Abstract
Alan Watts’ influence on religious discourse is beginning to be mapped by twenty-first-century scholars, but emphasis is mostly placed on his role as an interpreter of Eastern religion for the West. The present article considers Watts as a contributor of Western hermetic and occult tradition to contemporary American Paganism. Drawing on historical perceptions of occultism, Watts’ works and their use by subsequent Pagans, I locate Watts as a source for both gnostic realization and erotic transmutation through cosmic hierogamy. Drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic theory, I contend that Watts’ commitment to gnostic and erotic themes enframed a ‘historically-effected consciousness’ undergirding the modern Aquarian movement in general and American Paganism in particular.
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