Alan Watts: ‘Half monk and half racecourse operator.’ Illustration by Stephen Collins
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Make a donationAlan Watts: ‘Half monk and half racecourse operator.’ Illustration by Stephen Collins
A reproduction detail of the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave painting believed to be around 36,000 years old. Photo by Patrick Aventurier/Getty Images
Lowlier than thou: ‘animals possess an unexamined wisdom where true belief is concerned.’ Photo by Christopher Anderson
Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
A shaman-healer prepares for an Ayahuasca ceremony in La Calera, Cundinamarca. Photo by Eitan Abramovic/AFP/Getty
Passengers from ditched US Airways flight 1549 await rescue in a frigid Hudson River. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger said later ‘One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.’ Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters
Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments. Photo by J R Eyerman/Time Life Pictures/Getty
Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx by Joachim Patinir, c. 1515–1524. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Photo courtesy Wikimedia
Aldous Huxley in 1958. Photo by Philippe Halsman/Magnum
A Siberian Shaman. Photo by Alexander Nikolsky/The Siberian Times
The Golden Rock at Shwe Pyi Daw, Kyaiktiyo, Burma (now Myanmar), in 1978. According to legend, the rock is balanced on a strand of Buddha’s hair. Photo by Hiroji Kubota/Magnum
Photo by Dennis Stock/Magnum
Photo by Paul Fusco/Magnum
Words of God. Father Lequeux, priest of Buc, Île-de-France, and his puzzled congregation photographed in 1958. Photo by Edouard Boubat/Gamma-Rapho/Getty
Detail of a miniature of Boethius lying in bed, with Philosophy standing beside him, from the beginning of Book I of The Consolation of Philosophy. Harley 4355 f.27. Courtesy the Trustees of the British Library
From the Great BIble, St Jerome edition, 1405-1415. Courtesy the British Library
Nursery school children pass in front of Italian citizen Alberto ‘Daijo’ Pitozzi, 42, currently under training as a novice zen monk at Soji-ji temple, Yokohama, Japan. Photo by Jeremie Souteyrat
Departure of Special-attack Unit from Homeland Base by Sentaro Iwata, Japan 1940s. Public Domain image
A Boat in the Sea by Arkhip Kuindzhi, c.1875. Oil on canvas.
Astronomy and geometry from Le Livre et le vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre (c1420), Royal 20 B XX f3. Courtesy the British Library
Sister Catherine Thomas of the Dominican Sisters of Mary prays in the convents chapel. USA. Ann Arbor, MI. 2011. Photo by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum
Migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea on 20 October 2016. Photo by Yara Nardi/Italian Red Cross/Reuters