Word: esalen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...recalls, "people kept saying, 'Wow! You're a star. You must really be happy,' and I kept asking myself, 'If it's so great, why doesn't it feel any better?'" She sought the answer at Esalen, the California group-therapy center shown in B. & C. & T. & A., where, after some hesitation, she joined a nude session in a tub. After that she tried primal therapy, a far-out treatment that induces the patient to reenact his infancy, including kicking and screaming. She still attends weekly group-therapy sessions...
...Miller fought back with his persuasive critical intelligence. He mocked the jargon of the human-potential movement. He described Esalen as a typically vulgar California contradiction-"the pursuit of the spirit without adequate traditions." But the confrontation had mortally wounded Miller's vanity. Far from home ground, he had no one to buttress his top-heavy personality. "Who would tell me I was good?" he whimpered when an Eastern colleague failed to respond sympathetically to his complaining letters. By this time his ego began to resemble a shriveled eggplant. Waves of anxiety paralyzed his will...
...Even as an Esalen dropout back in New York, Miller could find no solace or direction. Eventually he forced himself to write down a few simple resolutions. Among them: try to smile at others; be nice to your mother and father; treat women as people...
...Unofficial Conversion. Miller also decided to return to Esalen, where the residents had taken over the maintenance and service chores to offset the center's financial deficit. He pitched in as a combination waiter, bartender and supply sergeant with the exalted title of "wine steward." Team spirit worked miracles. So did the New Testament, which he began to read regularly, eventually undergoing an intense-though unofficial -conversion to Christianity...
...phenomenology that could have come straight out of Sartre's Nausea. But the most worldly aspect of Hot Springs is as a testimony of a man remade; it also functions as a superior form of public relations. Stuart Miller, former literary intellectual and wine steward, is currently an Esalen vice president in charge of program development. He is also the editor of the Esalen Publishing Program, of which Hot Springs is a product...