SPIRITUAL FRIENDSHIP

Blake was much aware of spiritual friendship: relationships built on eternal considerations rather than material ones. He numbered Butts, Cumberland and Linnell among his spiritual friends and conversed with them on topics relating to his visionary experience.

Elisha in the Chamber in the Wall

 

In an atypical picture by Blake, thought to have been produced around 1820, he pictured a  prophet who can be identified by his surroundings. The little room with its bed, table, stool and candlestick are those of Elisha, provided by a woman who recognized  him as a spiritual friend with whom she could share her material comforts. A second person is in the room with Elisha; we can assume that this is a messenger from God carrying a visionary experience to Elisha.

2 Kings 4
[8] And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread.
[9] And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually.
[10] Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.
[11] And it fell on a day, that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber, and lay there.

A spiritual friend is one who supports you on your spiritual journey. Blake could talk with the three men mentioned above about his visions, his failures and setbacks, his openings to the light, and the direction the Imagination was leading him. The relationship was reciprocal, Blake gave these men encouragement and enlarged their abilities to perceive the immortal, invisible world which was so available to him.

Descriptive Catalog, (E 535)
NUMBER III.
Sir Jeffery Chaucer and the nine and twenty Pilgrims on
their journey to Canterbury.

"The principal figure in the next groupe, is the Good 
Parson; an Apostle, a real Messenger of Heaven, sent in every 
age for its light and its warmth.  This man is beloved and 
venerated by all, and neglected by all: He serves all, and is 
served by none; he is, according to Christ's definition, the 
greatest of his age.  Yet he is a Poor Parson of a town.  Read 
Chaucer's description of the Good Parson, and bow the head and 
the knee to him, who, in every age sends us such a burning and a 
shining light.  Search O ye rich and powerful, for these men and 
obey their counsel, then shall the golden age return: But 
alas! you will not easily distinguish him from the Friar or the 
Pardoner, they also are "full solemn men," and their counsel, you 
will continue to follow."

Letters, (E 703)
"Mr Cumberland, Bishopsgate, Windsor Great Park

Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. Augst 26. 1799
Dear Cumberland

"Pray let me intreat you to persevere in your Designing it is
the only source of Pleasure   all your other pleasures depend
upon It.  It is the Tree Your Pleasures are the Fruit.  Your
Inventions of Intellectual Visions are the Stamina of every thing
you value.  Go on if not for your own sake yet for ours who love
& admire your works. but above all For the Sake of the Arts.  Do
not throw aside for any long time the honour intended you by
Nature to revive the Greek workmanship.  I study your outlines as
usual just as if they were antiques.
     As to Myself about whom you are so kindly Interested.  I
live by Miracle.  I am Painting small Pictures from the Bible.
For as to Engraving in which art I cannot reproach myself with
any neglect yet I am laid by in a corner as if I did not Exist &
Since my Youngs Night Thoughts have been publishd Even Johnson &
Fuseli have discarded my Graver.  But as I know that He who Works
& has his health cannot starve.  I laugh at Fortune & Go on &
on.  I think I foresee better Things than I have ever seen.  My
Work pleases my employer & I have an order for Fifty small
Pictures at One Guinea each which is Something better than mere
copying after another artist.  But above all I feel myself happy
& contented let what will come having passed now near twenty
years in ups & downs I am used to them & perhaps a little
practise in them may turn out to benefit.  It is now Exactly
Twenty years since I was upon the ocean of business & Tho I laugh
at Fortune I am perswaded that She Alone is the Governor of
Worldly Riches. & when it is Fit She will call on me till then I
wait with Patience in hopes that She is busied among my Friends.
     With Mine & My Wifes best compliments to Mr Cumberland
I remain
Yours sincerely
WILLm BLAKE"

Letters, (E 781)
"Mr Linnell, Cirencester Place, Fitzroy Square
[February 1827]
Dear Sir
     I thank you for the Five Pounds recievd to Day am getting
better every Morning but slowly. as I am still feeble &
tottering. tho all the Symptoms of
my complaint seem almost gone as the fine weather is very
beneficial & comfortable to me I go on as I think improving my
Engravings of Dante more & more & shall soon get Proofs of these
Four which I have & beg the favor of you to send me the two
Plates of Dante which you have that I may finish them
sufficiently to make some Shew of Colour & Strength
     I have Thought & Thought of the Removal. & cannot get my
Mind out of a State of terrible fear at such a step. the more I
think the more I feel terror at what I wishd at first & thought
it a thing of benefit & Good hope you will attribute it to its
right Cause Intellectual Peculiarity that must be Myself alone
shut up in Myself or Reduced to Nothing.  I could tell you of
Visions & dreams upon the Subject I have asked & intreated Divine
help but fear continues upon me & I must relinquish the step that
I had wished to take & still wish but in vain
     Your Success in your Profession is above all things to me
most gratifying. may it go on to the Perfection you wish & more
So wishes also Yours Sincerely
WILLIAM BLAKE"

Letters, (E 728)
"Mr Butts, Grt Marlborough Street
Felpham April 25: 1803
My Dear Sir
...
 And now My Dear Sir Congratulate me on my return to London
with the full approbation of Mr Hayley & with Promise--But Alas!
     Now I may say to you what perhaps I should not dare to say
to any one else.  That I can alone carry on my visionary studies
in London unannoyd & that I may converse with my friends in
Eternity.  See Visions, Dream Dreams, & prophecy & speak Parables
unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals. perhaps
Doubts proceeding from Kindness. but Doubts are always pernicious
Especially when we Doubt our Friends Christ is very decided on
this Point.  "He who is Not With Me is Against Me" There is no
Medium or Middle state & if a Man is the Enemy of my Spiritual
Life while he pretends to be the Friend of my Corporeal. he is a
Real Enemy--but the Man may be the friend of my Spiritual Life
while he seems the Enemy of my Corporeal but Not Vice Versa
...
 I rejoice & I tremble "I am fearfully & wonderfully made".  I had
been reading the cxxxix Psalm a little before your Letter
arrived."

Psalms 139
[12] Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
[13] For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
[14] I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
[15] My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
[16] Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

Spiritual friends know one another as the Psalmist was aware that he was known by God. Spiritual friends share the knowledge that the essence of each has always been with God and is known by God in every particular. They know that their lives have been written by God to be joined in an exchange deeper than the accidents of time and place.

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Ian Mulder, the friend to whom I am indebted for producing my Divine Economy blog as an e-book, has now issued an e-book of his own work: Wayfaring. You will find that his observations, and recollections stimulated by his walks near his home in Buckinghamshire, England reveal a world infused with light.
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DIVINE ECONOMY

A number of years ago, before I was heavily involved in studying Blake, I recorded some short thoughts which had come to me. I can't say exactly where they had come from. I can say that I had studied science in high school and college. I had married a man who was both intelligent and good. I got to work raising three children to be as intelligent and as good as their father. As a family we enjoyed nature through camping, hiking and visiting places of natural beauty. We participated in the Methodist Churches until we moved to Washington DC to become a part of the Church of the Savior, an alternative church heavily involved in social programs. We spent our seven years in the structured program of the Church of the Savior, and went on to the Quakers where structure is unnecessary. Among the gifts we received from the Church of the Savior was an interest in esoteric literature and the mythopoeic in general.

So at some point I began to write down the lessons I had learned along my journey in concise statements. To this little collection I gave the name the Divine Economy.

This all happened before I had seen many of the pictures William Blake created, or realized that he was attempting to convey spiritual and psychological truth through opening the minds of men to spiritual perception. Larry, my husband, had begun studying Blake in the 1980's, but he focused on the poetry and not the pictures. No one had much opportunity to see Blake's pictures before computers made it possible for institutions to digitize their material and display it on websites. Because of the availability of the images for viewing when I began my study, my interest was drawn in that direction. Knowing that many images were rarely seen even with the internet, I decided to create a blog attaching my words from the Divine Economy to Blake pictures which could illustrate the truth I aimed to present.

E-BOOK

Thanks to the efforts of Ian Vincent Mulder of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, the content of Divine Economy blog is now available as an e-book. It is our hope that you will download the pdf file to your computer or book reader to contemplate at your leisure.

Since Ian has more technical skills than most, he has also put together instructions for making a high quality book from the file. Although the book cannot be sold because of restrictions of the institutions which generously provided the images, it can be printed by individuals who prefer to hold a book in their hands and turn the pages with their fingers.

In an email from Ian dated March 13, 2014 he states:
"It will not escape you that we are following In Blake's footsteps, self-publishing and in some way inventing new ways of reaching out. There is a wonderful freedom in this. In some strange way I feel also that when giving something away one has a greater responsibility to oneself and one's readers than when it's done for money. One comes within the ambit of Divine Economy, wherein everything of real value cannot be paid for. There seems to be a corollary that because (it's been decided that) it cannot be paid for, I must make sure it is of real value! Or perhaps simply it's a matter of being recruited into that Divine Economy wherein one serves." 

Larry and I have tried to live according to the principles incorporated in the Divine Economy which most fundamentally originate in the New Testament. They were taught by Jesus: forgiveness, inclusiveness, compassion, gratitude and awareness of the Presence of the Divine Benevolence. That this e-book is available freely to anyone is testimony to Ian's intuitive sense of what Blake was saying through his art, and I in my words.

Blake calls us to Awake from the emptiness of isolation to the fullness of mutual love between God and man, and between man and man.  

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
"Chap: I
Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev'ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song.  

Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:
Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.
In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey
A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!                
Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers, and thy sons,
Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters
Weep at thy souls disease, and the Divine Vision is darkend:
Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,
Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom
Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation lovely Jerusalem
From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!      
Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!

But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;"

The Psalmist tells us why it is possible for us to speak and write the truth which is beyond our limited abilities to encompass. 

Psalms 139
[1] O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me!
[2] Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up;
thou discernest my thoughts from afar.
[3] Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
[4] Even before a word is on my tongue,
lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
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FRIENDSHIP

Blake had some unusual experiences with his friends Milton, Los and Ololon whom he wrote about in his poem Milton. Blake had the ability to build relationships with characters who resided in various realms of time and eternity. We now have a different gift, one of which Blake never dreamed: the ability to communicate and build relationships through electromagnetic waves which carry our messages beyond our provincial neighborhoods. Through blogging I became acquainted with Ian Mulder in England. Ian in his generosity has created an electronic book from my blog Divine Economy which now can be shared with whoever would like to read it.

Divine Economy was devised to showcase Blake pictures which are not often seen, and to shed light on some ways we can see the eternal truth through the images. Associated with each image is a short sentence which states something about how things work in the ideal world where God reigns and all is at peace.

Ian was kind enough to say about the statements, "They resonate with the innate knowledge that lies buried within us all; buried too deep, perhaps, for some to recognize it at all. But then, they are presented as paradoxes, not articles of faith."

Blake lived with the paradoxes inherent in existence; he never rejected or denied them. He affirmed however the truth he knew through vision which showed him another world. Today the paradoxical world of the electronic media and the Divine Economy come together in my gratitude to my friend Ian, whom I will never meet physically. His initiative, technical expertise, and searching spirit have provided me with an extraordinary gift.

Wikimedia
Illustrations to Blair's The Grave 
Friendship

Milton, Plate 35 [39], (E 137)  
"Walking in my Cottage Garden, sudden I beheld 
The Virgin Ololon & address'd her as a Daughter of Beulah[:] 

Virgin of Providence fear not to enter into my Cottage 
What is thy message to thy friend: What am I now to do 
Is it again to plunge into deeper affliction? behold me 
Ready to obey, but pity thou my Shadow of Delight 
Enter my Cottage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue  
Plate 37 [41] The Virgin answerd. Knowest thou of Milton who descended 
Driven from Eternity; him I seek! terrified at my Act 
In Great Eternity which thou knowest! I come him to seek"

John 15
[15] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you

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