Esaleaks would like to announce the start of the “Esaleaks Compensation Project” in which the salaries, qualifications, and performance of Esalen managers and executives is discussed. What are they being paid today, and is it commensurate with what they’re doing and what Esalen needs? Could people with better qualifications and greater resonance with Esalen history, teachings, and spirit be hired at similar salaries? Who are they? How well are the “executive team” (CEO and HR Director) performing in the context of the Institute’s goals of supporting personal and social transformation, and how does their relationship impact hiring?

As the project proceeds, we invite thoughts about these questions, current compensation data, and many new questions being asked.

We begin with a sampling of top salaries from Esalen’s 2009 IRS Form 990 Part VII, graciously provided by an anonymous contributor.

Is the Board willing to admit having learned anything from the tragic and costly tenures of Harry Feinberg and David Patterson? If not, how does this bode for Esalen’s ability to evolve a successful hiring process?

Our contributor notes:

Please be aware that the Form 990 filing only requires disclosure of salaries for officers, board members, key employees & “highly compensated employees” (as defined by IRS). Hence, the whole tier of directors now in place at Esalen doesn’t appear here. And, I believe (I have no accurate numbers to back this up) that their compensation currently falls in th $60K-$80K range.

The growing number of assistants to the top level administrators are asked to work 29 hour weeks, like some members of maintenance are, in order to keep them under the statutory levels that would require them to receive health care benefits. More horrifying still, additional hours are “contracted” so that even if the person works more than 29 hours the additional work time won’t push them into the statutory level for benefits.

That sounds like an evil legal loophole tactic that puts money over the health and well being of our community, the human beings who make Esalen magical.

A long-term member of the community was kept at “staff fill-in” status in the Kitchen for months, to avoid having to provide her benefits. Another long-term member of the community has recently been struck with major illness, and has no health care benefits because he has been kept at 29 hours indefinitely.

—Anonymous

A contributor writes:

I have heard from reliable sources that the donation given to Esalen to pay for the construction of Garden View was specifically given for the purpose of providing staff housing. Now there are only a few rooms left. Staff housing has trickled away. I invite anyone who has the name of that donor to release it… [I]t is important to protect the integrity of our donors’ wishes so that the generous supporters of Esalen will be confident in giving their gifts in the future.

Another reader answers:

The donor was Dr. John Heider, who sadly passed away in 2010. The donation was earmarked for staff housing, and the resulting project was Garden View. The Esalen board waited until John’s death to fully dishonor his wishes.

Another reader answers:

Your report about the Staff Housing is in attitude correct. The facts: I was at Esalen in the sixties, when my dear friend and companion John Heider spoke to Lany Stephens, a wealthy fan of Esalen about the horrid living conditions of the staff. We were mostly living in our autos. She donated the money to build the lower units along the hillside. This donation was understood to be for Staff Housing in perpetuity. David Price knows of this arrangement. Begining about 15 yrs ago, weaseling managers have wiggled the staff housing into the hotel system quietly. The present Staff units of Garden View were built later and probably belong to the Institute.

Full contribution follows:

The last time the staff housing at Garden View was threatened to be taken, the people who lived there forced meetings on the issue. In those meetings, the head of the gate and the person in charge of safety pointed out to the administration that it was important to have people close to the gate to help respond in the case of an emergency. People who live here are invested in the safety of our community, we know where resources are and are familiar with the geography of the property should emergency needs arise. This argument resulted in the administration backing down and deciding not to convert staff housing into guest rooms, apparently only for the time being.

Has that argument lost its power? Do we no longer care about maintaining our community and our safety? Read the rest of this entry »

“Wheeler gives a special spin to much of what he writes, a spin that seemed to me to be often of questionable accuracy in its understanding of Gestalt therapy theory and intellectual history and his analysis and construction of theory are remarkably flawed. Moreover, he frequently sets up inaccurate strawmen summaries of his theoretical predecessors as a support for his alternative.”

“Wheeler has a tendency oversimplify and misunderstand positions and issues.”

So read excerpts from a review of Gordon Wheeler’s book Gestalt Reconsidered in the publication Gestalt Journal. Wheeler’s deftly delivered revisionist take on gestalt is an eerie echo of his performances at Esalen, as is a must read for anyone who’s sat in a community meeting with the Esalen president or wonders how the institute has wound up where it is.

The full article is available here [local backup]

More excerpts follow:

I did not find the accurate understanding of history and theory upon which the bold new steps were to be constructed and old contradictions resolved. Certainly my initial enthusiasm in scanning the book turned into incredulity and dismay at the theoretical weaknesses revealed by a thorough examination of the theory in this book… Read the rest of this entry »

For the year of 2011, Nancy and Gordon Wheeler spent 69 nights in Point House lodging. They are allowed to to book them a year in advance. These rooms are generally full, and people wishing to book are often turned away, because the Wheelers are staying there for free. This is the bare minimum amount of money Esalen would have made in 2011 had the house been used instead by paying visitors:

$44,100, plus 10% hotel tax = $48,510.00

[The Wheelers receive over $200k yearly in salary and consulting fees, besides worldwide travel and lodging, from the financially suffering Esalen. They own 4 houses. —Ed.]

—Anonymous

An Esalen community member hoping to influence the course of the Institute is showered with the language of gratitude — “heard” and “appreciated” — only to find that nothing of their contribution will be taken into true account.

This pattern of interaction abuses the language of process, the spirit of the human being, and the whole notion of personal human potential.

The failure of the community to influence the direction of Esalen through established process containers should no longer surprise us. Esalen process succeeds in transforming human beings, but no longer the Institute.

Bored of even perpetuating the illusion, the management will make this year’s Staff Week the first ever to lack a facilitated management-community process. Perhaps direct action will fill the void.

—Anonymous

Years ago, I approached an Esalen board member to express my concern that the collective wisdom of the community was being squandered in community meetings, which too often proved little use but to stall progress on a given issue. I shared his concern that community processes as they stood were a dead end, and imagined innovative ways of harnessing the community to guide Esalen successfully into the future.

The board member physically recoiled at the suggestion, and seemed to desperately want to escape from the conversation. Like many in the upper ranks, he saw the community as something to be tolerated and put to good use, but not empowered any more than low level employees would be in any other corporation.

These lame objectives for the community condemn Esalen to a profane future, one in which the wisdom accumulated over 50 years is preached piecemeal in workshops, but not integrated or understood or practiced in the institution itself, and is ultimately lost.

Esalen’s attempts at progress under a variety of outsider executive influences have shown miserable results. The worldwide Esalen community, which embodies the knowledge developed at the institution over many years, possesses the wisdom and talent to guide Esalen on a new path both sacred and successful. Rather than looking to accountants and hoteliers for the answers, the institute must look inwards to its wisest ranks and its global network of “graduates” for guidance.

Esalen, like a human being, has only its soul to save it from a descent into meaninglessness.

—Anonymous

A reader poses the question:

“Heartful boutique” hotels. Is this the kind of new vision Esalen needs?

The reader references an email from Esalen CEO Tricia McEntee to the Esalen community, about on the aspirations of Chip Conley and Vanda Marlow to transform Esalen’s business and culture, and perhaps also Conley’s reputation as (to quote another reader’s assessment) a “new age Donald Trump” who describes his business as “heartful boutique hotel groups” (pictured here). Conley and Marlow now hold key managerial positions at Esalen, and Conley has also joined the Board of Trustees.

As an experiment, Esaleaks are opening anonymous web comments (see yellow link above) with the reader’s question in mind.

Chip & Vanda (Conley and Marlow) and Esalen offer this PR blurb: Read the rest of this entry »

Like the ancient Greeks, Dick Price and I believed that civic responsibilities in an open society were a necessity for a healthy developing consciousness. In the 1960s I was helping Dick build the first American community dedicated to mental health skills at Esalen. He did not believe the traditional mental health treatments (psychiatry and psychiatrists) were effective in helping people grow out of their psychic distress. He believed that it would take a conscious communal village to do the job.

For the past ten years, and accelerating in the last five, our Community has been invaded by a foreign ideology. We now have a repressive corporate structure based on strict hierarchical principles, enforced by insensitive bureaucrats deaf to those below them. We have a cadre of people hired for their obedience to corporate principles — ignorant of our historical and social legacies, ignorant of our Humanistic traditions and values which are anti-authoritarian to the core.

With increasing frequency the Community of Esalen is being treated by a new executive staff without civility or personal dignity. The Esalen Community is filled with fear and indignation. People have learned to fear speaking the truth of their situation in our departmental groups. The trust in our group processes has been shaken and perhaps lost.

I think Dick Price would be thrashing in his ashes if he knew what was happening here at Esalen. His precious healing Community being devalued, and its profundity being sold as a boutique spa experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything is Broken
Dick

Broken Skies
Broken Tones
Broken Eyes
Broken Bones
Broken Sighs
Broken Thrones
Everything is Broken

Once
We were led by Giants
With Elan
Courageous and Fearless
Now
Our Leaders are Stunted Dwarfs
Barking at strange noises in
the Night
Everything is Broken
Dick
Everything

—Anonymous