Reading Alan Watts

The real Alan Watts is no longer available for lectures, but Puppet Alan Watts is available!

I recently decided to take the Arthur Hlavaty reading course on Alan Watts, e.g., to read the Watts books he recommends. 

Yesterday, I finished The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are. 

Here is the description from the publisher's blurb:

"At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the “outside” world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. In The Book, philosopher Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta to help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe. "

Although he doesn't use the term, I related the book to the Buddhist doctrine of "no self." It's an interesting book. I've checked out a couple of Watts' other audiobooks/lectures; it's obvious that The Book was a concentrated attempt to collect some of his best thoughts.

Here is Michael Johnson on Watts' influence on Robert Anton Wilson.

You can get daily thoughts from Alan Watts on Twitter.