Born in January 1915, Alan Watts was a philosopher and writer who had a significant impact on the West's view of Eastern spirituality and philosophical thinking in the mid-twentieth century. As a writer, he produced over two dozen books with some notable titles such as, 'The Way of Zen' becoming a best-seller after it was first published in 1957. One of the key points of his writing was to interpret Buddhism in a way that had more in common with psychotherapies than a religion, the way that many Western thinkers continued to regard it at the time. Alongside Buddhism, Alan Watts wrote extensively on the subjects of pantheism, Hinduism and traditional Chinese philosophy.
