss of vision of the subtler worlds of being and spirit. The question now is whether we can learn creatively to handle that freedom and work with the ocean of creative life.’ George Trevelyan