WaidanWaidan, translated as 'external alchemy' or 'external elixir', is the early branch of Chinese alchemy that focuses upon compounding elixirs of immortality by heating minerals, metals, and other natural substances in a luted crucible. The later branch of esoteric neidan 'inner alchemy', which borrowed doctrines and vocabulary from exoteric waidan, is based on allegorically producing elixirs within the endocrine or hormonal system of the practitioner's body, through Daoist meditation, diet, and physiological practices.
FangshiFangshi () were Chinese technical specialists who flourished from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE. English translations of fangshi include alchemist, astrologer, diviner, exorcist, geomancer, doctor, magician, monk, mystic, necromancer, occultist, omenologist, physician, physiognomist, technician, technologist, thaumaturge, and wizard. The Chinese word fangshi combines fang "direction; side; locality; place; region; formula; (medical) prescription; recipe; method; way" and shi "scholar; intelligentsia; gentleman; officer; yeoman; soldier; person trained in a certain field".
BaopuziThe Baopuzi () is a literary work written by Ge Hong (also transliterated as Ko Hung) (葛洪), 283–343, a scholar during the turbulent Jin dynasty. Baopuzi is divided into two main sections, the esoteric Neipian (內篇) "Inner Chapters" and the section intended for the public to understand, Waipian (外篇) "Outer Chapters". The Taoist Inner Chapters discuss topics such as techniques to achieve "hsien" (仙) "immortality; transcendence", Chinese alchemy, elixirs, and demonology.
Chinese alchemyChinese alchemy is an ancient Chinese scientific and technological approach to alchemy, a part of the larger tradition of Taoist body-spirit cultivation developed from the traditional Chinese understanding of medicine and the body. According to original texts such as the Cantong qi, the body is understood as the focus of cosmological processes summarized in the five agents of change, or Wuxing, the observation and cultivation of which leads the practitioner into alignment and harmony with the Tao.
NeidanNeidan, or internal alchemy (), is an array of esoteric doctrines and physical, mental, and spiritual practices that Taoist initiates use to prolong life and create an immortal spiritual body that would survive after death. Also known as Jindan (金丹 "golden elixir"), inner alchemy combines theories derived from external alchemy (waidan 外丹), correlative cosmology (including the Five Phases), the emblems of the Yijing, and medical theory, with techniques of Taoist meditation, daoyin gymnastics, and sexual hygiene.
AlchemyAlchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, khumeía) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.
