institution
The Big Sur retreat centre, present in the series as Bob Dobbs' shorthand for the 1960s attempt to get back into the body and the non-literate senses. His objection is not that it failed but that it was looking in the wrong register: the merger it was reaching for had already occurred, discarnately, as cloned ESP. New to it — dialogue 65.
Across the dialogues
65
Made the emblem of the 1960s misreading — its retreats sought a bodily merger that had already happened, invisibly, at the discarnate level
The counterculture's project is granted its aim and denied its object — the merger was real and already accomplished, in a register the retreats had no way to see.
"a lot of the Esalen Institute retreats of the 60s were trying to get people back into their bodies or their other senses, not just the literate, and think that they're merging with that. But they did not recognize the incredible merger on the discarnate level."
Connections
contrasted withCloned ESP
The merger Esalen sought was already underway as cloned ESP, unrecognized.