This book examines in detail a short book, often referred to as that was published in 1939 teaching a simple yet effective set of five exercises for health and longevity, the Five Rites. Certain dietary rules and lifestyle principles accompanied the Rites, so did a Sixth Rite that worked the diaphragm muscles and redirected sexual energies, and also a set of teachings about seven energy centers or vortices in the body, though not the same as the well-known seven chakras along the spine. These vortices are among the most distinctive things about the system, and are found in only a scattered handful of sources elsewhere. It is by awakening the vortices to their normal rate of spin, the book claims, that the Rites achieve their effects. John Michael Greer follows each of these threads back as far as possible, to reveal something of the landscape of ideas and practices that gave rise to these remarkable exercises. He then spins the threads back together, putting the Five Rites in as much of their original context as he can, and describing in detail the practice of the broader system in which the Rites have their place—a system of inner alchemy meant to awaken certain subtle powers of the human body and mind. The book also includes the complete original text of .