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 psychosis, to genuine mystical revelation. He offers accounts of patients reliving early developmental trauma and what appeared to be birth agony, followed by experiences of renewal or “rebirth.” He also touches on the emergence of archetypal and transpersonal imagery in advanced stages of therapy, giving insight into the collective and cosmic dimensions of mind. Here’s the brilliant Stan Grof in 1969 at Esalen institute. Photo by Joyce Lyke

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 liberatory act, how the “personal” and the “political” have become difficult to separate in the current landscape, and issues surrounding publishing marginalized and emergent voices. They discuss what it takes to support authors whose work challenges dominant narratives, and how a publishing house can strive toward equity not just in output, but in process.

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 great form, speaking about the concept and practice of Satori: the instantaneous awakening, the shock of direct perception.

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 resting in presence. Visit Tolle online: https://eckharttolle.com/

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 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larissaconte/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lbconte Cecilia Callas: Substack: https://ceciliacallas.substack.com/ RemAIning Human podcast: https://ceciliacallas.substack.com/podcast AI Salon: https://aisalon.xyz/ Sadia Bruce: IG: @breathisalanguage Esalen: https://www.esalen.org/faculty/sadia-bruce https://www.esalen.org/post/the-proust-questionnaire-sadia-bruce-012023

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 sexual health, nutrition and digestion, mindfulness, yoga, and community-building practices. Their goal: to help participants increase knowledge, self-awareness, and literacy around pelvic and reproductive health while cultivating a supportive community and a lifelong toolkit of self-care practices. This conversation is guest hosted by Shira Levine, Esalen’s Director of Communications and Storytelling, whose background spans documentary film, editorial journalism, and global communications with organizations ranging from the United Nations to leading print and digital outlets. Esalen workshop: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/pelvic-health-self-care-retreat-exploring-the-pelvis-through-anatomy-nutrition-and-the-nervous-system-10102025

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 out what the heck they were doing with their lives. It’s widely known that Watts represents this pivotal figure in the transmission of Eastern philosophical traditions to Western intellectual discourse. By the time this conversation rolls around in 66, he had long since established himself as a rather famous interpreter of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Hindu metaphysics for American audiences. He’d had a rise to prominence in the 1950s which coincided with a broader cultural receptivity to Eastern philosophical frameworks. The Beats, early hippies, young people, intellectuals - they were all fascinated by Zen and the I Ching and Buddhism. At Esalen, where Alan Watts taught from the very first days in 1962 up until his death in 1973, he really found an ideal context for exploring the synthesis between Eastern contemplative traditions and this Western psychological inquiry which was coming to the forefront. And then the temporal context for this interview bears mentioning, too. This conversation occurs at a moment of considerable social upheaval: we’ve got an escalation of American involvement in Vietnam, and a pushback at home, we’ve got the emergence of several countercultural movements, including the civil rights movement and a rather new hippie/ pyschedelic culture. There’s a widespread questioning of established institutional authority. So it’s within this milieu that Watts and Murphy examine fundamental questions about human consciousness and the peculiarities of American cultural expression. And of course all delivered in that million dollar voice by Alan Watts. I mean, He could read a Denny’s menu and make it sound profound. To me, this is a treasure of a conversation - even though it’s historically situated, it addresses still-relevant questions about consciousness, about cultural development, and about humanity's place within larger systems. It also provides a lot of insight into the intellectual atmosphere that characterized Esalen's early years, when the boundaries between disciplines were very permeable and fundamental questions about human nature were approached with both rigor and imagination. Here's Alan Watts, interviewed by Michael Murphy, at Esalen Institute in 1966.

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 proximity and kinship and enchantment; “Radical Permeability” as Altered State; the Tassajara Zen Center Influence; Emotional and Aesthetic Complexity; Birth as Ceremony; life-threatening snowstorms; Polyphonic Compositions; clear vinyl and Streaming and Digital Ethics; and Wildtender, the organization Fletcher co-founded with his wife, Noel Vietor. Fletcher Tucker: https://www.fletchertucker.com/ Wildtender: https://wildtender.org/ Kin on Bandcamp: https://gnomelife.bandcamp.com/album/kin

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 has lived the work, carried its lineage, and helped shape the soul of Esalen itself. https://carmelweddingceremonies.com/

In this episode, we speak with Ann Hamilton, founder of the Survivorship Collective: a survivor-led initiative offering legal, psychedelic-assisted therapy to people living with cancer. Ann 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-the-heart-of-who-we-are-10202025

Last year we brought you a real Esalen check-in (episode one). Some months later, a follow up episode dropped. This practice of the check-in is rooted in the Gestalt therapy that evolved at Esalen over the years. It's an authentic cornerstone of the Esalen experience, often described as a catalyst for self-awareness, connection, and personal growth. Today's episode is the logical continuation - Episode 3, feat. Rossano Shepherd, Peggy Horan, Jess Siller, Sawyer Lavelle, Shira Levine, and Sam Stern. What you'll hear is real, authentic, and unscripted. While our participants were aware of being recorded, they spoke from the heart. We've made every effort to preserve the intimacy and rawness of the experience with only minimal editing.

In this lively episode, psychiatrist Dr. Jacob Towery invites us into the heart of his upcoming Esalen workshop on overcoming shyness, releasing shame, and embracing authentic connection. A Stanford-trained psychiatrist, Dr. Towery works with adolescents and adults in private practice. His approach blends evidence-based therapy with playfulness, skillful vulnerability, and social courage. Here, he guides live shame-blocking and flirtation exercises with two brave Esalen staff members, Liz Lea and Wuya Xu. What unfolds is a real-time demonstration of how presence, lightheartedness, and risk-taking can unlock more joy in our interactions. Whether you’re looking to meet someone new, rekindle romance, or simply feel more at ease around other humans, this episode offers some practical tools and a fresh take on what it means to be fully yourself in relationship. Finding Humans Less Scary at Esalen Institute September 8-12, 2025 https://www.esalen.org/workshops/finding-humans-less-scary-0912025

Jacoby Ballard is a trans yoga teacher, social justice educator, and author of A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation. In this episode of Voices of Esalen, Ballard shares reflections on how contemplative and wellness spaces can deeply support queer and trans communities, especially in a time of heightened visibility, vulnerability, and political resistance. The conversation moves through themes of embodiment, parenthood, and liberation. Ballard offers insights into the experience of raising a trans child, discusses the role of anger as both a signal and a sacred force, and explores what freedom actually feels like in his body. Grounded in decades of practice and activism, Ballard's perspective invites listeners to consider how personal healing and collective liberation are intertwined. This episode is for anyone interested in the intersections of spirituality, identity, justice, and what it means to truly show up for one another, in body, mind, and heart.

Anaïs Nin was a literary pioneer who wrote boldly about the inner lives of women long before it was culturally accepted. Her work, including Delta of Venus, Little Birds, The House of Incest, and her 16-volume diary, continues to influence generations of writers. Nin’s life was as unconventional as her prose. She trained in psychoanalysis with Otto Rank, conducted passionate affairs with both Henry Miller and his wife June, and for a time maintained two simultaneous marriages on opposite coasts. Her diaries chronicle these transgressions with brutal honesty and no small amount of poetic insight. She also had a deep connection to Big Sur and to Esalen. She once described this coastline as “a curving hand cupped around a secret." In many ways, she was a secret, too: mysterious, erotic, intuitive and ahead of her time. This is Anaïs Nin in her own voice, in 1972, with the original Q and A/ audience interaction.

In this episode of Voices of Esalen, host Sam Stern sits down with two members of the Esalen community, Sarah Lavelle (also known as Sawyer) and Abigail Barnes (also known as Bo), for a heartfelt conversation about non-binary identity, self-expression, and the journey of living beyond the binary. Topics include personal stories, pronouns, the evolving language of gender, and the beauty and difficulty of being one’s authentic self in a world still learning how to understand. Sawyer is a longtime full-spectrum doula, facilitator, and devoted practitioner of meditation, Buddha-dharma, and Relational Gestalt Practice in the tradition of Dick Price and Dorothy Charles. A seeker of liberation for all beings, they embody presence and compassion in all they do. Abigail is a teacher at Big Sur Park School and a beloved presence in the Esalen lodge. Passionate about solitude, Kaula Tantric yoga, and the study of Gestalt, they will soon continue their journey in Stockholm, Sweden, exploring consciousness and education across cultures. Whether you’re deeply familiar with non-binary experiences or just beginning to learn, this conversation offers something for everyone: insight, openness, and the radical courage of being. Additional Resources: https://www.assignedmedia.org/ https://bookshop.org/p/books/who-s-afraid-of-gender-judith-butler/19994814?ean=9781250371911&next=t https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-nonbinary-people-how-to-be-respectful-and-supportive https://transequality.org/resources/supporting-transgender-people-your-life-guide-being-good-ally https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ https://www.hrc.org/resources/get-the-facts-about-transgender-non-binary-athletes

Ari Kuschnir is a filmmaker, creative strategist, and the founder of the production company m ss ng p eces. His work is driven by themes of empathy, consciousness, and transformation. In this episode, Ari joins Sam for a wide-ranging conversation on the future of storytelling, particularly in the arena of AI filmmaking. They explore the ethical and emotional landscape of generative AI, and his new Esalen-inspired short video, a surreal time-traveling narrative conjured through text-to-video tools. Also included: — How AI filmmaking serves as a collective dream engine and wish-fulfillment machine — The origin story Ari's "Transmutation" series and why they work in the medium of AI film — Whether cinema and art can become a tool for cultural repair and personal empowerment — The strange kinship between algorithmic hallucination and spiritual insight This is a rich and intimate conversation with a trailblazing artist that centers around what it means to create meaningful media in a time of profound transformation.

We sit down with Dr. Elizabeth Philipose to trace the roots of modern patriarchy back to the “1492 paradigm” of Euro-colonialism and its enduring assault on femininity, the body, and the earth. Elizabeth unpacks how ideas of weakness, passivity, and scarcity were written into our social, political, and economic institutions, and how those same systems still drive homophobia, environmental destruction, and today’s surge of authoritarian fear. Dr. Philipose also lays out the foundations of decolonial wellness, showing how trauma is embedded in our bodies, and offering practices, from guided journeying to radical self-love, that awaken a more expansive sense of self. She explores the “boomerang effect” of imperial violence at home and abroad, the radical potential of mothering and “original love,” and why reclaiming the Divine Feminine is essential to building societies grounded in peace and wholeness. Dr. Philipose at Esalen, May 26-30, 2025 https://www.esalen.org/workshops/embracing-the-divine-feminine-a-mystical-approach-05262025

Ramzi Fawaz is an award-winning queer cultural critic, public speaker, and educator. He is the author of two books, including "The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics" (2016), and "Queer Forms." (2022). In 2019-2020, Fawaz was a Stanford Humanities Center fellow. He is currently a Romnes Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Please be warned: this conversation is a firehose of brilliance. We cover a frankly outrageous number of topics, including: The politics and poetics of gender/ The radical imagination of the 1960s and 70s/ What happens when college students of today read manifestos from the 1970s and discover just how fiery, and fearless those voices actually were/ How feminist and gay liberation were deeply intertwined... and yet different/ The dark seduction of wounded identity and the political dead-end of suffering as a personality/ What the Beatles, postwar masculinity, and femme androgyny have to do with trans desire and cultural anxiety/ How trans liberation actually predates gay liberation in the U.S. / Teaching as ego dissolution: what it means to use the classroom like a psychedelic space. / And the idea that pluralism — true, radical pluralism — begins by accepting that you will be changed by contact with people who are radically different from you. Ramzi Fawaz is bold, funny, passionate about teaching, absurdly articulate, and I think you’ll find he is deeply attuned to the moment we’re living in. https://www.ramzifawaz.com/ Ramzi's Esalen offering: Thinking Like a Multiverse: Embracing a Diverse World June 23–27, 2025 Register now: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/thinking-like-a-multiverse-embracing-a-diverse-world-06232025 A quick note on AI: I use LLMs (often the multi-purposse ChatGPT, sometimes other models) to help me with various tasks associated with podcast production, including help with writing my intros, generating questions for my guests, and episode titles. Occasionally I create episode graphics, too. I almost never take the AI output as-is; I subscribe to Ethan Mollick's notion of co-intelligence, in that I edit what's been given me, add my own creativity, and aim for the best possible output in the end. My hope is that this will create a better Voices of Esalen. - SS