Immortals’ Medicine: Daoist Healers and Social Change1

101 Immortals’ Medicine Daoist Healers and Social Change1 GEORGES FAVRAUD This article deals with a Chunyang 纯阳 Daoist transmission between female healers which takes place in the “Transverse Dragon Grottoe-temple” (Henglongdong 横龙洞) situated in the vicinity of Pingxiang City 萍乡市 in western Jiangxi (near the Hunan border). The female masters of this community specialize in women’s internal alchemy (nüdan 女丹). They are regionally famous for their medicine that takes care of and heals children. Based on fieldwork observation and written materials gathered between 2004 and 2014, this article follows the transmission of this therapeutic-based Daoist tradition in the course of the 20th century. Its purpose is to shed light on some intrinsic links between Daoism and healing. It also highlights the way this literary and technical practice allows the internalization of rituals, shifts in roles and status, as well as the building of interpersonal networks between Daoist masters and official. These relationships have been instrumental both in the transmission of Daoism during the Maoist era and also more recently in its recomposition since the 1980s. 1 I first presented this paper at the 9th International Conference on Daoism, organized by Livia Kohn and Thomas Michael at Boston University in June 2014. It formed part of the panel “Daoist Elder Masters Today,” organized by members of the French ANR SHIFU Program. I would like to thank Adeline Herrou, Wu Nengchang, and David Mozina, who participated in the panel and gave fruitful suggestions for its further elaboration. Marine Carrin, Harald Tambs-Lyche, and Catherine Despeux also provided important advice. It appeared earlier in German , in a slightly shorter version (Favraud 2014a). I appreciate the generosity of the German journal and its editor, Dr. Ute Engelhardt, for permitting the republication here. 102 / Journal of Daoist Studies 9 (2016) Huang Fuming 黄复明 (b. 1970) is a female Daoist master who serves as the abbot of the Henglongdong 横龙洞 (Transverse Dragon Grotto) in a suburb of Pingxiang City 萍乡市 in western Jiangxi province. Women masters here not only specialize in women’s alchemy (nüdan 女丹),2 but are regionally famous for their medicine, focusing on the care and healing of children. Now in her forties, Huang Fuming directs the temple and teaches ritual and medicine to younger disciples. Representing a new generation that came to flourish after the Cultural Revolution (196676 ), she studied Daoism with masters of the Henglongdong but also graduated from the Kundao Academy (kundao xueyuan 坤道学院) at the foot of Nanyue 南岳, the Southern Peak, near Changsha. Here she studied standardized rituals, academic knowledge of Daoist history and philosophy , as well as managerial skills for a period of two years (see Yang 2011). Today, with the official and modern version of Chinese medicine (TCM; zhongyi 中医) quite well developed, Huang Fuming and other Daoist masters have also begun to open their oral and ritual medical studies to the reading of TCM textbooks.3 Based on fieldwork and the study of written materials gathered between 2004 and 2014, I will describe the current healing practices at the Henglongdong, and then particularly analyze the transmission of their therapeutic Daoist tradition in the 20th century. I hope to shed some light on the connection between Daoism and healing, then highlight how the literary and technical practice of medicine opens to an internalization of ritual, possible shifts in social status, and the building of interpersonal 2 Women’s alchemy is a late imperial development of physiological or internal alchemy (neidan 内丹), a Daoist method of self-cultivation using physical, breathing, and meditative techniques. It has been instrumental in the development of Chinese physiology and medicine, as well as of philosophy and ritual. An important feature of women’s alchemy is “beheading the red dragon” (zhan chilong 斬赤龙), i.e., ceasing menstruation in order to retain the vital essence of the body (jing 精). This essence is then transmuted into vital breathes (qi 气) and from there into spirit (shen 神). For details, see Despeux 1990; Despeux and Kohn 2003. 3 For the synthesis, westernization, and institutionalization of local medical transmissions into an integrated modern and official TCM, see Hsu 1999; Scheid 2002; Taylor 2005. About its links to the qigong movement, see Palmer 2007. Favraud, “Immortals’ Medicine” / 103 networks between Daoist masters and officials. All these were...