Eileen McKusick is a researcher, author and educator who has been studying the effects of sound on the human body since 1996. She is the author of the best-selling books Tuning the Human Biofield and Electric Body, Electric Health, and the founder of the ground breaking sound therapy practice Biofield Tuning. Eileen’s work and approach helps people connect to and express their full electric potential.

Elana Meta is a dancer, teacher, and creative who explores self-expression and human connection through movement technique and META Method. Elana is the founder and CEO of Wild Vessel, which builds experiences and spaces for the expanding Feminine movement.

Eleanor Criswell Hanna, director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training and an emeritus professor of psychology at Sonoma State University, is editor of Somatics, and author of How Yoga Works and Biofeedback and Somatics.

Mother, mentor, poet, artist, volunteer, bestselling author, and host of the Practice You podcast, Elena Brower is a celebrated international yoga and meditation teacher on Glo, guiding transformative practices since 1999. She is now a candidate for Zen Buddhist chaplaincy.

Elissa Epel, PhD, is a professor at UCSF, author of  New York Times bestseller, The Telomere Effect, and past president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She is an expert on stress and contemplative practices, including mindful eating for optimal metabolic balance.

Elizabeth Esalen, PhD, is a psychologist who has a passion for healing, empowerment, bliss and dance. She is the founder and CEO of The Lotus Collaborative, eating disorder treatment centers that celebrate the feminine and offer mind-body-soul transformation in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, Calif.

Elizabeth Philipose has a lifelong passion for evolution and the expansion of consciousness. As an academic, she studies causes and consequences of violence and pathways to peace. As a spiritual therapist, she offers individual counseling and group programs in decolonial wellness.

Eliza Reynolds has co-led workshops with her mother, Sil Reynolds, since she was 15. A graduate of Brown University, she co-authored Mothering & Daughtering and is a certified teen mediator and SOS-trained counselor with Planned Parenthood.

Ellen Bass is a poet whose work frequently appears in the New Yorker and The Sun. Among her many books are Indigo and the best-selling work The Courage to Heal. A Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she teaches in Pacific University’s MFA program.

Ellen Emmet is a practicing psychotherapist and facilitator of authentic movement. Her dance-movement therapy and transpersonal psychology background has been deeply influenced by a non-dual understanding. Ellen also offers meetings in the Essence of Yoga, an exploration of the body sourced in the tradition of Kashmir Shivaism.

Ellen Kindl began Harriet Goslins' Cortical Field Reeducation® as an attempt to control chronic pain after a 21-hour surgery to fuse 14 vertebra. It worked, she was certified as a teacher in 2000, and has taught at Esalen and other locations nationally since then.

Ellen Watson fell in love with breath when she first arrived at Esalen in the 1980s. During the ensuing years, studying breath became a focus in all her pursuits. In addition to enhancing self-awareness, breath informs all the practices Ellen teaches at Esalen today. Among these practices are Esalen Massage & Bodywork, 5Rhythms®, Touching Essence, and the Vibrance Collective Practices.

Emile Hassan Dyer is a choir director, vocalist, improvisational performer, percussionist and storyteller. He brings a multicultural perspective to music while using vocal and body percussion, drums, and vocal styles of many cultures. He uses extensive chanting and vocalese in his musical creations.

Emily Cohen is the COO of Bregman Partners, Inc. where she co-runs the coaching business and manages the Bregman Leadership Coaching and Consulting team. Emily received her BA from Brown University and her master’s degree from the University of Georgia.

For the past decade, Emily has spent nearly every summer in the California wilderness as a trail worker and backcountry cook in Yosemite and a monk at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. She brings ten years of formal meditation practice, wilderness-based youth development work, hospice work, and Buddhist chaplaincy to her work as a nature-based psychotherapist.

Emily McDowell is a writer, illustrator, speaker, teacher, creative strategist, and recovering entrepreneur. She’s best-known as founder of the stationery brand Em & Friends, and its signature Empathy Cards for illness and grief. She is currently navigating her own liminal space.

Emily Nagoski, PhD, is the author of Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that will Transform Your Sex Life and co-author with Amelia Nagoski of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Her degrees are in health behavior and counseling, with concentrations in human sexuality and women's well-being.

Emily Saliers is one half of GRAMMY-award-winning duo Indigo Girls. Emily released her first full length solo album, Murmuration Nation, in 2017. She is a social and environmental justice activist and has led numerous song writing workshops, loves all kinds of music, and believes that a song can change your life.

Eric Goodman, DC, is the creator of Foundation Training and author of Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence. Foundation Training has helped thousands of people control chronic pain and experience a new way of life.

Eric Maisel, PhD, is a leading creativity coach and author of more than 40 books, including Fearless Creating, Coaching the Artist Within, The Van Gogh Blues, The Creativity Book, A Writer’s Space, Life Purpose Boot Camp and The Future of Mental Health.

Eric Moya, CST-D, MS/MFCT, is a career manual therapist, instructor for the Upledger Institute, and international lecturer and speaker specializing in mind/body awareness and growth. He maintains practices in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Carmel, California.

Rev. Erika Allison (she/they) is a queer interfaith minister, speaker, and author of the award-winning book Gay the Pray Away: Healing Your Life, Love, and Relationships from the Harms of LGBT Conversion Therapy. She created and facilitates the RAINBOW Path program for healing from identity harm and religious wounding.

Erika Gagnon is a ceremonial leader, wisdom carrier, and healer who helps others heal themselves. She has walked a medicine path and Red Road for 30 years, working with Indigenous elders from North and South America and their ceremonies, altars, and medicinal plants. She is honored to receive her Indigenous elders’ blessings to continue their traditions through healing ceremonies and personal healing sessions.

Erika Rosenberg, PhD, is founding faculty and director of research at The Compassion Institute, senior teacher at Stanford’s CCARE, and co-author of the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) Program. A scientist and meditation teacher, Erika brings multiple perspectives to the understanding of emotions and the growth of compassion.

Erik Davis, PhD, is an author, journalist, and teacher based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. His most recent book is High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.

Erin Lee Gafill is an award-winning and museum-exhibited painter and fifth-generation California artist. An international teacher, she is the author of the memoir Drinking from a Cold Spring, a Little Book of Hope and Color Duets with Kaffe Fassett.

Erin Prophet, PhD, is an author and scholar who studies spiritual experience and has also been a "channeler." She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at East Carolina University.

With a legacy of providing personal growth offerings for our guests and creating some of the world’s best body therapies, Esalen Healing Arts supports and furthers the mission of Esalen Institute by expanding upon ways people across the world can access and experience the unique and growing array of educational programs, professional services and transformative experiences.

Esperide Ananas Ametista, PhD, is a psycho-sociologist, pioneer in human development research, coach, writer, and designer. She has worked for the European Parliament and the United Nations. A citizen of Damanhur since 1993, Esperide is a spiritual healer with a background in meditation and anthropology. Her main fields of research are the interaction with intelligent subtle energies, inner alchemy, and past lives.

Esther Gokhale (GO-clay), L.Ac., author of 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, was educated at Harvard, Princeton, and SFCAOM (in Chinese medicine), and by people in non-industrial cultures worldwide. She and other qualified Gokhale Method instructors offer instruction online and around the world.

Eve Ekman, PhD, MSW, is a contemplative social scientist, teacher, and scholar focusing on emotional awareness, empathy, meditation, and interventions to alleviate burnout and promote well-being. Eve draws from interdisciplinary skills and first-person experiential knowledge from clinical social work, integrative medicine, contemplative science, and meditation. She did her MSW and PhD at UC Berkeley and post doctoral training at UCSF Osher Center for Integrative medicine. Eve is the well-being Lead at Apple, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, and an instructor with the Berkeley Center for Psychedelic Science.

Evelyn Hall is a social worker, master hypnotherapist, and minister. For the past 35 years, she’s been guiding individuals and leading groups. Evelyn specializes in transformative healing practices including somatic awareness, movement, meditation, healing through nature, and leading sacred ceremonies.

Ezra Bookman is a nationally recognized experience designer, artist, and facilitator exploring the transformational power of ritual. He is the founder of Ritualist, a creative studio helping leaders cultivate more conscious companies and connected communities.

Finn is an AASECT Certified Sexuality Counselor. Through his courses, workshops, retreats, and private sessions, men learn tools to confront their limitations, unravel shame, and spark deeper human connections — grounding themselves into a deeper experience of life.

Firoozeh Dumas is a New York Times bestselling author/humorist and professional speaker whose most recent work, Sob, (Audbile.com) chronicles the worst year of her life. Firoozeh believes that everyone has a story to tell and everyone’s story counts.

Fletcher Tucker is a co-founder of Wildtender, an organization based in Big Sur that cultivates kinship with the natural world, and explores earth-based wisdom traditions. Fletcher is also a writer, multidisciplinary artist and musician whose work engages deeply with place.

Francis G. Lu, MD, is the Kim Professor in Cultural Psychiatry, Emeritus, at UC, Davis. Since 1987, he has led or co-led 37 film seminars at Esalen on positive psychological qualities and character virtues, 28 with Brother David Steindl-Rast.

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Fritjof Capra, PhD, is the author of several international bestsellers, including Uncommon Wisdom, which features his extensive conversations with R. D. Laing. His latest work, co-authored by Pier Luigi Luisi, is The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).

Gahl Sasson is an established author and has been teaching workshops on Storytelling, Kabbalah, Astrology, and Mysticism around the globe for over 20 years. His first book, A Wish Can Change Your Life, has been translated into over eight languages and is endorsed by HH the 14th Dalai Lama. His second work, Cosmic Navigator, is the essential reference guide to understanding your astrological makeup. Since 2018 Gahl has been publishing a yearly bestselling book on the astrology of the upcoming year.

He is a contributor to the Huffington Post, and Astrology.com, and has been named “Los Angeles’ Best Astrologer” by W Magazine. He is a guest lecturer at USC, Tel Aviv University, and teaches at Esalen, Omega Institute, University of Judaism, and the Open Center in NYC. He has appeared on CNN, ABC News, KTLA-TV Los Angeles to name a few. His academic paper, Symbolic Meaning of Names in the Bible was published by the Journal of Storytelling, Self, & Society. He currently resides in Los Angeles but gives seminars and workshops regularly in over 13 countries. His web site is www.CosmicNavigator.com and podcast: Cosmic Navigator Astrology Show.

Garth Stevenson was raised in Western Canada, where nature became his primary inspiration and the common thread between his life and music. His albums, Alpine, Flying, and Voyage, are informed by his experiences carrying his 160-year-old double bass into nature, including Antarctica and Tuva.

Gary is a tenured professor, accomplished naturalist, and hiking guide. Through his work with nonprofits, retreat venues, and adventure outfitters, Gary teaches people how they can heal and nourish their mind, body, and spirit through time spent in nature.

Geneen Marie Haugen, PhD, grew up a little wild, with a run amok imagination. A content creator and guide to the intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche with the Animas Valley Institute, she has been on the faculty of the Esalen Institute and Schumacher College. Her writing has appeared in Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Earth, and many others.

George Kohlrieser is Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the Institute of Management Development (IMD) Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a best-selling, award-winning author of two leadership books, a veteran hostage negotiator, and an organizational and clinical psychologist. He has been a workshop leader at Esalen since 1979.

Geramy Quarto, MSW, combines an extensive background in psychotherapy, integrative coaching, and mentorship with Indigenous Wisdom teachings to facilitate experiential ceremonial backdrops that have potential for transformation and soulful healing. He devotes his time mentoring/coaching young leaders in the private & non-profit sector.

Gitanjali D'Costa is a master energy healer, mystic, teacher, writer, mother, and the founder of Syntara System, a deeply integrative, evolutionary energy healing and awareness modality. It is her great joy to bring this life and world-changing work to you.

Dr. Glauber Loures de Assis is a researcher of sacred plants and their traditions. He has 15 years of experience with ayahuasca, hapé, and other sacred plants and has led more than 500 ceremonies and events in Brazil, Europe, and the United States. 

Gordon Wheeler, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice of psychotherapy and coaching in Santa Cruz, CA. Together with Nancy Lunney Wheeler, he has developed and articulated Gestalt Relational Constellations. Gordon is President Emeritus of Esalen, where, in addition to 22 years as President, he also served eight years as CEO.

Grace is a multi-disciplinary vibrational artist with practices in Sound Healing, Visual Arts, Healing with Foods, Reiki and Yoga. She has developed a unique lifestyle and practice of integrating multi-modalities of communicating healing artistry over the last 24 years of study and practice, with plant medicines playing an integral role in her journey as a facilitator.

Guillermo Martinez is a master craftsman and visionary artist renowned for creating Iindigenous instruments steeped in cultural heritage and spiritual significance. With a lineage rooted in traditional craftsmanship, Guillermo's decades-long journey spans a commitment to preserving ancient techniques while innovating new ones.

Guest faculty Hakim Davy Tafari is a Buddhist Dharma practitioner and meditation facilitator who blends his meditative practice with street and trail running. After an injury and illness led him to acupuncture in the mid-90s, Tafari was introduced to mindfulness and herbal medicines, which helped him adopt a lifestyle that supports well-being. He shares how the practices of running and mindfulness offer a place of refuge for those seeking peace and balance in their lives.

Deemed the “midwife of possibility,” Hannah is a celebrated teacher of mindfulness, mysticism, and yoga. A mother and devoted student of Buddhism, neuropsychology, and mythology, she’s known for her life-changing, heart-opening teachings inspired by her deep love of the world.

Harriet Goslins developed Cortical Field Reeducation®. A Feldenkrais practitioner since 1985 and Integrated Awareness teacher, her background is in psychosynthesis, applied kinesiology, muscle energy, craniosacral work, and social anthropology. She has been teaching at Esalen for 32 consecutive years.

Harry Grammer, Ph.D. is a nationwide activist, educator, and psychologist. He founded New Earth in 2004, a community-based organization leading youth justice reform in Los Angeles. Harry has been honored as a CNN Hero, and in 2018 was selected one of 20 inaugural Obama Foundation Fellows from over 20,000 applicants in 191 countries. Dr. Grammer sits on the advisory board for the Kuya Institute for Transformational Medicine in Austin.

Hawah Kasat (he/him) is an award-winning author, educator, non-profit leader, TEDx speaker, podcast host, and yogi. With over 20 years of experience teaching yoga and mindfulness, he merges ancient Indian traditions with modern practices, impacting diverse global audiences through his books, podcasts, films, and retreat programs.

Dr. Hazel-Grace, an intimacy coach for 14+ years, used their personal and professional journey to develop the REPAIR Process, which helps others transform conflicts into connections with ease. They blend professional expertise with a commitment to creating a compassionate world.

Heidi Rose Robbins is an astrologer, author, and poet who has helped thousands of clients all over the globe live with more authenticity and clarity. She hosts two podcasts and leads Radiant Life Retreats. Her newest book and bestseller, Everyday Radiance, was published by Chronicle Books in 2023.

Hrishi is an Indian songwriter and artist based out of Washington, DC. Trained in South Indian classical music (Carnatic music) for over 10 years, he blends his cultural influences with his love for pop. His mission is to bring representation to Indian music and musicians through his passion for bridging his two musical worlds.