Formulas for Making Gold and Silver

2 Method for Making Cinnabar WaterPrepare one pound of cinnabar and put it in a fresh bamboo tube. Add two ounces each of chalcanthite and saltpeter, layering them above and below. Seal the mouth of the tube with lacquer-and-bone paste and wait until it dries. Place it in strong vinegar, bury it three feet deep in the ground, and after thirty days it becomes a liquid, red in color and bitter in taste.

3 Method for Making Gold, Received by Master Jinlou from QinglinziFirst forge tin into a plate six inches square and one inch and two fen thick. Mix red salt with ash lye to the consistency of clay and spread it over the tin to an even thickness of one fen. Stack the plates in a red-clay pot. For every ten pounds of tin use four pounds of red salt; join and seal the edges firmly. Keep it warm over a horse-dung fire for thirty days. Open the furnace and inspect it: the tin will all resemble ashes, with clusters like beans within it; these are gold. Collect them, refine them in an earthen bowl, and blow the charcoal fire over them; after ten refinings, they all become gold. Ten pounds of tin yield twenty ounces of gold. Only earthen pots from Changsha, Guiyang, Yuzhang, or Nanhai will do. The local people there commonly make such pots to cook their food.

4 Method for Preparing Red SaltTake one pound of cold salt, one pound of cold-water stone, one pound of cold black alum, and one pound of white alum. Put them together in an iron vessel and heat it with charcoal until everything melts and turns red. Then take it out for use.

5 Method for Transforming Gold, Received by Master Jiaoli from JiqiuziFirst place two parts alum-water stone in an iron vessel. Heat it with charcoal until it boils, then add as much mercury as you wish and stir until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. After six or seven boils, pour it onto the ground, and it becomes silver. Then take one part each of cinnabar water and azurite water and two parts realgar water, and heat them gently in a cauldron until they boil. Stir repeatedly to combine them, then put the cauldron over a charcoal fire and bring it to a boil again. Add as much of the silver as you wish, let it boil six or seven times, and pour it onto the ground to solidify: it becomes fine purple gold.

6 Method for Preparing Realgar WaterPrepare one pound of realgar and put it in a fresh bamboo tube. Each time add two ounces of saltpeter, layering it above and below. Seal it with lacquer-and-bone paste, place it in strong vinegar, and bury it three feet deep. After twenty days it will have turned to water. The formulas for azurite water and alum-stone water follow the same method, but each is prepared in its own tube.

7 The Child's Method for Making GoldMake a large iron cylinder, twelve inches in inner diameter and twelve inches high. Make a small iron cylinder, six inches in inner diameter, and polish it bright. Take one pound of red halloysite, one pound of saltpeter, one pound of mica, one pound of red ocher, half a pound of sulfur, four ounces of hollow azurite, and one pound of gypsum. Pound all these together and sieve them fine; mix them with vinegar and coat the inside of the small cylinder to a thickness of two fen. Take one pound of mercury, half a pound of cinnabar, and half a pound of liangfei.

8 To obtain liangfei, place ten pounds of lead in an iron pot over a furnace and heat it uncovered. When the lead melts, add three ounces of mercury. Skim off with an iron spoon what rises first: this is called liangfei. Stir the ingredients together until the mercury can no longer be seen, then place them in the small cylinder. Cover them with mica and weigh it down with an iron lid. Set the large cylinder over the furnace, melt lead and pour it into the large cylinder until it stands half an inch below the top of the small one. Watch for the lead to melt, then heat fiercely for three days and nights. The product is called purple powder. Melt ten pounds of lead in an iron vessel; continue heating it for about twenty days, then transfer it to a copper vessel. Once the lead melts, add seven square-inch spoonfuls of purple powder and stir: it becomes gold at once. To make silver, put mercury in an iron vessel, add three inches or more of purple powder, heat until they mingle, and pour into water: it becomes silver.

9 Wuchengzi's MethodMake an iron cylinder nine inches long and five inches across. Pound three pounds of realgar with an equal amount of mole-cricket earth. Mix into a clay and coat it around the cylinder until it is three inches across, leaving its mouth four inches wide. Add two ge of cinnabar water. Set it over a horse-dung fire until thoroughly dry, then place it inside a copper cylinder, close it firmly with a fitted copper lid, pack yellow sand over the top, and coat it thickly with mole-cricket earth, leaving no opening at the top. Put it in a charcoal furnace with three inches of charcoal. When the cylinder's mouth grows red, let it cool and open it. All the realgar will have gone into and adhered to the copper cylinder. Take it out and put it back in by the same procedure. When all the essence of the three pounds of realgar has gone down into the cylinder, lift it out and mix it with an equal amount of yellow sand to make a furnace of whatever size you wish. To use it, set the furnace among burning charcoal. When it glows red, put in mercury; when the mercury moves, put lead into it. Yellow will rise at the sides and meet in the center. Pour it onto the ground, and it becomes gold. Once fifteen hundred pounds have been made, the furnace's power is spent.Steep this gold in chaste-tree and red-millet wine for a hundred days; it will then be soft enough to work. Take a pill the size of a small bean three times a day. When you have taken one pound, the three worms and the hidden corpse will depart, and all diseases will be gone; the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the old will regain the years of a thirty-year-old. Fire will not burn you; the hundred evils and every poison, cold wind, heat, and damp cannot enter your body. When you have taken three pounds, you will walk on water; the hundred gods of mountains and rivers will come to attend and protect you; your life will end only with heaven and earth.Boil one pill with oak-tree blood and vermilion grass, then rub your eye-corners with it: you will see ghosts and things underground, and be able to write at night. Smear one pill with the blood of a white sheep and throw it into water: fish and dragons will immediately emerge for the taking. Smear one pill with the blood of a black sheep and a red rooster, and hang it over a city gate: for a mile around there will be no epidemic. Smear it on the foreheads of cattle, sheep, and the other domestic animals, and none will fall ill or be attacked by tigers or leopards. Smear one pill with tiger gall and snake fat and throw it toward an enemy army from the direction of the month's cyclical sign: the army will at once, for no apparent reason, fall into disorder, wound and kill one another, and flee. Smear one pill with ox blood and throw it into a well: the water in the well will immediately boil. Throw it into a flowing stream, and the water will run backward for a hundred paces. Smear one pill with the blood of a white dog and throw it into a shrine of the earth god: its spirits will appear and can be commanded. Smear one pill with rabbit blood and set it in a place of sixfold yin: the Jade Maidens of the traveling kitchen will arrive at once and can serve sixty or seventy people. Smear one pill with carp gall and carry it into water: the water will part for ten feet, and you will be able to breathe as you walk beneath it; even in the rain your clothes will not get wet. Boil one pill with purple amaranth, hold it in your mouth, and swallow its juice: you can go a hundred days without hunger. Boil one pill with lodestone and put it in your hair knot. When you strike at bandits, neither naked blades nor flying arrows will strike you; if anyone shoots at you, his arrows will turn back on him. Combine one pill with earth taken under the Six Ding and Six Ren signs and use it to conceal yourself among people: you will become invisible. Hold one pill in your mouth, face north, and spray toward a fire: the fire will go out. On a geng or xin day, at the shen or you hour, face west and throw one pill at a tree: it will wither that very day. Take another pill, perform Yu's steps, and throw it at a tiger, wolf, snake, or viper: each will die at once. Grind one pill and write with it on stone, and the writing enters the stone; write on metal, and it enters the metal; write on wood, and it enters the wood. Everything written penetrates its substance, and cutting or scraping cannot remove it. If someone has just died and a night has not passed, take water from the direction of the month's cyclical sign, put a pill in it, let it enter the dead person's throat, and spray some of the water onto the face: the person will revive. Smear one pill with fox blood and crane blood and place it in a fingernail. Point at anything and speak the desired transformation: mountains will seem to move and trees to walk. Everyone will see this, though nothing has really moved.In making either the yellow or the white, always set up seats for Taiyi, the Mysterious Woman, and Laozi and make offerings to them, as in the method for making the Nine Elixirs. Burn the five incenses constantly, without letting the fragrance cease. And when the gold is finished, first throw three pounds into deep water and one pound into the marketplace; only then may you use the rest as you please.

2 Method for making cinnabar liquid: Prepare one jin of cinnabar and put it inside a fresh bamboo tube. Add two liang each of copper sulfate and saltpeter, layering them above and below the cinnabar. Stop up the mouth of the tube and seal it with a ball of lacquer and bone. Wait for it to dry, then put it in strong vinegar and bury it three chi deep in the ground. After thirty days it becomes a liquid, red in color and bitter in taste.

3 The method of making gold that Master Jinlou received from Qinglinzi: First hammer tin into a sheet six cun square and one cun and two fen thick. Mix red salt with lye made from ashes into a paste, and coat the tin all over to a thickness of one fen. Stack the sheets in a red-clay pot. For every ten jin of tin use four jin of red salt. Join the pots and seal their edges firmly. Heat them gently over a fire of horse dung for thirty days, then open them and look. The tin will all have turned to an ash-like substance. Within it will be little clustered pieces like beans: these are gold. Put everything together in a clay bowl and heat it with a charcoal fire and bellows. Refine it ten times, and all will become gold. Ten jin of tin yields twenty liang of gold. Only earthenware pots made in Changsha, Guiyang, Yuzhang, or Nanhai will work. People in those regions make plenty of clay pots to cook their food.

4 Method for preparing red salt: Take one jin of cold salt, one jin of cold-water stone, one jin of cold yunie, and one jin of white alum. Put them together in an iron vessel and heat them with charcoal until they all melt and become red. Then take the mixture out for use.

5 The method for changing substances into gold that Master Jiaoli received from Jiqiuzi: First put two parts of alum-water stone in an iron vessel and heat it over charcoal until it boils. Add as much mercury as you wish, and stir to mix them well. Let it boil six or seven times, then pour it on the ground to form silver. Take one part each of cinnabar liquid and azurite liquid, and two parts of realgar liquid. Put them in a metal vessel over low heat and bring them to a boil, stirring them repeatedly to mix them well. Put the vessel back over the charcoal fire and bring it to a boil. Add as much of this silver as you wish. Let it boil six or seven times and pour it on the ground. When it sets, it will become high-quality gold with a purple sheen.

6 Method for making realgar liquid: Prepare one jin of realgar and put it inside a fresh bamboo tube. Add two liang of saltpeter each time. Layer the ingredients above and below, seal with a ball of lacquer and bone, and place it in strong vinegar. Bury it three chi deep. In twenty days it will turn to liquid. Make azurite liquid and alum-stone liquid the same way, but use separate tubes for each.

7 The Young Master's method for making gold: Make a large iron tube measuring one chi and two cun across the inside and one chi and two cun high. Make a small iron tube measuring six cun across the inside and polish it smooth. Take one jin each of red clay, saltpeter, mica, red ocher, and cold-water stone; half a jin of sulfur; and four liang of azurite. Pound them all together, sift them finely, mix with vinegar, and coat the inside of the small tube to a thickness of two fen. Take one jin of mercury, half a jin of cinnabar, and half a jin of liangfei.

8 To make liangfei, place ten jin of lead in an iron pot on a furnace and heat it over an open flame. When the lead melts, add three liang of mercury. Skim off with an iron spoon what rises first: that is called liangfei. Stir the ingredients until well mixed; wait until the mercury can no longer be seen. Put it in the small tube, cover it with mica, and weigh down an iron lid over it. Set the large tube on the furnace and melt lead, pouring it into the large tube to surround the small tube up to half a cun below its top. Keep the lead molten while you cook it over a strong fire for three days and three nights. What results is called purple powder. Melt ten jin of lead in an iron vessel for around twenty days, then transfer it to a copper vessel. Once the lead has melted, add seven fangcun-spoonfuls of purple powder and stir. It will immediately become gold. To make silver, put mercury in an iron vessel, add purple powder measuring three cun or more, and heat until they combine. Pour it into water, and it will become silver.

9 The method of Wuchengzi: Make an iron tube nine cun long and five cun in diameter. Pound three jin of realgar with equal parts of earth from earthworms and mole crickets, mix them into mud, and coat and wrap the tube until its diameter is three cun, leaving a receptacle with a mouth four cun wide. Add two he of cinnabar liquid. Put it over a horse-dung fire until completely dry. Place it in a copper tube, stop it with a copper lid, and close it tightly. Pack yellow sand over it, then cover it with a thick layer of earthworm soil and mud, leaving no opening at the top. Put it among the furnace coals with three cun of charcoal around it. When the mouth of the tube turns red, let it cool and open it. All the realgar will have entered and adhered to the copper tube. Take it out and put it back in as before. When the refined material from all three jin of realgar has gone down into the tube, lift it out and mix it with an equal quantity of yellow sand to make a furnace, whatever size you wish. When you want to use it, put the furnace among the coals. Once it is red, add mercury. When the mercury moves, add lead. A yellow color will rise from the sides and meet in the middle. Pour it onto the ground, and it will become gold. After producing a total of fifteen hundred jin, the furnace's power is spent. Soak this gold in wine made from red millet and chaste tree for a hundred days, and it will become soft and easy to blend. Take one pill the size of a small bean three times a day. When you have taken a total of one jin, the three worms and the hidden corpse in your body will be subdued, and every illness will leave you. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the old will return to the age of thirty. Fire will not burn you. No evil influences or poisons, cold winds, heat, or damp can harm you. Once you have taken three jin, you can walk on water, all the spirits of mountains and rivers will come to serve and guard you, and your life will last as long as heaven and earth.Boil one pill with oak sap and vermilion grass, and rub it on the corners of your eyes. You will see ghosts and things underground, and you will be able to write at night. Smear one pill with white sheep's blood and throw it in water: fish and dragons will appear at once and you can catch them. Smear one pill with the blood of a black sheep and a red rooster and hang it above the city gate: there will be no epidemic within one li. Smear it on the foreheads of cattle, sheep, and all six kinds of livestock: they too will be free of disease, and tigers and leopards will not attack them. Smear one pill with tiger gall and snake fat. Starting from the direction indicated by the month's cyclical sign, throw it toward an enemy army. The army will immediately fall into disorder for no reason, wound and kill its own men, and flee. Smear one pill with ox blood and throw it in a well: the water in the well will boil. Throw it in a flowing stream and the water will flow backward for a hundred paces. Smear one pill with white dog's blood and throw it into a shrine of the earth god: its spirits will become visible and can be put to work. Smear one pill with rabbit's blood and place it in a location of the six yin: heavenly women who provide meals will come at once, and can serve sixty or seventy people. Smear one pill with carp gall and carry it into the water: the water will open to a width of one zhang, and you can breathe and walk underwater; your clothes will not get wet even in the rain. Boil one pill with purple amaranth and hold it in your mouth, swallowing its juice: you can go a hundred days without hunger. Boil one pill with lodestone and put it in your hair knot. When fighting robbers, neither naked blades nor flying arrows will hit you. If anyone shoots at you, all the arrows will turn back toward the shooter. Combine earth from sites associated with the six Ding and the six Ren with one pill and use it to shield yourself among people: you will become invisible. Hold a pill in your mouth and face north as you spit at a fire: the fire will go out. On a Geng or Xin day, at the Shen or You hour, face west and throw a pill at a tree: the tree will wither that very day. Throw a pill at tigers, wolves, snakes, or vipers while doing Yu's ritual steps: they will all die at once. Grind a pill and use it to write on stone: the writing will enter the stone. Write on metal or wood, and it will enter metal or wood. Whatever you write will penetrate the material itself and cannot be removed by scraping or smoothing it. If someone has just died and the night has not yet passed, put one pill in water drawn in the direction indicated by the month's cyclical sign, make it enter the person's throat, and take some of the water in your mouth and spray it on the dead person's face. The person will come back to life. Smear one pill with fox blood and crane blood, put it under a fingernail, and point at anything. It will seem to change according to what you say: mountains seem to move and trees to walk, and everyone sees it, though in fact nothing has moved. Whenever you make gold or silver, set out seats for Taiyi, the Mysterious Woman, and Laozi, and make offerings to them, as prescribed for making the Nine Elixirs. Keep the five kinds of incense burning without interruption. When the gold is complete, first throw three jin into deep water and one jin into the market. Only then may you use the rest as you wish.