The Way of the Yellow and the Red: Re-examining the Sexual Initiation Rite of Celestial Master Daoism

Abstract

at Daoists engaged in sexual practices is well known. But what precisely were these practices, and what was their significance? is paper examines the initiation ritual of Celestial Master Daoism as found in the text entitled Shangqing Huangshu guodu yi. I argue that this practice has been misunderstood by earlier scholars who focused on the sexual aspect of the rite and interpreted it through the cosmological model of yin and yang. I suggest that the ritual procedure described in this text should not be read as a sexual manual but must be placed in the context of Celestial Master ritual and mythology as found in contemporaneous texts. Such a reading reveals that this ritual is based on a cosmogony in which the procreative function of yin and yang is a sec ondary, and not a primary, stage of cosmogony. Rather than a hierogamy, the real significance of this ritual is, in fact, to transcend the mundane realm, symbolized by the sexual act, and to attain the primordial undifferentiated oneness, beyond sexual division. KeywordsDaoism, Celestial Master, ritual, sexual practice 1) Earlier versions of this paper were presented at

The sexual body techniques of early and medieval China – underlying emic theories and basic methods of a non-reproductive sexual scenario for non-same-sex partners

“…The sexual rites of Celestial Master (Tianshi 天師 ) Daoism -'merging the pneumas' (he qi 合炁) -were distinguished from the arts of the bedchamber by this religious community itself, which criticised the latter, and they appear to have been socially oriented rites de passage rather than focussing on the sexual encounters of couples (see Maspero 1937: 401-13;Kalinowski 1985;Raz 2008Raz , 2012Kleeman 2014;Mollier 2016). The relationship of the sexual body techniques with various Daoist religious movements awaits further clarifcation (on the latter, see Maspero 1937;Needham 1983;Hidemi 1991;Zhu Yueli 2002;Lin Fu-shih 2001De Meyer 2006: 345-74;Hudson 2007;Chapter 27 24, 30 and 49 in this volume).…”