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On knowing who he was
- Towaway69 3y ago> Under the cover of lusty and curvaceous chicks (of whom I approve), and of silly bunnies (of whom I disapprove), you have turned Playboy into the most important philosophical periodical in this country … by comparison, the Journal of the American Philosophical Society is pedantic, boring and irrelevant. There is something to be said for alternative viewpoints on issues that many take for granted.
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- Trasmatta 3y agoTangential, but I recently read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K Dick. It was one of his last books (and one of his best) and has a character inspired by Alan Watts. There's an interesting sequence where that character suddenly grasps the conceptual nature of reality at a deep level. He goes home to write it down, but sees two children playing in the street. He tries to explain to their mother that they're in danger, but she doesn't speak English. So he spends the rest of the afternoon watching the kids, and then forgets the epiphany he had. > What I had acquired, there on that walk, out of my apartment where I had no access to pen and paper, was a comprehension of a world conceptually arranged, a world not arranged in time and space and by causation, but a world as idea conceived in a great mind, the way our own minds store memories. I had caught a glimpse of world not as my own arrangement—by time, space and causation—but as it is in itself arranged; Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself.’”
- bigmadshoe 3y agoWas this after he stopped doing drugs? I’ve always been curious to read some of his more coherent work, though I love some of the more rambling stuff I’ve read
- Trasmatta 3y agoYes, he wrote it near the end of his life. It's one of his few non sci-fi books. It actually hits on a lot of the same themes as VALIS (PKD's most bizarre, personal, and "rambling" book), but in a somewhat more "grounded" way? I highly recommend it.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoSame thing with poem "Kubla Khan". Coleridge was interrupted and couldn't finish the poem. Mention here since it is often referred to as an enlightened moment that was lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock
- fsckboy 3y agofrom the link: Elisabeth Schneider suggested that this prologue, as well as the person from Porlock, was fictional and intended as a credible explanation of the poem's seemingly fragmentary state as published. The poet Stevie Smith also suggested this view in one of her own poems, saying "the truth is I think, he was already stuck".
- passion__desire 3y agoThere are two analogies of Alan Watts which I love. Whirpool analogy : You see, each one of us is like a whirlpool. The water changes but the shape remains. Sense of Self as a "beacon signal" : In olden days, when the telephone conversation was recorded, it beeped at fixed intervals to remind both parties that this conversation is being recorded. Deep down in our subconscious we have the similar signal to indicate that all these experiences are happening to the same entity across space and time.
- rock8y 3y agoNot an analogy but he said in one of his speeches that "Preaching is moral violence", he said that in respect to religion but that that kind of helped me change my attitude whenever I talk to younger kids or cousins.
- ratg13 3y agoI see this book is the final book in a trilogy. Would you recommend someone to read this book, or do the whole 3?
- Trasmatta 3y agoThe only connection between the three is thematic. The have no narrative connection. It's odd that they call it a trilogy to be honest. You can read Timothy Archer without reading the others.
- hackernewds 3y agoKant's thing in itself?
- lacrimacida 3y agoI also love Terrence McKenna and though I don’t take everything he says seriously, he was a fascinating speaker.
- criddell 3y agoWhat are the best sources for recordings of Watts and McKenna? I've found some of Watts, but somebody mixed in new age music and did other edits that I thought made things worse.
- llamaimperative 3y agoWaking Up (Sam Harris’s meditation app) has a huuuuge, high quality catalog of Watts. I am under the vague impression that the catalog was recently released/public domain’d so you may be able to find it elsewhere? But worst case, Waking Up is an excellent resource for this stuff anyway.
- echelon_musk 3y agoShamatha (Tranquility) and Vipassana (Insight) are effectively free practices (as in beer) (and as in Nibbana!). For the most part all you need to be able to do is sit on the floor. Well, that and lead a moral (Sila) life. People charging for 'mindfulness' apps and products really grind my gears! Dharma Seed [0] is a website (and there are iOS/Android apps) containing hundreds of free to access Dhamma talks. [0] https://dharmaseed.org/ https://dharmaseed.org/
- ethanbond 3y agoMeh, if you want it for free you can email them and they’ll give it to you for free. I’m more than happy to pay for a very very high quality experience delivering very very high quality content to me. “People charging for biology textbooks really grinds my gears, you can just walk outside and look at trees or read free content online!” Indeed, you sure can!
- naremu 3y ago
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoThe result was a bleak contrast between Watts’s high talk of compassion and love and a series of affairs that, combined with his low view of fatherhood – ‘mow the lawn, play baseball with the children’ – helped to destroy his family If you create life you must be responsible for it. Checking out early isn't an option.
- Towaway69 3y agoIt's pity that parenthood doesn't come with 30day cooling off period. Becoming a parent is a lot different than many imagine. I agree with your sentiment but I won't judge anyone for not being able to cope with parenthood.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoI do judge them but Watts is not the personification of Buddhism for example, just an effective messenger.
- Towaway69 3y agoWe are both looking from the outside in, we can't know what is going through someones minds, what is happening to them in their situation. To enforce social and moral norms on something we can't fully understand is questionable. Judging others is all about enforcing societal-defined morals onto others. You choose to enfore those morals, I choose to reserve judgement.
- The_Colonel 3y agoYou can say the same about a child rapist.
- sbarre 3y agoOk there, slow down.. You're barely a step away from Godwin's Law here..
- 2devnull 3y ago[flagged]
- retrac 3y agoWhat? People do talk of "cultural Islam". There's literally a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Muslims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Muslims Cultural Muslims would be people who grew up in a predominantly Muslim society and culture, and who have deeply embedded Muslim cultural values and experiences, but who are not religious Muslims. I'm a "cultural Christian". I know the lyrics to dozens of Christmas carols by heart, I can recite the Lord's Prayer, the Nicene creed, a surprising amount of Genesis, and I know quite a lot about the history of the Church, the Reformation, and both modern Anglican and Catholic rites. Of course, I am an atheist who has never been baptized. But that's what growing up in a society where 90% of the population is Christian will do - produce a cultural Christian.
- 2devnull 3y ago[flagged]
- retrac 3y agoTo whom is it offensive if I describe myself as "culturally Christian"? Christians? Why? Which term would you prefer I use, to describe the effect I mentioned?
- smnplk 3y agoA pagan :D lol
- nextlevelwizard 3y agoGotta love the martyrdom. If anyone disagrees with you they just enforce your point. Winning all the way.
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- hello_computer 3y agoJust another front-man for the mystery schools. In this case, the Esalen branch. Same as Steiner or Blavatsky, but for a different generation. "Astral projection" through meditation and spiritual discipline did not fit the 20th century mindset, so we get people like Watts and McKenna and Leary selling hyperspace in a pill. Of course there was a contradiction between his private life and "his" teachings, because he was a deceiver, just like the rest of them.
- echelon_musk 3y agoThere was an interview between Ram Dass and Terence McKenna in Prague Gnosis. Ram Dass states that he intends his life to be his message. McKenna squirms a little and he says emphatically that he wishes for his message to be his message!
- hbchbc556556 3y agoI don't entirely understand. What truth are you suggesting that Watts and McKenna are hiding?
- hello_computer 3y agoTo hide a truth would imply having one to hide in the first place. Watts and McKenna were just hangers-on--people who saw an opportunity (spinning yarns for money and attention) and latched-on to it. L. Ron was of a similar sort, but was far better at it. The motive force, the spark, was Esalen. 60s counterculture gurus are all one degree of separation from it. Esalen (Huxley) being one of the later institutions of the syncretic religion project--which has a clear genealogy through the Traditionalist School (Guenon), Anthroposophy (Steiner), Theosophy (Blavatsky), Masonry (founded shortly after Rome shut down the Templars), Knights Templar, early Church Gnosticism, Neoplatonism... probably going back to pre-history. There are many organizations I'm leaving out here, but these are the ones that occupy the most real estate in Western minds. The Masons already had the Greco-Roman and Egyptian content. Theosophy (Blavatsky was just the front-woman, the handlers were Leadbeater and Olcott) was to retcon the newly discovered (to Westerners) Vedic and Buddhist content into the project. Steiner did much the same with the Zoroastrian and scientific content. Then Guenon, being a mathematician and a better thinker, chooses to operate in the opposite direction. That is, rather than try to justify the hypothesis (all religions as corrupted expressions of the same primordial truth) with a number of creative writing projects, Guenon suggested that "going deep" into one's own traditions--regardless of which--was a faster route to the destination. What was Esalen's contribution to the syncretic religion project? A syncretic religion isn't very syncretic if it's leaving material on the table. What was left on the table? Shamanism and entheogens. Where would a brilliant Englishman go to research this? The Americas, of course.
- mightyham 3y agoAs someone who grew up in a mostly agnostic household, but ultimately converted to Christianity in my adult life, I find sentiments like "There is a caution, here, for strands of the renewed interest in Christianity that seem focused on battling non-Christian or ‘woke’ forms of thought and ways of living" to somewhat miss the mark in describing why people come to the religion. I don't think people come to Christ so that they can debate liberal atheists, but because they are disenfranchised by the current state of society: modern spirituality feels hollow, and we are plagued with social issues caused by general immorality. I also find statements like "Watts tried to suggest that a truly all-inclusive God would not be bound by Western logic, with its insistence on mutually exclusive propositions. In Asia, argued Watts, one found not just ‘either-or’ forms of logic but ‘both-and’ forms, too." to reflect a shallow view of Christianity. For instance, ancient Jews (not westerners) pioneered the idea of a "a truly all-inclusive" god, while also creating a literary tradition (the old testament) full of contradictions and "either-or" forms of logic. Another example would be that even though the catechism creates definitive "logical" doctrine for the Catholic church, the Eucharist which is practiced every Sunday fully embraces mysticism.
- ajju 3y agoI have just recently discovered Watts, but I think he may have agreed. “Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher did not suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a vocational outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Episcopal (Anglican) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion. He later published Myth & Ritual in Christianity (1953), an eisegesis of traditional Roman Catholic doctrine and ritual in Buddhist terms. However, the pattern was set, in that Watts did not hide his dislike for religious outlooks that he decided were dour, guilt-ridden, or militantly proselytizing—no matter if they were found within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism.” —- From the Wikipedia page.
- cypherpunks01 3y agoA lot of criticism is leveled at Alan Watts, by people who point out how he conveyed many oversimplifications of religious teachings, or ideas that seem to be misunderstandings of teachings from an academic point of view. I think what those people are either missing or ignoring is that his main motivation was to be a spiritual entertainer, as he described it, and I believe he's best interpreted and understood that way as well. If people want to learn a rigorous deep understanding of certain philosophies and spiritual beliefs, there are innumerable other ways to dive into this, and better people to listen to. To me, his conveyance of ideas is better suited to impart interesting and different ways of looking at the world in a general manner and to pique one's imagination, not to learn spiritual concepts in a rigorous way. I always felt he succeeded in that way, simply by attracting more people towards an interest in a spirituality and philosophy, and giving a starting point from which they can pursue serious ideas if their interest is sustained.
- keiferski 3y agoFor anyone that is interested in Buddhism but otherwise put off by Watts, I recommend reading anything by D.T. Suzuki. Very accessible but much more academically rigorous and accurate.
- zafka 3y agoI have already spent way too much time at my desk so I am going to read this article later. I must say though, that I really enjoyed "Tau, the watercourse way" when I read it many years ago, as I was working my way across various writings about eastern thought. Quite a while after reading some of Watt's writings I discovered that his behavior was not always so "spiritual" I found value in the message I read, I do not think I want to emulate the way he lived.