The trajectory this mix was inspired by comes from the taoist enthusiasm
to renovate and preserve a more archaic belief system, which was also
built on the conception of immortality. Also the subject of juvenescence
through regressus ad uterum represents a leitmotif of taoism.
The importance of cinnabar manifests itself when put into fire it transforms
unto mercury.
Taoists believed that cinnabar could also be produced inside the
human body, essentially via sperm distillation, when hanging
head-down so that the essence of the semen could reach the "cinnabar fields".
They cower in the most arcane sequences of the brain and belly:
there the immortality embryo is prepared alchemically. To enter this secret
region, which contains a "room like a cave", one has to break in through
mystical meditation and enter a "chaotic" state of mind (houen), similar
to the primordial, "unconscious" state of the uncreated world.
