PARADISE LOST 7

Wikipedia Commons  
Illustrations to Milton's Paradise Lost   
Illustration 7  
The Rout of the Rebel Angels 

Genesis 1
[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

John 1
[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[2] The same was in the beginning with God.
[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
[4] In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
[5] And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Milton's account of the rout of the rebel angels is from a memory as told by Raphael to Adam and Eve who were not in that time or place when it occurred. This is an account of the separation of light from darkness as was the biblical statement of what occurred 'In the beginning.' The rebel angels infected heaven - the place of light - with darkness when they chose to be separate themselves from the unity. The light cast them out into hell - the place of darkness. The rebel angels were not destroyed for their disobedience. They were sent away from the light; they were forced out of heaven. But as Adam and Eve would learn, they were still capable of engaging Men and Women in the Battle for Truth.

Paradise Lost
John Milton
Book VI 

Line 710-718
[From the account by Raphael to Adam and Eve]
"Go then, Thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might;
Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels
That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war,
My bow and thunder, my almighty arms
Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh;
Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them out
From all Heaven's bounds into the utter deep:
There let them learn, as likes them, to despise
God, and Messiah his anointed King."

Line 844-866
 "Nor less on either side tempestuous fell
His arrows, from the fourfold-visaged Four
Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels
Distinct alike with multitude of eyes;
One Spirit in them ruled; and every eye
Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire
Among the accursed, that withered all their strength,
And of their wonted vigor left them drained,
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.
Yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked
His thunder in mid volley; for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heaven:
The overthrown he raised, and as a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together thronged
Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursued
With terrors, and with furies, to the bounds
And crystal wall of Heaven; which, opening wide,
Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed
Into the wasteful deep: The monstrous sight
Struck them with horror backward, but far worse
Urged them behind: Headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of Heaven; eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit." 

C. S. Lewis gives us insight into Milton's character Satan by revealing the incompatibility of self-centeredness and self-deception with clarity of vision.

From Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis:

"But I do not know whether we can distinguish his [Satan's] conscious lies from the blindness he has almost willingly imposed upon himself... for far earlier in his career he has become more a Lie than a Liar, a personified contradiction. (Page 97)
...
What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual ability with an incapacity to understand anything. (Page 99)
...
The point need not be laboured. Adam, though confined to a small park on a small planet, has interests which embrace 'all the choir of heaven and all the furniture of earth.' Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of hell, and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan. It may be said that Adam's situation made it easier for him, than for Satan, to let his mind roam. But that is just the point. Satan's monomaniac concern for himself, and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament. Certainly, he had no choice. He had chosen to have no choice. He had wished to 'be himself', and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish was granted. The Hell he carries with him is, in one sense, a Hell of infinite boredom...Milton makes plain the blank unintrestingness of being Satan." (Page 102)

Blake has his own way of treating the the opposition of the forces promoting the success of light or of darkness - of the Son of Man or Satan. For him the inexorable advance of truth opening the way for the power and glory of the Son of Man to reveal the apocalypse comes through recognition, repentance and forgiveness. The battle like the tears it provokes, is an intellectual thing.

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 123, (E 392)
"The furious wind still rends around they flee in sluggish effort

They beg they intreat in vain now they Listend not to intreaty
They view the flames red rolling on thro the wide universe
From the dark jaws of death beneath & desolate shores remote
These covering Vaults of heaven & these trembling globes of Earth
One Planet calls to another & one star enquires of another  
What flames are these coming from the South what noise what dreadful rout
As of a battle in the heavens hark heard you not the trumpet
As of fierce battle while they spoke the flames come on intense roaring

They see him whom they have piercd they wail because of him  
They magnify themselves no more against Jerusalem Nor
Against her little ones the innocent accused before the Judges
Shines with immortal Glory trembling the judge springs from his throne 
Hiding his face in the dust beneath the prisoners feet & saying
Brother of Jesus what have I done intreat thy lord for me  
Perhaps I may be forgiven While he speaks the flames roll on
And after the flames appears the Cloud of the Son of Man
Descending from Jerusalem with power and great Glory" 

Songs and Ballads, The Grey Monk, (E 489)
"But vain the Sword & vain the Bow 
They never can work Wars overthrow
The Hermits Prayer & the Widows tear
Alone can free the World from fear

For a Tear is an Intellectual Thing  
And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King 
And the bitter groan of the Martyrs woe
Is an Arrow from the Almighties Bow" 

. 

QUIT YOUR MEANNESS

First published by Larry on Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Wikimedia Commons
Illustrations to Poems of Thomas Gray

Sam Jones was the South's most famous preacher in the late nineteenth century. Jones preached one sermon that Dad really liked and put in his sermon notebook; it was called "Quit your Meanness".

St. Paul used more elegant language: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). That verse, prominent in my memory for many years, acquired new poignancy the other day as I was contemplating Blake's Selfhood: annihilate it!

The Selfhood goes in the circular file, but neither Blake nor you and I could do that overnight; oh no! We had to work it out with fear and trembling. The Spectre is the Selfhood, and Blake wrote:

"My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;"

in the poem that has been discussed so often in this blog.

Blake had to discover his preconceived notions, his pet peeves, his resentments of everyone from Bacon, Newton, and Locke to Hayley. Once he discovered them and confessed his error, that aspect of his Selfhood was annihilated, and the Last Judgment fell upon him. In Plate 98, near the end of Jerusalem and of his poetry he joined Bacon and Newton and Locke with those he had always loved, Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer. It was the testimony of a happy man.

C. S. Lewis, near the end of his greatest story, Till We Have Faces, shared his Vision of that Eternal 'Moment'. Lewis had issues with Blake because of his own orthodoxy. But my vision of him is that Blake's poetry and George MacDonald's spirit had done their work in the end, enabling Lewis to envision the graduation to Eternity of "turk and jew":

"And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too"

Blake has said that "every death is an improvement in the state of the departed."

He must have substantially completed the long drawn out procedure of confessing his sins and experiencing forgiveness during mortal life because he died a very happy man.

.

RESOLVING FEARS

Illustrations to Pilgrim's Progress
Plate 18
Christian Passes the Lions

William Blake created twenty-eight illustrations for John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress. Blake selected the passages he would illustrate in order to highlight sections of the book which lent themselves to understandings which were congruent with his own visionary perceptions.
 
Gerda Norvig, on page 127 of Dark Figures in the Desired Country, indicates the challenge Blake faced in illustrating a book which whose structure was in the form of allegory rather than vision: 
"[A]ccording to Blake, images at work within any genuinely visionary structure never simply substitute as fixed vehicles for displaced and equally fixed tenors. Instead they function as complex 'identities' that literally hold their own, evolving, unfolding, and yielding only to further images rendered meaningful through interrelations and extended contextual references."

Blake's objective was to transform what was less than visionary in Bunyan's allegory to a fully imaginative production.
 
Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan
"Now also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told him of; how they were frighted with the sight of the lions. Then said Christian to himself again, These beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I shift them? How should I escape being by them torn in pieces? Thus he went on his way. But while he was thus bewailing his unhappy miscarriage, he lift up his eyes, and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautiful; and it stood just by the highway side.
 
110} So I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward, that if possible he might get lodging there. Now, before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off the porter's lodge; and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way. Now, thought he, I see the dangers that Mistrust and Timorous were driven back by. (The lions were chained, but he saw not the chains.) Then he was afraid, and thought also himself to go back after them, for he thought nothing but death was before him. But the porter at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt as if he would go back, cried unto him, saying, Is thy strength so small? [Mark 8:34-37] Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that had none. Keep in the midst of the path, no hurt shall come unto thee.
 
"Difficulty is behind, Fear is before,
Though he's got on the hill, the lions roar;
A Christian man is never long at ease,
When one fright's gone, another doth him seize."
 
{111} Then I saw that he went on, trembling for fear of the lions, but taking good heed to the directions of the porter; he heard them roar, but they did him no harm. Then he clapped his hands, and went on till he came and stood before the gate where the porter was. Then said Christian to the porter, Sir, what house is this? And may I lodge here to-night? The porter answered, This house was built by the Lord of the hill, and he built it for the relief and security of pilgrims. The porter also asked whence he was, and whither he was going.
 
{112} CHR. I am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion; but because the sun is now set, I desire, if I may, to lodge here to-night."
 
Blake's picture is his commentary on Bunyan's text. The path is narrow and beside it are beasts whose power and ferocity are frightening to men. But both Blake and Bunyan acknowledge that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. The lions are pacific, and chained as well. Lions in Blake's poetry, although capable of wrath, assume the role as protectors of the flock. In Songs of Experience the Lion acts as an Angel of Death taking a child and her parents to a lovely place where there is no longer any cause for fear. In Blake's illustration the presence of the lions is more than a threat to his safety. It serves to enable Pilgrim to resolve his fears and pass safely to the palace named Beautiful.

Songs of Experience, Plate 36, (E 21)
SONGS 36
"The Little Girl Found
 
Famish'd, weeping, weak
With hollow piteous shriek

Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman prest,
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go. 

In his arms he bore,
Her arm'd with sorrow sore;
Till before their way,
A couching lion lay.

Turning back was vain, 
Soon his heavy mane,
Bore them to the ground;
Then he stalk'd around,

Smelling to his prey.
But their fears allay,
When he licks their hands;
And silent by them stands.

They look upon his eyes
Fill'd with deep surprise:
And wondering behold,
A spirit arm'd in gold. 

On his head a crown
On his shoulders down,
Flow'd his golden hair.
Gone was all their care. 

Follow me he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.

Then they followed, 
Where the vision led:
And saw their sleeping child,
Among tygers wild.

To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lions growl." 

If you are a reader of C S Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia you may be reminded in this passage from Blake's Marriage of Heaven & Hell of Lewis' portrayal of the ambiguities of the lion Aslan .

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 8, (E 36)
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the
    stormy sea,    and the destructive sword. are portions of
    eternity too great for the eye of man."

Pilgrim's fears resemble those of Enitharmon who is given lines in the Four Zoas that express her fear of continuing along the path to salvation because of her awareness of past failures and disappointments.

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 78, (E 369)
[Los speaks]
"Couldst thou but cease from terror & trembling & affright
When I appear before thee in forgiveness of ancient injuries
Why shouldst thou remember & be afraid. I surely have died in pain
Often enough to convince thy jealousy & fear & terror
Come hither be patient let us converse together because  
I also tremble at myself & at all my former life
Enitharmon answerd I behold the Lamb of God descending
To Meet these Spectres of the Dead I therefore fear that he
Will give us to Eternal Death fit punishment for such
Hideous offenders Uttermost extinction in eternal pain    
An ever dying life of stifling & obstruction shut out
Of existence to be a sign & terror to all who behold
Lest any should in futurity do as we have done in heaven
Such is our state nor will the Son of God redeem us but destroy" 

UNLESS I DIE

British Museum
Illustrations to Blair's The Grave
Death's Door

Thoughts are nobody's property. The are among the archetypal realities that exist in the realm of Eternity. They may be passed from mind to mind, or spirit to spirit. Or they may enter the mind directly through a gate that has been opened in a receptive mind.

The idea that death and life are intertwined in a complex matrix through which we both feed and are fed, was first recorded by Heraclitus. The idea was seminal and reached the minds of a string of thinkers.

Blake found it somewhere and used it as an ingredient in the poetic expression he was creating. But with the content of the thought, he found also the paradigm for thinking in a non-rational, non-linear way which he recognized as reflecting the greater mind to which he was related.

Edwin Ellis wrote an early book containing Blake's poetry and background information together with William Butler Yeats who was a major poet in his own right. We pick up here the thread of thought from Heraclitus which had illuminated Blake, and then became an 'obsession' to Yates.

The website of the Charles Williams Society provides information on the influence of Heraclitus on Yeats and on Williams: "Yeats came across Heraclitus in 1909, when he recorded the third and fourth of those above in his Journal" 
 
[These are the two aphorisms of Heraclitus which Yeats wrote in his journal]:
"War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some
men, some bound and some free.
The immortals are mortal, the mortals immortal, each living in the others’ death
and dying in the others’ life. "

Continuing quoting from the website:
"Yeats did not publish this Journal, but the final phrase of the fragment, in the form ‘dying the other’s life, living the other’s death’, became an obsession with him in his
middle years."
"A Vision is Yeats’s book of occult wisdom. It was first published in 1925, in an
edition of 600 signed copies ‘privately printed for subscribers only’. It was therefore not
an easy book to find, and it is a testimony to [Charles] Williams’s interest in Yeats that he did obtain it, and praised it in his 1930 essay on Yeats as ‘that learned and profound work’"

"The phrase which interested him [Williams] occurs first in one of Yeats’s characteristic
discussions of gyres, those interpenetrating cones which occur only in discussions of
Yeats, but there turn up all the time. After a particularly tangled and abstruse passage we
come across: It is as though the first act of being, after creating limit, was to divide itself into male and female, each dying the other’s life living the other’s death."

In the following poem, Charles Williams uses the same phrases from Heraclitus in describing a central formulation of his thought: that humans, like Christ, are called to bear one another's burdens through 'substitution':

Taliessin Through Logres, The Region on the Summer Stars, Arthurian Torso, by Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis, Page 154: 

The Region of the Summer Stars 

The Founding of the Company
...
"The Company's second mode bore farhter
the labour and fruition; it exchanged the proper self
and whatever need was drew daily breath
in another's place, according to the grace of the Spirit
'dying each other's life, living each other's death'.
Terrible and lovely is the general substitution of souls
the Flesh-taking ordained for its mortal images 
in its first creation, and now Its sublime self
shows, since deigned to be dead in the sted of each man." 

Turning now to Blake's poetry we find ways he found that man and man, and man and God are related through the interplay of living and dying.

Songs of Innocence & of Experience, Song 27, (E 16)  
"On Anothers Sorrow

Can I see anothers woe,
And not be in sorrow too.
Can I see anothers grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrows share,
Can a father see his child,
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.

Can a mother sit and hear,
An infant groan an infant fear--
No no never can it be.
Never never can it be."

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 7, (E 36)
"The most sublime act is to set another before you."

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."

Jerusalem, Plate 96, (E 155)
"Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou canst not live
But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me            
This is Friendship & Brotherhood without it Man Is Not

So Jesus spoke! the Covering Cherub coming on in darkness
Overshadowd them & Jesus said Thus do Men in Eternity
One for another to put off by forgiveness, every sin

Albion replyd. Cannot Man exist without Mysterious          
Offering of Self for Another, is this Friendship & Brotherhood
I see thee in the likeness & similitude of Los my Friend

Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never died
For thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee
And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself           
Eternally for Man Man could not exist. for Man is Love:
As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death
In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood"

 
The French Revolution, Prophetic Works Unegraved, (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."

LEARN MORE:

Charles Williams (Arthurian Poets) by Charles Williams and David L. Dodds (Aug 1991)
. 

HEAVEN & HELL

Wikimedia
Marriage of Heaven & Hell
 Plate 16, copy H

In his preface to The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis cites Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as representing the position that the division between good and evil can be bridged. Lewis admits that he may not know what Blake's work means but he warns against "embrace[ing] the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere is Heaven."

Many would agree that Blake was attempting to shake up the system in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell but few would think that he proposed "to turn evil into good" by "mere development or adjustment or refinement." Blake is urging his readers to reconsider conventional thought: to look from the perspective of the Devil as well as the Angel. He is convinced  that the Devourer (reason) has kept the Prolific (energy) in chains long enough. Liberty can emerge from the bonds of tyranny, commandments, institutional religion, and sexual repression.

On page 69 of The Great Divorce, Lewis expresses his attitude about the permanence of heaven and hell in this passage addressed to himself by his spiritual teacher George MacDonald:
"Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven; the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say "We have never lived  anywhere except in Heaven," and the Lost, "We were always in Hell. "And both will speak truly.'"

The difference between Lewis and Blake results from their attitudes toward universal salvation. Lewis believes that the sinner will go to hell unless he reverses his course and rejects his sin. Blake believes that 'Everything that lives is Holy' and that error will be annihilated so that all human forms may be gathered into the final harvest of Souls.
 
Jerusalem, Plate 99, (E 257)
"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.
And I heard the Name of their Emanations they are named Jerusalem"

Milton, Plate 25 [27], (E 121)
"And Los stood & cried to the Labourers of the Vintage in voice of awe.

Fellow Labourers! The Great Vintage & Harvest is now upon Earth
The whole extent of the Globe is explored: Every scatterd Atom
Of Human Intellect now is flocking to the sound of the Trumpet
All the Wisdom which was hidden in caves & dens, from ancient    
Time; is now sought out from Animal & Vegetable & Mineral

The Awakener is come. outstretchd over Europe! the Vision of God is fulfilled
The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes,"

Jerusalem, Plate 31 [35], (E 177)
"Then the Divine hand found the Two Limits, Satan and Adam,
In Albions bosom: for in every Human bosom those Limits stand.
And the Divine voice came from the Furnaces, as multitudes without
Number! the voices of the innumerable multitudes of Eternity.
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."

Jerusalem, Plate 45 [31], (E 194)
"What shall I do! what could I do, if I could find these Criminals
I could not dare to take vengeance; for all things are so constructed    
And builded by the Divine hand, that the sinner shall always escape,
And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence;
If I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand
In way of vengeance; I punish the already punishd: O whom
Should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray!"  
    

Paul in Romans 12 advises us to:
[21] Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

. 

BROTHERHOOD

Wikimedia 

Painting for Blair's The Grave
Friendship

In C S Lewis' The Four Loves he makes this statement about friendship which is close to what Blake means by brotherhood:

"within those limits we possess each friend not less, but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying "Holy, Holy, Holy" to one another (Isaiah vi,3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have."

The brotherhood of which Blake speaks is not the kinship of being born to the same earthly parents but of recognizing one's kinship to the heavenly family. When we join one another in brotherhood we relinquish some of our self-interest and elevate the interests of others. We affirm the 'brother and friend' within our bosoms and perceive our Souls mingling in the joy of community.

Songs of Innocence & of Experience, (E 28)
SONGS 50 
A Little BOY Lost                 

"Nought loves another as itself
Nor venerates another so.
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know:

And Father, how can I love you,   
Or any of my brothers more?       
I love you like the little bird   
That picks up crumbs around the door."

Jerusalem, Plate 88, (E 246)
"For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations 
Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity
How then can I ever again be united as Man with Man
While thou my Emanation refusest my Fibres of dominion.
When Souls mingle & join thro all the Fibres of Brotherhood
Can there be any secret joy on Earth greater than this

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
"I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!      
Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!"

Letters, (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"

Jesus in John 17 prays that the unity which results form dwelling in the Father and knowing that spirit of God within may be revealed to his readers.  

[21] That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
[22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

.

EXPERIENCE

Romans 5 
[3] And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
[4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
[5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

JB Phillips Translation
Romans 5
3-5 - This doesn't mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys - we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.

New York Public Library
Milton
Plate 44

The journey to the spiritual leads through experience. Tribulation is characteristic of the journey we undertake, but tribulation with a purpose. Consciousness is developed through difficulties and challenges. The wisdom of learning the difference between what can be changed and what should be accepted will supply courage and serenity. Far from being vengeance or punishment, our sorrows and trials stimulate growth in our essential being. 

Enion tells us that the price of experience is everything that we have, Jesus asks that we sell all that we have and follow him. Blake reports the 'dismal torments' of failing to follow the 'dictates of our Angels.'

When Los battles with his Spectre, he is gaining experience that will allow him to cast off error and annihilate his Spectre. It is through his encounter with his Spectre that Los experiences his internal opposition as negation. When the Spectre is so reveled Los refuses to give him 'organized' existence and gains the experience to be freed from his power.   

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 35, (E 325)
"What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain"

Letters,(E 724)
[To] Mr Butts, Great Marlborough Street,
Oxford Street, London
Felpham Jany 10. 180[3] 
"But if we fear to do the dictates of our
Angels & tremble at the Tasks set before us. if we refuse to do
Spiritual Acts. because of Natural Fears or Natural Desires!  Who
can describe the dismal torments of such a state!--I too well
remember the Threats I heard!--If you who are organized by Divine
Providence for Spiritual communion.  Refuse & bury your Talent in
the Earth even tho you should want Natural Bread. Sorrow &
Desperation
pursues you thro life! & after death shame & confusion of face to
eternity--Every one in Eternity will leave you aghast at the Man
who was crownd with glory & honour by his brethren & betrayd
their cause to their enemies." 

Jerusalem, Plate 17, (E 161)
"For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I am a Living Man
I must compell him to obey me wholly: that Enitharmon may not
Be lost: & lest he should devour Enitharmon: Ah me!
Piteous image of my soft desires & loves: O Enitharmon!
I will compell my Spectre to obey: I will restore to thee thy Children. 
No one bruises or starves himself to make himself fit for labour!
Tormented with sweet desire for these beauties of Albion
They would never love my power if they did not seek to destroy
Enitharmon: Vala would never have sought & loved Albion
If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem; such is that false   
And Generating Love: a pretence of love to destroy love: 
Cruel hipocrisy unlike the lovely delusions of Beulah:
And cruel forms, unlike the merciful  forms of Beulahs Night

They know not why they love nor wherefore they sicken & die
Calling that Holy Love: which is Envy Revenge & Cruelty          
Which separated the stars from the mountains: the mountains from Man
And left Man, a little grovelling Root, outside of Himself.
Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist:
But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:     
If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when            
And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized
But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness
And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above
Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever
And if any enter into thee, thou shalt be an Unquenchable Fire
And he shall be a never dying Worm, mutually tormented by
Those that thou tormentest, a Hell & Despair for ever & ever.

So Los in secret with himself communed & Enitharmon heard"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 562)
"What are all the Gifts of the
Spirit but Mental Gifts whenever any Individual Rejects Error &
Embraces Truth a Last Judgment passes upon that Individual" 

“Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn.”
by C.S. Lewis

. 

TRANSFORMATION

The period in Blake's life immediately before, after and during the time he resided in Felpham, was critical to his spiritual development. Before his move from London in September 1800, he was discouraged by political conditions and by personal experiences.

Yale Center for British Art
Blake's Watercolours
for the Poems of Thomas Gray

We can follow some of the developments in Blake's life through letters he wrote to Thomas Butts from Felpham. 

In the second letter we have from Blake to Thomas Butts he enclosed a poem rejoicing in the new setting in which he found himself. He wrote of 'My first Vision of Light', of 'each particle' seen as 'a Man'. He identified himself with the 'Ram hornd with gold' awakening 'from sleep' and being introduced to the Fold by the visionary voice.

 
There is no doubt that Blake was reporting a true and immediate experience in his poem. He introduces it by saying: "verses such as Felpham produces by me tho not such as she produces by her Eldest Son." That is to say the verses are by his true identity, his imagination, and not by his reasoning powers: the Elder Brother who was conformed to this world and not to the eternal.

Blake may have identified the experience described in the poem to Butts as turning toward God and the beginning of a new life lived in God's kingdom. However there would be pitfalls and turning points to come because he would be tried by 'the Devil' as are many who are young in Christ. Jesus himself encountered Satan after he consented to baptism by John in the Jordan. For a detailed account of the attempts of 'Our Father Below' to subvert the newly committed Christian's attempts to alter his priorities and behavior, read C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters.

Letters, (E 713)
[To] Mr [Thomas] Butts, Great Marlborough Street
Felpham Octr 2d 1800
...
I have not got any
forwarder with the three Marys or with any other of your
commissions but hope, now I have commenced a new life of industry
to do credit to that new life by Improved Works: Recieve from me
a return of verses such as Felpham produces by me tho not
such as she produces by her Eldest Son. however such as they
are.  I cannot resist the temptation to send them to you

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
...
 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
 ...
 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" 

 In Blake's letters and poetry written over the next few years we can follow some of the 

roadblocks he encountered and some of the breakthroughs he achieved. 
We hear echoes of his poem in the letter to Butts in Milton and Jerusalem

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)

"While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close
Behind my back; I turned round in terror, and behold.
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan; trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale
Of Lambeth: but he kissed me and wishd me health.
And I became One Man with him arising in my strength:
Twas too late now to recede. Los had enterd into my soul:
His terrors now posses'd me whole! I arose in fury & strength."

Jerusalem, Plate 99, (E 257)
"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.
And I heard the Name of their Emanations they are named Jerusalem

The End of The Song
of Jerusalem"

.

SEEING OURSELVES

Metropolitan Museum

                   Illustrations of Book of Job
                          Vision of Eliphaz

His novel Till We Have Faces was his work with which C.S.Lewis was most pleased. In it he treated two Blakean themes: forgiveness, and the contrast of intellectual and emotional religion.

Prominent in the development of the story is the injury caused through blindness, selfishness and fearfulness. Projection of individual weakness onto others further complicated the interpersonal relationships. Only by becoming aware of the falsity of the way she saw herself and the world, and the harm she had done to others, was Orual able to open herself to a healing encounter with the numinous. Forgiveness came to her as a byproduct of being reconciled to the emotional, experiential aspects of relating to God. Seeing herself through the eyes of others and through the eyes of her maker, she was able to accept herself in spite of her inadequacies. She was made whole within herself, and one with the wholeness.

We can find the same steps in reconciliation presented in Blake's writing.

Awakening to awareness of our errors:

Jerusalem, Plate 42, (E 188)
"Thus Albion sat, studious of others in his pale disease:
Brooding on evil: but when Los opend the Furnaces before him:
He saw that the accursed things were his own affections,
And his own beloveds: then he turn'd sick! his soul died within him
Also Los sick & terrified beheld the Furnaces of Death
And must have died, but the Divine Saviour descended
Among the infant loves & affections, and the Divine Vision wept
Like evening dew on every herb upon the breathing ground"

Taking responsibility for our failures:

Milton, Plate 14, (E107)
"O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood"

Being forgiven:

Jerualem, Plate 34, (E 178)
"but mild the Saviour follow'd him,
Displaying the Eternal Vision! the Divine Similitude!
In loves and tears of brothers, sisters, sons, fathers, and
friends
Which if Man ceases to behold, he ceases to exist:"

Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 144)
"The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who
waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviours kingdom,
the Divine Body; will never enter there. I am perhaps the most
sinful of men! I pretend not to holiness! yet I pretend to love,
to see, to converse with daily, as man with man, & the more to
have an interest in the Friend of Sinners."

Reconciliation:

Milton, Plate 32, (E 131)
"Thus they converse with the Dead watching round the Couch of Death.
For God himself enters Death's Door always with those that enter
And lays down in the Grave with them, in Visions of Eternity
Till they awake & see Jesus & the Linen Clothes lying
That the Females had Woven for them, & the Gates of their Fathers House"

Milton, Plate 39, (E139)
"Then Albion rose up in the Night of Beulah on his Couch
Of dread repose seen by the visionary eye; his face is toward
The east, toward Jerusalems Gates: groaning he sat above
His rocks."

Jerusalem, Plate 33, (E180)
"we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ: and he in us, and we in him,
Live in perfect harmony in Eden the land of life,
Giving, recieving, and forgiving each others trespasses.
He is the Good shepherd, he is the Lord and master:
He is the Shepherd of Albion, he is all in all,"