Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of Esalen Institute and Integral Transformative Practice, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential. Michael talks about Esalen’s latest research, our current crisis of belief, and the anchoring question that has guided Esalen (and Michael) all along: how best to serve? He has watched the developmental process of transformative practices themselves, such as somatics and psychedelics, now circling around after a period of purgation, and talks about current efforts to add research on the mystical and the ecstatic to meditation and mindfulness research in order to better understand what’s going on.
This podcast is a wonderful mix of tales from the past—including Michael and his wife Dulce’s achievements and adventures with Soviet-American citizen diplomacy towards the end of the Cold War—the present, and what’s coming up at the Esalen research center now, e.g., asking what is happening on “the other side,” and discovering the truth about subtle body phenomena. On a personal note, he shares about practicing agnosticism, his respect and admiration for the quality of wonder, and about the magic of reading subtle cues and being increasingly in tune with “the algorithms of his heart.” Friendly, relaxed, and humorous, Michael is one of the world’s leading lights on self-transformation.
Recorded on February 16, 2022.
Part 1
https://deeptransformation.io/michael-murphy-1-human-potential-movement…
Part 2
https://deeptransformation.io/michael-murphy-2-human-potential-movement…
Part 3
https://deeptransformation.io/michael-murphy-3-human-potential-movement…
References
- Esalen Institute, a leading center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research
- Track II: An Institute for Citizen Diplomacy, host organization for the Russian-American Program
- James Redfield, Michael Murphy & Sylvia Timbers, God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution*
- Michael Murphy & George Leonard, The Life We Are Given*
- Michael Murphy & Steve Donovan, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation*
- George Leonard, “taking the hit as a gift,” The Way of Aikido*
- Dick Price, ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years
- Esalen’s Center for Theory & Research
- Frederic Spiegelberg, professor at Stanford University, developed and theorized a mystical humanism
- John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath*
- Sri Aurobindo, deeply realized contemplative & mystic, led the most radical wing of the Indian independence movement
- Evolutionary panentheism, guiding vision and worldview for Esalen
- Integral Transformative Practice: ITP-International, founded by Michael Murphy & George Leonard
- Michael Murphy, Golf in the Kingdom*
- Michael Murphy & Rhea White, In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports*
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, scientist, theologian, philosopher
- Alfred North Whitehead, developed a comprehensive metaphysical system that radically departed from most of Western philosophy
- Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution*
- Martin Heidegger, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century
- Don Johnson, Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: Toward an Inclusive Somatics*
- Thomas Hanna, philosopher who gave the field of somatics its name
- Somatic psychology, a form of psychotherapy that seeks to bridge the mind-body dichotomy
- Ida Rolf, Structure, Function, Integration*, Dr. Ida Rolf Institute
- Aldous Huxley, provided a mediating language between metaphysics, the language of human potentialities, and the non-verbal humanities, The Doors of Perception*
- Georg W. F. Hegel, a founding figure of modern Western philosophy
- George Brown, director for the Ford-Esalen project, Human Teaching for Human Learning: An Introduction to Confluent Education*
- Timothy Leary, clinical psychologist who developed a philosophy of mind expansion and personal truth through LSD, Exo-psychology: A Manual on the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers*
- Charlie Stang, Esalen board member & director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School
- Tanya Luhrmann, professor of anthropology at Stanford, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God*, Our Most Troubling Madness*, How God Becomes Real*
- Richard Davidson, Mind & Life Institute, co-author with Daniel Goleman, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body*
- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature*
- Abraham Maslow, American psychologist, creator of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Pam Kramer, President of ITP International, a non-profit organization that stewards the work of Michael Murphy and George Leonard and their creation of Integral Transformative Practice®
- MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), a standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology
- Auke Tellegen and the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS)
- The Sandpiper with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (filmed at Esalen)
- Jane Austen, English novelist still popular though her novels were published 200 years ago
- Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force in the 1950s
- A Beautiful Mind, 2001 movie based on the life of the American mathematician John Nash
- Agnews Developmental Center (originally “The Great Asylum for the Insane”)
- Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic who experienced spiritual ecstasies from an early age
- Charles Taylor, Canadian philosopher
- Vineyard Movement (Association of Evangelical Vineyard Churches)
- M. de Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer and philosopher
- Frederic Myers’s Service to Psychology by William James
- R2-D2, character in the epic space saga Star Wars
- Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud*
- Timothy Leary & Dick Alpert (Ram Dass), Dying to Know trailer (documentary about Ram Dass & Tim Leary)
- Willis Harman & Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights*
- James Fadiman, The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide*
- Edward Kelly & Emily Kelly, Irreducible Mind*
- Bruce Greyson, Journal of Near-Death Studies, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond*
- William James, Radical empiricism
- Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge*
- Taittiriya Upanishad
- Simon Cox, The Subtle Body: A Genealogy*
- Jeffrey Kripal, Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, Kali’s Child*
- Charlie Stang, Harvard School of Divinity and Esalen Board Member, author of Our Divine Double*
- The “undiscovered country” from Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet*
- Words of the Mother: Death and Rebirth (Sri Aurobindo Ashram)
- Rudolf Otto, German philosopher, theologian, and comparative religionist
- Fritz Perls, a well-renowned German psychotherapist and psychiatrist known for his notable works on Gestalt therapy
- Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality*
- Michael Murphy, Golf in the Kingdom*
- John le Carré, author of best-selling international espionage novels
- James Redfield, Michael Murphy & Sylvia Timbers, God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution*
- Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature*
- Michael Murphy & Steve Donovan, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation*
- Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences*
- Frances Vaughan, one of the great pioneers of transpersonal psychology, psychotherapist, teacher, author
- Dr. Paul Ekman, Nonverbal Messages: Cracking the Code*
- Solomon Asch conformity experiments
- Bill Walsh, 49ers football coach
- Abraham Maslow, psychologist who created a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority and culminating in self-actualization (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)
- Will Schutz, author and creator of FIRO Theory (Fundamental interpersonal relations orientation)
- Gordon Wheeler, clinical psychologist who pioneered Gestalt Relational Constellations, integrating Systems Constellations work with Gestalt-based client experiments
- Integral Transformative Practice: ITP-International, founded by Michael Murphy & George Leonard
- Thomas Merton, monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion
- Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright
- Meister Eckhart, theologian, philosopher, and mystic born circa 1260
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov*
- Esalen Institute, a leading center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research, Esalen’s Center for Theory & Research
- James Redfield, Michael Murphy & Sylvia Timbers, God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution*
- Michael Murphy & Rhea White, In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports*