Alan Watts

The New York Times has called Alan Watts, “the foremost Western interpreter of eastern thought for the modern world.” What an unexpected gift, after all this time to have the correspondence of a one-of-a-kind, free-thinking spiritual seeker and finder like Watts, who to this day (he lived 1915-1973), influences philosophers and deep thi

Before he became a counterculture hero, Alan Watts was known as an incisive scholar of Eastern and Western psychology and philosophy. In this 1963 classic, Watts demonstrates his deep understanding of both Western (Freudian/Jungian) psychotherapy and Eastern spiritual philosophies.

In describing the effects of mescaline, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception literally opened a door.

Life is the ultimate game of hide and seek . . . and the good news is that you're it!

I was a weird child. I was a fantast who believed in fairies and magic when all the other children had given them up for twaddle… I would conduct funeral ceremonies for dead birds and bats and rabbits instead of learning tennis. I read about ancient Egypt and Chinese tortures and Aladdin’s lamp instead of “good books.”

At the heart of the popularity of such spiritual teachers as Eckhart Tolle and Ken Wilber lies the spirit and intellectual passion of the seminal teacher who inspired them all—Alan Watts.

During the last decade of his life, Alan Watts lectured extensively as he traveled across the country. He often accompanied his talks with guided meditation sessions and contemplative rituals designed to instruct his audiences in the art of meditation. Still the Mind is drawn from recordings of those lectures, meditations, and rituals.