Amendments to Text

Please believe me when I say I dedicated my best efforts to making The Tao of Craft as polished and comprehensive as possible pre-publication, but such efforts still resulted in errors and omissions, and in several instances, not my own. This page will be a list of amendments to the text. I won’t go into negligible typographical mistakes, but will cover the substantive edits that I feel are important for you to hand-write into your copy of the book (or at least read and absorb into your overall understanding). Thank you for your patience.

Did you catch an error in the book that I did not list below? Please help me be as comprehensive as possible, and contact me with your notice so I can add it below and together we can help others rectify their copies of the book. Thank you!

Last Updated: 8/16/16

(copyright page)

Book cover art source cited as “Cover art from the Perfect Scripture of Great Profundity.” I’m pretty sure this is not the case. A previous cover art version included Fu talisman designs that were from Perfect Scripture. However, the painting used for the background of the present book cover design was sourced by the book designer. Source of art unknown to me.

Chapter 1. The Tao of Craft

Page 16, Figure 1.9

Here, an image file should appear above the caption “Figure 1.9. Traditional Fu for protection and prosperity” but the publisher has mistakenly put in “Table 1.9,” which you’ll see appears again later on page 20.

The image for Figure 1.9 should be as follows:

Page 20, Table 1.8

The final row reads “WATER yields to METAL,” which is incorrect and is a typographical error the designer or editors of the book must have made, because the tables I submitted to the publisher originally did not contain this error. I apologize profusely for this confusion. Please see below for the correct table.

Correct Table 1.8. Click for enlarged view.

In that last row, cross out “METAL” and write in “EARTH,” as noted in the correct table above.

Page 22, Table 1.11

The top row is missing the English translation of the five characters for the Wu Xing. While this may not be problematic for those who can read Chinese, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume it will get confusing for those who can’t. So please see the below corrected table, which was the table I had submitted originally with my manuscript. Not sure where the English went. =)

Table 1.11. Click on table image for enlarged view or download.

Page 27, Table 1.12

The Western alchemical glyphs for the four elements are mismatched. Apologies for that typo. Please see below for the correct Table 1.12.

Correct Table 1.12. Click on table image for enlarged view or download.

Page 28, Sub-heading

“THE LO SHO NINE-SECTOR MAGIC SQUARE” should be “THE LO SHU NINE-SECTOR MAGIC SQUARE.” You’ll see the correct spelling for Lo Shu in the first sentence of the section.

Chapter 6. The Tools of Craft

Page 123, “Twin Candles.”

Add final sentence to the end of that paragraph on twin candles: “In modern times, the two red candles is often replaced by two red lamps.”

Chapter 8. Charging Fu Sigils

Page 203, Figure 8.8. Pacing the Lo Shu

This may not be a substantive error per se, but it bothers the heck out of me every time I see it. =) For some reason the Lo Shu square is missing the bottom line. In my own copy of the book, I simply drew in the line that’s missing. Here’s what it should look like in your book:

Appendix B

Page 300, The Jade Emperor

Second to last line in the entry, in parenthesis is “(below).” Replace “below” with “entry on next page.”

Page 301, Cai Shen

Last line reads “Also: 文昌王 (Wén Chāng Wáng).” Strike out and omit. That line is in the wrong place and seems to have been a designer error.

(Note that this line appears again, in the right place, on page 302, for God of Literature and Culture.)

Page 302, Guan Gong (Guan Yu)

End of fifth line and beginning of sixth line, “that” is missing between “accounts” and “document.” Full sentence should read, “There are, however, historical accounts that document the real life existence of such a figure.”

Page 309, Amithaba

I have no idea how this happened, since the original manuscript I submitted did not have this error, but the Chinese characters for Amithaba are missing. At the top of page 309 should be:

阿弥陀佛

Amítuófó

Here is an image file for the characters (which is what should have appeared in the book…):

024 Amitofuo

Page 333, East

The book features the simplified Chinese version of “East,” i.e. 东. Below is the Traditional Chinese version, i.e., 東.

Appendix E

Page 420, Hexagram 50

Please note that there is a typo in the title for Hexagram 50. It should not be “The Caulron,” but rather, “The Cauldron.” I’m not actually sure why it is misspelled in the book. Here is the entry from the original manuscript I submitted to the publisher, where cauldron is spelled correctly:

Appendix F

Page 422, Cloud Writing

The original manuscript I submitted included the English translations for each of the cloud writing scripts noted on page 422. However, they were somehow omitted in the final publication.

The following PDF has all of the English translations of the featured cloud writing script. You can write it in to your copy of the book.

English Translations for the Cloud Writing Script Code (PDF Download)

Appendix I

Page 451, Figure 1.4

The column “North” shows the Chinese character for tortoise, but below it is the English caption “Phoenix.” This is incorrect. Please strike out the second “Phoenix” (under “South,” we see “Phoenix,” correctly, already) and write in “Tortoise.” North corresponds with the Tortoise.

Page 452, Figure I.6

As you can see in your book, apparently there are only two planets: Jupiter and Venus. The corrected Figure should look as follows:

You can also refer back to pages 340-342 for the lengthened explanation of each planetary correspondence.

Page 463, Table I.6

I have no idea how this error happened, so my deepest apologies. The original table I submitted to the publisher with my manuscript did not contain this error. On page 463 in your book, Table I.6 should look like so:

Correct Table I.6. Table as it should appear. Click on table for enlarged view.

Unfortunately, instead it looks like this:

Printed Table I.6 with Errors. Note: Wrong Table I.6.

In the row “Animal Guardian,” Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese) for the four directions appear. Please change as noted in the correct Table I.6 up top. In the row “Wu Xing,” both the captions and the Chinese characters are wrong. Just…everything about Table I.6 as printed in your book is wrong. I’m so sorry. Please update it with the correct information as noted in the above first Table I.6 (it is the only one of the two tables that is hyperlinked to the enlarged high-res view, in case you get confused; so if you can’t click on it for an enlarged view, then it’s the wrong table and you shouldn’t be looking at that one).

Page 471, Table I.12.

This may not be a substantive error per se, but it bothers the heck out of me every time I see it. =) For some reason the table is missing the bottom line. In my own copy of the book, I simply drew in the line that’s missing. Here’s what it should look like in your book: