Claudio Naranjo

Important influences from this time were Chilean visionary sculptor, philosopher and poet Tótila Albert Schneider (1892-1967), poet David Rosenmann-Taub, and Polish philosopher Bogumił Jasinowski (1883-1969).

He eventually became one of Perls' three successors, along with Jack Downing (1924-1993) and Robert Hall (1934-2019).

In the years that led up to his becoming a key figure at Esalen, Naranjo received additional training and supervision from Jim Simkin in Los Angeles and attended sensory awareness workshops with Charlotte Selver.

Naranjo set off on a six-month pilgrimage under the guidance of Oscar Ichazo (1931-2020), the founder of Arica school and the original developer of the Enneagram of Personality.

Naranjo considered this spiritual retreat in the Atacama desert near Arica, Chile, to be the true beginning of his spiritual experience, contemplative life and inner guidance.

According to John C. Lilly, Naranjo was "summarily ejected" from the Arica School.

When leaving Arica, he retained tape recordings he had made of Ichazo's lectures, and despite having not received permission from Ichazo to teach Arica School material, he began teaching a group that included his mother, Gestalt trainees and friends.

This Chilean group, which began as an improvisation, took shape as a program and originated a non-profit corporation called the SAT Institute.

Claudio Benjamín Naranjo Cohen (24 November 1932 – 12 July 2019) was a Chilean psychiatrist who is considered a pioneer in integrating psychotherapy and the spiritual traditions.

He was one of the three successors named by Fritz Perls (founder of Gestalt Therapy), a student of Oscar Ichazo who originally developed the Enneagram of Personality, and a founder of the Seekers After Truth Institute.

He was also an elder statesman of the US and global human potential movement and the spiritual renaissance of the late 20th century.

Naranjo authored several books.

Naranjo was born in Valparaíso, Chile.

He grew up in a musical environment and after an early start at the piano he studied musical composition.

Shortly after entrance to medical school, he stopped composing as he became more involved in philosophical interests.

These early years of the SAT Institute were implemented by a series of guest teachers, including Zalman Schachter, Ajahn Dhiravamsa (1934-2021), Yang Style Tai Chi Master Ch'u Fang Chu (Zhū Chǔ Fāng) (1912-1988), Harish Johari (1934-1999), and Robert "Bob" Hoffman (1922-1997), originator of the Hoffman Quadrinity Process.

After graduating as a medical doctor in 1959, Naranjo was hired by the University of Chile Medical School to form part of a pioneering studies center in medical anthropology (CEAM) (Centro de Antropología Médica), founded by professor of physiology Franz Hoffmann (1902-1981).

At the same time, he served his psychiatry residency at the University Psychiatry Clinic under the direction of Ignacio Matte Blanco.

Involved in research on the effects of traditional medical education, Naranjo traveled briefly to the United States during a mission assigned by the University of Chile to explore the field of perceptual learning.

It is at that time that he became acquainted with the work of Samuel Renshaw and Hoyt Sherman at the Ohio State University.

In the 1960s, Naranjo introduced ibogaine and harmaline into psychotherapy as a "fantasy enhancing drug."

Richard Evans Schultes allowed for Naranjo to make a special journey by canoe up the Amazon River to study yage with the South American Indians.

He brought back samples of this drug and published the first scientific description of the effects of its active alkaloids.

In 1962, Naranjo was at Harvard as a visiting Fulbright scholar at the Center for Studies of Personality and Emerson Hall, where he was a participant in Gordon Allport's Social Psychology Seminar and a student of Paul Tillich.

He became Raymond Cattell's associate at the Institute of Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT) in 1963.

After a brief return to his native country, he was invited to Berkeley, California, for a year and a half to participate in the activities of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR).

After another period at the University of Chile Medical School's Center of Medical Anthropology Studies and at the Instituto de Psicología,Aplicada Naranjo returned once again to Berkeley and to IPAR, where he continued his activities as a research associate.

It was during this period of time that he became an apprentice of Fritz Perls and part of the early Gestalt Therapy community, where he began conducting workshops at Esalen Institute as a visiting associate.

He became Carlos Castaneda's close friend and became part of Leo Zeff's pioneering psychedelic therapy group (1965–66).

These meetings resulted in Naranjo’s contribution of the use of harmaline, MDA, and ibogaine.

In 1969 he was sought out as a consultant for the Education Policy Research Center, created by Willis Harman at Stanford Research Institute.

His report as to what in the domain of psychological and spiritual techniques in vogue was applicable to education later became his first book, The One Quest.

During this same period, he co-authored a book with Robert Ornstein on meditation.

Also, an invitation from Ravenna Helson to examine the qualitative differences between books representative of the "Matriarchal" and "Patriarchal" factors lead to his writing The Divine Child and the Hero, which would be published much later.

The accidental death of his only son in 1970 marked a turning-point in his life.

In 1976, Naranjo was a visiting professor at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California for two semesters and later intermittently at the California Institute of Asian Studies.

He also began to offer workshops in Europe, refining aspects of the mosaic of approaches in the SAT program.

Since the late 1980s, Naranjo had divided each year between his activities abroad and his writing at home in Berkeley.

In 1987, he began the reborn SAT Institute in Spain for personal and professional development, with its program that includes Gestalt therapy and its supervision, applications of the Enneagram of Personality, interpersonal meditation, music as a therapeutic resource and as an extension of meditation, guided self-insight and communication processes.

Since then, the SAT program has extended to Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina and more recently to France and Germany.