Esalen

Esalen Exploring human potential since 1962.
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Esalen's mission is to be a leading center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research. We work toward the realization of a more just, creative, and sustainable world, seeking answers to questions unlikely to be explored by traditional universities and religions. We sponsor pioneering initiatives and offer personal, spiritual, and social transformation programs for residents, interns, and workshop participants.

Happy 96th birthday, Michael!Some lives are measured by what they build, the people they bring together, and the ideas t...
09/03/2026

Happy 96th birthday, Michael!

Some lives are measured by what they build, the people they bring together, and the ideas they set loose in the world. Others are measured by the questions they refuse to stop asking. Michael Murphy has spent a lifetime at that edge.

He co-created Esalen with Dick Price. He helped give a name to the human potential movement. He has spent decades investigating extraordinary human capacities and the possibilities of transformation. With Dulce and many others, he created improbable conversations between Americans and Soviets at the height of the Cold War. He has written about golf and consciousness, the body and the subtle body, reincarnation, peak experience, evolution, and the mysteries that remain beyond what we know.

The most remarkable thing is that the inquiry never stops! At 96, Michael is still exploring the unanswered. There is always another connection to make, another question at the edge of what we think we know. Another possibility for transformation.

Jeff Kripal called him “an American visionary of the evolution of consciousness and the future of the body.” Gordon Wheeler called him a “shapeshifter.”

Both are right. Michael’s great gift is the insistence that we don’t yet know the full extent of what a human being can become. That question belongs not only to Michael. It belongs to all of us.

So today, we celebrate an ongoing inquiry, and the person who, after 96 years, is still deep in it.

Happy birthday, Michael.

May there always be another page.
May there always be another question.
And may the mystery remain unsolved.

📸 by Kathleen Carr, Terrence McCarthy & Esalen Archives

🎥 by Calvin Gaskin, Tristan Kolkhorst & Nick Bellarosa

Extra special thanks to Christine Price & Mac Murphy

As you may have heard, tomorrow, Michael Murphy, Esalen Institute cofounder, turns 96 years young.Michael is living pro...
09/02/2026

As you may have heard, tomorrow, Michael Murphy, Esalen Institute cofounder, turns 96 years young.

Michael is living proof that age really is just a number. His curiosity, sense of humor, charm, and unmistakable spark light up a room as much today as they did nearly 65 years ago, when the portals to what would become Esalen Institute first began to open.

At the heart of Esalen has always been the understanding that there is no single way to explore human potential. Many ideas, many perspectives, many practices. And, importantly, no one idea, dogma, philosophy, or perspective gets to “capture the flag” and declare itself the answer.

That spirit of exploration is part of Esalen’s DNA. It is part of why we’ve been doing some ongoing exploration of our own: experimenting with AI.

So, in the spirit of inquiry, we asked ChatGPT to collaborate with Michael and Dick’s Big Vision to create a comic that attempts to explain the founding of Esalen in simple terms, with illustrations. Think of it as a simplistic, playful AI interpretation of a complicated and very human story.

And, of course, we welcome the yays and the nays. Have at it!

But most importantly, help us celebrate Michael. Share your birthday wishes below, along with how the human potential movement — and the creation and ongoing evolution of Esalen — has impacted your life.

Esalen: A school. A research center. A catalyst for creative cultural advance.

Philosophical, creative and spiritual space by Michael Murphy and Richard Price, with the help of all of you!
We’ll gather your messages and share them with Michael tomorrow. 🎂

09/01/2026

Come Thursday, Michael Murphy, cofounder of Esalen Institute, turns 96 years young. We’re kicking things off today with some classic Big Michael Murphy Energy.

Here’s a clip from a 1992 interview with journalist Rosemarie Broccoli, in which Michael discusses his then recently published book, The Future of the Body. The interview was part of a San Francisco public-access television program featuring conversations with authors, teachers, and innovators exploring personal growth, spirituality, psychology, health, and human potential.

Have a Michael Murphy moment, story, or experience of your own? Share it below. We’d love to collect them and share them with Michael on Thursday.

It’s quiet, lonely, and empty here without humans, but we’re OK. We’re hanging in there, grateful for this sacred land, ...
08/31/2026

It’s quiet, lonely, and empty here without humans, but we’re OK. We’re hanging in there, grateful for this sacred land, listening to it and giving it a rest.

Our plan is still the same: We hope to reopen on September 14 with workshops led by Tamala Floyd, Steven Harper, and the trio of Barbara Bogatin, Nikki Mirghafori, and Clifford Saron.

And if you’re especially eager to be among the first humans back on campus, there are five spots left in Tamala Floyd’s Internal Family Systems and Ancestor Wisdom: Listening When Parts Speak. Through mindfulness, meditation, experiential exercises, and IFS, the workshop explores how to work with the parts of ourselves that carry trauma while drawing on the wisdom and resources of our ancestral line.

📸 by Dreamer • Builder • Explorer • Eternally Curious

Being closed is hard. It is also hard not having you here. But the Timber Fire isn’t going to get us down. We’re looking...
08/29/2026

Being closed is hard. It is also hard not having you here. But the Timber Fire isn’t going to get us down. We’re looking to September 13, when we hope to reopen, welcome you back, and grow, heal, and transform together again.

In the meantime, we’ve been thinking about what’s to come. Below, you’ll find a selection of workshops taking place October through December, with spaces still available. Some are workshops that were canceled and have now been rebooked; others are wonderful offerings that were already on the calendar and still have space to join.

We’re looking forward to reopening to fresh, smoke-free air. To the beauty of this land. To creating a safe and welcoming place to gather, learn, explore, rest, and reconnect. And to the extraordinary work we do here together, held by our remarkable faculty and this community. We miss you.

Until then, let’s appreciate the rest this land is getting from us humans, and enjoy this glimpse of what’s ahead. Let’s do this!

“If you see somebody without a smile, give ‘em yours!”— Dolly Parton📸 by Real Esalen Folks, Masood Ali Khan, Sianna Sher...
08/27/2026

“If you see somebody without a smile, give ‘em yours!”
— Dolly Parton

📸 by Real Esalen Folks, Masood Ali Khan, Sianna Sherman: International Yoga + Meditation Teacher, Sadia Bruce, John Vosler, Kathleen Carr, Sadia BruceaeJohn Vosler CJustin Michael WilliamschCalvin Gaskin

While we wait to welcome you back to Esalen, there are still plenty of ways to stay connected to the people, ideas, and ...
08/26/2026

While we wait to welcome you back to Esalen, there are still plenty of ways to stay connected to the people, ideas, and stories that make this place what it is.

Listen: Catch up on episodes of Voices of Esalen—conversations with thinkers, teachers, artists, and visionaries from across the Esalen community.

Read: Discover a few more books by Esalen faculty to keep you company until they’re back on campus.

We’re looking forward to seeing you again soon. Until then, keep listening, keep reading, and keep exploring.

Just wanted to say hello and that we miss you. We miss all of this!The land, the people, the wisdom, the discovery, the ...
08/25/2026

Just wanted to say hello and that we miss you. We miss all of this!

The land, the people, the wisdom, the discovery, the magic. We look forward to a return to all of it and much more soon.

There are times when the most responsible thing we can do is slow down and pay attention. So we’re taking a little more ...
08/24/2026

There are times when the most responsible thing we can do is slow down and pay attention. So we’re taking a little more time.

While many of our neighbors are beginning to reopen, Esalen will remain closed through August 30. We’re giving this stretch of land, and the people who care for it, a little more room to breathe.

This idea is not new to us. The Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, the Indigenous and traditional stewards of the land where Esalen resides, has taught us much about the importance of listening deeply and being in relationship with the land.

In 2022, Esselen elder and Tribal Chairman Tom “Little Bear” Nason offered these words:

“If you don’t give this land a break, it will take its own break. Once in a while we have to stop talking and we have to listen to what the land is speaking to us.”

We’re listening. Rest is not always a retreat from the work. Sometimes, it is the work.

📸 by NellTercek

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