Sebastian Hayes

Of the various schools of thought which flourished during China’s classical era — roughly the Vth or IIIrd century BC — only Taoism and Confucianism have survived into modern times. The broad intellectual climate during the entire period, like that of its counterpart in Greece, was enquiring and rationalistic especially the thought of Confucius himself. Though the two great Taoist thinkers of this period, the somewhat legendary Lao Tse and the historical Chuang-tzu, can hardly be described as rationalists, their exclusive concern is with how  people should live their lives in this world, not the next. Neither of them holds out any hope of personal survival after death, and indeed, like Epicurus and the Stoics though for somewhat different reasons,  they regard the whole issue as being thoroughly unimportant. For the Taoist, the true self is not individualistic but transpersonal : it is rooted in the timeless Tao and thus cannot be extinguished, for, like the original Tao itself, it is ‘beyond life and death’. But the Tao is not a person and is indifferent to the needs of humankind.

The Taoist role model promoted in the works of these two thinkers — actually there were doubtless more than two persons involved in the written records but this need not concern us here — is closer to that of the sage than that of the magician or shaman. “Sorcery is interference”, says Carlos Castaneda’s Mexican Indian mentor, Don Juan, and Alisteir Crowley somewhere defines magic as “the art of bringing about changes in conformity to will”. But the message of the Tao Te Ching is precisely that the enlightened person, whether he be a humble craftsman or a great ruler, should interfere as little as possible in the workings of the universe and should limit his or her action to helping things take their natural course. This is the famous technique of  ‘wu wei’ or ‘Not-Doing’.

Why, then, the title of the most celebrated Taoist work, the Tao Te Ching ? For ‘Tao Te Ching’ means literally ‘Way Power Book’ which is usually rendered as ‘The Book of the Way and its Power’.  (Classical Chinese has no articles, cases or even tenses.) What ‘power’ could an obscure hermit living in the hills or humble craftsman possibly hold, a power supposedly so great that rulers sometimes came to him on bended knee to try to learn this secret ?  At the heart of Taoism is the paradox that ‘Not-Doing’, an essentially ‘negative’ attitude towards life and social activity, can not only bring personal satisfaction but can actually be more effective as a ‘way’ of getting things done than deliberate, wilful behaviour.

Why this should be so is explained by Arthur Waley in a note to his translation of the Tao Te Ching.

“By passing on and on through successive stages of his own consciousness back to the original Unity, he (the sage) can arrive at the Way that controls the multiform apparent universe.”

Waley, The Way and Its Power p. 175

Moreover,

“By seizing hold of the Way that was then,
One can ride upon the things that are now.”

Tao Te Ching ch. XIV

Waley explains that ‘ride’ here means ‘dominate’, the image being that of a horseman. This, however, seems too strong. Were he alive today, Lao Tse would almost certainly use the image of the surfer, and Chuang-tzu does in fact employ the image of a swimmer caught up in a whirlpool who comes to no harm because, as he puts it when questioned by an amazed onlooker,

“I follow the Way of the water, and do not impose my selfishness upon it”

Chuang-tzu Book ch. 19

Oliver Cromwell, one of the most successful men in history who rose from being a simple country squire to being Lord Protector of England, once said, “No man rises so high as he who does not know where he is going” — a very Taoist remark.

Chuang-tzu, in an era when most people believed in the  supernatural, is at pains to distinguish the true Taoist sage from magic-workers. He cites the case of Lieh-tzu (not the author of a subsequent Taoist work who bears the same name) as a searcher who ‘loses the Way’ because of the exaggerated importance he gives to developing paranormal abilities. Typically, the man who ‘has the Way’ (or is ‘in the Way’) does perfectly ordinary things, only he does them in a completely extraordinary fashion. Chaung-tzu himself is reputed to have at one time earned his living making sandals.

Chaung-tzu does, however, speak of the ‘Perfect’ or ‘Cosmic’ Man though more as a distant ideal than as an actuality. Such a man possesses the old shamanic ability of entering into the inner being of an entity, human or non-human. This he is able to do because he can go to the source, the Tao, which is, as it were, equidistant from any specific mode of existence. There is, however, for drugs or derangement of the senses : the Perfect Man embodies a certain detachment which reminds one of Don Juan’s so-called ‘controlled folly’ in Castaneda. By immersing oneself in the maelstrom of existence, one can paradoxically acquire an inner calm and indifference — a principle applied in Kung Fu and other martial arts. Freed from the bondage of (specific) form, Chuang-tzu’s ‘Perfect Man’ “rides with the wind” and “wanders across the Four Seas and neither death nor life concerns him, nor does good or evil interest him” (“Chuang-tzu Book, ch. 2).

The wave of rationalism spent itself during the third century BC and the following era, that of the Han dynasty, saw an intense interest in everything supernatural. We see the rise of a new class, the fang-shih , which DeWoskin translates as ‘Doctors, Diviners and Magicians’ for the fang-shih were this and much more allegedly. In Han China we have the rare and interesting case of a high culture where magic, divination and experimental science have not yet separated into opposing disciplines. This was possible in China because early  science never was allied to a materialistic philosophy as has been the case in the West. The basic substance — if one can call it that — was not ‘matter’ but ch’i, literally ‘breath’ though often translated as ‘energy’, ‘life-force’. What we experience as matter is merely an ephemeral coagulation of ch’i and is thus secondary — but it is not conceived as antagonistic to the primary substance in the way that Body is antagonistic to Spirit in western thought.

The fang-shih practised as private consultants not unlike their contemporary equivalents who advertise in New Age magazines, though their supposed abilities were a good deal more extensive. These included exorcism, psychic healing, mediumship, teleportation, shape-shifting, conjury (“the manipulation of images resembling humans or other beings”), health and longevity recipes along with various types of divination and augury. Apart from Cginese astrology and the Y Ching , the fang-shih employed all kinds of other methods such as the interpretation of bid-calls and wind-angles, fissure analysis, and the charming ‘Meetings and Greetings’, a “technique that analyses and interprets the first words uttered by people during chance meetings” (DeWoskin).

The theoretical underpinning of both the magical and the divinatory practices of the fang-shih is the same Taoist system (or medley) of ideas that we find in Lao Tse and Chuang-tzu. Since everything stems from a single source, everything is connected. The magician is someone who has enough fluidity to pass from one varying form to another (shape-shifting), the diviner someone sharp enough to not hidden correspondences between apparently disconn ected sets of phenomena. As Kuan Lu, one of the greatest of the fang-shih puts it, “The fact is that in the transformations that affect all things, constant forms do not exist… Sometimes larger things grow smaller and sometimes smaller things grow larger. The transformations of all things uniformly, one and all, belong to the Way” (“Records of the Three Kingdoms”, translated DeWoskin).

The fang-shih did not regard themselves as Supermen : it was recognized that there was a large area that was not amenable to human control, the ‘part of Heaven’ as they put it. We find Kuan Lu predicting his own death at the ‘premature’ age of forty-eight, and accepting it with the resignation of the Taoist sage. “Light and dark partake of the same cycle of changes, life and death of a single Way. When King Wen received the command of Heaven, he did not agonize about it; when Confucius was reduced to hobbling about on a cane, he showed no fear” (“Records of the Three Kingdoms”).    

The fang-shih were professional people, not prophets or revolutionaries, but they paved the way for persons who were. During the latter Han, a succession of miracle healers built up mass movements which increasingly alarmed the authorities. Essentially, what these healers provided were simple, discreet and apparently effective ways for people to get rid of their guilt feelings. We do not view this as ‘magic’ today but class it as psychology; the process, for all that, remains somewhat mysterious and smacks of ‘mind over matter’. People who were complained of being ill were locked up and told to meditate on their misdeeds and write them down on three pieces of paper, one of which was burned, one buried in the earth and one thrown into the river. The result of this ‘offering of oneself to the elements’ was a sense of release which had physical repercussions. I have myself on occasion put into practice some of the methods of the fang-shih —on myself only I hasten to add — though I found it necessary to write down not only past misdeeds but good feelings as well, for these also have to be left behind if one wants to make way for something completely new.

These faith-healing movements culminated in the more ambitious attempt made by the Yellow Turbans to cleanse the entire Han Empire of its ills and usher in the Taoist Millennium. Like the Boxers in the 19^th century peasant rebellion which targeted westerners especially, the Yellow Turbans celebrated mass rituals designed to make themselves invulnerable and which, allegedly, included large-scale orgies.

But the theme that has dominated Taoism more than any other since the advent of the Han dynasty is undoubtedly the search for immortality. There was, broadly speaking, an inner and an outer alchemy. Outer alchemy was the quick way to rejoin one’s ancestors and consisted in imbibing highly poisonous ‘elixirs of immortality’ usually based on cinnabar, or mercury sulphide, which has an impressive blood-red hue. At least two Han Emperors met their ends in this manner.

Inner alchemy is more laborious but has at least given us one or two  extremely useful disciplines that promote health and longevity, if not always eternal life, namely ‘Ch’i-kung’ and ‘Tai Ch’i’.

I cannot speak with too much authority on the subject of Taoist inner alchemy : many of the complicated practices have only recently been divulged to Westerners and doubtless others remain in the hands of initiates still. These methods included diet, meditation, special ways of breathing designed to imitate the breathing of the foetus in the womb, visualization, appropriate liturgy and ritual and, in some cases, sexual techniques. The original aim was to develop within oneself, whilst still alive, an embryo which would survive the dissolution of the physical body. Chinese Taoists and alchemists had conceptual handicaps unknown to the West. They baulked at the concept of a wholly immaterial entity, the soul, and do not seem to have believed in a ‘second body’ either — something practically all contemporary Western occultists seem to take for granted, indeed they generally believe there are at least two, the ‘etheric body’ and the ‘astral body’. But the ancient Chinese, unable to bring into play such entities, felt that the ‘second body’ actually had to be manufactured while one was alive, hence  the elaborate and arduous practices.

On the other hand, in China the idea that there is an analogy between one’s own body and the universe, microcosm and macrocosm, which is common to most cultures, was taken up with a vengeance and understood in a very literal manner. Divinities were supposed to reside in different parts of the body : they were visualized in great detail and homage was done to them. Every human body also contained the Three Worms which sapped its vital forces : according to one theory, ‘Tai Ch’i’ (which means ‘Great Breath’) was originally devised in order to combat the activities of the Three Worms.

Sex is scarcely mentioned by Lao Tse and Chuang-tzu, but assumed great importance in the Taoism of later epochs. Some mixed Toaist communities, like the Yellow Turban rebels, seem to have practised communal orgies — not so much for pleasure apparently as to fortify the collective ch’i. More usually, however, Taoist sexual techniques were practised by enthusiastic married couples in private, and were simply an esoteric extension of the ‘arts of the bedchamber’ to which even respectable Confucians attributed considerable importance.     According to traditional Taoist beliefs, semen is concentrated ch’i of the first water — or perhaps one should say of the first breath —  and any emission represented an irreplaceable loss of vital substance that the serious aspirant after immortality could ill afford. On the other hand, sexual union was considered very beneficial for both parties since it brought a precious influx of yin or yang energies from the opposite gender. Thus the first Taoist sexual commandment for all males : practise sex as much as is humanly possible while avoiding orgasm. Male retention is achieved by thought control, last-minute manual constriction, or, more elegantly, by pressing certain points on the body, one of which is supposedly situated about an inch below the male right nipple.

This is, however, only the start of a long process. The advanced student practises not only deferred but ‘recycled’ orgasm when the sperm supposedly actually mounts to the tip of the penis but then, instead of being discharged, changes course and goes back into the testicles. This sounds impossible but, surprisingly enough, I can testify that it is not, though I can’t say I found the (unplanned) experience as mind-blowing as it is supposed to be. Finally, the Taoist adept must transmute the recycled semen into a more volatile fluid which is made to circulate through the body right up to the head with quite wonderful results — but I cannot speak at first hand of such adventures.

What of the woman during all this? Most ancient Chinese texts of this nature, even though the speaker is usually a goddess, seem to have been aimed at male readers; women were expected to know a lot more about sex anyway since all daughters received specific instruction in sexual matters from their mothers prior to marriage. One might assume that the female orgasm is already recycled, as it were, being in general a much more profound psycho-physical experience, a fact that has profound repercussions on relations between the sexes. However, Margot Anand (a woman) assures us that female recycled orgasm does indeed exist and writes about nit in great detail in her book The Art of Sexual Ecstasy (Aquarian, 1990). She writes, “In my experience women as well as men can benefit tremendously from learning to contain aroused sexual energy and move it upward to higher energy centres. Women do not, however, have to concern themselves with whether or not they ejaculate, because — again from experience — female ejaculation does not result in depletion of energy (Anand, pp. 347-8). For what it is worth, I might add that I have heard it said in France that gypsy women in the past voluntarily abstained from orgasm and that this was the source of their alleged divinatory powers : certainly I have come across gypsy women in France who looked completely different from any European women I have ever come across, including or especially the most ‘emancipated’. Doubtless all this sort of lore has long since been submerged beneath the dead weight of media triviality.

It is not possible in this article to enlarge on the subject of the role of women in historical Taoism. All that can be said is that certain Taoist ideas and practices have led some scholars to suggest that Taoism contains relics of a long-lost matriarchal religion. When, belatedly, Taoism became an organised religion, women as ‘libationers’ as well as men, and one woman founded a famous sect. For all that ‘Patriarchy Rules — OK?’ and there have been disappointingly few women taking prominent roles in any for of  historical Taoism, and it is questionable what influence Taoist ideas of the ‘harmony of yin and yang’ can have had in practice on the status of women in China, since this status has been very low until the modern era. Incidentally, foot-binding was only introduced during the Sung dynasty (our Middle Ages) and was only obligatory for upper class women : why this strange and repugnant custom caught on is still a matter for scholarly debate. We do not know enough about the social organisation, and consequently the status of women, in the mixed Taoist communities that existed during the Han dynasty since people living in them kept themselves apart from the rest of society and left few records : one imagines the life being somewhat like that of the Amish in America today.

The search for immortality peaked somewhere around the Vth century AD and, from then on more emphasis was put on meditation or, in popular forms of Taoism, on religious ritual and devotion to Taoist ‘divinities’ that included Lao Tse himself — who would have been horrified.

What is one to make of the immortality quest? The desire, or rather need, to transcend the human condition is the driving force behind most religions and a good deal else besides, including science and technology. The Taoist approach during the alchemical era was a good deal more pragmatic than most. Instead of recommending a moral turnabout (repentance), or a change of optic (enlightenment), Taoism during this era emphasized the need to get to work and construct the vehicle of self-transcendence rather in the way in which the Wright Brothers put together a flying-machine. As the Han-sheng Ching put it : “My destiny is in me; it is not in Heaven”. This approach, like that of certain  contemporary ‘self-development’ psychological systems, fosters a healthy self-reliance which is the very opposite of the humble resignation encouraged by the Hindu doctrine of karma.

At the same time, it is glaringly obvious that the immortality hunters completely missed the point of Taoism (as I understand it). There is in fact no special reason why human life should go on indefinitely, or the human species lead on to something greater than itself. Change is of the nature of things so you might as well come to terms with it : this is the message of Lao Tse and Chuang-tzu. “In his death, he [the Taoist sage] transforms with and into other things…. His dying is like going to rest” (Chuang-tzu Book). For the true Taoist the sense of the transience of all earthly things is not a source of anxiety but “becomes a kind of ecstasy” as Alan Watts puts it beautifully.

Chuang-tzu, or one of the anonymous authors using the name, actually considers the hypothesis that human life evolved from simpler life forms and traces everything  back to chi (not the same thing as ch’i), and Graham translates this term as ‘germs’. The gradual progress from vegetable to animal life to human life is sketched out. But there is a surprise conclusion.

“Man in due course goes back to the germs. The myriad things all come out from the germs, all go back to the germs” (Chuang-tzu Book, ch. 18)

Sebastian Hayes

Acknowledgement : This article first appeared, in a slightly different form in the magazine Pagan Dawn .

Note: Readers interested in the more esoteric (as opposed to philosophic) side of Taoism would do well to consult

Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion
Schipper, The Taoist Body
Von Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China

The author of the second book, Schipper, claims to have actually been initiated into a Taoist sect of the shamanic type in modern Taiwan, and one or two other Europeans have made similar claims. Much of what Schipper recounts reminds one of the historic encounter between the Mexican Indian magic-man, Don Juan, and the Berkeley anthropology student Carlos Castaneda. It is still not entirely  clear what is pure invention and what is genuine in Carlos Castaneda’s disturbing and fascinating writings, or even whether his (Castaneda’s) three female disciples are still living this side of ultimate reality.