Why it is on this list
Energy raised through spinal centres, the perineal lock (mula bandha), and breath retention with the same warnings attached. Read beside the Mo Pai instructions, the structural overlap is hard to explain away.
Related article: Mo Pai in Context
Also on the “Parallels and the science of practice” shelf
The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali: A New Translation and Commentary
The classical Indian statement of the path, including the chapter on the siddhis — powers catalogued in detail and then named explicitly as obstacles. Mo Pai's position on level 4, arrived at independently.
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
The comparative study of the whole complex — breath control, the immortal body, the powers, the transcendent figure. Dated in places, and still the best map of how widely this pattern recurs.
Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body
What the research actually supports, by two people who spent their careers on it and are unusually willing to say which findings did not hold up. The measured effects of long practice are real, and smaller than the…