Online publications

Collected essays

• Essays on Taoism and Taoist Alchemy: Volume 1. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2026. [Essays on the history and methods of Waidan; the role of Taoist meditation practices in the rise of Neidan; the relationship between Dao, cosmos, and human being; the views of ordinary and inner time in the alchemical traditions; and the teachings of Liu Yiming (1734–1821).] Web page with links to samples
• Essays on Taoism and Taoist Alchemy: Volume 2. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2026. [Essays on the relationship between the Daode jing and Neidan; the foundations of Neidan in the Book of Changes; the main Chinese alchemical text, the Cantong qi (Seal of the Unity of the Three); the Neidan doctrines on human nature and its embodiment; the ways of “doing” and “non-doing” in Neidan; the views of immortality in the Baopu zi (The Master Who Embraces Spontaneous Nature); and the complex relationship of Taoism to divination practices.] Web page with links to samples

Taoism 道家 / 道教

• Editor, The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. [Contains about 800 articles written by 46 contributors from the USA, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Prized as “Outstanding Reference Source” by the American Library Association in 2009.] Web page with links to samples
• The Taoist Tradition: An Introduction to Teachings, Schools, and Practices. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2025. Web page with links to samples
• “Religious Daoism.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016. Online from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website
• “The Man-Bird Mountain: Writing and Revelation in Early China.” International Journal of Divination and Prognostication 2 (2020): 29–83. PDF
• “Daoism and Divination.” In Michael Lackner and Zhao Lu, eds., Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China, Part 1: Introduction to the Field, 364–412. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022. PDF
• “Seeking Immortality in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi neipian.” In David Chai, ed., Dao Companion to Xuanxue 玄學 (Neo-Daoism), 427–56. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2020. PDF
• “Which Is the Taoist Immortal Body?” Micrologus 26 (2018): 385–407. PDF
• “The Notion of ‘Form’ and the Ways of Liberation in Daoism.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14 (2004): 95–130. (In memoriam Isabelle Robinet.) PDF

Reference works

• “Daoist Canon.” In Tim Wright, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. PDF
• “Catalogue of the Daozang jiyao” [道藏輯要]. With Monica Esposito. 2014. PDF
• Index of Zhonghua Daozang (中華道藏書目總錄). Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2009. Web page
• Index of Zhengtong Daozang (正統道藏書目總錄). Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2009. Web page with link for free download

Neidan 內丹 (Internal Alchemy)

Dictionary

• Dictionary of Taoist Internal Alchemy. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2024. [Contains nearly 1,600 entries, about 2,150 definitions of the respective terms, and more than 2,700 examples of their use from original Neidan sources.] Sample Web page

Cantong qi 參同契

• The Seal of the Unity of the Three. Two volumes. Vol. 1: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi, the Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir. Vol. 2: Bibliographic Studies on the Cantong qi: Commentaries, Essays, and Related Works. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2011, 2012. Web page, vol. 1 Web page, vol. 2 with links to samples
• “Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three).” In Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, eds., Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions, 186–211. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2015. PDF
• “The Representation of Time in the Zhouyi cantong qi.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 155–73. PDF

Neidan texts

• Taoist Internal Alchemy: An Anthology of Neidan Texts. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2019. Web page with links to samples
• Awakening to Reality: The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy. By Zhang Boduan (ca. 1075). Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2009. Web page with links to samples
• Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine (Ruyao jing zhujie): A Fourteenth-Century Work on Taoist Internal Alchemy. By Wang Jie (?–ca. 1380). Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2013. Web page with links to samples

Liu Yiming 劉一明

• Cultivating the Tao: Taoism and Internal Alchemy. By Liu Yiming (1734–1821). Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2013. Web page with links to samples
• “Superior Virtue, Inferior Virtue: A Doctrinal Theme in the Works of the Daoist Master Liu Yiming (1734–1821).” T’oung Pao 100 (2014): 460–98. PDF
• “Discriminations in Cultivating the Tao: Liu Yiming (1734–1821) and His Xiuzhen houbian.” AION (Annali dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”), 37 (2015): 81–108. PDF
• “Xiudao zhi bian: Liu Yiming ji qi Xiuzhen houbian” 「修道之辨」——劉一明及其《修真後辨》. Hongdao 弘道 87 (2021): 66–80. PDF
• “Discriminazioni nella coltivazione della realtà: Brani scelti da un’opera del maestro taoista Liu Yiming (1734–1821)” [Discriminations in the Cultivation of Reality: Selected Passages from a Work by the Daoist Master Liu Yiming (1734–1821)]. In Ester Bianchi, Daniela Campo, and Maurizio Paolillo, eds., Quali altre parole vi aspettate che aggiunga? [Which More Words Am I Expected to Add?], 113–32. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2022. PDF

Other subjects

• “Destiny, Vital Force, or Existence? On the Meanings of Ming 命 in Daoist Internal Alchemy and its Relation to Xing 性 or Human Nature.” Daoism: Religion, History and Society 6 (2014), 157–218. PDF
• “Laozi and Internal Alchemy.” In Iwo Amelung and Joachim Kurtz, eds., Reading the Signs: Philology, History, Prognostication: Festschrift for Michael Lackner, 271–301. München: Iudicium, 2018. PDF
• “Early Daoist Meditation and the Origins of Inner Alchemy.” In Benjamin Penny, ed., Daoism in History: Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, 121–58. London: Routledge, 2006. PDF
• “The Alchemical Body in Daoism.” Journal of Daoist Studies 14 (2021): 99–127. PDF
• “Time in Chinese Alchemy.” In Vivienne Lo and Michael Stanley-Baker, eds., Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, 427–43. London: Routledge, 2022. Also published in a slightly different version as “Views of Time in Chinese Alchemy”, in Livia Kohn, ed., Time in Daoist Practice: Cultivation and Calculation, 247–67 (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2021). PDF
• “Inner Alchemy (Neidan).” With Lowell Skar. In Livia Kohn, ed., Daoism Handbook, 464–97. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000. PDF
• Entries on eight Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要 texts in Lai Chi Tim 黎志添, ed., Daozang jiyao tiyao 道藏輯要提要. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2021. PDF

Reference works

• “Chinese Alchemy.” In Tim Wright, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. PDF
• Chinese Alchemy: An Annotated Bibliography of Works in Western Languages. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2009. Web page

Waidan 外丹 (External Alchemy)

• Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Translated into Chinese by Han Jishao 韓吉紹 as Taiqing: Zhongguo zhonggu zaoqi de daojiao he liandanshu 太清 － 中国中古早期的道教和炼丹术 (Jinan: Qi Li shushe, 2016). Web page with links to samples PDF of Chinese translation (large file, ca. 60 MB)
• “Elixirs and Alchemy.” In Livia Kohn, ed., Daoism Handbook, 165–95. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000. PDF
• Entries on twenty-one Daozang 道藏 texts in Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004. PDF
• “L’alchimia” [Alchemy] and “Gli apocrifi” [The apocrypha]. In Enciclopedia di Storia della Scienza [Encyclopedia of the History of Science], 2: 244–55. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2001. Online

Translations of scholarly monographs

• Isabelle Robinet, The World Upside Down: Essays on Taoist Internal Alchemy. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2011. [English translations of four articles originally published in French.] Web page with links to samples