Touch Points from Esalen
by
Carl W. Nelson
Esalen
Institute and Esalen Massage
Esalen
Massage originated in the early 1960s at the now world-renowned Esalen
Institute in Big Sur, California, located 43 miles south of Monterey and 160
miles south of San Francisco and 300 miles north of Los Angeles. A key
aspect of Esalen’s enduring allure is its spectacular setting on about a
mile-long, narrow shelf of lushly planted land nestled between the Santa
Lucia Mountains within the Los Padres National Forest and the Ventana
Wilderness to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Esalen is located
at the coastal center of over 300,000 acres of federal-, state-, and
county-owned land, acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful areas on
earth.
A large
central lodge, with meeting areas, kitchen and a dining room, a bookstore,
and the office and message center (there are no telephones anywhere else on
the property; the Santa Lucia Range rising to as high as 5,862 feet prevents
radio and television reception as well), dominates the center of the
property. The dining room overlooks west toward a wide expanse of
three-inch-thickness narrow-blade grass, groves of Monterey cypress and
Monterey pine trees, borders of ornamental shrubs and flower beds, and an
Olympic-size swimming pool located near the cliff edge, 100 feet above the
ocean surf. By means of a heat exchanger the pool water is heated by the
hot-springs water pumped up from the cliff-side lower ledge at 40-feet
elevation south of the lodge. To the northeast, east, and southeast of the
lodge are rows of rustic cabins where guests stay and resident teachers and
caretakers reside. From the south side of the lodge a walk down a rather
steep, long path leads to the cliff-side lower ledge where, in a building,
along 150 feet or so, natural hot springs seep from the very steep rocky
hillside into a trough feeding the row of large tubs on the ground floor at
40-feet elevation overlooking southwesterly the ocean. In front of the tubs
and perpendicular to the open-front building’s railing is a row of massage
tables. Massage tables, too, are located on the upper floor at 52-feet and
deck at 55.5-feet elevation surrounded by a 3.5-foot-high
transparent-plastic sheeting for wind protection.
Michael
Murphy and a 1948-52 college classmate, Richard Price, founded Esalen in
1961-62 on the 375-acre property purchased in 1910 by Michael’s paternal
grandparents. Interestingly, Michael and Richard did not meet one another at
Stanford University; they met in early 1961 in San Francisco. Not until 1935
was this property accessible by road, after which the first houses, and
still the most elegant houses, soon appeared. The Big House, built in 1938,
is perched on a high cliff at the mouth of Hot Springs Creek, on its north
side, with breathtaking beautiful views of the coastline for several miles
north and south. Magnificent California coastal redwood trees grow along the
banks of this creek and into the canyon beyond the Esalen property. Natural
hot springs feed into this cascading creek at several places at its bottom.
Upstream from and in view of the Big House is a lovely waterfall. The lodge
and some cabins were built in 1939 and after World War II the lodge was
enlarged, additional cabins and other buildings were constructed. Mud-slide
destruction in Winter 1955-56 and February 1998 necessitated replacements of
the hot-springs bathhouse. An intensive horticulture of French origin is
practiced at Esalen, where vegetables, fruits, and flowers are grown side by
side in dense fashion year-round in the delightfully mild coastal climate
having little temperature variation with the seasons.
Michael Murphy
More than
any single person, Michael Murphy is responsible for the birth of the human
potential movement in this country. For over the past forty years he has
been a practical visionary at the heart of America’s exploration of human
consciousness and potential, and has remained on the forefront of
psychological and spiritual development. Ken Wilber wrote, “Michael Murphy
very well might be the single most significant spiritual pioneer of our
generation, if for no other reason than the extraordinary spaces that he
created in which others could transform as well.”
Esalen soon
became the world’s most famous personal growth learning center, where
teachers, thinkers, and seekers have held forth in a dazzling
array of workshops and
seminars in humanistic and transpersonal psychology and psychotherapy,
bodywork and massage, movement disciplines and dance, spiritual philosophy,
integrative medicine, health and healing, health and nutrition, the nature
of deep reality with respect to quantum physics and the scientific and
philosophical controversy about its interpretation, and many other subjects.
About 450 seminars to some 10,000 people a year are offered. Esalen, too,
sponsors a wide variety of innovative national and international programs.
Esalen is not aligned with any particular healing method or spiritual
tradition. Its programs feature a broad spectrum of the world’s wisdom
traditions and are committed to offering people opportunities to explore
their own spiritual paths.
Michael Murphy is the author or
coauthor of ten books, including four novels and the massive nonfiction
study he has written, the 800-page masterpiece, The Future of the Body:
Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature (Los Angeles:
J.P. Tarcher) 1992, and five visionary nonfiction works he has coauthored.
Michael, with his friend Sylvia Timbers, is at work on yet another book.
About Michael’s highly acclaimed masterpiece Charles T. Tart noted that “The
only way to adequately describe this book is to state that it is the most
important work on the relationship between mind and body ever written.” Sam
Keen noted, “Once in a generation, an idea so new, so bold, bursts forth
that it shatters our neat categories and changes the way we view the human
condition. This book transforms our understanding of the body, the psyche,
and the spirit.” Stephen Phillips wrote, “Not since William James’ The
Varieties of Religious Experience has there appeared such a galvanizing
probe into uncommon human capacities.” The San Francisco Chronicle
said, “This obsessively researched, documented encyclopedia stands alone
amid the plethora of lightweight books churned out today on spiritual
teaching and psychological self-help.”
In this book
Michael Murphy brings together a massive body of research and evidence,
writing as follows:
. . . . by gathering data from
many fields - including medical science,
anthropology, sports, the arts,
psychical research, and comparative religious studies - we can identify
extraordinary versions of most, if not all, of our basic attributes. . .
- 2 -
These grace-laden analogues of
our normal attributes, which arise
spontaneously or as products of
particular practices, can be cultivated.
Indeed, the evidence assembled
here suggests that we harbor a range of capacities that no single philosophy
or psychology has fully embraced, and that these can be developed by
practicing certain virtues and disciplines and by building institutions to
support them. Though every enduring religion has affirmed something
analogous to Judeo-Christian doctrines of grace, none has acknowledged the
larger spectrum of grace that a collection of this kind begins to reveal.
Michael Murphy, in an interview
granted to Dan Wakefield, explains that “By a sense of grace, I mean
something given from beyond the known - so it’s supernatural - and I would
apply that to events on a golf course and in bedrooms as well as in
monasteries. What we call ‘grace’ in Christianity is understood in Buddhism
as ‘the workings of Buddha nature’ and in Taoism as ‘the Way of the Tao’.” .
. . “The primary vehicle of my awakening was the Episcopal Church, around
the time I was eleven. . . . My father’s mother - my grandmother - took me
to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, in Salinas, California, in the fifth grade;
I became an acolyte at eleven, was an acolyte and super-active till I was
seventeen and went to college. . . . Then at Stanford came a professor named
Frederic Spiegelberg, and reading the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo, and that
was it. The spiritual quest has been my compass needle ever since, and coded
into all my books. . . . The great game, the game of games, the story of
stories is the unfoldment of the Divine - people like Aurobindo, and Henry
James, Sr., understood it. In that context there’s a higher order of
existence. The universe is re-owning its divinity.”
Dan
Wakefield is a journalist, screenwriter, novelist, and author of numerous
works. His books include Returning: A Spiritual Journey, 1988, a
bestseller; The Story of Your Life: Writing a Spiritual Autobiography,
1990; New York in the Fifties, 1992; Expect a Miracle: The
Miraculous Things that Happen to Ordinary People, 1995; and Creating
from the Spirit: Living Each Day as a Creative Act, 1996. He is a
member of King’s Chapel (Unitarian Universalist) in Boston.
- 3 -
Esalen Massage
In the 1960s body therapists at Esalen Institute combined the muscle therapy
strokes of Swedish massage with newly developed sensory-awareness techniques
at Esalen to give birth to a sensual form of massage uniting emotional
awareness with physical relaxation. The client lies down on a sheet covering
a massage table. Vegetable oil, scented if desired, is applied to the skin
so that the strokes will feel smooth and the skin will be nourished. The
client is encouraged to inform the practitioner of any personal preference
prior to and during the massage. The massage covers the entire body and is
done flowingly, like a dance. The comfort of both the giver and the receiver
is considered important and essential to the process. The practitioner pays
close attention to posture to prevent back strain, uses body leverage by
leaning the weight of the upper body into the arms, wrists, and hands to
prevent muscle strain in these body parts, and occasionally rests the back,
legs, and feet by sitting on the massage table near the client’s head or
feet during the typical one to two hour session. To minimize muscle tiring
for the practitioner and to provide sensual variation for the client, not
only the balls of the thumbs and the tips of the fingers are used but also
the heels and palms of the hands. The insides of the forearms, and also the
knuckles and fists can be used to wonderful effect as well.
Esalen Massage is very sensual,
employing long strokes that are designed to improve a person’s body
awareness. Some strokes extend from head to toe in order to give the
receiver a physical sense of connectedness and unity. Smaller strokes are
used not only to release muscle tension in a specific region, but also to
enlarge a person’s feeling of the unexpected sensuality of an overlooked
area. In detail movements the practitioner’s fingers carefully define each
body structure as though sculpting the shape, thereby imparting to the
client a heightened awareness of shape and structure. A body part’s contour
demands individual treatment tailored to its shape. Massaging a knee or a
calf, for instance, your hands will naturally mold themselves around the
bone and the muscle. Different movements are required for the bony areas and
the muscular areas. Part of the pleasure of a good massage is clarifying the
sense of the unique shape of your body. The aim of Esalen Massage is to
integrate a person’s awareness of body and mind so as to function more
comfortably and effectively.
Furthermore,
Esalen Massage provides the ideal platform into which other bodywork
techniques can be incorporated. For example, Zone Therapy and Reflexology,
which are pressure-point massage techniques that focus on finger stimulation
of muscles and nerves in the feet in order to improve the general feeling of
well-being, are nonthreatening, wonderful ways to introduce folks to the
pleasures of massage. “Bodywork is a journey into the mysteries and marvels
of our bodies, and Reflexology is one of the most accessible adventures.” -
Anne Kent Rush. Of American origin, a Connecticut physician, William
Fitzgerald, published a text in 1917 on this work, and Eunice D. Ingham, a
physical therapist, published in 1938 her findings in a booklet which is
still available today.
- 4 -
Trager Psychophysical Integration
Trager
Psychophysical Integration or the Trager method is another elegant and
effective bodywork technique of the human potential movement. Through a
systematic sequence of very gentle, rhythmic rocking, rolling, bouncing,
kneading, shaking, stretching, swinging, rotating, and vibrating movements,
the client’s head, body, and limbs are manipulated to align the body’s
posture and correct cramped muscles and/or pinched nerves, to increase range
of motion, and to induce stress reduction. In addition, the client achieves
a state of deep physical and mental relaxation. The movements lull the
recipient into a dreamy altered state of consciousness.
Milton
Trager, M.D., (1908-1997) developed his work beginning at age eighteen.
Before becoming a medical doctor, he was a physical therapist, and, earlier
on, an acrobat and a dancer in show business, first in Miami and later in
Hollywood. At eighteen in Miami he began training to be a professional
boxer. One day when his trainer appeared too exhausted to massage him,
Milton offered to switch roles. His trainer was enthusiastic in his response
and exclaimed, “Kid, you’ve got hands!” and encouraged him to try his hands
on others. Milton cured his father’s sciatica and helped others in his
neighborhood. When a neighborhood boy of sixteen, who had polio and was
unable to walk, was massaged by Milton, the boy could again walk with the
use of minimal braces. As a result of his many successes, Milton ceased
boxing to protect his hands and expand his massage practice.
Milton’s
medical practice was in Honolulu. He received an invitation from Esalen
Institute to demonstrate his work. After a few delays on his part, due to
his dedication to his patients, he arrived at Esalen in June 1975, where he
was warmly and enthusiastically received. Among the recipients of Milton’s
work on that occasion were the Esalen notables: Betty Fuller, Gregory
Bateson, Stan Grof, Richard Price, Christine Stewart Price. On his second
visit to Esalen in November 1975, the recipients of his work included Esalen
notables: Gail Stewart and Will Schutz. Thanks to Betty Fuller, in 1977 the
Trager Institute was formed to train others in this remarkable method. Betty
organized the training program and enlisted, in addition to herself, the
instructors: Gail Stewart, Carol Campbell, Sheila Merle Johnson, Deane Juhan,
and, later, Cathy Hammond and Gary Brownlee. These instructors and Dr.Trager
taught his work throughout the United States and Europe.
Many of us,
perhaps most of us, who are trained in both Esalen Massage and Trager work,
find ourselves naturally and readily combining these two gentle approaches
into one integral system. I call what I do simply Esalen-Trager. One’s
repertoire is thereby broadened to the delight of one’s recipients.
Furthermore, the meditative relaxed state is much more accessible through
bodywork approaches than through solitary practices, the former being easy
and the latter difficult.
- 5 -
Grof
Holotropic Breathwork
Stanislav
Grof, M.D., Ph.D., has developed a new comprehensive approach to
self-exploration and psychotherapy, based on observations from modern
consciousness research. He was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he also
received his scientific and medical education at Charles University School
of Medicine. He began in 1956 his research on the clinical uses of
psychoactive drugs at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, where he
was principal investigator of a program exploring the therapeutic potential
of LSD and other psychedelics.
Stan Grof,
because of his impressive papers interpreting the results of his practice,
was invited in 1967 to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in
Baltimore, as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and also became Chief of
Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center where he
continued his investigations. Two women, Helen Bonny and Joan Kellogg, on
the staff of the Center were to have a profound influence on Stan’s work for
their contributions to his recognition of the mind-altering potential of
music and of mandala drawing, respectively. He, too, discovered in 1972 that
deep, accelerated breathing is efficacious in inducing non-ordinary states
of consciousness, thereby circumventing the need for psychoactive drugs. In
this approach, the rate, intensity, and duration of breathing are increased.
This breathing technique has been used in many mystical traditions, from
Kundalini yoga to Taoist meditation.
In 1973 Stan
Grof became a Scholar-in-Residence at Esalen Institute. During his years at
Esalen he devoted himself to writing books and articles, presenting lectures
and seminars, and, with his wife Christina, whom he met at Esalen in August
1975, developing Holotropic Breathwork. This is an innovative, experiential
psychotherapy which combines deeper, faster breathing with massage and
bodywork, evocative classical music, mandala drawing, and group sharing,
within a comfortable, safe, supportive, and sacred environment.
Interestingly, Joseph Campbell introduced Christina, a former student of his
at Sarah Lawrence College, to Stan.
Richard
Tarnas, in his justly celebrated book, The Passion of the Western Mind:
Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View (New
York: Harmony/Crown) 1991, noted, “But the most epistemologically
significant development in the recent history of depth psychology, and
indeed the most important advance in the field as a whole since Freud and
Jung themselves, has been the work of Stanislav Grof, which over the past
three decades has not only revolutionized psychodynamic theory but also
brought forth major implications for many other fields, including
philosophy. . . . In the course of those years virtually every conceivable
form of therapy and personal transformation, great and small, came through
Esalen. In terms of therapeutic effectiveness, Grof’s was by far the most
powerful; there was no comparison.”
- 6 -
Stan Grof is
the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of fifteen books, among which are
the following:
Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death,
and Transcendence in Psychotherapy
(Albany: State University of New York Press) 1985. In this pioneering work,
Stan Grof proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his
findings after three decades of extensive research on non-ordinary states of
consciousness.
The Holotropic Mind: The Three
Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives;
with Hal Zina Bennett, Ph.D. (San Francisco: HarperCollins) 1992. Charles T.
Tart noted, “An exceptionally clear and readable introduction to the
evolving psychology of the spirit, transpersonal psychology, that is one of
the most exciting developments of our times. Grof is far and away one of the
leading scientists exploring this field and this book makes his work
accessible to all.” Fred Alan Wolf wrote, “This book is about a revolution
in our understanding of the mind that is as far-reaching in psychology as
the idea of the quantum was to physics. Stan Grof is probably the most
brilliant mind in psychology today.”
- 7 -
George Leonard
George
Leonard was editorial manager of the West Coast office in San Francisco of
Look magazine when Michael Murphy first met him. A mutual friend,
Lois Delattre, arranged their meeting at a dinner party at her house in the
North Beach district the evening of February 2, 1965. They became instant
friends and soul mates. “We started talking,” Leonard recalled later, “and
it was the most amazing dovetailing of interests. It was almost like the
beginning of a love affair.” The conversation continued at Leonard’s house
in the Pacific Heights district on to the early morning. At one point,
Murphy leaning against the marble fireplace in the high-ceilinged living
room said, “George, let’s fire a shot heard round the world.” And Leonard
replied, “Okay, Mike. Let’s do it.” Soon thereafter Leonard became
vice-president of Esalen.
Esalen’s
first public event outside of Big Sur was on Thursday evening, January 6,
1966, held at Grace Cathedral, the cavernous Episcopal church on top of Nob
Hill that had long been associated with innovative programs, social
activism, and ecumenical dialogue among religions. Very little money was
available to promote the event – no newspaper ads, just a few posters placed
here and there around the city – and an interview of George Leonard on a
local educational FM station that afternoon. A huge storm had blown in from
the Pacific, with heavy rain and high winds, ripping branches off trees. As
Leonard and Murphy on California St crossed Van Ness Av and started up Nob
Hill, the rain suddenly stopped, the clouds parted, revealing a full moon.
To their great surprise, with seating for a congregation of 1200, they found
that 2000 people had arrived, filling the isles in the back and around the
edges of the cathedral.
Leonard and
Murphy prepared a joint statement on behalf of the Esalen Institute, which
Leonard presented prior to the lecture by Abraham Maslow, the humanistic
psychologist famous for his ideas about the self-actualizing personality.
Leonard’s speech was full of hope and high ideals, reflecting the
expansiveness of unlimited possibilities that so many felt at the time. In
fact, it was delivered in such a charismatic and oracular style (he used the
cathedral’s seven-second reverberation to great effect) that for many who
were there, it made more of a lasting impression than the remarks of the
main speaker.
“On this night of the festival of
Epiphany, we gather together to celebrate a new kairos, a joyful and
awesome moment in mankind’s long day . . . the awakening of a new
intelligence, where every scientist would become a seer and every academic a
prophet.” He then proclaimed: “The atom’s soul is nothing but energy. Spirit
blazes in the dullest clay. The life of every man – the heart of it – is
pure and holy joy.”
It is difficult to speak of joy,
however, when so many people on the planet are suffering, he continued, and
although we now have the means at hand to alleviate it, all we hear are the
same worn-out doctrines of original sin and market forces driving the world
economy: “At a time when at last we have all the means at hand to end war,
poverty, and racial insanity, the prophets of despair discover no vision
large enough to lead men to the merely possible.”
“Those who dismay at humanity’s
condition have had their turn upon the stage. They have offered intricate
critiques, sinuous analyses of everything that is wrong with mankind,
leaving unanswered only the questions they have almost forgotten to ask:
What do we do now? How do we change it all? How do we act to make our
society and ourselves whole?”
- 8 -
And the last three paragraphs:
“Tonight we speak for scientists, religious leaders, educators, and
interested citizens who have cast their lot with the future. We believe that
all men somehow possess a divine potentiality; that ways may be worked out –
specific, systematic ways – to help, not the few, but the many towards a
vastly expanded capacity to learn, to love, to feel deeply, and to create.
We reject the tired dualism that seeks God and human potentialities by
denying the joys of the senses, the immediacy of unpostponed life. We
believe that most people can best find God and themselves through heightened
awareness of the world, increased commitment to the eternal in time.”
“We believe, too, that if the
divine is present in the individual soul, it must be sought and found in
men’s institutions as well; for people will not readily achieve individual
salvation without a saving society. We envision no mass movement, for we do
not see people in the mass; we look instead to revolution through constant
interplay between individual and group, each changing the other.”
“The revolution has begun. Human
life will be transformed. How it will be transformed is up to us.”
The above
has been drawn from three wonderful books:
Walter Truett Anderson, The
Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening (Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1983).
George Leonard, Walking on the
Edge of the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988).
Eugene Taylor, Shadow Culture:
Psychology and Spirituality in America (Washington, DC: Counterpoint,
Perseus Books, 1999).
George Leonard is
the author of twelve books, the first of which with his Look magazine
colleagues: William Attwood and J. Robert Moskin; the second, a novel; and
the eleventh, The Life We Are Given with his closest friend, Michael
Murphy. He serves as president of Esalen Institute.
- 9 -
Recommended
Reading
Walter Truett Anderson, The
Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening (Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley) First printing August 1983. An engrossing and evocative
history of Esalen, best in describing with fascinating detail the early
years. A writer of wide-ranging interests known for his work in political
science, social movement studies, psychology, ecology, and Tibetan Buddhism.
His writing is always well-informed, well-crafted, lucid, and captivating.
He is the author of nine books and the coauthor of one book. He is a member
of the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Berkeley, California.
George Downing and Anne Kent
Rush, The Massage Book (Berkeley, CA: The Bookworks, and New York:
Random House) First printing, January 1972. The first manual on massage
written for the layperson. Massage, as developed and practiced at the
world-renowned Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and in San Francisco,
is described by the authors who were members of the teaching staff. With a
first printing of only 30,000 copies, this classic text for Esalen Massage
became a huge bestseller with two million copies having been sold. This book
remains in print and remains my favorite for learning Esalen Massage. The
Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition, 1998, has an added introduction by Anne
Kent Rush.
Anne Kent Rush is my favorite author of books
that describe the operating procedures of the various bodywork approaches.
She is the author of fourteen books, among which are the following:
Getting Clear: Body Work for
Women (Berkeley, CA:
The Bookworks, and New York: Random House) Mar 1973.
Feminism as Therapy;
with Anica Vesel Mander (Berkeley, CA: The Bookworks, and New York: Random
House) Jul 1974.
Moon, Moon
(Berkeley, CA: Moon Books, and New York: Random House) Jul 1976.
The Basic Back Book
(Berkeley, CA: Moon Books, and New York: Summit/ Simon & Schuster) Aug 1979.
The Back Rub Book
(New York: Vintage/Random House) Jul 1989.
Romantic Massage
(New York: Avon) Feb 1991.
The Dell trilogy (New York:
Dell/Bantam Doubleday Dell and Byron Preiss Visual)
The Modern Book of
Massage, Oct 1994.
The Modern Book of
Yoga, Oct 1996.
The Modern Book of
Stretching, Apr 1997.
Bodywork Basics: A Guide to the
Powers and Pleasures of Your Body
(New York: Dell/Random House) Jan 2000. A marvelous survey, guide, and
introduction to the many bodywork approaches.
Massage for Total Well-Being:
Massage and Meditation for the Seven Centers of Health,
with photographs by Victoria Rauhofer, (New York: A Byron Preiss Book,
Universe Publishing, Rizzoli International Publications) Nov 2000.
Anne Kent Rush is a descendant of Dr.
Benjamin Rush, an American medical doctor and revolutionary, who signed the
Declaration of Independence, and was prominent in the Universalist Church in
Philadelphia. Anne was on the teaching staff at Esalen Institute in San
Francisco and Big Sur from 1970 through 1976, and where she helped develop
the first Esalen Women’s Studies Program. She was also engaged in a ten-year
private practice in bodywork therapy. She was cofounder of the Alyssum
Therapy Center in San Francisco and of Moon Books in Berkeley, California.
She has taught at several personal growth learning centers in the United
States and in Europe.
- 10 -
Milton Trager, M.D.,
“Psychophysical Integration and Mentastics”, Journal of Holistic Health
7:15 (1982).
Milton Trager, M.D., and Cathy
Hammond, Ph.D., Movement as a Way to Agelessness: A Guide to Trager
Mentastics (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press) 1987, 1995.
Deane Juhan, M.A., An
Introduction to Trager Psychophysical Integration and Mentastics Movement
Education (Mill Valley, CA: Trager Institute) 1989.
Deane Juhan, Job’s Body: A
Handbook for Bodywork, Expanded Edition (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill
Press) 1998; Third Edition, July 2003. The classic study of why bodywork
works. Highly acclaimed. Over 80,000 copies sold in the first two editions.
Esalen Massage practitioner-instructor since 1974.
Candace B. Pert, Ph.D.,
Molecules of Emotion: The Science behind Mind-Body Medicine (New York:
Scribner/Simon & Schuster) 1997. Neuroscientist Dr. Candace Pert discovered
receptors in our cells that take ‘orders’ from roaming information cells on
what functions to perform throughout our body. Her explanation of how
messages are carried between seemingly unrelated regions of the body is
detailed in her book. Because of her work we now have scientific proof of
why bodywork promotes healing, causes relaxed feelings, and lifts our
spirits.
Organizations
Esalen
Institute
Big Sur,
California 93920
(831)
667-3000
Grof
Transpersonal Training
20 Sunnyside
Avenue, PMB 314
Mill Valley,
California 94941
(415)
383-8779
The Trager
Institute
33 Millwood
Street
Mill Valley,
California 94941
(415)
388-2688
Acknowledgment
This essay
is the result of inspiration and encouragement from Jane Steig Parsons. She
not only typed the manuscript but also suggested its title. I have been
greatly enriched by her friendship.
© 2001 Carl
W. Nelson
Permission to
reproduce this document can be obtained by contacting the author.
Websites about Esalen
For further
information about the world-renowned Esalen Institute in Big Sur,
California, the celebrated Esalen Hot Springs, the popular and pervasive
Esalen Massage, and the remarkable visionary founding owner Michael Murphy,
see the forty Internet Websites selected by Carl W. Nelson, listed as
follows:
www.esalen.org/info/massage.shtml
www.esalen.org/info/massagebios.shtml
www.esalenmassage.org/html/what_is_esalen_massage.html
www.esalenmassage.org/html/esalen_massage_video.html
www.esalenmassagevideo.com/pages/aboutusMAINvideo.html
www.atpeacemedia.com/pages/aboutusINDEX.html
www.atpeacemedia.com/pages/EsalenINDEX.html
www.atpeacemedia.com/bodyworks/info.html
www.atpeacevideo.com/spa.html
www.atpeacevideo.com/masmag.html
www.atpeacevideo.com/interview.html
www.unitone.org/luciarose/esalenmsg.html
www.unitone.org/luciarose/gallery.htm
www.ravenrecording.com/Featured_Teachers_Dec_20000.htm#horan
www.esalen.org/place/tour/tourwide/vrframes.htm
www.esalen.org/place/hot_springs.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/bath_renovations.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/board_letter.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/dick_price.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/capacity_love.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/evol_vision.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/evol_vision2.shtml
www.esalen.org/air/essays/evol_vision3.shtml
www.esalencampaign.org/07vids_01vids.html
www.well.com/user/davidu/esalen.html
www.well.com/user/suscon/esalen/esalen.html
www.itp_life.com/esalenNJS.html
www.itp_life.com/whoNJS.html
www.intuition.org/txt/murphy.htm
www.intuition.org/txt/murphy2.htm
www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/janfeb/articles/murphy.html
www.lightworks.com/MonthlyAspectarian/1998/February/0298-07a.html
www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/interviews/int_19990527_p01.shtml
www.henrywagner.org/pictures/California/Coast/Esalen/default.htm
www.steve.org/photos/index.cgi/esalen
www.mccullagh.org/theme/esalen-institute-june02.html
These
Websites are well worth viewing and reading.
- 12 -