THE DREAM VERSUS THE REALITY OF DAMANHUR

It was around seven years ago now that I was able to fulfill one of my long held dreams - going to Damanhur. My dream took hold when I saw amazing photos of the artwork in the temples in a New Age Magazine called Kindred Spirit. The article itself talked of the community spirit and the spirituality that was Damanhur.

I convinced a friend of the time to accompany me on this wonderful adventure. We booked for a five day stay in, what we were led to believe was going to be, the Damanhur community site. We were met at the airport by the driver of one of their mini buses. A friendly man, late middle age, he eventually found the five of us who were booked on the trip and quickly herded us into the waiting transport. My friend and I did not know the other three but soon chatted away whilst watching the flashing scenery as we were quickly taken to our destination. As we exchanged our personal information we found we all had reasons why Damanhur had attracted us and were all pursuing our own spiritual paths, either already helping others or involved in the arts.

We were all very excited and the energies were running high but to our utter disapointment the mini bus stopped at a house on a deserted mountainside path with steel gates around its perimeters and nobody else around. Our friendly guide, deposited our luggage into the entrance hall and told us he would pick us up in the morning at 10 oclock. We had no food with us and there was none in the lodgings. I believe we had tea, coffee and water. I questioned at the time gently why we were not going to be staying in the community to get some idea of how it worked but he did not want to enlarge on the reasons except to say this was how it always was and that we were not allowed to live in the community.

We were in the bottom half of the building and apparantely some of those who live in the Damanhur community lived above us - but we never saw any of them to speak to. They never came into the courtyard or to talk to us in our lounge below over the five days we lodged there. We found out from this that no one actually lived in the main area of Damanhur but that they owned lots of these houses which were spaced around the area, each one having its own large polytunnel where they grew organic produce.

We found out very quickly that they do not see visitors as a joyous part of sharing what Damanhur is really about. During this first evening we talked of all feeling that we had just been abandoned in this out of the way property with no possible transport to look around the area. We could not walk either as we were on a very steep incline so were virtual prisoners. The next morning we were picked up and taken to a supermarket run by Damanhur - also outside of the community area where the art and temples are to be seen. Here we were told to purchase any food items we would need to cook our meals back at the lodgings. All of the food in the shop was organic which I was used to but was expensive and very limited in choice for those that were not used to this sort of diet. This routine went on all week, stranded each late afternoon, early evening with no transport and no possible way to explore the area or join in activities at Damanhur.

The surrounding area to these lodgings, our abode was stark, bare and uninspired. There was no where around the property to sit and enjoy flowers, vegetables growing. We were not allowed really to go into the polytunnel which was sealed off but we did one day and saw that even the way things were growing was very much like a bulk grower with stark rows and not much variety. This was how the crops were grown for the community with each dwelling being given the same size and style polytunnel. Coming from my own wonderful small sustainable project back in England where the crops grew around the tourist area of my open organic garden and windmill project this was a shock. I had been inspired to design the tunnel with a dome at the far end and instead of plastic standard struts to coppice the local willow and hazel and the end result that myself and an experienced yurt and tipee builder designed was a creative force in itself. Everything we do in life can be creative and my own polytunnel where I grew everything imaginable was a favourite for visitors to spend time in, drinking there tea and enjoying the incredible growing energies in this environment. Individual creative instinct is something to be cherished and shared and can be solely missing when rules of one individual are followed.

Each day except for one day where we were taken to a museum in the centre of Turin, we were taken to the main Damanhur site and were escorted around the different areas. In the complex where the little art and craft workshops were housed we saw various people at work but were actively discouraged from talking to anyone. There was a very strange energy that pervaded the whole experience. It was like walking around a film set with a guide but you were not allowed to participate in their reality. My friend and I eventually decided that on one of the days we were going to lose our guide. This proved more difficult than we thought but we did eventually manage it for maybe upto one hour! But on entering some of the workshops we had visited before it was obvious that there would only ever be a very polite short reply to any of our conversation. Very strange, very robotic.

When it came to meal times, none of our dreams of sitting around large wooden tables with the community enjoying shared meals and conversation happened!!! We were driven to maybe two or three different restaurants which our guide chose and we noticed just how pally he was with the owners. There was obviously some reciprocal monetary exchange going on, our guide not only drank heavily but also proceeded to order for us. He told us what the evening meal was and expected us to make no request for anything else. This all seemed pre-arranged and part of some sort of deal! After a couple of days I plucked up courage to ask him whether we could possible choose where we ate and what we ate. By the end of the five days we did manage to have maybe one meal that we chose ourselves. One of the points for me here was the amount of wine this man consumed and then drove like a mad man up the narrow mountain roads to take us back to our solitary confinement. He did not like it when approached about this totally irresponsible behaviour and said that it was not one of the rules of Damanhur to watch how much wine you drank! One of the rules of the lodgings was that you could not smoke within the parameters of the property so had to go outside the large metal gates if you were a smoker but you could anaesthatise your self as much as you wanted with alcohol! When asked he said that that was the rules they had within the whole community and that the smoke within the gates had some significance for the leader but the affects of alcohol did not.

In order to go into the so called temples we had to go through what they call a preparatory intiation. This took a couple of days of walking through a labrynth, a series of physical exercises and maybe a couple of other things which are not that significant since I cant now remember them.

This seemed to me to be attempting to build us up to an anticipation of what we were to see. At the time I had been a disciplined meditator for over 25 years so I was very much in the observer mode watching the "game". I asked our guide once why he was not interested in us as we all had interesting journeys and spiritual lives but he never joined in our conversations and exchanges and I felt he could not really comprehend the question. He could not relate to community or the oneness that the event could have been for all of us sharing but only saw it that they were the elite and we were the visiting people who knew nothing.

There was a concerted effort at all times by everyone we met to remain totally separate from us and not "let us in". Because my friend and I were of the questioning nature we found out through total synchronicity from being at the right place at the right time that there was one of their special meetings happening when the leader of the community would attend, give some sort of oratation and then answer questions from his community. We were given tickets by some other people who could not attend and our guide reluctantly allowed us to take our places. At the community most if not all of the people have animal or bird names, The leader was Falco (or in english falcon). After some time of waiting he duly arrived sat rather morosely, slumped in a chair on the stage. We had a very low level Italian translation going on in earphones but this was barely audible so I cannot remember what was said but it was pretty normal procedual instructions for the community from what I do remember. After the event he made a very quick exit from the stage and I quickly ran outside the building just in time to see him being driven away by some sort of body guard. I was quickly followed and apprehended by our guide! Later on that evening we were apprehended again for attempting to talk to some of the community members.

I had wanted just to ask a few questions and begin to have some understanding of what sort of "community" this was and why there seemed to be a robotic victim energy around the whole place. But that was not to be. What our guide told me about the leader was that he was now very involved with designing "games" for the community to play and was not at the community area because of all of the work this entailed. These games he said were very complex and involved different groups of people learning from complex scenarios that were being set by the Master, oops I meant leader. These games went on for weeks at a time and he couldn't really explain why, except that they were controlled by Falco. This experience is not something I have thought about in a while so some of the finer details evade me. I have just remembered our guides name was I believe the Italian for sparrow hawk. Our guide by the way, told us that he was one of the original members who first started the community with his friend Falco so he was no novice!

The final day before we left was our guided tour of the temples which we all felt was what we were there for, since nothing else had held any great inspiration for us. Don't get me wrong here some of the art and craft workshops had wonderful creativity in the objects but it was the weird sense that everyone was controlled and held no individuality that made it a downwood spiral. When I asked in one particular workshop why they were doing a particular design, I was simply told that all designs were created by the leader. They then went back to silently working, this for all us was pretty mind blowing. When we eventually got into the temple area I was also told that all the designs there were created by the leader.

Back to the temple, we approached the entrance which was a hole in the mountain side and were taken into an unworked part of the construction first which had a terrible overwhelming sulphurus smell of urine. We had all been built up to this experience by the talk-up of needing to be initiated before entering the temple so we all in the beginning blocked this first experience and only later talked about it. We were all trying to hold onto some part of our dream, even after the first three days we had experienced at Damanhur. We walked into the first large chamber to view the artwork. I immediately felt the biggest let down when I looked at the contrived hollywood type cartoon charcters painted on the walls. They looked like flat actors and actresses all with the all american L.A look. Women with out of proportion hollywood style figures and men who looked like male fashion models. I decided to say nothing and just carry on through the tour because I did not want to affect any of the other parties experiences by verbalising my disapointment. But after a while my friend turned to me and said do you feel anything spiritual here and I was relieved that I was not the only one who felt that way. I was able to then voice to her that I could feel no higher vibration here and the artwork was average but also very strange in dipicting these characatures.

We went from room to room of bizarre artwork, some good, some midling but nothing that carried a high vibration of inspiration. The only thing I would say is the stained glass ceilings were magnificant and I realised these were the views I had been impressed with in the magazine shots.

This was the final let down for all of us and I began to understand why the big build up emphasis. Over the 25 years or so that this project was underway the world outside has developed inspirationally and spiritually and I am sure that they have had many visitors like us who were sorely disappointed. Through the initiation build up if you were not really awake and aware I'm sure it is possible to be led in a mind controlled way to see and feel it all differently.

I believe in the beginning when the leader and his friends first punched that first hole in the mountain side that it was an inspired act. Certainly it has been said that the feat of building so many chambers in that mountain side without experienced engineers can only have been pure intuition. But and this is a big but, there are many things about this community that did not fulfill my dream of seeing a utopian community living together in an inspired way for 25 years.

During more of the conversations I initiated with our guide he did tell me that they have a problem with the children who have been brought up there who do not want to stay and leave as soon as they become of an age to do so. Also at the time of our visit they had a big problem with couples not having children. So the population of the community was seriously going down and there was not the natural growing cycle. There are many more things I could tell you of what we saw there, including being taken to a room that they were so proud of, that contained their time machine, which our guide assured us did work. I was also told of the contact that the leader had had with an ET race for the last decade I believe, who were now guiding their progress! I will tell the rest of the story for those interested in another hub soon including the device which our guide showed me in one of their factory environments which enabled the workers to carry on working with very little breaks for long hours making the products that were sold on the open market!!! More revelations of a utopian community to come! The day at the museum proved even more eventful when we realised that there was only one statue that they wanted us to see and to focus on which was Sekhmet one of the more angry animal figures of egyptian times - more later

What I learned on this journey at the time was, that no utopian community existed, it still existed in my dream world and that we were the ones who were going to build it, those of us on the journey of becoming and those of us willing to carry on learning and never willing to let some one else have that power over us. Namaste