was more generally referred to as "Slate's Hot Springs". Founding Stanford grads meet Michael Murphy and Dick Price both attended Stanford University in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Both had developed an interest in human psychology and earned degrees in the subject in 1952. Price was influenced by a lecture he heard Aldous Huxley give in 1960 titled "Human Potentialities". After graduating from Stanford, Price attended Harvard University to continue studying psychology. Murphy, meanwhile, traveled to Sri Aurobindo's ashram in India where he resided for several months before returning to San Francisco. Price's parents involuntarily committed him to a mental hospital for a year, ending on November 26, 1957. He hated the experience and thought he would like to create an environment where people could explore new ideas and thoughts without judgment and influence from the outside world. In May 1960, Price returned to San Francisco and lived at the East-West House with Taoist teacher Gia-Fu Feng. That year he met fellow Stanford University graduate Michael Murphy at Haridas Chaudhuri’s Cultural Integration Fellowship where Murphy was in residence. They met at the suggestion of Frederic Spiegelberg, a Stanford professor of comparative religion and Indic studies, with whom both had studied. By then they had both dropped out of their graduate programs (Price at Harvard and Murphy at Stanford), and had served time in the military. Their similar experiences and interests were the basis for the partnership that created Esalen. Inspired by Buddhist practices, and based on his own understanding of Taoism, Price developed his teachings. He took what Fritz Perls had taught him and created a Gestalt Awareness process that is still taught and followed by many today. Lease property Price and Murphy wanted to create a venue where non-traditional workshops and lecturers could present their ideas free of the dogma associated with traditional education. The two began drawing up plans for a forum that would be open to ways of thinking beyond the constraints of mainstream academia while avoiding the dogma so often seen in groups organized around a single idea promoted by a charismatic leader. They envisioned offering a wide range of philosophies, religious disciplines and psychological techniques. In 1961, they went to look at property owned by the Murphy family at Slates Hot Springs in Big Sur. It included a run-down hotel occupied in part by members of a Pentecostal church. The property was patrolled by