This research attempts to demystify the experience of learning a new mystical religious practice. Subjects were lay Buddhists who undergo training as a group to learn "Taijiquan". The "Taijiquan" set includes Daoist inner alchemy practice, a form of Chinese mystical body practice. The researcher observed how the lay Buddhists, by practicing the "Taijiquan", realized both the teachings of Buddhist insight meditation and Daoist inner alchemy as well as how this new knowledge influenced their daily life and inner perceptions of religious experience. The thesis has six chapters. The first chapter, contains an explanation of the research background, a literature review, outlines research methods and procedures and introduces the practitioners. The second chapter, analyzed the relationship between scriptures, cultivation methods and practice experience of Cheng Man Ching, Wu Kuo Chung, Chen Quo Kuan and the practitioners. The third chapter records how the teacher taught Taijiquan according to the physical abilities of each the practitioners, helped practitioners to perceive the movements of their three-layered bodies and their subjective expansion of time and space, and assisted the practitioners in the understanding of their individual religious experiences. Meanwhile explains the concepts of the three-layered body, body cultivation, body-mind cultivation and religious body cultivation. In the fourth chapter, some of practitioners transform their inner alchemy of martial arts, and personal practice of Taijiquan into a practical chiropractic work for helping others. In the work place, the practitioners offer the techniques of Taijiquan which were best suited to relieve the needs of the person seeking assistance. The fifth chapter, self-reflection. Chapter sixth makes a synthesis of the findings. Briefly, the practitioners synthesized scriptures, cultivation methods and practice experience together resulting in the demystification of new religious experiences and knowledge that benefited the individual practitioner, but also promoted the ability to help others in practical life and in interpretation of religious experiences.
