SELF & SOUL

Writing of the work of individuation, David L. Hart, (The Cambridge Companion to Jung, edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson ) points out the spiritual nature of the process:

" Many younger people, myself included, have found new meaning and purpose in life through the direct inspiration and guidance of Jung. What it does emphasize is that individuation is a spiritual undertaking. It is the conscious response to an instinct not recognized in biological thought, an innate and powerful drive toward spiritual realization and ultimate meaning. As such, it involves the whole person, who, in the process of emerging into wholeness, is progressively transformed - not into something different, but into the true Self: out of its potential and into its reality. Whoever, in any age or condition, is prepared to heed and respond to this spiritual and fundamentally human drive, is prepared for the process of individuation." (PAGE 99)

The spiritual undertaking which Jung acknowledged and supported is affirmed extravagantly in Blake's writing. The Self which Jung defines as the 'God image' within the psyche is the realization achieved by the process of individuation. What was referred to as Self by Jung might traditionally have been called soul, the image of God in which Genesis states that man was created.

The thrust of Blake's writing is directed to the same realization of the presence of God within man. A beauty of Blake's poetry is that it provides images and symbols in which the experience of touching the Divine may be expressed and communicated. Jung's and Blake's gifts are complementary, one provides the analysis the other the synthesis.

Jerusalem, PLATE 38 [43], (E 185)
"Swelld & bloated General Forms, repugnant to the Divine-
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.
But here the affectionate touch of the tongue is closd in by
deadly teeth
And the soft smile of friendship & the open dawn of benevolence
Become a net & a trap, & every energy renderd cruel,
Till the existence of friendship & benevolence is denied:
The wine of the Spirit & the vineyards of the Holy-One."

Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 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.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe, yet man is not consumd;
Amidst the lustful fires he walks: his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver, & his breast and head like gold."

Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E147)
"To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination"