CONVERSION OF SAUL

Posted as IMAGES OF CHRIST 12 in May 2016

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
The Conversion of Saul
c. 1800

The final image in this series of posts focusing on Images of Christ is Blake's watercolor from 1800 which is titled Conversion of Saul. This image portrays Christ appearing to Saul who was working to eliminate the movement of believers which had sprung up following the reports that Christ lived. Saul was a reluctant convert. Christ visited Saul as a light and a voice which communicated to his inner being. Saul's activities in the outer world - persecuting disciples of the Lord - was not congruent with in inner conscience. He responded to the question the Lord put to him with a question of his own. He arose, he listened, he followed the path that opened to him. 

 

Acts 9
[1] And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
[2] And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
[3] And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
[4] And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
[5] And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
[6] And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
[7] And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.
[8] And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

 

The conviction that the life of Christ did not end in the grave, that his spirit was released to live in a higher plane of existence, is a transforming experience. This conviction comes from hearing a voice which speaks not to the outer, natural man but to the inner, spiritual man who wakes in response to the call. The conversion of Saul went a step further than the earlier accounts of encountering the risen Christ because it was not mediated by previous association with the ministry of Jesus in the flesh. Paul's conversion becomes the prototype for the spread of Christianity to the wide segment of the population who would encounter Christ as a spiritual reality not a physical man.  Each individual can make the transition to an altered consciousness when he begins to perceive himself as an Immortal Spirit. Christ introduces his followers to the spirit which will live in them and give them the power to live the Eternal Life.

Jerusalem, Plate 75, (E 231) 
"But Jesus breaking thro' the Central Zones of Death & Hell
Opens Eternity in Time & Space; triumphant in Mercy
Thus are the Heavens formd by Los within the Mundane Shell
And where Luther ends Adam begins again in Eternal Circle
To awake the Prisoners of Death; to bring Albion again           
With Luvah into light eternal, in his eternal day." 

1ST Corinthians 15 
[4] And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 
[5] And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
[6] After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
[7] After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
[8] And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
[9] For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
[10] But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 

Philippians 3
[20] For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
[21] Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

In the following two letters Blake gives us an inkling of the process he underwent as he experienced a transition to living in the light of spiritual consciousness.

Letters, To Butts, Nov 1802, (E 720)
 "And now let me finish with assuring you that Tho I have been
very unhappy I am so no longer I am again Emerged into the light
of Day I still & shall to Eternity Embrace Christianity and Adore
him who is the Express image of God but I have traveld thro
Perils & Darkness not unlike a Champion I have Conquerd and shall
still Go on Conquering  Nothing can withstand the fury of my
Course among the Stars of God & in the Abysses of the Accuser  My
Enthusiasm is still what it was only Enlarged and confirmd" 

Letters, To Hayley, Oct 1804, (E 756)
"I have entirely reduced that
spectrous Fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the ruin
of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life.  He is
the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an
iron-hearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece.  I speak with
perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed
upon me.  Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have
had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but
I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these
beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become
children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are
free from fetters.  O lovely Felpham, parent of Immortal 
Friendship, to thee I am eternally indebted for my three years' 
rest from perturbation and the strength I now enjoy.  Suddenly,
on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I
was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and
which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a
door and by window-shutters." 

MAGDALENE

 

Blake Archive 

Paintings Illustrating the Bible

Christ the Mediator""

Christ Pleading Before the Father for St. Mary Magdalene

1John.2

[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

---

In this picture Blake portrays the theme of forgiveness. Christ acting as the advocate for the sinner intervenes with Jehovah on the part of Magdalene who was said to have been a harlot.

Magdalene personifies a woman who was a sinner but became transformed by her encounter with Jesus. Magdalene can be thought of as a woman who reconciled the contraries. As a harlot she embodied one who was lost to developing her spiritual potential. When she recognized that the man who offered to her living water was the Christ or Messiah, she was changed. She followed Jesus, learned from him and developed spititual consciousness.

Mary Magdelene was the first to whom the Risen Christ appeared on Easter morning. 

---

John.4

[6] Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

[7] There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
[8] (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
[9] Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
[10] Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
[11] The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
[12] Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
[13] Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
[14] But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
[15] The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
[16] Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
[17] The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
[18] For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
[19] The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
[20] Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
[21] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
[22] Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
[23] But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[24] God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
[25] The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

[26] Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

Luke.8

[1] And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,
[2] And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
[3] And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.

Mark.16

[1] And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
[2] And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
[3] And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
[4] And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.
[5] And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
[6] And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
[7] But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.
[8] And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.
[9] Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
[10] And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
[11] And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

---

Jerusalem, Plate 62, (E 213)

"I see the Maternal Line, I behold the Seed of the Woman!...
These are the Daughters of Vala, Mother of the Body of death
But I thy Magdalen behold thy Spiritual Risen Body"

Everlasting Gospel, NOTEBOOK PAGE 120,(E 877)

"Was Jesus Born of a Virgin Pure With narrow Soul & looks demure If he intended to take on Sin The Mother should an Harlot been Just such a one as Magdalen"

Songs 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]

Your Golden String

 Written Oct 2010

• FOREWORD

• I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball,

• It will lead you in at Heaven's gate Built in Jerusalem's wall. (Plate 77 of Jerusalem)

• 
  

•     Late 18th Century Europe existed in a state of rapid transition from medievalism to modernity. The old arrangement of society, a divinely ordained king, a land owning aristocracy, and a marriage of Church and State came increasingly under the attacks of political, economic, and religious progressives. The American Revolution pointed toward the outcome of the struggle. In Europe the decisive event came with the French Revolution and its aftermath.

• 
  

•     William Blake lived through those stirring times. His work has great significance as political commentary. Now, however, two centuries later its spiritual dimension has assumed even greater moment. Blake participated passionately in the social and political debates of the day, although few contemporaries heard his voice. It is his place in the spiritual dialogue that exercises the greatest fascination and will probably endure when the other dimensions of his thought have passed into the dust of time. Blake radically redefined the Christian faith and offered to his own and later generations a religious perspective that takes fully into account the corruptions of the past and the psychological sophistication of the future.

• 
  

•     It was during Blake's age that religious faith in Europe began to lose its grip upon the minds of men. His generation saw the final breakdown of the Medieval Synthesis and the triumphant emergence of the Age of Reason. He participated in a decisive battle of the eternal war between conservative religionists and liberal rationalists. Though without the bloodshed of earlier days, it was a conflict in which quarter was neither given nor expected. The battle pitted the community of faith, which in the 18th Century suffered an eclipse, against the rationalists, critical men of great brilliance. But none of the rationalists surpassed the brilliance of William Blake, a critical man of faith; their contribution to modern thought had its day; we are still far from catching up with his.

• 
  

•     In the battle between faith and reason Blake occupied a unique middle ground. On one hand he constantly attacked an oppressive politico-religious establishment; on the other he just as steadfastly defended a spiritual orientation against the rationalists. This meant for Blake a lifetime engagement on two fronts.

• 
  

•     This book describes and explores the various dimensions of Blake's vision of Christianity. One overriding consideration determined that vision: Blake saw freedom as the primary and ultimate value. The attitudes he expressed toward all institutions, his evaluation of them, the comments he made about them with his poetry and pictures, all these things were determined by the institution's relationship to that supreme value of freedom. He believed from the depths of his being that coercion in any form is the primary evil. It outweighs and in fact negates any benefit that an established religion may afford. Blake believed that regardless of his professed faith, the leader who uses coercion thereby shows himself to be a follower of the God of this World, the Tempter with whom Jesus dealt in the wilderness.

• 
  

•     As a religious thinker Blake customarily receives the designation of radical Protestant. The seeds of his protest go back far beyond Luther. In his day a more common term was dissenter. Blake protested against and dissented from the authority of the orthodox Christian tradition. We can best understand Blake as a thinker, as a Christian, and as a man, in terms of this dissent from orthodoxy. His intellectual life in many ways summarized the history of Christian dissent. His art evoked and drew upon the earlier occurrences of dissent through the centuries.

• 
  

•     Blake defined God in terms of vision. Every man has his own vision of God, and no two are exactly alike. Blake spent much of his time and energy describing the superstitious images of God embraced by men in his day as in our own. With his usual extravagant language he was capable of saying something like 'their God is a devil'. He's referring to their vision, their image of God. Think for a moment about the vision of God of the Inquisitors, of for that matter of Bin Laden. Their God gloried in blood, but not my God, Blake's or yours!

• 
  

•     Jesus was an obvious dissenter from the orthodox tradition into which he was born. He blithely ignored many of the requirements of respectable Judaism. He repeatedly violated the Sabbath. He felt perfectly free to initiate conversation with unfamiliar women, a gigantic taboo; in fact he spent hours with disreputable characters of both sexes. He ate without washing his hands. All these acts seriously violated the laws of his religious tradition. In 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' Blake claimed that Jesus broke all of the ten commandments and "was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules".

• 
  

• Going beyond mere dissent Jesus attacked the established religious leaders. He called them whited sepulchers, poked fun at them, and encouraged all sorts of insubordination among their followers. Worst of all he set himself up as an alternative authority. In all these ways he directly challenged the religious leaders and provoked them to bring about his execution as a revolutionist.

• 
  

•     Jesus perceived death as the ultimate authority or power of the world. On behalf of his ideals and with spiritual power he challenged death, and according to the Christian faith he defeated it; he conquered death. In the words of Paul he "abolished death". Blake understood this in a more existential way than do most Christians. One of his primary themes, running from the very beginning of his poetry until the last day of his life, was the redefinition of death in accordance with the Christian gospel.

• 

  Blake Archive
  The Grave by Robert Blair
  The Death of the Good Old Man

  
  

The Cave

 First posted Feb 2013

The Cave is often considered a place where consciousness is submerged as for example Plato’s Cave:

                    "The Allegory of the Cave

Plato realized that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc.,
without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms.
The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.

In the allegory, Plato likened people untutored in the Theory of Forms to
prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is
the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the
prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The
puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast
shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these
puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see
and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see.
Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the
things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing
of the real causes of the shadows."

(From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York,
Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.)

---

The Cave appears often in Genesis:

Genesis 19:30
And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his
two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar:
and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

Genesis 23:9
That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is
in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it
me for a possession of a buryingplace amongs you.

Genesis 23:11
Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is herein, I give
it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead.

Genesis 23:17
And the field of Ephron which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre,
the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the
field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure.

Genesis 23:19
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of
Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.

Genesis 23:20
And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for
a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.

Genesis 25:9
And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the
field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre;
And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my
people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the
Hittite,

Genesis 49:30
In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the
land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite
for a possession of a buryingplace.

Genesis 49:32
The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the
children of Heth.

Genesis 50:13
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave
of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a
possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

---

The most prominent Cave in Genesis is the one Abraham bought for his wife.

Scattered through the corpus of Blake's images are many showing a cave.
Virtually all of them reflect the import of Plato's Cave.

There is a continuous contrary in life which Blake memorializes incessantly.  For example in Plate 14 of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell we read that:
" 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."

A bit later he wrote this account of an angel's description of
our fate (Erdman 41):
"So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church and down into
the church vault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill
we went, and came to a cove; down the winding cavern we
groped our tedious way."

According to Kathleen Raine:
"A great part of The Four Zoas tells of the exploration of the "Caverns of the Grave, and the 'dens', of spiritual darkness, by which he means this present world."

Beside his biblical sources Blake was indebted (among other things) to Greek myths. Here is his study of The Cave of the Nymphs:

The Cave is in the upper 
right and in the center a
stairway going up into
Eternity.

Look also at this post.

MILTON & LARK

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 36

Blake makes a dramatic reversal in his imagery on Plate 31 of Milton. From the laboring of Los, the howling of Orc, the trembling of Enitharmon and the weeping of Beulah, he goes directly to the Nightingale singing the song of spring. With her song she brings a message of hope and joy and love expresed by a chior of birds and a chorus of flowers.

The moment of vision arrives as a flash of lightining delivered by a messenger, or by an angel in the form a lark, arriving after consultation with the Twenty-seven Churches. This moment of vision was what Blake was seeking. He had brought together the wisdom to which he had access, sought the guidance of providence, and listened for a message in response. Blake perceived that by renovating his own psyche, Milton would become restored to completeness. Together he and Milton could forgive each other, themselves and God for any errors that had led to suffering. 

Milton, Plate 31 [34],(E 130)

"Corporeal Strife      

In Los's Halls continual labouring in the Furnaces of Golgonooza
Orc howls on the Atlantic: Enitharmon trembles: All Beulah weeps

Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring;
The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed: just as the morn
Appears; listens silent; then springing from the waving Corn-field! loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, trill, trill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse:
Reecchoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine    
All Nature listens silent to him & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird
With eyes of soft humility, & wonder love & awe.
Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song
The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren         
Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain:
The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro the day,
And thro the night warbles luxuriant; every Bird of Song
Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon!       

Thou percievest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours!
And none can tell how from so small a center comes such sweets
Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expands
Its ever during doors, that Og & Anak fiercely guard[.]
First eer the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms     
Joy even to tears, which the Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet downy & soft waving among the reeds.
Light springing on the air lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak: the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn lovely May           
Opens her many lovely eyes: listening the Rose still sleeps 
None dare to wake her. soon she bursts her crimson curtaind bed
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower:
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens! every Tree,        
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance
Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love! 

Such is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon" 

Milton, Plate 35 [39], (E 135)

"O how the Starry Eight rejoic'd to see Ololon descended!
And now that a wide road was open to Eternity,                   

By Ololons descent thro Beulah to Los & Enitharmon,

For mighty were the multitudes of Ololon, vast the extent
Of their great sway, reaching from Ulro to Eternity

Surrounding the Mundane Shell outside in its Caverns
And through Beulah. and all silent forbore to contend            
With Ololon for they saw the Lord in the Clouds of Ololon

There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, but the Industrious find
This Moment & it multiply. & when it once is found
It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.        
In this Moment Ololon descended to Los & Enitharmon
Unseen beyond the Mundane Shell Southward in Miltons track

Just in this Moment when the morning odours rise abroad
And first from the Wild Thyme, stands a Fountain in a rock
Of crystal flowing into two Streams, one flows thro Golgonooza   

And thro Beulah to Eden beneath Los's western Wall
The other flows thro the Aerial Void & all the Churches
Meeting again in Golgonooza beyond Satans Seat

The Wild Thyme is Los's Messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon
Terrible deadly & poisonous his presence in Ulro dark            
Therefore he appears only a small Root creeping in grass
Covering over the Rock of Odours his bright purple mantle
Beside the Fount above the Larks nest in Golgonooza
Luvah slept here in death & here is Luvahs empty Tomb
Ololon sat beside this Fountain on the Rock of Odours.           

Just at the place to where the Lark mounts, is a Crystal Gate
It is the enterance of the First Heaven named Luther: for
The Lark is Los's Messenger thro the Twenty-seven Churches
That the Seven Eyes of God who walk even to Satans Seat
Thro all the Twenty-seven Heavens may not slumber nor sleep      

But the Larks Nest is at the Gate of Los, at the eastern
Gate of wide Golgonooza & the Lark is Los's Messenger
PLATE 36 [40], (E 136)

When on the highest lift of his light pinions he arrives
At that bright Gate, another Lark meets him & back to back
They touch their pinions tip tip: and each descend
To their respective Earths & there all night consult with Angels
Of Providence & with the Eyes of God all night in slumbers       
Inspired: & at the dawn of day send out another Lark
Into another Heaven to carry news upon his wings
Thus are the Messengers dispatchd till they reach the Earth again
In the East Gate of Golgonooza, & the Twenty-eighth bright
Lark. met the Female Ololon descending into my Garden            
Thus it appears to Mortal eyes & those of the Ulro Heavens
But not thus to Immortals, the Lark is a mighty, Angel.

For Ololon step'd into the Polypus within the Mundane Shell
They could not step into Vegetable Worlds without becoming
The enemies of Humanity except in a Female Form          
And as One Female, Ololon and all its mighty Hosts
Appear'd: a Virgin of twelve years nor time nor space was
To the perception of the Virgin Ololon but as the
Flash of lightning but more  quick the Virgin in my Garden
Before my Cottage stood for the Satanic Space is delusion"   

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115)
"I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth, 
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive    
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments.
And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot,
As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity.