Michael
Murphy (1930-
) is the co-founder of the Esalen
Institute, a key figure in the Human Potential
Movement and author of The Future of the Body and other books
on topics related to extraordinary human potential.
In April 1950, while enrolled in the pre-med
program at Stanford University,
he mistakenly wandered into a lecture on comparative religions. This lecture so
fanned the flame of his interest in the integration of Eastern and Western
thought, that he enrolled in the class and subsequently began meditation.
On January 15,
1951, during seated meditation by Lake Lagunita at Stanford, he experienced
what he describes as a "hinge
moment" (turning point)*, after which he dropped out of the pre-med program with a new vision
for the purpose of his life.
He continued with his formal education, earning his
B.A. in psychology in 1952 from Stanford University. After graduation, he was
drafted by the US Army and spent two years stationed in Puerto Rico as a psychologist.
He returned to Stanford for two quarters of graduate studies in philosophy
before he quit in 1956 to go to India.
During 1956 and 1957 Murphy practiced meditation
for 18 months at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India.
In 1992 he published The
Future of the Body, a massive historical and cross-cultural collection of
documentation of various occurrences of extraordinary human functioning such as
healing, hypnosis,
martial
arts, yogic
techniques, telepathy, clairvoyance, and feats of superhuman strength. Rather than
presenting such documentation as scientific proof, he presents it as a body of
evidence to motivate further investigation.
* It
also used in alternative history novels, “what
would happen if the Germans had won
World War Two - or if the Confederates won the Civil War”.
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