Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, 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.[1]
Esalen Institute was founded by Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962. Their goal was to explore work in the humanities and sciences, in order to fully realize what Aldous Huxley had called the "human potentialities."[2] Esalen soon became known for its blend of Eastern and Western philosophies, examined in experiential and didactic 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 rise sharply above the Pacific Ocean.[3] The grounds were once home to a Native American tribe known as the Esselen, from which the institute got its name.[4] This location also is a Monarch butterfly wintering site. A key feature of the site is its cliff-side natural hot spring 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 and Carmel along scenic Highway 1, and nine miles (14 km) north of Lucia. Esalen is about a three-hour drive south of San Francisco.
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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, where measles, smallpox, and syphilis wiped out 90 percent of the native population.[5] 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. He homesteaded the property in the early 1880s, and a settlement began, known as Slates Hot Springs. 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, California, physician (who delivered John Steinbeck). Murphy bought the property with the intention of opening a European-style health spa, once the yet-to-be-built Highway 1 was completed.[6] 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. 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.[7]
The official business name was “Big Sur Hot Springs,” although it was more generally referred to as "Slate's Hot Springs." Henry Miller was a frequent visitor.[8] Joan Baez was a resident, and Hunter S. Thompson was a problematic employee.[9]
Michael Murphy and Dick Price both attended Stanford University 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, a Stanford professor of comparative religion and Indic studies, with whom both had studied.[10] After graduating from Stanford, Price attended Harvard University to continue studying psychology. Then Price joined the Air Force and lived in San Francisco, where he met Alan Watts and experienced a transformative psychotic break. Price was admitted to a mental hospital for a time, before returning to San Francisco.[11] Murphy, meanwhile, traveled to Sri Aurobindo's ashram in India, 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.[12] 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 and Gregory Bateson. 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.[13] With all this help the experiment soon got off the ground.
Alan Watts gave his first lecture at Esalen in January 1962.[14] Gia-fu Feng joined Price and Murphy,[15] along with Bob Breckenridge, Bob Nash, Alice and Jim Sellers, as the first Esalen staff members.[16] In the summer of that same year Abraham Maslow, the prominent humanistic psychologist, just happened to drive into the grounds and soon became an important figure at the institute.[17] By autumn a catalog was issued advertising workshops with such titles as "Individual Cultural Definitions of Rationality", "The Expanding Vision" and "Drug-Induced Mysticism."[18] In 1964, Fritz Perls started a long-term residency at Esalen and became a lasting influence. Perls offered many Gestalt therapy seminars at the institute, until he left in July 1969, starting the Gestalt Insitute of Canada at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island.[19] Perls and Jim Simkin led Gestalt training courses at Esalen. Dick Price became one of Perls' closest students. Price developed his own form of practice called Gestalt Practice,[20] which he continued teaching at Esalen until his death in a hiking accident in 1985.[21] 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.[22]
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, the well-known encounter group leader, to take up permanent residence at Esalen.[23] All this combined to firmly position Esalen in the nexus of the counterculture of the 1960s.
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 published an article in Look magazine about the California scene, that mentioned Esalen and included a picture of Murphy. TIME published an article about Esalen in September.[24] The New York Times Magazine published an article by Leo E. Litwak in late December.[25] Then an article about Esalen appeared in Life magazine.[26] 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 and East Coast 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.[27] 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.[28]
In the early days, many of the programs seemed intended to challenge the status quo, 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:
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.
Esalen has sponsored long-term residencies including:
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.
In 1965 Joan Baez 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. This event was featured in the documentary film Celebration at Big Sur (1971).
Performers at Esalen have included:
John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg performed together at Esalen. Robert Bly, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth (who led one of the first workshops), Gary Snyder 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 amphitheatre. 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.
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, guitarist Michael Hedges 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's popularity has occasionally made it the subject for loose interpretations in the movies. In a 1969 comedy-drama, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, sophisticated Los Angeles residents Bob and Carol Sanders (played by Robert Culp and Natalie Wood) 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.
Esalen Institute exists to promote the harmonious development of the whole person. It is a learning organization dedicated to continual exploration of the human potential, and resists religious, scientific and other dogmas. It fosters theory, practice, research, and institution-building to facilitate personal and social transformation and, to that end, sponsors seminars for the general public; invitational conferences; research programs; residencies for artists, scholars, scientists, and religious teachers; work-study programs; and semi-autonomous projects.
— Michael Murphy, Chairman, Esalen Board of Trustees, Esalen Institute Statement of Purpose
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.
The Schizophrenia Research Project was conducted over a three-year period at Agnews State Hospital in San Jose, California, involving 127 young males diagnosed with schizophrenia. This program was co-sponsored by the California Department of Mental Hygiene and the National Institute of Mental Health. It explored the thesis that the health of certain patients would permanently improve if their disease process was not interrupted by administration of antipsychotic pharmaceutical drugs.[29] Julian Silverman was chief of research for the Project. He also served as Esalen's General Manager in the 1970s.[30]
Starting in the late 1960s, in association with Viking Press, 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.
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".[31]
Over the years, Esalen Institute has been the subject of criticism.[32] Generally, the Human Potential Movement 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 claimed that humanistic techniques encourage narcissistic or self-obsessive thoughts and behaviors.[33] 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.[34] 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 traverses 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.[35]
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,[36] damaged some of Esalen's facilities. The "Basin Complex" fire in 2008,[37] 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.
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.[38] The community has been steeped in a form of Gestalt that pervades all aspects of daily life, including meeting structures, workplace practices, and individual language styles.[39] 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.[40] There is a preschool on site called the Gazebo, serving the children of staff, some program participants, and, until recently, local residents.[41] 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.
Currently, Esalen Institute is managed by CEO Tricia McEntee,[42] with Gordon Wheeler now serving as President,[43] supervised by a noteworthy Board of Trustees.[44] 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, 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, physical wellness, and community-building. Workshops cover a wide range of subjects including: arts, health, Gestalt, integral thought, martial arts, massage, dance, mythology, philosophical inquiry, somatics, spiritual and religious studies, ecopsychology, wilderness experience, yoga, tai chi, mindfulness practice, meditation, permaculture and sustainability,[45] all with the prospect that the mission of the institute will last well into the future.