Transmitted Elixir Methods (II), the Golden Liquor, and Gold-Eating

32 Great One’s Elixir for Recalling the Souls uses five stones and a seal of Six-One Mud, much like the Nine Elixirs. Its strength lies in reviving people who died suddenly no more than three days before: break open their teeth, insert a pellet of this elixir and a sulfur pellet, and wash both down with water. As soon as they enter the throat, the person revives; all say they saw an envoy carrying a staff of authority sent to summon them.

33 The Gleaning Maiden’s elixir method: mix the elixir with rabbit blood and honey and steam it for a hundred days. Take a pellet the size of a parasol-tree seed three times a day. After a hundred days two divine maidens come to attend you and may be given commands.

34 Master Jiqiu’s elixir method: blend it with clear wine, sesame oil, Hundred-Flower Wine, and Dragon Paste. Seal it with Six-One Mud and warm it over chaff fire. It is ready in ten days. Take a small-bean-sized pellet until the entire batch is consumed, and gain five hundred years of life.

35 Mozi’s elixir method: place mercury and the liquid of the five stones in a copper vessel, simmer over fire and stir with an iron spoon. After ten days it reverts to elixir. Take a knifepoint: myriad illnesses leave the body. Continual use averts death.

36 Master Zhang Zihe’s elixir method: blend and seal lead, mercury, and azurite water; steam it among red millet for eighty days. Mix it with jujube paste to make pellets. Take a soybean-sized pellet; after a hundred days you will have a life of five hundred years.

37 The Qili elixir method: first sublime the five stones to obtain jade dust. Mix it with cinnabar and mercury and boil it in a large copper vessel for a hundred days; it becomes five-colored. Take it and never die. Fire a hundred pounds of lead with a hundred knifepoints of the medicine and it becomes silver; mix it with realgar water and fire it for a hundred days to make gold. If the gold is too hard, boil it with pig fat; if too soft, with white plums.

38 The Jade Pillar elixir method: mix the elixir with Flower Pool, cover and line it with powdered azurite and sulfur, put it inside a tube in sand, and steam for fifty days. Take it for a hundred days; jade maidens and the divine maidens of the Six Jia and Six Ding come to serve you. They can be commanded, and you will know all that happens under heaven.

39 The Behind-the-Elbow elixir method: blend the elixir with Golden Flower, seal it with dry tile, and steam for eighty days. Take a small-bean-sized piece, place it in a dish facing the sun, and mix it; its radiance joins the sun’s above. Take a small-bean-sized portion and live long. Throw it into Danyang copper and fire it to make gold.

40 Lord Li’s elixir method: use one sheng each of genuine cinnabar and water of the five stones, blend to the consistency of mud, and fire it in a cauldron. Remove it after thirty-six days, mix with liquid mineral sulfur, and take it for ten years to endure as long as heaven and earth.

41 Liu Sheng’s elixir method: blend the elixir with juice of white chrysanthemum, ground paper-mulberry, and tree-of-heaven; steam it for thirty days, grind and blend, then take it. In a year you gain five hundred years of life. An old man who takes it grows so young he cannot be recognized; a young person who takes it never ages.

42 Lord Wang’s elixir method: put Ba sand and mercury in a chicken’s egg, seal it with lacquer, and let a hen brood three such eggs. Take them on a day of waxing power: they arrest the years and prevent aging. Children must not take it or they will never grow. Given to newborn chickens and dogs, it likewise keeps them from growing larger; the same is true of birds and wild beasts, as trials confirm.

43 Chen Sheng’s elixir method: blend the elixir with white honey, seal it in a copper vessel, and submerge it in a well for one full year. Taking it for a year removes hunger; consume a pound in all and live a hundred years.

44 Han Zhong’s elixir method: simmer elixir mixed with lacquer and honey. Taken, it prolongs life, and one casts no shadow while standing in the sun. Beyond these there are dozens more methods, too many to relate in full.

45 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity says: Liquid Gold is what Great One took to become immortal. It is no less powerful than the Nine Elixirs. To compound it, use one pound of gold by the ancient scale, together with Mysterious Brightness Dragon Paste, Great One’s Ten-Day First Stone, Ice Stone, Purple Wandering Maiden, Mysterious Water liquid, Gold-Transforming Stone, and cinnabar. Seal them and they become liquid. Its scripture says: “When Liquid Gold enters the mouth, the whole body turns golden.” Laozi received it from the Primordial Lady, who said: “This way is supremely important and emerges once in a hundred generations. Hide it in a stone chamber. To compound it, fast and keep the precepts for a hundred days; do not associate with ordinary people. Beside a famous mountain, above a stream flowing east, build a separate pure dwelling. In a hundred days it is ready: take one ounce and become immortal. If you do not yet wish to leave this world, but would become an earthly or aquatic immortal, merely fast and keep the precepts a hundred days. Those seeking ascent to heaven must first abstain from grain for a year before taking it. Take half an ounce and you will live long without dying; myriad dangers and a hundred poisons cannot harm you. You may keep a wife and children, hold official rank, and do whatever you wish without restriction. If later you wish to ascend to heaven, fast again and take another ounce: you will become a flying immortal.”

46 To prepare Liquid Gold by the Weixi and Mighty Victory method, take Liquid Gold and mercury together and boil for thirty days. Remove them, put them in a yellow-clay bowl, seal it with Six-One Mud, and fire it fiercely for sixty hours. All turns to elixir. Take a small-bean-sized dose and become immortal. One knifepoint of this elixir, powdered and mixed with a pound of mercury, immediately makes silver. Set a pound of the elixir above a fire and fan it: it melts into flowing red gold, called Elixir Gold. Coat knives and swords with it to ward off weapons for ten thousand miles. Make plates and bowls of Elixir Gold, and eating and drinking from them brings long life. Set them beneath sun and moon to collect liquid, as a moon mirror collects water; drink it and escape death. Mix Liquid Gold with yellow earth, put it in a bowl of Six-One Mud, and fire it fiercely: it all becomes usable gold. Fire it again and it all turns to elixir; take a small-bean-sized dose and you may enter famous mountains and great rivers as an earthly immortal. One knifepoint of this elixir, powdered with mercury, immediately makes silver; mix an ounce of that silver with a pound of lead and the whole becomes silver. The Liquid Gold Scripture says: “Throw an eight-ounce gold figurine into a stream flowing east, and drink blood to seal the oath; only then disclose the oral instructions. If you steal the recipe and make it contrary to the original procedure, it will never succeed.” Give the medicine to an ordinary person of utmost faith if you wish, but do not lightly transmit its text: both giver and recipient will incur calamity. Heavenly gods observe people very closely, though people do not know it.

47 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity says: The Nine Elixirs are indeed the finest of immortal medicines, but compounding them requires many additional ingredients. If the four quarters are open and at peace, one can buy all that is needed. If the nine regions are divided, the materials cannot be obtained. One must also keep the fire burning for dozens of days and nights, watching its intensity to keep it exactly right: the labor is extraordinarily difficult. Thus it cannot match the ease of making Liquid Gold. For Liquid Gold, only the gold is hard to obtain. One ancient-scale pound of gold equals two pounds today, costing generally no more than some three hundred thousand coins; the other ingredients are somewhat easier to gather. No fire need be lit: simply set them in Flower Pool, and after the requisite days the medicine is ready. In all, some four hundred thousand coins will make a batch enough for eight people to become immortal. If one compounds a smaller amount, however, its vital force will not suffice for mutual transformation, just as a few sheng of rice cannot be brewed into wine.

48 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity says: Next is a method of eating gold. Though inferior to Liquid Gold, it is far beyond other medicines. Some refine it with pig-back fat and wine; some treat it with bark of the tree-of-heaven; some dissolve it with thorn-bush wine and magnetite. In some methods it can be drawn out into a cloth; in others it is immediately made liquid to drink. Some involve taboos, and none match Liquid Gold. Sometimes it is eaten combined with realgar and orpiment, and can be stretched and spread like leather: these are all methods for earthly immortality. Silver and large pearls from mussels can also be dissolved into liquid and drunk. But all must be taken continually without interruption, and so none equal Liquid Gold.

32 There is also the Great One Elixir for Calling Back Souls. Its five minerals and the Six-and-One Clay used to seal it resemble those of the nine elixirs. It is particularly good for reviving someone who died no more than three days ago. Open the person's teeth, put in one pill and a sulfur pill, and wash them both down with water. As soon as they reach the throat, the person comes back to life. All such people say they saw a messenger carrying an official tally summon them.

33 There is also the Gathering Maiden's elixir method. Mix rabbit blood and the elixir with honey, and steam them for a hundred days. Take one pill the size of a parasol-tree seed three times a day. After a hundred days, two divine women will come to serve you; you can command them.

34 There is also Master Jiqiu's elixir method. Combine it with clear wine, sesame oil, hundred-flower sweet wine, and dragon paste; seal it with Six-and-One Clay and heat it gently over a bran fire. It is ready in ten days. Take one pill the size of a small bean at a time until you have finished the batch. You will live five hundred years.

35 There is also Mozi's elixir method. Place mercury and the liquids of the five minerals in a copper vessel and boil them over a fire, stirring with an iron spoon. After ten days they revert to elixir. Take one knife-tip measure and all illnesses leave your body; take it continually and never die.

36 There is also Zhang Zihe's elixir method. Mix lead, mercury, and blue-green copper mineral water, and seal them together. Steam them among red millet grains. After eighty days the medicine is ready. Mix it with date paste to make pills and take an amount the size of a soybean. In a hundred days you will have a life of five hundred years.

37 There is also the Qili elixir method. First heat the five minerals to collect their fine powder, and mix it with cinnabar and mercury. Boil it in a large copper vessel for a hundred days until it has five colors. Take it and you will not die. Fire a hundred jin of lead with a hundred knife-tip measures of the medicine, and it becomes silver. Mix it with realgar water and fire it for a hundred days, and it becomes gold. If the gold is too hard, boil it with pig fat; if too soft, boil it with white plum.

38 There is also the Jade Pillar elixir method. Mix elixir with Flower Pond liquid, cover and layer it with powdered blue-green copper mineral and sulfur, and place it in a tube inside sand. Steam it for fifty days and take it for a hundred days. Jade maidens, the spirits of the six Jia and six Ding days, and divine women will come to serve you. You can command them and learn what is happening anywhere in the world.

39 There is also the Handy Formula elixir method. Mix Gold Flower with elixir, seal it with dry roof tiles, and steam it for eighty days. Put an amount the size of a small bean in a dish and face it toward the sun while stirring. Its light rises and meets the sun. Take an amount the size of a small bean and live indefinitely. Put it into Danyang copper and heat it; the copper becomes gold.

40 There is also Master Li's elixir method. Mix one sheng each of real cinnabar and the liquids of the five minerals until they are like mud. Fire them in a cauldron and take them out after thirty-six days. Mix them with liquid sulfur and take the medicine for ten years; you will last as long as heaven and earth.

41 There is also Liu Sheng's elixir method. Mix the elixir with white chrysanthemum juice, juice from the ground paper-mulberry plant, and juice from the tree of heaven, and steam them for thirty days. Grind and mix the product, and take it for one year to gain a life of five hundred years. An old man who takes it grows so young that he cannot be recognized; a young person who takes it also does not grow old.

42 There is also Master Wang's elixir method. Put Ba sand and mercury inside eggs, seal them with lacquer, and let a hen incubate three of them. Take it on a day when the seasonal forces are at their height, and you will stop aging. Children must not take it: they would never grow. Newly born chicks and puppies given it likewise never get bigger. The same has been tested with birds and animals.

43 There is also Chen Sheng's elixir method. Mix the elixir with white honey, place it in a copper vessel, and seal it. Submerge it in a well for one full year. Take it for a year and you will not be hungry. Finish one jin and you will live a hundred years.

44 There is also Han Zhong's elixir method. Boil the elixir with lacquer and honey. Take it to extend your years and live a long time. Standing in the sun, you will have no shadow. Beyond these there are still dozens of methods, too many to describe fully.

45 Baopuzi says: Liquid gold is what Taiyi took to become immortal. It is no less effective than the nine elixirs. To make it, use one jin of gold by the ancient measure, along with Dark Brightness, Dragon Paste, Taiyi Xunshou Center Stone, Ice Stone, Purple Wandering Maiden, Dark Water Liquid, Gold-Transforming Stone, and cinnabar. Seal them until they turn to liquid. Its scripture says: “When liquid gold enters the mouth, the whole body becomes gold-colored.” Laozi received it from the Primordial Lady, who said, “This way is extremely important and appears once in a hundred generations. Store it in a stone chamber. To make it, abstain from forbidden foods for a hundred days and have no contact with ordinary people. Set up a separate, clean dwelling beside a famous mountain and an east-flowing stream. It is ready in a hundred days. Take one liang and become immortal. If you do not yet want to leave the world and want to be an immortal on earth or in water, you need only complete the hundred days of abstinence. But if you seek to ascend to heaven, you must first abstain from grain for a year before taking it. If you take half a liang, you will live indefinitely without dying, and no harm or poison can injure you. You may keep a wife and children and hold an official position and salary, doing as you like without restrictions. If you later wish to ascend to heaven, you can abstain again and take another liang; you will then fly away as an immortal.”

46 To make the Weixi-Jusheng preparation with liquid gold, take liquid gold and mercury and boil them together for thirty days. Remove the mixture, put it in a yellow earthenware bowl, seal it with Six-and-One Clay, and heat it over a fierce fire for sixty hours. It all changes into elixir. Take an amount the size of a small bean and become immortal. One knife-tip measure of this elixir, ground to powder and added to one jin of mercury, immediately turns it to silver. Put one jin of this elixir on a fire and fan it; it melts and flows as red gold, called Elixir Gold. Coat knives and swords with it and it will ward off weapons from ten thousand li away. Make plates and bowls from Elixir Gold and eat and drink from them to live indefinitely. Catch the liquid of the sun and moon in them as a moon mirror catches water; drink it and you will not die. Mix liquid gold with yellow earth, put it in a Six-and-One Clay bowl, and heat it over a fierce fire. It all turns into gold fit for use. Heat it again and it all changes into elixir. Take an amount the size of a small bean, and you can enter famous mountains and great rivers as an earthly immortal. One knife-tip measure of this elixir, ground into mercury, immediately makes silver. Mix one liang of this silver with one jin of lead, and it all becomes silver. The Liquid Gold Scripture says: “Throw a gold human figure weighing eight liang into an east-flowing stream and drink blood to make an oath. Only then will the oral instructions be given.” If you steal the recipe without following the original procedure, you will never succeed. You may give the medicine to an ordinary person who has complete faith, but must not lightly transmit the book. Otherwise, both of you will certainly meet with disaster. Heavenly gods watch people closely, though people do not know it.

47 Baopuzi says: The nine elixirs are indeed the best immortal medicines, but making them requires many different ingredients. If roads are open in all directions, you can buy them all. If the regions of the empire are cut off from each other, you cannot obtain them. You must also keep a fire going day and night for dozens of days, tending it so it stays at just the right strength. This is extremely hard work, so it is not as easy as making liquid gold. For liquid gold, only the gold itself is hard to obtain. One jin by the ancient measure equals two jin today and usually costs no more than about three hundred thousand coins. The other ingredients are rather easy to collect. No fire is needed: simply put them in Flower Pond and wait the required number of days. For a total of four hundred thousand coins you can make one batch, enough to make eight people immortal. But if you make a smaller batch, its power will not be enough to bring about the transformation. It is like trying to brew wine with only a few sheng of rice: that is certain to fail.

48 Baopuzi says: Next comes a method for taking gold by mouth. Though not as good as liquid gold, it is still far better than other medicines. Some refine it with pig back fat and wine; some process it with bark of the tree of heaven; some dissolve it with thorn-tree wine and magnetite. Some methods make it pliable enough to stretch into a cloth; some make it immediately turn to liquid to drink. Some impose restrictions, unlike liquid gold. Some combine it with realgar and orpiment for eating; it can be pulled and stretched like leather. All of these are methods for becoming an earthly immortal. Silver and large pearls from shellfish can also be liquefied and drunk. But they must be taken continuously without a break, so none is as good as liquid gold.