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Esalen Exploring human potential since 1962.
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Esalen's mission is to be a leading center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research. We work toward the realization of a more just, creative, and sustainable world, seeking answers to questions unlikely to be explored by traditional universities and religions. We sponsor pioneering initiatives and offer personal, spiritual, and social transformation programs for residents, interns, and workshop participants.

The final weeks of the year can bring full calendars, unfinished plans, big questions and uncertainty about what comes n...
10/02/2026

The final weeks of the year can bring full calendars, unfinished plans, big questions and uncertainty about what comes next. In the midst of it all, making time for yourself can offer space, perspective and a renewed sense of agency.

Check out these workshops to help you move through what you’re carrying, elevate your practice, explore your creativity, deepen your relationships or venture into the unknown. There are many ways to step away from the noise and consider how you want to enter 2027.

How do you want to end 2026?

10/01/2026

What if the mind can do things we’ve been taught are impossible? What if consciousness encounters something we don’t yet have words for? What if there are forms of communication we don’t understand? What if death isn’t the end?
For decades, Esalen has made space for questions like these. Michael Murphy has spent his life asking what human consciousness might be capable of. Jeffrey Kripal picked up that red thread and followed it into Rice University’s Archives of the Impossible, where real people and extraordinary encounters have been documented for serious inquiry. Now, finally, that inquiry is going to primetime.

Tonight, October 1, Archive X: Unexplained Phenomena premieres, with Esalen board member Jeffrey Kripal as host. Six episodes. The Archives of the Impossible. Phenomena that challenge what we think we know about consciousness, reality and the limits of human experience. The questions we’ve been asking all along are about to reach a whole new audience.

Archive X: Unexplained Phenomena
Thursdays starting TONIGHT October 1
SundanceTV / AMC+ / All Reality

We spent our early history moving beyond Freud, focusing rather on a more humanistic approach to psychology. So, perhaps...
09/30/2026

We spent our early history moving beyond Freud, focusing rather on a more humanistic approach to psychology. So, perhaps it’s worth admitting that we can agree with him on at least one thing: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a flower is just a flower. Beauty doesn’t always need an interpretation.

This is a place built around big questions, deep history, experimentation, discovery and the possibility that there might be more to understand about ourselves and the world. There is plenty here to interpret. But sometimes you walk through the garden, see the light falling across everything at exactly the right moment, and there is nothing more to figure out. It is beautiful, it makes you feel good, and that is enough.

📸 by Lucia Rose Horan Drummond

You might be in this picture. Or, you might have a photo very much like it of your own. It could be you with people you’...
09/28/2026

You might be in this picture. Or, you might have a photo very much like it of your own. It could be you with people you’ve known for years. It could be you with people who, just a few days earlier, were complete strangers and are now new friends. Or it could be a brief moment where seekers come together, share an embrace, and may never see one another again. That’s thst Esalen magic at play.

There are moments here when community happens almost before you realize it. You can feel it in a hand on your shoulder, a laugh shared across a table, or the uncomplicated embrace of another person. What makes those moments so powerful is that they aren’t performed, they are human. They happen in response to connection, compassion, recognition, care.

With consent, touch can be a profound form of medicine. Maybe you have a picture like this? If so, we’d love to see it.

📸 by Native Elements

And then, April becomes May! (Next thing you know we’ll be dreaming of summer…)A few more workshops to put on your calen...
09/25/2026

And then, April becomes May! (Next thing you know we’ll be dreaming of summer…)

A few more workshops to put on your calendar now, while spring still feels a little ways away.

PART THREE: APRIL → MAY

Explore the full workshop calendar at esalen.org/workshops

OK, so in our minds, spring is starting to take shape. (We rather not think of El Niño for as long as we can!)So, from M...
09/25/2026

OK, so in our minds, spring is starting to take shape. (We rather not think of El Niño for as long as we can!)

So, from March into April, our workshop calendar fills with new teachers, new practices and plenty of reasons to make the trip to Big Sur.

Here’s what else is coming.

PART TWO →

It’s getting dark earlier. And we’re already thinking about spring. Because at Esalen, there’s always another season of ...
09/25/2026

It’s getting dark earlier. And we’re already thinking about spring. Because at Esalen, there’s always another season of workshops on the horizon. Here’s a first look at what’s available to you in March.

PART ONE →

09/24/2026

Recent guest Char *loved* being surrounded by Esalen history during her visit this last weekend, in the form of the many historical plaques that dot the landscape at Esalen.

You’ll find knowledge about the evolution of the Farm and Garden, the great contributions of the Women of Esalen, trivia about who lived in the Mediation Hut way back when, what famous musicians played here over the years, and much more. Keep your eyes peeled! 👀

Through herbal practices, flower baths, sound, and embodied rituals, Micha Merrick creates experiences in the Garden and...
09/23/2026

Through herbal practices, flower baths, sound, and embodied rituals, Micha Merrick creates experiences in the Garden and at the Baths that invite us to slow down, reconnect with the senses, and find a deeper relationship with the natural world around us.

📸 by Ami Sioux

Address

55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA
93920

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm
Saturday 8am - 5pm
Sunday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

+18316673000

Website

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