Mythical

 

Larry Clayton's Primer, Chapter 10

      Many people have called William Blake unique among English poets as the creator of a complete mythology. In a standard dictionary "without foundation in fact" appears as the fifth meaning of 'mythical', but this is probably what the term conveys in common parlance. Therefore we must begin our study of Blake's myth by raising our consciousness of the word. 'Logos', 'myth', 'epic'--these three words have common roots. In literary and theological language myths are statements about the non-material ultimate. Some people of course avoid the non-material, considering it to be "without foundation in fact"; it's doubtful that any such reader has endured to this point of our study.

       Blake considered the non-material to be the real; his art centered around the endeavour to express the reality of the non-material. The meaning of his entire artistic enterprise we may call his myth. His object was to fit all of experience into a total framework of meaning that will inform life and "to raise other people to a perception of the Infinite". Our object is to grasp that total framework; once we do that, we have a myth of meaning.

With his story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus gave us a personal paradigm of the history of the Chosen People and of the Human Race. 

Luke 15
[10] Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
[11] And he said, A certain man had two sons:
[12] And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
[13] And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
[14] And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
[15] And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
[16] And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
[17] And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
[18] I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
[19] And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
[20] And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
[21] And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
[22] But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 

[23] And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

[24] For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

A striking modern analogy, although not Blakean per se, is provided by the cycle of alcoholism: progressive deterioration until the sufferer hits bottom, followed by recovery. Blake did use as a recurring motif the story of Lazarus found in the Gospel of John.

Luke 11

[1] Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
[2] (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
[3] Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
[4] When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

But the primary paradigm of this myth is the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. However Blake did not express this, probably did not fully realize it, until 1800. 

Galations 2

[20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The next Chapter illustrates the application of this fundamental myth in Blake's major poetic works. The development of Blake's epic will be traced through the various stages of his spiritual journey. In essence it's the same journey we all take; you could call it the history of Man. Blake called it the Circle of Destiny in Night 1 of The Four Zoas.

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 5, (E 302)

"Enion said Farewell I die I hide. from thy searching eyes

So saying--From her bosom weaving soft in Sinewy threads
A tabernacle for Jerusalem she sat among the Rocks        
Singing her lamentation. Tharmas groand among his Clouds
Weeping, then bending from his Clouds he stoopd his innocent head 
And stretching out his holy hand in the vast Deep sublime        
Turnd round the circle of Destiny with tears & bitter sighs
And said.     Return O Wanderer when the Day of Clouds is oer

So saying he sunk down into the sea a pale white corse"

There are no easy solutions. There are no shortcuts to a more direct path. Milton O. Percival in William Blake's Circle of Destiny understood that Blake taught that entrenched error destroys the possibility of return.

"But if in Beulah the error deepens and the circuit of return is closed, 
then the wheel has to swing "downwards and outwards," over a greatly 
expanded periphery, into the worlds of Ulro and Generation. For the 
punishment for error in Blake's system as in life itself lies in the 
bitter experience of error. When man decides, as he does in Beulah, 
without yet realizing the import of his decision, to live the outward, 
the passive, the feminine, the selfish, and the rational, he must be 
delivered over into the reality of his dream world in order that he may 
know it and renounce it. For experience, in Blake's system is remedial. 
Error runs its course. The spiritual body, like the natural body, labors
to throw off infection and in the end succeeds. The path of experience 
is therefore circular. When the error which may be described as Nature 
or Natural Religion becomes formulated in  man's mind, the cycle over 
which it is destined to run takes shape and begins to move. This cycle, 
which descends from Beulah into Ulro and ascends from Ulro by way of 
Generation into Beulah, where it joins the supernal cycle, is the Circle
of Destiny." 

Jerusalem, Plate 41 [46], (E 188) 

"Thou art in Error Albion, the Land of Ulro:               
One Error not remov'd, will destroy a human Soul
Repose in Beulahs night, till the Error is remov'd
Reason not on both sides. Repose upon our bosoms
Till the Plow of Jehovah, and the Harrow of Shaddai
Have passed over the Dead, to awake the Dead to Judgment.     
But Albion turn'd away refusing comfort." 

EARTH MOTHER

Book of Los

Plate 1

 

 

 

 

Book of Los, Plate 3, (E 90)

1: Eno aged Mother,
Who the chariot of Leutha guides,
 Since the day of thunders in old time
              
2: Sitting beneath the eternal Oak
Trembled and shook the stedfast Earth                 
And thus her speech broke forth.
              
3: O Times remote!
When Love & joy were adoration:
And none impure were deem'd.                           
Not Eyeless Covet
Nor Thin-lip'd Envy
Nor Bristled Wrath
Nor Curled Wantonness"

There are a variety of descriptions of how consciousness develops. Many think that we begin with awareness of a sense of wholeness in which there is no differentiation between internal and external activity. This is the stage of the Earth Mother where the individual does not act but is acted upon; it is a continuation of life in the womb. But just as the child must be born to natural life, his consciousness must be born in stages to realizations of additional perceptions.

Blake's particular interest was in how Man develops a Perception of the Infinite. He was aware that humanity has focused his attention on the outer world which contains all the interactions between physical things and beings. Blake saw that man was trapped in his limited perception. His goal was to free man from the limits of his own consciousness.

Realizing that each person is traversing his own psychic development, Blake spoke to ways of making the transition to higher levels from whatever level you have reached. There is always the necessity of crossing a gap with each transition. To be reborn, one must die. To begin again one must become as a child in order to rebuild. The path opens but it requires work.

The passages quoted here relate to making transitions in regard to several stages of consciousness and several perspectives of the observers.

---

Ram Horn'd with Gold, by Larry Clayton, Chapter 6, Section iii

Jehovah and Astarte

         " After the Biblical Fall the Old Testament drama unfolds as a protracted struggle between two Gods.  In every age the majority of Mankind have worshipped Mother Earth, Matter or the recurring cycle of vegetative life.  She has many names; in the Bible one of the most common is Astarte.  In our day "Astarte" exacts an acceptance of things as they are, an attempt to flow with the stream of Nature.  The Bible called this "whoring after other gods".  Blake called it Natural Religion or  Druidism.  He  meant by Natural Religion the worship of the principle of fallen life; those most conformed and faithful to it become the rulers of this world.

          Natural Religion involves choosing to remain at the level of the material, which Blake called vegetative life.  The believer in Natural Religion simply closes his  mind to the possibility of spiritual development; he turns his back upon the Spirit.  Unable to endure the tension of struggling and waiting for spiritual  evolution he erects a golden calf.  He either acquiesces in or actively contributes to the brutishness and horror of a life that "lives upon death".

       The Bible and Blake's poetry alike are filled with gory images of this ultimate horror, which comes from identifying life with the merely natural.  T.S.Eliot said  that Blake's poetry is unpleasant, as all great poetry is unpleasant. It is "unpleasant" basically because Blake, like the Bible, insists on calling a spade a spade.  Nowhere is Blake closer to the Bible than in his constant reiteration of the ultimate horror of unredeemed life, celebrated in page after page of minute particulars.  Blake and the Bible both insistently remind us that Nature is fallen, and that one flows with this fallen Nature to one's destruction.

          Abraham and Moses knew a higher God: he was above Nature; he was Spirit.  He called men to rise above the natural and to become sons of a God opposed to  everything Astarte stood for, to live by the laws, not of earth, but of heaven.  The children of Abraham tried to put this God first, but rarely with notable success. Instead at every opportunity they turned away from Jehovah "under every green tree", back to Nature.  This inevitably led back to Captivity in the iron furnace of Egypt/Babylon/Rome, etc.  The biblical cycle discussed above thus relates to the alternating dominance of Jehovah and Astarte.

          Blake's myth recreates this biblical story, but with one vital difference.  Vala and her fellow females--Tirzah, Rahab, the Daughters of Albion--represent the various forms of Astarte, the Earth Goddess.  Urizen represents Jehovah, the Sky God.  But in 'The Four Zoas' both are fallen.  Blake claims that the Hebrew consciousness of God is flawed at best.

          The materialists had reached this conclusion long before, but it was a startling and revolutionary idea for a man like Blake, embedded in the biblical faith and firmly attached to the life of the Spirit.  He had made as serious a commitment to the eternal as anyone could, and now at the mid point of his life he saw an eternal  without a God worthy of worship.  It was a dark night of the soul indeed!

          This honest and painful confrontation with what was for Blake an existential reality has made him into the pariah of the orthodox.  The black book has no place for any criticism of the Hebrew consciousness of God; he is perfect from first to last, and everything the Bible says about him is perfect (inerrant!) as well.  The  superstitious awe which has been called bibliolatry forbids any questions of Abraham's God or Moses' God, although when we read without blinders, we can see  heir consciousness of God changing before our eyes.  Note Abraham  bargaining with God for the survival of his nephew and Moses simply defying God if he refuses to forgive the worshippers of the golden calf.  In the spirit of these two revealing passages Blake in his own recreation of the biblical story dramatically portrayed an evolving God consciousness, which the black book simply cannot permit.  It was Blake's willingness to let the old die that made him notably ready for the new birth.  The dark night of the soul had intensified until it became the Sickness unto Death."

---

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 8, (E 304) 

"Thus Enion gave them all her spectrous life

Then Eno a daughter of Beulah took a Moment of Time        
And drew it out to Seven thousand years with much care & affliction                              t
And many tears & in Every year made windows into Eden 
She also took an atom of space & opend its center
Into Infinitude & ornamented it with wondrous art
Astonishd sat her Sisters of Beulah to see her soft affections
To Enion & her children & they ponderd these things wondring     
And they Alternate kept watch over the Youthful terrors
They saw not yet the Hand Divine for it was not yet reveald
But they went on in Silent Hope & Feminine repose

But Los & Enitharmon delighted in the Moony spaces of Eno    
Nine Times they livd among the forests, feeding on sweet fruits  
And nine bright Spaces wanderd weaving mazes of delight
Snaring the wild Goats for their milk they eat the flesh of Lambs
A male & female naked & ruddy as the pride of summer
Alternate Love & Hate his breast; hers Scorn & Jealousy
In embryon passions. they kiss'd not nor embrac'd for shame &  fear   
His head beamd light & in his vigorous voice was prophecy
He could controll the times & seasons, & the days & years
She could controll the spaces, regions, desart, flood & forest
But had no power to weave a Veil of covering for her Sins
She drave the Females all away from Los                          
And Los drave all the Males from her away
They wanderd long, till they sat down upon the margind sea.
Conversing with the visions of Beulah in dark slumberous bliss"

---

Uniting Heaven and Earth, by Sukie Colgrave

Page 133

"After being nurtured and protected by the mother-consciousness, every child reaches a moment when he or she feels the need to stand alone and discover a sense of 'I.' At this time the Great Mother and Her personification, the real mother, become experienced as a threat to the child's developing sense of individuality and independence. 

...

Only by killing the masculine in his [Oedipus'] own psyche could he return to the old consciousness of the Mother, only by killing the principle of differentiation could he find again the unity he sought. But Oedipus paid heavily for his regression. A consciousness appropriate and helpful for one stage of development causes sickness in another. This was the sin of Oedipus; he sought the mother when he needed the father and it cost him his sight. It was not physical blindness he suffered but spiritual blindness, the loss of individual consciousness. The Oedipus myth stands a warning to all who look nostalgically to the comfort and security of the pre-individual state." 

 

Building a System

Wikipedia Commons

Book of Thel

Plate 1 

       Early in his life Blake and his wife joined a new church of Swedenborgians, but he soon outgrew that 'system'. He had a contemptuous opinion of organized religion in England from early days and throughout his life.        

He read omnivorously and seemed to retain (and use) everything that came into his mind. Some of his most influential reading was the Bible, Plato, the Egyptians, the Neoplatonists, Paracelsus and Boehme. He assembled all this ancient and medieval wisdom (discarded by Western culture with the Enlightenment) into his system, what we call his myth.      

Most of the literature and art of special interest to Blake expressed the almost universal concept of metaphysical reality from the days of the earliest Mesopotamians and Egyptians to the present.  Blake drew on these symbols everywhere along the spectrum of time. 

Blake's friend Thomas Taylor had translated Sallust's On the Gods and the World giving Blake access to Sallust's ideas on the types of myths or fables current in the ancient world. 

In On the Gods and the World, Section IV Sallust taught that the Species of Myth are Five: Myths are natural (physical), metaphysical (theological), psychic (psychological), and material (literal); some are a combination. To these we might add the moral or ethical. Blake's myth is definitely a combination of all of them.

---

All of these various elements add up to a reality that exists in two spheres: upper and lower, above and below, Eternity and Time, spiritual and material, Heavenly and Worldly, dry and moist souls, good and evil. But at the deepest level these pairs belong to one another and God is in all ("as above so below"). These are all ways of looking at the fundamental metaphysical reality of life.        

The kernel of meaning in all this wisdom and in all of Blake's system was the myth of the descent of the soul into generation (this fallen world), her extensive travail here and eventual return to the fount of life from which she came.        

Blake drew on the earliest and latest examples of poetry and philosophy to elaborate his myth. Kathleen Raine in her little book, Blake and Antiquity, provides a very good means of elucidating the meanings that Blake intended in all his works. Perhaps the most common trap to avoid is assuming that his symbols connote literal or physical matters rather than psychological or metaphysical one.      

Blake had thorough familiarity with British poetry, where he found the same "kernel of meaning" as in every kind of literature.  For example Blake knew and loved Spenser (Queen Elizabeth's poet laureate who wrote The Faerie Queen).  Raine on page 18 provided examples from Spenser of the oldest myth central to Blake's poetry, namely the descent of the soul and eventual return:

"THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QUEENE

   CANTO VI.....
xxx
262 In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
263 Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
264 And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
265 Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie
266 Of all things, that are borne to live and die,
267 According to their kindes. Long worke it were,
268 Here to account the endlesse progenie
269 Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;
270 But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.
xxxi
271 It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old,
272 And girt in with two walles on either side;
273 The one of yron, the other of bright gold,
274 That none might thorough breake, nor over-stride:
275 And double gates it had, which opened wide,
276 By which both in and out men moten pas;
277 Th'one faire and fresh, the other old and dride:
278 Old Genius the porter of them was,
279 Old Genius, the which a double nature has.
xxxii
280 He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,
281 All that to come into the world desire;
282 A thousand thousand naked babes attend
283 About him day and night, which doe require,
284 That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:
285 Such as him list, such as eternall fate
286 Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,
287 And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,
288 Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate."

Nevertheless with the Enlightenment this sort of idea had fallen into disrepute in most of the materialistic and rational minds of England. Bacon, Newton, and Locke were the primary exponents of rationalism in Blake's day. This meant in reality that no one was interested in the kind of poetry and philosophy that interested Blake.  

Jerusalem, Plate 10, (E 153)

"Therefore Los stands in London building Golgonooza
Compelling his Spectre to labours mighty; trembling in fear
The Spectre weeps, but Los unmovd by tears or threats remains

I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans           
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create"

Two Kinds of Language

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 7

Echoing Green

 

Posted by Larry to:

Reflections of a Happy Old Man

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Two Kinds of Language

Literal and figurative!
"Proper language" and "poetry"

In college I studied Science, majoring in Biology and Chemistry. Then I spent a year in Medical School; later I worked for three years as a research chemist.

In seminary I found that language was used very differently.

Science used precise terms, each with one definite, exclusive meaning. In contrast religion used metaphors - pointing toward the ineffable.

Among the characteristics of metaphors is that they often mean two (or more) things, sometimes directly opposite. Take fire for example: in the Bible we read about both divine and demonic fire. Another characteristic of metaphors is that they are in a sense optional: among the many connotations of fire very different metaphors may serve the same purpose.

"Everyone shall be salted with fire". When you read that, if you have any curiosity about what it might mean, you begin to try to interpret it, that is, you cast about in your mind other metaphors! that might serve to make the meaning clear.

Metaphors are allusive, suggestive; they imply rather than specify as scientific terms do.

In the seminary I soon learned that to attempt to describe spiritual values precisely was unrewarding, unless, that is, one lived with a purely material consciousness. In that case it was the only recourse.

Our culture has been deeply affected by scientific learning and influence. People in general (unfortunately) have an almost purely materialistic consciousness; few people are comfortable talking about spiritual categories, often because they just don't have the mental equipment).

So we have a materialistic culture: things that can be observed with the senses, measured, weighed, evaluated in physical terms; these are what people talk about almost exclusively.

This is unfortunately true of religious discourse. So we talk about abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, etc. etc. and never say a word about love or integrity or honor, much less about purity, meekness, gentleness, and faithfulness.

A purely literal interpretation of the Bible condemns one to a purely material viewpoint about God. But God is not matter; God is Spirit! 

___________________________________________

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, (E 2)

  "VII The desire of Man being Infinite the possession is Infinite
& himself Infinite
     Conclusion,   If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic
character. the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the
ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat
the same dull round over again
     Application.   He who sees the Infinite in all things sees
God.  He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.

Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is"

 

SEEING THROUGH

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 41

There is a finite world - the material world of time and space. Humans receive physical bodies capable of living in the physical world of matter, time and space. But there is another world - the Infinite World - the Spiritual world of Eternity and Infinity. Humans are given Spiritual Bodies which live both in the physical and in the eternal worlds. The Spiritual Body is capable of perceiving the Divine Vision which is opaque to the corporeal body.

When Albion fell from his Unifying Form by closing himself off from the Divine Vision and following his own Selfhood, the delicate balance in the Human psyche lost its ability to function in the Spiritual world. We can think of the Natural World as a filter which separates us from the world which is not perceived by our natural senses. Even though the Natural World is a gift to be used and enjoyed in this life, it obscures the underlying import of the activity of Spiritual Reality. Blake tells us to look not at the world but 'thro' the world, not at the filter but at truths that underlie and give definition to what the senses perceive.

If we, like Albion, cannot discern the workings on the Spirit in ourselves and in the Natural World we cannot see the Divine Hand at work. Without Vision we find ourselves in the Furnace of Affliction until that hour when we awake.  

Proverbs 29
[18] Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Jerusalem, Plate 37 [41], (E 184) 
[illustration, with inscription, reversed:] 
"Each Man is in
his Spectre's power  
Untill the arrival  
of that hour, 
When his Humanity 
awake  
And cast his Spectre 
into the Lake"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 566)
"I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any
more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look
thro it & not with it." 

MORAVIAN MOTHER 6

Wikipedia Commons

Illustrations to Blair's The Grave

The Soul Hovering over the Body

It took me a long time to realize how much William Blake's attitude toward death had been shaped by his mother's Moravian connection. William Blake must have learned early that the end of physical life is a stage on the journey of the the soul to his eternal home. His mother had lost her first husband while they were both members of the Moravian Meeting in Fetters Lane. Her first husband Thomas Armitage died in 1751, the first year that the Moravians buried members in God's Acre in London. The term God's Acre was chosen to indicate the continuity of the congregation where those who were called home were buried using identical flat stones marking the location. Burials were not in biological family groups but with others of the same gender and marital status indicating that their primary loyalty was to the continuing life of the community of believers.

In 1787 William lost his beloved younger brother Robert to tuberculous, the same disease which had taken his mother's first husband. Robert died at age nineteen representing an enormous loss to his brother. However William was able to continue his relationship with Robert on a spiritual level. Because William's spiritual sensation was acute he continued to converse with his brother, receive advice and instruction from him and enjoy the feeling that Robert's 'Mortal loss' was 'Immortal Gain.'

Being conscious that there is a physical world and a spiritual world, also that there is a physical life and a spiritual life, enables one to distinguish between the body which is transient and the spirit which continues after the body ceases to support physical life. Among Moravians exit from the physical world by the Immortal Spirit is thought of as a home-going, as the return of the soul to its Eternal Home.

Here are a few quotes from Adelaide Fries's book The Road to Salem, an account to the settlement of the Moravians in North Carolina.

"I had long since learned not to use the word 'death' in connection with the departure of one of our members, that term being reserved for cases of outsiders of whose spiritual condition the Brethern knew little or too much." Page 158

"On  August 29th a messenger came to Friedland telling us that a little before ten o'clock in the morning his soul had gone home, leaving his mortal remains to rest in peace." Page 263

 "Once he whispered, 'O Thou, dear Savior,' but about seven o'clock he quietly and blessedly fell asleep. He had spoken of the beauty of a quick home-going, and it was granted to him." Page 266

Anna Catharina (Antes) Ernst, on whose diary The Road to Salem is based, wrote this after the death of her beloved first husband who was the community doctor:

"No light pierced my gloom until one day when the Lord sent a friend to show me a poem which had been written by our surveyor, Christian Reuter, as he was recovering from a serious attack of the dread fever. The lines set forth a dream he had had, in which two angels stood beside his bed, but passed him by because he was not yet ripe for the heavenly harvest; and a second dream in which he saw the Lord looking down upon sorely tried Bethabara, and heard Him say:

'This hundred-thousand-acre field
Now truly consecrate shall be,
Therefore the angel reapers come
And bear the first fruits home to me.'

So that was what God's Acre meant! Not a place of burial, not even a measure of land consecrated to God, but a field in which the bodies of believers were laid awaiting the glories of the resurrection! I knew that, of course, but I had never realized what it could mean to one whose best beloved lay there. How sweet it was to think of my Martin, one of the pioneers in this hundred-thousand-acre field that we call Wachovia, now one of the first-fruits standing in that glorious presence, his labors accepted, his soul ripe for the harvest. Humbly I accepted the comfort which the Saviour gave me, and the last lines of Brother Reuter's poem became my prayer:

'Lord Jesus Christ,
Thou art so true,
Thou art so merciful to all,
I pray for grace Thy will to do,
To trust Thy love whate'er befall.'

---

It is no wonder that the Moravian influence can be seen is the poetry Blake wrote when he was young. This poem is from Poetical Sketches the book of his youthful poems published by his friends in 1783. The poems were written between his twelveth and twenty-first years. The dying young man in the poem, after meditating on his own sinfullness, receives a vision of his soul joyfully entering eternity. Later when his younger brother Robert died, William is reported to have seen his brother's 'released spirit ascend heavenward.'

Poetical Sketches, THE COUCH OF DEATH, (E 440-441)
"if I lift up
my head, sin covers me as a cloak! O my dear friends, pray ye for
me! Stretch forth your hands, that my helper may come! Through
the void space I walk between the sinful world and eternity! 
...
The youth lay silent--his mother's arm was
under his head; he was like a cloud tossed by the winds, till the
sun shine, and the drops of rain glisten, the yellow harvest
breathes, and the thankful eyes of the villagers are turned up in
smiles.  The traveller that hath taken shelter under an oak, eyes
the distant country with joy!  Such smiles were seen upon the
face of the youth! a visionary hand wiped away his tears, and a
ray of light beamed around his head!  All was still.  The moon
hung not out her lamp, and the stars faintly glimmered in the
summer sky; the breath of night slept among the leaves of the
forest; the bosom of the lofty hill drank in the silent dew,
while on his majestic brow the voice of Angels is heard, and
stringed sounds ride upon the wings of night.  The sorrowful pair
lift up their heads, hovering Angels are around them, voices of
comfort are heard over the Couch of Death, and the youth breathes
out his soul with joy into eternity." 

In his own voice Blake revealed his attitude toward death when he wrote letters to his dearest friends.

Letters, To Hayley, (E 705)

"Thirteen years ago.  I lost a
brother & with his spirit I  converse daily & hourly in the
Spirit.  & See him in my remembrance in the  regions of my
Imagination.  I hear his advice & even now write from his
Dictate--Forgive me for expressing to you my Enthusiasm which I
wish all to  partake of Since it is to me a Source of Immortal
Joy even in this world by it  I am the companion of Angels.  May
you continue to be so more & more & to  be more & more perswaded. 
that every Mortal loss is an Immortal Gain.  The  Ruins of Time
builds Mansions in Eternity."

Letters, To Linnell, (E 774)

"I verily believe it Every Death is an improvement of the State of
the Departed."

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." 

 Letters, To Linnell, (E 784)
    "Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his
Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws
to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in
which every one is King & Priest in his own House  God Send it so
on Earth as it is in Heaven"

Gates of Paradise, The Keys of the Gates, (E 269) 

"13 But when once I did descry

      The Immortal Man that cannot Die

14 Thro evening shades I haste away

     To close the Labours of my Day"

 

---

Gospel of John (Phillips Translation)

12:23-26 - Jesus told them, "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you truly that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it does, it brings a good harvest. The man who loves his own life will destroy it, and the man who hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. If a man wants to enter my service, he must follow my way; and where I am, my servant will also be. And my Father will honour every man who enters my service.

JESUS AND REPROBATES

First posted July 2010

Luke 7:44-47
"Exactly," replied Jesus, and then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, "You can see this woman? I came into your house but you provided no water to wash my feet. But she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. There was no warmth in your greeting, but she, from the moment I came in, has not stopped covering my feet with kisses. You gave me no oil for my head, but she has put perfume on my feet. That is why I tell you, Simon, that her sins, many as they are, are forgiven; for she has shown me so much love. But the man who has little to be forgiven has only a little love to give."

Of the three classes of men, the reprobate is the one Blake associated with Jesus.
 
Jerusalem, Plate 31 [35], (E 177)
"And the appearance of a Man was seen in the Furnaces;
Saving those who have sinned from the punishment of the Law,
(In pity of the punisher whose state is eternal death,)
And keeping them from Sin by the mild counsels of his love."

Here we have Jesus saving the reprobate (sinners) from punishment of the law, and thereby saving the elect (accusers) from administering punishment. The love of Jesus keeps both classes from sin. But a question remained: why were the innocent condemned for the guilty?

Milton, Plate 11 [12], (E 105)
"And it was enquir'd: Why in a Great Solemn Assembly
The Innocent should be condemn'd for the Guilty? Then an Eternal rose
Saying. If the Guilty should be condemn'd, he must be an Eternal Death
And one must die for another throughout all Eternity.
Satan is fall'n from his station & never can be redeem'd
But must be new created continually moment by moment
And therefore the Class of Satan shall be calld the Elect, & those
Of Rintrah. the Reprobate, & those of Palamabron the Redeem'd
For he is redeem'd from Satans Law, the wrath falling on Rintrah,
And therefore Palamabron dared not to call a solemn Assembly
Till Satan had assum'd Rintrahs wrath in the day of mourning
In a feminine delusion of false pride self-deciev'd." 

The guilty in this case was Satan (the Elect) but the guilt fell upon Rintrah (the Reprobate). The representative of the Eternals answers that it is to avoid sending the guilty to Eternal Death.
 
Milton, Plate 7, (E 101)
"[Palamabron says] prophetic I behold
His future course thro' darkness and despair to eternal death
But we must not be tyrants also! he hath assum'd my place
For one whole day, under pretence of pity and love to me:
My horses hath he maddend! and my fellow servants injur'd:
How should he[,] he[,] know the duties of another? O foolish
forbearance
Would I had told Los, all my heart! but patience O my friends.
All may be well: silent remain, while I call Los and Satan."

Palamabron is confident that a solution will be found. The solution turns out to be that the Lamb of God take on the sin and guilt among the reprobates.

There Is No Natural Religion, (E 3)
"Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is"

Milton, Plate 13 [14], (E107)
"For then the Body of Death was perfected in hypocritic holiness,
Around the Lamb, a Female Tabernacle woven in Cathedrons Looms
He died as a Reprobate. he was Punish'd as a Transgressor!
Glory! Glory! Glory! to the Holy Lamb of God
I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord!

The Elect shall meet the Redeem'd. on Albions rocks they shall meet
Astonish'd at the Transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour.
And the Elect shall say to the Redeemd. We behold it is of Divine
Mercy alone! of Free Gift and Election that we live.
Our Virtues & Cruel Goodnesses, have deserv'd Eternal Death.
Thus they weep upon the fatal Brook of Albions River."

The Body of death forms around the Lamb of God. The Elect and Redeemed are given to see the Savior in the Transgressor.

Milton, 32 [35], (E 132)
"Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease:
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
Satan & Adam are States Created into Twenty-seven Churches
And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be."

The Elect, Redeemed and Reprobates are not the true identities of man but states which can be terminated. The Individual Identity never dies.

Milton, Plate 14, (E 108)
"I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.

And Milton said. I go to Eternal Death! Eternity shudder'd
For he took the outside course, among the graves of the dead
A mournful shade. Eternity shudderd at the image of eternal death"

Recognizing the state as a psychological condition to which we ourselves give reality, we are in a position to forgive and annihilate it.

Milton, PLATE 38 [43],(E 139)
"Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate
And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle
A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes
And smites me as I smote thee & becomes my covering.
Such are the Laws of thy false Heavns! but Laws of Eternity
Are not such: know thou: I come to Self Annihilation
Such are the Laws of Eternity that each shall mutually
Annihilate himself for others good, as I for thee".

If the reprobate were not an inner reality in each man, Jesus, the God within, would have no cause to associate with him. If there were no darkness within man, there would not be no need for the light.

Harvard Art Museum
 The Body of Abel found by Adam and Eve - Cain Fleeing