《诸家神品丹法》

In the Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi, Ge Hong says that methods concerning immortals and the transmutation of gold and silver comprise twenty-five volumes and more than a thousand entries. The ancients greatly valued these secret arts and did not wish to name them directly, so they referred to them obliquely as “methods of yellow and white.” Here, “yellow” means gold and “white” means silver. Some chapter titles use the terms “Geng and Xin,” which also refer to gold and silver.

Most of these arts are profound and difficult to understand, and few people can grasp even a small part of them. People often suspect that they are absurd and unreal, just as they doubt that immortals exist. Ge Hong says that in his youth he followed Master Zheng and Master Zuo and put these methods to the test on Mount Lu; they all succeeded. Their practice, however, required strict purification and observance of taboos, and was nearly as demanding as jointly refining the “Nine Elixirs of Immortality,” the elixirs of immortality spoken of in Daoism.

Many worldly people mocked Ge Hong for his fondness for unusual teachings and for trying to force his way into matters of Heaven and Earth that cannot be understood. He explained that he was not writing in order to show off his prose to later generations. His Outer Chapters and miscellaneous writings already ran to more than two hundred volumes, enough to express his aims. In the Inner Chapters, he simply stated things plainly, without literary embellishment. People considered him impractical and out of touch, and thought it better to discuss ideas closer to everyday life and easier for the public to accept.

Yet Ge Hong could not give up studying these matters precisely because he had seen their efficacy with his own eyes.

The reason I have never been willing to let this matter go is that I have seen its efficacy with my own eyes. The teachings I received from my lineage were no idle talk. Yet my family was poor and I had no resources; I also encountered a run of misfortune, while roads were blocked and medicines hard to find. As a result, I could never spare the time to carry out the refining.

Now I tell others that I know how to make gold and silver, yet I myself am hungry, cold, and wretched. It is like someone who cannot manage a task himself trying to sell a prescription for treating jade: who would believe him? Still, things do not always turn out as reason would have them, and that alone is no grounds for rejecting everything outright. So I have carefully gathered these teachings and set them down in a book, hoping that those who delight in the unusual and are willing to appreciate true principles will read it and understand what I intend in my account of the Dao and its methods.

The arts of transformation available to human beings can accomplish almost anything. The human body is ordinarily visible, yet it can be made to disappear; ghosts and spirits are ordinarily hidden from sight, yet there are ways to make them appear. Those capable of such feats are by no means rare. Water and fire from the heavens can be obtained with the yang-sui, a device for kindling fire, and the fang-zhu, a vessel for collecting dew. Lead is naturally white, yet it can be turned red and refined into an elixir; an elixir is naturally red, yet it can also be turned white and made into lead. Clouds, rain, frost, and snow all arise from the Qi of Heaven and Earth, yet medicines can also produce them as real phenomena.

This is no different from birds, beasts, and insects such as mosquitoes. They are formed by the transformations of nature and have fixed shapes, yet they can suddenly change their former appearance and become something else. These transformations take countless forms, too many to describe one by one.

Humans are the most spiritually perceptive of all beings, yet even their physical forms can change: men and women may transform into one another, or into swans, stones, tigers, snakes, flashes of lightning, or mandarin ducks. Mountains may become deep ravines, and empty valleys may become hills. These, too, are transformations among the things of nature. Since change is already part of Heaven and Earth, why should other things alone be incapable of becoming gold or silver?

For example, fire drawn with a yangsui (an ancient fire-making mirror) and water gathered with a fangzhu (an ancient dew-collecting vessel) are no different from ordinary fire and water. A snake transforming into a dragon, or ointment made by boiling mugwort and rice grits, is no less real than something that grows naturally. Traced to their source, all these transformations arise through the natural resonance of things. Unless one investigates matters to their limits and understands the nature of things, one cannot grasp their underlying purpose. Unless one traces things back to their beginnings and examines their ends, one cannot see the truth of their transformations. People with narrow understanding refuse to seek principles that reach far into the past. Because the Duke of Zhou and Confucius did not speak of them, and ancient books do not record them, they dismiss everything as absurd. Is that not a shallow view?

People also say that Liu Xiang failed to smelt gold, so there can be no way to smelt gold anywhere in the world. This is like a farmer whose fields happen to suffer flood or drought and yield no harvest, then concludes that the five grains cannot be sown and grown at all.

Hao Taiwen, an erudite and perceptive administrator of Chengdu, also said that he had once followed the Daoist Li Gen in refining lead and tin. They put a little of the medicine into the lead and tin, about the size of a soybean, then stirred it with an iron rod. Smelting gold is like farming: an occasional failure cannot prove that the way itself does not exist.

Hao Taiwen, the Chief Administrator of Chengdu, was widely learned. It was said that he had once studied alchemy under the Daoist Li Gen. Li Gen melted lead and tin, added a grain of medicine about the size of a soybean, and stirred the mixture with an iron rod. Once it cooled, it had turned into silver. Taiwen obtained this secret recipe and wanted to try it himself, but his constant service in government kept him from doing so. He often sighed over this.

Huan Junshan also recorded that Cheng Wei, a Gentleman of the Palace Secretariat under Su, was fond of the arts of making gold and silver. His wife happened to know such secret recipes. Once, Cheng Wei was due to accompany the emperor on a journey, but he had no suitable clothes and was greatly distressed. His wife said she could produce two bolts of fine silk. Before long, two bolts appeared before them.

Cheng Wei followed the method in Hongbao from the Pillow—a legendary book on alchemy—to make gold, but failed. When his wife went to see what was happening, Cheng Wei was fanning the fire, and mercury still remained in the charcoal. She said she would demonstrate something, took a little medicine from her pouch, and dropped it into the fire. After a while, she raked the charcoal aside, and silver had formed inside. Cheng Wei was astonished and said, “You have the Daoist art—why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

His wife replied, “Whether someone receives this art depends on their allotted fate.” From then on, Cheng Wei pleaded with her day and night. He even sold his fields and house to provide her with food and clothing, but she still refused to teach him. Cheng Wei then beat her with a whip, forcing her to reveal the secret. His wife said, “The Daoist art should indeed be passed on to others. Even if you meet someone by chance on the road, you can pass it on in this way. But if someone’s words sound sincere while their heart is not, then even if you dismember them, they will not speak the secret art.”

Cheng Wei continued to press her. His wife then feigned madness, ran about naked, smeared herself with mud, and eventually died.

Long ago, Hua Ling, the governor of Lujiang, was a man of exceptional talent and learning and broad knowledge. He was generally unwilling to believe anything that seemed contrary to reason. Later, a Daoist priest told him how to transmute lead into silver and gold, so Hua Ling asked him to demonstrate on the spot. The priest melted lead in an iron vessel, added a substance, and the lead turned into silver. He then melted the silver again, added another substance, and it became gold.

Hua Ling also studied with this Daoist priest the art of “penetrating vision,” said to let one see things hidden from ordinary people. Before he had practiced for a hundred days, he could see the stars clearly at night, along with houses, fences, and the neighbors around him. His deceased wife, Yaohua, appeared in visible form and spoke with him about their life together. When Hua Ling made offerings to the spirits in a temple, they returned his bows. He marveled: “So such things really exist in the world, though I had never heard of them before. The Five Classics do not record them, and they are truly hard to imagine by ordinary reasoning. Yet wouldn’t someone who had never heard of esoteric arts find these things astonishing if they suddenly heard of them?”

The preparation of Yellow and White—the art of transmuting substances into silver and gold—like the preparation of divine elixirs, requires more than a hundred days of purification and abstinence. Some methods also require oral formulas, which must be transmitted personally by a master. One should also enter the deep mountains and practice in a quiet, clean place, keeping the work hidden from worldly people who do not understand the art. In the past, Liu Xiang carried out his preparations in the palace and had palace women supply what he needed. There, he could neither maintain the conditions for purification nor avoid contact with other people. How could the work possibly succeed? Even when dyeing silk in the ordinary way, one must keep others from watching, or the dyeing will be spoiled. How much more so for the great undertaking of transforming Yellow and White! Whether a task is great or small, one must grasp its key. Even brewing ordinary wine or fine liquor carelessly is difficult to get right, so how much more difficult is this great undertaking?

Zheng Jun once said that when a perfected person succeeds in making gold, he takes it himself in the hope of attaining the realm of the immortals; he does not seek wealth. Thus the scripture says: “Gold can be refined, but worldly people are hard to save.” Silver, too, can be taken, though its effects are inferior to those of gold.

Long ago, Master Zheng said, “When a perfected person has completed the Golden Elixir, they can take it and become an immortal. This is not done to govern the world or seek wealth and status.” Thus the scripture says, “Gold can be refined, but ordinary people cannot use it to transcend the world.” Silver, too, can be ingested, though its effects are not as strong as gold’s.

I questioned him further: “If so, why not simply ingest the gold and silver found in the world, instead of refining them? If the gold produced by refining is not genuine, that would be fraud.” Master Zheng replied, “The gold and silver found in the world can indeed be ingested, but most Daoist practitioners are poor. Hence the saying: ‘There are no fat immortals, only wealthy Daoist practitioners.’ Among a group of ten or five teacher and students, how could there be enough gold and silver for them all to ingest? Nor do they have the ability to penetrate the earth’s veins and extract gold and silver. That is why they need to refine them. Moreover, gold produced through transmutation is the essence of various medicines and is better than natural gold. The Scripture of the Immortals says, ‘The essence of the elixir gives birth to gold.’ This refers to refining gold with elixirs. Wherever cinnabar is found in the mountains, there is often a great deal of gold underground.”

Once the refined gold has become genuine gold, it will not be damaged even after a hundred rounds of smelting. It embodies the natural Dao of Heaven and Earth, and so can be refined. How, then, could this be called fraud? Fraud refers to applying zengqing to iron to turn its surface red, or treating copper with egg white so that it turns silver-colored and looks like gold. These methods change only the appearance; the inside remains unchanged.

Mushrooms of the sacred fungus kind, such as lingzhi, grow naturally. The immortal scriptures also describe methods for cultivating them with the Five Minerals and Five Woods, then gathering and consuming them once they have matured. These cultivated fungi are no different in essence from those that grow in the wild, and both can enable people to attain long life. It is much like refining gold. Pheasants transforming into clams and sparrows into shellfish are likewise no different from things arising naturally.

Thus the scriptures say: “The Flowing Pearl undergoes nine transformations; a father does not disclose it to his son. When it changes into yellow and white, each can naturally transform into the other.” They also say: “To refine cinnabar into gold and ascend to immortality by consuming it is the practice of the highest adept. To eat sacred fungi, practice Daoyin, and swallow Qi in order to attain long life is the practice of the middle adept. To consume plants and trees and live to about a thousand years is the practice of the lower adept.”

The Record of Jade Tablets says: “Everyone under Heaven has the chance to attain long life. It is only because they hesitate and cannot make up their minds that they fail.” The Scripture of the Bronze Pillar says: “Cinnabar can be refined into gold, and the River Cart can at once be made into silver. Once refined, these are genuine substances. If you obtain this method, you can cultivate an immortal body.” Master Huangshan said: “There is gold between Heaven and Earth, and I too can refine it. Take two portions of the yellow substance and one portion of the red, and it can be refined immediately, without any doubt.” The Scripture of the Tortoise Shell says: “My destiny is in my own hands, not arranged by Heaven. Refine the Returning Elixir into gold, and it can sustain you for hundreds of millions of years. Could the ancients have deceived me?”

The trouble is that those who know this method are often poor, while the ingredients grow in distant places and are difficult to obtain in times of disorder. Medicines such as Rong salt and saline alkali cost little in times of peace, but their prices are now unpredictable, and they can be hard to find even where they originate. In Qiang territory, one may spend ten million coins and still fail to obtain a pound of stone bile. To know the formula but lack the ingredients is, in practice, no different from not knowing the formula at all—a truly regrettable situation. Those who know the method may be destitute and unable to prepare the ingredients, while the wealthy do not know the method. Even when they learn it, few are willing to believe it. And even if they are persuaded, the wealthy often already possess plenty of gold and silver and are unwilling to spend cash on ingredients. They fear that their effort will prove as futile as chasing shadows or pursuing flying birds, leaving them full of regret, and so most refuse to try.

Without a clear master to transmit the oral instructions, one truly cannot begin the work casually. Medical prescriptions may look straightforward and easy to understand, but after a master’s medicines have proved effective, he often seals the formula away securely. Thus, even when a prescription uses names such as “Lady of the Inner Palace at Play” or “glue from a secluded corner,” they cannot be understood from their literal meanings alone.

“Lord Mud Pellet,” “Wood Ghost Seed,” “Metal Merchant Fungus,” “Flying Army Root,” “Crouching Dragon’s Liver,” “White Horse Sweat,” “Floating Cloud Marsh,” “Dragon’s Elixir Garment,” “Night-Luminous Bone,” “Hundred-Flower Sweet Wine,” and “Winter Zou Qi” are all things one might encounter nearby. Yet without the oral instructions, one still cannot know what they actually refer to, much less use them to compound and refine the art of making yellow and white—the Daoist alchemical method of using substances to produce gold and silver. Secret instructions are kept hidden not merely because the materials are costly, but also because, once this craft succeeds, it is said to enable one to live forever. For this reason, the ancients valued it greatly.

The names of ingredients in formula books sometimes match those of familiar medicines, though they refer to something quite different. For example, “Old Woman by the River” is not an elderly woman, “Ziming of Linyang” is not a man, “Yu’s Surplus Root” is not rice, and “Yao’s Syrup” is not water. When ordinary people see formula books mentioning “dragon gall,” “tiger palm,” “chicken head,” “duck foot,” “horse lung,” or “dog’s blood,” they assume these are the names of animals or plants. When they see “broken cup,” “upturned basin,” “cauldron clang,” “great halberd,” “ghost arrow,” or “heavenly hook,” they assume these refer to iron or earthenware objects. And when they see “Envoy of the Hu King,” “New Bride Leaning on a Dead Tree,” “Wild Husband,” “Field Guard Fang,” “Dai Wenluo,” or “Xu Changqing,” they assume these are people’s names. To take them literally is to make a mistake. How could ordinary people understand all these arcane methods?

At first glance, it is indeed puzzling that Liu Xiang failed to make gold. In fact, once one has grasped the essential method, the work does not require a sage or a person of exceptional talent; an ordinary person can do it too. Was Liu Xiang foolish? He simply had not received the oral instructions. The author now intends to record the clear and effective essentials and leave them for like-minded people in the future.

First, select realgar from Wudu, bright red like a cockscomb, lustrous in texture and free of stony impurities. Only then can the work begin.

First obtain realgar from Wudu. Choose a bright, deep red variety, like a cockscomb, with no stones mixed in. The amount is up to you, but it must be at least five jin. Pound the realgar into powder, mix it with ox gall, and boil it until the grains clump together. Take a red earthenware cauldron with a capacity of about one dou. First spread a layer of powdered Rong salt and stone gall on the bottom, about three fen thick. Add a layer of realgar powder, five fen thick, then spread Rong salt over it. Continue alternating the layers until all the ingredients have been used. Cover them with a layer of crushed charcoal about two cun thick, with pieces about the size of jujube pits.

Mix termite soil with Rong salt to make a paste, and coat the outside of the cauldron with it. Cover it with another cauldron, then seal the join and the outside completely with mud, about two cun thick, so no air can escape. Leave it to dry in a cool place for a month, then heat it gently over a horse-manure fire for three days and three nights. Once it has cooled, remove the contents and smelt them with bellows. The copper produced will be as hard as cold iron. Cast this copper into a vessel, fill it with cinnabar water, and heat it gently over a horse-manure fire for forty days. Remove it and work it with bellows to obtain “geng.” Cast the “geng” into a vessel, fill it with cinnabar water, and heat it gently for thirty days. Remove it, work it with bellows, then pound and grind it. The text then records the process again: heat it gently in cinnabar water for forty days, remove it and work it with bellows to obtain “geng,” then cast it into a vessel, heat it gently for thirty days, and pound and grind it.

Take two parts raw cinnabar and one part cinnabar powder. Mercury is what is meant by “water mercury”; following this method, one can refine gold. The finished product is bright and lustrous, with a fine color, and can be ingested.

How to Make Cinnabar Water

Take one jin of cinnabar and place it in a bamboo container, with two liang each of stone gall and saltpeter layered above and below it. Seal the mouth of the container with a pill-shaped sealing paste made from lacquer and bone powder. Once the seal has dried, place the container in an urn or vat filled with several sheng of strong, pure bitter wine, then bury it three chi underground. After thirty days, the cinnabar will have turned into a red liquid with a bitter, astringent taste.

Master Jinlou learned the method of refining gold from Qinglinzi.

First hammer the tin into a rectangular plate six inches wide and one inch and one tenth thick. Mix red salt with limewater into a paste, spread it evenly over the tin to a thickness of one tenth of an inch, then stack the pieces in layers inside a red-clay cauldron—a pottery vessel made from red clay. For every ten pounds of tin, use four pounds of red salt. Close the cauldron, seal the seams tightly, and heat it gently for thirty days using horse manure as fuel. Then open it and inspect the contents. If the tin has all turned to ash, with grains inside about the size of beans, these are what the scripture calls “Geng.” Pound them, put them in an earthenware bowl, and refine them over a charcoal fire. Every ten pounds of tin yields twenty ounces of Geng. Only red-clay cauldrons from the areas of Changsha, Guiyang, Yuzhang, and Nanhai are suitable, because people there commonly cook in such vessels and they are plentiful.

How to make red salt

Take one pound each of cold salt and yuni, place them together in an iron vessel, and heat them over a charcoal fire. Once they have melted, remove them; they are then ready to use.

The method of making Geng that Master Jiaoli learned from Master Jiqiu

First take two parts alum solution and put it in an iron vessel. Heat it over a charcoal fire until it boils, then add mercury in any amount. Stir to combine and boil it sixty or seventy times. Pour it onto the ground, where it will form silver; then collect it.

Next take one part each of cinnabar solution and baiqing solution, and two parts realgar solution. Put them in a saw, and heat gently until they boil. Add silver in any amount and boil it six or seven times. Pour it onto the ground, and the finest purple Geng will be obtained. Stir continuously to combine, then heat it over a charcoal fire until it boils; this is considered the most effective method.

How to make realgar solution

Prepare the realgar and put it in a one-pound fresh bamboo tube. Add two ounces of saltpeter, placing some above and some below the realgar. Seal the mouth of the tube with lacquer-bone pills, then put the tube in vinegar and bury it three feet deep in the ground in a cool place. It will be ready after twenty days.

How to make the solution of blue-white pill stone

The methods for making Qingbai Shu and Wan Shi Shui are the same; only the vessels used differ.

The Method for Making Geng According to Xiao Tong

First make a large iron vessel with an inner diameter of one chi two cun and a height of one chi. Then make a small iron vessel with an inner diameter of six cun, and polish its inner walls smooth. Pound together one jin each of red ochre, saltpeter, mica, ochre, and condensate stone, along with half a jin of sulfur and four liang of kongqing. Sift the mixture, then combine it with vinegar and coat the inside of the small iron vessel to a thickness of about two fen. Smooth the coating.

Take one jin of mercury, half a jin of cinnabar, and half a jin of refined light material extracted from lead, and stir them together until no beads of mercury are visible. Put the mixture into the small iron vessel, cover it with mica, then press an iron lid firmly over it. Place the small vessel inside the large one and melt lead in the large vessel until the molten lead covers the small vessel by about half a cun. Once the lead has melted, refine it with a fierce fire for three days and three nights. The resulting substance is called “purple powder.”

Next, melt ten jin of lead in an iron vessel. After heating it continuously for twenty days, transfer it to a copper vessel. Add seven square-cun spoonfuls of purple powder to every ten jin of lead. After refining, this produces “yellow geng.” To make silver, put lead in an iron vessel, add three square-cun spoonfuls of purple powder, and heat until they fuse. Pour the mixture into water to produce silver.

The Method for Extracting Refined Light Material

Take ten jin of lead, put it in an iron vessel, and heat it outdoors over a fire to refine it. Then add three liang of mercury. Scoop up the portion that floats to the surface first with an iron spoon; this is called “refined light material.”

The Method for Making Geng According to Wu Chengzi

Make a copper vessel nine inches long and five inches in diameter. Pound three pounds of realgar into powder, mix it with an equal amount of earthworm soil to form a paste, and coat the outside of the vessel until its outer diameter is three inches, leaving an opening four inches wide. Add two he of cinnabar solution, cover it, and heat it over a fire of horse dung until completely dry. Then place it inside a paulownia log and seal it with a copper lid. Pack yellow sand tightly over it, then seal it repeatedly with earthworm mud so no vapors can escape. Put it in a charcoal fire, cover it with three inches of charcoal, and heat it until the vessel’s mouth glows red. Then let it cool.

Open it and inspect the contents: all the realgar will have entered the copper vessel. Remove it and repeat the process as before until all three pounds of realgar have entered the vessel. Mix the material taken out with an equal amount of litharge to make a furnace, whose size can be chosen as needed. To use it, heat the furnace in a charcoal fire until it glows red, then add mercury. When the mercury begins to move, add lead. When the yellow substance rises at the sides and gathers in the center, pour it onto the ground to make yellow geng. After refining a total of three thousand five hundred pounds, the furnace’s power will be exhausted.

Soak this yellow geng for one hundred days in strong jingzi and red millet wine, until it softens enough to roll into pills the size of red beans. Take one pill three times a day. After taking one pound, it is said that the Three Worms, the Hidden Corpse, and other harmful influences, along with every disease, will be eliminated; the blind will see again, the deaf will hear again, and the old will grow young once more. One will be unharmed by fire and untouched by baleful influences, poisons, cold illnesses, heat, or dampness. After taking three pounds, it is said that one can walk across water and pass over mountains and rivers, while all the spirits come to protect one, and one’s lifespan becomes equal to Heaven’s.

The scripture also records other uses for these pills. Boil one with banyan sap and vermilion herb, then rub it into the corners of the eyes: it is said to let one see spirits and things beneath the earth, and to write at night. Coat one with white sheep’s blood and hang it above a city gate: a dragon is said to appear. Coat it with black ox blood and red rooster blood, then hang it above a city gate: no epidemic is said to occur within a li. Applied to cattle, sheep, and other livestock, it is said to ward off epidemics and protect them from tigers and leopards. Mixed with tiger gall and snake fat, then cast toward an enemy army from the direction of the month’s ruling branch, it is said to make the enemy soldiers attack one another and flee.

Coat a pill with horse blood and throw it into a well: the water is said to boil. Throw it into a river: the water is said to flow backward for a hundred paces. Mix it with white dog’s blood and cast it into a local shrine: spirits and gods are said to appear and submit to human command.

Mix one pill with rabbit’s blood and swallow it, then place another in a place of Six Yin: the Traveling Kitchen Jade Maiden is said to prepare a meal at once for sixty or seventy people. Mix a pill with carp gall and take it into the water: the water is said to part for ten zhang, allowing one to breathe and walk beneath it; even in the rain, one’s clothes will remain dry. Boil it with purple amaranth and hold the juice in the mouth: it is said to prevent hunger for a hundred days. Boil it with magnetite and place it in one’s hair: when striking an enemy, swords, blades, and flying arrows are said to cause no harm, and arrows shot at one will fly back in the opposite direction.

Used together with earth from the Six Ding and Six Ren, it is said to make one invisible. Hold it in the mouth and spray it northward toward a great fire: the fire is said to go out by itself. On a Geng or Xin day, or during the Shen or You hour, face northwest and throw it: trees are said to wither that same day. Throw it while performing the Yu step, and tigers, wolves, snakes, and locusts are said to die.

The scripture further says that if a pill is dissolved and used to write on stone or metal, the writing will sink into the material and cannot be scraped away. If someone has died suddenly and less than one night has passed, give them a pill with water taken from the direction of the month’s ruling branch, then have someone hold water in their mouth and spray it onto the dead person’s face: they are said to revive. Coat a pill with fox blood and crane blood, then place it under a fingernail. Point toward anything and speak as one pleases: everything is said to change accordingly. When climbing a mountain, trees will run about, and people will see them too, though the change is said to take place in reality.

The scripture concludes that all arts of refining yellow and white metals will succeed at once, and instructs that the method be kept strictly secret.

Prepare one jin each of realgar and mercury, four liang each of chalcanthite, niter, and scallion, and three sheng of sour wine. First simmer the realgar, scallion, and sour wine together until dry. Grind them into a fine powder, then wash the mixture with water and let it settle to remove impurities. Next, grind the scallion and realgar together with the mercury until evenly mixed.

Take a section of green bamboo tube. Grind the chalcanthite and niter into powder, and put half of it into the tube. Add the realgar, then cover it with the remaining chalcanthite and niter powder. Mix two liang each of bone ash and raw lacquer into a paste and use it to seal the mouth of the tube. Place the tube in a porcelain jar containing several sheng of the previously prepared liquid, seal the jar tightly, and bury it three chi deep in the ground in a shaded place. After forty-nine days, remove it; the medicine will have turned into liquid.

To use it, take half a ge of the liquid and put it together with one jin of mercury in a crucible used for alchemical refining. Seal the opening tightly, then bury it three chi deep in the ground in a shaded place. After forty-nine days, take it out and, as the original text describes, place it in the crucible and heat it gently and then strongly until dry. This produces what is called “Geng.” One liang of this Geng can transform ten liang of mountain-and-marsh mercury into superior purple-refined Geng. The scripture ends by admonishing readers to use this method carefully and keep it secret, without divulging it lightly.

The Inner Secrets of the Dragon and Tiger—the inner transmission of the Dragon and Tiger Elixir method—consist of authentic teachings and subtle oral instructions. The Great Dragon and Tiger Elixir is said to have originated after the Three Sovereigns and been transmitted from generation to generation. Since high antiquity, it was not recorded in writing, but passed on orally and sealed from heart to heart. Only after the Five Emperors did this method begin to circulate. Throughout the ages, many attained the Dao, yet even among accomplished practitioners, very few received the oral instructions in person.

Laozi set down five thousand words, and beyond Daoism, Buddhists also expounded the teachings of the Three Vehicles. These teachings concern the principles of knowing one’s nature. Everyone who is born must eventually die. Even if one preserves one’s nature and brings the spirit to a state of emptiness, stillness, and clarity, one cannot thereby make the body firm and everlasting. By contrast, the Returning Elixir is said to be an authentic method of deliberate action: it can keep body and spirit from declining during one’s lifetime, transform one’s inner constitution, and make one a flying immortal.

There have been many immortals who attained the Dao in ancient and modern times, yet few spoke of the Returning Elixir. This is because the path is of the utmost importance and must not be revealed lightly. Other methods—such as breathing in the light of the sun and moon, refining Jing and circulating Qi, visualizing spirits, guarding the One by keeping the mind concentrated, using sexual techniques to preserve essence, and taking medicines made from plants, minerals, and metals—can only prolong life temporarily. They may make a person somewhat different from ordinary people, but they cannot lead to true immortality. In the face of floods and fires, weapons, poisonous insects and fierce beasts, toxic drugs and calamities, or harm from ghosts and spirits, one’s life and nature remain subject to the workings of the Five Phases and Creation. Such methods cannot be relied on for long.

Some people in antiquity are said to have ascended to heaven with their entire families, and to have done so by means of the Great Returning Elixir. It is called the supreme treasure, the most revered and mysterious of arts, with a sacred and unparalleled efficacy. “Returning” means going back and restoring; “elixir” names the color red. In its preparation, cinnabar is transformed to produce true mercury. Lead is then used to turn the mercury into yellow sprouts, which in turn become cinnabar again. After the cinnabar is refined through firing, it transforms into the Returning Elixir. This power of restoration and transformation is said to restore an old person to the vigor of youth, bring the dead back to life, make the withered flourish again, and even turn rubble into treasure. How vast, then, are its wondrous effects!

The Great Returning Elixir is divided into three grades.

The supreme-grade Nine-Turn Golden Elixir of Jade Essence and Great Restoration, a legendary superior immortal elixir, is a heavenly treasure and is not passed on to people in the mortal world. The middle grade is the Great Elixir of Dragon and Tiger; the lower grade is the Ninth-Rank Divine Elixir, made by transforming the Eight Mineral Substances into mercury. Elixirs are divided into these three grades.

Since the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan refined elixirs and ascended to heaven, the Great Elixir of Dragon and Tiger that I describe has had the greatest efficacy. Taking just one knife-tip measure, a very small dose, is enough to preserve health over the long term, prolong life, and dispel evil and restore what is right. The Three Corpses and Nine Worms, malevolent entities believed in Daoism to hinder cultivation and drain vitality, will also vanish on their own. This will stabilize the Dantian (energy center) and keep the spirit from scattering.

In ancient times, those who attained the Dao and became immortals guarded the principles of the Great Restoration Elixir closely. Although elixir texts in the world offer brief explanations, they conceal the profound essentials and pass down no oral instructions. As a result, later generations who loved the Dao had no way to begin and wasted years until old age. Now I reveal Heaven’s secret, writing down the instructions directly and transmitting them orally, for people of aspiration. Those who wish to cultivate the Way of nature and life need no longer be confused or take the wrong path.

Instructions for the True Dragon and True Tiger

The “True Dragon” refers to mercury in cinnabar. It is believed to have formed when the vital essence of the sun descended into the earth. The “True Tiger” refers to silver in black lead. It is believed to have formed when the vital essence of the Great Yin—the moon—descended into the earth. These two treasures, lead and mercury, received the vital energies of the sun and moon: lead possesses Qi, while mercury is originally formless. Among the seventy-two kinds of minerals, none is more precious than lead and mercury; they can be used to refine the Great Reversion Elixir of the Dragon and Tiger.

A scripture says, “Living mercury can make the dead firm; dead mercury can make the living firm.” This claim can be verified right before our eyes. Yet people who are like walking corpses do not investigate the methods for cultivating the Great Elixir and do not know of its miraculous effects. Those who encounter this method all have an affinity with the immortals from past lives and blessings handed down by their ancestors. Once you have obtained it, you should keep it securely hidden and guard it with care; never reveal it lightly, or calamity will befall you. Do not disclose it even to your closest kin, including your father or son. You may impart the oral instructions only to someone of like mind and deep virtue.

End of volume one of Methods of the Elixir of Divine Excellence from Various Schools.

Methods of the Elixir of Divine Excellence from Various Schools, Volume Two: Choosing a Site and Performing the Rituals of Elixir Refining

Written by Meng Yaofu, Master of Mysterious Truth.

Constructing a clay furnace and hearth, setting up the cauldron and vessels, establishing the ritual platform and arranging the offerings: the essentials of the ritual.

To refine the Golden Elixir, first choose a suitable site in a famous mountain and invite three companions to take part. All must be of one mind and in accord. The site should be near a sweet spring, and an auspicious year, month, day, and hour should be chosen. Then build the elixir chamber, set up a clay furnace, and place the cauldron. The cauldron should be made from Wujitu (a technical term associated with the center and the Earth phase) and used to fire-refine amber. Amber is also used to make the vessel for the inner womb crucible.

The cauldron must be the right size. Measure it carefully according to the needs of the work, so the inner womb crucible can fit inside with room to turn, and the fire’s energy can circulate. If the cauldron is too wide, the energies of Water and Fire will be hard to harmonize; if it is too narrow, they will be unable to move. It must therefore be made with great care. The elixir furnace has six altars and three tiers, corresponding to the Three Powers: Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. Set the cauldron on the furnace so that Water and Fire can assist one another. The furnace should be one chi and two cun high, one chi and six cun wide, with one chi between its center and the inner wall, and outer walls three cun thick. Open a fire door at the front, five cun high and four cun wide, for adding fuel. Leave a chimney-like passage at the back to release the fire’s energy. When firing begins, seal the furnace firmly.

Once the furnace and cauldron are in place, when the fire is first started, make offerings beside them and report the matter to the deities of Heaven and Earth. Face north and set out three portions of wine and fruit and three incense tables. First spread incense and bow; then kneel upright and recite a quiet prayer: “On this year, month, and day, I, [name], from [village and native place], have been charged with refining elixirs and seek longevity. I have now made my vow, and respectfully report once more to the deities: May the immortals of the Great Dao and the Perfected Lords recognize the sincerity of your disciple and bring about the early completion of the Yellow and White [the gold, silver, and other substances sought through alchemy]. After taking them, may I attain longevity, ascend to the Nine Heavens, and live as long as the sun and moon.” The disciple writes a blue petition, a formal document addressed to the deities. After the offering is complete, the disciple consumes the offerings.

Before Chaos was divided, the Dao was deep and unfathomable. After Heaven and Earth separated, a single Qi arose, called the “True One.” The One gave birth to Two, Two gave birth to Three… (The original text then continues with the prayer above.)

Before Heaven and Earth were separated, the Dao (the Way) existed in a profound, obscure state beyond words. After Heaven and Earth first divided, a single Qi (vital energy) came into being, known as “the True One.” The True One gave rise to the two aspects of Yin-Yang, and Yin-Yang then gave rise to a third transformation, through which the myriad things were brought forth. Among all things, humans are regarded as the most spiritually perceptive. Thus they stand alongside Heaven and Earth, together known as the “Three Powers.”

Of the Three Powers—Heaven, Earth, and humanity—only human life is limited. Even the long-lived rarely reach a hundred years, while those who die young fare worse still. Thinking of this, I cannot help but sigh with sorrow. When I was around twenty, I began reading alchemical scriptures and gradually came to understand some of their teachings. They say that cultivating the returned elixir has extraordinary effects: taking it can bring long life, extending one’s years to match those of Heaven and Earth. So I read and searched again and again, devoting myself to reflection. From then on, my heart was set on the Way of the immortals. I thought of it day and night, and even held it in mind in my dreams. More than twenty years passed before I was fortunate enough to meet an accomplished teacher who transmitted the method of the medicines. Only then did I understand that “lead and mercury” refer to one metal and one water, while the “firing process” makes use of one Yin and one Yang. These are terms in Neidan (internal alchemy), referring to the substances used in alchemical practice and the timing of Yin-Yang transformations.

Sadly, the years passed, and I never met anyone who shared my aspirations. It was therefore difficult to practice and make the elixir on my own. Now I have written down the secrets I received and cited the alchemical scriptures of sages from earlier generations, briefly explaining their meaning. I have titled the work A Record of the Essential Secrets of the Golden Elixir, with Commentary on the Cantong qi. I have written only to state matters plainly, and have therefore set aside ornament. Some verses are repeated, and some expressions are rough, because I seek only to investigate the principles, not to refine the wording. The Way of the returned elixir is profoundly mysterious, so I have not been concerned that my writing may be crude. Thus I have composed this preface. If there are others who share my aspirations, I hope they will spare a little time to read it.

I have heard that the art of refining the reverted elixir, pursued in Daoist internal or external alchemy, traces its origins to the age of the Three Sovereigns. The Three Sovereigns set the example, and the Five Emperors carried it on in succession. This lineage has continued to the present, passed down from generation to generation by benevolent, virtuous, and wise people. In the age of the Three Sovereigns, the alchemical method was handed down through the generations: first came instruction in the arts of the immortals, and only afterward did they yield the throne to another. After the Five Emperors, this Daoist art gradually declined and passed among cultivators who withdrew to the mountains and forests. Thus, in every age, many people attained the Dao and became immortals. They left behind their own teachings and wrote many alchemical scriptures, which circulated throughout the world in numbers said to reach tens of millions of volumes. These books are all profound and difficult to understand, and their guiding principles are hard to discern. People know that the Way of the reverted elixir exists, but few truly comprehend it.

This is because the method embodies the Dao’s original source of emptiness and accords with the workings of Heaven, Earth, and humanity—the Three Powers. It seems able to appropriate the creative power of Heaven and Earth and to take on the work of growth and transformation carried out by the four seasons. Those who practice alchemy must therefore understand the patterns of Heaven and the features of Earth, comprehend the changes of Yin and Yang, and grasp the trigrams, lines, images, and numbers in depth. They must also master the solar terms, the timing of Yin and Yang’s waxing and waning, the rising and falling of the firing process, and the rules for advancing and withdrawing in the use of the crucible and furnace. Only then can they understand the symbolic forms of the Dragon and Tiger, which represent Yin and Yang or the alchemical ingredients, and recognize the most subtle and true principles of lead and mercury, important alchemical symbols for ingredients or transformations of Yin and Yang. They must also cultivate the Dao and virtue inwardly and practice kindness and generosity outwardly. When the heart accords with the alchemical method, true Yang will naturally become accessible.

From this we can see that mastering the art of the reverted elixir requires affinities from a previous life; it cannot be understood in a day or two, nor can it be mastered simply by holding a book and studying the meanings of the scriptures. One must personally meet an accomplished adept and receive secret instructions before one can know the profound intent of the reverted elixir. Some people instead study the texts on their own, misunderstand lead and mercury, speculate about Yin and Yang, and guess at the firing process. Practicing blindly in this way shows that they lack firm resolve and can only entrust their lives and nature to fate.

When refining lead and mercury, the most important thing is to control the firing times and stages. Yin-Yang and the furnace and vessel used for alchemy come second. Take the refining of the Return Elixir as an example: firing begins in the eleventh month, when the first stirrings of Yang arise, and each period of five days counts as one firing stage. The fire starts with the Fu hexagram, which symbolizes the birth of Yang energy, and continues until the Kun hexagram, which symbolizes pure Yin. In this way, Yin and Yang can harmonize naturally, and the seasonal divisions will remain in order. The ancient teachings about lead and mercury are all based on sound principles; practitioners of alchemy must follow the firing stages and take the Zhouyi as their guide. If the fire is used at the wrong time, then even genuine lead and mercury cannot be refined into an elixir. How could something out of season appear at its proper time? It is like the sun and moon shining without end while a blind person cannot see them. This is not the fault of the sun and moon, but the result of the elixir practitioner acting in haste.

When using lead and mercury to refine an elixir, people often mistake black lead for true lead, or mercury for true mercury. Some also call the yellow crystals produced by refining lead “Yellow Sprout.” Other methods include boiling and refining mercury, extracting salt essence, and using mercury, cinnabar, lead furnaces, and litharge, an oxide of lead. The scripture points out that these methods, too, are prone to error.

In alchemy, people often mistake black lead for true lead and mercury for true mercury. Some also call the yellow substance refined from lead “yellow sprout.” Others boil and refine water and salt, or collect mercury, cinnabar, lead furnace slag, litharge, and other materials; some use various metals and minerals. None of these tangible substances—the five metals and eight minerals—are proper ingredients for alchemy. Yin Zhenjun said, “Tangible substances are not suitable companions for alchemy. Even if one forces them into a compound and takes it, they will harm the body. Those who study alchemy must be cautious.”

Yet the “lead” and “mercury” mentioned in alchemical scriptures have other meanings, long kept secret. Unless they are explained plainly, beginners will find them difficult to understand. The true lead spoken of here is silver: because silver can be extracted from lead, it is called “sacred silver” and regarded as true lead. It is said to arise by receiving the Moon’s vital essence and to be the water essence of the “Great Yin.” If it can be refined into an elixir and taken, would that not enable one to live forever? Therefore, true lead must mean silver; there should be no further confusion. Qingxiazi said, “The yellow sprout is not lead, yet it must be refined from lead. To understand the yellow sprout, one cannot leave aside what is within lead.”

The true mercury spoken of here is mercury, which is obtained from cinnabar. It has a form but no fixed substance. It can adhere to silver, turn it black, and make it solidify into a shape; for this reason, it is called true mercury. It is said to arise by receiving the Sun’s vital essence and to be the true fire of the “Great Yang.” If it can be refined into an elixir and taken, would that not preserve life? Therefore, true mercury must mean mercury; there is no other interpretation. The Essentials of the Dragon and Tiger says, “Living mercury can preserve the dead; dead mercury can preserve the living.”

Lead and mercury are called the most precious things between Heaven and Earth, the numinous essences of the Sun and Moon. In alchemical symbolism, they are also called the “Dragon and Tiger.” The scriptures hold that, among all things, only lead and mercury can be refined into the “Returning Elixir”; all other materials are contrary to the proper method. Lead contains Qi, while mercury has no fixed form or substance. Lead is Yang within and Yin without, and so it is treated as the foundation of alchemy; through the Qi within it, the yellow sprout comes into being. Once its true Qi is obtained, the numinous sprout will grow naturally. Qingxiazi said, “Lead is the mother of the yellow sprout, and the yellow sprout is the child of lead. Once you have obtained the Golden Flower, discard the lead and use it no more.”

Mercury has no fixed form or substance and appears like Qi; its nature is entirely Yang, while its form is entirely Yin. Put a large amount of mercury in a vessel and boil it until dry, and its original, formless substance will be revealed. Then plant it in lead, where it absorbs lead’s essence and changes its form and substance. This is called the yellow sprout. Is this not the formless giving rise to form? Yin Zhenjun said, “The formless giving rise to form is the Returning Elixir.”

Yellow Sprout is the foundation of the Great Elixir. The Treatise on the Great Change (Taiyi zhi) says, “Without grasping the mystery of Yellow Sprout, refining the Return Elixir will remain a distant prospect.” Yellow Sprout must be refined when Yang Qi is at its height, beginning around the time of White Dew. At this time, the golden radiance is full and bright, the moonlight abundant: it is the right moment for refining the Elixir.

Perfected Xu says, “Begin refining in the eighth month, and nurture the Elixir as winter begins.” Starting at the beginning of the eighth month, extract Yellow Sprout with the Nine Ding cauldrons and continue until the tenth month. The key is to harmonize Water and Fire and let Yin and Yang each occupy their proper place; then the numinous Sprout will form of its own accord. If Water and Fire are unbalanced, impurities from the lead will seep into the Sprout, rendering it unusable, just as a person’s eye cannot tolerate even the smallest foreign particle.

Eight liang of Yellow Sprout are called the upper bow, and eight liang of Mercury the lower bow; together they make one jin. Each jin contains sixteen liang, and each liang twenty-four zhu, for a total of 384 zhu, corresponding to the number of hexagram lines. The upper bow Yellow Sprout must be brought to the proper firing intensity and supplied with enough lead black before it can be used. Perfected Li says, “The lower bow depends on the upper bow to be made full.” This means that Yellow Sprout is the foundation of the Elixir. If it does not receive enough lead black, the Elixir cannot congeal into form.

Master Qingxia says that the medicine in the cauldron must be nurtured like an egg beneath a brooding hen, a fetus in its mother’s womb, or fruit on a tree. Once it has absorbed enough lead black, it will ripen naturally. After the medicine is placed in the central womb—the space sealed inside the furnace cauldron where it is nurtured and transformed during Elixir refining—it must be tightly sealed so that the true black, the vital energy of lead black used in Elixir refining, does not escape. He also says, “When the womb vessel is sealed and nothing leaks out, transformation takes place in an instant.” Once made, the central womb is round in shape, like Chaos before Heaven and Earth were divided, or a perfectly round egg. Its center rises while its edges undulate, like Penghu, the legendary island of immortals in the sea. Its opening and closing are subtle and precise, and wondrous transformations take place within.

Before beginning alchemical practice, first choose a suitable place. It should be a blessed and virtuous site—that is, a place considered auspicious, pure, and suitable for practice—and the timing and direction should also be favorable. The place should be clean and secluded. Ancient temples, graves, abandoned wells, dilapidated buildings, and places where wars have taken place are unsuitable, as are places polluted by childbirth. Yin Zhenjun said, “If you cannot find a suitable place, do not act rashly.”

Once you have chosen a site, you must also find or dig an alchemical well, used to draw water for alchemical work and observe the regulation of water and fire. The well is essential to alchemy: regulating water and fire day and night, observing the firing process, and monitoring the water clock all depend on it. It is said that ancient immortals left alchemical wells behind when they ascended to immortality to show how important the well is to alchemical practice. Once the well is built, it must be kept free of pollution. After the water veins have settled, clean out the well and replace the water to remove stagnant spring water. Then leave the wellhead open to the sky so it can receive the light of the stars and moon. Only when the water’s nature has stabilized and the black impurities in the earth have settled and subsided may the water be drawn for alchemy.

If a layer of stone lies at the bottom of the well, and the spring water is clear, bluish-white, and sweet, it is considered water from a Yang vein, suitable for alchemy. If there is blue mud or black earth, yellowish-brown or reddish water, or a metallic or astringent taste, this indicates that the water veins are mixed and Yin-Yang Qi has stagnated. Such water is unsuitable for alchemy, and a well should be built elsewhere. Yue Zhenren said, “First choose an auspicious site, then build a well altar, the practice space arranged around the alchemical well. Be sure to avoid pollution, and keep away from anything rank or gamey.”

After choosing the alchemical site and well, you must also prepare and make the cauldron vessels used in alchemy, since refining the Return Elixir depends on them.

The Hunyuan Jing says, “Kan and Li, which represent water and fire, are the ingredients; Qian and Kun, which represent Heaven and Earth, are the cauldron.” Together, the four enclose one another; this is called “Chongyao.” Qian belongs to Metal, and Kun to Earth. Since Earth generates Metal, the vessel is called the “Metal Cauldron”—this does not mean it should be made of gold. The cauldron is the vessel in which the elixir is placed and refined, and the cauldron vessels must be complete.

The Hunyuan Jing says: Kan and Li (water and fire) are the ingredients used in alchemical refinement, while Qian and Kun (Heaven and Earth) form the alchemical vessel. When all four encompass one another, this is called the “Chongyue.” Qian corresponds to Metal and Kun to Earth. Since Earth can generate Metal, the vessel is called the “Metal Cauldron”; this does not mean that it should be made of gold. The cauldron is a container for holding the alchemical ingredients. When the vessel is complete, the myriad things can come into being within it. The cauldron symbolizes the central palace, which corresponds to Earth. Because Earth generates and nurtures the myriad things, the cauldron should be made of clay. The Yin Perfected Lord says that the vessel must be sought in the central palace. This refers to firing an ordinary clay pot. As for the earthenware vessel used to hold the embryo of the elixir inside the cauldron, its length, height, and width should be made to suit the circumstances; the ancients left no specific measurements. Moreover, different schools give different accounts, so one should not rigidly follow any single set of instructions. If the cauldron is too wide, the Qi of water and fire will be hard to harmonize; if it is too narrow, that Qi will be unable to circulate. Its proportions therefore require careful consideration.

After making the cauldron, one must also make a furnace. The furnace forms the cauldron’s outer frame and protective enclosure. Without a furnace, the cauldron is like a person without a house or city walls, unable to dwell in safety. The furnace should be set some distance from the cauldron so that it can gather and retain the fire Qi. Beneath the furnace is a platform with three tiers, divided into eight sides around its circumference and fitted with eight openings. A ledge is placed above the openings, and the cauldron rests on the ledge, with water above it and the ingredients below. The cauldron that holds the water should have an opening so that water can be added, then covered with a lid. The furnace is two chi and one cun high and one chi and six cun wide. It has a ledge inside, on which the cauldron is placed, with water above and the ingredients below. The opening of the water cauldron should remain exposed so water can be added; once filled, it is covered with a lid. The furnace walls are three cun thick, and its inner chamber is one chi and three cun wide. At the front is a fire opening, five cun high and four cun wide. At the back is a passage for releasing the fire Qi, shaped like the raised hump on a turtle’s back. The furnaces handed down by ancient sages, however, differ in design, so those who practice alchemical refinement should examine them carefully.

After the Yellow Sprout—the ingredient or alchemical material used in refinement—is placed in the vessel that holds the embryo of the elixir, that vessel is placed in the cauldron, and the cauldron in turn is placed in the furnace. Seal each layer tightly so that the true Qi does not escape.

Before beginning the alchemical steps of introducing water and applying fire, the water clock (an ancient timekeeping device) must first be calibrated and must run continuously from morning until night. Changes in Yin-Yang and the sequence of the solar terms are all governed by the time measured by the water clock. If its timing is inaccurate, the moments for the operation of water and fire will be wrong; the entire key to alchemy therefore lies in the water clock. I have seen later students practice alchemy without using one, and this is truly inappropriate.

The efficacy of the Restored Elixir (the elixir produced through alchemical refinement) is said to possess wondrous powers: a person who takes it can become an immortal, a dog that eats it can transform into a dragon, and a chicken can become a phoenix. Such marvels are possible because the elixir can capture the transforming powers of Heaven and Earth. Without a water clock to measure time, what standard could there be for Yin-Yang?

Bai Xuanzi said: “If you enter the cauldron to refine an elixir without relying on a water clock, you cannot produce one. It is like a blind person discarding a cane, or a deaf person holding a qin and playing it.” Once the water clock has been calibrated, the furnace and cauldron must also be properly prepared. Place the “sprout” inside the “embryo” (alchemical terms describing the stage in which the substances enter the furnace and the elixir takes shape), then wait for the “first Yang line” to appear (the moment when Yang energy first arises amid the changes of Yin-Yang), and only then set water and fire in motion.

The most difficult part of alchemical cultivation is mastering the firing times. The firing times are the key secret of the Zhengyi method. If those who cultivate the Elixir can master the true firing times, need they still worry that the Elixir will fail to form? And if the firing times are not properly observed, how can it be refined? Among the ten thousand volumes of alchemical scriptures, all the secrets lie in the firing times.

In practice, this method takes only one year. The ancient immortals concealed the most important methods, which is why they said it took three years, nine years, or even twelve, leaving later practitioners with no way to begin. The claims that a Small Reversion Elixir is formed in one year, a Medium Reversion Elixir in two, and a Great Reversion Elixir in three are figurative descriptions of its different stages, not a literal claim that the Elixir takes three years to refine.

The period from the hour of Zi to the hour of Hai is counted as one year; from Mao to You, as two years; and from Zi to Shen, as three years. Three times three is nine, a Yang number. Qingxiazi said, “From Zi to Shen is called the Ninefold Return”—this is what he meant. From You to Hai, Yang recedes and returns to the Yin position. Alchemists did not calculate this carefully, which is why they said it took three years. The claim of nine years comes from counting the nine months from Zi to Shen as nine years, with one month standing for one year; this means Yang descends, the Ninefold Return. The claim of twelve years comes from describing the complete cycle of Yin and Yang’s ascent and descent, which takes one year, as twelve years. When one month stands for one year, this means that one double-hour stands for one month. There are twelve double-hours in a day, and a month is counted as 360 double-hours, corresponding to the 360 days in a year. The ancient sages spoke this way to mislead later generations and guard their essential instructions; in practice, the method takes only one year. Qingxiazi said, “I have never heard of a woman carrying a child for two or three years before giving birth.” The firing times are calculated over twelve months, with five days making one phase and forty-five days making one section. The ancients used the hexagrams of the Book of Changes to explain the firing times. The Book of Changes has sixty-four hexagrams: Qian and Kun serve as the cauldron, Kan and Li as the ingredients, and four other hexagrams represent the doors and keys of the furnace and cauldron. The remaining sixty hexagrams set the sequence for circulating the fire. Beginning with the hexagrams Zhun and Meng and ending with Weiji, two hexagrams are used each day. Over thirty days, all sixty hexagrams are used, and then the cycle repeats: Zhun is used in the morning and Meng in the evening. The Elixir embryo forms over ten months, followed by two months of gentle nurturing, like a mother nursing an infant. Only after ten months does the Elixir become firm and mature.

The firing begins on the first day of the eleventh month. After sixty days of gentle nurturing, the black Elixir embryo forms. In the first month, the fire is regulated according to the seasonal hexagrams. From Yin to Shen is called the “Sevenfold Return”; from Zi to Shen, the “Ninefold Return.” The fire is strongest at the hour of Wu, enters its tomb at Xu, and completes its work at Hai. The fire begins in the eleventh month with the hexagram Fu, when the first Yang is born. The twelfth month is Lin; the first month, Tai; the second, Dazhuang; the third, Guai; the fourth, Qian; the fifth, Gou; the sixth, Dun; the seventh, Pi; the eighth, Guan; the ninth, Bo; and the tenth, Kun. Refine the ingredients into the Elixir according to this sequence, and the entire process takes one year. This is the general outline.

In actual practice, begin preparing the implements, furnace and cauldron, and water and fire in the alchemical chamber in the latter part of the tenth month. On the day before Major Snow, gently warm the furnace and wait for the appointed time. At Major Snow—the Zi hour when the first Yang is born at the eleventh-month solar term—begin regulating the water and fire. Arrange the firing times according to the advance and retreat of the six lines, assigning ten double-hours to each line. When applying fire and adding water, remember the starting time. Run two hexagrams each day, called the “daily hexagrams,” alternating between them according to their images. Each solar period lasts fifteen days; subtract two and a half days from its beginning and another two and a half from its end, making thirty double-hours in all. The Mao and You hours, the “Two-Eight Gates,” are called dead Qi. In alchemical work, adding water or applying fire at these times is strictly forbidden.

A year has twelve months and twenty-four solar terms. Subtracting one and a half days from each of the twenty-four periods takes away sixty days, exactly two months. The time actually spent circulating water and fire is therefore only ten months. After ten months, the Reversion Elixir sheds its embryo, just as a child is born after ten months in the womb. This principle is profound and mysterious, and few people can understand it.

For the two and a half days before each solar period, corresponding to the Mao hour, temporarily stop the water and fire and do not open the cauldron. For the two and a half days afterward, corresponding to the You hour, first stop the water and fire, then open the cauldron. Remove the Elixir, bathe it, and grind it three thousand times to the left; this is called “bathing.” The cauldron must be opened and closed with a tight seal. The advance and retreat of water and fire must be neither too fast nor too slow. Pay close attention to the water clock so as not to miss the seasonal divisions. When circulating water and fire, even as the hours change during the night, look up at the direction indicated by the Big Dipper’s handle and observe where the sun and moon rise and set. Use these signs to judge the seasonal divisions and bring Yin and Yang into proper balance.

To refine the Returning Elixir—a pill described in Daoist internal or external alchemy—three practitioners who are serene and devout must make a shared vow and pray with undivided attention for the elixir to be completed. Before beginning, they must fast, bathe, and perform a Jiao rite, a ceremony of prayer to the deities of the celestial realms, giving thanks and seeking Heaven’s protection.

The three practitioners each have a separate duty. One tends the water clock and keeps track of time; one regulates the cauldron, replenishing and changing the water and fire; and one conveys the Qi of Yin-Yang, adjusting the advance and retreat of the fire in accordance with changes in the trigrams and in harmony with the seasons. Each must carry out their assigned work without the slightest error. The Perfected One says that at midnight all three must pray together with devotion. Although each has a distinct role and must respond promptly when something arises, they must still take turns standing watch and resting at night. Alchemical work continues day and night over a long period, and practitioners may grow tired and weak, leading to mistakes in the refining process.

Incense must burn year-round in the alchemical chamber, where prayers are offered to the Highest Perfected Ones, the exalted divine beings revered in Daoism. Practitioners should eat only two vegetarian meals a day and maintain strict cleanliness and discipline. If the water and fire are controlled precisely and the movement of Yin-Yang is properly measured, the elixir will transform of its own accord within the cauldron.

From the eleventh month through the fourth month of the following year is the Yang period, when the cauldron turns to the left. From the fifth through the tenth month is the Yin period, when it turns to the right. When the elixir is about to reach its fullness, one must not leave the alchemical chamber, but listen attentively for changes and watch for the sound called “the dragon’s roar in its flourishing position,” an omen described in the scripture as part of the alchemical process. Once Yang Qi reaches its utmost point, the elixir is no longer at risk. The fire is then gradually reduced until the tenth month, when Yang Qi returns completely to Kun, the trigram representing Yin, and the Returning Elixir is complete. The elixir’s color turns purplish red and its radiance becomes brilliant. This is called “Yang completed through nine transformations, the Five Phases’ blackness fully attained.”

The scripture also says that whether emperor, commoner, or animal, anyone who takes this elixir will attain longevity. Withered trees can flourish again, dry bones can regain flesh and blood, and even tiles and rubble can be transformed into gold. Its wondrous powers bring about transformations beyond measure.

I often read the five thousand words of the Laozi and the Inner and Outer Images of the Yellow Court and find that both explain the principle of Wuwei (non-action), focusing on clarifying human nature while fearing that the body will eventually perish. The body is the dwelling place of nature; without a body, where could nature abide? I believe that nonbeing can give rise to being, and being can in turn give rise to form. Since the body comes from this source, why not seek ways to make it endure and grow firm?

Yet those who cultivate the Way of Wuwei often achieve results only after death. By contrast, the Returning Elixir—the practice of refining Neidan (internal alchemy) in pursuit of long life—can free people from death while they are still alive. The Returning Elixir is the true method among practices that involve deliberate action. If one cultivates it with sincere devotion and successfully refines the Elixir, one can reach the realm of the sages and commune with the spirits. Taking even a small portion of the Elixir can make the body endure. Such a person’s name is entered in the Jade Register, the celestial record of the ranks and titles of immortals, and they take their place among the immortals: a being without equal in the Mysteries’ teaching, Daoism.

I am merely an unlearned person of the mortal world, with scant knowledge and talent. Still, I cannot bear to let this text fall into neglect and obscurity, so I have presumptuously set down these formulas, secretly transmitted by the sages. If there are worthy and discerning people who seek to transcend the mortal world and share this aspiration, please read them carefully.

Narrated by Lü Dongbin: The Ninefold Golden Elixir of Long Life

Take eight ounces of white brass from the west (the original text calls it “yellow geng,” which may refer to brass) and grind it into a fine powder. Then take eight ounces of mercury, combine them, and place the mixture in an iron mortar. Pound continuously for one double-hour. The two substances will form a material resembling golden sand. Wash it in water, rinsing away the turbid, blue-black waste water. The scripture calls this impurity the evil Yin Qi within the “essence of Wood.” Change the water repeatedly until the material is clean.

Next, take out the sand and wrap it in a new piece of white, well-finished silk one foot long, tying it into a firm ball. Grind one ounce of blue vitriol into a fine powder and add it to five sheng of good vinegar. Heat the mixture to a boil in a pot. Suspend the wrapped sand in the vinegar and boil it, adding more vinegar as it evaporates. Keep the vinegar warm and at a gentle simmer, and cook the sand for a full day and night. When done, the sand will have become firm and hard, like iron or stone. The scripture says that the alum and vinegar used to cook the sand are not harmful; this cooking process is a method for hardening the sand. Next, seal it with Liuyi clay.

How to prepare Liuyi clay

First, take four liang of true earth essence and place it in charcoal fire until it glows red. Remove it and immerse it in vinegar until it cools. Then take one liang each of red stone fat, white stone fat, earthworm soil, vermilion stone, and gold-bearing soil, together with one jin of sweet earth: seven materials in all. Pound them together into a fine powder. Mix a little paper fiber into salt water and knead it repeatedly into a firm clay. Use this clay to wrap and seal the sand-like medicinal core, leaving not even the smallest crack. If any air escapes, patch the spot with clay and seal it tightly. The ball-shaped core wrapped in this clay is called the “Elixir Core Wrapper,” also known as the “Spirit Chamber.” True earth essence represents the upright qi of central Earth; the other six materials serve as aids.

Once the core is wrapped, place it in an iron vessel that holds about two sheng. Fill the vessel with true lead essence that has been treated by subduing the fire, then set the core in the center of the lead essence, level and upright, with the space around it packed firmly. Close the vessel and seal it tightly with liuyi clay, a clay used to seal elixir furnaces and implements, leaving no gaps for air to escape. On the outside of the vessel, apply a thick layer, about one cun deep, of fine pottery clay mixed with paper fiber and kneaded with flower-infused washing water. When the clay dries, inspect it and repair any cracks.

Next prepare an iron furnace cauldron for managing the fire. It should resemble an ordinary cooking pot, hold about one dou and eight sheng, be sealed in place with clay, and have an opening for adding fuel. Fill the cauldron with charcoal and set the sealed vessel in the center of the charcoal ash, straightening it and packing the surrounding material firmly. Once the clay has dried, choose a favorable Six Jia first day, with Jiazi as the first day in the sixty-day cycle. For the three days beforehand, make offerings to the furnace spirit of incense, lamps, food and wine, gold and money, and cloud horses. On the chosen day, during the Mao hour, from five to seven in the morning, break up one jin of fully burned charcoal and spread it evenly across the bottom of the furnace. Cover it lightly with hot ash, allowing a little heat to come through to warm and nourish the elixir core. Add fuel in the same way during the You hour, from five to seven in the evening. Keep the fire going without interruption through all twelve double-hours, day and night. After forty-nine days of warming and nourishing, the first transformation is complete. The product is called “Child-and-Mother Gold,” also known as the “Water-Wood-Fire Elixir Seed” or the “Supreme Treasure of Dragon and Tiger.”

The scripture explains the refining process through the Five Phases and their cycles of overcoming and generating: Metal overcomes Wood, so mercury can congeal into sand; Wood overcomes Earth, so liuyi clay does not contaminate the elixir; Earth overcomes Water, and Water overcomes Fire, so mercury is less likely to scatter. The Five Phases’ cycles of overcoming and generating are used to explain how the elixir congeals and takes shape.

When the first transformation is complete, let the furnace cauldron cool, remove the elixir powder and grind it fine, then add eight liang of water-wood essence. Following the method of the first transformation, pound it fine, wash and boil it, seal it with liuyi clay, and warm and nourish it for another forty-nine days. This product is called the “Spirit Elixir.” By the fourth transformation, the elixir powder has congealed into fine sand and is called the “Four-Spirit Elixir.” At this stage, stop using the large vessel for holding lead and the lead essence. Instead, use a smaller iron vessel and put the Four-Spirit Elixir powder inside, without filling it to the top.

Take one jin of top-grade cinnabar and select from it eight liang of large pieces. Arrange the Four-Spirit Elixir powder and cinnabar in alternating layers: divide forty liang of elixir powder into five layers and twelve liang of cinnabar into four layers. Press the layers firmly into place, seal the vessel’s opening with liuyi clay, then apply a one-cun-thick layer of salt-water and paper-fiber clay to the outside. Once the clay has dried, set the vessel upright in the furnace ash and seal the cauldron. Add fuel as in the first transformation and warm and nourish it for forty-nine days.

When the furnace is opened, the cinnabar taken out will be purple. It is called “Sage Gold Yellow Sprout,” also known as “Transcendent Saint Quartz, Shed of the Mortal Womb.” Select this cinnabar, then place the Four-Spirit Elixir powder in a qi furnace and melt it into liquid. Cast it into two egg-shaped halves to make a golden vessel. Take eight liang of the prepared cinnabar, add two liang of cinnabar, grind them together finely, place the powder in the vessel, and seal it. Then, following the method of the first transformation, place the vessel in the center of the furnace ash and seal it.

Next choose a favorable Six Jia first day. Beginning at the Mao hour, add one jin of fully burned, broken charcoal, spread evenly across the furnace bottom, and cover it with a thin layer of ash, leaving a little heat to come through. Add one jin of charcoal at each of the Wu, You, and Zi hours as well. During the other hours, such as Chen and Si, brush the ash off the charcoal and leave only a little ash, so that the heat continues to envelop the furnace cauldron. Warm and nourish it in this way for forty-nine days. The product is called “Beautiful Golden Flower.”

After taking it out, add two liang of raw cinnabar, grind it fine, and put it back in the vessel. Seal and warm it for forty-nine days following the method of the first transformation. This is called “Numinous Golden Frost.” Add another two liang of raw cinnabar and warm it in the same way for forty-nine days; this product is called “Soul-Returning Sage Golden Liquid.” Continue adding cinnabar, sealing the vessel, and warming it by the same method until the ninth transformation is complete. Choose an auspicious day and, at noon, open the vessel facing the sun so that sunlight falls on the cinnabar and the medicinal core. Two liang of elixir make thirty pills. The scripture then says to first offer these pills to Heaven and Earth, mountains and rivers, lakes and streams, the Dragon Spirits of markets and neighborhoods, and the sages and worthies of the Three Realms.

After the offerings, place four liang of mercury, one sheng of clean water, and one elixir pill in a new, clean iron vessel. Cover it and heat it over charcoal until the water boils and all the water has evaporated. The mercury will then congeal into what is called “Superior-Color Male Stone, Fire Applied.” Alternatively, melt one jin of silver, copper, iron, or tin in a furnace. Add one elixir pill, stir well, and pour out the mixture to make an ingot called “Top-Grade Male Stone, Fire Applied.” The scripture says that, if this is used to transmute metals, the fire toxin must first be removed. If it is to be taken as a drug, remove the fire toxin, leave the vessel undisturbed for one fu-hour, a full day and night, and then remove the yin toxin. Afterward, bury the medicine three chi to one zhang underground, or suspend it in a well, and finally expose it to sunlight.

Among the various methods of alchemical refinement, the procedure for making Yellow Sprouts is as follows. Take five liang of genuine silver from mountain streams and marshes, and hammer it into a round disc shaped like the sun. Strike it repeatedly, a thousand times, until the disc is very dense, so that mercury cannot seep into it.

Place three liang of mercury inside a po-pu vessel, then put in the silver disc. Leave a gap of about two cun between the surface of the mercury and the vessel’s rim. Once everything is steady, seal all the seams tightly with Six-One clay, a material used in alchemy to seal and secure vessels. Fit a water-covering piece over the top to cover the vessel’s mouth, then invert the vessel. Heat it continuously with three liang of charcoal, day and night, for seven full days before opening the furnace to inspect it. By then, Yellow Sprouts about two cun long will have grown on the silver disc, shaped like needles. When they first appear, they are silver-white; this is called the “First Turning Yellow Sprouts.”

Next, add another three liang of mercury and heat for seven days and nights. Add three liang more and continue heating for another seven days and nights. The Yellow Sprouts will then turn yellow, but they must not yet be removed. Let them continue to grow gradually, like young wheat shoots. Open the furnace once every seven days and add three liang of mercury, continuing until forty-nine days have passed. In all, twenty-one liang of mercury will have been added. This is called “Adding Mercury through Seven Turnings,” and the product is known as “Purple-Gold Yellow Sprouts.” The shape and color produced in each furnace may differ. The refined Yellow Sprouts are called the “Mother of Returning Elixir,” meaning the base material for making Returning Elixir.

The mercury left inside the po-pu vessel will be cinnabar-red on the cover. About two or three liang can be removed; this is called “the Child Clinging to the Mother,” also known as “Single-Substance Cinnabar.” The scripture says it can be mixed with cow’s milk, steamed, and then ground into powder. Form it into pills with date flesh, and take three pills each day on an empty stomach with wine. It is used to strengthen the lower source, calm the spirit, and treat ailments such as disorders caused by wind and cold.

About twelve liang of Yellow Sprouts at most can be collected from the silver disc. The three or four liang of stubborn mercury remaining beneath the disc have not been transformed. It is said that they absorbed “black feet,” which prevents them from changing. They can be stored separately in another vessel and have other medicinal uses. The scripture also says that cinnabar is the “Sun’s Soul,” while mercury and Yellow Sprouts are the “Moon’s Po.”

A verse says: “The sages seize the workings of creation, setting the essences of the sun and moon within the furnace and cauldron to refine them.”

Take five liang of large pieces of cinnabar, bright red and lustrous like fire, and three sheng of fine vinegar. Put them together in an iron vessel. Place the cinnabar in a silk bag and suspend it inside the vessel, then boil it over water continuously for seven days and nights without letting the fire go out. If the vinegar boils away, replenish it as needed. After seven days, remove the cinnabar and wash it clean with hot water. Wrap it in gold foil and grind it, then put it back into the vinegar and boil it for another seven days and nights, again keeping the fire going and adding more vinegar whenever it dries up.

After the second seven days, take out the cinnabar and wash it clean with hot water. Put it in a gold-foil bag and grind it until fine. Then coat the outside of the bag with finely ground, high-quality ink, applying repeated layers until the coating is about half a fen thick. Make sure the coating is even, then dry it over a low fire.

Take five liang of fine gold and fashion it into a gold box with a capacity of about fifteen liang. The box must have no cracks and must not be made too thin. Grind high-quality ink to a fine powder, mix it with egg white, and coat the inside of the box to a thickness of about half a grain of rice. Next, take one fen each of the four ingredients: cengqing, realgar, brown iron ore, and chalcanthite. Grind them with vinegar into a paste and coat the inside of the box. Then grind all the “Yellow Sprout” into powder, fill the box with it, and pack it firmly, leaving a small cavity. Place the gold-foil bag containing the cinnabar in this cavity, settling it securely as if a mother were carrying a child. Do not move it. Wait until the full moon, when the medicine is said to be “born”; the timing must be exact. Cover it completely with more Yellow Sprout, close the lid, and bind it tightly with hemp fiber so it cannot turn.

First place the box in hot ash to disperse the Yin within it. Take one jin of green salt and four liang of saltpeter, put them together in a crucible, and melt them into a liquid. Once cooled, pound the mixture into a fine powder. Next, take ten liang of fine silver and fashion it into a large silver box with a capacity of about thirty liang. Fill half the saltpeter-and-salt powder into the silver box and pack it firmly. Place the gold box in the center, cover it with the remaining powder, fill the silver box, and pack the contents firmly. Bind it tightly with hemp fiber, then seal it all around with “Six-to-One Mud,” a clay used to seal alchemical vessels, to a thickness of about one cun. Dry it over a low fire until completely dry.

Dig a pit to serve as a furnace, line it with ash to form an ash bed, and place the sealed silver box inside. Cover the area around the top of the box with ash. First tend it with a fire of two liang for seven days, then increase the fire to four liang, taking care not to let it smother into dead ash. On the sixtieth day, raise the fire to six liang, then continue tending it until the medicine is complete on the eighty-first day. During the process, do not let outsiders see it. The ancients believed that another person’s gaze would violate a taboo and damage the medicine’s potency.

Next, take out the vessel and place it in a shallow furnace. Heat it with five jin of fire until it glows red, then stop. First burn incense and pray, then open the box. According to the text, if the medicine has not damaged its embryo and is bright in color, fragrant, clean, and clear, this indicates that the process has succeeded. It is said to look unlike something that has undergone firing over a low flame. This method is called “Sprinkled-Preparation Elixir.”

Place one cinnabar pebble in an iron pan and heat it; it is said to congeal immediately like oil, with a bright sheen. Then put mercury in a crucible and sprinkle powdered cinnabar over it. The mercury is said to dry and solidify into silver very quickly. If cinnabar powder is placed in a small bamboo container and simmered for a long time in pond ash, it too is said to solidify into silver, though the color is slightly yellow and it is not yet suitable for use as a medicine to be ingested.

Finally, remove the cinnabar that has undergone “fire subduing,” cut away the blackened parts, and pound everything together. The original text claims that this treatment causes no loss of the medicine.

It also says:

Take five liang of the finest, bright realgar, shaped like an arrowhead. The furnace must be sealed tightly during refining. Mix gold foil coated with good-quality ink into cinnabar, and nurture and refine it for twenty-one days. Place the furnace in an ash bed, warm it with four liang of fire, cover it with “yellow sprouts,” and seal it according to the prescribed method. When the nurturing period is complete, remove it from the furnace and put it in a shallow furnace. Refine it with five jin of fire until it glows red, then withdraw the heat. Once it has cooled, open the furnace: the realgar should have turned a purplish gold color.

Take one piece of realgar, grind it finely, and sprinkle it into one liang of mercury. Put the mixture in a small crucible and refine it with three liang of fire. The two substances will dry and solidify, turning into purplish gold. If using it to transmute silver, yu, shimao, Danyang, or substances such as “male stone,” the firing conditions and quantities cannot simply be inferred from this procedure.

It also says:

Once five liang of cinnabar has been refined until its fire is subdued, choose an auspicious day to remove it for ingestion. Grind the cinnabar into a fine powder and form pills using cooked jujube flesh; make one thousand pills from each liang of cinnabar. Begin taking them on a Jiazi day. During the course of the medicine, abstain from meat, and especially avoid sexual intercourse. Before taking it, one must also first cultivate hidden merit for three years, pray to Heaven and Earth, and vow to perform charitable deeds. Only then may the medicine be taken.

Each time, first face forward, gather and swallow the saliva twenty-four times, then take three elixir pills. Before grinding the cinnabar that has been refined until its fire is subdued, take two liang of amla, Han fangji, and a handful of sweet bamboo; chop them all and place them in the cauldron with the cinnabar. Boil them together for a full day and night. Remove the cinnabar, put it in a silk gauze bag, and suspend it in a well or immerse it in well water for seven days. Then mix it with cow’s milk and steam it for the time it takes to cook a meal. According to the text, this removes all fire toxicity, after which the cinnabar may be made into pills. If used to refine one liang of mercury, it will quickly dry and solidify it into what is called a “treasure.”

Method of taking the medicine.

This elixir need only be taken once each year, in spring. Begin on a Jiazi day and take it for sixty consecutive days, three pills a day, for a total of 180 pills. It is said that afterward all kinds of illness will disappear for a year; with continued use, its benefits are beyond description. If you wish to give up grain, you may drink a small amount of cold water each morning. Once you have obtained this elixir, you can also take a piece of raw meat in midsummer and place one pill on it. Even after a month, the meat will not spoil; its blood will instead remain bright red. If the elixir can preserve dead meat in this way, surely taking it must help people live longer.

Another account says that after realgar has been refined over a buried fire for a year, it can be made into pills with date flesh. Take one pill each day on an empty stomach, washed down with wine. It is said to cure all kinds of wind, cold, and Qi ailments, eradicating them with a single dose. If you do not intend to take it, you can instead put realgar powder in a pot and pierce it with a copper needle to make openings. Set the pot in a pool of water, place mercury along its inner wall, and warm it gently over a low flame for one hour. When removed, it yields gold of brilliant color and pure, lustrous texture, beyond description. This substance is also called “Purple Gold River Chariot.” The name “River Chariot” is explained as meaning that a river conveys things across, while a chariot carries them. Its benefits are beyond description. If you wish to take it, you must first remove its fire toxicity; only then may it be ingested. Cinnabar is called “Silver Valley Seed,” and realgar “Gold Valley Seed.”

In the refining process, first make “Yellow Sprout Head,” then use it to refine “Gushing Spring.” Take ten taels of Yellow Sprout and mix and grind it briefly with ten taels of raw mercury; a sandlike substance will form. Place it in a Yu ding, a vessel used for alchemical work, and warm it continuously over a low flame, for as many days as needed. When you wish to take it out, remove it and melt it down to make a treasure. You may also continue adding mercury, doubling the amount each time, however many days or months the process takes. This is called the “Way of Correct Yang.” To refine it into a single-body Elixir of Yang, take one tael of Gushing Spring; it is said to be able to transmute one catty.

To prepare it, first take one jin each of alum salt and mercury. Grind them together to remove the black impurities on the surface, then add Yongquan water. Next, wash the mercury clean with warm water and place it in the tripod cauldron. Keep the flame about two finger-widths below the bottom of the cauldron, and use a low heat to warm and nurture it continuously, day and night without interruption.

The lid should fit tightly. It must be undamaged and free of porous spots or cracks that could let vapor escape. The walls of the cauldron should be thick.

Prepare four liang of cinnabar formed into lumps, half a jin of green salt, and one liang of processed arsenic mineral. Separately, grind the stone green salt into a fine powder and mix it with vinegar until slightly moist, then divide it into four portions. Spread one portion over the bottom of the vessel, then lay down a layer of cinnabar as if planting a lotus. Cover it with one portion of the processed arsenic mineral, then with rock salt, and lay down another layer of cinnabar. Repeat this method until there are three layers. Finally, cover them with the remaining portion of the ingredients and press it down firmly.

First cover the hezi (a container for holding medicines during firing) with a tile, then place it on the stand at the bottom of the furnace. Spread a layer of ash four cun thick over the stand. After setting the hezi in place, cover its sides and top completely with ash, about four cun deep. Warm it with a fire of four liang. After seven full days, stop the fire and let it cool before removing it. Take off the tile and fit the lid in place. Seal the joint with red stone-clay paste, then seal it tightly with liuyi mud (a clay used to seal alchemical vessels).

Place the hezi in an ash pit and fire it with three jin of alternating raw and mature heat until the medicine glows red throughout. After a while, remove the heat and cover it with five sheng of ash to smother it. Once cool, take it out and carefully check whether the cinnabar has undergone fire subduing (become more stable through firing). If the cinnabar is gray, the first cycle is complete; if the grains of sand remain intact, the first cycle has succeeded.

For the second cycle, take another one liang of arsenic mineral and half a jin of green salt. Grind them together into a fine powder, add a little water, and continue grinding until they form a paste. Mix this into the medicine prepared earlier, adjusting it until it is neither too wet nor too dry. Layer and cover the ingredients as before, but do not seal the vessel. Place it in the ash pit and warm it with a fire of three liang. During each fu period (one interval of firing and cultivation), add fuel five or six times and do not let the fire go out. After seven full days of warming, let it cool and remove it. The cinnabar is best when it has turned purple, showing that the second cycle is complete. If it is still soft and crumbles easily, grind it into a fine powder, add a little green salt, and grind them together. Roll the mixture into a ball in thick handmade paper and tie it tightly with string. Then coat the outside of the paper ball thickly with ink made by grinding inkstick with vinegar, so that it soaks through and encloses the ball. Let it dry, then place it in the hezi and cover it without sealing it. Spread ash evenly over the top and warm it with a fire of three liang for three fu periods. Then use a fire of five jin to heat it in one firing until it glows red throughout. Let it cool and remove it. If the ball of cinnabar is snow-white, the third cycle is complete.

Wash the sand thoroughly to remove its salty taste, then dry it by heating. Mix the sand with one he of cow’s milk, place it in a jointed bamboo tube, tie the opening tightly, and suspend it in a well for seven days. Remove the sand, dry it in the sun, and grind it into a fine powder. Make pills with cooked dates, each about the size of a bean.

On a Jiachen day (one of the days in the sexagenary cycle), fast, purify yourself, burn incense, and take one pill. Then take one additional pill each day until the seventh day; after that, reduce the dose by one pill each day. Repeat this increase and decrease for sixty days, which is said to bring results. The scripture claims that after taking it for a full year, the body becomes light and vigorous and youth is restored; after three years, one’s appearance is like a child’s and one moves as swiftly as a galloping horse. Long-term use is said to bring longevity, and even fallen teeth can grow back. If one can “move the black and stabilize the fixed” (a term used in the original), one can become an immortal with everlasting life. For transmutation—transforming metals with the medicine—there is no need to remove its fire toxicity beforehand; it can be used directly.

Bone-Transforming, Form-Preserving Snow-Descent Elixir

Meng Yaofu personally attested that he had suffered from kidney wind (an old term for a class of kidney diseases or related symptoms), anal itching, and hemorrhoids for more than twenty years. After taking this elixir for a month, his symptoms reportedly vanished at once. After taking it for a full hundred days, he reportedly expelled all the Three Corpses (spirits said in Daoism to dwell in the human body, record one’s transgressions, and obstruct cultivation). He moved as swiftly as a galloping horse, his face radiated light, his teeth and hair were renewed, and his appearance became like that of a young woman; the effects, it is said, are difficult to describe fully. For transmutation, one pill can subdue three liang of mercury and immediately turn it into a precious substance.

Method for Cultivating the Elixir

Take four liang of cinnabar and place it in a silver vessel. Boil it with honey made from a hundred flowers for seven days and seven nights. Remove it, then mix ten liang of powder made from songluo (a lichen) with fine, genuine honey, stirring until it has the consistency of moist incense. First spread a layer on the bottom of a hezi (a vessel for holding and sealing elixirs during refinement). Set the cinnabar in it as one would plant a lotus, cover it with half of the remaining songluo-and-honey mixture, and press it down firmly. Seal the opening with liuyi clay (the clay used to seal alchemical vessels). Once the clay is dry, place the vessel in an ash pit and gently heat it with four liang of fire for three periods of three days. Let it cool, remove it, wash the cinnabar lumps clean, and wrap each one in gold foil.

Then follow the same procedure: spread the mixture on the bottom of the hezi, put in the cinnabar lumps, cover them with the mixture and press it down firmly, and seal the vessel with liuyi clay. Once the clay is dry, put it in the ash pit and gently heat it with four liang of fire for three periods of three days. Let it cool, remove the cinnabar lumps, and wash them clean.

Take half a jin of stone-center yellow and pound it into a fine powder. Put half in a silver hezi, spread it across the bottom, and press it down firmly. Place the cinnabar lumps inside, then cover them completely with the remaining stone-center yellow powder and press it down. Use vinegar to mix the red stone fat that seals the gaps around the opening. Next, place the silver hezi in a large cauldron, surround it with golden-colored mica powder as the packing material (which encloses the elixir and retains heat), and seal it securely. Set it in an ash pit and gently heat it with one jin of fire for twenty-one days.

After it cools, remove the elixir; it should be golden in color. To take it, sew a small pouch from silk, place the elixir inside, and suspend it in a well about one foot above the water. Leave it there overnight, then take it out and grind it into a fine powder. In a silver vessel, simmer the natural juice of fresh huangjing root into a paste. Mix the paste with the elixir powder and form pills about the size of mung beans. Each morning, on an empty stomach, swallow one pill with water drawn from a well at dawn.

If the elixir is to transmute metals, its fire toxicity must first be removed. Put one pill and three liang of mercury in a tiao (a vessel used in alchemical refining), cover it with a small bowl, and seal it airtight with four layers of wet paper. Place it in an ash pit and gently heat it over a fire; this is said to transform it into a precious substance.

To produce a yellow metal, take one liang of realgar and one liang of fótóuqīng, grind them together with cinnabar that has already been made fire-stable through refining, and place the powder in the previously described inner crucible. Seal it securely, then place it in the outer crucible and seal that as well, making sure no air can escape. Set it in an ash pit and gently heat it with one jin of fire for twenty-one days. When the time is up, calcine it over a measured fire, then let it cool and remove it. The finished product will be purple-gold in color. The parts of the silver hezi stained green by the elixir’s vapors will also turn into a yellow substance. The scripture claims that this elixir can transmute mercury into high-grade gold, and instructs that the method be kept strictly secret.

Method for the Red Snow and Flowing Pearl Elixir

Take one jin of clear, translucent realgar. Crush it and sift it into a fine powder, then mix it with bitter wine (vinegar) until slightly damp. Let it dry, then moisten it again in the same way. Repeat this ten times. Mix it thoroughly with powdered alum, cover it with more alum, and seal the vessel. After one day and night, dry it first over a gentle fire, then gradually increase the heat; do not let the fire grow strong all at once. Continue firing for another day and night, then apply a fierce fire until the lower cauldron glows red from morning to night without interruption. After firing it this way for three days and nights, put out the fire. Let it cool for a while, then open the vessel and remove the medicinal essence from the upper cauldron. Grind it lightly. Crush the liquid residue in the lower cauldron and mix it with the medicine, then stir in cooked rice until the mixture is slightly damp. Set up the vessel again as before and fire it in sequence, first over a gentle flame, then over a strong flame. A gentle flame is mild; a strong flame is more intense.

When the process is complete, the medicine will be bright crimson, shaped like dangling pearls and threads, as if woven into a net. Its brilliance is dazzling, and anyone who sees it will be astonished. The scripture says that if someone suddenly falls ill and is near death, or has even stopped breathing, grind the medicine finely and give three or four sesame-seed-sized portions in egg yolk. As soon as the medicine enters the mouth, raise the patient’s head; in a short while, they will recover. Even a mild case of malaria will be cured by taking it. The scripture says its efficacy is too great to describe fully, regretting only that some people act in haste, while those who know how to refine it use it to make gold.

Method for Transforming Green Cinnabar into Golden Millet Seeds

Mix lead oxide, white clay, tile powder, and the like with salt and vinegar to make a hard paste. Shape it into a wax ball to form the medicine’s core, then coat the ball with the paste, sealing it thoroughly with no gaps. After it has dried in the shade, make a small hole in it and burn out the wax inside. Take high-grade cinnabar (Zhusha) with a bright color and grind it to a fine powder. Roll stiff paper into a tube, fill the hollow shell with the cinnabar, and seal the opening with earthworm clay.

Once the clay seal has dried, make an iron ring and fit the medicine ball into it. Secure the ring inside a cauldron, leaving space around the ball and above and below it. Pour lead-niter solution into the cauldron until the liquid stands about two inches above the ball. Then keep it gently heated over a chaff fire without letting it cool, until the lead niter has melted. After heating it this way for 120 days, take it out and fire it over a flame on the ground. When it has cooled, remove it: the medicine should resemble small bluish-purple snails. Pick out the blackened, unusable parts, and divide the rest into two portions.

Put one portion into a green bamboo tube and seal it. Steam it five times in milk, replacing the milk three times during the process. The milk skin left behind after steaming is said to be useful for treating yezeng. Remove the medicine and bury it in a pit in the ground for three nights. Then take it out, grind it finely, and form it into millet-sized pills using cooked millet. A forty-year-old should take one pill, a fifty-year-old two, and a sixty-year-old three; do not take more. The scripture says this medicine can treat various wind disorders, prolong life, and preserve one’s youthful appearance.

Grind the remaining portion of the elixir to a fine powder and put it in a gan crucible, a crucible used for alchemical preparation and smelting. Grind one liang of alum and layer it above and below the medicine powder, then seal the crucible. When it is dry, bury it in ash and keep it gently heated for forty-nine days, then fire it over a strong flame. After it has cooled, open it: the contents should all have turned into golden millet seeds. Take one rat-tail-shaped ingot, three liang of shushi, and half a fen of genuine geng. First melt them together into a liquid in the gan crucible, then add three or four golden millet seeds. Once they melt, the substance called “true Western metal” has been made.

The small hole in the medicine ball described above must face upward. Place the ball in a lead cauldron and warm it over a fire.

Method for Refining Geng Powder

Take ten liang of the finest geng and fifty liang of mercury. Put them in a porcelain jar and heat them regularly over a fire. Heat the geng until it glows red, then put it into the mercury and stir with a willow-wood comb until the geng has dissolved completely. This is then called “True Western.” Place the spherical vessel mentioned earlier inside a lead cauldron, with its opening facing upward, and slowly refine it over a fire.

Next, take three jin of guanhua and grind it together with gold mud into a fine powder. Spread it evenly in a large pot, cover it tightly with a basin, and seal the seam all around with clay. Refine it over a low fire so that the mercury rises onto the basin. Continue until all the mercury has sublimated. Then rinse it with the water used earlier, washing away the smell of guanhua. Put the refined geng powder on a plate, dry it in the sun, grind it finely, and set it aside as an ingredient.

Take eight liang of cockscomb-shaped realgar, eight liang of leaf-shaped orpiment, four liang of Rong salt, ten liang of gold powder, and five liang of golden millet. Grind them together into a fine powder. Use a different set of cauldron and vessel, and follow the method described earlier. Again, grind fragrant ink with rice vinegar and spread it evenly inside the vessel. Put the ingredients in, then alternately apply gentle and fierce heat until they melt into a liquid.

Next, take four liang of saltpeter, grind it finely, and pack it into the vessel. Seal the opening with flour paste, put on the lid, seal it with clay, and let it dry. Then place it in the cauldron and secure it as before. Pour molten lead over the vessel to a depth of about two cun. Choose an auspicious day and begin heating at midnight, during the Zi hour: start with six liang of fuel, then increase the amount by one liang each day, refining for sixty days. Once the apparatus has cooled, break it open with a chisel, remove the lead, and take out the vessel. The medicine will be purplish gold in color.

Grind one fen of the medicine finely in a mortar. It is said to be capable of refining one jin of mercury and immediately turning it into gold. This method is called a secret immortal transmission beyond the reach of ordinary people. For those seeking to support their cultivation of the Dao, knowing this much is enough.

Covering Geng

One liang of green vitriol, five qian of white alum, three qian of salt, and eight qian of saltpeter are ground together into a fine powder. Shape purified clay into a trough. First moisten the finished hairpin with water, then roll it in the powder until evenly coated. Place it in the clay trough and heat the medicinal mixture over a fire. When it is done, remove the hairpin and dip it in a basin of water. Repeat this process five times to make a colored treasure.

To make a hairpin with the Great Void Numinous Cinnabar Elixir, a Daoist alchemical elixir, first moisten the hairpin with water as well. Roll it evenly in the powder described above, place it in the clay trough, and heat it over a fire. Remove it and dip it in a basin of water. After repeating this five times, it becomes a colored treasure.

The Dongxuan Ji says that this is the method for cultivating the Nine-Turn Golden Liquid Dragon-Tiger Great Elixir. The Immortal Elder Ge (Ge Hong) says that the method of the Great Clarity Divine Elixir came from the Primordial Lady. She was the teacher of the Lord Lao, a celestial deity of the highest rank, able to harmonize Yin-Yang, command wind and rain, and ride clouds and dragons; the immortals of heaven were all under her authority. When people say, “I am now cultivating the Dao,” they too mean that they will attain this through taking elixirs.

Those of superior aptitude who obtain this elixir can become celestial officials. Those of middling aptitude can take it and withdraw to live in the mountains and forests. Even those of inferior aptitude can attain long life in the world. The foolish do not believe this and dismiss it all as empty words. From morning until night, they concern themselves only with acts that harm life. If people do not seek long life themselves, can Heaven force them to live forever?

Most people crave fine food and clothing, sensual pleasures, wealth, and status. They indulge their desires and hold life in low regard, only to die young. Do not tell such people about the Golden Elixir, lest they mock the Great Dao and slander the truth. Elixir scriptures must not be passed on indiscriminately; they should be taught only to those who are sincere and steadfast in their faith.

The Immortal Elder Ge also warned his disciples: “I consulted the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Nine Cauldrons and Divine Elixirs. It says that the Yellow Emperor took an elixir and ascended to become an immortal. The scripture also says that breathing practices, Daoyin exercises, and herbal medicines can only prolong life and treat illness; they cannot keep people from death. If someone sincerely takes a divine elixir, their life span will have no end. They will live as long as Heaven and Earth, ride clouds and dragons, and ascend to Great Clarity, the pure celestial realm spoken of in Daoism. These are all the effects of the divine elixir.”

Yi Xuanzi cautions: “The Way of refining elixirs is of the greatest importance. It may be transmitted only to those who are worthy and fit to receive it. If someone is not suitable, then even if his gold is piled up like a mountain, never tell him these methods. If they are revealed to someone who does not believe in the Dao, he will slander the divine elixir, and the medicine will therefore fail to form. Even if someone has the innate potential to become an immortal, he should not be allowed to learn this art. But if someone has the affinity and innate potential for immortality, and firmly believes in the Way of the Elixir, then once the medicine has been refined, the whole family may ascend together and become immortals. When a person’s allotted years are exhausted, he returns to the same end as Heaven and Earth. It is said that the ability to ride clouds and dragons and ascend to Great Clarity—the Daoist realm of pure, empty immortals—comes from possessing this divine elixir.”

People in the world do not believe in divine elixirs, yet they believe in medicines made from plants and trees. Plants and trees rot quickly when buried in the earth; how could people who take them avoid decay for long? Cinnabar, by contrast, is regarded as a substance of longevity. If it is refined and then taken, could it not prolong life? Most people in the world crave wealth and status and indulge their desires; in doing so, they are effectively walking toward death. Those who cultivate the true way may live among ordinary people, but their aspirations reach beyond the secular world. They restrain themselves and make firm vows, hoping in the end to attain their goal. Would it not be a fine thing for virtuous gentlemen devoted to the Dao to join in spreading its profound teachings?

The “Chapter on the Five Metals and Eight Minerals” in Master Sun’s Elixir Scripture says:

The five metals are cinnabar, mercury, realgar, orpiment, and sulfur. The eight minerals are cengqing, kongqing, copper sulfate, arsenic, paosha, alum, alum, and saltpeter. Mercury renders the five metals ineffective, while nitrates render the eight minerals ineffective. Cinnabar, white shanghuang, and orpiment are called “substances with innate properties,” and each has a different use. Sengxi-huang, shitingzhi, and sweet sulfur are three different names for the same substance. It is said that if it is heated with a torch, it can transform silver into red mercury, thereby producing a precious substance.

This concludes volume three of Methods for Divine Elixirs from Various Schools.

Methods for Divine Elixirs from Various Schools, volume four

The Five Metals

On Cinnabar

Cinnabar, also called elixir sand, is a mineral commonly used in alchemical practice. It responds to both water and fire. Take eight liang of superior, genuine cinnabar and place it in a smooth, new porcelain vessel. Seal the vessel’s rim firmly with wet clay so that no smoke can escape.

Take eight liang of mercury and five pieces of “sea horse” (the name of a medicinal substance in the original), pound them into a fine powder, then mix them thoroughly with the cinnabar and mercury. Next, take superior red-leather shoots, roast them until half dry and half moist, then burn them to ash. Put the ash in an earthenware jar and pour water through it to collect the liquid. Catch the liquid in a cast-iron pot. When frost forms on the bottom of the pot, spread it over the bottom and top of the porcelain vessel. Set the vessel in place and heat it, alternating a gentle fire with a strong one so that it warms gradually. Then increase the heat and calcine the ingredients until they melt into liquid. Remove the contents: they have become “white cinnabar.”

Place the ingredients in a ding cauldron and set it over a furnace. Following the method described earlier in the alchemical scripture, weigh them in jin, liang, and zhu, arrange the order of ingredients according to Yin-Yang directions, and adjust their circulation by increasing or decreasing them. You must also follow the symbolic numbers of the Zhouyi and the rules of the Cantong qi, coordinating the four seasons, eight seasonal nodes, twenty-four solar terms, seventy-two pentads, and the climatic changes corresponding to the year, month, day, and hour. Not the slightest error is permissible. Then seal and nurture the ingredients with a gentle fire, like a hen incubating an egg, for one hundred and twenty days.

Take out the elixir, grind it into a fine powder, and use the juice of Sichuan pinellia to form pills the size of millet grains. The scripture claims that taking one pill extends one’s life by three hundred years, while taking ten extends it by three thousand. This elixir acts within the body and is called the “Divine Talisman White Snow Elixir”; it is said to transform blood into milk. If one encounters an attained Perfected One who teaches the “Primordial Qi of the Mysterious Female and Male” (a Neidan term for the fundamental vital energy cultivated in practice), one can stabilize the elixir embryo and nourish the spirit; in three years, one will ascend to immortality.

As the elixir circulates within the body, each movement follows the cycles of Qian and Kun and accords with the seasons, without violating the patterns of seasonal change. This is the principle of the “initial turning.” Minerals such as silver and gold found in the mountains and marshes of the world can be transformed instantly into treasures by applying the elixir. Using this elixir to refine mercury can even turn mercury into gold; repeated applications can further transform the resulting gold into superior treasure. In the Great Elixir, this medicine is called “Divine Talisman White Snow.”

Superior cultivators value life and disdain wealth; inferior cultivators value wealth and disdain life. Therefore, this recipe is not to be transmitted to anyone outside the ranks of superior cultivators.

Section on Realgar

Realgar is produced on Mount Wudu and belongs to the medicines that “move the two Qi of Metal and Wood.” Select the finest purple-red realgar, resembling a cockscomb, and grind it into a fine powder. Also prepare green vitriol, purple gold, dragon’s-tooth herb, and shoots of pickled greens exposed to frost, also called red ge. First spread seven ingredients across the bottom of a newly made porcelain vat, then add the medicine. Seal the vat and fire it, alternating gentle and strong heat while gradually adding fuel. Then apply high heat until the smoke condenses into liquid sweat. Remove the lid and leave it on a stone for three days, until its color resembles red gold. Return it to the porcelain vat and warm it over a fire of rice husks for nine days. After taking it out, melt mountain-and-marsh silver into molten gold and use this medicine to transform it. It is said to turn the silver into a treasure, and even to refine it into gold.

Section on Orpiment

Orpiment is produced on Mount Wudu and also belongs to the medicines that “move the two Qi of Metal and Wood.” Select the finest golden-yellow Yue-leaf orpiment and grind it into a fine powder. Then take the finest bright green vitriol, motherwort, yiwu shou, and dragon’s-tooth herb. Burn them to ash, leach out the liquid, and boil it down into a frost-like paste. Spread the paste across the bottom of a new porcelain vat, then add the medicine. Seal the vat and fire it, alternating gentle and strong heat while gradually increasing the heat. Then apply high heat until the smoke stops and the medicine melts into liquid. It is said that using it to transform the finest mountain-and-marsh silver can refine it into a treasure.

Section on Sulfur

The sulfur referred to here is sweet sulfur, also called Sengxi yellow or stone-pavilion fat. These three different names refer to the same substance. Seal the vat and fire it, alternating gentle and strong heat while gradually adding fuel. Then apply high heat until the smoke stops and the medicine melts into liquid. It is said that using it to transform the finest mountain-and-marsh silver can refine it into a treasure.

Sulfur should be sweet sulfur. Monk’s Creek yellow or stone-ting fat may also be used. These three names refer to the same substance. Take high-grade green vitriol with a bright color that has formed into crystals, or burn red leather greens to ash, filter the liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Spread this on the bottom of a new porcelain jar, put the medicine inside, and seal the jar. First heat it gradually, using a gentle fire followed by a stronger one; then calcine it over a high flame until the smoke stops and the medicine melts into liquid. Medicine prepared this way can transform silver into what is called a “treasure.”

Yellow from Above White

Yellow from Above White comes from the mountaintops of Shangdang and is the color of red powder. Next in quality is high-grade cinnabar, transparent like crystal and the most important among the five metals. Burn high-grade red leather ash, purple gold, dragon sprout, and scutellaria root to ash; filter the liquid and boil it down until it forms a frost. Spread the frost on the bottom of a new porcelain jar, put the medicine inside, and seal the jar. First heat it gradually, using a gentle fire followed by a stronger one; then calcine it over a high flame until the smoke stops and the medicine melts into liquid. This method can transform pig iron and copper into what is called a “treasure.” It can also be used to refine mercury into a “treasure.”

Eight Minerals: Section on Zengqing

Zengqing comes from the summit of Mount Tai. It is blue-green in color and, when fresh, looks like a yellow-green fruit, roughly that shape. Grind it into a fine powder, then treat it with saltpeter according to the appropriate method. Spread the medicine on the bottom of a porcelain jar, put the Zengqing inside, and seal the jar. First heat it gradually, using a gentle fire followed by a stronger one. Once the smoke stops and the medicine melts into liquid, it can be used to transform black silver into what is called a “treasure.”

Section on Kongqing

Kongqing comes from the summit of Mount Tai. It is yellow-green, bright and lustrous, and shaped like crystal. Grind it into a fine powder, then use the appropriate method to burn saltpeter, black longevity herb, and dragon sprout grass to ash. Filter the liquid and boil it down until it forms a frost. Spread the frost on the bottom of a new porcelain jar, put the Kongqing inside, and seal the jar. First heat it gradually, using a gentle fire followed by a stronger one, then add a strong flame for calcining. Once the smoke has dispersed and the medicine has melted into liquid, it can be used to transform copper and iron into what is called a “treasure.”

Section on Stone Gall

Shi dan (stone gall) is produced around Puzhou and is bright and clear like glass. Grind it into a fine powder. Then burn yanxiao (a nitrate mineral), or burn Chinese brake fern or dragon-sprout herb to ash, filter the liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. First spread the material across the bottom of a new porcelain jar, then add the medicine and seal the jar. Heat it alternately over a gentle flame and a strong flame, gradually increasing the heat. When the fumes have disappeared and the medicine has melted into a liquid, use it to transmute Shanze Korean copper, a type of copper, into a precious metal.

Arsenic Trioxide Section

Arsenic trioxide is produced around Xinzhou. Choose the finest yellowish-white variety and grind it into a fine powder. Use yanxiao, or burn motherwort to ash, filter the liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Spread this across the bottom of a new porcelain jar, add the medicine, and seal the jar. Heat it, gradually increasing the flame until it is strong, then intensify it further. When the fumes have disappeared and the medicine has melted into a liquid, use it to transmute huashi into silver; it can also be used to transmute other materials.

For luosha, choose the finest grade: crystals that have formed into grains and are clear in texture. Grind them into a fine powder. Use oyster shells, or burn Chinese brake fern or dragon-sprout herb to ash, filter the liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Spread this across the bottom of a new porcelain jar, add the medicine, and seal the jar. Heat it over a gentle flame and a strong flame, gradually increasing the heat. When the fumes have disappeared and the medicine has melted into a liquid, it is said to remove the blue-black mottling from cat silver and can also be used to transmute silver.

Salt Section

Choose high-grade natural crystalline salt and grind it into a fine powder. Then file antelope horn into powder, or burn Chinese brake fern or dragon-sprout herb to ash, filter the liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Next, grind motherwort into a fine powder and spread it across the bottom of a new porcelain jar. Add the medicine and seal the jar. Heat it over a gentle flame and a strong flame, gradually increasing the heat until the fumes have disappeared and the medicine has melted into a liquid. It is said to treat blurred vision and regurgitation, clear toxic influences from the body, and remove the red mottling from cat silver.

Alum Section

Take the finest alum and grind it into a fine powder. Burn Five-Direction Agrimony and Jointed Agrimony to ash, then leach the ash to obtain a liquid and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Spread a layer as a base, place the medicine on it, and cover the top. Alternate between gentle and fierce heat, gradually increasing the intensity until the smoke clears and the medicine melts into a liquid. This removes the black, red, and blue discolorations from cat-silver.

Horse-Tooth Salt section

Burn Five-Direction Agrimony and Jointed Agrimony to ash, leach the ash to obtain a liquid, and boil it down until it forms a frost-like substance. Spread this as a base layer, place the medicine on it, and cover the top. Alternate between gentle and fierce heat, gradually increasing the intensity until the smoke clears and the medicine melts into a liquid. This removes the black, red, and blue discolorations from cat-silver.

Take the finest, clean, bright horse-tooth salt and grind it into a fine powder. Use kudzu-seed powder and Phoenix-Tail Agrimony to process flame salt according to the method; then burn them to ash, leach the ash, and boil the liquid down until it forms a frost-like substance. Use a new porcelain jar as the vessel. Spread a base layer, place the medicine on it, and cover the top. Alternate between gentle and fierce heat, gradually increasing the intensity until the smoke clears and the medicine melts into a liquid. This method is especially effective at removing blue and black discolorations from cat-silver.

The term “Five Metals and Eight Stones” refers to metals and minerals in the world that correspond to the Five Stars, the Five Sacred Mountains, and the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). The human body’s five viscera also correspond to the Five Metals; the “Eight Stones” correspond to the Eight Trigrams (Bagua). If processed according to the method, these substances can be used for transmutation. It is said that consuming them after refinement can prolong life and enable one to withstand cold and heat. The methods for the Five Metals and Eight Stones are used to refine yellow and white substances, and also to transmute other materials.

Methods for Subduing the Five Metals: Subduing Cinnabar Comes First

Ge Xianweng’s Method for Subduing Cinnabar with Herbs, from the Scripture of the Purple Empyrean Elixir

Take any quantity of granular cinnabar and collect any quantity of sheep’s-tripe knotweed. Dry the herb, then grind it together with the cinnabar into a fine powder. Put half the powder into a porcelain box, place the cinnabar in the center, and cover it completely with the remaining powder, packing it firmly around it. Seal the box tightly and fire it over three to five jin of charcoal. Remove it when finished and set it aside for use.

Take two liang of powdered alum, one qian of powdered saltpeter, a little gold filings, and one liang of cinnabar. Grind them together into a fine powder. Separately, take one and a half liang of pengsha and place it on an incense spoon to melt. Before it has melted completely, grind it into a fine powder. Add the prepared medicinal powder, grind everything together, and put it in a teacup. Heat it slowly, then grind it again into a fine powder.

Place the pieces of sand in the mouth one by one, then coat them with the medicinal powder. Take one and a half liang of mountain-and-lake silver and hammer it into two round, thin sheets. Lay one sheet on the bottom of a fixed-magnet ceramic crucible used for refining, place the cinnabar pieces inside, then add silver granules broken to the size of barley grains. Cover them with the other silver sheet and pack the vessel tightly with silver. Seal it securely with Six-and-One clay, the sealing clay used for alchemical vessels. Once the clay has dried, heat it first over a gentle flame, then over a fierce flame, until it glows red. When it has cooled, take it out and process it in the Flower Pool, the liquid or vessel used for refining elixirs, to make it a treasure.

Method for Subduing White Cinnabar

Mix equal amounts of qünü grass, kansui, euphorbia seed, and lettuce, and grind them all into a fine powder. Put one qian of the herbal powder into the crucible first, then set the cinnabar inside. Cover and pack it tightly, and nurture it alternately over gentle and fierce flames for one fu period, a unit of time used in refining.

Method for Subduing Cinnabar

Take five liang of silver powder, five liang of superior cinnabar, and eight pieces of gold leaf. Put four pieces of gold leaf in the fixed-magnet crucible first, then add one qian of silver powder and place the cinnabar in the center. Next, layer the silver powder and cinnabar alternately until all are used. Pack the vessel tightly with lead powder and oyster-shell powder, and seal it firmly. Once the sealing clay has dried, cover the vessel and nurture it at a fire intensity of four liang for two seven-day periods (fourteen days).

Method for Cinnabar with Herbs

Take earth-gall herb, changliu, euphorbia, peony, scissor grass, and purslane. Gather equal amounts of the green shoots of these herbs and pound them together into a paste. Place the cinnabar inside and seal it tightly. When the sealing clay has dried, heat it over two or three jin of charcoal until the contents melt into a liquid.

Method for Subduing Cinnabar with Herbs

Remove the roots of the five-colored purslane, and take three liang of the herb and cinnabar. Place them together in a porcelain vessel. First spread down a layer of the herb, then add the cinnabar, and cover it with another layer of the herb. Seal the vessel securely and calcine it over a fire. After calcination, the cinnabar will melt into a liquid.

Method for Subduing Cinnabar with Herb

Remove the roots of the five-colored purslane, and place the herb and three liang of cinnabar in a porcelain vessel. Spread down the herb first, add the cinnabar, and cover it with more herb. Seal the vessel securely and calcine it over a fire.

Method for Subduing Cinnabar

Take one liang of cinnabar and one liang of white alum. Spread half the alum in a tiaozi, a vessel for holding and heating medicinal ingredients, and heat it until it melts into a liquid. Add the cinnabar, then cover it with the remaining half of the alum. Once all the ingredients are in place, calcine them over a fire until the whole mass glows red.

Method for Subduing Cinnabar and Mercury

Take half a jin of the finest Shenjin cinnabar, along with half a liang each of yellow alum, copper sulfate, cockscomb orpiment, and roasted sand. Grind all these ingredients into a fine powder and mix it with rice vinegar to form a paste. Put it in a porcelain pot and cook until it just begins to simmer. After cooking it for more than ten days, test it. If the medicine no longer dissipates, the preparation is complete. If it has not yet been fixed, continue cooking until it has reached the stage of being fire-subdued. Then make pills the size of tongzi seeds from glutinous rice. Add one pill for every liang of mercury, and nurture the mixture over a gentle fire in a vessel for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea; this will produce the “treasure.”

Method for Refining Subdued Cinnabar into a Supreme Treasure Medicine

Take one liang of the finest cinnabar and select pieces the size of dice. Wrap them in two layers of Geng foil and place them in a porcelain vessel, using powdered green salt that has undergone nine cycles of fire subduing as packing material. Add one pill for every liang of mercury, and nurture the mixture over a gentle fire in a vessel for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea; this will produce the “treasure.”

Take one liang of the finest cinnabar and select grains about the size of dice. Wrap them in two layers of processed metal foil and place them in a porcelain container. First spread a layer of nine-times-refined, fire-neutralized green salt powder across the bottom of the container. Put in the wrapped cinnabar, pack the space above it tightly, and seal the lid. Spread an even layer of oyster-shell powder over the top, then seal the container firmly according to the methods for refining elixirs.

First apply one liang of heat, heating from the hour of Chen (7–9 a.m.) until noon (11 a.m.–1 p.m.). Then add three jin of heat and fire the container until it glows red. Once it has cooled, remove it and open it. Clear away the oyster-shell powder first, then take out the cinnabar. After this treatment, if the cinnabar’s color has not changed, it may be taken as medicine; the scripture says this removes its fire toxicity. Roll it with honey into pills the size of hemp seeds and take them; this is said to prolong life.

If reusing the container, wrap the cinnabar in gold foil or silver foil, then heat and nourish-refine it for twenty-one days. The scripture says that when the process is complete, it can be made into a treasure: cinnabar wrapped in gold foil can be refined into geng, while cinnabar wrapped in silver foil can be refined into silver.

The Nine-Turn Fire-Neutralized Container Method: Wrap cinnabar in gold foil or silver foil, place it in a container, and heat and nourish-refine it for twenty-one days. The scripture says that when the process is complete, it can be made into a treasure: cinnabar wrapped in gold foil is refined into geng, and cinnabar wrapped in silver foil is refined into silver.

The Nine-Turn Fire-Neutralized Method for Mercury and Cinnabar

Take five liang of superior cinnabar. Gather any amount of moss from an old wall on the shaded side, dry it by heating, and grind it into a fine powder. Grind the cinnabar until it is powdery and place it in an oil-treated container, lining the bottom and covering the top of the cinnabar with the moss powder. Mix earthworm castings with salt powder to make a mud, and use it to seal the container to a thickness of one finger. When the sealing mud has dried, place the container on the support referred to in the original as a bo, apply one jin of heat, and fire it until it glows red. After it cools, remove the cinnabar and form it into a lump; it will be purplish red. Grind it again.