Krisel, Marcella Scott.

Alan Wilson Watts was born on Jan. 6, 1915 in Chislehurst, England; edited The middle way (London, 1934-8); became member of council of the executive committee, World Congress of Faiths (1937-9); came to the US in 1938; was ordained an Anglican priest, 1944; became a religious counselor at Northwestern Univ. (1944-50), where he began to question the linearity of thought in Christianity; he became professor of comparative philosophy (1951-7), dean (1953-6), and writer and lecturer (1956-73) at the Univ. of the Pacific, Academy of Asian Studies, San Francisco; became director of Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life series for National Educational television (1959-60, 1961), as well as author and presentor of radio lectures in syndication; helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the US; president, Society for Comparative Philosophy; published books include Outline of Zen Buddhism (1933), Myth and ritual in Christianity (1953), The way of liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955), and Psychotherapy East and West (1961); he died on Nov. 16, 1973.