Alan Watts - In the Academy

Peter J. Columbus is Administrator of the Shantigar Foundation in Rowe, Massachusetts. Donadrian L. Rice is Professor of Psychology at the University of West Georgia. Together they are the coeditors of Alan Watts—Here and Now: Contributions to Psychology, Philosophy, and Religion, also published by SUNY Press.

"The editors of this book have clearly devoted a great deal of energy to selecting more than thirty relatively academic talks and essays out of Watts' enormous body of work. Many of the selections are fairly obscure, but all are worthy of consideration." — Nova Religio"…both academically and historically rich." — PsycCRITIQUES"This collection, testament to an astonishingly productive writing and speaking career, serves as a window into an extraordinarily significant era, when Asian traditions and non-theological forays into religion were largely unknown in the academy. Watts's outsider status is firmly established, but his contributions to academic life and thought deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated." — Reading Religion"This excellent volume is important in establishing Watts as perhaps the most important Western thinker and writer on Eastern religions and philosophy, as well as comparative religions, of the twentieth century." — John W. Traphagan, author of Rethinking Autonomy: A Critique of Principlism in Biomedical Ethics

• List of IllustrationsEditors’ PrefaceIntroduction: Alan Watts and the Academic EnterprisePeter J. Columbus and Donadrian L. RicePart I: Language and Mysticism 1. On the Meaning and Relation of Absolute and Relative (1950)2. The Negative Way (1951) 3. The Language of Metaphysical Experience: The Sense of Non-Sense (1953)4. On Philosophical Synthesis (1953)5. Philosophy beyond Words (1975) Part II: Buddhism and Zen 6. The Problem of Faith and Works in Buddhism (1941). 7. Zen (1948)8. The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955)9. Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen (1958)10. Zen and Politics (1962)11. Prefatory Essay to Suzuki’s Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1963) Part III: Christianity 12. Theologia Mystica (1944) 13. The Case for God (1946) 14. The Meaning of Priesthood (1946)15. The Christian Doctrine of Marriage (1946)Part IV: Comparative Religion 16. Worship in Sacrament and Silence (1964/1971) 17. Western Mythology: Its Dissolution and Transformation (1970)18. The Future of Religion (1970) 19. Unity in Contemplation (1974) Part V: Psychedelics 20. The Individual as Man/World (1963) 21. A Psychedelic Experience: Fact or Fantasy? (1964)  22. Psychedelics and Religious Experience (1968)  23. Ordinary Mind is the Way (1971)  Part VI: Psychology and Psychotherapy 24. Asian Psychology and Modern Psychiatry (1953) 25. Convention, Conflict, and Liberation: Further Observations on Asian Psychology and Modern Psychiatry (1956) 26. Eternity as the Unrepressed Body (1959) 27. Oriental and Occidental Approaches to the Nature of Man (1962) 28. The Woman in Man (1963)  29. An Interview with Alan Watts (with Philip D. Ungerer) (1969)30. Psychotherapy and Eastern Religion: Metaphysical Bases of Psychiatry (1974)           Appendix AList of ContributorsIndex