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TRANSLATION BY QUAGLIA
A Day in the Life of Damanhur STAMBECCO PESCO 3 INTRODUCTION 4 CHAPTER ONE -­‐ MY COMMUNITY 7 CHAPTER TWO -­‐ LOTS OF WORK 17 CHAPTER THREE -­‐ CHANGING THE WORLD 30 CHAPTER FOUR -­‐ WHAT AM I DOING HERE? 40 CHAPTER FIVE -­‐ BACKBITERS 47 CHAPTER SIX -­‐ MEDITATE PEOPLE, MEDITATE 53 CHAPTER SEVEN -­‐ POLITICS AND POLITICIANS 61 CHAPTER EIGHT -­‐ THE MAGICAL TEMPLES 71 CHAPTER NINE -­‐ THE LEGACY OF ADRIANO 86 CHAPTER TEN -­‐ EXTRAORDINARY EVERYDAY PEOPLE 93 CHAPTER ELEVEN -­‐ MY FRIEND FALCO 101 CHAPTER TWELVE -­‐ A NEW PROJECT? 110 EPILOGUE 116 NOTE 120 REFERENCES 123 DAMANHUR, FEDERATION OF COMMUNITIES 124 Damanhur, 2012 2 A Day in the Life of Damanhur STAMBECCO PESCO Stambecco Pesco (Silvio Palombo) was born in 1960 in the Maremma area of Tuscany in
Italy. He has lived in Damanhur since just after the founding of the community.
At Damanhur, as is usual for all citizens, Stambecco has been involved in lots of different
activities, from pranatherapy to education, philosophical research to taking care of the
woods, administration to editing. Naturally, he has participated in the building of the
Temples of Humankind.
Currently, Stambecco's main activity is writing and telling about the experience of
Damanhur though websites, articles, talks, and contact with researchers, students and
journalists. He teaches various courses for the Damanhur University, and is one of the
animators of Damanhur theatre.
He is married to Furetto Oliva. Damanhur, 2012 3 A Day in the Life of Damanhur INTRODUCTION When I began writing this book, I wanted to speak about Damanhur through tales of my
daily life, showing that Damanhur is about principles, values and ideas that we make solid
and real day after day, living this adventure together with intensity. Damanhur is well
represented by its Constitution, by its development, by its initiatives in social and cultural
fields, just as it is well represented by the passion and efforts that its citizens express every
day.
Writing this book has been a pleasure, because speaking about what I love is always a
pleasure, and doing it while imaging that it will be read by interested and curious people
makes it even more so.
Since "A Day in the Life of Damanhur" was first published in Italian, some things have
changed. Change is one of the constants of life here, and those who come to visit us now
and again, or who connect with us via the internet, or who meet the Damanhurians doing
events around the world - know that every time, they will find something different,
something transformed.
So in this case, an example of one of the changes is that the Val Ra cooperative does not
exist anymore, the one I talked about several times in the book. I am currently working in
Damanhur, 2012 4 A Day in the Life of Damanhur public relations for the Damanhur Association. Damanhur has developed a very strong web
presence through many channels, which you can easily find via our website.
About our residential homes, our nucleo communities that are close to one another
now form "regions" that coordinate the activities related to their area. Every region is led by
a "Captain," who is elected by the citizens, as is the tradition. Why "Captain?" Because we
like to think of every region as a spaceship that is journeying toward new worlds, and the
Captain guides the spaceship.
Some of the volunteer experiences have been concluded, for example the Red Cross
International in Vidracco, after we found that there was not enough participation by nonDamanhurians. However, new contacts have been made and opportunities have been
created with communities, associations, and Italian and international groups. Amongst these
opportunities is the first Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course held in Italy, which
Damanhur has been hosting since 2011.
So, lots of things are in motion as always, and they continue to move and change as new
citizens arrive and new projects are launched.
Naturally, I have changed some too, or at least I hope I have, seeing as how changing a
little every day means that one is not living life in vain. I try to smile a little more, to be
more patient and live with more of a sense of lightness than what my character would bring
Damanhur, 2012 5 A Day in the Life of Damanhur me to do. A few months ago, an episode made me reflect. My laptop computer was stolen,
the one that held - without a backup! - not only my work, but also all my stories, theatre
texts, poetry, letters… practically all my writings of the last twenty years. I could have felt
desperate for what I had lost or I could have told myself that it was the perfect occasion to
renew myself. I chose the second option, and now I am projected forward in many new
things to do. For example: read my book in this new translation to improve my English!
Despite all the external changes that may have happened since the writing of this book,
the spirit that pervades these pages is unchanged. Damanhur changes and transforms so that
the dream of its citizens becomes a little more real every day.
Damanhur, 2012 6 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER ONE -­‐ MY COMMUNITY Casa del Lago, with Furetto's geese 6:50 to 8:00 AM This morning, I woke up earlier than usual. The alarm that wakes me up, and also my
wife, rings at 6:50 am, but today, my eyes have already been open for a while.
Why is this? Maybe there is something special to do today? In a sense, yes. Today is the
day I want to write about in a book. This way I can explain about day-to-day life as a citizen
of Damanhur. Maybe waking up prematurely is a way for me to concentrate...
Damanhur, 2012 7 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I get up, trying not to wake my wife. My wife's name is Furetto Oliva (Ferret Olive).
Damanhurians, if they wish to do so, take on a new name - an animal one and a plant one to emphasize our connection with the forces of nature, to demonstrate the desire to
innovate and play, making fun of ourselves a little. My name is Stambecco Pesco (Ibex
Peach…from now on, I will leave the names in Italian). I wash, get dressed and go out into
the yard. We are near the end of summer, and even early in the morning, there is still
enough light and heat to stay outside and collect my thoughts. Watching the mist that veils
the alder and chestnut trees is a pleasure, not for my neck, but for the view itself.
The nucleo community I live in is called "Casa del Lago." Damanhur is made up of groups
of about twenty people who live together like a big family, and these groups are called
nucleo communities. Casa del Lago is in the region we call "Tentyris," in the town of
Lugnacco.
Amongst all these names, Lugnacco is the only one that can be found on a topographic
map, provided that it also includes towns with less than 500 inhabitants. We are located
about ten kilometers from the central area of Damanhur, where there are the most
Damanhurian nucleo communities and businesses, extending through the neighboring lands
of Baldissero Canavese and Vidracco.
I've lived in this house for many years, which despite its name, is not located on the bank
of a lake. In fact, the lake doesn't even exist. There was a large pond here until two
centuries ago, so on the cadastral maps the name is "Casa del Lago," which we liked and
Damanhur, 2012 8 A Day in the Life of Damanhur decided to keep. We are in the midst of rocky hills full of chestnut trees, alders, and
unfortunately, acacia weeds. There are many small streams, and within a kilometer radius,
there are also the Damanhurian settlements called "Magilla," "Porta della Luna," and
"Dendera," for a total of about one hundred people comprising the region of Tentyris. I am
very attached to these places.
I have lived in Damanhur since 1981, and in the region of Tentyris since 1992. In the
early years at Magilla, we settled on a farmstead without any water or electricity, making a
small aqueduct for ourselves that was equipped with a turbine to create the energy
necessary for the essentials. We renovated the house little by little. Today, not only is
Magilla a beautiful renovated farmhouse that is almost energetically self-sufficient and home
to about twenty people, but the entire region of Tentyris has similar features: it is a region
with a total of about one hundred people, two independent water systems, photovoltaic and
solar panels on every roof, gardens, farm animals, and despite all this, a very low
environmental impact.
I come back home to Casa del Lago, which slowly comes to life. Eleven people live here,
single adults and couples with and without children. In our nucleo, there are two children,
one who goes to high school and one who is in elementary school. Since Furetto and I are
taking Avalo, the younger of the two, to school, I go to make sure he is up. At breakfast, I
greet Cormorano Sicomoro, who is a lawyer and is leaving the house soon because he has a
hearing in Turin, Gracchio Basilisco who is agriculturalist and is going to the nucleo
community Pejda where there is a greenhouse to be assembled, and Wallaby Pulsatilla, who
instead stays at home, because she will be on duty at the hospital in the evening. She is an
Damanhur, 2012 9 A Day in the Life of Damanhur obstetrician and wants to take advantage of the morning to tidy up her things. I check the
bulletin board to make sure it is not my turn at home tonight: the custom of Casa del Lago
and many other nucleo communities is that there must always be at least one person
present on the territory of the house, and we take turns, taking into account everyone's
needs. The morning and afternoon turns are fixed assignments, while in the evenings, we are
on duty on a rotating schedule. Tonight it is not my turn. Good, I will have time to finish the
book I'm reading, which I have to return to the library.
Finally, everyone is ready and we leave. I drop off both Avalo and Furetto at school.
Furetto is a volunteer for the school. I arrive at the office of the editorial cooperative that I
work for, in the central area of Damanhur that is called "Damjl."
While driving, my attempt to listen to news radio was overruled by Furetto's request to
talk about a couple of things regarding the house. She is the leader, the "regent" of Casa del
Lago, and she needs to give me some information about my responsibilities.
Our nucleo community is going through some particular times. We live in three small
houses that are close to each other, but the lack of space prevents us from growing in
numbers. We are the smallest community group in Damanhur, and this does not allow us to
develop our project as we would like, both in terms of caring for the land we live on and in
terms of general life in a nucleo community. We would like to invite other people to live
with us, but there is not enough space, and there are huge bureaucratic problems
Damanhur, 2012 10 A Day in the Life of Damanhur preventing the expansion of our houses ... We need to find a solution, a brilliant idea.
Furetto, as Regent of the house, has been racking her brain to find one for some time now.
The Regent is elected every year by the core nucleo community group, and he or she
oversees the projects and daily life of the nucleo. Each Regent is elected on the basis of a
program, sometimes with more than one proposed candidate. More often, by reflecting
together, we come to establish a program and choose the best person to make it happen.
The election becomes the moment in which each voter takes responsibility for his or her
own choice, along with the others in the group.
Then, at the end of the regent’s term, we celebrate the "Process of the Regent," in
which the nucleo community evaluates the person's role during his or her year in office. If
necessary, the incumbent regent receives indications about shortcomings that could be
resolved before his or her term comes to an end.
I've never been a Regent of a nucleo community, although I have covered many other
roles in Damanhurian politics, from the community government in the early years, when
every Minister oversaw a department - I was Minister for Culture, Arts and Education - to
the College of Justice, a sort of observatory on the social progress and arbitration panel for
disputes that may arise amongst Damanhurians.
Damanhur, 2012 11 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Descending along the streets of Valchiusella, the large valley area where Damanhur
communities are located, we arrive at Baldissero, the town where the first community was
built at the end of the '70s. This community is called Damjl. Before arriving there, I stop for
a moment at Calliope, where the Damanhur School is held, and Avalo and Furetto get down
from the car while I listen to sports news on the radio.
After the founding of the first community, Damanhur expanded little by little, until the
first sister nucleo communities were founded about ten years later. Today, there are about
thirty nucleo communities ranging from approximately 15 to 25 people each. Casa del Lago,
as I said, is about ten kilometers from the "center." It is one of the most distant nucleos. To
reach the other extremity of Damanhur, the nucleo called Punto Verde, you have to travel
about twenty-five kilometers.
Each nucleo community tends to gradually become more autonomous, from the
perspective of its development, its projects, and its own traditions. I would love to be able
to live and work without leaving the area of Tentyris, focusing my energy and being able to
take care of the land more than I can these days. Now, I commute almost every day to
reach Damjl or DamanhurCrea, the large multi-purpose center that we have created in
Vidracco in an old Olivetti factory, and not only for work. In fact, the meetings, research
and artistic groups, which most everyone participates in, are held in this area, considered
the heart of Damanhur. I think it will be very nice when we have decentralized more of
these activities. That way, we can have a more continuous relationship with the land that
Damanhur, 2012 12 A Day in the Life of Damanhur each one of us lives on. This would open up possibilities that we haven't even been able to
consider yet.
By the way, the idea of making the nucleo communities ever more central in our lives is
not my personal idea, but rather a project that Damanhur has been working on for quite
some time. It is a complex process that must take the objectives of individual groups into
account, as well as those shared by the entire Federation of Communities. Although, if I
think of the difficulties that the Italians have (and since we are mostly Italian, we have them
too) to even be able to understand whether federalism is a real goal or a provocation, I find
that the decentralization process happening at Damanhur is not only feasible but also very
stimulating, which in politics is no small matter.
The nucleo community is the main reference point for living together and sharing.
Within the nucleo, everyone has the necessary space they need to live: the bedrooms are
for singles or couples, depending on each person's specific needs. As you may have guessed,
the larger rooms are generally given to couples and the smaller ones to singles. Sometimes
you need to have a spirit of adaptation, because the characteristics of the living spaces do
not always meet people's expectations, but we adapt willingly. Otherwise, you may choose
to move to another nucleo community. Particular attention is given to the children and the
elderly in the allocation of rooms.
Damanhur, 2012 13 A Day in the Life of Damanhur In every home, the common spaces, like bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room,
etc., are shared, and because of this, everyone has the opportunity to compare various
methods of squeezing the toothpaste tube, or how to put leftovers in the refrigerator:
authentic trials to gain the capacity of living together.
It's bizarre, but I have rarely witnessed heated discussions about how to investment
money. For example, tens of thousands of Euro to renovate the house, something that
would have changed everyone's daily life, both for the necessity of paying and the increased
quality of life… There were differing opinions, discussions, vote by the raising of hands if
necessary, but no excessive pathos. Many times I have seen people who are usually poised
get heated up in a discussion about how to hang up laundry, what habits the cats of the
house have, how to put the yogurt in the refrigerator - on the top or bottom shelf, yet we
are always in agreement about the big things. It is for the little things that we squabble at
times. Would it be better the other way around? We wouldn't be able to build anything.
Would it be better if we always agreed on everything? Where would the variety of the
world end up if that were the case? (For the record, my opinion is that everyone should
have their own rack for drying laundry, and the yogurt should be placed on the top shelf of
the fridge, that is, the place that's less cold. My cat Caravaggio died prematurely under the
wheels of Cormorano Sicomoro's car, who wasn't at fault as Caravaggio was deaf and didn't
notice much of what was happening around him. When he was alive, Caravaggio was
allowed to sleep in my bedroom, but he wasn't allowed to linger around the kitchen.)
In every house, there are areas designated to be used as commons spaces, so that each
nucleo has an ideal community "nook" where people come together to discuss the running
Damanhur, 2012 14 A Day in the Life of Damanhur of the household and shared projects, where we support each other, where we have fun as
well whenever we can.
Meeting together for discussion is something that is done in every home at least weekly.
The nucleo community is an extended family, where people are close to each other and
together, learn how to like each other, as well as refining our characters. The nucleo is also
an institution of the Federation of Communities. As such, there is a series of tasks to take
care of, with discussion beforehand. Casa del Lago, for example, is involved with "Olio
Caldo" (Hot Oil), which is the name that we use to identify a series of research projects
about living ecologically in the small things: recycling and waste separation, producing
homemade detergents, reducing consumption and optimizing personal transportation.
We experiment with how to adopt these measures in the life of a nucleo community,
and we spread our small and large discoveries throughout Damanhur. Damanhur in and of
itself promotes a lifestyle of low environmental impact, and we try out new solutions for
everyday problems.
In the same way, the nucleo community called "Magilla" experiments with large
renewable energy systems. "Tin" is involved with the labyrinth circuits of the Sacred Woods,
and "Pejda" the seed bank. Each nucleo carries out a function for everyone else's behalf,
sharing in the results and giving others a chance to benefit and make use of it.
Damanhur, 2012 15 A Day in the Life of Damanhur The roles and projects of a nucleo that are carried out to benefit everyone are shared
by the inhabitants. We discuss things together, sometimes heatedly. In a community, you
cannot hide. Sincerity is a requirement as well as a choice; because of this, we talk and argue
often. We compare viewpoints with a value for clarity, bringing to a head all the nodes and
friction that comes up. Then we decide, and from that moment on, we turn the page and
think about the next objective. In making decisions, two things are especially important:
velocity and clarity. Sincerity is an element of both. Kindness, that is, the ability to create the
best conditions for mutual understanding, is another element that permeates both velocity
and clarity.
Another characterizing point of each nucleo community is care for the land. Each nucleo
has a few hectares of land at its disposition, which can be forest, or arable, or for nucleo
communities that are found in the towns, garden areas. Each nucleo community takes care
of chopping wood, recuperating timber trees, planting fruit trees, cultivating vegetable
gardens, raising small farm animals. This is also part of the shared project of the nucleo. I,
for example, work as a writer and teach courses, and when I am not working, I am involved
with the theatre, although I wanted to raise some quails. When I began, just for fun, there
were twenty of them, and now they have taken to reproducing so seriously, that I'm not so
sure I'll be able to write, teach courses and do theater much longer. But, I will discuss it
with my housemates, and we will find a way to turn this little problem into a resource for
everyone. Meanwhile, again this morning, the quails - along with the ducks and geese relished eating the salad and grains that I gave them, and they pecked at my shoes, attracted
by I don't know what kind of flavor, and I found some quail eggs in the straw: small, white
eggs speckled with brown.
Damanhur, 2012 16 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER TWO -­‐ LOTS OF WORK Damanhur in 1979 during the time of its inauguration 8:00 to 9:30 AM So here I am in Damjl. Damjl is located at the entry point of the Valchiusella valley, in
the town of Baldissero Canavese, about a dozen kilometers from Ivrea. The first community
settlement of Damanhur was built here. To be precise, Damanhur was actually conceived in
Turin between 1974 and 1975 by a group of friends who shared an intense passion for
research in fields of research at the borderline between science and spirituality: studying the
"paranormal" capacities of human beings, pranatherapy - i.e. healing through the
transmission of energy, the spiritual and magical traditions of the peoples of the past. The
inspiration for this research came from talks given by Airaudi Oberto, whose Damanhurian
name is "Falco," and this group came together to found the Horus Center. After the initial
period, it became important for everyone to do research not only on weekends and free
time, but to transform their experimentation into a real social and spiritual model, a
Damanhur, 2012 17 A Day in the Life of Damanhur pathway of inner growth that could spark something truly innovative. To achieve this goal,
they realized that it was necessary to live in this dimension 24 hours a day, so they began to
search for a place to build their community, to live all together.
They wanted a piece of land in an untouched area, rich with trees and water, quiet but
not too far from Turin and the main transportation channels. Falco was instrumental in
finding the right place, as he introduced a very important factor to the research: identifying
the energetic characteristics of the land.
In his research, Falco, along with his first companions, were able to draw a map of the
flow of synchronic lines on the planet. The synchronic lines are large energy currents that
connect the celestial bodies where life exists. Being in contact with the synchronic lines
means being at the center of an uninterrupted flow of subtle energy and thought, as if in the
heart of a radio station.
Identifying the points of flux for the synchronic lines occupied the first Damanhurians for
many years. Falco is a medium, and through intuitions that came to him through meditation
and dreaming ever since he was a young boy, he was able to identify the network of lines in
its main form. Now that there were others who wanted to learn about these things, it was
finally possible to begin fieldwork. So, the early Damanhurians traveled together over long
distances: to the Andes, through the northern regions of China, in Africa, the Maldives,
Nepal, the British Isles. They went to these sites for study and research, hunting for
synchronic signs that would allow them to trace the pathway of the lines with ever more
Damanhur, 2012 18 A Day in the Life of Damanhur precision. By day, the Damanhurian researchers traveled physically, by night, they astral
traveled in their dreams, sharing their impressions with each other in the morning. Through
this comparison of everyone's data, cross-referenced with Falco's previous experiences and
the physical presence of monuments, cathedrals, places of worship that clearly indicated
how certain areas had been previously considered points of contact with distant dimensions,
they were able to create a map of the flow of synchronic lines on the planet. This map has
been continuously updated over time, and the research is still going on in Damanhur today.
The Earth is characterized by the presence of eighteen synchronic lines that run at
different levels: underground, on the surface, and even higher. They are knotted together at
the poles of the earth in bundles that extend outward into the galaxy. Their twodimensional form can vaguely resemble the longitude and latitude lines. In addition to the
main lines, there are numerous other secondary lines, which create additional connections
between one main line and another. Along the lines, the points of greatest power are where
two or more main lines cross each other. These points are called "nodes." In their research,
the first Damanhurians identified a point where four synchronic lines meet, not far from
Turin in the upper Canavese area. The crossing of so many lines multiplies the possibility of
contact and creates a knot of extraordinary intensity. This is where Damanhur now stands.
The adventurous trips around the world - and the more peaceful exploration of the
Canavese and Valchiusella area in Italy - produced a rich collection of anecdotes about the
incidents the researchers got involved in, from high-altitude bivouacs in the snow, to
colorful encounters with shamans in remote villages. However, one of the later legends,
attested to by numerous witnesses, was about the last piece of the research on the journey,
Damanhur, 2012 19 A Day in the Life of Damanhur namely, purchasing the land on which the community would be built. When the founders of
Damanhur identified the land they wanted, located on the more suitable side of a hill, they
met with the owner to negotiate the purchase. They discovered that he was not the least
bit surprised by their request. If anything, he was disappointed that they took so long to get
there! For many years, strange dreams led him to buy one small plot of land after another to
expand his property, because one day, outsiders would come to buy it, and there, a new
city would be built, a source of beauty and culture…He was very elderly by then and he
didn't need all that land, and he was getting tired of waiting!
He remembered very well that in his dreams, a female figure with white hair, dressed in
light blue, had told him at length and with great richness of detail what these people would
build there. She explained that his uncultivated land would one day serve as a source of
hope, a beacon in the storm, a light in the darkness for all those who are in search for
deeper meanings of existence and that here, a new culture would spread, one based on
beauty, respect, harmony, love, etc. etc.
When, the elderly landowner found Angela amongst the new arrivals, with great
emotion, he was certain than he recognized her as the being who had spoken to him in his
dreams. He had no more doubts and knew that his mission was finally accomplished. The
other Damanhurians, however, who knew about Angela's relentless chatter, laughed at the
thought of how long and in how much "detail" the poor man must have heard about their
project in his dreams!
Damanhur, 2012 20 A Day in the Life of Damanhur The land changed ownership after a short period of negotiation - there had already been
too much time wasted, according to the elderly man - and the founders began the
construction of what is now called Damjl. In the same period, an old renovated farmhouse
was also purchased in the town of Vidracco, close to Baldissero. All this, of course,
happened without slowing down the research. On the contrary, it was gradually intensified
as new locations of the Horus Center were opened in the Italian towns of Vercelli, Cuneo,
Grosseto, Alba, Biella and Vigevano.
Grosseto was my city, and I got in touch with the Center there through my parents,
who were very interested in pranatherapy. This is how I got to know Rita, Michele,
Andreina and Gianpiero, who departed from Turin every week to conduct activities at the
Center in Grosseto for a couple of days. They were always very busy and often didn't have
time to respond to all my questions and satisfy all my curiosities, so in the late summer of
1979, I decided to join them on the trip back to Damanhur. This way, I could ask them
questions for hours during the car ride, and they couldn't escape! Most of all, I wanted to
explore Damanhur in person. I was not so interested in the site where they were
completing the building work. Rather, I was drawn to feel what was in the air, sensing the
environment and "energy."
I had planned to stay there for a week, and instead, I left after only four days, because I
was overwhelmed by so many emotions. I preferred to get away from the earthquake I felt
inside myself and go home to be able to reflect calmly. I hadn't done anything particularly
special: I visited the Center in Turin and the site in Baldissero where the community was
being founded. I helped to pull weeds and brambles. I stayed the night and ate at two or
Damanhur, 2012 21 A Day in the Life of Damanhur three different houses, welcomed as a guest with different Damanhurians. I met a lot of
people. I was very passionately interested in what I had seen, and most of all, I had this
instinctive sensation of prickling on my skin, but I didn't want to surrender myself to what I
felt. I wanted to see more clearly within myself. So, I returned home prematurely, but not
before I allowed myself a visit to the Egyptian Museum and the Automobile Museum inTurin.
My reflection period lasted almost two years, during which I also performed military
service as a radio operator in the Army. Meanwhile, I thought of Damanhur. I wanted to be
sure that my desire to be a Damanhurian was not just a temporary impulse tied to the
emotions of the moment, but rather a solid feeling within me. Little by little, I felt this desire
consolidating. I wanted to participate in that project, which attracted me from a spiritual
point of view, and in which I also recognized great social and political value. So in August
1981, I decided to move to Damanhur and live there. For a few weeks, I was a guest in
Angela's space, the same Angela who had appeared in the dream of the land's previous
owner. Thanks to her and her stories, pretty soon I knew everything there was to know
about Damanhur. Later on, I had my own space in one of the houses in the community.
Damanhur was growing and in full swing. The first settlement was inaugurated on
December 26, 1979, with associates and friends from all over Italy coming to join us. We
were already running out of space and looking for other houses in the area.
Today, the site in Baldissero Canavese is no longer "the community," but the oldest
settlement of Damanhur. Initially we said "Damanhur" to indicate this point, and when we
Damanhur, 2012 22 A Day in the Life of Damanhur began to acquire more houses and land, we came to define it, kind of like in train stations,
with the epithet: Damanhur Central. Later still, when we began studying the ancient
languages of humankind, searching for a language based on symbols common to many
languages, which we have called "Sacred Language," we chose the name "Damjl," which
means "major city." This place really is our capital. Not only is it the place where Damanhur
was founded and where it developed in the early years, it still hosts the community’s main
services, from the King Guide's office space - the King Guides are the elected guides of
Damanhur - and those of the "pillars" - Meditation, Social Life, Game of Life, Tecnarcato i.e. the four columns which comprise the life of every Damanhurian.
Damjl is a very nice place, at the foothills of the Monti Pelati Regional Park. There are a
few main buildings dedicated to the nucleo community that takes care of this area, and
several other smaller buildings dedicated to community services. The dominant feature,
however, is the green space dotted with trees and bushes that we have brought here over
the years, which comprises the majority of the twenty hectares of land.
This is an area which is both delicate and strong, where you can experience the
profound value of the basic elements of nature: earth, air, water and fire. For this purpose,
we have prepared four points on the land, each dedicated to a different element. At these
points, you may come into contact with nature, meditating, having a mediumistic connection
with the intelligences of the land. Nature is the source of life and of the Earth itself. "Gaia,"
as a whole, is a creature with her own intelligence and sensitivity. So, walking around Damjl,
you can easily see Damanhurians and guests using their preferred techniques in meditations
dedicated to nature and its elements.
Damanhur, 2012 23 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Amongst the many things that are found in Damjl, there is also the main office of the
publishing house ValRa Damanhur, of which I am an associate. The ValRa is a cooperative,
and it is involved with websites, graphic design and multimedia, for Damanhurian companies
and beyond. I am mainly involved with print publishing as an author, and more often as an
editor. I work in collaboration on the website http://www.damanhur.org. I also oversee the
publication of books dedicated to our life experiences and research. I wrote the two comic
books that we published in recent years, along with Esperide Ananas. In the business, there
is also Gnomo Orzo, a graphic designer, but also the Director, in spite of himself. We also
have Gambero Finocchio Selvatico, a graphic designer, and Tasso Peperone, a website
administrator.
Like every morning, I'm the first person in the office. For at least another half hour, our
shared office space will be quiet and calm, and before the others arrive, I can carefully plan
the rest of my day. The most unique schedule is Esperide's. She is not part of the company,
though she often comes to visit for an exchange of ideas. She rarely shows up before 10 am,
blaming it on the jet lag, since she often travels abroad.
Living and working in community makes moments of silence particularly precious. The
need to gather ideas is not always compatible with the presence of other people, with their
discussions and desire to share. For me, having some moments of solitude is a pleasure to
enjoy fully.
Damanhur, 2012 24 A Day in the Life of Damanhur In recent years, I have always been involved in publishing. In the beginning, our publishing
house was called Horus Editions, taking on the name of the Horus Center founded in Turin.
Amongst other things, we printed a monthly magazine for the Center called "Horus News."
We did it all with a cyclostyle. Those who now have laser printers or large office printers and, I add, are less than forty years old - don't know the virtues of this extraordinary
invention of human ingenuity that was the cyclostyle. We made all kinds of things with it in
the roaring eighties: other than the magazine, also books, calendars, business cards,
cardstock handouts... all things that in theory the cyclostyle couldn't have produced, as it is a
fairly imprecise instrument, but we did it anyway.
We typed directly on wax matrix using large Olivetti table typewriters. We inserted as
an inlay, electronic engraved matrix clippings with drawings or photos. We printed them,
paying a lot of attention to avoid offsetting, that is, the imprint from the back of the sheet
still wet with ink on the other pages. Then, with large stacks of printed sheets ordered on
long tables, we put together each copy of the publication, walking in circles around the table
and stacking the paper by hand, which we then stapled together. When we wanted to be
immeasurably refined, we trimmed it with the paper cutter. It's a pity that the Macs that we
work with today don't have an application that can translate the matrices of the crank
cyclostyle into PDF. I'd like to print something every now and again ... having to be careful
not to stain the laptop keyboard with black ink!
Books and magazines are a constant that have accompanied me throughout my years as
a Damanhurian, with some editorial collaborations outside of Damanhur as well. I also do
other things. One is that I am an instructor for the Damanhur University, which organizes
Damanhur, 2012 25 A Day in the Life of Damanhur the different Damanhurian research pathways into seminars and schools. The subject matter
ranges from expanding sensitivity and perception to natural medicine, subtle abilities,
knowledge of oneself, community building and new social experiences. I have worked for
quite some time, especially in the past, in the coordination of the community. As a citizen
with many years of experience - which suggests a certain depth of wisdom - and as a person
who usually behaves calmly and reasonably - which makes people think that this wisdom has
pervaded me - I have been assigned public roles by the citizens of Damanhur several times,
in sectors that organize the many aspects of our lives together.
Not being mono-thematic is the classical route for every Damanhurian citizen. No one is
always and only dedicated to one thing, never changing, even if everyone has naturally
focused his or her own professional career in a specific field.
Another context that has been very important in my personal experience is education,
even though it doesn't really have to do with work, since I offer myself as a volunteer.
Whenever I have the opportunity, I go with the children on study tours, collaborate in the
teaching of literary subjects, and have fun with them when it's the right time, while I am also
quite strict when needed.
Furetto and I do not have children, and even though this is not the only reason, serving
as an educator is a privilege that is very precious, especially being able to share this
experience with my life partner.
Damanhur, 2012 26 A Day in the Life of Damanhur At Damanhur there is much to do, without a doubt. The businesses require time and
attention. The lands we live on need to be cared for, whether they are woodlands,
vegetable gardens, orchards, or ponds with fish and algae. Then there are all the volunteer
and political initiatives, exchanges with the local people of the towns where we live. There is
also artwork, group meetings, appointments related to our spiritual paths, and of course the
Temples of Humankind to expand and maintain. None of us is involved with everything that
Damanhur offers - that would be impossible - but everybody wants to "be there" in many
projects, which in any case, require the presence of many people.
To do it all and contribute to the growth of collective wealth, we invented
"terrazzatura." Terrazzatura for us means devotional work, offering one's own time and
talents. The term "terrazzatura" comes from the fact that for a long time, the devotional
work that many of us dedicated ourselves to was the creation of terraces for arable land.
Each of us offers to the community a certain number of hours, on average 24 hours per
month, to be used in works of collective interest. Everyone indicates the area where they
wish to work and is also available to get things done wherever it is needed.
Many great works have been built in this way. The Temples of Humankind, first of all,
but also paving roads, restoring some of the lands, and restructuring farmhouses that
became home to our nucleo communities. Also other activities are considered, in whole or
in part, terrazzatura. An example that involves me directly is that of theatre. We started out
of a passion for theatre many years ago, creating the first performances, writing and putting
Damanhur, 2012 27 A Day in the Life of Damanhur them on stage. Some of us had previous experience, others only the desire to challenge
themselves with something new. Show after show, theatre has become one of the valued
means used in the community for communication and telling each other our history.
Damanhur, at some point, took note that the theatrical activities are constant and always
improving, and it is now considered in the "terrazzatura."
My "average 24 hours monthly" are not all dedicated to the theatre, because I also take
part in the collective work when it is needed, and I help out from time to time in other
areas. What counts is that everyone is available to offer some of their own time, knowing
that our big projects will then be realized, thanks to the time offered by others as well.
I download my email and take a look at the online news. I water the ficus and the small
frankincense plant that I keep next to my desk, and I get to work. Gnomo and Gambero
arrive, the mobile phones began to ring, and we review the work to be done. The Secretary
of the School of Meditation sends me a message asking me to stop by their office before
lunch. I call Narvalo Cedro to remind him of our mid-morning meeting, and I start working.
This morning I need to concentrate. It's time to do the weekly update of our website,
since I have a completely different engagement in the afternoon: painting the walls of a hall
in the Temples of Humankind … coming back to the theme of the many different things that
we do.
Damanhur, 2012 28 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I remember that my mother, who is no longer with us, sometimes complained to me
that I didn't go and visit her all the times she wanted me to, saying, "Silvio, but is it really
possible that you're always busy?" (Another Silvio comes to mind, one who is more famous
than me, Italian President Berlusconi, who loves telling journalists that his mother always
advised him to take care of himself, to not do everything by himself, even though there were
Communists at the door ...)
However, from this point of view, my mom was definitely right. I am constantly busy!
Anyhow, I am involved with all things that interest me, things that I like, and even when they
are tiring, they benefit me first of all.
Damanhur, 2012 29 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER THREE -­‐ CHANGING THE WORLD Kids and teachers from the Damanhur School meet Antonio Ruiz, Nicaraguan and President of the Rio Foundation (center) and Carlo Zanella, his collaborator for Italy, with whom we coordinate exchanges with the kids of the Mancarroncito Island in Nicaragua. 9:30 to 11:00 AM This morning, I need to finish writing at least two different articles for
http://www.damanhur.org. In my planning, the articles should have already been done two
days ago, and today I would have done work for a client from Ivrea, but the first article
arrived only yesterday afternoon, and I must re-read and correct it. The second one, for
which I have the appointment with Narvalo today, I decided to write myself instead of
waiting for the person I had asked to do it, because we are almost at the deadline. It
happens like this pretty often, so I am not worried.
Damanhur, 2012 30 A Day in the Life of Damanhur In a few weeks, there will be a course held at Damanhur based on our experience on
how to build a community, one that grows and develops solidly over time. The article I am
reviewing discusses this course. This is a course that Damanhur University has been offering
every autumn for a few years now. People from different groups come to participate,
especially international ones, people who are taking the first steps to build a community. It is
always an opportunity for us to take stock of where we are and how much we have
progressed.
The theme of "community" is very broad, because there are communities in the world
where people live together and share things on a practical level, like the Damanhurian
communities, and then there are communities where instead, people share the philosophical
aspects of their explorations, while continuing to live independently in their own homes,
near one another.
In the world, there are sometimes prejudices against communities, especially related to
certain religious movements, cloistered convents or communes that practice archaic
lifestyles where community seems like an enclave and rather closed to the outside. In places
like this, it seems that people come together for idealistic affinities, gradually excluding the
rest of society from their lives and self-excluding themselves from the outside world. The
Damanhurian perspective is exactly the opposite. Community is a pathway, and we travel
along it, we meet the world. Damanhurian communities are created with this perspective.
Damanhur, 2012 31 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Through the community, we operate in local and national politics, and as volunteers; we
support actions in favor of peace and solidarity. We organize cultural events, actively
participating in the aspects of collective living that go far beyond the community dimension.
If I lived in my own home, with my own work and my own interests, I wouldn't have
been able to weave such a wide web of relations and exchanges. So from this point of view,
being part of Damanhur multiplies the possibilities for wider participation in Italian and
European society, rather than reducing them. And participation is important because it
allows everyone to enrich their collection of experiences, and also because there is a shared
goal that we are all working for together. The goal, of course, is to change the world for the
better.
What does it mean to "change the world" today? It means to establish organizations that
work and have something to offer. Today, humanity needs examples. We need to see that it
is possible to create original lifestyles, one that are respectful of the environment and of
other people, ones that are efficient and technologically advanced, where people are
accepted and appreciated based on their diversity. We need to know that it is possible to
do all those things which we often hear about as utopias. Damanhur is here to demonstrate
that all this is possible. You just need to desire it and choose it. Then, roll up your sleeves
and do it.
In Amsterdam in December 2008, at an international meeting of the Earth Charter
Initiative, Damanhur was named as an example for the world regarding the practical
Damanhur, 2012 32 A Day in the Life of Damanhur application of the principles within this important "declaration of fundamental ethical
principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century." The
Earth Charter was presented to UNESCO in 2000 after several years of extended
consultations with many organizations and individuals worldwide. This Charter traces a
pathway for the future of humanity, aiming for joint actions between governments,
businesses and society, offering a formula for saving the planet, in peace and with respect for
the rights of every human being and the environment.
Changing the world is possible. In a world like the one we live in today, confused with
the technologies that we apply and the thousands of identities that we no longer recognize
as our own, this is a valuable message. A spiritual people, as Damanhur considers itself,
along with other groups and individuals of goodwill who live on planet Earth, can change the
world by launching a message of concrete hope - everything that is good and useful can be
achieved.
Since the beginning of Damanhur, we have deliberately devoted many resources to
creating a network of communities and spiritual and social movements in Italy, in
collaboration with others. From 1981 to 1986, Damanhur was a promoter and venue of
inter-community meetings for Italian groups.
Amongst the participants, I remember the names of well-known groups such as Miasto
Rajneesh, Villaggi Verdi, Nomadelfia, Ananda Marga, Aam Terra Nuova, Villa Vrindavana,
Torri Superiore, the Bhole Baba Center, and other smaller ones, where the concept of
Damanhur, 2012 33 A Day in the Life of Damanhur community was two or three people sharing a foundational idea, and that was the end of it.
Despite our efforts, the idea we proposed, namely the formation of a "Community Studies
Center" that would keep us all in contact and coordinate exchanges and initiatives, didn't
catch on. Perhaps because, even though Damanhur was not the largest community
numerically, we instilled fear because of the breadth of our interests and plans, and our idea
of creating a national coordination was confused with the desire to put ourselves as head of
the communitarian movement.
Our style, characterized by a very practical nature and sometimes, I admit, on the
borderline between exuberance and invasiveness, was probably interpreted as a threat to
the identity of the other groups. So, it all came to nothing, and on our side, we thought it
wise to suspend the meetings.
The dialogue, however, has never stopped, thanks to all those who were involved and
kept things developing, and in 1998, an association was founded called Conacreis (National
Coordination of Communities and Associations of Ethical, Inner and Spiritual Research), a
national association that operates in social fields, with a membership of about 200 groups
working in these areas. Damanhur is one of the promoter groups of Conacreis. The first
President was Lucia d'Arbitrio, who died prematurely in 2006. Lucia had a strong friendship
and collaboration with Damanhur, and according to her explicit desire, her ashes are kept in
a hall of the Temples of Humankind, at the disposition of her loved ones.
Damanhur, 2012 34 A Day in the Life of Damanhur The objective that Conacreis proposes is explained in the manifesto of the organization.
"In this historical moment of great change in which there is ever more need for a just and
equilibrated society, where respect for others and for the planet are essential values,
Conacreis proposes itself as a meeting point for all - individuals, groups or communities who work in the field of inner research and holistic disciplines. Individuals and groups who
are motivated by strong ethical service and spiritual ideals are the protagonists of a new
culture and a new practice, which offers solutions and strategies for a new vision of
integration, respect and development for human beings, in which reason and sensitivity find
a new crossing point. With these objectives, Conacreis promotes concrete initiatives that
value the awareness of the extraordinary wealth of experiences and socially useful
opportunities, constituted by the various associations of ethical, inner and spiritual
research."
Amongst the most important concrete initiatives mentioned in the manifesto, there's the
proposal for a law for the recognition of communities in Italy. It is a complex matter that
seems infinite to resolve, but we hope it will fill a legal gap in our country.
In the end, time brings things back into balance, and we have come back to doing the
conventions. DamanhurCrea hosts four to six conferences every year on the topics of
nature, environmental protection, health and the rights of citizens.
In June 2007, we also finally went back to organizing events of a community nature.
Damanhur hosted "Utopias of Yesterday, Today's Reality," which was the world congress of
Damanhur, 2012 35 A Day in the Life of Damanhur the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA), which brings together sociologists,
researchers and people who live in communities around the world, to analyze the
community phenomenon and diffuse projects related to them. The circle closes and begins a
new turn of the spiral for inter-community relations, in Italy and abroad.
By midmorning, after I finish corrections on the article about communities, I take a
break and move to Somachandra, a café which is located in a modern building called Rama,
with storefronts and windows for some of our companies and stores. Under the arcade of
Rama, there are a row of windows, and in the back is the café. I drink a cappuccino - finally,
a good cappuccino, since they changed the coffee-making machine - and I sit at a table with
Narvalo Cedro, who was already there waiting for me.
Narvalo is the President of the local committee of the Italian Red Cross in Vidracco, and
I asked to meet him because I am writing an article that focuses on volunteering.
One of the characteristics that makes Damanhur a community organization is, in fact,
the experience of volunteering in service of the people of our area and beyond. I take part
as a blood donor. Others work as First Aid volunteers in the International Red Cross
center that we helped to create in Vidracco. Others are involved with ambulances for 118
emergency services (the Italian version of 911) for accidents and such. Lastly, a group of
Damanhurian volunteers take part in the Fire Department.
Damanhur, 2012 36 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Many of us have had experience in volunteer work before Damanhur. For instance,
when I was a youth, I went to a disadvantaged area of my city, the so-called "Kennedy
Village," to help kids with their homework and, in general, to spend a few afternoons a little
less aimless than usual. Other Damanhurians come from experiences related to care for the
elderly or cleaning parks, pine fields and forests.
The desire to be helpful to others becomes almost a personal urgency, and when you
are part of a community, it is a natural feeling. Little by little, the Damanhurians who felt
most this need within themselves, created or joined solidarity projects in the areas where
we live. The first groups to get started were for Forest Firefighting. The first team that was
recognized by the Piedmont Region was formed in the early eighties. Then, little by little,
taking into account requests from the authorities, the firefighting groups were joined by
those of the Civil Protection. Today, there are about a hundred Damanhurians who take
part in Forest Firefighting and Civil Protection. These groups have had a chance to intervene
on several occasions in the Piedmont region, even in major disaster situations like the flood
of 1994 in Alessandrino and the one in Canavese in 2000.
I remember in the latter case, the operation to clear mud from flooded cellars in the
town of Salerano, on the bank of Dora Baltea. We left early in the morning and, to avoid
having the others wait for me since I was a bit late, I put on the first pair of boots that I
found at hand. During the work, taken by the fatigue, by the need to cheer up the people
most affected by the flood, by the emotion that provoked memories of another flood in
Tuscany back in '66 which I experienced a child, I didn't notice anything strange. But in the
evening when I took off my boots, I felt a strong pain, and I noticed that the toenails of both
Damanhur, 2012 37 A Day in the Life of Damanhur my big toes were chipped. I looked under the soles of the boots and saw that they were
two sizes smaller than mine! I had difficulty walking for a week after that.
I like to recall an important figure in the development of the Forest Firefighters and Civil
Protection teams in Damanhur, Alce Faggio, whose original name was Pierluigi Luzi. He died
in a car accident in 2002 at the age of 45. Alce Faggio, who would have loved the singer
Paolo Conte, was among the leaders in forming firefighting teams in Piedmont. He had
participated in all the firefighting missions and many of the Civil Protection ones too,
including the Rainbow Mission to Albania to support war refugees from Kosovo. He was
President of the volunteer association "Sofia," dedicated to helping families who objected to
mandatory childhood vaccinations. For these merits, after his death, he was given the Civic
Medal of Honor, awarded to him by the President of Italy.
Alce Faggio is dead, but he lives on through us, just like Canguro Mais, Gau Loto, Orso
Lichene, who are amongst the founders of Damanhur, and all the others who have left us in
recent years. We believe that death is an event that is a part of life: it is natural that it
incites fear, seeing as how it flails open the doors to a dimension that we do not know
"now." However, we understand it as part of the elements that make up our adventure here
on earth, just as love, freedom, hard work and hope are a part of it too. In Damjl, there is a
grove where a river stone commemorates every Damanhurian who has died. It is a place of
memory, affection, and even more, a place of peace, because it represents the completion of
the journey for each of us. "Learning to Die" is not by chance the title of the first book that
was published by our publishing house over thirty years ago, and which is still in print today.
Damanhur, 2012 38 A Day in the Life of Damanhur This is because death, for us, is simply the transformation of life into another condition of
life. Its true meaning is "Learning to Live."
The count for volunteer participation also includes a number of children, who take part
in solidarity projects for children in the disadvantaged areas of Nicaragua. They also support
Greenpeace activities. Today, we can say that volunteerism is an institutional initiative of
Damanhur. In this equilibrium between individual instinct and its "institutionalization" is
another point that characterizes our vision of community life. The history of volunteering in
Damanhur is paradigmatic: starting from the feelings of individuals and their desire to be
helpful, organizing the first interventions, and then, little by little, the start of a community
organization that develops and streamlines this sector, until it becomes a jewel in the
collective eye. A subtle balance at times, where "Damanhur" is not the one to ask people to
volunteer - if not, what kind of volunteering would it be? - and at the same time, we all
count on the fact that there are many volunteers ... The boundary between personal
initiative and collective action, in a situation such as ours, is made up of small things, but and this is the important thing - it is a boundary that does not divide us but unites us.
Imagine a world where borders do not indicate the point where one nation ends and
another begins, but the point where two countries meet each other. Wouldn't it be a whole
other world? A world in which, perhaps one day, borders won't even be necessary because
there won't be any more nations in opposition, only peoples who collaborate, groups of
citizens who are aware that we all live on the same planet, where everything that lives is
interconnected…
Damanhur, 2012 39 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER FOUR -­‐ WHAT AM I DOING HERE? 11:00 to 11:30 AM Why am I at Damanhur? It's been almost thirty years since I made this choice. Every
now and again, it's important to ask myself about the ties I still have to the choices made
long ago, so that I can choose them again everyday, and in this way, keep them always alive. I
don't think that it's possible to live in Damanhur out of habit, just because many years ago, I
became a citizen and today, maybe I just can't imagine doing anything else. I believe that the
very nature of life at Damanhur, so intense and demanding, makes this impossible. In any
case, it's still important to ask myself occasionally, "What am I doing here?" to quote Bruce
Chatwin, the British writer and traveler of the late 1900s, author of the book with the same
name. For me, writing these chapters is an excellent way to answer this question for myself.
When I first got to know Damanhur, I was fascinated by the completeness of the project
that was being proposed. It was not just a spiritual group, where you seek within yourself,
or a school where you learn to grasp the elements of reality that would normally escape
your senses. It was not just a social experiment where you could test out methods for living
together in harmony, or simply an ecological movement that promoted returning to a more
natural lifestyle. Damanhur was all these things combined, offering an experience that is
spiritual, social, cultural, political, artistic ...
Damanhur, 2012 40 A Day in the Life of Damanhur My relationship with religion had already ended a few years before coming here. I had
often met priests who were friendly and had common sense, who were willing to have an
intelligent dialogue. In the end however, I surrendered to the impossibility of reconciling the
idea of an "absolute" god with that of a "partial" doctrine and liturgy, such as that of
Catholicism and, in hindsight, all religions. I had attended many groups, formed close
friendships with people, but I hadn't found answers that satisfied my thirst for knowledge.
The message I received was always a message of separation, of otherness between one
dimension of life and another, between God and me, between believers and unbelievers,
between "us" and "them." Even in my political experience, I was constantly being confronted
with ideologies that exclude something, rather than understanding different values in a more
comprehensive way of thinking. I was always fighting "against" and never "for" something.
And as always, one ideal excluded another.
I fell in love with Damanhur, not in a flash of lightning, but through a long-pondered
period of choice. In Damanhur's ideas, I found something different: we could be individuals
and rebels, and at the same time spiritual, sensitive and enlightened individualists and
communitarians, and not because the ideas were a vague mix where "anything goes," but
because the core spirit invites us - and even today it still invites us - to make space for every
aspect of ourselves and to seek a thread that ties together every experience, even those
seemingly in contradiction, in order to distill a rich and stimulating way of life.
Then, there was another thing that attracted me: the words of the Damanhurians - their
books, the activities that I participated in at the Center in my city, I found that there were
never prefabricated answers that lifted the weight off of me assuming my own
Damanhur, 2012 41 A Day in the Life of Damanhur responsibilities. In response to various life questions, Damanhur has always responded by
proposing a hypothesis, a potential choice, then it is up to the individual to find his own
answers with his own thoughts, emotions and decisions.
The most difficult answers, in my experience, are those responding to questions posed
about the speed with which we move. The Damanhurian philosophy of life is that we here
are on Earth to make concrete things, seeing as how we live in matter, amongst other
people. So, to honor our existence, at Damanhur we want to build, produce, invest. And so
we run, to keep time and to keep up the pace. To maintain an elevated rhythm, we believe
it's important to seek change and to renew every habit frequently.
If you've been to Damanhur, you know how we are always starting new projects: new
houses to renovate, new land to recuperate, new contacts to make. And you also know
how often we make changes in the organization of our social structure, which as a result,
brings about the reorganization of everyone's personal time. The datebook of a
Damanhurian is always dense with appointments, and often modified and rewritten many
times - an example of great vitality and sometimes a source of fatigue.
With the will to always be active, in my opinion, we sometimes risk overlooking quality
and attention to detail, in the intensity with which we would like to lead our lives ... This is
the Damanhur I sometimes struggle with. I struggle when I get the feeling that this highly
dynamic way of being makes us not flexible, but superficial, turning speed into hurriedness.
There are many solutions to this question, the first of which is learning to do what I am
Damanhur, 2012 42 A Day in the Life of Damanhur doing "fast and well," and helping others to do the same. I am called to be an active
protagonist in the solution. Besides, nobody ever said that we are close to perfection!
I am "blessed" by a crepuscular character, sometimes susceptible to pessimism. Living in
an environment where it's important to be fast and dynamic from the start, where people
speak loudly and there is always some kind of discussion happening (whereas I prefer quiet
at times) and where the north star is the pathway of optimism, it has put me to the test
sometimes. Since no one is perfect, I was also given a bit of a sense of humor, with which I
am able to smile at myself and all the discontent that comes to the surface when I'm feeling
tired of my life. Smiling, as even stones know, means dissolving it all.
Sometimes when I ask myself, "What am I doing here?" I tell myself that I spent my first
ten years at Damanhur listing and using a magnifying glass to examine all the reasons for
which I might not like Damanhur, even though I had chosen it as my home: the speed that
sometimes becomes rushing around, for example, or the choice of always seeing the glass as
half-full, a reading which can have little to do with reality at times.
After ten years of continually telling myself these things, I surrendered to myself, to the
true part of myself; I decided, I really want to go down this pathway and help to blaze the
trail, and if there are defects to get rid of and limitations to move, it simply means we all
need to help out and that we will all grow by helping Damanhur to grow. So, I learned to
enjoy the elements of our communal project that until then I had only appreciated
intellectually: the capacity of hundreds of people from different backgrounds and cultures to
Damanhur, 2012 43 A Day in the Life of Damanhur come together in an instant to work toward a common goal, the desire to believe that
anything is possible, and therefore, nothing can be excluded a priori, enthusiasm as a way of
life, enlightenment as a concrete possibility and not as a mythical and unreachable
destination ... All this, considering that it is expressed in daily life through work,
volunteering, art, education, spirituality… it's alive and enriching for me.
"What am I doing here?" I evaluate myself with the measuring stick of a life to be seized
every day, to which I adapt myself. I mean adapting myself in a creative way, because
adaptation does not mean submission, it means to participate in life with momentum, like a
spring, coming into dynamic contact with all that surrounds me. Maybe it would be more
convenient if Damanhur were completely documented in all of its mechanisms, full of books
already written, objectives already achieved, perfect organization, cause and effect totally in
sync, but I am not sure it would be as rewarding as it is now, seeing as how we would only
be the end users of its beauty in this way, and not the everyday headstrong creators of
Damanhur.
Damanhur teaches and creates through the reconciliation of different needs. However,
there are also those who at some point decide otherwise and change pathways. When a
citizen of Damanhur decides to leave the community, there are many different reasons.
There are those who no longer believe in what they are doing, those who can't keep up the
pace, those who don't feel understood by others, those who haven't found a satisfying
personal dimension to life here, or other reasons. It is a choice that deserves respect. Damanhur, 2012 44 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I reflect sometimes on the fact that those who leave, they lose something, regardless of
the value that one can give to Damanhur, if only for the fact that they dismiss previously
made commitments with themselves and others. In recent years, it has happened that even
some people who have lived at Damanhur a really long time have left, some who were
amongst the most active citizens. In some cases, they were people very dear to me, whom I
have been able to see up close during their progressive steps toward leaving the community.
At a certain point, for some reason, they lost the ability to synthesize Damanhur within
themselves, to find those answers that I spoke about earlier. They lived in Damanhur every
day, just as I do, but they were no longer able to deeply communicate with it. Everyone's life
- mine, as I write this, and yours, as you are reading this - is a kind of puzzle that we
reassemble piece by piece every night while fatigue takes hold of us and accompanies us to
sleep. It is as if at a certain point, the people who left had lost the ability, the humility or the
desire to recompose the puzzle day after day. At that point, leaving becomes an absolute
need, which is then translated into rational motives in order to have reasons to give, most
of all to oneself. Unfortunately, it often becomes automatic to find all the reasons for leaving
outside of yourself, blaming Damanhur, convincing yourself, for example, that at Damanhur,
you work too hard or there is little respect for people's needs. Certainly, there is always
something to do, and all of us hold our common goals dear to our hearts, as well as the
personal ones. These are all things that went well and were valued and gave great
satisfaction when they had freely chosen to live in Damanhur. They are all things that
became misinterpreted and were given as negative examples when they decide to leave, just
as freely.
Damanhur, 2012 45 A Day in the Life of Damanhur On the other hand, when you want to leave, it is necessary to have a strong moment
of inner detachment, because you are denying important personal choices made a long time
ago. Then, it's obvious that all the elements that were previously considered virtuous can
become the biggest defects, and you attribute your distress to those elements. It's similar to
the mechanism that occurs when a love relationship ends. The person who was the object
of love becomes detestable, and the relationship that you had together becomes futile. It
happens to many, perhaps all of us. Then, things come back into balance, and the affection
and positive memories remain, unless there is the need to mask your own personal failures.
In that case, you may project your frustrations onto others, accusing them of the
misconduct that is really reflected within yourself.
Damanhur, 2012 46 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER FIVE -­‐ BACKBITERS 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM After having left Damanhur, some people have maintained friendships with
Damanhurians, and perhaps even participate from time to time in some of our public
activities. Others have never been seen again, and still others, unfortunately, seem to have
made attacking Damanhur the main purpose of their lives.
I always feel a great sympathy and curiosity about the lives of those who have left
Damanhur and have maintained a positive attitude toward us - those who say that they no
longer found what they were looking for at Damanhur, but in spite of this, they don't deny
the value of the years that they have spent here. I hope their choices will always bring them
happiness and new experiences.
I am convinced that it's important to let everyone do what feels true to them, and that
we all leave others free to do the same. I feel that sometimes, those who left Damanhur
wanted all of us to go too … maybe because this would mean that he or she had done the
right thing by retracing his steps ... to the point of even feeling deeply offended because this
has not happened. My conclusion is that those who have values of integrity, that serve as
support for one's dignity, also have deep respect for the values of others, while those who,
for many reasons, find themselves losing their own ideals, they cannot tolerate the values
Damanhur, 2012 47 A Day in the Life of Damanhur and freedom of others and try to fight a battle with them, perhaps in the hopes of silencing
their own emptiness.
In all these years, observing these phenomena, I have identified one constant: when
someone leaves Damanhur because he feels that this phase of his life has come to an end
and he is no longer interested in the things that we do, he just goes. On the other hand,
when someone leaves Damanhur because he has inner conflicts that he isn't able to resolve,
or because he is absorbed by his own problems, he becomes a slanderer in the hopes that
Damanhur will one day disappear as well ... Some people have taken on decidedly hostile
attitudes, and it seems that instead of putting energy into creating the new life path that they
have chosen to pursue, they cultivate thoughts and still focus attention on Damanhur. From
these people, I've heard and read things that have triggered deep disappointment and anger
within me. I didn't think it was possible, all these behaviors from people with whom I have
shared many meals and dreams. They have transformed themselves into merciless accusers,
even on a personal level.
These people, who are mostly covered by the anonymity provided on blogs and the
internet, have chosen to challenge specific points about Damanhur, the same points that, in
every era, are used when one wants to orchestrate a defamation campaign in order to
create obstacles for someone who is creating something original. Nothing but garbage,
which is what you resort to when there are no real arguments and reasons to be against
someone or something.
They say that the spiritual path that Damanhur offers is not real. I wonder what this
Damanhur, 2012 48 A Day in the Life of Damanhur means. Can anyone really measure whether the search for a pathway of truth, within oneself
or outside, is true or false?
They say that there is sexual promiscuity. Apart from the fact that in almost thirty years,
I have never noticed all this debauchery, what I've seen has always been a lot of respect and
attention to the choices of others, seeking harmony in all relationships in every form.
They say that Falco maneuvers the huge amount of wealth that Damanhurians produce,
enriching himself on their backs. I know that all the proceeds from our activities first of all
are put toward our living expenses. Then, each one of us has destined some funds to
support the education of our children, maintenance and expansion of the Temples of
Humankind, payment for lands that we have bought, the houses to build and renovate. In no
way could there be much room for the personal enrichment of a "boss!" Apart from the fact
that none of us, even with all the respect and friendship we feel toward him, would be
interested in financially supporting Falco. This is not the kind of relationship that we want
with our founder. Falco himself, if anything, is the first to fund and support community
projects, starting from when he made his house available, which now houses one of the
Damanhurian nucleo communities.
The pathway of Damanhur is an intense experience. Perhaps those who leave
immediately feel the lack of what Damanhur had provided up until then, materially and
emotionally, and so, they try to rebel against this void, denying everything, even their own
choices.
Damanhur, 2012 49 A Day in the Life of Damanhur There is one common element that characterizes almost all ex-Damanhurians that put
themselves up to "moralizing": their angry accusations against Damanhur soon turn into
requests for money. First, we hear a bunch of moral sermons from these people: "Open
your eyes! Regain your independence! Don't sacrifice your best years! Beware of the
dreams with which you are deluding yourselves ..."
Then, just wait a while… and here comes the demand for money: labor disputes, moral
damages, threats of lawsuits if there is not a well-paid settlement. Here we find the true
purpose of our slanderers revealed!
A rule in Damanhur provides that when people leave the citizenship, they are supported
in rebuilding their lives when they need it, so that the closure of the relationship comes
about without any further difficulties, and above all, so that the person will have time
reorganize. Still, some prefer not to take advantage of this opportunity, and then try to get
money in a way that is not correct. Personally, this is what I regret most.
So, claiming to not be paid for work is becoming the classic "blackmail" case against
Damanhur. They argue that people at Damanhur work too much, are exploited and don't
get paid.
Damanhur, 2012 50 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Here, it really becomes ridiculous. I have already explained that at Damanhur, there is
certainly a lot to do. First of all, it is necessary to support yourself. It's a good thing no one
has ever tried taking us to court for living off of our own work instead of welfare or
donations! Besides economic self-sufficiency, there are other things we want to do that are
an integral part of our dream, and they are the reason why many people come to take part
in Damanhur: to build a new world. No one has ever come to Damanhur because they
were looking for a job. We all came here to participate in a project, a lifestyle, a spiritual
adventure. Each of us, beyond what is stipulated by our labor contracts with Damanhurian
companies, has given time, commitment, talent, and hard work, in leadership positions for
the common interest and working toward shared goals. Each of us has received in exchange:
affection, esteem, gratitude, solidarity from everyone. Each one of us is committed to the
development of Damanhur, which reciprocates with various kinds of services, guarantees
and opportunities, and it's all based on a spiritual calling, not on the promises of a
professional agreement. This is the very nature of community life, and we all know it when
we put in our requests for citizenship at Damanhur.
Is there anyone of you, amongst my readers, who has asked for money from your
parents, siblings, spouse or children to paint the walls of your house? To help you move? To
plant tomatoes? To put out the nativity scene for decoration and organize a Christmas
dinner? For your children's birthday parties? To do grocery shopping?
Make the right calculations, that is, considering that Damanhur is a huge family with a
thousand people, the duties are the same: to carry out shared projects, relations with
institutions and other community experiences, taking care of the territories ... It is clear that
Damanhur, 2012 51 A Day in the Life of Damanhur if we take into account all the hours of the day in which we are productive, considering
them "work," it won't add up. If during the day, in addition to writing, that is, doing my job, I
water the garden, or I go to give a talk on Damanhur in some city, or I spend two hours
with the youth to help them set up a theatre show, I cannot and do not want to consider
this work, but simply participation in the life I want to live. It is my personal contribution,
like when my father came back home from the office and began to repair broken appliances.
In recent years, this defamation has become almost systematic, so much so that I am
beginning to think there is a specific plan in all of this. Currently, on the shelves of the
bookstores, next to this book, you may find several other volumes about Damanhur with
writings that are well-documented by various sociologists and researchers, by the President
of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) Massimo Introvigne, the Australian
sociologist Bill Metcalf, President of the International Communal Studies Association
(ICSA).* However, I expect that in the future, there will also be books "against" Damanhur,
based on the lies of people who have left, who have cultivated their resentment and from
there, set out their story. I hope I am wrong.
* The list is actually much longer. I just remembered the researchers whom I have
known personally. Other than Introvigne and Metcalf, Mario Cardano and Luigi Berzano
from the University of Turin, Maria Immacolata Macioti from "La Sapienza," University of
Rome, the Vice President of CESNUR Pierluigi Zoccatelli, British scholar Jeff Merrifield. For
the writings of all these authors, please refer to the Bibliography of this book.
Damanhur, 2012 52 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER SIX -­‐ MEDITATE PEOPLE, MEDITATE Murals on the walls of the house in Damjl 12:30 to 1:00 PM The articles about the community building seminar and volunteering are ready, and I
have time to go to the office of the School of Meditation, which was looking for me at the
start of the morning. To get there, I walk along the pathway that slopes up towards the
higher part of Damjl. The scenery is very suggestive as you go from one place to another,
walking under a canopy of branches made of many different plants, going alongside a creek,
strolling up to the terracotta columns of the Open Temple after passing fountains decorated
with ceramic sculpture. I relax from the sound of splashing water and enjoy the view made
Damanhur, 2012 53 A Day in the Life of Damanhur colorful by flowers and leaves…The road, which stretches 200 meters, is decidedly uphill,
although it is a pleasure to walk along it every time.
The path ends in front of a large house that was built as the first site of Damanhur in
1979. Originally, it was composed of eleven separate and independent apartments, designed
to accommodate couples with children and individuals who shared all aspects of the house,
like an extended family. Together, all the Damanhurians took care of the projects and needs
of the whole community. Over time, as a consequence of the various transformations that
have occurred within Damanhur, many walls of the house have been removed and just as
many doors have been put in, so that now it's possible to enter at one end of the house and
exit from the other, after walking through many different environments.
Today, much of the building houses the nucleo community called "Tesan," an Etruscan
name which means "aurora," which was chosen by members of the nucleo. One wing of the
building, however, is dedicated to many Damanhurians' parents, who having reached an
advanced age and have chosen to be close to their children rather than staying in nursing
homes. So, we have created spaces that are suitable for them, with a sense of intimacy, and
also taking their physical needs into account. They live in a kind of community within the
community where elderly people live together, with the nearby presence of their children
and the constant availability of health facilities close by as well. Depending on their
inclinations and possibilities, the elderly parents participate in maintenance of the land, in the
children's education, and all else that needs to be done. They contribute their affection,
experience, and ability to see life from a particular perspective.
Damanhur, 2012 54 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Damanhurian citizens who are elderly, on the other hand, continue to live in the nucleo
communities where they participate along side the younger citizens and carry out activities
for the home and for the nucleo's projects, in proportion to their potential and needs, due
to age.
The large building at Damjl also hosts some community services, including the School of
Meditation. The School of Meditation is, in many ways, the glue of Damanhur. It holds the
spiritual ideals that underlie our lives. It is a reservoir for our traditions and the significance
that we give to our existence day after day. The weekly meeting we have for the School of
Meditation course, held on either Monday or Tuesday evening, is one of the key moments
of our community schedule.
The goal of Meditation is to support each person on his or her pathway toward the
discovery of the divine aspect hidden within the self. To do this, during the weekly meetings,
each person researches the possibility of contact with the intelligent forces around us, from
small nature beings to grand stellar forces, those that the peoples of the past called
"divinities," seeking a relationship with them through ritual. Meditation is the context in
which we celebrate, for instance, the great Solstice and Equinox rites. In these rites, we
gather around the fires that represent the strength of the sun and the moon, in alignment
with the changing of the seasons, to celebrate the multiplicity of life in the universe. They
are very evocative rites that take place outdoors in areas full of trees, and many guests
come to participate every time.
Damanhur, 2012 55 A Day in the Life of Damanhur The School of Meditation is also the area where we deepen our study of magical and
spiritual traditions of the peoples of the past, seeking a broader understanding of how, over
time, humanity has been able to "be a bridge" between the material plane and the divine
plane. Through Meditation, we have also developed some simple personal rituals, based on
the awareness of one's own potential, reawakening little by little. These rituals bring a sense
of the spiritual into many acts of daily life. There is the ritual for the purification of food,
which creates an energetic correspondence between the food and those who eat it. We
also have a birthday ritual, to more fully experience this occasion and to create the
conditions for a favorable year to come, and many others.
The School of Meditation is a large "body" that Damanhurians belong to, as well as many
others who, even though they do not live in the community, participate in the research and
experimentation. The first group of the School of Meditation began the journey in the early
seventies, even before the first Damanhur community was founded. People are organized
into levels, called "grades," that they belong to according to each person's constancy,
commitment and achievements. Meditation is an area where we learn to mix the desire for
"magic" inherent in every individual, with the experience of daily practice to achieve our
best and find possible answers to the questions of existence within ourselves.
The ultimate goal is the self-realization of every individual, becoming conscious, achieving
enlightenment, undergoing a complete metamorphosis of the self, becoming "one" with your
own divine nature, and in doing so, becoming one with the All. To arrive there, we must
Damanhur, 2012 56 A Day in the Life of Damanhur live. Living for us means action - to plan and then achieve, to dream and then manifest giving your all in every moment, without putting the responsibility for your life in the hands
of others. I realize that for many people, the notion of spirituality is of a very different
nature. I have many friends who believe that living a life of spirit means abandoning oneself
to Christ, or listening to the words of a guru, and they are wise friends whose paths are
very dignified. Unlike them, I think that spirituality means a deep immersion in the reality in
which we live, working to improve it, accepting the contradictions, always remembering that
what I do is aimed toward understanding the profound nature of human beings, and through
it, communication with all the forces that populate the universe.
Meditation is a way of being twenty-four hours a day. While you are plowing a field with
hard work and effort, it's good to occasionally stop and turn your thoughts to ideals, but
learning to meditate while you are plowing as an element of the work itself, without having
to stop, means doing it even more fully. In Damanhur, work is prayer and "work" means not
only what I do for a living, but everything I do, every time I am productive and active,
whether I am writing or sweeping the kitchen after lunch. There are times that are
specifically dedicated to inner reflection, such as rituals and meditations in the Temples of
Humankind, although their importance is to give energy to our capacity to pray while
working. In my opinion, there can't be one moment for working and another one for the
spirit. It would be like saying there are important moments in life and negligible moments. It
is life as a whole that we want to make sacred through our ability to give meaning to what
we do in the most challenging moments as well those that are less so.
Damanhur, 2012 57 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I believe that I have changed a lot in these years along the path of Meditation and
Damanhur. Of course, I acknowledge that any person approaching fifty and looking back to
when he was twenty or thirty would probably say to himself, "I have changed a lot."
However, I feel that I have transformed fundamental aspects of myself, ones that go beyond
life teachings.
That which has changed within me over time is the ability to see my role in the universe
in a wider and more participatory vision. By nature and probably also because of the effects
of my environment and education, I spent the whole first part of my life looking for points
of separation between myself and others. On the one side, there was God, there were
other people, there were the things that happened, there were the female figures I thought I
loved, and I was here on the other side. Studying, thinking and understanding had meant
finding the differences, and so, emphasizing the distances. I had the feeling that identifying
with something would have automatically meant losing all of my characteristics, which would
have been fine for some of my faults, which I recognized, but losing everything else didn't
feel right to me!
Through Meditation, I learned to see reality as just one continuum. I learned to see
myself as a part of this reality, and so, life as a field of meetings, exchanges, sharing and
possibilities, rather than dead-end differences. I tell myself today that the differences which
others embody are the fuel for our growth. They are to be accepted initially, then we can
move on to an expanded level of understanding where we try to understand how we can all
enrich ourselves with experience, through the various facets that we reciprocally present to
each other. You never lose anything of yourself in this way, rather it gives space for that
Damanhur, 2012 58 A Day in the Life of Damanhur which we have within us. Conversely, we do loose some things, fortunately… in order to
give space to our positive aspects, to bring the characteristics of others into our own inner
radar, which means continually polishing up our points of growth, pushing beyond our
limitations, or little by little transforming them, until we transform even our weaknesses
into resources.
Looking deep into my thoughts and emotions, and in discussing with others, I discovered
something else: my instinctive search for other dimensions around me, a desire to
rediscover the divine dimension, which I have perceived as a natural predisposition present
in every individual when not suppressed by education or redirected by family traditions. And
I have reconsidered all those traditions that give a name, a face and a character to the forces
of nature - from nature spirits to classical divinities. I believe that there is a world around us
made up of forces that we can perceive through channels other than the five classical
senses, in an order of magnitude that leads up to the ultimate God, the Creator. A Creator
who is so distant that I am indifferent to him, just as I believe that he is indifferent to me,
while the forces that are closer to us come into our lives. Equilibrium between sense of
enchantment and rationality, this is what we need to learn. I think the equilibrium is not
believing that every time lightning blows out the electrical box it happened because Zeus
has a score to settle with us. At the same time, we must not limit ourselves to thinking that
the world is limited to that which we can see, and most of all, that it is not limited to that
which we have the capacity to understand.
For us at Damanhur, a word that encompasses this concept is the word "magic." Magic
contains all possible sciences, and like any science, it is made of exploration and experience.
Damanhur, 2012 59 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Consequently, the term magic also means the ability to act on any form, to know and
intervene in any field of reality. Born as men and women to become magicians. Nice, isn't it?
When you begin the path of the School of Meditation, you are accompanied for a long
time by senior Damanhurians who have the role of instructor. Currently, I am Meditation
instructor at a faraway Damanhur Center in Zagreb, where I go once a month to lead the
course for dozens of people. As I walk up the road in Damjl, I imagine that someone in the
School of Meditation office has called me to communicate something about my "students."
Serving as instructor for those who are "younger" in their experience of Damanhur, helping
to guide their inner research, is a very enriching experience. It's another way for me to ask
myself, "What am I doing here?" And also to see if I am able to help others make the
experiences of Damanhur useful in their lives and in those of the people close to them. Will
there be something new to share at the next meeting?
That wasn't the case. What Vongola Fiordaliso wanted to talk to me about was only
vaguely related to the meditation group that I lead. Soon there will be a couple of meetings
for all the Meditation instructors, as it happens periodically. She needed to know everyone's
availability for meeting together. I reeled off to Vongola, who is one of the coordinators of
Meditation, the list of days when I can manage to be present. Then, I go back and walk along
the road, this time downhill. Now, it's really lunchtime and at Somachandra there will surely
be something good to eat!
Damanhur, 2012 60 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER SEVEN -­‐ POLITICS AND POLITICIANS Images of nucleo communities. Above, "Magilla," below, "Prima Stalla" 1:00 to 2:00 PM Usually, I try to eat lightly at lunch. If I could, I would skip the meal, partly to not be
affected by the drowsiness of digestion, partly to gain time for reading, studying, and surfing
Damanhur, 2012 61 A Day in the Life of Damanhur the internet. But I am not able to skip eating, and then I have to admit, chatting with others
is just as rewarding as reading and surfing the internet.
Somachandra is a cozy place with just the right mix of animation and calm that puts
patrons at ease. It is never full of clamoring diners that prevent conversation, and it is never
empty enough to hear the sound of cutlery against the plate. Under the glass table tops and
on message boards on the walls, there are flyers, photos and publications from other
communities that we are friends with: Sieben Linden in Germany, Findhorn in Scotland,
Auroville in India, and the sister communities Zegg in Germany and Tamera in Portugal
(which I have both visited) and more. At one of the tables, Cervo Volante Ginepro invites
me to sit down with him and three others, two young men and a young woman, whom I do
not know. Cervo Volante works with Conacreis, a network organization of Italian and
European spiritual groups, and the three youth are definitely guests visiting Damanhur. I
know that Cervo Volante's invitation means, "Come here and tell us some things too."
Instinctively, I would like to decline, keep to myself and read the newspaper, but partly
because Cervo Volante is a nice person and partly because I like telling stories - as I think is
clear - I sit with them, placing my plate of vegetables right above a picture of Sedona,
Arizona featured underneath the glass tabletop.
One of the young women is preparing a university thesis on communities and is
particularly interested in the political system of Damanhur. I know it well, by virtue of all the
years I have been a citizen here and from having held various public roles.
Damanhur, 2012 62 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Damanhur is a Federation of Communities, called "nucleo communities." Every nucleo
community elects a leader, the regent, who holds the position for a one-year term. The
Federation itself is governed by King Guides, who are elected every six months - and can be
reelected several times in a row. We have had King Guides in office for up to seven years!
They supervise the general choices that are made.
The King Guides play another important function too: they coordinate communal
initiatives of the School of Meditation, the Game of Life and Tecnarcato, which are the
other main areas of the Damanhur experience. I have already written extensively about
Meditation. The Game of Life promotes the renewal of structures and shared rhythms in
the community. It's the continual search for new formulas of living and growing together.
The Tecnarcato focuses attention on transformation of individuals through exchange,
introspection and application of a chosen personal discipline.
The building block that Damanhur rests upon is the citizen. The nucleo communities are
the foundation for the community structure. Together, the nucleo communities form the
Federation, and at the vertex are the King Guides. They are "Kings" or "Queens" in the
sense that they embody the Damanhurian tradition and philosophy, the best spirit of the
people who have chosen them. They are "Guides," in that the meaning of their role is to
direct choices for opening up to the future, as well as resolving the current issues. As a rule,
there are normally two King Guides. I write "normally" because at crucial stages there have
been three King Guides elected, to enable them to work more effectively, being able to
handle a greater number of situations. The King Guides are elected every six months. The
short duration of the term, which allows for constant evaluation and timely change of one
Damanhur, 2012 63 A Day in the Life of Damanhur or more of the King Guides when it is deemed appropriate, is balanced by the absence of
term limitations for reelection.
King Guides have typically been in office for three years on average, so for six terms.
The King Guides who held the position for the longest time are Gorilla Eucalipto, who was
continually reelected between 1999 and 2007, and Formica Coriandolo, who was in term
between 1999 and 2006. The King Guides are elected on two separate ballots,
independently of one another, although one of the parameters that is used is to form a
pairing that can work well together. This is a fundamental aspect, considering that the role
of King Guide is a very demanding role. They oversee all aspects of Damanhurian life,
coordinating the growth of nucleo communities, cultural initiatives, volunteering, politics ...
Although each of these areas has its own autonomous management, the King Guides are
constantly present in following them and giving direction, which makes their role like the
nerve center of the whole Federation.
When Damanhur was founded, it was all quite different. Every eighteen months, the
citizens elected a government made up of five members and each had an entrusted
department: 1) Culture, Art, International Affairs and Education, 2) Economics and Finance,
3) Industry and Handicrafts, 4) Agriculture and Public Works, 5) Health and Interior Affairs.
I myself have never been a King Guide. I took part in three government groups between
1984 and 1990, first as assistant to the Minister of Culture, then as the Minister. In those
years, the campaigns were very
Damanhur, 2012 64 A Day in the Life of Damanhur heated, full of debates and articles in our daily newspaper. The elected government had
direct responsibility over all of Damanhur, and the responsibility of the nucleo community
leaders was merely to insure that harmony reigned in the house and amongst the people,
and that things were kept clean. The structure of Damanhur was all here, commensurate to
the number of people and the needs. However, it was the most complex structure that a
community had in those days, as we verified every year in September during the intercommunity meetings.
The governments should have stayed in office for eighteen months, but in many cases,
Damanhur was constantly growing in number of citizens, activities and needs, therefore the
governments, with their programs and ministers, proved to be insufficient by mid-term. So,
there was often the need to dissolve them prematurely. This is what happened when I was
Minister in 1986, after thirteen months. Giving one's resignation was not so simple. Putting
forth energy and commitment, taking stock of oneself - because taking on a role like that,
where it is necessary to mediate between your own projects and the needs of others,
means deeply evaluating your motives - and then, at a certain point, being told by your own
constituents that you need to interrupt the work and start all over again, perhaps
substituted by another person who is more suitable for the needs of the moment, it doesn't
exactly contribute to peaceful sleep and good digestion. I speak from experience, as it
happened to me. I was very sorry to interrupt a job that was half done. Reason comes in
and helps to heal wounded pride, and I realized in the end that it was actually necessary to
clear things out and dissolve the government. I decided to try again in the future, when I felt
I was ready again for a role like that again, and it came about four years later in 1990, this
time without a hitch.
Damanhur, 2012 65 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Today, the King Guides interact closely with the College of Justice, which I was a
member of several times. The College of Justice is composed of three members who are
elected each year. The College is the Damanhurian conception of justice, that is, the
meeting point between shared rules, personal viewpoints, and different needs. So, it works
to settle disputes that may arise, if the people involved cannot do so on their own, and to
identify the points to act upon, to ensure that fewer of these cases arise.
In addition to embodying the executive function, the King Guides also embody the
legislative one, that is, they enact communal laws, and community life is regulated based
upon these laws. The great responsibility of the King Guides is another reason why the
duration of each term is so short.
The College of Justice verifies that the acts of the King Guides are in line with what is
expressed in the Constitution of Damanhur. In other words, the College of Justice checks
that, despite the wide discretion that is available to them, the King Guides adhere to what is
stipulated in our principles. Thinking back to my experience and in other moments, I don't
think it has ever been necessary to intervene on unconstitutional behavior by the Kings
Guides, though we wanted to consider this possibility and be ready to address it if
necessary.
At this point, Cecilia, the student, asks me a classic question which I have responded to
many times and that maybe you're also asking yourself: In a society which has the growth of
Damanhur, 2012 66 A Day in the Life of Damanhur individuals as its objective, the rediscovery of their divine nature, why must there be so
many rules and so many organized groups that watch over them and their actions?
The answer is simple: Damanhur is a collection of people of differing individualities and
viewpoints, which is our main source of richness. Diversity enriches our world, and it is to
be protected and expressed. Community means real space for everyone, not
homogenization. Precisely for this reason, it is necessary to establish points of agreement,
shared codes that are the mediation between everyone's need. At the same time, they give
us the chance to evaluate ourselves using a collective measurement: the laws. If there are
laws, they are to be verified, since something that only exists on paper tends not to exist,
and also because even the interpretations can become personal. Hence, an organization like
the College of Justice is elected - to serve as the balancing point with respect to the laws by
which we organize our community life.
In rare cases, it is possible to reach disciplinary proceedings where a citizen of
Damanhur is shown to be inadequate in his behavior with respect to the principles of trust,
respect and solidarity that we have collectively chosen, and which are also included in the
articles of our Constitution. At the end of the disciplinary proceedings, a sanction may be
issued, the purpose of which is to enable the person to compensate in some way to the
community for the damages caused by the
inappropriate behavior. In fact, one is asked to dedicate one's time for communal projects.
However, it is very difficult to get to that point. I can say that during the five years when I
Damanhur, 2012 67 A Day in the Life of Damanhur was a member of this organization, if my memory serves me correctly - and it is usually
pretty accurate for a member of the College of Justice! - there have only been three
disciplinary proceedings.
The law is an educational element and a tool of growth for us. Along with laws
conceived as a "common denominator," for a few years now, we have also introduced the
"individual law" of every Damanhurian. The individual law is an additional instrument for
keeping one's own limitations in check and developing one's talents. Every citizen, after
reflection and discussion with selected people - usually within the nucleo communities proposes his own individual law, which indicates the steps to take, the attention to give and
the mistakes to avoid in order to grow as a person, valuing ever more his own strengths,
rather than his faults. The College of Justice keeps the individual law of every citizen,
ensuring that his writing is sufficiently clear to verify the observation of the law. Verification,
however, is not done by the College of Justice, but by another citizen, chosen for this by the
person begin verified. Every law indicates how the citizen can remediate if he does not
respect the law. It is possible, because the individual law often touches the focal points of
our characters, and the penalty, which is also defined by the person himself, most of the
time is about being available for useful public service when it is needed. The natural
evolution of the individual law is the "project law," which indicates a practical objective that
is meaningful to the person and useful for the community. The law sets out steps in order to
achieve the goal, being supported by the talents and aspirations of the individual.
Damanhur, 2012 68 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Another community-wide organization is the Senate. Within a complex entity such as
Damanhur, it is essential to circulate information in a way that it is understood by everyone.
The Senate is comprised of eight citizens who are elected every six months, and they act as
intermediaries between all Damanhurians and the organizations for anything that has to be
known, understood and verified. If there are misunderstandings about the actions of a
group, decisions by the Kings Guides that are not understood, obscure points in things that
were said, anyone can refer to the Senate, asking for clarification about the situation. The
King Guides themselves ask for help from the Senate when there is a need to inform all
citizens, diffusing information through a capillary system. In this way, the Senate acts as a link
between the vertex and the base.
Of course, any citizen who needs certain information or is not convinced in the matter
at hand may contact the King Guides, the College of Justice, or others independently. The
role of the Senate, however, is particularly valuable because it allows one to have an overall
view of the information needs of the population and to know whether everyone is
thoroughly informed about what is happening. For example, in the past when the
government prematurely ended its mandate, the Senators were the ones who gathered the
viewpoints of the citizens about the resignation of the ministers.
I was also elected Senator for several terms. The social arena is where I have been most
active, especially during my first twenty years at Damanhur, since I felt I had things to
contribute. Today, although I still actively participate in the life of the nucleo community and
the Federation, my personal journey is more focused on study and research in the field of
sensitivity and vital energy, as well as art - through writing. I like to write: stories, theatre
Damanhur, 2012 69 A Day in the Life of Damanhur texts, initial chapters of novels that "I will finish when I have the time." Lately, I've also been
venturing into writing short theater sketches, which I present along with others during our
Wednesday evening public meetings. These sketches make fun of this or that aspect of our
community life. It started out as a kind of game, but now the Wednesday sketch is a happilyanticipated moment, a kind of "theatrical editorial" which spares no one, starting with the
King Guides. The sketches are sure to stimulate discussion and debate on the current
themes through irony.
Damanhur, 2012 70 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER EIGHT -­‐ THE MAGICAL TEMPLES The Temples of Humankind: The Hall of Mirrors 2:30 to 6:00 PM As I'm about to get up, my wife Furetto Oliva unexpectedly arrives. She had a lunch
commitment; I'm not really sure what, so I didn't wait for her to eat. Now, she's here for
coffee, a "short" one for her, a "long" one for me. We have been together for nearly
eighteen years, both having had previous marriages. We had a civil marriage ceremony, held
at the Baldissero Canavese City Hall in the presence of relatives and Damanhurians at the
end of August 1993, on day that I can never remember. The 23rd? The 27th? It was
certainly an odd-numbered day ... The first years after our marriage, it happened that on our
anniversary, relatives would call to say their well-wishes, and it would take me a few
minutes to figure out what they were talking about…
Damanhur, 2012 71 A Day in the Life of Damanhur In Damanhur, when two people love each other, they decide if they want to live
together and if they want to get married. What matters is that the relationship is based on
maturity and respect for others, starting with the children they will have or who are already
here. In our community, there is also a form of internal marriage, for those who choose it.
It is a marriage based on renewal, so you get married for one, two or three years and then
renew the union. It is a way to verify the relationship, to not let it fall into habit or get old.
Of course, if the relationship is over, the marriage is not renewed and it ends. Furetto and I,
in addition to being husband and wife with regard to the Italian government, we have a
Damanhurian marriage ceremony and have renewed it several times. Then, we decided that
we feel so united that it was no longer necessary to renew every three years. This doesn't
mean that at some point our marriage may be taken for granted. On the contrary, I'm
fortunate because every day I spend with Furetto brings about new inspirations of both
enjoyment and reflection, and our relationship always transforms itself a little.
Today, unions are usually long-lasting in Damanhur, and couples are able to find the right
balance between renewal and continuity within themselves. During the early years however,
it was more likely that after a short period of time, the enchantment would fade for the
couple, and they would prefer to leave one another. I think that this is a consequence of
what Damanhur has gradually experienced as a "social creature." Once, the common
rhythms and the formulas for living together were very demanding and detrimental to the
stability of relationships, therefore the emotional dimension of life suffered. Today, even
though life is more complex in many ways and always busy, I find that we have achieved the
ability to integrate the intimate and community spheres well and that the quality of
relationships has benefited.
Damanhur, 2012 72 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Furetto tells me that the King Guides have called her because they want to speak to her
about our nucleo community. She will go to the meeting around six o'clock. We will see
each other later at DamanhurCrea. Today is Wednesday, and like every Wednesday and
Thursday evening starting at 7:30 pm there will be a meeting for discussion, elaboration,
questions and answers about the themes of our experiences. A portion of the evening takes
place with the participation of Falco, who answers questions posed by citizens and visitors
about the different areas of research explored in Damanhur.
Thursday meetings are broadcast live on the Damanhur website (in Italian), but of
course, being there in person is another thing because it allows you to participate directly,
proposing your ideas and elaborating them together with those who are present.
Also, I really want to see people's faces when they see the theatre sketch tonight. This
time, I am not the author; it's Arciere Aglio. Two nights ago, I got to watch a short practice
run, and I found the text very funny and some characterizations of the actors very accurate.
It is about energy self-sufficiency, proposing a series of absurd inventions to produce energy
and reduce consumption. It's an important issue for us, but for once, we will laugh about it
while discussing it!
Now it's time to go, otherwise I won't have enough time to finish the work I want to do
in the Temples of Humankind. I drive up along the narrow streets of the town of Vidracco
Damanhur, 2012 73 A Day in the Life of Damanhur and reach the area we call Etulte, which includes the nucleo communities of Cornucopia,
Ognidove, Tin and Porta del Sole. A forest of chestnut trees surrounds me as I park the car
and ring at the gate of the nucleo community Porta del Sole, the access way to the Temples
of Humankind.
The Temples of Humankind have had books written about them, as well as
documentaries, television shows and newspaper articles. I myself, along with Esperide
Ananas, am the author of a comic book that tells the history of the Temples. The story was
illustrated by artists Ape Soja, Pangolino Tulipano and Cinzia.
We are talking about an underground construction that spans thousands of cubic
meters, winding through a succession of halls that are connected by narrow corridors,
stretching deep into the heart of the mountain. Corridors and halls of various sizes and
shapes host paintings, mosaics, sculptures and artistic creations of all kinds, as well as
disappearing doors, hidden passages and, of course, services designed to make this
completely underground place perfectly livable. The Temples of Humankind represent the
evolution of human beings, the journey that each of us undergoes while discovering
ourselves. The Temples symbolize and give instructions for the pathway of reawakening for
human beings, through the opening of doors that are obvious or secret, and the phases of
the journey through the various halls.
Construction of the Temples of Humankind started in 1978, in order to create a place
that is the expression of all the arts, where the creative power of humans is given form, a
Damanhur, 2012 74 A Day in the Life of Damanhur place in which to express contact with the Divine through love of that which is "beautiful."
They were constructed by hand, solely by Damanhurians. They are underground in order to
reach a node of synchronic lines, as well as to be perfectly isolated from surface radiation.
The halls are dedicated to the basic elements of nature: Water, Air, Earth and Fire, and
are inspired by the spiritual traditions of all of humanity, giving rise to extraordinary spaces:
the Hall of Water, the Hall of Spheres, the Hall of Mirrors, the Labyrinth, the Hall of Metals
and the two large rooms of the Hall of Earth.
I am here this afternoon to paint to the ceiling of a corridor that needs some minor
restoration. The Temples are our great collective work, where each of us has: dug into the
rock, taken it out by hand - rocks loaded into construction buckets which brought back
bricks for building walls on the return trip, decorated walls, laid floors, installed kilometers
of electric cables. The artists, who often have become so by dedicating themselves to the
Temples, have laid mosaics, painted walls, created extraordinary works in Tiffany glass,
including the domes that are featured in some of the halls.
Everyone has their own personal relationship with the Temples. Until 1992, it was our
great collective secret. The building of the Temples was done in secret, partly because there
was no authority to ask permission from, because a work of that kind was not provided for
by local law, and partly because we wanted something uniquely "ours," something to unite
us, even by keeping its existence secret together.
Damanhur, 2012 75 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Every time a citizen was introduced for the first time into the halls of the Temples, we
made sure to hide as many people as possible inside, letting the "newbie" enter in the
shadows ... and then turning on the lights and revealing ourselves, showing the magnificence
of the halls and corridors. For the newcomer, there was the wonder, amazement, and
disbelief of finding oneself all of a sudden dropped into a world that he or she never would
have imagined. For us, there was the pleasure, which was the same and yet new every time,
of seeing the emotions expressed on his or her face.
When I arrived at Damanhur, the Temples were much, much smaller than they are now,
and yet I myself had the opportunity to enter into a hall, marvel at its existence, and then at
a certain point, see a wall move and open up to another hall, even bigger and more
beautiful, which could be accessed via a marble staircase! I remember the others who were
watching me, and I didn't know what to say. I found myself inside a mountain, in a hall that
seemed to be from a film about Atlantis, and everything seemed incredible. It took me a few
minutes to notice that the floor of the new hall I was standing in had an opening in the
center, from which someone was continuing to remove rock and earth. I walked over,
grabbed the bucket that was passed to me, and passed it on in turn.
Since then, I also get to go back and forth with my buckets full of rock going out, and full
of bricks coming back in.
Damanhur, 2012 76 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Then came the summer of 1992.
It was the morning of July 3rd. Furetto and I had been living together for several months
at Magilla, not far from Casa del Lago. In the morning, we arrived at Damjl and found a
strange sensation in the air of the parking lot there. Small crowds of citizens were gathered
together and talking together very quickly. We were immediately informed about what was
happening. In the early morning, the Public Prosecutor from Ivrea showed up in person at
Porta del Sole with 60 policemen, with the objective of finding the Temples. A group of
former Damanhurians had reported its existence to the Prosecutor.
Those who were at Porta del Sole that morning held their breaths as the events were
unfolding. After a very tense morning, Falco, who had arrived in the meantime, took the
remote control of the hidden doors and opened the Temples of Humankind.
The Prosecutor inspected the entire structure. Then, he made a decision that went
beyond our expectations, one that allowed us to turn an apparent defeat into the beginning
of a new phase in our history. The Temples were to be sequestered, but considering their
value, he entrusted them to us for all the maintenance that they needed. Furthermore, he
maintained secrecy with regard to the press about the discovery of the Temples, which gave
us time to find the right way to tell the world about them.
Damanhur, 2012 77 A Day in the Life of Damanhur We knew that we would have had to overcome many trials in order to continue
building, embellishing, and using the Temples, although we also found a new reason for
hope. The Temples had been discovered, and for this very reason, they could now be
presented to the entire world. Their message of love for beauty, harmony, and spirituality
would certainly spread and create and effect.
The magistrate was Prosecutor Bruno Tinti, who in recent years has risen to the
headlines as the author of a book about the justice system in Italy. In March of 2008, I spoke
at a conference along with Tinti, other magistrates and Damanhurians, which was organized
by the "Academy of Equilibrium" and was entitled, "Laws: have we chosen them or are we
subjected to them?"
The legal battle to safeguard the Temples began.
It was immediately clear that everyone needed to be mobilized, since there were so
many obstacles to overcome: the hostility from some of the local town administrations who
proposed to fill the Temples with sand and close them down, the Curia who fanned the
flames, the lack of precedents related to underground constructions for spiritual activities,
the choice by authorities at various levels to not condone the illegal construction work so
as to not make themselves unpopular with the Church. The actual "crime" was really small,
but the symbolic one was far more serious: in Italy, to have built a complex of Temples that
are not Catholic and not attributable to any religion!
Damanhur, 2012 78 A Day in the Life of Damanhur For four years, there wasn't a moment to breathe. We organized press conferences,
radio and television broadcasts in Italy and all over the world, meetings with key figures in
art, culture and politics. We held a signature drive and collected over one hundred
thousand signatures from people requesting that the Temples be respected and entrusted to
the Damanhurians.
One evening, as I was collecting signatures for our petition along the Po river of the
Murazzi in Turin, I came upon an Egyptian man of a certain age who spoke impeccable
Italian. He looked askance and said, "The Temples of Humankind at Damanhur? I was born
in Damanhur, and I don't know anything about something like that!" I had met a native of
Damanhur, Egypt, actually "Damanhour," according to the most widely used transliteration.
Damanhour is the town along the Nile delta whose name had inspired the founders of our
Damanhur! According to tradition, in the underground structures of Damanhour, Egypt,
wise men and men of knowledge were trained, and the idea of the name came from there ...
After we clarified the misunderstanding, the distinguished "Damanhourian" gentleman added
his name to the collection of signatures, and he convinced his family members who were
with him to sign, too.
In 1996, after the signature drive and various initiatives in support of the Temples
arrived in Parliament, the question of illegal construction, which was the only legal problem,
was finally cleared. The Temples of Humankind were saved!
Damanhur, 2012 79 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Today, my relationship with the Temples is mostly related to guest visits. I lead groups
of people into the Temples, illustrating their history and significance, and I guide meditation
experiences that I created along with other instructors. These experiences are designed for
those who, after an initial visit, would like to have a moment of meditation and inspiration in
the halls of the Temples.
Although today, I'm only here to give a nice, solid layer of white paint before the artists
come to paint. In the past, I had also tried to paint artistically. The painters would give me
instructions, and they would patiently say to me, "Good. Very good, you're learning." Then
when I came back the next time, I discovered that my paintings had been adjusted, if not
completely redone. So, I realized that maybe my talent for painting was not the strongest
one I had, and I made myself available for tasks like the one today, where there is no need
for great chromatic sensitivity and a light touch, but only good will. Moreover, in the Hall of
the Earth, where there are many portraits of Damanhurians, I am depicted holding a book in
my hand, certainly not a paintbrush!
The huge project of expansion for the Temples of Humankind is called "The Temple of
Peoples." About 400 meters as the crow flies from the extreme west end of the Temples,
there are three large caverns that were left in the mountain from an old lime quarry
abandoned in the 1950s. At the bottom of the "holes" - as they are informally called - in
some places, there are still tracks left from the carts that carried extracted material to the
old cable car connected to the town, which has also been long forgotten.
Damanhur, 2012 80 A Day in the Life of Damanhur The Temple of Peoples will be an intensive work of environmental recuperation, since
we will bring the hill back to its original condition. For this new Temple, we will not dig into
the rock, but rather re-cover these artificial openings in the earth, creating a large, futuristic
dome above the caverns. On the dome, a photovoltaic system will be installed to produce
electricity, making the structure virtually energy self-sufficient. Inside, a library will be
dedicated to ancient and modern books about spirituality, esotericism and knowledge.
Above all, a large auditorium will be available for those who wish to have an exchange,
whether through art or political debate, encouraging contact amongst indigenous peoples to
build peace together - peace that is founded on respect for diversity.
We would like to promote a Parliament of the Peoples. The true custodians of human
wisdom and experience are the peoples. If the world has one chance to overcome the
crises of these years, through the work of intelligent and capable leaders who are able to
consider not only the "particulars" but also a wider perspective, this possibility lies in the
peoples of the world. Beyond political and religious divisions, they are able to promote
strong values, serving as the basis for new politics, new intellectuals, new mystics. Just as the
Temples of Humankind is an offering to the world, demonstrating what a small group of
people with shared ideals can accomplish, so the Temple of Peoples is the offering of land
and space in which to express the art and projects of the "real" peoples, that is, those who
identify themselves in shared values and determine their own future beyond the national
boundaries that delimit their lands.
At this moment, Damanhur is sending a message to communities and groups, small and
large, which can identify with such a vision, and we invite them to come forward. There is
Damanhur, 2012 81 A Day in the Life of Damanhur room for everyone's contribution, and this time, we don't want to do everything ourselves,
decide everything on our own. Already, some of our contacts from international groups are
saying to us that in many parts of the world, there is the need and hope for a project like
the Temple of Peoples - a place where people can truly meet with mind and heart, not only
competing to put forth their individual needs, but seeking common ground amongst the
different ways of thinking and aspirations of the people they represent, and transforming it
all into practice.
Spending a few hours inside the Temples, whatever you are doing, means being within a
flux of thought and "psychic entanglement," as the quantum physicists say, those scholars
who study the synchronic connections of the universe, which I always find very evocative.
So, while I am painting a corridor, I seek inspiration for a theatre text I have been thinking
about for some time, but have not yet been able to write.
Theater is one of my interests, though I am not an exceptional actor. I am one of those
who only has two expressions, to quote Clint Eastwood, “with a hat or without,” but I
enjoy it anyway. If there is a character to play that does not have a particularly multifaceted
personality, I can manage the scene pretty well. However, I am most passionate about
writing. Since the beginning of Damanhur, we have had a group that creates theater shows
about us, our history and our characteristics, to share stories and make fun of ourselves a
little. I have written and staged several plays: "The Gods Don't Travel by Train," a story
about Damanhur told through the emotions of the protagonists; "Alpheus Meets Death,"
about the difficulty of accepting the ultimate fate that each of us faces; "Loves," about the
different sides of relationships, as well as many others. Some are parodies for children
Damanhur, 2012 82 A Day in the Life of Damanhur created in the Damanhur School: "Titanic," which is about an iceberg that is sinking; "Romeo
and Juliet," in which Juliet's mother eventually marries Romeo's father. For one of the
practice runs of this play, I had the honor of Ken Campbell's presence. He is a friend of
Damanhur and one of the most exciting and innovative talents of the English stage from the
second half of the last century. He is little known in Italy, but followed by a loyal audience in
his home country where he is well known for some incredible performances such as the
comedy, "The Warp," which lasts about 22 hours! Ken died in August of 2008. I don't know
how much he understood of the dialogues in my rendition of "Romeo and Juliet," but I do
know that he really enjoyed the scene where the parents of the young lovers stormed into
the church, pulled them away from the altar and then knelt in their place before the Friar
Lawrence.
The theatre is one of the earliest art forms developed in Damanhur. I remember in
August of 1981, I had been living in Damanhur for just a few days, and I saw a theatre show
written and performed by Cormorano Sicomoro entitled, "The Suitcase of Things." From
what people were saying, I realized that it wasn't the first show they had seen. For the next
show called "Blatc," which is an acronym for "dark-light-water-earth-sky" in Italian, I was
already participating. Over the years, recurring themes have developed that highlight a
Damanhurian style that inspires all the shows, albeit with large differences from author to
author. These themes are the presence of many different elements such as acting, singing,
music, and also actors from a large age range, including children, and rich scenery so that
the setting immediately catches the eye. The principle is philosophical more than artistic: the
physical universe, "our" universe, is based on a multiplicity of forms and their differences,
and as such, they are to be reproduced on stage.
Damanhur, 2012 83 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Of course, it is always necessary to take into account the amount of time available, with
the commitments people have, and of course the funds that are available. So, taking into
account the resources at disposition, our productions are generally simpler than you might
think, especially my own. I must say that I like simplicity. But - just to give you an idea - I
once wrote a monologue entitled, "Aria, If You Only Knew," for Gambero Finocchio
Selvatico, who, in addition to being a graphic designer, is also an actor. And he is really quite
good. Gambero, in taking care of the staging, kept the form of the monologue, but he
wanted eight people to appear onstage in silence.
For some time now, I've had an idea for a new text rolling around in my head. It will be
dedicated to the concept of enlightenment: a ludicrous story of an individual who becomes
enlightened - beyond the interpretations that each one of us can give to this term - and he is
unable to communicate it to his spiritual brothers. He tries to do so by enacting various
wonders, though he is not able to transmit anything until he does so through love and
solidarity. It is a subject I am drawn to for two reasons: first is the challenge of being able to
script the story without turning it into a moral play; the second is that it could be
performed in different circuits, connected to communities and involving a vast and diverse
public.
Theatre is already an element that unites different communities. In recent years, some
communities from Conacreis did a performance of "The Peace Treaty," in which I
participated as an actor, along with actors from other groups. The piece is about the difficult
Damanhur, 2012 84 A Day in the Life of Damanhur pathway toward a peace that is not only based on the absence of conflict, but the result of a
spiritual conception of life. The author is Swami Kryiananda, a disciple of Paramhansa
Yogananda - the founder of the Ananda movement, which has many communities in the US,
India and other countries including Italy (in Assisi, to be precise).
If it will be like the other times when I have sought inspiration in the Temples, the idea
that I am seeking will arrive tomorrow morning, after I have slept on it and dreamed.
So, while I am painting the ceiling, I keep my mind and senses open, predisposing myself
to receiving ideas from the environment, as has happened to me so many times before. To
do this, I completely focus on what I'm doing, on the brush that goes between the bucket of
color and the wall, to the drops of paint to spread out well on the surface, to the memories
of previous paintings, as the painters had suggested to me. I break my concentration only to
greet the Damanhurians who pass by, they too absorbed in their thoughts. Amongst them is
Gufo Mandragora, who is accompanying Cecilia and the two friends with whom I had lunch.
As they greet me while passing through, they have a chance to see what I meant when I told
them that each of us at Damanhur is dedicated to many different things.
Damanhur, 2012 85 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER NINE -­‐ THE LEGACY OF ADRIANO The Damanhur Crea center, renovated from an old Olivetti establishment 6 PM TO 7 PM I finished my masterpiece ahead of time, with respect to how much time I had imagined
it would take. That's okay because going back down, I would like to go to DamanhurCrea
and receive a pranatherapy session before the evening meeting. I exit the Temples in the
heart of the mountain and I find myself in the yard of the Porta del Sole nucleo community,
which has a nice, recently-renovated house. No one would imagine that it is the entrance to
a remarkable work of art such as the Temples of Humankind. The direct passage from
standing in a yard, just like thousands that exist in the world, and transitioning into an
absolutely unique underground complex always strikes me. The beauty is that, compared to
when I entered the Temples for the first time, the halls, corridors and rooms of the
Temples have expanded and gradually been transformed and enriched by thousands of
Damanhur, 2012 86 A Day in the Life of Damanhur elements, while the yard has remained more or less the same. Even the woods on top of
the mountain containing the Temples is perfectly intact, and it does not in any way hint at
the valuable contents within!
At 5 pm, I am at DamanhurCrea in the heart of Vidracco. Here there are art studios,
green building companies that do design, construction and installation, an organic market, a
Selfica laboratory - Selfica is an experimental Damanhurian discipline that creates structures
that are able to harness intelligent energies - an integrated medical and health center "Casa
della Salute", a beauty and massage center that offers many different treatments, a
physiotherapy studio and natural medicine center, which is where I'm headed. At
DamanhurCrea, there is also an organic café and restaurant, and above all, the Adriano
Olivetti conference center. The dedication to Adriano Olivetti, beyond being an homage to
the enlightened entrepreneur that he embodied - a philosopher, politician, patron, as well as
industrial leader - it is a reference to the history of the structure that now houses
DamanhurCrea. During the second half of the 1950s, Adriano Olivetti promoted a series of
initiatives called I-Rur to bring work into the valleys around Ivrea - the city where the
Olivetti headquarters were located - instead of putting people in the position of having to
leave their hometowns. Thus, the factory in Vidracco came about, where, amongst other
things, they produced cases for portable Letter 22 and Letter 32 typewriters. Considering
the widespread use of these typewriters, you may have come across an object that came
from this factory!
With Adriano's death in 1960, the sense of I-Rur was lost, and the factory became a
repository for materials. Decades later when the Olivetti company disappeared, its
Damanhur, 2012 87 A Day in the Life of Damanhur production sites were liquidated and Damanhur took over the Vidracco facilities in the early
2000s. Four thousand square meters built with the Olivetti canons of functionality and
architectural simplicity, long since abandoned. In 2004, after a long effort of restructuring
and adjusting for needs that had changed, the complex was reopened as DamanhurCrea and
the name Adriano Olivetti was given to the conference center.
On the first floor, there is the pranatherapy studio where I wait for Naga Ginestra, a
healer with lots of experience whom I have been seeing for years. She can give me the right
advice when I need it, and above all, she encourages me to personally take care of my
health, meditating on the meaning of minor problems that come about and searching for the
meaning behind the signals my body sends me. She encourages me to have an open dialogue
with my doctor and not a cold, technical one. Using health as an opportunity to reflect
deeply on myself and my relationship with life is one of the fundamental elements in the
concept of healing, according to the Damanhurian philosophy.
Since the early years of Damanhur, health has been a major focal point, and
pranatherapy, the passage of vital energy through the hands of the healer, is one of the most
developed research fields. Falco is personally involved with this work, having discovered at
an early age that he could help people to heal by placing his hands near their heads. His first
companions - Aldo who later became Canguro, Gianpiero (Fenice), Eugenio (Condor),
Angela (Gau), Michele (Orango), Giovanna (Naga) founded a school for spiritual healers,
which has trained hundreds of healers, most of whom are active outside of Damanhur.
Pranatherapy is the most widespread wellness practice amongst Damanhurians.
Damanhur, 2012 88 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Our history has also brought about very extensive developments in the field of therapy,
which makes use of both natural medicine and "academic" medicine, thanks to the presence
of Damanhurians doctors and other health professionals such as midwives, nurses,
psychologists, and physical therapists. So, alongside the role of the spiritual healer, little by
little the role of the "Green Doctor" was also defined. The "Green Doctor" complements
the healer in supporting the capacity of therapeutic choice for the patient. The doctor
formulates and shares a specific, individual program with each patient. Being asked by a
doctor, "Before I tell you how to treat this issue, please let me know how you would
choose to do it," has the immediate effect of perceiving how much the individual is primarily
responsible for his or her own health, and how important the desire to heal can be. The
Green Doctor has a medical degree and also has competencies in the field of natural
medicine, which are integrated with his or her professional training in a holistic vision of
care.
I am very connected to pranatherapy. In 1978, I received my first treatment from
Orango Riso in my hometown, and since then, I have clearly perceived the positive effect
that it has on my general condition - not only my physical well-being, it also serves as an
element that is able to touch every aspect of myself and put these aspects in relation with
one another. This helps me to have a clearer vision of who I am. In addition to periodic
medical examinations that are necessary for thorough prevention, I always have
pranatherapy treatments every two weeks, just like I did thirty years ago.
Damanhur, 2012 89 A Day in the Life of Damanhur During the last decades in Italy, there has been a radicalization of positions that are
almost more ideological than professional, with natural, "soft," or "alternative" medical
practitioners on one side, and scientific, "biomedical," or "conventional" medical
practitioners on the other. Fortunately, little by little, the barriers of mistrust are being
overcome through research. From this point of view, Damanhur has been at the forefront,
promoting and applying a model of integrated medicine, where the best choices for the
person, whether healthy or ill, are obtained by combining different kinds of knowledge and
experiences and making them complementary.
Let's ask ourselves what "natural" means today. Until a few years ago, a health
practitioner would answer that herbal products are more natural than pharmaceuticals, and
a session of acupuncture it is more natural than surgery. However, even though we begin
with the same considerations, it is necessary now to remember that we live in a constant
state of imbalance. The air we breathe is unnatural, as well as the food we eat and the
clothes we wear, not to mention the LED light frequencies from electronic devices that we
are immersed in, or the pace of life and the consumeristic impulses that guide us in our
choices. Even those of us who make alternative life choices still struggle with these
problems, though maybe to a lesser extent. So, we need a philosophy of what is natural that
balances out the little nature that we encounter in our daily lives. For this reason, a
conception of health based on the search for the most naturalness in prevention and healing
led us to include both the skills of the healer and those of the physician in a single health
model. Then, it is up to the individual, whether Damanhurian or not, to choose a direction
in consultation with a doctor, toward treatments that feel most suitable and effective for
oneself.
Damanhur, 2012 90 A Day in the Life of Damanhur One of the most interesting studios in DamanhurCrea is that of "Selfica." This is a
discipline that is based on the equilibrium between forms, materials and colors, giving rise to
structures that are able to attract and direct intelligent energy. Some Selfs are the size of a
ring or a bracelet, while others are decidedly larger. In the studio, all the Selfs that are
available to the public are on display, more than thirty of them. The most simple Selfs are
made of metal, while the more complex structures integrate microcircuits and specially
prepared liquids to act as transformers of energy and to carry out functions that support
the wellbeing of the person using it, harmonizing people and environments or amplifying
sensorial capacities. Each Self, in virtue of the form and materials with which it is made, has a
specific program, which it carries out in favor of the person wearing it through a sort of
symbiotic relationship.
Selfica is uniquely Damanhurian, and it has been developed since the first years of
Damanhur, parallel to research on pranatherapy. I have three of them, which isn't many
considering all the different possibilities offered by this kind of research. I have always
preferred to minimize the outside instruments I use in order to feel well, do research and
have experiences, in order to more fully develop my own personal potential. Other
Damanhurians have a different view of things: they believe that in order to find the right
note that resonates within, it is necessary to have a tuning fork that produces and transmits
it to their being, so the possibility of developing aspects of themselves is also proportional
to the use of Selfica. Everyone explores in their own chosen direction, following a path of
possibilities. Esperide, for example, even communicates with the Selfs, and for years, along
with other Damanhurian researchers, she has conducted seminars where these structures
Damanhur, 2012 91 A Day in the Life of Damanhur are used to train us to use our inner senses, namely, those related to the soul and to our
most subtle sensibility. I have participated in this course, having a deep experience of how
much these living structures can guide us in discovering the most hidden aspects of
ourselves. However, I still continue to use regularly only the heart-mind self, the one for
dreams and the Selfic pendulum. The first one helps me to stay connected, without the
rational or emotional side of myself overtaking the other. The second makes it so that
through dreams, I can elaborate ideas, receive inspiration, and find solutions to problems in
a way that is more lucid and aware than what habitually happens. With the third, I use
dowsing to address and resolve various questions.
One application of Selfica is the so-called "cabins." Cabins are environments in which
Selfic structures work on the whole of the individual. It is research that is in an experimental
phase, one that moves in the direction of the energetic equilibrium of individuals.
Damanhur, 2012 92 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER TEN -­‐ EXTRAORDINARY EVERYDAY PEOPLE The area for displaying products at Damanhur Crea 7:00 to 7:30 PM It is six o'clock in the evening. My next appointment is in an hour and a half, right here at
DamanhurCrea. So, I decide to sit down at a table at Arielvo, the organic café restaurant. I
have my computer with me to write, but most of all, I want to relax and chat, which can
easily be done here. In the late afternoon, DamanhurCrea, and Arielvo in particular, is
visited by many people, both Damanhurians and others, who come to shop at Tentaty, take
a look at the shops and studios, and have a drink while waiting for the community meeting
at 7:30 pm.
Damanhur, 2012 93 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Gradually, the large corridors where the café tables are located begin to fill with people
and friends. There are indeed many people who come to Damanhur to participate in our
initiatives. We have guests every day in our communities, friends who are connected
through specific interests in this or that field of research and practice, whether healing or
art for example. Participation in Damanhur can happen in many different ways, depending on
your personal inclinations and practical possibilities. There are people who live in a
Damanhur nucleo community, like Furetto and myself, and citizens of Damanhur who have
their own homes. When a person decides to become a citizen of Damanhur, first of all, he
or she chooses the level of participation. It is a personal choice that can be changed over
time, and it serves so that people are able to create a personal dimension that is satisfying
to them.
People who join Damanhur and choose to participate in the spiritual, cultural and
practical activities, though prefer to live on their own, may choose a non-residential
citizenship. Many non-residential citizens live in Valchiusella in the same villages where
Damanhur nucleo communities are located. They have moved their homes and their work
specifically to be near Damanhur. Others live in cities where there are now Damanhur
centers, and they participate in the organization of activities there. Still others live in distant
places, and take part in community life according to their abilities as often as they can.
People who choose to participate in Damanhur through community life choose resident
citizenship. These citizens live in nucleo communities, sharing in the expenses and
investments with the other inhabitants, and are willing to make their assets available for
community use, if they have them. For example, I still own a few small estates in Tuscany,
Damanhur, 2012 94 A Day in the Life of Damanhur together with my brothers. I am selling them now, and when I have done so, I will come to
an agreement with the King Guides about how to use this money. Traditionally, a part will
be allocated to my personal needs, and a part will go toward community investments. At
Damanhur, everyone owns their own possessions. The computer I am writing with is mine,
just like the antique table clock that I keep as a memory of my parents. The car Furetto and
I share is ours, as well as the furniture we have in our room, and our clothes and books that
are kept in the furniture. Citizenship involves sharing with others with respect to common
expenses, care for the land, and projects taken on together, but we all have wide areas of
personal management, including in economic concerns.
Amongst those who are animating DamanhurCrea this evening, there are the first
members of the Val di Chy project. "Val di Chy" is the ancient name of the lower
Valchiusella, exactly where we are now. Today, Val di Chy is a project that Damanhur
coordinates, inviting spiritual seekers, environmentalists, and those who are talking part in
creating a new world, to live in this clean and protected land, not far from the big cities
though surrounded by nature. Right now, in addition to Damanhurian communities, the
valley is already home to other small groups, such as the French Iomea community. One of
our dreams is that Val di Chy serves as a land of free thinking and solidarity.
In particular, we hope that with the beginning of the Temple of Peoples project, this will
become a multi-ethnic area with the presence of many different cultures united by a sense
of practical idealism that allows us to cultivate amazing dreams (The Parliament of Peoples),
translate them into practice (The Temple of Peoples) and stimulate new dreams to manifest
(a new consciousness that offers a future for the planet).
Damanhur, 2012 95 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Tonight, amongst the people around me here at the café, there are many whom I don't
know, and I try to understand what language they're speaking. If they speak in Italian, they
are probably people from Vidracco or the valley who have come here for some business. If
they speak a foreign language, they are most likely guests of Damanhur who are here for a
few days or Val di Chy residents. As always, I renew the intention to improve my high
school French and English, which are good enough to go to Paris and London without
getting lost, though not good enough to be able to communicate with our many guests.
In Damanhur, we give a lot of importance to hospitality, and the number of guests
increases exponentially every year ... "In Damanhur, we give a lot of importance to…" Here
is a phrase that in and of itself sums up many aspects of our philosophy. It's a kind of
element inherent in our DNA. We give the utmost attention to everything we do here. We
are not interested in doing things just to do them. And with the phrases, "give importance
to," "it is fundamental that," "one of our main points of attention is…" we underline the fact
that everything we do, we do with a great sense of commitment. We give great importance
to education, art, ecology, politics, recycling, play, rituals, the exaltation of beauty, studying
languages, research, preventative health, sharing, mutual respect, gender equality, cultural
traditions, interacting with neighboring towns, and of course hospitality ... I could go on for
quite a while. Of course, we can do all of these things seriously with one condition ... that
we don't take ourselves too seriously. Without a sense of humor, you can't be serious, and
vice versa. Oh, and I forgot: we give great importance to irony and being able to laugh at
ourselves!
Damanhur, 2012 96 A Day in the Life of Damanhur This also explains our relationship with time and commitments, which sometimes makes
our visitors say that we have too much to do and are always running. It would be more
correct to say that we are always busy, which is a symptom of being interested in what we
do. At times, they ask us what we do in our free time. However, I think that the concept of
free time seems to imply that, on the other hand, there is captive time, and in my
experience it is not like this. For example, would it be considered free time, the time that I
dedicate to my quails? Would it be captive time, the time that I am using to write this book?
From our perspective, there is time, and there are the things that we do. When we work,
whether it is the work we do for a living or the work we do in groups for big collective
works, from the Temples to paving roads, we are devoting time to something that interests
us, that is useful for developing a project in which we identify and invest energy. It is exactly
the same thing when we dedicate ourselves to discussing the possible developments of
Damanhur, or when we prepare a performance, or when we are at a café table, like I am
now, sipping peach juice and sharing in conversation and jokes with those who pass, and at
the same time, taking notes for the story of this day that I'm writing out.
As I intended, I am able to talk with several people. Crotalo Sesamo stops by, with
whom I share the responsibility of teaching the Meditation course in Croatia that I
mentioned before, and we discuss the program together.
Then Lepre comes over, whom I have known since she was a child. She is the daughter
of Lucciola Capelvenere and Bisonte Quercia, and today she is no longer a child. She asks
me if I can lend her a certain book that I read to her and her peers years ago during one of
my collaborations with the Damanhur School.
Damanhur, 2012 97 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I greet Pettirosso. I have also know her since we were both kids; she is my sister. She
first got to know Damanhur together with me, and some years ago, she decided to become
a citizen too. She informs me that she has called Emma, and she asks me if I have called
Luigi, who are our sister and brother.
I stop Albatros, a graphic designer from Palermo who has recently moved to Damanhur.
I make an appointment with him tomorrow to talk about an idea for future collaboration.
Alpaca Lavanda and Aragosta pass by, two of the actresses with whom we organize our
theatre performances, and they remind me that in two Sundays, there will be a seminar on
Chekhov, which makes me choke on my peach juice because I haven't studied the
monologue that I will recite. Unicorno, our teacher, who is an actress by profession in
Milan, is very demanding, and I can't allow myself to not know the part well.
Sparviero comes by. He is citizens of just a few weeks, and he asks if it would be
possible to borrow the tractor on Sunday, the one that my nucleo community usually uses. I
refer him to Lemming Cactus, who is responsible for the tractor and is seated two tables
away.
Damanhur, 2012 98 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I ask Antilope Verbena, who is responsible for courses at the Damanhur University, if
she can remember to send me the programs that regard me as an instructor, but she is
surrounded by French guests who are visiting Damanhur for a few days, and I'm not sure
that she understood me in the confusion.
With Elefantina Genziana, we say to each other, as we have for weeks now, that we
need to talk about a book that we have planned together, but there's no time now. Seeing
as how she takes care of our internal daily newspaper, she adds that I really should write
something for the paper, since I haven't for a while. This is true.
Over there yonder are Betsy and Eddie, an American couple who have come here from
Los Angeles, even though Eddie is a full-blooded New Yorker. Olivia, their daughter, is one
of Furetto's students. Betsy was immediately attracted to Damanhur when she first came
here, and Eddie is discovering Damanhur little by little. They moved here recently and got a
place in Vidracco. I know that they are traveling to the United States soon, and I take
advantage of the opportunity to ask them a favor. I collect foreign editions of Pinocchio, and
I would like them to find me an American version without Walt Disney illustrations, of
which I have many. It is the first time that they are returning home since moving here, and
they are excited and full of things to do, but they assure me they will try to satisfy my
request.
Finally, Gabbiano, Coyote Cardo and Ornitorinco Platano pass by arm in arm with each
other. They, along with myself and others, take part in one of the oldest research groups on
Damanhur, 2012 99 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Damanhurian philosophy. The Theoretical Group invites me to join them in the Adriano
Olivetti conference hall to be able to speak in a quieter setting.
As I get up and pay for my drink, I get a message on my mobile phone. It's Furetto, who
writes, "Big news. We'll talk about it at home."
Damanhur, 2012 100 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER ELEVEN -­‐ MY FRIEND FALCO Falco and I, talking in front of one of his Selfic paintings at Damanhur Crea 7:30 -­‐ 8:30 PM With my Theoretical Group comrades, we prepare the topics we would like to present
at the serata that will begin soon, here in the Adriano Olivetti conference hall in
DamanhurCrea. The "serata" is an hour to hour and a half meeting with citizens and guests.
Serata takes place every Wednesday and Thursday evening. The first part of the evening,
organized by the Senate, is dedicated to news from our nucleo communities. There is often
a nucleo community, Damanhur company, or research group that wants to share
information about their activities. The second part is more specifically dedicated to
research, and it involves the direct participation of Falco, who answers many questions and
with whom we can discuss ideas and opinions.
Damanhur, 2012 101 A Day in the Life of Damanhur There is sometimes a third part for meeting with the King Guides or other organizations of
the community, or for video showings that give everyone a chance to see what is happening
around the various Damanhur territories.
Wednesday evenings are usually dedicated to citizens, and the themes are mostly,
though not exclusively, related to Damanhur as a social, political, and philosophical
experience. On Thursday, which is a serata open to guests and broadcast live on the
Internet, we talk more about Spiritual Physics. Explaining what Spiritual Physics is can be
quite complicated given the breadth of the subject. In short, I can define it as the subject
that investigates reality as a unified concept, in which everything that is and is not physical is
interconnected and interdependent.
Quantum Physics is now making great strides in hypothesizing the universe as the result
of interaction between energy, mass and consciousness, time as a malleable dimension, and
human beings as a fragment of a "living system" that includes entities which are beyond what
we can scientifically detect. Spiritual Physics hypothesizes that our universe is based on an
equilibrium of eight general laws, from which forms come into being; that the universe of
forms is one of many possible universes, and that it is maintained through the complexity
that it can express; that time is to be considered a territory, a fabric that branches out like a
plant, with healthy branches and weak ones, along which humanity moves…humanity which
is the result of the fragmentation of forces, that could be defined as "divine," into a myriad
of existing forms. Every Thursday evening is dedicated to this, discussing various aspects of
Damanhur, 2012 102 A Day in the Life of Damanhur proposed theories, formulating hypotheses, and every time, broadening and clarifying this
vision of cosmogenesis a little more.
The liveliest part of the evening is always the part that involves Falco. It is when we
discuss the most important issues, with the most participation from everyone present,
although for us in particular, it is the moment when we are able to meet all together with
our spiritual guide.
Falco was born in 1950 in Balangero, near Turin. His father was a policeman, assigned to
diplomatic service, and his mother a housewife. Falco has three children: a girl who lives in
Damanhur and two older children in Turin. He has one grandchild. Falco's history is
fascinating. Since childhood, he manifested paranormal and healing abilities that caused
phenomena which sometimes amused and sometimes frightened his friends. The anecdotes
are very rich and colorful. They include washing machines that scamper around the house,
children who fly, and mysterious apparitions! Dovilia, his mother and a citizen of Damanhur,
now laughs and says that thanks to her son, she has learned the art of patience.
Gifted with a very curious and meticulous character, Falco began to study these
phenomena during his childhood, learning to control them within himself. As an adult,
through study, travel and research, his experimentation continues in a thousand different
fields, and he has been able to reawaken memories and rediscover ancient knowledge. The
latter, which he continually verifies, originates from his ability to draw on deep reservoirs of
humankind's knowledge and the connection that Damanhur has created with the divine
Damanhur, 2012 103 A Day in the Life of Damanhur cosmic forces of the new millennium, through what we call the "Triad," that is, the
harmonious relationship with all the forces of the spiritual ecosystem of the universe.
Falco holds no decision-making roles within the political and social structure of
Damanhur. On the other hand, he is very active in research in the fields of wellness, art and
new technologies of the border between science and spirituality.
I have known Falco since 1978. The first time I saw him was quite curious. I came home
one evening to the apartment where I lived with my family, and down the hall, through the
open door of my room which I shared with my brother Luigi, I saw a young man sitting on
the headboard of my bed facing Luigi, who had been struggling with a nagging health
problem for a long time.
I was not even remotely interested, but I knew that my parents were attending the
pranatherapy studio where Orango Riso practiced at the time. Orango drove from Turin to
Grosseto every week. I also knew that in those days, the leader of this Horus Center was
coming to Tuscany and there was a chance that he would pass by our house to do a
pranatherapy session with Luigi. However, if you had told me that this young man, perched
rather awkwardly on a bamboo trellis, would be one of the people who most influenced my
life…Well, I wouldn't have laughed because I am an educated person, but I certainly
wouldn't have given much credit to the person who said it. That evening, I avoided entering
the room, saying goodbye to my parents and leaving in a hurry to meet my friends.
Damanhur, 2012 104 A Day in the Life of Damanhur But in any case, here I am thirty years later. Along my pathway of getting close to
Damanhur, which involved the first courses in pranatherapy and traveling to participate in
the Solstice rites, Falco remained in the background. At the center of my discovery of
Damanhur was my own personal blossoming, the formation of my values and my desire for
a life that is coherent with them. The fact that I was choosing a pathway which had a guide,
a source of inspiration, was an important factor, but I, who am the oldest sibling in my
family, wasn't so impressed by the fact of having chosen a kind of older brother. It was
Damanhur which had struck me, not its founder. Moreover, Falco didn't do anything to act
as a guru or life teacher to me or anyone else, in those days or now. He did things alongside
us, things that were useful to give life to the project which he had inspired, and he was
available to offer advice and help to those who asked. Then, once I became a citizen of
Damanhur and had a chance to talk with him every day, I began entering into direct
relationship with him.
It's enough to read his writings or hear him speak about Damanhur to realize how much
desire to take action, passion and creativity animate him. However, his main strength lies
not in his personal characteristics, but in his capacity to stimulate the expression of other
people's talents. The pathway of growth that Falco proposes is aimed at defining and
bringing to the surface the best characteristics of each individual, and then to develop them.
Being in contact with him means constantly thinking about how much we want to develop
our talents, and why not create some new ones for ourselves as well. It is very demanding,
and also very stimulating.
Damanhur, 2012 105 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Falco is the spiritual leader of Damanhurians precisely in this sense: he constantly
reminds us that it is possible to find talents within ourselves that go far beyond the
expectations we have. We host a fragment of God within us; we ourselves are dormant
divinities, and the only limits to what we can express are found within our imagination and
intentions.
To constantly encourage us to dream and go beyond the limits that we often believe we
have, Falco himself is a constantly erupting volcano of new ideas, provocations and
initiatives. For this reason, his weight in Damanhur goes beyond the fact that he doesn't
hold any official roles. His constantly proactive way of being often makes it so that the
direction we take is the one that he indicates. He has a lot of prestige in Damanhur and his
opinion is highly esteemed by everyone. I don't deny that sometimes this has irritated me,
when I had the feeling that his initiatives took space away from those of others who, in my
opinion, deserved more, but his way of being, so fast and prolific with ideas, is one of the
ways in which he encourages us, as if to say, "Learn to be fast and dynamic in your creativity,
ride the times, and create space for your dreams."
Sometimes, the same idea proposed by me or proposed by him has a different effect on
people. Though in the end, it makes sense, since Damanhur was founded
on his vision and not someone else's. That we all take his observations into great
consideration is implicit in the very fact of being part of this project.
Damanhur, 2012 106 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Falco lives in a way that almost denies his own charisma, in that he has a very simple and
friendly manner. He always talks with everyone. He doesn't try to use an attitude that may
in some way impress people. He is not very interested in promoting his own public image,
much to the chagrin of those who are responsible for receiving journalists at Damanhur
who often wish to meet Falco. In spite of this, he serves as a reference point for everyone,
both for those who know him well and for those who have just arrived to Damanhur and
maybe feel a little in awe of his personality and the great esteem that surrounds him.
Personally, one thing I admire about him is his total dedication to Damanhur. Falco is a
wealthy man, seeing as how he has a strong following both as a healer and a painter, the two
main activities that he dedicates himself to. And yet, he spends all his own time for
Damanhur, in research, in speaking with Damanhurians who enjoy discussing things with
him, in developing projects for the Temples of Humankind. He does the same with his own
money, which he invests in our collective dream. He dresses in a simple way and has a car
that he drives himself. He doesn't attend high-profile salons. The house where he lives is
large, though he shares it with other Damanhurians; it is not an exclusive residence where
he lives alone ... The only extravagance that he allows himself is a small, lightweight twoseater helicopter, which he sometimes uses to go from one Damanhur territory to another
when the weather is favorable, but he's not the only one who uses it. Tapiro Acero and
Rampichino Tek are also helicopter pilots.
Even though I don't have roles that put me into contact with Falco daily, I have many
occasions to speak with him. My ideas do not always coincide with his, and of course we
have had disagreements. Sometimes I change my mind, sometimes I stick with my original
Damanhur, 2012 107 A Day in the Life of Damanhur idea. Sometimes I see him adopt a different viewpoint than he started out with. If I were to
choose a business partner, I wouldn't get involved with him. He's too fast and too much of
an interventionist, while I enjoy reflecting on things and planning them calmly. He is,
however, the first consultant whom I would choose to ask for advice, encouragement,
energy and the ability to turn every problem into an opportunity.
Actually, he is already a "consultant" to each of us in a certain sense. Identifying him as a
spiritual guide means just that. He gives me a hand in making progress with my growth, my
social and spiritual refinement, offering me themes to reflect upon, such as those of Spiritual
Physics, or by suggesting - as he did many years ago - community life as a way to ensure that
people get into contact with each other and in doing so, get into contact with themselves.
Who is Falco for me? A brilliant and affable man? A traveling companion? A Master? One
definition does not exclude the other. Falco is a person I believe in, because I feel the spirit
with which he speaks to me and speaks to each one of us is deeply authentic, and I feel the
things he says resonate within me profoundly, even when they are different from my usual
way of thinking. The two comic books that I have mentioned before, of which I am one of
the authors, tell about his faraway origins in time and space and his mission for the planet.
We wrote it, I wrote it, because I believe in it. Envoy, avatar, enlightened being, space-time
traveler: everyone can choose the definition that is most suitable, the most useful symbol to
encourage oneself to always go beyond one's limits and live life with enchantment and
optimism.
Damanhur, 2012 108 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Tonight, the discussion during the meeting with Falco moves through various topics,
almost all of them related in some way to the theme of synchronic lines and the
connections they can make between this and other parallel universes, according to one
person's hypothesis. As always, I wasn't able to follow the discussion well, because during
the serata meetings, I serve as a kind of emcee with the task of presenting the program for
the evening, indicating the order of the speakers, and getting the microphone to those who
have requested it. In doing so, I cannot fully follow what is being said, though it doesn't
matter. Tomorrow I will get the recording and listen to it again with my headphones.
I see Furetto at the far end of the conference hall, talking with the King Guides, whom
she already met in the afternoon.
Finally, Furetto is free. Again she says to me that there is big news and asks me to resist
my curiosity until we get home so she can tell everyone at the same time. I was hoping she
would give me a hint, but I say yes anyway. While we drive through the woods, cutting
through them with the light of our headlights while preceded and followed by others going
back to Tentyris, we tell each other about our day.
Damanhur, 2012 109 A Day in the Life of Damanhur CHAPTER TWELVE -­‐ A NEW PROJECT? 8:30 PM We're home. We have just enough time for us to go to our bedroom and change
clothes before we are at the dinner table with the others. There is Nausica, a biologist,
whom I ask about my tests on hereditary diseases. Cormorano Sicomoro, the lawyer, is
freshly arrived from a day of hearings in Ivrea and Turin, and he is rather tired. His wife
Ramarra Bucaneve, a laboratory technician, is on the phone with Neftj, their fifteen-year-old
daughter, who should have already come home and instead is still in Ivrea at a high school
friend's house. Ramarra and Neftj are negotiating her return time. There is Wallaby
Pulsatilla, an obstetrician, who is getting ready to leave because she'll begin her shift at the
hospital soon. There's Tursiope, a German woman who has been living in Italy for a few
years and works at a call center. She is very happy because her sister will arrive tomorrow
morning from Berlin. There's her son Avalo who is eight years old and will soon go to bed.
There's Addax Melograno, who leaves for Japan tomorrow morning, where at the Yokkaici
and Kobe Damanhur Centers she will hold courses and presentations with Fenice and
Dugongo. She needs to finish packing. Gracchio Basilico will come home later, as he was
invited to dinner at another nucleo community.
Addax cooked dinner, since she had her nucleo turn in the afternoon. In light of the
important news that Furetto has for us, this is a good thing because Addax is a very skilled
cook. If it's good news, the pumpkin soup, savory soufflés and sweet and sour meatballs that
Damanhur, 2012 110 A Day in the Life of Damanhur I see on the table will be an excellent way to celebrate. If it's bad news, at least we can
console ourselves with the food.
Ramarra and Neftj come to an agreement. Neftj has a ride from her friend's parents,
who know the way because they've come here to visit us before. Ramarra hangs up the
phone and we can start talking. Furetto gets straight to the point. Given the difficulties of
expansion for Casa del Lago in an area that is so small, the King Guides proposed that we
move to another Damanhurian house called "Cometaa."
Cometaa is in Vidracco, and it is a house that is already large enough to accommodate
us all. It also has more options for expansion. Now, it is being underutilized because many
of the former residents have moved out in order to participate in new projects. The few
people who still live there could join our group, if we all agree. The area around the house
is spacious and offers great possibilities. We could take the animals and equipment that we
bought for Casa del Lago with us. Casa del Lago would be available for other Tentyris
nucleo communities as a place for hospitality.
Furetto said it all in one breath. She knows that on the one hand, this is something that
finally opens up prospects that we have been seeking for a long time, and hadn't found here.
On the other hand, it means leaving a house and an area that we all identify with and love
very much. When we first came to live in this house, newly restored by Mbm - the
Damanhurian company that specializes in these types of affairs, it was so small it seemed like
a dollhouse, yet we found all the necessary solutions to live well even with little space.
Damanhur, 2012 111 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Then, we were able to do some expansions, build a small wooden structure, and then
because of the tight constraints imposed by the City in this area, that was it. The land had
also been transformed by our work. We removed diseased plants, created space,
reintroduced plants and undergrowth, cleaned and delineated the course of the streams.
For some of us, such as Furetto and me, we were repeating what we had already done years
ago at Magilla, where we didn't even have electricity during the first months. Tonight's
proposal means not only moving from Casa del Lago, but also leaving Tentyris after many
years ...
... Despite this, I am pretty sure that we will accept. It is the prospect that we have been
searching for over the past few months, and the fact that we can all go there together is the
most important aspect. Tonight is too early to decide, as there are still several people
missing from the meeting, and of course we all want to take some time to think about it.
After a brief pause however, we begin to talk about it as if we were already living there,
imagining the developments that this new direction would bring. Only Tursiope has some
doubts, not about the value of the choice, but about herself coming with Avalo. For some
time now, she has wanted to move into a nucleo community with other children the same
age as her son, and just recently, the nucleo Dendera has told her that they have room. ...
Furetto adds that the King Guides would like a response within a couple of days, and if the
answer is positive, we could move right away. We decide to meet again tomorrow evening
for a definitive answer, and meanwhile, Furetto sends a text message to Gracchio, who
hasn't come back yet, asking him to call her tomorrow morning because there is important
news.
Damanhur, 2012 112 A Day in the Life of Damanhur We almost hadn't touched the dinner Addax prepared, all taken by hearing the King
Guide's proposal. Now we finally get to eating while we continue to talk about the
possibilities. As Furetto remains seated at the table discussing with the others, I put on a
sweater and go outside. I walk away from the circle of illumination from the lights around
the house and enter into the darkness amongst the trees, while for a few moments, the
honking of the geese in their pasture signals my passing. I know the way by heart, and I
didn't take a flashlight with me. I turn off my mobile phone and breathe in the strong scents
of the woods, which the moisture of the early nighttime brings to me.
I reach "my" rock, where I often go to talk with the woods and its creatures. It is a large
boulder, which emerges from the earth in a pyramidal shape with an edge that seems like
the high prow of a ship, on which I sit. I close my eyes, breathe, listen within and outside of
myself.
Since I moved here, I have learned to become sensitive to the beings of the land, those
that are traditionally labeled as gnomes, hobbits, nymphs, kobolds, trolls ... With all due
respect for Tolkien and similar authors, I think that the researcher, medium or poet who
describes these beings by insisting on their anthropomorphism is basically like an Italian
tourist who wants to eat the spaghetti while in Australia, resistant to imagining something
different from what he or she already knows. Well, I simply know that every place is
inhabited not only by plants and animals but also by other creatures and energies with
whom I can share my thoughts and emotions with.
Damanhur, 2012 113 A Day in the Life of Damanhur This evening is quite full of emotions and thoughts, given the prospect of moving to
another house in another area, and so I came here, as in other times, to receive signs and
inspirations. I am listening, freeing the mind to absorb what may come to me. After ten
minutes, a new thought arrives to me. It seems to be a viaticum for our move. "The first
thing to do is find a spot on the new land, get to know it, make friends and communicate
with the forces that inhabit it."
I am still breathing, with my hands resting on the rock. The message is very clear, and it
makes me smile, realizing that I am completely in the dark under the night sky.
The wind begins to blow a little and I start to feel cold. I feel that the contact has ended.
One of the strongest feelings that this territory gives me is the availability of its subtle
inhabitants to leave us humans in charge around here while there is daylight, provided that
in return, we leave them free to move as they wish in the dark. Tonight I made an
exception, coming here after dark, and they came to meet me, but now it's time to go back.
I go back into the house, and finally Furetto and I go to our room. It's a nice room with
a wooden loft that allows us to separate our living and sleeping areas.
Instinctively, I think about the home improvements that I wanted to do - moving a shelf,
adding a point of light - and I say to myself that this time, laziness probably did me a favor by
saving me the futile effort.
Damanhur, 2012 114 A Day in the Life of Damanhur Furetto and I talk for a while. The change that is being proposed is very stimulating, and
we believe that everyone will be in favor of it. By changing homes, we also change our
habits, reference points, ways of relating to the land, and this is the most exciting part of it.
We can predict how it will change our lives from a practical point of view, but we don't
know what to expect from all the other points of view. This is the preciousness of change. If
we knew word for word what to expect, what kind of change would it be? Instead, we're
going to go and create something new, we're not even sure what it is yet, and we will do it
with commitment and enjoyment.
Finally, we go up to the loft where we have our bed.
Damanhur, 2012 115 A Day in the Life of Damanhur EPILOGUE It's morning again. This morning, I didn't wake up before the alarm clock. It was the
beeping that woke me up at 6:50. I have a thought buzzing in my head. It was as if I were
seeing the same scene many times from different angles, or hearing words in different
languages and "knowing" that they are telling the same story. I also feel the urge to take
notes about this scene that I see and hear in stereo ... I get out of bed and understand: it's
the idea I was seeking while in the Temples of Humankind for the theatre show I want to
write. I could write a script where enlightenment is manifested in different ways, in parallel,
Damanhur, 2012 116 A Day in the Life of Damanhur perhaps in different people. I could give more space to it than I had imagined so far. I come
down from the loft, take some notes and work on it.
Meanwhile, Furetto has gotten up, and when I see her, the second thought of the day
comes to me: the impending move, the new house, the prospects that are opening up. I'll
have to organize well to be able to get everything done, from moving our bedroom to
moving all the shared household belongings, to transporting the animals, while also being
able to do my job. I will have, we will have, a few weeks full of things to do. Fortunately, we
are not alone in this - we are a group, and there will be others who will surely give us a
hand.
I am happy with my life. I chose many years ago to build it through the experience of
Damanhur, and now, I choose it again day after day. I do not live in a personal paradise
where everything is easy and right within reach. I live in a place that is "real," where
everyone can formulate their own dreams and strive to realize them. You need patience,
you need the ability to put your own dreams into relation with those of others, but
everyone can find the space to express and realize them. There could be moments of
bitterness, because understanding the viewpoints of others in a community is important, and
it is not necessarily going to be easy. However, you will always receive all the answers you
need if you make an effort. What I have learned, and what I realize at times like when I meet
old friends, is that this is a valuable and rare thing. I personally assume responsibility for my
own choices without delegating it to others and without depending on anyone. We are the
ones who are taking action, always, and it is always the individual who works through his or
Damanhur, 2012 117 A Day in the Life of Damanhur her own choices, even when they go toward making collective decisions, even when he or
she recognizes someone else in the role of spiritual guide.
I don't know what Damanhur will be like in twenty years, and I don't know what I'll be
doing at Damanhur. I like to imagine that it will be more widespread around the world, with
new nuances in our way of thinking, new points of view to enrich our experience and
culture. I hope that the community movement expands all over the planet, along with the
practical cooperation between all the many, diverse communities that exist, in order to
represent - are we exaggerating here? Well then, let's exaggerate! - the inspiration for a
new global governance, one that not only tries to limit wars as the UN does, but to create
the conditions for the wellbeing of all of humanity.
In the coming months, the Temple of Peoples project will set to sail, and in twenty
years, though let's hope it happens before that, the Parliament of Peoples will become a
reality, in the name of global harmony, with a large auditorium and collection of ancient and
modern texts, in a "beautiful" structure - I don't know how else to describe it - connected
to the Temples of Humankind through long corridors that we have dug through hard work
and fun, together with new Damanhurians and new friends.
Twenty years is a long time from now. Meanwhile, the morning presses onward, with
the sun beginning to shine out from behind a hill to the east of Casa del Lago, with the
sound of someone who has slipped into the bathroom before me, with the smell of coffee
Damanhur, 2012 118 A Day in the Life of Damanhur that the early-birds have already put on the stove as the scent rises up along the staircase. I
stretch, look at myself in the mirror and smile.
Damanhur, 2012 119 A Day in the Life of Damanhur NOTE The final draft of "My Damanhur" sat in a drawer for almost two years before it was
published, because I was caught up in so many commitments, along with Furetto, and some
things got left behind.
If you come to Damanhur, you'll find that in the meantime, as always happens around
here, some things have transformed and changed. I won't tell you which ones; I'll let you find
out for yourself. From late summer of 2010, Damanhur has launched a new project, "New
Life" for people who want to have a community experience. It is the possibility to become a
citizen of Damanhur for three months, going directly into one of the communities and
participating from day one in all the aspects of Damanhurian life. At the end of the three
months, you may conclude your experience and return home or choose to become a
citizen. Many different people from Italy and all over the world are participating, including
many who are getting to know Damanhur for the first time through New Life. Maybe in a
year from now, Damanhur will be even more diverse and multifaceted, more international
(this is almost certain), more ... different in a way that I can't imagine now, because if I could
imagine it, it would mean that the developments are predictable, and that's not what we
want.
We will see. Meanwhile, some aspects of my life have changed. For example, the
proposed move of our nucleo community and merger with another group took place. Then,
Damanhur, 2012 120 A Day in the Life of Damanhur another new project was started, and Furetto and I are now part of the Cambioidea group
in Vidracco.
The theatre text on enlightenment is on hold for the moment. Unfortunately, something
went wrong with the computer I was using and I lost a lot of files. Remember to do regular
back ups of your computer!
The Val Ra brand doesn’t exist anymore, as it is been substituted by other labels. In the
meantime at Damanhur, there continue to be thesis papers and essays written, as well as
university research.
The site for the Temple of Peoples is warming up its engines. There are an infinite
number of bureaucratic steps to move thorough, and the design is complex, though little by
little, we are getting in touch with groups of spiritual people, ethnic groups, all interested in
building a dream with us.
There are so many people to thank, but there are even more whom I wanted to
mention in the book. There wasn't enough space, so maybe I'll do it again some other time.
In the midst of many changes, the spirit and the substance that animate Damanhur are
the same. That's why I proposed that you read about my experience here. It's one thing to
Damanhur, 2012 121 A Day in the Life of Damanhur imagine, hear from other sources, interpret, but the true story of Damanhur can only be
told by someone who was there… who is here.
July 2012
Damanhur, 2012 122 REFERENCES Esperide Ananas and Stambecco Pesco, Scacco al tempo!, Val Ra Damanhur, Baldissero C.
(TO) 2007.
Luigi Berzano, Damanhur, popolo e comunità, ElleDiCi, Leunamm-Torino 1996.
Luigi Berzano, Religiosità del nuovo areopago, F. Angeli, Milano 1994.
Mario Cardano, Lo specchio, la rosa e il loto, Seam, Roma 1997.
Philip Carr-Gomm, Sacred Places, Quercus, London 2008.
Adam Déjamour and Gabrielle Déjamour, Damanhur Guide, Déjamour Design, Torino
2006.
Cristiano De Majo and Fabio Viola, Italia 2 viaggio nel Paese che abbiamo inventato,
Minimum fax, Roma 2008.
Maria Immacolata Macioti, Il fascino del carisma, Liguori, Roma 2009.
Jeff Merrifield, Damanhur, The Story of an Extraordinary Italian Artistic and Spiritual
Community, Thorsons, London 2006.
Bill Metcalf, "Damanhur: un magico viaggio iniziatico", in Communities Magazine - n. 103,
1999.
Massimo Introvigne, Il cappello del mago, SugarCo, Milano 1990.
Massimo Introvigne e Pierlugi Zoccatelli (a c. di), Le religioni in Italia, ElleDiCi, LeunammTorino 2006
A Day in the Life of Damanhur DAMANHUR, FEDERATION OF COMMUNITIES Damanhur is a collective dream transformed into reality thanks to the creative power of
positive thought -- a Spiritual EcoCommunity nestled in the hills of Northern Italy that
promotes a culture of peace and holistic sustainability through solidarity, respect for the
environment, arts and education.
A center for spiritual, artistic and social research known throughout the world.
Damanhurian philosophy is based on action, optimism and the idea that every human being
lives to leave something of themselves to the others and to contribute towards the growth
and evolution of the whole of humanity.
Every year thousands of people visit Damanhur to experience the social model and
study the philosophy, but what sets Damanhur apart from other eco and spiritual
communities is the Temples of Humankind. Often called the "Eighth Wonder of the World,"
the Temples were dug by hand from the stone mountain by the people of Damanhur.
For more about Damanhur, visit: www.damanhur.org
Damanhur, 2012 124