Thaddeus Golas

Thaddeus Golas
Portrait by Sylvain Despretz
Born	(1924-06-15)June 15, 1924 Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	April 16, 1997(1997-04-16) (aged 72) Sarasota, Florida, U.S.

Thaddeus Stanley Golas (15 June 1924 – 16 April 1997) was an American author best known for his 1971 book The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment and his assertion that "enlightenment doesn’t care how you get there".

Golas was born June 15, 1924 in Paterson, New Jersey. He was the youngest of five children. Both his parents were of Polish descent and met in the United States. His father died when Golas was four, and his mother later remarried when he was ten, with his stepfather later dying of tuberculosis. He attended high school with Allen Ginsberg.

Thaddeus volunteered for military service in late 1942 and was made Corporal of the 604th Engineer Camouflage Battalion billeted at Camp Campbell in Kentucky. He shipped off to Cardiff, Wales, was stationed in England until August 1944, then in France and Belgium, where he served until December 1944, briefly saw hostilities in the days preceding the Battle of the Bulge. He returned to the United States after being discharged honorably because of health concerns, and attended New York's Columbia University where he studied under Jacques Barzun, and earned a B.A. Degree in 1948. He first worked as a proofreader for Betty Ballantine, and later became an editor for Redbook Magazine and later worked at Harper & Row as a book representative. He held several publishing related jobs in the Midwest, and finally moved to San Francisco, took LSD, and self-published his book, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment.