ILLUMINATION

British Musem

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

Emily S Hamlin in William Blake and His Return to Illumination writes on Page 36 of the light that returned to Blake after he removed the obstacles obscuring his inner light:
"But the chief claim of the fourfold vision to the distinction of being typically human is that it is inspired from above. The spirit of the earth-man, lifted by regenerative effort and purified desire to the level upon which it can receive the spark from the Universal Mind, flashes into revealing vision.
...
The ineffable light shone out again for Blake at the end of the twenty years struggle one day after he had been at an exhibition of paintings which were temporarily in London. It made him 'drunk with intellectual vision.'  What is it? Whence does it come? Perhaps it would be easier to answer the question, When does it come? For Blake it came when he had eliminated all obscuring media between himself and the object... Is it, perchance, a light which emanates from the very center of being; from the essence of the soul? At all events it is a Light within a Light. Just as the vital principle is a Breath within the breath. Boehme, wise in such matters, says: "Man is an image of all divine forms and processes; but the knowledge of his essence stands only in the clearest light - the angelical light."

Blake's Return to Illumination was a process not an isolated event. Blake became aware of the stages which he had undergone after there was a sudden increase in his ability to see with clarity. This was the completion of a transformation through which he entered an enhanced understanding of his own psyche. The change became apparent externally in his poetry, his art, his relationships and in his self control.

But where does the process start? Is it when one is overcome with the recognition that love incorporates both the desire to be loved and the desire to love. Some seek first to find someone to whom they can give love. Others feel the need to be loved prior to wanting to love another. When I think of setting Orc free from his chain of Jealousy, I think of an individual who struggles to discern the difference. When one is free to discern that love is not a transaction with a balance sheet showing winners and losers he can break the chain which demands to receive from others what one deserves. For Blake there was a cascade of acts along the way to knowing that he was again seeing 'thru' the eye an unclouded image of reality.

Blake wrote of Orc as a powerful force in his earlier writing. He pictured Orc as young and strong and active. He wanted the qualities which Orc exhibited but he also wanted to be respected as mature, self-controlled and reflective. There developed a pattern in his life of explosive episodes which destroyed the productive output of rational periods. Blake wanted to be free of the internal conflicts which caused him to behave in ways which were repugnant to the dictates of his conscience. He initiated the process by attempting to set free the part of his own nature which was most difficult to control.

1. "set free Orc from his Chain of Jealousy"

2. "And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot, As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold:"

3. "All that can be annihilated must be annihilated"

4. "To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination."

5. "Startled was Los   he found his Enemy Urizen now
In his hands. he wonderd that he felt love & not hate
His whole soul loved him he beheld him an infant
Lovely breathd from Enitharmon he trembled within himself"  6."but I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are free from fetters." 6. "Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters."  
7. "for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand, even as I used to be in my youth, and as I have not been for twenty dark, but very profitable years."

---

Milton, Plate 20 [22], (E 115) 
"At last when desperation almost tore his heart in twain
He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden recorded,
And often sung to the loud harp at the immortal feasts
That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend
Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham; and set free        
Orc from his Chain of Jealousy, he started at the thought

PLATE 21 [23]
And down descended into Udan-Adan; it was night:
And Satan sat sleeping upon his Couch in Udan-Adan:
His Spectre slept, his Shadow woke; when one sleeps th'other wakes

But Milton entering my Foot; I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth,               
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
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 40 [46], (E 142)
"But turning toward Ololon in terrible majesty Milton
Replied. Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man
All that can be annihilated must be annihilated   

That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved from slavery
There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary
The Negation must be destroyd to redeem the Contraries
The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man
This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal           
Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway
To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.

PLATE 41 [48]
To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human
I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration
To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration
To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering          
To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination
To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration
That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness"

Four Zoas, Page 98 [90], Night VII, Page (E 371)

"First his immortal spirit drew Urizen[s] Shadow away      
From out the ranks of war separating him in sunder
Leaving his Spectrous form which could not be drawn away     
Then he divided Thiriel the Eldest of Urizens sons
Urizen became Rintrah Thiriel became Palamabron
Thus dividing the powers of Every Warrior
Startled was Los he found his Enemy Urizen now
In his hands. he wonderd that he felt love & not hate     
His whole soul loved him he beheld him an infant
Lovely breathd from Enitharmon he trembled within himself

PAGE 90 [98]

         End of The Seventh Night"          

Letters, (E 756) "For now! O Glory! and O Delight! I have entirely reduced that spectrous Fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life. He is the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an iron-hearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece. I speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon me. Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are free from fetters. O lovely Felpham, parent of Immortal Friendship, to thee I am eternally indebted for my three years' rest from perturbation and the strength I now enjoy. Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters. Consequently I can, with confidence, promise you ocular demonstration of my altered state on the plates I am now engraving after Romney, whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced to my restoration to the light of Art. O the distress I have undergone, and my poor wife with me. Incessantly labouring and incessantly spoiling what I had done well. Every one of my friends was astonished at my faults, and could not assign a reason; they knew my industry and abstinence from every pleasure for the sake of study, and yet--and yet--and yet there wanted the proofs of industry in my works. I thank God with entire confidence that it shall be so no longer--he is become my servant who domineered over me, he is even as a brother who was my enemy. Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand, even as I used to be in my youth, and as I have not been for twenty dark, but very profitable years. I thank God that I courageously pursued my course through darkness. In a short time I shall make my assertion good that I am become suddenly as I was at first, by producing the Head of Romney and the Shipwreck quite another thing from what you or I ever expected them to be. In short, I am now satisfied and proud of my work, which I have not been for the above long period. If our excellent and manly friend Meyer is yet with you, please to make my wife's and my own most respectful and affectionate compliments to him, also to our kind friend at Lavant. I remain, with my wife's joint affection, Your sincere and obliged servant, WILL BLAKE" [From the Gilchrist Life]