Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

than being made in the laboratory, were developed in the body and consciousness of the
experi-feeders. Your P'o Tung says: "The dragon is Mercury.'s Semen and blood. Rifion
Exits and is retained in the liver (...). The tiger is lead.'s Respiration and body strength.
Quits the spirit and is retained in the lungs (...) • When the spirit moves, the respiration
and the force acting at the same time as the. When the kidneys are swollen, semen and
blood flow to the pair of those "18 Just as in India 'alchemy is linked to tantric yoga, in
China has remained supportive of the Taoist techniques. That's why
Ed Chavannes 13, Memoire star eminent * les religieux qui chercher alUrent
the lot dans le pays d'Occident (Paris, 1894), p. 21.
14 Arthur Waley. The travels of an Alchemist. The journey of the Taoist
Ch'ang-ch'un from China to the Hindukush at the summons of Chingiz Khan (London,
1921), p. 131.
15 Quoted by Waley, Notes on Chinese Alchemy, p. 15; cf. also Lu '
Ch'iang Wu and T. L. Davis, An ancient Chinese treatise on alchemy, P. 255.
that the discipline of the rhythm of respiration-so important in Taoist circles (p. 61) - is
part of the discipline of the tar-mista. Pu'tzu Pao writes: "When you start learning the true
use of respiration, the practitioner must inhale air through the nose (nostrils) and mentally
count the beats of the co-razon. When you have counted 120 beats, should exhale through
the mouth respiration In this method the aim is that the ears do not perceive the sound of
the inhalation or the exhalation of (...) • Through a practice graduate, you must increase
the length of the suspension (...) the respiration to reach a thousand beats of hearts. The
old man coming to get it then becomes a young man ... " (trans. Johnson, A Study of
Chinese Alchemy, ps. 47-48).
Alchemy, spiritual techniques
Not going to elaborate here the study of "origins" of Chinese alchemy: whether they are
related to the search of "gold", the "drug of immortality" or (in the opinion of Waley, ps.
18-19) of artificial cinnabar, character. symbolic and sacred of these substances is
obvious. (The color red represents the vital principle, the san ^ gre; cinnabar prolong life,
hence its presence in sepul-tures since prehistoric times). Also must take into account the
symbolism and sacred character of metallurgy, secret technique whereby it is "matured"
minerals and "purified" ban "metals, alchemy action which was responsible for
prolonging, as this also fixes "perfecting" of metals. (On the "secrets of metallurgy and its
relations with alchemy, see Note VII, 5.) It is possible that after a given time has
developed a chemical parallel to alchemical operations, and perhaps also has ended up
becoming an empirical science, based solely on enforcement and experience. It's possible.
But we must beware of confusing the two types of experimentation: pre-alchemy and
chemistry. Nothing proves that the alchemists were interested in chemical phenomena. F.
Sherwood Taylor writes about the alchemists Alexandria-us: Those who used the sulfide
could not help but notice the strange phenomena that occur after its merger and
consecutive heating of the liquid. However, although the sulfur is mentioned hundreds of
times, never alluded to any of its characters out of its action on metals. This contrasts so
with the spirit of classical Greek science, we must conclude that the tar-mist were not
interested in natural phenomena that did not serve their purposes (...) ■ In alchemy not
found no co-ginning of Science (• • ■) • The Alchemist does not use scientific procedures
ever "19
The ideal of alchemy survived even in Europe until the eighteenth cen-tury it was the