Mysteries of immortality

Here, Wong presents translations of three Taoist texts, alchemical texts from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Taoist alchemy differs dramatically from its Western counterpart, in goals but especially in means. Not a search for gold, it is seeks only enlightenment and immortality.

These texts are cryptic for a variety of reasons. One is that the alchemical tradition draws on many other fields of esoterica including chemistry, geomancy and numerology. It also draws on astrology in use of dates tied to the lunar calendar and tangential reference to retrograde motion of celestial bodies (p.126). Above all, it draws on the ideas of vital force that appear in Chinese traditional medicine, and meditative and yogic practices. These last may be individual exercises for control of the body, or the "paired way" that harvests generative force from sex between the mystic and a consort.

Part of the difficulty in reading this text is the ambiguity between analogies and literal fact. The adepts discuss lead and mercury, and implicitly the amalgam of the two metals, but also use that as an analogy for combining the forces of the two partners. The texts also use fertilization and the fetus in an allegorical sense, but echo the metaphysical meaning in physical coition.

Part of the difficulty is intentional. "The names dragon, tiger, lead, and mercury were used by the immortals and sages to hide the true meanings from unethical practitioners," (p.63) and possibly to shield novices from the risks of advanced practices. Although the last author asserts that the Tao is inherently beyond abuse, the tradition works hard to withold its knowledge from outsiders.

There is only a little commentary on the texts, but some of that leaves me wondering whether modern revisionism crept into the translation. Wong asserts that an adept's consort may be of opposite or same sex, an idea attractive to today's readers. I have no doubt that homosexual experiences offer the full intensity of heterosexual practice, and that yin and yang refer to forces beyond mere biology. The texts use procreation as a central analogy, however, and offer no clear distinction between metaphor and action. Whatever its potency, same-sex sex is not procreative. Would the old masters have seen a piece missing from their formulas? I wonder.

Reading this book is a mysterious experience. It describes mysteries in an allusive, elusive way. More importantly, the whole world view behind it, the many traditions that feed into it are foreign to a Western reader. I found myself reading it with a sense that I saw only the exterior of something, when it's the interior that matters. I also found myself wondering how these lines of though descended from Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu - perhaps the descent is part of the mystery.

//wiredweird

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