1st Edition
The Relevance of Alan Watts in Contemporary Culture Understanding Contributions and Controversies
Whilst accounting for the present-day popularity and relevance of Alan Watts’ contributions to psychology, religion, arts, and humanities, this interdisciplinary collection grapples with the ongoing criticisms which surround Watts’ life and work.
Offering rich examination of as yet underexplored aspects of Watts’ influence in 1960s counterculture, this volume offers unique application of Watts’ thinking to contemporary issues and critically engages with controversies surrounding the commodification of Watts’ ideas, his alleged misreading of Biblical texts, and his apparent distortion of Asian religions and spirituality. Featuring a broad range of international contributors and bringing Watts’ ideas squarely into the contemporary context, the text provides a comprehensive, yet nuanced exploration of Watts’ thinking on psychotherapy, Buddhism, language, music, and sexuality.
This text will benefit researchers, doctoral students, and academics in the fields of psychotherapy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of psychology more broadly. Those interested in Jungian psychotherapy, spirituality, and the self and social identity will also enjoy this volume.
Alan Watts in the Twenty-first Century
Peter J. Columbus
Part 1: Humanistic Psychology
Chapter One
Jung Watts: Notes on C. G. Jung’s Formative Influence on Alan Watts
Ellen F. Franklin & Peter J. Columbus
Chapter Two
Alan Watts and the Re-visioning of Psychotherapy
Colin James Sanders
Chapter Three
Psychotherapy East and West: A Retrospective Review
Peter J. Columbus
Chapter Four
Alan Watts and Neurophenomenology
Susan Gordon
Chapter Five
Alan Watts and the Infinite Game: Playing Everything
Nathan L. Hulsey
Part 2: Comparative Religion and Philosophy
Chapter Six
Alan Watts, Psychedelic Buddhism, and Religious Play in Postwar America
Morgan Shipley
Chapter Seven
Alan Watts and the Occultism of Aquarian Religion: Square Gnosis, Beat Eros
Christopher W. Chase
Chapter Eight
Alan Watts and Secular Competence in Religious Praxis
Gerald Ostdiek
Chapter Nine
The Holistic Negation of Alan Watts: Reclaiming Value in the Void
Adrian Moore
Chapter Ten
Alan Watts’ "Dramatic Model" and the Pursuit of Peace
Juliet Bennet
Part 3: Arts & Humanities
Chapter Eleven
Reminiscences of Alan Watts’ Last Summer - "You Can Tell a Yogi by His Laugh"
Kenneth S. Cohen
Chapter Twelve
Literary Nonsense as Enactment of Alan Watts’ Philosophy - "Not just blathering balderdash"
Michael Heyman
Chapter Thirteen
Alan Watts, Ali Akbar Khan, and Hindustani Music in the Psychedelic Sixties
Samuel B. Cushman
Chapter Fourteen
Alan Watts and his Queer Readers: Not So Strange Bedfellows
Philip Longo
Editor’s Conclusion
Alan Watts: A Revised Bibliographic Resource
Peter J. Columbus
Biography
Peter J. Columbus is administrator of Shantigar Foundation in Rowe, MA, USA, and formerly served on psychology faculties at Assumption College and Greenfield Community College, USA.
"Columbus (formerly, Assumption College; Greenfield Community College; currently, Shantigar Foundation) brings together a rich collection of 14 essays concerning the place of Alan Watts's thought in humanistic psychology, comparative religion and philosophy, and the arts and humanities. Watts was a synoptic thinker, a brilliant synthesizer of ideas from the Daoist and Zen traditions (and beyond), but he remains a figure whose contribution is shrouded by controversy. Some scholars have waved him aside as no more than an opportunistic guru or an Orientalist appropriator, but others, such as the contributors to this volume, see his relevance for fields as diverse as psychotherapy, music theory, and queer theory. The majority of the essays appeared in 2017 in special issues of the academic journal Self & Society, yet here the editor usefully reframes them in terms of future directions for research. An introduction develops Watts's relationship to 20th-century existentialism and to the current milieu of consumer capitalism. This book will be most valuable to scholars of psychology and the history of religion and to practitioners of psychotherapy who wish to broaden their therapeutic possibilities to encompass the contemporary space of mindfulness-informed practice." - M. Uebel, University of Texas, CHOICE Optional
