GNOSIS

For centuries the Gnostic movement of the early Christian era was primarily known by critical statements written by those who were trying to eradicate it. In the twentieth century the reappearance of a group of Gnostic writings, which came to be known as theNag Hammadi documents, have allowed us to learn directly what gnostics wrote and practiced.

Peter Sorensen has written a book entitled William Blake's Recreation of Gnostic Myth: Resolving the Apparent Incongruities, in which he "compare[s] Blake's work directly with the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered long after Blake's death." He believes that the new insights on Gnosticism, developed from the Nag Hammadi material can reveal insights into the patterns of gnostic thought in Blake's work.

Sorensen states: "I wish, then to use the Nag Hammadi codices as a touchstone to test the extent and specific features of Blake' gnosticism. Although I will mention again sources from Blake's own time that might have influenced him, I wish to insist that Blake was a gnostic, rather than merely a student of gnosticism." (Page 14)

In The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels says of the gnostics: "These Christians are now called gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis, usually translated as "knowledge". For those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, "not knowing"), the person who claims to know such things is called gnostic ("knowing")...As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and human destiny...Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis."

The gnostic literature which would have been available for Blake to study would have been limited. Sorensen proposes that Blake would have found " 'confirmation' of his gnostic vision in the works [he has] cited, rather than to say that a genuinely gnostic vision can grow out of secondary reading alone."

I think Sorensen is projecting the idea that Blake's circumstances as well as his visions may have disposed him to think like the early Christian era gnostics. The sociological factors present for Blake which he may have shared with the gnostics would have included intellectual isolation, anxiety about possible persecution, and observing destructive conditions in his society. Psychologically, archetypes which structure thought universally and can be recognized by whoever is tuned to their presence, can link Blake with the gnostics. Additionally we can conjecture that Blake and the early gnostics with their inward looking mindsets, and focus on cosmological issues may have processed some of their insights using the same images.

As an example of the parallels which Sorensen sees between the gnostic myth and Blake's myth are Sophia and Vala, two females trapped in materiality. The difficulty both have in extracting themselves from materiality is represented in this passage from:
Four Zoas, Page 126 (E 395)

"Come forth O Vala from the grass & from the silent Dew
Rise from the dews of death for the Eternal Man is Risen

She rises among flowers & looks toward the Eastern clearness
She walks yea runs her feet are wingd on the tops of the bending grass
Her garments rejoice in the vocal wind & her hair glistens with dew
She answerd thus Whose voice is this in the voice of the nourishing air
In the spirit of the morning awaking the Soul from its grassy bed

Where dost thou dwell for it is thee I seek & but for thee
I must have slept Eternally nor have felt the dew of thy morning
Look how the opening dawn advances with vocal harmony
Look how the beams foreshew the rising of some glorious power
The sun is thine he goeth forth in his majestic brightness
O thou creating voice that callest & who shall answer thee

Where dost thou flee O fair one where dost thou seek thy happy place

To yonder brightness there I haste for sure I came from thence
Or I must have slept eternally nor have felt the dew of morning

Eternally thou must have slept nor have felt the morning dew
But for yon nourishing sun tis that by which thou art arisen
The birds adore the sun the beasts rise up & play in his beams
And every flower & every leaf rejoices in his light
Then O thou fair one sit thee down for thou art as the grass
Thou risest in the dew of morning & at night art folded up

Alas am I but as a flower then will I sit me down
Then will I weep then Ill complain & sigh for immortality
And chide my maker thee O Sun that raisedst me to fall

So saying she sat down & wept beneath the apple trees"

Sorensen concludes, "the awakening here is to knowledge"; but the transition is difficult.

Caught in Materiality , Jerusalem Plate 57

Blake's Death

Entering the Door of Death (Frontspiece of Jerusalem)

The word die is carefully avoided by most of us; when a loved one dies, we say he/she passed away.

The question is-- what dies? The Roman Empire died; the British Empire died? But those were not people per se; they were states, conglomerates of materiality.

So death is relative-- from what to what? Ellie asked a workmate if he considered himself a body or a spirit; "a body", he said; "a spirit", she said.

So what dies? A body or a spirit or both? (In mortal life our bodies are said to actually die (cell by cell) and be renewed every 7 years.)

So at the end of mortal life what dies? the body of course, the garment that we acquired when we descended into the Sea of Time and Space and the 'daughters of Enitharmon' began to cut and splice it.

When Odysseus (or Luvah) threw the garment back to the sea goddess, he was on his way back to Eternity, where we all go sooner or later.
---------------------------------------------------
In the French Quarter in N.O. a black friend told me about her dead son; he had had an incurable and painful disease; he came to her and asked her permission to die, which she of course granted.

In one of Charles Williams' delightful metaphysical thrillers two characters are especially memorable: a saintly lady fully in tune with the life of the Spirit, and a man who generations before had been hanged; his spirit still hanged around that locale, which happened to be outside her window. She met him there and gave him permission to depart in peace.

In the series called William Blake Meets Thomas Paine we witness a conversation that Bill Blake had with his brother, Robert (long deceased), and we're led to believe that this was commonplace in Blake's life.

"But when once I did descry

The Immortal Man that cannot die,
Thro' evening shades I haste away
To close the labours of my day."
(From Gates of Paradise)

"Every Death is an improvement in the State of the Departed." (Letter 74 - to Linnell; Erdman 774)

By Death Eternal Blake implied descent into mortal life.
By Life Eternal he meant return to our Eternal Origin.

But what have you and I learned here in our mortal life?
(One Post can do no more than introduce this subject; it has other major ramifications.)

Blake's Death

Entering the Door of Death (Frontspiece of Jerusalem)

The word die is carefully avoided by most of us; when a loved one dies, we say he/she passed away.

The question is-- what dies? The Roman Empire died; the British Empire died? But those were not people per se; they were states, conglomerates of materiality.

So death is relative-- from what to what? Ellie asked a workmate if he considered himself a body or a spirit; "a body", he said; "a spirit", she said.

So what dies? A body or a spirit or both? (In mortal life our bodies are said to actually die (cell by cell) and be renewed every 7 years.)

So at the end of mortal life what dies? the body of course, the garment that we acquired when we descended into the Sea of Time and Space and the 'daughters of Enitharmon' began to cut and splice it.

When Odysseus (or Luvah) threw the garment back to the sea goddess, he was on his way back to Eternity, where we all go sooner or later.
---------------------------------------------------
In the French Quarter in N.O. a black friend told me about her dead son; he had had an incurable and painful disease; he came to her and asked her permission to die, which she of course granted.

In one of Charles Williams' delightful metaphysical thrillers two characters are especially memorable: a saintly lady fully in tune with the life of the Spirit, and a man who generations before had been hanged; his spirit still hanged around that locale, which happened to be outside her window. She met him there and gave him permission to depart in peace.

In the series called William Blake Meets Thomas Paine we witness a conversation that Bill Blake had with his brother, Robert (long deceased), and we're led to believe that this was commonplace in Blake's life.

"But when once I did descry

The Immortal Man that cannot die,
Thro' evening shades I haste away
To close the labours of my day."
(From Gates of Paradise)

"Every Death is an improvement in the State of the Departed." (Letter 74 - to Linnell; Erdman 774)

By Death Eternal Blake implied descent into mortal life.
By Life Eternal he meant return to our Eternal Origin.

But what have you and I learned here in our mortal life?
(One Post can do no more than introduce this subject; it has other major ramifications.)

Blake a Gnostic?

Blake was not a Gnostic!  But he freely used gnostic ideas 
like he freely used biblical ideas, platonic and neo-platonic 
ideas and many other ideologies.  Here's an extract from a 
google book (click on the image to blow it up):

But there is certainly a relationship. Blake's myth involved
four levels: Eternity, Beulah, Ulro, generation/regeneration.

"In the Gnostic view, Hylics, also called Somatics (from Gk το σώμα, soma the body or of the body), were the lowest order of the three types of human. The other two were the Psychics and the Pneumatics (from Gk το πνεύμα, spirit, breath). So humanity comprised matter-bound beings, matter-dwelling spirits and the matter-free or immaterial, souls." in the Free Dictionary.

"When the Morning Stars Sang Together" Illustrations to the Book of Job (Butts Set) Click on picture for details.

The somatic (or hylic) level corresponds roughly to Paul's
appellation or his 'slackers': "their god is their stomach"
(Philippians 3:19). For Blake they dwell in Ulro.

The psychic dwell in matter, but that's not the only thing on their
minds. For Blake they are the created, the redeemed, those
struggling for a spiritual dimension under the care of Los.
They may eventually rise to Beulah.

The Pneumatic is matter free. We're told that in the gospel of
Judas Jesus was pneumatic and his disciples were somatic.
Jesus, the Universal Man, came down from Eternity for our
sakes. Blake calls his universal man Albion. He came down to
Beulah, passed through the two lower types, and finally at the
end of Jerusalem became synonymous with Jesus.

Blake perceived that as the eventual fate of all of us.

So did Blake get his levels of humanity from this gnostic
system? Who can tell? He may have developed his system
from any number of sources. He was a voracious reader. A
good way to learn about Blake's sources is by reading the
Perennial Philosphy, which contains thousands of sources of
divine meaning throughout Western civilization.

The Two Witnesses

In Milton (Erdman plate 22 [24] Lines 53-63: Blake referred to Wesley and a confederate, Whitefield, as the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11:3 As far as I know, Blake never mentioned Fox, but one may consider Blake's term in The Divine Image, 'Turk and Jew' in the nature of a quotation from Fox.

Condemning those Christians who deny the light Fox wrote, "you make a profession of Christ in his flesh, and will not own his light, which enlightens every man, which is the life in him, you are as bad or worse than the Jews, Turks, or Indians; for they will confess to that light which does condemn evil in them, but you make a profession, of Christ in the flesh, yet deny his light, which is life in him; and the Jews, Turks, and Indians, will confess to the light that does reprove them....." (from The Works of George Fox, Vol 5, p. 200)

Fox, and Blake as well, had only contempt for Established religious practices, ceremonies, dogmas, special days, etc.; for them the Spirit, the Light was what matters.

Two dissenters in two centuries provided a creative leavening that may have saved England from complete disorder and chaos. Things there were bad enough anyway. Religious dissenters beheaded England's king in 1651 just as Fox was beginning to
spread the Light of the Prince of Peace; he would "remove the cause of War", recognizing that of God in everyone.

Fox went to the steeple houses to denounce the hireling priests---and spent many a day in prison (something our poet fortunately escaped).

The 18th Century dawned; William and Mary brought a semblance of order into England, but political, economic and religious corruption abounded.

Wesley was born; he didn't denounce hireling priests; he just showed a better way. In that day the churches, the cathedrals, had minimal congregations; the average Brit would not dare to enter the place; it was reserved for the uppers, and virtually the entire population held the 'state church' in low regard. On Sundays ordinary men attended saloons, bear baitings, cockfights, you name it. Wesley went to these places, to the public square, to gathering places of miners and blessed them with the love of God. He preached to thousands in those places while a handful of pious souls went to the cathedrals. He saved England from a revolution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

All this was part of the backdrop in which William Blake was born and grew up; Wesley died in 1791 when Blake was 24.

In England Fox and Wesley were the foremost witnesses to the kingdom of God in the 17th and 18th centuries. Blake was the third one; in the 19th century.

Here are some attributes the three men shared:
anti-war
anti political and religious corruption
anti economic exploitation

for love
for peace
for food for the poor
for industry
for integrity
for Universal inclusion

The Two Witnesses

In Milton (Erdman plate 22 [24] Lines 53-63: Blake referred to Wesley and a confederate, Whitefield, as the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11:3 As far as I know, Blake never mentioned Fox, but one may consider Blake's term in The Divine Image, 'Turk and Jew' in the nature of a quotation from Fox.

Condemning those Christians who deny the light Fox wrote, "you make a profession of Christ in his flesh, and will not own his light, which enlightens every man, which is the life in him, you are as bad or worse than the Jews, Turks, or Indians; for they will confess to that light which does condemn evil in them, but you make a profession, of Christ in the flesh, yet deny his light, which is life in him; and the Jews, Turks, and Indians, will confess to the light that does reprove them....." (from The Works of George Fox, Vol 5, p. 200)

Fox, and Blake as well, had only contempt for Established religious practices, ceremonies, dogmas, special days, etc.; for them the Spirit, the Light was what matters.

Two dissenters in two centuries provided a creative leavening that may have saved England from complete disorder and chaos. Things there were bad enough anyway. Religious dissenters beheaded England's king in 1651 just as Fox was beginning to
spread the Light of the Prince of Peace; he would "remove the cause of War", recognizing that of God in everyone.

Fox went to the steeple houses to denounce the hireling priests---and spent many a day in prison (something our poet fortunately escaped).

The 18th Century dawned; William and Mary brought a semblance of order into England, but political, economic and religious corruption abounded.

Wesley was born; he didn't denounce hireling priests; he just showed a better way. In that day the churches, the cathedrals, had minimal congregations; the average Brit would not dare to enter the place; it was reserved for the uppers, and virtually the entire population held the 'state church' in low regard. On Sundays ordinary men attended saloons, bear baitings, cockfights, you name it. Wesley went to these places, to the public square, to gathering places of miners and blessed them with the love of God. He preached to thousands in those places while a handful of pious souls went to the cathedrals. He saved England from a revolution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

All this was part of the backdrop in which William Blake was born and grew up; Wesley died in 1791 when Blake was 24.

In England Fox and Wesley were the foremost witnesses to the kingdom of God in the 17th and 18th centuries. Blake was the third one; in the 19th century.

Here are some attributes the three men shared:
anti-war
anti political and religious corruption
anti economic exploitation

for love
for peace
for food for the poor
for industry
for integrity
for Universal inclusion

SPIRITUAL DESCENDENTS

Apparently Blake eventually realized that he had been
blessed and singled out to give what he had received,
not to to the small circle of folks around him, but
to the generations which would follow. The furious
effort that he put into his work in spite of the
slight affirmation he received, indicates to me that
he believed that his influence could penetrate
history as psychological development caught up with
him. He could look back at Homer, Jesus and Paul
(among others), who produced not for their
contemporaries but for their spiritual descendants,
and seek to be among them.
__________________________________________
Of this frontispiece for JERUSALEM, Erdman says: "We may suppose that Los in his London human form as William Blake, is entering a dark place with his illumination, as Jesus enters Hell with his key; that he is leading us toward a scene of action; that his arresting hand invites our attention; that he is preparing to give himself, as Milton on the title page of Milton." Los Entering The Grave

SPIRITUAL DESCENDENTS

Apparently Blake eventually realized that he had been
blessed and singled out to give what he had received,
not to to the small circle of folks around him, but
to the generations which would follow. The furious
effort that he put into his work in spite of the
slight affirmation he received, indicates to me that
he believed that his influence could penetrate
history as psychological development caught up with
him. He could look back at Homer, Jesus and Paul
(among others), who produced not for their
contemporaries but for their spiritual descendants,
and seek to be among them.
__________________________________________
Of this frontispiece for JERUSALEM, Erdman says: "We may suppose that Los in his London human form as William Blake, is entering a dark place with his illumination, as Jesus enters Hell with his key; that he is leading us toward a scene of action; that his arresting hand invites our attention; that he is preparing to give himself, as Milton on the title page of Milton." Los Entering The Grave

JUNG AND SPIRIT

Some people question the Christianity of Carl Jung.
He divided his religious life from his professional life,
but in later years he became more open about revealing
his inner relationship to God . Although he never
spoke of his religion in the conventional religious
terminology that had been used by his family for
generations, he said enough to show that he had a
faith that was deep and personal.

"When John Freeman asked Jung in a 1959 BBC interview
if he believed in God, he answered, "I don't need to
believe....I know," thereby landing himself in
controversy again."

"The divine Presence is more than anything else. There
is more than one way to the rediscovery of the 'genus
divinum' in us. This is the only thing that matters....I
wanted the proof of a living Spirit and I got it....Don't
ask me at what price....I don't want to prescribe a way
to other people, because I know that my way has been
prescribed to me by a hand far above my reach. I know
it all sounds so damned grand. I am sorry that it does,
but I don't mean it. It is grand and I am only trying to
be a decent tool and don't feel grand at all."
Letter to FR.Victor White

This sounds like a man who knew the Spirit within.
Jesus didn't ask for more than that.

'The Descent of Peace' from On the Night of Christ's Nativity.

Quotes from CARL JUNG: WOUNDED HEALER
OF THE SOUL by Claire Dunne

Link to Wounded Healer

JUNG AND SPIRIT

Some people question the Christianity of Carl Jung.
He divided his religious life from his professional life,
but in later years he became more open about revealing
his inner relationship to God . Although he never
spoke of his religion in the conventional religious
terminology that had been used by his family for
generations, he said enough to show that he had a
faith that was deep and personal.

"When John Freeman asked Jung in a 1959 BBC interview
if he believed in God, he answered, "I don't need to
believe....I know," thereby landing himself in
controversy again."

"The divine Presence is more than anything else. There
is more than one way to the rediscovery of the 'genus
divinum' in us. This is the only thing that matters....I
wanted the proof of a living Spirit and I got it....Don't
ask me at what price....I don't want to prescribe a way
to other people, because I know that my way has been
prescribed to me by a hand far above my reach. I know
it all sounds so damned grand. I am sorry that it does,
but I don't mean it. It is grand and I am only trying to
be a decent tool and don't feel grand at all."
Letter to FR.Victor White

This sounds like a man who knew the Spirit within.
Jesus didn't ask for more than that.

'The Descent of Peace' from On the Night of Christ's Nativity.

Quotes from CARL JUNG: WOUNDED HEALER
OF THE SOUL by Claire Dunne

Link to Wounded Healer