title: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
author: Alan W. Watts
description: The Book delves into the cause and cure of the illusion that the self is a separate ego, housed in a bag of skin, which "confronts a universe of physical objects which are alien and stupid." According to Dr. Watts, this illusion underlies the misuse of technology for a violent and hostile subjugation of man's natural environment, leading to its eventual destruction.
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  ![](../Images/Watt_9780307807878_epub_tp_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1989
  
  
  _Copyright © 1966 by Alan Watts_  
  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York,
  and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.  
  Originally published by Pantheon Books, a division of  
  Random House, Inc., in 1966.
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
  
  
  Watts, Alan Wilson, 1915–  
  The book: on the taboo against knowing who you are.
  
  
  Bibliography: p.  
  I. Self. 2. Self-knowledge, Theory of.  
  I. Title.
  
  
  [BD450.W3 1972] 128′.3 72-4715  
  eISBN: 978-0-307-80787-8
  
  
  The author is grateful to the following for permission to quote: Cambridge
  University Press for _The Nature of the Physical World_ by Sir Arthur
  Eddington and _My View of the World_ by Erwin Schrödinger.  
  Prentice-Hall, Inc., for _Quantum Theory_ by David Bohm.  
  Copyright 1951 