BODY & SOUL

 

Blake Archive

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Plate 14, Copy D

Original in Library of Congress

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39) 

   "But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his

soul, is to  be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
   If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern.
Plate 15
                            A Memorable Fancy
   I was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the method in which
knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.
   In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing away the
rubbish from a caves mouth; within, a number of Dragons were
hollowing the  cave, 
   In the second chamber was a Viper folding round the rock & the 
cave, and others adorning it with gold silver and precious
stones.
   In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and feathers of
air, 
he caused the inside of the cave to be infinite, around were
numbers  of Eagle like men, who built palaces in the immense
cliffs.
   In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire raging around
&  melting the metals into living fluids.
   In the fifth chamber were Unnam'd forms, which cast the metals 
into the expanse.
   There they were reciev'd by Men who occupied the sixth
chamber,  and took the forms of books & were arranged in
libraries.     

Plate 16
   The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence
and  now seem to live in it in chains; are in truth. the causes
of its life & the sources of all activity, but the chains are,
the cunning of weak  and tame minds. which have power to resist
energy. according to the proverb, the weak in courage is strong
in cunning.
   Thus one portion of being, is the Prolific. the other, the
Devouring:  to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in
his chains, but it is not so, he only takes portions of existence
and fancies that the whole.
   But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless the
Devourer as a sea recieved the excess of his delights.
   Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God
only   Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.
   These two classes of men are always upon earth, & they should
be enemies; whoever tries [PL 17] to reconcile them seeks to
destroy existence.   
   Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.
   Note.  Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to seperate
them, as in  the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says I came not
to send Peace  but a Sword.
   Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought to be one of
the  Antediluvians who are our Energies."

Given to man are two means or doors of perception; his physical senses and his spiritual senses. The doors though which his body perceives are eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch. Through intuition, imagination, intimation, and revelation the spirit receives and disseminates spiritual truth. Since physical sensation is of the body it dies with bodily death. The spiritual senses, like the Soul, are eternal and continue to operate in the Eternal World. Blake, like the Apostle Paul, recognized the Spiritual Body.
We live in both worlds, the physical and Eternal, although through our senses we may become more accustomed to the physical world of time and space. Nevertheless our Spiritual Senses are accessible to our bodies as well as our Spirits. Blake could say that "notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged", because the body and soul are interconnected serving one another and being served by the other. The Apostle Paul and William Blake agree that at death the Physical Body is left behind in the physical world, being replaced by a spiritual body as the spirit leaves time for Eternity. 
First Corinthians 2
[13] Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
[14] But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
[15] But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
[16] For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
First Corinthians 15
[41] There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory 
of  the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
[42] So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in 
incorruption:
[43] It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is 
raised in power:
[44] It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body,
 and there is a spiritual body.

Songs of Innocense and of Experience, Plate 51, (E 30)
To Tirzah
"Thou Mother of my Mortal part.
With cruelty didst mould my Heart. 
And with false self-decieving tears,
Didst bind my Nostrils Eyes & Ears.
Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free, 
Then what have I to do with thee?"

[text on illustration: It is Raised a Spiritual Body]
Four Zoas, Page 104 (Second Section), (E 378)
"Los said to Enitbarmon Pitying I saw
Pitying the Lamb of God Descended thro Jerusalems gates
To put off Mystery time after time & as a Man
Is born on Earth so was he born of Fair Jerusalem
In mysterys woven mantle & in the Robes of Luvah 

He stood in fair Jerusalem to awake up into Eden
The fallen Man but first to Give his vegetated body    
To be cut off & separated that the Spiritual body may be Reveald"
Annotations to Berkeley's Siris, (E 663)
"They [Plato and Aristotle] so considerd God as abstracted or distinct from the
Imaginative World but Jesus as also Abraham & David considerd God
as a Man in the Spiritual or Imaginative Vision
     Jesus considerd Imagination to be the Real Man & says I will
not leave you Orphanned and I will manifest myself to you   he
says also the Spiritual Body or Angel as little Children always
behold the Face of the Heavenly Father  
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39)
"For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to 
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole 
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now  appears finite & corrupt.
   This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
   But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to  be expunged;" 

LIVING IN LAMBETH

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 36

 In 1791, after the death of his mother, Blake settled in Lambeth away from the neighborhood associated with his family. Although Lambeth which is on the south side of the Thames is now a part of London, in Blake's day it was in the county of Surry. William and Catherine lived in a comfortable row house on Hercules Road. Part of the furnishings was the printing press which Blake had acquired when he and Parker operated a printing business on Broad Street. Blake had already formulated the idea of combining words and pictures on pages of books over which he would have complete control. The prototypical examples of this process were There is No Natural Religion, and All Religions are One, which were produced in 1788.   

Two years after moving to Lambeth Blake had completed the following books:

For Children, The Gates of Paradise, 
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,
Visions of the Daughters of Albion,
America: A Prophecy

In the following years at Lambeth he completed:
Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
The First Book of Urizen
Europe: a Prophecy
The Song of Los
The Book of Ahania
The Book of Los 

So the nine years in Lambeth were the time William and Catherine perfected the technique of creating illuminated books from scratch. She learned from him as he applied all his years as an art student and as an apprenticed engraver, to an enterprise which gave expression to imagination. The books were the vehicle for the poetry which welled up from William's brain as he contemplated existence. 

Milton and Jerusalem were the culmination of the process for which Lambeth was the seedbed.

Milton, Plate 25 [27], (E 121)

"Lambeth mourns calling Jerusalem. she weeps & looks abroad
For the Lords coming, that Jerusalem may overspread all Nations  
Crave not for the mortal & perishing delights, but leave them
To the weak, and pity the weak as your infant care; Break not
Forth in your wrath lest you also are vegetated by Tirzah
Wait till the Judgement is past, till the Creation is consumed
And then rush forward with me into the glorious spiritual    
Vegetation; the Supper of the Lamb & his Bride; and the
Awaking of Albion our friend and ancient companion.
So Los spoke."

Milton, Plate 36 [40], (E 137)

"For when Los joind with me he took me in his firy whirlwind
My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades
He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful
Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions
To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion."   

Jerusalem, Plate 12, (E 155)

"And they builded Golgonooza: terrible eternal labour!
What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-place
Of soft Ethinthus? near Tyburns fatal Tree? is that
Mild Zions hills most ancient promontory; near mournful
Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and Golgotha?
Becoming a building of pity and compassion? Lo!
The stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections:    
Enameld with love & kindness, & the tiles engraven gold
Labour of merciful hands: the beams & rafters are forgiveness:
The mortar & cement of the work, tears of honesty: the nails,
And the screws & iron braces, are well wrought blandishments,
And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,         
Always comforting the remembrance: the floors, humility,
The cielings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving:
Prepare the furniture O Lambeth in thy pitying looms!
The curtains, woven tears & sighs, wrought into lovely forms
For comfort. there the secret furniture of Jerusalems chamber    
Is wrought: Lambeth! the Bride the Lambs Wife loveth thee:
Thou art one with her & knowest not of self in thy supreme joy."

Jerusalem, Plate 37[41], (E 183)

"Where mild Jerusalem sought to repose in death & be no more.   
She fled to Lambeths mild Vale and hid herself beneath
The Surrey Hills where Rephaim terminates: her Sons are siez'd
For victims of sacrifice; but Jerusalem cannot be found! Hid
By the Daughters of Beulah: gently snatch'd away: and hid in Beulah

There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find     
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it: tis translucent & has many Angles
But he who finds it will find Oothoons palace, for within
Opening into Beulah every angle is a lovely heaven
But should the Watch Fiends find it, they would call it Sin"

Jerusalem, Plate 84, (E 243)
"Highgates heights & Hampsteads, to Poplar Hackney & Bow:
To Islington & Paddington & the Brook of Albions River
We builded Jerusalem as a City & a Temple; from Lambeth
We began our Foundations; lovely Lambeth! O lovely Hills
Of Camberwell, we shall behold you no more in glory & pride    
For Jerusalem lies in ruins & the Furnaces of Los are builded there"    
  

Read this post for a detailed description of the process of creating Songs of Innocence and of Experience as outlined in Michael Phillip's book William Blake: The Creation of the Songs From Manuscript to Illuminated Printing.

TRUE MARRIAGE

 First posted Sept 2019  

From Private Collection

Sketch of Catherine

True marriage is a mystical bond. It depends upon two people having the desire to achieve a meeting of their minds. Unless each partner is capable of appreciating the other's differences as benefits to the union, there will be strife and dissension. William and Catherine Blake did not marry because they recognized only their similarities, but because they valued the qualities in the other which were absent in themselves. William needed the stability of Catherine, while she needed the stimulation of his active mind. There were things each gave up to accommodate the other. Any hope she may have had for a conventional life she relinquished; something of his firey, contentious nature he subdued. They each valued the condition of marriage more than the need to realize his/her own individual desires.   

Catherine was not educated; in fact she signed her marriage certificate with an X. But William did not value formal education since he never sat at the foot of a schoolmaster himself. Catherine, the daughter of a green grocer, married at twenty years of age. She was prepared for a simple life of working with her husband who taught her the skills she needed in order to assist his career. Her unique contribution over the years was a calmness of spirit upon which William could rely when his fierce need to create overstimulated his mind. 

In The Stranger from Paradise, a Biography of William Blake by G.E. Bentley, Jr, there is a quote from Frederick Tatum:

"he fancied , that while she looked at him, as he worked, her sitting quite still by...[his] side, doing nothing, soothed his tempestuous mind & he has many a time when a strong desire presented itself to overcome any difficulty in the Plates or Drawings, ... in the middle of the night risen & requested her to get up with him & sit by his side, in which she cheerfully acquiesced". Page 70

Gates of Paradise, For the Sexes, (E 268)
16 Thou'rt my Mother from the Womb
     Wife, Sister, Daughter to the Tomb
     Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife
     And weeping over the Web of Life

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 122, (E 391)

"The winter thou shalt plow & lay thy stores into thy barns       
Expecting to recieve Ahania in the spring with joy
Immortal thou. Regenerate She & all the lovely Sex
From her shall learn obedience & prepare for a wintry grave
That spring may see them rise in tenfold joy & sweet delight
Thus shall the male & female live the life of Eternity           
Because the Lamb of God Creates himself a bride & wife
That we his Children evermore may live in Jerusalem
Which now descendeth out of heaven a City yet a Woman
Mother of myriads redeemd & born in her spiritual palaces
By a New Spiritual birth Regenerated from Death                  

Urizen Said. I have Erred & my Error remains with me"

Songs and Ballads, Blake's notebook, (E 481)
"I have Mental Joy & Mental Health
And Mental Friends & Mental wealth    
Ive a Wife I love & that loves me
Ive all But Riches Bodily"

Letters, (E 709)
"To William Hayley Esqre at Miss Pooles, Lavant
near Chichester, Sussex
Hercules Buildings Lambeth Sept 16. 1800

Leader of My Angels
     My Dear & too careful & over joyous Woman has Exhausted her
strength to such a degree with expectation & gladness added to
labour in our removal that I fear it will be Thursday before we
can get away from this---- City   I shall not be able to avail
myself of the assistance of Brunos fairies.  But I invoke the
Good Genii that Surround Miss Pooles Villa to shine upon my
journey thro the Petworth road which by your fortunate advice I
mean to take but whether I come on Wednesday or Thursday That Day
shall be marked on my calendar with a Star of the first magnitude
     Eartham will be my first temple & altar My wife is like a
flame of many colours of precious jewels whenever she hears it
named Excuse my haste & recieve my hearty Love & Respect
I am Dear Sir
Your Sincere
WILLIAM BLAKE

My fingers Emit sparks of fire with Expectation of my future
labours"

INNER REALITY

 First posted Dec 2019 

Library of Congress

Marriage of Heaven & Hell

Plate 10

As a mental exercise Blake tries to get his reader to look at his world in a different way. He asks us to look at 'reality' as something which is a product of our own thinking rather than as objective facts which determine our interpretations and our actions. If you are an observer of other people you probably realize that your own mind and the minds of others are not congruent. Take that observation a step further and acknowledge that individuals either see through the lens of generally accepted conventions, or they use their own mental abilities to process the input they receive from an exterior world through their senses. If such is the case, the mind itself creates their 'reality' which does not arrive pre-processed as the events of history or the sights and sounds from outside of the body.

On Page 72, of her biography, William Blake, Kathleen Raine tells us that Blake pushes us to look deeper than surface ills to find ways to make changes to outer circumstances:       

"For Blake, outward events and circumstances were the expressions of states of mind, ideologies, mentalities, and not, as for the determanist-materialist ideologies of the modern world, their causes. Blake's 'dark Satanic Mills', so often invoked in the name of social reform, prove, when we read Milton (the poem in which these mills are most fully described) to be the mechanistic 'laws' of Bacon, Newton and Locke, of which industrial landscapes are a reflection and expression. Man has made his machines in the image of his ideology. So, always, Blake tries to discover the source of social and private ills within man. Only a change of the heart and mind of the nation can create a new society and new cities less hideous than those created by an atheist and mechanistic rationalism."

---

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 543)
 "All had originally one
language, and one religion, this was the religion of Jesus, the
everlasting Gospel.  Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus.  The
reasoning historian, turner and twister of causes and
consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon and Voltaire; cannot with all
their artifice, turn or twist one fact or disarrange self evident
action and reality.  Reasons and opinions concerning acts, are not
history.  Acts themselves alone are history, and these are
neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire,
Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus.  Tell me the Acts, O
historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away
with your reasoning and your rubbish.  All that is not action is
not worth reading.  Tell me the What; I do not want you to
tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well
as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that
you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or
impossible.  His opinions, who does not see spiritual agency, is
not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is
improbable, must reject all History and retain doubts only."

---

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)
"And every Generated Body in its inward form,
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda
And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds & chambers
Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmons Daughters
In bright Cathedrons golden Dome with care & love & tears
For the various Classes of Men are all markd out determinate
In Bowlahoola; & as the Spectres choose their affinities
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate
But not by Natural but by Spiritual power alone, Because
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction
Ending in Death: which would of itself be Eternal Death
And all are Class'd by Spiritual, & not by Natural power.

And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems, it is a Delusion      
Of Ulro: & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory."

LAMBETH MOSAICS

 

Yale Center for British Art

Songs of Innocence

Plate 2

 

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

 Plate 8

In 2007 a project was begun to display the art work of William Blake in the neighborhood of Lambeth where Blake and his wife formerly lived and worked. During the time that the Blakes lived in the Hercules Building in Lambeth they self published nine Illuminated Books displaying William's poetic writing together with his illustrations. In honor of Blake's acomplisments a group of artists and volunteers concieved of the idea of creating mosaics of Blake's pictures to display on streets and on walls of buildings in his old neighborhood. The medium of mosaic was chosen in order to show the pictures in outdoor settings. 

"The mosaics were created over the course of seven years with the help of more than 300 local volunteers. As of 2020 this free collection showcases an extensive total of 70 pieces of artwork." Interest in using mosaics in public settings grew on the south bank of the Thames including Southbank Mosaics (now Morley College London) and other venues. The London School of Moasic took up the work of training artists and producing art to be displayed. As of August 2025 the school had disbanded but left a legacy of organizations and trained artists to continue its work. The evidence of their influence is evident in a wide variety of moasic instalations in Lambeth and in London proper. William Blake's impact continues.

Book of Revelation

 First Posted Oct 2020

Wikipedia Commons
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun

Revelation 12 

[1] And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

[2] And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
[3] And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
[4] And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
[5] And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
[6] And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
[7] And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
[8] And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
[9] And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

From Larry Clayton's Ram Horn'd with Gold, Chapter 6 - Bible - Revelation.

       To understand the last book of the Bible the reader must have achieved a certain level of consciousness. He must have at least a rudimentary grasp of the eternal and a certain feel for symbols, especially those metaphors of time and space that point to eternal truth. Without this equipment the Apocalypse is commonly read either as a grotesque phantasmagoria or as a convenient coat-rack upon which to hang a fabric of theological inanity.

       John of Patmos, the writer of the Apocalypse, had been a bishop of the Church, a man of authority, a man of action, a man who had committed himself with a whole heart to actualizing the ideals of Jesus of Nazareth. John had seen his religious program overwhelmed by a heartless political structure, his congregation scattered, and himself exiled to a small island where he had little to do but reflect upon the past and gaze into the future.

       In his reflections John was informed by an intimate knowledge of scripture. The vivid images of the Hebrew writers ignited his imagination. They took the place of the people and events which had formerly filled his mind. The seven eyes of God, the plagues, the beasts from the sea and from the land, the harlot, the Lamb, the bride, the new heaven and the new earth-- all these and many more of John's images originate in various books of the Old Testament.

       Northrup Frye referred to Revelation as "a dense mosaic of allusions and quotations" from the Bible. The Apocalypse is an imaginative recreation of the entire Hebrew religious consciousness in an epic that carries us to the end of time and the return of man to the golden age.

       Blake attempted to do the same thing with the English religious consciousness, which explains why Revelation meant so much to him. His epic can just as rightly be called a "dense mosaic of allusions and quotations" from the Bible. In particular he seized upon John's images and combined them into the stuff of his prophetic poems.

       When Christ ascended into Heaven, he left his disciples with the expectation that he would soon return (See John 21:22). The writer of Revelation had lived through the years when this hope was increasingly deferred. It became more and more apparent that the return of Jesus was not within the time frame of their original expectations. John outlived his associates, and he differed from the other New Testament writers in that he was forced to look beyond the immediate events and their immediately expected outcome.

       He was forced to look into a more complex future. The rigor of this necessity freed him from the limited time frame that characterizes most of the New Testament. He knew the Old Testament truth that "a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday". He of all the writers of the New Testament had been most significantly disappointed in his temporal hopes and forced to lift his mind from time to the eternal. That's why his is the most symbolic book, and that's why it most appealed to Blake.

       Blake used all of the symbols we have just noted and many others as well. He had brooded over these images for a life time, and they were fraught with meaning to him. They conveyed to him not only John's meanings but the original meanings of the O.T. writers from whom John had borrowed them, plus untold accretions of additional meanings acquired in the two millennia since.

       It's doubtful that John's images mean to anyone today exactly what they meant to him. That's the nature of the symbols of eternity: their temporal meanings change with the times. Our religious consciousness changes with the times; even our images of God change with the times--not just in the historical frame but in the personal frame of a man's lifetime.

       Blake took the images of Revelation--and of the rest of the Bible as well--and recreated them so as to express the evolving spiritual consciousness of his day, and ours. The images link us to our heritage, the consciousness evolves, the Spirit is timeless.

       Two of the primary images of Revelation are the "the Woman Clothed with the Sun" and the "great whore that sitteth upon many waters".  Much of the interest of John's epic lies in the conflict between these two women; they respectively represent spiritual Jerusalem and spiritual Rome. The first woman is driven into the wilderness by the Great Red Dragon; the Whore sits upon his back. But in due time the Whore is burned (much to the satisfaction of the faithful) while the other woman becomes the Bride of the Lamb.

       A minimal knowledge of this symbolism prepares one to appreciate Blake's use of the same images to tell the same story. 'The Four Zoas' was first called 'Vala': she is the woman with whom Blake began, and she originally included both of John's women. But the Moment of Grace released in Blake the vision of Jerusalem, and the long poem bearing her name recounts her suffering at the hands of the other, who gradually evolves into the Whore.

       Like John's woman clothed with the sun Jerusalem is driven into the wilderness and continually oppressed and afflicted by the forces of the Beast and the Whore. Vala, eventually manifested as Rahab, is finally burned; the scene in The Four Zoas at the end of Night viii, contains one of Blake's most explicit and extended quotations from Revelation.

   Here as in all of Blake's work he takes the biblical material, and while remaining largely faithful to its accidents, shows us new essence. Part of the final essence of Jerusalem is that her name is Liberty (Jerusalem plate 26), another manifestation of Blake's most vital lesson for us.

Four Zoas, Night VIII, PAGE 115 [111], (E 386)
"Rahab triumphs over all she took Jerusalem
Captive A Willing Captive by delusive arts impelld

To worship Urizens Dragon form to offer her own Children
Upon the bloody Altar. John Saw these things Reveald in Heaven
On Patmos Isle & heard the Souls cry out to be deliverd 
He saw the Harlot of the Kings of Earth & saw her Cup
Of fornication food of Orc & Satan pressd from the fruit of Mystery
But when she saw the form of Ahania weeping on the Void
And heard Enions voice sound from the caverns of the Grave
No more spirit remained in her She secretly left the Synagogue of Satan
She commund with Orc in secret She hid him with the flax
That Enitharmon had numberd away from the Heavens  
She gatherd it together to consume her Harlot Robes    
In bitterest Contrition sometimes Self condemning repentant
And Sometimes kissing her Robes & jewels & weeping over them 
Sometimes returning to the Synagogue of Satan in Pride
And Sometimes weeping before Orc in humility & trembling
The Synagogue of Satan therefore uniting against Mystery
Satan divided against Satan resolvd in open Sanhedrim
To burn Mystery with fire & form another from her ashes 
For God put it into their heart to fulfill all his will

The Ashes of Mystery began to animate they calld it Deism
And Natural Religion as of old so now anew began
Babylon again in Infancy Calld Natural Religion"

Milton, Plate 37[41], (E 138)
"Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Paul, Constantine, Charlemaine
Luther, these seven are the Male-Females, the Dragon Forms
Religion hid in War, a Dragon red & hidden Harlot

All these are seen in Miltons Shadow who is the Covering Cherub
The Spectre of Albion in which the Spectre of Luvah inhabits     
In the Newtonian Voids between the Substances of Creation"
Jerusalem, Plate 53, (E 203)
"But the Spectre like a hoar frost & a Mildew rose over Albion    
Saying, I am God O Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power!
Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings Voltaire: Rousseau.
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel against my Laws!
Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown Eternal Life     
Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones to bread.
Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without Experiment?
And build a World of Phantasy upon my Great Abyss!
A World of Shapes in craving Lust & devouring appetite

So spoke the hard cold constrictive Spectre he is named Arthur   
Constricting into Druid Rocks round Canaan Agag & Aram & Pharoh

Then Albion drew England into his bosom in groans & tears
But she stretchd out her starry Night in Spaces against him. like
A long Serpent, in the Abyss of the Spectre which augmented
The Night with Dragon wings coverd with stars & in the Wings     
Jerusalem & Vala appeard: & above between the Wings magnificent
The Divine Vision dimly appeard in clouds of blood weeping."

Jerusalem, Plate 93. (E 253)
 "Then Los again took up his speech as Enitharmon ceast

Fear not my Sons this Waking Death. he is become One with me
Behold him here! We shall not Die! we shall be united in Jesus.
Will you suffer this Satan this Body of Doubt that Seems but Is Not 
To occupy the very threshold of Eternal Life. if Bacon, Newton, Locke,
Deny a Conscience in Man & the Communion of Saints & Angels
Contemning the Divine Vision & Fruition, Worshiping the Deus
Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the Goddess Nature
Mystery Babylon the Great, The Druid Dragon & hidden Harlot    
Is it not that Signal of the Morning which was told us in the Beginning

Thus they converse upon Mam-Tor. the Graves thunder under their feet"

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE LAST JUDGMENT, To Ozias Humphry, (E 552)
 "Beneath Earth is convulsed with the labours
of the Resurrection--in the Caverns of the Earth is the Dragon
with Seven heads & ten Horns chained by two Angels & above his
Cavern on the Earths Surface is the Harlot siezed & bound by
two Angels with chains while her Palaces are falling
into ruins & her councellors & warriors are
descending into the Abyss in wailing & despair
     Hell opens beneath the Harlots seat on the left hand into
which the Wicked are descending [while others rise from their
Craves on the brink of the Pit]
     The right hand of the Design is appropriated to the
Resurrection of the Just the left hand of the Design is
appropriated to the Resurrection & Fall of the Wicked"

IMAGINATION

Blake Archive
Heads of Poets
Shakespeare

Northrop Frye believed that Blake was involved in expanding the definition of imagination. In Northrop Frye on Shakespeare he speaks on the concept of imagination in his chapter on A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"In the ordinary world we apprehend with our senses and comprehend with our reason; what the poet apprehends are moods or emotions, like joy, and what he uses for comprehension is some story or character to account for the emotion: 

'Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but apprehend some joy, 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy'  

 

Theseus is here using the word 'imagination' in its common Elizabethan meaning, which we express by the word 'imaginary,' something alleged to be that isn't. In spite of himself, though, the word is taking on the more positive sense of out 'imaginative,' the sense of the creative power developed centuries later by Blake and Coleridge. So far as I can make out from the OED, this more positive sense of the word in English practically begins here." (Page 48)

Frye states that the character Hippolyta in saying, "It must be your imagination," implies that the "audience has a creative role in every play." So, using a definition  from his own mind Shakespeare has 'mended' the definition of the word imagination in Midsummer Night's Dream.

    

 From Puck's Final Speech:  

    "Gentles, do not reprehend.
 If you pardon, we will mend."

To Blake imagination was an inclusive term which had expanded to partake of an eternal dimension. His imagination included the Divine Vision and to him only imagination could make a poet. Without imagination he discerned that we live in a faint shadow of the real, eternal world. 

Annotations to Wordsworth's Poems. (E 665)

"One Power alone makes a Poet.-Imagination The Divine Vision"
...
"I see in Wordsworth the Natural Man rising up against the
Spiritual Man Continually & then he is No Poet but a Heathen
Philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry or Inspiration"

Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)

"I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.   
  Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more."

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132)

"States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created                  
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated  Forms cannot"

Letters, To Trusler, (E 703)

"Why is the Bible more Entertaining & Instructive than any other book. Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason Such is True Painting and such was alone valued by the Greeks & the best modern Artists. Consider what Lord Bacon says "Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged & Reason sends over to Imagination before the Decree can be acted." See Advancemt of Learning Part 2 P 47 of first Edition But I am happy to find a Great Majority of Fellow Mortals who can Elucidate My Visions & Particularly they have been Elucidated by Children who have taken a greater delight in contemplating my Pictures than I even hoped. Neither Youth nor Childhood is Folly or Incapacity Some Children are Fools & so are some Old Men. But There is a vast Majority on the side of Imagination or Spiritual Sensation"

Letters, to Cumberland, (E 783)

"I have been very near the Gates of Death & have returned very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life not in The Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever. In that I am stronger & stronger as this Foolish Body decays."

In The Educated Imagination Northrop Frye elicidated the relationship between science and imagination:

“Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the languages of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music.”