102 Journal of Chinese Religions China had been “open to foreign intercourse and religious tolerance” (p. 125)—a nowaxiomatic assessment of the Tang period for which the Nestorian stele is important evidence, but which Keevak dismisses as a “fantasized prehistory.” The obscurity of the language and allusions on the stele have been noted ever since its discovery, but for Keevak that difficulty becomes opacity and in fact “untranslatability” (p. 11), an extraordinary statement considering his self-confessed lack of expertise in Chinese, but one which enables him to emphasize the role of fantasy and wish-fulfilment in European responses to the monument. In sum, The Story of a Stele is an interesting, though limited, case study of Western discussions of China as pertaining to the Nestorian monument. Even if it cannot stand in for the whole history of Western imperialist misunderstanding of China in the way the author contends, it is still a useful window into that history, albeit a more modest one. RYAN DUNCH, University of Alberta Internal Alchemy: Self, Society, and the Quest for Immortality Edited by LIVIA KOHN and ROBIN R. WANG. Magdalena, NM: Three Pines Press, 2009. 248 pages. ISBN 978-1-931483-11-7. US$29.95 paper. This collective work on internal alchemy (neidan 內丹) brings together in a comparative perspective articles from specialists on Taoism, practitioners of alchemical techniques, and specialists on or practitioners of Indian and Western traditions. It includes twelve articles analyzing different aspects of the field: its history, theories of representations of the body and of cosmological models, the various practices, as well as alchemy and Taoist women. The historical aspect is dealt with in the two articles by Zhang Guangbao, “History and Early Lineages” (pp. 53-72), and Lu Xichen, “The Southern School: Cultivating Mind and Inner Nature” (pp. 73-86). These are succinct descriptions of the beginnings of neidan from the Tang era, through its development under the Song within the Zhong-Lü 鍾呂 tradition, and its division into two schools, the Northern and the Southern. Lu Xichen presents the southern School well, noting the Buddhist influences on this movement, notably the notion of the heart/mind (xin 心), more central here than in the school of Zhong-Lü, which places more emphasis on qi 氣 and essence (jing 精). The novice will receive a good overview of the history of neidan, but the specialist will not find much of interest here. For example, when Zhang Guangbao grapples with the question of where the term neidan first appeared and how Book Reviews 103 it developed, he ignores Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein’s indispensable article on the subject,7 even while citing her research on Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓. In the introductory first chapter, “Modes of Mutation: Restructuring the Energy Body” (pp. 1-26), Livia Kohn gives a clear presentation of neidan as having transposed the processes and conceptions of operative alchemy (waidan 外丹) to the inside of the body: the body image, qi exercises, visualizations, internal meditation, and the integration of these concepts and methods into cosmological models. Then she briefly outlines a parallel to the American Rosicrucian Order, which has, apparently, started tying together its own traditions with Indian practices and qigong 氣功. The purpose of the book is clear in this introduction, namely to meet the demand of practitioners who are more and more attracted to Asian practices, in connection with Hermetic and New Age movements. This could already be seen in the article’s title with its reference to the “energy body,” a notion close to those of the subtle, astral, and ethereal body, likewise terms used in these movements. In her article on the body as an internal realm (“Internal Landscapes,” pp. 27-52), Sara Neswald synthesizes existing works on this subject (without taking into account the differences between periods and currents) before sketching some affinities to Tibetan concepts. She describes the cosmic body, the body as the home of the gods, the mountainbody in which the adept can execute a sort of inner pilgrimage, a pilgrimage the author connects to those of the Tibetan tradition of Kalacakra. She emphasizes that these maps and concepts of the body are only general guidelines for a journey that remains personal, since each transformation must differ from...
Read full abstract