Crop circles are coming to Asilomar. Sort of.

Actually, it’s the Association for Research and Enlightenment that’s descending on the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove this weekend. Its guests and members will talk about things other earthlings don’t often ponder.

Entitled “The Coding of the Earth: Crop Circles, Sacred Sites, and the Coming Human Evolution,” the event will delve into crop circles, the geometry of temples, our dreams and the coming of a new (and likely overdue) stage of human progress.

Asilomar is a great place for them to meet – not because it’s a great facility near a beautiful beach – but because it’s supposedly smack dab on the middle of an energy vortex, according to event spokesperson Sue Hayes.

“It has a strong earth energy that thins the veil between the physical and the spiritual,” she says, adding she has tested Asilomar herself – with a dowsing rod, no less. “It’s radiating energy.”

The conference features Freddy Silva, a writer, researcher and expert on crop circles and what he calls sacred sites – places like Angkor Wat, Teotihuacan, and the pyramids at Giza.

Silva says he’s seen his share of easy-to-identify hoaxes. But while skeptics dismiss all crop circles as elaborate pranks, he insists that many of them are far too precise for that. He takes a scientific approach to make his point, and gets plenty of practice, since he’s among the first to be called when new formations appear. The most striking characteristic of the real deal, he says, is that the plants are not cut or crushed, but bent and still alive; stalks are typically spiraled in smaller circles inside the larger shape, and are perfectly spaced.

WE CAN COMMUNICATE WITH FRIENDS AND RELATIVES BOTH ALIVE AND DECEASED.

A glance at one of the circles Silva uses in his presentation helps parse the phenomenon. Although the pattern’s message isn’t remotely clear, there’s certainly some serious precision involved: The circles are so symmetrical on a large scale that it’s hard to imagine humans could draw such figures accurately, let alone shape them in cereal crops with giant cookie cutters. Silva says he and his colleagues have also discovered mathematical theorems and codes for – yes – anti-gravity devices imbedded in them.

Silva uses all sorts of tests and tools to study the formations, from electromagnetic frequency detectors to infrared photography, seed embryo analysis to magnetometer surveys.

Silva says that with genuine circles, studies of the structure of the soil show it’s been altered by rapid, intense heat of up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit – and that farmers stumbling on them report stalks giving off steam. Silva has tapped lab studies showing “infrasound” waves at frequencies of less than 20 hertz can create such an intense effect. He also claims to have found less erudite evidence: Inside the circles, cell phones often malfunction and compasses frequently can’t locate true north. All this indicates, at least to Silva, that some sort of a massive, exacting sound beam creates the circles.

But the golden question remains, for those willing to engage this discussion long enough: Who or what is responsible for the beam? “It’s a form of consciousness,” Silva says. “I’d like to leave the mystery at that. Come to the conference or read the last chapter of my book.”

The enigmatic Silva is more eager to talk about what he calls “sacred spaces” that gain energy from all the visitors who pass through. “They contain a marked and measured electromagnetic field that has been the subject of veneration for thousands of years,” he says, “and whose concentrated energy is amplified and maintained from age to age by the successive buildup of energy from pilgrims’ positive thoughts, which are also electromagnetic.”

It’s no coincidence, he adds, that these temples adhere to geometry found in nature, from the elliptical structure of atoms to the orbits of the planets.

The conference will also explore the power of the subconscious mind. Dream consultant, certified hypnotherapist and educator Ilona Marshall will speak about dreams as powerful messages that come from our inner wisdom, and lead a workshop on understanding them.

Berkeley Psychic Institute grad Carol Lesh will discuss the astral plane, which she describes as the place where our souls dwell during sleep and after we die. By going there when we sleep, she suggests, we can communicate with friends and relatives both alive and deceased, heal ourselves and our relationships, and even call a lost dog home. That’s some trick.

The Association for Research and Enlightenment annual fall retreat touches down Friday-Sunday, Nov. 5-7, at Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove. Tuition starts at $69. 899-1122, www.caycegoldengate.org