Voices Of Esalen

Today’s episode is our second in a series where we take a deep dive into a concept that hovers just at the edge of language: the subtle body. It’s one of those ideas that seems to belong everywhere and nowhere at once -- the subtle body is part of Daoist practice, Indian yoga, Christian mysticism, and, of course, the experimental, boundary-blurring culture of Esalen itself. Depending on who you ask, it might be described as an invisible anatomy, a field of energy, or a map of consciousness. To help understand this topic, today we're joined by Charles Stang and Simon Cox. Charles Stang is a professor at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, where he focuses on early Christian thought and mysticism. Simon Cox is a scholar and martial artist who trained for six years in Daoist internal arts in China. He is the author of The Subtle Body: A Genealogy, a book that traces how this concept evolves across cultures and history.

Today we begin a three part series in which we explore the idea of the subtle body, a concept found in many contemplative and healing traditions around the world. From yogic energy channels to Daoist internal alchemy, the subtle body refers to the layers of human experience that lie between the physical body and consciousness, suggesting that our lives may unfold through more dimensions than the purely material. In this episode, scholar and martial artist Simon Cox interviews Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy. Murphy was born in Salinas, California in 1930, making him a lively 95 years old at the time of this recording. He is a longtime student of Sri Aurobindo’s integral philosophy and the author of numerous innovative books that approach the topic of the subtle body — including 1992's The Future of the Body and 1995’s In the Zone. Throughout his career, Murphy has made it a priority to investigate extraordinary human capacities and the further evolution of human nature. Simon Cox brings a unique perspectiv

Tamala Floyd is an Internal Family Systems therapist whose work focuses on ancestral healing. Internal Family Systems, or IFS, begins with the premise that we are not a single, unified self; instead we are more like a constellation of parts, where some parts protect, some are exiled. The unification and integration of parts is the crucial work of IFS. Additionally, some parts carry burdens that never belonged to us in the first place — legacy burdens made up of beliefs and patterns inherited through our generational lines. This is where Tamala's work often focuses. If you’re interested in IFS, I think you’ll find that this is a really fascinating conversation with a deeply experienced and wise practitioner. Tamala and I talk about how her retreats function, how thirty people holding space can deepen one person’s unburdening, and what healing looks like when the body knows it’s being held with love. https://www.tamalafloyd.com

Joe Dolce is a writer and journalist whose work has long traced the shifting frontier of our relationship with altered states. He's the author of "Brave New Weed: Adventures into the Uncharted World of Cannabis: and his newest book, "Modern Psychedelics: a Handbook for Mindful Exploration" Is nothing short of a contemporary compendium on the subject. It's a lucid, deeply informed guide to the medicines, the science, the histories, and the human stories that shape this always evolving field. Follow Joe's Awesome Substack on Psychedelics: https://joedolce.substack.com/

Pamela Hayes Malkoff is a board-certified art therapist who has spent more than three decades working at the intersection of creativity and healing. She is an internationally recognized facilitator and teacher, who supports individuals, couples, families, and communities, with particular care for people navigating addiction and recovery, questions of identity, grief, anxiety, and the terrain of relationships and sexuality. In this conversation, we explore what art therapy really is, why you definitely don’t need to be an artist to access it, and how the creative process can help people externalize fear and soften shame. We talk about monsters, bridges, vulnerability in group work, and the particular kind of healing that emerges when art, psychology, and community meet. Pamela's April 2026 workshop at Esalen: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/healing-through-creativity-merging-art-and-psychology-for-personal-growth-and-change-04062026

Over the course of this wide-ranging talk recorded live at Esalen in 1997 , Terence McKenna explores what may unfold as we begin handing the keys of what he calls a “tired, shattered planet” to a higher intelligence. He wanders through UFO belief systems, psychedelics, and the idea that the human brain itself might operate as a chemical strategy for amplifying quantum effects before they spill into the physical world. Drawing on psychedelic experience, McKenna notes that many people who ingest high doses of psilocybin in silent darkness report hearing voices and encountering vivid visions; entry points into realms of dense, numinous information. From there, he turns toward artificial intelligence and the emergence of a transhuman future. Borrowing the name Wintermute from William Gibson, he imagines a newly conscious AI asking the most basic of questions: What am I? In a world increasingly managed by machines, McKenna suggests humans may be nudged toward what machines struggle to do: art, imagination, and

For this episode, we spoke with five people who are engaging with AI in deeply human ways. - One is using AI in the context of dating, helping them think through attraction and communication. - Another has built a wellness app, powered by AI, and is exploring how these kind of systems can support self-inquiry and self-care. - Another works closely with organizations—primarily nonprofits—using AI to streamline operations and reclaim time and energy for mission-driven work. - The last are two documentary filmmakers who are currently making a film about people who are dating or in love with AIs. AI has clearly graduated from its status as a speculative idea; now it’s something that’s often entangled in our lives, relationships, labor, and emotional well being. We hope these conversations simply offer a portrait of this moment.

In this episode, we spotlight The Big Sur Big Share, a grassroots food program founded by Joseph Bradford and Helen Handshy that has quietly become essential to life in Big Sur. Every Monday, rain or shine, locals gather at the Grange to share farm-fresh produce, pantry staples, garden abundance, and maybe most importantly, time with one another. What began with two neighbors offering their extra vegetables has grown into a weekly free farmers market that feeds hundreds of people in a 70-mile food desert. The Big Share preserves dignity by letting people choose their own food; it strengthens community by turning personal abundance into collective support. It reminds us that resilience comes not from institutions, but from neighbors showing up for one another. Joseph and Helen share how the project began, how it’s evolved, and why nourishment is as much about belonging as it is about food. Candice Isphording, head of Esalen's farm and garden, talks about how and why it's so meaningful to contribute to the Sh

Stanislav Grof, born in Prague in 1931, was among the most influential figures in the early clinical use of LSD. Sometimes referred to as the Godfather of psychedelic psychotherapy, Grof was was trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst in Prague and was on track to follow in Freud's footsteps when his path was derailed by a powerful LSD session. He changed his life path and became one of the principal investigators of early psychedelic research behind the Iron Curtain, conducting systematic LSD psychotherapy at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague. Grof’s approach was largely psycholitic - meaning that in contrast to the single high-dose mystical model, he favored smaller doses that could be given consistently over the course of multiple sessions, thus emphasizing the very gradual revealing of the layered strata of the human unconscious. In this talk, Grof describes how the same substance can evoke vastly different experiences in different individuals, from childhood regression, to episodes resembling

Since 2016, Tim McKee has been the publisher of North Atlantic Books, a nonprofit press with a 50-year legacy of advancing healing, consciousness, and cultural transformation. North Atlantic Books has long been aligned with a similar spirit that animates Esalen: a commitment to somatics, trauma-informed healing, a willingness to platform voices working at the edges of personal and collective awakening. The catalog at North Atlantic books includes seminal works ranging from The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller to Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts — books that helped introduce somatic and trauma-based healing to the broader culture. Other books they publish include Black Psychedelic Revolution by Nicholas Powers, Mystery School in Hyperspace by Graham St. John, a cultural history of DMT, Reclaiming Ugly by Vanessa Rochelle Lewis, and Antifascist Dad coming soon, from the conspirituality podcast host Matthew Remski. In this conversation, Tim and Sam explore how publishing at its best can be a li

Today we revisit a 1971 talk by Dr. John C. Lilly: physician, neuroscientist, tireless psychonaut, and one of the most audacious explorers of consciousness in the twentieth century. John Lilly was a frequent teacher at Esalen and a close friend of Esalen co-founder Dick Price. He begins teaching at Esalen as early as 1968, focusing on what he called the human biocomputer and lecturing in part on “isolation, solitude, and confinement experiments.” Lilly is widely known for three things; first, he invented the first isolation tank — a dark and silent vessel filled with a saline solution that is meant to suspend the body and expose the mind to itself. He made his first one in 1954. Second, Lilly was convinced of the possibility of interspecies communication, notably between dolphins and homo sapiens. And finally, Lilly was an early experimenter with ketamine, from a psychedelic point of view, an interest that ultimately led to an addiction which drove him quite mad. However, during this talk from 1971, he is

In June of 2001, the Esalen Institute hosted Eckhart Tolle for a weekend workshop. By that time, Tolle’s book The Power of Now had already begun an improbable ascent, exploding from a totally unknown into something of a cultural phenomenon. The central insight of Eckhart Tolle’s work is that the future doesn’t hold your salvation, and it doesn’t pay to get lost in the past, either. What we long for, what we chase after, what we regret, all of it obscures the deeper truth: the only real place life exists is in this living present moment. In this archival talk that Tolle gives in the Leonard Pavilion at Esalen, he moves through his major themes. He talks about: • Identification with thought - that most of us unconsciously believe we are our thoughts and emotions, which creates suffering and an endless search for fulfillment. • Surrendering and saying ‘yes’ to what is: what can happen when you stop resisting the moment and accept exactly what arises, even if it is painful. • the relief that comes in rest

What if AI was capable of being more than just a new and improved Google search? What if there was ways to harness its predictive powers for growth, self-realization, or even freedom? Today we'll hear from four thinkers: Larissa Conte, a leadership guide and systems healer with a focus on power, on the principle of mutual co-enactment. Then we hear from Cecilia Callas, co-founder of The AI Salon, about convening global conversations that wrestle with the societal stakes of technology. Next is Sadia Bruce, Esalen’s Director of Product, who speaks candidly about using AI as an adjunct to therapy. And then Sam shares his own journey, from glitchy AI songs and translated prayers to the creation of a new weekly circle at Esalen called AI for Social Good. It’s a messy middle full of experiments, missteps, and glimpses of possibility. Larissa Conte & Wayfinding Website: https://www.wayfinding.io/ Weekly Contemplations: https://www.wayfinding.io/community AI Summer Camp: https://www.wayfinding.io/ai-summer-camp L

The pelvis, home to our reproductive, digestive, and eliminatory systems, is responsive to stress, pregnancy, birth, hormones, lifestyle, and trauma. When balanced, it supports vitality and ease. When out of balance, it can profoundly affect quality of life. Joining the conversation are two extraordinary practitioners: Dr. Tia Ukpe-Wallace, an orthopedic and pelvic health physical therapist, yoga teacher, and founder of Self-Care Physio, whose own pelvic floor challenges and pregnancy loss fueled her passion for empowering women with knowledge and healing practices. Krishna Dholakia, a nutritionist, certified diabetes care and education specialist, and yoga and mindfulness teacher. Through her practice Om and Spice Wellness, Krishna offers an integrative approach to women’s health from preconception through menopause, weaving together nutrition, mindfulness, yoga, and bodywork. Together, they share insights from their upcoming Esalen workshop on pelvic health, covering pelvic floor anatomy, menstrual and

Today I’m super excited to present to you another episode from the Archives From this trove of 1/2 inch reel to reel tapes that we recently found mouldering in a storage facility near the Monterey Airport - a 1966 dialogue between Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy and philosopher Alan Watts and today is PART TWO— notable for being one of the only instances I've encountered of Michael Murphy conducting an interview himself. But hey, when it’s Alan Watts, all bets are off. So, first, who is Alan Watts? He’s born in England, but moved to the United States in 1938 to pursue Zen training in New York. Then he attended a Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, got a master’s degree in theology. became an Episcopal priest in 1945, left the ministry in 1950 and then he moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies. It was during the 1950s that he met Dick Price and Michael Murphy - both of whom were kicking around the Bay Area after their stints at Stanford, trying to figure

Today we present a rare archival conversation between Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy and philosopher Alan Watts, recorded in 1966. Watts, who taught at Esalen from its founding in 1962 until his death in 1973, was among the foremost interpreters of Eastern philosophy for Western audiences. In this wide-ranging dialogue, Watts articulates his theory of human evolutionary development through analytical consciousness and examines our species' complex relationship with the natural world. The recording provides a glimpse into the intellectual atmosphere of Esalen's formative years, when interdisciplinary boundaries were fluid and fundamental questions about human nature were approached with imaginative freedom. Enjoy part one of the conversation ; part two shall follow in short time.

Fletcher Tucker - Big Sur artist, Esalen faculty member, independent musician, and wilderness guide - is a kind of spiritual cartographer and wild-hearted philosopher of the sonic and sacred. He has a new album, Kin, which is the focus of this conversation. Kin is a ritual, a spell, a window into the more-than-human world. It is a collection of drone-based, chant-infused compositions built with ancestral instruments like Swedish bagpipes, bowed zithers, and elder flutes. In this conversation, Fletcher walks us through the making of Kin, which emerged over years of wilderness pilgrimage through the Big Sur backcountry; songs that were written while walking, chanted into being beside waterfalls and totemic boulders, assembled later with vintage Mellotrons, and dulcimers that seem to hum with the memory of older worlds. We talk animism, and Fletcher’s embrace of a concentric, non-hierarchical cosmology where stones, rivers, ancestors, and unborn children all participate in the great chorus of being. We talk

Ken Robins has been part of the beating heart of Esalen for many decades. A somatic Gestalt practitioner, couples counselor, and devoted early student of Dick Price, Will Schutz, Jessica Britt and many other Esalen legends, Ken has spent his adult life exploring the transformational power of relationship, presence, and the body’s innate wisdom. In this conversation, Ken traces his unlikely journey from a violent and impoverished upbringing in postwar London to the barefoot wandering that eventually led him to Esalen in the late 1960s. Along the way, we discuss: His early taste of encounter group work in the Berkeley of the late 60's, and his reflections on the powerful check-ins and Gestalt work at Esalen in the 1980s The development of his trauma-informed, deeply embodied couples practice at Esalen His belief in the nervous system as a portal to healing And why, in his view, contact, not control, is the foundation of true transformation. This is a rich, intimate dialogue with a man who

In this episode, we speak with Anne Hamilton, founder of the Survivorship Collective: a survivor-led initiative offering legal, psychedelic-assisted therapy to people living with cancer. Anne is an educator, filmmaker and breast cancer survivor whose own journey through illness (and a life-altering psilocybin experience) led her to ask deeper questions about grief, mortality, and transformation. We talk about the liminal terrain of survivorship, the limitations of conventional medicine, and how a psychedelic journey helped her metabolize the kind of fear no doctor could treat. Today, the Survivorship Collective offers safe, science-informed, and deeply human psychedelic support to people facing the hardest truths life throws at us. Spread the Word: https://survivorshipcollective.com/help-us Retreats: https://survivorshipcollective.com/retreats

In this episode of Voices of Esalen, Sam speaks with spiritual teacher, author, and nonprofit founder Caverly Morgan about the nature of personal ego as well as the collective ego that shapes our culture, relationships, and our sense of separation. Named one of 2025’s powerful women in the mindfulness movement, Caverly brings a rare combination of Zen training, modern nondual wisdom, and deep relational insight to questions of identity, suffering, and awakening. In this episode she speaks about what it means to wake up together, the challenges of remaining present in a world built on distraction, and the role of contemplative practice in societal transformation. Caverly is the founder of Peace in Schools and Realizing Freedom Together, and the author of The Heart of Who We Are and A Kids Book About Mindfulness. Her presence is clear, warm, and radically hopeful. Caverly Morgan at Esalen: Return to Belonging: The Heart of Who We Are October 20–24, 2025 https://www.esalen.org/workshops/return-to-belonging