SPIRIT & IMAGINATION

Fitzwilliam Museum
The Ascension

Although both Blake and Jung elevated imagination to a position of importance, the perspectives from which they considered it were different. Jung, the scientist, considered imagination from an analytic perspective. Blake used extravagant language in his poetry to present the immediate experience of the imagination which Jung described. Both realized that spirit and imagination are closely allied but Blake considered imagination to be essential to living as a human.

Jung's primary interest was the psyche and he tended to view the spirit in relationship to psychological development. Blake saw the spirit as primary: the Zoas were meant to serve the spirit which was eternal and immortal. Jung was reticent about overstating the role of the spirit in humanity's development but he paid homage to it as a source of creativity.

Four Archetypes, by C. G. Jung, Page 90:

"The hallmarks of spirit are firstly, the principle of spontaneous movement and activity; secondly the spontaneous capacity to produce images independently of sense perception; and thirdly the autonomous and sovereign manipulation of these images. The spiritual entity approaches primitive man from outside; but with increasing development gets lodged in man's consciousness and becomes a subordinate function, thus apparently forfeiting its original character of autonomy. That character is retained only in the most conservative views, namely in religion. The descent of spirit into the sphere of human consciousness is expressed in the myth of the divine vous [mind] caught in the embrace of tvous [form ?]. This process continuing over the ages, is probably an unavoidable necessity, and the religious would find themselves in a very forlorn situation if they believed in the attempt to hold up evolution. Their task, if they are well advised, is not to impede the ineluctable march of events, but to guide it in such a way that it can proceed without fatal injury to the soul...He himself did not create the spirit, rather the spirit makes him creative."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 555)
"This World of Imagination is
Infinite & Eternal whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation
is Finite & Temporal"

Milton, Plate 10 [11], (E 104)
"The nature of a Female Space is this: it shrinks the Organs
Of Life till they become Finite & Itself seems Infinite."

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 12, (E 38)
 "Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in
every thing, and as  I was then perswaded. & remain confirm'd;
that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared
not for consequences but  wrote."

Europe, Plate 10, (E 63)
"Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent; that which pitieth:   
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.            
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel;
Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd." 

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 131) 
"The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination" 

Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
"Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more.  The Apostles knew of no other Gospel.  What were
all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy
Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the
Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it
is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are
to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not
all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in
Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing
to Man? O ye Religious discountenance every one among
you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you
in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science?
is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is
Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What
is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives
Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the
things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance,
Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the
Spirit?" 

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