Formation

From The SpiritWiki

Formation (a.k.a. yin) is the cradling, cuddling, enveloping, encircling enfolding, ordering, and guiding Aspect of Consciousness. Formation, what physicists might call inertia, is the primary shaper of physical creation. Formation is what modifies, shapes, and controls force so that force can actually get things done without blowing up and otherwise destroying creation.

Syncretic Terms

Formation > The Mother, Understanding, Yin

Yan | Shakti

Related LP Terms

Formation > Creation Practice, Creation's Equation, Creations Equation, Divine Flow, Force

Non-LP Related Terms

Formation > Focus, Magic, The Ability of Curse and Favour, Visualization, Will-Prayer

Notes

Formation may be contrasted with Force.

Formation is applied to Creation through the application of Will/Intent and Expectation.

Force + Formation = Creation

The concept of force in creation is ancient. Notably, the Egyptian God Ptah, patron god of stonemasons(!), is the anthropomorphization of the process if "in-form" ation. "The production of a building or statue involves a process of 'in-formation,' in which a concept originally present only in the artisan's mind in-forms--is imprinted in--raw material through his actions. A block of stone that has been cared into a statue...is materially the same after the process...yet is had also transcended its original raw state: it is now something that it was not before, the representation (tjt 'image') of another reality. What has made the difference between the original and the final state is the action that has in-formed it with the sculptor's concept." (Allen, 1988: 46).

Edward Carpenter seems vaguely aware of the force+formation=creation equation.Speaking of the idea of Justice, "though it may be but a sentiment at first and on its inner side, yet quickly on its outer side it gives itself structure, and regulates the conflicting desires and emotions and needs of the people; and these emotions and desires so regulated from above do each of them in their turn generate and regulate groups of habits and customs; and these again each in their turn innumerable individual acts. And so the idea of Justice becomes creative and alive throughout the whole State.[1]

At one point, Carpenter even refers to the "formative forces...which manifest themselves in the race life."[2]

Oswald Wirth associated the Masonic Empress card with form, ideas, and archetypes, i.e. "...ideal forms or pure ideas according to which everything is created." As he notes, "This sovereign, dazzling with light represents 'Creative INtelligence', the mother of form, pictures, and ideas." [3]. Note the inappropriate and sexist association of form/formation with the female gender.

Related LP Courses

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Footnotes

  1. Carpenter, Edward. The Art of Creation: Essays on the Self and Its Powers. Ravenio Books. Kindle Edition.
  2. Carpenter, Edward. The Art of Creation: Essays on the Self and Its Powers. Ravenio Books. Kindle Edition.
  3. Wirth, Oswald. Tarot of the Magicians: The Occult Symbols of the Major Arcana That Inspired Modern Tarot. San Francisco. CA: Weiser Books, 1990. p. 71-2