Alan Watts

 Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 16 January 1915 - 16 November 1973) was an English writer speaking, author and self-described "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and promoting Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy to an Western public. He was born in Chislehurst in England and relocated to New York in 1938 to start Zen training. He graduated with a master's in theology from Seabury Western Theological Seminary. He was an Episcopal priest in the year 1945. In 1950, he left the ministry and moved to California where he was a member of the American Academy of Asian Studies faculty. He also worked as a volunteer programmer at KPFA Radio Station in Berkeley. He wrote more than 25 books and articles on the philosophy of religion and. He created hippie counterculture as well as The Way of Zen (1957) that became a best-selling book on Buddhism. In Psychotherapy East and West (1961) the author asserted that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy. He believed Nature, Man and Woman (1958) to be "from the literary standpoint, the most important book I've ever written". He also explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as "The New Alchemy" (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).After Watts's death, his lectures found popular posthumously through broadcasts on public radio stations, particularly in California and New York, and more recently on the internet, via apps and sites such as YouTube[5] and Spotify. His audio-recorded talks are mainly in the late 1960s and early 1970s.