The Chinese alchemical obsession with long life is illustrated by a story told of the same Bo-yang who wrote the previously mentioned Doctrine of the Three Similars. The tale, which comes from a collection entitled Lives of Immortals, tells how the alchemist, accompanied by three disciples and his pet dog, went up into the mountains in order to prepare a magical medicine.5 Having finished his manufacture of the pill of immortality he announced his intention of administering it to his dog; he did so and the creature immediately fell dead. Bo-yang turned to his disciples, saying, “The dog has died. Seemingly the medicine has not fully achieved the Divine Light. What shall we do?” The disciples replied by asking him whether he himself would be prepared to take the elixir. “Certainly,” he said, “I should be ashamed to return to the world admitting that I had failed to obtain immortality. To live without taking the elixir would be as bad for me as to take it and die.” Saying this he inserted the pill in his mouth and instantaneously expired. One of his disciples, a certain Yu, still retained a faith in the elixir, took it—and met the same fate as his master. The other two disciples, less credulous than their fellow, decided not to take the medicine, arguing that a few more years of mortal existence were preferable to a recipe for longevity that led to instant extinction; they left the mountain with the intention of subsequently returning with coffins for Bo-yang and Yu. As soon as they had gone Bo-yang revived from his seeming death and gave other pills—this time the genuine elixir—to the dog and the faithful Yu. Both were immediately restored to life and all three then “went the way of the immortals”—but not before meeting a woodcutter and giving him a letter addressed to the two doubting disciples telling them what had happened and pointing out that they had missed their chance of eternal life. The account concludes with the hardly surprising statement that the two “were filled with regret”.
An early text lays down the pre-conditions for achieving success in the practice of alchemy; the practitioner must fast for a hundred days, he must not be born under unfortunate planetary configurations, he must learn the art orally, from a Taoist master—books are only for beginners—he must worship the gods in a fitting manner and, above all, he must not be a civil servant. In spite of the semi-magical, semi-religious conception of the nature of alchemy that underlies these rules there is no doubt that at this early stage of the evolution of Taoist alchemy the manufacture of the elixir was still supposed to be achieved by a manipulation of physical substances. The nature of the substances used was decided by the application of the theory of the two opposites, Yin and Yang.
Yin and Yang were supposedly the two manifest aspects of the one eternal reality;6 from their action and interaction came the elements that made up the phenomenal world. Yang was considered to be fiery, active, male and solar in its nature while Yin was watery, passive, female and lunar. It was believed that vitality and longevity were essentially Yang in nature and therefore it was particularly upon supposedly Yang substances—such as gold, mercuric sulphide and sulphur7—that alchemical experimentation was concentrated.
By the end of the sixth century A.D. physical alchemy in China was in a state of decline; by the end of the first millennium it was all but extinct. From it, however, using much of its chemical terminology and many of its theoretical concepts evolved a number of closely related schools of interior psycho-spiritual alchemy in which the ting (the cauldron), the furnace, the lead and mercury that were to be transmuted into the gold of immortality, were all considered as component parts of the human practitioner of the art. At least one, and probably all, of these Taoist alchemical schools was largely concerned with sexuality and the generative process.
There is a curious dichotomy in both the Indian and Chinese attitudes to male sexuality. On the one hand sexual potency—indeed sexual athleticism—is regarded as being a desirable male attribute; the popular Indian press is full of advertisements for aphrodisiacs and tonics designed to increase or restore virility; one brand of tonic heads its advertisements with the words Become a Bed Breaker!, another (very popular with all classes of the population) has printed on its labels the stern injunction Reserved for Maharajahs and Very Rich Men. On the other hand, semen is regarded as something very precious, something that must not be wasted, and many men worry that they may be suffering from a quite imaginary disease called spermatorrhoea—an involuntary leakage of semen supposedly leading to physical and mental debility or even to death. This conception of semen as concentrated life-force, loss of which should at all costs be kept to a minimum, is not peculiar to the Far East but seems to be a widespread human belief, emanating from the deepest levels of the unconscious, and it is only in the last few decades that it has ceased to be part of the popularly accepted sexual wisdom of the west. In the last century one treatise, A Second Inquiry Into a Frequent Cause of Insanity in Young Men, described the evil effects produced by frequent masturbation and the consequent loss of the magical fluid.8
“The pale complexion, the emaciated form, the slouching gait, the clammy palm, the glassy or leaden eye and the averted gaze indicate the lunatic victim to this vice.
“Apathy, loss of memory, abeyance of concentrative power and manifestation of mind generally, combined with loss of self-reliance, and indisposition for or impulsiveness of action, irritability of temper, and incoherence of language, are the most characteristic mental phenomena of chronic dementia resulting from masturbation in young men.”
Some Victorian physicians even believed that an excessive loss of semen would be produced by sexual intercourse two or three times a week. Acton, a genito-urinary surgeon of some eminence, reported the case of a fellow medical practitioner who had been afflicted in this way;
“There was general debility, inaptitude to work … in fact, he thought he was losing his senses. The sight of one eye was affected … he married seven years ago, being then a hearty, healthy man, and it was only lately that he had been complaining. In answer to my further inquiry, he stated that since his marriage he had had connection two or three times a week, and often more than once a night! This one fact, I was obliged to tell him, sufficiently accounted for all his troubles. The symptoms he complained of were similar to those we find in boys who abuse themselves. It is true that it may take years to reduce some strong, healthy men, just as it may be a long time before some boys are prejudicially influenced, but the ill effects of excesses are sooner or later sure to follow.”
The teachers of Chinese sexual alchemy have been (and still are) quite as convinced of the evil effects of the loss of semen as were the Victorian proto-sexologists; some have even been of the opinion that the mere production of the fluid in the body leads to harmful results—thus a chapter of one text urges abstention from onions, leeks and garlic on the grounds that they are aphrodisiac and encourage the production of “generative fluid” while another section of the same instructional work argues that the untimely deaths of elderly people occur because they have allowed themselves to continue enjoying sexual intercourse, thus letting the “generative fluid” leak away and leaving them with no “vital resistance” against infection. In spite of the crudeness of such physiological conceptions it would be unfair to dismiss Taoist alchemy out of hand, for beneath the primitive biological beliefs and terminology is concealed an extremely subtle psycho-spiritual philosophy and technique designed to harness and transform the forces of the libido in order to attain adeptship—the “manufacture of the elixir of immortality”.
Chinese sexual alchemy conceives of semen as a physical product of what it calls “generative force”—the “essence of procreation” which has some resemblance to the libido of the depth-psychologists and more to the orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich.9 The first step in the process of manufacturing the pill, or elixir, of immortality is the prevention of the generative force from following its usual course (i.e. the production of semen) by the “lighting of the inner fire”. This is done by a type of regulated and deep breathing10 very similar to the pranayama of Indian Hatha Yoga. The breathing in brings pressure to bear