In the Grave

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William Blake: Christ in the Sepulchre, Guarded by Angels
William Blake (1757–1827)

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From the Four Zoas; Erdman 385:

And Los & Enitharmon took the Body of the Lamb

Down from the Cross & placd it in a Sepulcher which Los

had hewn

For himself in the Rock of Eternity trembling & in despair

Jerusalem wept over the Sepulcher two thousand Years

Blake suggests here that they are still waiting for the

Resurrection. Actually he thought the Resurrection is in

Eternity where there's no time.

---

This from The Four Zoas, Erdman 379:

Jerusalem saw the Body dead upon the Cross She fled away

Saying Is this Eternal Death Where shall I hide from Death

Pity me Los pity me Urizen & let us build a Sepulcher and

worship Death in fear while yet we live .....

And Let all Nations of the Earth worship at the Sepulcher

With Gifts & Spices with lamps rich embossd jewels & gold

Of Eternity for himself he hewd it despairing of Life Eternal

They bore it to the Sepulcher which Los had hewn in the
rock Of Eternity for himself he hewd it despairing of Life Eternal

---

In Jerusalem plate 12 we read:

Terrified at the sublime Wonder, Los stood before his Furnaces.

And they stood around, terrified with admiration at Erins Spaces

For the Spaces reachd from the starry heighth, to the starry

    depth;
And they builded Golgonooza: terrible eternal labour!

What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-place

Mild Zions hills most ancient promontory; near mournful

Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and Golgotha?
Becoming a building of pity and compassion?

---

Strange how Golgonooza and Golgotha are related, both with

'Golgo'! Golgotha is where they 'waited 2000 years';

Golgonooza is where we built the 'Kingdom of God' all those

years. It seems we're all waiting.

BLAKE'S MOMENTS

Wikimedia
Original in Huntington Library
Song of Los
Plate 2, Copy E

Science aims to make the future predictable. Every effect is the result of a cause. Each behavior follows laws which have been tested in the crucible of experiment to insure their reliability. Generalizations can be made from particulars. Any deviation from predicted behavior leads to further rule-making to explain, to justify and to predict. Behavior may fall outside of the predictable range but we can calculate the statistical probability of that occurring.  

A world governed by such science was not one in which William Blake lived. In his world every effect had a spiritual cause. Time was the mercy of eternity. Everything possible to be believed was an image of truth. Outer experience resulted from inner consciousness. Science could not exist in generalizing demonstrations of rational power.

It was possible for Blake to be comfortable in a world where a single moment may contain infinite imagery and every bird that cuts the airy way may be an immense world of delight. 

Ronald L. Grimes writing in Blake's Sublime Allegory, explains that in Blake's thought:

"Events do not proceed from one another developmentally. One might infer that vision is none other than the breakdown of strict chronological and causal sequences. Visionary relationships are the opposite of deterministic relationships, and each event is a 'miracle' in the sense that its cause is not immediately evident if one looks only at the empirical level. Events are somehow related, but not causally related. The problem is to find out exactly how they are related." (Page 64-5)

Milton, Plate 28 (30), (E 126)
"But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours
And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods; wondrous buildings
And every Moment has a Couch of gold for soft repose,
(A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery)    ,
And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
And every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils.  
And every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill.
And every Day & Night, has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious stones & ornamented with appropriate signs:

And every Month, a silver paved Terrace builded high:
And every Year, invulnerable Barriers with high Towers.
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold.
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years
Each has its Guard. each Moment Minute Hour Day Month & Year.
All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements      
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.
PLATE 29 [31]
For in this Period the Poets Work is Done: and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are concievd in such a Period
Within a Moment: a Pulsation of the Artery."

Sleep

Much has been written about the inferiority of the Woman in Blake's myth and poetry; it concerns the psychic makeup of Man. But this post approaches women is an entirely different way.  A woman is the subject of many of the illuminated poems and many others:

Thel, the Little Girl(s) Lost and Found,  Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Jerusalem!

Then there were the nymphs of The Sea if Time and Space; in Blake’s mythopoeic we all came down from Above as nymphs.

All these women directly concern Blake’s primary myth of life, death, and resurrections.

In SONGS 34
The Little Girl Lost                           

In futurity
I prophetic see,
That the earth from sleep,
(Grave the sentence deep)

Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek:
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wandered long,
Hearing wild birds' song.

'Sweet sleep , come to me,
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother, weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?

'Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?

'If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.

'Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright
Let thy moon arise,
While I close my eyes.'

Sleeping Lyca lay,
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
Viewed the maid asleep.

The kingly lion stood,
And the virgin viewed:
Then he gambolled round
O'er the hallowed ground.

Leopards, tigers, play
Round her as she lay;
While the lion old
Bowed his mane of gold,

And her bosom lick,
And upon her neck,
From his eyes of flame,
Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness
Loosed her slender dress,
And naked they conveyed
To caves the sleeping maid.(Erdman 20)

(Read the whole poem.)

Our heroine, Lyca has left home and is lost - and sleepy.

(Sleep for Blake meant death, not death from the world, but death to the world.)

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In the Arlington Tempera the nymphs come down from Above (much as Lyca did) into the Sea of Time and Space (they die to heaven and live in the world.) If they (we) are fortunate we make shore like they did, and return to the Heavenly Realm.

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For Blake ‘sleep’ was dying to heaven, waking is going back, as the apostle said:

Eph.5

1. [14] Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

DIVINE VISION

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

A book of essays on Blake's three major epics, The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem, published in 1971, has contributed enormously to our understanding of Blake's meaning. Today I quote from Jerome J. McGann's essay, The Air of Blake's Prophecies, contained in Blake's Sublime Allegory, edited by Currran, and Wittreich. 
 

"All Three of Blake's surviving epics are explicit attempts to recover the Divine Vision for, in, and through the world. He does not compose his poetry for himself but for the 'Divine Humanity,' the brotherhood of all men. Thus he will say: 'I will not cease from Mental Fight...Till we have built Jerusalem' (M1:95). That is, 'I' (Blake) struggle that 'we' (Man)  may together, in vision, recover our emanation Jerusalem, who is the image of every man's infinite desire. Blake is not simply being modest here. The lyric states the literal fact of his belief, that the original state of blessedness is recovered only when every man lives in vision, that is, when every man beholds the universe in his own active imagination. An 'external world' is a delusion just as any 'generalized' conception of reality is a shadow. To find the world must find oneself.

For all are Men in Eternity. Rivers Mountains Cities Villages,
All are Human & when you enter into their Bosoms you walk
In Heavens & Earths; 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.
(J 71:15-19) 

"Milton and Vala carry the same message. Since imagination 'is the Human Existence itself' (M 32:32), to  be without imagination is to be inhuman, dead."  (Page 6) 

Jerusalem, Plate 54, (E 203)
"In Great Eternity, every particular Form gives forth or Emanates
Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Divine Vision
And the Light is his Garment This is Jerusalem in every Man
A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness Male & Female Clothings.
And Jerusalem is called Liberty among the Children of Albion"

Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 173)
 "He witherd up the Human Form,
By laws of sacrifice for sin:
  Till it became a Mortal Worm:    
But O! translucent all within.

  The Divine Vision still was seen
Still was the Human Form, Divine
  Weeping in weak & mortal clay
O Jesus still the Form was thine."      

The Rock

Blake used ‘rock’ extensively as did the Bible.
Among the 128 occurrences of the Rock, we might begin with the Rock of Horeb:

Exodus
17 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of
Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in
Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.

2 Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may
drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt
the Lord?

3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses,
and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and
our children and our cattle with thirst?

4 And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be
almost ready to stone me.

5 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the
elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand,
and go.

6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite
the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses
did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of
the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among
us, or not?

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Exodus 33:
12 And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people:
and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I
know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.

13 Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy
way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this
nation is thy people.

14 And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

15 And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy
sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people,
from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

17 And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for
thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

18 And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

21 And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a
rock:

22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift
of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face
shall not be seen.

---

Deuteronomy 34:
3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth
and without iniquity, just and right is he.

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Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in
whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

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Turning to the Blake Concordance, among 324 others we find:
The Book of Milton Plate25:
The Awakener is come. outstretchd over Europe! the Vision of God is
fulfilled The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes,

Jerusalem (Erdman 191):
PLATE 43 [29]
Then the Divine Vision like a silent Sun appeard above
Albions dark rocks: setting behind the Gardens of Kensington
On Tyburns River, in clouds of blood: where was mild Zion Hills
Most ancient promontory, and in the Sun, a Human Form appeard
And thus the Voice Divine went forth upon the rocks of Albion
------
Albions Reactor must have a Place prepard: Albion must Sleep
The Sleep of Death, till the Man of Sin & Repentance be reveald.
--------
I come that I may find a way for my banished ones to return
Fear not O little Flock I come! Albion shall rise again.

And Jerusalem PLATE 48:
These were his last words, and the merciful Saviour in his arms
Reciev'd him, in the arms of tender mercy and repos'd
The pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality
Upon the Rock of Ages. Then, surrounded with a Cloud:
In silence the Divine Lord builded with immortal labour,
Of gold & jewels a sublime Ornament, a Couch of repose,
With Sixteen pillars: canopied with emblems & written verse.
Spiritual Verse, order'd & measur'd, from whence, time shall
reveal.
The Five books of the Decologue, the books of Joshua & Judges,
Samuel, a double book & Kings, a double book, the Psalms &
Prophets
The Four-fold Gospel, and the Revelations everlasting
.......
Albions Reactor must have a Place prepard: Albion must Sleep
The Sleep of Death, till the Man of Sin & Repentance be reveald.
--------
I come that I may find a way for my banished ones to return
Fear not O little Flock I come! Albion shall rise again.

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From study of the above we may surmise that for the Bible the ‘Rock’ had become a
synonym for God. Blake used it likewise; the Rock of Albion became the place where
Albion (and us) went to sleep and in due course AWAKENED.

The Rock quoted above in Exodus was closely related to the river, another metaphor prominent in
the Bible and in Blake.

LAST JUDGMENT IV

The Bible was deeply ingrained in Blake's psyche. It was natural for him to incorporate Biblical ideas throughout his work. 

John 9
[39] And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. 

First John 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:  

Revelation 12
[9] And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

John 12
[23] And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
[24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
[25] He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.


An additional way in which Blake viewed the Last Judgment was in terms of Satan and Jesus. Satan the accuser, the deceiver, the punisher must be cast out before the Judgment Seat of Jesus who receives all who came to him for forgiveness. It is death who dies before the Judgment Seat as those seeking a new life in Christ are born to Life Eternal. In this image of the Day of Judgment, the fall of those in the state of Satan is pictured on the left side of Jesus, on his right are those who are forgiving and forgiven. At the very bottom of the picture are souls coming from under ground, about to choose which path to follow: that of forgiving or accusing. 

Jerusalem, Plate 31 [35], (E 177)
"Then the Divine hand found the Two Limits, Satan and Adam,
In Albions bosom: for in every Human bosom those Limits stand.
And the Divine voice came from the Furnaces, as multitudes without
Number! the voices of the innumerable multitudes of Eternity.
And the appearance of a Man was seen in the Furnaces;            
Saving those who have sinned from the punishment of the Law,
(In pity of the punisher whose state is eternal death,)
And keeping them from Sin by the mild counsels of his love.
Albion goes to Eternal Death: In Me all Eternity.
Must pass thro' condemnation, and awake beyond the Grave!"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)
 "In Hell all is Self
Righteousness there is no such thing there as Forgiveness of Sin
he who does Forgive Sin is Crucified as an Abettor of Criminals.
& he who performs Works of Mercy in Any shape whatever is punishd
& if possible destroyd not thro Envy  or Hatred or Malice but
thro Self Righteousness that thinks it does God service which God
is Satan 
Forgiveness of Sin is only at the Judgment Seat of Jesus the
Saviour where the Accuser is cast out. not because he Sins but
because he torments the Just & makes them do what he condemns as
Sin & what he knows is opposite to their own Identity 
     It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that
makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from
one another but from God only" 

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 564) 
"Christ comes
as he came at first to deliver those who were bound under the
Knave not to deliver the Knave He Comes to Deliver Man the
[Forgiven]  not Satan the Accuser we do not
find any where that Satan is Accused of Sin he is only accused of
Unbelief & thereby drawing Man into Sin that he may accuse him. 
Such is the Last Judgment a Deliverance from Satans Accusation
Satan thinks that Sin is displeasing to God he ought to know that
Nothing is displeasing to God but Unbelief & Eating of the Tree
of Knowledge of Good & Evil 
     Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have
 governd their Passions or have No Passions but because
they have Cultivated their Understandings.  The Treasures of
Heaven are not Negations of Passion but Realities of Intellect
from which All the Passions Emanate  in their Eternal
Glory   The Fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so
Holy.  Holiness is not The Price of Enterance into Heaven Those
who are cast out Are All Those who having no Passions of their
own because No Intellect.  Have spent their lives in Curbing &
Governing other Peoples by the Various arts of Poverty & Cruelty
of all kinds   Wo Wo Wo to you Hypocrites   Even Murder the
Courts of Justice  are compelld to
allow is not done in Passion but in Cool Blooded Design &
Intention 
     The Modern Church Crucifies Christ with the Head Downwards"  

Everlasting Gospel, (in Blake's Notebook), (E 876)

British Museum
Illustrations to Robert Blair's The Grave
Designed by Blake engraved by Schiavonetti
Day of Judgment

     "It was when Jesus said to Me
     Thy Sins are all forgiven thee
     The Christian trumpets loud proclaim
     Thro all the World in Jesus name
     Mutual forgiveness of each Vice
     And oped the Gates of Paradise
     The Moral Virtues in Great fear
     Formed the Cross & Nails & Spear
     And the Accuser standing by
     Cried out Crucify Crucify
     Our Moral Virtues neer can be
     Nor Warlike pomp & Majesty
     For Moral Virtues all begin
     In the Accusations of Sin"

Revelation 12
[10] And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

The picture can be greatly enlarged by right clicking to open in a new window. Then click on picture for more detail.
 

Myths 4

Visions of the Daughters of Albion

Graphic Version 

Here's a Blakean twist on the ubiquitous eternal triangle of all the love stories.

   Here we see clearly the moral approach. Blake used it to express his emphatic displeasure at the notion that a raped girl is 'damaged goods' and no longer worthy of the love of her erswhile lover. He considered that a high degree of immorality, another expression of the Jealousy that was for Blake the primary sin; and to perceive a woman as property, all too prevalent in Blake's day and still quite common in ours.

"Father of jealousy. be thou accursed from the earth!"
Are not these the places of religion, the rewards of continence?A poke at conventional religion in which women are considered property!

   Otherwise the metaphysical (or mythological) 'approach' presents an early (1793) version of the myth of the Kore. Oothoon is of course Persephone":

"The Golden nymph replied; pluck thou my flower Oothoon the mild" .  Oothoon was trapped in "Pluto's realm", the material world without escape, but she never joined it. Hurrah!

   This poem has a lot to say about human sexuality, but that won't be dwelt on further here.

Symbols:

   Although most of us who are religious types may struggle our whole lives for those precious moments of God consciousness, William Blake had a direct pipeline to the Beyond. Heavenly visions dominated his mind in an overwhelming way. His wife had only one fault to find, "Mr. Blake spends too much time in Heaven."

   Those 'heavenly' moments he could best (or only) describe in the symbolic terms of the ages, a language that has been largely forgotten since the Enlightenment by our materialistic culture, which despises anything other than the 'hard reality' of dollars and cents.

Here are a few of the esoteric symbols:  The sun is the symbol of God and Eternity.

The moon is the symbol of mortality, the realm of the world.

Lyca is the earth. The little girl symbolizes the world. She is also a type for Leutha (sexuality), and Eve. The little girl heard the "wild bird's song" (look at Plate 6 of Songs of Experienc)e. 

Lyca here is in the form of an adult woman with a lover (which is what it means to hear the wild bird's song). She immediately desires sleep.

Blake means something other than what we mean by natural sleep; he means in fact the descent of an immortal soul into the fallen world. Coming from the South (land of the Immortals) Lyca hears the wild bird's song, and sleeps.

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Job

   Job is the Universal Man, Albion, you and me, the cosmos. In American culture Man may be thought of as getting and spending, or more comprehensively as radical materialists in the absence of any spiritual outlook. Reading The Book of Job, Blake found these same qualities in Job, particularly a legalistic religion of self satisfaction. He also found them in the zoas, fractured parts of the Universal Man when he descended from Eternity and went to sleep.

   Blake did his Job illustrations in his sixties, near the end of a long and productive life. It contains in essence, but comprehensive and succinct, the same myth as all the others. Job is the story of Albion, of Blake and his world, of you and me and ours. If you study nothing Blakean but Job, it will yield an accurate picture of Blake's system of thought, what he is about, and what he feels and believes most deeply.

   Kathleen Raine, near the end of her long and productive life published a little book called Golgoonza. It contains a very good treatment of Blake's Job. On page 127 she wrote, "It is clear that the figure of Albion is to a great extent derived from the Book of Job.

   There are many good presentations of Blake's Job on the web. The most helpful one might be in a work emanating from Boston College.

   This one has a frame with the King James Version of the Bible pointed to by Blake in his magnificent production. Remarkably the text spread around Blake's pictures appear to have almost verbatim copies of various parts of the Bible Book of Job.

   Here is the initial picture of another of the Job series. Click on the Next to see the successive pictures one by one. Here is the last picture. These pictures, like most of Blake's pictorial art are largely diagrammatic, designed to convey spiritual meaning.

---

Summary of Job from Raine's Golgonooza and Edinger's  Encounter with the Self.

   Plate 0  (Title Page) shows a circle of seven winged angels, to evoke the seven eyes of God and the seven eyes of the lamb. They are said to go to and fro in the earth and to walk up and down in it (Job 1:7). We may suppose that the one on the far left is Satan; his back is turned, and he's striving upward.

   From  Plate 1: Musical instruments (for spiritual activity) are hanging unused in the tree. Job and wife sit there, each with a book on their lap indicating that they live by the law: We see a verse of scripture "the Letter Killeth, the Spirit giveth life" ( Corinthians 3:6)

   Above the picture Blake put the beginning of The Lord's Prayer, and in the upper left below the rising Sun we see a cathedral. All of this significies that Job and family are resting here in the arms of the conventional church- the institution where people go to feel. good. They have fallen from Beulah to the land of space and time and pure materialism, making way for Satan to enter their lives.

   In Plate 2 The Angel of the Presence (a name for the Prince of this World disguised as  an angel of light) presides over the scene (his short hair distinguishes him from more creditable images that Blake drew of God). He's accusing Job, who attempts to defend (justify) himself. The God figure here is as always the God within Job's mind. (The only God we know is the one in our mind.)

   This picture like many of the others portrays a three story universe. At the upper Spirit, where the God figure resides; the middle level contains the principalities, and at the bottom we have creatures of time and space.

   In Plate 3, receiving permission from the Lord, Satan proceeds to all sorts of havoc including killing Job's children.

   Plate 4 shows the messenger bringing this sad news to Job and wife. Raine (127) also pointed to verses in 4Z Night 1: (Raine 127)

His inward eyes closing from the divine vision, & all
his children wandering outside, from his bosom fleeing away.
      (the last two verses of the first Night)    In Plate 5 we have an example of self-righteous charity; at least that was Blake's intention: "Was not my soul grieved for the poor?" (Job xxx:25)

   Plate 6: In the face of his "charity" Job comes down with boils from head to toe. Blake used this figure in Plate 21 of Jerusalem when Albion speaks to the Emanation (Vala! Jerusalem):

"O lovely forms (of female love), you have prepared my death cup.
The disease of Shame covers me from head to feet.
I have no hope; every boil upon my body is a separate and deadly Sin.
Doubt first assailed me, then Shame took possession of me
(Continue to read this passage in the  Blake text.)
      (Jerusalem plate 21 K643)    In Plate 7 Job's friends, using the most common (calvinistic) excuse for great wealth, inform Job that his prosperity is gone because he has not been righteous. Such were Job's comforters Job 2:11.

   In Plate 8 Job complains to God and protests, as Raine wrote "the great protest of man against the human lot" (page 131): like the holocaust: what is God doing??? Job says here: "Let the Day perish wherein I was Born" (Job 3:3).

   In Plate 9 Eliphaz, one of Job's three friends describes a dream that takes us out of the purely material where we've been up to now. Dreams occur frequently in the Bible and always represent the eruption of the non material on the scene. Eliphaz pointed upward, and Job and wife and other two friends look into Heaven.

   In Plate 10, in spite of that epiphany, Job's three friends accuse him, causing his response "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him (Job xiii:15)." Job's wife joins in the accusation: Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die" (2:9).

   Plate 11: Wife gone, friends gone; Job is all alone, haunted by shadows in his dream and under the dominion of his false God. A very fearful 'God', entwined by a snake, torments Job in his sleep while inhabitants from Hell are trying to drag him down.

   This is a terrible picture: with his right hand Yahweh points up to the Book of Law while his left hand points down to Hell.

   Plate 12: A vivid contrast to the darkness of Plate 11! After the pit of darkness comes the morning, the New Birth! Elihu appears and seems to have set Job straight. (A copy of this picture is said to have been on Raine's desk for years.)

   Elihu, the young man speaks for God; he brings good news, the new wine after the dire warnings of Blake 'three friends' Elihu is the Spirit of Prophecy, Los, the zoa that Blake most identified with. Elihu is a type of Christ.

   In plate 13 God speaks to Job "out of the whirlwind",. Throughout the Bible the wind is a symbol of the Holy Spirit (note the still small voice out of the whirlwind that came to Elijah (I Kings 19:11-13), the wind that shook Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), Jesus' statement about the wind (John 3:8). Job and his wife  see God face to face, the most blessed thing that can happen to anyone. Job got new flocks and new children, but seeing God was the real blessing of the experience. The first is material; the other Eternal; God had tested Job and had found him pure in heart.

   Plate 14: "When the morning stars sang together & all the sons of God shouted for joy". We see here the clearest picture of the three story universe which has pervaded the Illustrations to Job. Under the foundation of God sit the characters of this drama in the material realm. God occupies the psychological realm, the vision of God that we carry through life; above are the Eternals.

   The borders of Plate 14 depict the seven days of Creation; Job has created a new world through the travail of his experiences. (Blake set much of his story before the creation; he believed in fact that Creation Continues).

   In Plate 15 Blake shows God pointing to  Behemoth and  Leviathan in a sphere according to Raine (140) the time-world. They are said to represent duality, a problem for Job, Blake, and many others of us; "Unity is only in God". Job comes to understand that God is something beyond the "God of Goodness" (See also Jung's Answer to Job.)

   In Plate 16 we see "Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:17-18). Blake has revealed to us over and over who Satan is: he is the Selfhood, and most particularly the Accuser. When we judge we accuse; it is Satan in us. This is the Last Judgment, not a moment of time, but an eternal change that Job and wife are priviledged here to witness.

Whenever any individual rejects error and embraces truth, a last judgment passes upon that individual.

       In Plate 17 God blesses Job, which inspires him to say, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee" (Job 42:5). In the margin are quotations from the Book of John, a veritable cornucopia of verses describing this moment in everyone's life.

       Raine, a Blakean and Jungian scholar, feels that this is the best evidence of individuation, but that Jung missed it (Golgonooze 141). Did he?

       In Plate 18 God accepts Job and tells him to pray for his friends. The Plate includes a portion of the  Sermon on the Mount where we're told to love our enemies.

       In Plate 19 Job is giving a feast out of his new munificence. The guests arrive bringing presents to Job, in contrast to Plate 5, where the wealthy man, Job gives a crust of bread to a beggar.

       Plate 20 shows Job sitting in peace and comfort with his daughters. Raine (142) understands this to mean that Blake has transcended his fear of woman's love, which he had formerly associated with fallenness; I can't agree with Raine about this; he wrote too many glowing love poems. But in the term female love, as in My Spectre Round Me Night and Day , (especially in Verse xi), he's in the midst of another myth, the myth of the fallen emanation of Albion.

       The last plate (21) shows Blake gathered around his family and flock. Recall that Plate 1 had a very similar picture, but with some notable exceptions. The cathedral is no longer in the background (Job [Blake] emancipated from the law), nor is the book of law. Instead the musical instruments, hanging idle in Plate 1, is now in use by Job and family, so they are engaged in creative activity instead of attachment to the law. In both Plates they are gathering at the foot of the Tree of Life.

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       The uncanny thing about Blake's Illustrations to Job is that each picture illustrates a stage of his own life. (Everything he wrote was autobiographical!!)