Buddhism

“It’s easy to see why…his influence remains strong, not only in the Buddhist sanghas mushrooming across America but throughout popular culture…” —The New York Times“Although Watts’ famous voice and happy laughter are missing now, his penetrating vision remains, and his lectures become brilliant prose in book form.” —Publishers Weekly“An approachable set of lectures, especially helpful for readers studying Watts and Buddhism in the U.S. from the 1960s to 1973.” —Library Journal

Alan Watts (1915-1973) was a former Episcopal priest, born in London in 1915. He came to the U.S. in the 1930s, where he would become a scholar of Eastern religions. He moved to San Francisco in 1951 where he began teaching Buddhist studies, and in 1956 began his popular radio show, Way Beyond the West. By the early 1960s, Alan’s radio talks aired nationally and the counterculture movement adopted him as a spiritual spokesperson. He went on to write more than twenty other books. He died in 1973.

Mark Watts is Alan Watts’ son and Director and co-founder of the Alan Watts Organization, which maintains an archive of all of Alan Watts’ writings and audio recordings. Mark has also produced the Joseph Campbell Audio Collection and created archival projects for the San Francisco Zen Center and the Krishnamurti Foundation. In addition he is the host of the Being in the Way podcast.