An Actual Man, Michael Murphy and the Human Potential Movement

An Actual Man: Michael Murphy and the Human Potential Movement Edited by Jay Ogilvy (Berkeley: Minuteman Press, 2010; 315pp., $19.95) Michael Murphy is not only the cofounder of Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California; he is also the author of the best-selling novel, Golf in the Kingdom, soon to be a major motion picture. Further, he is the author of several non-fiction books: The Future of the Body, and The Life we are Given, among others. But perhaps most important, he is the origin and guiding light of the human potential movement. Since the 1960s, Michael and Esalen have spawned the holistic health movement, the extension of eastern mysticism into American culture, biodynamic gardening, and a welter of other culturally significant trends from somatics and massage to the revisioning of philosophy. This book of essays was put together by 40 authors to honor Michael s 80th birthday. Its authors include such luminaries as Amory Lovins, Robert Reich, Ken Wilber, Riane Eisler, Ken Dychtwald, Mary Catherine Bateson, Robert Bellah, and Sam Keen. As the introduction by editor, Jay Ogilvy, concludes: We would do a disservice to our subject if we took the following essays as a series of disconnected dots, or as so many thank you notes from forty grateful fans. Taken as a group, taken as a whole, taken holistically, they portray a magnificent vision. Behind the humor, beneath the love, beyond the fun stories of outlaw escapades, there is a philosophy of human existence, a new psychology of hope, and a politics that can carry us beyond enmity. Michael Murphy s vision of our human potential, when seen in full, is nothing short of inspiring. Read all of these essays, beginning to end, and you will be a better person. Convince your friends to read them and we will have a better world.