Marion Goldman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732878
- eISBN:
- 9780814733387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732878.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This introductory chapter details the history and philosophy behind the Esalen Institute, its impact on society since its inception in the 1960s, as well as the background of research in exploring ...
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This introductory chapter details the history and philosophy behind the Esalen Institute, its impact on society since its inception in the 1960s, as well as the background of research in exploring Esalen and its enduring influence. The Institute's founding generation had started lasting organizations and social networks that facilitated the development and spread of alternative spirituality and humanistic psychology in the twenty-first century. Esalen encouraged widespread enthusiasm for an enormous range of spiritual paths that offered possibilities for individuals to live joyfully and discover fresh truths about themselves and the cosmos. It democratized spiritual privilege by popularizing options that had once been available to relatively few Americans and made the religious marketplace more diverse and open. Esalen played a critical role in introducing and promoting esoteric spirituality so that it flowed into mainstream culture.Less
This introductory chapter details the history and philosophy behind the Esalen Institute, its impact on society since its inception in the 1960s, as well as the background of research in exploring Esalen and its enduring influence. The Institute's founding generation had started lasting organizations and social networks that facilitated the development and spread of alternative spirituality and humanistic psychology in the twenty-first century. Esalen encouraged widespread enthusiasm for an enormous range of spiritual paths that offered possibilities for individuals to live joyfully and discover fresh truths about themselves and the cosmos. It democratized spiritual privilege by popularizing options that had once been available to relatively few Americans and made the religious marketplace more diverse and open. Esalen played a critical role in introducing and promoting esoteric spirituality so that it flowed into mainstream culture.
Marion Goldman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732878
- eISBN:
- 9780814733387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732878.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter describes the Institute's creation narrative and charts Esalen's history through the twenty-first century. This creation story described how Michael Murphy and Dick Price's dream of a ...
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This chapter describes the Institute's creation narrative and charts Esalen's history through the twenty-first century. This creation story described how Michael Murphy and Dick Price's dream of a modest retreat had spontaneously morphed into the reality of an influential institution dedicated to personal and social transformations. Because of benign supernatural influences emanating from both Esalen's location and more general cosmic forces, the two young men were able to create a hub for spiritual and personal exploration that has survived for six decades. According to the narrative, the stars had aligned so that Esalen could be conceived. Supernatural synchronicity had shaped Esalen's beginnings, and Murphy and Price's road trip ushered in a new era for Americans hungering to expand their lives.Less
This chapter describes the Institute's creation narrative and charts Esalen's history through the twenty-first century. This creation story described how Michael Murphy and Dick Price's dream of a modest retreat had spontaneously morphed into the reality of an influential institution dedicated to personal and social transformations. Because of benign supernatural influences emanating from both Esalen's location and more general cosmic forces, the two young men were able to create a hub for spiritual and personal exploration that has survived for six decades. According to the narrative, the stars had aligned so that Esalen could be conceived. Supernatural synchronicity had shaped Esalen's beginnings, and Murphy and Price's road trip ushered in a new era for Americans hungering to expand their lives.
Marion Goldman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732878
- eISBN:
- 9780814733387
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732878.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Yoga, humanistic psychology, meditation, holistic healing: these practices are commonplace today, yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or ...
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Yoga, humanistic psychology, meditation, holistic healing: these practices are commonplace today, yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or small groups of educated spiritual seekers. Esalen Institute, a retreat for spiritual and personal growth in Big Sur, California, played a pioneering role in popularizing quests for self-transformation and personalized spirituality. This “soul rush” spread quickly throughout the United States as the Institute made ordinary people aware of hundreds of ways to select, combine, and revise their beliefs about the sacred and to explore diverse mystical experiences. Millions of Americans now identify themselves as spiritual, not religious, because Esalen paved the way for them to explore spirituality without affiliating with established denominations. This book explores the concept of spiritual privilege and Esalen's foundational influence on the growth and spread of diverse spiritual practices that affirm individuals' self-worth and possibilities for positive personal change. The book also describes the people, narratives, and relationships at the Institute that produced persistent, almost accidental inequalities in order to illuminate the ways that gender is central to religion and spirituality in most contexts.Less
Yoga, humanistic psychology, meditation, holistic healing: these practices are commonplace today, yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or small groups of educated spiritual seekers. Esalen Institute, a retreat for spiritual and personal growth in Big Sur, California, played a pioneering role in popularizing quests for self-transformation and personalized spirituality. This “soul rush” spread quickly throughout the United States as the Institute made ordinary people aware of hundreds of ways to select, combine, and revise their beliefs about the sacred and to explore diverse mystical experiences. Millions of Americans now identify themselves as spiritual, not religious, because Esalen paved the way for them to explore spirituality without affiliating with established denominations. This book explores the concept of spiritual privilege and Esalen's foundational influence on the growth and spread of diverse spiritual practices that affirm individuals' self-worth and possibilities for positive personal change. The book also describes the people, narratives, and relationships at the Institute that produced persistent, almost accidental inequalities in order to illuminate the ways that gender is central to religion and spirituality in most contexts.
Suzanne Hudson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677252
- eISBN:
- 9781452947440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677252.003.0016
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter examines the work of photographer Ansel Adams, particularly his pictorial engagement with the landscape. It argues that the context in which to appreciate Adams’s production is neither ...
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This chapter examines the work of photographer Ansel Adams, particularly his pictorial engagement with the landscape. It argues that the context in which to appreciate Adams’s production is neither the modern museum nor the modernist photographic discourse that often justified it, but through the ostensible counterculture recurrently grasped in terms coeval with its most easily satirized iconography (of nudists, stoned musicians, etc.). Adams’s images offer an instance whereby artworks might look nothing like the milieu in which they find their theoretical justification, but are rendered legible through it in a way otherwise obscured. In this case, thinking about Adams together with the Esalen Institute recommends his images as manifestations of sensate connection with the land, itself privileged as the site of, and often the very vehicle for, personal revolution.Less
This chapter examines the work of photographer Ansel Adams, particularly his pictorial engagement with the landscape. It argues that the context in which to appreciate Adams’s production is neither the modern museum nor the modernist photographic discourse that often justified it, but through the ostensible counterculture recurrently grasped in terms coeval with its most easily satirized iconography (of nudists, stoned musicians, etc.). Adams’s images offer an instance whereby artworks might look nothing like the milieu in which they find their theoretical justification, but are rendered legible through it in a way otherwise obscured. In this case, thinking about Adams together with the Esalen Institute recommends his images as manifestations of sensate connection with the land, itself privileged as the site of, and often the very vehicle for, personal revolution.
Jeffrey J. Kripal
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231156851
- eISBN:
- 9780231504683
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231156851.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter narrates a peculiar event that happened to a group of intellectuals—neuroscientists, psychologists and historians—who were meeting at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for ...
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This chapter narrates a peculiar event that happened to a group of intellectuals—neuroscientists, psychologists and historians—who were meeting at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for breakfast. One of the members of the group, Bruce Greyson, the founding editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, was eating cereal from a bowl, which he finished and pushed into the center of the table. After some time, Greyson noticed that his concave spoon became half-convex, hanging like a tongue in the bowl. Each member of the group had varying opinions regarding the event. Psychotherapist Adam Crabtree said that a certain kind of group inner dynamic might have triggered the bending of the spoon. Neuroscientist Edward Kelly pointed the peculiarity of event to the “uncertainties of ‘field’ observations.” Meanwhile, Psychologist Charles Tart stated that the event was “a wonderful mischievous or trickster quality” of the paranormal.Less
This chapter narrates a peculiar event that happened to a group of intellectuals—neuroscientists, psychologists and historians—who were meeting at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for breakfast. One of the members of the group, Bruce Greyson, the founding editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, was eating cereal from a bowl, which he finished and pushed into the center of the table. After some time, Greyson noticed that his concave spoon became half-convex, hanging like a tongue in the bowl. Each member of the group had varying opinions regarding the event. Psychotherapist Adam Crabtree said that a certain kind of group inner dynamic might have triggered the bending of the spoon. Neuroscientist Edward Kelly pointed the peculiarity of event to the “uncertainties of ‘field’ observations.” Meanwhile, Psychologist Charles Tart stated that the event was “a wonderful mischievous or trickster quality” of the paranormal.
Shelley Alden Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520294417
- eISBN:
- 9780520967540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520294417.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
During the counter-culture era of the 1960s and early 1970s, Big Sur became a magnet for hippies, back-to-the-land activists, and New Age visitors exploring the mind-expanding retreats at the Esalen ...
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During the counter-culture era of the 1960s and early 1970s, Big Sur became a magnet for hippies, back-to-the-land activists, and New Age visitors exploring the mind-expanding retreats at the Esalen Institute. Added to these arrivals were the more mainstream families flocking to the state parks and beaches, and wealthy new residents. Chapter 5 examines the arrival of these various admirers and their influence on Big Sur’s image and land management. This chapter also broadens the picture to examine the statewide impact of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The spill was a wakeup call to the state and the nation, and it reinforced the linkage between the quality of the environment and Americans’ quality of life. It spurred the passage of Proposition 20 in 1972 to protect California’s prized coastline. New state regulations required environmentally sensitive land management plans from all coastal counties. This chapter argues that Big Sur residents understood the importance (and accepted the irony) of coalescing as a vibrant community as they began to draft one of the most stringent antidevelopment plans in the state. Their sophisticated knowledge of land management helped retain this coastline’s distinction and their prized place within it.Less
During the counter-culture era of the 1960s and early 1970s, Big Sur became a magnet for hippies, back-to-the-land activists, and New Age visitors exploring the mind-expanding retreats at the Esalen Institute. Added to these arrivals were the more mainstream families flocking to the state parks and beaches, and wealthy new residents. Chapter 5 examines the arrival of these various admirers and their influence on Big Sur’s image and land management. This chapter also broadens the picture to examine the statewide impact of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The spill was a wakeup call to the state and the nation, and it reinforced the linkage between the quality of the environment and Americans’ quality of life. It spurred the passage of Proposition 20 in 1972 to protect California’s prized coastline. New state regulations required environmentally sensitive land management plans from all coastal counties. This chapter argues that Big Sur residents understood the importance (and accepted the irony) of coalescing as a vibrant community as they began to draft one of the most stringent antidevelopment plans in the state. Their sophisticated knowledge of land management helped retain this coastline’s distinction and their prized place within it.
