Alan Watts spoke his mind!
January 25, 2008 by Evil E
I didn’t get into him until recently, but I quickly found out that Alan Watts is deeeep…
Watts is best known for interpreting philosophies of the East (Hinduism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, etc.) and sharing them with the English speaking world. What I like most about Watts is that he was never satisfied with just one religion: he was constantly analyzing the similarities and differences between various religions.
I’m sure some of you are ready to click on another page now, right?
Well consider this: Trey Parker and Matt Stone (of South Park fame) produced several short animated pieces to go along with audio excerpts by Alan Watts (as it turns out, Parker’s dad was a huge Watts fan).
These vids are short and sweet, so you’ll be able to get a good feel for Alan Watts right away.
Prickles and Goo
Music and Life
See? Watts is a witty guy, which makes his numerous audio recordings a real treat to listen to. Now here are two mp3 downloads where he talks about the “Myth of Myself.” If you enjoy these, I highly suggest subscribing to his iTunes podcast.
Recommendation: Listen to Alan Watts right after you wake up (just play these mp3’s instead of hitting the snooze button). Lie back down, soak in his thoughts, and enjoy a brand new day!
Alan Watts – Myth of Myself (Part 1)
Alan Watts – Myth of Myself (Part 2)
OK, so how did Hunter S. Thompson feel about Alan Watts?
Just as I was getting into Watts, I checked out this book at the library called Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson. It was published by Jann Wenner, the co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine. It aims to trace the life of HST thru the voices of over 100 different people who were close to him at various times in his life.
There are many famous names in this book who have something to say about Hunter, but my favorite stories seem to come from the lesser-knowns who were friends with him in his early years. For example, a man named Jerry Hawke served in the Air Force with Hunter in the mid-50’s, then he got out and moved to New York City to attend Columbia Law School. Thompson later moved in with Hawke and befriended another roommate named John Clancy.
Well, Clancy and Thompson eventually made their way out to beautiful Big Sur, California, where they spent most of their time on a huge piece of property that would soon become the Esalen Institute, a place for “humanistic alternative education.” People like Joan Baez, Henry Miller, and Abraham Maslow were frequenting the place at the time. And the first seminar there was led by none other than Alan Watts.
John Clancy:
One night Hunter and I were driving around and a deer came off the side of the hill and crashed into the car, and it had a little baby with it. The deer itself was killed, and we threw it in the back and took it back with us and hung it up and gutted it and chopped it up into meat, but the little baby deer had a broken leg, so we put a splint on it. We got it hobbling around a little bit and drinking milk from a bottle, and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
A couple days later Alan Watts, the great Zen Buddhist guru who was very popular and had a lot of followers at the time, came by and looked at the deer. He said, “Oh, I think I can help the deer. This deer needs some of nature’s herbs.” He started collecting these pieces of plants and cut them up and fed them to the deer while he pronounced these weird mumbo-jumbo phrases and touched the deer. The deer lay down and went to sleep, and Watts said, “The deer’s going to be fine now.”
Well, about an hour later the little deer stood up, cried out, went into these quick spasms, and died. Hunter was outraged. “That fucker, that quack, that fraud, that charlatan! I don’t believe in anything he speaks. He killed a deer. He murdered it, that rotten prick!”
So there you go. I have a lot of respect for both Watts and Thompson, and I feel it’s important to hear the good with the bad. So let this be a reminder to not blindly follow one man’s ideology. Every person has something good that you can learn from: it’s simply a matter of filtering out the bad and keeping what works for you.
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Well said. I recently read Gonzo, and had been reading and listening to Watts for many years prior to this. I’ve known some people who absolutely condemn Watts for this situation, which I find to be a reaction born out of the assumption that he was somehow this infallible guru. It is important to remember that he was human and certainly made some very human mistakes. This shouldn’t invalidate the man’s entire body of thought, but it does serve as a good reminder not to blindly idolize. What would great minds be without the discretion of their audience?
“What would great minds be without the discretion of their audience?”
I like that question Ian. Do you have a favorite Watts audio piece?
So, let me get this straight – a fawn dies after getting hit by a car driven by Thompson (or Clancy, not specified above), and Thompson blames *Watts* when it dies? Apparently, HST has never heard of internal injuries. I’ve had the great misfortune of seeing animals get hit by cars, and death is not always instantaneous.
Furthermore, animals are not stupid, especially not in their own native habitat. Had Watts given the creature some kind of poison berries, the fawn would not have eaten it. Or is one supposed to believe that the fawn would forgo a lifetime of eating habits, due to having a broken leg – and suddenly start happily gobbling down poison?
Unless Watts killed the fawn with his “mumbo-jumbo phrases” (something that HST is no stranger to himself) I don’t see how the blame can fall on Watts. Occam’s Razor – the fawn was killed by a collision with a car powerful enough to instantly kill its adult mother, not insidious poison plants and “mumbo-jumbo”.
Short version: HST (or JC) runs over deer and fawn. Deer dies. Fawn dies. HST no longer “feels good about himself”. Confronted with the guilt of having run over a baby deer, HST blames Watts. And then eats the deer.
Sorry if this labels me as a “blind idolizer” of Watts, but HST’s story borders on the absurd.