Wandering ascetic shamans (Alan Watts)

Open the Third Eye Thanks to the Mind

(Your Universe, 11/13/18) Alan Watts was a self-proclaimed "spiritual entertainer," Zen Buddhist practitioner, Taoist, and British philosopher who interpreted and popularized Eastern Philosophy for Western audiences.

He wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism.

In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy rather than a religion.

He considered Nature, Man and Woman (1958) to be "from a literary point of view — the best book I have ever written" (1973, In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915–1965, New York: Pantheon Books. p. 280). He also explored human consciousness in his essay "The New Alchemy" (1958) and in his book The Joyous Cosmology (1962). ∞