What is the relationship of doing alchemy intellectual research versus actual meditation training?

yes I did the intensive training in the year 2000 - I met qigong master Chunyi Lin in 1999 when he gave a lecture to my spiritual healing class for my graduate school degree at the University of Minnesota. So I finished my degree doing self-directed research by only doing intensive qigong meditation for about 6 months. And so I used the book Taoist Yoga; Alchemy and Immortality as a training manual. I would not call that book "intellectualising" - (British English?) but rather - a "cook book" for the mind/body transformation. And so - then I had an experience that was beyond my intellectual or conceptual understanding. Actually I had several experiences like that - and what was required was really only to study the book TAoist Yoga more intensively.
What I first did was look for a monastery to go join but to be honest I could not find a teacher as "wonderful" as Chunyi Lin. I would say http://qigongmaster.com is similar or Wang Liping - or Robert Peng - or John Chang or something - but to really study does require a lot of money and time, etc.
So then I read Master Nan, Huai-chin's books - and he said that what happens is a person "falls back into worldliness" from "Heroic overexuberbance" by using their "spiritual" powers that develop in the training. He said this is the common problem - so this is what happened to me. And indeed, Spring Forest qigong is based on teaching healing.
So a big issue then was learning how to control the energy - as I cite in my pdf - 7 different sources - the secret of how to stop the energy from leaking out of the body. But this was never taught by the qigong master I took classes from.
So I would say indeed there are general principles to the training - and so when I finally did return to the Taoist Yoga book - it was only in Chapter 11 that the experience I had is described and explained.
So I would say that studying the meditation meaning and methods is crucial to the proper training.
 
And I have had other experiences I have not be "writing about" yet online - well one is the source of the Yuan Qi on the right side of the heart - as the book explains (and also Ramana Maharshi explains this as well). I was driving the car - and he sat on the right side of me. I was ranting about politics. He said, "But I'm on your side!" But I kept ranting and he got super silent. Suddenly I felt this strong qi just on the right side of my heart and in shock I went silent. Then Jim said: "I just wanted to see if you were speaking from your heart and you were."
 
So since I had done my studies I knew that this is the origin of the Yuan qi in the body - from beyond death. Also - it was a funny thing for Jim to do to shut me up. haha. But there are other experiences. For example in my research in 2000 - I read this book I got through interlibrary loan. It was the biography of Phra Acharn Mun, the most famous Buddhist monk of Thailand. IN the book he describes - or he is described as - knowing the thoughts of his students and also having ghosts come to get healed by him. So I had never read this information before. But before the Level 3 retreat in 2000 - I fasted for 7 days, just talking a half glass of water - so I built up my qi and activated the Yuan Qi. So then at the retreat - as Chunyi sat in full lotus meditation - sure enough I saw these lights shaped as humans - float in from outside the room. We were at a Christian retreat center in the forest - built in the 1950s or so. And I didn't say anything to anyone about this but then Chunyi said to us all: "Since someone can see this, then I will explain what it is. These are ghosts that come to get healed by me. I do this regularly where I heal ghosts." Actually he said something like spirits of dead people and he said that by healing them he sends them back into the Emptiness.
 
So again because I had done my studies - I knew that what he explained was something that could happen - and I had not thought of Master Acharn Mun's description until qigong master Chunyi Lin said it to all of us. Suddenly I was reminded of Phra Acharn Mun's biography I had read.