Biography

Seldom does one come in contact with an extraordinary, artistic, succesful, philosophical, intelligent and highly spiritual human being as the English lady Veronica Hatten. Having been Principal Flute in the BBC Midland Light Orchestra and also an outstanding flute teacher in London and later also a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique and Maharishi's Vedic Science in the North-West of England, many admire her deep insights in life and her deep concern about the future of the world.

Veronica was born in 1921. She was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School in London, with Junior and Senior Scholarships. During the war she was working as a secretary in the War Office. She felt however that her inner nature drove her towards playing classical flute.

That's why, after the war, she fully devoted herself to the study of music. Because of her talented flute playing she got an Open Flute Scholarship at the Royal College of Music and took her ARCM diploma. Veronica then had the privilege of studying privately with the well-known flautist Gareth Morris, the Principal Flute in the Philharmonia Orchestra and flute professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Her career as an outstanding flautist is shown through posts in the Liverpool Philharmonic and the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra. She was Principal Flute in the BBC Midland Light Orchestra in Birmingham for six years.

Besides playing in orchestras, Veronica also did solo and chamber music broadcasts and concerts.

A new phase in Veronica's life

In 1958 Veronica's life suddenly changed dramatically. Her inner feelings wanted more than only the experience of the musical aspect of life. She wanted to explore deeper, and so far unknown fields and aspects of her inner personality and consciousness. She felt that this could not be reached by mere devotion to music only. She decided to leave the orchestra and stopped the flute altogether. She took Psycho-Analysis in London and studied the life and work of Sigmund Freud. She started to search for inner, spiritual fulfilment, for something in the sphere of the inexpressible mystery of life, which she knew to be existing on the deeper level of her thinking and feeling.

After about three years Veronica picked up the flute again. She studied very intensely, which after three years resulted in a post at the Sadler's Wells Opera Orchestra (later English National Opera Orchestra), where she played for 12 years, until 1975. She then started teaching at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and in schools. She also did quite a lot of concerts at that time.

In 1975 she left the ENO to pursue non-musical interests. The most important influence for Veronica at that time was the original work and personality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. She worked part-time at the Teilhard Centre in London for 6 years. Before leaving the Teilhard Centre she organised and played in a centenary concert for Teilhard at St John's, Smith Square. Veronica regards him as a very extraordinary man who had the tremendous courage to bring out the relation between science, spirituality and the future.

Also in 1975 she learned Transcendental Meditation, a non-religious mental technique for gaining deep rest and for the release of stress and fatigue. She continued part-time in the Orchestra. In 1991 she decided to move to the Maharishi European Sidhaland in Skelmersdale (the North-West of England), where she took several courses in Vedic Science, the scientific knowledge about consciousness and Natural Law.

By 1998, at the age of 77, the long-term effect of Transcendental Meditation was impelling her to write down the wonderful poem, which led eventually to the unusual book "Science, Spirituality & the Future", which was completed at the age of 82. All the unfoldment of this book has not been planned on purpose, but spontaneously grew in Veronica's mind.

Veronica's very active life has found its fulfilment in both music and spirituality, the latter which she regards as the the one that fulfils the urgent need of time. As she says herself:

"In view of the crucial time for the future of humanity and our polluted world, the development of consciousness was more vital even than music."

This evolutionary outlook is expressed in the synopsis and the short book that Veronica has written.

Synopsis