Michael Murphy's Report to the Esalen Board

March 1^st, 1999

The recent damage to Esalen's Big Sur property has forced the Institute to plan as never before for its long-range future. The loss of buildings and income caused by last winter's storms has, more than any event in our history, forced us to reassess our physical and financial resources, our support from foundations and friends, our programs, and even our fundamental mission. In making this assessment, we have been forcefully reminded that Esalen is vitally important to people in many parts of the world, as both a place for personal self-discovery and as a forum for theoretical and research work regarding personal and social transformation.

People have told us, in many ways, how life-giving the Institute has been for them, how relieved they are that we will continue our Big Sur seminars, and how important it is that we keep exploring fundamental issues related to the human potential. This response from men and women who care deeply about Esalen, in combination with our reassessment of our mission and projects, has led us to make two basic commitments: first, to undertake a long-term building program that will transform our entire Big Sur facility; and second, to create a Center for Theory and Research that will sponsor new, bolder, and more visionary explorations of the human potential. These two aims have renewed our energies and sense of purpose. In future newletters, catalogues, and appeals, we will spell out our plans in detail. Here is a summary of them.

Esalen's Long-Range Building Plan

To preserve our baths at their famous location, we've had to reinforce the cliffs above them. That project will be finished this summer, at a cost of one million dollars. To help fortify the cliffs against erosion and sliding, we will plant them with foliage native to Big Sur including clusters of Seacliff Buckwheat grass to attract the endangered Smith's Blue butterflies that nest on the property.

When work on the cliffs is complete, construction of our new baths will begin. They are being designed by Mickey Muennig, the principal architect for the celebrated Post Ranch resort and will, we think, comprise one of the world's most spectacular bathing facilities. Esalen will, by the end of the year 2000, have a bath complex to match its magnificent vistas of mountains and sea.

Meanwhile, we have started to work on a master plan for our entire facility, and later this year we will choose an architect to oversee its development. This integrated blueprint will embrace our entire infrastructure, including our waste water system (which will incorporate innovative and proven biotechnology); and it will address the functionality of every building on the property (for example, a spacious and innovative bodywork facility will be designed to enhance the movement programs, massage, and other somatic practices we sponsor). Our plan will be guided by the following principles: appropriate use of land, water, trees, sunshine, and waste so that the entire facility can serve as a model that joins beauty and efficiency for sustainability and minimal energy use creation of uncluttered spaces and open sight lines to enhance views of mountains, sea, and coast conservation of natural habitat economy of construction and operation maintenance of current staff size and number of seminar participants minimization of automobile traffic and parking on the property aesthetic nurturance of body, mind, and spirit.

Many creative people are giving us new ideas for land use and building design. For example, Amory Lovins and Greg Franta, both of them celebrated pioneers in sustainability, energy use, and ecologically sensitive design, have agreed to guide our initial planning. A wide range of concepts will be incorporated into our thinking, with an eye toward the Institute's present and long-term needs.

The Esalen Center for Theory and Research

Since 1962, Esalen has sponsored a great variety of invitational conferences alongside its public programs. From these have come pioneering projects in education, medicine, psychology, somatics, meditation research, physics, Soviet-American relations, and other fields. The review of our history and mission prompted by last winter's storms has increased our appreciation for this part of our work. It has reminded us that we have enhanced the lives of people who, for all sorts of reasons, will never come to Big Sur, and has confirmed our sense that Esalen has a special ability to promote new perspectives, insights, and approaches in many disciplines. Part of that ability comes from the sheer beauty of our Big Sur property, which brings magic and expansiveness to the meetings held there. Part comes from the atmosphere created by seminarians and staff. Part comes from our experience of more than three decades in organizing pioneering explorations of the human potential.

With renewed appreciation for this side of our program, we have formed a Center for Theory and Research to concentrate on fundamental fields of inquiry that are ripe for development but which, for various reasons, are largely neglected by mainstream academic and religious institutions. We have chosen four such fields with which to begin the Center's activities this year.

Evolutionary theory: Year by year, in ever-greater detail, the story of our universe unfolds before us. From its birth as a tiny seed to the emergence of life to the appearance of humankind, the cosmos is increasingly revealed as a journey to higher levels of complexity and consciousness. This revelation forces us to ask "Where is the universe headed? What is impelling its stupendous advance? What does the story of evolution tell us about our possibilities for further development?" Since the late nineteenth century, scientists, philosophers, and religious thinkers have worked to develop a comprehensive understanding of evolution that honors the established truths of science while extending evolutionary ideas into realms of higher human possibility. The Center for Theory and Research will explore ways to further such understanding, and to that end will gather physicists, cosmologists, biologists, sociologists, psychologists, historians, contemplatives, and philosophers in a series of annual conferences. Among the questions we will ask are: Do the seeming coincidences involved in the evolution of the physical, biological, and human worlds point to a fundamental creative intelligence at work at all levels of the universe? What does the history of our universe suggest about our possibilities for further development? What connections can we find between the facts of evolution and experiences shared by people in every land that point to the existence of a Higher Power?

Transformative practices: This series of conferences will explore a wide range of transformative disciplines, including contemplative practice, psychotherapy, somatic education, the martial arts, and sport. It will examine the potential of these various practices to promote, complement, or inhibit each other, as well as their capacity to produce extraordinary transformations of body, mind, and soul. It will inquire into the settings and values that are most conducive to what might be called ãintegralä transformation, which involves all dimensions of our personal and collective being. It will also aim to promote the development of research tools with which to assess long-term growth, and it will explore ways to support transformative practice in contemporary society.

Survival of bodily death: This conference series will gather leading thinkers in several fields to explore what happens to us, if anything, when we die? A surprising amount of new research in fields such as reincarnation studies, near-death experiences, and mediumship is strengthening the hypothesis that some part of our consciousness may indeed survive bodily death. Throughout human history, the nature of post-mortem life has been an article of faith, but today the question is increasingly open to empirical study. This conference series will promote research programs in the survival field. It will work to join different kinds of evidence for survival into a more cohesive whole, and in so doing it will evaluate different theories, both ancient and modern, related to the evidence for post-mortem life.

Subtle energies and the uncharted realms of mind: This conference series will build upon the successes of a previous Esalen initiative–the Distant Mental Influences on Living Systems conference series–that has helped catalyze groundbreaking research nationwide. It will examine the best studies in the field, promote further research, and explore possible explanatory frameworks. Among the questions to be addressed are: Can minds directly affect other minds? Can they affect matter without direct physical manipulation? What role might so-called ãsubtle energiesä– the ki or chi of Oriental philosophy or the prana of Indian yoga– play in these processes? Does modern physics begin to point the way to as-yet-uncharted fields associated with consciousness and intentionality?

Esalen invitational conferences have been organized at special moments in the evolution of new ideas, when scattered pioneers could join to further their work. The Esalen Center for Theory and Research aims to maximize this process by promoting creative fellowships among such pioneers to stimulate inquiries that suffer from lack of support. In this we will look for bodies of work that are ripe for coalescence but which have inadequate or no collaborative organization, and we will pay special attention to work on fundamental questions of personal and social transformation that could have a ripple effect in many fields. To these ends, we will gather people from various disciplines to explore the growing edges of their work, develop creative collaborations, and critically evaluate new theories and research. We will seek to promote long-term partnerships and joint projects, which we will support through e-mail networks, exchanges of papers, and dissemination of conference summaries. Through the Internet, we will offer the best work from our meetings to all interested parties. In the decades ahead, the fields of inquiry addressed by the Center for Theory and Research will come into ever- greater prominence. In helping them develop at our increasingly beautiful facility, Esalen can play a central role in what promises to be an historic period of exploration into the further reaches of the human potential.