Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China

by Fabrizio Pregadio, Carl Bielefeldt (Series Editor), Bernard Faure (Series Editor)

This is the first book to examine extensively the religious aspects of Chinese alchemy. Its main focus is the relation of alchemy to the Daoist traditions of the early medieval period (third to sixth centuries). It shows how alchemy contributed to and was tightly integrated into the elaborate body of doctrines and practices that Daoists built at that time, from which Daoism as we know it today evolved. The book also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. It contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available for the first time in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical corpus.

Genres: Alchemy, Taoism, Nonfiction, China

367 pages, Hardcover

First published February 27, 2006

About the author

Fabrizio Pregadio has taught at different universities in Italy, Germany, the United States, and Canada. He is the author of Great Clarity Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford University Press, 2006) and the editor of The Encyclopedia of Taoism (Routledge, 2008).

In addition to his scholarly activities, he publishes translations of original texts on Taoism and Taoist Internal Alchemy (Neidan) addressed to a wider audience. These translations, all published by Golden Elixir Press, include the The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong qi); the Awakening to Reality (Wuzhen pian); the Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine (Ruyao jing); and Cultivating the Tao , a work by the eminent Taoist master, Liu Yiming (1734-1821).

Reviews

[Sue Dounim]

Dr Pregadio is a leading expert on the history of Chinese alchemy and Daoist mysticism. This is a particularly dense and scholarly book, and it's not targeted at the general public but rather a specialist audience. It is really vast in scope, but I find it a fascinating take on the history of weidan alchemy.

He explains how the weidan ("outer elixir") tradition was subsumed over the centuries by the neidan ("inner elixir") tradition. There is a large section on the Zhouyi cantong qi ("Seal of the Unity of the Three"), which he expanded greatly on a few years after the publication of this volume, with his own new translation and analysis of that document.

He is meticulous in the historical epigraphy, and gives alternate readings, dating analyses, and detailed recipes from the primary weidan alchemical texts. I supposed if it were possible to duplicate the experiments done by the early Chinese alchemists, and you didn't read classical Chinese nor have access to these texts, this would be the book you would need.

It's out of print and used copies are very expensive. I could only get a copy to read from the university loan program through my public library system, I wish there could be a new printing, even in softcover. (Note added 6 Jul 2021: Amazon and the Stanford Press website shows new hardcover copies for $67 and $70 respectively.)

[Mel]

Without a doubt the best book on external alchemy in China. Will write a proper review this weekend but its great!
This is the best book on external alchemy that I've read and probably the best scholarly book I've read so far this year. I've always thought external alchemy was much less interesting than internal alchemy but this book totally chained my mind. It looks in detail at the different corpus of writing, and how they came to be. It includes theoretical ideas as well as lots of rituals and actual practice. It looks not just at the way that elixirs were used for obtaining immortal life but also lots of different elixirs which performed different functions such as healing and subduing demons. I borrowed this from the library but would love to get my own copy for reference someday.

[Alex]

Remember when... we performed outer alchemy and not inner alchemy?