Join Simon Cox, religious scholar and martial artist, as he traces the strange and spiraling path of Daoist alchemy as it moves across time, culture, and geography. Beginning with the quiet persistence of Chinese ritual traditions in 19th-century California, we follow Daoism’s reemergence in the Bay Area counterculture of the 1950s and 60s — reimagined as a philosophy of flow, artistic revolt, and psychedelic insight.
From there, we turn toward post-Mao China, where cave hermits, mountain temples, and long-hidden alchemical lineages have reawakened. Once nearly extinguished, these practices now blaze anew, entering a global circuit of embodied transmission.
The evening blends lecture, storytelling, and internal practice, offering participants a new perspective on how alchemy migrates, mutates, and returns — across continents, through bodies, and out of time.
About your Facilitator:
Simon Cox is a martial artist, scholar, and teacher who spent six years training at Wudang Mountain, the spiritual home of Daoist culture and internal arts. Under Master Yuan Xiugang 袁修刚, he immersed himself in the Sanfeng lineage, studying tai chi, qigong, and Daoist meditation. His intensive training combined rigorous daily practice with rich cultural experiences, including performances and participation in Daoist events across China.
Following his time in Wudang, he earned a PhD in religion from Rice University, where his research focused on the history of the subtle body in Western intellectual traditions. His dissertation, The Subtle Body: A Genealogy, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022 and explores the history of the idea of the subtle body.
Now based in Penticton, British Columbia, he runs a thriving kung fu school with his wife, sharing the rich martial and meditative traditions of Wudang with a diverse community of students. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions as well as a research fellow at the Esalen Center for Theory and Research, co-leading a Subtle Body initiative aimed at exploring the transformative potential of embodied practices. Through teaching, writing, and research, he continues to make ancient Daoist wisdom accessible and relevant for contemporary audiences.
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