Thirty miles from the home of the Shroud of Turin, the tiny, sleepy Italian village of
Baldissero Canavese was able to keep secret for 15 years the underground location of the
commune of Damanhur.
At the foothills of the Alps underneath an innocent-looking suburban home in Northern
Italy, hundreds of hippies are living in a paradise under the earth.
The Damanhur Federation was founded by Oberto Airaudi and his 24 disciples, named after
the Egyptian city that hosted a temple dedicated to Horus the sky god, represented as a man
with the head of a falcon.
Airaudi also went by the name of "Falco" or the Hawk, based on the tradition of the cult
that members adopt animal names.
According to Falco this all started when he was a ten year-old child.
He had visions of a great Temple filled with people living together harmoniously.
As a man he had a successful career as an insurance agent, when in the back yard of
his home on a hot August night, Oberto told his believers he was waiting for a sign.
A falling star streaked across the sky.
He said to his friends, "We start digging now."
They used only hand tools - hammers and picks.
Beginning in 1978 and working around the clock, for the next 15 years these laymen carved
out an underground complex with no architectural plan, except for the sketches made by Falco.
It now descends five stories into the earth in a giant series of chambers connected by
hundreds of yards of tunnels.
One room is a four-sided pyramid covered in mirrors with a glass dome.
The ceiling of a room called, "The Hall of Spheres" is covered entirely in gold leaf.
Other ceilings, walls and floors are done in intricate mosaic murals.
Very early on, the collective of Damanhur also was involved in other new age projects.
They believe that plants can sing, and they developed equipment to allow humans to hear
the melody.
One probe is attached to a leaf.
Another probe is inserted in the soil between the roots.
Electric conductivity is measured and a converter assigns musical notes to the electrical impulses.
The underground Temples became public knowledge when a former member sued to regain his possessions
from the group.
Italian police and the public prosecutor came knocking at the front door in 1993, demanding
to be shown the subterranean temples - which were constructed without a single building
permit.
"Otherwise," they warned, "we will dynamite your hillside."
Falco replied, "Your threats are unnecessary," and he led authorities through the secret
door to the complex.
The officals were dumbstruck by expansive vaults 25 feet in height.
World-wide headlines helped the Damanhur Federation to turn their commune into a tourist attraction.
The government declared the sanctuary to be the 8th Wonder of the Modern World.
The cult revealed that in 1997 they unlocked the secret of time travel.
"Time Project" leader, Gnomo Orzo, says it is safer to travel deep into history than
it is to travel to the recent past, which might adversely change current events.
Orzo confirms the device is a machine.
Its purpose is to channel and magnify a person's own psychic energy.
The current population of the neo-hippie commune is between seven and eight hundred souls.
They have their own schools.
They issue their own currency, the Credito, equal to the value of the Euro.
They invented their own sacred language.
But they no longer hide anything.
They welcome visitors, and they welcome new citizens.
There are different classes of citizenship at Damanhur.
The "Class C" citizen is not required to live on site.
Class B citizens contribute money and must live there at least three days a week.
Class A citizens share all personal property with the commune and live on site full-time.
Only the Class A citizens are eligible to make use of the time machine.
Dad was a lawyer, and my mom was a flight attendant.
The main catalyst for my parents
to drop out, to quit their jobs,
and to, in their case, leave the United States
was the Vietnam War. My Dad got drafted,
and I think it was a very simple choice for him.
My parents left the U.S. when my mom was pregnant
and they had nothing but a backpack, so they were very poor.
My mom said that she gained eleven pounds during my pregnancy, so you can imagine that
they probably weren't eating almost anything.
We moved all the time, we pretty much lived out of backpacks, or the backs of trucks.
I want to say that I'm proud of my parents for sticking it out as long as they did.
They really did put in a lot of hard work, to live the lifestyle that they chose.