Main interests

• Taoist thought and religion
• Taoist views of the human being
• Taoist Internal Alchemy (Neidan) and other traditions of self-cultivation

A short biography

My work focuses on the Taoist views of the human being and the Taoist traditions of self-cultivation. I have taught at different universities in Italy, Germany, the United States, and Canada (for details, including a list of courses taught since 1996, see my CV). My main current project is a study of the thought of the Taoist master Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734–1821) and his views of human nature and existence (xing and ming 性命).

Earlier, I have been the editor of The Encyclopedia of Taoism (2008). My books include Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (2006), Dictionary of Taoist Internal Alchemy (2024), and The Taoist Tradition: An Introduction to Teachings, Schools, and Practices (2025). I have written several articles on Taoism, Neidan (Internal Alchemy), and Waidan (External Alchemy), some of which are collected in my Essays on Taoism and Taoist Alchemy (2 vols., 2026). For a complete list of my publications, see my CV.

In addition, I have published translations of texts on Neidan addressed to a wider audience. These translations, published by Golden Elixir Press — my leisure pursuit — include some of the main Neidan texts, such as the Cantong qi (Seal of the Unity of the Three); the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality); the Ruyao jing (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine); the Yinfu jing (Scripture of the Hidden Accordance); and Cultivating the Tao, a work by Liu Yiming.

I have lived almost 9 years in Japan (Kyoto) and exactly 10 years in the United States (Bay Area, California). Between late 2011 and 2022, my academic work was based at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities in Erlangen, Germany. At the Consortium, I contributed lectures and publications to the project “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication”, directed by Michael Lackner, and acted as “publication coordinator” of the book series Prognostication in History, published by Brill in Leiden. In the past few years, I am spending as much time as possible in Taiwan, where I am in touch with local Taoist scholars and practitioners.

Besides giving access to some of my own publications, in this website I present materials that may be useful to scholars and other people who share some of my interests. All pages are and will always be “in preparation”. See also my NeidanWiki, where I am slowly collecting various materials on Neidan.