the woman on Esalen’s booking line had told me that this was the closest thing they had to the encounter groups that a visitor might have experienced in the 1960s. The catalogue explained that it held ‘honored status’ at the Institute and was considered a ‘rite of passage’ for staffers. It would be a ‘voyage through your own humanity’ from which we’d emerge with ‘greater authenticity’. It was, went the promise, an ‘opportunity to experience yourself in ways you may have dreamed about but never thought possible’. It was called ‘The Max’.
