Definition of "elixirist"

There was the school of simplicity, socialism, and universal love, the head of which was a Quixotic Diogenes called Mêh-tsz or Meccius (fifth century b.c.); the school of denominationalists, or pedantic adherents to the letter of absolutely defined principles; the legists, or partisans of a system of repression and punishment (on the Plehve-Pobyedonóschtschoff basis); the astrologists, or believers in occult influences; the medicals or elixirists; the sensualists; and many others, recalling to our minds the various divisions of Greek philosophy at the same period.

1905, Edward Harper Parker, “Confucianism”, in China and Religion, New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton and Company, pages 67–68

In Tang dynasty alchemist elixir really flourished. Unfortunately the art did not stand real testing. Three of the Emperors who took the elixir died of poison. Taoist elixirists were blamed and executed, and the art suffered a fatal blow. Evidently a new approach to the development of an elixir was in order.

1975, Gary Shelton Williams, “A Study of the Oral Nature of the Han Yueh-fu”, in 古代中国, Society for the Study of Early China, page 26, column 2

If Western thinking arrived at a dualism of “God the father” and “Mother Earth,” Chinese elixirists strove to transcend the yin materiality of earth and rise to the yang spirituality of heaven.

1992, Douglas Wile, “Conclusion”, in Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, page 71, column 1