it, becomes permanently indestructible, so it is called the gold pill."
II. The Original Spirit and the Conscious Spirit
1. The distinction between the original spirit and the conscious spirit is one
of the most important ideas in Taoist psychology. The conscious spirit is
historically conditioned; the original spirit is primal and universal. The
conscious spirit is a complex of modifications of awareness, while the
original spirit is the essence of awareness. To say that this essence
transcends the "primal organization” means that it is by nature more
fundamental than even the most basic patterns of modification to which
consciousness may be subject. In Jungian terms, this means that the essence
of the original spirit is beyond, or deeper than, even the archetypes of the
collective unconscious. Jung himself does not seem to have attained this,
and his work reflects what
in Taoist terms would be termed confusion of the conscious spirit (which
includes the Jungian "unconscious") with the original spirit.
2. Vitality, energy, and spirit are the fundamental triad of being, known in
Taoist terms as the "three treasures" of the human body. Here the spirit is
the only one regarded as transcendental. This is characteristic of Buddhistic
neo-Taoist spiritual immortalism, which tends to deemphasize the
physiological practices of old alchemical immortalism. To "live
