Welcome to the Commune podcast. My name is Jeff Krasno. Today on the show, I welcome Mark Watts,

son of the great British philosopher, Alan Watts. And for those of you who listen to this show,

you know that there are very few people living or dead

who have had greater influence on my understanding of the universe than Alan Watts.

I'm certainly not alone there.

Alan was born in Chislehurst, England, in 1915, and moved to California in 1950, and became a central figure along with his colleagues and

friends, Krishna Mertie, and Aljus Huxleyley in the counterculture of the following decades.

And sadly, he passed too early in 1973 at the age of 58, I believe.

So his widely circulated audio recordings that captured his fantastic lectures,

introduced a generation of Americans to the concepts of Buddhism and Taoism and Zen.

I've literally listened to them hundreds upon hundreds of times.

He had a charm and a humor that was underwritten by his

transatlantic received pronunciation accent, which is nothing less than addictive. As a teenager,

Mark traveled with his dad and oversaw many of the recordings of these lectures on an old

reel-to-reel tape machine. And subsequently, Mark became the steward of these many recordings,

as well as his father's many, many lectures that he did on KQED radio up in San Francisco.

So in our conversation today, Mark and I discussed the life and times of his dad,

Alan Watts, and we poke at many of Alan's favorite themes.

Recently, Commune had the extraordinary opportunity to work with Mark to mine the vaults

of Allen's content library and create a new course titled Paths of Liberation that explores

the key concepts in Taoism and Buddhism and Japanese Zen. And you can watch it for free by signing up at

onecom slash paths. That's P-A-T-H-S. Additionally, if you're interested in courses on personal

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