Cultivators do exist, but they have deliberately hidden themselves throughout history. From the Yellow Emperor seeking the Dao from Guang Chengzi, to Laozi leaving through Hangu Pass, to Zhang Liang receiving a book from the Yellow Stone Elder, these legends are half true and half false. The cultivation system, woven into the intellectual currents of the Han dynasty:
Qi Nurturing: Breathing and guiding qi to strengthen the body and prolong life, corresponding to the historical practice of daoyin.
Meridian Opening: Unblocking the meridians throughout the body, allowing inner power to arise naturally.
Spirit Awakening: The spiritual sense awakens, allowing one to perceive the flow of qi.
Golden Core: An inner core forms, granting a lifespan of two hundred years. Extremely rare, those who reached this stage in history were called “Earth Immortals.”
Yang Spirit: The Yang Spirit leaves the body and roams the void. A legendary realm, reached by fewer than one person every few centuries.
Cultivation factions, whose true identities are hidden in history:
Huang-Lao Dao: The leading cultivation school in the early Han dynasty. Zhang Liang and Cao Shen were both its disciples. It advocated “quietude, non-action, and unity with the Dao,” and influenced the “Rule of Wen and Jing.”
Fangxian Dao: Xu Fu was its founder. Its practitioners excelled at alchemy, searching for immortals, and illusion arts. Active during Emperor Wu of Han’s reign, the school was later suppressed by the imperial court and driven underground.
The Chenwei School: Its members operated under the guise of Confucian scholars. They could read the heavens, judge good and ill fortune, and foresee human affairs. They were among the forces behind Wang Mang’s usurpation of the Han throne.
The Hidden Mohist Sect: After Mozi, the Mohists combined mechanical arts with cultivation. They excelled at formations, magical artifacts, and mechanisms, and lived in hiding among the common people.
Tianshi Dao: In its early days, Zhang Ling, also known as Zhang Daoling, had not yet formally founded the sect, but its rudiments were already taking shape as it operated in Shu.
The truth behind history:
When Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, raised a rebellion after slaying a white snake, it was actually a major battle between cultivators.
Behind Emperor Wu of Han’s policy of “suppressing the Hundred Schools and elevating Confucianism alone” was an alliance between the Confucians and cultivation factions to suppress the other schools.
Wang Mang’s usurpation of the Han throne was a political experiment jointly orchestrated by the Chenwei School and Fangxian Dao.
It's a good book. I feel like there really were immortal cultivators in history. It's worth reading.