Natural Philosophy of Three Ancient Philosophers: Artephius, Flamel, and Synesius

...that we may know how to extract and draw from the body of Magnesia In alchemy, "Magnesia" refers not to the modern element magnesium, but to the "maternal" mineral ore or the crude "mother" matter of the Philosopher's Stone. the non-burning quicksilver (and that is the Antimony and the Mercurial Sublimate); that is to say, one must extract a living, incombustible water, then congeal it with the perfect body of the Sun The "Sun" is the standard alchemical cipher for Gold. which is dissolved within it, into a white nature and substance congealed like cream, and make all of that become white.

However, first the Sun, in the putrefaction and resolution The process of breaking down a substance into its constituent parts, often associated with a "death" of the metal. it undergoes in this water, will at the beginning lose its light, grow dark, and turn black. Then it will rise above the water, and upon it will float, little by little, a color in a white substance; and this is called whitening the red laton original: "leton"; a term for the base or "impure" metal—often copper-based—that must be purified during the alchemical work., subliming it philosophically, and reducing it to its first matter—that is to say, into white incombustible sulfur and fixed quicksilver.

And thus the "finite moisture"—that is, gold our body—by the repetition of liquefaction in this, our dissolving water, will be converted and reduced into sulfur and fixed quicksilver.