BRAIN

Wikipedia Commons

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Plate 10, Detail

Although Blake thought long and deeply about the human brain he didn't have the technology to study it that is now available. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who teaches at Stanford University, has been studying the "way parts [of the brain] unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric." Blake did however realize that the mind perceives more than what the five traditional sense organs discern. 

An additional sense that Blake recognized was 'spiritual sensation' or the Imagination. Through this sense Blake has access to a visionary world which revealed a dimension of reality 'closed to the senses five.' 

From Livewired, by David Eagleman, Page 54:

"The key to understanding this requires diving one level deeper: your three pounds of brain tissue are not directly hearing or seeing any of the world around you. Instead, your brain is locked in a crypt of silence and darkness inside your skull. All it ever sees are electro-chemical signals that stream along different data cables. That's all it has to work with."

"In ways we are still working to understand, the brain is stunningly gifted in taking these signals and extracting patterns. To these patterns we assign meaning. With the meaning you have subjective experience. The brain is an organ that converts sparks in the dark into the picture show of your world. All the hues and aromas and emotions and sensations in your life are encoded in trillions of signals zipping in blackness, just as a beautiful screen saver on your computer is fundamentally build of zeros and ones."

Page 61 

"In evolutionary time, random mutations introduce strange new sensors, and the recipient brains simply figure out how to exploit them. Once the principles of brain operation have been established, nature can simply worry about designing new sensors. 

"This perspective allows a lesson to come into focus: the devices we come to the table with - eyes, noses, ears, tongues, fingertips - are not the only collection of instruments we could have had. These are simply what we have inherited from a lengthy and complex road of evolution.

But that particular collection of sensors may not be what we have to stick with." ___________________________________________________________

Four Zoas, Night II ,Page 34, (E 322)

"For Los & Enitharmon walkd forth on the dewy Earth     
Contracting or expanding their all flexible senses               
At will to murmur in the flowers small as the honey bee
At will to stretch across the heavens & step from star to star
Or standing on the Earth erect, or on the stormy waves
Driving the storms before them or delighting in sunny beams
While round their heads the Elemental Gods kept harmony"    

Book of Urizen, Plate 3, (E 71)

"1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung"

Book of Urizen, Plate 4 (E 92)

"7: Many ages of groans: till there grew
Branchy forms. organizing the Human
Into finite inflexible organs."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 5, (E 35)   

"How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
   Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?"

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION [a],(E 2)

 "IV  None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if
he had none but organic perceptions"

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION [b], (E 2) 

 "I  Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 4, (E 34) 

 "1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age" 

Jerusalem, Plate 71, (E 225) 

"as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven
And Earth, & all you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within
In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow." 

Songs of Experience, The Tyger, (E 24)
 
"What the hammer? what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,     
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!" 

Songs of Experience, The Human Abstract, (27) 

"The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain" 

Visions of Daughters of Albion, Plate 2, (E 47)

"The lark does rustle in the ripe corn, and the Eagle returns     
From nightly prey, and lifts his golden beak to the pure east;
Shaking the dust from his immortal pinions to awake
The sun that sleeps too long. Arise my Theotormon I am pure.
Because the night is gone that clos'd me in its deadly black.
They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;     
They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up.
And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle,
And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning
Till all from life I was obliterated and erased.
Instead of morn arises a bright shadow, like an eye              
In the eastern cloud: instead of night a sickly charnel house;
That Theotormon hears me not! to him the night and morn
Are both alike: a night of sighs, a morning of fresh tears"

Milton, Plate 2 (E 96) 

"Come into my hand    
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself." 

French Revolution, Page 10, (E 294)

"But go, merciless man! enter into the infinite labyrinth of another's brain
Ere thou measure the circle that he shall run. Go, thou cold recluse,into the fires
Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd, and write laws.
If thou canst not do this, doubt thy theories, learn to consider all men as thy equals,
Thy brethren, and not as thy foot or thy hand, unless thou first fearest to hurt them."

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"

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 710) 

 "And Now Begins a New life. because another
covering of Earth is shaken off.  I am more famed in Heaven for
my works than I could well concieve   In my Brain are studies &
Chambers filld with books & pictures of old which I wrote &
painted in ages of Eternity. before my mortal life & whose works
are the delight & Study of Archangels.  Why then should I be
anxious about the riches or fame of mortality."

Letters, To Trusler, (E 702) 

"Why is the Bible more

Entertaining & Instructive than any other book. Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason Such is True Painting and such alone valued by the Greeks & the best modern Artists. Consider what Lord Bacon says "Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged & Reason sends over to Imagination before the Decree can be acted." See Advancemt of Learning Part 2 P 47 of first Edition But I am happy to find a Great Majority of Fellow Mortals who can Elucidate My Visions & Particularly they have been Elucidated by Children who have taken a greater delight in contemplating my Pictures than I even hoped. Neither Youth nor Childhood is Folly or Incapacity Some Children are Fools & so are some Old Men. But There is a vast Majority on the side of Imagination or Spiritual Sensation"

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132) 

"The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created                  
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated Forms cannot
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife
But their Forms Eternal Exist, For-ever. Amen Halle[l]ujah" 

__________________________________________________________________ 

Eagleman writes that his long-range goal is "to understand how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world".

 

MAKING OF MYTH

Wikimedia Commons
Mercy and Truth Are Met Together

First posted Feb 2019

Although when we read Blake's poetry we may be most aware of the particular characters and images which we encounter, that is not all there is to it. The minutiae may be thought of as the instrumentality which serves the myth as a whole. But the myth itself also means more, for like all myth, it is pointing beyond itself to truth that cannot be expressed in words. Although we may wish that Blake's thoughts should be unequivocally stated so that we could read Jerusalem in the way that we read the newspaper, that is impossible. It is up to the reader to make his own intuitive contribution by fitting the parts into a whole which may be elusive.  

Kathleen Raine on page 135 of Defending Ancient Springs expresses the artistry of the poet who has the gift of being a vehicle for presenting the moment when eternity penetrates time and renovates the whole:

"So for Yeats the vision of what lies behind the veil came in glimpses, seldom in whole symbolic episodes, still less in myths which unfold like those of Blake, into great epic drama enacted in an interior country within whose spaces we move freely. The unit of such poetry is not the symbol. Myths are not built by adding piece by piece, they are not the sum of symbolic parts. The unit of the myth is the whole enactment, and all its figures; each symbol exists as a part within that imaginative unity, from which it is inseparable, and by which it is determined; as a sentence determines words, and is not merely their sum.
...in every turbulent encounter with the mighty form of his Zoas, we recognize parts within a great whole whose harmony is implicit. The ability to handle the units of myth - which might be defined as dynamic symbol, symbol in transformation - ought to be recognized as the supreme poetic gift. In such poetry the symbolic parts are inseparable from the imaginative configuration and constellations within which they appear...we do not think of these as separate symbols but as parts of the world in which the poem moves, as we move in nature. Yer considered separately each symbol is used with the precision of words in a language of which the poet has perfect mastery."

---

Milton, Plate 5, (E 98) 
"While the Females prepare the Victims. the Males at Furnaces 
And Anvils dance the dance of tears & pain. loud lightnings
Lash on their limbs as they turn the whirlwinds loose upon
The Furnaces, lamenting around the Anvils & this their Song

Ah weak & wide astray! Ah shut in narrow doleful form
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground      
The Eye of Man a little narrow orb closd up & dark
Scarcely beholding the great light conversing with the Void
The Ear, a little shell in small volutions shutting out
All melodies & comprehending only Discord and Harmony
The Tongue a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys  
A little sound it utters & its cries are faintly heard
Then brings forth Moral Virtue the cruel Virgin Babylon

Can such an Eye judge of the stars? & looking thro its tubes
Measure the sunny rays that point their spears on Udanadan
Can such an Ear filld with the vapours of the yawning pit.  
Judge of the pure melodious harp struck by a hand divine?
Can such closed Nostrils feel a joy? or tell of autumn fruits
When grapes & figs burst their covering to the joyful air
Can such a Tongue boast of the living waters? or take in
Ought but the Vegetable Ratio & loathe the faint delight     
Can such gross Lips percieve? alas! folded within themselves
They touch not ought but pallid turn & tremble at every wind

Thus they sing Creating the Three Classes among Druid Rocks    
Charles calls on Milton for Atonement. Cromwell is ready
James calls for fires in Golgonooza. for heaps of smoking ruins  
In the night of prosperity and wantonness which he himself Created
Among the Daughters of Albion among the Rocks of the Druids"

Milton, Plate 31 [34], (E 130)
"Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring;
The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed: just as the morn
Appears; listens silent; then springing from the waving Corn-field! loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, trill, trill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse:
Reecchoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine    
All Nature listens silent to him & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird

With eyes of soft humility, & wonder love & awe.
Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song
The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren         
Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain:
The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro the day,
And thro the night warbles luxuriant; every Bird of Song
Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon!       

Thou percievest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours!
And none can tell how from so small a center comes such sweets 
Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expands
Its ever during doors, that Og & Anak fiercely guard[.]
First eer the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms     
Joy even to tears, which the Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet downy & soft waving among the reeds.
Light springing on the air lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak: the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn lovely May           
Opens her many lovely eyes: listening the Rose still sleeps    
None dare to wake her. soon she bursts her crimson curtaind bed
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower:
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens! every Tree,        
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance
Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love!
Such is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon"

Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 145)
    "Reader! [lover] of books! [lover] of heaven,
    And of that God from whom [all books are given,]
    Who in mysterious Sinais awful cave
    To Man the wond'rous art of writing gave,
    Again he speaks in thunder and in fire!                
    Thunder of Thought, & flames of fierce desire:
    Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear,
    Within the unfathomd caverns of my Ear.
    Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:
    Heaven, Earth & Hell, henceforth shall live in harmony" 

Poetical Sketches, SONG, (E 413)
"Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls intwine,
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,    
Chirping loud, and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;    
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love: I hear his tongue.   

There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play." 

Annotations to Reynolds, (E 659)
 "Demonstration Similitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning 
Invention Identity & Melody are Objects of Intuition" 

ZOAS AS ARCHETYPES

First posted in May 2011

 

Blake used the Zoas as a means of presenting the aspects of the psyche which he saw internally and recognized as the structure of the human mind. Early in Blake's life he recognized that there were internal divisions within himself. Reason, desire, imagination and sensation - each tried to claim the uppermost position in the allocation of his time and resources. Blake personified these abstractions as the 'Four Mighty Ones in Every Man.'

The beginning of the Four Zoas brings to our attention the four mighty ones who do battle:
 
Four Zoas, Night I, Page 3, (E 300)
"The Song of the Aged Mother which shook the heavens with wrath
Hearing the march of long resounding strong heroic Verse
Marshalld in order for the day of Intellectual Battle

Four Mighty Ones are in every Man;"

Later Blake identified the Four Zoas and their positions in the Eternal World.

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 74, (E 351)
"But in Eternal times the Seat of Urizen is in the South
Urthona in the North Luvah in East Tharmas in West"

Laurens van der Post, in Jung and the Story of Our Time, speaking of Jung's observation that the conflict between the conscious and unconscious forces in the mind led to mental illness notes that :

"The trouble started only when the part of the human personality which was conscious behaved as if it were the whole of the man. There was nothing this unconscious world abhorred more than one-sidedness. When one extreme of spirit attempted a monopoly for itself another extreme sooner of later rose titanic in the unconscious to overthrow it. That is why the history of man was so much a swing from one opposite of spirit into another as Heraclitus had observed millenniums before." (Page 209)

The trouble started in Blake's myth when the positions of the Zoas were altered by the deal between Urizen and Luvah. The harmonious balance was ruined.

Milton, PLATE 19 [21], (E 112)
"Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine!
But when Luvah assum'd the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his mountains, & in his tent;
All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path."

Van der Post wrote of the collective unconscious and archetypes of Jung as the patterns of the mind which organize its form and put to use the psyche's energy.

"He [Jung] revealed how in this collective unconscious of the individual man were infinite resources of energy, organized in definite patterns. Each of these patterns had at its disposal its own form of energy and somewhere located, as it were, in the center, between the unconscious and the conscious, there was a master pattern to which all the others subscribed and all their other energies could be joined in one transcendental orbit. He called these patterns, first of all, 'primordial images,' ... but later changed to 'archetypes,' an idea rediscovered from Saint Augustine, and before him from Hermes Trimegistus, who proclaimed in the Poimandres, 'You have seen in your mind the archetypal image!'" (Page 209)

In Jerusalem we learn the Zoas have lost their original abilities and exemplify the opposite characteristics:

Jerusalem, Plate 38, (E184)
"They [the Four Zoas] saw their Wheels rising up poisonous against Albion
Urizen, cold & scientific: Luvah, pitying & weeping
Tharmas, indolent & sullen: Urthona, doubting & despairing
Victims to one another & dreadfully plotting against each other
To prevent Albion walking about in the Four Complexions."

Jerusalem, Plate 49, (E 199)
"Because the Evil is Created into a State. that Men
May be deliverd time after time evermore. Amen.
Learn therefore O Sisters to distinguish the Eternal Human
That walks about among the stones of fire in bliss & woe
Alternate! from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels:
This is the only means to Forgiveness of Enemies"

Blake and Jung both sought consciousness of the internal dynamics of the psyche, awareness of the forces seeking expression or dominance, and recognition of 'the Eternal Human That walks about among the stones of fire in bliss & woe.'




Frontispiece to Bürger's "Leonora" (London, 1796)
Designed by Blake, Engraved by Perry

 

 

Van der Post explained Jung's concept of wholeness:

 
"Wholeness was the ultimate of man's conscious and unconscious seeking; indeed consciousness was so important because it was the chosen instrument of the unconscious seeking the abolition of partialities in a harmony of differences that is wholeness." (Page 219)

EGO & ARCHETYPE 2

British Museum
Daniel
Copy after Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling

Daniel 3

[20] And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
[21] Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
[22] Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
[23] And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
[24] Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
[25] He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
[26] Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
[27] And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellers, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
[28] Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

In his book Ego and Archetype, Edward F Edinger uses an account of a man in the throes of an angry mood to illustrate the power of a symbol of an archetype to break the grip of a destructive state of mind. By connecting to an account of three men who were released from a situation similar to his own, under the dominance of even more dramatic circumstances, he was freed from his intense state of anger which controlled him. Realizing the archetypal nature of his internal status gave meaning at a symbolic level. He was released by discovering the source of his emotions.     

From Page 116 of Ego and Archetype by Edward F Edinger:

"Intense mood and emotional states will also yield up their meanings if the relevant symbolic image can be found. For example, a man was in the grip of an angry mood... The third chapter of Daniel describes the decree of Nebuchadnezzar that all people fall down and worship his golden idol...

This image resolved the angry mood because it expresses symbolically the meaning of the mood. King Nebuchadnezzar represents an arbitrary, tyrannical, power-driven figure who would usurp the prerogatives of God and rages when he is not treated as a deity. He is the ego identified with the Self. His rage is synonymous with the fiery furnace... The fourth figure that appears in the furnace 'like the son of God' would represent the transpersonal, archetypal component that was actualized in the experience. It brings meaning, release and wholeness (as the fourth).

...To the extent that one is unaware of the symbolic dimension of existence, one experiences the vicissitudes of life as symptoms...Almost any difficulty can be borne if we can discern its meaning. It is meaninglessness which is the greatest threat to humanity...

It is the discovery of the symbolic life which releases man from this 'awful, grinding, banal' life which is only a succession of meaningless symptoms." 

___________________

We find in Blake's poetry references to aspects of the psyche asserting dominance by declaring themselves God. Blake was using his symbolic language to gain understanding of the ills which beset man. Release from distorted perceptions offered hope of restoring mankind to Eden, the status of perfect harmony.  

Any aspect of the psyche which assumed the position of God invited its own downfall. In Edinger's narrative it was the recognition by Nebuchadnezzar that he had no power over Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego which made him aware that he was not a divinity to be worshiped. The man consumed by anger saw too that he had given power to a dominating force which was not a god but a construct of his psyche.

Book of Urizen, Plate 3, (E 86)

"8: While  Fuzon [fire] his tygers unloosing
Thought Urizen slain by his wrath.
I am God. said he, eldest of things! 

Milton, Plate 8, (E 103)

"Saying I am God alone   
There is no other! let all obey my principles of moral individuality
I have brought them from the uppermost innermost recesses
Of my Eternal Mind, transgressors I will rend off for ever,
As now I rend this accursed Family from my covering.

Thus Satan rag'd amidst the Assembly! and his bosom grew     
Opake against the Divine Vision: the paved terraces of
His bosom inwards shone with fires, but the stones becoming opake!"

Milton, Plate 38 [43], (E 139)

"Satan heard! Coming in a cloud, with trumpets & flaming fire   

Saying I am God the judge of all, the living & the dead
Fall therefore down & worship me. submit thy supreme
Dictate, to my eternal Will & to my dictate bow"

Jerusalem, Plate 54, (E 203)

"But the Spectre like a hoar frost & a Mildew rose over Albion    
Saying, I am God O Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power!
Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings Voltaire: Rousseau.
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel against my Laws!
Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown Eternal Life     
Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones to bread.
Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without Experiment?" 

Four Zoas, Night I, Page Page 12, (E 306)                          
"Indignant muttering low thunders; Urizen descended
Gloomy sounding, Now I am God from Eternity to Eternity"

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 12, (E 307)

"Thus Urizen spoke collected in himself in awful pride

Art thou a visionary of Jesus the soft delusion of Eternity   
Lo I am God the terrible destroyer & not the Saviour
Why should the Divine Vision compell the sons of Eden
to forego each his own delight to war against his Spectre
The Spectre is the Man the rest is only delusion & fancy"

Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 51, (E 344)  

"Tharmas before Los stood & thus the Voice of Tharmas rolld

Now all comes into the power of Tharmas. Urizen is falln
And Luvah hidden in the Elemental forms of Life & Death
Urthona is My Son O Los thou art Urthona & Tharmas
Is God. The Eternal Man is seald never to be deliverd"  

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" 

Blake's Religion

Wikipedia Commons

Jerusalem

Plate 26, Copy A

 Ram Horn'd with Gold

Edited by Larry Clayton

CHAPTER FOUR

Faith

iii

Sin and Forgiveness

"Whosoever of you are justified by the law: ye are fallen from grace"

Galatians 5:4

If the primary moral wrong is hindering, the primary grace is forgiveness. Redemption came for Blake when forgiveness first entered the horizon of his vision; it increasingly came to dominate it. Prior to 1800 with all his denunciations of Urizen, the Restrainer, and of morality Blake was growing more and more into the role of judge. He was becoming in fact a judge of judges. The later Lambeth books witness the resultant decrease in vitality; in the language of Zion he suffered a loss of faith. It coincided with a slowly dawning realization that Urizen had infested his own mind all the while he was denouncing him in others. There awakened in his mind a new awareness of sin, a sin more basic than hindering others, or rather an awareness of the inner cause of hindering. He called it the Selfhood, the Spectre, Satan. As many of us have since that day, Blake realized that he saw the God-playing in others because he was so good at it himself. This new vision of his Selfhood led to the Moment of Grace.

At Felpham, in the major crisis of his life, he faced the need to forgive both the impositions of his corporeal friend, Hayley, and the resentful thunderer, William Blake, as well. The appearance of his 'first Vision of Light' marks the coming of Christ into his life with the power of this forgiveness; henceforth he called him Jesus, the Forgiveness.

The old urizenic monstrosity that had haunted him, first in the outer world and increasingly as a component of his own psyche, was recognized, accepted, subdued, and forgiven. It was undoubtedly the greatest event of his life, a new birth of hope at the age of 43. He shared with us the psychic unfolding of this experience in Night vii of 'The Four Zoas' where Los embraces his Spectre (equivalent to Jung's acceptance of the shadow) and soon thereafter finds Urizen miraculously changed:

"Startled was Los; he found his Enemy Urizen now In his hands; he wonder'd that he felt love & not hate. His whole soul loved him; he beheld him an infant Lovely...."

Has anyone better portrayed the psychodynamics of forgiveness? In order to forgive you first withdraw the projection, then you forgive yourself. It's your baby!

We can't say that's the end of the story; in Night viii Urizen continues to afflict life with his judgments, hostility and violence; Satan comes forth from his War. The Saviour dies for him, and we are still waiting for the ultimate victory. Nor was Blake himself fully delivered from the resentments and self justifications of the old man. Hard times ahead, the deceitfulness and opprobrium of others continued to afflict and to warp his psyche and caused him to participate in sin (mostly by suffering through the sins of others against him), but now he knew the answer: through recurring awareness and Self-annihilation he could forgive again and again. The wheat and tares continued to grow together.

Blake had a deep grasp of what students of the Bible have called the kenosis. At his Moment of Grace it became for him an existential reality. He rewrote 4Z to show Jesus throughout the drama coming from above, hovering over Mankind, descending into mortal flesh to join us and to take on our burdens, our sorrow and pain and travail. Blake referred to this as the "dark Satanic body". This is the body we all wear until Jesus glorifies it in us.

According to Blake's faith this coming of Jesus is the ultimate act of forgiveness for what we have become in our brokenness. It empowers us to become through a new birth what we were originally and what we are called to be again. The new birth is an alteration of consciousness. Blake had an inkling of this as early as 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell', where he referred to it as "an improvement of sensual enjoyment." In the same plate he referred to it as a cleansing of the "doors of perception" and likened the former state to life in Plato's cave.

In the lovely "first Light" poem quoted above he used the thoroughly biblical figure of Jesus purging away "all my mire and my clay". Forgiveness is not a temporal event, but an eternal one. The Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. We must forgive not once, but seventy times seven times. Blake deals with sin and forgiveness as ultimates in his notebook poem, "My Spectre around me night and day". The poem speaks primarily to the advanced student, but with crystal clarity stanza 14 bears on the primary grace:

"& Throughout all Eternity  
I forgive you you forgive me
As our dear Redeemer said                                   
This the Wine & this the Bread"

The unforgiving, accusing, egocentric, spectrous Selfhood is the stuff of Ulro, the life that is Eternal Death. Forgiveness through Self-annihilation is the stuff of that life which is life indeed. In the eternal realm Good and Evil, Virtue and Sin, all are forgiven and replaced by Truth and Error, which constitute the matter of the eternal wars of love. We fight these with Blake's weapons (the burning arrows of thought, etc.) or with Paul's "whole armor of God". Error meets an eternal consummation as we grow closer and closer to the Perfect Man. The apocalypse in Blake's structure of faith comes as an alteration of consciousness by which "this world" fades out (is consumed) and is replaced by the Eternal. Albion awakes. "Whenever any Individual Rejects Error and Embraces Truth, a Last Judgment passes upon that Individual".

This was Blake's religion; unfortunately he does not seem to have found it in any of the churches which he knew. Instead many of his deepest convictions directly contravened the prevailing theology. He discovered that he "must create a system, or be enslated by another mans". The pages that follow trace some of the contrarieties between Blake's vision of eternal reality and the mainstream of Christian orthodoxy.

Letters, To Thomas Butts, (E 712) 

To my Friend Butts I write
     My first Vision of Light
     On the yellow sands sitting
     The Sun was Emitting
     His Glorious beams
     From Heavens high Streams
     Over Sea over Land
     My Eyes did Expand
     Into regions of air
     Away from all Care
     Into regions of fire
     Remote from Desire
     The Light of the Morning
     Heavens Mountains adorning
     In particles bright
     The jewels of Light
     Distinct shone & clear--
     Amazd & in fear
     I each particle gazed
     Astonishd Amazed
     For each was a Man
     Human formd.  Swift I ran
     For they beckond to me
     Remote by the Sea
     Saying.  Each grain of Sand
     Every Stone on the Land
     Each rock & each hill
     Each fountain & rill
     Each herb & each tree
     Mountain hill Earth & Sea
     Cloud Meteor & Star
     Are Men Seen Afar
     I stood in the Streams
     Of Heavens bright beams
     And Saw Felpham sweet
     Beneath my bright feet
     In soft Female charms
     And in her fair arms
     My Shadow I knew
     And my wifes shadow too
     And My Sister & Friend.
     We like Infants descend
     In our Shadows on Earth
     Like a weak mortal birth
     My Eyes more & more
     Like a Sea without shore
     Continue Expanding
     The Heavens commanding
     Till the jewels of Light
     Heavenly Men beaming bright
     Appeard as One Man
     Who Complacent began
     My limbs to infold
     In his beams of bright gold
     Like dross purgd away
     All my mire & my clay
     Soft consumd in delight
     In his bosom sun bright
     I remaind.  Soft he smild
     And I heard his voice Mild
     Saying This is My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold
     Who awakest from sleep
     On the sides of the Deep
     On the Mountains around
     The roarings resound
     Of the lion & wolf
     The loud sea & deep gulf
     These are guards of My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold
     And the voice faded mild
     I remaind as a Child
     All I ever had known
     Before me bright Shone
     I saw you & your wife
     By the fountains of Life
     Such the Vision to me
     Appeard on the Sea" 

EVENING

National Gallery 

Evening

William Blake (1757–1827), Evening (c 1820-25), tempera on pine, 91.8 x 29.7 cm, The National Gallery of Art (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art), Washington, DC. Courtesy of The National Gallery of Art. Courtesy of The National Gallery of Art.

Winter (c 1820-25) above and Evening (c 1820-25) below formed a pair for a fireside surround in the Norfolk rectory of Rev John Johnson. They show figures illustrating William Cowper’s poem The Task, book 4. Winter is taken from lines 120-129, and Evening from lines 243-260. Cowper was the patron’s cousin.

Tate

Winter

https://eclecticlight.co/2016/12/04/tygers-eye-the-paintings-of-william-blake-8-last-tempera-paintings/

https://www.nga.gov/research/gallery-archives/nga-history-timeline.html

Provenance

Rev. John Johnson; Canon Cowper Johnson; Bertram R. Vaughan Johnson; his widow; Rev. B. Talbot Vaughan Johnson; the Vaughan Johnson Trust; (sale, Sotheby's, 18 July 1979, no. 59); purchased by (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London) for Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; gift 1990 to NGA.

When sold at Sotheby's on
18 July 1979, "Winter" fetched L30,000 while the
companion "Evening" fetched L21,000. Both were bought
by Thos. Agnew & Sons, L t d . , the first for the Tate
Gallery, the second for a private American collector.

Another post about these images.

 

 

RED BOOK

Wikipedia Commons

The Four Zoas

Page 1

As a record of his journey into his own unconscious Jung recorded "visions", "fantasies" and "imaginations" during the period 1913-1915. Jung had split with his mentor and associate Sigmund Freud in 1913. In order to reassess his path forward he undertook the difficult experiment of encountering the unknown aspects of his psyche. 

The Wikipedia entry on Jung's Red Book includes the following statement. "In 1957, near the end of his life, Jung spoke to Aniela Jaffé about the Red Book and the process which yielded it; in that interview he stated:

'The years ... when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.'"

Learn more about the Red Book from the Library of Congress Exhibition.

In the same way that Jung used the Red Book to explore his psyche and develop his self-knowledge, Blake used The Four Zoas. When Blake was writing The Four Zoas he was dealing with aspects of his psyche which demanded control of his outward activities. Could he devote his intellect to composing poetry which would continue the tradition of Spencer and Milton? Would he be overwhelmed by emotions of anger, failure, or depression? Would desire for success in the world thwart the expression of his visionary gifts? The writing of The Four Zoas became the means through which he sought to solve his inner conflicts. 

Like Jung Blake was turning within to uncover the unconscious motivations which determined the decisions which he was making with his conscious mind. Each of the characters in The Four Zoas turned away from behaviors which were destructive to the operation of an integrated psyche. Relinquishing hostile, self-serving attitudes by realizing erroneous thinking made possible the expression of each aspect of the psyche in its proper role. 

The Four Zoas, Night I, Page 1, (E 300)

            "The torments of Love & Jealousy in 
                The Death and Judgement
               of Albion the Ancient Man 

               by William Blake 1797"

 The Four Zoas, Night I, Page 3, (E 300) 

 Ephesians 6: 12 [in Greek]

<[For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. (King James version)]> 

The Four Zoas, Night II, PAGE 23 (E 313) 

"Rising upon his Couch of Death Albion beheld his Sons
Turning his Eyes outward to Self. losing the Divine Vision
Albion calld Urizen & said. Behold these sickning Spheres    
Whence is this Voice of Enion that soundeth in my Porches    
Take thou possession! take this Scepter! go forth in my might    
For I am weary, & must sleep in the dark sleep of Death      
Thy brother Luvah hath smitten me but pity thou his youth    
Tho thou hast not pitid my Age   O Urizen Prince of Light

 Urizen rose from the bright Feast like a star thro' the evening sky
Exulting at the voice that calld him from the Feast of envy" 

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 119, (E 388)

"Beyond this Universal Confusion beyond the remotest Pole  
Where their vortexes begin to operate there stands 
A Horrible rock far in the South   it was forsaken when
Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah
On this rock lay the faded head of the Eternal Man
Enwrapped round with weeds of death pale cold in sorrow & woe
He lifts the blue lamps of his Eyes & cries with heavenly voice 
Bowing his head over the consuming Universe he cried

O weakness & O weariness   O war within my members
My sons exiled from my breast pass to & fro before me
My birds are silent on my hills flocks die beneath my branches
My tents are fallen my trumpets & the sweet sounds of my harp   
Is silent on my clouded hills that belch forth storms & fires
My milk of cows & honey of bees & fruit of golden harvest
Are gatherd in the scorching heat & in the driving rain
My robe is turned to confusion & my bright gold to stones
Where once I sat   I weary walk in miscry & pain 
For from within my witherd breast grown narrow with my woes 

The Corn is turnd to thistles & the apples into poison
The birds of song to murderous crows My joys to bitter groans
PAGE 120 
The voices of children in my tents to cries of helpless infants
And all exiled from the face of light & shine of morning
In this dark world a narrow house I wander up & down
I hear Mystery howling in these flames of Consummation
When shall the Man of future times become as in days of old 
O weary life why sit I here & give up all my powers
To indolence to the night of death when indolence & mourning
Sit hovring over my dark threshold. tho I arise look out

And scorn the war within my members yet my heart is weak
And my head faint Yet will I look again unto the morning 
Whence is this sound of rage of Men drinking each others blood
Drunk with the smoking gore & red but not with nourishing wine

The Eternal Man sat on the Rocks & cried with awful voice" 

The Four Zoas, Night IX, PAGE 120,(E 390)

"My anger against thee is greater than against this Luvah
For war is energy Enslavd but thy religion
The first author of this war & the distracting of honest minds
Into confused perturbation & strife & honour & pride
Is a deceit so detestable that I will cast thee out" 

The Four Zoas, Night IX, PAGE 121, (E 390)

"Urizen wept in the dark deep anxious his Scaly form
To reassume the human & he wept in the dark deep

Saying O that I had never drank the wine nor eat the bread
Of dark mortality nor cast my view into futurity nor turnd 
My back darkning the present clouding with a cloud" 

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 122 (E 391)

"Thus shall the male & female live the life of Eternity           
Because the Lamb of God Creates himself a bride & wife
That we his Children evermore may live in Jerusalem
Which now descendeth out of heaven a City yet a Woman
Mother of myriads redeemd & born in her spiritual palaces
By a New Spiritual birth Regenerated from Death 

Urizen Said. I have Erred & my Error remains with me"   

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 123 (393)

"And these again surrounded by four Wonders of the Almighty   
Incomprehensible. pervading all amidst & round about
Fourfold each in the other reflected they are named Life's in Eternity.
Four Starry Universes going forward from Eternity to Eternity
And the Falln Man who was arisen upon the Rock of Ages           
PAGE 124
Beheld the Vision of God & he arose up from the Rock
And Urizen arose up with him walking thro the flames
Still to the Rock in vain they strove to Enter the Consummation
Together for the Redeemd Man could not enter the Consummation" 

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 124, (E 393)

"The Sons of Urizen Shout Their father rose The Eternal horses
Harnessd They calld to Urizen the heavens moved at their call
The limbs of Urizen shone with ardor. He laid his hand on the Plow  
Thro dismal darkness drave the Plow of ages over Cities
And all their Villages over Mountains & all their Vallies
Over the graves & caverns of the dead   Over the Planets
And over the void Spaces over Sun & moon & star & constellation

 Then Urizen commanded & they brought the Seed of Men            
The trembling souls of All the Dead stood before Urizen
Weak wailing in the troubled air East west & north & south"

The Four Zoas, Night IX, PAGE 125, (E 394)  
"He turnd the horses loose & laid his Plow in the northern corner
Of the wide Universal field. then Stepd forth into the immense 

Then he began to sow the seed he girded round his loins
With a bright girdle & his skirt filld with immortal souls
Howling & Wailing fly the souls from Urizens strong hand         
For from the hand of Urizen the myriads fall like stars
Into their own appointed places driven back by the winds"

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 133, (E 402)

"Not for ourselves but for the Eternal family we live
Man liveth not by Self alone but in his brothers face            
Each shall behold the Eternal Father & love & joy abound

So spoke the Eternal at the Feast they embracd the New born Man
Calling him Brother image of the Eternal Father. they sat down
At the immortal tables sounding loud their instruments of joy
Calling the Morning into Beulah the Eternal Man rejoicd          
When Morning dawnd The Eternals rose to labour at the Vintage"

The Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 138, (E 407)

"How is it we have walkd thro fires & yet are not consumd
How is it that all things are changd even as in ancient times    
PAGE 139 
The Sun arises from his dewy bed & the fresh airs
Play in his smiling beams giving the seeds of life to grow
And the fresh Earth beams forth ten thousand thousand springs of life"

*****************************  

Comment from Wiki: 

Jung's "experiment involved a voluntary confrontation with the unconscious through wilful engagement of what Jung later termed 'mythopoetic imagination'."

Larry's comment:

"Blake's epic ends with the eternal man awake, his four Zoas back in union, each carrying out his appointed function in the harmonious consummation of the Age. In the last harvest Urizen reaps, Tharmas threshes, Luvah tramples out the vineyard and Urthona bakes the bread.

Keep in mind that here, as in later writings, Blake's poetry has many levels. We are especially interested in the cosmic and psychological levels, and the most compelling dimension of the psychological is the autobiographical. In The Book of Urizen as in all the prophecies Blake tells us a great deal about himself. He lived intensely in the spiritual realm; this means that visions, motifs, attitudes come and go with great rapidity. The poetry reveals to us the course of his life. At the same time sober reflection on his biography casts light on the dynamic evolution of the myth. The student might spend time with The Book of Urizen before tackling The Four Zoas, for it gives in outline form much of the action of the larger poem. However Urizen is hard to understand, written before the complete vision of Blake's myth had crystallized in his mind."

It is more than coincidence that Jung never published the Red Book nor Blake The Four Zoas.

 

WORDS OF LIFE

Fitzwilliam Museum  

Visions of Daughters of Albion  

Plate 1

We tend to try to justify ourselves by saying we are doing the best we can under the circumstances. We think that the good that we do is from ourselves but the evil that we do is coming from somewhere else. But closer to the truth is that the selfhood within us has not been annihilated; we find it necessary to build up our own egos by seeing evil outside of ourselves. How can we break through the protective shell around the false reasoning which enables us to project upon others our own failings? 

For Blake the true reasoning is the ability to perceive that man is an immortal spirit living in a mortal body. The unified man incorporates the body and spirit as one being. The aspect of the eternal spirit Urthona acts in the material world though his Spectre Los whose Emanation is Enitharmon. The struggle man endures is between receiving the gift of God and enduring the deprivation of closing oneself to anything not made with human hands.

It was up to Los the spiritual manifestation in the material world to enter the heart of Enitharmon which had been broken through error and suffering. Together they worked to reconcile the suffering world with the fullness of Eternity. Our task in the physical is to engage in the struggle to cast off the filthy rags that prevent us from discerning the light within which reveals the Eternal.

Taking on the Human Form demands complete willingness to look inward, to become conscious, to be transformed, to see the Human Form in every face.

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 114, (E 39)
"the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now appears finite & corrupt."

Visions of Daughters of Albion,Plate 8, (E 54) 

"For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe, yet man is not consumd;      
Amidst the lustful fires he walks: his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver, & his breast and head like gold."

Milton, Plate 40 [47], (E 142) 

"the Reasoning Power in Man
This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal           
Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway
To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.
Plate 41 [48]
To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human
I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration
To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration
To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering          
To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination
To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration"

Visions of Daughters of Albion, (E 47) 

"I am pure.
Because the night is gone that clos'd me in its deadly black.
They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;     
They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up.
And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle,
And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning
Till all from life I was obliterated and erased."

Jerusalem, Plate 95, (E 254)

"Her voice pierc'd Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock
The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov'd
Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov'd
His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose 
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in ireful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides  
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping
Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthonas Spectre in songs
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble." 

Jerusalem, Plate 99, (E 258)

"All Human Forms identified even Tree Metal Earth & Stone. all
Human Forms identified, living going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days & Hours reposing
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality." 

Jerusalem, Plate 17, (E 162)

"So Los in secret with himself communed & Enitharmon heard
In her darkness & was comforted: yet still she divided away
In gnawing pain from Los's bosom in the deadly Night;            
First as a red Globe of blood trembling beneath his bosom[.]
Suspended over her he hung: he infolded her in his garments
Of wool: he hid her from the Spectre, in shame & confusion of
Face; in terrors & pains of Hell & Eternal Death, the
Trembling Globe shot forth Self-living & Los howld over it:      
Feeding it with his groans & tears day & night without ceasing:
And the Spectrous Darkness from his back divided in temptations,
And in grinding agonies in threats! stiflings! & direful strugglings." 

Jerusalem, Plate 48, (E 197)

"When with a dreadful groan the Emanation mild of Albion.
Burst from his bosom in the Tomb like a pale snowy cloud,
Female and lovely, struggling to put off the Human form
Writhing in pain. The Daughters of Beulah in kind arms reciev'd  
Jerusalem: weeping over her among the Spaces of Erin,
In the Ends of Beulah, where the Dead wail night & day."

Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 99, (E 372)

"Then Los said I behold the Divine Vision thro the broken Gates 
Of thy poor broken heart astonishd melted into Compassion & Love
And Enitharmon said I see the Lamb of God upon Mount Zion      
Wondring with love & Awe they felt the divine hand upon them   

For nothing could restrain the dead in Beulah from descending
Unto Ulros night tempted by the Shadowy females sweet    
Delusive cruelty they descend away from the Daughters of Beulah
And Enter Urizens temple Enitharmon pitying & her heart
Gates broken down. they descend thro the Gate of Pity
The broken heart Gate of Enitharmon She sighs them forth upon the wind 
Of Golgonooza Los stood recieving them 
For Los could enter into Enitharmons bosom & explore
Its intricate Labyrinths now the Obdurate heart was broken"

  ******************** 

John 6

[67] Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
[68] Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
[69] And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

Romans 7

[18] For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
[19] For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
[20] Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
[21] I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
[22] For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
[23] But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
[24] O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
[25] I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

Colossians 1

[19] For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
[20] And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
[21] And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
[22] In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: