Alchemical Instructions of the Immortal of Green Florescence

[Apech]

Just reading the intro to Awakening to Reality where it says:

 

 

In addition to Awakening to Reality, three other alchemical texts are

attributed to Zhang Boduan:

1 Wuzhen pian shiyi (Supplement to Awakening to Reality)

2 Yuqing jinsi Qinghua biwen jinbao neilian danjue ( Alchemical Instructions ....... of the

Immortal of Green Florescence)

3 Jindan sibai zi (Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir)

 

... does anyone know anything about the Immortal of Green Florescence.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Apech

[Taoist Texts]

He is the spiritual person from whom Zhang Boduan received all or a part of his method. Nothing else is known about him. Also, there is a god  , The Lord of the East, one variant of whose name is the same,

[Ormus]

Dear Apech,

 

as far as I know Master Wangzi Qiao who initiated Master Zhongli Quan, is also known as Eastern Florescences Minog Yang-Donghua Shaoyang Jun or as Imperial Lord of Eastern Florescences-Donghua Dijun).Master Zhongli initiated Master Lu Dong Bin and Master Liu Cao,both of whom initiated Master Zhang Boduan.Boduan recived initiation also from Master Li Haichun(Elder of Qingcheng Shan-Qingchen Zhangren) who has initiated by Lu Dong Bin,Liu Cao and Wang Quan,and I think he is maybe person you look for.

Boduan also recived initiation from Master Wang Quan and Xihua Zhenren who was actualy Mistress and her real name was Realized One of Western Florescences.

 

All the best,

 

Ormus

Edited July 4, 2015 by Ormus

[Brian]

Strictly speaking, fluorescence is absorbing high-frequency energy and reemitting it at a lower frequency.

[Apech]

Strictly speaking, fluorescence is absorbing high-frequency energy and reemitting it at a lower frequency.

 

 

Thank you Brianstein

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I wonder what "fluorescence" means. Spiritual light?

 

 

Strictly speaking, fluorescence is absorbing high-frequency energy and reemitting it at a lower frequency.

 

Florescence is not fluorescence, but a translation of 华, huá, magnificent / splendid / flowery, which shows up a lot in Daoist texts, Immortals and Gods appear under huá canopies, in alchemy it has a technical meaning, the most common example of which would be rust or patina on bronze or brass, an "essence" that appears out of some metal.  There is of course much more than this and if I have time I will return to comment more.

[Brian]

Ah, yes. U make quite a difference...

 

[Apech]

 

 

 

Florescence is not fluorescence, but a translation of 华, huá, magnificent / splendid / flowery, which shows up a lot in Daoist texts, Immortals and Gods appear under huá canopies, in alchemy it has a technical meaning, the most common example of which would be rust or patina on bronze or brass, an "essence" that appears out of some metal.  There is of course much more than this and if I have time I will return to comment more.

 

 

Ah! so it means green flowery-ness ... I thought it meant glowing.

 

If you have time please do return and enlighten us. 

[dawei]

There is an old reference in The Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经)... wonder if TaoistText would give a translation?

 

帝堯、帝嚳、帝舜葬於岳山。爰有文貝離俞、久、鷹、賈、延維、視肉、熊、羆、虎、豹朱木赤支青華玄實。有申山者

 

 

Added: BTW, I'm not suggesting the above has anything to do with alchemy use of the term but curious as to the reference.

[Michael Sternbach]

"Green florescence" sounds like verdigris to me.

[dawei]

And another find:

 

http://texts.00.gs/Daoism_PhD_diss,_1996_late.htm

[Zhongyongdaoist]

First a little clarification:
 

The Secret of the Golden Flower (Chinese: 太乙金華宗旨; pinyin: Tàiyǐ Jīnhuá Zōngzhǐ) is a Chinese Taoist classic about neidan (inner alchemy) meditation.

 
This text could have just as easily been translated as "The Secret of the Golden Florescence", but the German version by Wilhelm uses "blumen", the German for flower.  Flower, however, was also used in Western Alchemy and Early chemistry, and survived even into Nineteenth Century medicine and chemistry in Flowers of Antimony.
 
Metals and their crystals were considered very important in both the East and West in Alchemy, vitriol for example was very common in Western Alchemy:
 

 

In chemistry, vitriol is an archaic name for a sulfate. The name comes from the Latin word "vitreolum" for glassy, as crystals of several metallic sulfates resemble pieces of colored glass.
In particular:

• Blue vitriol is copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate
• Green vitriol is iron(II) sulfate heptahydrate
• Oil of vitriol is sulfuric acid
• Red vitriol is cobalt(II) sulfate heptahydrate
• Roman vitriol is copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate
• Spirit of vitriol is sulfuric acid
• Sweet oil of vitriol is diethyl ether (not a sulfate)
• Vitriol with no further qualification often means sulfuric acid
• Vitriol of Mars is iron(III) sulfate
• White vitriol is zinc sulfate heptahydrate (Wikipedia Vitriol, Emphasis mine, ZYD) 

 
Note Both "Oil of Vitriol" and "Sweet Oil of Vitriol", powerful inorganic and organic solvents.  Solvents like these, and others like "Spirit of Wine", i.e. distilled alcohol, were considered important because, they were considered to extract the "essence" from metals or plants.
 
The key to this both in the theory of internal and external alchemy is that in neither Eastern or Western alchemy is there any hard and fast distinction between "organic" and "inorganic", and even the the West it is a purely modern distinction because of the revival of Epicureanism in the Seventeenth Century which became "Grandfathered' into the modern Western Worldview because its popularity among the movers and shakers of the "Scientific Revolution".
 
Rather, there was a systematic metaphorical extension of "life processes" to the "generation" of metals and minerals in "the Bowels of the Earth".  Crystalline metallic minerals, such as Azurite, were found with metallic ores and crystals were observed as the result of "chemical" manipulations of solvents, fire, calcination, etc. and all of these were used to demonstrate the "aliveness" of metals and crystals and the validity of the underlying metaphor.  Thus the imagery of "flowers" or "florescences" of metals.
 
At the root of both Eastern and Western alchemy, and esotericism in general, is the Microcosm/Macrocosm analogy, that in the words of Mencius ". . . all the 10,000 things are there within me . . .", so that the use of terminology drawn from "chemistry", is as much used to explain internal alchemy, as terminology derived from living systems is used to describe external alchemy.
 
That's it in a nutshell of sorts, I hope that this is helpful about green florescence, now about that immortal . . .?

I thought Ormus discussion extremely interesting:

 

as far as I know Master Wangzi Qiao who initiated Master Zhongli Quan, is also known as Eastern Florescences Minog Yang-Donghua Shaoyang Jun or as Imperial Lord of Eastern Florescences-Donghua Dijun).Master Zhongli initiated Master Lu Dong Bin and Master Liu Cao,both of whom initiated Master Zhang Boduan.Boduan recived initiation also from Master Li Haichun(Elder of Qingcheng Shan-Qingchen Zhangren) who has initiated by Lu Dong Bin,Liu Cao and Wang Quan,and I think he is maybe person you look for.
Boduan also recived initiation from Master Wang Quan and Xihua Zhenren who was actualy Mistress and her real name was Realized One of Western Florescences.

All the best,

Ormus

and if I can find some more time, may have some interesting things to say about that, as well as the fabled "Azure Lad", the Eastern counterpart of Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West.

 

 

 

 

Edit: Added link for Xiwangmu, since many people may not know her as well as I do.
 

Edited July 5, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Apech]

Donald,

 

Thanks!  One thing I'm not clear on though is the symbolic significance of green or other florescence.  If it indeed implies flowery crystalline growth what would that actually imply in terms of this particular Immortal.  I am intuitively getting a very (in western terms) Thoth/Hermes/mercury feel about it but that might just because in the back of my mind is the Emerald Tablet and so on.

[Brian]

Thank you, Donald!

 

A curious point -- many florescences fluoresce.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Thank you, Donald!

 

A curious point -- many florescences fluoresce.

 

Yes, I know, both plant "florescences", i.e., flowers, and metallic ones, but I thought it better not to add potentially confusing detail until the distinction was clear.

 

As it is, some of them even "phosphoresce":

 

History and discovery

 

Phosphorus was the 13th element to be discovered. For this reason, and also due to its use in explosives, poisons and nerve agents, it is sometimes referred to as "the Devil's element".^[45] It was the first element to be discovered that was not known since ancient times.^[46] The discovery of phosphorus is credited to the German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669, although other chemists might have discovered phosphorus around the same time.^[47] Brand experimented with urine, which contains considerable quantities of dissolved phosphates from normal metabolism.^[14] Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher's stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light").^[48] His process originally involved letting urine stand for days until it gave off a terrible smell. Then he boiled it down to a paste, heated this paste to a high temperature, and led the vapours through water, where he hoped they would condense to gold. Instead, he obtained a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. Brand had discovered phosphorus. We now know that Brand produced ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate, (NH4)NaHPO4. While the quantities were essentially correct (it took about 1,100 litres [290 US gal] of urine to make about 60 g of phosphorus), it was unnecessary to allow the urine to rot. Later scientists discovered that fresh urine yielded the same amount of phosphorus. (Wikipedia on Phosphorus, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

A curious intersection of the history of alchemy and chemistry.

 

Joseph Needham has a very interesting discussion of these "urine" products in Science and Civilization in China.  It turns out that they are full of all sorts of interesting complex organic chemicals that have powerful effects on bodily health, among other things forms of important hormones which are also in urine and could have provided an early form of hormone therapy.

 

it was unnecessary to allow the urine to rot: Only if all you want is chemical phosphorus.  What is referred to as "rot" is really ferment.  Sugars in urine will allow it to ferment and yield alcohol, which was then the "spirit of urine" and was supposed to have alchemical uses that were important for alchemy, which, while it has overlapping phenomena with chemistry, evaluates things and follows up on them in a different way.

[Taoist Texts]

There is an old reference in The Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经)... wonder if TaoistText would give a translation?

 

帝堯、帝嚳、帝舜葬於岳山。爰有文貝離俞、久、鷹、賈、延維、視肉、熊、羆、虎、豹朱木赤支青華玄實。有申山者

 

 

Added: BTW, I'm not suggesting the above has anything to do with alchemy use of the term but curious as to the reference.

Hey)

 

the book has been translated in full by Yanshina back in 1977 so i will just type up her version

 

 

25        大荒南經:       The canon of the great southern wasteland

 

The emperor Yao、the emperor Ku、the emperor Shun are buried there  on Mount Yue。There are kauri shells ，spiritual beasts liyu、juju owls、eagles、buzzards、yanwei snakes、the Meat-eating Men、black bears、brown bears、tigers、leopards；there is a red tree with purple branches，green flowers，black fruit。The Elongated Mountain is there。