Altered States: Pathways to Expansion

Since time immemorial, we humans have been curious and have thought deeply about altering our state of consciousness.

In this weeklong campus-wide program — together with Marisa Radha Weppner, Sravana Borkataky-Varma, Xotchitl Ashe, East Forest, Lucia Horan and Esalen in-residence faculty — we will explore and experience how, through an amalgam of pathways, altering our states of consciousness can shift personal and global challenges into individual and collective opportunities.

Moving the body through dance, calming and focusing the mind through meditation, uniting the mind and body through yoga can be just as effective a way to alter one’s consciousness as the more familiar exploration through mind-altering plants. Within the majesty of Mother Nature, people have long-documented the magnitude of their experiences in the natural world as creating transformative pathways to entering a trance state.

The arts are also a potent pathway into this space — a poem, a painting, a film, a piece of music can carry the consciousness shifting electricity that leads us toward a mystical experience. Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, for example, brought his mystical experience through sport to life through his novel, Golf in the Kingdom.

Through these lenses, Esalen Institute is curating a wide array of conventional and non-conventional approaches to reaching an altered state. Indeed, we will dive deep into entheogens, and in community experience the potency of cacao in sacred ceremony. Together we will immerse in these equally potent and sacred modalities.

For many, altered states are perceived to be limited singularly to entheogens and psychoactive substances. The conscious and unconscious reality? There are many different substance and plant-free pathways to reaching and immersing into altered states. Come explore with us and journey on your own consciousness adventure!

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