Just back from Erlangen, where I presented my film Li Manshan: portrait of a folk Daoist (watch here).  The event was part of a stimulating series at CAS-E, devised by the socio-cultural anthropologist Raquel Romberg, research coordinator of the project Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective; her own publications on Puerto Rican healers look fascinating.

Erlangen made a suitable and nostalgic venue for the film, having been the scene of the last concert on the delightful 2013 German tour of the Li family Daoists—my post on which I’ve just augmented. I even stayed in the same hotel, bringing back many fond memories of them.

Partly because I can now take a further step back, and partly because I’ve just been editing my new documentary about Gaoluo, I’m all the more aware how demanding the Li Manshan film is—longer, I think, than the new one will be. But I remain amazed at all the technical and personal detail it contains, and all the work that went into it.

In the discussion following the screening, the bright audience made stimulating comments. Among them was Fabrizio Pregadio, * scholar of early Daoist internal alchemy, whose own work as editor of The encylopedia of Taoism and an invaluable reference guide to the Daoist canon doesn’t render him unmoved by the modern practice of peasant Daoists in the poor countryside of north China!

Click here for more thoughts arising from screenings of my film, here for reflections on the Erlangen showing, and here for a roundup of posts on the Li family Daoists.

Left: outside the hotel, where the Li family Daoists relaxed in 2013
Right: Bell Street, after my Chinese name…

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* I often wonder if his surname predestined him to become a scholar of religion!