DESCENT

'The Descent of Man into the Vale of Death: 'But Hope Rekindled, Only to Illume the Shades of Death, and Light Her to the Tomb'

Blake Archive
Robert Blair's The Grave

All that Blake wrote was a exploration of his own psyche and an invitation to us to look within ourselves. Blake knew that individuals are not consciously aware of the motivations that drive them to choose death rather than life, devolution rather than evolution. He was motivated to look at the forces within himself which struggled with one another instead of cooperating to produce a healthy wholeness. He wrote in order to expose the unseen to the light of consciousness.

To accomplish such a feat one must enter the repository of the dark secrets, shattering fears, and rejected sinfullness which one conceals from others and from  oneself. One must descend from the light of day into hidden passages where one encounters the unknown.  

  

In William Blake's Circle of Destiny, Milton O Percival, wrote of the process through which Blake made his readers familiar with the stages on the journey through which individuals travel as they experience life: 

Page 219

"The Course of experience, which is at once the course of error and the process by which Satan is revealed and regeneration is accomplished, is in the hands of Los and Enitharmon.

Page 228

The struggle between the masculine and the feminine contraries - the struggle between mind and emotions, between reason and sense, between Spectre and Emanation, betweeen the inner and the outer in every sense - constitutes a trial by fire, a spiritual purgation. In Blake's fires, as in the fires of alchemy, the feminine cotrary is purified first. If man fell by woman, it is by woman that he is redeemed. The feminine emotions, driven to desperation by the increasing severity of the rational mind turn from vengence to forgiveness in their own defense. In The Four Zoas Enitharmon's change of heart seems to be brought about by the suffering of the bound Orc and her own fear of a God of Mystery... [T]he emotions have been driven by the doubting rational mind into such narrow and cruel forms, such perversions of their true nature, that a sudden conversion is induced...Redeemed from error's power, the female unites herself again with her masculine contrary." 

Jerusalem, Plate 7, (E 149)

"And thus the Spectre spoke: Wilt thou still go on to destruction?
Till thy life is all taken away by this deceitful Friendship?    
He drinks thee up like water! like wine he pours thee
Into his tuns: thy Daughters are trodden in his vintage
He makes thy Sons the trampling of his bulls, they are plow'd
And harrowd for his profit, lo! thy stolen Emanation
Is his garden of pleasure! all the Spectres of his Sons mock thee
Look how they scorn thy once admired palaces! now in ruins
Because of Albion! because of deceit and friendship!"

Jerusalem, Plate 7, (E 150) 

"Los answer'd. Altho' I know not this! I know far worse than this:
I know that Albion hath divided me, and that thou O my Spectre,
Hast just cause to be irritated: but look stedfastly upon me:
Comfort thyself in my strength the time will arrive,
When all Albions injuries shall cease, and when we shall         
Embrace him tenfold bright, rising from his tomb in immortality.
They have divided themselves by Wrath. they must be united by
Pity: let us therefore take example & warning O my Spectre,
O that I could abstain from wrath! O that the Lamb
Of God would look upon me and pity me in my fury.                
In anguish of regeneration! in terrors of self annihilation:
Pity must join together those whom wrath has torn in sunder,
And the Religion of Generation which was meant for the destruction
Of Jerusalem, become her covering, till the time of the End.
O holy Generation! [Image] of regeneration! 
O point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies!
Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible!
The Dead despise & scorn thee, & cast thee out as accursed:
Seeing the Lamb of God in thy gardens & thy palaces:
Where they desire to place the Abomination of Desolation." 

Jerusalem, Plate 9, (E 152)

"Every Emanative joy forbidden as a Crime:
And the Emanations buried alive in the earth with pomp of religion:          
Inspiration deny'd; Genius forbidden by laws of punishment:
I saw terrified; I took the sighs & tears, & bitter groans:
I lifted them into my Furnaces; to form the spiritual sword.
That lays open the hidden heart: I drew forth the pang
Of sorrow red hot: I workd it on my resolute anvil:              
I heated it in the flames of Hand, & Hyle, & Coban
Nine times; Gwendolen & Cambel & Gwineverra
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby,
The crysolite, the topaz, the jacinth, & every precious stone,
Loud roar my Furnaces and loud my hammer is heard:               
I labour day and night, I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty
But still I labour in hope, tho' still my tears flow down.
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and snared and taken     
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!

Thus they contended among the Furnaces with groans & tears;
Groaning the Spectre heavd the bellows, obeying Los's frowns;
Till the Spaces of Erin were perfected in the furnaces
Of affliction, and Los drew them forth, compelling the harsh Spectre.         
Plate 10
Into the Furnaces & into the valleys of the Anvils of Death
And into the mountains of the Anvils & of the heavy Hammers
Till he should bring the Sons & Daughters of Jerusalem to be
The Sons & Daughters of Los that he might protect them from
Albions dread Spectres; storming, loud, thunderous & mighty      

The Bellows & the Hammers move compell'd by Los's hand."

OPPOSITES

On page 379 of The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist cites his evidence that Blake wrote and illustrated under the influence of the right hemisphere of his brain. McGilchrist used one of Blake's earliest illuminated works There is No Natural Religion, to demonstrate that Blake had a firm grasp on the workings of the right hemisphere as determined by exploration on the functioning of the human brain by neuroscientists. Blake intuitively knew the characteristics which were later attributed to right brain activity.

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, b, VII, (E 3)

  "VII The desire of Man being Infinite the possession is Infinite
& himself Infinite
     Conclusion,   If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic
character. the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the
ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat
the same dull round over again
     Application.   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" 

McGilchrist wrote:

 "The very titles of Blake's major work's Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, allude to the reality that, in the lived world of the right hemisphere, opposites are not 'in opposition'. Blake's visionary poetry nontheless dramatises in various forms a battle between two powerful forces that adopt different guises: the single-minded, limiting, measuring, mechanical power of what Blake called Ratio, the God of Newton, and the myriad-minded, liberating power of creative imagination, the God of Milton. This opposition persists despite the right hemispheres unification of opposites, for the same reason that a tolerant society cannot secure the co-operation of the intolerant who would undermine it, and may ultimately find itself in the paradoxical situation of having to be intolerant of them.

Blake .. voices, without being aware of it, the brain's struggle to ward off domination by the left hemisphere. For instance, in THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION he writes:

[Blue text provided by McGilchrist.] 

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, VII, (E 3)

"Conclusion, If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic
character. the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the
ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat
the same dull round over again [to reach outside the known one needs the right
hemisphere: the left hemisphere can only repeat the known].

Application. He who sees the Infinite [looks outward to the ever becoming with
the right hemisphere] in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only [looks at the self-defined world brought into being by the left hemisphere] sees himself only. [the left hemisphere is self-reflective].

Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is [through the right hemispere gives us access to imagination/metaphor, the bridge whereby the divine reaches us, and liberates us from ourselves].

Blake, too, saw himself as inspired by a return to a great figure of the pre-Augustan era, not so much in his case Shakespeare or Michelangelo (though he was undoubtedly indebted to both), but to the spirit of Milton, which, with charecteristic specificity and a wonderful refusal to be nonplussed, he believed had entered his body through the instep of his left foot:

'Then first I saw him in the Zenith as a falling star,
Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift;
And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, enterd there ...'
Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 110)

- thereby gaining literally direct access to the right hemisphere. And so thunderstruct was he by the experience that fortunately he illustrated the event."

---

Wikipedia Commons

Huntington Art Gallery

Milton

Plate 29, Copy B 

HUMILITY

First Posted December 2014 

Wikipedia Commons

Song of Los

Copy E, Plate 1

Blake was committed to an egalitarian society; one in which all men recognized each as Brother: as equally an expression of the Indwelling Spirit. He disagreed with any system in which some men were set up to have authority, and others to be obedient to them. His attitude to humility was a result of this belief. If a man knows himself to be directed by his Inner Spirit, his Identity, he trusts in his own integrity and not in ecclesiastical or political orders. 

Everlasting Gospel, (E 518)
"Was Jesus Humble or did he
Give any Proofs of Humility
Boast of high Things with Humble tone
And give with Charity a Stone
When but a Child he ran away                  
And left his Parents in Dismay
When they had wanderd three days long
These were the words upon his tongue
No Earthly Parents I confess
I am doing my Fathers business"

Blake saw true humility as not considering oneself as more worthy of respect of honor than others. Likewise one should not give more respect or honor to another because he was singled out to serve his Brothers in a position of responsibility. Blake saw the example which Jesus set as, "Humble to God Haughty to Man." Blake meant that a man who is confident of God working through him would not, and should not appear submissive to men who had not sought to follow the God within them. The attitude of Jesus was not defiance, submission or cooperation but trust in the Higher Power. 

Everlasting Gospel, (E 519)
"Like dr Priestly & Bacon & Newton               
Poor Spiritual Knowledge is not worth a button
For thus the Gospel Sr Isaac confutes
God can only be known by his Attributes    
And as for the Indwelling of the Holy Ghost
Or of Christ & his Father its all a boast
And Pride & Vanity of Imagination
That disdains to follow this Worlds Fashion
To teach doubt & Experiment       
Certainly was not what Christ meant
What was he doing all that time
From twelve years old to manly prime
Was he then Idle or the Less
About his Fathers business        
Or was his wisdom held in scorn
Before his wrath began to burn
In Miracles throughout the Land
That quite unnervd Lord Caiaphas hand    
If he had been Antichrist Creeping Jesus 
Hed have done any thing to please us
Gone sneaking into Synagogues
And not usd the Elders & Priests like dogs
But Humble as a Lamb or Ass
Obeyd himself to Caiaphas         
God wants not Man to Humble himself
This is the trick of the ancient Elf
This is the Race that Jesus ran  
Humble to God Haughty to Man
Cursing the Rulers before the People    
Even to the temples highest Steeple
And when he Humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod
If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me   
Thou also dwellst in Eternity       
Thou art a Man God is no more
Thy own humanity learn to adore
For that is my Spirit of Life
Awake arise to Spiritual Strife
And thy Revenge abroad display       
In terrors at the Last Judgment day
Gods Mercy & Long Suffering
Is but the Sinner to Judgment to bring
Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray
And take Revenge at the Last Day 
Jesus replied & thunders hurld
I never will Pray for the World
Once [I] did so when I prayd ill the Garden  
I wishd to take with me a Bodily Pardon
Can that which was of Woman born   
In the absence of the Morn
When the Soul fell into Sleep
And Archangels round it weep
Shooting out against the Light
Fibres of a deadly night        
Reasoning upon its own Dark Fiction
In Doubt which is Self Contradiction
Humility is only Doubt
And does the Sun & Moon blot out
Rooting over with thorns & stems     
The buried Soul & all its Gems
This Lifes dim Windows of the Soul
Distorts the Heavens from Pole to Pole
And leads you to Believe a Lie
When you see with not thro the Eye"  

John 11
[46] But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
[47] Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
[48] If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
[49] And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
[50] Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
[51] And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
[52] And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
[53] Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
[54] Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.

John 18
[19] The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine.
[20] Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.
[21] Why askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said.
[22] And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?
[23] Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?
[24] Now Annas had sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest.

Blake's Sex

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 96

All was a Vision, all a Dream:

In 2011 Larry posted seven times on Blake's sexual concepts, their sources, and their expression in his poetry.  

Sex I 

Sex II

Sex III

Sex IV

Sex V

Sex VI

Sex VII

BLAKE PRIMER - SEXUALITY

Summary

After all this detail We can begin our summary of Blake's theory of sex with Jesus' reply to the Sadducee's mocking question about the woman married to seven husbands: "for when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels which are in heaven."

Blake begins here, with the assumption that sexual division relates to this world, but not to Eternity. Sex appears in Beulah, a moony rest from the arduous creative activity of Eden. The "Female Will" condemns Man to the loss of Eternity, which Blake calls "the Sleep of Ulro".

Sex signifies fallenness, and the jealous and proudly chaste female symbolizes the active principle of evil, also identified with a materialistic viewpoint whose values are coercion and love of power.

Blake's vision of Jesus humanized his theory of sex. He began to use the biblical image of Jerusalem as the bride of Christ, named his last and greatest epic 'Jerusalem', and ultimately was able to rationalize the heterodox doctrine of sex with the glorified female as the emanation of the Eternal Man. Blake's female thus joined all the rest of his personal images in traveling the Circle of Destiny, materializing in the Fall and etherealizing in the Return.

Through all his journey Blake had a characteristically liberal and enlightened view of womankind, an entirely different matter from the sexual symbolism that filled his pages. His true and abiding feelings about the relation between men and women appear early in his works in his "Annotations to Lavater": "Let the men do their duty and the women will be such wonders; the female life lives from the light of the male: see a man's female dependants, you know the man." Admittedly short of the high standards of present day feminism, Blake's vision of womanhood considerably surpassed that of most of his contemporaries-- and perhaps most of ours.

End of Chapter Eight

ROMANTICISM

Illustrations to Robert Blair's The Grave

Object 10 

Our Time is Fix'd

Each Romantic poet followed his own leadings. Blake was distinctive as was each of them. The fact that he was characterized among them may be attributed to the fact they all were responding to guidance from right dominated brains. They were born into the Enlightenment period of history, a period which McGilchrist  describes as "single, knowable, consistent, certain, fixed, therefore ultimately finite", in other words left dominated. Obviously there are some individuals for whom differences are evident. They turn away from the majority culture and follow the right sides of their brains which are telling then that opposites may be equally true, that differences need not be excluded, and that there is more than is encompassed by what is already known.     

McGilchrist writes the following in his book The Master and His Emissary:

Page 354 

"In this chapter I will develop the view that romanticism is a manifestation of right-hemisphere dominance in our way of looking at the world. Here I am reminded of the fact that the right hemisphere is more inclusive, and can equally use what the left hemisphere uses as well as its own preferred approach, whereas the left hemisphere does not have that degree of flexibility or reciprocity.  

Page 355

For the Romantic mind, theory was not something abstracted from the mind and separate from it (based on representation), but present in the act of perception. There was therefore no question of 'applying' theory to life, since phenomena themselves were the source of 'theory'. Fact and theory, like particular and universal, were not opposites...The particular metaphorises the universal. 

Page 356

...Some things have to remain obscure if they are not to be untrue to their very nature: they are known, and can be expressed, only indirectly.

 

One of these is embodied existence.

Page 357

...'real people have embodied minds whose conceptual systems  arise from, are shaped by, and are given meaning through living human bodies...

The fusion of body with mind or more properly with spirit of soul, was never more keenly felt than by the Romantics. 'O Human Imagination, O Divine Body', wrote Blake.

Page 358

Unlike history seen as an intellectual realm, a repository of ideas about socio-cultural issues, tradition is an embodiment of culture: not an idea of the past, but the past itself embodied... what I believe the rise of Romanticism to be, [is] to redress the imbalance of the hemispheres, and to curtail the domination of the left." 

Right brain ideas are incorporated in Blake's poetry although, in true Romantic fashion, they are not expressed overtly.

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 4, (E 34)

                 "The voice of the Devil

  All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the
following Errors.
  1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a
Soul.
  2. That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that
Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.
  3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies.
  But the following Contraries to these are True
  1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age
  2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 

  3 Energy is Eternal Delight "

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39)
   "The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire
at the  end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from
Hell.
   For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to 
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole 
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now  appears finite & corrupt.
   This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
   But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to  be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
   If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern."

Milton, Plate 3, (E 96)                                                     t

"By Enitharmons Looms when Albion was slain upon his Mountains
And in his Tent, thro envy of Living Form, even of the Divine Vision
And of the sports of Wisdom in the Human Imagination
Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever.
Mark well my words. they are of your eternal salvation:"  

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

"These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity 

But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions

There are Two Gates thro which all Souls descend. One Southward
From Dover Cliff to Lizard Point. the other toward the North
Caithness & rocky Durness, Pentland & John Groats House.         

The Souls descending to the Body, wail on the right hand
Of Los; & those deliverd from the Body, on the left hand
For Los against the east his force continually bends
Along the Valleys of Middlesex from Hounslow to Blackheath
Lest those Three Heavens of Beulah should the Creation destroy   
And lest they should descend before the north & south Gates
Groaning with pity, he among the wailing Souls laments."

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)
"And every Generated Body in its inward form,
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,"

Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 142)

"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 5, (E 148)

"Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination
(Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus. blessed for ever)."

Jerusalem, Plate 71, (E 224)

"And above Albions Land was seen the Heavenly Canaan
As the Substance is to the Shadow: and above Albions Twelve Sons
Were seen Jerusalems Sons: and all the Twelve Tribes spreading
Over Albion. As the Soul is to the Body, so Jerusalems Sons,
Are to the Sons of Albion: and Jerusalem is Albions Emanation    

What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent:
The Circumference is Within: Without, is formed the Selfish Center 
And the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity.
And the Center has Eternal States! these States we now explore."

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? O ye Religious discountenance every one among
 
you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you
in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science?
is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is
Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What
is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives
Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the
things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance,
Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the
Spirit?"

SEEING

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 99

If as McGilchrist proposes the right hemisphere of the brain is designed and suited to be the master and the left hemisphere its emissary, we can look for evidence to support that postulate. McGilchrist notes that the act of seeing which may seem straightforward to the left hemisphere, is doing much more when processed by the right hemisphere. The left brain may be seeing solely with the eye whereas the right brain is using the act of seeing to go beyond the surface of an object to the substance and meaning it incorporates.

Iain McGilchrist on  Page 359-60 of The Master and His Emissary makes these statements about the act of seeing which takes place in the right hemisphere

"Every object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ or perception in us." (Goethe)

...for us to truly experience something to enter into and alter us, and there must be something in us which specifically responds to it as unique.

Understanding, then, is not a discursive explanatory process, but a moment of connection, in which we see through our experience - an apercu  or insight. ... each act of seeing, in the sense of allowing something to 'presence' for us, is in itself necessarily an act of understanding."

To Blake the act of perception is not static or solitary. Time and Space are altered as are the organs which perceive them. If we are capable of living in Eternity, if we have developed our spiritual senses sufficiently, we are not opaque to one another but share the one life which includes all.

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 258)

"every Word & Every Character
Was Human according to the Expansion or Contraction, the Translucence or
Opakeness of Nervous fibres such was the variation of Time & Space
Which vary according as the Organs of Perception vary & they walked
To & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seen
And seeing: according to fitness & order. And I heard Jehovah speak" 

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 707)

"Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face
Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand
Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above
And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change threatend the Earth
The American War began   All its dark horrors passed before my face
Across the Atlantic to France.  Then the French Revolution commencd in thick clouds
And My Angels have told me. that seeing such visions I could not subsist on the Earth
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of the Mutual Covenant Divine"

We find in the Bible the same implication that the eye is an organ which is capable of furnishing the body with light if it is used in one way and the opposite if used differently: light if looked 'thro' or darkness if it is looked 'with.'

First Corinthians 13

[12] For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Matthew 6

[22] The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
[23] But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Luke 11

[34] The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
[35] Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.
[36] If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

Commenting on the above verses John A Sanford in The Kingdom Within states: 

"If our eye, our spiritual insight, is dark, and we are accordingly acting out of ignorance of ourselves, our whole inner life will be dark for we will in fact be possessed by everything in ourselves of which we are unconscious."  Page 147

---

Auguries of Innocence, (E 492)

"Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born 
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie 
When we see not Thro the Eye         

Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)

"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.  What it
will be Questiond When the Sun rises  do  you  not  see  a  round 
Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea   O no no I see an Innumerable
company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord
God Almighty  I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any
more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look
thro it & not with it."  

Letters, To Rev Dr Trusler, (E 702)

"Mirth is
better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth--I feel that a
Man may be happy in This World.  And I know that This World Is a
World of Imagination & Vision  I see Every thing I paint In This
World, but Every body does not see alike.  To the Eyes of a Miser
a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use
of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with
Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes
of others only a Green thing that stands in the way.  Some See
Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate
my proportions, & Some Scarce see Nature at all  But to the Eyes
of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself.  As a man
is So he Sees.  As the Eye is formed such are its Powers  You
certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not
be found in This World.  To Me This World is all One continued
Vision of Fancy or Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told
So."