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Cheers Tin Yat Taoist, I don't like Tao Uncut but thanks for the info.

That is a really tough question to answer satisfactorily, but I'll do my best! When it comes to things like martial and healing arts, you are indeed correct - most of your results are immediately visible. That isn't always the case, though - anyone who's ever had to drink a particularly vile TCM tea for any length of time will know that you have to sometimes show patience and watch for results. With our magical cultivation, it has a lot to do with being tuned to your own perception, and evaluating your results immediately and over time. The immediate - particularly sensitive people, and people that have cultivated for a good length of time, will often feel sensations of heat - flashes of warmth, or even breaking into a sweat when working with magic. some feel tingles, some see flashes of light behind their eyes. Generally, if its the sort of thing you'd categorize as a 'yang' manifestation - heat, light, white, etc - it's a good thing. Cold, dark, sinking, yin - indicates a negative presence or influence, and is to be avoided. In the long term, you have to look at the progress of your life and well-being. As mentioned before, our magic is intended for spiritual cleaning, improving the souls and spirits, and as a consequence this sort of thing tends to make one's life flow smoother, makes decisions more clear, makes the right job easier to find, that sort of thing. If you look at the testimonials that have been put forth by some of the TIn Yat students, you can see this recurring theme - escaped a shitty job and got a much better one, found my way out of a bad relationship, things of that nature. I know that these are somewhat ephemeral descriptions, but part of the difficulty is in trying to explain something to someone who hasnt experienced it. How do you describe 'blue' to a blind man? I hope this helps, and feel free to ask for elaboration if there's a point I can help with.

Hello Tin Yat Taoist, Sounds like fun. Would make a great anime series. But I'm curious, how does your lineage distinguish reality from illusion (分真假)? And how do you verify your theory with reality (证明)? These are problems in any cultivation practice and one of the reasons so many daoists are drawn to martial and healing arts. Both fields provide plenty of humbling experiences that push a person to further refine their understanding. Failure makes a fertile substrate for progress. But in the case of exorcism, dieties, writing fu and other magical how do you know when you get it right and when you don't?

My altar is in my bedroom, because it's the only place I have space in my current home, and actually happens to be oriented north. I agree about the privacy consideration - though we at Tin Yat don't have a formal policy one way or the other on that aspect, it's not something I want to have to explain to guests, or to have to deal with people poking at it.

The general Tin Yat opinion on the home altar is that its specific placement isn't terribly important, we generally recommend somewhere near a nice source of natural light, in a room or at least an area that is maintained and kept tidy. It probably goes without saying that the kitchen and bathroom are not good places, but...the kitchen and bathroom are not good places. There, I said it.