"Pictorial representations of the Work...show a king and queen lying down together in a bath. They are dissolved and 'married', presumably by the fire which is applied to the sealed vessel.


They blacken and putrefy. This part of the process is known as the nigredo...The heat drives off all the vapours. The black mess should begin to show white flecks, like a night sky full of stars,



and then slowly turn white -- the process known as the albedo. The whole mass becomes volatile, then recrystallises as 'the white stone.'


...Yet this is not the end of the process...The significant point here is that the [alchemical] process ends with the sun symbol..."

From Mysteries by Colin Wilson, who may be trying to tell us something.