Taoist Mysteries & Magic

by John Blofeld

Provides an overview of Taoist history and beliefs and explains how to achieve spiritual insight by freeing all actions of ego

Genres: Taoism, Philosophy, Spirituality, Buddhism

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 1973

About the author

John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld (M.A., Literature, University of Cambridge, 1946) wrote on Asian thought and religion, especially Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. During WWII, he working in counterintelligence for the British Embassy in Chongqing (Chungking), China, as a cultural attaché. In the 1950s, he studied with Dudjom Rinpoche and other Nyingma teachers in Darjeeling, India. He later mentored Red Pine in his translation work.

Reviews

[Olivier Goetgeluck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Self-cultivation is needed before one can benefit the world, and self-realization must come before one can claim to know or teach truth.

Activity in itself is not harmful, but it must be just an instinctive response to immediate needs.

Be as the nameless Uncarved Block, that freedom from desire may follow.

Paths are made by the shoes that walk them; they are by no means shoes in themselves. (Zhuang Zhi)

To know and not be knowing is best. To be ignorant but think one knows is a disaster. Knowing one's faults is the means to faultlessness.

Adaptable as melting ice, conduct as simple as uncarved wood, mind receptive as hollow valleys, as murky as muddied water.

Wei-wu-wei: not doing by not doing but acting in a manner that entails the least involvement and proceeds from inner stillness of the heart.

The disease of categories cured by the recognition that the bulk of our distress stems from labelling this or that desirable or loathsome.

Doing little but doing it decisively.

The Taoist way is to do one's own thing spontaneously but without a show of resentment towards those who differ.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really about Taoism but I don't have a separate shelf for that. Studied with John Blofield in the summer of 1984 which was a
great experience. Should have asked MORE questions. Was more interested in seeing China and Thailand than asking questions. Still he told us how almost all the temples in China had been distroyed and
rebuilt after Mao first and the Cultural revolution later.

[Chris Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel as if I am threading through a narrow mountain pass of rock to stand on the ridge of a great valley filled with fog. The concepts and techniques Blofeld describes felt immediately familiar, and while not easy to immediately grasp the full meaning, which is never the case of the Tao, seemed “ordinary” in the sense that it was the way things truly were in days of yore and ought to be in reconciliation with the modern world. I will continue to walk this Way as far as it might lead me

[Claudio Yáñez Valenzuela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante.