Esalen Institute
Esalen, Big Sur, California
New Age
Private Property
1962 - Present
Esalen, Big Sur, California
New Age
Private Property
1962 - Present
1 The Farm 2 Dance Dome 3 Art Barn 4 Farm House 5 Gazebo School 6 Big Yurt 7 Little Yurt 8 Little House 9 Big House 10 Sweat Lodge 11 Meditation Center 12 Laundry 13 Staff Room 14 Guest Rooms 15 Sign 16 Point House 17 Lodge 18 Baths 19 Porters Yurt 20 Fritz 21 Beach
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Founded in 1962 by two Stanford graduates, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, was a laboratory for new thought and radical beliefs. One of the first popular interfaces between Eastern religion and Western scientific inquiry, many new age beliefs and practices originated there: yoga, meditation, mind-body connection, massage, Macrobiotic diets, Gestalt Therapy, and the mainstreaming of Buddhism. Founded as a Human Potential institute, inspired by Aldous Huxley, Esalen had a selective, fee based admission and offered exclusive, invitation-only seminars led by artists, psychologists, religious leaders, and scientist. Disparaged by surrounding hippie communes at the time as the “country club,” today Esalen is luxury retreat, with weekend stays costing thousands of dollars. Natural hot springs baths (18) overlook the Pacific Ocean, there are simple redwood buildings for staff (13) and guests (14), workshops, seminar rooms.
Esalen prefigured the connection between the Silicon Valley tech scene and the counterculture movement, science and spirituality. Esalen also hints at the transition away from capital “R” Religion–even radical forms of Christianity–as a defining/cohering ideology and towards more uncategorized forms of spirituality and the science of environmentalism. Anyone in the US who identifies as “Spiritual but not Religious” owes something to Esalen.
Founded in 1962 by two Stanford graduates, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, was a laboratory for new thought and radical beliefs. One of the first popular interfaces between Eastern religion and Western scientific inquiry, many new age beliefs and practices originated there: yoga, meditation, mind-body connection, massage, Macrobiotic diets, Gestalt Therapy, and the mainstreaming of Buddhism. Founded as a Human Potential institute, inspired by Aldous Huxley, Esalen had a selective, fee based admission and offered exclusive, invitation-only seminars led by artists, psychologists, religious leaders, and scientist. Disparaged by surrounding hippie communes at the time as the “country club,” today Esalen is luxury retreat, with weekend stays costing thousands of dollars. Natural hot springs baths (18) overlook the Pacific Ocean, there are simple redwood buildings for staff (13) and guests (14), workshops, seminar rooms.
Esalen prefigured the connection between the Silicon Valley tech scene and the counterculture movement, science and spirituality. Esalen also hints at the transition away from capital “R” Religion–even radical forms of Christianity–as a defining/cohering ideology and towards more uncategorized forms of spirituality and the science of environmentalism. Anyone in the US who identifies as “Spiritual but not Religious” owes something to Esalen.
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