DIVINE ECONOMY

A number of years ago, before I was heavily involved in studying Blake, I recorded some short thoughts which had come to me. I can't say exactly where they had come from. I can say that I had studied science in high school and college. I had married a man who was both intelligent and good. I got to work raising three children to be as intelligent and as good as their father. As a family we enjoyed nature through camping, hiking and visiting places of natural beauty. We participated in the Methodist Churches until we moved to Washington DC to become a part of the Church of the Savior, an alternative church heavily involved in social programs. We spent our seven years in the structured program of the Church of the Savior, and went on to the Quakers where structure is unnecessary. Among the gifts we received from the Church of the Savior was an interest in esoteric literature and the mythopoeic in general.

So at some point I began to write down the lessons I had learned along my journey in concise statements. To this little collection I gave the name the Divine Economy.

This all happened before I had seen many of the pictures William Blake created, or realized that he was attempting to convey spiritual and psychological truth through opening the minds of men to spiritual perception. Larry, my husband, had begun studying Blake in the 1980's, but he focused on the poetry and not the pictures. No one had much opportunity to see Blake's pictures before computers made it possible for institutions to digitize their material and display it on websites. Because of the availability of the images for viewing when I began my study, my interest was drawn in that direction. Knowing that many images were rarely seen even with the internet, I decided to create a blog attaching my words from the Divine Economy to Blake pictures which could illustrate the truth I aimed to present.

E-BOOK

Thanks to the efforts of Ian Vincent Mulder of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, the content of Divine Economy blog is now available as an e-book. It is our hope that you will download the pdf file to your computer or book reader to contemplate at your leisure.

Since Ian has more technical skills than most, he has also put together instructions for making a high quality book from the file. Although the book cannot be sold because of restrictions of the institutions which generously provided the images, it can be printed by individuals who prefer to hold a book in their hands and turn the pages with their fingers.

In an email from Ian dated March 13, 2014 he states:
"It will not escape you that we are following In Blake's footsteps, self-publishing and in some way inventing new ways of reaching out. There is a wonderful freedom in this. In some strange way I feel also that when giving something away one has a greater responsibility to oneself and one's readers than when it's done for money. One comes within the ambit of Divine Economy, wherein everything of real value cannot be paid for. There seems to be a corollary that because (it's been decided that) it cannot be paid for, I must make sure it is of real value! Or perhaps simply it's a matter of being recruited into that Divine Economy wherein one serves." 

Larry and I have tried to live according to the principles incorporated in the Divine Economy which most fundamentally originate in the New Testament. They were taught by Jesus: forgiveness, inclusiveness, compassion, gratitude and awareness of the Presence of the Divine Benevolence. That this e-book is available freely to anyone is testimony to Ian's intuitive sense of what Blake was saying through his art, and I in my words.

Blake calls us to Awake from the emptiness of isolation to the fullness of mutual love between God and man, and between man and man.  

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
"Chap: I
Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev'ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild
     song.  

Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:
Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.
In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey
A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!                
Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers, and thy sons,
Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters
Weep at thy souls disease, and the Divine Vision is darkend:
Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,
Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom
Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation lovely Jerusalem
From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!      
Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!

But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;"

The Psalmist tells us why it is possible for us to speak and write the truth which is beyond our limited abilities to encompass. 

Psalms 139
[1] O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me!
[2] Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up;
thou discernest my thoughts from afar.
[3] Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
[4] Even before a word is on my tongue,
lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.