White Copper Golden Light Mantra Antique Pendant

The Golden Light Spell opens “heaven and earth, the mysterious origin; the ten thousand qi, the root of all”. The qi here is a character the Daoists coined: ji over four dots, which does not mean the same as the ordinary word for breath, is read the same, and takes a few strokes more, so most people meeting it for the first time cannot say it and are too embarrassed to ask. In the spell the phrase is often written with the ordinary character instead, which shifts the meaning a long way; on a character plaque that stroke cannot be dropped.

The place of this spell in Daoism is like a fire at the base of things. It is recited in the morning and evening offices, and used for purifying an altar, purifying the body, and protecting the person. What it is about is gathering the mind, concentrating the light and keeping the noise of the world outside the body, not asking for anything in particular. The whole text is short — a minute end to end, two at a slow pace. No posture is required, sitting or standing, and the one thing that matters is that the mind does not scatter.

An antiqued finish is right for this kind of character plaque. Bright, the cutting catches the light, the piece reads as a white blur from a distance and only resolves up close; antiqued, the characters are dark and the field is bright, and it can be read from a metre away. The drawback is that a grey-black ground looks old, and people who like brightness will find it heavy, which should be said in advance. The sanded surface inside the strokes also holds a little of the bath, so the characters deepen as you look at them, which a bright finish cannot do.

Antiqued white copper runs iron-grey: it does not fight with dark clothing, and against a white shirt it looks a little sombre. Use black or dark brown cord; red breaks the grey tone. Keep the silver polishing cloth away, since it carries polishing powder that will flatten the sanded cutting. The face fears oil — do not touch it after hand cream, because one touch leaves a print that takes half a minute of wiping. In summer the back, where it touches skin, darkens; dry it and leave it, and no special treatment is needed.

With a spell, the honest thing at the point of sale is to say how it is used: recite it once morning and evening, and recite it when the mind will not settle, which is better than hanging it and forgetting it. If a customer asks whether it works, say it is a practice for the mind, not a transaction. Those who will recite need one copper plaque and no more; those who will not can hang it as a character piece and it still looks well. One customer asked whether it needed a red cloth bag; I said a bag is fine — it keeps the piece from knocks and looks respectable when it comes out. And if it is meaning you want, three recitations beat three years of hanging, which I say often.