Many methods and recipes were developed over the centuries to achieve these lofty ambitions and they appealed to anyone willing to devote their entire lives to spiritual self-cultivation. Quite a few even envisioned sustaining themselves in perpetuity as etherealized god-like spirits. They practiced purification rites, and sought to lengthen their lives or better yet, become spiritual beings by creating elixirs of immortality. Cut off from access to grains and rice, the basic foods of the masses, they ate no starches, fish or pungently favored foods, and intentionally fasted for days at a time. There they searched for foods and medicines consisting of its unfamiliar plants, insects, colorful stones, minerals, metals and fungi to sustain and to cultivate themselves physically and spiritually. They found refuge in uninhabited mountainous regions south of the Yangtze River. 4 Some sought to make the most of circumstances that threatened survival. Their numbers grew in times of war, famine and other catastrophes and they were often suspect in being associated with political rebellions. There were others, especially ardent followers of numerous Taoist sects, who were less interested in being compliant with patterning their lives after behavioral norms proposed by dictates of Confucian-Legalist government authorities. Failure to do so in an exemplary manner, would invite Heaven’s wrath causing earthquakes, invasions, epidemics, uprisings and famine which resulted in the ruler to losing the Mandate of Heaven. These were designed to maintain order, appease ancestors, show respect for authority, and prolong one’s natural life-span of one hundred years with continued physical and emotional vigor. 3 Controlling one’s fate, reputation and legacy required following recommended rituals throughout the year by the emperor and the people. (Most Chinese men, it was said, die by age 50. If unheeded, irregularities would transform into more virulent disorders from which one would perish before reaching one’s predetermined life-span of one hundred years. Restoration to order and health required compliance to the laws of nature and the adoption of behavioral and dietary practices as recommended by sagely physicians.

2 Deviations from the norm, whether from an emperor’s or a commoner’s misbehavior, resulted in social uprisings, political chaos, war, widespread illness and famine. It entailed sociopolitical ideals that would become manifest in a world united by compliance to rituals honoring Heaven, Earth and Man, moderation in all activities, and respectful obedience to the ruler, the ancestors, the family elders and particularly the laws of nature. It reflected the ideals of the entitled and the desire of at least some Han Dynasty political advisers to establish control over the whims of tyrannical rulers. During the Han Dynastic period (202 BC – 9 AD 25 AD – 220 AD), classical medical theory was developed in a hierarchically defined, authoritarian socio-political culture dependent upon the labor of a rural peasantry to feed many urban centers and maintain infrastructure to ensure the continued existence of the reigning dynastic family. Others were based on interpretations of an integrated theory of cosmological change systematized during the Later Han Dynasty that tied the synchronization of political, social and health activities and ideals to the celestial movements and natural observable changes that occurred over the course of the seasons. Some were founded on quasi-religious or mystical ideas and superstitions, focused on living a balanced life that incorporated consumption of a wide-variety of health promoting foods in moderation and in accordance with their seasonal and regional availability. It is intimately associated with long-standing beliefs and hygienic practices 1 of the political elite, scholars, powerful landowners, merchants and the many specialists that catered to the physical and psychological health of the privileged during their lives and afterward. The history of classic medicine in pre-modern China is extremely rich and complex. The Chinese Mushroom of Immortality By Dianna SmithĬhair of NAMA’s Medicinal Mushroom Committee

The forbidden elixir of immortality