Alan Watts

He Spent a Lifetime Defying the Western Tradition…

By his own statement, Alan Wilson Watts was half charlatan, hald shaman ‒ this book shows him in both roles. A slender, life-oriented Englishman, Watts advocated free love, free wine, free spirit and NOW ‒ shich he called Zen Buddhism. Thousands upon thousands of students began to buy Watts’ books to try to understand what this erudite man was saying about the mysterious Eastern World and how the ideas of Eastern cultures could be assimilated into the avenues of the Western lifestyles.

HeHis were fine and attractive words to a youth troubled by War and the Bomb, and Watts found himself in the right place at the right time for a man of his ideas and accomplishments. His teaching flourished and his incredible ability to translate the mysteries of Zen and Oriental intellectualism into terms understandable and acceptable to a consciousness-seeking twentieth century youth earned Watts the status of chief guru to the young American masses. His place in our social history is established.

Whether you’ve participated in the counterculture or observed it, you’ll want to read this knowing biography og the man/legend who was quite literally the high proest of the movement.