Alan Watts — synthesizer of East & West

“…a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.”

 

“When you confer spiritual authority on another person, you must realize that you are allowing them to pick your pocket and sell you your own watch.”

 

— Alan Watts

Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen introduced me to Asian philosophy. His later book, the explosive Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are rearranged my neural connections as irreversibly as an LSD trip. Just knowing that Watts existed opened my eyes to possibilities that had hitherto seemed far-fetched.

Watts was raised in England in the Empire tradition of Muscular Christianity — rather like today’s Christian Right — which popularized itself with the image of “the Englishman going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other.” However, at the age of 16 he sabotaged his Oxford scholarship exam and instead became the secretary of the London Buddhist Lodge. After moving to the US, he narrowed his focus to Zen Buddhism because it included work, life and art in spiritual practice, rather than excluding them.

Nevertheless, he left his formal Zen training in New York; the teacher didn’t suit him. Then, for reasons that even he had trouble articulating, he entered Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois and became an Episcopalian priest. He hoped to blend contemporary Christian worship with mystical Christianity and Asian philosophy. He lasted until 1950, and left following an extramarital affair.

In San Francisco, he joined the American Academy of Asian Studies, where he continued his interest in Zen Buddhism and its Chinese origins while also delving into Vedanta, ‘the new physics,’ cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Watts didn’t hide his distaste for overly religious outlooks, describing various forms of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism as 'dour,' 'guilt-ridden' and 'militantly proselytizing.'

Listen to this 2½ minute Alan Watts recording:

Alan Watts — larger than life
Drawing courtesy of Emily Swann

 

He came to prefer writing in the language of modern science and psychology (see Psychotherapy East and West), drawing parallels between mystical experiences and the findings of 20th-century physics. He experimented with psychedelic drugs and later equated mystical experience with ecological awareness. He was well attuned to the Beat generation and later counter-culture movements of the 1960s and early seventies.

From 1953 until he died in 1973, he broadcast weekly talks on Pacifica Radio in Berkeley California. Watts wasn’t paid, but gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area that led to the popularity of The Way of Zen, published in 1957. I stumbled upon it 13 years later in Watkins Bookshop in central London; the rest is history.

Watts was an energetic and compelling communicator who influenced many of my generation to explore alternative cultures and religions but keep them at arm’s length. Although I ignored his warning by becoming an ordained Buddhist monk, I never forgot it. When the time was right, his writings helped me once again — this time to throw out the bath water of institutional religion without losing the baby.

To read more about Alan Watts and the spiritual chaos of the 1960 and seventies, read Stephen Schettini’s The Novice.