Simulacra

Today I’m super excited to present to you another episode from the Archives From this trove of 1/2 inch reel to reel tapes that we recently found mouldering in a storage facility near the Monterey Airport - a  1966 dialogue between Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy and philosopher Alan Watts and today is PART TWO— notable for being one of the only instances I've encountered of Michael Murphy conducting an interview himself. But hey, when it’s Alan Watts, all bets are off. 
So, first, who is Alan Watts? He’s born in England, but moved to the United States in 1938 to pursue Zen training in New York. Then he attended a Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, got a master’s degree in theology. became an Episcopal priest in 1945, left the ministry in 1950 and then he moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies. It was during the 1950s that he met Dick Price and Michael Murphy - both of whom were kicking around the Bay Area after their stints at Stanford, trying to figure out what the heck they were doing with their lives.  
It’s widely known that Watts represents this pivotal figure in the transmission of Eastern philosophical traditions to Western intellectual discourse. By the time this conversation rolls around in 66, he had long since established himself as a rather famous interpreter of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Hindu metaphysics for American audiences.
He’d had a rise to prominence in the 1950s which coincided with a broader cultural receptivity to Eastern philosophical frameworks. The Beats, early hippies, young people, intellectuals - they were all fascinated by Zen and the I Ching and Buddhism. At Esalen, where Alan Watts taught from the very first days in 1962 up until his death in 1973, he really found an ideal context for exploring the synthesis between Eastern contemplative traditions and this Western psychological inquiry which was coming to the forefront. 
And then the temporal context for this interview bears mentioning, too. This conversation occurs at a moment of considerable social upheaval: we’ve got an escalation of American involvement in Vietnam, and a pushback at home, we’ve got the emergence of several countercultural movements, including the civil rights movement and a rather new hippie/ pyschedelic culture. There’s a widespread questioning of established institutional authority. So it’s within this milieu that Watts and Murphy examine fundamental questions about human consciousness and the peculiarities of American cultural expression. 
And of course all delivered in that million dollar voice by Alan Watts. I mean, He could read a Denny’s menu and make it sound profound. 

To me, this is a treasure of a conversation - even though it’s historically situated, it addresses still-relevant questions about consciousness, about cultural development, and about humanity's place within larger systems. 
It also provides a lot of insight into the intellectual atmosphere that characterized Esalen's early years, when the boundaries between disciplines were very permeable and fundamental questions about human nature were approached with both rigor and imagination. 
Here's Alan Watts, interviewed by Michael Murphy, at Esalen Institute in 1966.

Alan Watts, interviewed by Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy (1966) - Part Two

The pelvis, home to our reproductive, digestive, and eliminatory systems, is responsive to stress, pregnancy, birth, hormones, lifestyle, and trauma. When balanced, it supports vitality and ease. When out of balance, it can profoundly affect quality of life.

Joining the conversation are two extraordinary practitioners:

Dr. Tia Ukpe-Wallace, an orthopedic and pelvic health physical therapist, yoga teacher, and founder of Self-Care Physio, whose own pelvic floor challenges and pregnancy loss fueled her passion for empowering women with knowledge and healing practices.

Krishna Dholakia, a nutritionist, certified diabetes care and education specialist, and yoga and mindfulness teacher. Through her practice Om and Spice Wellness, Krishna offers an integrative approach to women’s health from preconception through menopause, weaving together nutrition, mindfulness, yoga, and bodywork.

Together, they share insights from their upcoming Esalen workshop on pelvic health, covering pelvic floor anatomy, menstrual and sexual health, nutrition and digestion, mindfulness, yoga, and community-building practices. Their goal: to help participants increase knowledge, self-awareness, and literacy around pelvic and reproductive health while cultivating a supportive community and a lifelong toolkit of self-care practices.

This conversation is guest hosted by Shira Levine, Esalen’s Director of Communications and Storytelling, whose background spans documentary film, editorial journalism, and global communications with organizations ranging from the United Nations to leading print and digital outlets.

Esalen workshop: 
https://www.esalen.org/workshops/pelvic-health-self-care-retreat-exploring-the-pelvis-through-anatomy-nutrition-and-the-nervous-system-10102025

From Pelvic Floor to Whole Self: A Conversation with Dr. Tia Ukpe-Wallace and Krishna Dholakia

Every time
The world spins round
Darkness always comes
Comes, my friend
All those moments lost are found
Everything must come to an end
Even though it gets me down
And it always brings me down
Ain’t gonna break 
From the weight
I ain’t gonna break 
From the weight of the world
I ain’t gonna break 
From the weight of the world

When the time ….
...the time comes
And it always comes,
Comes my friend
All these moments shared are bound
Bound to come to an end
Even though it gets me down
And it always brings me down
Always brings me down
I ain't gonna break
From the weight of the world
I ain’t gonna break 
From the weight
....weight

The world spins 'round
Darkness always comes!

Even though it gets me down
And it always brings me down
Ain't gonna break
From the weight
Ain't gonna break
From the weight

Darkness always comes.... my friend

Guitar, synth, vocals - DPS
Drums - Alex Cohen
Bass - Tim Lavigne 
Sax - Greg Rushton

Recorded & Engineered by Daniel Imana in Brooklyn, NY
Lyrics & Composition, Production, and animation video by Don Paris Schlotman

©2025 Don Paris Schlotman, Megahertz Donut, Erroebot Music, ASCAP 

Available on Bandcamp 12/12/25
https://megahertz-donut.bandcamp.com/track/weight-of-the-world-5

Weight Of The World

What if AI was capable of being more than just a new and improved Google search? What if there was ways to harness its predictive powers for growth, self-realization, or even freedom?

Today we'll hear from four thinkers: Larissa Conte, a leadership guide and systems healer with a focus on power, on the principle of mutual co-enactment. Then we hear from Cecilia Callas, co-founder of The AI Salon, about convening global conversations that wrestle with the societal stakes of technology. Next is Sadia Bruce, Esalen’s Director of Product, who speaks candidly about using AI as an adjunct to therapy.

And then Sam shares his own journey, from glitchy AI songs and translated prayers to the creation of a new weekly circle at Esalen called AI for Social Good. It’s a messy middle full of experiments, missteps, and glimpses of possibility. 

Larissa Conte & Wayfinding
Website: https://www.wayfinding.io/
Weekly Contemplations: https://www.wayfinding.io/community
AI Summer Camp: https://www.wayfinding.io/ai-summer-camp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larissaconte/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lbconte

Cecilia Callas: 
Substack: https://ceciliacallas.substack.com/
RemAIning Human podcast: https://ceciliacallas.substack.com/podcast
AI Salon: https://aisalon.xyz/

Sadia Bruce: 
IG: @breathisalanguage
Esalen: https://www.esalen.org/faculty/sadia-bruce
https://www.esalen.org/post/the-proust-questionnaire-sadia-bruce-012023

How We’re Really Using AI

In June of 2001, the Esalen Institute hosted Eckhart Tolle for a weekend workshop. By that time, Tolle’s book The Power of Now had already begun an improbable ascent, exploding from a totally unknown into something of a cultural phenomenon. 

The central insight of Eckhart Tolle’s work is that the future doesn’t hold your salvation, and it doesn’t pay to get lost in the past, either. What we long for, what we chase after, what we regret, all of it obscures the deeper truth: the only real place life exists is in this living present moment. 

In this archival talk that Tolle gives in the Leonard Pavilion at Esalen, he moves through his major themes. He talks about:
	•	Identification with thought - that most of us unconsciously believe we are our thoughts and emotions, which creates suffering and an endless search for fulfillment.
	•	Surrendering and saying ‘yes’ to what is: what can happen when you stop resisting the moment and accept exactly what arises, even if it is painful.
	•	 the relief that comes in resting in presence. 

	Visit Tolle online: https://eckharttolle.com/

Eckhart Tolle at Esalen in June, 2001: The Power of Now

Today we revisit a 1971 talk by Dr. John C. Lilly: physician, neuroscientist, tireless psychonaut, and one of the most audacious explorers of consciousness in the twentieth century.
John Lilly was a frequent teacher at Esalen and a close friend of Esalen co-founder Dick Price.  He begins teaching at Esalen as early as 1968, focusing on what he called the human biocomputer and lecturing in part on “isolation, solitude, and confinement experiments.” 
Lilly is widely known for three things; first, he invented the first isolation tank — a dark and silent vessel filled with a saline solution that is meant to suspend the body and expose the mind to itself. He made his first one in 1954. Second, Lilly was convinced of the possibility of interspecies communication, notably between dolphins and homo sapiens. And finally, Lilly was an early experimenter with ketamine, from a psychedelic point of view, an interest that ultimately led to an addiction which drove him quite mad. 
However, during this talk from 1971, he is in great form, speaking about the concept and practice of Satori: the instantaneous awakening, the shock of direct perception.

From the Archives: John Lilly and the Quest for Satori (1971)

Since 2016, Tim McKee has been the publisher of North Atlantic Books, a nonprofit press with a 50-year legacy of advancing healing, consciousness, and cultural transformation. 
North Atlantic Books has long been aligned with a similar spirit that animates Esalen: a commitment to somatics, trauma-informed healing, a willingness to platform voices working at the edges of personal and collective awakening. The catalog at North Atlantic books includes seminal works ranging from The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller to Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts — books that helped introduce somatic and trauma-based healing to the broader culture. Other books they publish include Black Psychedelic Revolution by Nicholas Powers, Mystery School in Hyperspace by Graham St. John, a cultural history of DMT, Reclaiming Ugly by Vanessa Rochelle Lewis, and Antifascist Dad coming soon, from the conspirituality podcast host Matthew Remski. 

In this conversation, Tim and Sam explore how publishing at its best can be a liberatory act, how the “personal” and the “political” have become difficult to separate in the current landscape, and issues surrounding publishing marginalized and emergent voices. They discuss what it takes to support authors whose work challenges dominant narratives, and how a publishing house can strive toward equity not just in output, but in process.

Publishing at the Edges: A Conversation with Tim McKee of North Atlantic Books

Stanislav Grof, born in Prague in 1931, was among the most influential figures in the early clinical use of LSD. Sometimes referred to as the Godfather of psychedelic psychotherapy, Grof was was trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst in Prague and was on track to follow in Freud's footsteps when his path was derailed by a powerful LSD session. He changed his life path and became one of the principal investigators of early psychedelic research behind the Iron Curtain, conducting systematic LSD psychotherapy at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague. 

Grof’s approach was largely psycholitic - meaning that in contrast to the single high-dose mystical model, he favored smaller doses that could be given consistently over the course of multiple sessions, thus emphasizing the very gradual revealing of the layered strata of the human unconscious. 

In this talk, Grof describes how the same substance can evoke vastly different experiences in different individuals, from childhood regression, to episodes resembling psychosis, to genuine mystical revelation. He offers accounts of patients reliving early developmental trauma and what appeared to be birth agony, followed by experiences of renewal or “rebirth.” He also touches on the emergence of archetypal and transpersonal imagery in advanced stages of therapy, giving insight into the collective and cosmic dimensions of mind. Here’s the brilliant Stan Grof in 1969 at Esalen institute. 
Photo by Joyce Lyke 

Stanislav Grof on LSD Psychotherapy: Live Talk at Esalen, 1969

In this episode, we spotlight The Big Sur Big Share, a grassroots food program founded by Joseph Bradford and Helen Handshy that has quietly become essential to life in Big Sur. Every Monday, rain or shine, locals gather at the Grange to share farm-fresh produce, pantry staples, garden abundance, and maybe most importantly, time with one another.

What began with two neighbors offering their extra vegetables has grown into a weekly free farmers market that feeds hundreds of people in a 70-mile food desert. The Big Share preserves dignity by letting people choose their own food; it strengthens community by turning personal abundance into collective support. It reminds us that resilience comes not from institutions, but from neighbors showing up for one another.

Joseph and Helen share how the project began, how it’s evolved, and why nourishment is as much about belonging as it is about food. Candice Isphording, head of Esalen's farm and garden, talks about how and why it's so meaningful to contribute to the Share, and what food as medicine really means. 

Visit https://www.thebigsurbigshare.com/donate to contribute to this organization's vital mission. 

Where Generosity Gathers: The Big Sur Big Share

For this episode, we spoke with five people who are engaging with AI in deeply human ways. 
- One is using AI in the context of dating, helping them think through attraction and communication.
- Another has built a wellness app, powered by AI, and is exploring how these kind of systems can support self-inquiry and self-care. 
- Another works closely with organizations—primarily nonprofits—using AI to streamline operations and reclaim time and energy for mission-driven work.
- The last are two documentary filmmakers who are currently making a film about people who are dating or in love with AIs. 
AI has clearly graduated from its status as a speculative idea; now it’s something that’s often entangled in our lives, relationships, labor, and emotional well being. We hope these conversations simply offer a portrait of this moment.


How We're Really Using AI, Vol. 2

"Casey Black has restored my faith in the lost art of damn fine songwriting." -Tricia Holloran, KCRW, Los Angeles

As Casey reflects, he was "born and raised in Nashville, then born and raised in Los Angeles, then killed and reborn in New York City, before being reincarnated in Nashville."  Casey's beginnings as a songwriter were shaped by his father, Charlie Black, an NSAI Hall of Fame country-songwriter, who penned many #1 hit songs. Endowed there with a dark lyrical particularity, as well as a respect and knack for the craft, Casey signed with EMI Music Publishing Nashville at 19 years old, where he wrote with some of the Row's greatest writers, and according to Casey, got "all the cocky, prima-donna, young-artist stuff beaten out of me by people who actually knew how to write songs." While his craft improved, his muse became aloof during his three years at EMI, and so, in order to "be as poor and lost as other people my age–to have something true to write about," Casey moved to Los Angeles.
In the next five years he wrote and recorded two records–‘Vacations’, and ‘The Glass is Half’–the first of which was placed on KCRW Los Angeles deejay Tricia Halloran's top 10 records of 2005; the second having songs placed on ABC's show Greek, and Lifetime's Army Wives. He also cut his live-show teeth, playing some of LA's great singer-songwriter venues, like the House of Blues and Hotel Cafe.
In 2008, in order to finish his degree at Columbia University, Casey moved again, this time to New York, and after a school-induced music hiatus, he happened upon a show featuring Niall Connolly, the Irish-born figurehead of Brooklyn's Big City Folk scene. Inspired by the literary and honest approach to songwriting of the scene's players, he threw himself back into music and made his third record, It Shapes Me As It Goes, before playing shows in New England, the South, LA and Ireland.
Drawing a close to a circular decade, Casey recently returned to Tennessee, where he lives with his wife in a small country house outside of Nashville. Casey's fourth studio album, 'Lay You In The Loam,' releases on June 18, 2013 through the newly launched, CatBeach Music. ‘Loam’ features 10 new original songs and was recorded and produced by Emmy-award winning songwriter/producer Bobby Hartry at CatBeach Studios in Los Angeles.
‘Lay You In The Loam’ is something of a coming of age story - exploring themes of life, death and rebirth…’Like loam, there is grit, decay and darkness, but also fertility, and the struggle to grow up, or push deeper.’ ’The Loam’ spans between the earthy blend of Casey’s baritone voice and acoustic guitar accompanied by a beautiful and haunting pedal steel performance by Greg Leisz on ‘Smoke In My Eyes,’ to quirky and otherworldly synth and omnichord textures, featuring the vocals of Bird and the Bee’s Inara George on the song “Dig Together” to the spring reverb drenched and vocal layered textures found in “Son”, which is both moving and unsettling when paired with a regretful and poignant lyric.
The first single from Loam, “Fire Fire Fire Fire,” fuses an earnest and steely eyed monologue, reminiscent of Steve Earle, with an unrelenting pulse that demands your full attention. Instrumentally, the track builds into a storm that develops sonically into a full gale force.
To complement Casey’s masterful songwriting, some of LA’s finest musicians were enlisted for this project, including Aaron Sterling on drums (John Mayer, Taylor Swift, Glen Campbell), Jonathan Ahrens on bass (Jewel, Jason Mraz), and Greg Liesz on pedal steel (Ray LaMontagne, Wilco, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Iver).
Casey’s ‘Lay You In The Loam’ will be released June 18 on CatBeach Music, and will be featured at album release shows in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. 


Simulacra

CaseyBlack