Book description
Jeffrey J. Kripal here recounts the spectacular history of Esalen, the institute that has long been a world leader in alternative and experiential education and stands today at the center of the human potential movement. Forged in the literary and mythical leanings of the Beat Generation, inspired in the lecture…
Why read it?
1 author picked Esalen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Is it American History? Counterculture? Something else? To be sure what it is is a very engaging, detailed chronicle of the California Institute at Big Sur and its residents and visitors.
The book provides coverage of a profound and influential interlude of American culture in which drugs, folk-rock, psychology, transhumanism, and other philosophies intermixed with one another.
As a psychologist, I was interested in hearing about Aldous Huxley and Abraham Maslow’s visits; more generally, who knew that Joan Baez and Hunter S. Thompson both lived on the property before the institute was established!
From John's list on intriguing perspectives on who we are and how we live.
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German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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