i love the guy! He has changed my life, opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on the universe.
What I like about him is that he uses rational thought, yet arrives at some exciting, astonishing stuff you would expect from maybe a yogi or some "new age hippies" who took too many psychedelics. Removes the need to believe in esoteric stuff (trust some teacher, dogma, religion,...) while you can
still have nice things like a soul, "be god" ("the greatest taboo of our society"), "feel connected" and also practical things like "manage your ego", awareness, consciousness and all the stuff like that ;-). He's like a "rational guru".
(sorry to derail the thread, feel free to delete this offtopic stuff)
I make exceptions for watts.
He does do this - explain the complexity of the universe into simple easy to grasp insights.
Part of it IMO has to do with his Eastern - Western influence. A bit of both.
I think another part of it must be his personality. He is the type of person who views the world, absorbs, processes, interprets, comes to rational conclusion, and communicates to a general audience. Yet all so profound!!
Ok, so i have alway thought he must be an intuitive and thinker (ENT or INT) and because he is open minded, P.
Here is what i just googled on a forum to assert my thoughts. From an INFJ thread
https://www.infjs.com/threads/is-alan-watts-an-infj.11673/"""I've always thought he was an integrated intp.
introverted - self evident basically. takes the things around him and makes or relates it to internal symbols and models.
intuitive - creating patterns and finding general threads within the world
thinking - being analytical and clear
perceiving - holding the bigger picture
I hardly hear any NFs talk like him. but I do hear NTs who have gone through individuation. Much like an old physicist who writes poetry.""Putting aside the debate on validity of MBTI, i always felt a connection with him and how he expresses his thoughts to the real world.
FYI, i have tested myself as ENTP.
PS: I am a BIG MBTI/Socionics junkie.
Anyway, just my ramblings