The Call to Community
Are You Ready to
Are You Ready to
Join One of the World's
Most Extraordinary
Communities?
For fifty years, the Federation of Damanhur has been a living experiment in what humanity might become — a conscious community of 400–600 people in the Italian Alps, building a different kind of civilisation from the ground up. If you have felt the call to something deeper, to community rooted in meaning, spiritual growth, and genuine human connection, this page is for you.
1975
Year Founded
~500
Current Residents
80+
Countries Represented
4
Community Nuclei
Pathways of Entry
Ways to Join Damanhur
There is no single path into Damanhur — the community welcomes those drawn to its vision through a range of structured entry points, each designed to allow genuine acquaintance before any long-term commitment. Every pathway begins with relationship: meeting the community, understanding its values, and allowing Damanhur to understand you in return.
Entry Level
Trial Stay
1 – 4 Weeks
The Trial Stay is designed for individuals and couples who want to experience daily life at Damanhur before making any formal commitment. You will be hosted within one of the four nuclei, participate in morning assemblies, share meals, and join in the community's daily rhythms — work, spiritual practice, arts, and celebration. A dedicated community mentor accompanies you throughout the stay, helping you understand the structures, values, and unwritten customs that make Damanhur what it is. The Trial Stay is the essential first step for anyone considering a longer journey toward citizenship.
Requirements
Open to adults 18+. Couples and families welcome. Basic Italian or English helpful. Prior visit to the Temples recommended but not required.
What's Included
Full board in community guesthouse, structured orientation programme, mentor assignment, access to all community events and workshops during stay.
€480 – €720 / week
Includes accommodation & full board. Sliding scale available for financial hardship.
Immersive
Volunteer Programme
1 – 3 Months
The Volunteer Programme places you inside the living community in a real working role — whether in the organic gardens, the Selfic workshops, the Sacred Woods, the ceramics studio, the welcome centre, or the community kitchen. You are not a tourist observing from the outside; you are a contributing member of daily life. In return for 25–30 hours of meaningful contribution per week, you receive full board, accommodation, and access to the rich community life of assemblies, ceremonies, arts evenings, and spiritual practices. This is the most direct way to understand whether Damanhur's way of life resonates with your own.
Requirements
18+. Some skills in gardening, crafts, cooking, admin, or construction helpful. Physical fitness for outdoor roles. English or Italian required.
What's Included
Shared community room, all meals, participation in all community cultural and spiritual events, language support, end-of-programme community letter of reference.
€180 – €260 / month
Contribution toward accommodation. Full board included. Visa support letter provided.
Skill-Based
Work Exchange
2 – 8 Weeks
The Work Exchange programme is suited to individuals with specific professional skills that the community needs — IT systems, graphic design, film production, construction, electrical engineering, herbal medicine, permaculture design, educational facilitation, or translation. In exchange for a structured contribution of your professional expertise, you receive full accommodation, meals, and a cultural immersion experience that goes well beyond what any programme or retreat could offer. Work Exchange participants often find themselves invited to remain longer, and several have gone on to become full citizens through this pathway. It is an especially good fit for people who prefer a practical, skills-based introduction to community life.
Requirements
Demonstrated professional skill in an area of community need. Portfolio or work samples requested. Minimum 2-week commitment. 18+.
What's Included
Private or shared room, all meals, integration into community life, access to workshops and events. Certificate of contribution issued on completion.
No programme fee
Full board & accommodation in exchange for professional contribution. Travel not included.
Full Commitment
Residency Application
Ongoing
Full residency at Damanhur means becoming a citizen of the Federation — a formal commitment to the community's constitution, values, economic model, and spiritual path. Residency is not available immediately; it requires a minimum of one year of progressive engagement through a Trial Stay and an extended Volunteer or Work Exchange period, followed by a formal application reviewed by a nuclei placement committee. Residents participate fully in community governance, contribute their professional and creative skills to community enterprises, adopt an animal name (a Damanhurian tradition), engage with the School of Meditation, and enter into the Game of Life — the community's extraordinary system of personal and collective growth. Full residents are supported in housing, healthcare, and community economic life through the internal Credito currency system.
Requirements
Completion of at least one prior engagement pathway. Interview with nuclei committee. Commitment to constitutional values, spiritual study, and community contribution. Italian language study encouraged.
What's Included
Community housing, participation in Credito economy, full access to all schools and spiritual programmes, integration into nuclei family life, governance participation.
Community Economic Model
Residents contribute skills and labor; housing, food, healthcare integrated into community economy. Individual financial arrangements discussed on acceptance.
What It Really Means
Life as a Citizen of Damanhur
Becoming a citizen of Damanhur is one of the most transformative decisions a person can make. It is not simply a change of address, nor a shift in social circle — it is the adoption of an entirely different orientation toward existence: toward time, toward community, toward the purpose of a human life.
Life at Damanhur is structured around the nuclei — residential clusters of 15 to 40 people who form extended family units. Each nucleus has its own character, its own collective projects, its own weekly assembly where decisions are made by consensus. You will be placed in a nucleus whose energy, work, and people feel aligned with yours. Within the nucleus, you will share a home, share meals, share responsibilities, and share the extraordinary adventure of building something together.
Every citizen of Damanhur holds a Damanhurian animal name — chosen at the time of their formal commitment, symbolising both their individual nature and their belonging to the wider community. These names carry real weight: in community life, the animal name is the identity used in assemblies, ceremonies, and the Game of Life.
The Game of Life — il Gioco della Vita — is Damanhur's most distinctive institution. Part spiritual practice, part philosophical system, part community accountability structure, the Game of Life asks each citizen to set personal goals and be held to them by their community. These goals span physical health, creative expression, relational depth, professional contribution, and spiritual development. The Game is played across seasons, and results are celebrated, examined, and fed back into a cycle of continuous growth.
The Nuclei Structure
Damanhur currently maintains four active nuclei — Damjl (founding nucleus), Damanhur Crea (arts), Etulte (healing & research), and Tentyris (academy & education). Each has distinct character and projects. Citizens are placed through a dialogue between personal resonance and community need.
The School of Meditation
All residents engage with the School of Meditation, Damanhur's structured spiritual curriculum developed by Falco Tarassaco over 40 years. The School unfolds across five years of initial study and continues for a lifetime, covering subtle body awareness, sacred geometry, synchronic line navigation, and esoteric philosophy.
The Credito Economy
Damanhur operates an internal complementary currency, the Credito, alongside the euro. Citizens contribute their professional skills to community enterprises and receive Crediti in exchange. Housing, food, healthcare, and cultural life are largely provided within this integrated economic model.
The Language: Damanhuriano
Damanhur has its own constructed language, Damanhuriano — used in ceremonies, community songs, and some governance contexts. Learning it is a joyful part of the citizenship journey, and new citizens are gently introduced to it through community life and weekly language evenings.
"The question is not whether you are ready for Damanhur. The question is whether Damanhur is ready for what you will bring — and whether you are ready for what Damanhur will ask of you in return."— Community orientation materials, 2024
Step by Step
The Admissions Journey
From your first contact to formal citizenship, the journey toward becoming a Damanhurian typically unfolds over 6 to 18 months. The timeline is not fixed — it reflects the organic development of a real relationship between you and the community. Some people move quickly; others take time to deepen their understanding before taking the next step. Both paths are honoured.
1
First Contact & Inquiry
Your journey begins with an inquiry to the Welcome Team at welcome@dhwelcome.org. You will receive an introductory packet — a detailed guide to Damanhur's history, values, and entry pathways — and an invitation to an online orientation call with a community member. This call is informal, generous, and unhurried. Its purpose is mutual: for you to ask your deepest questions, and for the Welcome Team to begin understanding who you are and what draws you to community life. Many people find this conversation alone is profoundly clarifying, regardless of what comes next.
Weeks 1–2
2
Orientation Visit
Before any programme begins, a standard day or weekend orientation visit to the community is strongly recommended. This may be a regular day tour of the Temples, or — for those already seriously interested in joining — a dedicated 2-day orientation programme that includes accommodation, meals with community members, a walking tour of the nuclei, and a structured group session exploring Damanhur's values, governance, and daily rhythms. The orientation visit is the moment where the idea of Damanhur becomes embodied reality, and where most people know — instinctively — whether this is their path.
Month 1–2
3
Trial Stay or Programme
Following your orientation visit, you will be invited to schedule a formal Trial Stay or Volunteer Programme — typically 2 to 8 weeks, depending on your circumstances and available dates. This is when Damanhur truly becomes a lived experience: you wake in the community, work alongside its people, participate in its ceremonies, eat at its long communal tables, and discover — day by day — what resonates and what challenges you. A community mentor is assigned to you throughout, offering weekly check-ins, contextual explanations, and a safe space to process what arises. At the conclusion of your trial period, both you and the community will offer honest feedback to each other.
Months 2–5
4
Extended Engagement Period
For those seeking full residency (as opposed to shorter volunteer or work exchange stays), an extended engagement period of 3 to 9 months typically follows the initial trial. During this time, you may live part-time in the community or return for additional structured stays, deepening your engagement with specific nuclei, attending the School of Meditation introductory modules, contributing to community projects, and building real relationships with citizens. This is not a formal evaluation period — it is an organic deepening, much like the early years of any profound relationship. The community does not put you on probation; it invites you into increasing trust.
Months 3–10
5
Application Review & Nuclei Placement
When both you and the community feel a genuine readiness, a formal application process begins. You will complete a written application describing your background, skills, motivations, and intentions. The Welcome Committee — comprising members from across all nuclei — reviews your application alongside the observations of your mentor and the feedback of community members who have worked with you. A nuclei placement conversation follows: which of the four nuclei best fits your energy, your skills, and your aspirations? This placement is not arbitrary — it is a thoughtful process of human matching, conducted with care and candour.
Months 6–14
6
Formal Citizenship Ceremony
Acceptance into the Federation is marked by a formal Citizenship Ceremony — one of the most moving experiences in community life. In the presence of your new nuclei family, you receive your Damanhurian animal name, make your commitment to the community's constitution, and are welcomed into the full fabric of life at Damanhur. The ceremony takes place in the Temples or in the Sacred Woods, depending on the season, and is followed by a community celebration. From this day, you are a citizen — with all the rights, responsibilities, and belonging that entails. Many citizens describe the ceremony as a threshold experience: a before and after in their lives.
Months 10–18
From Those Who Joined
Lives Transformed
Three citizens share what brought them to Damanhur, what surprised them most, and how their lives changed after taking the leap.
★★★★★
"I had spent twelve years in tech in San Francisco, building products for a system I no longer believed in. I had read about Damanhur in a graduate thesis and almost dismissed it — it sounded too good to be true, or too strange to be serious. I came for a five-day orientation visit in September 2019, expecting to find earnest idealism and beautiful art. What I found instead was an intensity of human aliveness that I had not experienced since childhood — people who were genuinely trying, not performing trying. I returned for a three-month volunteer placement. By month two, I knew I wasn't going home. I took my animal name — Airone Perla di Montagna (Mountain Pearl Heron) — in the spring of 2021, in the Hall of Mirrors, surrounded by eighty people who had become my family. I work now in Damanhur's communications and translation department. I am more myself here than I have been anywhere. The discomforts are real — communal living requires a quality of self-knowledge that is uncomfortable, sometimes painful. But the growth is also real. Nothing I left behind has matched what I found."
★★★★★
"In Japan, we are taught that the group is everything and the individual must subordinate. At Damanhur, I discovered something more nuanced — that the individual and the community strengthen each other, rather than one erasing the other. I came first as part of a Japanese delegation studying the Global Ecovillage Network in 2018. I returned alone for a Trial Stay in 2020 — during COVID, Damanhur was quietly continuing its internal life, adapting but not retreating. I was assigned to the organic garden team and the plant communication laboratory. I had studied Falco's writings in translation. Sitting with the plants, listening to the tones they produced through the bioelectrical interface, I felt — for the first time in my adult life — that science and spirituality were one thing. The citizenship ceremony in 2022 was conducted partly in Damanhuriano, and a community member sang in Japanese at the end. I wept. I had found a home that contains multitudes, including mine. I now coordinate Damanhur's relationships with the emerging Japanese network, Orovelj, and serve as a cultural bridge between east and west."
★★★★★
"I arrived from São Paulo with nothing but a backpack, a copy of Falco's 'Book of Synchronicity', and a conviction that something had to change — in my life and, through whatever I could contribute, in the world. I was thirty-four. I had worked in environmental law for eight years and had come to feel that legal systems, however well-intentioned, were inadequate to the depth of the crisis. A friend in the ecovillage movement told me about Damanhur. I signed up for a Work Exchange, offering my Portuguese-language translation skills and my permaculture design background. In six weeks, I had contributed to three projects, learned the basics of Selfica theory, sung in three community ceremonies, and — inexplicably — felt the heaviness I had carried for years beginning to dissolve. The community took me seriously as a human being in a way that I had almost forgotten was possible. The Game of Life gave me a framework for personal accountability that no therapy or self-help book had managed. I applied for residency after nine months of extended engagement. My animal name — Giaguaro Verde della Foresta (Green Jaguar of the Forest) — was given to me in the Sacred Woods at dawn, with the sound of birds and the community's singing all around. I have lived here for three years. My legal skills now serve the Federation's international network relationships. My permaculture work is in the food forest. I have never regretted a single day."
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — couples and families are warmly welcomed at Damanhur, and many of the community's most deeply integrated members joined as families. Children are raised within the community and attend either local Italian schools or the community's own educational programmes, which are inspired by Waldorf principles and enriched by Damanhur's unique cultural and philosophical tradition. For couples, the application and placement process takes both individuals' needs and contributions into account. Families are typically placed in nuclei with other families, creating natural rhythms of child-rearing, shared parenting, and intergenerational learning. There is no penalty for joining as a couple or family — if anything, there is a practical advantage, as families bring a wider range of skills and a greater capacity for the relational depth that community life demands.
Italian is the primary language of Damanhur's internal life — assemblies, ceremonies, and informal daily conversation all take place predominantly in Italian. However, the community is deeply international and has a long tradition of welcoming non-Italian speakers. English is widely spoken, and the Welcome Team communicates primarily in English for international enquirers. During a Trial Stay or Volunteer Programme, you will be supported in Italian by your mentor and by community members who speak your language. Longer-term residents are expected to learn basic Italian over time, and Italian language evenings are a regular feature of community life. Damanhuriano — the community's own constructed language — is taught gently and with joy, and no prior knowledge is expected or required of newcomers.
Damanhur does not require the surrender of personal assets or savings as a condition of citizenship. The community operates a participatory economic model in which citizens contribute their professional skills and labour to community enterprises and participate in the Credito complementary currency system. Housing, meals, healthcare, and participation in cultural and spiritual life are provided within this framework. Personal bank accounts, property, and savings outside Italy remain your own. Individuals considering full residency are encouraged to have a frank conversation with the Welcome Team about financial expectations and arrangements before formally applying. The community's economic model has been documented and published, and prospective members are given full transparency about what economic participation in Damanhur looks like in practice.
Absolutely. Damanhur is not a closed or controlling community — citizens are free to leave at any time, and the exit process is supported, not penalised. People leave for many reasons: a sense of completion, a new calling elsewhere, family circumstances, or simply the recognition that the community's path no longer matches their own. Damanhur maintains positive relationships with many former citizens, some of whom remain part of an extended global network. The community's constitution explicitly protects the right of individual exit, and the Welcome Team can discuss what a supported transition might look like for any individual or family. The only expectation at exit is honesty — and the same quality of care that accompanied the entry process is extended to the departure.
Damanhur's children attend either local Italian state schools (which the community has strong relationships with) or participate in the community's own educational programme, Damanhur's School for the Future of Children (Scuola per il Futuro dei Bambini). This programme blends Waldorf-inspired pedagogy with Damanhurian philosophy, arts integration, outdoor education in the Sacred Woods, and early introduction to music, sacred geometry, and multiple languages including English, Italian, and elements of Damanhuriano. Children at Damanhur grow up in an extraordinarily rich environment — surrounded by temples, forests, art, music, and a multi-generational community of engaged adults. Many adult citizens describe their own childhood at Damanhur as the most formative gift their parents could have given them.
Damanhur has a rich, structured spiritual path rooted in the teachings of Falco Tarassaco — including the School of Meditation, Selfic practice, synchronic line navigation, sacred ceremony, and the philosophy of multiple souls. Engagement with this path is a meaningful part of community life and deepens over time. However, Damanhur does not require that newcomers arrive with prior spiritual knowledge or commitment. The Trial Stay and Volunteer programmes are open to people of all backgrounds, including those with no prior engagement with esoteric or spiritual traditions. What the community does ask for is open-mindedness, genuine curiosity, and a willingness to engage respectfully with practices and beliefs that may be unfamiliar. Full citizenship does involve a commitment to the spiritual dimension of Damanhur's life — but this commitment is entered into over time, through lived experience, not required at the outset.
The number of new citizens formally accepted each year is relatively small — typically 10 to 25 individuals and family members — reflecting the depth of the admission process and the community's commitment to genuine integration rather than rapid growth. However, the number of people participating in Trial Stays, Volunteer Programmes, and Work Exchanges is considerably larger — several hundred per year from across the world. Not everyone who comes for a Trial Stay goes on to seek citizenship; the programme is designed to support genuine discernment, and many people find that their time at Damanhur, however brief, profoundly enriches their lives and contributes to their path, even if that path leads elsewhere.
There is no upper age limit for joining Damanhur — the community is multigenerational by design, and older adults bring wisdom, experience, and depth of perspective that enriches community life enormously. Several long-term citizens joined after retirement age and have found the community's pace of life, access to healing arts, and sense of collective purpose to be profoundly life-giving. The minimum age for independent application is 18. Younger adults (18–25) often find the Volunteer Programme an especially formative entry point. Families with children of any age are welcome. Physical fitness requirements vary by role — outdoor and construction work requires a reasonable level of physical health, while administrative, artistic, and educational contributions have no such requirement.
Yes — and this is strongly recommended. A standard day visit to the Temples of Humankind (available Tuesday through Saturday, €55–€100 depending on the tour) gives you your first encounter with Damanhur and the opportunity to speak with guides who are community members. A 2-day orientation weekend (bookable through the Welcome Team) goes deeper — with accommodation, communal meals, a guided nuclei walk, and a structured group conversation. Many people who eventually join Damanhur trace their journey back to a single day visit that planted a seed which grew, over months or years, into a life-changing decision. There is no expectation or pressure — the community's door is always open, and the welcome is always genuine.
The Game of Life — il Gioco della Vita — is one of the most distinctive and beloved elements of Damanhur's community culture. It is a structured system of personal growth goals set by each citizen for themselves across multiple life domains — health, creativity, relationships, spiritual practice, and professional contribution — and held accountable by the community through seasonal review ceremonies. The Game is not a competition, and there are no prizes or punishments; it is a framework for the kind of intentional living that community life makes possible. For full citizens, engagement with the Game of Life is an expected part of community membership — not a rigid obligation, but a living commitment to growth that is taken seriously and celebrated joyfully. Visitors and Trial Stay participants are invited to observe Game of Life events and often find themselves deeply moved by the quality of honest reflection and collective support they witness.
Begin Your Journey
Contact & Apply
The first step is simply reaching out. The Welcome Team at Damanhur reads every message personally, and responds to every genuine inquiry with care and without delay. There is no wrong way to begin this conversation.
Send an Enquiry or Application
Direct Contact
The Welcome Team is available Monday through Friday, 09:00–17:00 CET. For urgent inquiries or to schedule a call outside these hours, please email and indicate your timezone.
Email
Phone
Address
Via Baldissero 21, 10080 Vidracco (TO), Italy
Office Hours
Monday – Saturday, 09:00 – 17:00 CET
Stay Informed
Letters from the Community
Stories, seasonal news, new programme openings, and occasional dispatches from daily life at Damanhur. Free to subscribe — unsubscribe anytime.
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