The big picture is lost — not only at Esalen, but in the world at large. It seems the world financial crisis has lead to Esalen Management using what Melanie Klein calls the “shock doctrine” to push the elite agenda — sheer capitalism — during a crisis, while folks are too numb and scared to respond. —Anonymous

Consider this contribution by a reader:

When the Nine held sway at the Institute the world was changing radically, and people were looking for new ways of being, new ways of seeing, new ways of interacting with the Divine and with each other. Esalen is as American as apple pie — and it is being taken over by corporate greed heads, group-speak fear mongers, and insidious Power Point thinking. And the workers are distracted, getting triggered by things like lack of health care and insecure financial futures.

All are losing sight of the big picture — the transformation of consciousness and each person’s role in it. The transformation is partly in moving past a “Maslow-based” model. His ideas have been co-opted and twisted beyond recognition. His true focus was on peak experience, not management principles. Self actualization is available under all circumstances. If we all and each seek peak experience, we will contribute to the transformation of human consciousness. And we will transform our community, and it’s influence in the world. Social transformation is coming. We are already a part of it.

The trick is to experience ourselves as actors in this cosmic game, and to transcend the limited culture of our time.

Know yourself as the “warrior with no enemy.”

We agree that Esalen workers are distracted by minutia, but “lack of health care and insecure financial futures” are not mere distractions. The notion that “self actualization is available under all circumstances” can only come from someone who has never experienced a lack of fulfillment in their basic needs. This is a limitation of many in the upper ranks at Esalen and elsewhere, who have forgotten that the lower levels of Maslow’s Pyramid are the foundation for the higher ones, not vice versa.

The Nine invite more contributions about the notion that Esalen can move successfully to a post-Maslow model.

A reader responds to “Life and Death” —

I don’t wish ill on anyone, but I’m sure Trisha and Scott would be grateful for their disproportionate compensation and benefits package and understand the importance of being treated like a human being if they faced the same situation [cancer]. We are not cogs in a machine, even if our acquiescence to the status quo and our commitment to working for the benefit of our community keeps the machine running smoothly. Tricia and Scott [executive team], et al, you are the “leaders” of a unique organism. Our health is important.

Why does Esalen not pay [nurse] Helen? She and [doctor] Geno and the other medically skilled people on property are vitally important to the community as well as to the paying customers. The nearest hospital is 45 miles away, the nearest medical clinic is 15 miles away, all on one unpredictable, curvy mountain road. Someone cuts or burns themselves in the kitchen nearly on a daily basis. I personally have been injured in my job and relied on the help of the medically trained members of our community.

It is irresponsible for the administration to be so blatantly uncaring about the health needs of the people who serve it.

—Anonymous

Some 20 years ago when I first wandered across that expansive green lawn beneath the cypress trees to gaze at the Pacific Ocean, I decided to change my life and enter into a new relationship, one with Esalen Institute, a community I thought was magical, pure and full of promise.

In the year or so that followed, I did see cracks in the pretty picture: the childish cliques, the pathetic jockeying for power involving manipulation and lies, the self–importance of some of the department managers and community leaders. It’s astonishing how people who could never make it in the real business world seem to gravitate to management positions at Esalen. Meanwhile the front line workers there have always been crazy enough to try to scratch out a living in exchange for their faith, sweat, and a tiny bit of money.

I’m lucky. I walked away from the Institute with my hard-earned wisdom, happy and proud, a product of a very brief golden age.

Over the years, I’ve watched many fine people crash and burn there, frustrated and mystified when their talents and devotion were overlooked and/or crushed. It has seemed like some kind of rite of passage, to outgrow one’s need to be loved and validated by a synthetic “community.”

Now though, what I see has me disgusted and outraged. It seems that Esalen, the world leader in the “human potential movement” does not bother to offer health insurance to its hourly employees, the bulk of its workforce, much of it long term, and many of whom have been waiting through multiple administrations to receive a living wage and a compassionate benefits package.

Case in point is my friend, a long-term Esalen community member and gifted worker in his department, who waited and waited and waited and waited for promised health insurance benefits. Seems he’s waited too long — he has cancer, and delayed getting critical medical attention while he continued to wait for his much-needed benefits. Most horrible of all, he was approved (by his direct manager and others) to enter a position this week that would give him health benefits that would save his life. Yet, the CEO Trish McEntee and HR Manager Scott Stillinger have flatly said NO. Not to him directly mind you, but by announcing in a community meeting yesterday that while “tragic,” he would have to do without the benefits promised to him for years.

If my friend dies on their watch, Scott [Stillinger] and Trish [McEntee] will have his blood on their hands.

Shame on Esalen Institute: Who let these evil snakes into the garden?

Esalen now spreads consciousness and bliss only to those who can afford it. Worker bees beware. And buy your own health insurance.

—Anonymous

What does it mean that, where we once had teachers gaining world recognition for Esalen in long-term residency, those programs are now eroded and our best teachers are turned into visiting outsiders?

What does it mean that, where the tone of Esalen life was once shaped by its attached philosophers and practitioners, they have been substituted in this process by policy consultants and outsider executives?

What does it mean that, where Esalen once praised radical self-expression and triggering as vital to healing and understanding, a workshop like The Max is being moved from the Lodge Deck to keep these things out of sight?

What does it mean that, where the staff wage disparity was once 3:1 and the institute was financially viable, it is now 20:1 and we’re supposedly on the verge of collapse?

—Anonymous

Esalen CEO Tricia McEntee, internal email, January 21, 2010:

In the interest of building a relationship of honesty, integrity, and trust, among organization employees, [survey] results should be communicated effectively by a unbiased professional and acted upon by the organization.

Who is being allowed to communicate the results of the Leadership Culture Survey in an effective way? How are the results of the survey being acted upon by the organization? The CEO should follow her own advice, gleaned from professionals, or resign.

—Anonymous

[Esaleaks invites the results of the Leadership Culture survey, to be communicated effectively and without bias through open publication.]

I request an appointment with the Director of Guest Services at an open community meeting, perhaps during staff week. That seems like a good time when we can all hear the results [of the Leadership Culture survey] without the risk of exposing our inner workings to seminarians.

I trust Jan entirely in her intentions and would like to stress my full hearted belief in her integrity.

I imagine the decision to do things this way was not in her hands, but I don’t know for sure.

I just don’t trust the mechanism of dispersal for this information. Why can’t we see the results in a more open forum where community dialog can be facilitated?

—Anonymous

The salary distribution at Esalen is disappointingly typical of corporations:

Perhaps the reality of executive compensation at Esalen would be digestible if not for the poor performance that has come along with it.

—Anonymous

[This data is 4 years old. The expansion in management through the ensuing 4 years has been immense. —Ed.]