Dennis Lewis

Dennis Lewis (born 1940) is a non-fiction writer and teacher in the areas of breathing, qigong, meditation, and self-enquiry.

In the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Taoism Lewis is recommended as a source of instruction in Taoism for people who don't have much time for study and practice. His breathing instruction and practices have also been recommended to augment meditation techniques, to improve singing ability, as a support for recovery from injury, for stress reduction, and for greater calm, presence, and clarity.

In a 2004 critique of New Age literature by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, he's cited as drawing upon the traditional Taoist interest in longevity but his writing is also categorized as an example of the "flattening out" of subtle cultural and philosophical religious ideas for the commercial and modern self-help and personal development movement. In the preface and introduction to The Tao of Natural Breathing, however, Lewis states that his intention in this book wasn't just to explore "the relationship of breathing to health and inner growth" from the Taoist perspective, but also from his "observations and discoveries" from Advaita Vedanta, the Gurdjieff Work, Ilse Middendorf, Feldenkrais, and others, along with scientific principles from anatomy, neurochemistry, and physiology.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lewis spent most of his adult life in San Francisco, California. He moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in 2006. He attended the University of Wisconsin initially but has a degree from San Francisco State University awarded in 1967 in Philosophy of Religion.

Lewis was the co-founder and president of Hi-Tech Public Relations, San Francisco, which was sold to Shandwick P.L.C (UK) in 1988.

Lewis studied Taoism and Qigong with Mantak Chia, Dr. Wang Shan Long, and Bruce Frantzis. In the Gurdjieff tradition his main teacher was Lord John Pentland, from whom he learned breath-awareness practices as part of Gurdjieff's overall teachings. Lewis also worked with Advaita Vedanta teacher Jean Klein, with whom he studied self-enquiry, yoga and pranayama.

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