The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness

Alan W. Watts

Dec 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Michael Langan

About this audiobook

A classic account of the psychedelic experience The Joyous Cosmology is Alan Watts's exploration of the insight that the consciousness-changing drugs LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin can facilitate "when accompanied with sustained philosophical reflection by a person who is in search, not of kicks, but of understanding." More than an artifact, it is both a riveting memoir of Watts's personal experiments and a profound meditation on our perennial questions about the nature of existence and the existence of the sacred.

About the author

Spiritual philosopher Alan W. Watts, student of Buddhism, Anglican minister, chaplain at Northwestern University, and author of more than twenty books, died in 1973.

As the middle of six children, Michael Langan quickly carved out his space in the group; he was the storyteller. Out in the real world, he would work in office and administration roles until he quit his job in 2020, deciding to become a full-time voice-over artist and a background artist in film and television productions.

Timothy Leary was one of the most famous countercultural icons of the 1960s. In 1957, the Harvard psychologist experienced a "profound transcendent experience" while taking hallucinogens in Mexico.