VISIONS of JUNG & BLAKE

First posted Aug 2009.

After returning from a long, near fatal illness C G Jung experienced a state where visions absorbed his nightly pursuits. Here is his description from Memories, Dream, Reflections:

"We shy away from the word "eternal," but I can describe
the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state
in which present, past, and future are one. Everything
that happens in time had been brought together into a
concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time,
nothing could be measured by temporal concepts. The
experience might best be defined as a state of feeling, but
one which cannot be produced by imagination. How
can I imagine that I exist simultaneously the day before
yesterday, today, and the day after tomorrow? There would
be things which would not yet have begun, other things
which would be indubitably present, and others again
which would already be finished and yet all this would be
one. The only thing that feeling could grasp would be
a sum, an iridescent whole, containing all at once
expectation of a beginning, surprise at what is now
happening, and satisfaction or disappointment with the
result of what has happened. One is interwoven into an
indescribable whole and yet observes it with completeobjectivity." 
(Page 295)

Wikipedia Commons
Milton
Plate 32

Erdman, in The Illuminated Blake, says of this image "Knowing it will be impossible to receive the full inspiration of Milton by the mind alone, Blake has to go and catch a falling star."

Blake's experience of visions, which must have been similar to Jung's, are conveyed to us in a totally different way. Jung used an intellectual, objective way to describe an emotional, subjective experience. Blake involves us in his experience by evoking suggestive images to allow us a perception of the non-temporal, simultaneous, interwoven wholeness.

Milton, Plate 39, (E 140)
"Suddenly around Milton on my Path, the Starry Seven
Burnd terrible! my Path became a solid fire, as bright
As the clear Sun & Milton silent came down on my Path.
And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven: Forms
Human; with Trumpets innumerable, sounding articulate
As the Seven spake; and they stood in a mighty Column of Fire
Surrounding Felphams Vale, reaching to the Mundane Shell, Saying
Awake Albion awake! reclaim thy Reasoning Spectre. Subdue
Him to the Divine Mercy, Cast him down into the Lake
Of Los, that ever burneth with fire, ever & ever Amen!
Let the Four Zoa's awake from Slumbers of Six Thousand Years"
.