...which left many artifacts celebrating the divine presence of the Great Mother.
Even the Egyptians ventured up here creating many temples of Isis, whose remains still exist today.
In Turin, just above these ancient sacred places, many churches were built, which kept the devotional flow towards the Divine Mother alive.
One of the most important is still called "The Great Mother".
They continued to use all the previous sacred places to lead their rituals to the Sun and the Moon, keeping alive the presence of the Goddess, worshipped above all with the name of Epona, goddess of horses. Her cult, widespread in Ireland and Gaul, extends to Italy, Germany, the Rhine and Lower Danube regions, Spain and North Africa.
Epona was adored in all the valleys around Turin, so much so that the ancient name of the current city of Ivrea, Eporedia, comes from her. One of the most important horse fairs in Italy still takes place there today.
Epona is often depicted with the cornucopia in her arms, indicating her function as protector and dispenser of gifts and fertility.
Around 1,500 A.D., the Savoy, the oldest royal bloodline in Europe, reconnected to this divine feminine energy and began to build temples dedicated to Diana, the goddess of hunting and the moon. These temples were often disguised as hunting lodges.
More than three centuries later, Oberto Airaudi, the future founder of Damanhur, chose to build his house - a center of alchemical and spiritual operations - right next to one of these temples.
In 1578 the Savoys moved the Holy Shroud — which had been in their possession since 1453 — from Chambéry to Turin, the new capital of their Duchy.
Turin has an important history.
According to the myth, it is a very ancient city, initially created as a sacred place for the celebration of Solstices and Equinoxes. It has always been considered a magical city, as it is built on a meeting place of important energy lines of the planet. The city is still home to the Holy Shroud, and for a long time, Turin was known as the home of the Grail.
In 1800 the Savoys began the construction of the Egyptian Museum—the second most important in the world, after the one in Cairo.
In the gallery still called "the Temple", the museum hosts the world's largest collection of statues of the goddess Sekhmet, the healing goddess.
One of the ways in which Sekhmet facilitated healing was by sending a dream to those sleeping in her temples. The ancient Greeks called the Temples to receive special dreams "Abatons."
In the ’70’s of the twentieth century, Turin became a center of study for everything mystical. It is therefore the ideal place for the Horus Center, the first seed of Damanhur, that opened in 1975.
Its inspirer, Falco Tarassaco (né Oberto Airaudi (1950-2013) is the man who held the first vision for Damanhur.
Through a long personal journey of memory retrieval, self-completion and constant research, Falco becomes the vehicle for a Great Spiritual Consciousness, connected to that of many Masters of the past.
Their collective mission has always been that of the spiritual liberation of Humanity, through the Awakening of the feminine and masculine Divine Principles. In this way, we can create a sacred union within, towards wholeness. and the alchemical integration of opposites.
In 1979, Falco and a group of researchers moved to the mystical Valchiusella, a valley north of Turin and Ivrea, enclosed by a mountain in the shape of a sleeping woman that has always been called "the sleeping beauty".
Local legends say she is a dreaming goddess, waiting to be re-awakened. She fell asleep right here because this land is crossed by important lines of energy, which we now call Synchronic Lines
It is in Valchiusella that the spiritual and social experience of Damanhur was born, to tap into all the work and the knowledge of generations and generations of alchemists, who have prepared this land for its mission today... to be a propelling center for the Great Awakening of Humanity.
Damanhur was born to reveal the secrets of the past and to remember the future, to make the knowledge of ancient magicians and alchemists accessible to all those who seek with dedication and pure heart to express the best of themselves, to grow spiritually and help all humanity to awaken.
In service to humanity, Damanhurians have built the Temples of Humankind.
Nestled inside the rock in the heart of a mountain, the Temples are an extraordinary work of sacred art and a powerful antenna for planetary healing.
The Temples receive and spread information, activation codes of consciousness, spiritual energies of healing and transformation all around the world. More than ever, we Damanhurians want to share them with everyone that feels the calling.