Featured image credit: Jessie Eastland
What is it about the isolation of the desert that drives people to search with such determination for profound, meaningful communication? It’s the conditions that birthed the Mojave Phone Booth: a remote payphone that inspired togetherness amongst lonely people at the end of the 1990s. And the Amargosa Opera House: a Death Valley venue that had to paint its audience before finding a real one. It’s the same spirit at the center of today’s subject: The Integratron. This looming acoustic masterpiece stands in the remote arid landscape of Landers near Joshua Tree. The Integratron was allegedly built under the specific instructions of a benign extraterrestrial presence. So much for moving to the desert to get away from it all!
In the Welcoming Shadow of Giant Rock
George Van Tassel arrived in the Mojave Desert looking to the sky. After all, it had been his bread and butter up until this point in his life. And if all things went according to plan, it still would be. Van Tassel had spent years working as an aircraft mechanic and flight inspector, getting to know planes in ways few people ever will. The open skies above the desert were pregnant with promise for Van Tassel. He’d arrived with the dream of opening his own airport and desert inn. But how often do things go according to plan?
Not long after arriving in the desert with his family, Van Tassel developed an interest in an area known as Giant Rock. Area Native Americans had believed for countless generations that Giant Rock was a sacred place charged with remarkable spiritual energy. Van Tassel regularly slipped away into its shadows, finding peace in meditation beneath its raw natural sanctuary.
Heard It Through the Omnibeam
Perhaps Van Tassel’s rituals at Giant Rock illustrated a cosmic openness attractive to extraterrestrial beings. Because in 1953, he purported to make contact with an entity he called Solganda; a representative of an extraterrestrial race. Van Tassel referred to Solganda’s kin as “space people” originating from the planet Venus. And these space people regularly employed a form of telepathy to communicate with him in a sort of metaphysical group chat that Van Tassel dubbed “omnibeam.”
Van Tassel spent the better part of 1953 omnibeaming the nights away with Solganda and the other Venusians. Amongst their hottest topics was human cell rejuvenation. Eventually, they convinced Van Tassel that he’d found the Fountain of Youth in the middle of the Mojave Desert of all places. But the oasis was still just a mirage. If Van Tassel really wanted to bring cell rejuvenation technology to the world, he’d need to build it. After hearing all about it through the omnibeam (and even some in-person encounters), Van Tassel set to work in 1954 on what would become his life’s work: The Integratron.
Building the Integratron
Solganda and crew described in meticulous detail what Van Tassel needed to do to build the machine that could restore human cells. They even guided him where to start construction: atop a geomagnetic vortex in Landers, California. While the space people provided meticulously detailed plans, they were less forthcoming with how to fund construction.
Fortunately, Van Tassel was able to get the ball rolling after securing significant funding from donors including Howard Hughes. In an effort to further raise funds, Van Tassel established the annual Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention, one of the country’s largest and earliest UFO conventions. It would run for nearly a quarter of a century.
While Van Tassel was no Venusian, he did have extensive experience in aircraft mechanics to help him along. Fortunately, the space people’s plans were remarkably similar to aircraft fuselage designs of the time. While Van Tassel began work on the exterior structure of the Integratron in 1954, work on its sensitive mechanics didn’t begin until 1957. The Integratron’s structure was completed in 1959. Measuring 38 feet at its zenith and 55 feet in diameter, the structure was precision-crafted and instantly impressive, culminating in its domed crown of exposed wood. But the Integratron was always meant to be more than a pretty face.
The Purported Abilities of the Integratron
Van Tassel made a lot of claims about the Integratron during his life. Of course, there was the cell rejuvenation that inspired it. But he also professed that the Integratron could defy gravity and transcend time. Despite its basis on Venusian instruction and design, the Integratron found plenty of contemporary human inspiration as well. Bearing similarities to Georges Lakhovsky’s Multiple Wave Oscillator, the Integratron also incorporated technology championed by electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla. At its most basic, the machinery would attempt to rejuvenate aging human cells by restoring the electrical charge they lose with time. Only then would the human lifespan sustain long enough to achieve the consciousness promoted by the space people from Venus.
Life Beyond Venus
Perhaps we’ll never know if Van Tassel was onto something. He died unexpectedly in 1978 with work on the Integratron still progressing. The cylindrical structure we recognize as the Integratron today was supposed to be the flagship building of a ten-acre campus Van Tassel referred to as the College of Universal Wisdom. But the machinery so integral to the cell rejuvenation process never even made it into the building. While his widow attempted to keep his publications moving, outside interest in the Integratron was growing. The building passed from owner to owner throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. There was even talk of painting it lavender and renaming it the Lavender Disco. But a discotheque in the middle of the desert was nothing without Venusian star power.
Sometime in the early 2000s, the Integratron was purchased by a trio of serious investors; Joanna, Nancy, and Patty Karl. And they had an actionable plan for the acoustically resonant anomaly. They’ve since fixed up the Inregratron and turned it into an attraction offering tranquility and peace through meditative sound baths. Guests can purchase a reservation to one of these sessions in which they are immersed in a variety of harmonic sound frequencies, taking advantage of the structure’s unique acoustic design. Practitioners use a series of quartz bowls to manipulate frequencies, facilitating a reflective and calming experience. You can check for reservation ability on their official website.
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Though Van Tassel never completed work on the device the space people instructed, the Integratron remains an amazing feat. Especially for one found standing in the middle of the desert. Sure, it’s no Fountain of Youth. And, as far as we can tell, it can’t fly or travel through time. But those Sound Bath reservations remain in hot demand. Perhaps the Integratron already is what it was always meant to be.
