Alan Watts

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Cristian
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Alan Watts

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In October 1973, Watts returned from a European lecture tour to his cabin in Druid Heights, California. Friends of Watts had been concerned about him for some time over his alcoholism.[41][42] On 16 November 1973, at age 58, he died in the Mandala House in Druid Heights.[40] He was reported to have been under treatment for a heart condition.[43] Before authorities could attend, his body was removed from his home and cremated on a wood pyre at a nearby beach by Buddhist monks.[44] Mark Watts relates that Watts was cremated on Muir Beach at 8:30 am after being discovered deceased at 6:00 am.[45]

His ashes were split, with half buried near his library at Druid Heights and half at the Green Gulch Monastery.[46]

His son, Mark Watts, investigated his death and found that his father had planned his own passing meticulously:[47]

My father died to all of us very unexpectedly, but not to himself, and there were questions raised around his passing as to ... what had happened and particularly since there were various characters involved that ... helped to remove his body. And so there were questions about both had it happened for natural causes [or] was it not of natural causes, I mean there were conspiracy theories, every manner of opinion on this going around, and so I set out to try and figure it out. And there was a group of Yamabushi Buddhists, Ajari [real name Neville Warwick, 1932–1993, a physician also known as "Dr Ajari"] was the fellow's name who ran it, and they actually showed up and took control of the site, and got my father's body and all of this, and there was some question as to how they had arrived there so quickly, and before anybody else, and they whisked his body off before the County opens its offices. ... And so there was definitely some questions about [Ajari's] role. What was Mary Jane's role? There were these kind of things, and so I actually got into figuring it out, sort of as a puzzle, and in the course of it I interviewed a fellow who was part of this [Yamabushi] sect many years before. He flew in from the American Samoas and we interviewed him, and it turned out he was a completely unreliable person to interview because he would make up this, make up that, so at first we thought we had some really valuable information, but as time went on he was spouting every different theory that we'd ever heard and so... But David Chadwick had come to hear this and David Chadwick is the archivist for the San Francisco Zen Center, and Suzuki and my father had been good friends, and Richard Baker, rōshi Baker, had presided over my father's funeral. So after this video interview, David said to me: "I always did think it was funny that your father came and planned his own funeral" and I said "He did what?" and he described to me the meeting of Richard Baker and my father six months before he died, where he planned his funeral, and then I realized that was exactly the same time that he changed... his Will too, so I realized that almost six months to the day before my father died, that he was planning his own passing. And so once I had that piece of the puzzle, I realized that, as I look more carefully, that my father had actually been ill for some time, and that he was aware of, very aware of, his mortality and impending problems, and who knows, he may have actually done something to hasten his death, or, we don't know, but he was very aware that... he was going to pass on, and he planned for it, and once I got the full picture my conclusion was that Ajari had helped him, and actually been part of the plan there. So I think it was, like many things in his life, it was well thought out, well orchestrated, and well executed.
— Mark Watts


His wife, Mary Jane Watts, wrote later in a letter that Watts had said to her "The secret of life is knowing when to stop".[2]
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Re: Alan Watts

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Can you get mysticism in a bottle? Alan Watts explores the drug question, in this psychedelically infused episode of Being in the Way.

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit https://Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

Mysticism in a Bottle // The Smell of Burnt Almonds (0:00)
Psychedelics, Mystical Experiences, & Western Culture (28:18)
Psychedelics as Instruments // Set & Setting (45:35)
Morality & Legislation // Policing, Preaching, & Hypocrisy (49:25)

“Lo and behold, I had what I simply could not deny being an experience of cosmic consciousness, the sense of complete fundamental total unity forever-and-ever with the whole universe. And not only that, but that what this thing was fundamentally—despite every thing and every kind of appearance in ordinary life to the contrary—that the energy behind the world was ecstatic bliss and love.” – Alan Watts
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