MIND OF URIZEN

Yale Center for British Art 
America, Copy M, Plate 10

 

 

In Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight she describes the different ways in which our right and left brains are configured to handle the information we receive. Although the two halves are designed to complement one another there is a tendency for the left mind, with its reasoning capability, to overshadow the right mind, which assimilates information diffusely. Blake associates Urizen with left brained reasoning; Los with right brained imagination. The previous post looked at Los and the right brain; now we look at Urizen.

 

  

 

My Stroke of Insight, Page 31:

"In contrast, our left hemisphere is completely different in the way it processes information. It takes each of those rich and complex moments created by the right hemisphere and strings them together in timely succession. It then sequentially compares the details making up this moment with the details making up the last moment. By organizing details in linear and methodical fashion, out left brain manifests the concept of time whereby our moments are divided into the past, present and future.  Within the structure of this predictable cadence, we can appreciate that must occur before that can happen...It builds an understanding of everything using deductive reasoning, such as if A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A must be greater than C.

Just opposite to how our right hemisphere thinks in pictures and perceives the big picture of the present moment, our left mind thrives on details, details, and more details about those details.
...
Because our left brain is filled with these ingrained programs of pattern recognition, it is superb at predicting what we will think, how we will act, or what we will feel in the future - based on our past experience.
...
Among other things, our left hemisphere categorizes information into hierarchies including things that attract us (our likes) or repel us (our dislikes). It places the judgment of good on those thing we like and bad on those things we dislike."

Jerusalem, Plate 74, (E 229)
"The Four Zoa's clouded rage; Urizen stood by Albion
With Rintrah and Palamabron and Theotormon and Bromion
These Four are Verulam & London & York & Edinburgh
And the Four Zoa's are Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona
In opposition deadly, and their Wheels in poisonous              
And deadly stupor turn'd against each other loud & fierce
Entering into the Reasoning Power, forsaking Imagination
They became Spectres; & their Human Bodies were reposed
In Beulah, by the Daughters of Beulah with tears & lamentations

The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; & when separated      
From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory. It thence frames Laws & Moralities
To destroy Imagination! the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars"

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 79, (E 355)
"Urizen answerd Read my books explore my Constellations 
Enquire of my Sons & they shall teach thee how to War
Enquire of my Daughters who accursd in the dark depths
Knead bread of Sorrow by my stern command for I am God
Of all this dreadful ruin   Rise O daughters at my Stern command"
    

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 11. (E 306)
"Tho in the Brain of Man we live, & in his circling Nerves.       
Tho' this bright world of all our joy is in the Human Brain.
Where Urizen & all his Hosts hang their immortal lamps
Thou neer shalt leave this cold expanse where watry Tharmas mourns
So spoke Los." [to Enitharmon]

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 28, (E 318)
"For measurd out in orderd spaces the Sons of Urizen   
With compasses divide the deep; they the strong scales erect
PAGE 29 
That Luvah rent from the faint Heart of the Fallen Man
And weigh the massy Cubes, then fix them in their awful stations"      

Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 52, (E 335)
"Terrified Los beheld the ruins of Urizen beneath
A horrible Chaos to his eyes. a formless unmeasurable Death
Whirling up broken rocks on high into the dismal air
And fluctuating all beneath in Eddies of molten fluid
 
Then Los with terrible hands siezd on the Ruind Furnaces         
Of Urizen. Enormous work: he builded them anew
Labour of Ages in the Darkness & the war of Tharmas
And Los formd Anvils of Iron petrific. for his blows
Petrify with incessant beating many a rock. many a planet
But Urizen slept in a stoned stupor in the nether Abyss          
A dreamful horrible State in tossings on his icy bed
Freezing to solid all beneath, his grey oblivious form
Stretchd over the immense heaves in strong shudders. silent his voice
In brooding contemplation stretching out from North to South
In mighty power. Round him Los rolld furious                   
His thunderous wheels from furnace to furnace. tending diligent
The contemplative terror. frightend in his scornful sphere
Frightend with cold infectious madness. in his hand the thundering
Hammer of Urthona. forming under his heavy hand the hours
PAGE 53 
The days & years. in chains of iron round the limbs of Urizen
Linkd hour to hour & day to night & night to day & year to year
In periods of pulsative furor. mills he formd & works
Of many wheels resistless in the power of dark Urthona" 

Four Zoas, Night VII, PAGE 80, (E 355)
"And Urizen Read in his book of brass in sounding tones 

Listen O Daughters to my voice Listen to the Words of Wisdom
So shall [ye] govern over all let Moral Duty tune your tongue
But be your hearts harder than the nether millstone
To bring the shadow of Enitharmon beneath our wondrous tree   
That Los may Evaporate like smoke & be no more
Draw down Enitharmon to the Spectre of Urthona
And let him have dominion over Los the terrible shade"

Taylor gained the ability to trust and exploit her right mind during the time that her left mind had lost its functioning. During her recovery from her stroke she, like Blake, choose to depend to a large extent on her right mind rather than her left because it gave her access to the unified world which we associate with spiritual consciousness.  

My Stroke of Insight, Page 139:
"My right mind is all about the richness of this present moment. It is filled with gratitude for my life and everyone and everything in it. It is content, compassionate, nurturing, and eternally optimistic. To my right mind character, there is no judgment of good/bad or right/wrong, everything exists on a continuum of relativity...To my right mind we are all equal members of the human family." 
.