Word: arica
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...little or no relationship to most of them. For example, Esalen, which inspired the encounter movement in the '60s, in cludes such therapy as nude communal bathing and rolfing?deep-probing, painful massages that are supposed to release the unawakened consciousness. Arica, a nationwide spiritual organi zation, searches for "the Essential Self through, among other things, Egyptian gymnastics and African dances. Meditation is only incidental to Arica, and involves concentrating on the plan ets Jupiter and Saturn and the colors blue and black. Est, a San Francisco-based group, puts large numbers of people together in a room and keeps...
...Arica's guru is Oscar Ichazo, 40, a Bolivian ex-philosophy student who let it be known in 1970 that he was planning a training retreat for North Americans in the Chilean city of Arica. Among the 50 seekers who made the trip-and paid from $4,000 to $7,000 apiece for the ten-month experience -were artists, housewives, businessmen and a few scientists (among them Dr. John Lilly, the dolphin expert, who had previously tried to achieve higher consciousness on LSD trips). Almost half were disenchanted defectors from Esalen, the encounter center at Big Sur, Calif...
Central to Arica's classroom work is a repertoire of exercises similar to the Audicon Plantar and loosely based on Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim Sufism and Tibetan Lamaism. Exercises called "Mentations" require the student to "concentrate your attention into each separate section" of the body for a prescribed time: 8 minutes 40 seconds for the colon and kidneys, 10 minutes 45 seconds for the liver, and so on. "Active in the World" calls for lying motionless, forearms supported on elbows, palms facing the feet, while feeling "the tissues of your body actively engaged in the dance of Life...
Basic Causes. Some 170 students have "graduated" from Arica training, another 60 will finish in August, and registrations are coming in for future semesters. Oscar is sure the trainees will fare well: "If the body is cleared of tensions, the trouble in the head is diminished. If Arica doesn't make you happy, it will at least make you happier than you were." One of his disciples is even more enthusiastic. Everyone, Arica Instructor Bill Gay insists, can achieve the nirvana of Level 24 (though Levels 12, 6 and 3 are beyond the reach of the ordinary trainee). Once...
Such euphoria seems almost certain to fade. To its credit, Arica rejects alcoholics, drug users and the conspicuously disturbed. But like the encounter movement, it attracts chiefly those with emotional problems, yet does not try to help them come to grips with the underlying causes of their difficulties. For some, it could even be the source of new worries -of a financial nature. Exclusive of board and room, the cost of three months' Arica training is a whopping...