Esalen workshop leaders have paved the way for broad cultural acceptance of meditation, yoga, body-based psychotherapy, lifelong experiential learning, and the pursuit of personal and social transformation. Luminaries and cutting-edge change agents from all over the world come to teach, inspire, and pass on their individual work. They are creators and weavers of magic.

Are you an innovative and dynamic teacher? Does your work align with Esalen’s mission? Take a moment to read through the Esalen Journal to see if your work is kin with ours. If it is, we’d love to meet you.

Esalen is a precious space, and we curate our workshops rigorously. Your proposal is the most effective tool for telling us about yourself, the work you do in the world, and how you’d translate that into an Esalen workshop.

We consider proposals on a rolling basis for both weekend (3-day) and weekday (5-day) workshops and conferences, and occasionally for longer formats.

Proposals are reviewed for a number of factors including mission alignment for personal and social change; subject relevance and uniqueness; the presenter's experience, exposure, and expertise; and space availability. Experienced presenters are encouraged to treat Esalen as a laboratory where they can push their (and learners’) boundaries, and those newer to teaching can use it as an opportunity to hone in on their passions and clarify their thinking. 

We are deeply committed to diversity, justice, and equitable inclusion, and are always looking to elevate the work of presenters who are speaking to the collective good but may not have had their chance to shine yet. 

Please read our FAQ for workshop leaders, and submit your best proposals using the link below. We are not able to accept every proposal, nor can we follow up with each applicant to inform them of their status. If we’d like to explore your proposal further and consider scheduling it, our team will contact you.

Past Faculty

Philosophers, artists, theologians, writers, scientists, musicians, psychologists — they all help us expand our understanding of who we are, and Esalen has been informed and shaped by all of them. Early leaders like Ansel Adams, Timothy Leary, Gia-fu Feng, Virginia Satir, B.F. Skinner, and Buckminster Fuller. Scholars-in-residence Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, and Stanislav Grof. Workshop instructors Susan Sontag, Ray Bradbury, Moshé Feldenkrais, Ken Kesey, and Aldous Huxley. An Esalen faculty list doubles as a list of some of the most transformative luminaries of the 20th century.

All faculty