SPIRITUAL CAUSE

Synchronicity is a term Carl Jung coined to describe events which seemed to be connected in an acausal manner. That three men from different backgrounds in whom I'm particularly interested, found their final resting place together impresses me as synchronistic. Buried close to the same location in London are George Fox, who died in 1690; John Wesley, who died in 1791; and William Blake who died in 1827. George Fox and William Blake are buried in the Bunhill Fields Burying Ground and John Wesley is buried just across the street behind his home.

Fox's Grave
Wesley's Grave
Blake's Grave

Although these three men shared a passion for being in touch in a direct way with God, they were not associated in life. Blake expressed admiration for Wesley's witness to "Faith in God the dear Saviour who took on the likeness of men" (in Milton , Plate 22). They all 'dissented' from orthodox religious practice in distinctive ways. George Fox urged the practice of silent worship, John Wesley preached a religion of transforming experience, and William Blake used poetry and visual images to develop the Imagination and awaken the Universal Man. Their efforts to spread their own understanding of the best methods of cultivating a relationship with God, occupied the full effort of each. It seems particularly appropriate to me that one might visit the graves of all three within a few minutes and meditate on their similarities and differences.

William Blake expressed an idea close to the concept of synchronicity in these words from Milton, Plate 26:

"And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems, it is Delusion"

There is a Spiritual Cause for Fox, Wesley and Blake resting together.