In 1972 Murphy published his first novel, Golf in the Kingdom, about the strange, mysterious power that he (as the novel’s protagonist) experiences when meeting a mystical Scottish golf pro named Shivas Irons. The book became an instant classic and has sold more than 750,000 copies in the decades since its release. The book has recently been adapted into a movie starring Malcolm McDowell and Mason Gamble. Murphy followed this success with the novels Jacob Atabet (1977), An End to Ordinary History (1982), and The Kingdom of Shivas Irons (1997), the sequel to his bestseller. His nonfiction works include The Future of the Body (1993), In the Zone (1995), The Life We Are Given (1996), and God and the Evolving Universe (2002).
Murphy lives in Sausalito, California.
John Murphy, Michael Murphy’s great-great-grandfather. John Murphy was a captain in Washington’s army during the American revolution. This is the first Murphy the family has been able to trace.
John A. Murphy, Michael Murphy’s father. John Murphy was in his early twenties here. He was an attorney, also studying at Stanford.
The first staff at Esalen Institute, photographed when it opened in 1962. Murphy, at the far right, co-founded Esalen with fellow Stanford graduate Richard Price, second from left. At one point, Hunter S. Thompson served as security guard to the Institute; he was often seen standing outside with a rifle.
Dulce Murphy, James Hickman, Vlail Kaznacheev, Michael Murphy, and Larissa Zilenskaya at Esalen Institute. During the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, Michael and his wife, Dulce, launched a series of Soviet-American citizen diplomacy gatherings at Esalen. Through their programming, they sponsored Boris Yeltsin’s first trip to the United States, in 1989. Yeltsin cited the trip as a transformative experience, witnessing firsthand the contrast between the prosperity of the U.S. and the poverty of Soviet Communism.
Esalen Institute cofounders Murphy and Price in the late 1980s, sitting on the terrace of the convention center. Murphy and Price met as students at Stanford University. Soon after, they introduced Americans to some of the major hallmarks of self-help and personal growth: meditation, encounter groups, tai chi. In an interview with a Stanford alumni publication, Murphy once said, “Esalen had a catalytic role. We invented a new social form. I see Esalen as a meme, a cultural gene that was passed on.”
Michael Murphy and his son, Mackenzie. This photograph appeared in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in 1987, alongside an interview with Murphy.
Murphy at age fifty-three. In his forties and fifties, Murphy became a very competitive runner. In 1983, he placed third in the National Senior Championships for his age group.
Murphy with his wife, Dulce, and son, Mackenzie, at Esalen. Murphy and his wife travel to Esalen at least six times during the year to attend various conferences and gatherings. Dulce Murphy is the founder and executive director of Track II, a nonprofit organization that successfully bridges and bolsters citizen diplomacy between Russia and the United States.
Murphy with Zentatsu Richard Baker. Baker is the founder of the Creston Mountain Zen Center in California, Colorado, and Germany. He is also the founder and guiding teacher of Dharma Sangha.
Murphy with Anindita N. Balslev. Balslev has made major contributions to cross-cultural studies and dialogues around Indian philosophy and religion.
Murphy taking in the view of the Pacific Ocean. The Institute extends over twenty-seven acres of the Big Sur coast, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise above the Pacific Ocean. The Institute is also famous for its cliffside natural hot springs. Esalen offers around five hundred workshops each year across a wide range of topics relating to human capacity and self-growth.
A Bibliography for the Reconstructed Golfer
Assagioli, Roberto. Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques. New York: The Viking Press, Compass Books, 1971.
Aurobindo, Sri. The Life Divine. New York: India Library Society, 1949.
Satprem. Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness. New York: India Library Society, 1964.
Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus, The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1937.
Gurney, Edmund. Phantasms of the Living. Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints. (In two volumes.) 1886, 1970.
Haultain, Arnold. The Mystery of Golf. The Serendipity Press, 1965.
Kirkaldy, Andra. My Fifty Years of Golf: Memories. London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1921.
Leonard, George B. The Transformation. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1986.
MacDuff, Seamus. The Logarithms of the Just, Being First Notes for a Physics of the Spirit. (Unpublished manuscript.)
Myers, Frederic. Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. (In two volumes.) 1903, 1954.
Reps, Paul. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. Rutland, Vt., and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1957. Especially the chapter entitled “Centering.”
The Shivas Irons Society
THE SHIVAS IRONS SOCIETY is a nonprofit corporation organized to further the pleasure of golf and explore its many mysteries. It is a network, open to all, of individuals who share a common love for the game and an admiration for those inseparable qualities of mind, body, and spirit exemplified by the character for which it is named.
Among the purposes of the SOCIETY are the fostering of education through golf and the furthering of the personal and social transformations the game can bring about. We celebrate golf as a game of great beauty and virtue, and we honor its history and Scottish roots.
By bringing together the many admirers of Shivas and Golf in the Kingdom, the society will create synergy leading to as-yet-unknown pleasures to be gained from this indecently alluring game.For membership or other information, write:
The Shivas Irons Society
Post Office Box 222339
Carmel, CA 93922-2339
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1972, 1997 by Michael Murphy
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-1881-5
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EARLY BIRD BOOKS
FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY
BE THE FIRST TO KNOW ABOUT
FREE AND DISCOUNTED EBOOKS
NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!
Golf in the Kingdom Page 21