Friends, I'm writing to let you know of my contribution to Livia Kohn's new
text: Daoist Body Cultivation. I have written the first chapter summarizing my
current views on CM and conscious evolution. This is an excellent text with
contributions by many of the leading thinkers in the field looking at Daosm as a
living and evolving tradition.
The TOC is below and the text is available at spiritpathpress.com.

Warm regards, Lonny Jarrett

DAOIST BODY CULTIVATION


Daoist Body Cultivation is a comprehensive volume by a group of dedicated
scholar-practitioners that covers the key practices of medical healing,
breathing
techniques, diets and fasting, healing exercises,  sexual practices, Qigong,
and Taiji quan. Each presentation places the practice in its historical and
cultural context and relates its current application and efficaciousness.
Ultimately aiming to energetically transform the person into a spiritual and
trancendent being, Daoist cultivation techniques have proven beneficial for
health
time and again and can make an important contribution in the world today. Daoist
Body Cultivation provides a deeper understanding of the practices in their
cultural and historical contexts, bridging the gap between healing and religion
and allowing both scholars and practitioner to reach a deeper understanding
and appreciation.


Livia Kohn embraces our collective minds and bodies yet again with an
up-to-date, authoritative, and accessible collection of articles on the Daoist
tradition’s ways of body transformation. Kohn’s introduction is an admirably
discerning and concise overview of the best current scholarship on the subject,
and
the individual contributions, all by leading scholars and practitioners,
concretely focus on as yet little understood practices of Daoist body
cultivation.
This book moves our understanding of Daoist bodily practices to a new level of
interpretive insight and appreciation, a level that challenges many lingering
assumptions and fantasies found in the popular assessment of Daoism.
Recommended for anyone who wants to encounter the “real” and evolving Daoist
tradition.
—Norman Girardot, Lehigh University

Daoist Body Cultivation contains eight excellent and detailed studies and a
superb introduction in its exploration of Daoist techniques and theories of how
to live long, healthy, and harmoniously. Contributors focus on qi refinement
for the improvement of health, energy, and spirituality. They offer a new and
deeper understanding of the centuries-old and still evolving body practices of
the Daoist religion. While presenting rich information from classical texts,
they also demonstrate how the methods are used today. The result is a fruitful
marriage between academic research and practical experience. This book is
worthwhile for academics who are interested in Daoist practices as well as for
practitioners who would like to learn the theories and history of their methods.
—Shin-yi Chao, Rutgers University


Livia Kohn is Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston
University.  Her specialty is medieval Daoism and the study of Chinese
longevity
practices.  She has written and edited numerous books and is a long-term
practitioner of Taiji quan, Yoga, and meditation.

Table of Contents
 Introduction P. 1

1 Lonny Jarrett: Acupuncture and Spiritual Realization      P. 19
2 Catherine Despeux: The Six Healing Breaths   38
3 Stephen Jackowicz: Ingestion, Digestion, and Regestation: The Complexities
of Qi-Absorption       4 Shawn Arthur: Life without Grains: Bigu and the
Daoist Body     93
5 Livia Kohn: Yoga and Daoyin 125
6 Michael Winn: Transforming Sexual Energy with Water-and- Fire Alchemy
153
7 Bede Bidlack: Taiji Quan: Forms, Visions, and Effects 182
8 Louis Komjathy: Qigong in America 206
  Index 239