Fearful Symmetry Again

First posted August 2011 

Yale Center for British Art

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Copy F, Plate 42

It was Northrup Frye who began to make William Blake's poetry popular and available to serious students. He was studying for the ministry at the University of Toronto, but went to Oxford for graduate work and published Fearful Symmetry, which made him famous. Although he maintained an ecclesiastic relationship, he became the epoch's foremost critic of English literature.

In a recent post Ellie cited a Quote from Fearful Symmetry:

"the business of the visionary [is] to proclaim the Word of God to a
society under the domination of Satan; and ... the visionary's
social position is typically that of an isolated voice crying in
the wilderness against the injustice and hypocrisy of the society
from which he sprung." (Page 336)

Out of his study of Blake's system, Frye generated a system of his own, delineated in the 1957 volume,

Anatomy of Criticism, to provide "a more intelligible account of...'myths we live by'."

Frye's last and greatest (two volume) work is: The Great Code and Words with Power which go into systems and sources exhaustively. It's very enlightening for anyone serious about learning Blake's system.

Steven Marx, a professor at Cal Poly has written a thorough study of Northup Frye, starting with a thumbnail biography, and continuing with "the sources of Blake's Vision" It's embodied in a description of Frye's extensive writing:

"A lineage of mythographers including Vico, James Frazer, Carl Jung,
and Joseph Campbell all share the view that literature evolves from mythology
and that both embody a society's central values and beliefs--about the gods
and about secular matters like work, play, action, identity, family, love and
death."

(From the 'thorough study' cited above)

The 'thorough study' essentially described and interpreted Words with Power.

POETRY

First posted August 2017 

Library of Congress

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Plate 2

Los, as the Vehicular Form of the Eternal Urthona, is his representative in our world - the world of generation. Blake chose poetry as one of his media to express his message because it is adept at conveying spiritual content which is offered by Urthona the Zoa of Imagination. Damon (A Blake Dictionary) tells us that "Los is Poetry, the expression in this world of the Creative Imagination." 

The sense associated with Urthona is hearing which is discerned through the 'labyrinthine Ear.' Poetry is a special kind of sound designed to transmit through sound more than can be discerned in ordinary speech, just as music conveys more than the cacophony of a crowded marketplace.    

From Defending Ancient Springs by Kathleen Raine:
Page 107
"There is one type of resonance which he [William Empson] fails to consider, that resonance which may be present within a image of apparent simplicity, setting into vibration planes of reality and of consciousness other than those of the sensible world: the power of the symbol and of symbolic discourse...

Page 108
"It is in this that the poet distinguishes himself from the philosopher; not in any difference in the nature of their themes but in their way of experiencing them: where philosophy makes distinctions, poetry brings together, creating always wholes and harmonies; the work of the poet is not analysis but synthesis, The symbol may be called the unit of poetic synthesis; as Coleridge in his famous definition implies:

'A symbol is characterized by a translucence of the special in the Individual, or of the General in the Especial, or of the Universal in the General. Above all of the translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal. It always partakes of the Reality which it renders intelligible; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part of that Unity of which it is representative...

What the poem affirms is that the world is, in its whole and in its parts, living and conscious; it also affirms that there is a hidden source ('heaven') from whose 'gate' visible things issue from invisible.'"   

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 5, (E 34)
" 1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age" 

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"According to the Human Nerves of Sensation, the Four Rivers of the Water of Life

South stood the Nerves of the Eye. East in Rivers of bliss the Nerves of the
Expansive Nostrils West, flowd the Parent Sense the Tongue. North stood
The labyrinthine Ear."

Four Zoas Night I, Page 3, (E 201)
"Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
Of a bright Universe Empery attended day & night                 
Days & nights of revolving joy, Urthona was his name
Page 4              
In Eden; in the Auricular Nerves of Human life
Which is the Earth of Eden, he his Emanations propagated
Fairies of Albion afterwards Gods of the Heathen, Daughter of Beulah Sing
His fall into Division & his Resurrection to Unity
His fall into the Generation of Decay & Death & his Regeneration 

by the Resurrection from the dead"  

Europe, Plate iii, (E 60)
"Five windows light the cavern'd Man; thro' one he breathes the air;
Thro' one, hears music of the spheres; thro' one, the eternal vine
Flourishes, that he may recieve the grapes; thro' one can look.
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;
Thro' one, himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant."

Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 241)
"Let Cambel and her Sisters sit within the Mundane Shell:
Forming the fluctuating Globe according to their will,
According as they weave the little embryon nerves & veins     
The Eye, the little Nostrils, & the delicate Tongue & Ears
Of labyrinthine intricacy: so shall they fold the World
That whatever is seen upon the Mundane Shell, the same
Be seen upon the Fluctuating Earth woven by the Sisters."

Jerusalem, Plate 53, (E 202)
"But Los, who is the Vehicular Form of strong Urthona"

Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 146)
 "I therefore have produced
a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. 
Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit
place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific
parts--the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the
prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other. 
Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd,
or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music,
are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom,
Art, and Science."                      

On Homer's Poetry, (E 269)
"It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness
of its parts Unity & Morality, are secondary considerations &
belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule,
to Accident & not to Substance. the Ancients calld it eating of
the tree of good & evil."

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 541)
"Painting, as well as poetry and music, exists and exults 
in immortal thoughts."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 554)
"Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct & inferior
kind of Poetry.  Vision or Imagination is a Representation of
what Eternally Exists.  Really & Unchangeably.  Fable or Allegory
is Formd by the Daughters of Memory.  Imagination is Surrounded
by the daughters of Inspiration who in the aggregate are calld
Jerusalem" 

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 559)
"Noah is seen in the Midst of these Canopied by a
Rainbow. on his right hand Shem & on his Left Japhet these three
Persons represent Poetry Painting & Music the three Powers in
Man of conversing with Paradise which the flood did not Sweep
away" 

Letters, (E 730)
"Thus I hope that all our three years trouble Ends in
Good Luck at last & shall be forgot by my affections & only
rememberd by my Understanding to be a Memento in time to come &
to speak to future generations by a Sublime Allegory which is now
perfectly completed into a Grand Poem[.] I may praise it since I
dare not pretend to be any other than the Secretary the Authors
are in Eternity I consider it as the Grandest Poem that This
World Contains.  Allegory addressd to the Intellectual powers
while it is altogether hidden from the Corporeal Understanding is
My Definition of the Most Sublime Poetry. it is also somewhat in
the same manner defind by Plato.  This Poem shall by Divine
Assistance be progressively Printed & Ornamented with Prints &
given to the Public--But of this work I take care to say little
to Mr H. since he is as much averse to my poetry as he is to a
Chapter in the Bible   He knows that I have writ it for I have
shewn it to him & he had read Part by his own desire & has lookd
with sufficient contempt to enhance my opinion of it."

SOUL HOVERING OVER BODY

British Museum

Small Book of Designs

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate14 

"A Flaming Sword/Revolving every way"

 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 4, (E 34)

                 "The voice of the Devil

  All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the
following Errors.
  1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
  2. That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that
Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.
  3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies.
  But the following Contraries to these are True
  1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age
  2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
  3 Energy is Eternal Delight"                

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39)

"But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to  be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid."
America, Plate 6, (E 53)
"Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field:
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years;
Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.      
And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge;
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream.
Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease." 
Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108) 
"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
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood"
Jerusalem, Plate 71, (E 224)
"And above Albions Land was seen the Heavenly Canaan
As the Substance is to the Shadow: and above Albions Twelve Sons
Were seen Jerusalems Sons: and all the Twelve Tribes spreading
Over Albion. As the Soul is to the Body, so Jerusalems Sons,
Are to the Sons of Albion: and Jerusalem is Albions Emanation    
What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent:
The Circumference is Within: Without, is formed the Selfish Center
And the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity.
And the Center has Eternal States! these States we now explore."
Auguries of innocence, (E 429)
"We are led to Believe a Lie 
When we see not Thro the Eye"    
Laocoon, (E 273)

"Adam is only The Natural Man & not the Soul or Imagination

The Eternal Body of Man is The IMAGINATION."

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 86, (E 368)

"Los furious answerd. Spectre horrible thy words astound my Ear
With irresistible conviction I feel I am not one of those 
Who when convincd can still persist. tho furious.controllable
By Reasons power. Even I already feel a World within
Opening its gates & in it all the real substances
Of which these in the outward World are shadows which pass away
Come then into my Bosom & in thy shadowy arms bring with thee   
My lovely Enitharmon. I will quell my fury & teach
Peace to the Soul of dark revenge & repentance to Cruelty

So spoke Los & Embracing Enitharmon & the Spectre
Clouds would have folded round in Extacy & Love uniting
PAGE 87 
But Enitharmon trembling fled & hid beneath Urizens tree
But mingling together with his Spectre the Spectre of Urthona 
Wondering beheld the Center opend by Divine Mercy inspired    
He in his turn Gave Tasks to Los Enormous to destroy          
That body he created but in vain for Los performd Wonders of labour 
They Builded Golgonooza Los labouring builded pillars high   
And Domes terrific in the nether heavens for beneath
Was opend new heavens & a new Earth beneath & within
Threefold within the brain within the heart within the loins
A Threefold Atmosphere Sublime continuous from Urthonas world  
But yet having a Limit Twofold named Satan & Adam"   

Blake asks us to discern not define. What can we discern in this image and in these passages concerning the soul?   

It may seem that the upper figure is the soul and the lower figure is the body. But it appears that the upper figure discrens the lower figure, and not the other way around. Blake states "that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses." In the image the soul figure appears to discern the sleeping body, perhaps by "melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid." It is the lower figure, apparently sleeping, who needs to "Rise and look out," perhaps he is the "inchained soul shut up in darkness." But how should this be accomplished other than by "self annihilation and eternal death."

If we see the image with our natural eye, we see not that 'What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent."  Seeing "thro" the eye we discern that "The Eternal Body of Man is The IMAGINATION." Like Los we must "quell [our] fury & teach Peace to the Soul of dark revenge & repentance to Cruelty" so that we may see  "new heavens & a new Earth beneath & within" opening even in this life.

FIRST VISION OF LIGHT

First posted Dec 2020 

Like Blake, Larry was interested in learning all that he could about the wisdom of the ages. In 1977 he had been studying Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, and Nicoll. From there he went on to pursuing C. G. Jung and his interpreters. He came across a little book by W. P. Witcutt titled Blake: A Psychological Study which proposed to use Jungian psychology as a key to understanding Blake. As a result Larry turned to studying Blake because he found his poetry more lucid and and cogent than anything he had been studying.

Larry wrote: 

"My own serious interest in Blake began in 1977 when my wife brought Blake: A Psychological Study by W. P. Witcutt home from the Arlington Public Library. I had been on the point of a commitment to the study of Jung's voluminous writings, which at that time seemed the most creative intellectual work at hand. Witcutt diverted my commitment to Blake, which we have now."

Following his study of Witcutt Larry wrote the following on 5-18-1978.

"Some ideas about Blake's poetry:

It is naming of the selves. Sharing his visions gives great help in understanding, in gaining detachment from the hardening and rigid concrete of opinion, prejudice, passion - the principalities and powers - that work to make us automatisms, zombies, denizens of hell. It offers fresh and new ways of perceiving life - ourselves and others - it detaches us from the old man - this body of death, makes us aware of the spiritual struggle going on - we have been asleep to it - tossed under the waves, the prostrate Albion, the sick king. Blake's vivid imagery may shock us into consciousness so that we may begin to act purposely.  

Blake must have been an imaginative young boy and at some point found thinking very oppressive. Did he go from permissive and indulgent parents to a brutal taskmaster who used 'geometric logic' like Quigg did (in Caine Mutiny). He found reason and feeling horrible and his visions of them seem to center on calamity - the Fall.

He shared his visions in such a way that one might hope to understand him at a deeper, more profound and real level than do most folk including ourselves. Thus if we can achieve this understanding of Blake, we may progress in learning of others including ourselves. Then love may come forth.

The woes of Urizen do indeed move us strangely, perhaps they may evoke the Holy Spirit in a powerful way. Hurrah!

In the Four Zoas, fallen Albion gives the scepter to Urizen who builds a steel trap world, which 'has done so much harm to our imagination's elastic and vital power.' Thus he didn't hate creative thought & law but only the worship of the created good. He hated the reactionaries and identified them with reason which, no doubt, they used as a weapon against visionary liberals."  

---

Wikipedia Commons
Book of Urizen
Plate 4, Copy G

Visions of Daughters of Albion, Plate 5, (E 48)
"But when the morn arose, her lamentation renewd,
The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.

O Urizen! Creator of men! Mistaken Demon of heaven:
Thy joys are tears! thy labour vain, to form men to thine image.
How can one joy absorb another? are not different joys           

Holy, eternal, infinite! and each joy is a Love.
...
Does not the eagle scorn the earth & despise the treasures beneath?
But the mole knoweth what is there, & the worm shall tell it thee.       
Does not the worm erect a pillar in the mouldering church yard?
Plate 6
And a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave
Over his porch these words are written. Take thy bliss O Man!
And sweet shall be thy taste & sweet thy infant joys renew!"

Letters, To Thomas Butts, (E 713)

[First Vision of Light]

     "My Eyes more & more
     Like a Sea without shore
     Continue Expanding
     The Heavens commanding
     Till the jewels of Light
     Heavenly Men beaming bright
     Appeard as One Man
     Who Complacent began
     My limbs to infold
     In his beams of bright gold
     Like dross purgd away
     All my mire & my clay
     Soft consumd in delight
     In his bosom sun bright
     I remaind.  Soft he smild
     And I heard his voice Mild
     Saying This is My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold
     Who awakest from sleep
     On the sides of the Deep
     On the Mountains around
     The roarings resound
     Of the lion & wolf
     The loud sea & deep gulf
     These are guards of My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold
     And the voice faded mild
     I remaind as a Child
     All I ever had known
     Before me bright Shone
     I saw you & your wife
     By the fountains of Life
     Such the Vision to me
     Appeard on the Sea"

INTUITIVE INTROVERT

First posted  Feb 2016

W. P. Witcutt in 1946 wrote a book titled 

Wikimedia Commons
Europe
Plate 4

Blake: A Psychological Study. Whatever Witcutt may have lacked in objectivity, he made up for in devotion to his personal insights. As a student of Jungean psycholoy he attempted to fit Blake's thought into the framework of Jung's system with varying degrees of success.

In trying to explain how Blake arrived at the images which peopled his poetry, Witcutt identified Blake as an intuitive introvert: intuitive as the dominant function in Blake's psyche, and introvert as the orientation to which he turned for meaning. On Page 23 we read:

"The introvert, on the contrary, is turned inward towards the inner world of his own soul. His thoughts are rationalizations of the symbols of the unconscious, not spun from the common experiences of others or from the outside world; his feelings and sensations (if either of these is his dominant function) spring from the same source; and if he is intuitive, he sees the archetypes of the unconscious clearly and vividly in his mind's eye. To the intuitive introvert the world of the imagination is far more vivid than the world of outer reality.
...
In an illuminating example, Blake tells how introverted intuition works:

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)
"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."  

Contrasting Blake's approach of presenting his work to that of one with dominate thinking function, Witcutt on Page 82 wrote:

"The man of dominant thought would write out these psychological events in his own abstract terminology; but to the intuitive introvert such as Blake or Shelley they appear as the conflicts of awesome figures. The commentators on Blake have usually been men of dominant thought; and from them one gains the impression that Blake first thought out these matters as they would have done, in abstract terminology of 'law' or 'desire' and so forth; and then (because he was writing in poetry) turned the abstractions into symbolic poetic figures. That is not in the least how one of Blake's temperament works. The figures first of all appeared in his imaginative vision just like a vivid dream, and enacted their dreamlike conflicts, made their speeches. It was afterwards that he puzzled, wondering, over what could be the meaning of their symbolic actions; and gave them names. His first instinct was to draw what he had seen; thus it is that Blake's poetry is really a commentary on his engravings."

The focus of Witcutt's book was on the internal dynamics of the psyche and on what the images Blake created told him, and tell us about integrating one's divided factions. On Page 124 Witcutt identified Blake's characters with dream-symbols:

"The intuitive introvert is the symbolist par excellence. He lives in a dream-world where symbols have in waking life as much vitality and meaning as to ordinary men in dreams. Like the madman he lives in a continual waking dream, but unlike the madman he knows the dream-symbols for the product of the imagination and can use them for the delight of others. To him the symbols appear as unrelated to anything else; they live their own lives as unearthly semi-divine figures seen in the minds eye...It is something never seen on earth."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 560)
"If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his
Imagination approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his
Contemplative Thought if he could Enter into Noahs Rainbow or
into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these
Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things
as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he
meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy   General
Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Particulars that Wisdom
consists & Happiness too. 

Milton, Plate 2, (E 96)  
"Three Classes are Created by the Hammer of Los, & Woven 
PLATE 3,                                                 
By Enitharmons Looms when Albion was slain upon his Mountains
And in his Tent, thro envy of Living Form, even of the Divine Vision
And of the sports of Wisdom in the Human Imagination
Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever.
Mark well my words. they are of your eternal salvation:      

Urizen lay in darkness & solitude, in chains of the mind lock'd up
Los siezd his Hammer & Tongs; he labourd at his resolute Anvil
Among indefinite Druid rocks & snows of doubt & reasoning.
Refusing all Definite Form, the Abstract Horror roofd. stony hard. 
And a first Age passed over & a State of dismal woe:"  

CONVERSION OF SAUL

Posted as IMAGES OF CHRIST 12 in May 2016

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
The Conversion of Saul
c. 1800

The final image in this series of posts focusing on Images of Christ is Blake's watercolor from 1800 which is titled Conversion of Saul. This image portrays Christ appearing to Saul who was working to eliminate the movement of believers which had sprung up following the reports that Christ lived. Saul was a reluctant convert. Christ visited Saul as a light and a voice which communicated to his inner being. Saul's activities in the outer world - persecuting disciples of the Lord - was not congruent with in inner conscience. He responded to the question the Lord put to him with a question of his own. He arose, he listened, he followed the path that opened to him. 

 

Acts 9
[1] And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
[2] And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
[3] And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
[4] And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
[5] And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
[6] And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
[7] And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.
[8] And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

 

The conviction that the life of Christ did not end in the grave, that his spirit was released to live in a higher plane of existence, is a transforming experience. This conviction comes from hearing a voice which speaks not to the outer, natural man but to the inner, spiritual man who wakes in response to the call. The conversion of Saul went a step further than the earlier accounts of encountering the risen Christ because it was not mediated by previous association with the ministry of Jesus in the flesh. Paul's conversion becomes the prototype for the spread of Christianity to the wide segment of the population who would encounter Christ as a spiritual reality not a physical man.  Each individual can make the transition to an altered consciousness when he begins to perceive himself as an Immortal Spirit. Christ introduces his followers to the spirit which will live in them and give them the power to live the Eternal Life.

Jerusalem, Plate 75, (E 231) 
"But Jesus breaking thro' the Central Zones of Death & Hell
Opens Eternity in Time & Space; triumphant in Mercy
Thus are the Heavens formd by Los within the Mundane Shell
And where Luther ends Adam begins again in Eternal Circle
To awake the Prisoners of Death; to bring Albion again           
With Luvah into light eternal, in his eternal day." 

1ST Corinthians 15 
[4] And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 
[5] And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
[6] After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
[7] After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
[8] And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
[9] For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
[10] But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 

Philippians 3
[20] For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
[21] Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

In the following two letters Blake gives us an inkling of the process he underwent as he experienced a transition to living in the light of spiritual consciousness.

Letters, To Butts, Nov 1802, (E 720)
 "And now let me finish with assuring you that Tho I have been
very unhappy I am so no longer I am again Emerged into the light
of Day I still & shall to Eternity Embrace Christianity and Adore
him who is the Express image of God but I have traveld thro
Perils & Darkness not unlike a Champion I have Conquerd and shall
still Go on Conquering  Nothing can withstand the fury of my
Course among the Stars of God & in the Abysses of the Accuser  My
Enthusiasm is still what it was only Enlarged and confirmd" 

Letters, To Hayley, Oct 1804, (E 756)
"I have entirely reduced that
spectrous Fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the ruin
of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life.  He is
the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an
iron-hearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece.  I speak with
perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed
upon me.  Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have
had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but
I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these
beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become
children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are
free from fetters.  O lovely Felpham, parent of Immortal 
Friendship, to thee I am eternally indebted for my three years' 
rest from perturbation and the strength I now enjoy.  Suddenly,
on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I
was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and
which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a
door and by window-shutters." 

MAGDALENE

 

Blake Archive 

Paintings Illustrating the Bible

Christ the Mediator""

Christ Pleading Before the Father for St. Mary Magdalene

1John.2

[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

---

In this picture Blake portrays the theme of forgiveness. Christ acting as the advocate for the sinner intervenes with Jehovah on the part of Magdalene who was said to have been a harlot.

Magdalene personifies a woman who was a sinner but became transformed by her encounter with Jesus. Magdalene can be thought of as a woman who reconciled the contraries. As a harlot she embodied one who was lost to developing her spiritual potential. When she recognized that the man who offered to her living water was the Christ or Messiah, she was changed. She followed Jesus, learned from him and developed spititual consciousness.

Mary Magdelene was the first to whom the Risen Christ appeared on Easter morning. 

---

John.4

[6] Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

[7] There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
[8] (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
[9] Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
[10] Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
[11] The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
[12] Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
[13] Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
[14] But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
[15] The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
[16] Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
[17] The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
[18] For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
[19] The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
[20] Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
[21] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
[22] Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
[23] But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[24] God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
[25] The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

[26] Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

Luke.8

[1] And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,
[2] And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
[3] And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.

Mark.16

[1] And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
[2] And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
[3] And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
[4] And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.
[5] And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
[6] And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
[7] But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.
[8] And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.
[9] Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
[10] And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
[11] And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

---

Jerusalem, Plate 62, (E 213)

"I see the Maternal Line, I behold the Seed of the Woman!...
These are the Daughters of Vala, Mother of the Body of death
But I thy Magdalen behold thy Spiritual Risen Body"

Everlasting Gospel, NOTEBOOK PAGE 120,(E 877)

"Was Jesus Born of a Virgin Pure With narrow Soul & looks demure If he intended to take on Sin The Mother should an Harlot been Just such a one as Magdalen"

Songs of Experience, To Tirzah, Plate 52, (E 30)

"Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free, 
Then what have I to do with thee?"

[text on illustration: It is Raised a Spiritual Body]

Your Golden String

 Written Oct 2010

• FOREWORD

• I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball,

• It will lead you in at Heaven's gate Built in Jerusalem's wall. (Plate 77 of Jerusalem)

• 
  

•     Late 18th Century Europe existed in a state of rapid transition from medievalism to modernity. The old arrangement of society, a divinely ordained king, a land owning aristocracy, and a marriage of Church and State came increasingly under the attacks of political, economic, and religious progressives. The American Revolution pointed toward the outcome of the struggle. In Europe the decisive event came with the French Revolution and its aftermath.

• 
  

•     William Blake lived through those stirring times. His work has great significance as political commentary. Now, however, two centuries later its spiritual dimension has assumed even greater moment. Blake participated passionately in the social and political debates of the day, although few contemporaries heard his voice. It is his place in the spiritual dialogue that exercises the greatest fascination and will probably endure when the other dimensions of his thought have passed into the dust of time. Blake radically redefined the Christian faith and offered to his own and later generations a religious perspective that takes fully into account the corruptions of the past and the psychological sophistication of the future.

• 
  

•     It was during Blake's age that religious faith in Europe began to lose its grip upon the minds of men. His generation saw the final breakdown of the Medieval Synthesis and the triumphant emergence of the Age of Reason. He participated in a decisive battle of the eternal war between conservative religionists and liberal rationalists. Though without the bloodshed of earlier days, it was a conflict in which quarter was neither given nor expected. The battle pitted the community of faith, which in the 18th Century suffered an eclipse, against the rationalists, critical men of great brilliance. But none of the rationalists surpassed the brilliance of William Blake, a critical man of faith; their contribution to modern thought had its day; we are still far from catching up with his.

• 
  

•     In the battle between faith and reason Blake occupied a unique middle ground. On one hand he constantly attacked an oppressive politico-religious establishment; on the other he just as steadfastly defended a spiritual orientation against the rationalists. This meant for Blake a lifetime engagement on two fronts.

• 
  

•     This book describes and explores the various dimensions of Blake's vision of Christianity. One overriding consideration determined that vision: Blake saw freedom as the primary and ultimate value. The attitudes he expressed toward all institutions, his evaluation of them, the comments he made about them with his poetry and pictures, all these things were determined by the institution's relationship to that supreme value of freedom. He believed from the depths of his being that coercion in any form is the primary evil. It outweighs and in fact negates any benefit that an established religion may afford. Blake believed that regardless of his professed faith, the leader who uses coercion thereby shows himself to be a follower of the God of this World, the Tempter with whom Jesus dealt in the wilderness.

• 
  

•     As a religious thinker Blake customarily receives the designation of radical Protestant. The seeds of his protest go back far beyond Luther. In his day a more common term was dissenter. Blake protested against and dissented from the authority of the orthodox Christian tradition. We can best understand Blake as a thinker, as a Christian, and as a man, in terms of this dissent from orthodoxy. His intellectual life in many ways summarized the history of Christian dissent. His art evoked and drew upon the earlier occurrences of dissent through the centuries.

• 
  

•     Blake defined God in terms of vision. Every man has his own vision of God, and no two are exactly alike. Blake spent much of his time and energy describing the superstitious images of God embraced by men in his day as in our own. With his usual extravagant language he was capable of saying something like 'their God is a devil'. He's referring to their vision, their image of God. Think for a moment about the vision of God of the Inquisitors, of for that matter of Bin Laden. Their God gloried in blood, but not my God, Blake's or yours!

• 
  

•     Jesus was an obvious dissenter from the orthodox tradition into which he was born. He blithely ignored many of the requirements of respectable Judaism. He repeatedly violated the Sabbath. He felt perfectly free to initiate conversation with unfamiliar women, a gigantic taboo; in fact he spent hours with disreputable characters of both sexes. He ate without washing his hands. All these acts seriously violated the laws of his religious tradition. In 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' Blake claimed that Jesus broke all of the ten commandments and "was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules".

• 
  

• Going beyond mere dissent Jesus attacked the established religious leaders. He called them whited sepulchers, poked fun at them, and encouraged all sorts of insubordination among their followers. Worst of all he set himself up as an alternative authority. In all these ways he directly challenged the religious leaders and provoked them to bring about his execution as a revolutionist.

• 
  

•     Jesus perceived death as the ultimate authority or power of the world. On behalf of his ideals and with spiritual power he challenged death, and according to the Christian faith he defeated it; he conquered death. In the words of Paul he "abolished death". Blake understood this in a more existential way than do most Christians. One of his primary themes, running from the very beginning of his poetry until the last day of his life, was the redefinition of death in accordance with the Christian gospel.

• 

  Blake Archive
  The Grave by Robert Blair
  The Death of the Good Old Man