Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Today’s episode is our second in a series where we take a deep dive into a concept that hovers just at the edge of language: the subtle body. It’s one of those ideas that seems to belong everywhere and nowhere at once -- the subtle body is part of Daoist practice, Indian yoga, Christian mysticism, and, of course, the experimental, boundary-blurring culture of Esalen itself. Depending on who you ask, it might be described as an invisible anatomy, a field of energy, or a map of consciousness.
To help understand this topic, today we're joined by Charles Stang and Simon Cox.
Charles Stang is a professor at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, where he focuses on early Christian thought and mysticism. Simon Cox is a scholar and martial artist who trained for six years in Daoist internal arts in China. He is the author of The Subtle Body: A Genealogy, a book that traces how this concept evolves across cultures and history.
Today’s episode is our second in a series where we take a deep dive into a concept that hovers just at the edge of language: the subtle body. It’s one of those ideas that seems to belong everywhere and nowhere at once -- the subtle body is part of Daoist practice, Indian yoga, Christian mysticism, and, of course, the experimental, boundary-blurring culture of Esalen itself. Depending on who you ask, it might be described as an invisible anatomy, a field of energy, or a map of consciousness.
To help understand this topic, today we're joined by Charles Stang and Simon Cox.
Charles Stang is a professor at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, where he focuses on early Christian thought and mysticism. Simon Cox is a scholar and martial artist who trained for six years in Daoist internal arts in China. He is the author of The Subtle Body: A Genealogy, a book that traces how this concept evolves across cultures and history.
