Culture+Travel
May/June 2008
by Graeme Wood
The Italian Underground: They carved a cave world in secret, created their own currency, and named their leader Falcon. Are they onto something?
Residents of Vidracco (pop. 500) knew the newcomers were different. Since 1977, they'd been showing up one by one in the little Piedmontese valley, marching in from Turin like bugs following a trail of syrup. They kept to themselves. Their chitchat, when it came zoomed right past the commonplace - nothing on the latest Juventus game or the sorry state of farming in the valley. Instead they spoke of "Esoteric Physics," astral-plane travel, and Vidracco's remarkable "synchronic energy lines."...