EZEKIEL'S VISION

 

Wikipedia Commons 

Boston Museum

Ezekiel's Vision

This post is from Chapter 6 of Ram Horn' with Gold.

Ezekiel

       If a poll were taken to choose the most obscure of the major books of the Bible, Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New might win by a wide margin. Strangely enough these very books seemed to mean the most to Blake. Their meanings are largely symbolic; Blake adopted their symbols and strenuously commented upon their meanings.

       

In his major work, 'Jerusalem', Blake took a great deal from Ezekiel: the structural format, the oratorical style, the dialectic of judgment and grace. But he used Ezekiel's style and material to refute Ezekiel's vision of a jealous and punishing God.

       

The first chapter of Ezekiel contains his definitive epiphany, the encounter with God that initiated and sustained his prophetic activity. The vision of the four living creatures, the wheels, the fiery chariot, all are the trappings of the Shekinah, the Glory of God. This vision originally empowered Ezekiel to prophesy; it recurred throughout his prophetic life.

       

In a climactic scene shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem the prophet saw it hovering over the Temple and departing (read Ezekiel 10 with special attention to verse 18). Years later he saw it when returning to Jerusalem as the liberated pilgrims arrived from Babylon. (Ezekiel 43)

Ezekiel 10

[14] And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
[15] And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar.
[16] And when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them.
[17] When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also: for the spirit of the living creature was in them.
[18] Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.
[19] And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD's house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.

Ezekiel 43

[1] Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:
[2] And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.
[3] And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.
[4] And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
[5] So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.
[6] And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me.
[7] And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.

 Blake took Ezekiel's living creatures (zoas in Greek) as the subject of his epic poem, 'The Four Zoas'. He humanized the Zoas and enacted through them the divisive tendencies of the human psyche which have led to the fracture and fall of Mankind. With their fall Blake's Zoas became the "rulers of the darkness of this world". As you study 4Z, keeping always in mind the biblical source, you become aware that it all relates to Ezekiel's vision of God.

       

The striving found in 4Z was interrupted by the Moment of Grace. This led to a radical reorientation of Blake's theology. He didn't change his mind about Ezekiel's God, but he met a new and more loving God in the person of Jesus. In 'Jerusalem' he gave the most overt and candid evaluation of the relationship between these two visions. The African American spiritual has it that Ezekiel saw the wheel. Here, in the language of Old Testament prophecy, Blake tells us what the Wheel has meant to Mankind:

       Plate 77 of 'Jerusalem' might well be considered Blake's valedictory: he tells us pretty plainly the meaning of true religion:

"I stood among my valleys of the south

And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heaven: it went
From west to east, against the current of
Creation, and devour'd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth.
By it the Sun was roll'd into an orb,
By it the Moon faded into a globe
Travelling thro' the night; for, from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-one
Its Name; he answered: "It is the Wheel of Religion."
I wept & said: "Is this the law of Jesus,
"This terrible devouring sword turning every way?"
He answer'd: "Jesus died because he strove
"Against the current of this Wheel; its Name
"Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death,
"Of sin, of sorrow & of punishment:
"Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion;
"But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
"Creating Nature from this fiery Law
"By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.
"Go therefore, cast out devils in Christ's name,
"Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease,

"Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
"To smite with terror & with punishments
"Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees
"Crucifying & encompassing sea & land
"For proselytes to tyranny & wrath;

"But to the Publicans & harlots go,

"Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
"Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace;
"For Hell is open'd to Heaven: thine eyes beheld
"The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free."

      

 Here Blake with unparalleled eloquence has set forth the opposition between the God of Wrath and the God of Mercy, the dark Preacher of Death and the bright Preacher of Life. Mankind in every age has turned Ezekiel's wheel into a juggernaut to enforce a worldly solidarity under the banner of priest and king. And every age has had its dissenters who strove against it and were all too often crushed.

URIZEN'S BIBLE

Wikipedia Commons

Book of Urizen

Copy A, Plate 8

Although Blake found it necessary to create his own system, he did not intend that his system be imposed on anyone else. His problem with the way the orthodox used the Bible was that they meant for it to be read in a uniform way. The established church and its priests, Blake represented by Urizen, and its Bible by Urizen's book of history and laws. But Urizen's book was not a different book, it was a different way of reading the same book.

"Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white"

If the Bible is read as poetry, it is not a book of rules but a book that stimulates the imagination and opens the mind to vision. Urizen intended his book to be used to control the unruly, to oppress the poor and to promise rewards for obedience. Such a reading of the Bible could only result if mercy were suppressed, conformity were enforced, threats were implicit, and love were narrowly defined.

Although Urizen was a complex character as Blake presented him, in simplest terms he was the reasoning faculty of the mind. He did not have empathy because he felt no emotions, he did not write poetry because every term had only one meaning, he did not listen to other points of view because he knew his own righteousness. His system was the only system, and he intended to use it to dominate the weak and compliant. Blake saw the problem with Urizen's book not with the content only, but with the 'iron pen' with which it had been written.   

---

Everlasting Gospel, (E 524)
"The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine
Thine is the Friend of All Mankind    
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates
Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates   
Socrates taught what Melitus
Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse    
And Caiphas was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white"

Four Zoas, Night VII. Page 79, (E355)
"But Urizen remitted not their labours upon his rock
PAGE 80
And Urizen Read in his book of brass in sounding tones    

Listen O Daughters to my voice Listen to the Words of Wisdom
So shall ye govern over all let Moral Duty tune your tongue  
But be your hearts harder than the nether millstone
To bring the shadow of Enitharmon beneath our wondrous tree   
That Los may Evaporate like smoke & be no more
Draw down Enitharmon to the Spectre of Urthona
And let him have dominion over Los the terrible shade

Compell the poor to live upon a Crust of bread by soft mild arts
Smile when they frown frown when they smile & when a man looks  pale
With labour & abstinence say he looks healthy & happy
And when his children Sicken let them die there are enough
Born even too many & our Earth will be overrun
Without these arts If you would make the poor live with temper
With pomp give every crust of bread you give with gracious cunning 
Magnify small gifts reduce the man to want a gift & then give with pomp  
Say he smiles if you hear him sigh If pale say he is ruddy
Preach temperance   say he is overgorgd & drowns his wit
In strong drink tho you know that bread & water are all
He can afford   Flatter his wife pity his children till we can   

Reduce all to our will as spaniels are taught with art
Lo how the heart & brain are formed in the breeding womb
Of Enitharmon how it buds with life & forms the bones
The little heart the liver & the red blood in its labyrinths"

Four Zoas, Night VII. Page 38, (E 326)
[Ahania to Urizen}
"O Prince the Eternal One hath set thee leader of his hosts
PAGE 39 
Leave all futurity to him Resume thy fields of Light      
Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread morn
To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful hands
No longer now obedient to thy will thou art compell'd
To forge the curbs of iron & brass to build the iron mangers
To feed them with intoxication from the wine presses of Luvah
Till the Divine Vision & Fruition is quite obliterated
They call thy lions to the fields of blood, they rowze thy tygers
Out of the halls of justice, till these dens thy wisdom framd
Golden & beautiful but O how unlike those sweet fields of bliss  
Where liberty was justice & eternal science was mercy
Then O my dear lord listen to Ahania, listen to the vision
The vision of Ahania in the slumbers of Urizen
When Urizen slept in the porch & the Ancient Man was smitten"

Four Zoas, Night VI, Page 71, (E 348)
"But still his books he bore in his strong hands & his iron pen   
For when he died they lay beside his grave & when he rose
He siezd them with a gloomy smile for wrapd in his death clothes
He hid them when he slept in death when he revivd the clothes
Were rotted by the winds the books remaind still unconsumd
Still to be written & interleavd with brass & iron & gold 
Time after time for such a journey none but iron pens           
Can write And adamantine leaves recieve nor can the man who goes
PAGE 72 
The journey obstinate refuse to write time after time"

STATES OF MIND

 

British Museum

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

There is outer work and there is inner work. Attempts to proceed with the outer work without simultaneously building an inner life through attending to the inborn spirit will lead to frustration and suffering.

This image could be seen as the outer man tending to the inner spirit which is bound by neglect or inattention. Contrarily It could also be seen as the dynamics of the inner life as self-knowledge is being accomplished. The bound figure could represent the dormant, rejected aspect of the self which waits to be expressed as a contribution to the whole. The two figures are not in a cave but they are overhung by a rocky projection, from which there is the potential for confinement or release. 

The human mind is so constructed the there are ever present opportunities to look both outward and inward. Failure to develop the inner life leaves humanity subject to outer threats whose roots lie in the minds of men.  

Kathleen Raine in her biography William Blake writes that Blake over time became more conscious of the necessity of prioritizing the inner life over political or social reform:

"For Blake outward events and circumstances were the expressions of states of mind, ideologies, mentalities, and not, as for the deterministic-materialistic ideologies of the modern world, their causes. Blake's 'dark Satanic Mills', so often invoked in the name of social reform, prove, when we read Milton (the poem in which these mills are most fully described) to be the mechanistic 'laws' of Bacon, Newton and Locke, of which the industrial landscape was a reflection and expression. So always, Blake seeks to discover the source of social and private ills within man. Only a change in the heart and mind of the nation can create a new society and new cities less hideous than those created by an atheist and mechanistic rationalism.

Blake gradually renounced politics for something more radical: not religion in the sense of a system of beliefs and observances but a transformation of the inner life, a rebirth of 'the true man.' Politics and religion alike came to be seen to him an evasion of the 'one thing needful.'" (Page 72)

Luke 10

[38] Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
[40] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
[41] And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
[42] But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)

"And every Generated Body in its inward form,
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda
And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds & chambers
Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmons Daughters          
In bright Cathedrons golden Dome with care & love & tears
For the various Classes of Men are all markd out determinate

In Bowlahoola; & as the Spectres choose their affinities
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate
But not by Natural but by Spiritual power alone, Because         
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction
Ending in Death: which would of itself be Eternal Death
And all are Class'd by Spiritual, & not by Natural power.

And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems, it is a Delusion      
Of Ulro: & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory."

Jerusalem, Plate 95, (E 255)
"The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides  
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping
Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthonas Spectre in songs
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble."

Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 51, (E 336)
"Take thou the hammer of Urthona rebuild these furnaces
Dost thou refuse   mind I the sparks that issue from thy hair
PAGE 52 
I will compell thee to rebuild by these my furious waves
Death choose or life thou strugglest in my waters, now choose life
And all the Elements shall serve thee to their soothing flutes
Their sweet inspiriting lyres thy labours shall administer
And they to thee only remit not faint not thou my son            
Now thou dost know what tis to strive against the God of waters

So saying Tharmas on his furious chariots of the Deep
Departed far into the Unknown & left a wondrous void
Round Los"

Milton, Plate 3, (E 97)
"At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan Refusing Form, in vain
The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest
That he may go to his own Place Prince of the Starry Wheels
PLATE 4      
Beneath the Plow of Rintrah & the harrow of the Almighty
In the hands of Palamabron. Where the Starry Mills of Satan
Are built beneath the Earth & Waters of the Mundane Shell
Here the Three Classes of Men take their Sexual texture Woven
The Sexual is Threefold: the Human is Fourfold       

If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent, and
Not to shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but Folly.
Every Mans Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individ[u]ality
O Satan my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?  
Art thou not Newtons Pantocrator weaving the Woof of Locke
To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath,

Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.   

Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pitys paths.
Thy Work is Eternal Death, with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more. thou canst not have Eternal Life

So Los spoke! Satan trembling obeyd weeping along the way.
Mark well my words, they are of your eternal Salvation" 

Milton, Plate 17 [19], (E 111)
"For travellers from Eternity. pass outward to Satans seat,
But travellers to Eternity. pass inward to Golgonooza."           

Jerusalem, Plate 92, (E 252)
"Los answerd swift as the shuttle of gold. Sexes must vanish & cease
To be, when Albion arises from his dread repose O lovely Enitharmon:
When all their Crimes, their Punishments their Accusations of Sin: 
All their Jealousies Revenges. Murders. hidings of Cruelty in Deceit
Appear only in the Outward Spheres of Visionary Space and Time.
In the shadows of Possibility by Mutual Forgiveness forevermore
And in the Vision & in the Prophecy, that we may Foresee & Avoid
The terrors of Creation & Redemption & Judgment. Beholding them 
Displayd in the Emanative Visions of Canaan in Jerusalem & in Shiloh
And in the Shadows of Remembrance, & in the Chaos of the Spectre
Amalek, Edom, Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Ashur, Philistea, around Jerusalem"

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 23, (E 313)
"Rising upon his Couch of Death Albion beheld his Sons
Turning his Eyes outward to Self. losing the Divine Vision"

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 25, (E 314)
"Reuben slept on Penmaenmawr & Levi slept on Snowdon
Their eyes their ears nostrils & tongues roll outward   they behold
What is within now seen without they are raw to the hungry wind
They become Nations far remote in a little & dark Land"

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 95, (E 368)
"If we unite in one, another better world will be        
Opend within your heart & loins & wondrous brain
Threefold as it was in Eternity & this the fourth Universe 
Will be Renewd by the three & consummated in Mental fires
But if thou dost refuse Another body will be prepared
PAGE 86 
For me & thou annihilate evaporate & be no more
For thou art but a form & organ of life & of thyself
Art nothing being Created Continually by Mercy & Love divine

Los furious answerd. Spectre horrible thy words astound my Ear
With irresistible conviction I feel I am not one of those 
Who when convincd can still persist. tho furious.controllable
By Reasons power. Even I already feel a World within
Opening its gates & in it all the real substances
Of which these in the outward World are shadows which pass away" 

Letters, To Butts (E 721)
     "So I spoke & struck in my wrath
     The old man weltering upon my path
     Then Los appeard in all his power
     In the Sun he appeard descending before
     My face in fierce flames in my double sight
     Twas outward a Sun: inward Los in his might"

All Religions are One, (E 1)
  "PRINCIPLE 1st  That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic
Genius.  Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from
their Genius. which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit
& Demon."

CLOTHING ADAM & EVE

 Wikipedia Commons

The Angel of the Divine Presence Clothing Adam and Eve with Coats of Skins 

1803 

Blake read the Bible as a vehicle for the purpose of conveying spiritual truth. He created poetry and images for the same purpose. Above is an image for expanding our perception of the relationship of Eden to Generation, Innocence to Experience, the Spiritual Body to the Natural body. The mind can be trained to see not with the eye but thru the eye.

First we see a benevolent old man leading a young man and a young woman through a gate. From the title of the picture we realize that the old man is an Angel and the young couple are Adam and Eve. The Gate provides a passageway between states of existence: from perfect union with the Divine into a state of consciousness in which the Human is distinct from the Divine. The Angel provides Adam and Eve with coats of skins which were unnecessary in Eden - their spiritual bodies in Eden were unconcealed and unprotected. The skins are physical bodies which are mercifully supplied to mediate between the spiritual and physical reality.

Humanity is sent through the gate leading from Eden but he is not deprived of the Spiritual Body which was his in Eden. As a mercy this portion remains his true being, which though buried is alive. In the Physical Body humanity would experience both Evil and Good that he might learn to know the difference and choose the path to the wholeness of the Divine.

Genesis 3
[17] And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
[18] Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
[19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
[20] And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
[21] Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
[22] And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
[23] Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Isaiah 63
[8] For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.
[9] In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Vision of Last Judgment (E 563) 
"Many suppose that before  the
Creation All was Solitude & Chaos    This is the most pernicious
Idea that can enter the Mind as it takes away all sublimity from
the Bible & Limits All Existence to Creation & to Chaos   To the
Time & Space fixed by the Corporeal Vegetative Eye & leaves the
Man who entertains such an Idea the habitation of Unbelieving
Demons     Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity Independent of
Creation which was an act of Mercy"   

Letters, To Butts, (E 724)
"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."

Everlasting Gospel, (E 521)
"To be Good only is to be
A Devil or else a Pharisee              
Thou Angel of the Presence Divine
That didst create this Body of Mine   
Wherefore has thou writ these Laws
And Created Hells dark jaws
My Presence I will take from thee
A Cold Leper thou shalt be"

Songs and Ballads, (E 491)
Auguries of Innocence, 
"It is right it should be so 
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine" 

Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 104, (E 378)
"Los said to Enitbarmon Pitying I saw
Pitying the Lamb of God Descended thro Jerusalems gates
To put off Mystery time after time & as a Man
Is born on Earth so was he born of Fair Jerusalem
In mysterys woven mantle & in the Robes of Luvah 

He stood in fair Jerusalem to awake up into Eden
The fallen Man but first to Give his vegetated body    
To be cut off & separated that the Spiritual body may be Reveald

Annotations to Berkley, (E 663)
 "They also considerd God as abstracted or distinct from the
Imaginative World but Jesus as also Abraham & David considerd God
as a Man in the Spiritual or Imaginative Vision
     Jesus considerd Imagination to be the Real Man & says I will
not leave you Orphanned and I will manifest myself to you   he
says also the Spiritual Body or Angel as little Children always
behold the Face of the Heavenly Father"  

Annotations to Berkley, (E 664)
"The Natural Body is an Obstruction to the Soul or Spiritual
Body"  

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, To Tirzah, Plate 52, (E 30)
"Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free, 
Then what have I to do with thee?"

[text on illustration:] It is Raised a Spiritual Body"

Paradise Lost
John Milton

[Eve to Adam]

"Wearied I fell asleep: but now lead on;
In mee is no delay; with thee to goe, [ 615 ]
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to mee
Art all things under Heav'n, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banisht hence.
This further consolation yet secure [ 620 ]
I carry hence; though all by mee is lost,
Such favour I unworthie am voutsaft, 
By Mee the Promis'd Seed shall all restore.
So spake our Mother Eve, and Adam heard
Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh 
...
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

THE END"

CYCLE - JUDGMENT

British Museum

Milton

Copy A, Plate 21

 

We are following simplest cycle that is discernible in Blake - that of Fall, Return and Judgment. Man falls from the idyllic state of innocence, passes through experience and reaches a transformative event where all that can be annihilated is annihilated. 

 

The third stage, Judgment, also goes by the name Apocalypse.

 

In William Blake's Circle of Destiny by Milton O Percival, he states on Page 238:

"Though the Last Judgment comes as a climax to the process we have been describing, Judgment is, like Creation and Redemption, continuous.

...For Blake his own age seemed ripe for a whole destruction of error. Man, it seem, will not give himself to a Last Judgment until error has become intolerable.

... the activities which characterize it are of two sorts. Error is first burned away in the fires of Orc. Then the labors of reconstruction begin...With the Last Judgment man's disorganized powers

"resume the image of the human 
Cooperating in the bliss of Man obeying his Will
Servants to the infinite & Eternal of the Human form"
Four Zoas, Night IX, (E 395)

The 'dark religions' depart and 'sweet science reigns.'" 

APOCALYPSE - JUDGMENT

MAN'S JOURNEY

SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION II

REJECTING ERROR

BLAKE'S LIBERTY

CYCLE - RETURN

New York Public Library

Milton  

Plate 29, copy C

 

We are following simplest cycle that is discernible in Blake - that of Fall, Return and Judgment. Man falls from the idyllic state of innocence, passes through experience and reaches a transformative event where all that can be annihilated is annihilated. 

 

The second stage, Return, can also be named Experience, Regeneration, or Renewal. 

 

In William Blake's Circle of Destiny by Milton O Percival, he writes on Page 219:

"The course of experience, which is at once the course of error and the process by which Satan is revealed and regeneration accomplished, is in the hands of Los and Enithrmon. Feeble as their light may be, selfish and misguided as their purposes often are, they nevertheless embody the instinct for preservation which the Poetic Genius - the imagination - can never entirely lose, and which enables man slowly yet surely to turn the experience of error into the apprehension of truth." 

Percival further states on page 273)

"Since there is no chasm, in Blake's system, between man and nature, the struggle toward regeneration in the natural world must be thought of, equally with the struggle in the spiritual world, as the work of Los. Los with his hammer vehemently constricting, hardening and fixing, eternally creating only to destroy the false work he has created, is Blake's dramatization as the process as he saw it constantly at work. For destruction is as essential as creation. For this reason the natural world is cast in mortal form. Death and decay are its attributes. Its vegetable life, like Los's systems is 'continually building and continually decaying.' The invisible fires in which these vegetable forms consume are the fires of vegetation or generation which also light the furnaces of Los. Just as the soul of man is purified by the 'furnaces of affliction' so is the physical world destroyed and renewed in the fires of 'generation or vegetation.' The necessary change is in both cases accomplished by death in fire."

RETURN - REDEMPTION - REGENERATION

CATHEDRON II

BEAUTIFUL FEET

BLAKE & MIRACLE

LEVELS OF EXISTENCE

 

CYCLE - FALL

Library of Congress

Book of Urizen

Copy G, Plate 14

 

The simplest cycle that is discernible in Blake is that of Fall, Return and Judgment. Man falls from the idyllic state of innocence, passes through experience and reaches a transformative event where all that can be annihilated is annihilated. This cycle is presented in multiple ways using various names, and outlining innumerable details to emphasize its importance. In fact everything that Blake writes or pictures may be placed into this cycle.

Milton O Percival titled his book which he called 'a work of interpretation', William Blake's Circle of Destiny. My next three post will be directed at following these three stages of development by connecting with earlier posts. Quotes from Percival will be the guide to interpreting the process.  

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William Blake's Circle of Destiny by Milton O Percival, Page 168:

"[Albion] has found the pace of Eden, where energy is free and active, too swift for his lagging spirit. He has come to prefer repose to activity and the restraint of a delusive 'good' to liberty. Beulah is in general, the world of the passive emotions - quiet, tender, given over to outward emotions and dreamy institutions. Into Beulah doubt and denial do not come, because love and pity are (until the fall) adequate to the situation.

...Albion had come to look on the security, the lessened energy, and the emotional serenity of which Beulah is the symbol, as the good life. The fall is a Narcissistic thing. Albion has fallen in love with his own passive self as it is manifested in the relaxation of Beulah. Proud of the pity and love in Beulah, he accepts Vala as Good. Evil is but a step away." 

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FALL - CREATION

ON ANOTHERS SORROW

LAMB & LION

BLAKE'S LUCIFER

THE JOURNEY XIX (Satan)

.

LIBERTY

Library of Congress     Milton
Plate 1

Blake's Song of Liberty is often thought of in terms of support for the revolutionary spirit which could liberate man from political oppression. But this type of liberation has proven to be of a cyclical nature. Although man may temporarily acquire greater freedom by throwing off the tyranny under which he lives, he soon submits to rulers and laws which deprive him of his freedom. Blake was less interested in ending the recurring cycle of political control which kept man bound in the physical world, than he was in breaking out of the mental cycle which keeps him trapped mentally by finding repetitious patterns necessary.

Northrop Frye presents the question asked by Nietzsche 'is the limit we see there really a limit.' Is it possible to transcend the barrier which we fear to cross? There is a New Song to be sung, but we cannot sing it unless we can look at one another not as 'the other' but as 'my other self.' In a way this would represent a return because we all crossed this barrier in the opposite direction when as infants we first discerned that we were separate from the mother who was the source of milk and warmth and the comforting touch.

There have been periods in history when man's self-perception changed. These events were evolutions of consciousness which permanently opened the psyche to new abilities. They altered the mind of man and the physical world followed as a result. The job of the individual is to follow his imagination as it leads to another dimension.

In The Great Code, Page 232-3, Northrop Frye writes about the conditions which inhibit man from achieving his potential:

"As soon as we begin to wonder whether, to use Nietzsche's phrase again, the limit we see there really is a limit, we find ourselves stumbling over the traditional Christian doctrine of 'original sin.' This doctrine holds that since the fall of Adam human life has been cursed with a built in inertia that will forever prevent man from fulfilling his destiny without divine help, and that that help can be described only in terms of the external and the objective. From our present vantage point we can characterize the conception of original sin more precisely as man's fear of freedom and his resentment of the discipline and responsibility that freedom brings.

Thus in Milton ...liberty is the chief thing that the Gospel has to bring to man. But man for Milton does not and cannot 'naturally' want freedom, he gets it only because God wants him to have it. What man naturally wants is to collapse back into the master-slave duality, of which the creator-creature duality is perhaps a projection. Paradise Lost tells again the fall of Adam to explain, among other things, the failure of the Puritan Revolution as Milton saw it. 

...If Milton's view of the Bible as a manifesto of human freedom has anything to be said for it, one would expect it to be written in a language that would smash these structures beyond repair, and let some genuine air and light in. But of course anxiety is very skillful at distorting languages".

Jerusalem, Plate 26, (E 171)
" SUCH VISIONS HAVE APPEARD TO ME 
     AS I MY ORDERD RACE HAVE RUN 
      JERUSALEM IS NAMED LIBERTY 
       AMONG THE SONS OF ALBION
Plate 27
                               To the Jews.
  Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! Can it be? Is it a
Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain the Primitive
Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true: my title-page is
also True, that Jerusalem was & is the Emanation of the Giant
Albion.  It is True, and cannot be controverted.  Ye are united O
ye Inhabitants of Earth in One Religion.  The Religion of Jesus:
the most Ancient, the Eternal: & the Everlasting Gospel--The
Wicked will turn it to Wickedness,
the Righteous to Righteousness.  Amen! Huzza! Selah!
  "All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore."

  Your Ancestors derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem,
and Noah, who were Druids: as the Druid Temples (which are the
Patriarchal Pillars & Oak Groves) over the whole Earth witness to
this day.
  You have a tradition, that Man anciently containd in his mighty
limbs all things in Heaven & Earth: this you recieved from the
Druids.
  "But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of
Albion""

Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
" I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.   
  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? 

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:
2.  Albions coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!
3  Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers
and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon;   
4.  Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
5.  Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to
eternity down falling, 
6.  And weep!                      
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 
[PL 26] hurl'd the new born wonder thro' the starry night.
11. The fire, the fire, is falling!
12. Look up! look up! O citizen of London. enlarge thy
countenance; O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and
wine; O African! black African! (go. winged thought widen his
forehead.) 
13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun
into the western sea.
14. Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
15. Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings and rocks,
16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona's
dens.
17. All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen flames faded
emerge round the gloomy king,
18. With thunder and fire: leading his starry hosts thro' the
waste wilderness [PL 27] 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.

          Chorus
  Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly
black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy.  Nor his accepted
brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the
roof.  Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that
wishes but acts not!
  For every thing that lives is Holy"

Songs and Ballads, (E 473)
"Why should I care for the men of thames
Or the cheating waves of charterd streams
Or shrink at the little blasts of fear
That the hireling blows into my ear

Tho born on the cheating banks of Thames     
Tho his waters bathed my infant limbs
The Ohio shall wash his stains from me    
I was born a slave but I go to be free"   

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 6, (E 35)
"The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of
Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he
was a true  Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it"

Jerusalem,(E 145)
"When this Verse was first dictated to me I consider'd a 
Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakspeare & all
writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage
of Rhyming; to be a necessary and indispensible part of Verse. 
But I soon found that
in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward,
but as much a bondage as rhyme itself.  I therefore have produced
a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. 
Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit
place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific
parts--the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the
prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other. 
Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd,
or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music,
are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom,
Art, and Science."   

Jerusalem, Plate 10, (E 153)
"Los cries, Obey my voice & never deviate from my will
And I will be merciful to thee: be thou invisible to all         
To whom I make thee invisible, but chief to my own Children
O Spectre of Urthona: Reason not against their dear approach
Nor them obstruct with thy temptations of doubt & despair
O Shame O strong & mighty Shame I break thy brazen fetters
If thou refuse, thy present torments will seem southern breezes  
To what thou shalt endure if thou obey not my great will."           

Four Zoas, Night VI, (E 348)
PAGE 70 (SECOND PORTION) 
"Here he had time enough to repent of his rashly threatend curse  
He saw them cursd beyond his Curse his soul melted with fear
PAGE 71 (SECOND PORTION)
He could not take their fetters off for they grew from the soul
Nor could he quench the fires for they flamd out from the heart
Nor could he calm the Elements because himself was Subject
So he threw his flight in terror & pain & in repentant tears

When he had passd these southern terrors he approachd the East   
Void pathless beaten With iron sleet & eternal hail & rain
No form was there no living thing & yet his way lay thro
This dismal world. he stood a while & lookd back oer his former
Terrific voyage. Hills & Vales of torment & despair
Sighing & Wiping a fresh tear. then turning round he threw       
Himself into the dismal void. falling he fell & fell
Whirling in unresistible revolutions down & down
In the horrid bottomless vacuity falling failing falling
Into the Eastern vacuity the empty world of Luvah"

Songs and Ballads, (E 472)
[How to know Love from Deceit]

"Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclind                             
Lawless wingd & unconfind                    
And breaks all chains from every mind

Deceit to secresy confind                       
Lawful cautious & refind                         
To every thing but interest blind             
And forges fetters for the mind"              

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Isaiah 42 
[5] Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
[6] I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
[7] To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
[8] I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
[9] Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
[10] Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
 
Philippians 2
 [1] If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
[2] Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
[3] Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
[4] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
[8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
[9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
[10] That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
[11] And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[12] Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
[13] For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

TIME & ETERNITY

British Museum Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

Time and space are among the mind forged manacles which bind and limit us. There is a material dimension and a spiritual dimension. The matrix of the Material World is time and space. The matrix of the Spiritual World is eternity and infinity. Man being both material and spiritual has the possibility of living in both worlds. But if we confine our mental processing to sensation and rational thought, we lose the ability to pass through the portal to the infinite, eternal world of intuition and imagination.

Thanks to Blake the image I have of Eternity is that it is not bound by sequential processing. Past, present and future are flexible. The whole can be experienced either simultaneously or distinctly. Whenever in our ordinary temporal life, we have the experience of being caught up in a moment of clarity of vision, or a realization of the connection of all things, the barrier between Time and Eternity has been breached.    

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 555)
 "This world of Imagination is the World of
Eternity it is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after
the death of the Vegetated body   This World of Imagination is
Infinite & Eternal whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation
is Finite & Temporal      There Exist
in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing
which we see are reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature
     All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the
Divine body of the Saviour the True Vine of Eternity
The Human Imagination who appeard to Me as Coming to Judgment.
among his Saints & throwing off the Temporal that the Eternal
might be Establishd. around him were seen the Images of
Existences according to a certain order suited to my Imaginative Eye" 

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565) 
"The Last Judgment is an Overwhelming of Bad Art & Science. 
Mental Things are alone Real what is Calld Corporeal Nobody Knows
of its Dwelling Place it is in Fallacy & its Existence an
Imposture  Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought Where is
it but in the Mind of a Fool.  Some People flatter themselves
that there will be No Last Judgment & that Bad Art will be
adopted & mixed with Good Art That Error or Experiment will make
a Part of Truth & they Boast that it is its Foundation these
People flatter themselves     I will not Flatter them    Error is
Created    Truth is Eternal    Error or Creation will be Burned Up &
then & not till then Truth or Eternity will appear It is Burnt up
the Moment Men cease to behold it I assert for My self that I do
not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance &
not Action it is as the Dirt upon my feet No part of Me."