Celebrated Author and Scholar Joins Esalen Institute’s Board of Trustees
Big Sur, CA (PRWEB) September 27, 2013 -- Jeffrey J. Kripal has been named a trustee of Esalen Institute, and will join the board on January 1, 2014.
Jeff has taught at Esalen and has been involved with Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research (CTR) since 1998, most recently as Assistant Director. He is the author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago, 2007), a best-selling history of the institute, and has written six other critically acclaimed books, including Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (Chicago, 2011), and Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago, 2010).
Kripal holds a Ph.D. in the history of religions from the University of Chicago, and is presently the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religious Studies for nine years.
“I am very pleased to welcome Jeff as a new trustee,” said Sam Yau, Chairman of the Esalen Board. “In Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, Jeff wrote the seminal and all-encompassing history of Esalen and its influence on America’s intellectual, social, personal, and spiritual evolution. Together with Mike Murphy, Jeff has been deeply involved in many Esalen conferences on human potentials.”
Reflecting on this new role, Jeff said, “I am honored and humbled to join the Board. The community, lineage, and transmission that is Esalen has been at the heart of all my work, thought, and writing practice for almost fifteen years now. So this feels very organic. I very much look forward to serving this very special place.”
Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research (CTR) sponsors invitational conferences and private initiatives in fields that think tanks and universities usually ignore, either because those fields are too controversial, too new, or because they fall between disciplinary silos. CTR programs in citizen diplomacy, conscious business, holistic health, physics, philosophy, psychology, and religion have had a major influence on America and the world at large.
For further information visit http://www.esalen.org/CTR.
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About Esalen Institute
Founded in 1962, Esalen Institute is non-profit center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research. Esalen sponsors pioneering initiatives and offers personal, spiritual, and social transformation practices for workshop participants, residential staff, and interns. Located on California’s scenic Big Sur Coast, Esalen welcomes more than 17,000 visitors each year.
Doug Ellis, Esalen Institute, http://www.esalen.org, +1 (831) 250-1022 256, [email protected]
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