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

[with] whiteness, the soul is infused into the body—that is to say, the mineral virtue, which is more subtle than fire, seeing as it is a true quintessence quinte-essence: the "fifth essence," a purified substance beyond the four elements, believed to be the life-force of matter and true life. This soul desires and longs to be born and to strip away the thick terrestrial dregs it took from the menstruum original: "ex parte menstrualis"; in alchemy, the "menstruum" is the solvent or primordial womb-matter. and from the corruption of the place of its origin. And in this consists our philosophical sublimation sublimation philosophique: the spiritualization of a substance through repeated refinement, not in that wicked common Mercury Mercure vulgal: ordinary quicksilver, which alchemists considered "dead" compared to their "living" philosophical version which has none of the qualities adorning our Mercury extracted from its vitriolic caverns; but let us return to our sublimation.

It is therefore most certain in this art that this soul, extracted from bodies, cannot be raised except by the addition of a volatile thing which is of its own kind, through which the bodies are rendered volatile and spiritual. In rising, thinning, and sublimating themselves against their own corporeal, heavy, and weighty nature, they become not-bodies original: "non corpora"; matter that has been spiritualized into a gas or vapor. and a quintessence of the nature of spirit, which is called the Bird of Hermes original: "Auis Hermetis"; a famous alchemical symbol for Mercury or a substance that can rise (vaporize) and fall (condense)., and Mercury extracted from the red servant original: "seruo rubeo"; likely a reference to the "red man" or crude mineral state before purification.. Thus the terrestrial parts remain below, or rather the thicker parts of the bodies, which cannot be perfectly dissolved by any ingenious means.

And that white smoke, that white gold—that is, this quintessence—is also called composite magnesia magnesia: not the modern element, but a "mother-earth" substance or the primal matter of the Stone, which contains as a human does, or is composed as a human is, of body, soul, and spirit. Its body is the fixed Solar earth original: "terra Solaris"; gold or the perfected masculine principle., more than most subtle, raised weightily by the power of our divine water. Its soul is the tincture of the Sun and Moon original: "tinctura Solis et Lunæ"; the transformative essence of gold and silver., proceeding from the communication of these two. The Spirit, truly, is the mineral virtue of both and of the water, which carries the soul or white tincture onto the bodies and out of the bodies, just as the dyers' dye is carried by water onto cloth.

And that Mercurial spirit is the bond of the Solar soul; and the Solar body is the body of fixation containing, with the Moon, the spirit and the soul. Therefore, the spirit penetrates, the body fixes, and the soul joins, tints, and whitens. From these three united together is made our stone, that is, from the Sun, the Moon, and Mercury. When therefore our golden water is extracted—a nature surpassing all nature—it follows that unless the bodies are destroyed by this water, imbibed, ground down, and sparingly and diligently ruled until they are drawn away to thickness and turned into a thin and impalpable spirit, the labor is in vain. For unless the bodies are turned into not-bodies—that is, into the Mercury of the philosophers—the rule of the work has not yet been found. This is because it is impossible to extract from bodies that most thin soul, which has all tincture within itself, unless first...