19.-21.5.2023, Φ Esalen Retreat and Institute (Big Sur)

---

Esalen Institute, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen_Institute: … a non-profit … retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education … played a key role in the Human Potential Movement beginning in the 1960s. Its innovative use of encounter groups … and their … experimentation in personal awareness introduced many ideas that later became mainstream … founded by Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962 … to support alternative methods for exploring human consciousness … Over the next few years, Esalen became the center of practices and beliefs that make up the New Age movement, from Eastern religions/philosophy, to alternative medicine and mind-body interventions, from transpersonal to Gestalt Practice … Alan Watts gave the first lecture at Esalen in January 1962 … Abraham Maslow, a prominent humanistic psychologist, … happened to drive into the grounds and … became an important figure at the institute … Early leaders included … Ansel Adams, … Buckminster Fuller, Timothy Leary, … Linus Pauling, Carl Rogers, … B.F. Skinner, and Arnold Toynbee … In 1964, Joan Baez led a workshop entitled “The New Folk Music”… Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, … Gary Snyder and others held poetry readings and workshops.

---

• www.esalen.org
• www.esalenctr.org

On the way to Esalen: Bixby bridge.

---

Excerpt: Jeffrey J Kripal, Glenn W. Shuck (eds.) (2005): On the edge of the future. Esalen and the evolution of American culture. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, USA:

• (pp.1ff Introducing Esalen) p.6: two Esalen … mantras – „No one captures the flag“ and „We hold our dogmas lightly“ …
• (pp.45ff Catherine L. Albanese: Ch. 2, Sacred (and secular) self-fashioning: Esalen and the American transformation of Yoga) p.73: … when the …Institute opened its doors in 1962, it took to heart its mission of exploring the „human potential“ …
• (pp.165ff Gordon Wheeler: Ch. 6, Spirit and shadow: Esalen and the Gestalt model) p.170 … founding of two of the most remarkable … and alternative projects of those times. One was the Esalen Institute … in 1962 … The other was the Gestalt model of psychotherapy, first articulated by Frederick (Fritz) Perls and Paul Goodman … in the early postwar period … the Gestalt approach would continue to color (and be colored by) the development of the Institute over the next several decades … p.172 Gestalt… is the psychology of constructivism … p.194 … the urgent task at hand: the co-creation of a sustainable, livable world …
• (pp. 197ff Robert C. Fuller: Ch. 7, Esalen and the cultural boundaries of metalanguage) p.208 … Attending Esalen links one to a community that spans generations – a community including Native Americans, beatniks, literati, and countercultural rebels … pp.211-214 Carl Rogers … Esalen connections …
• (pp. 250ff Don Hanlon Johnson: Ch. 9, From Sarx to Soma: Esalen’s role in recovering the body for spiritual development) p.256 … Esalen was in some ways like a Wild West version of the 1920s German Bauhaus … p.260 … Esalen’s role … is due in part to its extraordinary natural beauty … p.265 … unique … place on the edge of the Western world that is closer to Kyoto than to Athens …
• (pp. 268 ff Marion S. Goldman: Ch. 11, Esalen Institute, essence faiths, and the religious marketplace) p.268 Esalen brings together essence faiths from both eastern and western spiritual traditions. These religions do not have deities who reveal ultimate truths … Instead, … posit ephemeral … supernatural essences within individuals and, in some traditions, … in the natural world … p.287 … consider Esalen as a spiritual retreat, think tank, and pilgrimage center and as an example of … personal growth centers … p.287-288 Informal exchanges link Esalen with … the California Institute of Integral Studies … p.292 Landscape is Esalen’s keystone …