Alchemical Texts
- Early Taiqing (Great Clarity) Texts: Rituals
- In the Taiqing tradition, compounding an elixir is part of a larger process that consists of several stages, each of which is marked by the performance of rites and ceremonies. It is this process, and not merely heating the ingredients in the crucible, that constitutes the alchemical practice. Receiving the scriptures and the oral instructions, building the laboratory, kindling the fire, and ingesting the elixirs all require offering pledges to one's master and to the gods, observing rules on seclusion and purification, performing ceremonies to establish and protect the ritual area, and making invocations to the highest deities. Instead of being seen as mere appendages to the alchemical work, these ritual acts are deemed to be as essential to achieving an elixir as are the ingredients.
- Early Taiqing (Great Clarity) Texts: Methods
- These selections exemplify the technical features of the early Taiqing texts, which give details on the preliminary treatment of the ingredients, the preparation of the crucible, the heating process, and the collection of the elixir. Despite the absence of explicit statements on the principles of the alchemical work, the doctrinal facets of Taiqing alchemy are illustrated by the methods of the Mud of the Six-and-One, which represents the seven stages of the cosmogonic process, and the Mysterious and Yellow, a compound that is emblematic of the joining of Heaven and Earth.
- Early Taiqing (Great Clarity) Texts: Benefits of the Elixirs
- After the methods of making the elixirs, the Taiqing texts describe the benefits that they afford. The Taiqing alchemical medicines were valued for two main reasons. First, they granted transcendence and immortality; second, they made it possible--even with no need of ingesting them--to summon benevolent gods and expel demons and other causes of various disturbances, including illness and death.