BIG SUR, Calif. (RNS) Perched atop the rugged splendor of the California coast south of Monterey, the Esalen Institute is the mother church for people who call themselves “spiritual but not religious." Over the last five decades, hundreds of thousands of seekers have come to this incubator of East-meets-West spirituality looking for news ways to bring together body, mind, psyche and soul.
But today, as this iconic hot springs spa and retreat center celebrates its 50th birthday, a bitter dispute has broken out over its future. Like the many “seminarians” who come here after losing a spouse or a job, Esalen now faces its own midlife crisis.
The institute was founded in 1962 by two charismatic Stanford University graduates, Michael Murphy and Richard Price. Murphy (whose family owned a funky hot springs motel at Big Sur) and Price (the scion of a wealthy Chicago family) were looking to start something new. Murphy had already been to India in search of spiritual truth, and Price was looking for a more humane approach to helping people suffering from mental illness, himself included.
Big Sur was already known in the 1950s as a mecca for beatniks and other bohemians, and Esalen continued that countercultural tradition into the 1960s and 1970s. People came here to study yoga, meditation, and massage; to take psychedelic drugs; and to scream, cry and/or laugh their way through encounter groups with a series of avant-garde psychotherapists and other self-styled prophets of the New Age.
Much to the dismay of Murphy, who was the institute's more intellectual co-founder, Esalen became infamous for hedonistic seminarians who to this day frolic buck naked at the co-ed baths, where outdoor massage tables overlook stone pools -- all of it precariously hung over the left-leaning edge of the American continent.
David Price, the son of the late Richard Price and a former general manager of the institute, is one of many Esalen veterans who complain that the place has lost its edge. Others point to upgraded rooms in which a spiritual seeker can spend up to $1,595 for a weekend workshop. Standard rooms, with two or three people sharing a room and bath, cost $730 per person for the weekend.
What began with a burst of hippie idealism, they say, is turning into a spa for the 1 percent. There’s even some talk of an “Occupy Esalen” protest.
Some staff members, workshop leaders and temporary “work scholar” volunteers have begun gathering in a daily “circle of silence” to protest recent layoffs and staff changes designed to improve efficiency. Meanwhile, the blogosphere is abuzz with “Esalen Friends” letting off steam on a Facebook page.
“The community has become more tightly regulated,” said Price, who was born at Esalen in 1963 and now lives in Poland. “These people are not just a labor force. There’s always been a priority set for the people who work here to also be able to work on themselves.”
Virginia Lea Arnone, a former staffer, said Esalen is now run by “business men-corporate types who have never lived the Big Sur life.”
"They are not psychologists or spiritual teachers. They mean well but are destroying the very essence of Esalen life. It’s like taking a beautiful wild bird and putting it in a cage in order to sell it or even preserve it.”
Esalen President Gordon Wheeler said most of the people stirring up discontent “have not been here for quite a long time.”
“They are remembering a time when the world was different. People didn’t have to show up in the same way,” said Wheeler, a Gestalt therapist who first taught here in 1997 and went onto become the CEO.
“Sometimes we make mistakes, but we certainly don’t want to turn into one of today’s big bad corporations ... Everything we do here is about the evolution of spiritual transformation.”
Jeffrey Kripal, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University and the author of "Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion," said the institute’s impact on American society “is largely indirect, but also immense and profound,” especially with the rising number of Americans who refer to themselves as “spiritual but not religious."
“This group’s interest in science, the body, modern psychology, and personal experience -- all of these things have been celebrated and pioneered by Esalen in unique and effective ways,” he said.
Esalen has always provided an eclectic course offering, and this summer’s workshops are no exception. They will include sessions titled, “Writing and Knowing,” “Advanced Yoga for Everyone,” “Introduction to Radical Aliveness,” and “Immediate Level Chinese Pulse Diagnosis and Integrating Western and Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine.”
Kripal, who has worked closely with an Esalen think tank known as the Center for Theory and Research, said he has "a lot of faith in the community and the administration” and thinks the current troubles “will work themselves out, as they always have.”
“Esalen is going through a classic generational process that sociologists call the ‘institutionalization of charisma.’ Every new religious movement has to figure out how to preserve and pass on the charisma of its founders and visionaries to the next generations. It is never easy, and it is always contentious. “
(Don Lattin is a veteran religion reporter who wrote about Esalen in his 2003 book, "Following Our Bliss," and his forthcoming work, "Distilled Spirits.")
KRE/LEM END LATTIN
michael.skrodzki | May 31, 2012 | 1:12am
The stretch of land between the mountains and the Pacific is still stunning 50 years later,and the famous hot springs are still gurgling from the rock, but not all
is well in the Shangri-La of the Human Potential Movement. While the
workshop program is still offering the familiar smorgasbord of
mind/body therapies with extra helpings of Yoga and some “Conscious
Business Leadership” courses, the life of the residential community has
changed. About a month ago three well-respected long-term community
members were fired without warning, and the community have been meeting
daily in a silent circle to honor them, and to protest the practices of
the current management. During the 60ies Esalen mirrored the bold,
adventurous and freewheeling spirit of the times, and now aspects of the
place seem to mirror the political and cultural polarization,
stagnation and regressive tendencies of 2012. There is, of course, a
larger context to the current “crisis”. Esalen used to successfully
combine the different, complementary and overlapping visions of its
co-founders Dick Price and Michael Murphy: it was an experimental
healing and learning community populated by longer-term residential
“students” who constituted the bulk of the workforce, various
residential practitioners, and some permanent staff. It was also an
educational center offering workshops to short-term paying guests (from a
weekend to a month), and it sponsored invitational conferences and
other projects. Most people on staff had come up “through the ranks” as
work scholars and extended students, which resulted in a uniquely
egalitarian feel and climate. Since the death of Dick Price in 1985, and
more accelerated in the last decade or so, the balance and emphasis
have been shifting away from the residential community to the more
lucrative workshop operation and the quasi-academic Center for Theory
and Research- Michael Murphy’s favorite child. Work scholar and Extended
Student programs and positions have been drastically reduced and
replaced by a more conventional work force.The “traditional” 32-hour
work week which gave resident students time to pursue their individual
interests (personal healing work, training in healing modalities etc.)
has been largely abolished in favor of 40-hour “real world” conditions.
At the same time, management positions have proliferated and often
filled by outsiders with more corporate and less Esalen experience. The
former emphasis on direct and open communication on all levels -legacy
of the Gestalt and group process traditions- has given way to
“corporate-speak” and carefully orchestrated meetings which discourage
dissent. Community members fear they will jeopardize their jobs if they
freely speak their minds In short, Esalen has become more about and for
the paying customers than about and for the working community. To be
sure, this is not the first crisis or the first purge in the history of
the Institute, but it seems to be the first significant enduring shift
in emphasis, mission and management style, away from what had proved to
be a fruitful balance and certainly part of the magic of the place. In
the wake of the recent “re-structuring”, one Board of Trustees member
resigned in protest. At least as significant, Christine Price, the widow
of co-founder Dick Price and most prominent keeper of the “Gestalt
Practice” tradition announced her withdrawal from leading future
workshops at Esalen. A local newspaper article quotes her: “I have told
the Board that there is a divergence between the current climate and my
ongoing interests…. The new culture does not seem to incorporate the
work that I’ve been part of these many years, so it’s time for me to
move on.” (http://www.montereycountyweekl….
Gordon Wheeler, Esalen’s current President, as recently quoted in the Huffington Post :“We are obviously hanging at a cusp…” He is talking about human evolution, but
he might as well be speaking only about the Esalen Institute.
Charles Roberts | May 31, 2012 | 11:09am
What has happened at Esalen is a microcosm of what has happened to much of alternative spirituality in America. Perhaps it goes back to TM and the Maharishi charging $75 (in the early 70’s, that was a lot of money) to get your “personalized” mantra. Just check the client base and target demographic of the more popular self-empowerment leaders, it’s fairly obvious that they seem to think that folks with less than six-figure incomes don’t have problems. Of course, if your main concern is where your next meal will come from, you are probably not too interested in deciphering the complexities of non-dualist spiritualities.
CR Pierpoint | Jun 4, 2012 | 3:53am
I would have appreciated if this article had mentioned more about Esalen co-founder: Dick Price’s invaluable legacy of “Gestalt Awareness Practice”, a unique Gestalt variant, derived from Fritz Pearls “Gestalt Therapy”, and only seen developed at Esalen; this, rather than showcasing the Hot springs baths nudity practice, as a place for “hedonistic seminarians frolicking”, which is just plain journalistic sensationalism, an inaccurate and exaggerated portrayal.
President Wheeler’s quote, stating that: “Most of the people stirring up discontent have not been here for quite a long time” is also quite misleading, as the extended Community speaking up, is well versed in the current Esalen issues, and actually voicing their dissent in solidarity of an oppressed current staff, that is unable to express themselves, fearful of losing their livelihood, their housing, and their extended family all together.
Wheeler goes on to describe us, the old timers, as, quote: “They are remembering a time when the world was different”. “People didn’t have to show up in the same way,” [... ],misleadingly characterizing the irresponsible hippie-drifter-image. Actually, we “did show up” in more ways than he might know. How so? Because, at the time, the working Community was comprised of far less staff attending to the daily business of the place, all while serving the SAME number of seminarians. Gordon W. wasn’t actually around, as his presence at Esalen is fairly recent, 2004.
It would have also been useful to mention that Christine Price, widow of Dick Price, and now primary teacher of Gestalt Practice Awareness, has refused to schedule any further workshops at Esalen, due to, quote: “a divergence between the current climate and my ongoing interests “, she writes. Also, that one of the most generous Board member, David Lustig, resigned in protest to the recent firings. A recent Statement Letter from the members of the Esalen Community, in response to the April 18th actions, (the firings) was signed by over 100 current staff members, just about its entirety. These important facts were left out of this article, and thereby down-playing the importance of the current crisis at Esalen.
P.S. For more details, pease read Michael Skrodzki’s very accurate comment of May 31st, 2012