The Shangqing Huangshu Guodu Yi 上清黄书过度仪

The author of The Transition Rite of the Yellow Book in Shangqing is unknown.

Judging from its content and writing style, it should be an early classic of the Tianshi Dao (Celestial Master Dao).

The History of the Song Dynasty·Treatise on Arts and Literature records a one-volume work titled The Transition Rite of the Yellow Book, which refers to this very text.

The existing version today is included in the "Zhengyi Section" of the Taoist Canon.

The content of this book is similar to that of The Yellow Book of Dongzhen, as it also discusses the practice of the Yellow-Red Dao (Huangchi Dao). However, while The Yellow Book of Dongzhen mainly focuses on expounding theoretical principles, this book centers on the ritual methods for overcoming calamities and escaping adversity during the practice of the Dao.

The book refers to the Yellow-Red Dao as "the Great Magnitude Method of the Yellow Book's Talisman Edicts", and also calls it "the Great Magnitude Method of Heaven and Earth" or "the Great Magnitude Method of Eight Births".

All those who enter the Dao and are over twenty years old must receive this transition ritual. The procedural steps of this ritual are quite complicated, including twenty methods such as entering the Jing (a ritual purification chamber), visualizing deities, focusing on Qi (vital energy), circulating Qi, self-guiding (Daoyin), arranging the Nine Palaces, releasing the Heavenly Net, crossing the Earthly Web, and the "Infant Return" (a specific ritual movement), among others. Its wording is also quite obscure.

For example, the thirteenth method "Unfolding the Hands for Eight Births" explains the meaning of "Eight Births" as "playing with the Dragon and Tiger", "Turning the Joint", "Union of Dragon and Tiger", "Examination of Dragon and Tiger", "Pushing of Dragon and Tiger", "Scalding of Dragon and Tiger", "Spreading of Dragon and Tiger", and "Saluting the True Person" — the meanings of these phrases are all vague and unclear.

It is claimed that practicing this ritual can "relieve the investigation and arrest by the Three Officials (of Heaven, Earth, and Water), break free from the nets (of calamity), remove one's name from the register of the dead, inscribe one's name in the Jade Calendar of Longevity, overcome the Nine Adversities, and become a 'seed people' (a chosen people) for future generations".