Five Types of Daoist Immortals
How you cultivate determines your results. Everyone dies, but not everyone dies the same way. There are five levels of Daoist Immortality and it’s important for a practitioner to understand what they are and what type of practices correspond to each so that they can properly align their practice with their goals. This remains relevant because it speaks to the importance of proper practice, the difference between qigong practice and neidan, and distinguishes practices that can lead to spiritual development from those that can at best lead to health and longevity.
Throughout history many famous Daoist masters categorized levels of attainment, related them to certain modes of practice, and criticized practices which were not on their own adequate for fully attaining the Dao. In the important Quanzhen text Zhong-Lü Chuandao Ji, Zhongli Quan explains to Lü Dongbin that there are five types of xian 仙 (commonly translated as “immortal” or “transcendent,” although not perfect translations). From lowest to highest, they are:
- Ghost immortal
- Human immortal
- Earth immortal
- Spirit immortal
- Celestial immortal
Daoist cultivation can be framed as a process of transforming one’s being from yin to yang with the culmination of practice being the attainment of Pure Yang. In terms of yin and yang, the categories of immortals can be divided into pure yin (ghost immortals), mixture of yin and yang (human and earth immortals), and pure yang (spirit and celestial immortals).
Ghost Immortal 鬼仙
Ghost immortal is the only undesirable category out of the five and can be viewed as the “lowest position.” From the state of a human, becoming a ghost immortal would be going backwards. Zhongli Quan says that “those of mixed yin and yang are humans, and only humans can become either ghosts or immortals.”1 Ghosts are pure yin spirits (yin shen 阴神) and are the most apparitional and ephemeral. Ghosts reside in the realm of yin (yin shijian 阴世间). Their spirit 神 and image are not bright and are they are not perceptible in the ordinary human realm.
Practitioners become ghost immortals due to practice that is not only incomplete but also incorrect and may have lived a life that did not adhere to the Daoist precepts and instead was filled with desire and poor moral behavior. The Zhong-Lu Chuandaoji associated ghost immortals with practitioners who only practice quietistic meditation and are in too much of a hurry and therefore take shortcuts in practice (perhaps involving the practice of making the yin shen leave the body prematurely before it has been alchemically transmuted into yang). This mode of incomplete practice could also be an example of neglecting to cultivate ming 命 (life-endowment, life-destiny) as opposed to xing-ming shuang xiu 性命双修 (dual cultivation of innate-nature and life-destiny) which became the universally-recognized optimal mode of cultivation.
Human Immortal 人仙 and Earth Immortal 地仙
The level of human and earth immortal could be grouped into a “middle position,” as at this level “immortality” is a property of the body. The idea is not so much that the physical body becomes literally immortal, but rather that at high levels of development supernormal degrees of health and longevity can be attained as well as various “special abilities” (e.g. iron body, qi emission, and the various “superpowers” that are developed through years of advanced neigong practice). Humans are in the unique position of having both a yin shen as well as yang jingqi as resources to work with, and so it is only from this central position that you can engineer your own ontological status and become either a yin ghost or a yang spirit.
Practice at this level entails a mastery of ming gong 命功 (in the sense of energetic practices that work primarily with jing and qi). Practices that today are typically referred to as qigong 气功 and neigong 内功 that work with post-heaven qi 后天气 to build the lower dantian, open the energy meridians with post-heaven qi, and develop the physical body are included in this level of attainment. The practitioner is still limited by the physical body and so immortality has not really been achieved in any meaningful sense, but rather just very good physical longevity. The senses are attached to the physical body, which also means that practitioners at this level can still be prone to succumb to desire, and if that gets out of hand, potentially slip backwards to the status of ghost.
Human, and particularly earth immortals, have made significant progress on developing the foundations necessary for neidan 内丹, completing the process of refining their jing 精 energy to qi 氣. Earth immortals have made even further achievements in the realm of ming gong 命功 and have thus set themselves up well for (and perhaps made some progress on) the next step of refining qi to shen 神 (i.e. shengong 神功). Earth immortals are also sometimes associated with spirits that dwell on the earth, especially in wild places such as mountains, but even in this case their existence is also limited as they are earthbound.
Spirit Immortal 神仙 and Celestial Immortal 天仙
Spirit and celestial immortals represent the highest levels of attainment in which they have completed the process of alchemical transformation and transcended the limitations of physical existence. They have transformed their spirit (shen 神) so that it has become pure yang without a trace of yin left. The yang shen 阳神 (yang spirit) is also referred to as the shen wai zhi shen 身外之身 “body outside the body” as adepts who have attained a yang shen are able to travel outside of their physical bodies and manifest as a second, flesh-and-blood body in the physical world (in contrast to lower forms of spirit travel that use only the yin shen and can not manifest as an actual physical body).
The type of practice and lifestyle necessary to eventually attain these levels of immortality would involve long (often several lifetimes) and deep commitment to a complete system of neidan practice as well as a lifestyle fully oriented to spiritual cultivation. Moral cultivation and a serious dedication to advanced meditation practice become necessary in which the practitioner can access the pre-heaven (xiantian) state (wuwei) in meditation, completing the steps of refining qi 氣 to shen 神 and then refining shen 神 to return to emptiness 虚.
Celestial immortal is often distinguished from spirit immortal as the highest attainment. Both have cultivated a yang spirit that can live independently of the physical body, however the spirit immortal, not yet reaching the highest attainment would eventually need to reincarnate to complete their cultivation. The celestial immortal is the only immortal that has completely escaped the cycle of reincarnation, completing the final stage of the alchemical process in which any last trace of individual existence is transcended, giving way to full non-dual realization they can fully “return to the Dao” (i.e. the Void), but now in a fully awakened and realized state of pure consciousness.
One might wonder if this “return to the Dao” (the source of existence), which could be seen as a dissolution of the personal self, represents some kind of end or death… yet, celestial immortals are often also distinguished from spirit immortals in that the former are the only ones who have access to higher celestial realms and special bureaucratic positions in the heavenly realms. This sounds a lot like a form of personal existence–so how to reconcile this? There is in fact no paradox because this highest, most liberated state is essentially non-dual and would not limit one’s existence to either an embodied, personal self or the impersonal Void. As Daoist scholar-practitioner Louis Komjathy puts it, “the alchemist-now-immortal enters nondual mystical (non)being and participation. She may be simultaneously individual (one) and all (One), including formlessness manifesting as multiple forms, and vice versa.” 2 This complete integration of the individual (one) with the all (One) also ties in with the notion of the celestial immortal having attained both the culmination of the Daoist path (immortal – xian 仙) as well as the Buddhist path (bodhisattva – pusa 菩萨). In this way, the celestial immortal has not only achieved total self-transcendence, but also represents the highest achievement in moral cultivation in which they understand the connection between their own lives and the myriad other beings, are fully attuned to the cycles and interconnectedness of the cosmos, and are concerned with not just individual but universal salvation.
References
- Kohn, L. 2020: The Zhong-Lü System of Internal Alchemy.
- Komjathy, L. 2024: Traces of a Daoist Immortal: Chen Tuan of the Western Marchmount.
- Komjathy, L. 2007: Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self-transformation in Early Quanzhen Daoism.
