This book explores an unrecognised but mighty taboo our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are... We are therefore in urgent need of a sense of our own existence which is in accord with the physical facts and which over comes our feeling of alienation from the universe. Alan Watts asks what is the cause of the illusion that the self is a separate ego, housed in a bag of skin, and which confronts a universe of physical objects that are alien to it. Rather a person s identity (their ego) binds them to the physical universe, creating a relationship with their environment and other people. The separation of the self and the physical world leads to the misuse of technology and the