Book of Urizen Detail of Plate 20 |
Jung and Blake agree that transformation is a complex process. Each who seeks to discard the accumulation of defenses and disguises which overlay the center of the psyche, undergoes a process of removing layers to reveal what lies within. The Divine Infant symbolizes the potential for development once the Center or Soul has been approached. If the individual has faced the unknown which he feared he may return to functioning in the outer world. But he will be tossed into the sea to be cleansed of any excess baggage he intended to retain before he can be transformed into a new being.
June Singer makes this statement in Boundaries of the Soul, her book about the practice of Jung's psychology:
Page 223
"The archetype of the divine child, for example, tends to appear in advance of a transformation in the psyche. His appearance recalls the marking of aeons in the history of the world which were heralded by the appearance of an infant who overthrows the old order and, with passion and inspiration, begins a new one. The power of this archetype is nowhere better expressed than in William Blake's poem, A Song of Liberty. The Eternal Female, the anima, gives birth to the divine child, a sun god with flaming hair. This evokes the jealous rage of the old king, the 'starry King' of night and darkness and all the decadence that has come upon the world. Though the king flings the divine child on the western sea, the child will not be drowned. A night sea journey will take place and when it is finished the son of morning will rise in the east to bring his light to the world:
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 25, (E 44)
A Song of Liberty
1. The Eternal Female groand! it was heard over all the Earth:...
7. In her trembling hands she took the new, born terror howling;
8. On those infinite mountains of light now barr'd out by the atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king!
9. Flag'd with grey brow'd snows and thunderous visages the jealous wings wav'd over the deep.
10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield, forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and hurl'd the new born wonder thro' the starry night.
11. The fire, the fire, is falling!
...
13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the western sea. ...
18. With thunder and fire: leading his starry hosts thro' the waste wilderness he promulgates his ten commands, glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay,
19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the morning plumes her golden breast,
20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying
Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease."
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[1] Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
[2] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, (E 2)
" He who sees the Infinite in all things sees
God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is"
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