![]() Inner Alchemy uses meditation to join the dominant yang energies of the upper body and the secondary yang energies of the lower body in a center in the lower abdomen. Yang energy dominates the upper body, while yin energy exists in the lower body. In this meditation, the yin and yang energies of the body serve as the ingredients for making an elixir of immortality.Īccording to Inner Alchemy, the human body is formed from different combinations of yin and yang energy. Consequently, by the Song dynasty, the alchemical process was reinterpreted as Inner Visualization or meditation, called Inner Alchemy. ![]() In fact, it is believed that a number of Tang-dynasty emperors died from such poisoning. Swallowing them could cause either immediate death or slow poisoning. However, elixirs involved complicated chemical processes, and their ingredients were not only rare and costly, but often toxic. This " outer," or chemical, alchemy formed one of the most important foundations of religious Taoism. Early alchemists believed that by swallowing elixirs made from inorganic materials, like crystalline cinnabar or mercury, the body could be cleansed of impurities and made immortal. Before the end of the Han dynasty, these beliefs had joined to form the principles of alchemy. At the same time, traditional Chinese herbal medicine is based on the idea that certain organic materials, like herbs and fungi, have a similar internal preservative effect. The tomb of the first emperor (third century B.C.) is fabled to have contained whole rivers of mercury. ![]() For example, Han-dynasty nobles were sometimes buried in full suits made from plaques of jade. The ancient Chinese believed that inorganic materials had a preservative effect on the body. T A O I S M A N D T H E A R T S O F C H I N A Taoism and the Arts of China (Art Institute of Chicago) ![]()
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