Esalen's wellspring: foundational doctrines -- Esalen's reach: a brief history -- Spiritual privilege and personal transformation -- Living privilege: four Esalen men -- Gender questions at Esalen -- Esalen's legacy.
Summary
Yoga. Humanistic Psychology. Meditation. Holistic Healing. These practices are commonplace today. Yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or small groups of educated spiritual seekers. Esalen Institute, a retreat for spiritual and personal growth in Big Sur, California, played a pioneering role in popularizing quests for self-transformation and personalized spirituality. This "soul rush" spread quickly throughout the United States as the Institute made ordinary people aware of hundreds of ways to select, combine, and revise the