Golden Lock & Pearl Guidance 太玄金锁流珠引

It was originally attributed with annotations and a preface by Li Chunfeng of the Tang Dynasty.

However, it was not recorded in any public or private bibliographies of the Tang and Song dynasties, leading to the suspicion that it was a work falsely attributed to him by Taoist priests in the Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty.

The original text comprised twenty-nine scrolls, plus one scroll of preface, making thirty scrolls in total, and it is included in the Great Mystery Section of The Daozang.

Golden Lock & Pearl Guidance

This work is divided into seventy-eight chapters, integrating the talismanic arts of the Shangqing and Zhengyi schools, and falsely claiming to be the teachings bestowed by immortals such as the Golden Tower Emperor of the Shangqing Heaven. It lists numerous diagrams of talismans and the Yu Step, and elaborates in great detail on various magical arts: pacing the celestial dippers and constellations, contemplating deities and reciting incantations, offering sacrifices to the sun, moon and stars, sending flying talismans and presenting memorials to heaven, summoning and commanding the Six Jia Gods, subduing ghosts and expelling evil for others, halting plagues and curing illnesses, taming tigers, leopards, dragons and snakes, and even arts such as walking on water, shrinking the earth, and appearing and disappearing at will—all are recorded in thorough detail. It primarily focuses on the Shangqing school’s art of flying steps among the stars and the Zhengyi Dao’s techniques of exorcising evil and healing diseases. Thus, the text often falsely attributes its compilation to immortals and masters such as the Perfect Great Immortal Wang Fangping, the Director of Destinies Li Zhongfu, Mao Ying, Xu Yufu, as well as Zhang Daoling, Zhao Sheng and Wang Chang. The work is an extensive and diverse compilation, evidently compiled by many hands rather than a single author at a single time.