BLAKE & JUNG 2

Wikipedia Commons
Watercolor Illustrations to Book of Job
Page 16, Linnell Set

In attempting to find a point of congruence between the thought of Blake and the thought of Jung, I find that Jung has left detailed autobiographic information whereas Blake embedded his self-knowledge in his poetry and comments and letters. Jung recognized much of his thought to be as a result of non-rational encounters with the unconscious, but he saw himself as a scientist and wrote of his experiences through his reasoning function. Many aspects of science were mistrusted by Blake, as was dependence on reason; therefore he made no attempt to express his visionary, symbolic experiences in the prosaic language of the rational scientist.  

Perhaps what Jung found 'inauthentic' was Blake's failure to translate into ordinary language the psychological insights which he recounted through his mythic characters. However Blake would have abhorred the idea of trying to reduce his imaginative thinking into the language of reason.  

Toward the end of his life when his reputation was established as a scientific psychologist, Jung felt free to disclose the source of his insights into how the conscious mind is nourished by the unconscious which is revealed in myth, dreams and fantasy. Jung's buried life was hidden from the scientific community but he dictated and recorded his inner experiences with his student and assistant Aniela Jaffe. The record of the upwellings from his unconscious was published as Memories, Dreams and Reflections in 1961, the year he died. Further insight into his inner life was revealed in 2009 when The Red Book was published. It contains the basic raw material which Jung accumulated from the years which he spent digging deeper into his own psyche. It is his testimony to his soul's journey in words and pictures.   

Quotes from Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Page 199

"When I parted with Freud, I knew I was plunging into the unknown. Beyond Freud, after all, I knew nothing; but I had taken the step into darkness. When that  happens, and such a dream comes, one feels it is an act of grace.

It has taken me virtually forty-five years to distill within the vessel of my scientific work the things I experienced and wrote down at that time. As a young man my goal had been to accomplish something in my science. But then, I hit upon this stream of lava, and the heat of its fires reshaped my life. That was the primal stuff which compelled me to work upon it, and my works are a more or less successful endeavor to incorporate this incandescent matter into the contemporary picture of the world.

The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most productive of my life - in them everything essential was decided. It all began then, the later details were only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetimes work." 

Page 221
"In Mysterium Coniunctionis my psychology was at last given its place in reality and established on its historical foundations. The moment I touched bottom, I reached the bounds of scientific understanding, the transcendental, the nature of the archetypes per se, concerning which no further scientific statements can be made."

Page 222

"My life is what I have done, my scientific work; the one is inseparable from the other. The work is the expression of my inner development;  for commitments to the contents of the unconscious forms the man and produces his transformations. My work can be regarded as stations along life's way.

All of my writings can be regarded as tasks imposed from within, their source was a fateful compulsion. What I wrote were things that assailed me from within myself."

---

Urizen, Plate 2, (E 70)
"PRELUDIUM 
Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.

Eternals I hear your call gladly,                                
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment."

Letters, To Trusler, (E 701)
"[I]cannot previ-
ously describe in words what I mean to Design for fear I should
Evaporate the Spirit of my Invention.  But I
hope that none of my Designs will be destitute of Infinite
Particulars which will present themselves to the Contemplator. 
And tho I call them Mine   I know that they are not Mine being of
the same opinion with Milton when he says That the Muse visits
his Slumbers & awakes & governs his Song when Morn purples The
East. & being also in the predicament of that prophet who says  I
cannot go beyond the command of the Lord to speak good or bad"

Letters, To Butts, (E 724)
"I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven Daily &
Nightly but the nature of such things is not as some suppose.
without trouble or care.  Temptations are on the right hand &
left behind the sea of time & space roars & follows swiftly he
who keeps not right onward is lost & if our footsteps slide in
clay how can we do otherwise than fear & tremble. but I should
not have troubled You with this account of my spiritual state
unless it had been necessary in explaining the actual cause of my
uneasiness into which you are so kind as to Enquire for I never
obtrude such things on others unless questiond & then I never
disguise the truth--But if we fear to do the dictates of our
Angels & tremble at the Tasks set before us. if we refuse to do
Spiritual Acts. because of Natural Fears or Natural Desires!  Who
can describe the dismal torments of such a state!--I too well
remember the Threats I heard!--If you who are organized by Divine
Providence for Spiritual communion.  Refuse & bury your Talent in
the Earth even tho you should want Natural Bread. Sorrow &
Desperation
pursues you thro life! & after death shame & confusion of face to
eternity--Every one in Eternity will leave you aghast at the Man
who was crownd with glory & honour by his brethren & betrayd
their cause to their enemies."

---

Romans 7
[22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
[23] but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
[24] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?