Want to find yourself? Simple, do a daily examination of conscience, daily spiritual exercise and look in the mirror, it doesn't cost a dime...plus
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if thee is anything of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8
33
If Ben The Savior decided Gazebo was just “childcare,” then why not include it in The Plan to further “scale the impact” of Esalen? Why Adults would ignore Youths when planning for the future, if any, baffles me. Why shed your clothes and dance, if not to return to some unadulterated bungalow in your mind? I remember Esalen fondly as a place for Family, and it’s difficult to imagine this beautiful place can no longer be troubled with caring for Esalen children, no matter how dwindling. I suspect the sulfur enriching the hot springs is next to get the Chairman’s axe.
20
Some people live their life by emotions, some people live their lives by logic. Think about it.
3
Another delightful snarky hit piece from the nytimes about us wacky upscale climbing California gentry getting in touch with our home state. Gold Rushes have always been pivotal cycles in our history from the ‘49ers: the exorbitant year round rich crop farms, post WW2 aerospace industries, hippies, timber, fisheries, oil, Hollywood film and venture investment industries. Silicon Valley creativity has produced millions of jobs here and worldwide. Apparently NY has invented some pretty wacky cults too from Joseph Smith to Donald Trump but we still love ya.
13
Soul in Silicone Valley?? Really?
8
Alert! These people are looking for love in all the wrong places. Man-made religions and religious quality experiences always fall short. To find your soul, look to the God of the Bible. He does not tell you to look to self (inner or outwardly) for satisfaction, but to the Saviour of the world, who is Jesus Christ. I pray people look at this retreat for what it is, a man-made attempt to find salvation inside of self. Do not try that. Try Galations 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ.....
10
They should teach that yoga pose where Facebook and Google execs can yank their heads out of you-know-where - to see damage done to democracy and civilization by their sell-their-ads-to highest bidder and enabling fake news.
48
Nothing new here. Just news from the 60's LSD Folks repeating. The only one missing is Timothy Leary.
3
It just proves that when you won't worship the one true God of the Bible that you won't worship nothing, you'll worship anything. The sum of that equation is idolatry.
5
What soul? They're just hypocritical dopamine pushers.
11
It's a shame these weirdos wield so much power. God help us.
10
These people need to find a hobby
13
It is clear that Ms. Bowles is a victim of her childhood and hired PR representative for Esalen Institute.
Never I have a read so much opinion presented as fact.
It's pointless to list all the flaws in the article. Silicon Valley has no soul the only goals are wealth and power.
As she says in her article "Tech's Long Shadow in Silicon Valley", she started out as a party reporter, and this article is proof that she has learned her craft.
I cannot believe that the NYTimes is giving so much ink to a reporter of so little talent. Accept for her clear ability to take dictation,she lacks all the basic skills necessary to do her job.
Both articles are an embaressement.
Gene
8
In the 1968 photo of the "nude group therapy session" (accompanying this article) it looks to be none other than Woody Allen taking part.
3
Although always highly self-indulgent, this is a new low. Stressed out wealthy techies wanting to pamper themselves in the midst of their self-absorbed lives. Maybe if they did some volunteer work for a while they would find something of value, or at least gain some perspective on their lives.
45
And then they found out they have no soul, that is why they went into technology.
4
Oh, good Gawd. *rolls eyes*
11
A bunch of godless fools attempting to 'get in touch' with themselves. Pathetic and sad.
5
Bitter jealousy is strong in the comment section. Keep in mind the moral subjectivism you live, love and promote created and maintains the Silicon Valley oligarchy you secretly wish was you.
10
what a bunch of fruitcakes! Get a life!
2
What a bunch of drivel. I wish they had the military draft again. These over-indulged twerps could've benefitted from a few years of military discipline and then maybe they'd be able to find themselves.
2
Wasn't the child raper DonHenley a fan of this place?
Also stop with your anti-Hindu cultural appropriation, Gulf Muslim owned NYT, there is nothing tantric about these bozos. What they do, has as much to do with India, as Yoga Pants (Barf).
2
Boy liberals sure are wacked
2
What a misleading article, and the commenters have all taken the bait. The workshop described is just one out of hundreds offered during the year. A quick perusal of the catalog shows the same yoga, meditation, massage, personal growth, art, music, movement workshops that it always had. And while not cheap, the prices in standard housing are not through the roof, and one can go relatively on the cheap if s/he's willing to sleep on the floor in a program room. Same as it ever was.
17
According to this article, Silicon valley's elite, long devoid of functioning morality centers in their brain, are learning such mind-blowing facts as:
Interpersonal dynamics are complicated!
People are fallible!
Other human beings should be treated with deference and respect!
Morality is incredibly tricky (and also incredibly important)!
Gosh, where can an average Joe learn such Earth-shattering truths? Oh yeah, that's right! A *basic* university-level humanities education revolves around those central tenets. Anybody with a bachelor's degree in English Lit. or Philosophy not only knows these things, but on some level integrates them into their day-to-day decision-making and interactions.
But Silicon Valley and other sectors of our economy have derided the humanities, likely because their value isn't easily quantified in terms of dollar signs. Such insanely narrow-minded thinking, really. It boggles the mind.
I hope this means that a shift is starting to happen. I really do.
But also, maybe instead of spending piles of money on a retreat in Big Sur, people in tech could start to open their ears to the humanities a little more. We have basically been screaming "this is really problematic!" from day one.
14
So glad I came across this article. I was seriously considering attending Esalen for a weeklong meditation retreat in the next couple of months. After reading this, I'm steering very clear of it. Definitely don't want to spend an entire week with Silicon Valley "leaders" trying to "find their souls." #hardpass
9
The journalist must have had so much fun recycling every single cliche about selfish tech executives. No, Silicon Valley doesn't go to Esalen to mend its soul. It goes there because it is beautiful and the programs are super interesting. And yes, many execs are smart enough to know experiences matter more than "stuff". Are they to blame for that?
7
This article is absolutely nauseating to read. Let’s bus some of the people living in camps under the Bay Area freeways — many are casualties of the seismic changes tech products and services unleashed on the state— out to this facility. Paying guests at the retreat can then help staff groom, bathe, house, feed, and even counsel or educate these people and can give them clean clothing from their own suitcases.
See what that experience does for your “souls.”
154
This is just a troll thing, right? Because not even SV tech people--clearly the most willfully oblivious people on planet Earth--can be oblivious enough to miss the dreary irony of attempting to buy themselves a social consciousness for 3K per weekend. Right???
18
letʻs put on a humble pie but really this is now just another silicon valley cantina. And these people will never not not be out-instgrammed. it doesn't come cheap but thats what beautiful beloved things are made for in 2017. American Carnage.
5
Read this fairy tale before: Eventually a little boy show up and asks his mother why all of the grown ups are naked.
3
Smart move on Esalen's part, now that Trump has made their services affordable to only business people.
7
Sheesh. What these first-world people have to worry about astounds me. "Finding themselves"? Really? They could go to a lot of places in the world where "finding a meal" is what's the priority. Good lord, you people are rich and comfy, but that's not enough. You're still empty? 'Scuse me while I shed a tear.
20
They ruined San Francisco and Burning Man, and now they're coming to "teach: at Esalen? Teach what?!!! This is nothing more than opportunism -- for brogrammers and tech leaders to reposition themselves as a soulful citizens instead of a greedy rich kids. Please God, do you have no mercy?
55
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Really? “It’s about putting Silicon Valley back in their bodies.” Oh my God, there were so many precious quotes in this story I don't know where to begin. Kudos to Nellie Bowles for keeping it straight because I'm not sure I wouldn't have choked on my granola and kambucha.
28
Esalen was always goofy. It's still goofy but has now added an extra ingredient -- greed. Goofiness and Greed make Make America Great again...
11
This author should read The Dance of the Wu Li Masters to get a better idea of Essalen’s history. No mention of all of the intellectuals, scientists, innovative thinkers who met there!
11
I completely agree with you. The term “Mind-body” was created here along with Gestalt therapy. This barely scratches the surface of all the truly innovative therapeutic minds that have passed through Esalen. I have been there many times over the past 23 years and I have always enjoyed the intersection of minds that I meet and interact with during our times at Esalen. The last time my course was filled with tech people, some of whom were acting as if they were at a resort rather than a place of retreat, revitalization and learning. They probably really need to be there but they were not really interested in the rest of us. I hope that this is changing because the power of Esalen is the idea of being interconnected with the world and not just the tech world. I love all of my time at Esalen and long to visit again.
16
This appears to be another attempt to fill a God-shaped hole in our hearts. Some of us do it with alcohol or drugs, some try to fill it by acquiring more money or fame. Some try to fill it with nature or "finding our inner self". But there is only one shape that will fill the God-shaped hole.
14
Having a magical invisible friend may make YOU feel better, but that doesn't mean he is real or help you solve your problems.
11
Exactly. I actually pity these lost souls... . Why worship the creation when we can worship the Creator?
1
Maybe there's a 'never the twain shall meet' conundrum here: Esalen has always been pretty crunchy, and the Valley (we living closer to Los Angeles think of a different 'valley' first) is still somewhat nerdstruck. Probably not a good match -- too bad for Esalen.
I do prefer the places out here in California where you can be naked, by yourself, for $0, and not at one in the morning --
As long as we're on the subject, I'll linger a little more: I think that while many medical practitioners are talented butchers, Silicon Valley types are intelligent gadget designers -- why everyone pays so much for this, I haven't divined...
3
The lead photograph looks like a New Yorker cartoon. Seemingly blind, lost, the participants wander in their cocoons of money, power and self absorption. Camels and needles and all that. I wish them well.
12
"his plan is to aim programs at top executives" of course - that's where the money is!
4
This person I see before me is a millionaire just like me. This person I see before me eats for the experience of food. This person I see before me may never know what it is like to struggle for basic needs. This person before me thinks that preschool is where we store our children while we are networking our brains to make the next big app that will make an even bigger app.
This made me SO glad I left California!! :)
9
Esalen ruined by the ascendant materialists. What a joke.
9
These poor (not literally poor) souls. They literally have everything but are still struggling. Maybe it’s just me but the inward trauma of Silicon Valley CEOs is the kind of story that is revealing in that it confirms we are definitely living in a Gilded Age divorced from reality. My family has struggled to purchase basic medications for serious conditions, including mental health.
The idea of going on a retreat somewhere to find inward happiness can only exist in a society where wealthy inequality is so vast that the vast majority of the population couldn’t even imagine it, let alone afford to stay anywhere near that zip code. The retreat is literally that, not self-discovery but rather a more intense dive into fantasy life.
Literally go to any town 20,000 people or less, and experience the dull, mind-numbing reality of work, where you spend most of life with no real freedom or autonomy and struggle to support just a basic existence.
Go there and explain the existential crisis of CEOs over the fact their app failed to change the world. Their response would likely be “um, but you have enough money for good healthcare, education, housing, and have autonomy at work?” CEO: Yes, but I couldn’t be a disruptor, all I’m left with is money, security, and safety.”
Does anyone else think this is completely delusional and so divorced from reality that it reflects poorly on NYTimes to even cover a story about the inner trauma of the 1%? I think it’s psychotic.
32
I have read a lot of depressing news stories lately, but this one may be the worst. I always wanted to go there. No longer.
14
Thought of Ben Gibbard's song Bixby Canyon Bridge, chronicling him recreating Jack Kerouac's "Big Sur:"
And I want to know my fate
If I keep up this way
And it's hard to want to stay awake
When everyone you need, they all seem to be asleep
And you wonder if you missed your dream
And then it started getting dark
I truged back to where the car was parked
No closer to any kind of truth
3
This is plainly embarrassing, at best.
The human potential movement that was Esalen is now rehab for techies with Teslas.
Give us a break.
Fiddling while Rome burns is another way of putting it.
17
Wrong. Esalen did not popularize yoga. It was very late in adopting it. It introduced feel-good massage (what hotel in the world does not offer it now?). It has its own cultural demons — partucularly the “weekend workshop” in which implies you can change your life in two days. So American. So foolish. I had been a constant visitor (took very few workshops) since 1985, just before cofounder Dick Price died. I left CA for the EU this year, so I’d say I know Esalen pretty well. It has steadily gotten more and more corporate, as was promised, since Price’s demise. The property is stunningly beautiful. Esalen has done its job on American culture. It finished that work years ago. I left CA and my connection with Esalen behind because it is clear what it can offer anymore. As I said, its work is done. These stressed-out millionaire coders need a place to figure out what they’ve missed all these years? So be it.
6
I am a professional freelance musician. The majority of my colleagues and I work seven days a week, struggling to make a living wage in a society that fails to financially reward or even support its artists, and continues to defund arts education. While I am thrilled that Silicon Valley is newly experiencing the transformative power of music, dance, and art, I beseech the current beneficiaries of the Esalen experience to use their wealth and power to help ensure that all Americans have access to the arts. Pay professional artists appropriately for the hours they spend practicing, teaching and performing; donate money to programs that provide art, music and dance education; lobby on behalf of arts education in our public schools. In the absence of these efforts, the innumerable benefits of the arts will become yet another luxury available to the privileged few. Expanding access to the arts and arts education would truly make the world a better place: perhaps investing in that endeavor could help these troubled CEOs sleep better at night.
14
Upon reading this article I was upset that it appears Esalen is losing its own soul, and then I realized the teaching of impermanence and "who moved my cheese." We just need to attend another place that develops the soul like Tassajara Zen Center and hopefully new places with old ideals/culture opens up.
6
Nice piece of writing- " trough of warm foaming mushroom drink." Indeed.
The techies now have the unique opportunity to ruin two places through their own pre-occupation with themselves- a real city and the imaginary solution to the real one.
10
I've been going to Esalen for 40 years. I met my wife there. For me, a non-techie - it was a wonderful place of retreat and escape. Before we overdo the "mourning" of values which have died - check out the catalog. There are still many of the traditional workshops for "ordinary" people like me who found momentary peace in this magical place. If the conversation gets too submerged in talk of bitcoin, coding and IPO's , move to another table.
13
I spent so many formative years at Esalen. I recall when there was an earlier wave of change, management wanted to make the Institute into a retreat for business men and golfers back in 2000...that was resisted. I guess the storms this time have swept out the final ruminants of the holdouts (who believe that Esalen should be for everyone needing a quiet learning space) and now whats left is a new wave of thinkers who believe Esalen will be saved by tech and techies. It wont work, the techies don't have the patience to enjoy and love that land by the sea and they will be gone soon, onto the next thing, But I know Esalen, its hot waters, heartbreaking sunsets and irascible interns will shimmer on, the sage scenting its future air as it did its past.
10
With great wealth and privilege comes great responsibility. Not so with this new gilded class. Instead of studying yoga maybe a crash course in history. Namely, the contributions to society by the Carnegies, Vanderbilts, etc.
And don't forget Roosevelt's new deal.
8
Don’t forget: they were surrounded by Robber Barons. They were not the norm in their era until the voting public became the megaphone for the ideas they supported.
4
Now that the people in silicon valley are realizing that the technology they have built and worshipped may not be the force for good in the world they had imagined, they're going to teach themselves how to have inner peace about it so they can sleep at night.
20
Please. God. No.
My favorite place in the world (literally) and one of the greatest centers for exploring and expanding human potential is narrowed to *this*?
I am in mourning.
I hope I’m wrong and that this helps bring the values and visions of Esalen to the world, instead of doing to Esalen what Silicon Valley has done to the Bay Area.
30
Our thoughts exactly the same as yours.
6
Don't take the bait, Bill. Take a quick look at the catalog and you'll see that Esalen has the same range of workshops its always had. Nellie's piece is just clickbait meant to pull readership and provoke the kind of outrage we see here in the comments.
1
If participants at the new Esalen put their personal transformation toward institutional and societal transformation, it will be for the good.
5
I spent a year at Esalen 96/97. Changed my life. Went from a life in management in the arts world at the age of 46 to find out what I needed to do for the rest of my life. I did work study in the grounds and learnt from some extraordinary teachers. It is a place of extraordinary beauty, spirituality, and some challenges too. I will always remember the gym in a small house that overlooked the ocean.. I would play Faure's requim and other classical pieces full blast while I worked out, watch the sun go down over that magnificent coast line. The teachers I met at Esalen then took me on a journey to Naropa university Boulder, and Joan Halifax at Upaya Zen centre Santa Fe. What a year. Just seeing the photo takes me back there in my heart and soul, the rocks 20 years later are still there. Quite an emotional reconnection with Esalen. Also how wonderful are those Redwood forests. I look forward to hearing how the tech industry benefits from Esalen. What a place for some of the best minds and teachers in the world, Marion Woodman in particular.
9
I also read the author’s companion piece about how she wrote the article. She seems to miss a very big point and it comes through in the main article. She characterizes San Franciscans as lamenting a past that never really existed. I have lived here for about 27 years, and the last several have made me grow to dislike it. The San Francisco that many of us miss is not particular stores, restaurants, “hippies”, etc. It’s a spirit that we miss. We miss the artists, the quirky, the diversity. We miss the friendliness. Most of my neighbors are in the tech industry. Most of them will go out of their way not to make eye contact with us when we encounter them. These are people I’ve lived next door to for 3 or 4 years and I’ve never said hello to them. Not long ago, this was a neighborhood and we all enjoyed our pleasantries and interactions. It’s bland, sad and cold now, as is much of the city. There’s also an aggressiveness in the city that wasn’t there before. I suppose with so many type A “masters of the universe” types who live their lives through a device living here, the basic rules of human interaction don’t apply to them. I don’t expect much out of Silicon Valley, because at the end of the day, it’s all about the almighty buck for them, not inspiring sentiment. Oh, and it’s about “disruption” too.
72
I've spent 7 blissful weeks over the past 8 years at Esalen, in 'songwriting from the heart' workshops. I was a tech industry startup junkie for 15 years before discovering that ones and zeros are not the essence, the bread of life. Colors, and tastes, and smells and art and music and conversation are. I shudder at the thought of Esalen now becoming a "Bohemian Grove" for tech industry strivers.
14
Reservations about reservations: I'm about to go and work at Esalen. It's a big change. I'm moving there from two years' + service at a small, monastic-oriented retreat center that charges a fraction of Esalen's fees; and before I went to check out Esalen and interview there, I had my reservations, particularly about that 'by reservation only' sign! But, to my surprise, the spiritual sincerity of the place, its management and its staff really touched me. I am convinced something spiritually 'for real' is happening at Esalen and am excited to be part of it. (And I came to see there's a practical necessity behind that infamous sign; it supports the contemplative atmosphere needed for inner work, by stopping casual visits from the large volume of tourists traveling down the 1.)
Question: what's wrong with people doing workshop exercises couched in language that speaks to them, if it helps them learn that lesson common to all wisdom traditions that behind every pair of eyes there is a living, breathing, somehow-vulnerable, being? Such exercises can give people a felt sense of the deep truth that we ALL suffer and we are all deserving of and in need of spiritual care and healing, yes, even the rich and privileged. And how about Esalen director's idea that providing spiritual nourishment to the wealthy and powerful might help shape the structures of our society for the better? Doesn't sound so woo woo, pretentious or superficial to me. Give the place a chance.
5
Though your email appears genuine I would suggest that you not post on any social media comments about your employer, especially with your actual identity revealed. No matter how seemingly benign, interpretations by others cannot be controlled and your comments will very likely elicit negative feedback which the employer may well feel they have to respond to and that will impact you, negatively, and it will cost you. I can think of one way the comment crowd could quite negatively respond to your post and it would not be pleasant. This is a genuine effort to be collegial to you and prevent unnecessary future distress on your part.
1
The problem is that they need to be told, in a ridiculously coddled atmosphere, what is plainly obvious to most people? That other people have emotions and feel pain? I’m familiar with Esalan and it is a deeply ridiculous place. Guests are basically spending 3g/weekend to be told the sky is blue, bread tastes good, water is wet, etc. But the view is nice and the whole place is built to flatter the guests, about how wise and special they for experiencing such a unique place, where they listen to bad music, dance poorly, and walk in circles outside. I look forward to this article being adapted into an episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley.
1
Sure, it had that counterculture vibe, but characterizing Esalen merely as a "hippie hotel" is shoddy journalism. The reporter gives no hint of Esalen's rich intellectual/cultural history; with instructor alumni such as Gregory Bateson, Ida Rolf, and numerous other giants of the humanities and sciences.
If the remainder of Nellie Bowles reporting is accurate, Esalen is now little more than a "techie resort with workshops" for people with vague anxieties about their difficult affluence. Too bad that the BoD only cared about the financial bottom line and hired a CEO whose background and marketing strategy can deliver mostly that.
Had Esalen management cared to honor their philosophical mission in its new incarnation they would have dispensed with the wifi, installed cell-phone blockers for most of the property and made these key features of the self-examination journey for these harried souls. That would accomplish much more than any of the workshops described, and would likely keep away more than half of Esalen's new target market.
44
If they want to know if they are doing the right thing, have them mix with us regular people so we can ask them if they think selling our personal information(with non-existent transparency) is ethical.
51
This won't do. You don't have any fresh bread, massages, or juice bars. Also you haven't talked about how you common sense ideas will scale. Better to write it down in an elevator pitch.
Great lead photo, except it looks like the caption should read something like:
“Patients wandering the lawns of the Esalen Asylum for the Criminally Insane”
What makes anyone think Sillicon Valley has a soul? If the wreckage of large swaths of the Bay Area left in its wake is any indication, that soul, if any, may not be worth getting in touch with.
28
Everyone in the photo is wearing some combination of black or grey clothing. Where are the vibrant colors?
I can only suggest:
Going out and helping the homeless.
Paying the lowest paid people who work in your businesses
far more than they make now.
The nearly $ 3,000 that paid for a weekend of - dare I say it -
self indulging - could be given to the poor
which would do you and them a lot more good.
78
To paraphrase Jesus, “Let the rich indulge in wealth and self-selected segregation because heaven loves the disruptor. Let the rich man find wisdom sequestered from everyone making less than 500k, and allow the seeker of peace, wisdom, tranquility to remain cut off from the poor and exposure to those on the outside beat down by bad jobs, bad wages, nominal freedom at best and never at work. And let that beloved app creator remain distant from the carnage of the corporation, the great beast that has fed on carcasses of countries, stripping it of everything, so that the CEO can find peace. He shall not learn of the outside, that horrible place where a third of the country lives in poverty, and where three men have as much wealth as 150,000,000 people. It is not fair but the kingdom of heaven like Elysium is for the rich because...who knows, probably God’s mystery or something, maybe a Zen Koan but more likely it that higher power, not God, but the God of Gods: $.
3
You need reprogramming. And for a mere $3,000 it can be done in a weekend at Esalen.
2
This article depressed me. Am I supposed to feel sorry for wealthy millionaires that can't connect to their soul? The CEOs are "hurting?" Give me a break. Why not try reaching into the community, going to church, volunteering at the local homeless shelter, substitute teaching at the inner-city school, becoming a Big Brother or Sister? Those are things that will make the world a better place. It sickens me to think that the one place I could go, that was affordable, to spend some quality time in contemplation has now become a spa for the rich. Not only tech executives have lost their soul, so has Esalen.
55
Me too. Somehow, they managed to take this raw beauty - a place for spiritual seekers and make it bland, sterile, really boring! No authenticity at all. That is really, really sad. Doesn't seem to have much joy there now.
1
Having been to Esalen twice and know it’s storied history, I find this article superficial and inaccurate.
My feeling is that the new Esalen may be designed to increase the institute’s tech founder’s wealth while trying to convince their clientele that a retreat is a “cool, sort of spiritual thing to try so that they can sleep better with their billions at night - as if they ever didn’t.
The problem for them is that, ".... reaching into the community, going to church, volunteering at the local homeless shelter, substitute teaching at the inner-city school, becoming a Big Brother or Sister.." doesn't come with a view of the Pacific Ocean.
2
Would the quality of your life, relationships, and personal productivity go up, and your stress go down, if you had more uninterrupted, peaceful time and space to really reflect, plan, strategize and organize new ideas and solutions? Am I the only one wishing for more time to think, read a book, draw, reflect, ponder, do breath count and create? " Maybe it’s time to plan for a daily or weekly Monk Mode" was First Published on Linked-In on November 15, 2013 as my offering of guided introspection. I think Esalen offers similar pathways to insight and meaning, yet many people seek the courage to follow their hearts and souls.
2
Am I the only one wishing for more time to think, read a book, draw, reflect, ponder, do breath count and create? "
do you think you could be? Come on.......you know the answer, so now ask a real question: Who is this? The great matter is already inside you, waiting to be found.
They could try reading www.gratefulness.org
Each morning and starting Daily Gratitude Journals instead.
1
"Make the world a better place?" I just finished reading about the humanitarian crises in Chad and Yemen, never mind everywhere else. Do you really think that bread and yoga are going to assuage the world ? Jesus. Divert the money to Doctors without Borders. You're trying the save yourselves by fiddling while the world burns around you. Get real.
40
Great article. There is actually something questionable and offensive in just about every paragraph. It has been pricey and exclusive for years. Lost decades ago the freedom, excitement, challenge and explorational beauty that is evidenced by the photo from 1968. Now another playground for the rich, and deliberately and targeted so. To do what? So they can talk to themselves, put on an individual and group hand-wringing persona piece of performance art, network, and make more plans to make even more money.
30
Sorry, but as I read this I'm trying hard to keep from vomiting. Are they doing the right thing for humanity? Um...No. Producing gross concentrations of wealth and deep economic inequality is not the right thing for humanity. No need to go to the spa to figure that out.
41
What is the bald gentleman in the lead photo holding in his left hand as he looks down? A mobile screen, perhaps?
9
Once again we have to face the fact that financial success is often coupled with moral failure.
JD
16
I see folks in the comments are upset because Eselan “sold out” or “corporatized”. And, “monetizing everything is what is wrong with America.” But, Americans - the kind that presumably understand the “true value” of Eselan - stopped going. It was the “hippies” and other like-minded folks that let Eselan die. And now these same people are upset that Silicon Valley swooped in to revive the carcass. Silicon Valley is not the problem. The problem is lack of civil engagement (including voting with your wallet) by everyday Americans, a defeatist attitude, and willingness to manufacture a villain instead of putting in the work of being an informed and engaged citizen. For the record - I am sad about this. I share a like-mind with the hippies. But, there is too much fingering pointing right now in the US and not enough self reflection. It’s people like me that kept punting their Eselan trip until next year that share blame in this.
4
"A weekend stay for a couple at Esalen can cost $2,890."
Enough said. Drop mike.
2
The real world is three-dimensional and we have four senses in addition to sight - touch, taste, hearing and smell. Check it out.
4
"A weekend stay for a couple at Esalen can cost $2,890."
I attended the university that is the birthplace of Silicon Valley (Stanford). Articles like this one make me feel ashamed for the self-indulgent attitude that permeates so much of the tech industry and its inhabitants. Even a storied retreat has become sullied by the obtuse self-absorbed mindset of the digerati. I guess the rest of us will just have to take a "mindful" walk in the woods.
42
The image of someone on a laptop at Esalen is enough to make me shudder...
19
Dear NYT,
Regarding the author - and much of the content - of the recent article about Esalen Institute, it seems that there is no there there. Esalen was the brain child of Richard Price and Michael Murphy, both Stanford undergraduates, who never met until Price had studied Psychology at Harvard under Talcott Parsons and experienced a psychotic break, while Murphy was experiencing time at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India. Both met at the East-West house, a flop house where, among others, President Chester Arthur's grandson lived. No 'hippie hotel,' a non sequitor if ever there was one.
Esalen was given a true boost by Aldus Huxley - a relative of Charles Darwin - who was intrigued by 'human potential,' the ultimate 'tag' on the cornucopia of offerings that Esalen did, and does provide to those interested in anything beyond their net worth or their cell phone.
While Price was killed by a falling boulder, and Murphy put others in charge, Esalen remains a time-honored destination for any and all who wish to ponder their place in a world of contradiction and confusion.
Should anyone wish to learn more about Hunter S Thompson guarding the baths, or the roles played in the Institute's evolution of Frederic Speigelberg, Joan Baez, Jo Hudson, Dennis Murphy, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, or even that of Henry Miller, go read Aquarius Revisited.
12
The very last vestige of the Sixties ethos has been stamped out. Now no one can learn what it was all about or what it felt like.
For a couple of decades more, the Sixties will live on in individual private memories, but soon, that too will be gone.
The Revolution has been devoured by the Establishment.
5
not in my body and mind it hasn't. and that's the way it always has been. we old hippies are not "history," we're still doing what we always did. we're just quieter and more real, two of the pleasures of aging.
5
You are correct sayitstr8..lol..I married one of those old hippies that put his time in the 'Old Big Sur" .We still have old friends there..Like he says "You can never make "new" old friends..
I guess I'll cross it off my list of places that I wanted to go but that have become too expensive. Everything within a few hours drive of SF and Silicon Valley that was affordable 5 years ago is totally unaffordable now. I wonder how many Esalen attendees are able to expense their weekend retreats? Hopefully, the mindulness trend will pass and those of us who make mindfulness a lifestyle will be able to afford to go on retreats again.
22
I think this is actually amazing. If our current generation's wealthiest and most "successful" are reflecting on their actions, that's a big step forward for our country. Could anyone imagine the corporate raiders and traders of the 80's and 90's doing this?
Most of the people I know in tech were at one point just your garden variety high achievers from high school - many the children of 1st generation immigrants. If being surrounded by a non-judgmental group of their peers makes them feel more comfortable, so be it.
As long as they realize two things at the end: 1) eventually they need to engage with the broader community, and 2) realize their journey is no different than the one so many others in this country are taking (in their churches, homes, schools, etc.)
4
I know that area well, and have been going there occasionally since growing up in Silicon Valley in the 1960's. Silicon Valley people won't find their souls there. Everything in Big Sur that includes food and accommodations is overpriced, designed to flatter and soothe the suckers.
If Silicon Valley geeks want to find their souls, they need to take multiday hiking and camping trips in the surrounding redwood tree mountains. Or maybe find a secluded cove along that coast along with a mate, take off their clothes, and plunge in and out of the icy ocean.
The ones in that photo want to see and be seen. For $400 a night, and mostly just on weekends.
23
You want to go on a retreat: just stay home (or, if you have people living with you, go to a cheap motel room), turn off your router and phone.
3
i donated funds to esalen after the mudslides because i was afraid the dire financial straights would force the organization to bow to silicon valley, and lo that seems to have come to pass. while this article makes the transition appear very dramatic, the changes were afoot for years. the tech industry was drawn to esalen for its connections to the old school human potential / humanistic psychology movement that esalen is known for. but if they now own the space, what is stopping them from appropriating and commercializing the ideas its known for? i'm afraid this is very sad news.
18
Or you can go to big sur campground for the weekend....
22
don't tell them.
1
This is the single most spiritually uplifting article about Silicon Valley to appear in the Times since its piece on Burning Man. (/sarcasm)
14
You cannot get in touch with that which you do not have.
51
Take my word for it. Come Monday it'll be business as usual. in this soul-murdering valley of excess, entitlement and superficiality.
38
these people that led the same companies that have lied and moaned about STEM shortage and promptly replaced US citizens with millions of H1Bs and H4s and F1/OPTs and L-1s.
come on NYTIMEs, stop it.
these are greedy people just like the robber barons. you have participated in the take down of the US middle class by perpetuating this myth of the STEM shortage.
maybe if they hired their own neighbor's kids rather than children exported from cultures half way around the planet?
maybe then they could find peace because at least they did what Henry Ford did many years before, hired their own people.
41
You tell 'em.
3
Argh. I love Esalen.
It was already bougie and expensive, and I guess after the highway collapsed they needed to regain lost income.
But still. Too much. Rich ppl ruin everything.
30
totally agree
1
I guess you aren’t among the rich.
Get in touch with reality. Really. I am all for yoga and meditation and relaxation. It works. But you folks are operating in the 10%. You want to get real? Get a JOB. Work at minimum wage and then show those folks how to unwind and reflect and get in touch with themselves. Share just a bit with people who labor. Such sweet tenderness and sweetness to yourselves is so, so, so .... precious.
27
I'm glad I got to visit this amazing place before this.
Will they hold a workshop to help heal the executives' consciences for ruining Esalen?
27
I can only imagine e the price tag...
1
It is a shameful disgrace that Esalen's nonprofit board has chosen to morph from a retreat space for many to an elitist center for tech executives. As a nonprofit, esalen must give away some of its offerings. Their scholarship assistance used to make it possible for non-high-income humans to go there.
Now, it seems, only the fat income people of technology are welcome.
And to put a former Google exec in charge says it all and what it says is creepy.
39
A better retreat for the people who have helped foment a housing crisis would be a blue tent under the freeway. There they could reflect on the "hurting" they caused and continue to cause others with their profligate lifestyle and reactionary politics.
57
Beautiful and spot-on.
1
Everything old is new again. The biggest buzz about Esalen, aside from all the Be It type talk, was that they wouldn't let people use the bathroom during a session, and many of those lasted a work day's length.
Maybe these folks should just disconnect all their tech toys when they're not at work and do what a lot of Silicon Valley gurus do - refuse to let their own children have computers and I phones until they are teen agers.
3
This will be grist for one of the lighter Black Mirror episodes at some point.
8
I know whereof I speak. This article has so many factual errors and distortions that they almost seem intentional...
Would be a very helpful contribution to all of us, those familiar with Esalen and those not familiar, if you would describe the inaccuracies and correct them. Thanking you in advance, I hope you will do that.
2
"Mr. Kalayjian was an early Google employee and Google chef, but “once the I.P.O. happened it was less fun,” he said. Now he’s an Esalen baker and masseuse."
He is a man, he cannot be a masseuse. He is a masseur.
21
How is this nothing more than catering to the new elite, born out of technology? Of course, these individuals feel empty, what they create isn't real. But turning Esalen into a retreat for those newly minted millionaires, that's just not what it was ever about. How can you connect to something that is designed to cater to those who continue to shift the culture away from "everyday people" to one that is only suitable for the ultra-wealthy? Is enlightenment only reached after you've made your billions and can now "walk away" or "quit your life?" Who is going to stop their pursuit of wealth when it can so easily be had?
25
Why are there no mental health professionals who have dedicated their careers and often lives to healing, bringing insight and relief to the mentally and spiritually troubled. Why would you have Silicon Valley techies trying out their amateur hour therapy when they could have mental health leaders to guide them in the process? I find it all more than a bit strange and insular.
15
If the professionals cannot help the mentally ill, yet alone diagnose them, why would the techies be any better at it? I really question the ability to help the truly, truly mentally ill. Yeah, you can help those who are still somewhat "normal" (try to get those mental health professionals to define 'normal' and watch them skip around that maypole). Right now, psychiatry and psychology are in the middle of a bit of crisis. Other than some drugs, we can handle things like depression but it is all dependent on the patient taking the prescribed drugs--good luck on that. We cannot find those in our society until they have acted, e.g., the shooter in Las Vegas, the guy who shot up the church in Texas. All we can manage is a guess but that doesn't really help society.
Because therapists recognize that the self-involved navel-gazing of the 1% is no place for a self-respecting professional. Esalen became an embarrassing seeker's conceit years ago.
5
The physical beauty of that coastline is enough to overwhelm your senses. It seems freedom of expression, being and evolving has always occupied the area. There is so much stress in this country that yes, of course, business leaders need to find their humanity.
1
these people need to join their local notary club and be apart of something greater then themselves. once they figure out that service to others is the path to happiness, they will start to feel happy. and they get to keep their super expensive cars without feeling guilty.
8
They will struggle for their souls until they start donating their time - weekly - at homeless shelters, orphanages, indigent hospitals and where the other 99% live and suffer. Only in serving others can they see how they were only serving themselves. Redemption lies there in plain sight. And it's free.
36
These executives would stand a much better chance of finding their inner soul if they volunteered at a homeless shelter in San Francisco or San Jose.
63
I suspect these overpaid tech geeks could achieve more self-reflection if they skipped Esalen, yoga and the guided meditation classes and did what the rest of us who love Big Sur do - wander the coves of Pacific Valley, sit alone in the redwood groves and stop to inhale the mingled scents of California bay, sage and wild fennel. It's vastly cheaper and usually clears the mind quite nicely.
29
Here's a few thoughts to these "hurting" individuals:
-Actually power down your phone(s) for one day maybe more
-Do not check your emails as well via a computer or tablet for that same day
-Have a lengthy conversation with someone in your life about anything other than tech or yourself.
-Consider reading a book and focusing on something other than your "hurting self"
-Maybe for that one day volunteer in a soup kitchen or a animal rescue clinic.
I would wage that getting "out of your head" even for one day would assist in a new perspective in which there is the realization of how fortunate they are.
-
-
10
The plutocrats and oligarchs of the digital revolution have directed their attention, and their money, to Esalen. Maybe they'll find salvation for themselves. For sure, real estate values in Big Sur will be going up. As another poster here observed, Facebook has created a service for kids thirteen and under, even as Esalen has shut down their own facility for area children.
4
I vividly remember the John Lilly workshops in early 1970s where everyone dropped acid. Those were the days...
3
I stopped going to Esalen when they put in wi-fi.
It would appear I made the right decision.
Esalen used to have integrity before it became a kombucha bar for the billionaire set.
47
These Silicon Valley folks want to find their inner souls, they should skip the expensive resorts where they hang out with their own kind. It'd do them some good to instead spend some time in a small city living like those making less than $50k live, and they may come away with a new appreciation for what they have. And knowing they can always go back to Silicon Valley when they find their souls would presumably make it easier to focus on finding those lost souls. As a bonus, they may return to silicon valley with new ideas for inventions that people can actually use.
There, I solved Silicon Valley's crisis and no one had to spend weeks at some pricey retreat! You're welcome!
30
PS it's actually not pricey and quite simple :)
Cell phones, internet, smart phones, I-everything whatever, it's here and it's not going away. Even old geezers have learned how to tweet.
Now, meanwhile, we have this thing called the human being. The Seven Deadly Sins were defined a long time ago. And then there is Greed, the worst sin of all in my view. For the Silicon Valley and all other would be multi-millionaires, what are the chances they will beat back Greed. If in particular the Silicon people are so smart, and so aware that Greed is what will destroy them, I'd love to hear some proposals. Open invitation extended for submissions.
4
Actually there is no cell service...
What is left for wealthy Valley techies to do but check themselves into a brutal rehab of sensory denial? Sadly, the statistics indicate that few will ever find the strength, humility and average means to rejoin humanity as regular individuals.
9
"It will be a home for technologists to reckon with what they have built."
If this isn't satire, then it should be.
85
Is this Season 8 of Mad Men? Don Draper has aged quite well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3086707/Pictured-Big-Sur-retreat...
4
This is the perfect apotheosis of Esalen. People may think it's incongruous, but it's not really at all. There's a significant part of the '60s so-called Counter-Culture (which covers a varied terrain, to be sure) that didn't really how much it was an acceleration of consumer capitalism, not a repudiation of it. Esalen was so not a serious commune, but underneath all the surface stuff turning into a Temple of Self. That's why it made the pitch-perfect ending to Mad Men.
11
While it got so so reviews in London, the new play "Against" by Christopher Shinn with Ben Whishaw at the Almeida Theatre would be great for all these Esalen folks to see. Good mirror to the limitations of changing the world. hubris.
2
these techno addicts are persons too regardless of their current reputation for being otherwise, so let Esalen heal them, if it can, which it cannot, because Esalen is pretty but silly, as it has always been. In fact, though one is happy to see Esalen recover from disaster, one doubts Esalen really exists at all except as a vanity project.
8
Many thanks, New York, for the snobbery and condescension that oozes from every sentence. There was a time, long ago, when New York had good reasons to be snobbish and condescending, but that time is past. Our current president, to take one example, is a product of -- remind me again where? If I have to choose between California neuroses and New York neuroses, I know which side I am on.
12
Big Sur was indeed a land, once upon a time, that nourished people not because they brought money, but because they brought their spirits and survived. 150 years ago my ancestors lived in Big Sur and survived on the land because they were resilient and resourceful and the land was the source of an incredible love for that land as it gave them life. Chop wood, carry water and help your neighbors survive and then you can call Big Sur your home. Everything else will fade away....
16
Esalen, a huge moneymaker. Another twist on Lighthouse Forum, and EST. Break people down to build them up. Psychiatric malpractice that preys on the weak and the human.
One in 100 people there has outsized career success, and they take all the credit. This is a dangerous organization, avoid at all costs.
3
Huge money maker? You don't have a clue. But certainly an opinion.
1
I hope they teach virtual signaling and moral licensing there, in addition to the soul searching stuff.
8
Try getting involved in projects to help those less fortunate. Great way to find your soul. Even better than driving from your beautiful house in your beautiful car to a beautiful place to do beautiful things with beautiful people who are just like you.
18
Was there in the mid-seventies and met the world - granted without clothes on but that was the bottom-line purpose. Came as close to heaven as you could figure out yourself. Now you have to be covered tip-top from tip to toe and bring your laptop.
9
this level of white privilege/navel gazing is just a current iteration of what thomas frank tried to convey (sadly to deaf ears) as the reason for the rise of what came to be the tea party and the alt-right in his 2005 "what's the matter with kansas?".
these people may be good at programming gadgets and the people addicted to them, but when it comes to actually living in real world communities, they get a pretty low grade.
20
This is a deeply ignorant, unresearched "fun" piece that trades on California stereotypes and gives no sense whatever of the distinguished intellectual history of the Esalen Institute (Nellie, it was never a hippie hotel and nudity was never the norm) and its groundbreaking role in bringing together an international range of philosophers, psychologists, mathematicians, physicists, and paranormal researchers East and West to lead seminars and workshops for over 50 years. Read Jeffrey Kripal's ESALEN, published by the University of Chicago Press, if you want to know what it was all about.
54
well, nudity in the hot tubes has always been the norm. When I have been at Esalen, the hot tubs were nudist and if someone wore a suit they felt out of place. But only the hot tubs were ever nudist.
1
LOL
Esalen is an experience that can be very hard to put into words . . . but I still enjoy the hot spring hot tubs in the nude -- very refreshing that way!
1
Thank you Victoria! Great to see Professor Kripal and his encompassing book on Esalen mentioned here.
The soullessness at the heart of Silicon Valley? It's called greed. This article makes fun of rich pampered people, which is easy enough to do, and in the times we are living in, even necessary. We have a rich pampered president who appears to have no soul, and if he decided he wanted one, he'd no doubt think he could buy it, too. Yes, let's continue to laugh at these people, even as they go about their secure and self-absorbed lives, wondering what is missing that could really make them happy.
10
Pursue that happiness. I won't judge.
1
How precious. You can look into the eyes of the person across from you and chant, "This person has too much money, just like me." The self-centering center for the self.
41
I literally couldn't care less about anything this article said. Super boring. What I absolutely need to know is if this is the spot they shot the final scenes of the Mad Men finale? Looks pretty darn close. Anyone know?
1
I literally could care less about Mad Men. Do your own search, just google mad men location finale and you'll get it.
And after they will all get back into their self-driving cars so they can be on their phones again while their cars race up the scenic Pacific Coast Highway.
15
This is just sad. Everyone flees organized religion today as being "stupid," "not cool," "superstition," or just "fantasy." Tell these tech folks to pick up a book by the monk Thomas Merton, or Martin Buber, or Dietrich Bonhoffer, start from there and send the money they saved from not going to Esalen to a hospice, homeless shelter or a secure facility for abused women. Guaranteed they will feel a lot better fast, and the beneficial effects of maturing inside spiritually and helping others may even be permanent.
11
JTS, but if they do that, none of their peers, when they get back home, will admire them for their tan....
Actually, not far from Esalen is a retreat center that Merton would approve of. But millionaires can't pay me enough to tell them where it is.
I cannot roll my eyes any harder at this.
25
In many in many ways, the article does a disservice to Esalen's past and historical legacy. In its heyday it brought together serious researchers on topics like emotion and cociousness (truly serious people who did lab research) with humanists in intellectually challenging ways. It also drew on organizational development and group effectiveness. It always had stuff that was a bit silly and outward,y crazy or pretensious, but it was a place with a broad, ambitious mission and about far more than hippies, yoga and health food. The shift in m is not unlike what has happened to other humanist organizations, such as Gestalt training institutes, which has turned to the corporate sector as they have lost their influence on fields like mental health. Rather than focusing on navel having for a narrow range of corporate hacks, it might be better if they simply followed the course of their preschool and simply pulled the plug altogether.
7
How does one "get in touch" with something does one not have?
15
It's always a sensible move to minister to wealthy people, who have, most of them, created the very lives that give them so much anguish. Oh, God, the pain of it all! The rest of us will just have to muddle through, I suppose.
I am going to finish my book. The way I keep from going utterly insane is by not having a smart phone and limiting my online socializing. I don't need to spend a fortune at a high-end china cabinet for people who can't face the 21st century that they helped invent. Poor babies! Pretty soon they will wreck Big Sur, the most beautiful place in the world. (Sean Parker, I haven't forgotten your illegal wedding there.)
9
I made my trek from LA ...drove up the coast in a VW bug to Big Sur ...to Esalen in the early 70's Stayed at a lovely place with cottages in back all named.... and the best darn breakfast...it had French doors...at Esalen I got my body realigned( Rolfing) and used the salt baths on the deck in the open air looking out over the ocean. This was the era of the real hippies and a guy named Bear who seemed to be the official greeter, was there to hug you and direct you to your destination, who knows life at Esalen was very easy and you never really knew who was official or a guest...lots of drugs...which has never been my thing...Big Sur was gorgeous. I was there again in the 80s paid a lot more money for newly built suite like rooms on the side of hill overlooking the ocean...Big Sur was just as beautiful. But progress can really muck up a good thing.
10
Go where the money is, basically. Sounds like Essalen is over.
9
The best way to overcome the crisis of our self-absorbed inner selves is through serving the needs of others. "My command is this: love each other as I have loved you" - Jesus Christ
5
Hippie Hotel? Not quite. Looked into going there way back in the early 80's when lots of things were still quite affordable (and i don't mean NY Times travel section affordable, written for the 5%, who think $320 a night all inclusive in Thailand is a great deal), and this place was already way too expensive for a middle class person, let alone so called hippies.
Its worth examining in this context the use of the word Hippie. Its a fake term, a vague stereotype, based on a kind of image, (like "hipster" which means absolutely nothing b/c very few of what your lot label hipsters are actually hip)
You can buy a hipster hat at Target now, just as you could buy a paisley shirt at Robert Hall then. Anyone can get some tatoos now just as anyone could grow long hair then.
Hippie, like hipster, is a media invention to dumb down complexity. Was Manson a hippie? Was Woodstock? What you call hippies in the beginning were middle to upper middle class kids with the disposable income to buy marijuana, and the shelter from the street to grow long hair. They really did not eschew that much of their folk's value systems, the vast majority taking as many long hot water bubble baths as their 50's folks.
When the working class kids who used to beat up and ridicule hippies themselves began copying the style and behavior, Hippieism morphed into a new thing. When Capitalism got involved, it became, like all else in USA, commodified. And now you have this.
7
...if you want your soul, you'll have to write a letter to Santa and be nice for at least a year straight, like everyone else.
2
Talk about trying to close the barn door after the horses are out....where was the introspection when all the gadgets (and money) were being made?
7
Judging by the photographs, I think I know the secret ingredient that makes Esalen breads so tasty -- body perspiration. Nothing like tucking a few of those sourdough loaves under the arms to impart that special holistic flavor.
5
I'm the astrologer who was recently featured in the Times. I'm a kind of spiritual counselor who helps people ask the right questions. I'm not so big on answers, which are overrated. One thing I've observed is how few people have an inner life: that is, direct contact with their inner being. I don't know if this will help. On is face, it seems like what we learned in the last episode of Madmen, which took place at this storied institute. When I offered to teach there, they said sure, come do it for free.
2
It seems to me the essential issue for some of these folks is an outsized sense of their power and influence over the rest of us. I'm not sure how to solve that - maybe spending time outside Silicon Valley and Northern California would help - but $3000 weekends in rustic coastal splendor with a bunch of people with similar God complexes doesn't seem to be the answer.
68
It's hard to ascertain what motivated the author to so outrageously distort the cost of a weekend stay.
I'm not sure walking meditation or attending classes where someone tries to illuminate you is the answer. The technology itself is not the problem, as many are saying. People who are constantly on their phones puzzle me, as I can't imagine what they find worth doing all day long. Is it possible that there is a limit in how long someone should work in Silicon Valley? The guy who bakes bread speaks to me as I love bread and bake it too. I would love the recipe for sourdough rye. May guess is the Silicon Valley employees are longing for interpersonal satisfaction which comes from helping people in a more direct way. In other words, getting to talk, understand and be with someone might be the answer for all this angst. How about Social Work? I am a psychiatric social worker and have loved my work for many years. The pay is not as good, but I have never felt soulless.
8
Agreed. Social work could help. So would unplugging. Unfortunately Esalen now offers wifi.
1
1%er beverage of choice: Kool-Aid shaken, not stirred. Oh! And I'll have some brioche with that!
27
My heart breaks for what Esalen was. But Esalen needs cash to survive and Boomer hippies weren't giving enough. Another place for rich white people to gaze at their navels.
57
Ah, the spoils of hypocrisy!
21
The local supermarket is having a huge sale on Fruit Loops. What's the address of Esalen, I'd be happy to send them a pallet.
11
I know this article isn't supposed to be satire but I can't help but read it as such.
188
Wow. To call Esalen 'a hippie hotel' blows my mind. Esalen was so much more in its time, some of which the writer goes on to enumerate. However, ya lost me when the article dissed Esalen.
20
now i know why the prices at Esalen went from pretty darn reasonable to sky-high, if you ain't uber-wealthy, you ain't able to come... ah, well... spirit and $pirit....
31
Wait . . . Silicon Valley has a soul?
Do tell . . .
32
It doesn't.But if Sili seekers keep looking for it Esalen will have a great repeat business.This would be a good night to drive down and watch the Super moon drop into the Pacific.When we would go they would just ask for a donation to cover the cost of candles.
Never found my soul but found god.God said that the Jack Straw that night, after a Winterland show, was the best ever in 74.
The quintessential photo to depict the current People's Republic of California. People with too much time on their hands wandering around aimlessly trying to find themselves. Perfect.
34
Nothing changes, everything changes.Moving to California in 1968 to take a job offer sounded all too promising.
Oh God did I ever get a wrong number!!!
2
Love the money shot of backlit screen in communal dining room. Self absorbed seeks same blank stare into screen. This is what you in Big Sur find today.
24
Can we please, please, please stop lionizing people who use brain science to hook people on devices that sap your initiative and waste your time?
Silicon Valley is not making the world a better place. It's turning people into depressed, disconnected device addicts and building corporate cultures that re the meanest, nastiest and most sexist outside big finance.
143
Future graduates of the 'revised' Esalen beware: there is good and evil in every technology. When you sing Kum ba yah, just remember that greed always takes precedence over a Utopian philosophy.
P.S. in Jason Henry's cover photo, I love the halos above "guests practiced walking meditation on the lawn".
2
It's not really a hotel, NY Times. Nor is its mission to "help technologists", by any stretch. And, just by using the (kinda tone deaf and outdated) term "hippie", it seems pretty clear you need a second visit to get it. Yikes, dive in a little deeper next time.
14
“They wonder if they’re doing the right thing for humanity,” Mr. Tauber said. “These are questions we can only answer behind closed doors.”
Never has a comment been so hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
198
Brilliant.
2
From what I've noticed in my long life is that these groups who specialize in programs marketed to people to 'come fix themselves your soul is hurting' makes people seem more sad.
How about encouraging beauty, relaxing, and fun and not pushing the propaganda of 'you are broken we can fix you'.
24
So sad! Like everything that starts out the brainchild of "hippies" (Burning Man, San Francisco, Meditation), and now Esalen, it kills me that tech bros who are "hurting" are going to ruin this place, too. News Flash: EVERYONE is hurting. So typical of Silicon Valley to buy their way to supposed enlightenment with stuff and assume they are the only ones who suffer stress. If they had only looked into their souls prior to and during the accumulation of their wealth, then perhaps they wouldn't be hurting so much. Instead, they've inflicted hurt on the entire population of non-tech people here in Cali - esp. those in NoCal who can no longer afford to live there (they are making sure to ruin Venice here in in LA the same way). Maybe when you finish trashing Esalen you'll have understood it does no good to close the barn door after the horse escapes.
26
Not ten minutes ago I saw on the right-hand NYT scroll that Facebook has a stupendous new idea. Messenger Kids. For children under 13 to learn about all the apps and buying opportunities and fabulous services Facebook brings.
23
I saw that too, Bandy, and had essentially the same thought. Nothing will change in that realm.
Hmm... looking that first picture, perhaps there are more women in Silicon Valley than we've been led to believe?
6
this is what happens when nobody wants to sleep with their co-workers.
2
Thank goodness there is a place where people can spend thousands and thousands of dollars to "find their souls".
22
$2,890 per couple/per weekend?? Better get myself a job at Google fast. Or else, I suppose, I could take a "free to the public" dip in Esalen's hot springs at 1:00 am in the morning. LOL!
10
Open to limited number, as it should be, and not free!
Oops. As this generation would say: "My bad."
Can't say I'm surprised it's not free. Sounds more like it ....
Don't worry Tom, we'll stay away..
1
So long, Esalen, you were wonderful.
What's next - classes on tech startups, taught at Tassajara Zen Center?
34
At first, I thought this was an Onion parody article. Are these people serious? Too much money and not enough soul is the ultimate one per center's problem. They (and the world) would be much better served if they donated all their extra money to causes that actually benefit actual people who need actual help. A food bank, cancer research, voter registration drives, etc. The mind boggles at the possibilities. Oh, except then they couldn't go back to their high-paying, high tech lives and brag to their coworkers and friends about their stay at Easlen and the inner peace is has brought them. That it's all being run by a bro who started a celeb cyber-stalking site is just the cherry on this sundae of irony. Though, alas, such irony is lost to all involved in this ridiculous exercise in naval-gazing. A pox on all involved says I.
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“Now I teach creative subconscious painting.” Someone send this article to the Coen brothers. They HAVE to make a movie with this stuff, I love it!
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"Hey everybody, I'm spending a couple of weeks at Esalen before I go to Coachella. I gotta find my balance, Hit me up on 'social network du jour' if you are going to be there." Ugh. This country is sad.
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Still you need connection with society ?
We need to find ourselves in this world.
Sometimes places are temporal - their meaning is in the moment in which they were created. They have natural life cycle, and sadly a natural point of termination. Esalen was born in a moment when it was needed and lived it’s life. Esalen is no more. Whatever it is they’re creating next there’s no resemblance to the Esalen those of us who have been there remember. This new thing will be whatever it will be. Unfortunately there’s more truth than I would like in the description of people in this article. it will be years before they realize they can’t get away from themselves and the only thing that will make them feel better is to spend the rest of their time on the planet trying to undo some of the damage these technologies have created in our society.
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WOW. What this article is missing is the huge list of workshops that just got cancelled, that represented the cutting edge of myriad fields in movement, communication, consciousness research, unique in the world. Hopefully these will find the equivalent of a cheap small town to move to. The gentrification of this landmark has been underway for years though, look back at this protest, www.esaleaks.org
Strangely this mimics the huge tax cut for the rich that just passed. We are seeing the refinement of ultimate services for the richest few, and the continuous narrowing of the commons. it was amazing while it lasted!
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Esalen is (or was) far more than a "hippie hotel." It was the center of the human potential movement on the West Coast. Easily caricatured for its walking meditations and hot tubs, for decades it also hosted speakers and workshops from a wide variety of contemplative and spiritual traditions, most with long-respected historical roots.
Soulless Silicon Valley has some parallels with the soulless American culture that gave rise to Esalen originally. Perhaps repackaging it as a retreat for aimless techies is a natural evolution. Still, it feels so crass.
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All of this is just an attempt to let tech bros feel less guilty by putting themselves in a place where they get to be the victim. There's no recompense for what they've done or continue to do, it's about them being able to say "I'm only human, I have a soul too" while they continue to profit off the things they've created. It's one thing to connect to your soul and it's another to let that connection affect your business where you make decisions guided by emotional intelligence instead of data, numbers, profit, and your need to constantly "kill it". There's a misconception that if your business/product doesn't act on the data/numbers/revenue it'll spell ultimate doom for you, you can't wait for the heart to catch up with the brain. The truth is you can forgo short term gains for longterm success; that means success for your business and the betterment of the people who use that product.
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There goes the neighborhood. I find this incredibly sad that yet another real California experience has been taken over by the technology industry. Cloaked in a mantra of trying to help tech folks find their inner souls, it has aced out any ordinary folks who used to go to Esalen for the experience and healing. A line of Teslas driving down Highway One? Spare me.
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Maybe the toddlers they kicked out can be Tesla valets!
8
As a long time visitor to Esalen since the 80's this honestly sickens me. This is essentially gentrification of the California coast. Yet I understand that this was a survival move on the part of the Esalen board. They were hemorrhaging money, so they sold the soul of Esalen in the guise of saving Silicon Valley's soul. Another sad NY Times story.
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"Mr. Tauber was a surprising pick to head a retreat center. He had previously founded a real-time celebrity geo-stalking service ..."
This is depressing. I guess I can now rule out Esalen as a retreat center.
5
This is so pretentious. People who go to church or synagogue or mosque are also probably trying to get in touch with their "inner-net". There's even baked goods to be had if you catch the right service. But instead of a high-priced membership, there's a collection basket.
In fact, there are people --- believe it or not -- who don't go to organized worship or even belong to a pricy gym, who nonetheless find meaning and inner-nets by recognizing the key to a successful life is showing love to others. It's really that simple and that hard.
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Patrick, I agree. I'm from Boston. In Boston, we read books. Go read The Magic Mountain or In Search of Lost Time or Four Quartets. As a (former) Bostonian, to me, the solution for a spiritual crisis is two parts skiing and two parts reading Borges.
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Right on!
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For those whose jobs are making our lives more unbearable, trying to make their lives more bearable. Got it. Check. Whatever.
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The Esalen Institute was NEVER a "hippie" place. After the hot springs and baths were closed to the public the place became just another place for rich people to enjoy and be exclusive in what had been truly a "people's pace".
Esalen and Silicon Valley, their auras and karmas, deserve each other.
From www.esalen.org:
Public Night Bathing (1AM-3AM) - By Reservation Only
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"Reservation only" does not mean closed to the public. I went two years ago --
you just have to call them ahead of time to reserve a spot, because space is limited.. as it should be, to preserve the ambiance! We drove there in the middle of the night from a nearby campground. It was one of the highlights of my life thus far - indescribably beautiful.
4
My sockets are not big enough to accommodate all the eye-rolling this article induced.
"Everyone spent 10 minutes looking into a stranger’s eyes and silently repeating phrases like “this person has emotions just like me,” Lolz. Nice to see our robot overlords are reinstalling humanity.exe.
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Better than finding their "souls", these folks should consider quitting the grasping, monopolist, insidious companies whose products are strangling democracy and freedom.
221
This is what is so wrong with the US. We can't help corporatizing and monetizing everything. We can't help only thinking so far as where the literal buck stops. The Esalen Institute long stood against this ethos and now it has been swallowed up by Silicon Valley. What a shame.
269
I can't help thinking of Tom Lehrer's brief biography of Dr. Samuel Gall, who specialized in "Disease of the Rich". There is money to be made, so why not?
But, having worked my entire career in Silicon Valley, and having hugged my share of trees and even actually saved a baby whale once in my spare time, I can tell you that this story does not describe me or any of the people I know who actually live and work in Northern California. It's a cheap caricature of California, drawn to entertain people unfortunate enough to live on the East Coast. :-)
20
Big news and on the other hand not so much. I'm grateful to have experienced Esalen in the early days when it was a clear escape from the rest of the world. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Esalen needs help. I fear for the preservation of what makes it so special; but I am equally hopeful that this bridge between the moneyed and the hippied can help depolarize these veins of our culture. I sense that the vacuum being discovered by our technologists is the perfect next step in our evolution, and I can think of no place in America better suited for its filling that Esalen.
5
It has been coopted by capitalism, that's all, end of game... goodbye Esalen
13
Goodbye, sweet Esalen. Thanks for the memories.
88
What the heck, why not be self-indulgent when having a sense of purpose can be difficult to come by?
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There is no greater nightmare for the profundity of Esalen than being bought by Silicon Valley; I can only imagine the essential emptiness of tech culture will fully cannibalize Esalen's aesthetic and render it but a cool new "technology" with which tech bros can fill the holes in their hearts. I think whether or not you gag at the idea of a workshop called, "Connect to Your Inner-Net," will be my new litmus test for getting to know new people.
114
In my household we call things like this "Not doing something in a doing it kind of way". Rather than fix the problem you amuse yourself while convincing yourself that you're fixing the problem.
165
I think I know now what the writers of the final episode of Mad Men were hinting at in that final scene of Don at Esalen, and I don't mean the Coca Cola commercial.
112
I wondered if anyone would mention that scene in "Mad Men".
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