Touch Points from Esalen

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.

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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. . .

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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?”

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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.

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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.

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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.

Permission to reproduce this document can be obtained by contacting the author.

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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