Crotalo Sesamo: The Magic of Damanhur
An Interview with Crotalo Sesamo: The Magic of Damanhur
By Sandie Sedgbeer
Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Forty-five years ago, a small group of individuals, led by a man with a grand–some might say impossible–vision, established an intentional community in the Alpine foothills of Piedmont, Italy.
Today, that community is a self-contained republic with its on constitution, culture, art, music, currency, schools, and uses of science and technology. Home to hundreds of individuals, it’s also renowned for its artistic, spiritual, scientific, medical, and social research.
In short, Damanhur is an example of the future, the seed of a culture of peace that can inspire change in the world.
Today to share some of the mysteries of what many call a magical place is Damanhur Ambassador Crotalo Sesamo.
To listen to the full interview of Crotalo Sesamo by Sandie Sedgbeer on the radio show What Is Going OM on OMTimes Radio, click the player below.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Established in 1975, Damanhur is a living example of what is possible when one has dreams and visions and goes out to create them. Tell us how it started.
Crotalo Sesamo: Everything started in 1975 from the vision of Oberto Airaudi, an artist known in Damanhur as Falco, who was able to remember where he was from and why he was here.
He was here for an important mission, an important task. And this task was Damanhur.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You say that he remembered where he came from. Where did he come from?
Crotalo Sesamo: There are many stories about Falco, but the one that probably matches best is the idea that he was coming from the future, from a moment of time where things were not going so well for humankind. And part of his mission was to come back in time to create another timeline and an instrument that would be a sort of spiritual accelerator to wake up the consciousness of humankind. Well, of course we’re talking about Damanhur, and about time travel from the future to the past.
I was really lucky to be close to him for many different reasons and for many different projects, and he was not just a visionary man; he was able to make his visions happen. The Temple of Humankind that, as you know, is the largest underground temple in the world. And I think that the most incredible thing that he did was to make this the vision of a community, the vision of a group of people who were then able always to cross the line between what is possible and impossible.
Sandie Sedgbeer: When did you first hear about Damanhur?
Crotalo Sesamo: It was around 1988. I was a young man, a tennis teacher, born in Turin, which is the largest city near Damanhur. Since a very young age I’d had an inner voice telling me that there was a place where I had to live my life. When I heard about Damanhur it was a small community of about 60 people, now we have about 1000. And the temple was not known then because it was built in secret.
Even though it was 28 years ago, I remember it so clearly because the moment I stepped into Damanhur, my inner voice was screaming inside of me, “This is the place. This is the place where you have to be.” And from that moment I completely transformed my life to become a Damanhurian.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Falco looked all over the world for the perfect place to build this community. And he found it pretty much in his own backyard. What was he looking for?
Crotalo Sesamo: Falco was looking for the best place to create Damanhur. He did a lot of research into the energy lines of the planet, and how where they cross they are a source of incredible energy. We call them synchronic lines. There are 18 of them, nine moving horizontally, nine moving vertically, and where they cross there are two, three or four lines, which historically are where there were always important civilizations, cities, temples, pyramids, or sacred places. In the early ’70s, Falco didn’t have a complete map of the synchronic lines. So, using astral travel and channeling, he traveled all over the world with a group of people to try to complete the map, and he discovered that this important, unique point where four of these synchronic lines were crossing was just 10 miles from where he was born, in Baldissero Canavese, in the Piedmont region of Italy. .
Sandie Sedgbeer: Many people might think that Damanhur is very ‘new-agey,’ but it’s actually very practical.
Crotalo Sesamo: Yes. We are actually pretty grounded. Of course, we talk about topics like time travel, and out-of-body experience, so it might seem new agey, but at the same time, Damanhur is really a practical experience. And we need to be practical because we want to be an inspiration. We want to be an example for everyone in the world, not just spiritual people, but every dreamer who wants to create a better world.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You place a lot of emphasis on research. What kind of research do you engage in?
Crotalo Sesamo: We like to push the limits of the unknown. So we are more than just people living in a community; we are spiritual researchers, looking to discover the unknown.
Ms. Sandie Sedgbeer: When Falco first founded the community, after building places to live, he started working on the Temples of Humankind. Why?
Crotalo Sesamo: It started quite organically one evening in 1978. Falco was sitting around the fires, waiting for a sign, when suddenly there was a falling star in the sky. He just picked up an instrument and in complete silence started digging. Nobody knew what he was doing, but they all started to dig, too. So, we started this incredible adventure that is really the symbol of the impossible made possible. The only limits are inside of ourselves, so in a sense, digging the temple was a practical meditation, in which digging into the rock was like digging inside to create a new space inside of ourselves. But nobody knew about the entire project; it was a step-by-step, piece by piece process, with no architect or engineer.
Sandie Sedgbeer: So, it’s a metaphor then? And that’s why Damanhur is often called an alchemical laboratory because we are alchemical laboratories?
Crotalo Sesamo: Absolutely. In a way, the temple represents the different chambers of a human body, and every chamber has a different function, a different element. It is alchemical because it’s the pure transformation of something— like rock—into something that is full of meanings, of significance, values, teaching, and of knowledge. It’s like spiritualizing matter. And the magic of this is that it is all done by hand, so it’s not something supernatural, but really about what you have, what I have, what everyone has, hands that can transform matter into something higher.
Sandie Sedgbeer: And the architectural details follow a precise code of form and proportions according to an ancient sacred language…
Crotalo Sesamo: Absolutely. Falco said that the temple is a sort of three-dimensional book and that the people who come to visit are on a sort of spiritual pilgrimage because they are looking for answers. So, when you go inside the temple, when you walk around and experience the shape, and this energy, you start to receive answers. You are in a place that is the source of knowledge, or information that can unlock part of your memory, part of your mission, part of the program of why you are here in this life.
Sandie Sedgbeer: So, there are several halls—the Hall of Water, the Hall of Earth, The Hall of Mirrors, The Hall of Spheres, the Hall of Metals—how are they different? What kind of experiences might you have in one, which you probably would not get in another?
Crotalo Sesamo: When you come to Damanhur, you can join the different programs, and there is the opportunity to discover the entire temple, as well as meditate in the different chambers, each of which has a different function So, for example, the Hall of Water, which is one of my favorites, is a place of memory, of reawakening. It’s the place of reincarnation in the sense of coming back to continue your mission because, sometimes, a mission is not just about this life, but it’s also about a soul program that you have to achieve in more than one incarnation.
Sandie Sedgbeer: On the website thetemples. Org, one can see videos of the different halls. And the art is just stunning, breathtaking. But the people who made this art weren’t all artists. So how did they produce such beauty?
Crotalo Sesamo: One of the seminars we teach is that everyone is an artist inside, and we can prove that because everyone at Damanhur is working in a different art laboratory—the laboratory of Clay, of Tiffany Glass, of Paintings, of Mosaic. We are not professional artists, but we become artists because we need to create it for the temples.
Art is a universal language that actually is not only talking about the form but also talking through the emotions and feelings. Since we need to fill the temple with all of this, and because the deal was that we were the only ones to create the temple, we had to try. So we had to learn to make Tiffany glass, for example. So, while everyone working in these incredible Laboratories of Art are not professionals, they become professionals thanks to the temple.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You were personally trained in art by Falco. How did he train you?
Crotalo Sesamo: Falco was an incredible teacher, who taught not just with words, but also with dreams, energies, and telepathy. He was very good at creating situations where he wouldn’t tell you what to do, but let you find out what you have to do. That is the difference between a guru and a spiritual master.
Many people are looking for a guru, but with all due respect, the idea of the guru is, “Oh, please, can you take the responsibility of my action?” Like, “Guru, tell me what to do, or what to eat, or who to marry,” because we are trying to find another father or mother to be responsible for us. Then if something is wrong, it is not our responsibility; it’s the guru’s responsibility.
Falco was not a guru. Falco was a spiritual master who was always bringing you into situations where you had to choose. And of course, you can also choose something wrong.
But, you have the capacity to use your free will and to take responsibility for that. So, Falco was really training us always to take responsibility for our actions.
Ms. Sandie Sedgbeer: The book The Secret Life of Plants contained details of Cleve Baxter’s research using electrodes on plants to determine whether plants have feelings. You do something similar with your “Music of the Plants.”
Crotalo Sesamo: This is the machine that we invented that is able to read the electrical conductivity that every life form creates. The “Music of the Plants” is our demonstration that plants are not only alive but also are communicating with us, giving us messages. By connecting one sensor to a leaf and another to the roots of a plant, the machine can read the electricity and translate these messages into sound. It’s amazing to see how plants can answer the thoughts or gestures a person extends toward the plants. This is a way to make people aware that plants are live beings. We also hope to touch the sensitivity of the younger generation, so that kids might grow up with a different consciousness about plants and one another, and learn to respect the ecosystem and the plant world around us.
