The Shades of Emptiness: The Alchemical Teaching of the Master Wei Yao 魏堯

Researcher: Mozias, Ilia

Research Project: The Shades of Emptiness: The Alchemical Teaching of the Master Wei Yao 魏堯

Region: China, Taiwan

His research focuses on the history of Daoism, internal alchemy, and spirit writing, thunder rites in late imperial and modern China. His dissertation was dedicated to one of the foundational figures in the history of internal alchemy, Lu Xixing 陸西星 (1520-1601 or 1606). Currently, he is working on several projects related to the development of internal alchemy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the history of one of the central modern schools of internal alchemy, the Western school (xipai 西派 (,the connection between esoteric alchemical practice and modernist thinking of social reformers such as famous political thinker and alchemist Zheng Guanying 鄭觀應 (1842-1921), and the connection between the religious thought and development and popular culture and literature. These projects aim to explore the impact of the modernization of Chinese society on the country’s religious thinking and practices.