READING WITCUTT

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Europe
Plate 9

It was fortuitous that Larry went from studying the Russian Humanists to Jung's psychology to falling into the hands of Witcutt's psychological study of William Blake. Witcutt acted as the connecting link which made Blake appealing and engaging. Larry's first note on Witcutt was, "A fascinating and informative little book by a Jungian Christian."

Larry learned from Witcutt that Blake was an "introverted intuitive", putting him into a category which was familiar to a student of Jung. Witcutt said, "To the intuitive introvert the world of the imagination is far more vivid than the world of outer reality."

More Jungian terminology is apparent in this statement Larry wrote:

"His visions were primarily graphic. His poetry was commentary on the pictures. The work is essentially a textbook example of the archetypes and functions. A map of the Unconscious - the collective unconscious."  

Witcutt Page 17:

"There is in the unconscious mind a substratum of images which are fundamentally the same for all men, no matter what period or race. Jung called the collectivity of these images the 'collective unconscious and the images themselves the archetypes of the unconscious, or the primordial images.

To the ancients these images were the gods."

Larry wrote:

"Blake hated the Greeks, therefore renamed the gods."

Witcutt Page 18:

"In exploring the mythological world of Blake, we are really exploring our own minds"

Witcutt Page 19:

"The Ancient pagan religions were the products of pure imagination [intuition]...Now we worship the God of reason instead of the gods of imagination."

Witcutt Page 20:

"Nevertheless the gods are still necessary...as symbols of the inner world of man, as parts of his own soul."

Larry wrote:

"Blake's heresy was to identify religion with the imagination, the collective unconscious - the Jungian heresy. The answer is that 'one God' sprang from reason."

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Larry wrote these comments on Blake under the influence of Witcutt. He had not yet begun seriously studying Blake's own writing. Witcutt's wrote from the point of view of an analytic psychologist. When Larry became absorbed in studying Blake he was less interested in his psychological makeup than in his spiritual perceptions. Blake's poetry as a myth of creation, redemption and apocalypse is a broad enough subject to be studied from many perspectives.

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Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12, (E 38)
"Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make
it so?
   He replied.  All poets believe that it does, & in ages of
imagination
this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable
of a firm perswasion of any thing."

Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)
"We do not 
want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to
our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall
live for ever; in Jesus our Lord."

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132)
"The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created"