Esalen Cookbook

The world-renowned Esalen Institute, located on the cliffs above the ocean in Big Sur, California, is a place of peace and beauty, a place to contemplate, think, and discover. Filled with beautiful photographs, this cookbook features dozens of recipes for delicious dishes that emphasize healthy, fresh, and organic ingredients--food made to satisfy the soul as well as the stomach.

I want anyone who has had the great gift of visiting Esalen to recapture that feeling of love whenever they are in need of nourishment, both for the body and the soul. This became my inspiration to write this cookbook with some of my favorite Esalen kitchen recipes. Even when hundreds or thousands of miles separate you from Big Sur, you can return through the memory of your senses. Each recipe is intended to taste like love because that's what they are made with and it makes all the difference. *** Proceeds for this cookbook will support Buds to Blossoms, a pediatric massage program that supports orphans affected by HIV and AIDS in Vietnam. ***

Jeffrey Kripal here recounts the spectacular history of Esalen, the institute that has long been a world leader in alternative and experiential education and stands today at the center of the human potential movement. Forged in the literary and mythical leanings of the Beat Generation, inspired in the lecture halls of Stanford by radical scholars of comparative religion, the institute was the remarkable brainchild of Michael Murphy and Richard Price. Set against the heady backdrop of California during the revolutionary 1960s, Esalen recounts in fascinating detail how these two maverick thinkers sought to fuse the spiritual revelations of the East with the scientific revolutions of the West, or to combine the very best elements of Zen Buddhism, Western psychology, and Indian yoga into a decidedly utopian vision that rejected the dogmas of conventional religion. In their religion of no religion, the natural world was just as crucial as the spiritual one, science and faith not only commingled but became staunch allies, and the enlightenment of the body could lead to the full realization of our development as human beings. “An impressive new book. . . . [Kripal] has written the definitive intellectual history of the ideas behind the institute.”—San FranciscoChronicle “Kripal examines Esalen’s extraordinary history and evocatively describes the breech birth of Murphy and Price’s brainchild. His real achievement, though, is effortlessly synthesizing a dizzying array of dissonant phenomena (Cold War espionage, ecstatic religiosity), incongruous pairings (Darwinism, Tantric sex), and otherwise schizy ephemera (psychedelic drugs, spaceflight) into a cogent, satisfyingly complete narrative.”—Atlantic Monthly “Kripal has produced the first all-encompassing history of Esalen: its intellectual, social, personal, literary and spiritual passages. Kripal brings us up-to-date and takes us deep beneath historical surfaces in this definitive, elegantly written book.”—Playboy

Yoga. Humanistic Psychology. Meditation. Holistic Healing. These practices are commonplace today. Yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or small groups of educated spiritual seekers. Esalen Institute, a retreat for spiritual and personal growth in Big Sur, California, played a pioneering role in popularizing quests for self-transformation and personalized spirituality. This “soul rush” spread quickly throughout the United States as the Institute made ordinary people aware of hundreds of ways to select, combine, and revise their beliefs about the sacred and to explore diverse mystical experiences. Millions of Americans now identify themselves as spiritual, not religious, because Esalen paved the way for them to explore spirituality without affiliating with established denominations The American Soul Rush explores the concept of spiritual privilege and Esalen’s foundational influence on the growth and spread of diverse spiritual practices that affirm individuals’ self-worth and possibilities for positive personal change. The book also describes the people, narratives, and relationships at the Institute that produced persistent, almost accidental inequalities in order to illuminate the ways that gender is central to religion and spirituality in most contexts.

The author reflects on the history of her family's California restaurant, Nepenthe, and her experiences growing up there; and provides eighty-five recipes and photographs.

"Consistently rated the best guides to the regions covered."—National Geographic Traveler From the region’s laid-back beach towns to the jumble of Monterey’s Cannery Row, California’s Central Coast offers the most spectacular triptych of landscapes—surf, forests, and picturesque small towns—in the West. Includes coverage of the region’s vineyards, culinary gems, and coastal hideaways.

Our lives may be determined less by past events than by the way we remember them. How do we learn to listen more to the stories that heal? How do we put together the pieces of our past? How can we rewrite our life story so that pain becomes meaningful and actually promotes growth and transformation? Heal Your Self with Writing offers a step-by-step journey of discovery and re-visioning through focused journaling, a practice that can enable healing and empowerment. In this way, each reader is able to make meaning out of memory and put the past where it belongs — behind them.