Sivin, Nathan - Theory of Chinese Lab Alchemy

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The Theoretical Background of Laboratory Alchemy

by Nathan Sivin

From Joseph Needham et al.Science and Civilisation in China. (Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 210-305.For figures, characters, references, and footnotes see the original article.

(1) INTRODUCTION

Our focus now shifts from the Chinese alchemists' identifiable chemical and proto-chemical accomplishments to theassumptions and concepts with which they themselves sought to explain their methods and aims. This shift in point ofview is perhaps more radical than might at first appear. If we wish to understand the inner coherence of alchemicaltheories we must, for the moment, set aside the yardstick of modern chemistry (although it will still be essential as anexploratory tool) and try to reconstruct the alchemist's abiding goals, his own standards of success and failure, as clues to

how his concepts determined both what he did in his elaboratory and how he rationalised unforeseen results.

By 'theory' we mean simply the attempt to explain alchemical phenomena systematically using abstract and non-anthropomorphic concepts. In practice this means that we shall examine the application of the most fundamental andgeneral notions of Chinese natural philosophy the Five Elements, the Yin and Yang, the chhi, the trigram andhexagram systems of the 'Book of Changes', and so on to the experience of the laboratory. We shall study how thesenotions were adapted to alchemical concerns either by extending their definitions, or by creating new concepts or newconnections to integrate them.

It is necessary to stress that the field of alchemical theory is defined here by what alchemists did, thought, and knewabout. Theoretical conceptions never exist in a vacuum; their implications and significance depend upon the matrices inwhich they are embedded. To pluck the 'advanced' elements out of the matrix and discard the 'retrograde' aspects is a

procedure bound to lead to fundamental distortions, for the two regularly turn out to be integral and inseparable, oneelement defining the range of possibilities of the other. Demarcating our field of investigation so as to include any ancientChinese activity which might fall into the area of modern chemistry would allow the casting of the net wider, but at the costof putting many of the alchemical adept's own concerns out of bounds. Not only would we confound ideas that originallyhad nothing to do with each other, but we would have to reject so many central aspects of alchemy that there would be nopossibility of comprehending what held it together, and no hope of ultimately making more than superficial comparisonswith the traditions of other cultures.

In order to understand what the ancient Taoist adepts had in mind as they worked in their laboratories, we must examineseriously such topics as the belief in the growth of minerals within the earth, the command of time, and the role of numberin establishing correspondences between the apparatus and the greater cosmos (never entirely distinct from the morefamiliar function of number in recording the invariant weights of reactants and products). Nor can we ignore the

associated Taoist rituals, offerings, and incantations which were used in connection with every phase of the process.aThe alchemist was applying chemical and physical procedures to the quintessentially religious end of transcending hismortality. The new observations and discoveries which today interest students of the history of science were also valuedby the alchemists themselves, but not usually as the main objectives for which they were striving.

The Taoist's end in view was, one might say, perfect freedom in perfect fusion with the cosmic order. For the early Taoistphilosophers this seems to have been mainly a state of heart and mind, but as we have seen, alchemists and other

adherents of Taoist religion thought of perfect freedom as limited to a special state of being, that of the immortal hsien.1

Immortality could be attained by a variety of means, two of which in particular mark the alchemist's Way. First there wasthe construction of chemical models of the cosmic process. These were apparently meant to serve as objects of ecstaticcontemplation, leading to a gnosis which brought one closer to union with the Tao. Second was the production of elixirs ofsupramundane virtues, the action of whichupon the adept himself, upon others, or upon base metals gave him not

only personal immortality at his pleasure, but also transferable wealth and a more-than-human power to cure disease andmake others immortal. The first path led the alchemist in the direction of physics, the second toward medical therapeutics,metallurgy and other technical art

(i)Areas of uncertainty

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It is still too early to attempt a truly historical study of the theoretical side of Chinese alchemy, in which one could see howconcepts and their relations developed and changed both through mutual influence and the pressure of wider intellectualand social currents. First, too few of the documents which have survived the attrition of successive Chinese cataclysmscan yet be dated precisely with confidence, and this leaves even their logical connections obscure. Secondly, with a largepart of the clearly dated literature, one cannot be sure that its vague and obscure language is in fact concerned with

laboratory operations rather than with the physiological and sexual disciplines which used alchemical language.b Weknow already that most of the alchemical treatises which have been translated into Western languages actually come out

of the 'dual- cultivation' rgime of the Southern School of Taoism in the Sung and Yuan periods.a These practices, a blend

of Internal Alchemy and sexual disciplines (nei tan1), were not in principle irreconcilable with the art of the External Elixir

(wai tan2) but most devotees resembled the 'spiritual alchemists' of the European Renaissance in their explicit disdain forthe actual work of the furnace.

To reduce these two fundamental areas of uncertainty will require a good deal of critical work on individual writings. Inrelation to the second problem, the most fruitful clues are likely to come from the study of just those sources which havethe to do with laboratory alchemy, and thus are least likely to attract students of ancient science. But the small body ofsources the meanings and times of which are known does not yet provide a basis for understanding the changingcharacter of enemy and of its links with the other arts of Taoism. Here we can only examine the widest possible variety ofevidence in order to sketch out the ideas and notions which were most general in alchemy rather than those which can beidentified definitely with given periods and movements.

There is, in fact, much information in writings on 'alchemical' breath control, meditation, and sexual techniques which canbe used to throw light on the intellectual ground ofwai tan alchemy, for most early adepts combined all these practices,considered them complementary, and explained them with the same concepts. However in order to keep from losing sightof what is actually information about the Outer Elixir, it is necessary to 'presume guilt'. We consider no text chemically

alchemical (i.e. wai tan2) unless it either prescribes operations so clearly that they could conceivably be carried out in thelaboratory, or, if the emphasis is on theory, unless it clearly reflects knowledge of the details of laboratory procedure or theinteractions of chemical substances.

(ii)Alchemical ideas and Taoist revelations

Before we proceed to scrutinise the alchemists' theories, one other major limitation of present understanding must bemade explicit. One can seldom hope to reconstruct competition of different ideas for survival and further elaboration

simply on the basis of their abstract merits, without attention to their social consequences; ideas which affect the rate ofsocial change, whether in a tiny sect or a great civilisation, are often selected or rejected for very extrinsic reasons. It isthus necessary to ask whether alchemy was but an appendage of Taoism, neglected by all but a few specialistpractitioners and non-practising patrons; or on the other hand part of a central revelation which defined the character ofTaoist religion. It is clear that for early Chinese alchemy the latter is the case. Alchemy was an actual part of the foundingrevelation of the Mao Shan school, the group responsible for completing and putting into practice the first great intellectual

synthesis of Taoism.aIt was bound, therefore, to be affected by the application of that revelation to a particular social andhistorical milieu.

The chain of events which led to the establishment of Mao Shan, or Mt. Mao, as the first major permanent centre of Taoist

practice began in +349 or slightly earlier with visitations by immortals to a young man named Yang Hsi1 (traditional dates:

+330 to +387) at the Eastern Chin prefectural capital, Ch-Jung,2 not far from modern Nanking. Between +364 and +370,

in a series of visions, there appeared to Yang a veritable pantheon of celestial functionaries, including the Lady Wei of the

Southern Peak (Nan Yo Fu-jen,3 Wei Hua-

Tshun 4) and the brothers Mao Ying,5 Mao Ku,6 and Mao Chung,7whose names were given to the three peaks of the

nearby Mt. Ch chh8.b In the course of these interviews, aided almost certainly by cannabis,c Yang took down in writinga number of sacred texts which the immortals assured him were current in their own supernal realm, as well as oralelucidations and answers to Yang's queries about various aspects of the unseen world. He treasured and disseminatedthese scriptures as the basis of a new Taoist faith more elevated than the 'vulgar' sects of his time. He was sponsored and

joined in his revelations by Hs Mi9 ( +303 to +373), an official of the court, and his son Hs Hui10 (+341 to c. 370). Thefamily connections of the Hss were estimable in more than the conventional sense, for Hs Mi's uncle married the elder

sister of Ko Hung,11 the great exponent of personal access to the realm of the immortals; and they were also related to the

family of Thao Hung-Ching 12 (+456 to +536), the most eminent Taoist magus of his time.d We have already encounteredHs Mi's alchemist brother Mai. In +367 Hs Mi was informed by Mao Ying that in nine years he would be transferred from

the terrestrial bureaucracy to that of the Superior Purity Heaven (Shang-Chhing Thien2). That this heaven might be

available for such heady assignments had been revealed to no Taoist save Yang Hsi and his patrons.b Hs apparentlyremained active in his post at the capital, despite repeated celestial admonitions, but his son Hs Hui, having returned hiswife to her parents, moved into the retreat his father had built at Mt. Mao, and there until his premature death he



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devotedly practised the operations revealed to Yang for his benefit by the immortals.c Yang and the Hss had vindicatedKo Hung's belief in the unseen world not supernatural in Chinese terms, but concerned only with eternal things andthus more desirable than mundane society which he had urged with such amplitude in his Pao Phu Tzu(Nei Phien).

Four generations later, when Thao Hung-Ching retired from the Chhi court in +492 to Mt. Mao, he built the Hua-yang

Kuan3 (Effulgent Yang Abbey) and proceeded to seek out the revelations and revive the spiritual experiences of Yang andthe Hss as the basis of a religious community. The background of the Hua-Yang Abbey could hardly be better described

than in the words of Michel Strickmann:d

What was to become the Mao Shan tradition began as the highly individual practices of three men, of whom one wasa visionary and another held a full-time job. They were building upon a common base provided by the Way of the

Heavenly Master (Thien Shih Tao4), a Taoist group specialising in the cure of disease through formalised

communication with the celestial hierarchy.e Like most reputed founders, Yang and the Hss founded no order; andthough between their own time and that of their eventual editor portions of their brilliant synthesis spread somewhat(first only among friends and relations), no independent organisation arose to perpetuate their names or realise the

teachings of their celestial masters.f. Thao also had the example of earlier 'abbey' (kuan)communities, whosefunctions were perhaps more intimately related to their patronage than to their particular doctrines. Individualfinancial support involved their Taoist members with ceremonies for the well-being of their patron's family, both livingand dead, and probably with the guardianship of some of his infant sons.

Thao had the wit to apprehend that analogous services, on a correspondingly grander scale, could elicit thepatronage of the Liang emperor himself, thus providing the highest possible auspices for a revival of Taoism (for byThao's time the Heavenly Master cult had fallen apart in South China). Once Thao had seen to the elaborate detailsof collecting, codifying, annotating, and publishing the Annunciations of the Immortals, and had thought through theproblem of administrative organisation, the community was soon assembled, and ceremonial was adopted andelaborated. Ceremonial, despite the ideological emphasis on revelation and visionary experience, must always havebeen the chief preoccupation of the majority at Hua-Yang Abbey. These Taoists busied themselves with ceremoniesin support of the health of both Ruler and State, with the discovery of auspices, and not least with the concoction of atimely elixir. The sound fiscal basis of the enterprise enabled it to pass unscathed through the disestablishment ofTaoist organisations in +504 (this very year in fact marks the inception of Thao's alchemical operations), and in timeto take hold upon the intellects (and purse-strings) of the Thang.

Thao apparently first learned of the Mao Shan writings through a few fragments in the possession of his teacher, Sun Yu-Yeh. Sun had in turn been the disciple of Lu Hsiu-Ching, who had journeyed through the haunts of Taoism to be initiated

into, collect, and catalogue (by +471) the major scriptures of the rival Ling-Pao3 tradition,a picking up along the way some

documents which emanated from Yang Hsi.b Since Lu was neither particularly concerned nor overly fastidious about theauthenticity of the latter, most were probably poor copies or forgeries; many fakes had already been produced within the

select circles which knew of the Mao Shan revelations.c In Thao's subsequent search, first among relatives of the Hss

and then on a long voyage to the southeast, his acknowledged model was Ku Huan4 (d. +485), a contemporary of Lu's.Ku had devoted much energy to seeking out (in a more limited way than Thao) the scriptural remains of Mt. Mao, and firstapplied a knowledge of Yang Hsi's calligraphy and that of the Hss to what he recognised as the essential task of

separating authentic from doubtful documents.d

Thao Hung-Ching eventually discovered, and proceeded to edit and annotate, a remarkably intimate day-to-day record ofhis predecessors, including letters which had passed between them and journals of visitations by one or another immortal,often for no more exalted purpose than to offer medical advice or to negotiate some minor celestial-bureaucratic detail. In

this record Thao found much of alchemical interest, which is duly preserved in his Chen Kao5 (Declarations of the

Perfected (or Realised) Immortals), or in the now fragmentary Tng Chen Yin Cheh1(Confidential Instructions for the

Ascent to Immortality).a

The three progenitors of the Mao Shan cult had shared with other sects of their time a belief in an imminent apocalypsewhich Thao calculated would fall in +507, to be followed in +512 by the descent of the Sage to gather up the elect, the

only survivors.b Yang Hsi had been well supplied with graphic and elegantly phrased details of the catastrophes by Wei

Hua-Tshun's colleague the Lady of the Circumpolar Zone (Tzu Wei Fu-jen2), and had been assured by her that among thesingular methods and supreme arts which would be practised in those latter days was alchemy:

Some will cyclically transform in their furnaces the darksome semen (yuching3)of cinnabar, or refine by the powdermethod the purple ichor of gold and jade. The Lang-kan elixir will flow and flower in thick billows; the Eight Gems (pa

chhiung4)Will soar in cloud like radiance.c The Crimson Fluid will eddy and ripple as the Dragon Foetus (lung thai5)cries out from its secret place. Tiger-Spittle and Phoenix-Brain, Cloud Lang-kan and Jade Frost, Lunar Liquor of the



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Supreme Pole (Thai Chi yeh li6) and Divine Steel of the Three Rings (san huan ling kang7) if a spatulaful of (oneof these) is presented to them, their spiritual feathers will spread forth like pinions. Then will they (be able to) perusethe pattern figured on the Vault of Space, and glow forth in the Chamber of Primal Commencement. . ..

Among the scriptures taken down by Yang Hsi, Thao had also found actual instructions for alchemical preparations. Twoof these formulae still exist in their entirety. One, called Thai-Shang Pa-Ching Ssu-Jui Tzu-Chiang(Wu-Chu) Chiang

Shng Shen Tan Shang Ching8(Exalted Manual of the Eight-Radiances Four-Stamens Purple-Fluid Crimson IncarnationNuminous Elixir, a Thai-Shang Scripture), is preserved in the Shang-Chhing Thai-Shang Ti Chn Chiu Chen Chung

Ching9(Ninefold Realised Median Canon of the Imperial Lord, a Shang-Chhing Thai-Shang Scripture);e a work otherwisedevoted to techniques for encountering various deities in meditationmaking them appear from within one's body, fromthe sun and moon, and from inside unusually coloured clouds that conceal the immortals as they travel through the sky.The elixir recipe itself, for all its twenty-four ingredients and 104 days of heating, is clearly phrased in the language of thelaboratory, and could be carried out in one today. The ingredients are given elaborate cover-names, but all are defined in

notes recording oral instructions (khou cheh1)ascribed to the first Patriarch of Taoism, Chang Tao-Ling (+2nd century):e.g. Crimson Tumulus Vermilion Boy (chiang ling chu erh = cinnabar, HgS), Elixir Mountain Solar Animus (tan shan jih

hun3 = realgar, As2S2), Arcane Belvedere Lunar Radiance (hsan thai yeh hua4= orpiment, As2S3). The formula is not

dissimilar on the whole to later alchemical recipes in terminology and technique.

The second is atypical in its adaptation of vegetable processes; it falls between conventional alchemy and the art of

growing the marvelous chih plants (ling chih5), the most famous of which is the 'magic mushroom'.a This is the Tung-Chen

Ling Shu Tzu-Wn Lang-Kan Hua Tan Shang Ching(Divinely Written Exalted Manual in Purple Script on the Lang-Kan

(Gem) Radiant Elixir; a Tung-Chen Scripture), originally part of a Tung-Chen Thai-Wei Ling Shu Tzu-Wn Shang Ching6

(Divinely Written Exalted Canon in Purple Script; a Tung-Chen Thai-Wei Scripture).bA fourteen-ingredient elixir is treated

in a precisely phased fire for three protracted periods,c after which an elixir appears inside a 'bud' of seminal essence

(ching7). Planted in an irrigated field, after three years the elixir seed develops into a tree with ring-shaped fruit, one of the

names of which is Supreme-Pole Arcane Chih (thai chi yin chih8). The fruit when planted yields a new plant resembling

the calabash, with a peach-like fruit called the Phoenix-Brain Chih (fng nao chih9). When this intermediate is raised tohigher degrees of perfection through two further replantings, the adept harvests a fruit resembling the jujube which, wheneaten, brings about assumption into the heavens. We can appreciate that this extravagantly impractical recipe is an

attempt to assimilate into alchemy legends like that of the lang-kan10gems which since the Chou and Han had been said

to grow on trees in the paradise of Khun-lun,11 where also were found the peaches of immortality.

As we shall shortly see, Thao must also have had access to other writings on alchemy, including the Huang Ti Chiu Ting

Shen Tan Ching1 (The Yellow Emperor's Canon of the Nine-Vessel Spiritual Elixir),a which Ko Hung claimed had been

made public by Tso Tzhu,2 an early denizen of Mt. Mao at the end of the Hanb. If this is indeed the book which has beenpassed down in the Taoist Patrologies with a large bulk of expository material added, it is probably the oldest extant

Chinese work devoted to the operational side of alchemy, paralleling the more ambiguous Tshan Thung Chhi.c

Then came a day in +504 when dreams of favourable auspices for an elixir were granted simultaneously to Emperor Wuof the new Liang dynasty and to Thao, and the question of choosing one method from among many became pressing. Wedo not have to depend upon hagiographic writings for the outcome of Thao's deliberations, which led to his settling upon

the Ninefold Cyclically Transformed Numinous Elixir (chiu chuan shen tan3), because a surviving fragment of the TngChen Yin Cheh records his own words. He commences with a line of transmission from the Supreme Pole Perfected (or

Realised) Immortal (Thai chi chen jen4)dthrough intermediaries to Mao Ying, who he says was taught the formula in -98,

and passed it on to his brothers. It was the elder of these two, Mao Ku,e who revealed it to Yang Hsi, and bid him show itto the Hss. Thao found it among the literary remains of his predecessors. He goes on to remark:

Thus all those who studied the Tao in the Han and Chin periods talked about mixing and taking Potable Gold (chin

i5), and ascending to become an immortal, but they did not mention the Nine-cycle (Elixir). Thus this formula of theRealised Immortals, from the time it was first taught here below, has never been carried out.

Lines of transmission of this sort tend to weary sinologists, and historians of science all the more, but Strickmann (2) hashad the perspicacity to see Thao's point, and to link it with the statement in a biographical account by Thao's disciple

Phan YuanWn1 that this was the elixir Thao decided to make. For Thao's rationale was this genealogy. What swayedhim was that the method had descended through a series of celestial divinities to Yang Hsi, Hs Mi, and Hs Hui, in thevery hand of one of whom Thao's copy was written. No one else had ever known of it, and the Recluse of Hua-yangwould be the first mortal to prepare it.

After some notes on the ritual for the formal transmission of the canon, Thao cites a few details which clearly signify that



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the Medicine was indeed chemical and not physiological or mental in nature:

One who wants to mix the Nine-cycle (Elixir) first makes a Spirit Pot (shen fu2), using a clay vessel from Jung-yang3

(Honan), Chhang-sha4 (Hunan), or Y-chang5 (Chiangsi) what is called a 'tile pot'. In antiquity the Yellow Emperor

heated the Nine-Cauldron Elixir(Chiu ting6)at Mt. Ching,7 and the Thai-Chhing Chung Ching8(Thai-Chhing MedianCanon) also has a Nine-Cauldron Elixir method; thus from his time onwards elixir aludels have been called 'ritual

cauldrons' (ting9).aOne uses chaff for the fire to heat them. The building for the furnace (i.e. the laboratory, tsao

wu10) is constructed in an inaccessible place next to a stream on one of the Great Mountains. It must be forty feet

long and twenty feet wide, with three openings towards the south, east, and west. First observe the purification rites(chai chieh11) for a hundred days, and then plaster the vessel with lute to make the Spirit Pot.. . . Take equal parts ofthese six substances: left-oriented oyster-shell from Tung-hai (Chiangsu), kaolin from Wu commandery (Chiangsu),

mica powder, earth turned up by earthworms, talc, and alum.b

This mixture is the famous six-one lute (liu i ni), which is specified in almost every elixir formula, with minor variations in

ingredients, for coating reaction vessels and sealing the junctions between vessels and covers.c

Thao had a space cleared for a laboratory on the other side of the ridge from Huayang Abbey, even diverting a stream

through a hole bored in the rock to provide the eastward-flowing current needed by every alchemist. d But there we mayleave him, for his repeated failures from +505 on, and even his rather dubiously documented success in c. +528, areirrelevant here.

There should be no need for further proof that the history of Chinese alchemical ideas will not fall into proper perspectiveuntil much more is known of the social connections of esoteric Taoism. Thao Hung-Ching merely stands at an obviousnodal point. His predecessors had adapted and combined many of the individual meditational and mediumistic practices oftheir time. Then on the content of their revelations, seen in the light of other traditions which he knew, and which heincorporated, Thao founded a well-patronised and enduring community dedicated to pursuing every conceivable means ofco-opting individuals (especially those of the more genteel classes) into the Unseen World, and performing otherconventional religious services on their behalf. Alchemy was a charter member of the Mao Shan synthesis. But medicine

and astronomy too were gradually included in the Patrologies,a for the compilation of which the Mao Shan school was

largely responsible.b Kristofer Schipper has called this patrician group the 'middlebrow wing of Taoism', for its concernshad not a great deal to do either with the ontological paradoxes of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu on the one hand, or what

would later become the everyday pastoral responsibilities of the village priest on the other. Their intellectualomnivorousness was prefigured only by that of Ko Hung. Their synthesis of magic, religion, and science, doubtless toopromiscuous for the taste of most modern readers when seen as a whole, was perfectly suited to that of countlessChinese enthusiasts for a millennium. The cult gradually spread to Mt. Lo-fou near Canton, and other great Taoist

centres. Finally a succession of Mao Shan patriarchs like the hereditary Celestial Masters (thien shih2)of the priestly

Chng I3 tradition controlled many or most of the Taoist abbeys in China until they were taken over by the Chhan-chen 4

sect in the thirteenth century under Mongol policy.c

(2) THE SPECTRUM OF ALCHEMY

Anyone who tries to sort out the relations between theory and practice has to begin by acknowledging that every possible

variation in both their proportion and the quality of their connection can be found in one or another of the documents.Some alchemical writings consist only of instructions for laboratory operations, with no attempt to provide a theoreticalrationale. Others are nothing but rationale, and the actual process is recapitulated only as the conceptual discussionrequires. It will be convenient for heuristic reasons to consider these extremes as the ends of a spectrum, with most of theextant literature falling somewhere in between. This is not a wholly arbitrary overview, for writings near either end of thespectrum tend to have certain characteristics in common. In general the highly theoretical material reflects an attempt toconstruct a laboratory model of the larger cycles of change which take place in Nature, using two ingredients, orsometimes two main ingredients, which correspond to Yin and Yang. This tendency might be called scientific in theclassical sense of the word, since alchemical speculation was concerned primarily with contemplating natural processrather than with manufacturing some product. At the other extreme, where the connections with both medicine and thethaumaturgical tendencies of Taoism are more obvious, we find an often purely practical concern with the manufactureand employment of elixirs of immortality, agents of transmutation, and other substances even (to reinforce the parallel

with Hellenistic aurifaction and aurifiction) artificial pearls, jade, and so on. Authors of this sort were willing to countenanceany possible means, any available formula, self-contradictory or impractical features notwithstanding.

This latter tendency might be called technological, in the sense that the product was all-important, and we shall see thatreflections of the artisan's ability to control Nature, uncommon elsewhere in Chinese thought, furnish an important part ofits ideology. We shall also use the word 'pragmatic' for writings at this end of the spectrum and the approach that they



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imply, but it refers simply to their valuing of ends over means, and not at all necessarily to a command of laboratorypractice. Nor does this term necessarily imply unconcern with the Unseen World, or for the rituals, spells, and taboos bywhich one paid one's respects to it.

Before going further, a caution is in order about the danger of finding in this idea of a spectrum of alchemy a real inherentstructure rather than a taxonomic convenienceor, worse still, thinking of it as a 'model'. As for the genetic relationsbetween the two extremes and the middle, at this point we can offer no more than a few scattered clues, which only agreat deal of thoughtful and critical study in the future can make coherent. We do not know which tendency developedfrom which, and out of what necessities. The oldest extant alchemical books include both highly pragmatic and highly

theoretical treatises, but they represent too tiny and accidental a remnant to encourage the conclusion that a synthesis ofthe two approaches came only later. There is certainly no reason to suppose that they represent different schools ofalchemy. The reader interested in any aspect of esoteric thought in ancient China can hope for no better advice than thatof Rolf Stein: 'I prefer to believe, not in borrowings between schools, but in a common ground, an underlying structure,which can manifest itself variously in different milieus or movements but which the majority of thinkers hold in common.'

(3) THE ROLE OF TIME

In order to form a clear idea of what the theoretically oriented alchemists were doing, one must keep in mind the veryspecial importance of time in Chinese natural philosophy, for it was all the more crucial in alchemy. In the brief reviewwhich follows we shall stress the dynamic and temporal aspects of concepts such as the Tao and the Five Elements,

which are not considered in those lights by modern students of Chinese philosophy as often as they should be.b

Scientific thought began, in China as elsewhere, when men tried to comprehend how it is that although individual thingsare constantly changing, always coming to be and perishing, Nature as a whole not only endures but remainsconformable to itself. In the West the earliest attempts to identify the underlying and unchanging reality tended to be

concerned primarily with some basic material substrate out of which the things around us are formed.a In this way onecould think of all phenomenal things, for instance, as being composed of air (or ratherpneuma, in some state ofcondensation or rarefaction. Thus a tree growing out of a seed is not matter being created out of nothing, but only air,which has existed all the time, gradually taking on a new physical form. In China theories roughly of this sort, explainingmaterial things as composed ofchhiin one state or another, were also sketched out in the first great period of naturalphilosophy, though they did not play a central role in physical speculation.

The earliest, and in the long run the most influential, kinds of scientific explanation, those so basic that they truly pervadedthe ancient Chinese world-view, were in terms of time.c They made sense of the momentary event by fitting it into thecyclical rhythms of natural process, for the life-cycle of an individual organism birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death had essentially the same configuration as those more general cycles which went on eternally and in regular order, onefitting inside the other: the cycle of day and night which regulated the changes of light and darkness, the cycle of the year

which regulated heat and cold and the farmer's growing seasons, and the greater astronomical cycles.d

All these cycles nested. Early Chinese cosmography, as described in the Treatises on Harmonics and CalendricalAstronomy (l li chih) of the dynastic histories, built up its mathematical model of the cosmos in terms of time rather than(as was more the case in the European tradition) of geometric space. The cycles of the day, the month, and the year werefitted together to form larger periods in early astronomy, the Rule Cycle (chang)of nineteen years, equalling 235

lunations, or the Obscuration Cycle (pu) of seventy-six years.e These were defined to begin and end with the wintersolstice (for the month which contained the solstice was taken by astronomers as the 'first month' for computationalpurposes), and the new moon (the beginning of the month) falling at midnight (the beginning of the day) of the same day.A larger cycle was needed to make them fall on a day of the same sexagenary designation (in terms of the cyclical

characters, kan chih4).

These four cyclesday, month, sixty days, and year were only part of a much larger system which also includedeclipse and planetary cycles, in fact all cycles which were known to be periodic. The period which included them all, the

Great Year (Grand Polarity Superior Epoch, thai chi shang yuan5)gwhich began and ended time with a universal

conjunction of sun, moon, and planets, was calculated in the Triple Concordance system (San Thung Li6) of Wang Mang's

time (c. 5) to be 23,639,040 years long. A century later, in the Quarter Day system (Ssu Fn Li7), based on somewhatmore precise values for individual periodic phenomena, the Great Year was of such stupendous length that it was not

even calculated. Practically speaking, the length of the overall cycle was so great simply because more precise fractionstend to have larger common denominators. But to work out the exact value of the Great Year cycle would in any casehave been irrelevant philosophically. What mattered was the demonstration that the unending time through which the

natural world remained constant (or changed gradually, according to one's theory)a was the sum of finite processes whichwere known to regulate individual cycles of growth and decay, birth and death. The life rhythms of a swarm of mayflies



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meshed because they occupied a certain brief phase in the round of the seasons, just as the events of a certain autumnmade sense in terms of its relation to astronomical periods.

In order to make the Tao of a particular thing intelligible, its life-cycle needed to be located with respect to the greaterperiods. The different parts of a cycle could be analysed in terms of a number of concepts, for instance the Yin and Yang,which were the passive and active phases through which any natural cycle must pass. Another variable was the so-called

Five Elements (wu hsing1, for which 'Five Phases'b would be both a more accurate and a more literal translation). Wehave seen earlier that these were not material elements in the modern sense, but a finer division of the cycle into five

qualitatively and functionally distinct parts.c The 'element' Fire, for instance, represented the phase in which activity was

at its highest, and thus soon would have to begin declining; in the cycle of the year summer was the time of Fire. Thetrigrams and hexagrams of the 'Book of Changes' were the third set of concepts which could be applied similarly to

analyse change in terms of constant cycles.d These concepts belong of course to the most general level of early Chinesephysical theory; the various fields of Chinese science, such as medicine, geomancy or alchemy, simply applied them todifferent classes of phenomena.

(i) The organic development of minerals and metals

What was true of the mayfly was true also of the mineral, for its process of growth was time-bound too. Like thinkers inother great ancient civilisations, the Chinese alchemists believed that Nature was an organism and everything had a life-cycle; therefore minerals and metals also grew inside the earth, slowly developing along a scale of perfection over

immense stretches of time.e This process differed from other kinds of growth in two respects which taken together

provided the basic rationale of alchemy. First, if and only if this sequence of maturation stages continued to its end, theproduct, usually gold, would be invulnerable to further transformation. Since gold is not subject to decay and death, theprocess is not cyclical. To a man whose worldview makes cycles of change the norm, the linear perfection of gold willmore or less inevitably come to signify the redemption of man. Secondly, unlike vegetable and animal growth-cycles, themineral cycle can be not only interrupted (or, as many peoples think of it, aborted) by the miner but also speeded up bythe smelter, hence, following his lead, by the alchemist. These ideas, in the specific form they took in the Chinese elixirtradition, merit close examination (cf. Fig. 1516).

The notion of the organic development of minerals and its proto-scientific explanation in terms of chhiexhalations have

already been described in connection with mineralogy, and Greek parallels have been pointed out.a. Here it will only benecessary to adduce a few relevant documents from the alchemical literature. We may begin, however, by reviewing the

appearance of this idea at the beginning of systematic thought about Nature in China. The princely alchemist LiuAn's1Huai Nan Tzu,2 one of the oldest cosmological treatises (c. 125), follows its primitive scheme of biological evolutionwith a theory of development in the mineral world; and like the speculations of the early pre-Socratics, it lies barely thisside of the line which separates proto-science from myth. Here we partially retranslate, rendering rather more literally thanin Sect. 25 (b):

The chhi ofbalanced Earthb copulates (y3) with Dusty Heaven. After 500 years the Dusty Heaven gives birth to (the

yellow mineral) cheh 4, 5 which after 500 years gives birth to yellow mercury,c which after 500 years again givesbirth to the yellow metal (gold). The yellow metal in 1000 years gives birth to the yellow dragon. The yellow dragon,

entering (the earth) and going into hibernation (or pupation) engenders the Yellow Springs.dWhen the dust from theYellow Springs ascends to become the yellow cloud, (its) Yin and (the supernal) Yang beat upon one another,produce peals ofthunder, repel each other and fly out as lightning. That which was above flow's downward. Therunning streams flow together and unite in the Yellow Sea.

This passage and the four which follow, all worded much like it, may be reduced to a general scheme (Table 117).

The chhiof X EarthZ mineralZ quicksilverZ metalY yearsZ springs, where X is an attribute, Y a number ofyears, and Z a colour.

Table 117

Par. X Y/100 Z Mineral Metal Element

1 balanced 5 yellow realgar (or yellowjade?)

gold Earth

2 unbalanced 8 caerulean (blue-green)

malachite lead Wood

3 vigorous 7 scarlet cinnabar copper Fire



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4 weak 9 white arsenolite silver Metal

5 passive 6 black slate (or grindstone?) iron Water

In this schema the deductive categories of the Five Elements have largely taken over the function of providing coherence,though the sequence of images still owes something to the looser and less logical association of mythology. The basicstructure is familiar enough, for it depends on the normal number, colour, and metallic correspondences of the Five

Elements, taken in a special sequence related to the Mutual Production order which characterises organic processes.b

The mineral correlates of Earth and Water are archaic and no longer certainly identifiable, though there is no doubt that

they were chosen because of their colour. By the time of Ko Hung the alchemical Five Minerals (wu shih2) had become

stabilised as (in the same order) realgar, laminar malachite, cinnabar, kalinite (potassium alum) or arsenolite, and

magnetite.c

(ii) Planetary correspondences, the First Law of Chinese Physics, and inductive causation

Although the planets did not play the paramount role in Chinese alchemy that they did in the West, d the correspondence

of the Five Planets (wu hsing3)to the Five Elements naturally gave rise to schematic concordances which did not differ inspirit from those just discussed, since their function was the same. An important collection of elixir recipes which reachedfinal form in the middle of the eighth century ascribes to the author of the Huai Nan Tzubook a method for making Five-Mineral Elixir(wu shih tan), of which it says in a prefatory note :a

The Five Minerals (wu shih) are the seminal essences of the Five Planets. Cinnabar is the essence of the mature Yang(thai yang), Mars. Magnetite is the essence of the mature Yin, Mercury. Malachite is the essence of the young Yang (shaoyang), Jupiter. Realgar is the essence of Divine Earth (hou thu), Saturn. Arsenolite is the essence of the young Yin,Venus. A medicine made from the essences of the Five Planets can give a man perpetual life, exempt from death for ever.

The five substances in this set of correspondences are the classical series, not those of Liu An. The 'mature Yin or Yangis what we should call its maximum state. Having thus reached its height, its decline is about to begin, accompanied byreversion to its opposite (wu chi p1 fan6). This is in accordance with what has been termed the First Law of traditionalChinese Physics (and Chemistry), namely that 'any maximum state of a variable is inherently unstable, and the process ofgoing over to its opposite must necessarily set in.b Thus the winter solstice is the point when the Yin ascendancy, havingreached its zenith, starts to fade, and the Yang, which will be maximal at the summer solstice, begins to reassert itself.The 'young, or immature phase, represents a level intermediate between the point of balanced polarity and the maximal

phase. In the cycle of the year, equal intensity of Yin and Yang is reached at the equinoxes, so the young Yang would fallbetweeen spring equinox and midsummer. If we represent an ideal cyclical process by a sinusoidal curve (Fig. 151 5),~the correspondence between the Five Elements and the five phases of Yin and Yang (mature, immature, and balance) iseasily visualised. The planetary associations of the text thus turn out to be simply the usual correspondences of theplanets with the Five Elements.

In the West the influence of the planets was direct; but in China it is perhaps confusing even to use the word 'influence,for the relation was one of correspondence.b We have just seen the association between the seminal essences of theplanets and the minerals depicted not as emanation or influence, but as identity. The chhiof a planet could stimulateresponse in a metal or mineral only when they were categorically relatedtuned to the si~me note, so to speakwithinthe unitary system of the physical world. The Stoic and Neoplatonic universes, which furnished the cosmic ideology ofEuropean alchemy (and to a large extent that of Islam), were organismic too, but in general influences within them

proceeded in one direction, down a fundamentally linear hierarchy of value. In Chinese thought, which got along without agradation of being based upon proximity to a Supreme Intelligence, it was possible to relate the activity of celestial bodiesquite acausally to the formation of minerals in complex and interesting ways. A good example is the following excerpt froman unidentified 'Secrets of the Great Tao (Ta Tao Mi Chih). It is quoted in the Huan Tan Chung Hsien Lun(Pronouncements of the Company of the Immortals on Cyclically Transformed Elixirs) dated + 1052, by Yang Tsai, whosegraphic description of mercury-poisoning guarantees that it is concerned with the Outer Elixir:

Venus, the Metal planet, is the seminal essence of Metal (chin chili ching4). It accepts the vital animad of the moon,and holds within itself the chhiof the Earth planet Saturn. Thus inside it, yellow in colour, is the floreate essence (orradiance) of Metal (chin hual). The stimulus of the lunarchhiis manifested as anima, and anima belongs to Water.When subsequently (the floreate essence) has received (the chhiof) Metal, the Watery chhiwill respond to Mercury(the Water planet) and give birth to lead. (E-m-w).

Jupiter is the Wood planet, the vital animus of the sun and the essential chhiof Water. This animus is scarlet,because (it corresponds to) Fire. Fire gives birth to Wood.e In response to the chhiof Mars (the Fire planet),cinnabar is born. Cinnabar holds within it the Yin chhiof Wood, and thus contains quicksilver. Quicksilver is calledthe Cacrulean Dragon; and the Caerulean Dragon belongs to Wood (w-W-F).



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Mercury is the Water planet, and the seminal essence of Water. It transmits the chhiof Venus, the Metal (planet). Itsflowing seminal essence responds to Earth, also receiving the vital anima of the moon, and gives birth to lead. Thuslead produces the floreate essence of Metal. The floreate essence of Metal has the Five Colours, and is named'Yellow Sprouts (huang yaz). The chhiof the Water planet descends into Wood and gives birth to laminar malachitch(E-M-w-W).

Mars is Fire, and the seminal essence of Fire. It receives the chhiof the Wood planet (Jupiter) and also transmits theanimus of the sun. Its flowing seminal essence enters Earth (or the earth) and gives birth to cinnabar. The animus (of

cinnabar) belongs to Fire and so it is born out of Wood.1 Since within it there is Yin, it gives birth to mercury. Fire

gives birth to Earth. Earth contains the Balanced Yang,J and gives birth to realgar, the sapidity of which is sweet. (W-F-E).

Saturn is Earth. It accepts (the chhiof) Fire. The Earth planet holds the Balanced Yang within, and thus has realgar(F-E).

Thus the Five Planets transmit from one to another the floreate essences of sun and moon in rotation according to(the) Mutual Production (order of the elements, hsiang sheng), each conforming to its Tao.

Here, as indeed generally in alchemical writing, chhiis not matter but a kind of configurational energyb which endows withstructure a certain kind of matter and gives it determinate qualities. Chingorching chhi, 'seminal essence with its chhi,and hua orching hua, 'radiance or 'floreate essence' or 'seminal radiance, are terms for energy (in the colloquial,

qualitative sense) deriving from some organised entity and applied to bring about a similar organisation in another entity.cIn other words, these concepts come into play in order to explain change and transformation. Hua (lit. 'florescence) refersto the essence in its aspect of emerging from something, while ching(lit. 'seed, semen) refers to the essence in itsfunction of actively forming or nurturing something else. From our point of view, it was two ways of looking at the sametotal phenomenon, namely the production of something with certain determinate qualities from something else, whichmight or might not have the same qualities.

One example of the seminal essence is the most mundane variety ofching, namely human semen, a concentration ofpersonal vitality which transmits characteristics from father to offspring. In other words, the configurational energy of thefather imposes itself on the material basis (chih) provided by the mother to bring about its organisation as a foetus.dTypical ofhua, on the other hand, is the red 'inner essence (i.e. the oxide) which emerges as a red powder when mercuryis heated in air. In the Mutual Production series of the Five Elements, analogously, the radiance or floreate essence (hua)of an element is the one which precedes it (i.e. its formative essence seen as emergent from its predecessor), and theseminal essence (ching) is the one which follows it (i.e. its forming essence as imposed upon its successor).a It is easy tosee that this functional terminology could be applied to any stimulusresponse reaction. The medieval Chinese applied itthroughout the realm of scientific thought, including physics, and as we see here, chemistry; which makes apparent to usthat their basic concepts of action were inclusive of the biological.b

The purpose of the document we are considering is to account for the dynamic relations between certain mineralsubstances, characterised as aspects of the Five Elements. Thus we see Yellow Sprouts (floreate essence of Metal) andmercury described as 'held within lead and cinnabar respectively. In the eye of the alchemists mind the inner aspect was apossible state of the outer material, and could become manifest as the result of alehemical processes. But the relationsdiscussed in this quotation are not static, since the Five Elements are in turn functionally related to each other by the

Mutual Production succession order, which governs the quasi-biological evolution of one thing or one phase of a cyclicalprocess out of another. The genetic character of the lead/Yellow Sprouts and cinnabar/mercury relationships isestablished by making them correspond to the Mutual Production sequences Metal-Earth and Wood-Fire. The elementsequences are not as a rule expressed directly, but more often given in terms of the planetsthe Five Elements seen intheir cosmological function. Only when we recognise that the fundamental level of discourse is not astronomical at all canwe perceive the simple, and to the Chinese thinker familiar, sense behind the apparently very odd assertions aboutinteractions of planets.

It would be sorely misreading the text to see in it any suggestion of physical influence exerted by planets upon terrestrialminerals. The sun and moon are no less passive in this schema than the planets. While the latter serve in the theory asaspects of the Five Elements, the formeror, to be more precise, the hun vitality or animus which characterises the sunand the pho vitality or anima of the moonstand for the cosmological aspects of Yang and Yin.

We can thus proceed to reduce the second and most of the fourth paragraph of the text to a straightforward assertion:'There exists the genetically related binary system mercury/cinnabar, of which mercury, corresponding to Wood, is theyoung (i.e. immature) Yang phase and cinnabar, corresponding to Fire, is the mature Yang phase. The modern reader nodoubt prefers a plainer formulation, for he knows how important direct statement has been in the growth of modernscience. But for the ancient alchemist, the richness of association was desirable enough to be paid for in simplicity and



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testability. What brought the planets into alchemical theory was a motivation, in the last analysis, aesthetic.

(iii) Time as the essential parameter of mineral growth

The protean metalline metamorphoses of the Huai Nan Tzubook were avoided by later alchemists, who accepted muchmore straightforwardly the archaic idea of the gradual perfection of minerals within the terrestial matrix. Here the idea isexpressed with pristine simplicity in one of the most influential of all alchemical writings, the supplementary instructions(chueh), probably of the early Sung, which now accompany the Han 'Yellow Emperors Canon of the Nine-Vessel SpiritualElixir:

Realgar occurs in the same mountains as orpiment, and is formed by the transformation of orpiment. (This latter)great medicine of heaven and earth (i.e., of the natural order) is called 'doe yellow (tzhu huang). When eightthousand years have passed, it transforms into realgar,b the variant name of which is 'imperial male seminal essence(ti nan ching).After another thousand years have passed it transforms into yellow gold, with the variant name'victuals of the Perfected (or Realised) Immortals (chen jen fan).

The theory of this type most significant for the development of alchemy begins, as did Liu Ans, with a hierogamy, and thetime span, while still defined numerologically, is chosen more carefully for its cosmic significance. The Tan Lun ChuehChili Hsin Ching(Mental Mirror Reflecting the Essentials of Oral Instruction about the Discourses on the Elixir and theEnchymoma), a theoretical treatise probably of the Thang, rationalises the preparation of the elixir of immortality byanalogy with geological process :

Natural cyclically-transformed elixir(tzu-jan huan tan) is formed when flowing mercury (liu hung), embracing Sir Metal(chin kung= chhien, lead), becomes pregnant. Wherever there is cinnabar there are also lead and silver. In 4320years the elixir is finished. Realgar(hsiung) to its left, orpiment (tzhu) to its right, cinnabar above it, malachite (tshengchhing) below. It embraces the chhiof sun and moon, Yin and Yang, for 4320 years; thus, upon repletion of its ownchhi, it becomes a cyclically-transformed elixir for immortals of the highest grade and celestial beings. When in theworld below lead and mercury are perfected by an alehemical process (hsiu lien) for purposes of immortality, (theelixir) is finished in one year.a The fire is first applied in the eleventh month, when the Single Yang (i Yang) comesinto being,b and the elixir is finished by the eleventh month of the next year. The natural cyclically-transformed elixiris what immortals, celestial beings, and sages of the world above gather and eat. What (the alchemist) now preparessucceeds because of its correspondence on a scale of thousandths. Taking the product also results in eternal life,transformation into a feathered being, and power(kung) equal to that of heaven.

We shall return shortly to the period of 4320 years in connection with the alchemists side of the analogy between theWork of the laboratory and the Work which takes place in the womb of Mother Nature. There we shall seed that althoughthe adepts period of a year is metaphysically derived from what we might call the temporal macrocosm of 4320 years,historically the longer period was obviously chosen to correspond to the number of double-hours (shih) in the round yearof 360 days. We are quite serious in representing the two directions of correspondence as related to two distinct realitieswithin the alchemists universe of significance. That he did not find them contradictory testifies to the coordinate nature ofcorrespondences as the Chinese used them. It is interesting that the writer should have expressed the relation of the twotime periods in terms of order of magnitude, a concept the easy and correct use of which is far from prevalent today.

This document also alludes to two minor but not insignificant alehemical themes: the notation of the geological coupling ofminerals and metals, and the idea that there exist within the earth certain substances of such quality that only immortals

can have access to them. We shall postpone slightly a discussion of the second theme, since its very ampledocumentaticn makes more adequate study possible.

The regular association of certain plants with mineral deposits, and of the latter with deeper strata of metals or metallicores, has already been considered in Section 25 in connection with geological prospecting.a In the text from the Kuan Tzubook (compiled perhaps in the late -4th century) cited there, superficial cinnabar is considered a sign of deeper gold. KoHung (c. +320) agrees, again making a parallel between the evolution of gold in the mountains and in the furnace:

When the manuals of the immortals (isien ching2) say that the seminal essence of cinnabar gives birth to gold, this isthe theory of making gold from cinnabar. That is why gold is generally found beneath cinnabar in the mountains.

The coupling of cinnabar with lead ores in Tan Lun Chueh Chi Hsin Chinglacks classical precedent, and we do not know

from what empirical generalisation it derives. The common presenee of silver in ores of lead is a commonplace in Chinesealchemy as in modern geology, and a key to one of the prototype two-element processes of the proto-scientific art.

Another simple account of the subterranean evolution of metals appears in the Chih Kuei Chi(Pointing the Way Home (toLife Eternal); a Collection) of Wu Wu, whose manual of equipment and procedures, Tan Fang Hsu Chih (IndispensableKnowledge for the Chymical Elaboratory), is dated +163. The former work is definitely concerned with physiological and



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meditational alchemy, but the author was conversant with the Outer Elixir tradition and is clearly reflecting it here :

Quicksilver, under the stimulus of the chhiof Yin and Yang for 800 years, forms cinnabar(sha); after 3000 years itforms silver; after 80,000 years it forms goldthe longer the firmer(chien), through a thousand metamorphoses anda myriad transformations. The sages cycle (yun) Water and Fire, following the model of the operation of the chhiofYin and Yang, in order to bring to completion the virtue (of the elixir); this is what is called 'surpassing the ingenuity ofthe Shaping Forces of Nature.

As we have seen, the archaic and ubiquitous idea of the evolution of minerals and metals along a scale of perfection was

rationalised in China in terms of the Five-Element and Yin-Yang theories, provided with much concrete detail, and relatedto cosmic process by the choice of specific time spans.d It was perhaps inevitable that at least for purposes of meditationupon the creative potential of the Tao, this idea was further imaginatively extended to link it with other Chineseconvictions.

One possibility was to involve the vegetable kingdom by extrapolating, so to speak, the growth of minerals backward.Philosophically this was not much of an innovation, for the idea of the fixity of species had been rejected from the start, toallow the possibility of one species metamorphosing into another, and to explain spontaneous generation. Transformationwas ordinarily thought of either as a binary relation, in the sense that a certain species could change spontaneously intoanother particular species, or as a chain relation, in which the metamorphoses form a natural series. The chain relation isrepresented by the Chuang Tzubooks renowned theory of a cycle which begins with 'germs (chi) in the water and evolvesorganically step by step to man, who in due but unspecified course reverts to the germs. Where this passage is quoted in

the Lieh Tzubook (compiled by c. + 300), the continuity is broken, probably through late editorial inadvertence, by sometypical examples of the simple binary relation:

Sheeps liver changes into the goblin sheep underground. The blood of horses and men becoming will-o-the-wisp;kites becoming sparrow-hawks, sparrow-hawks becoming cuckoos, cuckoos in due time again becoming kites;swallows becoming oysters, moles becoming quails, rotten melons becoming fish, old leeks becoming sedge, oldewes becoming monkeys, fish roe becoming insectsall these are examples of things altering andmetamorphosing....

Another binary relation known to every physician in classical times was that between pine resin (sung chih) and the fu-lingfungus, a parasite upon the roots of pine trees, prized as an immortality medicine.a The fungus was supposed to beformed when pine resin flowed into the ground and remained there for a thousand years. When it grew especially close

about the roots of the tree it was called 'pachyma spirit, orfu shen. Origin from pine resin was also ascribed to amber(hu-po) by Thao Hung-Ching, who introduced amber into the pharmacopoeia; though 'an old tradition cited by Su Ching(between + 650 and + 659) had fu-lingmetamorphosing into amber after a second millennium, and amber into jet (i, hsi)after a third.

Here, then, is an alehemical assimilation of these motifs into an account formally similar to the mineral sequences we havealready examined:

In the great Tao of heaven and earth, what endures of the myriad phenomena is their primal and harmonious chhi. Ofthe things that exist in perpetuity, none surpass the sun, moon, and stars.d Yin and Yang, the Five Phases(Elements), day and night, come into being out of Earth, and in the end return to Earth. They alter in accord with thefour seasons, but that there should be a limit to them is also the Tao of Nature. For instance, when pine resin imbibes

the chhiof mature Yang for a thousand years it is transformed into pachyma fungus. After another thousand years ofirradiation it becomes pachyma spirit; in another thousand years it becomes amber, and in another thousand yearscrystal quartz (shui ching). These are all seminal essences formed through irradiation by the floreate chhiof sunand moon!

This passage is not greatly innovative either in form or content; in fact it demonstrates how little originality is often neededto bring out the inherent connections of two longestablished notions (in this case metamorphosis and subterraneanmaturation). The framework of physical explanation is perfectly typical of alehemical theory. To paraphrase as simply aspossible, the cyclical processes of Nature (the Tao) can give rise to things which endure, or even exist perpetually, sincethey have a perfectly balanced internal phasing which attunes them to the Taos recurrent pattern. The heavenly bodiesembody the balance of cosmic forces (mediated by the element Earth) and are thus a paradigm of eternity. At the sametime the alternation of the sun and moon (and of the light and chhithey radiate) is identical with the cyclical domination ofYin and Yang. In the course of the cosmic cycles, exposure of pine resin underground to the configurational energyreleased in the recurring creative phase ('the chhiof mature Yang) gives rise to a sequence of substances which not onlyendure and improve underground but are all capable of conferring immortality upon human beings.

Implicit in this sequence of ideas is a most important theme which can be glimpsed again and again in the alchemists



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writings. Although the perfection of the elixir is the result of a repeated cyclical process, at each step of the treatment theintermediary product is not the same, but rather progressively exalted. Thus superimposed upon the cycle is aprogressive upward tendency, which does not reverse itself.e The culmination of the process is irreversiblethat is, nolonger subject to the cyclic cosmic agencies which brought it about. In this way the adepts operations upon his materialsparallel the effect of the elixir, once made, upon himself. His immortality is charactensed again and again as invulnerabilityto the ravages of time, freedom from the cyclical attrition which governs the ageing and deathas inevitably as the birthand growthof ordinary men. This idea is one of the crucial links between Chinese, Indian and Arabic alchemy, as well asbetween laboratory alchemy and other techniques of immortality in China.d Only our present defective comprehension ofit precludes the treatment in depth which it deserves.

(iv) The subterranean evolution of the natural elixir

Another extension of the theory of mineral development led to positing an evolutionary branch the terminus of which wasnot gold, but the natural analogue to the mercuric elixir which theoreticians of alchemy valued more than any preciousmetal. The fact that every quality characteristic of gold varied over a certain range in native specimens of the metalencouraged early aurifactors to ignore the assayers single standard of purity, and to envision the making of gold of stillgreater quintessential purity than any metal found in mines or streams. Although it is clear that the concept of the naturalelixir was motivated by the desire to find a parallel for the alchemists own Work, it was philosophically feasible because,like gold, cinnabar exists in a certain range of qualities, from very crude and irregular forms to magnificent blood-redrhombohedral crystals.

**The extrapolation which led to the natural elixir may be followed in a remarkable extended passage from Chhen Shao-Weis Ta-Tung Lien Chen Pao Ching Hsiu Erh Ling Sha Miao Chueh (Mysterious Teachings on the AlehemicalPreparation of Numinous Cinnabar, Supplementary to the Perfected Treasure Manual, a Ta-Tung Scripture), writtenperhaps c. +712, which must be considered one of the most valuable of the surviving early treatises on account of itsdisquisition on the alchemy of cinnabar and its clear instructions for preparing the alehemical elixir :

The highest grade of cinnabar grows in grottoes in Chhen-chou and Chin-chou (both in modern Hunan), and thereare several types. The medium grade grows in Chiao-chou (centered on modern Hanoi) and Kuei-chou (in Kuangsi),and is also of various sorts. The lower grade occurs in Hang-chou and Shao-chou (in Hunan). That there are variousgrades is due to variation in purity of substance (cuing cho thi i), diversity in perfection (chen hsieh ) and shadings infineness of the chhi of which they are formed. Those which, stimulated by metal and mineral (influences), take on abalanced chhi, confer, when ingested, access to the Mysteries and consecration among the Realised (or Perfected)

Ones as an immortal of the highest grade. Even those composed of unbalanced chhicause, when taken, perpetuallife on earth.

Now the highest grade, lustrous cinnabar(kuang ming sha), occurs in the mountains of Chhen-chou and Chin-chouupon beds of white toothy mineral. Twelve pieces of cinnabar make up one throne. Its colour is like that of anunopened red lotus blossom, and its lustre is as dazzling as the sun. There are also thrones of 9, 7, 5, or 3 pieces, orof one piece. Those of 12 or 9 pieces are the most charismatic (ling); next are those which occur in 7 or pieces. Inthe centre of each throne is a large pearl (of cinnabar), 10 ounces or so in weight, which is the monarch (chu chn).Around it are smaller ones, 8 or 9 ounces (or in some cases 6 or 7 ounces or less) in weight; they are the ministers(chhen).

They surround and do obeisance to the great one in the centre. About the throne are a peck: (tou) or two of various

kinds of cinnabar, encircling the 'jade throne and cinnabar bed. From among this miscellaneous cinnabar on theperiphery may be picked (pieces in the shapes of) fully formed lotus buds, 'nocturnal repose, and azalea.Thelustrous and translucent specimens are also included in the highest class of cinnabar.

There is also a cinnabar which resembles horse teeth; that with a white lambent lustre is white horse-tooth cinnabarof the highest grade. There is another, tabular like mica; that with a white lustre is white horse-tooth cinnabar of themiddle grade. (Cinnabar) which is round and elongated like a bamboo shoot and red or purple in colour is purplenuminous cinnabarof the highest grade. If it occurs in stony, flat prisms with a virid lustre, it is purple numinouscinnabar of the lower grade. Of (the purple numinous cinnabar) produced in Chiao-chou and Kuei-chou, only thatwhich occurs in throne formations or which is found inside rocks when they are broken open, and is shaped like lotusbuds and lustrous, is also included in the highest grade. That which is granular in form and translucent, three or fourpieces weighing a pound, is of the middle grade. That which is laminar in form and transparentis of the lower grade.

All that produced in Hang-chou and Shao-chou is purple numinous cinnabar. Like that with a red lustre found insiderocks when they are broken open, it is lower-grade cinnabar. If creek cinnabar, granular in form and translucent, issubdued, refined, and ingested, (the alchemist) will attain perpetual life on earth, but he will not become an immortalof the highest grade. Earthy cinnabar grows in earth caves (or, mines in the earth) (thu hsueh), as creek cinnabarmatures (yang) in mountain rills. Because earth and mineral chhiare intermixed, these varieties are not suitable as



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ingredients of the higher kinds of medicine or for use in alchemy.

The very highest grade of cinnabar is that which occurs in throne formations. When one of the monarch pieces fromthe centre of the throne is obtained, subdued, refined and introduced into the viscera, the efficacy of cinnabar isparticularly manifest. (This central piece) is named 'Superior Cinnabar Belvedere. It produces a permanentlybalanced chhi(i.e. bodilypneuma), and allows one to transcend ones mundane involvements. If it is further taken inthe sevenfold-recycled or ninefold-cyclically-transformed state, then without adothe anima is transformed and theouter body destroyed, the spirit made harmonious and the constitution purified. The Yin chhiis dissolved, and (thepersona) floats up, maintaining its shape, to spend eternity as a flying immortal of the highest grade of Realisation.

Thus one knows that the realised seminal essence of the Yangd has imbued the chhi(of this cinnabar) so that itexhibits a perfectly rounded nimbus, symmetrical and without imperfection. When cinnabar has been subdued andrefined so that it takes the shape of a lotus bud and is translucent with a nimbus, it has become a medicine of thehighest grade, which when ingested results in immortality (or, which is ingested by immortals).

The 'Canon' says that cinnabar is a natural cyclically-transformed elixir, and that the vulgar are unable to gauge itsfundamental principles. The uninitiated all know about 'jade throne cinnabar. But the 'golden throne and 'celestialthrone are cinnabars of the Purple Dragon and Dark Flower of the Most High,and not the kind which vulgar fellowscan see or know about. Any devoted gentleman of the common sort, after storing up merit, can refine jade thronecinnabar alehemically and by taking it attain immortality. But as for golden throne cinnabar, a man born withimmortality in his bones must first refine his spirit to a state of pure voidand live as a hermit in a cliff-bound cave.Then the immortals will gather it and feed it to him. He will forthwith be transformed into a Feathered Being (i.e., an

immortal) and will bound upwards into the Lofty Purity (of the heavens). Lastly celestial throne cinnabar is collectedand eaten only by the Celestial Immortals and Realised Officials in heaven. It is no medicine for lesser immortals.

When jade throne cinnabar has imbibed the pure seminal essence of Yang sentience for six thousand years it istransformed into golden throne cinnabar, the throne of which is yellow. In the centre are five pieces growing in layers,surrounded by forty or fifty small balls. After 16,000 years of imbibing (essence), golden throne is transformed intocelestial throne cinnabar, in which the throne is jade-green. There are nine pieces in the centre, growing in layers,pressed closely about by 72 (smaller) pieces. It floats in the midst of the Grand Void, constantly watched over by oneof the spirits of the Supreme Unity (Thai 13). On a Superior Epoch daythe Realised Officials descend to collect it.The mountain (on which it is found) suddenly lights up; the whole mountain is illuminated as if by fire. This celestialthrone cinnabar is collected (only) by Realised Officials; people of the world can have no opportunity to gather it.

The fundamental principles of cinnabar are deep and arcane,e but worthy and enlightened gentlemen who have theirhearts set upon floating up (to become immortals) must learn to distinguish the various qualities of the Medicine, highfrom low. Only then will they be ready to regulate the phases of the fire, to combine the Yin and Yang subduingmethods, and then without further ado be consecrated as Perfected or Realised Immortals of high grade.

Of the many qualities of cinnabar enumerated above, 'creek cinnabar and 'earthy cinnabar were crude varieties usedmainly in the commercial distillation of mercury. The kinds useful to the physician and alchemist were all exceptionallylarge tabular or orthorhombic crystals of substantially pure crystalline mercuric sulphide.a The white beds in which theseminerals grew would have been drusy quartz.

Anyone who has not learned from Lynn Thorndike (1) or Frances Yates (1) to appreciate the remarkable capacity ofscience to coexist with magic may be troubled or even scandalised by certain tensions implicit in this text, but alchemy and

even early medicine reflect them throughout. The recurring resort to scientific chhiand Yin-Yang explanations does notseem to sit well with the frequent reminders that the final issue of the alchemical process was expected to be anappointment to the ranks of the Spiritual Civil Service. We cannot pretend that we understand the historical dynamics ofChinese alchemy until someone has succeeded in explaining why this very real contradiction never generated sufficientdialectical voltage to be faced or resolved.

It seems finally to have withered away with the ascendancy of internal or physiological alchemy in the Thang and Sung,when concern with an objective hierarchy of immortals and divinities was somewhat displaced by direct attention to theaim of what a Jungian would call psychical integration. This emphasis on personal growth is too apparent to overlook in afew lines of an alehemical poem in the 'Arcane Memorandum of the Red Pine Master (Chhih Sung Tzu Hsuan Chi),probably of the Thang or earlier:

Successful means solidly building the Wall,

Indispensable to distinguish the Hard and the Soft,d

Necessary that the maturing come within man



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Due to the concentration of his heart and mind.e

If his heart and mind have reached divinity, so will the Medicine;

If his heart and mind are confused the Medicine will be unpredictable.

The Perfect Tao is a perfect emptying of the heart and mind.

Within the darknessunknowable wonders.

When the wise man has attained to the August Source,

Then in time he will truly reach the clouds.

We can only suggest for the moment that the structure of the Unseen World may have been all along in a very deepsense that of the human spirit.

A second tension prevalent in alchemy prompts us to ask what credit Chhen ShaoWei should be given for innovation inhis account of super-cinnabar, despite his insistence that a Realised Immortal revealed the contents of his book to himone day in a mountain cave? Any hope of answering this question must be greatly qualified by our inability to draw anabsolute line between revelation and inspiration, but it is obviously relevant to ask how much of the information in thedocument was already known. We can throw light on this point to the extent that datable documents allow. Fortunately,

they serve to assure us that at least the bare conception of throne formations of exceptional alehemical value was knownwell before the time of Chhens epiphany.

A landmark of pharmacology, Hsu Chih-Tshais Lei Kung Yao Tui(Answers of the Venerable Master Lei concerningDrugs), c. +565, in the course of its enumeration of the varieties of cinnabar, makes this assertion, bland by comparisonwith Chhens but an anticipation none the less:

There is a spirit throne cinnabar(shen tso), as well as a golden throne cinnabar and a jade throne cinnabar. If theyare taken, (even) without having passed through the alchemical furnace (ching tan tsao), they will forthwith extendones destined span of life.c

As has been remarked in our study of mineralogy, in the middle of the +7th century Su Ching also speaks of 'lustrous

cinnabar, of which one crystal grows separately in a 'stone shrine.The largest is the size of a hens egg, and the smallestthe size of a jujube or chestnut. It is shaped like a lotus, and when broken it resembles mica, lustrous and transparent. Itgrows on a stone 'belvedere inside the shrine. If he who finds it carries it on his person, it will keep him from all evil.e

Finally the great pharmacognostic critic Khou Tsung-Shih provides an illuminating description of the mining of largecinnabar crystals at Chin-chou in his 'Dilations upon Pharmaceutical Natural History (Pen Tshao Yen I, preface dated+111 6):

The Old Crow Shaft (lao ya ching). .has a depth and (underground) extent of several hundred feet. First wood ispiled up inside to fill the excavation and then it is set on fire. Where the dark stone cracks open there are small'shrines. Within each of these is a bed of white stone, which resembles (white) jade. Upon this bed grows thecinnabar, the small (crystals) like arrow-heads and the larger like lotuses. Their lustre is so great that they reflect

light as well as mirrors. When they are ground up their colour is a vivid red. The larger specimens of the cinnabar,together with their beds, weigh from seven or eight up to ten ounces.

Putting all these data together, we can reasonably posit that Chhen Shao-Wei was responsible, whether by inspiration orrevelation, for adding texture to the idea of supra-normal formations of cinnabar. What interests us is that one of theconceptions which he newly applied was that of chain metamorphosis.

There is evidence that Chhens description of super-cinnabar did not remain an utter secret after all. The Lung Hu HuanTan Chueh (Explanation of the Dragon-and-Tiger Cyclically Transformed Elixir), evidently of the Wu Tai, Sung or later,follows Chhens jade throne > golden throne > celestial throne sequence, specifying the same time-intervals betweenmetamorphoses, and speaks of cinnabar of the highest grade as 'natural cyclically-transformed elixir. What is hardly lesssignificant, a distant but on-pitch echo appears in the literary remains of the great Thang statesman Li Te-Y (+ 787 to +

849), by Taoist lights at best a 'devoted gentleman of the common sort. His 'Essay on Smelting the Yellow, by which hemeans alchemy, begins:

Someone asked me about the transformation involved in 'smelting the yellow. I said: 'I have never studied thesematters, so how am I to deny that there is such a thing? Still, with the aid of perfected principles one can alwaysinquire into Nature and all its phenomena. Now lustrous cinnabar is a natural treasure of heaven and earth. It is



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found in rock caverns, growing on snowy beds, and resembling newly grown lotuses before the red buds have burstopen. The tiny (crystals) do obeisance in a ring, while the large one occupies the centre. This corresponds to theconfiguration at the celestial pole, and the respective positions proper to ruler and ministers.c (The mineral) islustrous and transmits light.Those who gather it trace along the vein of mineral(till they find it). Truly, it has beencast by the Shaping Forces.

It was not the idea of mineral evolution that interested Li, political moralist that he was. The excellence of the configurationof lustrous cinnabar lay in its resonance with the metaphysics of monarchy, which Confucius had long before illustratedwith the image of the central Pole Star surrounded by genuflecting asterisms.

(4) THE ALCHEMIST AS ACCELERATOR OF COSMIC PROCESS

There is a piece of dialogue in Ben Jonsons play 'The Alchemist (+16 10) which might well serve as the text for ourargument as it gradually unfolds:

Subtle: Why, what have you observd, Sir, in our Art,

Seems so impossible? Surly: But your whole Work, no more.

That you should hatch Gold in a furnace, Sir,

As they do Eggs in Egypt!

Subtle: Sir, do you

Believe that Eggs are hatchd so? Surly: If I should?

Subtle: Why, I think that the greater Miracle.

No Egg but differs from a Chicken more

Than Metals in themselves. Surly: That cannot be.

The Eggs ordaind by Nature to that end,

And is a Chicken in potentia.

Subtle. The same we say of Lead, and other Metals,

Which would be Gold, if they had time. Mammon:And that

Our Art doth further.

We have already seen how well Subtles answer applies in China, and are ready to explore the transition to Sir EpicureMammons amplificatory remark. Let us begin by summarising the next propositions which we shall endeavour todemonstrate.

Since the formation of minerals and metals is bound by time, and thus attributable to the same cosmic forces which areresponsible for other life cycles, there is a very direct connection between the chemical operations of Nature and thepractical techniques of the metal-working artisan. In extracting a metal from its ore, or making strong steel from brittle castiron, he was demonstrating that man can imitate natural process, that he can stand in the place of Nature, and bring aboutnatural changes at a rate immensely faster than in Natures own time. The discovery that the speed of mineral growthprocesses, unlike those of plants and animals,b can be controlled by man, must certainly have been one of the mainfactors that led to the beginning of what we have called proto-scientific alchemy. For the alchemist went on to designprocesses for reproducing at a much faster rate the cyclical rhythms of Nature which controlled the maturing of mineralsand metals in the earth. No man could wait 4320 years to see Nature make an elixir, but by fabricating one with his ownhands in a few months or a year he would have a unique opportunity to experience and study the cyclical forcesresponsible for that change and thus for all natural change. No undertaking could be more quintessentially Taoist.

And when the elixir acted in projection it was nothing less than a 'time-controlling substance '. It accelerated the time-scaleof perfection; and once the further point of perfection was reached, it cancelled times attrition (for that is what perfectionimplied). Fig. 1516 has been designed to show how the deceleration of human ageing was the counterpart of theacceleration of the forming of the imperishable metal. Ko Hung says this almost in as many words: 'All the numinous fungican bring men to longevity and material immortalityand this belongs to the same category as the making of gold. And he



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goes on to quote the optimistic words of Huang Shan Tzu: 'Since heaven and earth contain gold, we also can make it.'

What needs emphasising is that the alchemist's enterprise, as he himself defined it, was not chemistry in any usual sense

of the word but physics.b The concern that brought his models of the cosmic process into existence was not directly withthe properties and reactions of various substances. These properties and reactions were no more inherently importantthan the characteristics of pigments which a painter must master in order to produce the picture which exists in his mind'seye. Chemical knowledge and proto-chemical concepts were by-products, and alchemists did not lack the acumen torecord and build upon them. But the aim of the process, which conditioned every step in its planning, was the model of theTao, the cyclical energetics of the cosmos.

Looking at all the evidence impartially, one cannot escape the conclusion that the dominant goal of proto-scientificalchemy was contemplative, and indeed the language in which the Elixir is described was ecstatic. Here is one of ahundred descriptions which might be adduced to prove the point:

Open the reaction-vessel. All the contents will have taken the shapes of golden silkworms or jade bamboo shoots, orof lions, elephants, oxen, or horses, or the form of a human general of great courage. The shapes will vary, but theywill all be induced by the spiritual force of the sun, planets, and stars, and the chhiof the heroes of sky and earth.What congeals in these amazing ways is the essence of water and fire, Yin and Yang.

In a second example we can readily identify what the alchemist was looking at:

If you wish to prepare yellow gold, take 1/24 ounce (chu1

) of Cyclically Transformed Elixir and put it into a pound oflead; it will become real gold. You may also first place the lead in a vessel, heat it until it is liquefied, and then addone spatula of the Scarlet Medicine to the vessel. As you look on, you will see every colour flying and flowering,purple clouds reflecting at random, luxuriant as the colours of Nature it will be as though you were gazing upwards

at a gathering of sunlit clouds. It is called Purple Gold, and it is a marvel of the Tao.a

One could hardly hope for a better description of what a cupeller sees on his lead button as it oxidises and the oxide is

moved by surface tension.b But the richness and vividness of the particulars bespeak a state of heightened awarenesswhich one is naturally tempted to link with the alchemist's meditative practices, since we see it so widespread in the texts.We cannot rule out the possibility that drugs played a role in this tendency to perceive multum in parvo, manydescriptions coming close to those reported by takers of hemp and other hallucinogens today, but ecstatic introspection

was so common in ancient China that this is hardly a necessary hypothesis.c

The alchemist undertook to contemplate the cycles of cosmic process in their newly accessible form because he believedthat to encompass the Tao with his mind (or, as he would have put it, his mind-and-heart) would make him one with it.That belief was precisely what made him a Taoist. As we have pointed out earlier, the idea behind Taoist ataraxy is not atall unlike one of the central convictions of early natural philosophy in the West, namely that to grasp intellectually theconstant pattern which underlies the phenomenal chaos of experience is, in that measure, to be freed from the bonds of

mortal finitude.d The idea that scientific knowledge leads to spiritual power also accounts for the extreme attention givento ritual purity to fasting, cleanliness, invocat

Sivin, Nathan - Theory of Chinese Lab Alchemy

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