Esalen Institute is a residential community

Residential community

A residential community is a community, usually a small town or city, that is composed mostly of residents, as opposed to commercial businesses and/or industrial facilities, all three of which are considered to be the three main types of occupants of the typical community.Residential communities...

 and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 alternative education

Alternative education

Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives are often rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different...

. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt

Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...

, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality. The institute offers more than 500 public workshops a year, in addition to conferences, research initiatives, residential work-study programs, and internships.

Esalen Institute was founded by Michael Murphy

Michael Murphy (author)

Michael Murphy is the co-founder of the Esalen Institute, a key figure in the Human Potential Movement and author of both fiction and non-fiction books on topics related to extraordinary human potential.- Biography :...

 and Dick Price

Dick Price

Richard “Dick” Price -- co-founded Esalen Institute in 1962.Dick Price was a veteran of the Beat Generation. He ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years, sometimes virtually single-handed. He was an explorer of the Santa Lucia Mountains that define the Big Sur coast...

 in 1962. Their goal was to explore work in the humanities and sciences, in order to fully realize what Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

 had called the "human potentialities

Human Potential Movement

The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...

." Esalen soon became known for its blend of Eastern and Western philosophies, examined in experiential and didactic

Didacticism

Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...

 workshops. Over the years Esalen hosted a notable influx of philosophers, physicists, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers.

Esalen is situated on 150 acres of Big Sur coast, where the Santa Lucia Mountains

Santa Lucia Mountains

The Santa Lucia Mountains or Santa Lucia Range is a mountain range in coastal California, running from Monterey southeast for 105 miles to San Luis Obispo. The highest summit is Junipero Serra Peak, in Monterey County...

 rise sharply above the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. The grounds were once home to a Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 tribe known as the Esselen

Esselen

The Esselen were a Native American linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who resided on the Central California coast and the coastal mountains, including what is now known as the Big Sur region in Monterey County, California...

, from which the institute got its name. This location also is a Monarch butterfly

Monarch butterfly

The Monarch butterfly is a milkweed butterfly , in the family Nymphalidae. It is perhaps the best known of all North American butterflies. Since the 19th century, it has been found in New Zealand, and in Australia since 1871 where it is called the Wanderer...

 wintering site. A key feature of the site is its cliff-side natural hot spring

Hot spring

A hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater from the Earth's crust. There are geothermal hot springs in many locations all over the crust of the earth.-Definitions:...

 baths. The property is divided by Hot Springs Canyon. Hot Springs Creek serves as a freshwater source, along with underground springs.

Esalen Institute is located about 45 miles (72 km) south of Monterey

Monterey, California

The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...

 and Carmel along scenic Highway 1, and nine miles (14 km) north of Lucia

Lucia, California

Lucia is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. It is located east of Lopez Point, at an elevation of 354 feet . Lucia is one of the three small settlements of restaurants, and motels located along State Route 1 on the Big Sur coast...

. Esalen is about a three-hour drive south of San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

.

Pre-Esalen

Carbon dating tests of artifacts found on Esalen's property have indicated a human presence as early as 4000 BC. Given access to the ocean, fresh water, and the hot springs, the Esselen people used the site regularly, with certain areas reserved for burial grounds. The Esselen population was largely decimated by diseases contracted at the Carmel Mission

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, is a Roman Catholic mission church in Carmel, California. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and a U.S...

, where measles

Measles

Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...

, smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

, and syphilis

Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...

 wiped out 90 percent of the native population. Today, a few people in the area can still trace their ancestry to the Esselen.

In the 1870s, Thomas Slate visited the Big Sur site to use the hot springs, because he suffered from severe arthritis

Arthritis

Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....

. He homesteaded

Homesteading

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...

 the property in the early 1880s, and a settlement began, known as Slates Hot Springs

Slates Hot Springs, California

Slates Hot Springs is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. It is located north-northwest of Lopez Point, at an elevation of 118 feet .Thomas B. Slate settled at the site of the springs in 1868...

. This site became the first tourist-oriented business in Big Sur, frequented by others who sought relief from similar afflictions. In 1910, the land was purchased by Dr. Henry Murphy, a Salinas

Salinas, California

Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...

, California, physician (who delivered John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...

). Murphy bought the property with the intention of opening a Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an-style health spa, once the yet-to-be-built Highway 1 was completed. Construction of the road, once started, was an 18-year project.

While the highway was being built, the Slate's Hot Springs site was used by engineers and others involved with the construction. (The highway was largely built with convict labor housed in cabins at Anderson Creek.) The highway was opened in 1937 and then closed to the public with the outbreak of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. After the highway reopened, the Murphy family employed a series of property managers. There was a restaurant, and the hot springs baths were opened to paid use. Some hotel units were built in the 1950s although the enterprise did not become what Dr. Murphy had originally intended.

The official business name was “Big Sur Hot Springs,” although it was more generally referred to as "Slate's Hot Springs." Henry Miller

Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...

 was a frequent visitor. Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

 was a resident, and Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...

 was a problematic employee.

Origins and evolution

Michael Murphy and Dick Price both attended Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were in the same class, but they did not become friends until later. They met in San Francisco at the suggestion of Frederic Spiegelberg

Frederic Spiegelberg

Frederic Spiegelberg was a Stanford University professor of religion. A friend of Paul Tillich, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Jung, he participated in Jung's Eranos symposia and lectured in Jung's institute in Zurich. Paul Tillich helped Spiegelberg escape Germany in 1937 after Spiegelberg was fired...

, a Stanford professor of comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

 and Indic studies, with whom both had studied. After graduating from Stanford, Price attended Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 to continue studying psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. Then Price joined the Air Force and lived in San Francisco, where he met Alan Watts

Alan Watts

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...

 and experienced a transformative psychotic break

Psychotic break

A psychotic break is a term used to describe an occasion of a person experiencing an episode of acute primary psychosis, either for the first time or after a significant period of relative asymptomaticity. Several types of psychoactive drugs have been shown to correlate with psychotic breaks...

. Price was admitted to a mental hospital for a time, before returning to San Francisco. Murphy, meanwhile, traveled to Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

's ashram

Ashram

Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and then he also returned to San Francisco.

After they met, Murphy and Price found much in common. In 1961, they traveled down to the Murphy family's Big Sur property. The two began drawing up plans for a forum that would be open to ways of thinking beyond the constraints of mainstream academia, while avoiding the dogmatism so often seen in groups organized around a single idea promoted by a charismatic leader. They envisioned a laboratory for experimentation with a wide range of philosophies, religious disciplines and psychological techniques. Henry Murphy’s widow, and Michael’s grandmother, Vinnie, previously had refused to lease the property, even turning down an earlier request from Michael. However, she agreed to a lease this time, and granted free use of the property. The lease was combined with capital that Price had accumulated (his father was a successful vice-president at Sears). The young men were given networking support by Spiegelberg, Watts, Huxley and his wife Laura, as well as by Gerald Heard

Gerald Heard

Henry Fitzgerald Heard commonly called Gerald Heard was an historian, science writer, educator, and philosopher. He wrote many articles and over 35 books....

 and Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...

. The concept of Esalen was partially modeled upon Trabuco College, founded by Heard as a quasi-monastic experiment in Southern California, and later donated to the Vedanta Society. With all this help the experiment soon got off the ground.

Alan Watts gave his first lecture at Esalen in January 1962. Gia-fu Feng

Gia-Fu Feng

Gia-Fu Feng was prominent as both an English translator of Taoist classics and a Taoist teacher in the United States, associated with Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, The Beats and Abraham Maslow....

 joined Price and Murphy, along with Bob Breckenridge, Bob Nash, Alice and Jim Sellers, as the first Esalen staff members. In the summer of that same year Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

, the prominent humanistic psychologist, just happened to drive into the grounds and soon became an important figure at the institute. By autumn a catalog was issued advertising workshops with such titles as "Individual Cultural Definitions of Rationality", "The Expanding Vision" and "Drug-Induced Mysticism." In 1964, Fritz Perls

Fritz Perls

Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....

 started a long-term residency at Esalen and became a lasting influence. Perls offered many Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...

 seminars at the institute, until he left in July 1969, starting the Gestalt Insitute of Canada at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island. Perls and Jim Simkin

Jim Simkin

James Solomon Jim Simkin was an early seminal figure in the history of Gestalt Therapy.Simkin received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan, and practiced in New Jersey. He also was Chief Psychologist at a large VA hospital. Like most psychotherapists of his...

 led Gestalt training courses at Esalen. Dick Price became one of Perls' closest students. Price developed his own form of practice called Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...

, which he continued teaching at Esalen until his death in a hiking accident in 1985. Michael Murphy became a successful author, writing non-fiction books about Esalen related topics, as well as several novels, one of which recently was made into a major motion picture.

Esalen gained popularity quickly and started to regularly publish catalogs full of programs. The facility was large enough to run multiple programs simultaneously, so Esalen started creating numerous resident teacher positions. Murphy recruited Will Schutz

William Schutz

not to be confused with "Schulz" or "Schultz", see also William Schulz William Schutz was an American psychologist....

, the well-known encounter group leader, to take up permanent residence at Esalen. All this combined to firmly position Esalen in the nexus of the counterculture of the 1960s

Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...

.

Esalen was incorporated as a non-profit institution in 1967. Increased attention came to the institute that year when Esalen received repeated coverage in the news media. George Leonard

George Leonard

George Leonard was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Norton, Massachusetts. Besides service on state court benches and in both houses of the state legislature, he represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives.-External links:*...

 published an article in Look magazine

Look (American magazine)

Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...

 about the California scene, that mentioned Esalen and included a picture of Murphy. TIME

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 published an article about Esalen in September. The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...

 published an article by Leo E. Litwak

Leo E. Litwak

-Life:He attended Wayne State University and Columbia University. He taught at San Francisco State University.His work appeared in the New York Times,His papers are held at Washington University....

 in late December. Then an article about Esalen appeared in Life magazine. These articles brought Esalen into the awareness of other media outlets, not just in the U.S. but also overseas. Esalen responded by holding large-scale conferences in Midwestern

Midwestern United States

The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

 and East Coast

East Coast of the United States

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

 cities, as well as in Europe. Esalen opened a satellite center in San Francisco that offered extensive programming, but it was closed in the mid-1970s for financial reasons. In fact, Esalen has always been forced to change as it responded to internal and external stressors. Dick Price provided leadership at the institute, and his death in late 1985 brought about many changes in personnel and programming. Then the baths were destroyed in 1998 by servere weather, only to be rebuilt after great institutional and financial stress. More recently, managerial changes and restructuring have been caused by difficulties in the American economy. Over the years, considerable effort has been devoted to ensuring a future for Esalen.

Leaders and programs

In the early days, many of the programs seemed intended to challenge the status quo

Status quo

Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

, such as "The Value of Psychotic Experience." There were even programs that challenged the movement of which Esalen was a part, such as "Spiritual and Therapeutic Tyranny: The Willingness To Submit" and "Theological Reflection on The Human Potential." There were also a series of encounter groups focused upon racial prejudice.

Early leaders included:

• Richard Alpert
• Ansel Adams
  Ansel Adams
  Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
  
  
• Gia-Fu Feng
  Gia-Fu Feng
  Gia-Fu Feng was prominent as both an English translator of Taoist classics and a Taoist teacher in the United States, associated with Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, The Beats and Abraham Maslow....
  
  
• Buckminster Fuller
  Buckminster Fuller
  Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
  
   
• Michael Harner
  Michael Harner
  Michael Harner is the founder of the and the formulator of "core shamanism." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world...
  
  

• Timothy Leary
  Timothy Leary
  Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
  
   
• Robert Nadeau
• Linus Pauling
  Linus Pauling
  Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
  
  
• J.B. Rhine
• Carl Rogers
  Carl Rogers
  Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
  
  

• Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her work with Systemic Constellations...
  
  
• B.F Skinner
• Paul Tillich
  Paul Tillich
  Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
  
  
• Arnold Toynbee
  Arnold J. Toynbee
  Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
  
  

Rather than lecturing or listening to lectures, many leaders and participants began experimenting with what Huxley called the non-verbal humanities: the education of the body, the senses, the emotions. The intention of much of this work was to suggest a new ethic: to develop awareness of one’s present flow of experience, to express this fully and accurately, and to listen to feedback. The "experiential" workshops that grew out of these experiments were particularly well attended and did much to shape Esalen’s future course.

Past teachers

• Ansel Adams
  Ansel Adams
  Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
  
  
• Joan Baez
  Joan Baez
  Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
  
  
• James Baraz
• Ellen Bass
  Ellen Bass
  Ellen Bass is an American poet-Life:She attended Goucher College, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1968 with her bachelor’s degree. She pursued a master’s degree at Boston University and graduated in 1970. From 1970–1974, Bass worked as an administrator at Project Place, a social service...
  
  
• Robert Bly
  Robert Bly
  Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...
  
  
• Gregory Bateson
  Gregory Bateson
  Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
  
  
• Ray Bradbury
  Ray Bradbury
  Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
  
  
• Joseph Campbell
  Joseph Campbell
  Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
  
  
• Fritjof Capra
  Fritjof Capra
  Fritjof Capra is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher College....
  
  
• Carlos Castaneda
  Carlos Castaneda
  Carlos Castaneda was a Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author....
  
  
• Deepak Chopra
  Deepak Chopra
  Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...
  
  
• Phil Cousineau
  Phil Cousineau
  Phil Cousineau is an author, lecturer, independent scholar, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker.-Career:Phil Cousineau was born in an army hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. He has worked as a sportswriter and taught screenwriting at the American Film Institute...
  
  
• Harvey Cox
  Harvey Cox
  Harvey Gallagher Cox, Jr. is one of the preeminent theologians in the United States and served as Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, until his retirement in October 2009...
  
  
• David Darling
  David Darling (musician)
  David Darling is an American cellist and composer. He won the Grammy award for Best New Age Album in 2010. He has performed and recorded with artists such as Bobby McFerrin and Spyro Gyra in addition to putting out several solo and small ensemble albums as well as albums of his...
  
  
• Erik Davis
  Erik Davis
  Erik Davis is a North American writer, social historian, cultural critic and lecturer.He is noted for his study of the history of technology and society and his essays about the fate of the individual in the dawning posthuman era...
  
  
• Warren Farrell
  Warren Farrell
  Warren Farrell is an American author of seven books on men's and women's issues. His books cover twelve fields: history, law, sociology and politics ; couples’ communication ; economic and career issues ; child psychology and child custody ; and...
  
  
• Moshe Feldenkrais
  Moshé Feldenkrais
  Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais was an Israeli physicist and the founder of the Feldenkrais Method, designed to improve human functioning by increasing self-awareness through movement.-Biography:...
  
  
• Richard Feynman
  Richard Feynman
  Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
  
  

• Matthew Fox
  Matthew Fox (priest)
  Matthew Fox is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican order within the Roman Catholic Church, Fox is now a member of the Episcopal Church....
  
  
• Fred Frith
  Fred Frith
  Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
  
  
• Buckminster Fuller
  Buckminster Fuller
  Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
  
  
• Spalding Gray
  Spalding Gray
  Spalding Rockwell Gray was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist and monologuist...
  
  
• Stanislav Grof
  Stanislav Grof
  Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
  
  
• Michael Harner
  Michael Harner
  Michael Harner is the founder of the and the formulator of "core shamanism." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world...
  
  
• Andrew Harvey
  Andrew Harvey
  Andrew Harvey is an author, religious scholar and teacher of mystic traditions, known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes, beginning with his 1983 A Journey in Ladakh...
  
  
• John Heider
• Paul Horn
• Chungliang Al Huang
  Chungliang Al Huang
  Chungliang “Al” Huang is a notable philosopher, dancer, performing artist, and internationally acclaimed Tai Ji master and educator, having received the Republic of China’s most prestigious award in the field of education, the Gold Medal Award, from its Ministry of Education.As the Keynote speaker...
  
  
• James Hillman
  James Hillman
  James Hillman was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27,...
  
  
• Albert Hofmann
  Albert Hofmann
  Albert Hofmann was a Swiss scientist known best for being the first person to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide . He authored more than 100 scientific articles and a number of books, including LSD: My Problem Child...
  
  
• Aldous Huxley
  Aldous Huxley
  Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
  
  
• Sam Keen
  Sam Keen
  Sam Keen is a noted American author, professor and philosopher who is best known for his exploration of questions regarding love, life, religion, and being a man in contemporary society...
  
  
• Ken Kesey
  Ken Kesey
  Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
  
  
• Paul Krassner
  Paul Krassner
  Paul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
  
  
• R. D. Laing
• George Leonard

• Dennis Lewis
  Dennis Lewis
  Dennis Lewis is a non-fiction writer and teacher in the areas of breathing, qigong, meditation, and self-enquiry.In the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Taoism Lewis is recommended as a source of instruction in Taoism for people who don't have much time for study and practice...
  
  
• John C. Lilly
  John C. Lilly
  John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
  
  
• C. Allen Lockwood
• Amory Lovins
  Amory Lovins
  Amory Bloch Lovins is an American environmental scientist and writer, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has worked in the field of energy policy and related areas for four decades...
  
  
• Abraham Maslow
  Abraham Maslow
  Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
  
  
• Peter Matthiessen
  Peter Matthiessen
  Peter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...
  
  
• Rollo May
  Rollo May
  Rollo May was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will during 1969. He is often associated with both humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich...
  
  
• Terence McKenna
  Terence McKenna
  Terence Kemp McKenna was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.-Early...
  
  
• Robert Nadeau
• Claudio Naranjo
  Claudio Naranjo
  Claudio Naranjo is a Chilean psychiatrist who is considered a pioneer in integrating psychotherapy and the spiritual traditions. He is one of the three successors named by Fritz Perls , and a developer of the Enneagram of Personality and founder of the Seekers After Truth Institute...
  
  
• Sara Nelson
  Sara Nelson
  Sara Nelson is an American publishing industry figure who is an editor and book reviewer and consultant and columnist and who is currently the book editor at Oprah's O Magazine. Nelson is notable for having been editor in chief at the book industry's chief trade publication Publishers Weekly from...
  
  
• Babatunde Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
  
  
• Dean Ornish
  Dean Ornish
  Dean Michael Ornish, M.D., is president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, as well as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco....
  
  
• Humphry Osmond
  Humphry Osmond
  Humphry Fortescue Osmond was a British psychiatrist known for inventing the word psychedelic and for using psychedelic drugs in medical research...
  
  
• Linus Pauling
  Linus Pauling
  Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
  
  
• Fritz Perls
  Fritz Perls
  Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
  
  
• J. B. Rhine
• Carl Rogers
  Carl Rogers
  Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
  
  

• Ida Rolf
  Rolfing
  Rolfing is a therapy system created by The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration and is a system whereby the alleged manipulation of the fasciae by specific methods is theorized to yield therapeutic benefit....
  
  
• Gabrielle Roth
  Gabrielle Roth
  Gabrielle Roth is a musician, author, music director, dancer, philosopher and recording artist in the world music and trance dance genres, with a special interest in shamanism. Known as the "urban shaman", she is music director of the theatre company The Mirrors and has been a member of the...
  
  
• Jerry Rubin
  Jerry Rubin
  Jerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...
  
  
• Douglas Rushkoff
  Douglas Rushkoff
  Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
  
  
• Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her work with Systemic Constellations...
  
  
• Will Schutz
• Charlotte Selver
  Charlotte Selver
  Charlotte Selver was a German music educationalist.The central point of Charlotte Selver's work was "experience through the senses"...
  
  
• B.F. Skinner
• Huston Smith
  Huston Smith
  Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
  
  
• Gary Snyder
  Gary Snyder
  Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
  
  
• Susan Sontag
  Susan Sontag
  Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
  
  
• David Steindl-Rast
  David Steindl-Rast
  David Steindl-Rast is a Catholic Benedictine monk, notable for his active participation in interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science....
  
  
• Paul Tillich
  Paul Tillich
  Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
  
  
• Arnold J. Toynbee
  Arnold J. Toynbee
  Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
  
  
• Alan Watts
  Alan Watts
  Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...
  
  
• Robert Anton Wilson
  Robert Anton Wilson
  Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
  
  
• Andrew Weil
  Andrew Weil
  Andrew Thomas Weil is an American author and physician, who established the field of integrative medicine which attempts to integrate alternative and conventional medicine. Weil is the author of several best-selling books and operates a website and monthly newsletter promoting general health and...
  
  
• Marion Woodman
  Marion Woodman
  Marion Woodman is a Canadian mythopoetic author and women's movement figure. She is a Jungian analyst trained at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. She is one of the most widely read authors on feminine psychology, focusing on psyche and soma. She is also an international lecturer...
  
  

Scholars in residence

Esalen has sponsored long-term residencies including:

• Gregory Bateson
  Gregory Bateson
  Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
  
  
• Joseph Campbell
  Joseph Campbell
  Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
  
  
• Stanislav Grof
  Stanislav Grof
  Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
  
  
• Sam Keen
  Sam Keen
  Sam Keen is a noted American author, professor and philosopher who is best known for his exploration of questions regarding love, life, religion, and being a man in contemporary society...
  
  

• George Leonard
  George Leonard
  George Leonard was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Norton, Massachusetts. Besides service on state court benches and in both houses of the state legislature, he represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives.-External links:*...
  
  
• John C. Lilly
  John C. Lilly
  John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
  
  
• Babatunde Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
  
  
• Fritz Perls
  Fritz Perls
  Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
  
  

• Ida Pauline Rolf
  Ida Pauline Rolf
  Ida Pauline Rolf was a biochemist and the creator of Structural Integration or "Rolfing".-Early life and education:Rolf was born in New York in the Bronx on May 19, 1896....
  
  
• Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir
  Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her work with Systemic Constellations...
  
  
• William Schutz
  William Schutz
  not to be confused with "Schulz" or "Schultz", see also William Schulz William Schutz was an American psychologist....
  
  
• David Steindl-Rast
  David Steindl-Rast
  David Steindl-Rast is a Catholic Benedictine monk, notable for his active participation in interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science....
  
  

• Alan Watts
  Alan Watts
  Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...
  
  

The residence program was abandoned, in part because of limited living space on the Esalen grounds and financial considerations, with the housing built for long-term residencies converted into deluxe accommodations for paying visitors.

Arts events

In 1965 Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

 led a workshop titled “The New Folk Music” which featured a free performance. This grew into the first of seven “Big Sur Folk Festivals” featuring many of the music luminaries of the era. The 1969 concert included performers who had just come from the Woodstock Music & Arts Fair

Woodstock Festival

Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...

. This event was featured in the documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Celebration at Big Sur

Celebration at Big Sur

Celebration at Big Sur is a film of the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival in Big Sur, California, featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young , Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and others....

(1971).

Performers at Esalen have included:

• Joan Baez
  Joan Baez
  Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
  
  
• Ysaye Maria Barnwell
  Ysaye Maria Barnwell
  Ysaye Maria Barnwell has been a member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock since 1979. She is a prolific composer, who composes many of the group's songs, and has been commissioned to create music for dance, choral, film, and stage productions...
  
  
• Blood, Sweat & Tears
  Blood, Sweat & Tears
  Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles...
  
  
• Jackson Browne
  Jackson Browne
  Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
  
  
• The Chambers Brothers
  The Chambers Brothers
  The Chambers Brothers is a soul-music group, best known for its 1968 hit record, the 11-minute long song "Time Has Come Today". The group was part of the wave of new music that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements, spawning a heady mix...
  
  
• Judy Collins
  Judy Collins
  Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
  
  
• James Cotton
  James Cotton
  James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...
  
  
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
  Creedence Clearwater Revival
  Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....
  
  
• Bob Dylan
  Bob Dylan
  Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
  
  
• Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
  Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)
  Crosby, Stills & Nash is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young...
  
  

• David Darling
  David Darling (musician)
  David Darling is an American cellist and composer. He won the Grammy award for Best New Age Album in 2010. He has performed and recorded with artists such as Bobby McFerrin and Spyro Gyra in addition to putting out several solo and small ensemble albums as well as albums of his...
  
  
• John Densmore
  John Densmore
  John Paul Densmore is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer of the rock group The Doors.-Early life and The Doors:Born in Los Angeles, Densmore attended Santa Monica City College and Cal...
  
  
• Donovan
  Donovan
  Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
  
  
• Fred Frith
  Fred Frith
  Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
  
  
• Jimmie Dale Gilmore
  Jimmie Dale Gilmore
  Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a country singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
  
  
• Roy Hargrove
  Roy Hargrove
  Roy Anthony Hargrove is an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music, in 1997, and in 2002...
  
  
• George Harrison
  George Harrison
  George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
  
  
• Paul Horn
  Paul Horn (jazz musician)
  Paul Horn is an American jazz flautist, and is considered by some to be a pioneer of New Age music.-Biography:Paul Horn was born in New York City, and began playing the piano at the age of 4 and the saxophone at the age of 12...
  
  
• Charlie Hunter
  Charlie Hunter
  for the New Zealand racehorse trainer and driver see: Charlie HunterCharlie Hunter is an American guitarist, composer and bandleader....
  
  
• Henry Kaiser
  Henry Kaiser (musician)
  Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...
  
  

• Ali Akbar Khan
  Ali Akbar Khan
  Ali Akbar Khan , often referred to as Khansahib or by the title Ustad , was a Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing the sarod...
  
  
• Bruce Langhorne
  Bruce Langhorne
  Bruce Langhorne is an American folk musician. He was active in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, primarily as a session guitarist for folk albums and performances...
  
  
• Kenny Loggins
  Kenny Loggins
  During the next decade, Loggins recorded so many successful songs for film soundtracks that he was referred to as, King of the Movie Soundtrack.He began with "I'm Alright" , "Mr. Night", and "Lead the Way" from Caddyshack...
  
  
• Taj Mahal
  Taj Mahal (musician)
  Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
  
  
• The Mermen
  The Mermen
  The Mermen are an American rock band from San Francisco, California that formed in 1989.The group's sound was originally rooted in surf and psychedelic rock music of the 1960s, although they have made "sincere attempts to get away from the surf music label" and currently delves into many genres,...
  
  
• Jim Messina
• Joni Mitchell
  Joni Mitchell
  Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
  
  
• Airto Moreira
  Airto Moreira
  Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Airto is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. He currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:...
  
  
• Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji
  Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
  
  
• Michel Petrucciani
  Michel Petrucciani
  Michel Petrucciani was a French jazz pianist.-Biography:...
  
  

• Flora Purim
  Flora Purim
  Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Chick Corea's landmark album Return to Forever...
  
  
• Bonnie Raitt
  Bonnie Raitt
  Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
  
  
• John Sebastian
  John Sebastian
  John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...
  
  
• Ravi Shankar
  Ravi Shankar
  Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
  
  
• Simon and Garfunkel
  Simon and Garfunkel
  Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...
  
  
• Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
  
  
• Ringo Starr
  Ringo Starr
  Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
  
  
• Three Fish
  Three Fish
  Three Fish was an American rock band formed in 1994 by Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament. The lineup featured Ament, Robbi Robb of Tribe After Tribe, and Richard Stuverud of the Fastbacks and War Babies.-History:...
  
  
• John Trudell
  John Trudell
  John Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...
  
  
• Paul Winter
  Paul Winter
  Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...
  
  

John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

 and Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

 performed together at Esalen. Robert Bly

Robert Bly

Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...

, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...

, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, Michael McClure

Michael McClure

Michael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...

, Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...

 (who led one of the first workshops), Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

 and others held poetry readings and workshops.

In 1994, President and CEO Sharon Thom created an Artist-in-Residence program to provide artists with a two-week retreat in which to focus upon works in progress. These artists interacted with the staff, offered informal gatherings, and staged performances on the newly created dance platform that was surrounded by a Dionysian

Apollonian and Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works....

 amphitheatre

Amphitheatre

An amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment and performances.There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word "amphitheatre" is used: Ancient Roman amphitheatres were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used...

. Located next to the Art Barn, the dance platform was used by Esalen teachers for dance and martial arts. Later, the platform was covered by a dome, and was renamed the Leonard Pavillion, after the deceased Esalen patron George Leonard

George Leonard

George Leonard was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Norton, Massachusetts. Besides service on state court benches and in both houses of the state legislature, he represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives.-External links:*...

.

In 1995 and 1996, Esalen hosted two Arts Festivals, which gathered together artists, poets, musicians, photographers and performers, including artist Margot McLean, psychologist James Hillman

James Hillman

James Hillman was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27,...

, guitarist Michael Hedges

Michael Hedges

Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...

 and Joan Baez. All staff members were allowed to attend every class and performance that did not interfere with their schedules. For the first time in Esalen's history, this inclusive spirit was extended to an invited conference. Arts festivals have since become a popular yearly event at Esalen.

Esalen in "pop culture"

Esalen's popularity has occasionally made it the subject for loose interpretations in the movies. In a 1969 comedy-drama, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is a 1969 comedy-drama film directed by Paul Mazursky. It stars Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon....

, sophisticated Los Angeles residents Bob and Carol Sanders (played by Robert Culp

Robert Culp

Robert Martin Culp was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp first earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy , the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents...

 and Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...

) spend a weekend of emotional honesty at an Esalen-style retreat, after which they return to their life determined to embrace free love and complete openness.

Initiatives and projects

Esalen Institute has sponsored many research initiatives, educational projects, and invitational conferences. The Big Sur facility has been used for these events, as well as other locations, including international sites.

Schizophrenia research project

The Schizophrenia Research Project was conducted over a three-year period at Agnews State Hospital in San Jose, California

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

, involving 127 young males diagnosed with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

. This program was co-sponsored by the California Department of Mental Hygiene and the National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Mental Health

The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...

. It explored the thesis

Thesis statement

The thesis statement states the thesis or argument of the author in an essay or similar document. Usually no less than five sentences or six long, it is a focused section of text that clearly delineates the argument that is presented in the work and is usually found at the end of the first...

 that the health of certain patients would permanently improve if their disease process was not interrupted by administration of antipsychotic

Antipsychotic

An antipsychotic is a tranquilizing psychiatric medication primarily used to manage psychosis , particularly in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A first generation of antipsychotics, known as typical antipsychotics, was discovered in the 1950s...

 pharmaceutical drugs. Julian Silverman was chief of research for the Project. He also served as Esalen's General Manager in the 1970s.

Publishing

Starting in the late 1960s, in association with Viking Press

Viking Press

Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

, the institute published a series of seventeen books related to topics explored at Esalen. Some of these books remain in print. Esalen later entered into a joint publishing arrangement with Lindisfarne Press

Lindisfarne Association

The Lindisfarne Association is a group of intellectuals of diverse interests organized by cultural historian William Irwin Thompson for the "study and realization of a new planetary culture"...

.

Soviet-American exchange program

In 1980, Esalen began the Soviet-American Exchange Program. This initiative came at a time when Cold War tensions were at their peak. The program was credited with substantial success in fostering peaceful private exchanges between citizens of the "super powers".

Criticism

Over the years, Esalen Institute has been the subject of criticism. Generally, the Human Potential Movement

Human Potential Movement

The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...

 has been criticized for espousing an ethic that the inner-self should be freely expressed in order to reach one's true potential. Some people have seen this ethic as an aspect of Esalen's culture. The historian Christopher Lasch

Christopher Lasch

Christopher Lasch was a well-known American historian, moralist, and social critic....

 claimed that humanistic techniques encourage narcissistic or self-obsessive thoughts and behaviors. A somewhat more incisive criticism was offered in 1990, by a graffiti artist who spray painted "Jive shit for rich white folk" on the entrance to Esalen. However, there are two more concrete problems that have occasionally impacted the institute.

Highway 1, the principal gateway for visitors traveling to Esalen Institute, is an audacious and problematic engineering accomplishment. The road traveres the edge of cliffs overhanging the ocean. Often it is closed by landslides. Especially during periods of stormy weather, visitors are cautioned to check the status of the Highway 1 before departure.

Esalen Institute is surrounded by large tracts of state forests and federal wilderness areas. For this reason, human habitations in Big Sur are periodically threatened by fire. The "Rat Creek" fire in 1985, damaged some of Esalen's facilities. The "Basin Complex" fire in 2008, threatened Esalen, but never came close enough to damage the grounds.

The Esalen community has learned to live with the physical challenges of life in Big Sur, although visitors who are used to different lifestyles may find these potential problems a basis for criticism of the institute.

Community

Because of Esalen’s isolated location, its operational staff members have been residential from the beginning, and collectively they have shaped the character of the institute. The community has been steeped in a form of Gestalt

Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...

 that pervades all aspects of daily life, including meeting structures, workplace practices, and individual language styles. Esalen began year-long residential educational programs in 1966, which were subsequently replaced by month-long work-study programs and year-long work-oriented extended student programs. There is a preschool

Preschool education

Preschool education is the provision of learning to children before the commencement of statutory and obligatory education, usually between the ages of zero and three or five, depending on the jurisdiction....

 on site called the Gazebo, serving the children of staff, some program participants, and, until recently, local residents. Given the intensity of community involvement in all these process related activities, many staff members have developed their own forms of practice, and some of them have become well known teachers.

Current status

Currently, Esalen Institute is managed by CEO Tricia McEntee, with Gordon Wheeler now serving as President, supervised by a noteworthy Board of Trustees. Under their leadership, Esalen recently has focused upon issues of ecological sustainability. The institute has sought to strengthen ties with surrounding communities and institutions, including the University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...

, with which it has partnered to develop programs allowing students to test concepts of sustainable agriculture on Esalen's land.

Staff members serve in the volunteer Big Sur Fire Department as well as search and rescue teams. They volunteer at local public schools. And they fight forest fires in order to preserve the heritage of Big Sur landscape.

Esalen continues to offer workshops to its visitors throughout the year, most of them focused upon the integration of humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...

, physical wellness

Wellness (alternative medicine)

Wellness is generally used to mean a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being. It has been used in the context of alternative medicine since Halbert L. Dunn, M.D., began using the phrase high level wellness in the 1950s...

, and community-building. Workshops cover a wide range of subjects including: art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

s, health

Health

Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...

, Gestalt

Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...

, integral thought

Integral thought

Integral is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and many other areas regarding a comprehensive synthesizing transdisciplinary framework or multidimensional perspective to a given field...

, martial arts, massage

Massage

Massage is the manipulation of superficial and deeper layers of muscle and connective tissue to enhance function, aid in the healing process, and promote relaxation and well-being. The word comes from the French massage "friction of kneading", or from Arabic massa meaning "to touch, feel or handle"...

, dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

, mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

, philosophical inquiry

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, somatics

Somatics

The field of somatics encompasses holistic body-centered approaches that help people reconnect with self and transform through movement practices that promote psycho-physical awareness and well-being...

, spiritual and religious studies

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

, ecopsychology

Ecopsychology

Ecopsychology connects psychology and ecology. Its political and practical goals are to show humans ways of healing alienation and to build a "sane" society and a sustainable culture. Theodore Roszak is credited with coining the term in his 1992 book, The Voice of the Earth...

, wilderness experience

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

, yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

, tai chi, mindfulness practice

Mindfulness (psychology)

Modern clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on the concept of mindfulness in Buddhist meditation.-Definitions:...

, meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

, permaculture

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...

 and sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

, all with the prospect that the mission of the institute will last well into the future.

See also

• Michael Murphy
  Michael Murphy (author)
  Michael Murphy is the co-founder of the Esalen Institute, a key figure in the Human Potential Movement and author of both fiction and non-fiction books on topics related to extraordinary human potential.- Biography :...
  
  
• Golf in the Kingdom
  Golf in the Kingdom
  Golf in the Kingdom is a 1971 novel by Michael Murphy. It has sold over a million copies and been translated into 19 languages. Golf in the Kingdom tells the story of Michael Murphy, a young traveler who accidentally stumbles on a mystical golfing expert while in Scotland.Murphy was inspired to...
  
  
• Dick Price
  Dick Price
  Richard “Dick” Price -- co-founded Esalen Institute in 1962.Dick Price was a veteran of the Beat Generation. He ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years, sometimes virtually single-handed. He was an explorer of the Santa Lucia Mountains that define the Big Sur coast...
  
  
• Gestalt Practice
  Gestalt Practice
  Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...
  
  
• Human Potential Movement
  Human Potential Movement
  The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
  
  

External links

• Esalen.org
• Esalen Center for Theory and Research
• Esalen Alumni Group
• In Murphy's Kingdom by Jackie Krentzman
• Excerpts from an interview with Dick Price
• Michael Murphy biography
• "Totally on Fire: The Experience of Founding Esalen" from Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeff Kripal