Leaders and Programs
In the early days, many of the seminars challenged the status quo - such as "The Value of Psychotic Experience". There were even programs that questioned the movement of which Esalen was a part - for instance, "Spiritual and Therapeutic Tyranny: The Willingness To Submit". And there was a series of encounter groups focused on racial prejudice.
Early leaders included:
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Rather than merely lecturing, many leaders began to experiment with what Huxley called the non-verbal humanities: the education of the body, the senses, and the emotions. The intention of this work was to suggest a new ethic - to develop awareness of one’s present flow of experience, to express this fully and accurately, and to listen to feedback. These "experiential" workshops were particularly well attended and did much to shape Esalen’s future course.
Read more about this topic: Esalen Institute
Famous quotes containing the words leaders and, leaders and/or programs:
“Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measures by results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“For aesthetics is the mother of ethics.... Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe—not empirically, alas, but only theoretically—that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)
“There is a delicate balance of putting yourself last and not being a doormat and thinking of yourself first and not coming off as selfish, arrogant, or bossy. We spend the majority of our lives attempting to perfect this balance. When we are successful, we have many close, healthy relationships. When we are unsuccessful, we suffer the natural consequences of damaged and sometimes broken relationships. Children are just beginning their journey on this important life lesson.”
—Cindy L. Teachey. “Building Lifelong Relationships—School Age Programs at Work,” Child Care Exchange (January 1994)