Blake had a fourfold vision but the system of fourfold was not exclusive to Blake. Have a look at this chart and see how well Blake's system holds up when comparing it to Greek Mythology and modern Psychology.
Greek Mythology ...Jung............. Blake
Hesperus/Hestia = sensation . = Tharmas/Enion
Apollo/Artemis.... = reason...... = Urizen/Ahania
Ares/Aphrodite... = feeling....... = Luvah/Vala
Hermes/Athena.. = imagination,= Los/Enithrarmon,
...............................intuition......... Urthona
Blake..................... Activity...... Psychology... Psyche
Tharmas/Enion.. = Shepherd . = id............ = unconscious
Urizen/Ahania ... = Plowman... = superego = subconscious
Luvah/Vala .........= Weaver..... = ego..........= conscious
Los/Enithrarmon, = Blacksmith = self...........= collective
Urthona........................................................... unconscious
Level............ Element.. Vision
Ulro........... = Water.. = Single
Generation = Air....... = Twofold
Beulah....... = Fire..... = Threefold
Eden.......... = Earth... = Fourfold
As you can see from the quotations in the previous post about fourfold, Blake has also given each Zoa a sense, a metal, a direction and much more. By using this symbolic language Blake brings forth a rich and diverse pattern of associations which speak to the conscious, subconscious and unconscious levels of our minds.
If you don't think these associations are a good fit, come up with your own system.
Water, Earth, Air, and Fire are shown on pages 4 through 8 of this pdf file of Gates of Paradise.
Showing posts with label Fourfold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fourfold. Show all posts
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
FOURFOLD VISION
The way I remember Larry first developing an interest in studying Blake was from a book we borrowed from the Arlington County Public Library. He had been studying Jung and this book on symbols mentioned that Jung's four functions corresponded to Blake's Four Zoas. With his attention directed to Blake, Larry seemed to 'fall in love'. Although at times he has pursued other interests, studying Blake has since been one of the constants in his life.
The book he originally read, I believe to be George Wingfield Digby's, Symbol and Image in William Blake. On page 26-27 Digby writes: "The 'Four Mighty Ones in every Man' (a phrase taken from 'The Four Zoas'), correspond with the four psychological functions as studied in analytical psychology. The correspondence is as follows. Water represents the body, that is the function of Sensation, Blake's 'Tharmas'; Earth stands for the Intuitive function, Blake's 'Los'; Air for the Thinking function, 'Urizen'; Fire for the feeling function, 'Luvah'. These four functions, or principles, or 'Living Creatures', are called by Blake the 'Four Zoas'. Their rivalries, combats, deprivations, and distress constitute a large part of Blake's myths as they unfold in the prophetic books, especially in 'The Four Zoas'. Blake throughout is intent on describing, by means of symbols and images, psychological states and conflicts, and their solution. The understanding of the Four Elements in this symbolic, psychological way is not peculiar to Blake but has a long tradition behind it, both in Western and Eastern thought."
Here is a passage from Jerusalem which presents some of the symbols Blake associated with his Four Zoas.
Jerusalem, Plate 97, (E 256)
"So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into
Infinitude.
And took his Bow. Fourfold the Vision for bright beaming Urizen
Layd his hand on the South & took a breathing Bow of carved Gold
Luvah his hand stretch'd to the East & bore a Silver Bow bright shining
Tharmas Westward a Bow of Brass pure flaming richly wrought
Urthona Northward in thick storms a Bow of Iron terrible thundering."
On Plate 92 of Jerusalem we find Jerusalem awakening in human form, surrounded by four sleeping heads: the Four Zoas, almost ready for their resurrection to properly functioning parts of the giant Albion.
And from Milton, Plate 1, (E 95):
"Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!"
In a later post I'll chart some the correspondences of Blake's Fourfold Vision and characters in Greek mythology, and correspondences of other aspects of modern psychological categories.
Other posts on fourfold in Blake include these: Fourfold.
The book he originally read, I believe to be George Wingfield Digby's, Symbol and Image in William Blake. On page 26-27 Digby writes: "The 'Four Mighty Ones in every Man' (a phrase taken from 'The Four Zoas'), correspond with the four psychological functions as studied in analytical psychology. The correspondence is as follows. Water represents the body, that is the function of Sensation, Blake's 'Tharmas'; Earth stands for the Intuitive function, Blake's 'Los'; Air for the Thinking function, 'Urizen'; Fire for the feeling function, 'Luvah'. These four functions, or principles, or 'Living Creatures', are called by Blake the 'Four Zoas'. Their rivalries, combats, deprivations, and distress constitute a large part of Blake's myths as they unfold in the prophetic books, especially in 'The Four Zoas'. Blake throughout is intent on describing, by means of symbols and images, psychological states and conflicts, and their solution. The understanding of the Four Elements in this symbolic, psychological way is not peculiar to Blake but has a long tradition behind it, both in Western and Eastern thought."
Here is a passage from Jerusalem which presents some of the symbols Blake associated with his Four Zoas.
Jerusalem, Plate 97, (E 256)
"So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into
Infinitude.
And took his Bow. Fourfold the Vision for bright beaming Urizen
Layd his hand on the South & took a breathing Bow of carved Gold
Luvah his hand stretch'd to the East & bore a Silver Bow bright shining
Tharmas Westward a Bow of Brass pure flaming richly wrought
Urthona Northward in thick storms a Bow of Iron terrible thundering."
On Plate 92 of Jerusalem we find Jerusalem awakening in human form, surrounded by four sleeping heads: the Four Zoas, almost ready for their resurrection to properly functioning parts of the giant Albion.
And from Milton, Plate 1, (E 95):
"Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!"
In a later post I'll chart some the correspondences of Blake's Fourfold Vision and characters in Greek mythology, and correspondences of other aspects of modern psychological categories.
Other posts on fourfold in Blake include these: Fourfold.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Blake's Ladder
Blake had many such, but we'll concentrate on one that's already had a good bit of coverage:
"Look again at the end of a famous letter (23)to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
What can we make of the last line? Blake mentioned Newton 91 times in his Complete Works; Newton was his exemplar for purely materialistic sight, and with Bacon and Locke the Unholy Trinity of materialistic culture. Like the logical positivists if it can't be weighed or measured, it's meaningless. Things like love, hate, inspiration have no meaning.
Blake thus called single vision 'Newton's sleep'. Not scientists but people with the least imagination, the flimsiest intellect are the ones gifted with single vision. They live in Blake's Ulro.
So what's twofold vision:
"Blake explains twofold vision very nicely in the poem. Open your heart to nature, let plants and animals speak to you, let trifles fill you with smiles and tears, respond to the world in its minute particulars, the cosmos in a grain of sand, etc." (from this).
"...three fold in soft Beulahs night"? Here's a description of Beulah; perhaps you've already read it. We have the Beulah of Pilrims Progress.
The original Beulah of course came from Isaiah 62:4.
Finally we have Fourfold. (Theodore Roszak began this essay ascribing his own poem to Blake, but no matter).
"Look again at the end of a famous letter (23)to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
What can we make of the last line? Blake mentioned Newton 91 times in his Complete Works; Newton was his exemplar for purely materialistic sight, and with Bacon and Locke the Unholy Trinity of materialistic culture. Like the logical positivists if it can't be weighed or measured, it's meaningless. Things like love, hate, inspiration have no meaning.
Blake thus called single vision 'Newton's sleep'. Not scientists but people with the least imagination, the flimsiest intellect are the ones gifted with single vision. They live in Blake's Ulro.
So what's twofold vision:
"Blake explains twofold vision very nicely in the poem. Open your heart to nature, let plants and animals speak to you, let trifles fill you with smiles and tears, respond to the world in its minute particulars, the cosmos in a grain of sand, etc." (from this).
"...three fold in soft Beulahs night"? Here's a description of Beulah; perhaps you've already read it. We have the Beulah of Pilrims Progress.
The original Beulah of course came from Isaiah 62:4.
Finally we have Fourfold. (Theodore Roszak began this essay ascribing his own poem to Blake, but no matter).
Blake's Ladder
Blake had many such, but we'll concentrate on one that's already had a good bit of coverage:
"Look again at the end of a famous letter (23)to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
What can we make of the last line? Blake mentioned Newton 91 times in his Complete Works; Newton was his exemplar for purely materialistic sight, and with Bacon and Locke the Unholy Trinity of materialistic culture. Like the logical positivists if it can't be weighed or measured, it's meaningless. Things like love, hate, inspiration have no meaning.
Blake thus called single vision 'Newton's sleep'. Not scientists but people with the least imagination, the flimsiest intellect are the ones gifted with single vision. They live in Blake's Ulro.
So what's twofold vision:
"Blake explains twofold vision very nicely in the poem. Open your heart to nature, let plants and animals speak to you, let trifles fill you with smiles and tears, respond to the world in its minute particulars, the cosmos in a grain of sand, etc." (from this).
"...three fold in soft Beulahs night"? Here's a description of Beulah; perhaps you've already read it. We have the Beulah of Pilrims Progress.
The original Beulah of course came from Isaiah 62:4.
Finally we have Fourfold. (Theodore Roszak began this essay ascribing his own poem to Blake, but no matter).
"Look again at the end of a famous letter (23)to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
What can we make of the last line? Blake mentioned Newton 91 times in his Complete Works; Newton was his exemplar for purely materialistic sight, and with Bacon and Locke the Unholy Trinity of materialistic culture. Like the logical positivists if it can't be weighed or measured, it's meaningless. Things like love, hate, inspiration have no meaning.
Blake thus called single vision 'Newton's sleep'. Not scientists but people with the least imagination, the flimsiest intellect are the ones gifted with single vision. They live in Blake's Ulro.
So what's twofold vision:
"Blake explains twofold vision very nicely in the poem. Open your heart to nature, let plants and animals speak to you, let trifles fill you with smiles and tears, respond to the world in its minute particulars, the cosmos in a grain of sand, etc." (from this).
"...three fold in soft Beulahs night"? Here's a description of Beulah; perhaps you've already read it. We have the Beulah of Pilrims Progress.
The original Beulah of course came from Isaiah 62:4.
Finally we have Fourfold. (Theodore Roszak began this essay ascribing his own poem to Blake, but no matter).
Thursday, February 4, 2010
LOST TRAVELLER
Blake's first level of vision, single vision, is fairly easily transcended. We learn to see beyond the level of material into the level of thought, ideas, reason. And this becomes our mindset, we develop rules, structures and a point of view - an engineer thinks like an engineer and a lawyer thinks like a lawyer. Blake isn't satisfied to let us stay there; he sees it as a prison as much as single vision was. So of each level of vision.
In the Epilogue to Gates of Paradise Blake is trying to force us to another level of thought altogether:
"To The Accuser Who is
The God of This World
Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan
Tho thou art Worshipd by the Names Divine
Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill"
He addresses this to 'the accuser' who is in charge of seeing that the law is obeyed; who ferrets out the lawbreakers and begins the process of meting out punishment. The world has made this accuser its God. But this accuser can't even be trusted to distinguish between the underlying humanity and the facade which he presents. He is not aware of the Identity of man which is Eternal and moves through the states without losing his essential nature. The accuser doesn't know that he hasn't the power to touch that which is real or Eternal within man.
Although the accuser takes on the Divine names he is without the substance. His time of strength and power is closing, the unreal illusion which he has sustained in his wanderings will be buried.
Whatever image he has created is only an image, a new image must arise and replace it.
From: Rare Books, Library of Congress, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage
Erdman in the Illuminated Blake says: "A sleeping traveller, naked, his hand on his staff though a spider has spun his web on the top, lies under a hill beyond which dawn is breaking on all sides. The deity which has resided in his sleeping breast, a black nightmare vision of Satan pretending to power over sun, moon, stars, must vanish like a raven of dawn since shown up as a mere Dunce - yet a Lucifer (feckless but better than no dreams at all) for temporarily lost travellers."
Using some of the same images, these verses in Isaiah resemble Blake's verses quoted above, and the Satan Blake described in other passages. The fall and death of the King of Babylon parallels the fall and death of Satan who has lost his place in the bosom of the Lost Traveler.
Isaiah 14:11-19
3 On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!
11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. 12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. 16 Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, 17 the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?" 18 All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. 19 But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
Previous post on Gates of Paradise
In the Epilogue to Gates of Paradise Blake is trying to force us to another level of thought altogether:
"To The Accuser Who is
The God of This World
Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan
Tho thou art Worshipd by the Names Divine
Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill"
He addresses this to 'the accuser' who is in charge of seeing that the law is obeyed; who ferrets out the lawbreakers and begins the process of meting out punishment. The world has made this accuser its God. But this accuser can't even be trusted to distinguish between the underlying humanity and the facade which he presents. He is not aware of the Identity of man which is Eternal and moves through the states without losing his essential nature. The accuser doesn't know that he hasn't the power to touch that which is real or Eternal within man.
Although the accuser takes on the Divine names he is without the substance. His time of strength and power is closing, the unreal illusion which he has sustained in his wanderings will be buried.
Whatever image he has created is only an image, a new image must arise and replace it.
From: Rare Books, Library of Congress, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage
Erdman in the Illuminated Blake says: "A sleeping traveller, naked, his hand on his staff though a spider has spun his web on the top, lies under a hill beyond which dawn is breaking on all sides. The deity which has resided in his sleeping breast, a black nightmare vision of Satan pretending to power over sun, moon, stars, must vanish like a raven of dawn since shown up as a mere Dunce - yet a Lucifer (feckless but better than no dreams at all) for temporarily lost travellers."
Using some of the same images, these verses in Isaiah resemble Blake's verses quoted above, and the Satan Blake described in other passages. The fall and death of the King of Babylon parallels the fall and death of Satan who has lost his place in the bosom of the Lost Traveler.
Isaiah 14:11-19
3 On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!
11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. 12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. 16 Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, 17 the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?" 18 All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. 19 But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
Previous post on Gates of Paradise
Friday, January 8, 2010
Bacon, Newton, and Locke
"I consider them [Bacon, Newton, and Locke] as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception.." (from the pen of Thomas Jefferson in a letter in 1789.
You can see what Blake thought of Bacon by reading his annotations to one of Bacon's books (Erdman pp 620-32). Here's are two examples:
"7. Bacon a Liar
AnnBacon62; E624
8. Bacon has no notion of any thing but Mammon
AnnBacon69; E625"
Re Newton look at the end of a famous letter (23) to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" (Erdman 722) Re Locke: the tabula raza was particularly offense to Blake
who thought intelligence and imagination were inherent in us
all.
In Milton plate 41 Blake dispatches all three with this:
"To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.
To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human
I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration
To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration
To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering
To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with
Imagination" (Erdman 142)
Blake felt that these three men (Blake's 'unholy trinity')
had led England into a thoroughly materialistic,
spirit-denying culture dominated by greed. What he said
about them was largely true although they had a positive
dimension as well. Blake acknowledged the positive dimension
in plate 98 near the end of Jerusalem:
"The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing
terrific vanishing
Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of
Intellect
The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven
And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear &
Chaucer"(Erdman 257)Although he had excoriated them systematically throughout
his works, he realized that they were not negatives, but
contraries. The essential polarity of the mind means that
the opposites are also true.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Fourfold Vision
At the end of his letter To Thomas Butts, 22 November 1802
(Erdman #22 pages 720-22) we read:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
There he explains as best one can what he meant by the
four kinds of vision:
(Erdman #22 pages 720-22) we read:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
There he explains as best one can what he meant by the
four kinds of vision:
By single vision he meant a purely materialistic outlook,
without any comprehension of any non material things such
as love, intellect, etc. A great many people live on this
level; as Paul would say, 'their God is their belly'.
With a minimal inkling of the non material one might be
said to have twofold vision, an awareness that there's
something beyond dollars and things-what Ellie would call
a reasoning mind.
But Blake in an earlier passage of the same letter has
this to say,
"For double the vision my Eyes do see
And a double vision is always with me
With my inward Eye 'tis an old Man grey
With my outward a Thistle across my way"
(You might say that Blake started the poem with a duality
and ended it with a quaternity.)
By threefold vision Blake has referred to those at the
doorstep of Eternity, moving toward it or coming from it;
Beulah is a pleasant place for Eternals, but a dangerous place.
The danger is lapsing into the mortal sleep that robs one
of the eternal consciousness and drives him back to single
vision.
So there's a parallel between the four kinds of vision and
the four levels of being:
Single vision is associated with Ulro (Blake called it hell).
Double vision is associated with Generation.
Threefold vision is associated with Beulah.
Fourfold vision is associated with Eternity (or heaven).
(Generation is one of Blake's most difficult concepts.
Damon (150-51) gives us many occurrences of it. One clue
is found in Plate 7 of Jerusalem:
64 "And the Religion of Generation which was meant for the destruction
65 Of Jerusalem, become her covering. till the time of the End.
66 O holy Generation! [image] of regeneration!
67 O point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies!
68 Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible!"
Generation enables incarnation. We are all incarnated
and potential lambs of His flock, even the Tyger.
All of Blake's works might be considered in the form of an
admonition "AWAKE! AWAKE!", the same one that was
constantly on the lips of Jesus.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
FEMALE & MALE
Nobody can really explain Blake, and that's the way he wanted it. We can listen to him, try to experience with him, and draw from our own lives scraps and pictures to associate with his words and images. So do what you can with what he says here.
Four Zoas, Night 5, Verse 2 (E302)
"In Eden Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils
But Males immortal live renewd by female deaths. in soft
Delight they die & they revive in spring with music & songs
Enion said Farewell I die I hide from thy searching eyes"
Milton Percival says in Circle of Destiny on page 56:
"The form dies in order that the imaginative impulse may be released for new expression. The masculine creative world of Eden is continually sustained by feminine self-sacrifice in Beulah."Males immortal live, renewed by female deaths." The obedience of outward form to inner vision extends even to the landscape....(spaces of Beulah)...are merciful illusions, provided for the repose of the mind which has wearied of the visionary reality of Eden. They characterize the hypothetical age in which the visionary life that Blake enjoyed in ecstasy was a habitual experience. In contrast to the spaces of Beulah, which are so readily transcended, are the "Satanic spaces" of Ulro, which limit and enslave the mind that beholds them."
Damon called the Emanation the '''counterpart" of the fundamentally bisexual male.'
In Jerusalem, plate 88 (E246), we learn why the female Emanations are so essential to man.
"When in Eternity Man converses with Man they enter
Into each others Bosom (which are Universes of delight)
In mutual interchange. and first their Emanations meet
Surrounded by their Children. if they embrace & comingle
The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in thunders of Intellect
But if the Emanations mingle not; with storms & agitations
Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear
For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity"
Blake didn't depreciate the role of the female, nor did he mean what we usually mean when we use the term. The female to Blake is an image which carries many meanings but without her, man would never reach Eternity.
Albion Asleep, Jerusalem as Butterfly
Four Zoas, Night 5, Verse 2 (E302)
"In Eden Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils
But Males immortal live renewd by female deaths. in soft
Delight they die & they revive in spring with music & songs
Enion said Farewell I die I hide from thy searching eyes"
Milton Percival says in Circle of Destiny on page 56:
"The form dies in order that the imaginative impulse may be released for new expression. The masculine creative world of Eden is continually sustained by feminine self-sacrifice in Beulah."Males immortal live, renewed by female deaths." The obedience of outward form to inner vision extends even to the landscape....(spaces of Beulah)...are merciful illusions, provided for the repose of the mind which has wearied of the visionary reality of Eden. They characterize the hypothetical age in which the visionary life that Blake enjoyed in ecstasy was a habitual experience. In contrast to the spaces of Beulah, which are so readily transcended, are the "Satanic spaces" of Ulro, which limit and enslave the mind that beholds them."
Damon called the Emanation the '''counterpart" of the fundamentally bisexual male.'
In Jerusalem, plate 88 (E246), we learn why the female Emanations are so essential to man.
"When in Eternity Man converses with Man they enter
Into each others Bosom (which are Universes of delight)
In mutual interchange. and first their Emanations meet
Surrounded by their Children. if they embrace & comingle
The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in thunders of Intellect
But if the Emanations mingle not; with storms & agitations
Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear
For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity"
Blake didn't depreciate the role of the female, nor did he mean what we usually mean when we use the term. The female to Blake is an image which carries many meanings but without her, man would never reach Eternity.
Albion Asleep, Jerusalem as Butterfly
FEMALE & MALE
Nobody can really explain Blake, and that's the way he wanted it. We can listen to him, try to experience with him, and draw from our own lives scraps and pictures to associate with his words and images. So do what you can with what he says here.
Four Zoas, Night 5, Verse 2 (E302)
"In Eden Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils
But Males immortal live renewd by female deaths. in soft
Delight they die & they revive in spring with music & songs
Enion said Farewell I die I hide from thy searching eyes"
Milton Percival says in Circle of Destiny on page 56:
"The form dies in order that the imaginative impulse may be released for new expression. The masculine creative world of Eden is continually sustained by feminine self-sacrifice in Beulah."Males immortal live, renewed by female deaths." The obedience of outward form to inner vision extends even to the landscape....(spaces of Beulah)...are merciful illusions, provided for the repose of the mind which has wearied of the visionary reality of Eden. They characterize the hypothetical age in which the visionary life that Blake enjoyed in ecstasy was a habitual experience. In contrast to the spaces of Beulah, which are so readily transcended, are the "Satanic spaces" of Ulro, which limit and enslave the mind that beholds them."
Damon called the Emanation the '''counterpart" of the fundamentally bisexual male.'
In Jerusalem, plate 88 (E246), we learn why the female Emanations are so essential to man.
"When in Eternity Man converses with Man they enter
Into each others Bosom (which are Universes of delight)
In mutual interchange. and first their Emanations meet
Surrounded by their Children. if they embrace & comingle
The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in thunders of Intellect
But if the Emanations mingle not; with storms & agitations
Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear
For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity"
Blake didn't depreciate the role of the female, nor did he mean what we usually mean when we use the term. The female to Blake is an image which carries many meanings but without her, man would never reach Eternity.
Albion Asleep, Jerusalem as Butterfly
Four Zoas, Night 5, Verse 2 (E302)
"In Eden Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils
But Males immortal live renewd by female deaths. in soft
Delight they die & they revive in spring with music & songs
Enion said Farewell I die I hide from thy searching eyes"
Milton Percival says in Circle of Destiny on page 56:
"The form dies in order that the imaginative impulse may be released for new expression. The masculine creative world of Eden is continually sustained by feminine self-sacrifice in Beulah."Males immortal live, renewed by female deaths." The obedience of outward form to inner vision extends even to the landscape....(spaces of Beulah)...are merciful illusions, provided for the repose of the mind which has wearied of the visionary reality of Eden. They characterize the hypothetical age in which the visionary life that Blake enjoyed in ecstasy was a habitual experience. In contrast to the spaces of Beulah, which are so readily transcended, are the "Satanic spaces" of Ulro, which limit and enslave the mind that beholds them."
Damon called the Emanation the '''counterpart" of the fundamentally bisexual male.'
In Jerusalem, plate 88 (E246), we learn why the female Emanations are so essential to man.
"When in Eternity Man converses with Man they enter
Into each others Bosom (which are Universes of delight)
In mutual interchange. and first their Emanations meet
Surrounded by their Children. if they embrace & comingle
The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in thunders of Intellect
But if the Emanations mingle not; with storms & agitations
Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear
For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity"
Blake didn't depreciate the role of the female, nor did he mean what we usually mean when we use the term. The female to Blake is an image which carries many meanings but without her, man would never reach Eternity.
Albion Asleep, Jerusalem as Butterfly
Friday, October 23, 2009
BLAKE & PAUL
Returning to an important concept in Blake, that of Fourfold Vision, I find a familiar passage from Paul can be seen as recognizing Fourfold Vision. In a letter to Thomas Butts, Blake says:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" To Butts, 22 Nov 1802
Illustration for Milton's Paradise Lost
Now looking at I Corinthians 13 we read:
9
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away.
11
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
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."
The 'child' can represent single vision, Newton's sleep or sensation. Seeing 'through a glass darkly,' as a limited form of vision can be twofold vision: 'Always' (or ordinary), using only the intellect. The term 'face to face' suggests relationship or threefold vision referred to as 'in soft Beulah's night,' where emotion of feeling is introduced as an additional factor. Fourfold vision is 'knowing as we are known,' Blake's supreme delight, which Blake called Imagination and Jung called Intuition.
In A Blake Dictionary Damon explains on page 436 that, "Single vision is not properly "vision" at all: it is seeing with the physical eye only the facts before it. It 'it leads you to Believe a Lie / When you see with, not thro' the Eye'" (Everlasting Gospel, E 520)
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" To Butts, 22 Nov 1802
Illustration for Milton's Paradise Lost
Now looking at I Corinthians 13 we read:
9
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away.
11
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
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."
The 'child' can represent single vision, Newton's sleep or sensation. Seeing 'through a glass darkly,' as a limited form of vision can be twofold vision: 'Always' (or ordinary), using only the intellect. The term 'face to face' suggests relationship or threefold vision referred to as 'in soft Beulah's night,' where emotion of feeling is introduced as an additional factor. Fourfold vision is 'knowing as we are known,' Blake's supreme delight, which Blake called Imagination and Jung called Intuition.
In A Blake Dictionary Damon explains on page 436 that, "Single vision is not properly "vision" at all: it is seeing with the physical eye only the facts before it. It 'it leads you to Believe a Lie / When you see with, not thro' the Eye'" (Everlasting Gospel, E 520)
BLAKE & PAUL
Returning to an important concept in Blake, that of Fourfold Vision, I find a familiar passage from Paul can be seen as recognizing Fourfold Vision. In a letter to Thomas Butts, Blake says:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" To Butts, 22 Nov 1802
Illustration for Milton's Paradise Lost
Now looking at I Corinthians 13 we read:
9
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away.
11
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
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."
The 'child' can represent single vision, Newton's sleep or sensation. Seeing 'through a glass darkly,' as a limited form of vision can be twofold vision: 'Always' (or ordinary), using only the intellect. The term 'face to face' suggests relationship or threefold vision referred to as 'in soft Beulah's night,' where emotion of feeling is introduced as an additional factor. Fourfold vision is 'knowing as we are known,' Blake's supreme delight, which Blake called Imagination and Jung called Intuition.
In A Blake Dictionary Damon explains on page 436 that, "Single vision is not properly "vision" at all: it is seeing with the physical eye only the facts before it. It 'it leads you to Believe a Lie / When you see with, not thro' the Eye'" (Everlasting Gospel, E 520)
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" To Butts, 22 Nov 1802
Illustration for Milton's Paradise Lost
Now looking at I Corinthians 13 we read:
9
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away.
11
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
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."
The 'child' can represent single vision, Newton's sleep or sensation. Seeing 'through a glass darkly,' as a limited form of vision can be twofold vision: 'Always' (or ordinary), using only the intellect. The term 'face to face' suggests relationship or threefold vision referred to as 'in soft Beulah's night,' where emotion of feeling is introduced as an additional factor. Fourfold vision is 'knowing as we are known,' Blake's supreme delight, which Blake called Imagination and Jung called Intuition.
In A Blake Dictionary Damon explains on page 436 that, "Single vision is not properly "vision" at all: it is seeing with the physical eye only the facts before it. It 'it leads you to Believe a Lie / When you see with, not thro' the Eye'" (Everlasting Gospel, E 520)
Friday, October 9, 2009
BLAKE'S GENERATION
.
From the Book of Genesis
Milton Percival in Circle of Destiny, explains the level or 'world' which Blake calls generation.
"..This is double vision, a correlative of the sexual world of
Generation. The object is outward, corporeal, feminine; the
imaginative image is masculine. Both assert themselves,
each challenging the other's right. The world of generation
might indeed be thought of as a training school in vision.
It may slip back into Ulro, or ascend to Beulah. This is
Los's world, the world of the loins, twofold and sexual;
corporeal, yet struggling to be spiritual" (272-3)
Percival describes the world of generation as Los's world. It
is our world too, a divided world, pulled upward and
downward. The contraries manifest themselves in such
conditions.
"Since there is no chasm, in Blake's system, between man
and nature, the struggle toward regeneration in the natural
world must be thought of, equally with the struggle in the
spiritual world, as the work of Los. Los with his hammer
vehemently constricting, hardening and fixing, eternally
creating only to destroy the false work he has created, is
Blake's dramatization of the process he saw as constantly
at work. For destruction is as essential as creation. For
this reason the natural world is cast in mortal form. Death
and decay are its attributes. It's vegetable life, like Los's
systems, is "continually building and continually decaying."
The invisible fires in which these vegetable forms consume
are the fires of vegetation or generation which also light
the furnaces of Los. Just as the Soul of man is purified in
the "furnaces of affliction," so is the physical world
destroyed and renewed in the fires of "generation or
vegetation." The necessary change is in both cases
accomplished by death in fire."
Blake prefers not to use the terms 'good and evil' in talking
about his worlds because the outcome has already been
decided. Whatever happens along the way, whether it
appears to be constructive or destructive, moves the
process toward wholeness, reintegration, regeneration -
the Eternal completeness in which nothing is lost and
nothing wasted.
From the Book of Genesis
Milton Percival in Circle of Destiny, explains the level or 'world' which Blake calls generation.
"..This is double vision, a correlative of the sexual world of
Generation. The object is outward, corporeal, feminine; the
imaginative image is masculine. Both assert themselves,
each challenging the other's right. The world of generation
might indeed be thought of as a training school in vision.
It may slip back into Ulro, or ascend to Beulah. This is
Los's world, the world of the loins, twofold and sexual;
corporeal, yet struggling to be spiritual" (272-3)
Percival describes the world of generation as Los's world. It
is our world too, a divided world, pulled upward and
downward. The contraries manifest themselves in such
conditions.
"Since there is no chasm, in Blake's system, between man
and nature, the struggle toward regeneration in the natural
world must be thought of, equally with the struggle in the
spiritual world, as the work of Los. Los with his hammer
vehemently constricting, hardening and fixing, eternally
creating only to destroy the false work he has created, is
Blake's dramatization of the process he saw as constantly
at work. For destruction is as essential as creation. For
this reason the natural world is cast in mortal form. Death
and decay are its attributes. It's vegetable life, like Los's
systems, is "continually building and continually decaying."
The invisible fires in which these vegetable forms consume
are the fires of vegetation or generation which also light
the furnaces of Los. Just as the Soul of man is purified in
the "furnaces of affliction," so is the physical world
destroyed and renewed in the fires of "generation or
vegetation." The necessary change is in both cases
accomplished by death in fire."
Blake prefers not to use the terms 'good and evil' in talking
about his worlds because the outcome has already been
decided. Whatever happens along the way, whether it
appears to be constructive or destructive, moves the
process toward wholeness, reintegration, regeneration -
the Eternal completeness in which nothing is lost and
nothing wasted.
BLAKE'S GENERATION
.
From the Book of Genesis
Milton Percival in Circle of Destiny, explains the level or 'world' which Blake calls generation.
"..This is double vision, a correlative of the sexual world of
Generation. The object is outward, corporeal, feminine; the
imaginative image is masculine. Both assert themselves,
each challenging the other's right. The world of generation
might indeed be thought of as a training school in vision.
It may slip back into Ulro, or ascend to Beulah. This is
Los's world, the world of the loins, twofold and sexual;
corporeal, yet struggling to be spiritual" (272-3)
Percival describes the world of generation as Los's world. It
is our world too, a divided world, pulled upward and
downward. The contraries manifest themselves in such
conditions.
"Since there is no chasm, in Blake's system, between man
and nature, the struggle toward regeneration in the natural
world must be thought of, equally with the struggle in the
spiritual world, as the work of Los. Los with his hammer
vehemently constricting, hardening and fixing, eternally
creating only to destroy the false work he has created, is
Blake's dramatization of the process he saw as constantly
at work. For destruction is as essential as creation. For
this reason the natural world is cast in mortal form. Death
and decay are its attributes. It's vegetable life, like Los's
systems, is "continually building and continually decaying."
The invisible fires in which these vegetable forms consume
are the fires of vegetation or generation which also light
the furnaces of Los. Just as the Soul of man is purified in
the "furnaces of affliction," so is the physical world
destroyed and renewed in the fires of "generation or
vegetation." The necessary change is in both cases
accomplished by death in fire."
Blake prefers not to use the terms 'good and evil' in talking
about his worlds because the outcome has already been
decided. Whatever happens along the way, whether it
appears to be constructive or destructive, moves the
process toward wholeness, reintegration, regeneration -
the Eternal completeness in which nothing is lost and
nothing wasted.
From the Book of Genesis
Milton Percival in Circle of Destiny, explains the level or 'world' which Blake calls generation.
"..This is double vision, a correlative of the sexual world of
Generation. The object is outward, corporeal, feminine; the
imaginative image is masculine. Both assert themselves,
each challenging the other's right. The world of generation
might indeed be thought of as a training school in vision.
It may slip back into Ulro, or ascend to Beulah. This is
Los's world, the world of the loins, twofold and sexual;
corporeal, yet struggling to be spiritual" (272-3)
Percival describes the world of generation as Los's world. It
is our world too, a divided world, pulled upward and
downward. The contraries manifest themselves in such
conditions.
"Since there is no chasm, in Blake's system, between man
and nature, the struggle toward regeneration in the natural
world must be thought of, equally with the struggle in the
spiritual world, as the work of Los. Los with his hammer
vehemently constricting, hardening and fixing, eternally
creating only to destroy the false work he has created, is
Blake's dramatization of the process he saw as constantly
at work. For destruction is as essential as creation. For
this reason the natural world is cast in mortal form. Death
and decay are its attributes. It's vegetable life, like Los's
systems, is "continually building and continually decaying."
The invisible fires in which these vegetable forms consume
are the fires of vegetation or generation which also light
the furnaces of Los. Just as the Soul of man is purified in
the "furnaces of affliction," so is the physical world
destroyed and renewed in the fires of "generation or
vegetation." The necessary change is in both cases
accomplished by death in fire."
Blake prefers not to use the terms 'good and evil' in talking
about his worlds because the outcome has already been
decided. Whatever happens along the way, whether it
appears to be constructive or destructive, moves the
process toward wholeness, reintegration, regeneration -
the Eternal completeness in which nothing is lost and
nothing wasted.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
FOURFOLD READING
One of the better known sayings of William Blake concerns "Fourfold Vision." This is from a letter he wrote to his long term friend and supporter Thomas Butts.
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
Blake's ability to envision the psyche as fourfold can be used as a guide to reading Blake on for different levels.
1) It would be possible to read him at the literal level as an account of material, sensual events. This may be the most difficult way to read him because his account would be of historical characters meeting mythological or fictional ones, people being thrown into furnaces or ground up by harrows, curtains being hung in the far reaches of space, and individuals dividing into multiple individuals. Our mind would reject these images as accounts of material activities just as we reject reading all mythologies as history. This kind of reaction could be said to be that of Tharmas. ("a portion of the Soul discerned by the five Senses")
2)We may read Blake on a reasoning level, associating his images with thought forms or patterns which are familiar to our rational minds. So we split off various dimensions of his thought and influences and look at these objectively building systems to explain some aspect of the body of work he produced. In this case we are viewing Blake as Urizen (symbolizing Reason) would view him. Blake portrayed this level of thinking with his famous image of Newton. Image of Newton
3)At the level of emotion we may become involved with the processes he describes, as psychic realities. We begin to see our own psychological process in terms of the characteristics and functioning of Blake's Men, Emanations, and Specters. As Luvah (who include all emotions) we enter into the dynamics of the interactions among Blake's portrayals of our inner functions.
4)The level of imagination represents a transformation or conversion to a spiritual perception. At this level the spirit will speak through the words, not just with or in the words. If Blake is inspired himself, (and he seemed to believe that he was a prophet in the same sense as the OT prophets;) his words can transmit to our spirits through a direct connection with the spirit in him. This level of communication, which Blake called Imagination, was his primary interest. His time, his energy, his goods, his thought, his labor were directed toward expressing Imagination and trying to awaken it in others. Through Imagination we get the fullest understanding of Blake. Non-sensory perception is represented by Urthona (the creative imagination of the individual.)
America a Prophecy, Title Page "In the mental realm of the
prophetic cloud a female and a male philosopher are assisted by a page-turning child . The alert female is already doing so, for the girl at her back is directing us, not her, to the subtitle and the battlefield....The leaping female turns the page." (Erdman)
If we focus on which of these fourfold methods we are using to read (or to understand one another, or to teach our children, or preform various other tasks), we gain a better understanding of the meaning for Blake of fourfold vision, and a greater ability to perceive fourfold reality.
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
Blake's ability to envision the psyche as fourfold can be used as a guide to reading Blake on for different levels.
1) It would be possible to read him at the literal level as an account of material, sensual events. This may be the most difficult way to read him because his account would be of historical characters meeting mythological or fictional ones, people being thrown into furnaces or ground up by harrows, curtains being hung in the far reaches of space, and individuals dividing into multiple individuals. Our mind would reject these images as accounts of material activities just as we reject reading all mythologies as history. This kind of reaction could be said to be that of Tharmas. ("a portion of the Soul discerned by the five Senses")
2)We may read Blake on a reasoning level, associating his images with thought forms or patterns which are familiar to our rational minds. So we split off various dimensions of his thought and influences and look at these objectively building systems to explain some aspect of the body of work he produced. In this case we are viewing Blake as Urizen (symbolizing Reason) would view him. Blake portrayed this level of thinking with his famous image of Newton. Image of Newton
3)At the level of emotion we may become involved with the processes he describes, as psychic realities. We begin to see our own psychological process in terms of the characteristics and functioning of Blake's Men, Emanations, and Specters. As Luvah (who include all emotions) we enter into the dynamics of the interactions among Blake's portrayals of our inner functions.
4)The level of imagination represents a transformation or conversion to a spiritual perception. At this level the spirit will speak through the words, not just with or in the words. If Blake is inspired himself, (and he seemed to believe that he was a prophet in the same sense as the OT prophets;) his words can transmit to our spirits through a direct connection with the spirit in him. This level of communication, which Blake called Imagination, was his primary interest. His time, his energy, his goods, his thought, his labor were directed toward expressing Imagination and trying to awaken it in others. Through Imagination we get the fullest understanding of Blake. Non-sensory perception is represented by Urthona (the creative imagination of the individual.)
America a Prophecy, Title Page "In the mental realm of the
prophetic cloud a female and a male philosopher are assisted by a page-turning child . The alert female is already doing so, for the girl at her back is directing us, not her, to the subtitle and the battlefield....The leaping female turns the page." (Erdman)
If we focus on which of these fourfold methods we are using to read (or to understand one another, or to teach our children, or preform various other tasks), we gain a better understanding of the meaning for Blake of fourfold vision, and a greater ability to perceive fourfold reality.
FOURFOLD READING
One of the better known sayings of William Blake concerns "Fourfold Vision." This is from a letter he wrote to his long term friend and supporter Thomas Butts.
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
Blake's ability to envision the psyche as fourfold can be used as a guide to reading Blake on for different levels.
1) It would be possible to read him at the literal level as an account of material, sensual events. This may be the most difficult way to read him because his account would be of historical characters meeting mythological or fictional ones, people being thrown into furnaces or ground up by harrows, curtains being hung in the far reaches of space, and individuals dividing into multiple individuals. Our mind would reject these images as accounts of material activities just as we reject reading all mythologies as history. This kind of reaction could be said to be that of Tharmas. ("a portion of the Soul discerned by the five Senses")
2)We may read Blake on a reasoning level, associating his images with thought forms or patterns which are familiar to our rational minds. So we split off various dimensions of his thought and influences and look at these objectively building systems to explain some aspect of the body of work he produced. In this case we are viewing Blake as Urizen (symbolizing Reason) would view him. Blake portrayed this level of thinking with his famous image of Newton. Image of Newton
3)At the level of emotion we may become involved with the processes he describes, as psychic realities. We begin to see our own psychological process in terms of the characteristics and functioning of Blake's Men, Emanations, and Specters. As Luvah (who include all emotions) we enter into the dynamics of the interactions among Blake's portrayals of our inner functions.
4)The level of imagination represents a transformation or conversion to a spiritual perception. At this level the spirit will speak through the words, not just with or in the words. If Blake is inspired himself, (and he seemed to believe that he was a prophet in the same sense as the OT prophets;) his words can transmit to our spirits through a direct connection with the spirit in him. This level of communication, which Blake called Imagination, was his primary interest. His time, his energy, his goods, his thought, his labor were directed toward expressing Imagination and trying to awaken it in others. Through Imagination we get the fullest understanding of Blake. Non-sensory perception is represented by Urthona (the creative imagination of the individual.)
America a Prophecy, Title Page "In the mental realm of the
prophetic cloud a female and a male philosopher are assisted by a page-turning child . The alert female is already doing so, for the girl at her back is directing us, not her, to the subtitle and the battlefield....The leaping female turns the page." (Erdman)
If we focus on which of these fourfold methods we are using to read (or to understand one another, or to teach our children, or preform various other tasks), we gain a better understanding of the meaning for Blake of fourfold vision, and a greater ability to perceive fourfold reality.
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep"
Blake's ability to envision the psyche as fourfold can be used as a guide to reading Blake on for different levels.
1) It would be possible to read him at the literal level as an account of material, sensual events. This may be the most difficult way to read him because his account would be of historical characters meeting mythological or fictional ones, people being thrown into furnaces or ground up by harrows, curtains being hung in the far reaches of space, and individuals dividing into multiple individuals. Our mind would reject these images as accounts of material activities just as we reject reading all mythologies as history. This kind of reaction could be said to be that of Tharmas. ("a portion of the Soul discerned by the five Senses")
2)We may read Blake on a reasoning level, associating his images with thought forms or patterns which are familiar to our rational minds. So we split off various dimensions of his thought and influences and look at these objectively building systems to explain some aspect of the body of work he produced. In this case we are viewing Blake as Urizen (symbolizing Reason) would view him. Blake portrayed this level of thinking with his famous image of Newton. Image of Newton
3)At the level of emotion we may become involved with the processes he describes, as psychic realities. We begin to see our own psychological process in terms of the characteristics and functioning of Blake's Men, Emanations, and Specters. As Luvah (who include all emotions) we enter into the dynamics of the interactions among Blake's portrayals of our inner functions.
4)The level of imagination represents a transformation or conversion to a spiritual perception. At this level the spirit will speak through the words, not just with or in the words. If Blake is inspired himself, (and he seemed to believe that he was a prophet in the same sense as the OT prophets;) his words can transmit to our spirits through a direct connection with the spirit in him. This level of communication, which Blake called Imagination, was his primary interest. His time, his energy, his goods, his thought, his labor were directed toward expressing Imagination and trying to awaken it in others. Through Imagination we get the fullest understanding of Blake. Non-sensory perception is represented by Urthona (the creative imagination of the individual.)
America a Prophecy, Title Page "In the mental realm of the
prophetic cloud a female and a male philosopher are assisted by a page-turning child . The alert female is already doing so, for the girl at her back is directing us, not her, to the subtitle and the battlefield....The leaping female turns the page." (Erdman)
If we focus on which of these fourfold methods we are using to read (or to understand one another, or to teach our children, or preform various other tasks), we gain a better understanding of the meaning for Blake of fourfold vision, and a greater ability to perceive fourfold reality.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
WHOLENESS
Quotes from Edward F Edinger a Jungian psychologist :
THE ETERNAL DRAMA: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology
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
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.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Bacon, Newton, and Locke
"I consider them [Bacon, Newton, and Locke] as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception.." (from the pen of Thomas Jefferson in a letter in 1789.
You can see what Blake thought of Bacon by reading his annotations to one of Bacon's books (Erdman pp 620-32). Here's are two examples:
"7. Bacon a Liar
AnnBacon62; E624
8. Bacon has no notion of any thing but Mammon
AnnBacon69; E625"
Re Newton look at the end of a famous letter (23) to Butts in 1802:
"Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep" (Erdman 722) Re Locke: the tabula raza was particularly offense to Blake who thought intelligence and imagination were inherent in us all.
In Milton plate 41 Blake dispatches all three with this: "To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination. To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination" (Erdman 142) Blake felt that these three men (Blake's 'unholy trinity') had led England into a thoroughly materialistic, spirit-denying culture dominated by greed. What he said about them was largely true although they had a positive dimension as well. Blake acknowledged the positive dimension
in plate 98 near the end of Jerusalem:
"The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing
terrific vanishing
Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of
Intellect
The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven
And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear &
Chaucer"(Erdman 257)Although he had excoriated them systematically throughout his works, he realized that they were not negatives, but contraries. The essential polarity of the mind means that the opposites are also true.
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