Job: Picture 1

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Picture 1 seems right out of the Bible: we see Job with his family (all musicians) gathered around while he and his wife read from the good book and he prays to them. In the top left the sun sets over the cathedral, a symbol of organized religion (of organzied society, government, commerce, and the whole bit). The sun is not to rise again until the end of this dark night.

Such was Job: "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."

Click on the picture, and then enlarge your font, and you can read the legend(s), of which there are many:

Above the picture you may find the beginning of the Lord's Prayer suggesting an "innocent trusting attitude toward God", an innocence about to be sacrificed.

Beneath the picture proper you may imagine an altar with four animals (perhaps an ox, two lambs, and a ram), where Job offered the sacrifice for possible sins of his children. (This O.T. idea has a parallel in the gospels, where God sacrificed his Son for our sins.)

Edinger p. 17: "Inscribed on the altar are the words, The Letter Killeth. The Spirit giveth Life, indicating that it is the word and Job's reliance on it which are to be sacrificed."

As a fairly young man Blake wrote The Four Zoas, a voluminous work in Nine Nights. Now at 65 he illustrated the Book of Job with a one composite Night. Both works tell the same story.

The text from Job 1:

" In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. ² He had seven sons and three daughters, ³ and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five ¹ hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East."

⁴ His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. ⁵ When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom."

JOB, BLAKE & JUNG

William Blake, Carl Jung and the author of the Book of Job, seem to agree that the experience of Job represented a change in the relationship of man and God.

Job struggles against the perceived injustice of God and the suffering it brings upon him. Job receives a direct intervention from God in the shape of God speaking to him from the whirlwind.

Because Job was truthful with God and confronted God with the human point of view, he received an answer demonstrating God's power, wisdom and mystery. After his trials Job's fortunes are restored and he receives God's favor.

The role that Satan (the personification of evil) plays in the story is pivotal. Satan is allowed by God to test Job because of Job's reputation for righteousness. This perhaps is the hinge of the story because Satan, not God is in charge of testing Job. In the end Job's demands convince God to relate to him directly.

Satan before the Throne of God, Illustrations to the Book of Job (Linnell Set)

Here is a quote from Jung in a letter to Morton Kelsey (from CARL JUNG: WOUNDED HEALER OF THE SOUL by Claire Dunne):

"This is what happens in Job: The creator sees himself through the eyes of man's consciousness and this is the reason why God has to become man, and why man is progressively gifted with the dangerous prerogative of the divine "mind." You have it in Christ's saying: "Ye are gods" and man has not even begun to know himself."

Edward Edinger, in ENCOUNTER WITH THE SELF: A JUNGIAN COMMENTARY ON WILLIAM BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF JOB describes the encounter of Job with God as "a divine encounter by which the ego is rewarded with some insight into the transpersonal psyche." And he further says "The ego, by holding fast to its integrity, is granted a realization of the Self."

Blake's book, ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE BOOK OF JOB, consists of 21 plates which tell Job's story in a few words and in highly symbolic pictures. Plate 13 represents the encounter of Job with God in the whirlwind which is the intimate experience of a man directly with the numinous. The next plate, number 14, depicts a rebirth of consciousness. The central picture is surrounded with images and words from the creation story in Genesis. The text includes "When the morning Stars sang together & all the sons of God shouted for joy." (Job 38:7) The central image depicts at the top four angels among the stars rejoicing. In the center is kneeling God with outstretched arms and a bright sun-like halo. Beside him are Apollo with the sun, and Artemis with the moon. At the lowest level are Job his wife and the three confronters, who are allowed to witness the celebration of the this new stage of creation. The next seven plates illustrate the changed relationship between Job and God.

Damon in A BLAKE DICTIONARY explains the process Job underwent in terms to going through stages represented by the Seven Eyes of God. In the end "His manhood purged of all error, is now complete."

Each one of us is searching for images to represent indescribable experience.

For links to Blake's illustrations consult the post:
Blake's Pictures for Job

JOB, BLAKE & JUNG

William Blake, Carl Jung and the author of the Book of Job, seem to agree that the experience of Job represented a change in the relationship of man and God.

Job struggles against the perceived injustice of God and the suffering it brings upon him. Job receives a direct intervention from God in the shape of God speaking to him from the whirlwind.

Because Job was truthful with God and confronted God with the human point of view, he received an answer demonstrating God's power, wisdom and mystery. After his trials Job's fortunes are restored and he receives God's favor.

The role that Satan (the personification of evil) plays in the story is pivotal. Satan is allowed by God to test Job because of Job's reputation for righteousness. This perhaps is the hinge of the story because Satan, not God is in charge of testing Job. In the end Job's demands convince God to relate to him directly.

Satan before the Throne of God, Illustrations to the Book of Job (Linnell Set)

Here is a quote from Jung in a letter to Morton Kelsey (from CARL JUNG: WOUNDED HEALER OF THE SOUL by Claire Dunne):

"This is what happens in Job: The creator sees himself through the eyes of man's consciousness and this is the reason why God has to become man, and why man is progressively gifted with the dangerous prerogative of the divine "mind." You have it in Christ's saying: "Ye are gods" and man has not even begun to know himself."

Edward Edinger, in ENCOUNTER WITH THE SELF: A JUNGIAN COMMENTARY ON WILLIAM BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF JOB describes the encounter of Job with God as "a divine encounter by which the ego is rewarded with some insight into the transpersonal psyche." And he further says "The ego, by holding fast to its integrity, is granted a realization of the Self."

Blake's book, ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE BOOK OF JOB, consists of 21 plates which tell Job's story in a few words and in highly symbolic pictures. Plate 13 represents the encounter of Job with God in the whirlwind which is the intimate experience of a man directly with the numinous. The next plate, number 14, depicts a rebirth of consciousness. The central picture is surrounded with images and words from the creation story in Genesis. The text includes "When the morning Stars sang together & all the sons of God shouted for joy." (Job 38:7) The central image depicts at the top four angels among the stars rejoicing. In the center is kneeling God with outstretched arms and a bright sun-like halo. Beside him are Apollo with the sun, and Artemis with the moon. At the lowest level are Job his wife and the three confronters, who are allowed to witness the celebration of the this new stage of creation. The next seven plates illustrate the changed relationship between Job and God.

Damon in A BLAKE DICTIONARY explains the process Job underwent in terms to going through stages represented by the Seven Eyes of God. In the end "His manhood purged of all error, is now complete."

Each one of us is searching for images to represent indescribable experience.

For links to Blake's illustrations consult the post:
Blake's Pictures for Job

WHOLENESS

Quotes from Edward F Edinger a Jungian psychologist :
THE ETERNAL DRAMA: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology

"Nothing new can emerge unless one is willing to dip into chaos and pull it out. ...
"Once it is out it promptly splits in two, into earth and sky in terms of the myth. This is something we see whenever something is coming into awareness: the very process of achieving consciousness involves a split into opposites. Things can remain in their state of oneness only as long as they are unconscious. When they reach consciousness, they must divide into opposites and then we have the experience of conflict."

"At first, the encounter with the Self is indeed a defeat of the ego; but with perseverance, /Deo volente,/ light is born from the darkness. One meets the"Immortal One" who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large - in a word the one who makes one whole."

Blake is willing to dip into that chaos and endure the splitting. He follows the process through its inner and outer manifestations and describes the unification process on the other side at a higher level of consciousness.

In plate 96 of JERUSALEM Blake writes:

"Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los"

This passage is symbolically dense. Practically every word in it is pregnant with meaning. Focus on any word within its context and it leads toward the transcending of divisions which is about to be achieved. From the oneness of unconsciousness, through recognition, awareness, sifting, and integration the Divine Appearance (unification) is being activated.

Think of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. Fourfold in humanity encountering the Eternal.

WHOLENESS

Quotes from Edward F Edinger a Jungian psychologist :
THE ETERNAL DRAMA: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology

"Nothing new can emerge unless one is willing to dip into chaos and pull it out. ...
"Once it is out it promptly splits in two, into earth and sky in terms of the myth. This is something we see whenever something is coming into awareness: the very process of achieving consciousness involves a split into opposites. Things can remain in their state of oneness only as long as they are unconscious. When they reach consciousness, they must divide into opposites and then we have the experience of conflict."

"At first, the encounter with the Self is indeed a defeat of the ego; but with perseverance, /Deo volente,/ light is born from the darkness. One meets the"Immortal One" who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large - in a word the one who makes one whole."

Blake is willing to dip into that chaos and endure the splitting. He follows the process through its inner and outer manifestations and describes the unification process on the other side at a higher level of consciousness.

In plate 96 of JERUSALEM Blake writes:

"Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los"

This passage is symbolically dense. Practically every word in it is pregnant with meaning. Focus on any word within its context and it leads toward the transcending of divisions which is about to be achieved. From the oneness of unconsciousness, through recognition, awareness, sifting, and integration the Divine Appearance (unification) is being activated.

Think of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. Fourfold in humanity encountering the Eternal.