Recommended Reading: Alan Watts

November 1, 2007 by Al Link
Filed under Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading: A Spiritual Reading List
Selected Authors

Alan Watts

For more than forty years, Alan Watts earned a reputation as the most authoritative and insightful interpreter of Eastern philosophies for Western readers. Watts has such a unique way with words that you might feel as if you were reading your own thoughts. Author of more than twenty-five books (everyone a gem to read), he was an editor, Anglican priest, graduate dean, broadcaster, lecturer, and entertainer. He held fellowships from Harvard University and the Bollinger Foundation and was Episcopal Chaplain at Northwestern University during the Second World War.

He became professor and dean of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, created the series “Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life” for National Educational Television, and served as a visiting consultant for psychiatric institutions, hospitals, and the United States Air Force. He traveled widely, including such countries as Japan, Burma, Ceylon, and India. Watts died in 1973.

Tao: The Watercourse Way. ISBN: 0394733118
This was Watts’ last book and the one many consider his finest. Written beautifully and eloquently, it is a work of both scholarship and poetry. The depth of clarity in spiritual wisdom is remarkable.

Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion. ISBN: 0394717619
This book explores how traditional Western religious doctrine can be reconciled with the intuitive religion of the Orient.

Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion, the Edited Transcripts. ISBN: 080483203X
This is a collection of Watts’ recorded lectures in which he lays bare with lucid description the most difficult Buddhist concepts.

Nature, Man and Woman. ISBN: 0679732330
This book re-examines humanity’s place in the natural world and the spirit’s relation to the flesh in the light of Chinese Taoism.

Psychotherapy East and West. ISBN: 0394716094
In this book Watts explores the common ground between Western psychiatry and Eastern philosophy in realizing the self-actualizing goals of freedom, self-expression, and authenticity.

The Way of Zen. ISBN: 0375705104
Along with D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts was one of the first authors to introduce Zen into North America. This book, first published in 1957, is divided into two sections, history and practice. Topics include the philosophical foundations of Zen in Hinduism, the development of the early Mahayana school of Buddhism, the birth of Zen from Buddhism’s marriage with Chinese Taoism, and Zen in Japan.

The Wisdom of Insecurity. ISBN: 0394704681

This is Watts’ exploration of man’s quest for psychological security and spiritual certainty through religion and philosophy. Watts wrote this book just after leaving the Episcopal Church because of the disturbing realization that he couldn’t reconcile official theology and his duties as a priest with his personal Eastern view of reality.

This Is It: and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience. ISBN: 0394719042

The six essays in this volume all deal with the relationship of mystical experience to ordinary life. The title essay on “cosmic consciousness” includes the author’s account of his own ventures into this inward realm. “Instinct, Intelligence, and Anxiety” is a study of the paradoxes of self-consciousness; “Spiritually and Sensuality,” a lively discussion of the false opposition of spirit and matter; and “The New Alchemy,” a balanced account of states of consciousness akin to spiritual experience induced by the aid of LSD. The collection also includes the text of Watts’ celebrated pamphlet, “Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen.”

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