Phantasies

"There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find

Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, but the Industrious find

This Moment & it multiply. & when it once is found

It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed."

(Milton, 35.43; E136; E136).

"I rest not from my great task!

To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal EyesOf Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into EternityEver expanding in the Bosom of God. the

Human Imagination O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:

Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!"

(Jerusalem 5:15ff; Erdman 147)

Within each of us there is 'that of God', and there is 'that of the Selfhood'.

We're all born with God within us, but the vicissitudes of life (which Blake called Experience) lead to a diminution of 'that of God' within and a development of Selfhood, i.e. Satan.

Innocence, Experience; Selfhood, Forgiveness: these were the Categories (the 'Contraries') that Blake used to express the age-old program of life, the four stages of life:

Thomas Cole: Childhood:

Cole Youth:

Cole Manhood (doesn't appear): The man is riding the rapids and feverishly trying to keep afloat in the Vale of Tears.

Cole Old Age:

Whichever stage we are at the moment, in due course we'll reach the time and place of the fourth stage. The materialistic phantasies (the Sea of Time and Space) have faded away to be replaced by the Images of Wonder that were so real to William Blake.

     "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".

(Descriptions of The Last Judgment; Erdman 560)