Parkinson's Law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:

: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

It was later reprinted together with other essays in the book Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958). He derived the dictum from his extensive experience in the British Civil Service.

The current form of the law is not that which Parkinson refers to by that name in the article. Rather, he assigns to the term a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time. Much of the essay is dedicated to a summary of purportedly scientific observations supporting his law, such as the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while Great Britain's overseas empire declined (indeed, he shows that the Colonial Office had its greatest number of staff at the point when it was folded into the Foreign Office because of a lack of colonies to administer). He explains this growth by two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He notes in particular that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done."

In 1986, Alessandro Natta complained about the swelling bureaucracy in Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev responded that "'Parkinson's Law works everywhere."

Corollaries

In time, however, the first-referenced meaning of the phrase has dominated, and sprouted several corollaries: for example, the derivative relating to computers: : Data expands to fill the space available for storage. or : Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity. or : Nature abhors a vacuum.

In terms of computer executable code filling CPU resource (see software bloat), a similar law is Wirth's law.

A second aphorism, attributed to Parkinson and sometimes called "Parkinson's second law", is "expenditures rise to meet income".

A modern version is that no amount of computer automation will reduce the size of a bureaucracy.

The Stock-Sanford Corollary to Parkinson's Law reads, "If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do." If a task can expand to fill the time allotted, then conversely, the effort given can be limited by limiting the allotted time, down to a minimum amount of time actually required to complete the task. This phrase is often associated with procrastination.

Generalization

"Parkinson's Law" could be generalized further still as: : The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. An extension is often added to this, stating that: : The reverse is not true. This generalization has become very similar to the economic law of demand; that the lower the price of a service or commodity, the greater the quantity demanded.

Related efficiency

Parkinson also proposed a rule about the efficiency of administrative councils. He defined a coefficient of inefficiency with the number of members as the main determining variable.

Some define Parkinson's Law in regard to time as: :The amount of time in which one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete said task.

See also

Hofstadter's law

Jevons paradox

List of eponymous laws

Peter Principle

Snackwell effect

Student syndrome

Time management

References

External links

"How Do You Cure Injelitance?"

Parkinson's Law, C. Northcote Parkinson, quoted from The Economist (November 1955).

Category:Adages Category:Organizational studies and human resource management

Name	Jay-Z
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Shawn Corey Carter
Born	December 04, 1969Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Rapper, entrepreneur, partial owner of the New Jersey Nets
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1988–present
Genre	Hip hop
Associated acts	Memphis Bleek, The Notorious B.I.G., Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Pharrell, Young Jeezy, R. Kelly, Linkin Park, Eminem
Label	Roc Nation
Url

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper and businessman. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America having had a net worth of over $450 million in 2010. He has sold approximately 50 million albums worldwide, while receiving ten Grammy Awards for his musical work, and numerous additional nominations.

Jay-Z co-owns The 40/40 Club, is part-owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets and is also the creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings, one of the three founders of Roc-A-Fella Records, and the founder of Roc Nation. As an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200. Jay-Z also has had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, one as lead artist.

Along with his financial and musical success, Jay-Z is known for quarreling with other artists in the rap industry, the most famous feud being between him and fellow New York rapper Nas, which was eventually settled in 2005.

Early life

Originally from Marcy Houses housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, Jay-Z was abandoned by his father and, at age 12, he shot his brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. Jay-Z attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn, along with rapper AZ, until it was closed down. After that he attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Downtown Brooklyn, which fellow rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes also attended, and Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, but did not graduate. In his music he refers to having been involved in selling crack cocaine. In his neighborhood, Carter was known as "Jazzy", a nickname that eventually developed into his stage name, "Jay-Z". The moniker is also an homage to his musical mentor, Jaz-O, as well as to the J/Z subway lines that have a stop at Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn. Jay-Z was also involved in and won several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 90's as part of a plan to get a sought-after record deal. He first became known to a wide audience by being featured on the posse cut "Show and Prove" on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album Daddy's Home. Jay-Z has been referred to as Big Daddy Kane’s hype man during this period, though Kane explains that he didn’t fill the traditional hype man role, instead Jay-Z “basically made cameo appearances on stage. When I would leave the stage to go change outfits, I would bring out Jay-Z and Positive K and let them freestyle until I came back to the stage”. He made an appearance on a popular song by Big L, "Da Graveyard", and on Mic Geronimo's "Time to Build", which also featured early appearances by DMX, and Ja Rule in 1995. His first official rap single was called "I Can't Get With That", for which he released a music video.

Music career

1996–97: Reasonable Doubt and In My Lifetime, Vol. 1

From the beginning of his professional recording career, when no major label gave him a record deal, Jay-Z, Damon Dash, and Kareem Biggs created Roc-A-Fella Records as their own independent label. After striking a deal with Priority to distribute his material, Jay-Z released his 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt with beats from acclaimed producers such as DJ Premier and Super DJ Clark Kent and a notable appearance by The Notorious B.I.G.. Despite reaching only number 23 on the Billboard 200, the album was well-received by critics.

After reaching a new distribution deal with Def Jam in 1997, Jay-Z released his follow-up In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. Executively produced by Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, it sold better than his previous effort. Jay-Z later explained that the album was made during one of the worst periods of his life. He was reeling from the death of his close friend The Notorious B.I.G. The album was a personal revelation for Jay-Z as he spun the tale of his hard knock upbringing. The album's glossy production stood as a contrast to his first release, and some dedicated fans felt he had "sold out". However, the album did feature some beats from producers who had worked with him on Reasonable Doubt, namely DJ Premier and Ski. Like its predecessor, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 earned Platinum status in the United States. In 1999,Jay-Z duetted with Mariah Carey on Heartbreaker , a song from her seventh album,Rainbow'' In 1999, Jay-Z released Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter, the album proved to be successful and sold over 3 million records.

Jay-Z initially denied the incident and pleaded not guilty when a grand jury returned the indictment. Jay-Z and his lawyers contended he was nowhere around Rivera during the incident and they had witnesses and videotape evidence from the club that showed Jay-Z's whereabouts during the disturbance. Nevertheless, he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that resulted in a sentence of three years probation. In 2000, Jay-Z released , which was originally intended to become a compilation album for Roc-A-Fella artists but somehow turned into another Jay-Z album. The album helped to introduce newcomer producers The Neptunes, Just Blaze, Kanye West and Bink!, which have all gone on to achieve notable success. This is also the first album where Jay-Z utilizes a more soulful sound than his previous albums. sold over two million units in the U.S. alone. A line at the end of "Takeover" referenced Nas, who criticized him on "We Will Survive". Nas responded with a diss track called "Ether" and almost instantly, Jay-Z added a verse to "Takeover" which dissed Nas and would start a feud between the two rappers. Jay-Z later released his sixth studio album The Blueprint which was later considered by many to be one of hip hop's "classic" albums, receiving the coveted 5 mic review from The Source magazine. Released during the wake of September 11 attacks, the album managed to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, selling more than 427,000 units; the album's success was overshadowed by the tragic event. The Blueprint has been certified 3x Platinum in the United States. Eminem was the only guest rapper on the album, producing and rapping on the song "Renegade". Four of the thirteen tracks on the album were produced by Kanye West and represents one of West's first major breaks in the industry.The Blueprint includes the popular songs "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)", "Girls, Girls, Girls, Jigga That Nigga and Song Cry.

Jay-Z's next solo album was 2002's 3 million (U.S. only) selling It was later reissued in a single-disc version, The Blueprint 2.1, which retained half of the tracks from the original. The album spawned two massive hit singles, "Excuse Me Miss" and "Bonnie & Clyde" featuring Jay-Z's girlfriend of four years Beyoncé Knowles. "Guns & Roses", a track featuring rock musician Lenny Kravitz, and "Hovi Baby" were two successful radio singles as well. The album features the tracks "A Dream", featuring Faith Evans and a recording of the late The Notorious B.I.G.; and "The Bounce", featuring Kanye West. The Blueprint 2.1 features tracks that do not appear on The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse, such as "Stop", "La La La (Excuse Me Again)", "What They Gonna Do, Part II" and "Beware" produced by and featuring Panjabi MC.

2003–05: The Black Album and Collision Course

After returning from a trip in the south of France, Jay-Z announced work on his 8th studio album The Black Album at the opening of the first 40/40 Club. He worked with several producers including Just Blaze, The Neptunes, Kanye West, Timbaland, Eminem, DJ Quik, 9th Wonder and Rick Rubin. Notable songs on the album included "What More Can I Say", "Dirt Off Your Shoulder", "Change Clothes", and "99 Problems". The Black Album has sold 3 million copies in the US. Reportedly this major industry move was prompted by disagreements between Jay-Z and Dash as to what direction Roc-A-Fella could undertake. The publicized split between Jay-Z, Dash and Biggs led to the former partners sending jabs at each other in interviews.

2005–07: "I Declare War", Kingdom Come and American Gangster

On October 27, 2005, Jay-Z headlined New York's Power 105.1 annual concert, Powerhouse. The concert was entitled the "I Declare War" concert leading to intense speculation in the weeks preceding the event on whom exactly Jay-Z would declare war. As he had previously "declared war" on other artists taking lyrical shots at him at other events, many believed that the Powerhouse show would represent an all-out assault by Jay-Z upon his rivals. The theme of the concert was Jay-Z's position as President and CEO of Def Jam, complete with an on-stage mock-up of the Oval Office. Many artists made appearances such as the old roster of Roc-A-Fella records artists, as well as Ne-Yo, Teairra Mari, T.I., Young Jeezy, Akon, Kanye West, Paul Wall, The LOX, and Diddy.

At the conclusion of the concert, Jay-Z put many arguments to rest to the surprise of hip hop fans. The most significant development in this show was closure to the infamous hip hop rivalry between Jay-Z and Nas. The two former rivals shook hands and shared the stage together to perform Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents" blended with Nas's song "The World is Yours".

Jay-Z returned with his comeback album on November 21, 2006 titled Kingdom Come. Jay-Z's comeback single, "Show Me What You Got", was leaked on the Internet in early October 2006, scheduled to be released later on that month, received heavy air-play after its leak, causing the FBI to step in and investigate. Jay-Z worked with video director Hype Williams, and the single's video was directed by F. Gary Gray (Friday, The Italian Job). The album features producers such as Just Blaze, Pharrell, Kanye West, Dr. Dre and Coldplay's Chris Martin (single entitled "Beach Chair"). The first week saw 680,000 sales of the CD, which Entertainment Weekly said was "the highest single-week total in Jay's decade long career". This album has sold 2 million copies in the U.S. alone. The album is not the film's official soundtrack, although it was distributed by Def Jam. Jay-Z's American Gangster depicts his life in correlation to the movie American Gangster. At the start of the album's first single, "Blue Magic", Jay-Z offers a dealer's manifesto while making references to political figures of the late 1980s with the lyric: "Blame Reagan for making me to into a monster, blame Oliver North and Iran-Contra, I ran contraband that they sponsored, before this rhymin' stuff we was in concert." Also notable about the "Blue Magic" music video was Jay-Z flashing 500 euro notes, in what Harvard Business School professor Rawi Abdelal has called a "turning point in American pop culture's response to globalization." The album has sold 1 million copies in the US.

2008–09: Glastonbury, new record deal and The Blueprint 3

It was controversially announced on February 2, 2008 that Jay-Z would headline the 2008 Glastonbury Festival, becoming the first major hip hop artist to headline the British festival. Tickets initially failed to sell out – with 100,000 being sold out of a possible 137,500. As the festival sold out in 2 hours the previous year critics blamed the choice of a hip hop artist as opposed to a rock band as the main problem, although another possible cause is the preceding run of terrible weather and flooding that in 2007 made life at the festival very difficult. Tickets eventually sold out in the final day before the festival. One of the more outspoken critics of his selection was Noel Gallagher of Oasis fame, who criticized the organizers of the festival for scheduling Jay-Z as a headliner for the traditionally guitar-driven, stating "I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance. Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music and even when they throw the odd curve ball in on a Sunday night you go 'Kylie Minogue?' I don't know about it. But I'm not having hip hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong."

Controversy ensued in the months leading up to the event with artists, promoters and fans weighing in both for and against. Jay-Z responded to this saying, "We don't play guitars, Noel, but hip hop has put in its work like any other form of music. This headline show is just a natural progression. Rap music is still evolving. We have to respect each other's genre of music and move forward." In response to Gallagher's criticism, Jay-Z opened his Glastonbury set with a tongue-in-cheek cover of Oasis's iconic song "Wonderwall". His Glastonbury performance was heralded as a successful response to pre-festival criticism. He also headlined many other summer festivals in 2008, including Roskilde Festival in Denmark, Hove Festival in Norway and O2 Wireless Festival in London. During Kanye West's August 6, 2008 concert at Madison Square Garden, Jay-Z came out to perform a new song and he and Kanye proclaimed that it was to be on The Blueprint 3. On May 21, 2009, Jay-Z announced he would be parting ways with Def Jam, and had struck a multi-million dollar deal to sign with Live Nation, with whom he would start his Roc Nation imprint which would serve as a record label, talent/management agency, and music publishing company and also partnered up with production team Stargate to start a record label called StarRoc. Jay-Z's 11th studio album The Blueprint 3 was originally to be released on September 11, 2009 but was instead released in North America on September 8, 2009 due to increasing anticipation. Its international release followed on September 14. It is his 11th album to reach #1 on the Billboard 200 and has surpassed Elvis Presley's previous record, making him the current record holder. At his concert on November 8, 2009 at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, Rihanna joined him on stage and performed "Hard" for the very first time, then performed "Run This Town" with Jay. Enjoying their performances were Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Nicole Richie and Samantha Ronson, James Blunt, and Jamie Foxx. Among his success, Jay-Z has ventured into producing Broadway shows. Along with Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, Jay-Z helped produced the play Fela!, a musical celebrating the work of the late Nigerian star Fela Kuti. Jay-Z said he was inspired by the power of Kuti's work and his life story, which resulted in his interest to help produce the musical. In June 2010, Eminem and Jay-Z announced they would perform together in a pair of concerts in Detroit and New York. The event was dubbed The Home & Home Tour. The first two concerts rapidly sold out, prompting the scheduling of an additional show at each venue. In August 2010, it was revealed that Jay-Z and Kanye West will be collaborating on a five track EP entitled Watch the Throne. The first single released for the project is a remix to "Power", which features Swizz Beatz. Jay-Z will be the support act for U2 on the Australian and New Zealand leg of their U2 360° Tour, beginning in Auckland, New Zealand in November 2010, followed by Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth in December. He also appeared on stage during U2 performances of Sunday Bloody Sunday, and in Auckland also joined the band for a performance of Scarlet, singing some lines of his song, "History".

On September 23, 2010, Q-Tip confirmed working on Jay-Z's follow up album to The Blueprint 3, saying the album should hit stores by the upcoming spring.

Musical style

Influences

Jay-Z that states his earliest exposure to music was through his parents' record collection, which was mostly of soul artists such as Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway. He says "I grew up around music, listening to all types of people...I'm into music that has soul in it, whether it be rap, R&B;, pop music, whatever. As long as I can feel their soul through the wax, that's what I really listen to." He often uses excerpts from these artists as samples in his work, particularly in the Kanye West-productions included on the Blueprint 1. The book describes how Jay-Z uses ‘rests’ to provide structure to a verse and how he uses 'partial linking' to add more rhymes to a verse. Jay-Z's early style is described by Vibe as "a distinctly Das EFX-type, stiggety style" on his 12" single "Can't Get With That", referring to the fast rhythms and vocal delivery of the group Das EFX. He is also known to write lyrics in his head, as described by Pusha T of Clipse in How to Rap, a style popular with many MCs such as Notorious B.I.G., Bobby Creekwater and Guerilla Black.

Business ventures

Jay-Z has also established himself as an entrepreneur like his fellow hip hop moguls and friends, Russell Simmons, Dr. Dre and Sean "Diddy" Combs, who also have business holdings such as record companies and clothing lines. In an interview, he stated that "my brands are an extension of me. They're close to me. It's not like running GM, where there's no emotional attachment." He is the founder of the urban clothing brand Rocawear along with Damon Dash. Rocawear has clothing lines and accessories for men, women and children. The line was taken over by Jay-Z in early 2006 following a falling out with Dash. In March 2007, Jay-Z sold the rights to the Rocawear brand to Iconix Brand Group, for $204 million. Jay-Z will retain his stake in the company and will continue to oversee the marketing, licensing and product development. He also co-owns The 40/40 Club, an upscale sports bar that started in New York City and has since expanded to Atlantic City and Chicago. In 2008, the 40/40 club in Las Vegas was closed down and bought back by the hotel after attendance steadily declined. Future plans will see 40/40 Clubs in Tokyo and Singapore. In 2005, Jay-Z became an investor in Carol's Daughter, a line of beauty products, including products for hair, skin, and hands, as well as fragrances.

Jay-Z serves as co-brand director for Budweiser Select and collaborates with the company on strategic marketing programs and creative ad development. He provides direction on brand programs and ads that appear on TV, radio, print, and high-profile events. He is also yet to expand his 40/40 Club sports bar in as many as 20 airports, as he makes deals with his business partners, Juan and Desiree Perez. He is a part-owner of the New Jersey Nets NBA team paying a reported $4.5 million for his share. He is interested in relocating the team to Brooklyn. In October 2005, he was reported in English media as considering buying a stake of Arsenal F.C., an English soccer team. He has also invested in a real estate development venture called J Hotels which recently acquired a $66 million mid-block parcel in Chelsea, New York. Jay-Z and his partners are contemplating constructing a high-end hotel or an art gallery building on the newly acquired site which has the potential to go up about twelve stories. Through his company Gain Global Investments Network LLC, had an interest estimated between 2 and 7% in the Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG) consortium which in January 2010 was awarded a contract to operate a 4,500 slot machine racino at the Aqueduct Race Track. Jay-Z became interested in the project after New York Governor David Paterson who awarded the contract said there had to be an affirmative action component to the ownership. Jay-Z initially approached Steve Wynn who was also bidding on the contract. On March 9, 2010, Jay-Z and Flake withdrew from the project and Paterson recused himself from further involvement.

On November 16, 2010, Jay-Z published a memoir entitled Decoded.

Personal life

" on November 15, 2009.]]

Relationship with Beyoncé

Jay-Z's most public relationship has been with American R&B; superstar Beyoncé Knowles, the former lead singer of Destiny's Child. In 2002, Jay-Z and Knowles collaborated for the song "'03 Bonnie & Clyde". Jay-Z also appeared on Knowles' hit single "Crazy In Love" and as well as "That's How You Like It" from her debut Dangerously in Love. On her second album, B'Day, he made appearances on the 2006 hits, "Déjà Vu" and "Upgrade U". In the video for the latter song, she comically imitates his appearance. The couple generally avoid discussing their relationship. Knowles has stated that she believes that not publicly discussing their relationship has helped them. Jay-Z said in a People article, "We don't play with our relationship." They keep a low public profile despite being photographed at New Jersey Nets home games and while on vacation in Cannes in 2007. On April 4, 2008, it was reported by People that Knowles and Jay-Z had been married at a private ceremony in New York City. It became a matter of public record on April 22, 2008, but Knowles did not publicly debut her $5 million Lorraine Schwartz-designed wedding ring until the Fashion Rocks concert on September 5, 2008 in New York City. Knowles and Jay-Z were listed as the most powerful couple for Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2006. In January 2009, Forbes ranked them as Hollywood's top-earning couple, with a combined total of $162 million. They also made it to the top of the list the following year, with a combined total of $122 million between June 2008 and June 2009. The effort took place in partnership with the UN, as well as MTV, which produced a documentary entitled Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life, first airing in November 2006. Along with Sean "Diddy" Combs, Jay-Z pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross' relief effort after Hurricane Katrina. Jay-Z stated his support for Kanye West after the latter's outburst against President Bush during a live Katrina charity telethon. He also addressed the issue of the Katrina disaster, and the government's response, in his song "Minority Report".

Politics

Jay-Z got actively involved in politics during the 2008 presidential campaign, where he supported increased voter participation and helped send voters to polling stations. He was an early supporter for the candidacy of Illinois senator and subsequent US president Barack Obama, performing for free in voter-drive concerts financed by the Democrats' campaign. In the process, he's become personally acquainted with Obama himself, who stated "Every time I talk to Jay-Z, who is a brilliant talent and a good guy, I enjoy how he thinks. That's somebody who is going to start branching out and can help shape attitudes in a real positive way." During the 2010 mid-term elections' campaign, Jay-Z appeared, along with other artists, in an ad prepared by the HeadCount organization, urging voters, and especially younger ones, to register and vote.

Discography

Reasonable Doubt (1996)

In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997)

Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (1998)

Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (1999)

(2000)

The Blueprint (2001)

(2002)

The Black Album (2003)

Kingdom Come (2006)

American Gangster (2007)

The Blueprint 3 (2009)

Watch the Throne (2011) [with Kanye West]

Awards and nominations

Filmography

Wild Style (1983)

Streets Is Watching (1998)

Backstage (2000)

State Property (2002)

Paper Soldiers (2003)

Fade to Black (2004)

Bibliography

Decoded by Jay-Z (2010: Spiegel & Grau, 336 pages) ISBN 978-1400068920. Part memoir and part a collection of Jay-Z lyrics with the stories behind them.

References

External links

Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:1990s rappers Category:2000s rappers Category:2010s rappers Category:African American rappers Category:African American record producers Category:African American sports executives Category:American dance musicians Category:American hip hop record producers Category:American music industry executives Category:American people convicted of assault Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Businesspeople from New York City Category:Grammy Award winners Category:National Basketball Association executives Category:National Basketball Association owners Category:New Jersey Nets owners Category:African-American businesspeople Category:New Jersey Nets Category:People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Category:People from Scarsdale, New York Category:Rappers from New York City Category:Roc-A-Fella Records artists Category:Priority Records artists

Ben Young (born 1973) is an Anglo-American artist based in London.

Biography

Young was born in Amersham, England, to an American mother and a British father. His mixed cultural heritage influences his work which often deals with themes of existential anxiety, alienation and the struggle for meaning in the postmodern, digital age.

He received his MA Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art and Design in 2007.

Selected exhibitions

2010 Art Amsterdam with Locuslux Gallery, Brussels The Queen Loser, Group Show, London

2009 Contemporary Man, Solo Show, Salon Contemporary, London The Irrational Subject, Solo Show, Locuslux Gallery, Brussels Art Chicago with Woolff Gallery, London London Art Fair with Woolff Gallery, London 2008 Art London with Woolff Gallery, London UK's Future Greats In New York, White Box, New York

Work in collections

Kabin Collection (London)

Bernard Jacobson Gallery (London)

Locuslux Collection (Brussels)

White Box (New York)

References

Saatchi's Online Gallery Clicks With 6m, Times Online, December 24, 2006

Le Sujet Irrationel de Ben Young, interview by Christine de Schaetzen, H Art Magazine #57, October 2009, Belgium

Artist, Ben Young, interview by Royce Deans, Copper Press #11, September 2009, Michigan USA

External links

http://www.locusluxams.com/artist/29/ben_young.html

http://www.benyoungart.com

http://www.kabin.org.uk/gallery/collection/ben-young/through_my_eyes.jpg.php

Category:British artists Category:Living people Category:1973 births

Region	Eastern Philosophy
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Image name	AlanWatts.jpg
Name	Alan Wilson Watts
Birth date	January 06, 1915
Birth place	Chislehurst, Kent, England
Death date	November 16, 1973
Death place	Mt. Tamalpais, California
School tradition	Zen Buddhism Hinduism Pantheism Religious naturalism Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity Higher consciousnessAesthetics Public Ethics

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer 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 Episcopalian 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 best thought of as a form of psychotherapy, 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 with the help of his son, Mark Watts, and many of his recorded talks and lectures have found new life on the internet. Critic Erik Davis notes the freshness, longevity, and continuing relevance of Watts's work today, observing that his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

Early years

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. Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family 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.

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...". These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism

(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…” 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

Watts attended 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.

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. Living in London and his involvement with the Buddhist Lodge 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

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 Alan, though Watts 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 – which began for him 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

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, Frederick 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. When he left the Academy, the position was inherited by another faculty member, the Sanskrit scholar, former Theosophy insider, and practicing yogi Ernest Wood.

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, with its origins in China, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years

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

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."

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

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. 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." 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 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"

Applied aesthetics

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." Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow, and Watts dedicated his book The Joyous Cosmology to the people of this neighborhood.

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".

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

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, . 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 Our 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?" 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

In his writings, Watts alluded to his own political shift from Republican conservatism to a more libertarian legal and political outlook. Distrusting both the established political left and right, he found inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu. 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.

On spiritual and social identity

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

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 ourself 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

Since the inception of alanwattspodcast.com by Amber Star of Zencast.org, and the success of internet based user-generated videos, many of Alan's audio contents have been made into videos.

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 many hundreds of user animated videos all around the net.

Personal life

Alan Watts was 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.

He 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 after that to correspond with his ex-mother-in-law.

After leaving Eleanor in 1950 Alan 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 his wife Mary Jane in Sausalito, California in the mid-60s. He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais. Laden with social and financial responsibilities, he struggled increasingly with alcohol addiction, which may have contributed to his premature death.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour. He died of heart failure in his sleep at his home on Mt. Tamalpais the following month, at the age of 58.

Books

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

1974 The Essence of Alan 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

1978 Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life

1979 Om: Creative Meditations

1982 Play to Live

1983 Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self

1985 Out of the Trap

1986 Diamond Web

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

1995 Become What You Are, Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4

1995 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion A preview from Google Books

1995 The Philosophies of Asia

1995 The Tao of Philosophy, edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8

1996 Myth and Religion

1997 Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking

1997 Zen and the Beat Way

1998 Culture of Counterculture

1999 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion, 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.

Audio and video works, essays

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars:

1960 Eastern Wisdom in 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)

Other books

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

Academic connections

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.

Notes

References

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 1-89336132-2

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

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)

Watts essay on Nothingness

"Alan Watts Theatre" - audio recordings of Watts set to animations

Alan Watts audio archive from the DIY Dharma website

Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles - resources from deoxy.org

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.

www.souljerky.com Collection of Trey Parker and Matt Stone animations.

Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Category:1915 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century philosophers Category:Buddhism in the United States Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Buddhist philosophers Category:Mahayana Buddhists Category:English Buddhists Category:English philosophers Category:English spiritual teachers Category:English spiritual writers Category:English Taoists Category:Harvard Fellows Category:Metaphysicians Category:Modern Buddhist writers Category:People associated with the Human Potential Movement Category:Western mystics Category:American Episcopal priests

Name	Esther Hicks
Caption	Esther and Jerry Hicks in 2007
Birth date	March 5th 1948
Birth place	Utah
Residence	San Antonio, Texas
Other names	Abraham
Known for	Author and public speaker for Abraham-Hicks teaching
Occupation	Author
Home town	Coalville, Utah
Spouse	Jerry Hicks
Children	Tracy Geer Ayers
Website	www.abraham-hicks.com

Esther Hicks (born Esther Weaver) is an American inspirational speaker and best-selling author. She has co-authored nine books with her husband Jerry Hicks, presents workshops on the Law of Attraction and appeared in the first release of the film The Secret. The Hicks' books, including the best-selling series The Law of Attraction, are — according to Esther Hicks — "translated from a group of non-physical entities called Abraham (Hicks describes what she is doing as tapping into "infinite intelligence").

Biography

Esther Hicks was born 1948 in Coalville, Utah. In 1980, she married her current husband, a successful Amway distributor, Jerry Hicks.

Film

Esther Hicks was a narrator and star of the original version of the film The Secret. Hicks earned over $500,000 for her work and was reportedly a central source of the film's inspiration.

The footage featuring Hicks was removed from the later "Extended Edition" after the film's creator Rhonda Byrne, who has been involved in contractual disputes and litigation regarding the film, asked to rescind the original contract covering Hicks' participation, leading Hicks to withdraw completely from the project.

Abraham–Hicks Publications has subsequently posted a video on YouTube which explains Hicks' decision to discontinue her involvement with The Secret.

Books

Hay House, Inc. published the Hicks' best-selling book, Ask and It is Given, in September, 2004. Since that book they have also published five more New York Times Best-Sellers: The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent (January, 2006), The Law of Attraction (October, 2006), The Astonishing Power of Emotions (September, 2008), Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness which ranked #1 two weeks after its release in August 2008 and The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships. A series of fictional children's books, Sara I, II, and III, is also available. Several of their books were translated into Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Czech, Slovenian, Slovak, Serbian and Russian.

A New Beginning I: Handbook for Joyous Survival, by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Published by Abraham–Hicks Publications, 5th edition, 1988. ISBN 0962121932.

A New Beginning II: A Personal Handbook to Enhance Your Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness, by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Published by Abraham–Hicks Publications, 1991. ISBN 0962121916.

Sara and the Foreverness of Friends of a Feather, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Published by Abraham–Hicks Publications, 1995. ISBN 0962121940.

Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Published by Hay House, 2005. ISBN 1401907997.

The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Contributor Louise L. Hay. Published by Hay House, 2005.ISBN 1401906958.

The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham Esther and Jerry Hicks. Published by Hay House, 2006. ISBN 1401912273.

Sara, Book 1: Sara Learns the Secret about the Law of Attraction, by Esther and Jerry Hicks, Illustr. by Caroline S. Garrett. Published by Hay House, 2007. ISBN 1401911587.

Sara, Book 2: Solomon's Fine Featherless Friends, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Illustr. by Caroline S. Garrett. Published by Hay House Inc, 2007. ISBN 1401911595.

Sara, Book 3: A Talking Owl Is Worth a Thousand Words!, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Illustr. by Caroline S. Garrett. Published by Hay House Inc, 2008. ISBN 1401911609.

Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Published by Hay House, 2008. ISBN 1401918816.

The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Published by Hay House, 2009. ISBN 1401918751.

Getting Into The Vortex: Guided Meditations CD and User Guide [Hardcover] by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Release date November 15, 2010. Published by Hay House, 2009. ISBN 9781401931698.

See also

Channelling (mediumistic)

Jane Roberts

References

External links

Abraham–Hicks Official Website

Abraham–Hicks officially released videos on YouTube

Introductory Tape as an MP3 download on the official Abraham–Hicks site — A 75 minute introductory audio released under the Creative Commons license. It summarizes how the Hicks' were introduced to Abraham.

Category:Living people Category:American children's writers Category:American metaphysics writers Category:American spiritual teachers Category:American spiritual writers Category:Channellers Category:New Thought writers Category:New Age authors Category:Spiritual mediums Category:People from San Antonio, Texas Category:1948 births