DiotimosReading Desk

Matter and transformations

Retrogradation

retrogradated; retrogradate; retrogradating; first Being

Retrogradation is a bringing back.

From the book

Aphorismi Urbigerani

Baro Urbigerus · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordRetrogradation is a bringing back. Its legitimacy and result depend on the subject, agent and earlier condition meant in the particular passage.
  • In the bookReturning a finished metal to water or vapour does not make it first matter. Elsewhere the author attributes genuine regenerative retrogradation to the universal menstruum or simple mercury.
  • In this editionThe modern reading usually renders the verb “bring back,” while retaining the technical noun where the historical attachment is loose. This variation should not hide the continuity of the term.
  • A place to readGrand Elixir · Aphorism VIII beside Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVII–Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVIII and Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVII.

Meaning

The word’s governing movement is backward towards an earlier condition. It is not, by itself, a guarantee that the earlier condition has been fully recovered, nor a promise that every substance can become the originally undetermined matter. The historical text makes exactly this qualification when it rejects already determined metals and minerals as first matter even after their retrogradation into flowing mercury, water and vapour (Grand Elixir · Aphorism VIII).

Later uses are more positive. The universal menstruum retrogradates the feminine subject; a preparation involving common mercury can yield philosophic mercury; simple mercury is credited with reducing metals and minerals to their first being. Those assertions must be read as relations among a particular subject, a qualified agent and an intended result. They do not form an unrestricted rule that any backward transformation is equally natural or philosophical (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVII–Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVIII, Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXII, Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVII).

Use in the book

The first occurrence belongs to an exclusion. Urbigerus imagines an objection to his demand for an undetermined beginning: perhaps a completed metal could be reversed into a seemingly earlier, less fixed state. His answer is emphatic. Even mercury, water or vapour obtained in that way cannot be accepted as the philosophers’ first matter. The criterion is therefore not simply visible liquidity or vaporousness. The matter’s status in the author’s account of natural generation is decisive (Grand Elixir · Aphorism VIII–Grand Elixir · Aphorism X).

In the second way, retrogradation forms part of the account of the Serpent after union with the Dragon. The final participle in XVII is loosely attached, so one should not confidently restrict its object to the extracted principles alone. XVIII makes the feminine subject explicit: she cannot be brought back without prior actuation through homogeneous qualities. The backward movement is thus embedded in a transformation of capacity, not presented as mere subtraction or undoing (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVII–Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVIII).

The common-mercury exception requires similar care. XXII allows the author’s philosophic mercury to be prepared through a relation between common mercury, the Dragon and universal menstruum. This is a statement about what a prepared subject may become; it does not retract VIII’s statement about what cannot count as the original first matter. The following aphorism confirms that philosophical mercury is made through preparations from first chaos, rather than found ready to hand (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXII–Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXIII).

Later, simple mercury receives the power to retrogradate metals and minerals to their first being while conserving its own property and quality. The sentence links this power with perfecting imperfect bodies and vivifying dead ones. Retrogradation therefore serves a forward project of perfection: the return enables a new generative possibility. In LVIII the same history is reflected in changing sexual predicates, as the mercury’s feminine and hermaphroditic capacities vary with its relation to its earth and visible fire. These are distinctions within the text’s account, not a modern mechanism added to it (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVII, Grand Elixir · Aphorism LVIII).

The rejected preparations provide a final contrast. Rival operators can, the author says, make common mercury appear watery, yet an expert can restore its flowing state. That reversible appearance is called sophistical. The problem is not that all reversal is illegitimate; it is that an apparent alteration fails to accomplish the deeper transformation the author claims for his own art. The same word-family must therefore be understood through its argumentative use, not assigned a uniformly favourable or unfavourable value (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXXVII, Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXXIX).

Places to read

  1. Grand Elixir · Aphorism VIIIOriginalRetrogradation of finished metals does not establish first matter.
  2. Grand Elixir · Aphorism IXOriginalThe positive account of seeded vapour contrasts with the rejected reversed materials of VIII.
  3. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XOriginalThe positive definition of undetermined matter explains that exclusion.
  4. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVIIOriginalRetrogradation by the universal menstruum appears in a loosely attached participial phrase.
  5. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVIIIOriginalThe feminine subject is explicitly the thing to be brought back.
  6. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXIIOriginalCommon mercury may enter the preparation of philosophic mercury.
  7. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXIIIOriginalPhilosophical mercury is a prepared, not ready-given, subject.
  8. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXXVIIOriginalReturn of the prepared water to ordinary metallic substance is rejected as a sign of failure.
  9. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXXIXOriginalReversible watery disguise is charged against rivals.
  10. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVIIOriginalSimple mercury is credited with return to first being and subsequent perfection.
  11. Grand Elixir · Aphorism LVIIIOriginalRetrogradation belongs to a history of changing generative capacities.

In this edition

At VIII the modern reading uses “brought back,” and at XXII “bring it back.” At XVII it retains “through retrogradation by the universal menstruum.” Note 24 explains why the latter does not settle the object of the loosely attached historical phrase more narrowly than the context warrants. XVIII then gives the feminine subject explicitly.

The extended modern XLVII paraphrases “retrogradating” as “bring metals, minerals, and so forth back to their first being.” The goal phrase is therefore essential to the translation. An index to this term should include these paraphrastic occurrences, not only places where the modern noun retrogradation is printed.

Historical forms and local uses:

retrogradated [printed phrase] — brought back towards an earlier condition or first being (Grand Elixir · Aphorism VIII; Grand Elixir · Aphorism XVII)

retrogradate [printed phrase] — bring back, in this work through a specified philosophical agency (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XXII)

retrogradating [printed phrase] — the act or power of returning a subject towards its first being (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVII)

first Being [printed phrase] — the earlier condition to which the simple mercury is said to reduce bodies (Grand Elixir · Aphorism XLVII)