How we started excavating the Temples of Humankind

Condor Girasole is one of the founders of Damanhur. With Falco Tarassaco and a few others, he was one of the first ones to give life to the dream called Damanhur.

In the 1970s when he was 26 to 27 years old, Condor was looking for a spiritual path, and he had already prepared his suitcase to go to India, thinking that the West couldn’t really offer something meaningful from this perspective.

Invited by a friend, he went to listen to a talk given by another young man, Oberto Airaudi (later called Falco Tarassaco), and he was blown away. It all seemed so familiar to him, hearing that young man speak about the reawakening of so-called paranormal abilities, the reawakening of the divine spark that resides in every human being. Condor decided to send his suitcase not to India but to Damanhur.

In Damanhur, Condor has been involved with so many things. He has excavated the Temples, written many, many books; he was on the monk path for many years, and today he is one of the three Sages of Damanhur, that is, the people whom Falco has appointed to safeguard the spiritual vision of Damanhur.

Condor in the early years of Damanhur

We asked him, “What was it like to build the Temples of Humankind in those early years?”
Here, Condor shares his story.

“Porta del Sole, that is, the house that looks after the entrance to the Temples of Humankind, was very different at that time (1978) compared to how it is today. It was a very simple cottage, and on one side there was a green lawn with a fence. We started to go there weekly and attend Falco’s evenings talks around the fire. These evenings were very nice and we talked about everything, from the meaning of life, to talents to be reawakened, to the Divinities.

The evenings around the fire where we talked about everything

One afternoon around 4 or 5 pm, I think it was a Sunday, we found Falco behind the house, and in his presence, we started digging in the mountain using picks and buckets to carry away the earth. I don’t remember Falco saying anything except:

“Now we begin to dig in the mountain.”

The first excavations and hammering

Everyone there starting working right away. After the beginning, which was easier, we came to the rock and I remember that we decided to get ourselves organized to excavate at night too. It was very demanding. We slept on the covered terrace adjacent to the house. We were about a dozen people, and this went on for 15-20 days uninterruptedly. It was August, that is, during the holiday season. It was a really emotional time, nourished by a great dream and great expectations, even though we did not know what would happen over time, and we certainly did not imagine what would eventually become the Temples of Humankind.

We started with a corridor and then created the Blue Temple. Digging this first “hall,” the amount of material that came out was much more than that of the corridor. In this way, we came to the first great achievement: the Blue Temple, which seemed extremely large to us. It was incredible, there was so much emotion.

The first Hall created was the Blue Temple

Digging was an important symbolic ritual that created a strong bond among us, and it made a dream come to life in the mountain. Everyone felt it in a similar and very strong way. The fact that it was a secret kept to ourselves, which lasted for many years, created an important alchemical element within us. You could call it… Love for a Dream.