This is It, and other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience.
New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1960. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Octavo. 158pp. Black cloth with gilt title, etc. to spine, bibliography. A collection of essays by Alan Watts (1915-1973) the British-born philosopher, and one time Episcopal priest who moved to America where his many books on eastern religions and mysticism were extremely influential on the Beat movement of the 1950s and counter culture of the 1960s. From the preface: "Although written at different times, the essays here gathered together have a common point of focus - the spiritual or mystical experience and its relation to ordinary material life. Spiritual and mystical suggest something rarefied, otherworldly, and loftily religious, opposed to an ordinary material life which is simply practical and commonplace. The whole point of these essays is to show the fallacy of this opposition, to show that the spiritual is not to be separated from the material, nor the wonderful from the ordinary. We need, above all, to disentangle ourselves from habits of speech and through which set the two apart, making it impossible for us to see that this - the immediate, everyday, and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe." Light general shelf wear, pages edges a bit darkened, corners lightly bumped, no markings to text. Overall a tight, clean VG+ copy in near VG dust jacket (Dust jacket a bit darkened, edges and pointes chafed and lightly chipped, not clipped. Now in protective mylar cover). Item #66245
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