Esalen
A unique, on-going experiment. (The Bus 5.31)
Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
Perched on the cliffs of Big Sur overlooking the Pacific Ocean about a three hour drive south of San Francisco, Esalen is a ‘communitarian retreat’ focussing on ‘humanistic values in adult education’. Offering seminars in subjects as varied as ‘psychology, meditation, massage, ecology, and eclectic forms of spirituality,’ Esalen remains - more than sixty years after its founding - a world renowned ‘holistic learning and leading global retreat centre’ dedicated to enabling its guests and faculty to ‘explore and realise their human potential through experience, education, and research’.1
In the early 1960s, two Stanford University graduates - Michael Murphy and Richard Price - decided to create an ‘educational forum that would be open to novel ways of thinking’. Desiring a venue where students and faculty could reside together in an meditative environment where ‘non-traditional workshops and lecturers could present their ideas free of the dogma associated with traditional education,’ they decided to locate their experiment at a disused spa retreat - Big Sur Hot Springs - conveniently owned by Murphy’s family. Leasing the property from Murphy’s grandmother and injecting capital Price was able to accumulate with his father’s2 help, with the support of people as varied as the philosopher and author Alan Watts, the Stanford comparative religions professor Frederic Spiegelberg, and the English author and philosopher Aldous Huxley and his wife Laura, Esalen - named after the Esselen Native American tribe who had originally inhabited the area - opened in January 1962.
From the beginning, Esalen’s unique focus and alternative approach attracted like-minded individuals, and with a physical location ‘so far out over the edge of the continent as to feel beyond the reach of federal law enforcement,’ the place quickly became a countercultural intellectual centre. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Watts, the Taoist teacher Gia-fu Feng joined as an early staff member, and in the summer of 1962 the psychologist Abraham Maslow3 drove into the grounds looking for a place to stay, saw its potential and became an important member of the institute. In its early years, the teaching staff at Esalen included a rotating list of luminaries from the worlds of philosophy, literature, religion, psychology and music: Joan Baez, Stanislov Grof, Ken Kesey, Aldous Huxley, Richard Feynman, Terence McKenna, J. B. Rhine, Ida Rolf and Susan Sontag to name only a few.4 And on 10 July 1968, George Harrison was given sitar lessons by Ravi Shankar, the Beatle having decided to stop by for a few days’ meditative retreat.
As a creative laboratory dedicated to be an ‘incubator of human potential asking the daring and curious questions that traditional university and religious institutions can’t and/or won’t’, from its beginning Esalen has not been without its critics and controversies. In 2007, the Economist noted that for many ‘in America and around the world,’ Esalen straddled a vague ‘metaphorical point where ‘East meets West’’ and in turn was changed into something ‘uniquely and mystically American or New Agey,’ while for 'a great many others’ it was just a place where throughout the 60s and 70s a bunch of people ‘had sex and got high … before coming home talking psychobabble and dangling crystals.’ To a degree, both sides are inevitably correct - but the fact that Esalen still remains a vibrant centre dedicated to developing ‘human potential through experience, education, and research’ in an attempt to push humanity towards a ‘more just, creative, and sustainable world’ must mean something.
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to Mycorrhizal Fungi, a short (4:15) animated explanation of how the ancestors of plants moved from fresh water to land around 500 million years ago. Fascinating, and worth the time.
The Recommendation
Today’s Recommendation is Jesse Jarnow’s Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America (2016). A heavily-researched investigation into the role psychedelics has had on wider American culture - including their direct influence on the tech explosion in which we currently live - this is a very readable, fascinating journey into what is proving to be one of the most influential subcultures in human history.
From the inside flap: Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America uncovers a hidden history of the biggest psychedelic distribution and belief system the world has ever known. Through a collection of fast-paced interlocking narratives, it animates the tale of an alternate America and its wide-eyed citizens: the LSD-slinging graffit writers of Central Park, the Dead-loving AI scientists of Stanford, utopian Whole Earth homesteaders, black market chemists, government-wanted Anonymous hackers, rogue explorers, East Village bluegrass pickers, spiritual seekers, Internet pioneers, entrepreneurs, pranksters, pioneering DJs, and a nation of Deadheads.
WFMU DJ and veteran music writer Jesse Jarnow draws on extensive new first-hand accounts from many never-before-interviewed subjects and a wealth of deep archival research to create a comic-book-coloured and panoramic American landscape, taking readers for a guided tour of the hippie highway filled with lit-up explorers, peak trips, big busts, and scenic vistas, from Vermont to the Pacific Northwest, from the old world head capitals of San Francisco and New York to the geodesic dome-dotted valleys of Colorado and New Mexico. And with psychedelic research moving into the mainstream for the first time in decades, Heads also recounts the story of the quiet entheogenic revolution that for years has been brewing in the Dead’s Technicolor shadow.
Featuring over four dozen images, many never before seen - including pop artist Keith Haring’s first publicly sold work - Heads weaves one of the the 20th and 21st centuries’ most misunderstood subcultures into the fabric of the nation’s history. Written for anyone who wondered what happened to the heads after the Acid Tests, through the ‘70s, during the Drug War and on to the psychedelic present, Heads collects the essential history of how LSD, Deadheads, tie-dye, and the occasional bad trip have become familiar features of the American experience.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a selection of five tracks by artists who performed at the Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival, held at Esalen on the 13-14 September 1969:5 ‘Sweet Sir Galahad’ (Joan Baez), ‘Woodstock’ (Joni Mitchell), ‘Red-Eye Express’ (John Sebastian), ‘Down By the River’ (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and ‘Do Right Woman’ (The Flying Burrito Brothers). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is from the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.6 I thought it very apt, considering today’s Stop:
‘The soul should always stand ajar.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
Thanks to all Bus Riders! Whether you ride in the front, middle, back or the cool-kid seats, your interest and support is truly appreciated. If you like The Bus, please SHARE it with a friend or two.
If you haven’t climbed aboard The Bus, please do!
Until the next Stop …
I’ve never been to Esalen, but a few years ago while driving down the Pacific Coast Highway we passed a sign and it sparked a few memories about having read about it. Esalen is an integral part of my favourite slice of American history - the 1960s counterculture - so I’ve always known it would inevitably show up as a Stop. As usual, there’s far more about it than can be covered in an issue, so if you’re interested check out these sources for today’s Stop: A History of Esalen, The Legend of Esalen, Esalen Institute (esalen.org), Esalen Institute (Wikipedia), and Pollan, Michael. How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. London: Allen Lane, 2018.
The senior Price was a ‘successful vice-president at Sears in Chicago’.
As in the ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ Abraham Maslow.
If you know of these people, you are in the know and that’s a good thing. If you don’t, you can check out more information here: Stanislov Grof (Wikipedia), Ken Kesey (The Bus 4.43), Aldous Huxley (The Bus 2.2), Richard Feynman (Britannica), Terence McKenna (Wikipedia), J. B. Rhine (The Bus 1.21), Ida Rolf (Wikipedia) and Susan Sontag (Britannica).
There were seven of these festivals held from 1964-1971, all but one (the penultimate one) held at Esalen. The first four tracks are known to have been performed by these artists at the festival as there’s a film, but while The Flying Burrito Brothers did perform they’re not on film - so I chose a track from what would have been their most recent release. It was handy, while looking for tracks, that this particular festival was filmed, but the real reason I chose it was that it was held on the day I was born. Which I thought was pretty cool.
For more about Dickinson, see: Emily Dickinson (Britannica).
Great Bus! The mychorizzal networks are fascinating. Tolkien would have loved to know trees communicate with each other - for real! Check out this article https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/
My dad spent some time at Esalen in the 60s when he was teaching at San Francisco State University, and he always said he wasn’t a hippie, he was part of the “human potential movement.” I always thought he was kind of full of shit. 🫤