Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality

Anthropologists David A. Palmer and Elijah Siegler explore the globalization of Daoism: the interactions between international spiritual tourists, traditional Chinese monks, and American scholar-practitioners at the sacred Daoist mountain of Huashan, China. Palmer and Siegler show how the spiritual and religious histories of China and the West intersect, collide, and interpenetrate, revealing the paradoxes and dilemmas of the search for spiritual authenticity in a globalized world.--Provided by publisher.
Daoism has, during the twentieth century, spread to North America and Europe, breaking out of its Chinese cultural matrix and finding a home in the world of alternative spiritualities, natural health practices, and academic scholarship. Now, this Westernized Daoism is making its way back to China, bringing the process full circle. Dream Trippers by anthropologists David Palmer and Elijah Siegler explores this moment in the globalization of Daoism: the interactions between international spiritual tourists, traditional Chinese monks, and American scholar-practitioners at the sacred Daoist mountain of Huashan, China. This is the moment when Daoism becomes truly ?global.” Each of the players in this global encounter constructs different, yet intersecting, visions of ?authentic” Daoism. How do these encounters change the protagonists? How have their lives unfolded after their paths crossed at Huashan? In answering these questions, Palmer and Siegler show how the spiritual and religious histories of China and the West intersect, collide and interpenetrate ? revealing the paradoxes and dilemmas of the search for spiritual authenticity in a globalized world.
Over the past few decades, Daoism has become a recognizable part of Western “alternative” spiritual life. Now, that Westernized version of Daoism is going full circle, traveling back from America and Europe to influence Daoism in China. Dream Trippers draws on more than a decade of ethnographic work with Daoist monks and Western seekers to trace the spread of Westernized Daoism in contemporary China. David A. Palmer and Elijah Siegler take us into the daily life of the monastic community atop the mountain of Huashan and explore its relationship to the socialist state. They follow the international circuit of Daoist "energy tourism," which connects a number of sites throughout China, and examine the controversies around Western scholars who become practitioners and promoters of Daoism. Throughout are lively portrayals of encounters among the book’s various characters—Chinese hermits and monks, Western seekers, and scholar-practitioners—as they interact with each other in obtuse, often humorous, and yet sometimes enlightening and transformative ways. Dream Trippers untangles the anxieties, confusions, and ambiguities that arise as Chinese and American practitioners balance cosmological attunement and radical spiritual individualism in their search for authenticity in a globalized world.