Esalen: An Odd Collection

Two of my recent Esalen acquisitions

I’ve been interested in Esalen for quite some time now. A commune-type retreat on the cliffs of Big Sur overlooking the Pacific Ocean with hippies, holistic medicine, and Hell’s Angels, what could be more intriguing? Oh, that’s right. Hunter S. Thompson was a security guard for a brief period, and the guest teachers ranged from Terrence McKenna and Stanislav Grof to Gary Snyder, Joseph Campbell, and Alan Watts.

Only recently have I discovered that there was a series published in collaboration with Esalen and Penguin called An Esalen Book.

The Esalen Publishing Program was edited by Stuart Miller, the first Vice President of Development at Esalen Institute. This is essentially where the information online stops. Try finding a list of books in the series, and you’ll quickly find yourself at a dead end. Half of the books that I’ve been able to find do not even list the others in the series.

The series appears to be mostly paperback, the formatting is inconsistent, and the artwork varies, unlike the contemporary Penguin Classics series signature design and the earlier Penguin fiction paperbacks in the beautiful and distinct orange.

This is what I’ve been able to come up with:

Hot Springs by Stuart Miller

Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli

Human Teaching for Human Learning by George Isaac Brown

On the Psychology of Meditation by Claudio Naranjo and Robert E. Ornstein

Secrets of the Trade by Joe Kennedy Adams

The Farther Reaches of Human Nature by Abraham Maslow

Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy

The One Quest by Claudio Naranjo

Anger and the Rocking Chair by Janet Lederman

Getting There Without Drugs by Buryl Payne

The Act of Will by Roberto Assagioli

The Medium, The Mystic, and the Physicist by Lawrence LeShan

The Live Classroom edited by George Isaac Brown

Realms of the Human Unconscious by Stanislav Grof

Sensory Awareness by Charles V. W. Brooks

Sacred Tradition and Present Need edited by Jacob Needleman and Dennis Lewis