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Immortality and Reincarnation – Alexandra David-Neel

Among the countless stories relating the events of the quest for the Elixir of Immortality can be cited that of Magician Lu and Emperor Tche Houang Ti. These events would have occurred circa 222 BC.   Several versions exist of this tale, but we will only recount that part of it pertaining to a belief in the existence of the Immortals. It stands out in the accounts preserved in Chinese chronicles that these Immortals were sometimes believed to be men who had successfully achieved eternal life and sometimes thought to be naturally immortal genies.

The Magician Lu is assumed to have been a disciple of the famous Master Kao. The latter had been dead for several centuries but was believed by some to have contrived his disappearance and to be still living somewhere in the mountains, having become an Immortal.  The emperors even sent emissaries to find him on several occasions.

Among other theories, Kao professed that it was possible to become immortal by shedding the body much in the same way that insects shed a cocoon. 

How this result could be obtained wasn't explained. However, even if these instructions never came down to us, it is still very likely that the master supplied them to his immediate disciples.  In any event, the ascension to immortality has been especially attributed to the absorption of certain special elixirs. 

There are exceptional cases cited where virtuous men and sages have received this marvellous elixir as a gift from the Immortals, but in general its manufacture was considered to the work of alchemist magicians