The Clod of Clay

Blake's myth posits our pre-existence, like Thel in the pastoral Vale of Har; we all choose material, temporal life. That's why we're here-- for a time! Eventually we will return--whether we will or not.

But like Thel the choice was ours; we chose life; she declined.

Why do those in the 'above' choose mortal life? Who can say? Some do; some don't.

Thel explored the option. She found the end of mortal life fearsome. With a screech she forsook the world and presumably returned to Har.

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For Blake everything is a man: rocks, clouds, all creatures, the whole Creation"
"Cities are Men....and Rivers & Mountains are also Men; everything is Human, mighty! sublime!" (Jerusalem, Plate 34 [38]; line 46ff; Erdman 180) Also lilies, clouds, worms, a Clod of Clay.

In Thel we meet the Lilly, the Cloud, the Worm, the Clod of Clay. The last one had this to say:

"...on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes;
'O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves.
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
But he that loves the lowly pours his oil upon my head,
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast,
And says: "Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee,
And I have given thee a crown that none can take away."
But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know;
I ponder, and I cannot ponder, yet I live and love.' (Erdman 6)

Such a beautiful passage! the 'Clod of Clay' is the mother of God's children, 'he that loves the lowly'. God promises to redeem the entire Creation. ("the whole Creation groans in travail ......waiting for the Redemption" (Romans 22).
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"Cities are Men, fathers of multitudes, and Rivers & Mount[a]ins Are also Men; every thing is Human, mighty! sublime! (J34.47f; Erdman 180)

And from Milton, Plate 22, 24 line 17ff; (Erdman 117):

"Six Thousand Years Are finishd. I return! both Time & Space obey my will. I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down: for not one Moment Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent. But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last. The generations of men run on in the tide of Time But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever."

You could construct an elaborate and beautiful cosmology out of that idea:

Jerusalem Plate 99.1; (Erdman 258):

"All Human Forms identified even Tree Metal Earth & Stone. all
Human Forms identified, living going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days & Hours reposing And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality."

When we've completely annihilated our Selfhood, our journey is complete:
"When once I did descry the immortal man who cannot die Through evening shades I haste away to close the labors of my day." Gates of Paradise, (E 269)

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.

Blake's Moment of Grace

(This subject was also dealt with in Blake's Life.
The mind form'd manacles that he dealt with in various ways suggest that (in his own mind at least) he was largely free of them.)

With the Gnostics Blake believed that the Creator was an inferior (false) God; he had messed up the world pretty good. (You could find many people nowadays who might agree with that idea.):

Vision of The Last Judgment, E565):
"Thinking as I do that the Creator of this World is a very
Cruel Being & being a Worshipper of Christ I cannot help saying the Son O how unlike the Father
First God Almighty comes with a Thump on the Head
Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it."

Blake put these words in the mouth of Urizen:
"I am God from Eternity to Eternity"

(FZ1-12.23; E307)

( This is a fundamental archetype of Mankind, at least for Blake's culture and for ours.)

A mind form'd manacle indeed, but the one he struggled with for a long time was what he called the main chance. By that I think he meant the need for recognition of his gifts accompanied by an adequate income:
" I myself remember when I thought my pursuits of Art a kind of Criminal Dissipation & neglect of the main chance which I hid my face for not being able to abandon as a Passion which is forbidden by Law & Religion"

He rocked along for twenty years writing jewels and painting masterpieces--both of them rather uniformly ignored by the public; also by other poets and painters.

In 1800 an affluent poet named Hayley offered a house near the sea for Blake and his wife, a real beneficence! He hoped to make a successful artist of Blake painting miniatures; he discouraged Blake's poetry. Blake had already suffered similar attitudes from many, but none had been more beneficent.

We might consider this Blake's last temptation, and he passed it. Note in this letter to Hayley:
"Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters.."

The letter reveals that Blake had "annihilated the Selfhood" to the point where he could forgive Hayley for his insensitive insistence that Blake follow his (inferior!!) artistic direction. For Blake it led to the moment of grace, where, his negativities overcome, he could simply appreciate Hayley's hospitality.

Henceforth the 'inferior God' no longer had terrors for Blake; he was too filled with the new God he had found: Jesus, the Forgiveness. He changed from the stern prophet to the happy bearer of good news; he became the ram horn'd with gold.

REVELATIONS

In the last 20 years of his life, after the completion of Jerusalem, Blake became more of a painter than a poet. He attempted to initiate a project which would have placed murals and tempers in public places and private homes. When this was unsuccessful he turned to creating illustrations for the literature he loved, Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Bunyan and the Bible. Blake began "to illustrate other poets' visions so the their readers may more easily understand their archetypal significance." (Fearful Symmetry, by Northrup Frey, Page 415)

This illustration for the Book of Revelation is an example of attention he paid to the text he was illustrating and the freedom he used to clarify the significance by his imaginative presentation.

Revelation or the apocalypse was of particular interest to Blake. The Orc cycle or the Circle of Destiny would end when the new age of the spirit begins. The imagery of the Book of Revelation is frightening and hopeful as would be expected when a new age is being born.

Near the climax of Jerusalem we find these words which relate to the image and words from Revelation:
Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)

"And every Man stood Fourfold, each Four Faces had. One
to the  West
One toward the East One to the South One to the North.
the Horses  Fourfold
And the dim Chaos brightend beneath, above, around! Eyed
as the  Peacock
According to the Human Nerves of Sensation, the Four
Rivers of the Water of Life"

This watercolor represents the vision in the fifth and sixth chapters of the Book of Revelation. Two of the horses of the apocalypse and their riders are represented. Above is the Lamb opening the scroll. The threat of death and destruction is represented in the dark lower half of the picture with Death Riding on a Pale Horse. The hope and promise of the new Jerusalem appears in the Lamb of God surrounded by the light of the sun and the feathers of protection.

Blake's image captures the contrast between the threat and the promise.

Book of Revelations
5:10 They sang a new song and these are the words they sang, "You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth."
...
6:1 - Then I watched while the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice of thunder, "Come out!"
6:2 - I looked, and before my eyes was a white horse. Its rider carried a bow, and he was given a crown. He rode out conquering and bent on conquest.
6:3 - Then, when the Lamb broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature, cry, "Come out!"
6:4 - And another horse came forth, red in colour. Its rider was given power to deprive the earth of peace, so that men should kill each other. A huge sword was put into his hand.
6:5a - When the Lamb broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come out!"
6:5b-6 - I looked again and there before my eyes was a black horse. Its rider had a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard a voice which seemed to come from the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a shilling, and three quarts of barley for a shilling - but no tampering with the oil or the wine!"
6:7 - Then, when he broke the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature cry, "Come out!"
6:8 - Again I looked, and there appeared a horse sickly green in colour. The name of its rider was death, and the grave followed close behind him. A quarter of the earth was put into their power, to kill with the sword, by famine, by violence, and through the wild beasts of the earth.

Blake's Life

This is the big one! Like most people Blake's life had two halves:
In the first half Blake loved to hate; his hatreds were multiple:

He hated legalisms of every sort:
"When Satan first the black bow bent
And the Moral Law from the Gospel rent
He forg'd the Law into a Sword
And spilled the blood of mercys Lord"
Jerusalem Plate 22, lines 82-5)

He hated Religion (by which he meant false Religion!); he saw hypocrisy in every facet of Religion:
 "Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that wishes but acts not! For every thing that lives is Holy"
(MHH, Plate 27, lines 10-21, Erdman 45)

He hated War with 104 occurrences of the word:

PLATE 25 [27] of Milton (E12)1:

"The Awakener is come. outstretchd over Europe!
the Vision of God is fulfilled
The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes,
He listens to the sounds of War astonishd & ashamed;
He sees his Children mock at Faith and deny Providence"

(E130)
"These are the Gods of the Kingdoms of the Earth: in contrarious
And cruel opposition: Element against Element, opposed in War Not Mental, as the Wars of Eternity, but a Corporeal Strife."

In contrast to the corporeal war of this vale of tears Blake sees the Eternals engaging in War and Hunting, mental, not corporeal.

War and Religion are closely associated in Blake's mind (and in mine!):
(E150)
Cambel & Gwendolen wove webs of war & of
Religion, to involve all Albions sons,
and Jerusalem plate 52 (To the Deists) E200:
"the Religion of Jesus, Forgiveness of Sin, can
never be the cause of a War nor of a single
Martyrdom. Those who Martyr others or who cause War are
Deists, but never can be Forgivers of Sin.
The Glory of Christianity is, To Conquer by
Forgiveness. All the Destruction therefore,
in Christian Europe has arisen from Deism,
which is Natural Religion."

He hated exploitation and oppression of the poor. Study London

He hated materialism:

Vision of the Last Judgment (Erdman 564)

"I assert for My self that I do
not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it
is hindrance & not Action it is as the Dirt
upon my feet No part of Me."

All of Blake's hatreds he lumped together and referred to as the female will, female love and sometimes (unfortunately) just love:

My Shadow (Erdman 476)

"Till I turn from Female Love
And root up the Infernal Grove tI shall never worthy be
To Step into Eternity.........Let us agree to give up Love
And root up the infernal grove Then shall we return & see
The worlds of happy Eternity"

But then came the Moment of Grace, and the second half of life began. At that point forgiveness took the place of hatred:

Annotations to Watson (Erdman 619):
"The Gospel is Forgiveness of Sins & has No Moral Precepts
these belong to Plato & Seneca & Nero"

Blake was talking to God when he said this:

And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
This the Wine, and this the Bread.

Brothers, let us drink the wine and eat the bread.

GNOSIS II

In William Blake's Recreation of Gnostic Myth: Resolving the Apparent Incongruities, Sorensen devotes a chapter to gnostic redemption - fitting Blake's spiritual biography in the pattern of Redemption as a gnostic process which involves 'letting go of worldly conceit' and 'the exalting reunion with the divine.'

Quotes from Sorensen:

"There is little doubt that Blake had intuited as early as 1788 the essential nature of gnostic redemption, in which mankind, through gnosis becomes one with God. There Is No Natural Religion [b] declares," He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God....Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may become as he is."...Blake for many years diligently searched outside himself for this revelation. His wide, if eclectic, reading, his attraction to Swedenborg's works, and his hopes for political revolution all point toward the hope of pure revelation even in the chaos of a fallen material world. Blake's disappointment with the systems of the world around him is abundantly clear in the 1790's, but he never stopped hoping for some solution.

"Blake's letter of 23 October 1804 to William Haley specifies exactly what had troubled Blake and what caused Blake's own gnostic 'redemption.' There are two important aspects to this redemption; first, Blake lets go of his former enmity with Haley, under whose patronage Blake had felt so oppressed toward the end of his stay at Felpham. Blake expresses 'pleasure' and 'longing' in the letter to associate with Haley, who was not even remotely on the same spiritual plane as Blake (which fact caused enmity in the first instance). This self-annihilation on Blake's part constitutes the gnostic's final 'letting go' of worldly conceit.

"The second part of the redemption is the exalting reunification with the divine. After visiting an art gallery, Blake becomes 'enlightened', and he refers to the experience as his 'restoration to the light of Art'.

Blake's experience is reported in this Letter To William Hayley, 23 October 1804, (E 756):
..."Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters. Consequently I can, with confidence, promise you ocular demonstration of my altered state on the plates I am now engraving after Romney, whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced to my restoration to the light of Art. O the distress I have undergone, and my poor wife with me. Incessantly labouring and incessantly spoiling what I had done well. Every one of my friends was astonished at my faults, and could not assign a reason; they knew my industry and abstinence from every pleasure for the sake of study, and yet--and yet--and yet there wanted the proofs of industry in my works. I thank God with entire confidence that it shall be so no longer--he is become my servant who domineered over me, he is even as a brother who was my enemy. Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand, even as I used to be in my youth, and as I have not been for twenty dark, but very profitable years. I thank God that I courageously pursued my course through darkness."

Returning to Sorenson:
"This instance of highly personalized , individual revelation is a hallmark of Christian gnosticism, in which each gnostic adept must personally encounter divine vision; the contemplation or rational study of canonized scripture and submission to ecclesiastical authority are insufficient, according to gnostic scribes, to reveal the true divine cosmology.
...
"This assurance, that poetic genius indeed creates reality, and that gnosis is the recognition of a reality more real than material existence, came to Blake full by 1804, and he could confidently reveal in his poetry and later in his painting the gnostic redemption of mankind, knowing that his word as poet was the harbinger of that redemption. The artist's poetic works and paintings became his spiritual offspring, and Blake (a man) became a member of the divine family, even as his earliest tractates declared."

The book attempts to open one's eyes to the many ways in which Blake exhibits gnostic thought forms in his life and work. It is a short book in scholarly form. It is an individual way of studying Blake, just as the the methods used by Frey, Erdman, Raine, Damon and each author are their individual ways. Although Sorensen has taken an unusual approach for scholarship by not looking for direct influence but for synchronistic, acausal congruence, it is the type of thinking Blake himself did.



An Angel Striding among the Stars