《铅汞甲庚至宝集成》

Heaven and Earth originally arose through the transformation of Yin and Yang. Lead and mercury, in turn, correspond to Water and Earth. Water and Earth begin to grow in the Shen position, while Yang Qi (vital energy) sprouts at the hours of Hai and Zi. Zi belongs to the “Heavenly One” and is where Water Qi is strongest. Fire Qi begins to emerge in the Yin position, while Yin Qi sprouts at the hours of Si and Wu. Wu belongs to the “Earthly Two” and is where Fire Qi is strongest. Without Yin and Yang, Water and Fire, the myriad things could not take form; the alchemical furnace follows the same principle.

How can water poured into the earth transform by itself into rain in the sky? And how can fire moving in the heavens send its heat down to the ground on its own? This happens because the Qi of Heaven and Earth rises and descends, moves back and forth, and joins in interaction. When their Qi combines, the four seasons take shape and the myriad things reach completion. Heavenly Qi descends from above to Earth, while Earthly Qi rises from below to Heaven. Only when these two kinds of Qi mingle and condense their essence can the various substances take form. Each thing follows its own kind: jade and stone, plants and trees, birds, insects, fish, and beasts. Jade, stone, gold, and silver are especially precious. They are treasures formed naturally through the transformation of Heaven and Earth’s Qi, and people therefore value them.

Gold and silver originally come from cinnabar. People mine cinnabar and roast it, separating it into yellow and white substances. The essence distilled from cinnabar is called mercury, or quicksilver. Though mercury is named “water,” it does not wet things as water does. It contains the nature of water: when it falls to the ground, it breaks into droplets and rolls toward low places, making it difficult to gather. When it encounters fire, it drifts lightly away with the smoke and flames, vanishing in an instant. Only certain substances can subdue it. The materia medica’s section on minerals records that sulfur can subdue mercury and be used to refine cinnabar elixir.

In refining cinnabar elixir, there is a method of pairing Yin and Yang: two with eight makes Yin, while three with nine makes Yang. The ancient method placed eight liang of mercury and two liang of sulfur in a cauldron, refining them according to the principle of Yin and Yang complementing one another. Another method used three liang of sulfur and nine liang of mercury, refining them by the Yang method for treating illness.

It is said that in ancient times, the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan entered Mount Luohuo and met the boy Huang Gai. Huang Gai taught him sixty recipes for refining gold and silver. Each recipe used two liang of ingredients, which were placed in a ding and refined by balancing water and fire; the resulting substance was then drawn out. One recipe used three liang of sulfur and nine liang of mercury. Called “Yang Extraction,” it was used to treat illness.

Another legend says that the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan met the boy Huang Gai on Mount Luohuo and received sixty recipes for refining gold and silver. These recipes have circulated since then for thousands of years. They were treasured in every age, but so much time has passed that the names of those who transmitted them can no longer be established. During the Baoying era of the Tang dynasty, the Classified Compendium of Materia Medica records that the world could see the Mirror Source of the Elixir Chamber, which presented the extraordinary effects of medicines and the arts of immortals and sages, with detailed explanations under the entries for gold, silver, and various ores in the materia medica’s section on minerals and stones. Some practitioners in the world know how to process mercury mother-sand by refining mercury and turn it into true silver. Since ancient times, alchemists have kept such techniques secret and passed them on to no one outside their circles, so they are extremely rare; very few people know how to use them.

In my ordinary life, I have been poor myself, so I sympathize with those who are poor. And having gained an understanding of the Way, I value its principles. I was fortunate to meet an alchemist and learn the method of “drying mercury”—an alchemical technique that uses processing to transform mercury into a stable form. This method uses cinnabar powder as a wash and is said to make substances increase without end, like water gushing from a spring, while also bringing longevity. Its way of preparing the medicine is ingenious and simple, without needless complexity; follow the procedure and success comes quickly. Whether one obtains a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand liang, it is all achieved by this method. The more of the parent substance there is, the more product it yields, just as a larger field produces a greater harvest.

The alchemical classic says this is like a hen hatching eggs: something is brought forth from nothing. It also says, “To obtain dry mercury, one must first have dry mercury; to make mercury coagulate, nothing works better than mercury that has already coagulated.” Another alchemical classic says, “The five metals coagulate when they meet their own kind; the eight minerals perish when they meet nitre.” As the saying goes, sow grain and grain grows; sow beans and beans grow.

This method is like plowing a field and reaping grain, but without risk from floods or drought. Mercury is exceptionally difficult to coagulate: when roasted, it becomes vermilion (red mercuric sulfide), and when vermilion is roasted again, it turns back into mercury. That is why mercury is said to be difficult to coagulate. If one can make mercury coagulate, one may be called an immortal. Once the treasure has been produced, it will not return to its former state and can be fashioned into objects as one wishes.

The alchemical classic says, “The Ninefold Great Returning Golden Elixir is complete.” Finished products such as the Returning Elixir, gold, and purple gold powder can be used to prepare medicines for drying mercury, turning it yellow or white. Though there are many kinds of alchemical methods, in the end they all aim to make mercury coagulate.

What the world calls the “Yellow Sprout Great Elixir” is a golden treasure made by treating four medicinal substances with controlled fire. The Yellow Sprout can be extracted and used to transmute silver into “geng,” a metallic product in alchemical terminology. Another account says that the elixir is formed in a furnace only after twelve years of tending the fire; reckoned by year, this means one furnace of elixir is formed each year.

There are many named alchemical methods: separately refining cinnabar, sulfur, and realgar; the “Fourfold Maturation and Nurturing of the Coffer,” the “Six Jia Flying Realgar,” and the “Taiyi Central Elixir”; as well as amber arsenic, white cinnabar, white spiritual sand, golden spiritual sand, and Taiyi divine essence sand. Other methods separately produce mother sand, powder frost, and lead white frost. There are also the Methods for Cinnabar to Reveal Treasure, Divine Talisman White Snow, black spiritual sand, golden tripod arsenic, the White Tiger Coffer, the Black Tiger Coffer, the saltpeter coffer, and the arsenic coffer. A “coffer” is a vessel or furnace used to hold substances and heat them during alchemical work.

There is also a spiritual sand made by placing cinnabar and other substances together in a coffer and refining them through repeated pouring and washing. It is called “Treasure-Revealing Ninefold-Turn Spiritual Sand” or “Treasure-Revealing Nine-Truth Spiritual Sand,” and is also known as “Black Pellet.” Through repeated cycles of nurturing and heating, the Black Pellet can be refined into spiritual sand, said to yield hundreds of thousands or even millions of liang.

Another method places “gong ling sun jiu” in a pouring-and-washing coffer and nurtures it there for seven days. The refined substance turns bluish-black. It is then heated intensely with a torch and refined in an open furnace to produce the “Gushing Spring Coffer.” One liang of Black Pellet is used to nurture one qian. For each ten liang of Gushing Spring Coffer elixir seed, two and a half liang of mercury are refined—that is, four liang of elixir seed nurture one liang of mercury. This is a small-scale nurturing method. For example, ten liang of elixir seed can nurture two and a half liang of mercury, which is called Black Pellet once it comes out of the furnace. With twenty liang of elixir seed, five liang of mercury are nurtured. Forty liang of Gushing Spring Coffer elixir seed can nurture ten liang of mercury, requiring only seven days of tending the fire. Even with one hundred liang of elixir seed, the fire is tended for seven days; the yield is greater when the dry mercury amounts to twenty-five liang. Both large and small furnaces use this method.

Another method places “Three-Seven Mother Sand” in the Gushing Spring Coffer and nurtures it over a fire in a joined furnace. It is called “Jade Blossoms Embracing Snow” and is said to have many effects. “Plum-Kernel Silver,” by contrast, is only a relatively elementary method. The medicinal substances also include eight kinds of dragon-sprout herbs and sixteen kinds of unusual plants, each with its own name. Though the methods vary widely, they all center on making mercury solidify.

Once the elixir has been refined, the solidified mercury sand is placed in an open furnace and melted by heat and smoke. It must then undergo several treatments known as “barriers.” These include the “Glazed Barrier” and the “Iron Sand Barrier”: when refining causes the outer shell to fall away and reveal a white substance, the method is called the “Nine Truths.” There is also the “Wealth and Rank Barrier,” in which dry mercury sand is wrapped in silver leaf, combined according to the ratio of three to seven, and melted into a single mass in an open furnace. Another treatment is the “Lead Yellow Barrier.” Both are barriers used when spiritual sand manifests as treasure, and are said to have an extremely high success rate.

This method of refining mercury is said to bring wealth and honor, while also enabling one to aid others and benefit all things. This is no empty claim: it is an immortal art worth ten thousand in gold, not to be passed on lightly. If it is ever transmitted to someone of outstanding virtue, the recipient should treasure it. Only those who value loyalty and righteousness, possess the Dao heart, or were connected to it in a previous life have the chance to receive it in this one. Since the method must be kept secret and not readily taught, how can it be used to save people and benefit things? If the art does not circulate in the world, would that not mean hiding a treasure bestowed by Heaven?

It is said that this method of alchemical refinement was first revealed by the two alchemical masters Zhang Fuhu and Yang Jiuding of western Shu. One was my father’s teacher, the other my own; both were commonly known by names close to “Baoxuan.” After receiving the transmission, my teacher prized it greatly, and few people were able to learn it. Now I pass it on to you, and hope you will value this kindness. Transmitting it in this way does not betray the lineage or deceive one’s conscience. To enjoy wealth and honor over the long term, one should aid the poor and rescue those in distress, while also keeping the method carefully and preserving its secrecy. Never disclose it lightly. These words were written on the Day of Welcoming Wealth in the Bingchen year by Zhi Yizi Zhao Naian.

The Chest of the “Seeing the Treasure” Numinous Cinnabar: Pouring and Washing to Make the Gushing Spring of Long Life

First, take two liang of raw sulfur that is transparent and has the texture of goose fat, with no stones mixed in. Then take eight liang of mercury without a “tortoise tail.” Grind the sulfur finely, add the mercury, and grind them together for about half a day, until no bright mercury beads remain visible. This step is called “Yin Intercourse.” Next, put the mixture in a new iron pan and use a Qingjin head, a heating implement, to stir-fry it for about half a day, alternating between gentle and strong heat. Over gentle heat, turn it frequently from top to bottom; do not let it smoke. When the material has turned into blue sand, the process is complete.

Prepare a water-and-fire ding, an alchemical vessel for heating with water and fire, with a capacity of about fifteen liang. Fill it with water and test it separately. Leave it overnight, and once you have confirmed that it does not leak, dry it by heating. Then coat it several times with fresh ginger juice, obtained by pounding the ginger, and heat it after each application. Finally, pass iron wire around the outside of the ding to secure or connect it.

Make the sealing compound, the mud used to close the vessel’s joints. Take six liang of fine, sifted, high-quality yellow earth and add one liang of salt; this is called “Six-One Mud.” Mix it with paper fibers and pound it repeatedly, more than a thousand times. Then spread the mud over the ding to a thickness of about one finger. Leave it to dry in the shade, or dry it slowly over a low flame.

Grind the finest Jing ink with egg white and apply it to the inner wall of the fire cauldron (the upper furnace vessel) and the bottom of the water cauldron (the lower vessel that holds water). Dry them with heat. This ink is called “Kunlun ink.” Then grind the mineral ingredient known as “blue-gold head,” used in alchemical compounding, to a fine powder again. Put it in the cauldron and pack it down firmly. Next, use the finest rice vinegar to make a thick paste. Mix equal amounts of powdered red ochre (a mineral medicine) and oyster powder, then blend them with the vinegar paste. Apply this mixture beneath the mouth of the fire cauldron and where it joins the back of the water cauldron. Bind the cauldron mouth tightly with iron wire, then spread a thick layer of sealing compound all around the seam. Leave it to dry in a cool place. If the seal cracks, apply more. This method can be used when preparing all kinds of elixirs.

The original text repeats the instructions for applying vinegar and sealing the cauldron.

Build a square furnace out of bricks, six cun deep and one chi wide inside. Lay the brickwork down to the bottom on all four sides, leaving a draft opening one cun wide in each side. Arrange the furnace according to the “Earth over Wind: The Well” hexagram from the Book of Changes. Drive three support nails into the furnace, each five cun long. Set them two cun into the ground, leaving three cun exposed to support the cauldron. First prepare seven cauldrons’ worth of water, according to the capacity of the water cauldron, then set aside ten jin of charcoal. Light the furnace to dry out its interior. Hang a “life-saving hook-rope,” used to suspend and lift the cauldron equipment, from the cauldron, then hang the cauldron in place.

Add the ten jin of charcoal in three batches, using it once it has turned red-hot. Add three jin the first time, placing it near the bottom of the cauldron. When the fire is about to weaken, add another three jin and burn it up to halfway along the fire cauldron. Add the final four jin, in two portions if desired, and burn it up to the underside of the fire cauldron’s rim. Then cover the charcoal with roof tiles so the flames draw close to the bottom of the furnace, and cover the furnace chamber with charcoal made from bran that has not dried completely. Once the fire has died down entirely, open the cauldron the next morning.

Before beginning the “water-introduction method,” first make sure the sealing is properly done. Measure out seven cauldrons of water with a water vessel. The original says, “originally six cauldrons and four parts exactly,” but the precise water ratio it refers to is unclear. Pour the water into a bottle and keep it warm; do not use cold water. Add water only until the bottle is one-fifth full each time. Do not fill it to the top.

If the water boils too vigorously, put in a piece of lead or a tile. You can also place the burnt remains of lampwick in the water to calm the boil. This prevents the water from boiling over and wetting the seal at the mouth of the cauldron, which could cause the elixir substance used in alchemical compounding to escape. If you notice a crack in the cauldron or its seal and blue smoke coming out, immediately use a brush dipped in sealing paste to patch it. Otherwise, quickly move the cauldron to a nearby ash jar prepared in advance, then repair the seal. This is the most critical point.

The firing schedule is recorded as follows: begin firing at the Zi hour and stop at the Wu hour; begin again at the Mao hour and stop at the You hour.

Seven. Opening the crucible: Cut the refined ling sha (the mineral medicine obtained through alchemical refinement) into square pieces with a thin knife, each about the size of a thumb. Sew a pouch from thick, raw silk and put the pieces inside. Prepare an earthenware jar that can hold about five sheng of water, and pour in three sheng of fine rice vinegar; each sheng is roughly equivalent to two wine measures. Add twenty-one white plums, half a liang each of baiyou and baiqin (the names of two medicines whose precise identities are unknown), and half a liang of lotus-leaf ash.

Suspend the pouch of ling sha in the vinegar and boil it for one fu, that is, one full day and night. If the vinegar boils away, add more and continue boiling. Keep it over a low flame and take care not to let the vinegar boil over. When done, remove the ling sha, wash it with a decoction of licorice and with Yin-Yang water (bathing water tempered by mixing hot and cold water), then dry it over heat.

Next, mix half a liang of yellow lead (lead oxide) and half a liang of shaofen (a white powdered medicine) with rice vinegar to make a thick paste. This is called “body application.” Use half of it to coat the boiled pieces of ling sha evenly on all four sides, then dry them over heat. If the coating is too thick, the medicines’ properties will not interact easily; if it is too thin, they will dissipate readily. Use all of this half of the body-application paste to coat the ling sha, and set the remaining half aside for later use.

Take forty taels of good silver. Silver produced in the mountains—whether called mountain-and-marsh silver or silver from the mountains—or ingot silver will do. Melt it into liquid silver. Take a water vat and pour the molten silver over a broom, letting it run down the bristles into the water, where it will solidify into silver beads about the size of a chicken’s head. Alternatively, hammer the silver into small square pieces about the size of a little finger.

Coat the surface of the silver beads with the “medicine worn close to the body” that was set aside earlier, then heat-dry them. Prepare an earth-fire crucible made in Chuzhou, a vessel for sealing and heating substances during refining. Wash it with borax water, then heat-dry it. Fit it with a clasp made from fired iron wire, and coat it with a finger-thick layer of Six-and-One clay, the material used to seal and secure alchemical vessels. Let it dry in the shade or dry it over a gentle flame, taking care that the clay does not crack. Spread the silver across the bottom of the crucible, place the block of spiritual cinnabar in the center, pack vermilion around it, and cover it tightly with a silver sheet. Cut a piece of Kunlun paper to cover the mouth of the crucible. Kunlun paper is made by grinding Hui ink with egg white, spreading the mixture thickly over paper, and drying it in the sun.

Mix red ochre and powdered oyster shell with vinegar, apply the mixture to the seam at the crucible’s mouth, and seal it firmly; then fasten the iron-wire clasp. The seal must be airtight, without the slightest leak. Coat the outside with another layer of Six-and-One clay and dry it over a gentle flame, taking care not to crack the clay. Then place the crucible in an ash pit.

Make the ash pit from a clean, dry small vat. First sift and fry paper-offering ash until dry. Also prepare charcoal by burning it until red-hot. If the charcoal ash in the vat becomes heavy after prolonged use, it may be replaced. Ashes from bamboo leaves, thatch, or mulberry leaves may also be used. Set an iron tripod at the bottom of the vat to support the earth-fire crucible. Cut six pieces of hard sheep-pattern charcoal, each five inches long and weighing two taels; these six pieces are called the “Six Directions Fire.”

First heat all six pieces of charcoal until red-hot. Spread hot ash evenly beneath the tripod, place one red-hot piece of charcoal in the center, then set the earth-fire crucible on the tripod. Set another iron frame above the crucible and place one piece of charcoal in each of the four directions—Zi, Wu, Mao, and You—three fingers’ breadth from the crucible. Cover it with hot ash to a level one hand’s breadth above the crucible. The upper iron frame should be about three fingers’ breadth above the crucible. Lay charcoal across the frame, keeping the charcoal on all four sides of the crucible three fingers’ breadth away. Add charcoal once every seven shichen, or two hours.

On the first day, apply heat from the four directions Zi, Wu, Mao, and You. On the second day, apply it from Chen, Xu, Chou, and Wei. On the third day, apply it from Yin, Shen, Si, and Hai. Continue rotating the positions of the heat in this way for seven days and nights. Then open the furnace and remove the silver beads. Wash them clean with soapberry decoction, then boil them in dark plum decoction until they turn white. Take out the block of spiritual cinnabar that has been refined inside and break it open to inspect it: only when it is uniformly blue-black inside and out is the refining complete. If any red remains inside, the heat has not been sufficient, and the crucible must be sealed and heated again by the same method. If the red in the spiritual cinnabar is faint, refine it for one fewer day; if it is deep, refine it for one extra day, until the color is uniformly blue-black throughout.

Next, refine it in an open furnace. Just as the spiritual cinnabar is about to melt, pour it into a silver mold and cast it into a silver ingot. If it is melted for too long, the spiritual cinnabar will turn to smoke and be lost. Cut the solidified spiritual cinnabar into thumb-sized pieces, wash them in licorice decoction, and heat-dry them. At this stage, they are called the “Gushing Spring Crucible.”

Coat the inside of the fire-nurturing vessel with borax solution and dry it. Then make a lifting loop from iron wire as described earlier. Seal the outside with Liuyi clay and let it dry in the shade. Place it beneath the head of the Yongquan crucible, then set the crucible head in the center of the vessel. For every four taels of crucible-head material, use one tael of mercury. If the crucible head weighs ten taels, two and a half taels of mercury will also do. Cover it with Kunlun paper, put on the lid, seal the joints tightly, then seal the outside with Liuyi clay and let it dry in the shade.

Nurture the fire according to the method described by the “Water and Fire Not Yet Joined” hexagram. First place a small jar at the bottom of an ash vat and fill it about four-fifths full of water; do not fill it to the top. Pack wet earth around the jar until the surface is level with its mouth. Take a brick, bore a hole in its center about the size of the end of a chopstick, and place it over the jar’s mouth. Then set the fire-nurturing vessel over the hole in the brick.

Use five pieces of charcoal for nurturing the fire, each five inches long and weighing two taels. These are called the “Five-Direction Fire.” Set the charcoal three finger-widths from the vessel, above the charcoal cover and directly opposite the top of the vessel. Then place the stand three finger-widths from the vessel, lay two taels of red charcoal across it, and insert four more pieces of charcoal around the sides, arranged according to the directions given earlier. After keeping the fire going for seven full days, remove and open the vessel. The mercury that has been refined should have dried and set, becoming hard as teeth; it can then be fired into treasure. If any mercury remains oily, the fire was insufficient, so nurture it for two more days.

10. Closing the medicine: Each time, take one tael of dried mercury sand and wrap it in a sheet of fine silver weighing three qian. Heat it over an open furnace to produce “treasure,” which can then be fashioned as desired. This procedure is called “the Wealth and Rank Gate.”

There is another method: take half a jin of high-quality lead oxide produced in Jiankang and add a large bowl of fresh ginger juice, mixing it to a thick consistency. Let it dry, then place it in a silver-melting crucible and cover it with a roof tile. Heat it until glowing red and melted, then pour it onto a stone. Once the mixture has solidified, the lead will be around the edges and underneath, while the yellow lead bloom—the yellow substance formed by refining lead—will be at the center. After it cools, grind it finely and use water levigation—grinding with water and allowing the material to settle—to extract the yellow bloom. This is used as the “gate medicine.”

For every liang of sand, use one liang of yellow bloom. Cover the sand with the yellow bloom, then heat it until it smokes and melts. Pour it into an oil trough, allowing the gate medicine to coat and hold the body in place. When it has cooled, open it, and it will have become a treasure of the highest order. The gate medicine can be reused. This method is called the “Lead-Yellow Gate,” also known as the “Golden-Bloom Gate,” and is extremely effective.

Supplement to the Crucible Methods

The crucible head, the medicinal vessel used to nurture and refine mercury, is called “Long Life.” After prolonged use, its medicinal potency is exhausted, and it can no longer make mercury solidify. The upper part of the crucible head becomes honeycombed and crumbly, so the medicinal potency of the cinnabar head must be replenished. Remedies include the Great Rescue Method, the Small Rescue Method, the Leading Grandson Method, the True Dead Sulfur Reunited with the Crucible-Head Furnace Method, the Black Pellet Nurturing Black Pellet Method, and the Jade-Bloom Surging Snow Method. By repeatedly pouring over the mercury and continuing to nurture and refine it, the process is said to be sustainable for a long time.

Great Rescue Method: Take forty liang of silver cinnabar and ten liang of boiled spirit sand. Refine them for the prescribed number of days using the firing conditions described earlier, combine them into an ingot, and cut it into pieces. Place these in mercury for nurturing and refinement.

Public Leading Grandson Method: By regularly pouring over the mercury with the crucible head and continuing to nurture and refine it, the process is said to be sustainable for a long time.

Great Rescue Method: Take forty liang of silver cinnabar and ten liang of boiled spirit sand. Refine them for the prescribed number of days using the firing conditions described earlier, combine them into an ingot, and cut it into pieces. Place these in mercury for nurturing and refinement.

The Gongling-Sun method: A batch usually consists of ten taels of “crucible heads,” block-shaped substances used for nurturing and refining. Take one tael of cinnabar previously boiled with medicinal ingredients, form it into a block, bathe it in the prescribed way, then place it close against the body inside the crucible and bury it. Pour mercury over it and nurture and refine it for seven days and nights according to the original method. Once the firing is sufficient, do not add any more blocks of cinnabar that have already undergone nurturing and refining. If the inside appears red, the process is not yet complete. You may then continue nurturing and refining it for another seven days and nights by the same method without harm. The more solid the crucible head, the better. Alternatively, it can be melted using the smoke-melting method and then cut into crucible heads. The longer the nurturing and refining continues, the more crucible heads there will be; after a full year, their number will be greater still. Use the same amount of mercury as in the original method.

The True-Death method: Take eight qian of cinnabar blocks and add two qian of “dead sulfur” (sulfur that has undergone processing). Melt them together with a crucible head until they form a liquid, then pour the mixture out and cast it into an ingot. Cut it into crucible heads and use them to receive poured mercury for nurturing and refining.

The Black Ball Nurturing Black Ball method, also called the Great Rescue method: Use one liang of cinnabar boiled with medicinal ingredients for every four liang of crucible heads. For example, if you have twenty liang of crucible heads, you can nurture and refine five liang. After seven days and nights, once the firing is sufficient, let the furnace cool before opening it to inspect the contents. If they are blue-black in color and the fire has been strong enough, transfer them to an open furnace, melt them into a liquid, cast them into an ingot, and cut it into crucible heads. This method does not involve pouring in mercury; continue transferring and nurturing the material to make crucible heads.

The Jade Blossoms Surging Snow method: Use two liang of green vitriol (a mineral form of iron sulfate) per portion. For example, if you have twenty liang of crucible heads, you can nurture and refine five liang. After seven days and nights, once the firing is sufficient, let the furnace cool before opening it to inspect the contents. If they are blue-black in color and the fire has been strong enough, transfer them to an open furnace, melt them into a liquid, cast them into an ingot, and cut it into crucible heads. This method does not involve pouring in mercury; continue transferring and nurturing the material to make crucible heads.

“Snow Surge from Jade Blossoms Method”: Take one liang of green vitriol and one liang of mercury. Put them in a new earthenware pot and add half a cup of water to boil. If they do not solidify into grains, keep adding water and boiling until they do. To make ten liang, use a larger new iron pot and ten liang of green vitriol; the amount of water does not matter. Boil until grains form. Then wash the green vitriol from them with salted plum liquid and dry them over thick paper. Next, boil the grains in liquid filtered from mulberry-wood ash; this is said to make them fire-resistant. Put them in a “Gushing Spring Cabinet,” a vessel used to nourish and refine elixir medicines, and nurture them over fire for seven days. Once the furnace has cooled, open it and remove what is called the “treasure,” now refined. It can be used in “sealing the furnace,” an operation in elixir-furnace work, or as a “mother medicine” to nourish and refine spirit sand and serve as material in the cabinet. Without adding an elixir seed, it can also be placed in an ash bed and smelted with lead into ingots, following the method for smelting silver. Three qian of the medicine previously mentioned for pouring over the grains may also be added to make vessels; these are said to attain the full fineness of their metal.

“Eight qian of black spirit sand and arsenic, of clear and pure quality”: Take four liang of five-bake tablets, half a jin each of ginger and garlic, and forty-nine shelled castor beans. Pound them together, put them in an earthenware bottle, and add river water. Place the arsenic in a silk bag and suspend it in the medicinal liquid. Boil it alternately over a gentle flame and a strong flame for three fu periods—an ancient unit of time that here denotes a prolonged period of boiling. Remove the arsenic and dry it. Add two or four liang of mercury and grind until fine and free of visible grains. Then place the mixture in a sealed tripod. Refine it by the method used for spirit sand, calcining it with ten jin of charcoal until the medicine is subdued by fire and becomes stable. Open the tripod and remove the medicine, then suspend it again in the medicinal liquid and boil it with Chinese dock roots for one fu period. For each liang of the red substance, add one and a half qian of medicine and two qian of silver when transmuting, which is said to produce vessels.

First pool: Soak red satin in “human-yellow,” a processed medicinal substance made from excrement, for seven days. The longer it soaks, the better.

Second pool: Grind pinellia, arisaema, Chinese angelica, ephedra, frankincense, and myrrh into powder, and soak the powder in white wine lees. Melt the red substance obtained in the previous step into a liquid and pour it into the mixture. Once it has cooled, remove it and transfer it to the third pool.

On the third immersion in the vat, prepare vinegar with quail droppings, squash juice, and garlic-washing water, then treat them together with chives. For the next immersion, you may use washed crane oil. Once the medicine has coagulated, collect it with crane fat. Dragonfly oil, red goose oil, and petroleum may also be used.

Another recipe: take one liang of red medicinal material and half a qian of arsenic, and boil them in rice vinegar. Then take three qian of reed and three fen of a processed substance, and grind them together into powder. Thin the red medicinal material with water and add it in five portions. Apply the preparation until it coagulates into an ingot. Refine it five times with alum powder, then boil it for three periods in alum water. Petroleum may also be used.

Another recipe is the same as the preceding one: take one liang of red medicinal material and half a qian of arsenic, and boil them in rice vinegar. Then take three qian of reed and three fen of a processed substance, and grind them together into powder. Thin the red medicinal material with water and add it in five portions, applying it until it forms an ingot. Refine it five times with alum powder, then boil it for three periods in alum water. Afterward, heat it until it turns slightly black, then boil it for three periods in single-plum water. First add three qian of the mother medicine as the base for later use.

The ten-thousand-zhang Qi of Heaven descends swiftly; the River Chief and the Vajra descend swiftly. Heaven and Earth turn swiftly, as do the sun, moon, mountains, and rivers. Humans, ghosts, trees, and cold forests all transform; on hearing the incantation, all things change swiftly. Then recite this string of incantatory syllables: “Zhuan mi zhuan ne ke zha chi wei wu mi sui qi ban pan po he.”

Method of the Sacred Cauldron, Longevity, and Surging Spring Casket

Take one jin of Chen brocade cinnabar and two liang of imported sulfur. Mix them thoroughly and form them into granules, then place them in a bag sewn with a horsehair sieve-cloth base. Pour about two dou of ash liquor made from mulberry firewood into a pot, and suspend the medicine bag in it to boil for twenty-one days. Do not let the bag touch the bottom of the pot. If the ash liquor boils away, replenish it with heated ash liquor. Keep the fire low, maintaining only a gentle simmer. After the full period, take one granule and heat it red-hot in a flame as a test. If it gives off no smoke and produces no flame, it is considered to have been subdued by fire—that is, refined until stable—and can be placed in the casket for cultivation.

For cultivation, prepare an iron or porcelain vessel with a capacity of about half a sheng. Heat the vessel over a fire, rub its outside with fresh ginger juice, then wipe it with salt and vinegar. Dry it by heating, and set it aside for use.

Casket Method

Prepare a mountain-and-marsh vessel or a porcelain vessel with a capacity of about half a sheng. Heat it over a fire, rub its outside with fresh ginger juice, then wipe it with salt and vinegar. Dry it by heating, and set it aside for use.

First place one jin of mountain-and-lake silver in the cabinet, filed into fine powder. The silver may also be made into beads and spread across the bottom of the cabinet. Set the cinnabar mentioned earlier on top of the silver powder, then cover it with four liang of fine, headless powder. Lay a sheet of Kunlun paper over it, then fill the cabinet with moistened yellow earth and pack it down firmly. Close the cabinet lid.

Mix red stone fat with vinegar and honey, and seal the gaps around the cabinet’s opening so that the sealant meets the honey. Bind the cabinet tightly with crossed iron wire, then coat the whole body with washing mud, applying an even layer about half an inch thick. Dry it over a fire, then place it in the furnace for gentle heating.

To prepare the furnace, dig a pit in level ground about one chi five cun deep and one chi four cun in diameter. Dry the pit over a fire, then spread a layer of clean mulberry wood ash about four fingers thick across its bottom.

When closing the lower fire, make the pit about one chi five cun deep and one chi four cun in diameter as well. First dry it over a fire, then spread about four fingers’ depth of clean mulberry wood ash across the bottom.

Spread four liang of fuel over the lid of the vessel, then cover it with hot ash to keep the fire burning steadily. Test the fire with the pith of a plant: if it goes out, add more fuel. Add fuel each day at the Mao and You hours (about five to seven in the morning and five to seven in the evening), replacing it every two days. Tend the fire in this way for seven days, then add half a jin of fuel and continue for fourteen days. Add one jin and continue for twenty-one days. Once the firing is sufficient, add another jin of fuel and burn for half a day. Clear away the ash, then use ten jin of charcoal to fire the vessel from above.

When the vessel has cooled, open it and separate out the sand and the mother-silver powder. Dead mercury should be black like iron, or resemble charcoal dregs. Its surface should have dry, pronounced patterns; then it can be considered properly refined. If it appears reddish purple, it has not yet been fully subdued by firing—that is, stabilized through heat treatment. Put it back into the lù and tend it with one jin of fuel for five to seven days. Then take a grain of sand and test it over a fierce fire. If it turns red and seems to melt, it is ready. If a little smoke or flame still rises, it has not yet been subdued by firing. Return it to the lù and tend the fire for another five to seven days, until it is subdued.

Put the subdued sand into a ganguo (a crucible used for refining elixirs) and melt it into liquid in a wind furnace. Whatever the quantity of sand, pour it into a hezi (a sealed vessel for firing) and shape it into a probe, then pour mercury over it. If there is more sand, it can be cast into a cauldron. Take mountain-and-marsh silver (a type of silver material referred to here) and hammer it into a cauldron lid. For each cauldron weighing one jin, add half a jin of mercury. Seal the entire cauldron with guanni (clay used to seal vessels), without applying it too thickly. Place the cauldron on the furnace and tend it from below with half a jin of seasoned fuel for three fu periods (about three days). Use half a jin of fuel as usual. After the prescribed number of days, open the cauldron and take out the dried mercury. Test it over a fire; if it gives off no smoke or flame, it is good. Melt it into an ingot in the wind furnace, and it is ready to use.

If it is difficult to make a cauldron, make a probe as described earlier, place it in a hezi, seal it, and tend it in the same way. To use sand-silver to transform geng metal, first remove its embryonic coloring—that is, the impurities or unformed portion present in the material.

Method for Separating the Embryonic Portion

Place cinnabar in a crucible, a vessel used to melt metals, and melt it into a liquid. Then take five peeled hemp seeds, add them all at once to the molten metal, and refine it as described earlier. If using cinnabar to color Geng Metal—a term from the Five Phases that here refers to metal—you must first separate the metal’s inner substance from its shell.

The Method of Separating the Inner Substance

Place cinnabar in a crucible and melt it into a liquid. Add five peeled hemp seeds, then put them all at once into the molten metal. Next, add half a liang of salpeter. Repeat this alternating addition five to seven times, until the molten metal shines like a mirror. This is the proper result. When transformed by this method, the metal turns yellow. If the metal is to be cast or refined by washing, there is no need to use the separating fire method.

The Immortals’ Method of Nurturing the Dao

Cinnabar has long been thought to have the power to grant immortality. When a person’s Qi and blood are weak, the body exhausted, and the bones withered, taking pills made from refined minerals may provide some nourishment. Those who seek longevity, preservation of life, and a calm spirit should take cinnabar. Yet minerals generally turn to ash when exposed to fire. After cinnabar undergoes fire subduing—a special method of refining that allows a substance to withstand fire without being destroyed—it becomes a yellow, silver-like substance. It can become heavy or light and display wondrous effects; it can change from black to white and from dim to bright. A measure of one hu is so heavy that a person can scarcely lift it by hand, yet ten thousand jin, when exposed to fire, can rise swiftly into the air. Even ghosts and spirits search everywhere without knowing where it has gone.

When horse-tooth salpeter, salpeter, and similar substances are subdued with herbal medicines, their weight does not decrease, yet they can instantly soften hard substances such as gold, silver, copper, and iron.

Long-term use of Kongqing, a hollow blue mineral, is said to make the body light and vigorous, delay aging, strengthen memory, raise one’s aspirations, and transform the spirit. It can also transform copper, iron, lead, and tin into gold. It is found in mountain valleys in Yizhou and in places with copper mines in Yuesui. When copper essence gathers, it forms Kongqing, which is hollow inside. It can be collected in the middle of the third month, though it may also be gathered at other times.

Long-term use of Zengqing, a blue mineral, is said to make the body light and vigorous and delay aging. It can also transform gold and copper. It is found in mountain valleys in Shu and around Yuesui, and may be collected at any time of year.

It is also said: When using zengqing (a copper mineral or alchemical ingredient), do not let it become mixed with copper rust. For every liang used, take one yi each, in either dry or moist form, of three medicinal ingredients: purple-backed tiankui, licorice, and green zhicao. Pound them finely and place them in a steaming pot, then put the zengqing among them. Add two yi of bundled-stream water (in traditional usage, water channeled through a bundle of bamboo or wood) along with the ingredients, and simmer slowly for five days and nights. During this time, watch the water and fire carefully so that neither the heat nor the amount of water is out of balance. When it is done, remove it and wash it with bundled-stream water. Then put it in a mortar and grind it into powder for later use.

It is also said: Zengqing can make mercury coagulate and is used to prepare cinnabar. It is generated by the Qi of metal.

It is also said: If zengqing is refined by fire until it coagulates into a paste, it can immediately subdue mercury and turn it into silver, and can further transform it into the “Eight Stones” (an alchemical term whose precise referent varies with the textual context).

Realgar combined with copper can be made into gold. Realgar is also called “food of metals and stones”; some say it is an offspring of gold.

It is also said: If realgar is subdued with medicinal herbs and thoroughly refined until it liquefies, the color of its matrix remains unchanged. Add this prepared medicinal liquid to other ingredients and it can be taken as a drug. It can also be used to transmute copper into silver, but it cannot turn silver into gold.

After orpiment has been subdued, it can be refined by fire without changing the color of its matrix. Melt it into a liquid and use it to transmute silver into gold, or copper into silver.

If arsenic mineral is subdued with medicinal herbs and then refined by fire, the color of its matrix remains unchanged. Melt it into a liquid and add it to other ingredients; it can then be used to transmute copper into silver. If it becomes dry and withered, it is unsuitable for use.

Black lead, or lead, can be refined into a precious substance after being subdued with medicinal herbs. It can transmute copper into silver and can also be cast into a cauldron for nurturing and refining cinnabar so that it withstands fire; for nurturing and refining mercury so that it withstands fire; and for tempering fenshuang, a mercury-containing alchemical substance, so that it withstands fire.

There are twenty kinds of gold filings, including realgar gold, orpiment gold, and zengqing gold. Materials whose sulfur has withered after refinement are unfit for use.

Black lead can be refined into a precious substance after being subdued with medicinal herbs. It can transmute copper into silver and can also be cast into a cauldron for nurturing and refining cinnabar, mercury, and fenshuang so that they withstand fire.

There are twenty substances called “gold” in the discussion of gold filings: male orpiment, female orpiment, zengqing gold, sulfur gold, water gold, pig iron gold, wrought iron gold, raw copper gold, shishi gold, lüshazi gold, mushazi gold, white tin gold, black lead gold, cinnabar gold, and others, making fifteen kinds in all. The remaining five are huandan gold, water gold, child gold, qingfu gold, and caosha gold. The scripture says that only these five are genuine gold; all the rest are counterfeit.

If paosha can withstand firing without crumbling, like plants and trees, it can be used to prepare various mineral medicines. It is a medicine capable of subduing the Five Metals. If paosha has already been subdued by mineral medicines or ash and frost, it cannot be used. Another account says that Beiting baihuang is also called “gold thief”: it can combine with various medicines, and when added to a preparation, it can make male and female orpiment subdue themselves. It can also serve as a soldering agent and be used to solder gold and silver.

Alum is also called “gold thief” and can combine with various medicines. When added to a preparation, it can make male and female orpiment subdue themselves. It can also serve as a soldering agent and be used to solder gold and silver.

A kind of alum that makes iron appear copper colored is called chicken dung alum. It is not used as medicine and is suitable only for plating and decoration. Mix it with wrought copper, place the mixture in bitter wine (vinegar), and apply it to iron: the iron’s surface will take on a copper color, though its inner substance remains unchanged.

Qing oil can soften various kinds of copper and iron.

After stone gall (the name of a mineral medicine) is refined and taken, it is said to keep a person from aging. Taken over a long period, it can prolong life and bring one to the realm of the immortals. It can also transform copper into gold and silver. Stone gall is also known as bishí, black stone, tongle, and mùshí.

Sulfur can melt metals and unusual substances such as gold, silver, copper, and iron. After being heated and refined, it becomes liquid and can be poured into a mold to make objects. Its color resembles an egg yolk. In the recipes of the immortals, processed sulfur is called a substance that can damage the five metals; it can also be used to produce a golden color.

When selecting sulfur, avoid material that is blue, red, or mottled blue and white or red and black. Also avoid pieces whose surface resembles melon rind, gold, or a gold ingot. Choose sulfur that is yellow throughout, with a clean, lustrous interior; this is considered precious.

Each time, take four liang of sulfur. First add the natural juice of longtail wormwood, “water flowing around a bend” (water obtained by a particular method), the juice of purple-backed groundsel, and the juice from the fresh stems of euphorbia lathyris. Stir well, place the mixture in a pot, and seal it with Six-One clay (a sealing clay made according to a formula). Put crushed sulfur at the bottom of the pot, then slowly add the medicinal juices and heat until they have boiled away. Next, take ten liang of powdered bai bu, two jin of powdered willow mussel, and two jin of yi cu cao. Finely chop them and boil the sulfur with them in “water flowing around a bend” for a full day and night. When finished, remove the herbs and take out the sulfur. Wash it with a decoction of licorice that has been boiled, then grind it in a mortar twenty thousand times before using it. Sulfur turns the five metals black, but turns mercury red. Another account calls sulfur “the general” and says it has the power to break through evil.

Mercury, also known as quicksilver, can damage metals such as gold, silver, copper, and tin, melting them and even reducing them to a muddy substance. It is used to coat objects. Mercury can also be refined into elixirs. The scripture further says that taking this elixir for a long time enables one to become an immortal and live forever. Another account says mercury can “return again to the elixir,” meaning that through refinement it is transformed into an elixir.

It is also said: First take the fresh juice of purple-backed groundsel and tuber fleeceflower vine, mix the two juices, and boil them for an entire day to dispel the toxicity of the medicines. To process ten liang of medicine, take seven yi of each juice and mix them in whatever amount is needed.

It is also said: The medicine coagulates when it meets lead and clumps when it meets sulfur; grinding it with jujube flesh makes it disperse. Another method is to turn the medicine into a fine powder called “greasy powder.” When frost powder is ground with saliva, it can immobilize lice; copper vessels become bright when exposed to it. If poured into a corpse, it keeps the body from decaying. Place gold, silver, copper, or iron on the medicine, and it will float; when it encounters purple placenta (here, a material used in preparing medicines), it will sink.

Secret Method for Coloring Hair

Take seven qian of red hair and three and a half qian of arsenic (arsenic trioxide, an arsenic-bearing substance used in ancient alchemy). Melt it, then slowly add the medicine. Pour the whole mixture into an oil trough. Remove it and break it up; its color should be tea-red. If there is too little medicine, add one or half a qian of the medicine mentioned earlier, return it to the fire to melt, and stir it evenly. Pour it into the trough again, remove it, and break it up. A bluish color is preferred, and it should look like honeycomb foam.

If the medicine has a honeycomb texture, use plenty of new bricks, break them up, and put them in a pot; three, five, or ten pieces will do. Draw out the medicinal vapor from the bricks, then pour it into the trough and break it up, inspecting its condition. Next add three or four qian of silver, stir evenly, and pour the mixture into the trough. Then place it in plum water and boil it; the longer it boils, the better.

For a quicker method, take two qian of spirit and one qian of alum, grind them, and mix with water. Apply the mixture to the object and heat it over a fire until red-hot. Remove it, scrub it clean with charcoal ash, then put it in a plum-water pot and boil it until it turns white. Apply the alum mentioned above again, heat it, and repeat several times.

Another method: Take silver fired in a plum brazier, three qian of alum, and seven qian of edible spirit. Grind them finely, add water to make a paste, and apply it. Heat it over a strong fire three times, then put it in plum water. Replace the water with fresh weak plum water three times. Before applying the medicine, first boil the object in plum water until it turns white; then apply the medicine and heat it. Afterward, put it back in plum water and repeat three times.

Take one liang of red hair—that is, a red, hairlike metal material. Hammer it into a square or round disc, grind it to powder, and mix it with water into a paste. Coat the surface with the paste and heat it over a strong fire three times, then place it in plum water. Replace the water with fresh, weak plum water three times. Before applying the medicine, boil the material in plum water until it turns white. Then apply the medicine and heat it, after which place it in plum water. Repeat this entire process three times.

Take one liang of red hair and hammer it into a square or round piece. Separately, take half a qian of base silver (silver used as an auxiliary material) and cut it into small pieces. Add two fen of refined borax and mix well, then coat the red hair with the mixture. Use fire to melt the base silver so that it bonds to the red hair, then hammer it flat and polish it. Apply the medicine prepared earlier and heat it as before, until all the medicine has been used. Then boil it in a pot of plum water until it turns white; the whiter it becomes, the better.

Take one liang of gold, together with two fen of white alum, one fen of green vitriol, one qian and two fen of saltpeter, and two fen of salt. Coat the gold evenly with the prepared plum liquid and heat it over a fire until its color turns black. Remove it and place it in water, then return it to the fire and heat it. Brush off any deposits clinging to the surface. This treatment may be repeated several times.

Take one fen of gold and one fen of mercury. Place them in the palm of your hand, and grind the gold into the mercury until they form a mudlike paste. Coat a piece of yushi (a type of stone named in the original) with the paste and heat it until red-hot. Remove it, then hammer it into a square or round shape. If any paste remains, continue applying and heating it, then finally boil the piece in plum water.

Wuzhen Dongyangzi says: The four methods above are merely techniques for the amusement of immortals. In unavoidable circumstances, they may be used in an emergency, but one must not become attached to them or pursue them exclusively, lest they mislead people and harm their good intentions. Anyone who obtains these methods should consider them carefully.

Gel Preparation Method: Use any amount of deer antler. First, fill a ceramic vat with water and soak the antlers for three days. Pour off the water, then scrub the antlers with river sand until yellow residue comes away. Take a piece of lead about two inches long and replace the water with river water. Put the antlers back into the vat and soak them for another three days.

Prepare a large lidded ceramic bowl. Mix washing clay with soil from an old wall to make a paste, and seal the bowl firmly with it. Build a stove to fit the bowl. Pour the water from the second soaking into the bowl with the antlers and boil them together. Keep water heating in an iron kettle at the stove entrance for later use. Whenever the water in the bowl drops by an inch, add an inch of hot water; never add cold water. Use only clean, hard charcoal for the fire. Boil continuously for three days and three nights without letting the fire go out, until the antlers are completely cooked down.

On the morning of the fourth day, remove the antlers and, while they are hot, scrape off the outer skin. This produces deer antler frost. Reduce the liquid left in the bowl until it is very thick and almost dry. Draw it out through a bamboo tube and hang it overnight in a cool, dark place, where it will solidify. Split the bamboo tube, remove the solidified material, shape it into lead cakes, and store them.

Another Gel Preparation Method: Choose antlers from deer that did not die naturally. Use any amount, cut them into pieces about three inches long, and remove the soft outer skin. Soak the antlers in river water for seven days, changing the water once each day. After seven days, wash them clean and place them in a pot to boil. For every five pounds of antler, add half a pound of mulberry root bark, one pound of paper mulberry fruit, two taels of imported sulfur, and two taels of cinnabar, and boil them together.

As the water nears boiling away, add hot water as needed. After boiling for a full day and night, the antlers should soften on their own. If the fire has remained steady but the antlers are still not soft, boil them for another full day and night. Once softened, let them cool, remove them, and hang them in a well-ventilated place to dry. They can then be used as medicine. Strain the water in which the antlers were boiled to remove the other ingredients, then simmer it over a low flame to make glue.

Pill Preparation Method: For each pound of medicine, use one pound of honey to make a honey preparation. Once the honey has been boiled down to the proper consistency, add the medicine. Separately, strain the water in which the antlers were boiled to remove the other ingredients, then simmer it over a low flame to make glue.

When making medicinal pills, if honey is used as the binder, mix one catty of honey with every catty of medicine and combine them with flour paste. If preparing each catty of powdered medicine, add four liang of medicinal ingredients and the same amount of rice flour.

Also, have two pots ready for the cooking, and keep warm water on hand so you can add more whenever needed.

Collected Essentials of Lead, Mercury, Jia, Geng, and Treasures, juan 1

Collected Essentials of Lead, Mercury, Jia, Geng, and Treasures, juan 2

The Great Elixir of Nine Transmutations from the Source of Emptiness: The Cinnabar and Silver Method

First Transmutation

Take one and a half liang of cinnabar and grind it into a fine powder. Then take one liang of mercury and grind the two together until thoroughly mixed. Wrap the substances in cotton and suspend them in limewater. Boil them there with one liang of qianghua powder for a full day and night. Remove them, then mix honey with qianghua, caowu, tiannanxing, and tender leaves of diyue to make a coating about a finger’s thickness.

Next, mix baiyou, baibi, and pepper powder with egg white, and wrap this around the first coating as a second layer. Place it in a vessel and cover it with baihu powder. Seal the seams with clam powder mixed with oil. Put it in an earthenware vessel and temper it over a low fire for seven days: use a fire of one liang on the first and second days, four liang on the third and fourth, and six liang on the fifth and sixth; on the seventh day, use a fire of one catty. Then seal the vessel and temper it for another seven days: use a fire of one liang on the first and second days, four liang on the third and fourth, six liang on the fifth and sixth, and one catty on the seventh. Finally, fire it strongly for one day. Let it cool, then remove it. This completes the first transmutation.

Second Transmutation

Take two liang of mercury and, following the previous method, solidify it with cinnabar and boil it with the medicinal substances. When finished, place it in a vessel and continue tempering it for fourteen days: use a fire of one liang on the first and second days, four liang on the third and fourth, six liang on the fifth and sixth, eight liang on the seventh and eighth, ten liang on the ninth and tenth, twelve liang on the eleventh and twelfth, and thirty liang on the thirteenth and fourteenth.

Third Transmutation

Take two liang of mercury and boil and refine it together with the sand prepared earlier, until it congeals into sand. Then seal the furnace and place it over the fire to warm and nourish it for twenty-one days. On the first and second days, use one liang of fire; on the third and fourth days, four liang; on the fifth and sixth days, six liang; on the seventh and eighth days, eight liang; on the ninth and tenth days, ten liang; on the eleventh and twelfth days, twelve liang; and on the thirteenth and fourteenth days, thirty liang. Continue warming and nourishing it until the prescribed period is complete.

Fourth Turn

Take the original sand and use ten liang of fire for the first ten days; on the eleventh and twelfth days, use twelve liang; on the thirteenth and fourteenth days, use thirty liang. Continue warming and nourishing it until the period is complete.

Fourth Turn

Weigh the original sand and see how much weight it has lost. Then take an equal amount of mercury and boil and refine it until it congeals, following the previous method. Seal it in the furnace and warm and nourish it for twenty-one days before taking it out. Take a new sand crucible and line it with sand, then cover the sand with ten liang of Luminous Sand. Mix honey with a certain purple powder and apply it to the body of the crucible. Then mix fine ink with egg white and coat the crucible’s outer wall. Next, seal the “White Tiger” with the medicine mentioned earlier and cover it with the medicine. This is the method of sealing the crucible with sand. After lining and covering the inside of the crucible with the medicine, mix oil with ground shell powder and seal the seam securely. Place it in a fire vessel and warm and nourish it over three jin of fire for forty-nine days.

Fifth Turn

Take five liang of Bright-Window Dust—that is, cinnabar—and lay and cover it as described earlier for processing cinnabar. Then add five liang of sulfur and take it out after seven days. Sulfur can subdue mercury.

Sixth Turn

Take five liang of the medicine and warm and nourish it for forty-nine days.

Fifth Turn

Take five liang of Bright-Window Dust—that is, cinnabar—and lay and cover it as described earlier for processing cinnabar. Then add five liang of sulfur and take it out after seven days. Sulfur can subdue mercury.

Sixth Turn

Take five liang of the medicine, cover it with orpiment, and seal it securely. Then warm and nourish it for seven days, transforming the mercury into “Geng.”

Seventh Turn

Take the cinnabar powder produced in the Sixth Turn, cover it with realgar, and seal it securely. Warm and nourish it for forty-nine days according to the previous method. It is said to be able to transmute iron into “Geng.”

Eighth Turn

Take the cinnabar powder from the Seventh Turn and use paper mulberry juice to form it into millet-sized pills. Take one pill at a time and swallow it with water. It is said to prolong life and allow one to endure as long as Heaven and Earth.

Ninth Turn

Take cinnabar that has been processed seven times, spread it over ten taels of arsenic, and nurture and refine it for seven days. It is said that this can be used to transmute the five metals, turning them all into precious treasures.

The Supreme Ancestor’s Secret Instructions on the Golden Elixir

Refining the Golden Elixir and Transforming Metals and Stone

The Supreme Ancestor passed down a method for refining elixirs from materials such as gold and sulfur, transforming metals and stone, and keeping golden treasures from deteriorating over time. The book says that the Golden Elixir has three grades. The first grade, once taken, enables one to ascend to the Golden Palace, the dwelling of the Celestial Emperor, and become a Celestial Immortal. The second grade, the Reverted Elixir, allows one to remain in the human world for a long time. The third grade, the Spirit Elixir, can transmute the five metals and eight stones into great treasures. It is called the art of the Human Immortal, by which one benefits the world and sustains the body.

Those who obtain this art are called “lords.” It must not, however, be passed on to people of shallow understanding. If the transmitter and recipient are not suited to each other, both may suffer great calamity, and the elixir will not be successfully refined. Anyone qualified to receive it must be able to help others and benefit all things, and must use the art with restraint. Those who squander precious ingredients without cause will be condemned forever to become lowly ghosts. To obtain the art and then withhold it when a suitable recipient appears is to “conceal Heaven’s treasure.” It is fitting to pass it on to someone who shares one’s aspirations. To pass it on to an unsuitable person is called “revealing Heaven’s secrets” and will bring misfortune from the netherworld. Those who practice the art should be cautious.

Secret Instructions for Refining

Take one liang and two qian of raw placer gold—natural gold dust that has not been refined—and two liang of sulfur brought by sea.

First melt the gold into a liquid, cast it into an ingot, then grind it into an extremely fine powder. Take seven qian of gold powder, add two qian of sulfur, and grind them together until fine. Prepare a small porcelain box large enough to hold all the ingredients. Rub fresh ginger repeatedly around the inside of the box three times, then heat it until dry. Put the gold powder and sulfur into the box and press them down with a spoon until it is half full. Cover them with the remaining half liang of gold powder and press it firmly in place.

Cover the mouth of the box with seven layers of inked paper soaked in vinegar, in succession. Sprinkle alum powder over the paper until it is level with the rim, then seal it firmly with red ochre. Separately, grind needle filings and magnetite into a fine powder, mix them with egg white to make a paste, and coat the outside of the white porcelain box with it as a sealing layer. Prepare a second, outer box, and set the small box inside it using powdered salt clay that has been calcined in a covered fire. Spread the salt clay inside the outer box above the small box to a thickness of just one finger. Seal the seam of the outer box with red ochre, then seal it with salt clay. Once dry, place it in an ash vat and warm it gently over a low fire for three days, then increase the heat and warm it for six more days.

When the ashes have been used up, replace the clay. Open the outer box and take out the small white porcelain box. Strip away the outer medicinal shell, grind off the seal around the rim, remove the alum powder, and blow away the ash from the inked paper. Then wipe the box clean all around. Use a sharp knife to remove the gold-sulfur compound. Its color should resemble litharge, an oxide of lead. When weighed, it should still weigh one liang and four qian.

Next, grind the gold-sulfur compound in a mortar. Set aside half a liang to use as a covering layer. Put nine qian of gold-sulfur powder and two qian of raw sulfur into the box as before, then cover them with the remaining half liang of gold-sulfur compound. Seal it in the outer box in the same sequence as before, and return it to the ash bed for warming. Use the same heat and number of days as previously. After opening the box, grind the compound to a fine powder. It should still weigh one liang and six qian. This indicates that the sulfur in it has largely undergone “fire subduing”: a method of refinement in which sealed heating transforms a substance and diminishes its original properties.

Next, grind the gold-sulfur powder again, add two qian of raw sulfur, and place the mixture in the box. Cover it with the remaining six qian of gold-sulfur compound. Seal it as before and warm it for the prescribed time at the original heat. Then add two liang of sulfur and continue until all of it has been processed. If the small box cannot hold everything, switch to a larger one and warm it in the same way. Process a total of three liang and two qian in this manner. This is called the “Fire-Subdued Sacred Ancestor Crucible.”

Next, use the “nourishing the treasure” method, a refining technique that tempers and nourishes cinnabar and other materials with controlled heat.

Take a piece of cinnabar about the size of a bean. First prepare an oil-free tiaozi, a small vessel used for refining, and warm and nourish it for the required time according to the method described earlier. Add only two liang of “sulfur-free” material, and continue until it has all been used up. If you switch from the small vessel to a larger one, continue nourishing and refining in the same way. When you have used three liang and two qian in total, you will obtain the fire-treated “Holy Ancestor crucible,” a medicinal crucible or prepared alchemical material.

Next, continue with the nourishing-the-treasure method. Take a piece of cinnabar about the size of a bean and prepare an oil-free tiaozi. Put powdered crucible material into it, then add one liang of cinnabar. Stir-fry over low heat until it turns purple. Once it has cooled, put the powdered crucible material into a he, a sealed vessel for alchemical preparation. Mix the cinnabar and powder evenly so that the cinnabar forms into shapes like lotus seeds, then seal the vessel securely. Nourish and refine it for three days with a heat of three liang, then for seven days with a heat of six liang. When you open the vessel, the cinnabar should be purplish gold.

Grind it together with the earlier powdered crucible material, then add two liang of mercury. Grind until no mercury particles are visible, then reload the mixture into the he and nourish and refine it for seven days with a heat of four liang. After opening the vessel and taking out the contents, grind the material finely. This mercury-containing preparation is called the “Longevity Crucible.”

To use it as material for further refining, take three liang of cinnabar and place it inside the crucible. Cover it with powdered crucible material, add another layer of cinnabar, then cover the top with one more layer of the powder. Seal the vessel securely according to the method and place it in an ash pit. Nourish and refine it for seven days with a heat of four liang. When you open the vessel and take out the contents, each of the three liang of cinnabar should be gold-colored and able to be hammered into thin sheets. Following this method, you can nourish and prepare twenty liang.

Take ten liang of this material and process it by the “Seven Treasures pot-hand” method, an alchemical operation or tool. Remove eight liang of true cinnabar gold and hammer it into a small gold vessel. Grind another ten liang of cinnabar finely, mix it thoroughly with one liang of raw sulfur, place it in a he, and seal it securely. Put it in an ash pit and nourish and refine it as before. Then take another ten liang and process it by the Seven Treasures pot-hand method. Remove eight liang of true cinnabar gold and hammer it into a small gold vessel. Grind ten liang of cinnabar finely, mix it with one liang of raw sulfur, load it into a he, seal it securely, and place it in an ash pit. Nourish and refine it for seven days as before. After opening the vessel, grind the contents finely. This preparation is said to be usable for refining mercury into true gold.

You can also place the gold vessel in the powdered crucible material as before; this will not damage the powder. Make a hollow in the center by pushing the powder aside, and pour four liang of mercury into it. Cover it with the powder, seal it with red stone fat, and place it in an ash pit. Nourish and refine it for one day and one night with a heat of four liang, and it will yield a potful of gold. This method requires careful control, as well as oral instructions, to prepare the medicine. The scripture also says that only those with blessings and De can succeed in cultivation; those without blessings and De should not attempt it.

There is a method for softening gold so it takes on a shirt-like sheen. Take one qian each of green vitriol and yellow vitriol, and one liang each of purple vitriol and crimson vitriol. Heat and process the four kinds of vitriol over a fire, then grind them into a fine powder. Add one sheng of vinegar and boil until the gold solution bubbles like fish eyes. Heat the gold object until red hot and plunge it into the floral pool. Heat the gold over a gentle fire until it turns red; while still hot, put it into the vinegar trough, then immediately return it to the floral pool. This will set the red color and bring out a dazzling yellow-purple sheen. Each time, wipe it with dark plum broth and fibers from an old felt.

To prepare a floral pool that gives gold a lustrous finish, use one sheng of clear oil, one jin each of yellow ox fat and Du fat, eight liang of white saltpeter, and four sheng of urine. First heat the oil, then add the ox fat. When about sixty percent of the fat has melted, add the urine. After it has boiled more than forty times, add the saltpeter and then sodium nitrate. When the ingredients have melted into a liquid, place the gold in the pool; it will become lustrous and bright. The specific method for preparing the ingredients in the container described earlier—the vessel used to hold and heat the ingredients during processing—is given in the next section.

According to the method that follows, all ingredients placed in the container must first have their Yang nature subdued by the Yin method before they can be refined into precious substances. Every kind of elixir must first be subdued and congealed by the Yin method to form an embryo, then given shape through the Yang method. If an ingredient is subdued and shaped through the Yang method, its original color will disappear; excessive heating will also make it dry. If it is shaped using only the Yin method, its color will often be dull. In general, gold, sulfur, and the substances known as the Eight Minerals should first be subdued by the Yin method, then placed in the Yang furnace for refinement. This is a general and subtle method.

For example, when cinnabar is placed in a gold pouch and refined in the container, it becomes gold; when placed in a silver foil pouch, it becomes silver. It can be roasted into a treasure without adding a “mother”—a substance used to initiate or bring about transformation. Adding a small amount of the “mother” before roasting it again also works well.

The method for subduing fire in vitriol: a method of treating vitriol so that it is less susceptible to the force of fire.

Take two liang of sulfur, two liang of saltpeter, and three and a half qian of Aristolochia. Grind them into a fine powder and mix well. Dig a pit and place the ingredients in a jar, with the mouth of the jar level with the ground. Take a piece of charcoal the size of a marble, already burned through, and place it in the middle of the powder. When the smoke gradually rises, cover the jar with four or five layers of damp paper.

Method for Subduing the Fire of Alum

Take two liang of sulfur, two liang of saltpeter, and three and a half qian of Aristolochia. Grind them into a fine powder and mix well. Dig a pit and place the ingredients in a jar, with the mouth of the jar level with the ground. Place a piece of charcoal the size of a marble, burned through, in the middle of the powder. Once the smoke rises, cover the jar with four or five layers of damp paper, then weigh it down with two square bricks and pile earth on top. When the vessel has cooled, take it out. The sulfur is then considered to have undergone “fire-subduing” treatment.

Take three liang of white alum and add two liang of fire-subdued sulfur. Grind them into a fine powder and put it in a large gan crucible, a vessel used for melting medicinal substances. Fan the fire until the powder melts into liquid, then pour it into a stone vessel. The resulting substance will be the color of jade.

Method for Subduing the Fire of Green Salt

Place one jin of green salt in a gan crucible and add about two liang of mantis egg cases. Mix them together, and they will melt naturally into liquid.

Method for Making a Seven-Treasure Crucible

Grind white bi, white you, glutinous rice, jujube flesh, mulberry-wood ash, white chalk, and red ochre into a fine powder. Mix it with water and shape it into a crucible. Leave it to dry, then set it aside for use.

Oral Instruction: Secret Formula

The Lower Chapter on Refining the Golden Elixir and Transforming Metals and Stones says: “The Most High—an honorific title for the highest deity in Daoism—taught these methods for refining metals and stones to help and benefit the people of the world, and to let them know that Daoist arts can be practiced and their efficacy demonstrated. Their purpose is not merely to turn insentient metals and stones into treasures. If people practice these methods and take what they produce, they can prolong their lives.”

The scripture goes on to lament that few people later came upon these methods, while many missed their chance. Those in positions of wealth and status were attached to luxury and desire; those in poverty and low station were conceited, deceitful, and treacherous. Such people could not cultivate themselves even if they encountered these methods, and even if they tried to carry out the refining, they would not succeed, because they lacked the support of good fortune and Virtue. Finally, it says that these methods were transmitted by the Most High Holy Ancestor and kept in a golden coffer and jade casket, beyond the knowledge of ordinary people.

I transmit this method to those who follow the Dao, so they may teach the Supreme One’s method, benefit themselves and the world, and cultivate health and practice. A person with a genuine aspiration to practice first pays respects to a master and receives the method. At first, the refining and cultivation do not succeed, but the materials used are not depleted. Later, the practitioner visits the master again and receives the oral instructions, which consist of only a few words about the regulation of the firing process. I then refine and cultivate once more according to the method and instructions, and this time I succeed in making the gui, the vessel used for refining medicine. Now, without fearing that I will divulge Heaven’s secrets, I am setting down the essential secrets in person: the instructions passed on by my master, my own experience, how to deal with medicines that have been over-refined, how to use the inner and outer gui and their lidded containers, and the medicines used to subdue fire. I have revised and published them in the text that follows. I hope that those who are fortunate enough to encounter this material will practice together with like-minded companions and achieve results by following the instructions.

Anyone who intends to practice must first choose a famous mountain or great river, a Daoist temple, or a quiet room where the medicines can be placed. If the site was once a slaughterhouse, prison, graveyard, or birthing room; if corpses or ghosts have lingered there; or if it is a place where people frequently pass through, success will be impossible no matter how much effort one makes. Do not set up a furnace there, or you may encounter demonic obstacles.

Before setting up the alchemical furnace, one must abstain from food, bathe, and thoroughly clean the room for three or seven days. First make offerings and pray to the local deities, and set out a sacred image of the Supreme One, a revered Daoist deity. It is said that this will even cause ghosts to turn and offer protection. One must also recite scriptures and incantations every day and continually burn incense as an offering. These are all preparations required before refining and cultivating the medicines; one must understand and observe the proper rules.

The gold discussed here is natural placer gold, freshly collected from mountains and marshes. The author holds that it still retains the numinous energy of Heaven and Earth and can therefore undergo transformation through refining and cultivation. Gold that has already been smelted or processed, such as refined gold, is considered to have acquired harmful properties and must not be used for the Great Medicine. This method makes the gui from gold and sulfur alone, without other medicines, because the author regards the two as mother and child, endowed with a numinous power to generate and transform one another.

Anyone refining gold juice or using methods such as “enclosing and sealing” (placing substances in a container, sealing it, and heating it) must use brand-new equipment, never anything that has been used before. Used vessels must first be washed with water infused with frankincense, then placed before a sacred image. The furnace and stove must also be set up in a clean place. When adding the ingredients, chickens, dogs, and women must never be allowed to see. The process must be kept secret from onlookers and others who have no part in it, and it must be carried out with care and vigilance. The quantities of the ingredients specified in the scripture must be weighed precisely; they must never be unevenly measured. Even a slight error may cause the substances to scatter or the refinement to fail.

Gold and sulfur must be ground until as fine as cotton fluff; only then are they of the highest quality. If the particles are coarse, even two days of heating may not refine them thoroughly.

When sealing the equipment, follow the method carefully. First leave it to dry in the shade, then dry it in the sunlight. If cracks or damage appear after air-drying, the equipment must not be used. A propitious day must also be chosen before placing it in the furnace.

Whenever a text says to use “three liang of fire” to nurture and refine something for three days, this means using three liang of fire during each fu period (about twelve double-hours). Other such statements should be understood in the same way.

Before placing the contents into the gui, the container used to seal and nurture the substances, first set it in an ash bed. Mix wood ash and paper ash evenly for the bed, then use a spoon to press the ash firmly around its edges. Next, use an iron fire tool to mark out a band about one cun wide around the crucible, and hollow out the ash in that band until the bottom is exposed. Arrange the measured, prepared charcoal—charcoal already burned and ready for the process—closely over the crucible, then cover it with ash so no air can get through and the fire does not go out. This keeps the heat going longer and makes it less likely to die down.

Do not pack the ash right beside the crucible too tightly, or the heat will not penetrate and will remain outside. The ash around it should, however, be packed firmly. Contamination through contact or improper use of fire can also cause the substance to escape or be damaged. If sulfur escapes while adding the gui’s top, weigh the loss and replace it by the original method, then continue nurturing and refining it for the prescribed number of days. When that period is complete, open the gui and weigh the contents. If their weight has not decreased, you may add more sulfur next time and continue to increase or decrease it according to the prescribed method and number of days.

When refining cinnabar, first enter a clean room. Use an amount of water suited to the quantity of the substance, add a little earth, horsehair, borax, and roasted sand, then boil over alternating gentle and strong heat for one fu period. Remove it, then place it in the gui and refine it according to the prescribed method.

The scattering method is difficult to master, but this method is ingenious and quick. It must not be used continuously without rest, nor should the gui be used indefinitely. At this point, the result can serve as a basis for checking its effectiveness. After taking it out, place it in the gui again and refine it according to the prescribed method.

The grain-forming method—a method of alchemical refinement in which medicinal substances are mixed and tempered—is difficult to master. This procedure is highly unusual and quick, however. Do not continue it for too long, lest the materials in the vessel be exhausted. Once this stage is reached, it can be used to verify the results. Then continue adding mercury according to the method. After each fu period, a prescribed interval of time in the refining process, remove four liang of the material; the results will be reliable.

When the material has just been taken out, do not expose it at once to a strong wind. First take about half portions of dark plum, gold-wrapping, earth tiger, and ear grass, and place them with the material in a stone vessel. Add water and boil for one fu period. Then put the mixture in a pot and refine it three times over the hearth. Only then is it ready for use.

Fearing that this method and the instructions concerning its vessels might be lost, I have recorded everything and stored it as a family treasure to be passed down through the generations. It must not be shown to outsiders.

Written by Master Qingxu of Jinhua Grotto, in the wushen year of the Yuanhe era, the third year of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, on the ren-shen day of the jiazi month.

The Great Elixir of Nine Turns, Refined by the Grain-Forming Method to Leave the Dust

First Turn

The verse says:

Three yellows, two seeds, and “guess-tooth”;

bluewood is paired with orris flowers.

Refined over a great fire, the whole turns black;

from then on, cinnabar has a root and sprout.

The above method was written by Master Duanxu.

First take seven ingredients—rhubarb, skullcap root, yellow yam, ciming seeds, pig’s-tusk soap pod, atractylodes, and winter-wheat flowers—and grind them into a fine powder. Put the powder in a Jian bowl, spread five liang of cinnabar over it, and press it down firmly. Cover it with a small bowl, bind the two bowls tightly with crossed iron wire, seal them with clay, and let them dry. Bury the vessel in ash. Once it is tightly closed, heat it for one cycle over two jin of charcoal. After it cools, remove it: the cinnabar will have turned black. Repeat this process four times, treating twenty liang of cinnabar in all.

Next comes the following step: use one liang of arsenic for every two liang of lead. First put the lead in a gan crucible—a refractory crucible used in alchemical work—and melt it. Then add the arsenic pieces. When the fumes have dispersed, remove the crucible and let it cool. Break the contents apart and separate the arsenic from the lead: the arsenic is on top and the lead below. Use the arsenic in the following steps, not the lead. The arsenic should be amber-colored and heated until red-hot.

Take twenty liang of arsenic and grind it evenly with twenty liang of cinnabar. Put the mixture in a gan crucible, cover it with a ceramic lid, and heat it in the furnace until red-hot. Remove it and let it cool in warm ash. When you break it apart, the cinnabar will have become a bright red finished product. The original text then repeats this step, adding that the refined mass resembles a single piece of silver and is called “the Treasure.” The arsenic itself is colorless and is not used. The treasure made from refined cinnabar is called the “Green Gold Head.”

For the refining, arrange hard coal in the furnace and fan the fire until it burns fiercely. Place the gan crucible in the furnace, cover it with the original ceramic lid, then cover that with heated charcoal. Keep fanning until you hear a sound from inside the vessel. Once the cinnabar has been refined into the treasure, remove it.

Second transmutation: boiling out lead black

The verse says: “Once the Green Gold has been broken up, do not hesitate; boil and refine it with the ‘Mysterious Embryo’ for two or three shichen. The medicine’s power drives out the breath of the ‘Yellow Sprout’; its efficacy is wondrous.”

This transmutation uses ten ingredients: Sichuan aconite, Sichuan pepper, alum, dragon bone, Chinese gall, licorice, magnetite, langdu, nanxing needles, and arsenic. At the end of the original text, “wondrous, wondrous indeed” is repeated to praise the medicine’s extraordinary efficacy.

Use the ten ingredients listed above—Aconitum kusnezoffii, Sichuan pepper, alum, dragon bone, Chinese gall, licorice, magnetite, Langdu, Arisaema, and tin—in rice vinegar. Beat the Qingjin lead into thin sheets, place them in a raw-silk bag, and suspend the bag in the liquid. Boil for three days and three nights, then continue boiling for one day. Rinse three times to remove the lead vapors, then fire and refine it into a gui—a vessel for holding and nurturing cinnabar during alchemical cultivation.

Third Turning: Nurturing Cinnabar in a Qingjin Gui to Produce the Treasure

The poem says: Cinnabar that has been subdued by fire is highly prized. Make it into a gui to nurture and refine divine cinnabar. Spread a thin layer of cinnabar in the vessel, shaping it like a lotus. The work is complete after five days, a result all the more pleasing.

Grind the boiled Qingjin cinnabar into a fine powder and make it into a gui. Use four liang of top fire, changing the heat at the zi, wu, mao, and you hours, and nurture it for five days. When the lead vapors have completely dissipated, the cinnabar will become spiritually responsive.

Method for Warming Xin and Boron, with Mother Cinnabar Applied Directly

Burn white peony, anemarrhena, and dendrobium until they smoke, and use the smoke to blacken a ganguo (a crucible used in alchemical work). Then heat the crucible until red hot, add equal parts boron and arsenic, and melt them into a liquid. When poured out, the mixture should be jade-colored. Take clear, pure cinnabar and moisten it with rice vinegar. Wrap each piece in mother cinnabar weighing three-seven, coat it with honey, and press pepper powder onto the surface. Place it in the treasure gui described earlier, seal it, and nurture it for seven days using the same heat schedule as before.

When removed, the cinnabar will be iron-colored. It can gradually be accumulated to a pound and made into a Longevity Cinnabar-Yang gui, which is used to nurture spirit-sand. If no gui is made, refine it into a treasure by boiling it with lead according to the earlier heat schedule, then seal and nurture it for seven days. When removed, the cinnabar will be iron-colored; it can be accumulated to a pound and made into a Longevity Cinnabar-Yang gui for nurturing spirit-sand. If no gui is made, boiling it with lead to produce a treasure yields eight tenths.

Fourth Turning: Nurturing Spirit-Sand in a Cinnabar-Yang Gui to Reveal the Treasure

The poem says: Cinnabar produced through nurturing and refinement can transform the body and exchange its bones. “Creation and transformation” refers to the changes that appear when spirit-sand is refined. Nurture it in the furnace for seven days, and it becomes an “immortal body.” If it encounters a pool of lead, it is called “snowflakes.”

Take three pounds of cinnabar-yang and four liang of spirit-sand, and apply vinegar-moistened silver powder to the outside. Place them in the gui. Use four liang of fire, changing the heat at the zi, wu, mao, and you hours, and nurture them for seven days; adjust the heat schedule according to the amount used for each pound of cinnabar-yang. Once cool, open the vessel and accumulate the material to make a gui, or allow it to take on the form of the finished product. Either outcome is considered pleasing.

Fifth Turning: Transcending the Ordinary and Entering Sainthood, Nurturing Mother Cinnabar to Produce the Treasure

The poem says:

The fire regimen works in coordination and enters the transformations of the Great Dao, making the Cinnabar Yang Vessel—the container used to refine and nourish elixir substances—even more efficacious and spiritually potent.

By this means, one transcends the ordinary and enters the sacred realm, attuning to the true state of things. After five days of firing and refinement, a treasure beyond the world is formed.

Following the warming method, take the elixir substance from the Cinnabar Yang Vessel within the third turn and continue to nourish and refine it, turning the yellow furnace into silver and forming Three-Seven Mother Sand—a base sand compounded in a specific ratio for later stages of refinement. Take five qian, use the “one-to-nine” ratio, and boil it for a full day and night in a solution of alum and salt. Once it has hardened, moisten it with honey and attach it to the body, then place it in the earlier Cinnabar Yang Vessel. At the hours of Zi, Wu, Mao, and You, nourish and refine it with four liang of fire each time. After five days, refine it with two jin of fire. Only after this vessel has been fired five times to form Mother Sand does it proceed to the sixth turn.

The sixth turn is the nourishing and refining of the Seven Treasures in the Great Cinnabar Yang Vessel. At the hours of Zi, Wu, Mao, and You, nourish and refine it with four liang of fire each time. After five days, refine it with two jin of fire. Only after this vessel has been fired five times to form Mother Sand does it proceed to the sixth turn.

The sixth turn: nourish and refine the Seven Treasures to make the Great Medicine Vessel.

A poem says: Cinnabar’s nature can harmonize the Qi of the feminine and masculine; combined with sulfur, its efficacy is wondrous indeed. Wrap and seal the Three-Seven Mother Sand, shape it into pills, and place them among the numinous treasures.

Take two liang of the Cinnabar Yang Vessel residue produced by the five successive firings and refinements described above. Add one liang each of raw cinnabar and the Three Yellows, along with one liang of mercury, and grind until no grains remain visible. Then take two liang of yuncao herb, add Yao Hua juice, and mix in the other powdered ingredients. Stir-fry them, then slowly refine over a gentle fire until they form a paste. Scrape off nine portions with a knife and shape each into a pellet the size of a crossbow pellet. Once dried, they will be hard as iron. Next, use Sacred Silver to form Three-Seven Mother Sand, attach it to the pellets, and place them in the Great Vessel previously fired and refined five times. Apply fire to nourish them for seven days according to the earlier method, then warm them with two jin of fire. Open the vessel and remove what has formed: it will resemble golden pellets and is called the “Great Medicine.” Accumulate thirty liang and shape it into large pills, dry and hard as iron. Again, use Sacred Silver to form Three-Seven Mother Sand, attach it to the pills, and place them in the Great Vessel previously fired and refined five times. Apply fire to nourish them for seven days according to the earlier method, then warm them with two jin of fire. Open the vessel and remove what has formed: it will resemble golden pellets and is called the “Great Medicine.” Accumulate thirty liang to make a vessel for nourishing and refining the medicines of the following stages.

The seventh turn: sprinkling and compounding with cinnabar.

A poem says: The source of the Seven Treasures, through nourishment and refinement, returns to the Great Reversion. Cinnabar receives the transformation of Qi and is refined together with it into an elixir. In an instant, the transformations seem to accord with the True Ruler, and mercury is refined into gold.

Take thirty liang of the Seven-Treasure medicine prepared earlier and use it to make a container. Mix three liang of raw sulfur and seven liang of raw cinnabar with paper pulp, form the mixture into nine pills about the size of pellets, and place them in the medicine container. Seal it securely as before, then nurture and refine it for seven days according to the prescribed heat. Do not hammer it. After it cools, open the container. The cinnabar and sulfur pills should be purple-gold, dense and solid, with a brilliant sheen. Grind them into a fine powder. Mix every three qian of powder with one liang of mercury to refine what is called a “Treasure.”

Eighth Revolution: Making the Dust-Transcending Powder

The poem says: The great medicine of the immortals can transcend life and death. Used to transform the bodies of ordinary people, it is worth a trial by anyone who is sincere. Mercury can, of course, be refined into what is called a “dead substance,” but who would have thought that an ordinary person’s body could also ascend to become immortal?

Take a new iron pot and coat it with honey made from many kinds of flowers. Add ten liang of mercury, then sprinkle in one liang of powdered cinnabar. Cover the pot and seal the join with red ochre mixed with vinegar. Heat it over a gentle fire using four liang of fuel. When a sound like a turning cartwheel comes from inside the pot, the contents are considered dry. Process the cinnabar and sulfur as before, without stirring them. Sweep them into the medicine container and continue nurturing and refining them, replenishing the powder at the appointed times. After a year of this process, it is said that each grain of powder can transform one liang of mercury.

Ninth Revolution: The “Great Elixir of Purple Clouds”

The poem says: One should believe that everyone possesses an inner grotto-heaven, a state of cultivation in which the Dao is realized. With sincere practice, it can be revealed. Once the Purple Clouds Elixir is complete, one seems closer to the immortal realm of Penglai; when the medicines have fully combined, there is hope of transcending the ordinary world and becoming immortal.

Take thirty liang from the medicine container of Seven-Treasure medicine accumulated earlier, and grind it into a fine powder to serve as material for the container. Then take seven liang of translucent Cinnabar of the Chen hour, grind it finely, and mix it with paper pulp to form nine pills. Make sure the pills do not touch the sides of the container. Place them inside and seal it securely. Heat it with four liang of fuel, nurturing and refining it for forty-nine days at the hours of Zi, Wu, Mao, and You. Once the furnace has cooled, burn incense and bow before the Three Pure Ones and the Lord on High. When opening the container, if a light shines out, grind the medicine into powder and mix it with jujube flesh to form pills the size of Chinese parasol tree seeds. Put them in a crimson gauze bag and suspend it in a well, about one chi above the water’s surface. Leave it there for seven days to remove the fire toxins. This medicine is called the “Great Elixir of Purple Clouds.” One pill can transform one liang of mercury into what is called “Tenfold Geng.” After taking it, one is said to shed the mortal body like a cicada emerging from its shell, ascend to the immortals, and enter the realm of the sages.

The Method of Zǐwǔ Língshā

Língshā should be boiled three or four times in an infusion made from mulberry ash, using a concentrated liquid. Boiling it this way will not damage the Língshā, which serves as the mother substance. When hammering the Língshā, do not pound it too finely.

First Firing

Use any amount of Língshā. Grind it into pieces about the size of small dice, then boil it in mulberry ash liquid for two days and nights before removing it. For every one liang of Língshā after boiling, take six qian of silver powder and one liang two qian of mercury. Put them together in an iron vessel and let them solidify into one liang and a half of “mother sand.”

Follow the thick-cover method. Take one jin of salt and four liang of anemarrhena, grind them finely, mix them evenly, and stir-fry them. When the smoke has cleared, remove the anemarrhena and put the salt into a hezi, a vessel used to seal and fire medicinal substances. Arrange the treated Língshā inside in the shape of a lotus and place it in the hezi, then cover it with the salt. Seal the vessel and seal its seams with about half an inch of red stone fat, a mineral material used to seal vessels. After it has dried in the sun, bury it in an ash vat for firing.

On the first and second nights, place four liang of fuel over the top. On the third and fourth nights, use five liang; on the fifth and sixth nights, six liang. On the seventh day, use seven liang, then half a jin overnight. On the morning of the eighth day, remove the remaining fuel. When the hezi has cooled completely, remove the sealing clay and take out the Língshā, keeping the “mother sand” among it.

Next, grind five ingredients—spinach seeds, bitter gourd seeds, tad water flower, field clover, and the root of golden-lantern grass—into powder. Mix the powder with the natural juice of purple kudzu, knead it into individual pellets, and use them to wrap the Língshā. Put it into a ding vessel and fire it with seven or eight jin of fuel according to the Three Powers method, until the material melts into liquid. Remove the Língshā and discard the mother sand. Then simmer and refine it in a lead bath, using one liang of lead for each liang of Língshā.

Second Firing

Grind the silver that has been decocted into a fine powder and make it into mother sand. Then boil and nourish it, and refine it by calcining over fire.

Third Calcination

Take eight liang of mercury, two liang of Shitingzhi, and one liang of realgar. Prepare them according to the method, grind them into a fine powder, and pour it evenly into the gui—the vessel used for boiling and nourishing the substances. Roast and refine Qingjin Tou, forge Ling Sha, and then boil and refine it by the method described earlier. If the substance does not transform, grind the silver that has been decocted into powder and make it into mother sand. Then boil and nourish it, and calcine it.

If it still does not transform, proceed with the method of boiling and nourishing it in the gui. After calcining it through the Third Calcination procedure, grind the Ling Sha into a fine powder. For every four liang of Ling Sha powder, add one liang of mercury, and grind them together until no mercury particles remain visible.

Use twenty liang of the powdered substance as one gui charge. Grind ten liang of Ling Sha powder with five liang of mercury until evenly mixed. Take another ten liang of Ling Sha powder and divide it into two portions of five liang each. First spread one portion over the bottom of the gui. Place the fifteen liang of powder mixed with mercury in the middle, then cover it with the remaining five liang of powder, which contains no mercury. Close the lid and seal the joint with red stone paste. Then seal the entire vessel with mud mixed with paper fibers. Place it in an ash pit and boil and nourish it for seven days, gradually increasing the heat until it reaches the level of half a jin.

When the furnace has cooled, gently remove the five liang of powder on top, which contains no mercury. Then remove the fifteen liang in the middle, which contains mercury, and finally take out the five liang at the bottom of the gui, which contains no mercury. Combine the two outer portions, totaling ten liang of powder without mercury, and add seven liang of mercury. Grind until no powder particles remain visible. Divide the previously boiled and nourished powder containing mercury into two portions. Put one half at the bottom of the gui, add the newly ground powder containing mercury, and cover it with the other half. Seal the vessel as before, place it in an ash container, and gradually increase the heat while boiling and nourishing it for seven days.

After taking it out, mix the powder evenly and add eight liang of mercury. Grind it, seal the vessel, and boil and nourish it as before. In this way, twenty liang of Ling Sha can be made into forty liang of gui charge. This method is called the “Feeding and Pairing Method” and can be used to boil and nourish mother sand and powder frost. After the winter season, the more it is nourished by boiling over the fire, the stronger its efficacy becomes, and it will not develop “yellow earth head.”

If, after more than ten rounds of continuous boiling and nourishing, the gui charge takes on a dry, dull color, add ten liang of mercury to the forty liang of charge and boil and nourish the mixture until it regains its luster. Once the substance has been taken out, the charge will also become moist. If it again appears dry, it can be fed with four liang of Ling Sha powder ground together with one liang of mercury. By repeatedly adding to and nourishing it in this way, its efficacy will continue to increase.

Fourth Firing

Take eight ounces of mercury and one ounce each of the male and female substances. First combine the sulfur with the mercury, then grind and refine the two substances together to form spirit sand. After boiling, nurturing, and firing it, do not use mother sand; place it only in the third container and nurture it for seven days. The firing schedule and the methods for feeding and mixing are the same as in the third firing. Once the mixture is properly prepared, make the container for nurturing Geng sand. After seven cycles of seven days—that is, forty-nine days—the container will be refined. If the substances appear dry during nurturing and refinement, feed them as described earlier.

Fifth Firing

Boil and refine the Three-Yellow spirit sand, then place it in the fourth container to nurture and refine it into spirit sand. Once it has been properly fed and mixed, place it in the guan container. This method does not use mother sand and wraps the container in herbs. According to the text, this makes the nurturing and refinement of gold sand more efficacious. Take seven qian of the substance and use it to transform one liang of raw flesh. Worms resembling boot-leather insects gradually appear on the flesh.

Sixth Firing

Use the Three-Yellow spirit sand without boiling or refining it first; simply place it in the fifth spirit-sand container and nurture it over the fire for seven days. Remove it and determine how many liang to use as needed. The text says that seven qian of the spirit sand produced by this sixth firing, used to transform one liang of raw flesh, can refine “true Danyang bone transformation.” This is also what is called the “two methods of Zhengjiao black □.” This formula can also be used for “Dead Dragon Coiled,” also known as “White Snow” or “Dust at the Bright Window.”

Seventh: The Method of Dead Dragon Coiled

The Method of Using a Ding

Take one liang of sixth-turn spirit sand and one liang of mercury. Grind them carefully until no specks of mercury remain visible. The text continues, “the proper method is thirty-three liang”; it then says to take thirty liang of spirit sand and thirty liang of mercury, grind them together into sixty liang, and place them in a ding. Refine them according to the firing schedule of raising the heat in the morning and lowering it in the evening, until “White Snow” is finally produced.

The circumference of the upper and lower cauldrons is set at twelve cun, corresponding to the twelve months. Each cauldron is eight cun high, corresponding to the eight seasonal divisions. The upper cauldron is twice as wide as the lower one, corresponding to the twenty-four solar terms. The upper cauldron symbolizes Heaven, and the lower cauldron symbolizes Earth. Qi rising belongs to Yang, while Qi descending belongs to Yin. Yin Qi must rise and Yang Qi must descend, symbolizing Yin and Yang responding to and harmonizing with one another. The cauldrons must be neither too large nor too small: if too large, the Qi disperses and cannot gather; if too small, the Qi is constricted and overflows. Either condition prevents an even, harmonious ascent and descent. The essential point is to seal the cauldrons tightly, regulate ascent and descent within them, and let them receive the changes of Yin and Yang from without. In this way, the workings of Heaven and Earth’s creative transformation are brought about.

The upper cauldron has a circumference of twenty-four cun, and its lower section is formed into three tiers, matching the three-tiered rim. The lower cauldron is eight cun long and twelve cun in circumference. Its rim is also made with three tiers, fitting precisely against the three-tiered part of the upper cauldron that covers it, without the slightest mismatch. This kind of cauldron has no legs of its own. Instead, make a separate, thick iron ring and attach three legs made from iron nails. The nails should be about as thick as a thumb and two and a half cun high.

Next, prepare a Yin furnace and a Yang furnace. For the Yin furnace, dig a pit in the ground and bury a bottle in it. The bottle’s mouth must be as wide as the large cauldron’s, and it should be buried so that its mouth is level with the ground. Pack the excavated soil firmly around it until the surface looks level. Build the Yang furnace directly on level ground. Put sixty liang of ingredients into the cauldron. Mix red ochre with water to make a thin paste, spread it over the three-tiered joint between the upper and lower cauldrons, then press the parts tightly together. Thread iron wire through the cauldron lugs to fasten and seal them. This method resembles the refining of spirit sand. Adjust the heat according to the four seasons, and refine continuously for seven days and nights. The water, fire, and ingredients correspond respectively to the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. The strength of the fire in each season should be as follows: in spring, gentle warmth; in summer, strong heat; in autumn, moderate warmth; in winter, low heat.

In this method, set up the cauldron on a Zi day at the Zi hour. Rest it on its three legs, then place it in the Yang furnace with its bottom facing upward. Build up the furnace until it reaches one third of the cauldron’s body. First use a gentle civil fire for one and a half ke, allowing the ingredients inside to combine. Then switch to a fierce fire, piling charcoal halfway up the cauldron, and burn for one and a half shichen. Next, use a strong fire, piling charcoal to three fifths of the cauldron’s height, and burn for another one and a half shichen. Then gradually remove the fire and switch to a low flame, keeping the contents warm and steady for one and a half shichen.

At noon, move the cauldron to the Yin furnace and rest its belly on the mouth of a small jar. Bury three fifths of the cauldron’s body in ash, and use cloth to absorb the moisture from the upper cauldron. Gradually lower the heat, then keep the ingredients warm and steady over a low flame for one and a half shichen. Next, move the cauldron onto a tray in the ash bed and add one jin of fire, as spring fire. This allows the mercury inside to descend slowly into the lower cauldron. Burn for one and a half shichen. Then pile charcoal upward from the surface of the ash, gradually increasing the heat, and burn for another one and a half shichen. Raise the fire until it extends from the upper cauldron’s tray down to the surface of the ash. After one and a half shichen, gradually remove the fire from the upper cauldron, then slowly remove the fire below. Switch to a low flame and keep the ingredients warm and steady for one and a half shichen. At midnight, at the Zi hour, move the cauldron back to the Yang furnace and make the ingredients rise and descend as before. Refine with fire for seven days and nights, following in sequence the cycles of ascent and descent, Already Fulfilled, and Not Yet Fulfilled. The firing process is then complete.

Break open the cauldron and take out a little White Snow. Put it into a Qi furnace and refine it until it melts. If there is no loss, the refining is complete. If a small amount is lost or changes color, make another cauldron and repeat the preceding method of ascent and descent for seven days and nights, then take out the White Snow Mercury. The alchemical instructions also say to grind the extracted “Dead Dragon Coiled” into a fine powder in a still iron mortar, then place it in a thin iron box. First add three fen of White Snow, then pour mercury through the long holes in the box, filling each hole and arranging them like a lotus pod. Finally, cover the surface with about one fen of White Snow, close the iron box, and seal its seams. Place the box in the ash bed and cover it with about one and a half cun of ash. Put four liang of fire on the ash, gradually increasing it to ten liang, and refine continuously day and night. On the eighth day, remove the remaining fire. Once the box has cooled, open it and take out the White Jade bars.

The text says that one qian of White Jade bars can transform one liang of Red Flesh, refining it into what is called “Yang Elixir for Changing the Bones.” Using two or three qian to transform one liang is said to produce better results. It may also be refined on its own into silver. The method of taking the material and refining it is first performed seven times. On the eighth cycle, refine for six days, then shorten the duration in succession to five, four, three, and two days, until the White Snow is put in in the morning and taken out in the evening. At that point, one qian of White Snow can be used to transform what is called “Mercury Three, Yellow Four,” and the scripture says its effects are unfailingly efficacious.

The Oral Instructions of Rihuazi

First: Extracting the Essence of Gold from Yellow Sprouts and White Snow

First pound the Yellow Sprouts, then wash and sift them with water. Put the portion that flows through with the water into a cauldron vessel and refine it to produce the Great Medicine. The portion that does not flow through should be refined with white sand into a precious substance; it must not be used to make medicine.

Second: Adding Mercury to Yellow Sprouts to Refine Dust Sand

Take the internal gold refined earlier and set aside five liang of Yellow Sprouts. Place them in the Flower Pool, a vessel used for alchemical refining, then add five and a half liang of mercury. Refine them over a fire until they bind into sand. Weigh the mixture, place it in a cauldron, and seal it firmly. Refine it for one day and one night, alternating gentle and fierce heat. When it is done, take it out and pour in another five liang of mercury. Continue refining according to the previous heat schedule. When removed, the materials will have become precious treasures.

Third: Cultivating Yellow Sprouts, Transforming the Jade Field, and Gathering the Treasure

Take half a jin each of Yellow Sprouts, mercury, and silver powder, and stir them into a paste. Place all three materials together in the Flower Pool and quench them fifty times. Then remove them and put them into the furnace cauldron. Seal the vessel firmly and refine it according to the previous heat schedule until it becomes a precious treasure.

Qingxiazi said: “One liang of Yellow Sprouts can transform one liang of Red Staff into a precious treasure. Or use five jin of Yellow Sprouts as the mother material, adding ingredients every five days and collecting five liang each time. In this way, raw material goes in and refined material comes out, allowing the process to continue indefinitely.”

Fourth: Clarifying the Origin of Refined Vermilion Mercury through the Transformation of Bright Window Dust

Take two liang of Bright Window Dust. What follows repeats the end of the third section: it says that Yellow Sprouts can transform Red Staff, or serve as mother material for repeated additions and refining until the treasure is collected.

Take two liang of bright-window dust and place it in a spirit chamber. Then take one liang of fine cinnabar and put it in a box. Cover it above and below with the bright-window dust, then pour in one liang of mercury. Seal the box securely and place it in an ash pit to warm and nurture for forty-nine days. When it is taken out and opened, it is said that everything inside will have turned into purple-gold powder. Refined in a furnace, it can be made into a treasure. This superior, true-gold-colored bright-window dust powder is what is known as the “unchanging medicine of purple powder.”

To take it, grind the medicine into a fine powder and mix it with date flesh to make pills about the size of mung beans. Take one pill on an empty stomach with well water. It is said to calm the hun and po souls, cure illness, and prolong life. If someone dies suddenly and the body has not decayed after seven days, it is said that half a qian of cinnabar, mixed with cold water and poured into the dead person’s mouth, can bring them back to life within moments.

Bright-window dust can also be made into pills about the size of hemp seeds using paper-mulberry sap. Take one pill on an empty stomach, and no more than two. It is said to prolong life, with exceptionally reliable results.

The Fifth Method: Cultivating the Two Vapors with Bright-Window Dust

Place two liang of bright-window dust in a cauldron. Grind together one liang of raw sulfur and one liang of mercury into a fine powder, put them in the cauldron, cover them above and below with bright-window dust, and seal the vessel securely. Set it in a furnace and nurture it with fire for five days. When it is taken out and examined, it is said to have turned purple-gold. Grind the contents together finely, then add five qian of raw sulfur each time and grind again. Use paper-mulberry sap to make pills about the size of mung beans. It is said that one pill can transmute one jin of mercury into a treasure.

The Sixth Method: Cultivating the River Cart with Bright-Window Dust

Place five liang of bright-window dust in a great spirit chamber. Take five liang of mercury and set it in the dust like a lotus seed. Seal the vessel securely and place it in a furnace, nurturing it with fire for seven days according to the previous method. When opened, it is said to have produced budlike growths that fly up and congeal on the cauldron, becoming “purple river-cart powder.” Refine these growths, and they can be made into true treasure.

The Seventh Method: Transforming the Purple River Cart into Golden Liquid

Take five liang of purple river cart and grind it into powder. Mix it with young vinegar to make a paste, then shape it into a small box. Once it has dried, place mercury inside and put it in a spirit chamber. Seal it securely and nurture it with fire for seven days. When opened, it is said that cinnabar and mercury will have formed inside. Refined, they can be made into true treasure.

The Eighth Method: Cultivating the Yellow Lift with the Purple River Cart

Grind one liang of Ziheche and one liang of cinnabar into a fine powder. Place them in a spirit chamber (a sealed vessel used for alchemical refining), seal it tightly, then open it and inspect the contents: they will have turned into cinnabar and mercury. After smelting, they can become a genuine treasure.

Preparing Ziheche for Yellow Transformation, Eighth

Grind one liang of Ziheche and one liang of cinnabar into a fine powder. Put them in a spirit chamber and seal it tightly, then keep it heated in an ash pit (a furnace chamber insulated with ash) for forty-nine days. Remove the contents and grind them finely. Use paper mulberry juice to make pills the size of sesame seeds. Take one pill on an empty stomach with wine that has not been treated with lime. This elixir is said to revive the dead; after ten days of taking it, the Three Corpses (spirits said in Daoism to dwell in the human body and obstruct cultivation) will depart of their own accord.

Qingxu Zi said: If a person dies suddenly, and the body has not begun to decay within seven days, dissolve half a qian of this elixir in cold water and pour it into the person’s mouth. They will awaken and return to life at once.

Yellow Transformation Subdues Realgar and Changes Its Nature, Ninth

Grind together one liang of yellow transformation, one liang of cinnabar, one liang of mercury, and five qian of realgar. Put the mixture in a spirit chamber and keep it heated for seven days. Remove it and grind it finely. Use date flesh to make pills the size of mung beans. Take one pill each day on an empty stomach with well water. It is said that when Yang Qi is weak, the breath is about to fail, and the spirit is disoriented, taking this pill can secure and protect Yang Qi, restore strength, and make the body more robust—even reversing aging and bringing the dead back to life. When inner-court officials take it, they can regain a youthful complexion; its effects are said to be unparalleled.

Put one jin of mercury into a tiao (a vessel used in refining) and scatter in two pellets of the elixir; it will then be refined into a treasure.

Realgar Transformation, Tenth

Put the previously prepared yellow transformation pills into a spirit chamber. Take another one liang of yellow transformation powder, spread it above and below the pills, and seal the chamber. Refine it with heat according to the method described earlier. After one hundred days, remove it. It is said that one pill can transform one jin of iron into genuine gold. Its efficacy is wondrous beyond words, reaching the realm of spiritual transformation.

Sprinkling Ziheche on Mercury to Make a Treasure, Eleventh

Place the sprout prepared from yellow alum in the spirit chamber, then add four liang of cinnabar (also called vermilion). Cover it, seal the spirit chamber securely, and tend the fire for thirty-five days as before. When the time is complete, remove it. Grind the cinnabar to a fine powder and use paper mulberry juice to form pills the size of mung beans. Sprinkle each pill over ten liang of mercury to produce the “Supreme Treasure.”

Preparing Yellow Alum into Purple River Chariot (12)

Take one liang of frost powder, a mercury-containing substance obtained through refining. Cover it and place it in the furnace. Tend the fire for twenty-one days, then remove it. Sprinkle each grain over ten liang of mercury, and it will become a treasure. This substance also has another transformative use.

Preparing Purple Gold Elixir to Transform the Five Metals (13)

Place one liang of River Chariot powder in the spirit chamber. Seal it as before and tend the fire for one year, using the same fire regimen as for the “Great Medicine.” Form mung-bean-sized pills with paper mulberry juice. A single pill can transmute the Five Metals and turn them into a supreme treasure.

Method for the Spiritual Transformation of Purple Gold (14)

Place the previously prepared Purple River Chariot powder in the spirit chamber again, seal it, and tend the fire for one year before removing it. Form pills the size of hemp seeds with date flesh, then put them in the spirit chamber and seal it. Remove them after forty-nine days. Wrap them in cloth, tie the bundle securely, and immerse it in flowing water for forty-nine days before taking it out. Then fast and bathe, and while your stomach is empty, swallow one pill with wine made without ash. It is said to have further miraculous effects.

Transforming Purple Gold Elixir (15)

Take four liang or half a jin of this Golden River Chariot and place it in a gold spirit chamber. Take one liang of the prepared sprouts, spread them above and below the Purple River Chariot, and seal the chamber. Tend the fire for one year, then remove the contents and divide them into five elixirs.

The Supreme Treasure Meets the Golden Elixir (16)

After sealing it in the crucible and tending the fire for a year according to the method described above, open the furnace. First observe purification and bathing, perform a Jiaoji sacrifice, and give thanks to Heaven and Earth. Then open the alchemical vessel and collect the various elixirs.

If a substance resembling pure vermilion has formed on the vessel, it is called the “Dragon-Tiger Great Return Elixir.” After taking it for a hundred days, one is said to ascend to the realm of the immortals, live forever, and roam among the clouds in the Purple Palace—the Daoist celestial realm. Chickens and dogs that take it can also transform into dragons and phoenixes. If golden flowers form on all four sides inside the vessel, shaped like fish scales, the elixir is called the “Divine Talisman White Snow Elixir.” If the vessel is pale red all around, it is called the “Purple Pole Elixir”; if its purple color never changes, it is also called the “Purple Gold Elixir.” If flowers form everywhere along the vessel’s edge, shining with brilliant gold, it is called the “Golden Liquid Lesser Return Elixir.”

Make all these elixirs into pills the size of hemp seeds, using the sap of the paper mulberry tree. Once the pills have dried, wrap them and soak them in flowing water for a hundred days. Take one pill with the first-drawn water from a well in the morning, known as “well-flower water.” Four liang of elixir per dose constitutes one course. The refining of these elixirs still requires careful, focused attention, and is said to reveal miraculous effects. After taking them for a thousand days, the bones, body, and five viscera will all take on a golden hue. Elixirs made in the world from metals, minerals, plants, and trees are impure; only this elixir is free of poison. Neither water nor fire can harm it, and all manner of evil spirits will keep far away. Those who take it can also become terrestrial immortals—immortals who dwell among human beings.

There are also sixteen transformations.

First transformation: The Yellow Sprout reveals a treasure.

Grind the Yellow Sprout into powder and wash it with water. After being nurtured and refined, the portion that floats on the surface can be used as medicine; the grains of sand in the water can be smelted into a treasure called “white metal.”

Second transformation: The Yellow Sprout is drawn out and replenished, producing an elixir.

Take five liang of inner sand—the inner sand used in the preparation—and add mercury and the Flower Pool, the vessel or medium used to hold the ingredients during alchemical work, until the mixture solidifies into a lump. Place it in an iron crucible, seal it tightly, and warm it gently for three days. Begin with a fire strength equivalent to one liang, then increase it by five liang each day until it reaches one jin. Next, place it in the spirit chamber, the sealed furnace chamber used for gentle warming, and warm it through nine cycles. Once prepared, it can be used to transform the five metals and taken as a medicine. It is called the “Red Stone Elixir” and is said to grant longevity.

Red Stone Elixir: Planting Jade in the Fields, Third

This elixir is called “Entering the Root of Immortal Jade,” and is also known as the “Great Gushing Spring.”

Take one liang of Red Stone Cinnabar and use it to warm ten liang of mercury. Grind the ingredients into powder and mix them with vinegar; then add another ten liang of mercury and stir into a paste. Place the mixture in the Flower Pool and temper it ten times. Next, put ten liang of mercury into an iron crucible, cover it with sand and stone, and seal it tightly. Set it in an ash bath and warm it gently over a fire of five liang for seven full days. Add three liang of mercury and continue warming for another seven days. Once “White Laughter” has formed, remove three liang and add three liang in its place. The original text continues: “Take the living substance and swallow it; it is a treasure of the furnace, never exhausted, and the art of the Golden Shell is thus secured.” In essence, this means taking the resulting substance as a medicine and treating it as a furnace treasure believed never to be depleted; the passage is associated with the art of transmuting metals.

Transforming It into the Four Spirits Elixir and Taking Dust from the Bright Window, Fourth

Take one liang of the Four Spirits Elixir, half a liang of sulfur imported by sea, and three liang of mercury. Grind them together into powder, place the mixture in a Hunan bottle, as the original calls the vessel, and warm it in an ash bath for twenty-one days. The text records that the resulting substance gradually increases from half a liang to ten liang; stop when it reaches ten liang. Remove it and grind it two thousand times, then continue warming it for a year until it gradually turns into light dust. The scripture says that “water cannot drown it, and fire cannot burn it.” At noon, scatter a little into the air: it will turn into white clouds and slowly rise into the sky, its height and distance beyond anyone’s measure.

Further Refining Mercury with Bright Window Dust, Fifth

Take five liang of Bright Window Dust and mix it with rice vinegar into a paste. Once dry, place it in a mercury crucible and seal it tightly. Warm it gently for a full day and night, alternating between a mild fire and a strong one. When removed, it becomes a “treasure” that can be used to make objects and to identify various poisons.

The Method of Bright Window Dust Subduing Cinnabar Without Changing Its Original Color, Sixth

First collect dust from a bright window (the dust accumulated on its lattice). Cover it above and below with cinnabar, then calcine and cultivate it for one full cycle of twelve double-hours, alternating gentle and strong heat. Once prepared, form it into pills with jujube flesh. Taking them is said to settle the Hun and Po souls. If someone suddenly dies, after seven days take half a qian of fire-treated cinnabar and mix it with cold water for them to drink. The original says that as soon as it enters the mouth, the person can revive and the souls return. Continue calcining and cultivating this bright-window dust with the fire-treated cinnabar for a year. The original says its transformation will then match that of the “Great Elixir,” a Daoist alchemical elixir, though it cannot ascend. It then repeats the claims about making pills, settling the Hun and Po souls, and supposedly “calling back the dead.”

Bright-Window Dust for Turning Copper into Silver, Part Seven

Take arsenic (an arsenic-bearing substance such as arsenic trioxide), grind it into a fine, clear powder, then cover it above and below with bright-window dust and calcine it for one full cycle of twelve double-hours. Each liang of arsenic powder is said to transmute one jin of copper into “treasure.”

Preparing Huangju, Part Eight, Also Called Purple River Chariot

Take ten liang or one jin of huangju. Process it according to the method for refining a great medicine and calcine it for ten months. The finished substance will resemble purple-gold powder.

Purple River Chariot for Adding Mercury, Part Nine

Take one liang of Purple River Chariot and one jin of mercury. Quench them three times in a Flower Pool, a vessel or container used in alchemy. The original says the mercury will spontaneously form a white frost. Place it in a sealed alchemical vessel and calcine it for seven days; it will then become gold. Remove it, add more mercury, and repeat the method. This is called “seed-grown gold,” also known as the “shell method,” a technique for making metals through another substance.

Purple River Chariot, Realgar, and Wood, Part Ten

The Purple River Chariot powder must be formed into a lump; use any quantity of realgar. Put the powder into a small alchemical vessel, cover it above and below, seal it, and calcine it in an ash bath for seven days to make fire-treated realgar. Add one qian of raw borneol to each liang of realgar powder, then use paper-mulberry juice to form pills the size of seal-script beans. On an empty stomach, swallow three pills with wine containing no ash.

Drying Mercury with Fire-Treated Realgar, Part Eleven

Take ten liang of mercury and sprinkle it with half a liang of fire-treated realgar powder. Put it in a Yao (a vessel named in the original; the character’s meaning is unclear), then cover it with wet paper and a teacup, fitting them tightly together. Calcine it for one full cycle of twelve double-hours, alternating gentle and strong heat, and gradually raise the heat until the Tiaozhi (a vessel named in the original; its precise referent is unclear) glows red. The original says this produces “treasure.”

Preparing the Purple Elixir from Ziheche, Chapter Twelve

Take four liang of Ziheche (the name of a medicinal ingredient in this formula), eight liang of mercury, and four liang of realgar. Place them in an iron vessel and seal it tightly. Nurture them over a fire in an ash pit for forty-nine days, regulating the heat as though carrying out a year’s refinement. When the process is complete, the substance will be the color of polished purple gold. Then use paper mulberry juice to make it into pills the size of hemp or soybean seeds. Each pill is said to be able to refine one jin of mercury into a treasure of the highest value.

The Purple Gold Elixir Reverts Mercury to Gold, Chapter Thirteen

Take one jin of mercury and place it with one pill of the elixir in a covered tiaozi, a type of alchemical vessel. Nurture it over a low fire in an ash pit for one fu period (about twelve double-hours). If it turns yellow, it is said to have become a treasure.

The Purple Gold Elixir Transforms Iron into Gold, Chapter Fourteen

Refine one jin of raw iron until it becomes purple gold in a smoky, liquid form. Then add one pellet of the returning elixir and transform it in a pot. It is said to yield superior gold.

The Purple Gold Elixir Transforms Copper into Gold, Chapter Fifteen

Refine one jin of copper until it becomes a smoky liquid, then add one pill of the elixir and transform it in a pot. It is said to yield superior gold.

Taking the Purple Gold Returning Elixir, Chapter Sixteen

Each morning, take three pills on an empty stomach with clear wine. After taking a thousand pills, it is said that poisonous snakes and fierce beasts, as well as spirit-entities and evil deities, will be unable to harm you. Its effects are said to surpass those of any minerals, metals, or plants in the world. After taking it for a thousand days, the Five Viscera and bone marrow are said to turn golden, bringing immortality and life without death. You will become an immortal who walks the earth and ascend to the Purple Palace, the dwelling place of immortals.

The Great Tenuity Lord’s Elixir for Long Life and Preserving Life

The first of the Nine Reversions and Seven Returns: Cold Forest

Method for refining True Lead: Place mountain- and marsh-sourced silver in a crucible and melt it into liquid. Then form it into beads about the size of millet grains.

Method for nurturing and refining Cinnabar: Take one and a half taels of transparent Cinnabar and suspend it in a vessel. Boil it in water for one hour. While the medicine is boiling, grind together two qian each of borax, chalcanthite, and alum, along with half a tael of green salt. Boil the mixture in bitter wine (vinegar) and use it to bathe the Cinnabar.

For the bathing, take three qian each of Qianghua, polygala root, and Sichuan pepper. Boil them in water for half a day, then remove them and dry them over a fire. Grind pine-soot ink thickly in a cup, and roll the medicinal ingredients in it until they turn black. Next, use the “close-contact medicine”: roll refined honey over close-contact alum stone, grind the stone to a powder, boil it in bitter wine, and use it to bathe the medicine. Then again take three qian each of Qianghua, polygala root, and Sichuan pepper, boil them in water for half a day, remove them and dry them over a fire, then dye them black with pine-soot ink.

To combine the medicines, first mix wild ramie root, Qianghua, polygala root, and salt, and pound them into a paste. Coat the inner wall of the vessel with the paste, then add the lead powder, arranging it in the shape of a lotus and covering it layer by layer. Separate the layers with lotus leaves, cover the top with melted and refined salt powder, and seal the vessel. Place it in an ash pit to control the heat as the medicine is nurtured and refined. Nurture it for three days with a three-tael fire, then for three days with a three-and-a-half-tael fire, and finally for one day with a four-tael fire. Remove it and test it over a fire: if it melts into liquid, the refining is complete. If any part has not yet been subdued by the fire, continue nurturing and refining it until it is.

Then remove it and place one and a half taels of Cinnabar in the vessel as the kui—the material that holds the medicine and assists its nurturing and refinement. Nurture and refine it for seven days, following the method and heat levels described above. Remove it to obtain a total of three taels of Cinnabar. Use these three taels as the kui, take two and a half taels of raw Cinnabar, and boil and refine it by the earlier method. This is the first cycle of nurturing and refining; continue until it is subdued by the fire.

Nurture and refine the Cinnabar in a Cinnabar kui. Do not use wild ramie root to line the vessel; simply cover the top with Cinnabar, pack it firmly, and seal it. Place it in the ash pit and apply heat: nurture it for two days with a two-tael fire, then for three days with a three-tael fire. Remove it and calcine it with an established fire. Once it has cooled, take it out. The resulting medicine will be reddish white. Grind it finely, add it to the kui, and keep it for use in the third cycle of nurturing and refining.

Third Turning: Adding Cinnabar to Transform the Substance into a Treasure

Grind the five liang of cinnabar obtained from the previous refining into a fine powder, to serve as the kui—the vessel or medium that holds and encloses the medicine. Add three more liang of cinnabar, then load and seal it as before, keep it close to the body, and refine it using the same fire regimen. After applying the fire regimen used in the second turning, remove it. The cinnabar will be pure white and unchanged. The third turning follows the same method as before, yielding eight liang in all to serve as the kui. Add more medicine and continue refining it until it becomes spiritually responsive. This is the method of the nine turnings.

Fourth Turning: Removing the Embryonic Qi Without Adding More Medicine

Grind all eight liang of cinnabar obtained earlier into a fine powder and place it in the he, the vessel used to refine elixirs. Cover it with sheets of mica, then pack and seal it with talc powder. Place it in an ash vessel and nurture it with heat, using three liang of fire for three days. Remove it and clear away the talc.

Fifth Turning: Restoring Its Earth Nature and Turning It Yellow, a Sign That It Can Generate Life

Put the cinnabar refined in the fourth turning back into the he, and cover it again with sheets of mica. Grind two liang of fine realgar into a powder and spread it over the top. Nurture it with three liang of fire for three days, following the previous method. Its color will turn yellow, like the color of earth. Remove the realgar and store it for another use.

Sixth Turning: The Method for an Immortal Foundation Without a Top Cover

Continuing from the fifth turning, keep the medicine’s earth nature and seal it using only herbal material. The scripture says, “At six and nine, it returns to its substance,” meaning that after six or nine turnings of refinement, the medicine returns to its original nature. Temper it with Yang fire until it becomes ash. Place the cinnabar refined earlier into the he, without covering it with sheets of mica. Instead, mix buckwheat stalk ash into a covering, then nurture it with three liang of fire for three days.

Seventh Turning: Called “Seven Returns”

After seven refinings, cinnabar turns red again and returns to its original state as mother-sand; hence it is called “returning elixir.” At this stage, the substance begins to display wondrous transformations. When cinnabar first forms, it is blue-green, like its mother substance. Lead must be present during the refining. In transformations such as the Five Yellows and Three Whites, one must also wait for other substances to work together. Once the sequence of “seven reversals and nine returns” is complete, the lead obtained at the beginning is used to seal and stabilize the substance from the outside. This is the method of returning to the root and restoring the original vital energy. When all things return to their original state, they can endure and transform.

From this point, the restored substance is used to refine dead mercury. For the seventh turn, grind the cinnabar from the previous stage again, place it in a vessel, and seal the lid; then cover it with the lead obtained in the first turn. Warm and nourish it with a fire of three liang for three days. When it is taken out, the cinnabar will have turned red again and recovered its nature. It is said to be capable of transforming six liang of yellow-and-white metals.

Once the mother-sand has been refined to a certain point, there is no need to put it through seven reversals again. Continue refining it to the eighth turn, and it can then generate other substances. Make the seven-reversal cinnabar into a “container” for holding and enclosing the substances, and use it to warm and nourish two liang of mother-sand through three cycles of seven days. Divide the mother-sand into four pieces, seal them, and place them in the container to be warmed and nourished: first use a fire of two liang for three days, then a fire of four liang for one day. After warming and nourishing it in this way three times, take two fen of mother-sand, regulate the fire as before, and then give it the “nine-one” nourishment. Warm and nourish the mother-sand three times in all, then break it open and make it into the medicine.

Next, take the residue from the seven-reversal cinnabar container and divide it into two portions. Spread one portion across the bottom of a sand crucible, dig four small hollows in it, and place half a liang of mercury in each hollow. Spread the other portion of the residue over the top as a covering. Warm it with a fire of two liang for three days, then take it out. Dig hollows again as before, placing two liang of mercury in each time, and follow the same procedure. After repeating this pouring and refining thirty times, pour in two liang of mercury and warm it overnight with a fire of two liang. Only then does the medicine become spiritually potent and enter the mysterious stage of the eighth turn.

The eighth turn begins creation through “separation from the mother”—separating the material from its source—and then pouring mercury into it. Take four liang of raw cinnabar, wrap it in gold foil, place it in a elixir vessel, and warm it over a fire. This turn is also mentioned under the “First Transformation.”

The ninth turn is also called the “Ninefold-Returned Elixir.”

Take out the cinnabar that has been warmed and nurtured, and continue pouring and nurturing it in a separate elixir vessel. The detailed procedure for this step is given under the “Sixteenth Transformation.”

Collected Essentials of Lead, Mercury, Jia, Geng, and the Treasures, Volume Three

Collected Essentials of Lead, Mercury, Jia, Geng, and the Treasures, Volume Four

Methods for Processing Ingredients in the Elixir Laboratory

Six Tested Methods by Master Zhao Zhongming

Dead alum: Each time, take ten liang of alum. Wash it with a large bowl of sheep’s-foot-root leaf juice, then strain it clean and boil it until dry. Spread out two liang of powdered soapberry, mix it with the alum, and put the mixture in a clay pot. Calcine it over a strong fire until it is red throughout and all the smoke has dispersed.

Dead alum: Boil it for half a day in an ash solution made from five kinds of herbs, then let it dry and calcine it over a strong fire until red. Cocklebur juice may also be used.

Dead saltpeter: Calcine it first, until all the smoke has dispersed.

Dead alum: Boil it for half a day in an ash solution made from five kinds of herbs, then let it dry and calcine it over a strong fire until red. Cocklebur juice may also be used.

Dead saltpeter: First wash the pot repeatedly with ginger juice. Then pour in ginger juice and saltpeter and boil them together for three double-hours. Once the ginger juice has boiled away, add more heat, cover the pot, and calcine briefly. What you take out is “dead saltpeter.” This method is used for powder frost. If the saltpeter is to be calcined into material for use as a “container,” boil it for half a day in a decoction of cassia branches and soapberries, then calcine it once more; only then is the processing complete.

Dead sulfur: First burn yellow foxtail grass to ash, then use the ash solution to boil sulfur for a day. At dusk, take it out and leave it on the ground to cool overnight. The next morning, pound spinach to extract two or three basins of juice. Heat an iron vessel until red-hot, melt the sulfur in it, then pour the sulfur into the cold spinach juice. Repeat this three or four times. When testing it by burning, continue until no smoke appears. If smoke remains, melt the sulfur again and pour it into spinach juice two or three more times, until there is no smoke. Before pouring it into the iron vessel, first prepare the leached foxtail-grass ash into…