In 1950, a 19-year-old Stanford University sophomore named Michael Murphy had a serendipitous encounter that changed his life. Murphy had prepared to sit through more of his pre-med coursework. Instead, he wound up in a lecture hall where the great religions scholar and professor Frederic Spiegelberg delivered a message that shook Murphy to his core, altering his ambitions, his career trajectory and his spiritual outlook. "Walking out of there, one sentence kept going through my head," Murphy, now 93, shares with Wonderstruck's Elizabeth Rovere, "It was like an obsessional thought: you will never be the same, you will never be the same." Spiegelberg's influence set Murphy on a path that would lead him to turn a sacred plot of land on the Northern California coast into a cliffside hub for the study and practice of human potential. Co-founded with Richard Price in 1962, Esalen Institute has left an indelible mark on countless individuals and on a broader culture of seekers and scholars. Wonderstruck's second season kicks off with a story only Michael Murphy can tell, about Esalen's wild evolution and impact, guarding it against drug dealers and cults, and a lifetime, says Murphy, of moving "into this greater life that's pressing to be born in us all."
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