Has anyone got any experience of Alchemy. I'm mainly interested in inner alchemy a) because that's where I see there to be any actual benefits for me b) I can't afford a labatory. Money and timewise. Blessings Sebbi
'The Secret of the Golden Flower' trans. Richard Wilhelm/C.G.Jung is an interesting read on this subject. It is a translation of two ancient Taoist texts: T'ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chi, and Hui Ming Ching. Both deal with the subject of producing the 'gold' of immortality through practice of a Taoist yoga, that is similar in many aspects to some Indian yogas. It involves mainly meditation and concentration. There is a commentary by C.G.Jung, which is interesting but perhaps fails to get to the real core of the thing. As regards western alchemy, its a very obscure subject, and I think you would need a lab - or at least a crucible!
other possible authors: titus burkhardt (sp?) idries shah (& there may some some stuff or links at www.sacred-texts.com or even www.csp.org or www.erowid.org ...)
My favourite book. I've also read the Pilgrimage, By the River Piedra I sat down and Wept, The Valkryies, Veronika Decides to Die, The Fifth Mountain, The Devil and Miss Prym and Eleven Minutes. 11 Minutes has to be my favourite of the later books, by quite a long shot. BLessings Sebbi
Chi Gung is basic inner alchemy any of the real earlier stuff Taoists tried with metals led to people dying. Chi Gung is inner alchemy to heal ones body.
I agree qigong is a type of internal alchemy, but Taoist qigong is also used for spiritual cultivation as well as healing the body, because the "two" purposes are actually One. Actually, it's sort of an academic moot point, cuz the origin of qigong is in Daoism. Note I said ORIGIN...of course qigong has been "secularized"...it still works because the gods, saints and gurus were added long after the somatic meditation systems had been perfected. _IOW_ All the major pantheisms, including Daoism, have been dressed up in polytheistic clothes, adding gods and saints...and they all acknowledge inner and outer elemental correspondences...inner (bodily, mental) fire with outer fire (sun, flame, etc)...Sacred Marriages of Fire/Water, Sun/Moon, etc, etc.... But the key (in my opinion) is in dredging (unblocking) and enlivening (increasing the current of) the meridians, and the proper points of focus in the body, when and how to utilize them, and for how long...etc. "when firing the furnace, the timing is crucial. One must know how to stop at sufficiency...the slightest deviation from perfect timing, and the Elixar is lost. Nothing can compare with tragedy of that loss!" www.ascendinghall.com I'm finishing up the inner alchemy illustrations for the Taoist geomancy scholar Tao Huang. My website www.divinerealms.net will soon have 3D Taoist talismans (can use as screensavers) based on Huang's Dragon Gate inner alchemy system. Psychics "see" big purifying energies radiating and crystalizing around these spaces where we are running these things...maybe there's something to it I'm sure my doing qigong (taoist, secular, buddhist) since 1990 doesn't hurt. peace
