The watt ( /ˈwɒt/ WOT; symbol: W) is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units (SI), named after the Scottish engineer James Watt (1736–1819). The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion or transfer.

Definition[link]

• One watt is the rate at which work is done when an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton.

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathrm{W = \frac{J}{s} = \frac{N\cdot m}{s} = \frac{kg\cdot m^2}{s^3}}

• In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which work is done when one ampere (A) of current flows through an electrical potential difference of one volt (V).

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathrm{W = V \cdot A}

Two additional unit conversions for watt can be found using the above equation and Ohm's Law.

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathrm{W = \frac{V^2}{\Omega} = A^2\cdot\Omega}

Where ohm (Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Omega

) is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance.

Examples[link]

• A person having a mass of 100 kilograms who climbs a 3 meter high ladder in 5 seconds is doing work at a rate of about 600 watts. Mass times acceleration due to gravity times height divided by the time it takes to lift the object to the given height gives the rate of doing work or power.^{[notes 1]}
• A laborer over the course of an 8-hour day can sustain an average output of about 75 watts; higher power levels can be achieved for short intervals and by athletes.^[1]

• A medium-sized passenger automobile engine is rated at 50 to 150 kilowatts^[2] – while cruising it will typically yield half that amount.
• A typical household incandescent light bulb has a power rating of 25 to 100 watts; fluorescent lamps typically consume 5 to 30 watts to produce a similar amount of light.

• A typical coal power station produces around 600 - 700 megawatts. A typical unit in a nuclear power plant has an electrical power output of 900 - 1300 MW.

Origin and adoption as an SI unit[link]

The watt is named after the Scottish scientist James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine. The unit was recognized by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1882. The 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 adopted it for the measurement of power into the International System of Units (SI).

Multiples[link]

For additional examples of magnitude for multiples and submultiples of the watt, see Orders of magnitude (power)

Femtowatt[link]

The femtowatt is equal to one quadrillionth (10⁻¹⁵) of a watt. Technologically important powers that are measured in femtowatts are typically found in reference(s) to radio and radar receivers. For example, meaningful FM tuner performance figures for sensitivity, quieting and signal-to-noise require that the RF energy applied to the antenna input be specified. These input levels are often stated in dBf (decibels referenced to 1 femtowatt). This is 0.2739 microvolt across a 75 ohm load or 0.5477 microvolt across a 300 ohm load; the specification takes into account the RF input impedance of the tuner.

Picowatt[link]

The picowatt is equal to one trillionth (10⁻¹²) of a watt. Technologically important powers that are measured in picowatts are typically used in reference to radio and radar receivers, acoustics and also in the science of radio astronomy.

Nanowatt[link]

The nanowatt is equal to one billionth (10⁻⁹) of a watt. A surface area of one square meter on Earth receives one nanowatt of power from a single star of apparent magnitude +3.5. Important powers that are measured in nanowatts are also typically used in reference to radio and radar receivers.

Microwatt[link]

The microwatt is equal to one millionth (10⁻⁶) of a watt. Important powers that are measured in microwatts are typically stated in medical instrumentation systems such as the EEG and the EKG, in a wide variety of scientific and engineering instruments and also in reference to radio and radar receivers. Compact solar cells for devices such as calculators and watches are typically measured in microwatts.^[3]

Milliwatt[link]

The milliwatt is equal to one thousandth (10⁻³) of a watt. A typical laser pointer outputs about five milliwatts of light power, whereas a typical hearing aid for people consumes less than one milliwatt.^[4]

Kilowatt[link]

The kilowatt is equal to one thousand (10³) watts. This unit is typically used to express the output power of engines and the power consumption of electric motors, tools, machines, and heaters. It is also a common unit used to express the electromagnetic power output of broadcast radio and television transmitters.

One kilowatt of power is approximately equal to 1.34 horsepower. A small electric heater with one heating element can use 1.0 kilowatt, which is equivalent to the power consumption of a household in the United States averaged over the entire year (8900 kW h divided by 365×24 hours).^[5] (UK household consume about half this amount)^[6] Also, kilowatts of light power can be measured in the output pulses of some lasers.

A surface area of one square meter on Earth receives typically one kilowatt of power of sunlight from the sun (on a clear day at mid day).

Megawatt[link]

The megawatt is equal to one million (10⁶) watts. Many events or machines produce or sustain the conversion of energy on this scale, including lightning strikes; large electric motors; large warships such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, and submarines; large server farms or data centers; and some scientific research equipment, such as supercolliders, and also in the output pulses of very large lasers. A large residential or commercial building may consume several megawatts in electric power and heat.

The productive capacity of electrical generators operated by a utility company is often measured in megawatts. A typical wind turbine (or wind energy converter) has a power capacity of 1 to 3 MW. On railways, modern high-powered electric locomotives typically have a peak power output of 5 or 6 MW, although some produce much more. The Eurostar, for example, consumes more than 12 MW, while heavy diesel-electric locomotives typically produce/consume 3 to 5 MW. U.S. nuclear power plants have net summer capacities between about 500 and 1300 MW.^[7]

The earliest citing of the megawatt in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a reference in the 1900 Webster's International Dictionary of English Language. The OED also states that megawatt appeared in a 28 November 1947 article in the journal Science (506:2).

Gigawatt[link]

The gigawatt is equal to one billion (10⁹) watts or 1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts. This unit is sometimes used for large power plants or power grids. For example, by the end of 2010 power shortages in China's Shanxi province were expected to increase to 5–6 GW^[8] and the installed capacity of wind power in Germany was 25.8 GW.^[9] The largest unit (out of four) of the Belgian Nuclear Plant Doel has a peak output of 1.04 GW.^[10]

Though “gigawatt” is usually pronounced today with a velar "g", the “j” alveopalatal variant is also accepted (see giga-#Pronunciation).^[11][12]

Terawatt[link]

The terawatt is equal to one trillion (10¹²) watts. The total power used by humans worldwide (about 16 TW in 2006) is commonly measured in this unit. The most powerful lasers from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s produced power in terawatts, but only for nanosecond time frames. The average strike of lightning peaks at 1 terawatt, but these strokes only last for 30 microseconds. The total power output of the first stage of the Apollo Saturn V moon rocket was 17 terawatts.

Petawatt[link]

The petawatt is equal to one quadrillion (10¹⁵) watts and can be produced by the current generation of lasers for time-scales on the order of femtoseconds (10⁻¹⁵ s). Based on the average of 1.366 kW/m² of total solar irradiance^[13] the total power of sunlight striking Earth's atmosphere is estimated at 174 PW (cf. Solar Constant).

Electrical and thermal watts[link]

In the electric power industry, megawatt electrical (abbreviation: MW_e^[14] or MWe^[15]) is a term that refers to electric power, while megawatt thermal or thermal megawatt^[16] (abbreviations: MW_t, MW_th, MWt, or MWth) refers to thermal power produced. Other SI prefixes are sometimes used, for example gigawatt electrical (GW_e).^{[notes 2]}

For example, the Embalse nuclear power plant in Argentina uses a fission reactor to generate 2109 MW_t of heat, which creates steam to drive a turbine, which generates 648 MW_e of electricity. The difference is due to the inefficiency of steam-turbine generators and the limitations of the theoretical Carnot Cycle.

Confusion of watts, watt-hours, and watts per hour[link]

The terms power and energy are frequently confused. Power is the rate at which energy is generated or consumed.

For example, when a light bulb with a power rating of 100W is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt-hours (W•h), 0.1 kilowatt-hour, or 360 kJ. This same amount of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours, or a 50-watt bulb for 2 hours. A power station would be rated in multiples of watts, but its annual energy sales would be in multiples of watt-hours. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy equivalent to a steady power of 1 kilowatt running for 1 hour, or 3.6 MJ (1000 watts x 3600 seconds (i.e., 60 seconds/minute x 60 minutes/hour) = 3600000 Joules = 3.6 MJ).

Terms such as watts per hour are often misused.^[17] Watts per hour properly refers to the change of power per hour. Watts per hour (W/h) might be useful to characterize the ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h. Hydroelectric power plants have a very high ramp-up rate, which makes them particularly useful in peak load and emergency situations.

Major energy production or consumption is often expressed as terawatt-hours for a given period that is often a calendar year or financial year. One terawatt-hour is equal to a sustained power of approximately 114 megawatts for a period of one year.

The watt second is a unit of energy, equal to the joule. One kilowatt-hour is 3,600,000 watt-seconds. The watt-second is used, for example, to rate the energy storage of flash lamps used in photography, although the term joule is normally used rather than watt-second.

See also[link]

Energy portal

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up watt in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Nelson, Robert A., "The International System of Units Its History and Use in Science and Industry". Via Satellite, February 2000.
• Online Conversion - Power Conversion

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Reggie Watts
Watts in December 2008
Background information
Birth name	Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Watts
Born	(1972-03-23) March 23, 1972 (age 40)
Genres	Observational comedy, surreal comedy, electronic music, trip hop, soul
Instruments	Voice, loop sampler, piano, synthesizers
Associated acts	Maktub, Soulive
Website	reggiewatts.com
Notable instruments
Line 6 DL4 delay modeler, Electro Harmonix 2880, iPhone

Reggie Watts (born March 23, 1972) is a Brooklyn-based comedian and musician. His shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions. He performs regularly on television, radio, and in live theater. His comic skills come into play in improvisational performance, as well as performance of written music.

Early life (1972–1990)[link]

Born in Germany as Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Watts,^[1][2] Watts is the only child of Christiane and Charles Alphonso Watts; his mother is French and his father is African-American.^[3] His father was an officer in the United States Air Force and the family lived in Germany and Spain before relocating to Great Falls, Montana, where Watts was raised and graduated from Great Falls High School.^[2] Watts also took piano and violin lessons from the age of five until he was 16.^[4]

Seattle (1990–2004)[link]

Watts moved to Seattle at age 18 where he briefly attended the Art Institute of Seattle before eventually studying jazz at Cornish College of the Arts.^[1] He went on to play in a number of Seattle bands of wildly varying styles/genres, including Hit Explosion, Swampdweller, Action Buddy, Chiarrscuro, Clementine, Smell No Taste, Wayne Horvitz 4+1 Ensemble,^[5] Das Rut, Synthclub, Elemental, Eyvand Kang Seven Nades, Free Space, etc. He became the front man for soul, rock, and hip hop group Maktub, with whom he has recorded five albums.^[6][7]

In Seattle, Watts became interested in alternative performance styles. He composed musical scores for Northwest dance choreographers KT Niehoff, Amy O'Neal, Maureen Whiting, Pat Graney and Beth Huerta. He dabbled in sketch comedy with future theatrical collaborator Tommy Smith.^[8]

Watts' genesis as a solo performer started to emerge at the beginning of 2002. While touring years earlier with the Wayne Horvitz 4+1 Ensemble, Watts was forced to downsize his effects pedal from a Roland Space Echo tape delay to a Line 6 DL4 delay modeler, a smaller device that makes it easy to travel. He began using the Line 6 in live shows with Maktub, in order to replicate the duplicate harmonies from the recorded material. Then he experimented with improvising entire songs in solo acts with the Line 6, playing initial gigs at small Seattle venues and artist bungalows. Inspired by The State and Wet Hot American Summer, he began infusing spontaneous comedic material with the beat box-driven musical compositions.^[9]

Brooklyn/Manhattan (2004–present)[link]

Wanting to concentrate on solo comedic performance, Watts moved to the Lower East Side, New York City, in 2004. He shot comedic web shorts for Superdeluxe, Vimeo and CollegeHumor, where his video "What About Blowjobs?" became a viral hit. He also formed a theatrical collaboration with playwright Tommy Smith, and began developing web philosophy/content with online entrepreneur Jakob Lodwick, with whom he recorded the EP Pot Cookies. Moving to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2006, Watts started to branch out into performing for television and film, while continuing to pursue live performance and the creation of new performance technologies.^{[citation needed]}

Solo performance[link]

Watts was the opening act for Conan O'Brien on The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, and appeared as the musical guest on the sixth, twenty-eighth, fifty-first, and 108th episodes of Conan.^[10] He also recently recorded material for his Comedy Central special Why Shit So Crazy?, released as a dual DVD/CD package.^[7]

Watts' recent solo comedic experience includes gigs at Fusebox, SXSW, Bonnaroo, Brian Eno's Luminous Festival at the Sydney Opera House, The Louvre, Montreal Comedy Festival, PopTech!, Soho Theatre (London), Vancouver Comedy Festival, CollegeHumor's "CH Live" stand-up comedy series, The Edinburgh Festival, Bumbershoot, The Sydney Festival, Sasquatch, Outside Lands Festival and cities throughout the world including Amsterdam's Boom Chicago, Paris, Cologne, Madrid, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Cape Town and Reykjavik, among others.

Watts frequently collaborates with performers/musicians around the globe. He appeared as part of the Ensemble cast of UK beatboxer Beardyman's Complete and Utter Shambles show at the Udderbelly during its residency at South Bank. He was the opening act for Regina Spektor on her European tour; he recorded vocals for Spektor's song "Dance Anthem of the 80s". He collaborated with French singer Camile Dalmais in a performance at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. He also contributed two tracks to DFA Records' Spaghetti Circus. He also performed with dance-punk band LCD Soundsystem during their first two farewell shows at Terminal 5 in New York City, and again at their final show at Madison Square Garden.

Watts' second stand-up special, Reggie Watts: A "Live" in Central Park, premiered on May 12, 2012 on Comedy Central in the "Secret Stash" completely uncensored.^[11]

Television/video[link]

On screen, Watts has appeared on Conan, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, HBO's The Yes Men Fix the World,^[12] Comedy Central's Michael and Michael Have Issues, Iceland TV, UK's "Funny Or Die," PBS' revamped The Electric Company and the music video "What About Blowjobs?" for CollegeHumor.^[2]

Waverly Films recently shot a one-hour special on Watts called "Why Shit So Crazy?". Created as a dual DVD/CD, the special features Watts in live performance at New York venues Galapagos, The Bellhouse and Le Poisson Rouge, bookended with brief sketches and a music video of Watts' "Fuck Shit Stack". As a composer, he wrote and performed music for comedian Louis CK's show, Louie,^[13] and created the theme songs for Key & Peele, Comedy Death-Ray Radio and Kristen Schaal's Penelope Princess of Pets. In 2010, Watts appeared on the Movie Network/Movie Central/HBO Canada produced Funny As Hell, a comedy series taped during the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, Quebec.^[14]

In 2012, Watts will co-star as the music portion of the new "Independent Film Channel" show titled "Comedy Bang Bang", based on the comedy podcast of the same name (formerly "Comedy Death-Ray Radio").^[15]

Also in 2012 Watts was in the Peter Serafinowicz directed music video for the Hot Chip song 'Night and Day' ^[16]

Theatre[link]

Starting in 2007, Watts began creating experimental multi-media theater with long-time friend and playwright Tommy Smith.^[8] They have generated four pieces, Transition, Disinformation, Radioplay and Dutch A/V. The collaborations between Watts and Smith feature a wide array of performing artists including dancer/choreographer Amy O'Neal (locust), comedian/actor Beth Hoyt, singer Orianna Herrman (Oracle), journalist Brendan Kiley ("The Stranger"), aerial artist Jeslyn Kelly (Fuerzabruta), and projected imagery by ex-Wooster Group video artist Joby Emmons.

Transition played at The Under The Radar Festival at The Public Theater, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time Based Art Festival and On the Boards (Seattle); it was also the winner of the MAP Fund Award and Creative Capital award. Disinformation was seen at the UTR Festival, PICA: TBA, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), and ICA (Boston). Radioplay premiered at Ars Nova (New York), and played at Seattle Rep (Bumbershoot), IRT Theater (New York) and Redhouse (Syracuse). Dutch A/V, a live environmental film performance and winner of the MAP Fund Award, was workshopped at IRT Theatre (New York).

Watts and Smith also regularly host Occurrence, a cabaret of alternative performers, which has been seen at Ars Nova, Galapagos, The Tank, Leftbank (Portland) and various other venues. A recording of their show Transition at On the Boards helped launch the first-ever live performance download website, OTBTV.

Awards[link]

He is winner of the 2005 Malcolm Hardee "Oy Oy" Award, the 2006 Andy Kaufman Comedy Award, and the 2006 Seattle Mayor's Arts Award.^[17] He was also awarded the 2008 MAP Fund and the 2009 Creative Capitol Grant for the performing arts, and won the 2009 ECNY Award for Best Musical Comedy Act.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Author Alice Walker is Watts' second cousin^[1] but he has not met her.^[18]

Discography[link]

• Simplified (2004)
• Pot Cookies (EP) (2008)
• Why Shit So Crazy? (2010)^[19]
• Live At Third Man (2011)^[20]
• A Live At Central Park (2012)

With Wayne Horvitz

• 4+1 Ensemble (Intution, 1996 [1998])
• From a Window (Avant, 2000)

Filmography[link]

• Tell Your Friends! (2011) as Himself
• The Yes Men Fix the World (2009) as Himself^[12]
• Steel of Fire Warriors 2010 A.D. (2008) as Mutantzoid Underling in Bar

References[link]

External links[link]

• Reggie Watts Website
• Reggie Watts at the Internet Movie Database
• Reggie Watts on Twitter
• Official "Fuck Shit Stack" video
• Official "What About Blowjobs?" video
• ReggieWatts/TommySmith Theatre

Alan Wilson Watts

Born	(1915-01-06)6 January 1915 Chislehurst, Kent, England
Died	16 November 1973(1973-11-16) (aged 58) Mt. Tamalpais, California, USA
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Eastern Philosophy
School	Zen Buddhism · Hinduism · Pantheism · Religious naturalism · Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity · Higher consciousness · Aesthetics  · Public Ethics

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive by his son, Mark Watts, and by many of his recorded talks and lectures that have found new life on the Internet. According to the critic Erik Davis, his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."^[1]

Early years[link]

Watts was born to middle class parents in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, in 1915, living at 3 (now 5) Holbrook Lane. His father was a representative for the London office of the Michelin Tyre Company, his mother a housewife whose father had been a missionary. With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings and Alan, an only child, grew up playing at brookside, learning the names of wildflowers and butterflies.^[2] Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family^[3] the Buchans, an interest in "ultimate things" seeped in. But it mixed with Alan’s own interests in storybook fables and romantic tales of the mysterious Far East.^[4]

Watts also later wrote of a mystical vision he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. During this time he was influenced by Far Eastern landscape paintings and embroideries that had been given to his mother by missionaries returning from China. The few Chinese paintings Watts was able to see in England riveted him, and he wrote "I was aesthetically fascinated with a certain clarity, transparency, and spaciousness in Chinese and Japanese art. It seemed to float...".^[5] These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism[link]

Seated Great Buddha (Daibutsu), Kamakura, Japan

By his own assessment, Watts was imaginative, headstrong, and talkative. He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic and religious training of the Muscular Christianity sort) from early years. Of this religious training, he remarked “Throughout my schooling my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…”^[6] During holidays in his teen years, Francis Croshaw, a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and the exotic little-known aspects of European culture, took Watts on a trip through France. It was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various libraries, including Croshaw’s. He chose Buddhism, and sought membership in the London Buddhist Lodge, which had been established by Theosophists, and was now run by the barrister Christmas Humphreys. Watts became the organization’s secretary at 16 (1931). The young Watts explored several styles of meditation during these years.

Education[link]

Watts attended The King's School next door to Canterbury Cathedral. Though he was frequently at the top of his classes scholastically, and was given responsibilities at school, he botched an opportunity for a scholarship to Oxford by styling a crucial examination essay in a way that was read as presumptuous and capricious.^[7]

Hence, when he graduated from secondary school, Watts was thrust into the world of employment, working in a printing house and later a bank. He spent his spare time involved with the Buddhist Lodge and also under the tutelage of a "rascal guru" named Dimitrije Mitrinović. (Mitrinović was himself influenced by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, G. I. Gurdjieff, and the varied psychoanalytical schools of Freud, Jung and Adler.) Watts also read widely in philosophy, history, psychology, psychiatry and Eastern wisdom. By his own reckoning, and also by that of his biographer Monica Furlong, Watts was primarily an autodidact. His involvement with the Buddhist Lodge in London afforded Watts a considerable number of opportunities for personal growth. Through Humphreys, he contacted eminent spiritual authors (e.g., Nicholas Roerich, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan) and prominent theosophists like Alice Bailey. In 1936, aged 21, he attended the World Congress of Faiths at the University of London, heard D. T. Suzuki read a paper, and afterwards was able to meet this esteemed scholar of Zen Buddhism. Beyond these discussions and personal encounters, Watts absorbed, by studying the available scholarly literature, the fundamental concepts and terminology of the main philosophies of India and East Asia.

Influences and first publication[link]

In 1936, Watts' first book was published, The Spirit of Zen, which he later acknowledged to be mainly digested from the writings of Suzuki.

In 1938 he and his bride left England to live in America. He had married Eleanor Everett, whose mother Ruth Fuller Everett was involved with a traditional Zen Buddhist circle in New York. A few years later, Ruth Fuller married the Zen master (or "roshi"), Sokei-an Sasaki, and this Japanese gentleman served as a sort of model and mentor to Watts, though he chose not to enter into a formal Zen training relationship with Sasaki. During these years, according to his later writings, Watts had another mystical experience while on a walk with his wife.

Watts' fascination with the Zen (or Chan) tradition—beginning during the 1930s—developed because that tradition embodied the spiritual, interwoven with the practical, as exemplified in the subtitle of his Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work, and Art in the Far East. "Work," "life," and "art" were not demoted due to a spiritual focus.

Priesthood and after[link]

Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher didn't suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a professional outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Anglican (Episcopalian) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and Church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title Behold the Spirit. The pattern was set, in that Watts did not hide his dislike for religious outlooks that he decided were dour, guilt-ridden, or militantly proselytizing—no matter if they were found within Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism.

All seemed to go reasonably well in his next role, as Episcopalian priest (beginning in 1945, aged 30), until an extramarital affair resulted in his young wife having their marriage annulled. It also resulted in Watts leaving the ministry by 1950. He spent the New Year getting to know Joseph Campbell; his wife, Jean Erdman; and John Cage.

In early 1951, Watts moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Here he taught alongside Saburō Hasegawa, Frederic Spiegelberg, Haridas Chaudhuri, lama Tokwan Tada, and various visiting experts and professors. Hasegawa, in particular, served as a teacher to Watts in the areas of Japanese customs, arts, primitivism, and perceptions of nature. Besides teaching, Watts served for several years as the Academy's administrator. One notable student of his was Eugene Rose, who later went on to become a famous Hieromonk and theologian in the Eastern Orthodox Church of America.

Watts also studied written Chinese and practiced Chinese brush calligraphy with Hasegawa as well as with some of the Chinese students who enrolled at the Academy. While Watts was noted for an interest in Zen Buddhism, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years[link]

After heading up the Academy for a few years, Watts left the faculty for a freelance career in the mid 1950s. In 1953, he began what became a long-running weekly radio program at Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, which continued until his death in 1973. Like other volunteer programmers at the listener-sponsored station, Watts was not paid for his broadcasts; they did, however, gain him a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs were later carried by additional Pacifica stations, and were re-broadcast many times over in the decades following his death. The original tapes are currently held by the Pacifica Radio Archives, based at KPFK in Los Angeles, and at the Electronic University archive founded by his son, Mark Watts (alanwatts.org).

In 1957 when 42, Watts published one of his best known books, The Way of Zen, which focused on philosophical explication and history. Besides drawing on the lifestyle and philosophical background of Zen, in India and China, Watts introduced ideas drawn from general semantics (directly from the writings of Alfred Korzybski and also from Norbert Wiener's early work on cybernetics, which had recently been published). Watts offered analogies from cybernetic principles possibly applicable to the Zen life. The book sold well, eventually becoming a modern classic, and helped widen his lecture circuit.

Around this time, Watts toured parts of Europe with his father, meeting the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung. In relation to modern psychology, Watts's instincts were closer to Jung's or Abraham Maslow's than to those of Freud.

Experimentation[link]

When he returned to the United States, he began to dabble in psychedelic drug experiences, initially with mescaline given to him by Dr. Oscar Janiger. He tried LSD several times with various research teams led by Drs. Keith Ditman, Sterling Bunnell, and Michael Agron. He also tried marijuana and concluded that it was a useful and interesting psychoactive drug that gave the impression of time slowing down. Watts’ books of the ’60s reveal the influence of these chemical adventures on his outlook. He would later comment about psychedelic drug use, "When you get the message, hang up the phone."^[8]

For a time, Watts came to prefer writing in the language of modern science and psychology (Psychotherapy East and West is a good example), finding a parallel between mystical experiences and the theories of the material universe proposed by 20th-century physicists. He later equated mystical experience with ecological awareness, and typically emphasized whichever approach seemed best suited to the audience he was addressing.

Supporters and critics[link]

Watts's explorations and teaching brought him into contact with many noted intellectuals, artists, and American teachers in the human potential movement. His friendship with poet Gary Snyder nurtured his sympathies with the budding environmental movement, to which Watts gave philosophical support. He also encountered Robert Anton Wilson, who credited Watts with being one of his "Light[s] along the Way" in the opening appreciation of Cosmic Trigger.

Though never affiliated for long with any one academic institution, he did have a fellowship for several years at Harvard University. He also lectured to many college and university students. His lectures and books gave him far-reaching influence on the American intelligentsia of the 1950s–1970s, but he was often seen as an outsider in academia. When questioned sharply by students during his talk at University of California Santa Cruz in 1970, Watts responded that he was not an academic philosopher but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

Watts has been criticized by Buddhists such as Roshi Philip Kapleau, John Daido Loori, and D. T. Suzuki for allegedly misinterpreting several key concepts of Zen Buddhism. Examples of the criticisms by those who believe that zazen can only be achieved by a strict and specific means of sitting as opposed to a cultivated state of mind available at any moment in any situation would be when Kapleau claimed that Watts dismissed zazen on the basis of only half a koan.^[9] In regard to the aforementioned koan, Robert Baker Aitken reports that Suzuki told him "I regret to say that Mr. Watts did not understand that story."^[10] In Loori's translation of Dogen's The True Dharma Eye, the author also mentions this and expands further to suggest that Zen in its essence is zazen, and cannot be grasped without the practice. This had been the predominant interpretation of Zen in the West before Alan Watts began to write. One major point raised today, however, is that the state of Zen is like that of a dog, always in the moment, regretting nothing. Although in one Koan Zhaozhou is said to have answered that a Dog does not have Buddha nature, in a different Koan from the same period Zhaozhou answered the same question in the positive, demonstrating the disagreements between the sects of 'walking monks' and 'sitting monks' that go back thousands of years. In his talks, Watts addressed the issue of defining zazen practice when he said, "A cat sits until it is tired of sitting, then gets up, stretches, and walks away."

He did, however, have his supporters in the Zen community, including Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. As David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying “we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing," Suzuki "fumed with a sudden intensity," saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva."^[11]

Applied aesthetics[link]

Watts often wrote about, or sometimes alluded to, a group of neighbors in Druid Heights (near Mill Valley, California), who had endeavored to combine architecture, gardening, and carpentry skills to make a beautiful and comfortable life for themselves. These neighbors accomplished this by relying on their own talents and using their own hands, as they lived in what has been called "shared bohemian poverty."^[12] Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow,^[13] and Watts dedicated his book The Joyous Cosmology to the people of this neighborhood.^[14]

Regarding his intentions, Watts attempted to lessen the alienation that accompanies the experience of being human that he felt plagued the modern Westerner, and (like his fellow British expatriate and friend, Aldous Huxley) to lessen the ill will that was an unintentional by-product of alienation from the natural world. He felt such teaching could improve the world, at least to a degree. He also articulated the possibilities for greater incorporation of aesthetics (for example: better architecture, more art, more fine cuisine) in American life. In his autobiography he wrote, "… cultural renewal comes about when highly differentiated cultures mix".^[15]

In his last novel Island (1962), Aldous Huxley mentions the religious practice of maithuna as being something like what Roman Catholics call "coitus reservatus". A few years before, Alan Watts had discussed the theme in his own book Nature, Man and Woman. There, he discusses the possibility of the practice being known to early Christians and of it being kept secretly by the Church.

Later years[link]

In his writings of the 1950s, he conveyed his admiration for the practicality in the historical achievements of Chán (Zen) in the Far East, for it had fostered farmers, architects, builders, folk physicians, artists, and administrators among the monks who had lived in the monasteries of its lineages.

In his mature work, he presents himself as "Zennist" in spirit as he wrote in his last book, Tao: The Watercourse Way. Child rearing, the arts, cuisine, education, law and freedom, architecture, sexuality, and the uses and abuses of technology were all of great interest to him.

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Your Mind’ series.

On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature".

In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin—especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?"^[16] These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.

Political stance[link]

Distrusting both the established political left and right, Watts found political inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu, an ancient Taoist thinker^{[citation needed]}. He disliked much in the conventional idea of "progress." He hoped for change, but personally he preferred amiable, semi-isolated rural social enclaves, and also believed in tolerance for urban tenderloins, social misfits, and eccentric artists. Watts decried the suburbanization of the countryside and the way of life that went with it.

In one campus lecture tour, which Watts titled "The End to the Put-Down of Man", Watts presented positive images for both nature and humanity, spoke in favor of the various stages of human growth (including the teenage years), reproached excessive cynicism and rivalry, and extolled intelligent creativity, good architecture and food^{[citation needed]}.

On spiritual and social identity[link]

Watts felt that absolute morality had nothing to do with the fundamental realization of one’s deep spiritual identity. He advocated social rather than personal ethics. In his writings, Watts was increasingly concerned with ethics applied to relations between humanity and the natural environment and between governments and citizens. He wrote out of an appreciation of a racially and culturally diverse social landscape.

He often said that he wished to act as a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and nature.

Watts led some tours for Westerners to the Buddhist temples of Japan. He also studied some movements from the traditional Chinese martial art T'ai chi ch'uan, with an Asian colleague, Al Chung-liang Huang.

Worldview[link]

In several of his later publications, especially Beyond Theology and The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Watts put forward a worldview, drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourselves as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

Internet phenomenon[link]

As part of his growing popularity, Matt Stone and Trey Parker—creators of the animated series South Park—have also contributed a video tribute by animating some of his lectures. This has spawned a culture of user-animated videos all around the net.^[17]

Personal life[link]

Watts married three times and had seven children, five daughters and two sons. His oldest son, Mark Watts, currently serves as curator of his father's work.

Watts met Eleanor Everett in 1936, when her mother, Ruth Fuller Everett, brought her to London to study piano. They met at the Buddhist Lodge, were engaged the following year and married in April 1938. A daughter, Joan, was born November 1938 and another, Anne, was born in 1943. Their marriage ended eleven years later, but Watts continued to correspond with his former mother-in-law.^[18]

After leaving Eleanor in 1950, Watts married Dorothy DeWitt and moved to San Francisco in early 1951 to teach. They began a family that grew to include five children: Tia, Mark, Richard, Lila, and Diane. However the couple separated in the early sixties after Watts met Mary Jane Yates King while lecturing in New York. After a difficult divorce he married Mary Jane in 1964.

Watts lived with Mary Jane in Sausalito, California, in the mid-60s.^[19] He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito called the Vallejo,^[20] and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour to his cabin in Mount Tamalpais. On November 16, 1973, he died in his sleep of heart failure.

Publications[link]

• 1936 The Spirit of Zen, Paperback. 1969 ISBN 0-8021-3056-9 A preview from Google Books
• 1937 The Legacy of Asia and Western Man
• 1940 The Meaning of Happiness, Paperback. 1970, ISBN 0-06-080178-6
• 1944 Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius, (translation from Greek of pseudo-Dionysius, available online)
• 1948 Behold the Spirit:A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion, Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71761-9
• 1950 Easter – Its Story and Meaning
• 1950 The Supreme Identity, Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71835-6
• 1951 The Wisdom of Insecurity, Vintage ed. 1968, ISBN 0-394-70468-1
• 1953 Myth and Ritual in Christianity, Beacon Press 1971, ISBN 0-8070-1375-7
• 1957 The Way of Zen, Vintage Spiritual Classics 1999, ISBN 0-375-70510-4
• 1958 Nature, Man, and Woman, Vintage reissue 1991, ISBN 0-679-73233-0
• 1959 Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen, Paperback, ASIN B000F2RQL4
• 1960 "This Is It" and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience, Vintage reprint 1973, ISBN 0-394-71904-2
• 1961 Psychotherapy East and West, Vintage ed. 1975, ISBN 0-394-71609-4 An excerpt
• 1962 The Joyous Cosmology – Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
• 1963 The Two Hands of God – The Myths of Polarity
• 1964 Beyond Theology – The Art of Godmanship, Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71923-9
• 1966 The Book – On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Vintage reissue 1989, ISBN 0-679-72300-5 An excerpt
• 1967 Nonsense, ISBN 0-525-47463-3. (This book is a spiritual application of literary nonsense).
• 1970 Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality, Vintage ed. 1971, ISBN 0-394-71665-5
• 1971 Erotic Spirituality – The Vision of Konarak
• 1972 The Art of Contemplation
• 1972 In My Own Way – An Autobiography 1915–1965, Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books
• 1973 Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal, Vintage 1974, ISBN 0-394-71999-9

Posthumous publications[link]

• 1974 The Essence of Alan Watts, ed. Mark Watts, Celestial Arts 1977, ISBN 0-89087-210-4
• 1975 Tao: The Watercourse Way, with Al Chung-liang Huang, Pantheon 1977, ISBN 0-394-73311-8
• 1976 Essential Alan Watts ed. Mark Watts,
• 1978 Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life
• 1979 Om: Creative Meditations ed. Mark Watts,
• 1982 Play to Live ed. Mark Watts,
• 1983 Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self ed. Mark Watts,
• 1985 Out of the Trap ed. Mark Watts,
• 1986 Diamond Web ed. Mark Watts,
• 1987 The Early Writings of Alan Watts, Paperback. 1995, ISBN 0-89087-794-7
• 1990 The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings
• 1994 Talking Zen ed. Mark Watts,
• 1995 Become What You Are, Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4
• 1995 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion ed. Mark Watts, A preview from Google Books
• 1995 The Philosophies of Asia ed. Mark Watts,
• 1995 The Tao of Philosophy, ed. Mark Watts, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8
• 1996 Myth and Religion ed. Mark Watts,
• 1997 Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking ed. Mark Watts,
• 1997 Zen and the Beat Way ed. Mark Watts,
• 1998 Culture of Counterculture ed. Mark Watts,
• 1999 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion, ed. Mark Watts, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing, ISBN 0-8048-3203-X
• 2000 What Is Zen?, editor: Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books
• 2000 What Is Tao?, ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-168-X
• 2000 Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation, ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-214-7
• 2000 Eastern Wisdom, ed. Mark Watts, MJF Books, ISBN 1-56731-491-0, three books in one volume: What is Zen?, What is Tao?, and An Introduction to Meditation (Still the Mind). These were assembled from transcriptions of audio tape recordings made by his son Mark, of lectures and seminars given by Alan Watts during the last decade of his life. They constitute simplified introductions to the philosophies he taught.
• 2002 Zen, the Supreme Experience: The Newly Discovered Scripts, ed. Mark Watts, Vega
• 2006 Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks, 1960-1969, New World Library

Audio and video works, essays[link]

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars: Many of his works have made it easier for western people to apprehend eastern esoteric thinking, which until now required western people to travel to Asia and spend years learning the subtle nuances of the profound traditions.

• 1960 Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life, television series, (here)
• 1960 Essential Lectures, audio recordings, (here)
• 1960 Nature of Consciousness, essay, (here)
• 1960 The Value of Psychotic Experience
• 1960 The World As Emptiness
• 1960 From Time to Eternity
• 1960 Lecture On Zen
• 1960 The Cross of Cards
• 1960 Taoism
• 1962 This Is IT
• 1968 "Psychedelics & Religious Experience", in California Law Review (here)
• 1969 Why Not Now: The Art of Meditation
• 1971 A Conversation With Myself (part 1 part 2part 3)
• 1994 Zen: The Best of Alan Watts (VHS)
• 2005 Do You Do It, or Does It Do You?: how to let the universe meditate you (CD)
• 2007 Zen Meditations with Alan Watts, DVD, (here)

Biographical publications[link]

• Genuine Fake: a Biography of Alan Watts, by Monica Furlong, Published by Heinemann, 1986

Academic connections[link]

Saybrook University offers the only course on Watts in the United States and perhaps the world (HTP 3075: The Life of Alan Watts). Saybrook also has the only Watts academic chair in the world, which is held by Stanley Krippner, Executive Faculty Member.^{[citation needed]}

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Aitken, Robert. Original Dwelling Place. Counterpoint. Washington, D.C. 1997. ISBN 1-887178-41-4 (paperback)
• Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hard cover); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (paperback)
• Furlong, Monica, Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts Houghton Mifflin. New York. 1986 ISBN 0-395-45392-5, Skylight Paths 2001 edition of the biography, with new foreword by author: ISBN 1-893361-32-2
• Kapleau, Philip. Three Pillars of Zen (1967) Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5975-7
• Stirling, Isabel. "Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki" Shoemaker & Hoard. 2006. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3
• Watts, Alan, In My Own Way New York. Random House Pantheon. 1973 ISBN 0-394-46911-9 (his autobiography)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alan Watts

• The Alan Watts Electronic University – Alan Watts audio and video courses, co-founded by Alan Watts, Mark Watts, and Henry Jacobs in 1973.
• Alan Watts Podcast – The official Podcast of Alan Watts
• Master Enlightenments Arts Seminars and Lectures by Alan Watts – Looking at many different forms of enlightenment – Recorded by Henry Jacobs in 1964/65 who set up the original Alan Watts radio network.
• Alan Watts Online – Project Unicorn (also via Archive.org)
• Works by or about Alan Watts in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Watts essay on Nothingness (This link no longer functions.)
• Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles – resources from deoxy.org
• Alan Watts' This Is IT: The First Psychedelic LP essay by Patrick Lundborg
• Alan Watts Resource Compilation A collection of audio and video links of Alan Watts lecture and essays
• Alan Watts on YouTube, South Park Interview with Mark Watts on the resurgence of his father's work
• watts.progressiveradionetwork.org Gary Nulls online station with Alan Watts show including some archived audio lectures.
• Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are