Barnaby

Even though it’s often disparaged, I have a lot of time for James Legge’s translation. Used in conjunction with some of the above, and others. I think it’s good to make your own sense of the different slants. But Wilhelm/Baynes is the gold standard in English for me.

This place got destroyed by the US culture wars

Probably the wrong word. Let’s say some form of symbolic mediation.

Right now, I consider that it’s always the Self that’s giving the blessings. It’s just that it’s a higher iteration of the Self that we may not always be able to access without resorting to artifice.

Dig it

This is the whole point. The self-styled daoist teachers of whom I am aware are operating outside all lineage structure, such as it is understood in other traditions. It’s the Wild West. You can basically teach whatever you want.

You just achieved enlightenment

You pay all that dough to get to the last level, then you find out about the double-secret level that no one told you about before.

Having been around the block on this, quite honestly, the idea of paying some guy off the internet $1000 to learn how to meditate is nuts. Or, to paraphrase an old joke, God's way of telling you that you have too much money.

I've heard the story. But there is no objective evidence, no third-party corroboration and only one source: Serge

No, but he is using deceitful means to attract customers, and for that I think he deserves to be called out. Serge is an accomplished martial artist. But as a "spiritual teacher", he is a con man and a liar. If Serge came clean that the system he teaches is a hodge-podge of stuff he's been taught by Yang Jwing-Ming and others/read about/seen on the Internet/made up, I wouldn't have a problem. But he doesn't. Instead he insists that it all comes from a mysterious "clan Daoist" lineage that no sinologist has ever heard of. And for which, through some bizarre quirk of history, he – a white French guy who grew up in Paris – is the sole repository and representative. Serge has successfully adapted the motor of classic con games (marks want to believe in easy money) to his chosen field of activity (marks want to believe in superpowers that will save their souls and make them immortal). And just like the virtuoso con men of the past, he relies on the sunk cost fallacy: it's very hard to admit that something you have sunk tens of thousands of dollars/euros into was an artfully-spun illusion. And believe me, Serge's committed followers have sunk many tens of thousands into his spiel. He is eye-wateringly expensive. So as you say: BUYER BEWARE! And read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Story-Confidence-Man/dp/0385495382

No man, Daxuan college is a tax-avoidance scam in Dominica https://www.wu-cm.com/about-daxuan

Ah, Daxuan… The ancient time-honored lineage that no one apart from Serge has ever heard of

pint of Guinness, please shamrock outlined on the top afterhours shebeen

That robot hasn’t read much Burroughs. Maybe you should try it on Phillip K Dick 😉