Hey dear community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new contribution and hope you have had a week so far which has been full of positive experiences! In this article, I would like to talk about alchemy in China and hope you will be able to learn new things.
In the past I have already discussed the Neidan which in China has also been associated with inner alchemy and it was much about developing the own spirit and reaching enlightenment and the focus here were on spiritual practises and one of the main goals was the creation of the golden elixir which can give immortality and according to philosophy, everyone already has this elixir in the body and can be developed through spiritual practises. The Waidan is the exact opposite of this and can be described as external alchemy and is closely linked to the practical side of alchemy and here it was about understanding material reactions and using the knowledge to bring substances into a better state and here it is similar to philosophy as in Europe that the alchemists were of the opinion that they should complete the work of nature and bring it into a better state. The origins of this practice can be traced back to the Han Dynasty and one of the main goals was to achieve eternal life or reverse the aging process and here many experiments were done with different plants, minerals, fungi, roots or other things from nature. The work consisted mainly about bringing things from nature into a better state and so elixirs or other potions were produced through various processes and they also did a lot of research with toxic substances and investigated the specific effect of poisons in low doses and these experiments were partly very dangerous and of course they also experimented with all possible types of medicinal plants. It was about determining which reactions certain substances trigger in the body and documented these and some were so fascinated by this art which resulted in the alchemists having some renowned supporters behind them who promoted the work.
Thanks a lot for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.