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Book of Los Plate 1 |
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
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."
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