Atop Sunshine Canyon sits a small trailer with the lure of healing physical, psychological and spiritual ailments.
Yes, a trailer.
It’s called the Shungite Ark, created by Vera and Timothy Dobson and opened in 2021. The inside of the trailer is lined with two tons of shungite, a carbon-rich rock found in Russia, Vera’s home country, that has a range of purported, but mostly unproven, benefits.
“A few people who are all psychics, separate times, told me the same thing,” Vera says. “They feel that shungite is taking negative energy from us to a different universe and then transform this negative energy there into the light and bring it back. Some people said it’s like a portal.”
Another woman, Timothy says, “had this deep connection with Mother Earth, like being in the midst of 5,000 pounds of this ancient stone.
“She just felt sort of the agony — I think she was in tears while she was in there — because she felt the earth was speaking to her.”
Alleged benefits of shungite run the gamut from these personal, spiritual experiences to more dubious scientific ones. As one Healthline article puts it: “There’s little scientific evidence on the benefits of shungite — many are anecdotal or need more solid research.”
The Dobsons say they chose to build the room inside a trailer in hopes it might be moved to a medical establishment to one day further that very research.
Among the claims about shungite is that it can neutralize negative impacts of electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) from phones, WiFi and microwaves. (According to the World Health Organization, “to date, no adverse health effects from low-level, long-term exposure to radiofrequency or power frequency fields have been confirmed, but scientists are actively continuing to research this area.”)
Many shungite disciples also drink water treated with the stone — a practice reportedly pioneered by Czar Peter the Great, who opened a shungite spa in the 1700s and encouraged the Russian army to drink the water. (According to a 2021 study published in the Journal of Water & Health, while shungite “exhibits antibacterial properties” and “good absorption” for organic materials and heavy metals, it also leeches heavy metals such as lead and nickel into water.)
Vera and Timothy don’t make any promises about the experience. The waiver states that “the operators of the Shungite Ark have made no warranty, express or implied, as to the effect of sitting in the Shungite Ark or of drinking water that has been treated with Shungite.”
“Across the board, people come out deeply relaxed,” Timothy says. “That’s kind of like the baseline marker, right? I mean, they’re laying in a zero gravity chair on the floor. They’re listening to music. Of course, that’s very relaxing. But something about the shungite field tends to take them to, like, a deeper level of that.”
‘A huge cloud’
The couple’s path to the Shungite Ark began when Shanti, a VRBO guest on their property, came into their living room, holding a piece of shungite on his hip as he burped.
“He said that he had a pain in his hip, and he was treating it with shungite, and the burping was a sign of discharging the tension that was in his hip,” Timothy says.
The couple had never heard of shungite until that belchy moment in 2018, but after Deborah, Shanti’s wife, said she would invest in building a shungite room on the property, the couple got to exploring. They flew to Germany to visit a shungite room housed inside of a hotel, which has since been disassembled and moved to Salzburg, Austria.
“In half an hour, I knew that I will have my own. I felt so good,” Vera says. “I felt like I’m a huge cloud.”
A few days later, she was visiting a shungite quarry in Russia and put a deposit down on the stone needed to build a room back in Boulder.
For Timothy and Vera, who have been married 25 years, the Ark is just one of several ventures. The couple met in 1998, when Timothy, who has called Boulder home for nearly five decades, was leading a dance of universal peace in Russia.
Vera came to the states a year later and moved onto the Sunshine Canyon property where the couple still lives, home to the Ark, an herb-growing greenhouse and Starhouse, a 12-sided mountain temple where Timothy serves as a minister and sacred dance facilitator.
Vera also makes beeswax candles and offers “guided sessions for self-healing.” During our interview, she offers to give me a “soul scan,” during which I stand up and close my eyes as she stands across from me.
“Your mind is very, very bright, but your body is tired,” she tells me after a few moments. “Your soul shows you just need to sleep more.”
Fair enough.
A chunk of the couple’s income comes from their Siberian Neva Masquerade cat breeding business — the hypoallergenic blue-eyed, long-haired kittens run $2,000 a piece. There are currently 11 kittens available for adoption in their home.
The trailer doesn’t get many visitors, the couple says, but it’s becoming more popular in certain circles — reiki masters, psychics and other energetic healers. One particularly notable visitor, they tell me, was actress Carrie-Anne Moss, known for her leading role in The Matrix, who wrote in a testimonial, “relaxing, grounding, just amazing.”
Other testimonials featured on the Ark’s website include metaphysical stories of chakra opening and aura cleansing as well as more physical stories of chronic pain reduction. One man, Vera and Timothy say, claims he cured his Lyme disease after several sessions in the Ark. A wheelchair-bound man came about three times in hopes it might heal him, Timothy says.
“Yeah… but it didn’t work for him,” Vera says.
“Depending on the person and their receptors and what they’re sensitive to, what they’re aware of, you know, makes a big difference,” Timothy adds.
‘You will feel it’
I see myself as an open-minded skeptic in these sorts of ventures, willing to try anything once. When I tried a sensory deprivation tank a few years back, I fell deeply asleep: The front desk worker had to pound on the tank to wake me up. It was a good snooze, but I did not see God or have a “drug-free psychedelic experience,” as the worker mentioned I might.
When I arrive at the Shungite Ark, only about 15 minutes away from downtown Boulder, the first thing I notice is how tranquil the property is. It’s quiet, save for birds chirping, buzzing bugs and the occasional plane flying overhead. There’s been a scheduling mix-up, so I don’t enter the Ark that day, but I feel relaxed after sitting in nature for a bit.
The next morning, Vera and Timothy are ready for me. They’re enthusiastic and kind, greeting me with wide smiles. I step into the trailer’s first door, where an array of shungite jewelry and small shungite pyramids are on display for sale.
Vera tells me to remove my shoes and Garmin watch and to turn off my phone. “Electromagnetic waves — you don’t need their influence,” she tells me later. “You just feel yourself with the pure state.”
I sleep with my phone under my pillow most nights, so it’s not something I’ve ever been particularly concerned about, but I’m happy to oblige.
As someone who spends most of their days looking at a screen — for work, for pleasure, by force of habit — brain rot is my baseline. I ask her if she has any advice or if there’s anything I should do to make the most of my time in the room.
“No,” she says. “You will feel it.”
We enter the shungite room, where the floor and walls are meticulously covered in the smooth, black rock. In the room, there are two “zero-gravity chairs” and a mattress set up in the corner with cozy looking pillows. I choose to lay on the mattress.
“That’s good,” Vera says. “You’ll be closer to shungite.”
She hands me two stone cylinders, one made of shungite and the other made of quartz. She tells me to start with these, and then I can switch to a large, more raw piece of shungite in one hand while holding other large stones — such as bronzite and amethyst — in the other.
A small, fuzzy rug in the corner of the room lays next to a large rock that Vera tells me was found in the forest. “Very powerful,” she says.
I’ll feel a different energy with each rock, she tells me, but won’t tell me what those energies will be — she wants me to experience it for myself.
As she closes the door she says, “See you in 45 minutes!”
Forty-five minutes? When was the last time I had gone 45 minutes (or even 15) without any concept of time? Without having a screen anywhere near me?
Sure, I camp without phone service, but then there are tasks. When was the last time I had nothing to do but just be?
Music comes in through the trailer’s speakers, mostly singing bowls and what I would describe as meditation music. My mind chatters for a bit, as it does almost constantly, but eventually it quiets.
I rotate through holding the different rocks, but I can’t say I feel the promised different energies. At one point, though, I have the sensation of energy flowing through my body and emptying out of my foot — I hope it’s the bad stuff.
At another point, I hear a helicopter that sounds suspiciously close. It breaks the spell momentarily as I wonder about the possibility of a chopper picking up the trailer and taking me away. It will make for a good story, I think before drifting back into meditation.
After what feels like a matter of minutes, Timothy knocks on the door and tells me to take my time getting up.
I’m relaxed, and I wish my session wasn’t over. My brain rot feels as if it’s reversed. Was it the miracle stone of Russia cleansing my aura and opening my chakras, or was it the purifying effect of not looking at my phone and shutting up my mindchatter for a little while?
No one can say for sure, but I felt better for it.
Sessions in the Shungite Ark run $30, and require appointments in advance. Group sessions available for up to eight people. Visit shungiteark.com for details.