Nine-Radiance, Five-Spirit and Transmitted Elixir Methods (I)

16 Take an elixir of one cycle and attain immortality in three years; one of two cycles, in two years; one of three cycles, in one year; one of four cycles, in half a year; one of five cycles, in a hundred days; one of six cycles, in forty days; one of seven cycles, in thirty days; one of eight cycles, in ten days; one of nine cycles, in three days. Take the Nine-Cycle Elixir and place it in the divine tripod. After the summer solstice, heat it intensely until the vessel is hot, and place a pound of Vermilion Child beneath the lid. Keep watch until the essence of the sun shines on it. Suddenly the contents rise together, blazing and radiant with five-colored divine light, and become Reverted Elixir. Take one knifepoint and ascend to heaven in broad daylight. Alternatively, seal Nine-Cycle Elixir in an earthen pot and fire it over chaff, gently at first and then fiercely. Each of its nine cycles takes its own number of days, longer or shorter, by which the cycle can be identified. With fewer cycles the medicine has less power, so one must take it for more days and attains immortality slowly; with more cycles its power is greater, so one takes it for fewer days and attains immortality sooner.

17 There is also the Nine-Radiance Elixir, different in method from the Nine-Cycle Elixir but generally similar. To make it, combine various ingredients and fire them to cycle the five stones: cinnabar, realgar, white arsenolite, azurite, and magnetite. Cycle each stone five times to produce five colors, twenty-five colors from the five stones; keep an ounce of each color in a separate vessel. To revive someone dead less than three days, mix a knifepoint of blue elixir with water and bathe the body. Open the mouth and put another knifepoint inside: the dead person immediately revives. To summon an invisible kitchen, mix black elixir with water and smear it on your left hand: whatever you request aloud arrives of its own accord; you can summon all things under heaven. For invisibility, foreknowledge of events yet to come, and freedom from aging, take a knifepoint of yellow elixir: you will live long and never grow old. While seated, you will see a thousand miles away and know good and ill as though before your eyes. You will know each person’s fate from birth, flourishing or decline, long or short life, wealth or poverty, high or low rank. All these methods are in the middle scroll of the Great Purity Scripture.

18 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity says: Next is the one-scroll Scripture of the Five-Spirit Elixir, with five methods. It uses cinnabar, realgar, orpiment, mineral sulfur, azurite, alum, magnetite, Rong salt, and Great One’s Surplus Grain. It is compounded with Six-One Mud and a sacrificial rite in a divine chamber; it is ready in thirty-six days. The talismans of the Five Emperors, written in five colors, also keep a person from dying, but cannot rival the medicines of Great Purity and the Nine Tripods.

19 There is also the Mount Min elixir method, obtained by the Daoist Zhang Gaita while contemplating deeply in a stone chamber on that mountain. Smelt yellow copper and make a moon mirror to collect water from the moon; coat it with mercury, draw the sun’s essence and fire into it, and take it continually to escape death. Alternatively, place this elixir in a realgar-and-copper fire mirror, cover it with mercury, expose it to sunlight, and after twenty days open it and process the medicine. Take a small-bean-sized dose with water freshly drawn from a well: in a hundred days the blind can see, all illnesses heal themselves, white hair turns black again, and lost teeth regrow.

20 Master Wucheng’s elixir method: place Ba sand and mercury in an eight-inch copper pan, fill an earthen furnace with charcoal, and support the pan on three corners over a trench. Pour sulfur water over it and keep it the consistency of mud. Take it for a hundred days and you will never die.

21 Master Xianmen’s elixir method: blend a pound of elixir with three sheng of wine and expose it to the sun for forty days. Take it for one day and the three worms and a hundred illnesses immediately leave the body. Take it for three years and the immortal way is accomplished; two jade maidens will surely come to serve you, and can be ordered to bring a traveling kitchen. This elixir can suppress a hundred ghosts and the baleful influences of the dead from every direction that harm a house, as well as harm caused by breaking ground. Hang it facing them and no trouble will ensue.

22 There is also the Instantly Completed Elixir, with nine chapters like the Nine Tripods, though inferior to it. Another essential text says: take the copper that settles from firing orpiment and realgar, cast it into a vessel, and steep it in pure sour wine three years old. After a hundred days red milk several tenths of an inch long, or five-colored carnelian, grows on the vessel. Collect and prepare it for consumption, and it too gives long life. It can also be combined with dodder: dodder here means the root newly sprouted, shaped like a rabbit. Dig it up, cut it for its blood, and mix it with this elixir. Take it and you are instantly transformed, free to do whatever you wish. Mixed instead with Vermilion Herb, a single dose enables flight through empty space. Vermilion Herb resembles a small jujube tree, growing three or four feet tall; its branches and leaves are all red, and its stem like coral. It favors rocks beneath famous mountains; cut it and its juice runs like blood. Throw jade or any of the eight stones, gold, or silver into the juice: immediately they can be rolled like mud into pellets; with time they turn to liquid. When gold is immersed it is called gold nectar; when jade is immersed, jade wine. Taking either gives long life.

23 Another method for collecting Subdued Elixir says: wherever waters bear the name “cinnabar,” as with Cinnabar River in Nanyang, there are cinnabar fish. Watch the water at night ten days before the summer solstice. The fish will rise near the surface, casting a brilliant red glow like fire. Catch them in a net, but however many you catch, do not take them all. Draw their blood and smear it on the soles of your feet: you can walk on water and dwell long in the depths.

24 Master Red Pine’s elixir method: steep the elixir in juices of thousand-year-old lei vines and alum peach, put it in a vessel that does not leak, seal its mouth with refined honey, and bury it three feet underground. After a hundred days, squeeze the red fruit of the ning tree, mix in the juice and take it: face, eyes, temples, and hair all turn red, and one lives long. Was this not what the red-bearded immortal of Central Yellow took long ago?

25 Master Shi’s elixir method: take unfledged young crows, feed them beef mixed with genuine cinnabar, and when they mature and all their feathers are red, kill them. Dry them in the shade for a hundred days, pound them together with their feathers, and take one knifepoint. After a hundred days you will gain a life of five hundred years.

26 Master Kangfeng’s elixir method: use sheep, crow and crane eggs, sparrow blood, and juice of tianxiong from Mount Shaoshi to mix the elixir. Put it inside a swan’s egg, lacquer it, and immerse it in mica water. After a hundred days it turns into red liquid. A dose of one he adds a hundred years to life; one sheng adds a thousand.

27 Master Cui Wen’s elixir method: place the elixir in a duck’s belly and steam it. Taken, it lengthens life; taken continually, it prevents death.

28 Liu Yuan’s elixir method: immerse cinnabar in Mysterious Water liquid for a hundred days until it is purple and can be held without staining the hand. Mix it with mica water, place it in a tube, seal it with lacquer, and lower it into a well. In a hundred days it turns into red liquid. One he gives a hundred years; continual use gives long life.

29 Master Le Zichang’s elixir method: combine azurite and red lead with mercury and cinnabar, place in a copper tube, seal it with dry tile and white talc, and steam it in white sand for eighty days. Take a small-bean-sized portion; in three years you will become immortal.

30 Master Li Wen’s elixir method: wrap the elixir in plain white silk and boil it in bamboo juice, called Red Spring; then steam it over boiling water. Combine it with Mysterious Water. Take one he and become immortal in a year.

31 Master Yin’s elixir method: blend the elixir with mica water, seal it tightly, and set it in the Golden Flower Pool. Take it out after a year; take a knifepoint at a time until one pound is consumed, and gain five hundred years of life.

16 Take a once-refined elixir and become immortal in three years. Take a twice-refined elixir and become immortal in two years. Take an elixir refined three times and become immortal in one year; four times, in half a year; five times, in a hundred days; six times, in forty days; seven times, in thirty days; eight times, in ten days; and nine times, in three days. If you take the nine-times-refined elixir, place it in the divine cauldron after the summer solstice and heat it until the cauldron is hot. Put one jin of Vermilion Child under the lid. Watch closely and wait until the sun's essence shines on it. In a moment both rise together, shining brilliantly with divine light of five colors, and turn into reverted elixir. Take one knife-tip measure of it and you will ascend to heaven in broad daylight. To make the nine-times-refined elixir, seal it with clay in an earthen cauldron and heat it over a bran fire, first gently and then fiercely. Each refinement from the first through the ninth takes its own number of days; that is how you can tell them apart. With fewer refinements, the medicine has less power, so it must be taken for more days and immortality comes slowly. With more refinements, it is stronger, so it must be taken for fewer days and immortality comes quickly.

17 There is also a Nine-Radiance Elixir. Its method differs from the nine refinements, though they are broadly similar. To make it, combine various medicines and fire them to transform the five minerals: cinnabar, realgar, white arsenolite, blue-green copper mineral, and magnetite. Transform each mineral five times to produce five colors each: twenty-five colors from five minerals. Put one liang of each color in a separate container. To revive someone who has been dead less than three days, mix one knife-tip measure of the blue-green elixir with water and wash the body. Then open the mouth and put another knife-tip measure inside. The person comes back to life immediately. To obtain a ready-made meal, mix the black elixir with water and spread it on your left hand. Everything you ask for aloud arrives on its own; you can obtain anything in the world. To become invisible, know events that have yet to occur, and stop aging, take one knife-tip measure of the yellow elixir: you will immediately live indefinitely without aging. You will also be able to see things a thousand li away while sitting down and know whether events there are good or bad as if they happened before your eyes. You will know people's destinies from previous lives, their rises and falls, whether their lives are long or short, and whether they will be rich or poor, powerful or humble. All these methods are in the middle scroll of the Great Purity Scripture.

18 Baopuzi says: Below those is the one-scroll Scripture of the Five-Spirit Elixir, containing five methods. It uses cinnabar, realgar, orpiment, sulfur, blue-green copper mineral, alumstone, magnetite, Rong salt, and Taiyi's Remaining Grain. It also uses Six-and-One Clay, and calls for offerings in the divine chamber when the ingredients are combined. It is ready in thirty-six days. Five Emperor talismans are also written in five colors. This elixir too keeps people from dying, but is not as good as the Great Purity or Nine Tripod medicines.

19 There is also the Mount Min elixir method. The Daoist Zhang Gaita obtained this recipe while meditating intensely in a stone chamber on Mount Min. Smelt yellow copper to make a square moon mirror that catches water from the moon. Cover it with mercury, then bring the sun's essence and fire into it. Taking it continually prevents death. Alternatively, place this elixir in a copper fire-striker containing realgar, cover it with mercury, and expose it to sunlight. After twenty days, open and process it. Take a dose the size of a small bean with fresh well water. After a hundred days, blind people can see, every illness heals by itself, white hair turns black again, and lost teeth grow back.

20 There is also Master Wucheng's elixir method. Put mercury from Ba sand in an eight-inch copper dish. Put charcoal in an earthen furnace, and prop up the dish at three corners of a trench. Pour sulfur water over it, keeping it as wet as mud. Take it for a hundred days and you will not die.

21 There is also Master Xianmen's elixir method. Mix one jin of elixir with three sheng of wine and expose it to the sun for forty days. Take it for one day, and the three worms and a hundred illnesses immediately leave the body. Take it for three years and you achieve immortality. Two jade maidens will come to serve you. You can command them to bring a ready-made meal. This elixir can suppress a hundred ghosts, the harmful influence of corpses from the four directions on a home, and the harm to people from earthworks. Hang it up facing these dangers and there will be no trouble.

22 There is also an Instantly Completed Elixir. It too has nine sections and resembles the Nine Tripods, but is less effective. One version of the main instructions also says to fire orpiment and realgar, use the copper that collects beneath them, and cast it into vessels. Cover the vessels over three-year-old strong sour wine. After a hundred days, a red substance like milk grows on all these vessels, several fen long; sometimes five-colored precious stones appear. Collect and prepare it to take by mouth, and it too gives long life. You can also mix it with dodder. Dodder here means the newly formed root, which resembles a rabbit. Dig it up and cut it to draw out its blood. Mix that with this elixir and take it; you can immediately change shape and do whatever you like. Or mix it with red grass: a single dose lets you travel through the air. Red grass resembles a small jujube tree. It grows three or four feet high, with red branches and leaves and stems like coral. It likes to grow below the rocks of famous mountains. When cut, its juice flows like blood. Put jade or any of the eight minerals, gold, or silver into this juice and they can immediately be rolled into pills like mud. With time they turn to liquid. If gold is added, it is called Gold Broth; if jade, Jade Sweet Wine. Both give long life when taken.

23 Another method for obtaining the Subdued Elixir says: Among the waters of the world are rivers with the word “cinnabar” in their names, such as the Cinnabar River of Nanyang. They all have cinnabar fish. On the tenth night before the summer solstice, watch for them. The fish will certainly float near the riverbank, casting a brilliant red light upward like fire. You can catch them with a net, but however many there are, do not take them all. Cut the fish to get their blood and put it on the soles of your feet: you can walk on water and live for a long time in deep pools.

24 There is also Master Red Pine's elixir method. Soak the elixir in juice from a thousand-year-old vine and from alum peach. Put it in a container that does not leak, close it with purified honey, and bury it three feet deep. After a hundred days, squeeze the red fruit of the ning tree for juice, mix it in, and take it. Your face, eyes, temples, and hair will all turn red, and you will live long. In former times there was a red-bearded man among the immortals of Central Yellow. Could he have taken this?

25 There is also Master Shi's elixir method. Take a young crow that has not yet grown feathers and feed it real cinnabar mixed with beef. Once it is grown, its feathers will all be red. Kill it then, dry it in the shade for a hundred days, and grind it up with its feathers. Take one knife-tip measure. After a hundred days, you will have a life of five hundred years.

26 There is also Master Kangfeng's elixir method. Use a sheep, a crow, crane eggs, and sparrow blood, combined with juice of tianxiong from Mount Shaoshi. Mix it with elixir, put it inside a swan's egg, and coat it with lacquer. Put this into mica water; in a hundred days it turns into red water. Take one ge and add a hundred years to your life each time, or take one sheng for a thousand years.

27 There is also Master Cui Wenzi's elixir method. Put elixir inside a duck and steam it. Taking it extends life; continued use prevents death.

28 There is also Liu Yuan's elixir method. Put cinnabar in Dark Water Liquid; in a hundred days it turns purple and will not stain your hand when held. Mix it with mica water, seal it with lacquer inside a tube, and throw it into a well. In a hundred days it becomes red water. Take one ge to gain a hundred years; keep taking it and live indefinitely.

29 There is also Le Zichang's elixir method. Mix blue-green copper mineral and red lead with mercury and cinnabar, and put them in a copper tube. Seal it with dry roof tiles and white talc, and steam it in white sand for eighty days. Take an amount the size of a small bean; in three years you will become immortal.

30 There is also Li Wen's elixir method. Wrap the elixir in plain white silk and boil it in bamboo juice. This is called Red Spring. Then steam it above the surface of boiling water and mix it with Dark Water. Take one ge and in one year you will become immortal.

31 There is also Master Yin's elixir method. Mix the elixir with mica water and seal it tightly. Put it in a Gold Flower Pond and take it out after a year. Take one knife-tip measure at a time until you have taken one jin, and you will live five hundred years.