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Before he became a counterculture hero, Alan Watts was known as an incisive scholar of Eastern and Western psychology and philosophy. In this 1963 classic, Watts demonstrates his deep understanding of both Western (Freudian/Jungian) psychotherapy and Eastern spiritual philosophies. Throughout his career, he examined the problem of humans in a seemingly hostile universe in ways that questioned the social norms and the illusions that bind and constrict modern people. Making a groundbreaking synthesis, Watts asserted that the powerful insights of Freud and Jung — which had, indeed, brought psychiatry close to the edge of liberation — could, if melded with the hitherto secret wisdom of the Eastern traditions, free humans from the battle with the self. “If we look deeply into such ways of life as Buddhism and Taoism, Vedanta and yoga, we do not find either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. We find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy.” This synthesis is as powerful now as it was then — and is ripe for revival.
