Stuart Alve Olson is one of a number of remarkable American Taoist teachers and interpreters who have been nurtured by a succession of Chinese masters prepared to share and spread a wisdom of which the West sorely needs.  
               Olson goes further than this reviewer would judge appropriate in appearing to suggest that the future of Taoism rests more on its nascent growth in America than in its regeneration in China and East Asia.
               Ideological spectacles often seem to blind Americans to the nature of developments in the region. Chinese leaders often exude a form of calm and relaxed competence that can be hard to disassociate from images of Taoist Masters.
                Having said that, this is an excellent book, well conceived to introduce Americans and other Westerners to some of the most difficult and obscure aspects of the Taoist imagination and consciousness.
               Olson introduces the reader to the intriguing fact that the ‘mind seal’ in the title might also have been translated ‘immortality’. His first two chapters are titled What is Immortality and Is Immortality Possible?
                The latter has several brief and clear summaries of Taoist approaches to immortality and includes substantial translated passages, with commentary, from a chapter entitled The Immortals from a Fourth Century Taoist classic by Ko Hung, entitled Embracing Simplicity. Olson describes this as “the first, and most extensive and honest, account of a Taoist in search of immortality.”
                As so often happens in exploration of Chinese culture and spirituality, Ko Hung’s text takes the readers into regions of the spirit that have long been abandoned and disparaged by Western civilisation. Often, in this reader’s experience, the full discovery of these journeys often becomes clear only many years later.
                Equally, rarely do such journeys prove disappointing or fruitless. As hinted earlier, such travels are becoming obligatory if the Western world hopes to comprehend the changes taking place throughout East Asia, but particularly in China, today.
                After a substantial examination of Ko Hung’s sense of immortality, Olson addresses The Jade Emperor’s Mind Seal Classic, a text that fits into less than a page in Chinese and two or three in English.
                It displays the same compact power and profundity as the Tao Te Ching as it exercises the imagination of the reader in a manner that surprises, teases and enlightens, even as it leaves the feeling that the process of discovery is only beginning.
                This reader was grateful for a solid background of reading in Taoism and its various associated health therapies. There was a recurring sense of having gained a glimpse of another profound insight that questioned long established certainties, but that provided a lead for another reformed physical practice.
                While one might say that immortality often seemed like the Buddhist sense of nirvana, where one escapes the hard realities of this world, there was equally a sense of a more subtle understanding of how to transcend physical constraints without any loss of participation in this world. Something of this is captured in a comparison with Christianity:                 “Whereas the Christian speaks of something external and distinct from himself, the Taoist is speaking of something external but simultaneously connected to his own inner being.”
                Much of The Jade Emperor’s Mind Seal Classic is given to exploring the Three Treasures – Ching, Qi and Shen. While Ching can be translated as sperm or essence and Shen is normally rendered as spirit, Qi defies any adequate translation and has almost become a word in its own right in the English language, having put aside such misleading translations as breath and energy.
                It is a joy, a revelation and a process of continuing, if teasing, discovery to read Olson’s commentary on the text of the Mind Seal Classic. His remarks continually suggest new insights into one’s physical and spiritual character and the type of practices and awareness that can enhance one’s understanding and cultivation of health, longevity and immortality.
                Do not expect a simple and clear explanation of how to go out and achieve mastery. Do, however, be on the lookout for all sorts of hints about how one can improve subtle aspects of one’s consciousness in ways that enhance the quality of one’s Ching, Qi and Shen.
                Olson’s writing also served to consolidate a sense developing in my own thought that much Western conceptualisation serves mostly to consolidate limiting stereotypes. These actually inhibit the capacity to explore and discover many of the wonders of nature that have inspired Taoists across the centuries.
                Apart from a few pages on Closing Tips for Cultivating Immortality, the book concludes with an examination of The Way of Immortals Tranquil Sitting Classic, a text compiled in the last 150 years that presents teachings from various sects of Taoism, covering subjects such as Tao Yin exercise, herbalism, meditation, alchemy, breathing and immortality. Again the focus is on the Three Treasures and contains illuminating and liberating passages such as:                
               “Your imagination is one of the most important tools you can use in cultivation. My teacher constantly said, ‘Imagination becomes reality’.”
                It must be hoped that the growth of Taoism in America contributes to its revitalisation in China.
                In my view this is not so much because modern China needs it but because America needs the enlightenment of soul, consciousness and imagination that can be drawn from this remarkable but mercurial spiritual wisdom.
                Stuart Alve Olson’s contribution to this cause is both substantial and inspired.