"Mysterious Powers" ???

KOZENKI, RUSSIA -- You can see it for miles, looming over the birch forests and wildflower fields and construction sites crammed with future dachas for Russia's rich and ruthless. Stabbing up toward heaven from its hilltop perch, the pyramid gleams white under the blast of northern sun. Twelve stories high, 55 tons of fiberglass, swarming with Russians desperate to rearrange their energy fields and cure their karma.

Everybody, it seems, has heard some miracle tale about the pyramid. Rumors of the pyramid's mysterious powers have spread through the suburbs and into the city. People come looking for peace of mind, strength, health, insight. Life is hard these days in Moscow. The city is a place of blank expressions and cold shoulders. Prices climb high and then higher still.

But the pyramid is quiet and cool, a sort of New Age monastery. There's no sign, no gate and no admission tickets. Visitors park in the dust, wander inside and stay as long as they like. Swallows wheel in circles up in the roof. Summer sun filters thinly though the fiberglass, casting an amber glow. Three massive globes -- one each for geography, topography and astronomy -- swell in the center of the floor, surrounded by benches. And on one of the benches sits a stooped woman, stretching her arms to the ceiling, scooping them through the air and pulling them down to her heart.

"Try it for yourself," she says. "Feel how you are drawing the energy to yourself."