ALTERNATIVE DOCTOR, LLC

Esalen

by Dr. Lloyd May

June 15, 2006

In April 2005, Dr Dan Brown held a course on Peak Performance at Esalen, which I attended. I arrived at Esalen driving south on Highway 1, also named the Cabrillo Highway, reaching Highway 1 in Monterey, taking a few hours to visit the craggy cypress trees on the beach ravaged by time. Driving south through Big Sur, the redwood trees obscured the sunlight. Further north, the Pacific ocean crashed to the right, with mountains immediately to the left. Esalen always had intrigued me; from the start of my interest in alternative medicine, one of my local guides was trained at Esalen in massage therapy, years ago. And I had vacationed in Big Sur years ago, at that time only interested in the beauty of the forest juxtaposed between mountains, streams, and ocean. And earlier still, I had signed up for, but missed, the Big Sur Marathon. I had previously attended a course by Dr Daniel Brown, of Harvard University, on Peak Performance at Cape Cod in the 1990’s, so I came here for an update.

Esalen is breathtakingly beautiful. Situated on 120 acres on a mountain jutting out to the Pacific ocean, it was created in the 1940s or 1950s by Michael Murphy, who started the human potential movement. Through thousands of participants, and hundreds of courses, individuals have been exposed to the avante garde thinkers in the movement. And the beauty as I mentioned is breathtaking. I missed the turn into Esalen, since there was only a small sign on the highway, and drove down a dirt road, which opened out to a central area with a low building, and a lawn with a few chairs, and scattered boulders, and trees. An organic garden was up the path, and down to the left was the famed hot springs and bath. Facing the mountain to my back was a path leading to a ice cold stream crashing down to meet the Pacific ocean at my feet. I was about to experience the beauty and transformation of Esalen.

The Esalen Institute is renowned as a center for Alternative Education. Once home to the Native American tribe known as the Esselen, Esalen is located on the spectacular Big Sur coast of California, with an organic garden, cold streams, hot springs, juxtaposed between the Santa Lucia mountains and the crashing Pacific Ocean. This center is at the forefront of the human potential movement, the world of unrealized possibilities. Michael Murphy, a founder, is the author of The Future of the Body, as well as a practitioner and developer of Integral Transformative Practice (ITP): realizing and living your true potential.

Driving South on Highway 1, I missed the turn into Esalen. The inauspicious small sign is easy to miss. I drove down the gravel road to park the car. The main building overlooks the Pacific. A small patch of lush green grass fronts the building. A winding path leads down to the hot springs bath house. Going the other direction, a cold mountain stream rushes down from the Santa Lucia mountain crest to the ocean. A small garden with well tilled rows grows vegetables to be eaten this week. Insect are controlled by using chickens under a gauze to graze for pests safely. Close to the edge, lined precariously with cypress trees, the ocean crashes onto the basaltic rock strewn beach. No computers, no cell phones, no newspapers, no television are here. Just this fact alone spontaneously rejuvenates. It is fascinating that this laboratory of human potential lies here, not in a high tech scientific laboratory, but juxtaposed between the elemental beauty of Esalen the silence of human interaction.;

I attended the course entitled Peak Performance by Dr Dan Brown. The number of participants was small, about fifteen or so. I will write later about peak performance, but now I turn to the Esalen catalog, just to give you an idea of the studies going on today. What I will do is simply review the Esalen Catalog July-Dec 2006 Edition to give you an idea of the courses and workshops available to you.

In the July-Dec 2006 Catalog, new leaders are presented including: Jeffrey Zeig, Jill Purce, Rupert Sheldrake, Nitsan Gordon, Imam Faheem Shuaibe, Lynne McTaggart, and Arch Randolph. Dr Zeig has developed a system called Psychoaerobics for the teaching therapist. His mentor was Milton Erickson, and he has written on hypnosis, brief therapy, and integrative psychotherapy.

Jill Pure is a pioneer in vocal-healing techniques. Her husband Rupert Sheldrake, wrote A New Science of Life, and the Presence of the Past. He also proposes to democratize science. He maintains that popular science focuses on alternative medicine, ecologic issues, animals, and parapsychology, none of which are adequately studied by science. Nitsan Gordon worked with Dr Mariam Mar’i , director of the Arab Women Pedagogical Center, to start a program called Beyond Words. Imam Shuaibe is the resident Imam of Masjidal Waritheen mosque in Oakland California.

MORE TO COME…..