Properties: Pungent, bitter, neutral

Meridans Entered:
Primary: Liver and Heart

1. Calms Spirit, sedates the Heart and stops madness
   Heart Heat
2. Clears Heat, resolves Toxicity and transforms pus
   Chuang Yang (Sores and boils)
3. Stops convulsions
   Epilepsy due to fright

Suggested Daily Dosage: 3-6g made into pills or powder.

Cautions: It is contraindicated in case of yang deficiency with qi collaps.

Notes:

Gold had great significance in alchemical traditions around the world. In China its yellow hue and inability to be tarnished made it represent stability and the centre of the Five Phases. This is not the mundane earth but the divine centre from which Heaven and Earth derive, referred to in names such as the "Yellow Emperor" and so medicinally it brings everything back to the centre, stabilising the erratic such as madness, convulsions and skin eruptions. In some texts it was classified as toxic, however this was probably connected with a general shift away from using heavy metals in external alchemy as most others are toxic (eg. lead, mercury, sulphur).

In Neidan this came to be represented by the saliva generated during meditation and referred to by names such as Golden Fluid (金液 Jinye) and Golden Elixir (金酏 Jinyi) (Biso, 2013, Golden Fluid & The Micro-Cosmic Orbit). This may be due to saliva being one of the substances of digestion, hence under the domain of the Stomach and Spleen, the organs of the Centre.

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In western alchemy it had great significance as the perfect metal and was equated to the sun. One of the main aims of western alchemy was to turn base metals into gold, both literally and figuratively as a metaphor for refining spiritual qualities to perfection.

Mercury, the Prime Metal of Paracelsus, associated with the Soul and the transcendence of opposites, was noted for being one of the few things that will react with gold, forming an amalgam.

Aqua regis, Nitrohydrochloric acid, made by combination of nitric acid (Aqua fortis, made from saltpetre and sulphuric acid/Vitriol) and hydrochloric acid (Spirit of Salt, made by combining sulphuric acid and salt), is also capable of dissolving gold and other noble metals, something neither individual component can do. The gold can then be precipitated out using potassium metabisuphite (K₂S₂O₅. This can be used to reclaim pure gold from alloys (NileRed, 2019).

The potassium metabisuphite could be made by combining caustic potash, KOH, with sulphur dioxide, SO₂. The caustic potash itself is made by adding potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃, found in potash) to a strong solution of calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)₂, slaked lime). The sulphur dioxide is a by-product of extracting metals from sulphurous ores.