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Chinese alchemy is a part of the larger tradition of Taoist body-spirit cultivation that developed from the traditional Chinese understanding of medicine and the body.

According to original texts such as the Cantong qi, the body is understood as the focus of cosmological processes summarized in the five agents, or wu xing, the observation and cultivation of which leads the practitioner into greater alignment with the operation of the Tao, the great cosmological principle of everything.

Therefore the traditional view in China is that alchemy focuses mainly on the purification of one's spirit and body in the hopes of gaining immortality through the practice of Qigong and / or consumption and use of various concoctions known as alchemical medicines or elixirs, each of which having different purposes.