We are very excited to host Esperide Ananas on the Mangu.tv podcast. Esperide is a psychologist, spiritual healer, coach and meditation teacher. She is also a storyteller, who is passionate and committed to sustainability, personal growth & creativity. She is a citizen of Damanhur and her work is inspired by the traditions of her community. Damanhur is an ecovillage community in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, as well as a school of knowledge and spiritual movement known for the Temples of Humankind.
Esperide became a citizen of Damanhur thirty years ago. In this episode, she and Giancarlo dive deep into the values and structures of her community, the Council of Sage, the Temples of Humankind, as well as many practical principles and systems that have led to Damanhur’s success.
Damanhur’s vision is to create the seed of a new civilization, by living a spiritual life that manifests in practical action. She discusses the variety of ways that Damanhurians manage to live together in a larger community with a shared vision. They have modernized the idea of the tribe, by bringing together people who share values and ideas, and as their community grows so does their diversity, which allows for the expansion of their community model.
Esperide passionately communicates that living in community isn’t easy or idyllic, it is hard work that comes with many rewards. And it is what is absolutely necessary for the future of humankind.
You can get in contact with Esperide by email: [email protected]
For further details on Esperide Ananas, and topics mentioned:
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Full Transcript
Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hello. Hi. Welcome to this new episode of the Mango TV podcast. Today we have very interesting person, Esperide Asperide Ananas Ametist, PhD, psychosociologist with two MAs in literature and communication. Asperide is a spiritual healer, coach and meditation instructor. She’s a consultant for international companies and institutions in projects connected to sustainable development, personal growth, creativity, and future scenarios.
Coach and storyteller, Esperide has been [00:01:00] conducting research on the path of time for nearly 30 years, helping many people around the world to remember their other lives. Her work is inspired by the tradition of Damanhur, a school of knowledge and a spiritual movement known for the temples of humankind, an artwork dedicated to universal mythology.
Welcome, Esperide.
Esperide: Thank you. Hello, everyone.
Giancarlo: So I would like to talk to you today about building community and why is important and why is necessary. Um, but maybe briefly, let us know your experience at Damanhur.
Esperide: Yes. So 30 years ago, almost exactly to this day, I decided to become a citizen. So this, uh, quite extraordinary experience.
That is called Damanhur. Damanhur means a city of light, and the name contains the seed of the mission. The idea of the founders of Damanhur, [00:02:00] because when I joined 30 years ago, when I joined the experience, it had already been in existence for 16, actually 17 years, because now we are in our 47th year. So.
The idea was to create the seed of a new civilization, not just community, but what does it mean to think about life, all the possible aspects from birth to death, and also the time that connects those two points where we’re born, when we die, and maybe when we choose to come back again. And so everything that stays in that container.
which is everything in life, was rethought, was redesigned, thinking what would it be like to live a fully spiritual life turned into practical actions for the new times that are coming. So this idea of the future. And as, uh, you know, We don’t think as human beings. We always remember and then based on our interpretations, we project and we think we’re thinking, but we’re just projecting our [00:03:00] experience.
So as we were thinking so much of the future, we had this idea that maybe we can actually remember also the future. And so creating a reality that is based very much in the essence of the ancient traditions, making them new, because we feel there is something in the future calling us. And I think that there’s something in the future calling us is now calling the whole of humanity.
It’s like a new Zeitgeist, a new spirit of the time, even a new archetype of how we can live together. And it’s a yearning that so many people are feeling today because we are. Now at a time in which being with others is making it possible to really change things, and there is no doubt that things are changing.
So we can be passively waiting for things to change or try to transform them. And if we want to transform them, it’s much easier and better to do it with others. Because my uniqueness can be exalted [00:04:00] only when I am with others that are different from me. So again, this is also a spiritual way to look at the importance of inclusion and the importance of diversity.
And this, I think, can be addressed and recreated much better in community. By community, I mean a group of people that share an impossible dream, a great dream, and then they, every day, they check the practical steps to make this dream real.
Giancarlo: Why? That’s so interesting. So, but why do you think that our, um, you know, single nuclear family model, um, is, if you can say is failing us in some way, why do you think there is this need of community today?
Um, one, what went wrong in the non community paradigm, you think?
Esperide: Well, that’s an interesting question. Well, it’s not that I think that the nuclear family is not working. It’s obvious that it’s not working. The rates of divorce are very, very high all over the world, [00:05:00] unless there is a different social context in which the family is larger than just the nuclear family.
to people with their children. So I think that it is possible to still have that model if someone feels that that’s the model. But even having a nuclear family within a wider context of support makes life easier and happier for everyone. So in Damanhur, we do have, uh, you know, what you would call nuclear families.
father, mother, and children. Normally, though, they live with other people also, very often with other people with children the same age or as, you know, as close as possible. So the children grow together. There is no this feeling of being alone because children need other children and children need a community.
To really fully bloom because otherwise the parents risk to not they don’t risk it often happens that parents project on their children, their expectations, their fears, their whatever, together with their love. Sure, the love is there. But what if you could have the love [00:06:00] of many more adults? And not only the projection of the negativity of your parents that becomes so intensified if it’s, you are in such a small context.
So I think going back to this idea of the tribe, but with a modern understanding of the tribe, again, not just the tribe because you were only born there, also because you have people that share the same ideas that come and create something with you. So a very modern idea of the tribe.
Giancarlo: Like people that are not interesting in living in community would say that they can choose their friends that can choose their time to spend time with them.
Maybe even with a common dream in some sort of office or cultural center, but they like their privacy. They like to come back home to their own space and. And it seems, I don’t know, I don’t know when they will start to stop living in society, probably with industrial revolution or [00:07:00]
Esperide: how I would just like to say that leave it in community doesn’t mean that you could not have your own space in laminate.
We have several options of how you want to live. You can choose to live. in the traditional Damanhurian way, which would be larger homes with more than one family unit, many different ages. But there are also people that have their own spaces and they join the activities of the community, um, from there.
But what makes the difference? in a community rather than say, I just have my friends in my life is that we all share a common dream. We’re all there to try to create the seed of a new civilization. And this new civilization has to have enough diversity also in how we live. But we all share the same idea.
This is the key. And people that maybe only have their friends are not interested in this moment in their life of creating a new civilization. Here the thing is, do you want to create a new civilization? Then communities is indispensable steps. You don’t want [00:08:00] to. It’s okay. There are, you know, other important things that you can do to change the world, to bring innovation, but creating a new civilization, you don’t do that alone.
Giancarlo: Yes. Okay. This is a very important clarification. So living in community is not for everybody. Um, you need to have a particularly calling in trying to explore a different way to live together, which is not based on private property and competition.
Esperide: Why not? There could be private property and there could be competition.
It depends what they’re for. So in Damanhur, we do have private property. Private property. We also have the most important things like our temples, the gardens, the forest, the land of the school. Those are owned by foundation. So those are the common wealth. And then there are people that have their own homes.
We have our own cars. So it’s always a matter of balance. When we started, it was much more kibbutz style. So yes, everything was shared. It was necessary in those years. We were talking about the end of the seventies, [00:09:00] mid seventies, end of the seventies to create community. Now we have a very different model.
So like societies, community also evolved. The important thing is that again, I repeat that you always have this impossible dream. And for us, it was how can we be the seed of a new civilization? And it is for us. And it is the same ideal for all the well established communities around the world. This we all share.
Giancarlo: Yes, I think that what happened with the general discontent we feel now for the way our society in the West is structured. I think it’s linked from this idea of, um, the glorification of the mind, you know, with the, with the, with the, um, with the carton and, and, and, and this idea that with the enlightenment with this, you know, I understand that we needed to come out of the misery.
And, uh, and, um, how do you say the superstition of the middle age? So [00:10:00] this idea of the supremacy of the mind was important in the 17th century, but I think we went too far. I think we forgot, um, the sacred, we forgot the mind, body and spirit integration. And so we have developed this neoliberal capitalism that reward this Detach problem solving approach very individualistic.
And I think this is I created a lot of diseases. You know, this John Harry, this, uh, English writer spent 10 years studying the cause of depression, and he found out that at the end, most of the cause of depression is really lack of connection and lack of community. And I would say lack of purpose. Um, this idea of, material accumulation as the main purpose, I think, has created definitely among the young generation, a lot of this content.
And I can feel it. And you know, here in Ibiza, there is a lot of attempt of building community. And specifically for our listener [00:11:00] knows us a little bit. Mango TV has been always interested in this idea of living in a different way, integrating the mysticism. Um, you know, we have been trying to develop a TV show called the post capitalistic society now for a while, comparing having one host spending one month in different, different community.
So, so this is an important topic. So why don’t we go back now after this brief introduction? General introduction into the nitty gritty of how the manual works, the structure, the governance, the financial, the day to day. Can you give us a little bit of an outlook of how this community works?
Esperide: Sure. And I’d like also to elaborate a little bit on what you were saying now so that we can go into this.
Because I think that This idea that we can be happy while we’re disconnected, it’s also really rooted in [00:12:00] ignorance. Because there’s nothing on this planet that is not a community. If we think of our body, we think of we’re an eye, but there’s not an eye. I mean, we are trillions of cells organized in smaller, uh, in, in larger and larger communities.
So the cell and then the group of cells, the organs, the whole body, but there is a constant communication, uh, between the different organs of our body. Otherwise, we would not be in existence. So there is a constant dialogue and we are really a community. Nature is a community. We cannot live without nature.
So we are a community with nature. So this idea that we can be separate is not only, you know, detrimental to us. It’s also really based on ignorance. So in Damanhur, to develop everything that you are now describing, we looked at nature and we look at the fact that we’re always interdependent and that there is always, uh, uh, every in, in our body.
every organ has a role. They have different [00:13:00] roles, but they’re all important. So if I were to ask you, uh, what is more important Giancarlo or the bacterial flora in your guts? You can’t really say that because without those, you know, two kilos of alien beings that you have in your guts, you would not be existing.
But what we can say is definitely that Giancarlo has a higher level of complexity. So you integrate many more aspects. They are a part of you. So when we were building Domino, we looked at this. The idea is we need to build structures where we have bodies, organisms, groups of higher and higher complexity that carry out functions of higher complexity.
But everything is just as important. So this is a different way of looking at things. So we are. Um, a model where there is. We have several organs and then we have people that we elected to harmonize, make sure that the decisions are all made in [00:14:00] the same direction. So I’ll give you a practical example how we work now.
And, uh, we’ve changed many, many times over the years because we went from being 13 people to 600 hundred with three generations. So now we have children born of children in Domino and we really have everything. We have a very, Advanced Medical Center that integrates alternative medicine with, uh, official medicine.
And our doctors also work in the local hospitals, and they’re very active for the, uh, policies of the region, Piedmont, where we are. in counseling, giving ideas how these two things could be integrated. We have a farm. Uh, we have schools for our kids from zero to 13 years of age. So we are very complex. We really wanted to create a society.
Um, we are, in a vast valley. And so we have about 20 settlements, not in just in one place, you know, then they are the local people in between. And that [00:15:00] was also another choice. We didn’t want to be just in one place with a gate and be isolated. We want to have our own land, but also be in, in the life of the valley.
So say that we have three homes that, that Are located in the same area, say, in the forest. So this three houses, each one of them, would choose a representative. This three representatives of the homes always meet with another person chosen by everyone that belongs to that particular area, even when they don’t live in those same, in those houses.
Okay. So also everyone who’s in territory, but interested in that project. So say it’s the land of the forest, everyone interested in taking care of the forest, uh, no matter where they live would belong to this project. And we have meetings, we have weekly Zooms, we have one monthly meeting in person, celebrations and uh, you know, lunches, dinners.
So we keep the fabric of this community alive. going. Then the representatives [00:16:00] of them will meet with the representatives of all the other regions of Damanhur weekly. So there is a constant exchange of information. And then we have two people that we elect. Every year to take all of this elaboration dreams, uh, decisions and make them into the vision for the whole of domino, which they constantly share and discuss with six people that are the council of the wise.
Giancarlo: Elected by chosen by by the family were
Esperide: not selected. They were chosen when our founder died. He chose six people that he felt could hold the spiritual container and they can change. So one of them has already changed. How
Giancarlo: many people? How big was Damanhur when the when Falco? Seven
Esperide: years ago, it was more or less the same that we are now.
We were more about six, but it was a very different domino because when our founder died, he said, everything we’ve done so far, everything you’ve done so far with me, [00:17:00] now you have to do very differently. My going, it’s, it’s a change of an era also for domino. He also made it very clear that in the future, um, the consciousness that he was hosting in his physical body would come back In the group, in the community, you said, don’t expect the next.
The future is not going to be more a time of avatars of great, you know, spiritual teachers that have everything in them. This is over for humanity. It’s a new time. The new consciousness will come in community. So this is another important aspect of why it is so important to create a spiritual magnets around which people can organize their lives, oriented their growth and really create a new future.
Giancarlo: And when Falco nominated the six people, the other 594 didn’t object.
Esperide: Why would we object?
Giancarlo: Some people would have felt they had what it takes to be part of this.
Esperide: Damanhur doesn’t work like this. It’s [00:18:00] like the human body, you know, those who are a liver don’t want to be the heart. They know they are the liver.
And also because the system is so well articulated, you know, the two people that we elect, they change. So I could say, Hey, I want to be one of Damanhur’s, uh, we use a beautiful word that, um, It’s part of this, uh, magical, sacred language that we use. And the word is Nial. It’s not Italian. Nial, which means the holders of the common thought.
So for us, it’s very clear that those people we elect are not the ones directing, are the ones that can create the container of the common thought. And then they discuss with the representatives of every community, and then they share their ideas with the Council of the Sages. So there is a constant interaction.
Everyone always has a voice.
Giancarlo: The Council of the Sages is the six people. And you told me the other day that one of the six decided that, uh, didn’t [00:19:00] feel the
Esperide: After five years, he said they wanted to do something different to develop his own studies more and he wouldn’t have enough time. And so the other five chose another person.
Giancarlo: Together? Yes. Together. Yes. And, um, but so Normally, the cancer of SAGE is for life, unless someone fails to step down?
Esperide: Yeah,
Giancarlo: yes. But so I For now. For now. For now. You know, I
Esperide: don’t know. We’ve had this only for the last Seven years. Nine, yeah. Nine years. So we don’t know.
Giancarlo: We’ll see. And I think that also there was a trust in Falco that he had the vision that this is the right group.
Esperide: Absolutely. And Falco did also something else, which is really quite out of the ordinary. So Falco was an artist. He was a healer, but he was also a painter and a writer, most of all a painter. And so his way of looking at reality was always Uh, you know, nonlinear. So when he died, he created this structure.
He said, change [00:20:00] everything. And then he left a series of letters for us that we’re still receiving. And he trusted and trusted these letters to two people and mostly one woman with an assistant. And he told her, you have to see which events happen, because if events A happens, you read this letter. If you event B happens, you read this other letter.
And for each letter, we know there are six different versions. So he created a game in the future. He was looking at the possible timelines of dam and what could possibly happen. Now we are almost 10 years later. And we’re still receiving letters according to what’s happening. So I don’t know how he could do that, but obviously he had an interesting time vision.
And so this also interacts with us.
Giancarlo: So who sends the letter? This woman. That is a specific woman?
Esperide: Yeah, he gave, he, he, he gave them all to her. He dictated them to her. And so she knows, Oh, [00:21:00] this is happening. And sometimes things are connected to crazy stuff like, uh, Uh, Falco left something, um, to tell us specifically if a sphere of light was going to be seen on the moon.
So this seemed very crazy 10 years ago. And then a few months ago, a sphere of crystal has been discovered on the moon. We read it on the newspaper. And so this woman said, Oh, interesting. So this is what Falco says. So here is a letter. So the game was with what’s going on in Damanhur and what was going on for humanity.
Giancarlo: I want to talk more about Falco when we’re going to talk about the temples, but just to stay on the structure. So there is, let’s say the council of sage, the six people, then there is a different department. Let’s call them. So you mentioned the forest. There’s probably the temple. There’s probably a relationship with the outside, the education.
Esperide: Yeah, but this is more the organizing, you know, of everyday activities is not so much on the governance. You were asking me about the government. So the governance, we have the council of stages. We have the two [00:22:00] people that are elected. We have the representatives of each regions and they are the government, how
Giancarlo: many region there are.
Esperide: We have now four, four, four different regions. And then by,
Giancarlo: by theme. So one is
Esperide: forest. Uh, more than by theme, I would say by geographical location. But yes, more or less, they have different activities. So yes, one is one is connected to the temples and our sacred forest. We have another one that is connected to sustainability, very strongly connected to sustainability.
We have another one that is connected mostly to agriculture. And then we have another one That is where the first settlement was created, which is where most visitors come. So we have, you know, an amphitheater for music, for concerts, for weddings. We have a
Giancarlo: social,
Esperide: it’s social, spiritual, social spiritual.
Giancarlo: So just to repeat social because
Esperide: social is everywhere. I mean, all of these experiences are people living [00:23:00] together, working, taking care of the land. So I would say that one is more about the container of the history. So when you come there, you feel the 37 years of history, because that’s where it started.
Giancarlo: And that’s where the visitors
Esperide: When you arrive, that would be the first, uh, the first exposure is to understand Damanhur. We also have a, a ritual circle there where we celebrate the solstices and the equinoxes. So it’s also a place for the great celebrations. I see.
Giancarlo: So to repeat, is there’s the forest, there is the temple.
Temple and forest
Esperide: are together because they’re the same. The temples and the forest for us are the same thing. So, this spiritual ecosystem is composed of sacred spaces south of us, which are the temples and the forest that is the antennas with the cosmos connected on the temples right on top is the skin of the temples.
And then, of course, as humans, as we are building the temples, meditating in the temples, the visitors that come, so all three components need to be [00:24:00] there.
Giancarlo: And then the Sustainable activity, the social, spiritual, welcome center, if you want, that takes the history of Damanhur. So, and then the agriculture, the
Esperide: farm, the permaculture, all of
Giancarlo: that.
And so four of these areas, if you want, have one leader.
Esperide: It’s not exactly a leader, it’s a coordinator, but yes,
Giancarlo: responsible for the yes,
Esperide: yes.
Giancarlo: And it doesn’t. So, and the CEO, she, because she, of course, um, and so the six sage meet with the coordinator every week, every month,
Esperide: uh, yes, sometimes even more often there is, there is things, there is an, a public meeting with also all the citizens between them and the stages every Thursday evening.
Giancarlo: And the 600 citizen, it’s compulsory to participate to the meeting. No, no,
Esperide: no, no,
Giancarlo: no,
Esperide: no.
Giancarlo: Okay, but so let’s say there is a decision.
Esperide: But then if you don’t participate in the meetings and you don’t know what’s going on, then you don’t [00:25:00] complain about a decision was made and I didn’t know. So, you know, democracy is always based on participation.
Holacracy, how we want to call it now, is always based on participation. And this is what makes it so challenging because we humans are so, It’s so used to having someone making decisions for us. So this is also one of the challenges that we have. We do not have so many people that really want to have roles of social responsibility.
Giancarlo: That’s okay. For example, sorry, I want to really try to be practical. Okay, let’s assume that the agriculture coordinator say, okay, guys, you know, we need to, you know, we need to now plant this other crop because this one isn’t work. I want to do a crop rotation. I want to put animals. Uh, we need to start, um, using, um, you know, Goats and pigs and donkey and and it comes with a budget so he goes to the sage and say guys for this year No, the sages
Esperide: have nothing to do with money.
Giancarlo: Okay. This is the spiritual council. [00:26:00]
Esperide: So with the sages They might. So where does
Giancarlo: he go the agriculture coordinator with his new plan?
Esperide: He might go to the sage or she might go to the sages to see Do you think that having goats and this crop and this is in harmony with the land is Spiritually in Armory, is it okay if the sages say, Oh yeah, or maybe, you know, why are you putting this crop that has nothing to do with the tradition of the valley and is going to create problems?
It requires too much water. I’m making stupid examples. So they would be discussing these aspects. Then the budget would be discussed with the Nihal, with the ones that coordinate the decisions of the community. And also they would have to come up with a budget. It’s not that they go and say, okay, give me the money.
They would have to go and say, we want to do this. This is how much we can cover. It’s all of it. If it’s not all of it, they, we would have a discussion within the whole community. Is this crucial? Is this something where we want to invest the money? And then parts of the money that we as citizens, citizens every month offer.[00:27:00]
Uh, two domino could be allocated there.
Giancarlo: Okay. I want to go deeper on the financial, but just to finish my, uh, example. So the nail is one person, two people, two people, and they are elected every year. Every year.
Esperide: They are the holders of the common thought. That’s what the elements.
Giancarlo: Yeah. Yeah. And do they usually get renewed or they get, or they change?
Esperide: Depends. We have times in which Amanur is very stable and events around us don’t change so much. And then we’ve had people in charge for the longest one stayed for seven years. These times, With all the drastic changes we had with the pandemics and this, this we’ve changed more often. Yes,
Giancarlo: I see. Okay.
Esperide: Also, because now it’s a new start.
So we actually elected a second generation, a young man who was born in Damanhur. We felt this was important to have new energy, new eyes of someone that has been in Damanhur throughout their life. But they also, [00:28:00] you know, he went around the world. He was one. of our representatives to connect with all the other communities in the world for the young generation.
So he’s seen a lot of the community world and the world. He has a master’s degree in international affairs and we thought, okay, this is the time.
Giancarlo: Amazing. Okay. So just to stay with my example, just to, just to, to create some, um, Some practical, a practical example. So let’s say that our agricultural coordinator has this budget of 100, 000 euros.
The sage agrees because it’s in harmony with the valley and with the spirit of Damanhur. Then he goes to the Neal. He sits down and there’s a conversation. And the Neal have the power to approve 100, 000 expenditure.
Esperide: If they have the money. They would take this to the whole community of the 600 people.
Yeah,
Giancarlo: planetary committee
Esperide: to Yes, because actually now we also have members of our because we’re a spiritual movement. We’re a spiritual [00:29:00] school in the school of initiation. So we have initiates that belong to our school and support us all over the world. So some of the decisions would also be shared on a spiritual the specific chat and many channels that were with them.
Probably not the one on agriculture because that’s very local. But if we were to make other decisions on, for instance, we changed the governance, uh, some time ago, they were also involved. So we added the participation of. you know, their representatives that was never done before in that manner. So it depends on what it is, but it’s never decided.
Any, nothing is ever decided unless citizens know before this has been discussed.
Giancarlo: I mean, you really have to count for them to be reasonable because 600 people commenting on the different crops can be a nightmare, right? Exactly.
Esperide: They don’t.
Giancarlo: That’s
Esperide: why they don’t, but they would know we have a plan to restructure agriculture.
We need to do it for this and this and this reason, and this is how much it’s going to cost. And this is how [00:30:00] it’s going to happen.
Giancarlo: And the coordinator, they also voted every year.
Esperide: Yes.
Giancarlo: So if the coordinator from agriculture keep on making mistake. It’s not going to be reelected.
Esperide: But it’s very difficult that any coordinator works alone.
The coordinators work always with everyone that lives in the community. This is why we are a federation. This is why we keep dividing. So there is a constant everyday dialogue. Like I have, you know, two different telegram chats for just for my community. One for the spiritual activities relating to the temples and the forest and the other one for the practical things like decisions like this.
Giancarlo: I see. Okay. That’s fascinating. So we discussed the governance. We discussed the finance. I mean, the
Esperide: governance is not finished. We have more.
Giancarlo: Okay, let’s finish. An important
Esperide: thing is to understand. Also, we have a constitution. So when we’re talking about any decision being made, including by the sages, so their assessment is always in conformity with the constitution, which for [00:31:00] us is a special spiritual tool, which says how we want to live, what are the principles that we choose to live, and that every citizen of Damanhur has signed, physically signed, because we don’t want anyone to say, Oh, but I’m living here, I didn’t know these were the values.
This is very important for every community, everyone that wants to start a community, decide what are the values, write them down clearly, have people commit spiritually, not only materially. Also, spiritually to those values. So everyone that becomes a new citizens of a domino will read the constitution study study also why we have this constitution because we’ve changed it 15 times from the beginning.
Giancarlo: So who wrote it? The first version?
Esperide: The first version was created by the first, that created the first community. The 20
Giancarlo: ish, 2013. Yeah,
Esperide: in the beginning, but then we keep changing and there is, you know, a very, for us, it’s part of a spiritual school. So the, the constitution is discussed [00:32:00] in families, in meetings, in groups, but when we vote for the final constitution for us is the spiritual act.
Giancarlo: But so can you tell a little bit what’s in this constitution?
Esperide: Well, all the principles that we want to apply in how we live. For instance, the fact that Damanhur is there to bring, you know, to create a seed of a new civilization that every citizen considered themselves as brothers, and sisters and we help each other that the children are cared for, respected and educated by everyone.
So everyone needs to feel responsible for this, that we understand that we live in harmony with nature and nature is not just things is also the nature spirits. So there is a whole spiritual ecosystem that we are to respect. There is the principle, for instance, that our body is a temple. And so we don’t use any substance, any excess drugs, any excess of alcohol, food, or anything that can damage the temples.
That is [00:33:00] our body.
Giancarlo: Beautiful.
Esperide: And that also that we are, um, willing and eager to help other communities develop around the world.
Giancarlo: Beautiful. And so, sorry guys, I’m going to keep on asking boring, very practical question. So, but, so let’s assume someone wants to change the, has an idea for amending the constitution.
What is the process?
Esperide: You would need to find other people that think in the same way. Like a
Giancarlo: majority? No,
Esperide: no, no. Just a group of people. And then if this seems reasonable, he would present it to the other organ that we have, which is the council, the um, um, Collegio di Giustizia, so the council of justice.
Giancarlo: I see.
Esperide: And they are the ones that in the end, Uh, say yes. Okay. It’s been approved and it’s deposited by them. So every decision that is made in Damanhur from the constitution to the rules of each community, which [00:34:00] are different from each other, is officially deposited in the hands of the College of Justice.
There are three people elected every year. And if any Damanhurian has a problem that they cannot solve, they they would go to the College of Justice and say, Hey, you know, Giancarlo and I, we can’t agree on this. What is your opinion? Once the College of Justice makes a decision, is the decision. So we don’t go back to, you know, they are now, but we don’t agree.
So we give them the authority to investigate the matter and then make a decision and also see how this in case this interaction between you and I created some damage to us or to other members of the community, how this can be readdressed.
Giancarlo: Amazing. I want to stay. I want to, I want to explore more the of course, but so I think did we finish the governance?
Well, this is part of the governance. Yes, exactly. So
Esperide: the governance also has this. Yes,
Giancarlo: of course. Um, to just finish on the finance. So you mentioned that if the [00:35:00] agricultural project, for example, is approved by the session, a plenary, the, the, the, the, the old community, then, um, the, the manurian give part of their income.
How does the finance work?
Esperide: So Damanhur is not a communist, uh, entity. So everything is a company. So the agriculture also, they are a legal company, a farm according to the Italian regulations for agriculture. Uh, we have, you know, a, um, we have associate, for instance, the temples are a non profit. So when you come to Damanhur, you want to visit the temple, there is a fee which help us.
maintain the temples and also, um, cover the cost of the insurance and the people that take you to the temples, which is very minimum because for us, the temples anyways, you know, most of what people give goes to save the, to, to, uh, maintain the temples and make sure that they’re there and that we can maintain them and keep adding art to them.[00:36:00]
And so each entity would be a different entity according to what it is. And they have to be able to function, you know, the healing center, for instance. It’s a healing center registered according to the Italian laws for healing. We have jewelry stores that make special, um, energetic jewelry. They are a company.
The activity is But who
Giancarlo: owns the jewelry in the healing center? It’s owned by Damanhur, yes. Damanhur by an, an, an, an LLC by limited company.
Esperide: It depends what they are. Some are, as I said, some are
Giancarlo: nonprofit. Yeah,
Esperide: exactly. Depends on what is their activity and in accordance to the Italian law, the services for the community, like, I don’t know, the reception is, uh, some people have the welcome center are.
Um, under the umbrella of this new law passed in Italy, that is social enterprise. But these are really Italian things. But, you know, in every country, a community has to see, okay, what is possible. But I don’t know of any country where the state Status [00:37:00] of community is recognized. So in Italy it isn’t. So we couldn’t have things belonging to the community or companies belonging to the community because it doesn’t exist as a legal entity.
It
Giancarlo: could be a trust, a foundation,
Esperide: right? So we have a foundation also for, you know, making sure that the most important real estate assets and also the
Giancarlo: temples.
Esperide: Yes, and also the temples, the sacred forest, the farm, you know, the things that really identify Damanhur, that we want to be there forever on their land, protected, they belong to a foundation, and also a part of our knowledge.
So what is the unique knowledge or the wisdom? Um, you know, the IP that Damanhur has produced over 46 years, 47 years, that has been deposited also in the foundation. I
Giancarlo: understand. But so, and again, sorry for the boring question. Let’s say that the mass, the healing center and the jewelry make a profit at the end of the year.
They pay their taxes to the Italian government, the Italian IRS, and then this [00:38:00] profit goes where? Yeah.
Esperide: After they’ve paid, uh, the people that work there. That’s
Giancarlo: before, that’s net profit.
Esperide: Whatever is left, they choose what they want to do.
Giancarlo: The worker of the
Esperide: Yeah,
Giancarlo: absolutely. So they can buy themselves a Mercedes.
Esperide: They can.
Giancarlo: But they don’t.
Esperide: Well, you know, what would the point then of choosing to live in a community that is dedicated to building temples? Maybe they can do that and the other one, you know, but
Giancarlo: usually this private enterprise profit might be reinvested in the community in some fashion.
Esperide: Yes, in some projects that they like.
Giancarlo: Yeah.
Esperide: In some projects that they choose. We also have, uh, you know, a part of individual citizens that we offer money. I make extra money, I offer for something, project that we want. And we have then a basic shared, um, fixed amount for the citizens that live in the communal homes also. So they support.
Yeah.
Esperide: Also. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So this depends what kind of [00:39:00] citizen you want to be when Damanhur is not like you can only do it one way. There are those who choose to be fully community. There are those who choose to be entrepreneur.
Giancarlo: No,
Esperide: but also even if you are an entrepreneur, you can decide to be an entrepreneur and decide I live in one of the Damanhurian homes and I’m more communal also in my Um, in my income or you can decide I’m a Damanhurian because I want to be in this spiritual school, but I have my own home.
I’m a very successful entrepreneur and I want to choose when I want, what I want to support. So we have this formula too.
Giancarlo: Interesting. I love the flexibility.
Esperide: Yeah. Very, very flexible because everyone is different and everyone also has different needs. There are certain Damanhurian citizens that need more space, so they want their own space.
Other, they don’t care. They can be very happy in a small room, but give them more time to make music because that’s what they want. So we have discovered that we’re very different and in this diversity and respecting diversity, you can find [00:40:00] happiness and balance. While at the same time, all sharing the same value.
So I know that every Damanhurian that is there is like me, dedicated to this new world.
Giancarlo: But for example, for the, the school and the food, what is the model there? It
Esperide: depends what you’re talking about, like which food, the food for each family, the people who live in the family share the food. Uh, and they, they expect
Giancarlo: from, from, from the local produce
Esperide: if they can, or some things that we don’t produce.
We go to the supermarket and then, but we have created our own supermarket so that we can also have the best choice of organic or local stuff Right. In our community.
Giancarlo: But so every, the Manian needs to have their own income.
Esperide: Yeah.
Giancarlo: I
Esperide: see. Okay. And everyone that joins Damanhur needs to have their own income.
Sometimes there are positions open in our companies. If they aren’t, people need to figure out how they’re going to do it.
Giancarlo: Amazing. I really love this model because I, you know, like Pachamama, [00:41:00] Tamera, I mean, usually they ask you to leave everything behind that it’s this, you know, fully taken care of. Also in Auroville, you have this fake money.
I mean, in Damanhur, everything works with Euro.
Esperide: Well, okay. So again, When Damanhur started, it was also like that. So when I joined Damanhur, everything that I owned, I gave to the community because it was much more communal. But we realized at a certain point of our development that that was not possible to continue develop.
Because if you keep with that model, it’s just impossible because then you would have people that want to be more entrepreneurial. They can’t do it because they’re put down. There are others that never will be. And if you don’t tell them that, but look, you also have to take care of yourself. They will never be.
active in that aspect, which is also an important part of our growth that I take care of myself. I’m not just sitting here and expect Giancarlo to work for me. So all of these things, if you, if you have them in the [00:42:00] beginning, very important to have a common container in the beginning, but then as the community grows and wants to become a society, you have to allow for more diversity.
Giancarlo: Absolutely.
Esperide: We’ve had for a long time an alternative currency system, which is not fake money. It’s very important. We would not have Damanhur now if we hadn’t had it. We had to stop using it because of the pandemic. So when you create an alternative currency system legally, um, It has the same value of the euro for us.
So we had, it’s called credito credit to remind each other that when we use money, we’re trusting each other. That’s all money is. It’s a common trust in something as a means of exchange. So we had euros. Exchange into creditors when people came to Damanhur and also part of us, we were paid in creditors, which was legal because as it has the same value of the euros, it was, you know, for [00:43:00] taxations or buying things, it was all registered as if they were yours.
And this system is fantastic to increase wealth. It’s indispensable to increase wealth in a community. But when we
Giancarlo: But why?
Why?
Esperide: Why? Because you create that money. You is not coming from an outside source. You’re actually creating it based on how much trust and exchange there is within the community. So you give me one euro, I give you one credit.
So you go to Damanhur, you spend it in the supermarket. The people from the supermarket spend it at the hairdresser. The hairdresser spends it on a course. in meditation. The university uses it to buy food for the people that go to the seminar. So the more this one credito is turning, going around, every time is multiplied.
And the euros I have to buy everything that a community cannot produce or do. So, this system works wonderfully. It’s been used, for instance, extensively in South Africa, and they [00:44:00] help rural communities a lot with this system because, for instance, I’ll give you an example that I know of South Africa because I was in a conference with, uh, talking about this with experts from around the world.
So, there were rural communities in South Africa where, you know, they were giving them money from the government. Run the official money, but they calculated that within maximum a week that money was back into business of Johannesburg because people had to buy things from outside. So what they did, they said, we’re going to create an alternative money.
We’re going to give you more than what we were giving you rent, but you can only spend it within the community so that obliged them. to start creating activities. And then within a short time, they started having a local economy, which is what we did in Damanhur. So originally, when the credit was created, it was a spiritual and political decision of the Damanhurian citizens to have less, less, less, less things from the [00:45:00] outside and concentrate on what they could create there, which, of course, was much less than what they had before in terms of variety.
But this is also what made it possible for us to become stronger. more resilient and with a completely different idea of the economy. So why did we stop it with the pandemic? Because it
Giancarlo: foster localization.
Esperide: Exactly. Why would we stop it with the pandemics? Because we were in lockdown for two years.
Because
Giancarlo: all the shops closed.
Esperide: Exactly. So now we’re looking at how we can bring it back again, sustainable. You know, it has to be sustainable, because if you just put money that you are printing in an economy that has no exchange, then it’s not supported and then it’s a disaster.
Giancarlo: Yeah. Very interesting.
Very interesting. I’m thinking that in one of the first documentary we produce, um, 2012 time for change, there was Bernard Lottier, this economist who was talking about alternative currency. And he was saying that you just have a different relationship with your air miles than with the money. And so in Japan, they started [00:46:00] this.
Monocle for your keeper or something to help elderly people and so they were this money. We’re giving can only be used to have. It was basically foster charitable and and and communal activities and local activities. And I need to look at that a bit more. I want I need to find the guest on to invite them.
So unfortunately, Bernard
Esperide: Lieter died a few years ago. I studied with him. He’s been one of my mentors in this particular field. I went to different conferences with him and really I learned a lot. And he wrote a book that I think now can be found online. It’s called the mystery of money in which he actually relates the unbalance with money to the repression of the
feminine.
Hmm.
Esperide: And how patriarchy and patriarchal based gods replaced the cult of the goddess. Very, very interesting.
Giancarlo: So again, [00:47:00] patriarchal.
Esperide: Patriarchal systems replaced the society based on the presence of the goddess of the feminine. And so he has been the first economist to really say you need alternative currency.
So he came to Damanhur, he studied us.
Giancarlo: But what is the link between The, the standard money and patriarchy.
Esperide: So standard money as we know it now is based on the principle of accumulation and with Patrick.
Yeah.
Esperide: And also we Patrick Lee is when, you know, the repression of women started because you needed to know who was the mother of your children because you needed to know that the land belonged to you and you wanted to pass it down.
So you also needed a money that was centralized. It was only emitted while before, for instance, the Egyptians had a very interesting system with money. They had, they used gold and, you know, the official money, which was gold or incense to buy whatever they needed [00:48:00] from the other states. But inside they were paying their workers with clay tablets that had a value.
Today and the value was decreasing. The more you accumulated.
Giancarlo: Well, negative interest rate,
Esperide: because that was the idea of a feminine way. So I’m giving you this today. This is worth to, you know, two kilos of rice. But if you keep it for a week, it’s gonna be worth a little less because we want the community to thrive.
Yeah. And so in Damanhur, we have applied, we applied this with another thing, which is very important. If you want to talk about a structure, understand how it works and also economy and finance time. So in Damanhur, every one of us offers devotional time. So money. It’s not just the things we, we touch, you know, it’s not the thing, it’s just currency.
Our time is the most important value. We will not have temples. We will not have a sacred forest. We will not have our schools. If in the beginning of all of this [00:49:00] activity, we were not willing to do them without being paid to allocate part of our time to do this, and we still do, this is one of our main rules.
If you’re part of our spiritual school. then you give some part of your time. Also because that allows you to develop something very important in this time and era, which is devotion. Devotion as dedication of your intention, intentionality to something that has a value for you. So that helps you have meaning in your life.
Giancarlo: Amazing. Beautiful, beautiful said. Um, just to continue on my train of thought about the different main, um, area that. you know, need to be addressed when you create a society, um, justice.
Esperide: Justice. Yes.
Giancarlo: So, um, how, you know, how, how do the Manurians treat people that break the rules? Which rules? For example, um, you know, if someone doesn’t come, To the meeting at [00:50:00] all.
And, um, you know, it’s not in line with the principle of the constitution.
Esperide: Well, it depends for how long they’re not in line with the principle of the constitution. Because if they’re not, they would probably choose to leave. You know, why would you be in a place where you are there because of your intention if your intention is not that anymore?
So that problem kind of self solves. And the only meetings in which we have like an obligation to be there are our weekly spiritual meetings. And I have the obligation of being there, but if I cannot, I simply send an email saying I cannot be there. But at least I give that thought. If I don’t even say I’m not going to be there and I don’t go, that is considered a lack of presence.
And you cannot be spiritual and you cannot create anything new in the world if you’re not at least present to yourself or the yearly rituals. And again, if you cannot be present, and then you would just say, I [00:51:00] cannot be present. And we have ways in which you celebrate that ritual at a distance, but celebrating the solstices, the equinoxes, the ritual of the dead for us is important because these are And also physical rhythms of life that the earth herself is following according to the sun.
So there is a reason why those are compulsory because they are part of how we keep aligned to this new frequencies.
Giancarlo: But what you described about, you know, rational behavior of people would then just leave if they don’t want to participate. What about for teenagers? I mean, you know, like,
Esperide: Oh, teenagers is very funny because our teenagers, you know, in Damanhur, we don’t smoke.
Nobody smokes. That’s really a rule we’ve chosen, no smoking of any kind. And so of course, many of our kids, when they become teenagers, the first thing they want to do because we don’t do it and we are so obsessed with no smoking, they smoke. And so we [00:52:00] have in front of our main grounds. There is a piece of land that belongs to us also, but it’s not on the Maingra.
And they all gather there and they just smoke so that we can see them very well. And, you know, that’s just one of the typical things they would do. Of course, they, you know, they’re teenagers, they’re young, they experiment. And we all, we all experimented. So you know, Damanurian, um, sons and daughters, when they become adults, they choose if they want to become Damanurian citizen, but they’re not obliged to.
We try to pass on to them, you know, a spiritual way of looking at life, but we are not trying to make them necessarily stay and live in that manner. We actually need some of these youth to go around the world, meet other youth, inspire them with what they have inside and be inspired.
Giancarlo: Be ambassadors. But what about, you know, like midlife crisis or, you know, people have depressive episode or even panic [00:53:00] episode.
Um, Is there like a, um, emotional and psychological support group, of course, there’s like a therapist.
Esperide: We have therapists, not just one with many different modalities that
Giancarlo: also work for outside.
Esperide: Yes, exactly. They were already therapists before coming to Damanhur. They became a therapist while, you know, if they’re younger, while they are in Damanhur.
Yes. We have psychologists of different schools. We have union psychologists. We have other kinds of psychology. We also have a full branch of the Manurian psychology that these psychologists have taken and integrated in the work.
Giancarlo: Amazing.
Esperide: And one of the basis of our research. Um, psychology, which also helps answer your question, is the idea that we’re all beings of multiple personalities.
So very often depression or panic or whatever is a, you know, not well being in our psyche is because there is a part of us that is not being heard. And that normally also [00:54:00] corresponds to an organ in the body because personalities, these parts of us are also located in different organs. So
this
Esperide: is normally is the fact that one of our parts is not feeling at ease anymore in that organ because there’s no more integration.
So our psychology looks, first of all, what is the part of you that needs more expression? What is that you need to do to feel more integrated? And then how would that affect your body? Or vice versa. If it starts in the body, we also look, okay, it’s in your liver, but what is the part of you connected to your liver that is now not being expressed?
Giancarlo: Yeah, very holistic, very holistic. Um, what about conflict resolution? Uh, how is there a procedure if people disagree, if there’s conflict, what, what is most typical conflict in that happens in the manure and how is it solved?
Esperide: Well, you know, they are, this is an interesting question. Sometimes they are, they are conflicts simply for different personality style and they happen [00:55:00] mostly I would say with people that are newer in the community.
So for this we have experimented many models. We used to have people that wanted to become full time citizens join immediately one of the established families. Then we said, why do we have to go through their old process of, you know, not arguing for who has. So, we said to them, okay, here’s the house. You can live one year for all, with all the new ones and figure it out.
But that also was not helping them so much. So now it’s again, they come to our families, mostly that, so lack of adaptability. It’s one of the reasons for conflicts normally on stupid, stupid, stupid things, because that’s where we always are more sensitive, not on the big principles, but on really, how, why did you touch my glass?
You know, this kind of things. So that is more about showing them how An exaggerated reaction creates ripples in the whole, you know, everyone living there. So being very tolerant at the same time, telling people, look, maybe that [00:56:00] particular behavior you have, which is maybe connected to one specific part of you is not so harmonious.
So it’s not the whole person that is wrong. It’s a part of their manifesting. And so you make, we don’t make us feel like we’re monsters. It’s just that part of you with that part of me or that part of you with the part of the, with the collective.
Giancarlo: Yeah. You mentioned this term quasi reale, almost reality.
Esperide: So we are convinced that each one of us lives by definition. This is human nature. We are in our quasi real. So my reality is a quasi reality, yours is another quasi reality. So if I accept this, I also know you’re not coming at me in, you know, because you want to hurt me. You don’t take it
Giancarlo: personally, yeah.
You
Esperide: take it less personally. And we also see how do we create a common quasi reality that works for everyone in the best possible way. Knowing that perfection is never there, living in community is not easy.
Yeah.
Esperide: Living in community is not [00:57:00] idyllic for sure. If you have some stuff going on with you, you’re going to meet it because the ones around you are going to be the mirror for that.
Yes. For the best in you and for, for what you’re, still need to work on, for sure. So I want to say this, you know, because people sometimes think, oh, community is the solution for everything. Community is hard work. Is it rewarding? Yes. Is it what I believe is absolutely necessary for the future of humanity?
Yes. But it’s not easy.
Giancarlo: Um, but so, so if someone wants to join diamond, who are, how is the process?
Esperide: So if someone wants to join them and or really fully, the process would be that they start coming. They take some seminars, they visit, they feel if they like it, they start getting some information about ourselves.
spiritual school, because Damanhur is most of all, as I said, an initiation school. And then if they really think, Oh, I really love this spiritual path. I love how they’re living. I want to live here. [00:58:00] Then they will choose how. They will choose, do I want to live in one of the community homes of Damanhur or create one of my, another new community homes, but being fully in the context?
Or I don’t know. I want to be part of the activities, I want to be part of the spiritual school, but I want my own home and maybe with some friends. Now, now these are all possibilities. And we also are hoping that more and more people would come, maybe with their own spiritual path, maybe with their own project, buying land there and together we create something new.
But they could take advantage of the incredible spiritual energies of the temples, of the land that we’ve been taking care of with so much love for so long, and also all the practical things we have, health systems, school, you know, uh, agriculture, all of that is already there.
Giancarlo: But, but before all that, they have to find a job.
Esperide: Well, sometimes they find the job when they’re there. Um, lots of people [00:59:00] nowadays work online, so this is making it easier for many younger people.
Giancarlo: They had to have some sort of income.
Esperide: Absolutely.
Giancarlo: But, but, but less than what is required if they move. to a single home.
Esperide: That depends. It depends on how they want to live.
It depends how
Giancarlo: they want to live. But there is the option to live in a building with 20 people when the rent is divided by 20. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But then
Esperide: again, if that building with 20 people where the rent is divided by 20, but that family has chosen that their project is, uh, to build a crystal dome, then you would maybe, you know, be.
Also expensive. It depends. It really depends. I see, I see, I see, I see. There’s so much flexibility. Amazing. Amazing. We’re not only things in terms of money, in terms of money to buy things, but most of all, what is the energy of money that we need for the projects that we want to develop? I,
Giancarlo: it’s a new dimension of the capitalistic model, which I think it’s critical.
[01:00:00] The, the, the, the purpose part, you know? Um, yeah. I really feel that that’s the important piece missing because. You know, like you have the gross domestic product that doesn’t mean anything. It just, you know, when, when there is like an accident on the highway and a hundred people die, GDP goes up. So it’s not connected with the well being of the society.
Um, and same thing, the shareholder value is just the bottom line. And that bottom line doesn’t tell you about the well being of the people. Uh, you know, like in Bhutan, they have the gross domestic happiness product. Okay, so, And last practical question. So this, um, dam 600 people spread out around three areas, you said?
Esperide: No, no, we said four. Four different regions? Yes. Four different region. So four main areas. Yes.
Giancarlo: In this valley?
Esperide: Yes. Called Valla.
Giancarlo: Valla, which
Esperide: is north of Torino, north of Irea. Very close to bomb blanc.
Giancarlo: Yeah.
Esperide: We are [01:01:00] in the pre Alps.
Giancarlo: Yeah. Beautiful. And um, and in Val, there is a village. There are many villages.
The biggest one. How is it called?
Esperide: I don’t know, because they’re rather small. Maybe the biggest one is Raco.
Giancarlo: Raco. How many citizen has Raco? 500. 500. I see. And there’s several like Raco? Yes, yes, yes. Like three, four.
Esperide: No, no more. I’m not sure. Maybe 12. 12 in
Giancarlo: within 50 square kilometer, something like that. Yeah.
Yeah. I see. Now I think your mother is fantastic. I always wanted to come and now after that I met you. I want definitely to come. So would. Just reach one hour. It’s perfect timing. Um, I, for me, what is, you know, one of the objective with this podcast is to really empower people with, um, you know, with personal development, with, with regeneration.
That’s a theme we cover often. And it seems that this model you described is a, it’s a very powerful [01:02:00] tool for people that are dissatisfied with the um, the full society with the more new, new. Liberal capital is based on, um, mostly individual success and material accumulation. Um, so imagine we had 20, 30 people listening to us right now that are ready.
Um, or maybe not, let’s say there’s two types of people. There’s a group of 20, 30 people that they already figure it out, all the details on how they want to live in community. And then there’s another group which they want to live in community, but they want to They are looking for advice, maybe to join a community.
So which advice you have for these two groups of people?
Esperide: Well, for both groups of people, the beginning would be to know that even if they already have the principles, they will have to, um, see how they work in reality. Test it,
yeah.
Esperide: Test it, so to be open for change for both groups of people. Um, And to both groups of people, I would say in any case, [01:03:00] look at what is already existing on the planet.
You know, there are communities like Damanhur, Findern, uh, Auroville that have been around for almost 50 years. And then others, they are younger, but still with a lot of history, like Tamera, for instance, in Portugal. And you can find information on all of them on the Global Ecovillages Network that gives you information on communities in the five continents.
Giancarlo: Gen. com? Yes.
Esperide: Yes, gen. org.
Giancarlo: Yeah, we’ll put it on the show note anyway.
Esperide: So global ecovillages network, you’ll find study, you know, there is this beautiful project called Gaia education, which is again, taught in some of communities. Daman is one of the communities that offers this, but also others where they teach you all the principles on how you create an organic community.
And then each community shows you how they apply those principles There specifically, and then, uh, choose, do you want to really start from zero somewhere else? Or maybe you want [01:04:00] to buy land near an existing community where you experiment with your own community, but you have the support of maybe hundreds of people that already been doing it.
Because I meet people want to create community all over and everyone is starting from scratch, which is a good idea. Also, because then we have different places. But what if we could create two, three areas in the world? They’re very strong in showing how humans live together with this idea of the future.
And then when they’re really strong, these places start building also satellites or inspire the world. Because I think we still need a few more people, a few more thousands of people to be able to create full areas of this new way of living in the world.
Giancarlo: Yeah, that’s interesting. And if people wants to come to the man who, um, you says that, you know, they need to have, you know, they need to resonate with the constitution.
They want to live there. But then [01:05:00] what kind of activity do you think is missing in terms of real, like, you know, money making activity? Like that’s that’s more needs a newspaper. I don’t know just for just we have a newspaper daily
Esperide: We read it from the beginning because that’s an information shared information.
Everyone always knowing what’s going on Yeah from a new child for example. No, but that’s a key point that you’re saying That’s why I’m underlining it because for new communities remember shared information is so It’s so important to keep your history. And also when new people come, they can read and say, Oh, wow, look, this is what they did before.
And also to give you an assessment, how much you’ve grown. Very important to keep something that is creates this glue.
Giancarlo: Yeah. Like a gym is like, do you have a gym? No,
Esperide: unfortunately we don’t have a gym. Okay.
Giancarlo: So, so for people that are listening, if you want to create, because it seems that the difference between Damanhur and most.
community that I’m aware of is that there is the imprenditorial aspect as well. [01:06:00]
Esperide: So what we are really missing, because we’ve been concentrating so much in creating sacred space so that we could, so that we could tap into these new frequencies, they’re awaking humanity, creating an antenna. So we build these temples, they are huge.
And we’re talking about nine monumental halls, excavated by hand inside a mountain, two million buckets of rock and thousands of square meters of paintings, glasswork, mosaic. This is not a temple that is a room. This is a huge complex. And then we’ve been building schools and a healing system, and we’ve been building ritual spaces with huge standing stones as big as a stonehenge.
And then we have the farms. We’ve been really concentrating on the fundamental aspects of life. the divine, the reconnect. We have not had a lot of time to party. We have not had a lot of time to create gyms. And what we need now is people that want to come there, bring their [01:07:00] experiences in. How do we bridge a reality?
So concentrated on the sacred, the future, the transformation with the new languages of the world.
Giancarlo: Beautiful. So people out there, if you want to create, if you have a five, if you are a five rhythm certified teacher, do you know about five rhythm? Yes, of course. You know, and you can create a group with 10 people and you can build a dance space in Damanhur with the top of the end hi fi system.
Esperide: I invite maybe people from around the world to come to the five rhythms and also go visit the temple. So we help each other grow.
Giancarlo: And same thing if you want to create a gym or a martial arts center or a cooking school. I mean, that you have probably a cooking school.
Esperide: We don’t have a cooking school per se.
We have amazing chefs. So we have, um, a tradition of cooking, for instance, with flowers with many wild herbs. So we have people teaching that, but not a formal [01:08:00] school. That could be a fantastic idea.
Giancarlo: So there is a lot to do. I will, I will, I will, I will try to help you and find some, uh, Some some new entrepreneurial resident and i forgot we should spend some little bit more time you mentioned at the end but let’s.
explain the story of the temples, how 20, 30 people build the eighth wonder in the world. We know experience in, in structural engineering, architecture, art, how that happened.
Esperide: I don’t know. You know, we don’t know. This was the impossible dream of Damanhur. It was so impossible. It happened. You ask the people that were there from the beginning, you ask, how did you do it?
They say, we don’t know. It is something that you can’t. It’s impossible to understand how that happened, but it happened,
Giancarlo: but there was a map.
Esperide: So, yes, the founder had a map that, uh, in the mythical story was given to him [01:09:00] by, you know, intelligences that were not from this earth. So he had a map, he knew where the holes were, but how then they managed to actually do it without anything collapsing, nobody getting hurt, in complete secret for 16 years.
It’s a mystery also to us that sometimes we have difficulties in even transmitting to the new Damanhurians how this was possible.
Giancarlo: Incredible. What, uh, if people want to look at photos, video, articles, where would you recommend people to start their research?
Esperide: So they can go online and look at the temples of humankind or the temples.
org is the official website. Very simple. The temples. org or Damanhur. org, D A M A N H h u r. org.
Giancarlo: Yeah, we’ll write everything in the show notes. It has been such a pleasure, so refreshing to have, um, have met you, to have learned more about this community and [01:10:00] this beautiful flexibility between the, the, the, the, um, you know, capitalistic system, uh, you know, people are usually are so concerned about, you know, the lack of, you know, because I think what is important from the competition is this idea of fostering creativity.
Exactly. That’s why
Esperide: I said to you before, why not competition? We have competition, but competition, not against each other, competition to whom is creating the best project for the collective good. For the
Giancarlo: collective, exactly. Because
Esperide: otherwise you stop creative
Giancarlo: Yeah.
Esperide: Yeah. Creative impulses in people.
Giancarlo: I think creativity and vitality, they go together and it’s, I think, one of our basic needs.
So fantastic. I’m super excited. I feel really reinvigorated by this conversation. Anything else that you want to cover that we might have forgot?
Esperide: Just that if someone who is listening to this, inspired to interview me or other Damanurians again to help us, um, you know, make [01:11:00] Damanur and other communities well known.
I’m available. I’ll be very happy. Let’s take this. Let’s take this as far as possible to as many years as possible. Yes.
Giancarlo: Yes. So spiritual entrepreneur out there shows up. Where do they find you?
Esperide: They can write me. And write an email to me.
Giancarlo: Yeah.
Esperide: I don’t know if it’s too old fashioned for today. That’s great.
Giancarlo: What is it?
Esperide: Well, it’s my name, Esperide, E S P E R I D E at Damanhur dot org.
Giancarlo: And also will be in the show line. Thank you very much. Thank you so
Esperide: much. And thank you all for listening.
Giancarlo: Thank you. [01:12:00] Peace.