Privación

Privation is a term sporadically used by H. P. Blavatsky in her writings to refer to the "abstract ideal", "subtle mould" or "astral prototype" of anything that is to be manifested. She takes this word from the philosophy of Aristotle, but interprets it in a different way than it is normally understood in current scholarship.

Traditional understanding

In chapter I.7 of his book Physics Aristotle says that, in order to understand how something can change, we must take into account three elements: matter (an object or subject), a form (or quality), and a privation (or lack). What comes to be is a new form in the matter that persists through the change. This new form comes to be in what was previously lacking, that is, the privation of the form. Thus, for example, in the case of a person that did not know music and later he learns, the three elements would be: