Biography
Alan Wilson Watts was born on January 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 U.S. in 1938; was ordained an Anglican priest, 1944; became a religious counselor at Northwestern University (1944-50), where he began to question the linearity of thought in Christianity; he became professor of comparative philosophy (1951-57), dean (1953-56), and writer and lecturer (1956-73) at the University 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 U.S.; 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 November 16, 1973.
From the guide to the Marcella Scott Krisel Collection of Lectures by Alan Watts in Los Angeles, ca. 1950-1969, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)
