On Saturday, October 26, 2024, I attended an all-night ambient concert by my favorite musician Steve Roach held at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center at the Institute of Mentalphysics. Despite visiting the desert area for more than 20 years, this was my first visit to retreat center. While I’ll have more to discuss about this desert city founded in 1941, I wanted to turn my attention to the Richard Lampier Dingle Memorial Chapel located on the grounds. I was strangely drawn this Mid-Century architectural marvel on a lazy late Sunday afternoon.
WHERE IS THE RICHARD LAMPIER DINGLE MEMORIAL CHAPEL LOCATED?
The Richard Lampier Dingle Memorial Chapel in located at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center at the Institute of Mentalphysics, which is located at 59700 29 Palms Highway in Joshua Tree, California. The map above comes from a 1947 publication titled “The Mansion Builder” when the facility was known as the New City of Mentalphysics.
WHAT IS THE INSTITUTE OF MENTALPHYSICS?
The Utopian City in the California desert was the brainchild of Edwin John Dingle, who was given the name Ding Le May after spending years in Tibet. He created “The Science of Mentalphysics,” a series of breathing techniques, affirmations and meditations based on lessons learned while at a Tibetan monastery.
Born in England in 1881, Dingle documented his views of the Boxer Rebellion in his first book about China’s revolution in 1911-1912. A Fellow of the British Royal Geographical Society of London, he mapped China in an expedition for Sun Yat-Sen, the Father of Modern China, in 1910-1911, creating the first accurate maps of China. He also served as editor of “Straits Times” in Shanghai, where he lived from 1899 until his retirement in 1921 when he settled in northern California.
On Nov. 7, 1927, Dingle gave a talk about his Tibetan experience during a visit to New York. Following his insightful presentation, several people expressed interest in learning lessons from him. Upon returning to California, he moved to Los Angeles where he purchased a large training center located at 213 South Hobart Boulevard.
Through a series of newspaper advertisements, he distributed a 9,000 word treatise on Mentalphysics as he wanted “every enlightened man and woman to achieve greater health, success and happiness” through these ancient breathing techniques and meditations.
Dingle incorporated The Institute of Mentalphysics in 1933 and then looked out to the desert to build a utopian city founded on his ideas. He selected a tract of land in Yucca Valley (before it was part of the town of Joshua Tree). The story goes that Dingle was drawn to the desert because he heard a voice tell him, “The desert will bloom like a rose, someday there shall be cities built around the land. Great highways shall lead here as a place of respite.” He raised funds with the help of his Mentalphysics students and bought the property housing the retreat campus and acres of desert land for contemplation.
In the early 1940s, there wasn’t much found along Highway 62. It would be decades before Joshua Tree National Monument would be declared a United States National Park. This made it a perfect destination to escape busy city life and establish a deeper connection to nature.
He then enlisted Lloyd Wright, the eldest son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, to design the facility. Wright wrote on page 8 of “The Mansion Builder” that he was “moved by a sense of tranquil nobility and eternal beauty of the desert” as he planned this new city. He wanted a city of the Desert – “spacious, free sweeping, its broad floor carpeted by myriads of desert blooms, its residents dwelling at peace and sharing the soil, sky and trees their joy of living, its centuries old Joshua Trees standing like sentinels about its homes.”
Lloyd’s buildings included the Preceptory of Light, the First Sanctuary of Mystic Christianity, and the Caravansary of Joy, a 700-foot long residence. The center opened at 4:40 a.m. on August 23, 1941 with Ding Le May leading a silent meditation with followers as they waited for dawn.
Decades later, the nonprofit Joshua Tree Retreat Center now operates the facility which is on 400+ acres of pristine desert land. Students of Mentalphysics visit this desert oasis along with many retreat groups seeking a quiet, peaceful place for spiritual contemplation and training.
RICHARD LAMPIER DINGLE MEMORIAL CHAPEL
While Lloyd Wrighted designed most of the building at the Center in the 1940s and early 1950s, the Richard Lampier Dingle Memorial Chapel was designed and constructed Latvian architect Arturs Demrose in 1960. Also known as the Lotus Meditation Building or Chapel, it was commissioned for and named after Edwin Dingle’s son Richard who died in May 1959 at the desert facility.
I stumbled upon this chapel while taking a tree-lined cement pathway near the Preceptory of Light, the First Sanctuary of Mystic Christianity, where Steve Roach held his concert the night before.
Rounding the corner, I stood in awe of a beautiful Mid-Century Modern designed building that had both expressionist and contemporary style elements. On August 5, 2022, the California State Historical Resources Commission recognized the entire 400-acre facility as part of a historic site giving it the name, “New City of Mentalphysics Historic District.”
Little is known about Damrose (also spelled Damroze) except he was born in Latvia on May 26, 1910. He later settled in Los Angeles where he lived in the Daniel House (1939) by Gregor Ain. He died at the age of 92 on November 21, 2002. He had one son born in 1934 named Andris Damroze.
A bronze “In Memoriam” plaque is found along the inside wall of the chapel with the Institute of Mentalphysics logo. The set of name plates contain the birth and
death dates of presumably various key members, including founder Edwin Dingle who passed in 1972. The earliest of plates dates from 1971 and the most recent dates from 1998.
The chapel has a mostly flat roof except for three giant triangles that hang over the building. Triangle patterns are repeated throughout the entire space, from the rooftop to the light sconces on the wall.
Even inside the three rooftop triangles you will find amber-colored glass with more triangles. Inside the building is the chapel but I didn’t enter it that afternoon.
The patterned windows are found on both sides of the architectural feature, as seen from this shot of the backside of the building.
You can see the Preceptory of Light in the distance with this shot of the Lotus Chapel bathed in the Sunday sun.
Demrose added stacked concrete walls with a Some of the bricks diamond-shaped cut-out pattern throughout the grounds.
These screens help divide the space, such as this courtyard. The now empty rectangular pool feature in the courtyard was added at some point after 1960. The original design contained a triangle shape.
I kept returning to the diamond-patterned walls – they screamed Mid-Century Modern design to me.
They were repeated in singular columns on some walls.
Growing up in the Midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, I recall seeing remnants of Mid-Century design at spots throughout the city. This architecture and design style connects to something deep inside my being, which probably explains why I spent so much time photographing this space. I’m grateful the state of California will continue to preserve this area for future generations.
More photos and stories from the Institute of Mentalphysics are in the works, so stay tuned.