Josef London has been a cornerstone of the Esalen community for more than 30 years. In our conversation Josef shares about the leap of faith that brought him to Esalen from Rio de Janeiro in search of healing, transformation, and a place to call home. Today, guests know him from the Gate; he is one of the first people they meet upon arriving at Esalen. He has a delightful smile, but what they may not know is that Josef is steeped in the philosophy of Gestalt, and that he is decidedly not...

Chandra Easton is a senior Dharma teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She is well renowned for her efforts to elevate the empowered feminine in Buddhism. Chandra has a deep lineage of study under the guidance of prominent Tibetan and Western Buddhist teachers, beginning her journey in Buddhist practice at the age of four. She’s spent decades bridging traditional Tibetan teachings with a modern approach, making profound wisdom practices accessible and relevant for...

John Marks is the founder of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO whose purpose is to end violent conflict around the world. In 2018, Search was nominated for a Nobel Peace prize. Over the years some of their notable work has included helping to avert genocide in Burundi, supporting free elections in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and creating training in the Democratic Republic of Congo to curb sexual assault. Marks is the author of the new book From Vision to Action, Remaking the world...

Mary Sanders is a founding board member of the People of Color Psychedelic Collective, an organization that provides psychedelic education to historically marginalized communities in order to foster empowerment and healing. She is a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in exploring the depths of transgenerational trauma and, in her words, peeling off layers of oppression and cultural conditioning. She is certified in psychedelic-assisted therapies and believes that plant medicines can...

Louie Schwartzberg is the filmmaker behind "Fantastic Fungi" - he's back now with a follow up film: "Gratitude Revealed." Louie has created and worked on a score of films in his life, including his own features like Mysteries of the Unseen World and Wings of Life, as well as the Netflix series Moving Art. Over the process of his career, it's fair to say that he’s revolutionized the field of time-lapse photography. Louie has also been a contributing cinematographer or visual effects artist to...

Laura Mae Northrup is a somatic psychotherapist, educator, podcaster, and author. Laura has been a guest on this show before, in 2020, when we discussed her podcast "Inside Eyes", a one-season tour de force that focuses on people using entheogens and psychedelics to heal from sexual trauma. She is now the author of a new book, "Radical Healership: How to Build a Values-driven Healing Practice in a Profit-Driven World." Northrup views healing work and healing practitioners through a spiritual...

Justin Michael Williams is an author, activist, meditation teacher and musician. His book Stay Woke established him as a pioneering millennial voice for diversity and inclusion in wellness. His work has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Grammy.com, Yoga Journal, Billboard, Wanderlust, and South by Southwest. Justin was the artist in residence at Esalen during the month of July. He shared his thoughts with us on racism, healing, virtue signaling, men's eating disorders, Eckhart Tolle,...

Justin Michael Williams is an author, speaker and musician who works at the intersection of social justice, mindfulness, and personal growth. Justin has become a pioneering voice of color for the new healing movement. His mission is to make sure that all people, of all backgrounds, have access to the information they need to change their lives. Together, we discussed the science of transformation, what it means to combat forces of oppression (in a healthy way), identity labels (and how they...

This episode captures Jack Kornfield's lecture/ Dharma talk at Esalen on September 15th, 1983. Kornfield, one of the most articulate and compassionate voices in modern Western Buddhism, is co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, first as a student of the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah, about whom he speaks at length in this lecture. Kornfield has...

Welcome to a Voices of Esalen archive edition. Our featured lecture was delivered at Esalen as a part of a weeklong training in 2018, by wise teachers Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman. Jack Kornfield is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma, and has taught meditation internationally since 1974 .After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the...

Today we’re sharing a conversation that took place in October, 2022, between members of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County and the Esalen Institute. Representing the Esselen tribe are Jana Nason and Stephen Vicente Arevalo. Jana Nason is an Esselen and Rumsen descendant, and an enrolled tribal member of the ETMC. She is the nonprofit secretary, and serves on the Tribal Council as Tribal Administrator and Secretary, Publications Chair, and Cultural Resource Committee member. She also...

Today our episode is an encore presentation of Michael Pollan’s keynote presentation at the 2019 Psychedelic Integration Conference at the Esalen Institute. Pollan is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including 2018’s “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.” This tome has become a four-part Netflix show, also entitled “How to Change Your Mind.” Pollan gives a great speech here,...

Jeff Kripal is a historian of religions - his work includes the study of comparative erotics and ethics in mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religions, and the history of Western esotericism from gnosticism to New Age religions. He’s also the author of the book "Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion" - a must read for anyone interested in unpacking the conditions of history surrounding Esalen’s birth in the early sixties. This interview was...

Akuyoe Graham is founder of the Spirit Awakening Foundation, an arts based non-profit dedicated to helping underserved youth in the juvenile justice system. Since its inception in 1995, SAF has been a pioneer in developing and offering restorative, trauma-informed, prevention and intervention programs to underserved, incarcerated and systems-involved youth in Los Angeles County. Akuyoe speaks about how difficult and broken the juvenile justice system is, what tools she gives the...

Dr. Deborah Egerton is a psychotherapist, Enneagram teacher, author, coach, and spiritual teacher. She brings a focus of inclusion, diversity, equity, and anti-racism to her enneagram work and uses that focus to help individuals and organizations release false historical narratives and open their minds and hearts to a more compassionate and connected approach to life. Her work with The Enneagram and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-racism (IDEA) is designed to help heal our fractured...

Darnell Walker is Esalen's artist in residence for Spring 2021. Darnell is a writer and creator of children’s media, as well as a powerful documentary filmmaker - his efforts include 2015’s Seeking Asylum, which explored Black Americans’ desires to escape American tyranny and widespread police violence for safer lands, Outside the House, which focuses on Black mental health, and Set Yourself on Fire, a film about sexual violence, . His work investigates education and revolution, with a strong...

Chef Elle Simone is a well-known American chef, culinary producer, test cook, and food stylist. In 2013, after realizing that women and persons of color were underrepresented among chefs, she founded SheChef, a mentoring and networking organization for women of color in the culinary field. She can be seen on PBS on America’s Test Kitchen and is the first African American woman to appear as a regular host on that show. Chef Elle is also a survivor of ovarian cancer and shows up as an activist...

Dr. Brian Pace is a lecturer who teaches Psychedelic Studies at The Ohio State University. He is trained as an evolutionary ecologist, specializing in phytochemistry, ethnobotany, and ecophysiology. He believes in grassroots drug decriminalization efforts and hopes to find alternative policies to the imperial drug war. For more than a decade, Brian has worked on agroecology and climate change. Dr. Nese Devenot is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for Research in Sensing (or IRiS) at...

Senti Sojwal and Tiffany Diane Tso are founding members of the Asian American Feminist Collective, a grassroots racial and gender justice group that works to interrogate and dismantle systems of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism, telling their stories through various modes of feminist media while providing spaces for identity exploration, political education, community building, and advocacy. https://www.asianamfeminism.org In our conversation we explored a host of topics, including the...

Today we celebrate Bicycle Day, a modern semi-holiday (unrecognized by official governmental agencies yet observed by psychedelic enthusiasts across the globe) that commemorates Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman’s bike ride home from his lab on April 19th, 1943, after ingesting 250 micrograms of lysergic acid diethlymide, and in the process creating the world's first recorded intentional LSD trip. When Hoffman originally synthesized the compound in 1938, in the Sandoz Pharmeacuticals laboratory,...

Akuyoe Graham is founder of the Spirit Awakening Foundation, an arts based non-profit dedicated to helping underserved youth in the juvenile justice system. Since 1995, SA has been a pioneer in developing restorative, trauma-informed prevention and intervention programs to incarcerated and systems-involved young people in Los Angeles County. Using the tools of meditation, self-reflection, creative writing, visual arts, mentorship, service, and leadership training, all of which have been...

Adam Bramlage is Founder and /CEO of Flow State Micro, a functional mushroom company and microdosing education platform. Adam has helped hundreds of people, from professional athletes to people suffering from addiction and depression, achieve results through microdosing in his private practice. This interview gives the basics of microdosing; it's a great primer for anyone just at the beginning of their journey. Adam will be hosting a webinar with psychedelic pioneer and the father of modern...

Keith Thompson is an author, independent journalist, talk radio host, and former U.S. Senate staff member. Keith’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Esquire and the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s the author of the new book, The UFO Paradox: The Celestial and Symbolic World of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, in which he reveals how the UFO phenomenon ultimately represents a call from the cosmos for humanity to open to greater dimensions of reality and recognize that our understanding of...

Today we have a special episode. We're bringing you something unique and powerful: a real Esalen check-in. This practice, rooted in the Gestalt therapy that evolved at Esalen over the years, has become a cornerstone of the Esalen experience, often described as a catalyst for self-awareness, connection, and personal growth. Our check-in features an incredible group of people: full-time staff members Nani Almanza, Jess Siller, Alex Shepherd, Sam Stern, and Shira Levine, as well as Faith...