Our podcast showcases in-depth interviews with the dynamic teachers and thinkers who are part of Esalen Institute. Hosted by Sam Stern, a former Esalen student and current staff member, the podcasts have featured engaging conversations with authors Cheryl Strayed and Michael Pollan, innovators Stan Grof and Dr. Mark Hyman, teachers Byron Katie, Mark Coleman and Jean Houston, Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, and many more.
These podcasts are made possible in part by the support of Esalen donors and are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.
Listen to the latest episodes here, and subscribe to Voices of Esalen on Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.
Today we have a special episode. We're bringing you something unique and powerful: a real Esalen check-in. This practice, rooted in the Gestalt therapy that evolved at Esalen over the years, has become a cornerstone of the Esalen experience, often described as a catalyst for self-awareness, connection, and personal growth.
Our check-in features an incredible group of people: full-time staff members Nani Almanza, Jess Siller, Alex Shepherd, Sam Stern, and Shira Levine, as well as Faith Blakeney, a participant in the LEEP and REEP residential programs.
What you'll hear is real. It is authentic and unscripted. While our participants were aware of being recorded, they spoke from the heart. We've made every effort to preserve the intimacy and rawness of the experience with only minimal editing.
This episode offers a rare glimpse into the heart of what makes Esalen truly special. This is the secret sauce — the open, honest sharing that forms the foundation for personal transformation.
I invite you to listen with an open heart and mind, as we explore this fundamental Esalen practice together.
Erik Davis stands tall at the intersection between mysticism, technology, and counterculture. He's one of my favorite writers, the author of many stupendous books, among them TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, Nomad Codes, as well as High Weirdness, a highly entertaining book that explores 1970s counterculture and its relationship with altered states of consciousness. Erik is also an Esalen faculty member, having recently taught a course on Embodied Writing and Spiritual Practice.
In this conversation, we went into his new book, Blotter, an extended meditation on LSD blotter art and the culture that surrounds it. We also found time to veer off into a host of topics, including Terence McKenna, John C. Lilly, Dick Price, madness, Stan Grof, the spiritual emergency network, prep-school deadheads, the Village Voice, the Internet and Erik's theory that it kills subcultures, the phenomenon of what Erik calls "cannabis thinking," how he was never much of a "cannabis writer," tape machines and their place in the counterculture, the Merry Pranksters, Phillip K. Dick, Bay Area Poster art, the DEA and its own little zine — and much more.
Erik is one of the cofounders of the Berkeley Alembic, a nonprofit bodymind center committed to experiments in transformation. You can also find his collected works at Techgnosis.
Leah Song is one half of the musical duo Rising Appalachia — alongside her sister Chloe, they are an internationally touring folk ensemble steeped in the soul of the South that blends Americana music with lyrics, rhythm, and poetry to form a unique sound influenced by a blend of Appalachian, Irish, Latin and world roots music. Leah was at Esalen Institute for a week this summer to dance and make music with Lucia Horan and Douglas Drummond’s 5 Rhythms workshop, and she was kind enough to do a live interview on a Wednesday evening for a rapt audience of more than a hundred lucky souls. She spoke wisely about her history with activism, her love of 90's hip hop, her dynamic relationship with the festival scene, what slow music means to her, and a lot more. She even played several songs. What a gem!
Known to the masses as simply "JJ," JJ Jeffries is a recognizable figure on the Esalen campus, meeting and greeting arrivals with a kind and pleasant vibe, as well as a memorably dry sense of humor. Mentor, Gestalt and Embodied Awareness practitioner, musician, and memory-keeper, JJ teaches a host of classes at Esalen, including "How to Drop Into Esalen" and his suite of "Pathways to Joy" offerings.
JJ describes his pre-Esalen self as a “clueless yokel from Indiana” — the middle child of six boys, “born poor, perpetually confused, raised on corn and really bad TV.” Until he hit his stride at 22, when “I joined the privileged ranks of bartenders and ne’er do wells and never looked back.”
Says JJ, "Eventually, at Esalen, I was asked to lead meditation, which I crafted to include music, sensory awareness, and the chakras. Then, when asked to do a dance, I chose to delve into my studies of early childhood development, attachment theory and many other somatic arenas as vehicles to transform dance into a format that put these theories into practice. The intention was 'how do we connect without words and how do we discover our deepest desires by taking risks and being vulnerable together' — letting the body and experiences be our pathways to joy."
Vivian Rosenthal is co-founder of Frequency Breathwork and Diamond Rose Sanctuary, where she combines Kundalini, breathwork, and energy medicine to create profound shifts in consciousness.
Vivian has guided over 10,000 people through therapeutic breath work sessions. In this episode, we’ll split our time between Vivian speaking about how breath work can elicit non-ordinary states of consciousness that can help combat anxiety and stress, and an actual full length breath work session.
Vivian's is doing a lot in the world: her commitment to mental health has led her to collaborate with scientists on groundbreaking research, including a pilot study on using breathwork to treat PTSD, depression, and anxiety in veterans. She's also created the ambitious immersive symphonic breath work journey, “Symphony of the Soul” which debuted in Flint, Michigan, bringing together hundreds of people to embark on a communal and transcendent experience.
Get ready for an illuminating and experiential hour that might just change the way you think about your own body and the simple act of breathing.
Snow Raven, also known as Suor, a performer from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Arctic Siberia, now residing in the United States, performed live at Esalen Institute in January 2024 during our Go Within Series. Snow Raven is renowned for her unique blend of traditional shamanic practices and modern electronic music, which she uses to connect with and teach about her indigenous culture.
Snow Raven's artistic practice is rooted in neo-shamanism. She believes in the interconnectedness of all things. This philosophy extends to her use of technology, which she views as a natural extension of human innovation. She has collaborated on various projects that blend traditional shamanic elements with modern technology, including creating an algorithmic generator of her vocal sounds.
She stunned the crowd at Esalen with her riveting performance. Esalen's Sadia Bruce joins us today in this episode to talk about how she came to bring Snow Raven to Esalen. To conclude the episode, Bruce gives us a preview of Esalen's Summer Groove series for 2024, an exhilarating celebration of sound, creativity, and movement nestled amidst the breathtaking beauty of Esalen Institute.
Experience Snow Raven live when she returns to Esalen for the last week of this year's Go Within series, January 27–31, 2025.
Maddy Dychtwald is the author of the new bestselling book Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan. Maddy has been recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top fifty female futurists globally. With her husband Ken Dychtwald, she is the co-founder of Age Wave, a world leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of longevity and our aging population. She’s a member of The Wall Street Journal’s Expert Panel and has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Newsweek, Time, Fox Business News, CNBC, and NPR.
Her book Ageless Aging provides an insider’s guide to living better longer, covering everything from fitness and nutrition to hormones and ageism. Some pieces of the book:
Sravana Borkataky-Varma is a historian, educator, and social entrepreneur. As a historian, she studies Indian religions focusing on esoteric rituals and gender, particularly in Hindu traditions (Goddess Tantra). As an educator, she is the Instructional Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. At present, she is a Center for the Study of World Religions fellow at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. In the past, she has taught at Harvard University, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the University of Montana, and Rice University.
Sravana is currently working on no less than four book projects: Divinized Divas: Superwomen, Wives, Hijṛās in Hindu Śākta Tantra, The Serpent’s Tale: Kuṇḍalinī and the History of an Experience, Living Folk Religions, and Religious Responses to the Pandemic & Crises: Isolation, Survival, and #Covidchaos. Details of her published works can be found on this website, under the “Written” tab.
As a social entrepreneur, she is the co-founder of a nonprofit, Lumen Tree Portal. Sravana invests in building communities with individuals from various faith backgrounds who believe in kindness, compassion, and fulfillment. We are proud to have her as a Board of Trustees member for Esalen Institute. She also serves as an Advisory Board member for Compassionate Houston.
Kamilah Majied is a contemplative inclusivity and equity consultant, mental health therapist, clinical educator, researcher, and internationally engaged consultant on building inclusivity and equity using meditative practices. After 15 years of teaching at Howard University, she joined the faculty at California State University, Monterey Bay as Professor of Social Work. She teaches clinical practice to graduate students employing psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness-based, and artistic approaches to well-being, and authored a chapter in the second edition of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy, “Contemplative Practices for Assessing and Eliminating Racism in Psychotherapy.” Kamilah gave opening remarks at the first White House Conference of Buddhist Leaders on Climate Change and Racial Justice, where she also facilitated a dialogue on ending racism amongst the internationally represented Buddhist leadership. She is the author of the forthcoming book Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living (Sounds True, 2024).
In this episode we discuss her latest work, Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living, a book that not only challenges us to rethink our approach to justice but also invites us to engage with joy as a radical act of resistance. Through this discussion, Kamilah shares how interdependence and Buddhist insights, when blended with Black wisdom traditions, can offer rich perspective and possibility for both justice and joy. In this conversation, we explore how language and culture play pivotal roles in shaping our approach to liberation, and how art, music and contemplative practices can nurture joy as well as help us confronting the biases of our own intuition. So dig in, and get ready to build your discomfort resilience and stoke your fierce compassion.
Music credits: Blue Dot Sessions tracks
Dr. Andrea Juhan is a revered figure in the realms of somatic psychotherapy, dance, and yoga. With over forty years dedicated to exploring embodiment through diverse avenues — be it bodywork, somatic psychotherapy, or dance — Dr. Juhan has profoundly impacted the fields of mindful movement and therapeutic practices.
Andrea is not only a licensed Marriage and Family Psychotherapist but also holds a Ph.D. in Dance and Movement Therapy. Her commitment to the development of body awareness and embodied movement practices has guided hundreds of movement teachers, psychotherapists, and healthcare professionals.
As a co-founder of Open Floor International, Andrea has helped foster a global community dedicated to using conscious movement and dance to promote creativity, social justice, and well-being. Her journey reflects a deep devotion to the felt sense of life, blending the transformative qualities of presence, compassion, and spiritual union.
In our conversation, Andrea shares her experiences from those formative years at Esalen — how the dynamic and expressive environment fostered her deep interest in the embodied movement practices that would define her career. She reflects on the support of pivotal figures like Janet Lederman, Dick Price, Chris Price, Dean Juhan, Gabrielle Roth, her father, Dr. Jack Rosenberg, and the Esalen massage crew of the 1980's. We also get into catharsis, trauma, holotropic breathwork, Open Seats, the original encounter groups, the genesis of Open Floor, and much more.
Join us as we delve into a thoughtful discussion on the healing powers of movement and the continuous journey of self-discovery.
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