Contents

List of Illustrations

Editors’ Preface

Introduction: Alan Watts and the Academic Enterprise

Peter J. Columbus and Donadrian L. Rice

PART ONE

LANGUAGE AND MYSTICISM

CHAPTER ONE

On the Meaning and Relation of Absolute and Relative (1950)

CHAPTER TWO

The Negative Way (1951)

CHAPTER THREE

The Language of Metaphysical Experience: The Sense of Non-Sense (1953)

CHAPTER FOUR

On Philosophical Synthesis (1953)

CHAPTER FIVE

Philosophy beyond Words (1975)

PART TWO

BUDDHISM AND ZEN

CHAPTER SIX

The Problem of Faith and Works in Buddhism (1941)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Zen (1948)

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955)

CHAPTER NINE

Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen (1958)

CHAPTER TEN

Zen and Politics (1962)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Prefatory Essay to Suzuki’s Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1963)

PART THREE

CHRISTIANITY

CHAPTER TWELVE

Theologia Mystica: Being the Treatise of Saint Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagite on Mystical Theology, Together with the First and Fifth Epistles (1944)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Case for God (1946)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Meaning of Priesthood (1946)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Christian Doctrine of Marriage (1946)

PART FOUR

COMPARATIVE RELIGION

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Worship in Sacrament and Silence (1964/1971)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Western Mythology: Its Dissolution and Transformation (1970)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Future of Religion (1970)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Unity in Contemplation (1974)

PART FIVE

PSYCHEDELICS

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Individual as Man/World (1963)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Psychedelic Experience: Fact or Fantasy? (1964)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Psychedelics and Religious Experience (1968)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ordinary Mind Is the Way (1971)

PART SIX

PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Asian Psychology and Modern Psychiatry (1953)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Convention, Conflict, and Liberation: Further Observations on Asian Psychology and Modern Psychiatry (1956)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Eternity as the Unrepressed Body (1959)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Oriental and Occidental Approaches to the Nature of Man (1962)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Woman in Man (1963)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

An Interview with Alan Watts (1969)

(with Philip D. Ungerer)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Psychotherapy and Eastern Religion: Metaphysical Bases of Psychiatry (1974)

Appendix: Academic and Literary Reviews of Watts’ Major Texts

About the Contributors

Index