relationships; little Esalen phrases – ‘I love your energy’; ‘Go into the pain’; ‘I hear you’; ‘Be real’. It had its cauldron on this Big Sur cliff. But at the Institute itself, things were changing. In the media, founders Murphy and Price began downplaying the promises of catharsis and radical transformation that had become its trademark. The programme of lengthy residential courses, which had seen some of Esalen’s most berserk scenes, was halted. ‘Many reasons were given for ending it,’ writes Anderson, ‘but the overwhelming reason seemed to be that altogether too many of the people in it
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