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Esalen--What It Was, What It Is© Pam Portugal Walatka 2008
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I am just back from a trip to Esalen, the educational spa-retreat in Big Sur where I used to live. I am happy to report that Esalen continues to be as full of life and love and essential learning as it ever was. Esalen is to mind-body-spirit as Saturday Night Live is to sketch comedy and comedy news: basically the root source of all that followed. Both are not as celebrated as they used to be but both are still going strong, and both are still unsurpassed. I went on a “personal retreat” which means room, board, and a few casual classes, as opposed to a seminar. Gossip has it that Esalen is no longer the paradise it used to be. Although I am no expert on the current inner workings of Esalen, I know a lot about Esalen’s past. I lived it, solidly from 1967 to 1970, and intermittently throughout the 1970s. With great delight, I report that Esalen is still a paradise. Bottom line: the physical property of Esalen, on a ledge between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, is comparable in grandeur and beauty to Yosemite. There are aspects of Esalen that occur off-property, and theses aspects have their own importance, but to my mind Esalen is the property in Big Sur. The physical property of Esalen is a healing place, and has been since the Esselen Indians bathed in the healing waters of the hot sulfur springs bubbling forth from the earth. Whenever I go there, I am healed of all that ails me. At a time when California was experimenting with an excessive permissiveness (the late 60s and the 70s) Esalen was Psychedelphia. As co-founder Michael Murphy points out, early Esalen was run by a bunch of bachelors. Eventually those bachelors got married, had children, and grew up like the rest of California. The excessive permissiveness of the old days would be unwelcome in a mature life and is no longer welcome at Esalen. But even in the 1960s we were "good kids." Most of us had degrees from top universities, and knew how to behave properly if we wanted to. We all had a taste for adventure and sense of destiny--we had no doubt we were changing the course of psychology, philosophy, and medicine. At Esalen last week, I was delighted to see that dissenters still dissent in the middle of the lodge. In any healthy educational institution, there will be dissenters among the faculty who grumble about the administration. Dissent is and should be a cherished tradition in healthy academic environments. If you do not have dissenters, you do not have freedom of thought. Show me an educational institution without dissent, and I will show you a cult. Esalen has never been a cult. Michael Murphy and co-founder Dick Price worked hard to establish and maintain a pluralism of thought, similar to the pluralism of thought in America. Hurrah for the dissenters! One young dissenter seemed to be of the opinion that early Esalen was a place of peace and harmony. Ha! Dissonance was a way of life in the early days. For one thing, there have been the eternal real estate wars—more people want to live there than the place can hold, resulting in perpetual fighting over rooms. But also, there have been differences of opinion, thank God. At one point in the late 60s the dissonance between the gestalters and the encounter-group people was intense. My point is that although Esalen is and was a place where one can go to find one’s health, sanity, and extraordinary abilities, there will always be staff disagreement about many things, because Esalen was founded on a strong respect for American pluralism. That’s the good news, really. If you would like to maximize your creative, intellectual, or athletic potential, take a seminar at Esalen. See esalen.org for information. If something is bothering you and you would like to work it out, take a seminar at Esalen. The historic thrust of Esalen has been to realize extraordinary human functioning, but it can also come in handy for simply getting back to normal. As I said before, Esalen is a healing place. There are hot tubs, communal (man-woman) baths, newly and beautifully rebuilt, with natural hot sulfur water coming out of the cliffs. There are seminars open to anyone, first come first served. The new catalog offers an abundance of possibilities. The very cheapest way to take a sneak peek at Esalen is to go to the baths in the middle of the night. Again, see esalen.org for information. Next cheapest is to sign up for a massage, which gives you daytime access to the grounds for a few hours. Esalen pioneered therapeutic massage, and continues to lead in extraordinary massage experience. You can camp out in Big Sur or stay in cabins, motels, or upscale resorts such as Ventana Inn or Post Ranch, both suitable for movie stars. These off-campus alternatives are good if you are not sure you are going to like Esalen, but I recommend staying at Esalen. The food is good, and it's nice to just be there. If you have been there many times, consider the personal retreat option. But the number one best way to experience Esalen is to sign up for a seminar. For first-timers, the Experiencing Esalen workshop is a good bet. See esalen.org Maybe you would rather read about it first. For a good recent academic-intellectual perspective of Esalen, see Jeffrey Kripal’s Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion. For a peek at the wild past, Esalen in the early 1970s, see my own A Place for Human Beings. (Please bear in mind that I too have grown up.) For a look at some of the current practices, see The Life We Are Given. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the current Work Scholars at Esalen for their buoyancy of spirit. --Respectfully submitted, Pam RainBear Portugal Walatka, 2008
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