Written by Mantak Chia, who now runs a meditation center in his home country of Thailand, this book Fusion of 5 Elements I offered me the first controllable structure of a decades long experience that most people would not believe is possible. Many people have taken up Chia's training -- a modernized version of an ancient Taoist system with many counterparts in esoteric Buddhist teachings -- and have discovered genuine tangible results. Having gone through the system on my own from a number of different traditional approaches, I find it difficult to describe but unmistakable for hallucination or wishful thinking. As Chia himself discovered, this is not a religious practice and does not depend on faith-based training. Chia looked for a teacher of the old system for years and was consistently turned away because he was Christian, not Taoist. Finally coming across a crotchety old hermit with an advanced practical understanding of a secret process usually guarded from any but advanced members of religious orders, Chia learned the system as it really is -- a way of manipulating basic universal energies with the power of the mind.

I came across it in a slightly different way, through an experience that began in the 70's with kundalini yoga and which took me on a wild ride, culminating in a powerful vision quest in 1991. After that journey I began to dream of strange symbols and unimaginable events. Setting aside the possibility that I had simply gone completely crazy, I began looking for explanations of my dreams. The symbols brought me to this book, as well as many others, and I found that what was triggered inside me during that vision quest fed on the information here like a living creature.

Follow up:

The experiences I had mark one of the old enlightenment paths, the Taoist Immortality Formulas. Although I don't believe the literal purpose of that process is physical immortality, some who practiced diligently and turned their energies towards that goal are said to have survived several hundred years. Possibly some managed to hang around even longer. Whether that's the best or proper goal of the path is a matter of personal decision and I haven't focused my own practice on that. What did happen to me was equally unusual.

I did not take the book seriously at first, but decided to give the technique a chance, and after about a month of daily practice, condensed and simplified considerably because of impatience and boredom, I had my first truly unusual "fusion" experience. Sitting in meditation one afternoon, having gone through the visualizations of the five energies and the formation of the "pearl" for what seemed the hundredth pointless time, something happened. It's possible to describe what happened as an explosion of light originating from the center of my physical being, but that doesn't quite cover it. I knew at that time that I was on the right track. Kundalini release only starts a process; eventually it takes you here.

The first book in what seems like a never-ending series of esoteric books by Mantak Chia and Maneewan Chia, the Fusion of Five Elements I is probably the only essential technique in the system. With this, the ball starts rolling. A copy is currently available for view online at Mantak Chia - 1st Formula - Fusion of the Five Elements on Scribd.

Chia's directions are explicitly detailed and possibly more exact than necessary. Start the processes in motion and things happen naturally.