Bringing awareness to ecstatic grace, Alan Watts enlightens us on the sexual archetypes formed by religion.
This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.
In this recording, Alan Watts lectures on:
- Baptism, confirmation, and religious initiation
- “Sinful” behaviors
- Defiance and wickedness
- The material world and sexuality
- The Semitic vs. Greek perspective on sex
- Sexual energy for reproduction rather than pleasure
- The fall in the Garden of Eden
- The institution of marriage
- Women throughout western literature
- Love and the illogical promises we make
- Prudism and extreme monogamy
- Subtle eroticism in the Victorian era
- How repression may lead to being overcame
- Libido as a fundamental reality
- Sexuality in religious iconography
- The function of sexual play beyond utilitarianism
- Sex as a sacramental expression of love
- Seeing the divine aspect in a lover
“The function of sexual play is not merely the survival and utilitarian function of reproducing the species as it is among animals to a very large extent. What peculiarly distinguishes human sexuality is that it brings the partners closer and closer to each other in an intense state of united feeling. In other words, it is a sacrament, the outward invisible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, bringing about love.” – Alan Watts
About Alan Watts:
A prolific author and speaker, Alan Watts was one of the first to interpret Eastern wisdom for a Western audience. Born outside London in 1915, he discovered the nearby Buddhist Lodge at a young age. After moving to the United States in 1938, Alan became an Episcopal priest for a time, and then relocated to Millbrook, New York, where he wrote his pivotal book The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. In 1951 he moved to San Francisco where he began teaching Buddhist studies, and in 1956 began his popular radio show, “Way Beyond the West.” By the early sixties, Alan’s radio talks aired nationally and the counterculture movement adopted him as a spiritual spokesperson. He wrote and regularly traveled until his passing in 1973.