MY SPECTRE

First posted March 2019

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

One of the facets of self-knowledge is the realization that we have within ourselves a bundle of inconsistencies. We act out these contrary states without consciousness of their source. There is value in tracing our feelings, rationalizations or outward behaviors to the facets of ourselves which are being expressed. In so doing we inform ourselves of the dynamics of the divisions within ourselves which prevent us from measuring up to the image of ourselves we hope to attain. In The King and the Corpse, Heinrich Zimmer refers to Blake's poem My Spectre in elucidating the powers which are actively preventing (or assisting) the transformation which man is seeking.

From The King and the Corpse, Page 221:
"As William Blake has put it: 'My Spectre around me night & day.' Wherever we look we discover our own inescapable selves. Wherever we step, a portion of our unknown self steps before us significantly, mysteriously fashioned and projected. Our destiny, our environment, our enemies, our companions - we have built them all. They stalk out of the depth, essential and self-produced. That is why to an enlightened person everything encountered is a manifestation of the initiating priest, a spiritual guide able to bestow the key. The shapes of the initiating powers change, but always in accordance with our own need and guilt; they reflect the degree of our spiritual nescience or maturity. And they prefigure the transformation required of us, the tasks we have yet to solve,"      

Songs and Ballads, My Spectre, (E 475)

"My Spectre around me night & day
Like a Wild beast guards my way
My Emanation far within               
Weeps incessantly for my Sin                                  

A Fathomless & boundless deep     
There we wander there we weep
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind

He scents thy footsteps in the snow
Wheresoever thou dost go               
Thro the wintry hail & rain
When wilt thou return again

Dost thou not in Pride & scorn        
Fill with tempests all my morn 
And with jealousies & fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears

Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life
Their marble tombs I built with tears  
And with cold & shuddering fears   

Seven more loves weep night & day
Round the tombs where my loves lay     
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright

And seven more Loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head       
Pitying & forgiving all
Thy transgressions great & small

When wilt thou return & view
My loves & them to life renew     
When wilt thou return & live
When wilt thou pity as I forgive       

Never Never I return                   
Still for Victory I burn
Living thee alone Ill have                
And when dead Ill be thy Grave

Thro the Heavn & Earth & Hell
Thou shalt never never quell
I will fly & thou pursue
Night & Morn the flight renew       

Till I turn from Female Love            
And root up the Infernal Grove          
I shall never worthy be                 
To Step into Eternity

And to end thy cruel mocks             
Annihilate thee on the rocks
And another form create
To be subservient to my Fate

Let us agree to give up Love
And root up the infernal grove                                 
Then shall we return & see
The worlds of happy Eternity

& Throughout all Eternity                     
I forgive you you forgive me
As our dear Redeemer said                                   
This the Wine & this the Bread"

Blake used many symbols to reveal the process of ridding oneself from impediments to spiritual growth. In the phrase; 'Till I turn from Female Love And root up the Infernal Grove,' he is giving instruction on how to solve the problem of being entrapped by the Spectre in a mind that repeats the 'same dull round.'  That is if we turn from our devotion to the the outward enticements, and if we remove form our  minds our false ideas and the ways of thinking that keep us bewildered, we will find ourselves capable of reaching a level of consciousness beyond our present ability. 

Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)

"I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!             
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death." 

Jerusalem, Plate 7, (E 150)
"Such are the Generations of the Giant Albion,
To separate a Law of Sin, to punish thee in thy members.         

Los answer'd. Altho' I know not this! I know far worse than this:
I know that Albion hath divided me, and that thou O my Spectre,
Hast just cause to be irritated: but look stedfastly upon me:
Comfort thyself in my strength the time will arrive,
When all Albions injuries shall cease, and when we shall         
Embrace him tenfold bright, rising from his tomb in immortality.
They have divided themselves by Wrath. they must be united by
Pity: let us therefore take example & warning O my Spectre,
O that I could abstain from wrath! O that the Lamb
Of God would look upon me and pity me in my fury.                
In anguish of regeneration! in terrors of self annihilation:
Pity must join together those whom wrath has torn in sunder,"

Jerusalem, Plate 73, (E 173)
 "And O thou Lamb of God, whom I    
Slew in my dark self-righteous pride:
  Art thou return'd to Albions Land!
And is Jerusalem thy Bride?

  Come to my arms & never more
Depart; but dwell for ever here:         
  Create my Spirit to thy Love:
Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear,

  Spectre of Albion! warlike Fiend!
In clouds of blood & ruin roll'd:
  I here reclaim thee as my own         
My Selfhood! Satan! armd in gold."

Jerusalem, Plate 41, (E 184)
[illustration, with inscription, reversed: 
"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" 

---

More posts on My Spectre:

Sea of Time and Space

https://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-spectre-n.html

Inner war

https://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2011/06/inner-war.html

SATAN

Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations of the Book of Job

Satan Before the Throne of God

The work that is done in the psyche is not all easy and pleasant. It involves tearing down as well as building up. It includes dividing as well as uniting. In the Book of Job, Satan was given the task of testing God's servant Job who was though to be perfect. It turned out that there was a lot of internal work that he needed to do before he knew his own defects and failing. Satan was the instrument through which Job was able to evolve into self-knowledge and a right relationship with God.

Blake describes Satan as having a unique place in the scheme of things. He has no permanent existence as either body or spirit. He exists only as a function and is created when his function needs to be performed. Satan is a state which man passes through along his journey through Eternal Death or life as it is known in this world. He is called the Miller of Eternity because he breaks down the hardened routines we accept as our personalities or who we are. If one's psyche is under the control of a mistaken but pervasive behavior, Satan may intervene to reveal the destructiveness of that arrangement. 

Something has to play the role of showing us what changes will make it possible for an individual to be freed from the chains that bind him to the status quo. Psychological development is a process which is never complete. Satan is a miller; he grinds the hard grains until the are fit to make bread to feed the soul of man. Along with Rintrah, the plowman, he breaks hardened surfaces so that the work of Palamabron, Los and Blake may be accomplished. 

Perhaps we encounter Satan in our dreams when we enter a dark place where we see chaos and destruction. The unconscious mind is signaling us that change is imminent. We have the option of making the necessary changes of becoming their victim. Albion resisted change and suffered the consequences.  

Milton, Plate 3, (E 97)

"At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan Refusing Form, in vain
The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest
That he may go to his own Place Prince of the Starry Wheels

Plate 4 
Beneath the Plow of Rintrah & the harrow of the Almighty
In the hands of Palamabron. Where the Starry Mills of Satan
Are built beneath the Earth & Waters of the Mundane Shell
Here the Three Classes of Men take their Sexual texture Woven
The Sexual is Threefold: the Human is Fourfold              
If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent, and
Not to shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but Folly.
Every Mans Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individ[u]ality
O Satan my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?  
Art thou not Newtons Pantocrator weaving the Woof of Locke
To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath,

Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.   

Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pitys paths.
Thy Work is Eternal Death, with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more. thou canst not have Eternal Life

So Los spoke! Satan trembling obeyd weeping along the way.
Mark well my words, they are of your eternal Salvation"        

Jerusalem, Plate 35  [39], (E 181)
"By Satans Watch-fiends tho' they search numbering every grain
Of sand on Earth every night, they never find this Gate.
It is the Gate of Los. Withoutside is the Mill, intricate, dreadful
And fill'd with cruel tortures; but no mortal man can find the Mill
Of Satan, in his mortal pilgrimage of seventy years              

For Human beauty knows it not: nor can Mercy find it! But 
In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd[,]
Mortality begins to roll the billows of Eternal Death
Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los." 

Descriptive Catalogue, Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, (E 535)

"Thus the reader will observe, that
Chaucer makes every one of his characters perfect in his kind,
every one is an Antique Statue; the image of a class, and not of
an imperfect individual.
  This groupe also would furnish substantial matter, on which
volumes might be written.  The Franklin is one who keeps open
table, who is the genius of eating and drinking, the Bacchus; as
the Doctor of Physic is the Esculapius, the Host is the Silenus,
the Squire is the Apollo, the Miller is the Hercules, &c.
Chaucer's characters are a description of the eternal Principles
that exist in all ages.  The Franklin is voluptuousness itself
most nobly pourtrayed:
Page 21
              "It snewed in his house of meat and drink."
  The Plowman is simplicity itself, with wisdom and strength
for its stamina.  Chaucer has divided the ancient character of
Hercules between his Miller and his Plowman.  Benevolence is the
plowman's great characteristic, he is thin with excessive labour,
and not with old age, as some have supposed.
               "He would thresh and thereto dike and delve
               For Christe's sake, for every poore wight,
               Withouten hire, if it lay in his might."
Visions of these eternal principles or characters of human
life appear to poets, in all ages; the Grecian gods were the
ancient Cherubim of Phoenicia; but the Greeks, and since them the
Moderns, have neglected to subdue the gods of Priam.  These Gods
are visions of the eternal attributes, or divine names, which,
when [P 22] erected into gods, become destructive to humanity.
They ought to be the servants, and not the masters of man, or of
society.  They ought to be made to sacrifice to Man, and not man
compelled to sacrifice to them; for when separated from man or
humanity, who is Jesus the Saviour, the vine of eternity, they
are thieves and rebels, they are destroyers.
  The Plowman of Chaucer is Hercules in his supreme eternal
state, divested of his spectrous shadow; which is the Miller, a
terrible fellow, such as exists in all times and places, for the
trial of men, to astonish every neighbourhood, with brutal
strength and courage, to get rich and powerful to curb the pride
of Man.

Jerusalem, Plate 31 [35], (E 177)

"Then the Divine hand found the Two Limits, Satan and Adam,

... 

"Albion goes to Eternal Death: In Me all Eternity.
Must pass thro' condemnation, and awake beyond the Grave!
No individual can keep these Laws, for they are death
To every energy of man, and forbid the springs of life;
Albion hath enterd the State Satan! Be permanent O State!
And be thou for ever accursed! that Albion may arise again:
And be thou created into a State! I go forth to Create           
States: to deliver Individuals evermore! Amen.

So spoke the voice from the Furnaces, descending into Non-Entity

 [To Govern the Evil by Good: and States abolish Systems.]" 

Romans 8 - Phillips Translation 

Verses 38-39 

        I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor
        life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth,
        neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow,
        neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor
        anything else in God's whole world has any power to
        separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our
        Lord! 

PSYCHIC ENERGY

PE [Psychic Energy] typically refers to the dynamics that empower human motivation and vitality. It also implies a direction-oriented force that fuels the pursuit and achievement of life goals and plans (Lewin, 1951; Wright, 1987; Baumeister, 2002).

British Museum

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

Blake's use of the sandal as a symbol was influenced by passage in the books of Mark and Acts in the New Testament. Two dramatic stories emphasize the putting on of sandals as emblematic of significant transitions in the abilities of the individuals who wore them. In Mark, Jesus send the disciples out by twos wearing sandals and without necessities to sustain themselves. What Jesus provided them with was power over unclean spirits. Mark reports that on their journey the disciples were able to cast out Devils and restore the sick to health. Before this time Jesus' disciples were not reported to have been capable of ministering in this way.

Following the account of the disciples going out by twos is another account of a change in Jesus' ministry when John the Baptist was beheaded at Herod's command. The chapter in Mark continues with the feeding of the masses, Jesus walking on the sea, the calming the waves, and making whole those who were ill. The power of Jesus underwent a pronounced alteration after he sent the disciples forth with the capacity to heal and saw them return reporting outstanding success. The atrocity against John the Baptist compounded the feeling that the time had come to make known the mission for which Jesus was sent into the world.

In the Book of Acts we read of Peter binding on his sandals before escaping from prison under the protection of an angel. Herod's execution order was thwarted, which allowed Peter to continue his ministry which was essential to the survival and growth of the young church. 

Mark 6 

[7] And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;
[8] And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:
[9] But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.
[10] And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place.
[11] And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
[12] And they went out, and preached that men should repent.
[13] And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.

...[22] And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.
[23] And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.
[24] And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

Acts 12

[5] Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
[6] And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
[7] And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.
[8] And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me.
[9] And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision.

In the same way Blake used the sandal as a symbol signifying a transition between states of consciousness. In Plate 8 of Milton, Satan had introduced a chaotic state by exchanging labors with Palamabron. The removal of Los' left sandal indicated the inception of a period of mourning over the loss of the fine balance among the states of wrath, pity and error.

On Milton Plate 21 binding on the sandal suggests that Blake himself was undergoing a stage of development. To 'walk forward thro' Eternity' he bound upon his foot the natural world as though a sandal. 

Plate 22 of Milton reveals Blake becoming one with Los in order to continue his journey through Udan-Adan. The strength that Blake needed he received when Los 'stoop'd down And bound my sandals on.'

Golden Sandals are mentioned on Plate 83 of Jerusalem. Los wears them on his watch as he patrols Golgonooza to protect it from the Spectre lest the work of the furnaces be destroyed.  

Milton, Plate 8, (E 101)

"Los beheld
The servants of the Mills drunken with wine and dancing wild
With shouts and Palamabrons songs, rending the forests green
With ecchoing confusion, tho' the Sun was risen on high.       

Then Los took off his left sandal placing it on his head,
Signal of solemn mourning: when the servants of the Mills
Beheld the signal they in silence stood, tho' drunk with wine.
Los wept! But Rintrah also came, and Enitharmon on
His arm lean'd tremblingly observing all these things          

And Los said. Ye Genii of the Mills! the Sun is on high
Your labours call you! Palamabron is also in sad dilemma;
His horses are mad! his Harrow confounded! his companions enrag'd.
Mine is the fault! I should have remember'd that pity divides the soul
And man, unmans: follow with me my Plow. this mournful day    
Must be a blank in Nature: follow with me, and tomorrow again
Resume your labours, & this day shall be a mournful day"

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115) 

"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.

And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot,
As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity. 

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)
"Tho driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great lamentation.

While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:         
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close

Behind my back; I turned round in terror, and behold.
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also  stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan; trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale             
Of Lambeth: but he kissed me and wishd me health.
And I became One  Man  with  him  arising in my strength:"

Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 242) 

"While Los arose upon his Watch, and down from Golgonooza 
Putting on his golden sandals to walk from mountain to mountain,
He takes his way, girding himself with gold & in his hand
Holding his iron mace: The Spectre remains attentive
Alternate they watch in night: alternate labour in day
Before the Furnaces labouring, while Los all night watches  
The stars rising & setting, & the meteors & terrors of night!" 

Wikimedia
Jerusalem
Frontispiece, Copy b

WHOLENESS

First Posted Aug 2009 

A quote from Edward F Edinger a Jungian psychologist :
THE ETERNAL DRAMA: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology

 

"Nothing new can emerge unless one is willing to dip into chaos and pull it out. 

Once it is out it promptly splits in two, into earth and sky in terms of the myth. This is something we see whenever something is coming into awareness: the very process of achieving consciousness involves a split into opposites. Things can remain in their state of oneness only as long as they are unconscious. When they reach consciousness, they must divide into opposites and then we have the experience of conflict." Page 10

From Encounter with the Self, by Edward F Edinger:  

"At first, the encounter with the Self is indeed a defeat of the ego; but with perseverance, /Deo volente,/ light is born from the darkness. One meets the "Immortal One" who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large - in a word the one who makes one whole." 

Page 9

Blake is willing to dip into that chaos and endure the splitting. He follows the process through its inner and outer manifestations and describes the unification process on the other side at a higher level of consciousness.

In plate 96 of JERUSALEM Blake writes:

"Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los"

This passage is symbolically dense. Practically every word in it is pregnant with meaning. Focus on any word within its context and it leads toward the transcending of divisions which is about to be achieved. From the undifferentation of unconsciousness, through recognition, awareness, sifting, and integration the Divine Appearance (unification) is being activated.

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 96

Think of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration: fourfold in humanity encountering the Eternal.

BRAIN

Wikipedia Commons

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Plate 10, Detail

Although Blake thought long and deeply about the human brain he didn't have the technology to study it that is now available. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who teaches at Stanford University, has been studying the "way parts [of the brain] unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric." Blake did however realize that the mind perceives more than what the five traditional sense organs discern. 

An additional sense that Blake recognized was 'spiritual sensation' or the Imagination. Through this sense Blake has access to a visionary world which revealed a dimension of reality 'closed to the senses five.' 

From Livewired, by David Eagleman, Page 54:

"The key to understanding this requires diving one level deeper: your three pounds of brain tissue are not directly hearing or seeing any of the world around you. Instead, your brain is locked in a crypt of silence and darkness inside your skull. All it ever sees are electro-chemical signals that stream along different data cables. That's all it has to work with."

"In ways we are still working to understand, the brain is stunningly gifted in taking these signals and extracting patterns. To these patterns we assign meaning. With the meaning you have subjective experience. The brain is an organ that converts sparks in the dark into the picture show of your world. All the hues and aromas and emotions and sensations in your life are encoded in trillions of signals zipping in blackness, just as a beautiful screen saver on your computer is fundamentally build of zeros and ones."

Page 61 

"In evolutionary time, random mutations introduce strange new sensors, and the recipient brains simply figure out how to exploit them. Once the principles of brain operation have been established, nature can simply worry about designing new sensors. 

"This perspective allows a lesson to come into focus: the devices we come to the table with - eyes, noses, ears, tongues, fingertips - are not the only collection of instruments we could have had. These are simply what we have inherited from a lengthy and complex road of evolution.

But that particular collection of sensors may not be what we have to stick with." ___________________________________________________________

Four Zoas, Night II ,Page 34, (E 322)

"For Los & Enitharmon walkd forth on the dewy Earth     
Contracting or expanding their all flexible senses               
At will to murmur in the flowers small as the honey bee
At will to stretch across the heavens & step from star to star
Or standing on the Earth erect, or on the stormy waves
Driving the storms before them or delighting in sunny beams
While round their heads the Elemental Gods kept harmony"    

Book of Urizen, Plate 3, (E 71)

"1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung"

Book of Urizen, Plate 4 (E 92)

"7: Many ages of groans: till there grew
Branchy forms. organizing the Human
Into finite inflexible organs."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 5, (E 35)   

"How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
   Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?"

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION [a],(E 2)

 "IV  None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if
he had none but organic perceptions"

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION [b], (E 2) 

 "I  Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 4, (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 71, (E 225) 

"as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven
And Earth, & all you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within
In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow." 

Songs of Experience, The Tyger, (E 24)
 
"What the hammer? what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,     
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!" 

Songs of Experience, The Human Abstract, (27) 

"The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain" 

Visions of Daughters of Albion, Plate 2, (E 47)

"The lark does rustle in the ripe corn, and the Eagle returns     
From nightly prey, and lifts his golden beak to the pure east;
Shaking the dust from his immortal pinions to awake
The sun that sleeps too long. Arise my Theotormon I am pure.
Because the night is gone that clos'd me in its deadly black.
They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;     
They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up.
And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle,
And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning
Till all from life I was obliterated and erased.
Instead of morn arises a bright shadow, like an eye              
In the eastern cloud: instead of night a sickly charnel house;
That Theotormon hears me not! to him the night and morn
Are both alike: a night of sighs, a morning of fresh tears"

Milton, Plate 2 (E 96) 

"Come into my hand    
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself." 

French Revolution, Page 10, (E 294)

"But go, merciless man! enter into the infinite labyrinth of another's brain
Ere thou measure the circle that he shall run. Go, thou cold recluse,into the fires
Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd, and write laws.
If thou canst not do this, doubt thy theories, learn to consider all men as thy equals,
Thy brethren, and not as thy foot or thy hand, unless thou first fearest to hurt them."

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 11, (E 306)

"Tho in the Brain of Man we live, & in his circling Nerves.       
Tho' this bright world of all our joy is in the Human Brain.
Where Urizen & all his Hosts hang their immortal lamps"

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 710) 

 "And Now Begins a New life. because another
covering of Earth is shaken off.  I am more famed in Heaven for
my works than I could well concieve   In my Brain are studies &
Chambers filld with books & pictures of old which I wrote &
painted in ages of Eternity. before my mortal life & whose works
are the delight & Study of Archangels.  Why then should I be
anxious about the riches or fame of mortality."

Letters, To Trusler, (E 702) 

"Why is the Bible more

Entertaining & Instructive than any other book. Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason Such is True Painting and such alone valued by the Greeks & the best modern Artists. Consider what Lord Bacon says "Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged & Reason sends over to Imagination before the Decree can be acted." See Advancemt of Learning Part 2 P 47 of first Edition But I am happy to find a Great Majority of Fellow Mortals who can Elucidate My Visions & Particularly they have been Elucidated by Children who have taken a greater delight in contemplating my Pictures than I even hoped. Neither Youth nor Childhood is Folly or Incapacity Some Children are Fools & so are some Old Men. But There is a vast Majority on the side of Imagination or Spiritual Sensation"

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132) 

"The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created                  
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated Forms cannot
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife
But their Forms Eternal Exist, For-ever. Amen Halle[l]ujah" 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Eagleman writes that his long-range goal is "to understand how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world".

 

PLOW

Four Zoas

Page 5 

 

In his thesis Lee Hamilton explored Blake's poem Four Zoas from the perspective of Jungian psychology. His paper is deserving of careful study.

The explanation of the use of the plow as the symbol for the work of Urizen relates to the relationship of consciousness to unconsciousness. If in the first half of life, the task of man is to develop consciousness as represented by his Ego, his thinking controlling function, the second half of life turns to reversing the process. The Ego or consciousness must begin to relinquish control to the aspects of the psyche which have been unconscious. Urizen must relinquish ascendancy to Urthona who represents man's spiritual nature, intuition or wholeness.

Thesis by Lee Hamilton, ENERGY AND ARCHETYPE: A JUNGIAN ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR ZOAS BY WILLIAM BLAKE, Page 49.

 "The furnace is opened, and the molten metal that is now Luvah is allowed to pour out into furrows cut by Urizen's plow of the ages. This act symbolizes the canalization of the Feeling function by the Thinking function. Urizen forces the remains of Luvah into a furrow or form of his own design, just as he forced the Bulls of Luvah by making them pull his plow and do his bidding. The plow symbolizes the mastery of the conscious forces over the unconscious. Wherever the plow goes, it wrests a portion of the soil from its primal, un-conscious state and gives it over to the use of man's conscious intellect (Jung, IX, pt. 2, 148)."

Aion, C G Jung, Page 148:

"Since olden times the plough has stood for man's mastery over the earth: wherever man ploughs, he has wrested a patch of soil from the primal state and put it to his own use. That is to say: the fishes will rule this world and subdue it by working astrologically through man and moulding his consciousness." 

In the first half of life Urizen's plow tills the field breaking the soil and  creating the furrows. Through building a system the mind processes the data by which the senses connect the inner world of the mind with the outer material world. Consciousness is expanded at the expense of instinctive unconscious activity.   

A point is reached where there is a realization that there is more to life than life in the material. Recognizing that the body will die but that consciousness is more than the body, man becomes aware that the individual is connected to a greater consciousness. The second half of life can be used to explore and develop the inner life which never dies. Time and Space begin to lose their grip as man perceives the Eternal and Infinite.

In the final resolution of the Four Zoas Urizen plays a pivotal role.  

As expressed by Hamilton on Page 117:

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 124, (E 393)

"The Sons of Urizen Shout Their father rose The Eternal horses
Harnessd They calld to Urizen the heavens moved at their call
The limbs of Urizen shone with ardor. He laid his hand on the Plow                                                       t
Thro dismal darkness drave the Plow of ages over Cities
And all their Villages over Mountains & all their Vallies
Over the graves & caverns of the dead   Over the Planets
And over the void Spaces over Sun & moon & star & constellation"

"As already mentioned, the plowing symbolizes the victory of consciousness over unconsciousness. In this final apocalypse the meaning is the same, but it is applied on a higher plane of consciousness. Urizen's plow passes not over the surface of the Earth but over the entire universe. This represents the victory of a higher level of consciousness, an awareness of the presence of God, the self, and a divine order in the Universe. In psychological terms, this represents an awareness of the self, the God within every man, and its harmonizing influence." 

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Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 138, (E 406)

"The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning     
And the mild moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night    
And Man walks forth from midst of the fires the evil is all consumd
His eyes behold the Angelic spheres arising night & day
The stars consumd like a lamp blown out & in their stead behold
The Expanding Eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds 
One Earth one sea beneath nor Erring Globes wander but Stars
Of fire rise up nightly from the Ocean & one Sun
Each morning like a New born Man issues with songs & Joy
Calling the Plowman to his Labour & the Shepherd to his rest
He walks upon the Eternal Mountains raising his heavenly voice   
Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night & day
That risen from the Sea of fire renewd walk oer the Earth

For Tharmas brought his flocks upon the hills & in the Vales
Around the Eternal Mans bright tent the little Children play
Among the wooly flocks The hammer of Urthona sounds              
In the deep caves beneath his limbs renewd his Lions roar
Around the Furnaces & in Evening sport upon the plains
They raise their faces from the Earth conversing with the Man

How is it we have walkd thro fires & yet are not consumd
How is it that all things are changd even as in ancient times"  

A Vision of the Last Judgment, (E 554)

"The Nature of Visionary Fancy or Imagination is very little
Known & the Eternal nature & permanence of its ever Existent
Images is considerd as less permanent than the things of
Vegetative & Generative Nature yet the Oak dies as well as the
Lettuce but Its Eternal Image & Individuality never dies. but
renews by its seed. just as the Imaginative Image
returns according to the seed of Contemplative
Thought   the Writings of the Prophets illustrate these conceptions
of the Visionary Fancy by their various sublime & Divine Images
as seen in the Worlds of Vision"