KAO HSIANG HSIEN

Alchemical poem (excerpt)

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chinese alchemist



Chinese alchemy is quite similar to our western alchemy. The short excerpt that I offer you below from a Chinese alchemical poem from the 14th century, describes the main lines of the Great Work with great precision.

LAT


XIVth century


“Behold, the mother, as soon as she has sons, becomes an oven and a pot. At the moment when the soul of the sun and the essence of the moon exert a mutual influence on each other, the black pearl (mercury) will quite naturally take flight towards distant heights. If you want to catch it, use for this purpose Wang Hsiang, the aquatic monster (the sulfur). Wang Hsiang will capture him and bring him to the purple room (the cinnabar), dye everything red”

(Translations and annotations by TL Davis and Chao Yun-Tsung, in: Isis, 1939, n°81, pp. 236-240)