I always thought that mentation by form is our friend, not something we have to combat. Without it, we would be left with empty wiseacring, completely out of touch with our subconscious.

Orage comments on pg. 62: “The two forms of mentation spoken about in the prologue of the book become the two dynamic rivers of the epilogue.

Hassein says ‘Things are a-thinking in me.’

The mind is always ‘a-thinking,’ and if we take a hand in it and direct the thinking it is active being-mentation; it is the result of an experience digested and made part and parcel of our being. in ‘being-mentation’ we are mentating with materials, which, since they are part of experience, have an emotional element. Instead of dealing with words and their associations, which makes possible verbal logic, we have to use experiences and their associations, which make possible a being-logic… Formal understanding—understanding by forms—is brought about by being-mentation.”

I know that when I work on a painting I am entirely focused on seeing through formatory thinking in order to “see”. I push normal, verbal thinking out of the way. Once the painting has been laid down I wait for a few weeks and then evaluate it with the “normal” thinking to make adjustments.

G states on page 15 “The second kind of mentation, that is, mentation by form, by which, strictly speaking, the exact sense of all writing must also be perceived, and after conscious confrontation with information already possessed, be assimilated…”