The Middle Years (1939-1959)

In 1940, Alan published The Meaning of Happiness, a book based on his talks. Ironically, the book was issued on the eve of the second World War. After a brief time in New York, Alan moved to Chicago and enrolled at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, deepening his interest in mystical theology. Alan was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1944, but by the spring of 1950, Alans time as a priest had run its course, and he left the Church and Chicago for upstate New York. There he settled into a small farmhouse outside Millbrook and began writing The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety.

In early 1951 Alan relocated to San Francisco, where, at Dr. Frederic Spiegelbergs invitation, he began teaching Buddhism at the American Academy of Asian Studies (which later became the California Institute of Integral Studies). Drawing quite a crowd, his classes at the Academy soon blossomed into evening lectures open to the public and spilled over to local coffee houses frequented by Beat poets and writers.

Alans career took to the airwaves in 1953, when he accepted a Saturday evening slot on BerkeleysKPFA radio station. That year he began a broadcast series titled The Great Books of Asia followed in 1956 by Way Beyond the West which proved to be quite popular with Bay Area audiences. Re-broadcast on Sunday mornings, the show later aired on KPFK in Los Angeles as well, beginning the longest-running public radio series nearly 60 years at this writing.

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Life of Alan Watts | AlanWatts.org