TWO SIDES CONTINUED

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Jerusalem

Plate 9
 

In the world of thought, time is not the barrier which it is in the world of matter. The insights which are surfacing today as resulting from new scientific explorations, are found in the writing in of earlier generations dressed in the garb of minds which arrived at truth by different avenues. Blake's language was poetry.

I knew a bilingual family who struggled with simultaneously being a part of the Spanish speaking world and the English speaking one. Several members of the family were comfortable in both worlds and navigated between the two. However two members refused to maintain a firm foothold in two worlds. The Spanish speaking mother understood English but didn't speak it. The youngest son understood Spanish but only spoke English. I think that many of us find ourselves in similar situations with the languages of poetry, science, philosophy, psychology and religion. We may have to make mental translations to be able to communicate at all. At best we learn to understand the vocabularies and grammar of the foreign language and may later gain the confidence to use it to communicate on our own.  

Contemporary science is exploring human brain function by using the tools of imaging which demonstrate how electrical activity in the brain relates to external input. Exploring the differences in the functioning of the right and left halves of the brain and the means by which they pass information back and forth is a subject which neurologists and psychologists study. Blake in his day studied it as philosopher and a poet.

Mark Vernon had this to say about the contrast between left and right hemispheres:

"The two persons interpretation of brain lateralisation comes from Roger Sperry, the neuroscientist who won the Nobel Prize for his work on split-brain research. The left loves precision. Its purpose in life is to manipulate. It seeks certainty and gains that by building maps of what it has grasped of reality, though like physical maps, the left hemisphere’s charts come with the inherent limitation of being abstracted from the world as it actually is. They are handy fictions.

The right hemisphere serves the ability to make connections and build understanding. It has the kind of personality that enjoys possibilities and novelty. Delighting in pattern, it discovers, though is also able to remain uncommitted about the nature of things. This negative capability, to recall Keats’ expression, allows it to stay alert to the unknown and, therefore, more in touch with reality. It can live with what it can’t understand.  

...

McGilchrist musters the evidence to show that the left hemisphere is good at suppressing the insights of the right. Hence an age that fails to understand the spiritual quest, such as ours, may be suffering from a condition known as ‘hemispheric utilisation bias’. The left has, as it were, imposed its view of the world upon us at a cultural level.

That explains why it is often claimed that neuroscience demonstrates we are purely material beings and that consciousness is a delusional by-product of electrically charged meat. But perhaps the truth is precisely the opposite. To put it crudely, a culture enamoured with the insights of the left hemisphere trusts the neuroscience because it is a science. What it is perhaps just beginning to notice is that the science is subtly unpicking the very worldview to which it has been so wedded."

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Without referring to brain lateralization I have written in earlier posts of this situation:

LOS

Los and Urizen were the two most durable characters in Blake's work. Los, as the representative of Urthona in the physical world, struggled to prevent Urizen, the reasoning mind, from obscuring the perception of the Infinite, Eternal Soul which inhabits every being. Blake suffered with Los the anguish of seeing Jerusalem disdained and Vala enthroned.

LOS VS SPECTRE

Apparently Los, although unable to accept the Spectre's claims intellectually, began to experience an opening to reconciliation with his Spectre through seeing his own defenses reflected in those of his Spectre. The avenue to healing the psyche involved seeing the errors in oneself as well as the virtues in the enemy.

LOS & HIS SPECTRE

We think of much of the functioning of the human psyche taking place through the Ego which allocates activities to each division. The Ego identifies with the reasoning mind and assigns a large proportion of activity to reason. Los needs his reasoning mind which is represented by his Spectre, but when he embraces his reasoning mind, it wants to assume control. Additional processes will ensue before the two come together.

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Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 141)
"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."

Jerusalem, Plate 10, (E 152)
"And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
They take the Two Contraries which are calld Qualities, with which
Every Substance is clothed, they name them Good & Evil
From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation             
Not only of the Substance from which it is derived
A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer
Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power
An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing
This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power             
And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation

Therefore Los stands in London building Golgonooza
Compelling his Spectre to labours mighty; trembling in fear
The Spectre weeps, but Los unmovd by tears or threats remains

I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans           
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create" 

Jerusalem, Plate 74, (E 229)
"The Four Zoa's clouded rage; Urizen stood by Albion
With Rintrah and Palamabron and Theotormon and Bromion
These Four are Verulam & London & York & Edinburgh
And the Four Zoa's are Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona
In opposition deadly, and their Wheels in poisonous              
And deadly stupor turn'd against each other loud & fierce
Entering into the Reasoning Power, forsaking Imagination
They became Spectres; & their Human Bodies were reposed
In Beulah, by the Daughters of Beulah with tears & lamentations

The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; & when separated      
From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory. It thence frames Laws & Moralities
To destroy Imagination! the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars"