Saturday, August 10, 2024

BLAKE & DREAMS 2

THE PILGRIMS PROGRESS
FROM THIS WORLD
TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME
DELIVERED 
UNDER THE SIMILITUDE
OF A DREAM
By John Bunyan's with an introduction by John T. Winterich
Illustrated with Water-colors by WILLIAM BLAKE  

 Pilgrim's Dream

"As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I came upon a certain place, where there was a den—and I laid down in that place to sleep. And as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and, behold—I saw a man clothed with rags, standing with his face turned away from his own house, with a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled! And not being able to contain himself any longer—he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, 'What shall I do?'"

Blake portrays three level in his image:

The dream which is a vehicle through which the dreamer may gain access to levels of consciousness below his ego consciousness.

Sleeping which is a necessary condition which allows the brain to be activated in such a way that unconscious content surfaces.

The unconscious which may release supressed material as well as well as activate protections which prevent damage.

Blake knew that listening to one's dreams was a way of getting in touch with the aspects of the psyche which are not ordinarily accessable. When Blake illustrated Pilgrim's Progress which was written as a sequence of episodes in Bunyan's dream, he reached into his unconscious to make known what may have been opaque in Bunyan's allegory. Bunyan did not focus on the dream state itself but in Blake's first illustration he revealed that the dreamer is subject to levels of consciousness different from those of waking experience. 

The sleeping pilgrim is not reconstructing memories but reliving incidents in his life which fit into a pattern through which a pilgrim travels. In the upper level of the picture Blake faintly represents the episodes through the pilgrim will travel in Bunyan's dream. The dreamer who lies asleep bears no resemblemce to the  pilgrim who will undertake the journey. Beneath the dreamer lies a sleeping lion. Blake used a lion as a symbol for the love and protection which is afforded to the innocent lamb who is vulnerable to the wrath of the wolf who would do him harm.

    
Milton, PLATE 15 [17], (E 109)
"As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering; they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body;
Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth   
Image Divine tho' darken'd; and tho walking as one walks
In sleep; and the Seven comforted and supported him.

Like as a Polypus that vegetates beneath the deep!
They saw his Shadow vegetated underneath the Couch
Of death: for when he enterd into his Shadow: Himself:           
His real and immortal Self: was as appeard to those
Who dwell in immortality, as One sleeping on a couch
Of gold; and those in immortality gave forth their Emanations
Like Females of sweet beauty, to guard round him & to feed
His lips with food of Eden in his cold and dim repose!           

But to himself he seemd a wanderer lost in dreary night.
Onwards his Shadow kept its course among the Spectres; call'd
Satan, but swift as lightning passing them, startled the shades
Of Hell beheld him in a trail of light as of a comet
That travels into Chaos: so Milton went guarded within." 
Songs and ballads, (E 486)     
"The Land of Dreams

Awake awake my little Boy
Thou wast thy Mothers only joy
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep
Awake thy Father does thee keep

O what Land is the Land of Dreams     
What are its Mountains & what are its Streams
O Father I saw my Mother there
Among the Lillies by waters fair

Among the Lambs clothed in white
She walkd with her Thomas in sweet delight   
I wept for joy like a dove I mourn
O when shall I again return

Dear Child I also by pleasant Streams
Have wanderd all Night in the Land of Dreams
But tho calm & warm the Waters wide  
I could not get to the other side

Father O Father what do we here
In this Land of unbelief & fear
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star"   


In Dark Figures in the Desired Country, Gerda Norvig makes this statement about the healing powers which are called forth when one engages in the process of individuation:
"Blake seems to be giving here graphic expression to a common psychological rule that goes beyond Bunyan's: the rule that active differentiation of the contents of the dark side of the self precedes spiritual assistance, but also literally creates a space for the healing powers of the psyche to move into as they well up from archetypal dimensions recognized as existing deep in the background of our mental landscape." (Page 148)

Damon, A Blake Dictionary

"The Lion is commonly known as the protector of the Lamb...the Lion's warth is particulrly directed against the wolves who prey upon the flocks.
...
The Lion is spiritual wrath, inspired by pity...while the Tyger's blind warth is purely emotional." (Page 242)


Wednesday, August 07, 2024

BLAKE & DREAMS 1

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

“The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.” Carl Jung

The quote is from "The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933) an essay by Carl Jung that was published in 1933 as the second part of his series “On Psychology.”

Pictured is the threefold materialized body - moving from the feet to the head we see:

Horses - body - energies -  Tharmas
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 4, (E 34) 
"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
Hunter -  loins - passions - (daughter of) Urizen
Ahania, Plate 2, (E 84)
"6: But the strong arm that sent it, remember'd
The sounding beam; laughing it tore through
That beaten mass: keeping its direction
The cold loins of Urizen dividing.

7: Dire shriek'd his invisible Lust                           
Deep groan'd Urizen! stretching his awful hand
Ahania (so name his parted soul)
He siez'd on his mountains of jealousy.
He groand anguishd & called her Sin,
Woman - heart - emotions - Luvah 
Four Zoas, Night VII ,Page 84, (E 359)
"This thou well rememberest listen I will tell
What thou forgettest. They in us & we in them alternate Livd  
Drinking the joys of Universal Manhood. One dread morn
Listen O vision of Delight One dread morn of goary blood
The manhood was divided for the gentle passions making way   
Thro the infinite labyrinths of the heart & thro the nostrils issuing
In odorous stupefaction stood before the Eyes of Man   
A female bright."
Owl - head - mind - Urthona

Jerusalem, Plate 82, (E 240)

"then they saw the Furna[c]es opend, & in tears
Began to give their souls away in the Furna[c]es of affliction.
Los saw & was comforted at his Furnaces uttering thus his voice. 

I know I am Urthona keeper of the Gates of Heaven,
And that I can at will expatiate in the Gardens of bliss;
But pangs of love draw me down to my loins which are
Become a fountain of veiny pipes: O Albion! my brother!
Plate 83
Corruptibility appears upon thy limbs, and never more  
Can I arise and leave thy side, but labour here incessant
Till thy awaking! yet alas I shall forget Eternity!"  

We are accustomed to thinking of the material outer world as having some independent existence. This is the exterior world mediated through consciousness. But the world of dreams is an internal world coming to us from the unconscious which exists within our psyches exclusively. The images which came to Blake existed first in his mind. He brought them from his unconscious and expressed them in symbolic language when they reached his conscious mind. 

We may recieve material which resides in our unconscious through dreaming but often it never reaches our consciousness. Blake had the uncanny ability to bring into the light material which primarily resides in the collective unconscious which we know primarily through archetypes. Blake's poetry and visual images can become an avenue through which we become acquainted with material which is hidden from us in our own unconscious minds. If we believe, as Blake did, that the world of thought is the real world, we have a key to that interior world through studying Blake.

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)

"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."