I'd hoped to complete my extraterrestrial experience after helping to clean up Giant Rock last weekend by following it up with the alien-architect-designed Integratron, also in the California High Desert town of Landers.
But all the online bookings for sound baths were sold out when I checked the website just a couple of days before my visit—so before heading out of town, I simply swung by the gift shop to pick up a souvenir or two.
At the counter, I heard a guy ask if there were any last-minute openings for the 12 o'clock sound bath. "How many?" the clerk responded. When the customer said "Just one," and the clerk said, "You got it," I piped up: "You got one more?"
"Yes, you're in," the clerk said. "I have just two." And the next thing I knew, the other guy was handing me a ticket and saying, "C'mon, let's go in."
"Wait, what happened? Did you buy my ticket?" I asked—and yes, he had, no questions asked, no expectation of being reimbursed, no strings attached. That kind of thing doesn't happen in LA (though it turned out he was from LA, just like me).
Don't tell me the Integratron doesn't have some kind of special force surrounding it—though the "electrostatic generator," formerly known as the College of Universal Wisdom Research Laboratory, hasn't yet fulfilled its destiny to help its visitors travel through time.
Influenced by the theories of sacred geometry, UFOlogist George Van Tassel built this 38-foot-tall sacred dome building at the confluence of five underground rivers (a locus of high geophysical and electromagnetic energy, correlating with the World Energy Grid System) for that very purpose...
...but also to provide a method of rejuvenation to extend (or "expand") life, literally by regenerating tissue and "recharging" the human battery.
Although Van Tassel received the building plans from a Venusian alien named Solgonda telepathically during an extraterrestrial encounter at Giant Rock in 1953, he also based some of the Integratron's principles on the theories of Nikola Tesla. In fact, the domed roof used to spin and create its own lightning (but alas, no longer does).
Previously an aviator and Douglas Aircraft engineer, Van Tassel began building the Integratron in 1956—initially funded by the "flying saucer" conventions he held at Giant Rock. But when he passed away suddenly at age 67 in 1978, it still wasn't fully completed. Some wonder whether future technology might ever allow for it to achieve its original purpose, as many of Van Tassel took many of his engineering secrets to his grave.
For now, it's "just" a nationally-recognized historic landmark and architectural oddity, as an acoustically perfect, 43 feet in diameter building that's held together by wooden dowels, laminated wood panels glued together (a method used in shipbuilding), and a one-and-a-half-ton poured-in-place concrete oculus (custom made by Westinghouse Electric Company).
Even more impressive, it still stands—and survived the 1992 Landers earthquake—without the help of nails or any metal supports. (The only metal is the ring of red-tipped aluminum dirods on the outside, which was the part that spun to generate electricity.)
Right now, the only way to visit the Integratron is to sign up for a sound bath, when you can stand in the center of the Douglas fir dome and experience its "whispering gallery" effect by howling like a wolf or singing your favorite aria.
During the sound bath, pure quartz crystal bowls tuned to certain musical notes are played to "wash" over you as you lie on a floor cushion. Each note is intended to energize one of your chakras (or "energy centers" of your body).
The first time I took a sound bath in 2009, the music coming out of the crystal bowls triggered sensations in my chest and upper abdomen that I'd never experienced before—something akin to the way that acupuncture feels when a needle has really struck a chord.
This time, I was so relaxed, I struggled to stay awake—getting nudged by my neighbor each time I started to snore a little. The only exception? When a certain note triggered a muscle spasm in my back that didn't go away for several minutes.
Some sound bathers have such strong responses to their experience at the Integratron, they leave behind sacred objects or little mementos at a non-denominational, multicultural altar. Among its crystals and statues is an entire bowl full of guitar picks.
To Van Tassel, human electricity was akin to spirituality—and although he didn't mean for the Integratron to serve as a house of worship, there was a certain element of religion in what he did.
He even likened the Integratron to the tabernacle that Moses built based on instructions he'd received from God.
And why was he so interested in extending life? He explained: "The space people stated that the biggest trouble on this planet is that when you get smart enough to do something with the knowledge you have acquired here, death intervenes. Our life span is too short."
Looking back, that certainly seemed like foreshadowing of Van Tassel's own fate.
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THIS is such a wonderful story. Thank you for taking time to share with us/me! 💙
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