Jeffrey Kripal, author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion was featured last Wednesday on BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed. Kripal was joined by Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion at the London School of Economics to discuss “the history of Esalen, its philosophy, and the effects it has had on the new age.”
The Esalen institute was one of the leader’s in alternative and experiential education during the sixties and seventies. The revolutionary ideas, transformative spiritual practices, and innovative art forms it fostered attracted such luminary figures as Henry Miller, Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, and others to it’s stunning locale on the face of the Pacific coastline. In Esalen, Kripal recounts the spectacular history of the institute and its profound influence on the American counterculture—an influence that continues to shape modern American society to this day.
Read an excerpt from the book.