Sunday, March 17, 2024

Four Zoas Summary 3

Four Zoas, Night v, Page 60, (E 340)
"But when fourteen summers & winters had revolved over
Their solemn habitation Los beheld the ruddy boy
Embracing his bright mother & beheld malignant fires
In his young eyes discerning plain that Orc plotted his death"

       As Night ii begins, the Fallen Man, on the point of falling asleep, commissions Urizen as his regent. Urizen soars with pride but immediately falls into the fearful fantasies of the future which dominate all of his attempts at creation. He casts Luvah into the furnaces of affliction and proceeds to build the Mundane Shell, giving Blake a chance to expatiate at great length on how wrongly the world is made.

       Tharmas and Luvah are now thoroughly fallen and estranged from their emanations, and Urizen's turn comes in Night iii. Ahania, Urizen's emanation, reacts to his fearful aggressions with  her own vision of the Fall, and the infuriated Urizen casts her out and promptly falls himself like Humpty Dumpty, an eloquent comment on the fate of all the 'strong' who in fear cast out the 'weak'. With the fall of Reason Tharmas rises to power from the depths of the sea, although he is mentally incompetent in the extreme. He commissions Los to create endlessly and futilly: "Renew these ruin'd souls of Men thro' Earth, Sea, Air & Fire,/To waste in endless corruption, renew thou, I will destroy."

       Los proceeds to bind Urizen with the chains of time and space in the parody of Creation which we have already studied from Book of Urizen, but "terrified at the shapes enslav'd humanity put on, he became what he beheld". ( The second extended Christian interpolation occurs in the midst of this story.)

      Los begins Night v with a sort of St. Vitus Dance to "put on the shape of enslaved humanity", a convulsion which Enitharmon shares, leading to the birth of Orc, a manifestation of Luvah, who at this point represents fallen human feeling. Immediately, "The Enormous Demons woke and howl'd around the new born King,/Crying 'Luvah, King of Love, thou art the King of rage & death'".

       As in Book of Urizen, Orc is bound in the Chain of Jealousy, but his tormented cries awaken Urizen, who concludes Night v with the "Woes of Urizen". His suffering has brought him to a point of self-recognition; he has come to himself in a way reminiscent of the Prodigal Son's moment of truth: "I will arise", which Blake took directly from the story in Luke. Urizen thus shows himself to be human. Unfortunately it's only a temporary lapse, for in Night vi he explores his dens, faces all the brokenness and horror of a ruined universe and as his solution comes up with the  "Net of Religion ". Since pure political tyranny won't work, he turns to a form of religious control.

       We come to the climax of this epic in Night vii when Urizen has approached Orc's prison and induced him to climb the  "Tree of Mystery ", turning into a serpent. This sets the stage for the Genesis account of the Fall, which Blake sees as the beginning of the Return. Enitharmon, attracted by the cries of her son, Orc, comes down to the "Tree of Mystery", where she meets the Spectre of Urthona (FZ, Night  vii, E 358). The Spectre closely corresponds to Jung's 'shadow', and like a skilled analyst Blake brings about the reconciliation of shadow and anima on the way to wholeness).

       From the union of Spectre and Enitharmon two things ensue. The good news is that Los begins to get himself together with his Spectre and his Emanation. From this integration comes forth Jerusalem and from Jerusalem will proceed the Lamb. The bad news is the immediate birth of Rahab, the most sinister female of Blake's pantheon. She personifies all the evils of deceit, treachery, and hateful female pride that most appalled Blake about life. Blake's Rahab is the same character whom John of Patmos called "Mystery, the Whore of Babylon"; Blake eventually gives her these names--and several others as well.

       The Spectre of Urthona, a new idea on Blake's imaginative horizon, foreshadowed the Moment of Grace which was to revolutionize his spiritual world.  Suffice it here to say that the appearance of the Spectre marks Man's (and Blake's) dawning awareness that the evils of the world, which he had so deplored, exist in his own psyche. It marks what Jung referred to as the withdrawal of the projections, which Jung considered vital to the survival of the world. Blake agreed about the seriousness of the process; he stated it with great poetic intensity in the reversed writing found in the illustration to Jerusalem, Plate 41 (E 183) :

"Each man is in his Spectre's power Until the arrival of that hour When his humanity awake And cast his Spectre into the Lake."

       But in Night vii Los doesn't cast his Spectre into the lake; he embraces it, which in a manner of speaking is the same thing. Los doesn't (yet) cast his Spectre into the lake because his humanity is not yet fully awake, but only beginning to awaken. As Blake aptly put, it complete redemption "was not to be effected without Cares & Sorrows & Troubles of six thousand years of self denial and of bitter Contrition". That beautiful line points to the redemptive dimension of all the fallenness and horror we have been reading about. It was Blake's way of saying what Paul said in Romans: "All things work together for good to them that love God...." Blake and Jung and probably Paul would agree that we begin to love God (and stop trying to be God!) when we recognize and accept our own involvement in the horror around us. That's the moment when the six thousand years of change begins.

       The birth of Rahab and the integration of Los lead to an intensification of a drama that has already stretched out for seven nights of excruciating intensity. In Night viii the drama has not only intensified, but it has clarified so that we can no longer fail to understand that the forces of life and of death are in bitter conflict. It has become the old, old story, and Blake leaves no doubt about who represents light and who darkness. Urizen resumes his war for control and out of his ranks of War comes Satan. Rahab conspires to put to death the Saviour who has come down from Heaven and emerged from Jerusalem. The Christian knows that this death is foreordained for final victory, but neither Rahab nor Jerusalem has that awareness, and near the end of Night viii we read these richly evocative words:

"Jerusalem wept over the Sepulcher two thousand years.
Rahab trimphs over all; she took Jerusalem
Captive, a Willing Captive, by delusive arts impell'd
To worship Urizen's Dragon form, to offer her own Children
Upon the bloody Altar. John saw these things Revealed...."(FZ, Night viii, E 385)

    Blake never forgot the involvement of the Christian Church in two thousand years of bloodshed, but here, under the influence of grace, he has a more understanding view of it than he has expressed elsewhere.

TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Four Zoas Summary 2

Four Zoas, Night ii, Page 36, (E 326)
"When Urizen slept on his couch. drawn thro unbounded space
Onto the margin of Non Entity the bright Female came
There she beheld the Spectrous form of Enion in the Void
And never from that moment could she rest upon her pillow"
       Other accounts of this decisive event occur at various places throughout the poem. The most definitive is that of Ahania. Her dream relates the central event, the primary fall, to an idolatrous worship; just so Blake evaluated organized religion. Albion's worship of his shadow has two immediate consequences: he breaks out with the boils of Job, a biblical symbol of the Fall of Mankind, and he exiles Luvah and Vala from their rightful place in the psychic economy.
   
        This central event of the Fall gives the key to the meaning of The Four Zoas. Before we proceed with the outline of the poem, we need to look at one other central fact: the identity of Los, the fourth Zoa (in Eternity called Urthona). Whereas the central event gives the key to six thousand years of fallenness, the identity of Los gives the key to redemption. This becomes clear in the end when we read about Jesus, the Imagination, but from the beginning we should be aware that Los is the fourth who makes Man whole. Blake derived the first three Zoas in part from Daniel's three friends who were cast into the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. Los was the fourth, whom the king saw walking in the furnace "like the Son of God". Like the other Zoas Los has a chequered career, but he is always moving toward this ultimately revealed identity. Near the end of Jerusalem Blake put the finishing touches on Los's Eternal identity with these words:
"Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthona's Spectre in songs, 
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble." (Jerusalem, Plate 95, E 255)   

And on the following plate of Jerusalem:
"Then Jesus appeared.... And the Divine Appearance was the likeness and similitude of Los."     

The clue to this identity appears at the very beginning of 4Z where the poet states his theme:

"Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity 
Cannot Exist but from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden, 
The Universal Man, to Whom be Glory Evermore. Amen. 
.... Los was the fourth immortal starry one, and in the Earth 
Of a bright Universe, Empery attended day and night, 
Days and nights of revolving joy. Urthona was his name 
In Eden.... 
Daughters of Beulah, Sing 
His fall into Division and his Resurrection to Unity: 
His fall into the Generation of decay and death, and his Regeneration by the Resurrection from the dead."
(Four Zoas, Night i, E 301)

       Here Blake has made the antecedent of 'his' deliberately ambiguous: Albion, the Ancient Man, of course, but also Los. It is Los's career that we follow most intently. Blake deeply identified with Los, and so do we if we read the poem with imagination.

       But "Begin with Tharmas, Parent power dark'ning in the West". Tharmas represents the body, or in the psychic realm the instinct, and in Eternity he's a glorious shepherd. But "darkening in the West" beneath the jealous attack of his emanation, Enion, he sets in motion the Circle of Destiny (Four Zoas, Night i, E 302) and sinks into the sea where he becomes an insane old man. From his "corse" arises the ravening spectre, a most gruesome embodiment of pure egocentricity. A loveless embrace of Enion leads to the birth of Los and Enitharmon, the divided earthly form of Urthona. (Note that all this happens after the 'central event', although in the poem we read about it first.)

       This first earthly family displays the ubiquitous dialectic of Blake (and of universal experience): the angelic and demonic processes go on side by side. Enion's intense mother love turns her daughter, Enitharmon, into a teasing and heartless bitch and drives Enion to the abyss where she becomes a disembodied voice of pure consciousness. We hear her voice at the end of Nights i, ii, and viii sounding the purest prophetic judgment on what has transpired. In a real sense Enion is Blake. 

       When Enitharmon signs her Song of Death (quoted a few pages back), Los strkes her down and then gives his own, more prophetic account of the Fall. Enitharmon retaliates by calling down Urizen. This precipitates the first encounter between these two adversaries in one of the relationships that dominates the poem--and Blake's life as well. In this initial confrontation Los weakens through his pity or remorse over Enitharmon and joins the  Nuptial Feast of fallenness (FZ Night i, E 307). In the New Testament the marriage of the Lamb inaugurates the Kingdom of Heaven; this demonic parody of it announces the Kingdom of Satan. Enion responds with her first stirring prophetic utterance, concluding the first night in the earlier draft.

       At this point Blake, in a later revision of 4Z, made his first obvious attempt to Christianize his myth. The Daughters of Beulah in their "Wars of Eternal Death" give what is probably the most straightforward, impartial account of the Fall.

TO BE CONTINUED

Monday, March 11, 2024

Four Zoas Summary

Four Zoas, Night i, PAGE 9, (E 304)

"And then they wanderd far away she sought for them in vain
In weeping blindness stumbling she followd them oer rocks & mountains"


       The Four Zoas is a very exotic masterpiece and most definitely an acquired taste. The reader initially encounters an appalling mass of strange ideas and much that appears to be sheer gibberish. But with perseverance the strange ideas become familiar bit by bit, and the gibberish clarifies into some of the most exalted thought forms of the human mind. To the seasoned reader 4Z is a treasure house of imaginative delights. Or call it a mine that releases its gold to the pertinacious. The same could be said of the Bible. 

      Blake wrote the poem over a period of years while his mind and spirit were rapidly developing and changing. It began as the story of Vala, the incarnation of the Female Will. Later it became an account of cosmic and psychic history written in terms of the four Giant Forms--their breakup and struggle for dominion. At Blake's spiritual crisis this seed bed gave birth to Jesus and Jerusalem, his bride. Blake then made an attempt to rewrite 4Z to reflect his new spiritual orientation, but after a while he gave up. 4Z was aborted because Blake's world had fundamentally changed, and he was ready to start over. After many years of looking for the New Age he had become a New Man. The new man wrote Milton and Jerusalem using 4Z as a quarry. 4Z is fascinating in its own right, although unfinished, but most significant as a platform from which to rise to the ethereal glory of the mature poems.

       Focusing on The Four Zoas Milton Percival, who wrote William Blake's Circle of Destiny, tells us that ten characters make up his myth: Two Albions (man), the Eternal One and the One who fell asleep down here in this vale of tears; Four Zoas (Urizen, Luvah, Los, and Tharmas) and their feminine parts (Ahania, Vala, Enitharman, and Enion).

       The first four nights of this aborted masterpiece recount the fall of each of the four Zoas: Tharmas, the body; Luvah, the feelings; Urizen, the mind; and finally Urthona (Los), the imagination or spirit. These four steps in the fall of Man contain a wealth of rich detail, but  one central event Blake described repeatedly in the words of various characters: Urizen and Luvah (Mind and Feeling) struggle for dominion over the sleeping man, Albion. Luvah seizes Urizen's steeds of light and mounts into the sky. Urizen retreats into the north, the rightful place of Urthona, the imagination. 

These mistakes lead to a long series of cataclysmic disasters that condemn mankind to his fallen condition. For six nights we read an almost unrelieved account of the Fall; we read about falling, about fallenness, described in voluminous detail in a hundred ways. Blake felt intensely that we have come a long, long way from the Garden, and he explored with exceeding minuteness every step of the dismal journey, down and out. (You might notice that as extensive as this negative mood is, it closely resembles the Old Testament, a great deal of which consists of flagellations of Israel by the prophets.)

       To begin our orientation to the poem look closely at the central event of the Fall. Blake put it in the mouths of several characters and each one has his or her own particular slant. The reader has to decide for himself whose account to believe. This may depend upon the reader as much as it does upon Blake.

       The earliest description of the central event comes in the words of Enitharmon, a notoriously untrustworthy character at this point; we may call her the queen of fallen space. In a conversation with her consort, Los, the prophetic boy, she gives her interpretation of the Fall:

"Hear! I will sing a Song of Death! it is a Song of Vala! 
The Fallen Man takes his repose, Urizen sleeps in the porch, 
Luvah and Vala wake and fly up from the Human Heart 
Into the brain from thence; upon the pillow Vala slumber'd, 
And Luvah siez'd the Horses of Light and rose into the Chariot of Day. 
Sweet laughter siez'd me in my sleep..." (Four Zoas, Night i, E 305)

      Always fiercely eclectic, Blake has gathered his symbols here from a number of sources into a new creation: sleeping man equals fallen man living in darkness; this most general symbol fills the New Testament. For example, "Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light". We live by the light of reason (not always Christ's light!). Urizen, the Sun God, must be asleep to allow Luvah, like the Greek adolescent, Phaethon, to seize his Horses of Light and rise into the Chariot of Day. Zeus struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt. In Night ii we find Urizen casting Luvah into the furnaces of affliction, where there is much heat but no light. What was once eternal delight has become unmitigated hell.

       Luvah and Vala personify the masculine and feminine dimensions of feeling, and separated from Luvah Vala becomes the goddess of fallen nature. Luvah's seizure of the sun and Vala's dalliance on the pillow express in different ways the same event. The Prince of Love is bound to get his wings scorched, and the sleeping Albion is rather foolish to allow this to happen; he has lost his head over a part of himself.

       Blake used this double event to say many things to us at many levels. Fundamentally Blake is saying that Man has lost his heavenly wholeness (which he calls the Divine Image) and begun to worship the material, a relatively insignificant part of himself. In his dream of Vala he turns his back upon the Divine Vision. The former is Eternal Death and the latter Eternal Life. The dalliance of Albion with Vala leads to the Eternal Death (fallenness) that we read about in the first six nights. Blake described it symbolically in many ways, for example, "to converse in the wilds of Newton and Locke". We find here Blake's primary dialectic, between eternal vision and fallen materialism.

TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

TRUE MAN

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations to Blair's The Grave
Death of the Good Old Man

In the physical world - the world of time and space - we are conditioned to think of ourselves as physical beings. The body which provides the senses and feeds information to the mind and spirit is a physical body which is transitory. Temporarily associated with the physical body is a spiritual body which is perceived by Blake as the 'true man.'

Underlying the material body is the 'lineaments divine' from which the character is derived. It is up to the individual to 'explore' his 'Eternal Lineaments' in order to allow his Spiritual Body to thrive. The release of the Spiritual Body at physical death is perceived as Resurrection.

This is a passage from William Blake by Kathleen Raine: 

"The spirit is already free; and 'the spiritual body or angel' is the true man, released from its 'excrementitous husk and covering'. Here Blake is close to Swedenborg, whose disembodied spirits are fully human but released from the restrictions of a material body. Swedenborg taught that the Resurrection of the Dead is the freeing of the spiritual body from its earthly envelope, the rotten rags' of mortality...The physical body was beautiful to Blake in so far as it reflected the lineaments of an informing soul or spirit, the 'celestial body' of a famous passage of St Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, which Blake invokes in his emblem accompanying the poem 'To Tirzah' (c, 1801): It is raised a spiritual body." (Page 112)


ALL RELIGIONS are ONE (E 1)

"PRINCIPLE 1st  That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic
Genius.  Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from
their Genius. which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit
& Demon."
Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"North stood
The labyrinthine Ear. Circumscribing & Circumcising the excrementitious
Husk & Covering into Vacuum evaporating revealing the lineaments of Man
Driving outward the Body of Death in an Eternal Death & Resurrection"  
Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)
"The loud voic'd Bard terrify'd took refuge in Miltons bosom

Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous!         
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Miltons face
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God

And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp               
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility: O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come?"
Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115)
"And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive               
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments."
Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 117)
"for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent
But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years               
Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan
Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time
But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever.    
So spoke Los as we went along to his supreme abode." 
Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132)
"And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself"
Jerusalem, Plate 38 [43], (E 185)
"Humanity, who is the Only General and Universal Form         
To which all Lineaments tend & seek with love & sympathy
All broad & general principles belong to benevolence
Who protects minute particulars, every one in their own identity.
Jerusalem, Plate 59, (E 211)
But the Divine Lamb stood beside Jerusalem. oft she saw          
The lineaments Divine & oft the Voice heard, & oft she said:

O Lord & Saviour, have the Gods of the Heathen pierced thee?"
Four Zoas, Night II,  Page 25, (E 314)
"And the leopards coverd with skins of beasts tended the roaring fires
Sublime distinct their lineaments divine of human beauty   
The tygers of wrath called the horses of instruction from their mangers
They unloos'd them & put on the harness of gold & silver & ivory
In human forms distinct they stood round Urizen prince of Light
Petrifying all the Human Imagination into rock & sand" 
Descriptive Catalogue, (E 541)
" He who does
not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger
and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see does not
imagine at all.
Descriptive Catalogue, (E 544)
"The Beauty proper for sublime art, is lineaments, or
forms and features that are capable of being the receptacles of
intellect; accordingly the Painter has given in his beautiful
man, his own idea of intellectual Beauty." 
Vision of last Judgment, (E 560)
"I intreat then that the Spectator will attend to the 
Hands & Feet to the Lineaments of the Countenances they are all
descriptive of Character & not a line is drawn without intention"

First Corinthians 15 - Phillips Translation

15:35-38 - But perhaps someone will ask, "How is the resurrection achieved? With what sort of body do the dead arrive?" Now that is talking without using your minds! In your own experience you know that a seed does not germinate without itself "dying". When you sow a seed you do not sow the "body" that will eventually be produced, but bare grain, of wheat, for example, or one of the other seeds. God gives the seed a "body" according to his laws - a different "body" to each kind of seed.

15:39 - Then again, even in this world, all flesh is not identical. There is a difference in the flesh of human beings, animals, fish and birds.

15:40-41 - There are bodies which exist in this world, and bodies which exist in heaven. These bodies are not, as it were, in competition; the splendour of an earthly body is quite a different thing from the splendour of a heavenly body. The sun, the moon and the stars all have their own particular splendour, while among the stars themselves there are different kinds of splendour.

15:42-44 - These are illustrations here of the raising of the dead. The body is "sown" in corruption; it is raised beyond the reach of corruption. It is "sown" in dishonour; it is raised in splendour. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. As there is a natural body so will there be a spiritual body.

15:45 - It is written, moreover, that: 'The first man Adam became a living being'.

15:46-49 - So the last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. But we should notice that the order is "natural" first and then "spiritual". The first man came out of the earth, a material creature. The second man came from Heaven and was the Lord himself. For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from Heaven. So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the Heavenly pattern.

15:50 - For I assure you, my brothers, it is utterly impossible for flesh and blood to possess the kingdom of God. The transitory could never possess the everlasting.

...

15:54 - So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this saying will come true: 'Death is swallowed up in victory' 'O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?'



Friday, March 01, 2024

Biblical Truth

Wikipedia Commons
Jacob's Dream

Genesis 28

[10] And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.
[11] And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
[12] And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
[13] And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

Larry was fond of saying that the Bible is all poetry, and poetry is the highest form of truth. If one goes to the Bible looking for literal truth he/she will be disappointed for the truth of the Bible is spiritual truth which is of a different nature than what be stated can be stated literally. Poetry uses symbols, metaphors and allusion to suggest more than is overtly stated. The words rock, water, awake, earth, fire do not necessarily refer to physical entities; they point toward realities with larger, deeper  meanings. When we read the Bible as poetry, we find the meanings that reveal truth about ourselves, our families, our societies, and our relationship to the world of spirit.

From Larry Clayton's Blake Primer:  

"In reality the biblical truth is just as relevant to 18th Century England as it is to first century (or any century) Palestine. The same spiritual events continue to unfold today that Ezekiel, John and the others saw and described in their day. The same choices are to be made by 18th Century Britons (or 20th Century Americans!) as were made by first (or any) century Palestinians, and these choices have the same consequences. Truth is spiritual and timeless; the passing scene is only a shadow of the eternal reality.

...

Having said all this how can we summarize Blake's relationship to the Bible? First we recall that he didn't read it literally but symbolically, not historically, but poetically. ...

It should be said however that Blake found inspiration for his myth from many other sources beside the Bible; the secular critics have pointed them out in great detail. He drew impartially on everything in his experience, but found the Bible his richest fountain. The other sources were secondary and for the most part commentaries on or elaborations of the biblical truths. 

 Much as he loved the Bible, Blake ascribed paramount authority to his visions. The true man of God has visions which refine, bring up to date, and correct the earlier visions of the earlier prophets. This is where Blake departed from the orthodox attitude to the Bible, which he called reading it black. This is where he acted on the heritage of English dissent. This is how he saw the New Light and became a man of the New Age."

_______________

God is Love

First John 4

[16] So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.


God Forgives

Colossians 3

[13] forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.


Awake

1st Thessalonians 5

[5] For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.
[6] So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

Thanksgiving

2nd Corinthians 4

[13] Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and so I spoke," we too believe, and so we speak,
[14] knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
[15] For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
[16] So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.

Still Small Voice

1st Kings 19

[12] and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.


Within

Luke 24

[30] And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
[31] And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
[32] And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

Incarnate - Human Form

John 13

3] Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God;

Fear no Evil

Matthew 6

[25] And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
[26] And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

Christ

Hebrews 8

[6] But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.


Heaven

Hebrews 11

[16] But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.


Saturday, February 24, 2024

BLAKE & TULK

  • The meeting of a family in heaven

  • Charles Augustus Tulk, acquired from the artist, possibly in 1816
Until it was sold in 2012 this image was in the collection of the family of Charles Augustus Tulk who had purchased it directly from William Blake. It seems that Blake was acquainted with Tulk through his association with the Swedenborgian movement which Blake had explored as a young man. Tulk was wealthy and a member of Parliament. His support was crucial to the financial survival of Blake during lean years.

After Blake's original participation in an organizational meeting of Swedenborg followers in London in 1789, he continued to read Swedenborg's books. He annotated his copies of Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and Divine Providence finding fault with particular statements of SwedenborgIn Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (composed between 1790 and 1793) he criticized aspects of Swedenborg's doctrine. He declined to join the New Jerusalem Church in 1797. 

Although Blake felt compelled to create his own system, he was not averse to borrowing from others. In fact he searched the literature of the ages seeking the truth which had been revealed to wise men who came before him. He found in Swedenborg both truth and error and incorporated what he valued. Part of the reason he did not join the Swedeborgian New Jerusalem Church was the distinction he made between the Kingdom of God being manifest in this world or conversely within the realm of the spirit. Attempts to bring the Kingdom of God on Earth, he felt, diverted attention from building the spiritual kingdom not limited by material constraints.

It seems that Blake found in Charles Tulk a man who shared his attitude about the message Swedenborg delivered. They didn't join the movement but incorporated truth which could be found within it.



Saturday, February 17, 2024

Synopsis Revised

Google Art Project
Illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy
St Peter and St James with Dante and Beatrice

Paradiso XXV, 13-24. St James appears from out of the sphere containing Christ's first vicars and joins Peter. He questions Dante on Hope, just as Peter had questioned him on Faith

First posted April 2007

Ram Horn'd with Gold by Larry Clayton

Although most of us who are religious types may struggle our whole lives for those precious moments of God consciousness, William Blake had a direct pipeline to the Beyond. Heavenly visions dominated his mind in an overwhelming way. His wife had only one fault to find, "Mr. Blake spends too much time in Heaven."
And in spite of derogatory remarks made by critics as late as T.S.Eliot he probably knew more about human culture than any man since the Renaissance.

This book is an introduction to Blake's thought with primary emphasis on its spiritual dimension. Recent Blake literature has come largely from secular interpreters. The religious community for the most part have totally ignored Blake. Nevertheless he was a profoundly spiritual man. This introduction to Blake focuses on his spiritual life as expressed in his aesthetics, politics, and psychology. 

CHAPTER ONE
in a short biographical sketch recounts those events which largely determined the shape of his career. It also gives the first thumbnail outline of his work.

CHAPTER TWO  
provides the reader with some of the basic equipment he will need to begin to read Blake with comprehension. 

CHAPTER THREE 
Some simpler Blake poetry (Simple only in the sense that some meaning readily emerges.)
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
interprets Blake's faith as it developed through the circumstances of his life. My distinctive view of that development includes a change of direction or attitude toward Christ in Blake's early forties. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
traces Blake's struggle with God through the early images of Nobodaddy, Father of Jealousy, Urizen, and the God of this World, to his "first Vision of Light" and the resulting commitment to what he called (among other things) Jesus the Imagination. 

CHAPTER SIX
explains Blake's understanding of the Bible, his primary source. Blake cast light on biblical ideas, and conversely the Bible explains Blake. Redemption history, the struggle between Jehovah and Astarte, the symbology of Ezekiel and Revelation are some of the topics dealt with. 

CHAPTER SEVEN
details Blake's relationship to the established church, his view of church history, his attitude as a dissenter against a state church and other forms of inauthentic authority, his relationship to Quakers, Methodists, and Deists as well as his personal associations, seen imaginatively as a religious community. 

CHAPTER EIGHT
treats Blake's sexuality, his attitudes toward prevailing sexual mores, his incorporation of biblical viewpoints toward sex, especially in the symbology of the heterodox tradition. 

CHAPTER NINE
describes the development of the mythology that forms the framework of Blake's major works.


The primary sources for this work were Blake's poetry and pictures and the Bible. The most significant secondary sources were Northrup Frye's Fearful Symmetry, Milton Percival's Circle of Destiny, Kathleen Raine's Blake and Tradition, John Middleton Murry's William Blake, and C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.

Primer

Introduction

Death

Myth

Bible


Wednesday, February 14, 2024

JUDGMENT

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel
The Last Judgment

William Blake
Petworth House
A Vision of the Last Judgment

Kathleen Raine in her book, Golgonooza: City of Imagination, focuses on differences in the way that the two artists, Michelangelo and Blake, conceived of the same subject matter. Beginning on Page 144, she describes their perspectives in creating the images of the Last Judgment. She sees them presenting opposing views of  the meaning and purpose of the apocalypse or final resolution of creation. Blake's Christ is a benevolent figure around whom there is a "great circulation of human figures ascending and descending in unbroken flow from the heavens down to the hells, and again rising up to the heavens." Michelangelo's figure of Christ focuses instead on fallen humanity without compassion.

Raine points out that Blake's figures are not historical figures even though we find their stories in the Bible: they are symbolic of the states through which mortal man passes in his journey through life.

Descriptions of the Last Judgment, (E 556)
"on the left 
beneath the falling figure of Cain is Moses casting his tables of
stone into the Deeps. it ought to be understood that the Persons
Moses & Abraham are not here meant but the States Signified by
those Names  the Individuals being representatives or Visions of
those States as they were reveald to Mortal Man in the Series of
Divine Revelations. as they are written in the Bible these
various States I have seen in my Imagination when distant they
appear as One Man but as you approach they appear
Multitudes of Nations.  Abraham hovers above his posterity which
appear as Multitudes of Children ascending from the Earth
surrounded by Stars as it was said As the Stars of Heaven for
Multitude Jacob & his Twelve Sons"
Represented by Blake are archetypes not individuals. In his life's journey a man is passing through archetypal states from which he is released by Jesus the Imagination in order to proceed to the next state. 
Milton Plate 32 [35], (E 132)
"Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease:
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
Satan & Adam are States" 
Jerusalem, Plate 33 [37],(E 180)
"We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses
We behold multitude; or expanding: we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ: and he in us, and we in him,        
Live in perfect harmony in Eden the land of life,
Giving, recieving, and forgiving each others trespasses."
Raine observes that in contrast to Blake's Christ who is the "heart of divine radiance" Michelangelo's Christ is "stern and majestic" and "comes to judge the world in terms of its own attainable perfection."

Jerusalem, Plate 49,(E 199)

"Yet they are blameless & Iniquity must be imputed only           
To the State they are enterd into that they may be deliverd:
Satan is the State of Death, & not a Human existence:
But Luvah is named Satan, because he has enterd that State.
A World where Man is by Nature the enemy of Man
Because the Evil is Created into a State. that Men               
May be deliverd time after time evermore. Amen.
Learn therefore O Sisters to distinguish the Eternal Human
That walks about among the stones of fire in bliss & woe
Alternate! from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels:
This is the only means to Forgiveness of Enemies"  

Page 159 Raine sums up her impressions of the works of two artists: "Thus  for Michelangelo the Last Judgment represents the end and downfall of the world, for Blake it represents rather an opening of the eyes of the spirit, an end only of illusion to make way for a vision of eternal reality."

      

Thursday, February 08, 2024

SOUL QUOTES

Wikipedia Commons
Introduction to Songs of Experience
Some of what Blake wrote about the soul can be found in the passages quoted below. They include these words about the soul:  
The soul is subject to falling away, to passing through states, but is never defiled. It can be hidden or return to the mortal state or be 'harrowd with grief & fear & love & desire,' It can conceal sin. The soul can experience terror or view the 'Infernal Storm.' The soul can be given away and can seek for her maker. The sinless soul dwells with the immortal spirit. When the soul approaches the gates of death, or dies within, the Divine Saviour descends and the Divine Vision weeps. Error & Illusion rent the soul.
June Singer in Seeing Through the Visible World, gives these insights into how the soul functions beginning on page xxii:
"...The more you encompass of the visible world with the knowing of the mind, the more aware you may become of the expanse of the unknowable. 
But there is another way of knowing: the knowing of the soul. This kind of knowing has been called gnosis since ancient times to distinguish it from the kind of knowledge that comes from intellect and reason alone. Psyche is the Greek term for soul, and it is in this sense that I use it. Soul or psyche, is that aspect of the individual that is composed of both conscious and unconscious aspects: ways of knowing of which we are primarily aware (such as thinking, feeling, and sensation),  and ways of knowing that seem to be mobilized primarily in realms of the unconscious (for example, intuition, speculation, imagination, and dreaming). All these ways of knowing belong to the realm of the psyche or soul. Mind is included in the psyche, but the psyche is not limited to the exercise of the mental processes. The soul bridges the gap between what can be learned through the mind, through the senses, through the intellect and through the exercise of scientific observation - and the intuitive awareness of a deep abiding space that may be penetrated by consciousness but can never be encompassed by it."
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Songs 30, (E 18)
"Introduction.
Hear the voice of the Bard! 
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!" 
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Combined Title Page, (E 6)
"Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul"    
America, Plate 8, (E 54)
"For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd."
Jerusalem, Plate 22, (E 168)
"Loud groand Albion from mountain to mountain & replied
Plate 23
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! deluding shadow of Albion!
Daughter of my phantasy! unlawful pleasure! Albions curse!
I came here with intention to annihilate thee! But
My soul is melted away, inwoven within the Veil
Hast thou again knitted the Veil of Vala, which I for thee       
Pitying rent in ancient times. I see it whole and more
Perfect, and shining with beauty! But thou! O wretched Father! 

Jerusalem reply'd, like a voice heard from a sepulcher:
Father! once piteous! Is Pity. a Sin? Embalm'd in Vala's bosom
In an Eternal Death for. Albions sake, our best beloved.         
Thou art my Father & my Brother: Why hast thou hidden me,
Remote from the divine Vision: my Lord and Saviour."
Milton, Plate 42 [49], (E 143)
"Terror struck in the Vale I stood at that immortal sound
My bones trembled. I fell outstretchd upon the path              
A moment, & my Soul returnd into its mortal state
To Resurrection & Judgment in the Vegetable Body
And my sweet Shadow of Delight stood trembling by my side

Immediately the Lark mounted with a loud trill from Felphams Vale
And the Wild Thyme from Wimbletons green & impurpled Hills"       
Jerusalem, Plate 68, (E 222)
"Once Man was occupied in intellectual pleasures & energies   
But now my soul is harrowd with grief & fear & love & desire
And now I hate & now I love & Intellect is no more:
There is no time for any thing but the torments of love & desire
The Feminine & Masculine Shadows soft, mild & ever varying
In beauty: are Shadows now no more, but Rocks in Horeb           
Plate 69
Then all the Males combined into One Male & every one
Became a ravening eating Cancer growing in the Female
A Polypus of Roots of Reasoning Doubt Despair & Death.
Going forth & returning from Albions Rocks to Canaan:
Devouring Jerusalem from every Nation of the Earth."
Four Zoas, Night I, Page 4, (E 301)
"Enion said--Thy fear has made me tremble thy terrors have surrounded me                                              t
All Love is lost Terror succeeds & Hatred instead of Love
And stern demands of Right & Duty instead of Liberty.
Once thou wast to Me the loveliest son of heaven--But now        
 
Why art thou Terrible and yet I love thee in thy terror till
I am almost Extinct & soon shall be a Shadow in Oblivion
Unless some way can be found that I may look upon thee & live
Hide me some Shadowy semblance. secret whispring in my Ear
In secret of soft wings. in mazes of delusive beauty             
I have lookd into the secret soul of him I lovd
And in the Dark recesses found Sin & cannot return

Trembling & pale sat Tharmas weeping in his clouds
Why wilt thou Examine every little fibre of my soul
Spreading them out before the Sun like Stalks of flax to dry     
The infant joy is beautiful but its anatomy
Horrible Ghast & Deadly nought shalt thou find in it
But Death Despair & Everlasting brooding Melancholy
Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 85, (E 360)
"Thus they conferrd among the intoxicating fumes of Mystery    
Till Enitharmons shadow pregnant in the deeps beneath
Brought forth a wonder horrible. While Enitharmon shriekd
And trembled thro the Worlds above Los wept his fierce soul was terrifid
At the shrieks of Enitharmon at her tossings nor could his eyes percieve
The cause of her dire anguish for she lay the image of Death     
Movd by strong shudders till her shadow was deliverd then she ran
Raving about the upper Elements in maddning fury

She burst the Gates of Enitharmons heart with direful Crash
Nor could they ever be closd again the golden hinges were broken
And the gates broke in sunder & their ornaments defacd       
Beneath the tree of Mystery for the immortal shadow shuddering
Brought forth this wonder horrible a Cloud she grew & grew
Till many of the dead burst forth from the bottoms of their tombs
In male forms without female counterparts or Emanations    
Cruel and ravening with Enmity & Hatred & War  
In dreams of Ulro dark delusive drawn by the lovely shadow 

The Spectre terrified gave her Charge over the howling Orc" 
Songs and Ballads, (E 480)
[From Blake's Notebook] 
 "The Caverns of the Grave Ive seen 
And these I shewd to Englands Queen
But now the Caves of Hell I view     
Who shall I dare to shew them to
What mighty Soul in Beautys form     
Shall dauntless View the Infernal Storm 
Egremonts Countess can controll         
The flames of Hell that round me roll   
If she refuse I still go on"
Four Zoas, Night II, Page 26, (E 317)
"I brought her thro' the Wilderness, a dry & thirsty land
And I commanded springs to rise for her in the black desart
Till she became a Dragon winged bright & poisonous  
I opend all the floodgates of the heavens to quench her thirst
Plate 27 
And I commanded the Great deep to hide her in his hand
Till she became a little weeping Infant a span long
I carried her in my bosom as a man carries a lamb
I loved her I gave her all my soul & my delight
I hid her in soft gardens & in secret bowers of Summer           
Weaving mazes of delight along the sunny Paradise
Inextricable labyrinths, She bore me sons & daughters
And they have taken her away & hid her from my sight
They have surrounded me with walls of iron & brass, O Lamb     
Of God clothed in Luvahs garments little knowest thou          
Of death Eternal that we all go to Eternal Death"
Four ZoasNight IX, Page 127, (E 396)
"Rise sluggish Soul why sitst thou here why dost thou sit & weep
Yon Sun shall wax old & decay but thou shalt ever flourish 
The fruit shall ripen & fall down & the flowers consume away
But thou shalt still survive arise O dry thy dewy tears

Hah! Shall I still survive whence came that sweet & comforting voice
And whence that voice of sorrow O sun thou art nothing now to me
Go on thy course rejoicing & let us both rejoice together 
I walk among his flocks & hear the bleating of his lambs
O that I could behold his face & follow his pure feet
I walk by the footsteps of his flocks come hither tender flocks
Can you converse with a pure Soul that seeketh for her maker
You answer not then am I set your mistress in this garden 
Ill watch you & attend your footsteps you are not like the birds"
Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 127, (E 397)
"My Luvah here hath placd me in a Sweet & pleasant Land
And given me fruits & pleasant waters & warm hills & cool valleys
Here will I build myself a house & here Ill call on his name
Here Ill return when I am weary & take my pleasant rest

So spoke the Sinless Soul & laid her head on the downy fleece 
Of a curld Ram who stretchd himself in sleep beside his mistress
And soft sleep fell upon her eyelids in the silent noon of day

Then Luvah passed by & saw the sinless Soul
And said   Let a pleasant house arise to be the dwelling place
Of this immortal Spirit growing in lower Paradise" 
Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)
"And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp               
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility: O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.       
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate"

Jerusalem, Plate 42, (E 189)
"Thus Albion sat, studious of others in his pale disease:
Brooding on evil: but when Los opend the Furnaces before him:
He saw that the accursed things were his own affections,
And his own beloveds: then he turn'd sick! his soul died within him
Also Los sick & terrified beheld the Furnaces of Death           
And must have died, but the Divine Saviour descended
Among the infant loves & affections, and the Divine Vision wept
Like evening dew on every herb upon the breathing ground"
Jerusalem, Plate 35 [39], (E 181)

"Los answerd, troubled: and his soul was rent in twain
Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement? 
 No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim. 
So speaking, not yet infected with the Error & Illusion,"


Friday, February 02, 2024

GOD ACTS

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 16, (E 40) "Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God
only   Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men."

Blake reserved the word Action to denote something which is coming not through man alone but through God acting through man. 

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 543)
"The stories of Arthur are the acts of Albion,
applied to a Prince of the fifth century, who conquered
Europe, and held the Empire of the world in the dark age, which
the Romans never again recovered."

When we read of the acts of Albion we are reading of Albion being a tool through
whom we may follow man's either placing himself under the guidance of God or
rejecting God and turning away.

Jerusalem, Plate 43 [29], (E 191)
"And thus the Voice Divine went forth upon the rocks of Albion    

I elected Albion for my glory; I gave to him the Nations,
Of the whole Earth. he was the Angel of my Presence: and all
The Sons of God were Albions Sons: and Jerusalem was my joy.
The Reactor hath hid himself thro envy. I behold him.
But you cannot behold him till he be reveald in his System       
Albions Reactor must have a Place prepard: Albion must Sleep
The Sleep of Death, till the Man of Sin & Repentance be reveald.
Hidden in Albions Forests he lurks: he admits of no Reply
From Albion: but hath founded his Reaction into a Law
Of Action, for Obedience to destroy the Contraries of Man.     
He hath compelld Albion to become a Punisher & hath possessd
Himself of Albions Forests & Wilds! and Jerusalem is taken!
The City of the Woods in the Forest of Ephratah is taken!
London is a stone of her ruins; Oxford is the dust of her walls!
Sussex & Kent are her scatterd garments: Ireland her holy place! 
And the murderd bodies of her little ones are Scotland and Wales
The Cities of the Nations are the smoke of her consummation
The Nations are her dust! ground by the chariot wheels
Of her lordly conquerors, her palaces levelld with the dust
I come that I may find a way for my banished ones to return      
Fear not O little Flock I come! Albion shall rise again."

Through following the acts of Albion we discern the journey that man travels as
he is guided along the path to completeness.

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 544)
"Reasons and opinions concerning acts, are not
history.  Acts themselves alone are history, and these are
neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire,
Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus.  Tell me the Acts, O
historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away
with your reasoning and your rubbish.  All that is not action is
not worth reading.  Tell me the What; I do not want you to
tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well
as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that
you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or
impossible.  His opinions, who does not see spiritual agency, is
not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is
improbable, must reject all History and retain doubts only.

Blake found that action, not opinion or explanations, provided him with an
understanding of the spirit which was being expressed in what he discerned himself.

Jerusalem, Plate 95, (E 254)
"Her voice pierc'd Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock
The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov'd

Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov'd
His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose 
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides  
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping
Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthonas Spectre in songs
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble. 
When Albion began to perceive the voice of God, a cascade of action followed.
Hearing the voice pierce his 'clay cold
ear' was the key to releasing movement,
speech, emotion, and thought which together restored his fourfold Zoas.
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)
"I will not Flatter them Error is Created Truth is Eternal Error or Creation will be Burned Up & then & not till then Truth or Eternity will appear It is Burnt up the Moment Men cease to behold it I assert for My self that I do not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action it is as the Dirt upon my feet No part of Me. What it will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look thro it & not with it."

The inner life which is the life of the spirit is Eternal. Whatever is material
and temporal passes away. What is in response to Truth is lasting and fosters
development of the spiritual life.

Annotations to Swedenborg, (E 601)
"To hinder another is not an act it is the
contrary it is a restraint on action both in ourselves & in the
person hinderd. for he who hinders another omits his own duty at
the time." 

Action results from following the guidance of the spirit. Preventing another's
spiritual development is contrary to being led oneself.

Annotations to Watson, (E 614)
"The truth & certainty of Virtue &
Honesty i.e Inspiration needs no one to prove it   it is Evident
as the Sun & Moon [What doubt is virtuous even Honest that
depends upon Examination] He who stands doubting of what he
intends whether it is Virtuous or Vicious knows not what Virtue
means. no man can do a Vicious action & think it to be Virtuous.
no man can take darkness for light. he may pretend to do so & may
pretend to be a modest Enquirer. but he is a Knave"

There is within us the ability to discern truth. The spirit itself
informs us whether what we are considering is 'Virtuous or Vicious.'
We cannot take 'darkness for light.'