Michael Murphy - The Human Potential Movement Then & Now: 60 Years at the Leading Edge of Transformative Practice, Research & Action

Ep. 58 (Part 1 of 3) | Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, 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. Mike talks about Esalen’s latest research, our current crisis of belief, and the anchoring question that has guided Esalen (and Mike) all along: how best to serve? Mike 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 Mike 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, Mike 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, Mike is one of the world’s leading lights on self-transformation. Recorded on February 16, 2022.

“With Esalen, life has given me this marvelous laboratory.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Michael Murphy, Human Potential Movement pioneer, author, co-founder and director of Esalen Institute, co-creator of Integral Transformative Practice (01:20)
• Esalen’s “scouring of the Shire” (05:51)
• Forging a deeper marriage of the two parts of Esalen: public programming & the Center for Theory & Research (07:19)
• The realization that atman = Brahman and how Michael came to be a yogi (08:29)
• The anchoring vision and worldview of Esalen: evolutionary panentheism, embracing the whole in an evolving world (11:33) 
• Our current crisis of belief: living between the death of the old gods and the birth of new gods has prompted more conflict, more divergences than ever before (16:37)
• How best to serve? Should Esalen continue? Most transformative practices (like somatics and psychedelics) have had to go through a period of purgation and are now coming back into play (21:34)
• The explosion of psychedelics in the 1960s through the psychedelic renaissance today and owning the immensity of its shadow side (27:47)
• Tanya Luhrmann, critical of the unwarranted hegemony of modern Buddhist influence on meditation research, researches contemplative, transformative, yogic, shamanic practices, including the evangelical Vineyard Movement (33:14)
• Tanya is now studying the uniqueness of people who have attended Esalen (37:28)
• On absorption capacity, its differentiating effects on our evolutionary capacities, and the concept of porosity, an attribute involving both the sensory and the extrasensory domain (38:29)  

Resources & References – Part 1

• 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 which 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...