Spirituality of Damanhur
* temples: “digging into the earth = digging into their souls”
** were almost shut down at one point, but a judge who walked through them decided they had to be saved
* balance between Divinity, Humanity, Nature
* aggressive pursuit of the divine / “divinizing matter”
* Damanhurian sacred script covering their coins (alternative currency)
* Some Damanhurians believe in contact w/ alien forces or spirits, others not
** example: trees have “auras”
* Lion, as a naturalist, felt spiritual energy when walking through the Damanhur “territory”
* Esoteric physics: treat metaphors as material things and make art of them
** includes things like '''how to hold a conversation'''
* Divinity means the line connecting us to the Real, which we can never directly perceive
Goal of Damanhur is to inspire, not proselytize
* they want Lion to do something ''different'' in Seattle
Self-regulating systems
* ex: plants “watering themselves” using sensors (caused a flood)
Both sharing and competitiveness are virtues
* Damanhurians believe in the transformative power of games
Work
* Damanhurians take no vacations, holidays, or weekends
** Kim: “I don't see my job as work”
* 60 industries
* “if creative nature of every individual is realized, society will be healthy”
* proposal: add these principles to the [[SolSeedCreed]]
Relation with nearby towns
* nearest town's mayor is a Damanhurian
* have majority board positions on 3 next nearest towns
Apathy
* Kim:
** issue in education: Students want to graduate, not actually go through the curriculum
** fishing metaphor: “cast a line” (start from others' point of view to try to bring them somewhere else)
*** ex. ask “Why don't you care? What ''do'' you care about?”
*** recognize '''how people communicate''' (choose the right diction, tone, etc.) to promote understanding
**** know who the other person is and acknowledge them
**** know what is acceptable/normal in a given place/culture
**** conflict:
***** Julie: be detached and see it as “fairy-tale anger”
** People should accept where they are, but not necessarily be ''comfortable'' with
* Debbie: people just following along is distressing
* Lion: in Damanhur, freedom is self-[[discipline]]
** walking stone circuits can be used to “get into action”
** [[SolSeedPhilosophy|philosophical]] choices required for action
*** Damanhurians see an individual as myriad voices
** have to work ''with others''
** no drugs other than alcohol in moderation
* Julie:
** Dalai Lama says we need development of values, not just mental and material development of the youth
*** action coming from concern and [[Empathy|care]]
** act locally
*** have to be “complete” and happy where you are before you can go somewhere else
*** Lion: Spiriata has a technical, “mainstream” but transhumanist vision
**** Julian Huxley and Teilhard de Chardin: transhumanism means “becoming more human”
How to draw people in?
* Lion: Damanhur relies on word of mouth (“Advertising is for chips”)
* Julie: ask people to bring a friend
Kim: Principles vs. concrete description of “what you want to get done”
* Lion has found that people will join Spiriata just because they like the principles
** the idea is to use ourselves as test subjects for everyone's ideas
** interested groups
*** chapter of Institute of Noetic Sciences
*** Art of Possibilities
** specific current project: movie interpretation
Information about Damanhur
* [damanhur.org website]
* ''Le storie di Damanhur'' comic book in Italian
* ''Damanhur: Temples of Humanity'' book of pictures of the temples
* ''Damanhur: The Story of the Amazing Artistic Society in Italy'' and ''Damanhur: The Society They Tried to Brand as a Cult'' (Jeff Merrifield)