Guide Review: The Alchemical Body

In the past several days, I've been exploring David Gordon White's The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions In Medieval India - and finding it wonderful!

In the preface, Mr. White describes the book as "a history-of-religions study of the medieval Siddha traditions of Hindu alchemy and hatha yoga, which formed two important fields of theory and practice within the vast current of Indian mysticism known as tantra." As such, this is a study whose focus is the yoga traditions coming out of India, though with clear resonances to both Tibetan yoga and Chinese Inner Alchemy.

What I'm appreciating most about Mr. White's offering is its combination of scholarship and poetry: twelve years of research went into the study, which is presented in writing whose beauty makes even the most seemingly impenetrable passages easily digestible. Yum! If this haiku-review has whet your appetite, you might like to explore inside this book online.

(Though of course the ultimate exploration takes place within our own bodymind consciousness computers.)