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My dad gave me this book when I was traveling back to college sophomore year. If you've read it you might think, "Oh, that is such a sweet and special gift," so maybe I should clarify: he stumbled across it when he was cleaning out his bookshelves and he basically just tossed it at me. There wasn't anything ceremonious about it. Anyway, I really liked it. It was my literary introduction to Zen philosophy, and it resonated with me immediately. Incidentally, I read it three months after my first trip. I think that had a lot to do with my appreciation of it. Drawbacks: Watts quotes Jesus a few times. When you go to look up the quote, it's from a non-canonical gospel, I think The Gospel of Thomas. This made it instantly lose cred with my Christian biblical scholar friend with whom I tried to share it ("Jesus never said that!!"). The more I read of Watts, the more I found him making unsupported claims against modern Christianity. Also, he tends to say the same thing in all of his books, over and over, so if you've read one, you've basically read 'em all. Still, it's a great book for reminding yourself that you always have the here and now to just be. I've reread parts of it several times.
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THE BOOK On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ALAN WATTS Alan Watts, who died in 1974, held both a master's degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity, and was best known as an interpreter of Zen Buddhism in particular, and of Indian and Chinese philosophy in general. He was the author of many books on the philosophy and psychology of religion, which include The Way of Zen, The Supreme Identity, The Joyous Cosmology, Beyond Theology, Nature, Man and Woman*, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown* and In My Own Way: An Autobiography. *Also available in Abacus Also by Alan Watts in Abacus NATURE, MAN AND WOMAN CLOUD-HIDDEN, WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN Alan Watts THE BOOK On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ABACUS edition published in 1973 by Sphere Books Ltd 30/32 Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8JL Reprinted 1976, 1977 First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1969 Copyright © 1966 by Alan Watts This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Set in Monotype Times Roman Printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd Aylesbury, Bucks To my Children and Grandchildren Joan * David Elizabeth Christopher Tia Mark Richard Lila Diane Ann * Myra Michael ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author is grateful to the following for permission to quote: Cambridge University Press for The Nature of the Physical World by Sir Arthur Eddington and My View of the World by Erwin Schrödinger; Prentice-Hall Inc. for Quantum Theory by David Bohm; William Collins & Sons Ltd for The Gospel According to Thomas, translated by A. Guillaumont and others; J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd for Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas; and Methuen & Co. Ltd for The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton. CONTENTS PREFACE 9 1 Inside Information 11 2 The Game of Black-and-White 29 3 How To Be a Genuine Fake 53 4 The World Is Your Body 82 5 So What? 100 6 IT 125 THE BOOKS 143 PREFACE THIS BOOK explores an unrecognized but mighty taboo—our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation o