Today, we return to that stack of dusty reel to reels, discovered a couple of years ago, as a part of the storied Esalen archives. This one turns out to be a gem: a conversation that was recorded in 1976, not at Esalen, but at the Bel Aire School in Tiburon, California, likely recorded and preserved by Esalen archival legend Paul Herbert. This talk features two famous thinkers — psychologist Rollo May and author of the pentagon papers, Daniel Ellsberg. Their subject is good and evil.

Rollo May was a pioneering figure in American existential psychology as well being as an early teacher at Esalen institute. Earlier in life, May had been a Protestant minister and had studied with the prominent theologian Paul Tillich. By the time of this recording, he had published some of his pivotal books, including Love and Will, Power and Innocence, and The Courage to Create. In those texts he explored human beings creative possibilities and their capacity for destruction.

Daniel Ellsberg was a former Marine as well as a Harvard-trained economist who worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation and served in the Defense Department, where he helped shape nuclear war planning and American policy in Vietnam. He rose to great prominence in 1971 when he provided the Pentagon Papers to the press, where he exploded the classified history of American involvement in the war. He faced charges carrying a possible sentence of 115 years; the case was dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct.

So when these two men met in 1976 at the time of this talk, the Vietnam war had only been over for one year. Ellsberg’s prosecution was only a few years behind him. Rollo May had recently published a book on creative courage.

Listening today, we might keep those lives in mind as we encounter a world that remains as difficult, and full of urgent moral themes, as ever.