MY SPECTRE

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 out own need and guilt; they reflect the degree of our own 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"