WAI-TAN Chin., lit. “outer cinnabar”; the “outer elixir,” the “outer alchemy.” One of two branches of Taoist alchemy, the other being nei-tan, Inner Alchemy. Wai-tan practitioners strive to produce a pill of immortality (ch’ang-sheng pu-ssu) by the transformation of chemical substances. The most important ingredients during the working of the outer elixir are cinnabar (tan) and gold. The latter was used because of its durability, the former red mercury ore because of its color and chemical properties. The followers of the Outer Alchemy believed that a person’s life force was identical with the so-called primordial energy (yüan-ch’i) or cosmic energy. A reduction or loss of a person’s yüan-ch ‘i would therefore result in illness or death. The yüan-ch’i itself was understood to be a special mixture of yin and yang (yin-yang).
According to the doctrine of the Outer Alchemy, only cinnabar and gold were capable of restoring within the organism that primordial state in which yin and yang combine and thus become indistinguishable from each other. The most important Taoist alchemists were Wei P’o-yang and Ko Hung. As Taoism developed, the view that immortality could be attained by ingesting a pill or drug was gradually replaced by the doctrine and eachings of the Inner Elixir School. The practitioner of the Outer Alchemy produces his elixir over a fire in a cauldron, by which method transformations normally occurring in nature are accelerated.
A series of reductions and recyclings produces purified cinnabar, the efficiency of which increases proportionate to the number of such recyclings. The most powerful immortality drug is said to be cinnabar that has been purified nine times (chiu-huan-tan): anyone ingesting it is believed to be capable of ascending to Heaven in broad daylight (fei-sheng). Ko Hung describes the properties of gold and cinnabar as follows: “Cinnabar becomes transformed when heated. The longer the period it is heated, the more miraculous the transformation it undergoes. Gold, on the other hand, retains its nature even when placed into fire, melted a hundred times or buried in the ground to the end of time. The ingestion of these two substances brings about a sublimation of the body.
. . . Even the cheapest and coarsest type of cinnabar is infinitely superior to the most excellent medicinal plants. If you incinerate plants they turn into ashes. Granules of cinnabar, on the other hand, give rise to granules of mercury when heated; a further sublimation once again produces cinnabar” (chap. 4 of KoHung’s Pao-p’u-tzu; trans. from Kaltenmark, Lao-tzu und der Taoismus; see Kaltenmark 1969).
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Wai-Tan
External links: Waidan / Ch’ang-shen pu-ssu / Tan / Yüan-ch’i / Yin-yang / Wei P’o-yang / Ko Hung / Taoism / Fei-sheng / Lao-tse