| This dissertation uses a wide range of sources to show that alchemy was part of China's evolving culture between the fourth and fifteenth centuries. It views alchemy as self-cultivation traditions rooted in cults to immortals, rather than comparing it to modern chemistry and psychotherapy, or identifying it as an intrinsic part of Daoist religion. Alchemy emerged as private and nonofficial forms of self-cultivation, often structured by cults and supra-familial spiritual organizations. Literati learned alchemy to hasten their spiritual ascent into ranks of the divine, whether through making medicines, models of cosmic process, or integrating exercise and meditation. They taught alchemy to promote spiritual order in society, initiating peers into alchemical fellowships grounded in local religion. By embedding alchemical self-cultivation in the deepest sources of Chinese civilization and cosmic process, they also created new identities for themselves.; The chapters examine the background and formation of Golden Elixir ( jindan) alchemy in literati culture from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. Ge Hong (283–343) synthesized three alchemical traditions to promote elixirs that could convey spiritual powers and transcendence, making Golden Elixir alchemy a permanent part of the literati imagination. Alchemy slowly shifted its focus from spiritual ascent through refining mineral and metallic elixirs toward refining energies within the body according to schematized processes of chemical change. A minor official named Zhang Boduan (d. 1082) received new Golden Elixir teachings centered on internal cultivation in 1069, and over the next three centuries, literati spun his teachings into a rich tradition, mainly in South China. The circle around Bai Yuchan (1194–1229?) and the next three generations was important here. The first Ming emperor excluded this new alchemy from his vision of official learning in 1371, while some of his cultural advisors recast it as the Southern Lineage of Taoism (daojia nanzong) in order to give it a prominent place in the new empire's nonofficial culture. Its teachings became part of the Ming Daoist canon, and became central to sectarian religious forms, helping to give personal spirituality and local traditions a grand view of the divine hierarchy and cosmos that was independent of the state. |
