There is outer work and there is inner work. Attempts to
proceed with the outer work without simultaneously building an
inner life through attending to the inborn spirit will lead to
frustration and suffering.
This image could be seen as the outer man tending to the inner
spirit which is bound by neglect or inattention. Contrarily It
could also be seen as the dynamics of the inner life as
self-knowledge is being accomplished. The bound figure could represent
the dormant, rejected aspect of the self which waits to be
expressed as a contribution to the whole. The two figures are not
in a cave but they are overhung by a rocky projection, from which
there is the potential for confinement of release.
The human mind is so constructed the there are ever present
opportunities to look both outward and inward. Failure to develop
the inner life leaves humanity subject to outer threats whose
roots lie in the minds of men.
Kathleen Raine in her biography William Blake writes that Blake over time became more conscious of the necessity of prioritizing the inner life over political or social reform:
"For Blake outward events and circumstances were the expressions
of states of mind, ideologies, mentalities, and not, as for the
deterministic-materialistic ideologies of the modern world, their
causes. Blake's 'dark Satanic Mills', so of invoked in the name of
social reform, when we read Milton (the poem in which these mills
are most fully described) to be the mechanistic 'laws' of Bacon,
Newton and Locke, of which the industrial landscape was a
reflection and expression. So always, Blake seeks to discover the
source of social and private ills wirhin man. Only a change in
the heart and mind of the nation can create a new society
and new cities less hidious than those created by an atheist and
mechanistic rationalism.
Blake gradually renounced politics for something more radical: not religion in the sense of a system of beliefs and observances but a transformation of the inner life, a rebirth of 'the true man.' Politics and religion alike came to be seen to him an evasion of the 'one thing needful.'" (Page 72)
Luke 10
[38] Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered
into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received
him into her house.
[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat
at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
[40] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came
to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath
left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
[41] And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha,
thou art careful and troubled about many things:
[42] But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen
that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)
"And every Generated Body in its inward form,
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda
And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds & chambers
Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmons Daughters
In bright Cathedrons golden Dome with care & love & tears
For the various Classes of Men are all markd out determinate
In Bowlahoola; & as the Spectres choose their affinities
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate
But not by Natural but by Spiritual power alone, Because
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction
Ending in Death: which would of itself be Eternal Death
And all are Class'd by Spiritual, & not by Natural power.
And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems, it is a Delusion
Of Ulro: & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory."
Jerusalem, Plate 95, (E 255)
"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 direful
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."
Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 51, (E 336)
"Take thou the hammer of Urthona rebuild these furnaces
Dost thou refuse mind I the sparks that issue from thy hair
PAGE 52
I will compell thee to rebuild by these my furious waves
Death choose or life thou strugglest in my waters, now choose life
And all the Elements shall serve thee to their soothing flutes
Their sweet inspiriting lyres thy labours shall administer
And they to thee only remit not faint not thou my son
Now thou dost know what tis to strive against the God of waters
So saying Tharmas on his furious chariots of the Deep
Departed far into the Unknown & left a wondrous void
Round Los"
Milton, Plate 3, (E 97)
"At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan Refusing Form, in vain
The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest
That he may go to his own Place Prince of the Starry Wheels
PLATE 4
Beneath the Plow of Rintrah & the harrow of the Almighty
In the hands of Palamabron. Where the Starry Mills of Satan
Are built beneath the Earth & Waters of the Mundane Shell
Here the Three Classes of Men take their Sexual texture Woven
The Sexual is Threefold: the Human is Fourfold
If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent, and
Not to shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but Folly.
Every Mans Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individ[u]ality
O Satan my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?
Art thou not Newtons Pantocrator weaving the Woof of Locke
To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath,
Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.
Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pitys paths.
Thy Work is Eternal Death, with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more. thou canst not have Eternal Life
So Los spoke! Satan trembling obeyd weeping along the way.
Mark well my words, they are of your eternal Salvation"
Milton, Plate 17 [19], (E 111)
"For travellers from Eternity. pass outward to Satans seat,
But travellers to Eternity. pass inward to Golgonooza."
Jerusalem, Plate 92, (E 252)
"Los answerd swift as the shuttle of gold. Sexes must vanish & cease
To be, when Albion arises from his dread repose O lovely Enitharmon:
When all their Crimes, their Punishments their Accusations of Sin:
All their Jealousies Revenges. Murders. hidings of Cruelty in Deceit
Appear only in the Outward Spheres of Visionary Space and Time.
In the shadows of Possibility by Mutual Forgiveness forevermore
And in the Vision & in the Prophecy, that we may Foresee & Avoid
The terrors of Creation & Redemption & Judgment. Beholding them
Displayd in the Emanative Visions of Canaan in Jerusalem & in Shiloh
And in the Shadows of Remembrance, & in the Chaos of the Spectre
Amalek, Edom, Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Ashur, Philistea, around Jerusalem"
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"
Four Zoas, Night II, Page 25, (E 314)
"Reuben slept on Penmaenmawr & Levi slept on Snowdon
Their eyes their ears nostrils & tongues roll outward they behold
What is within now seen without they are raw to the hungry wind
They become Nations far remote in a little & dark Land"
Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 95, (E 368)
"If we unite in one, another better world will be
Opend within your heart & loins & wondrous brain
Threefold as it was in Eternity & this the fourth Universe
Will be Renewd by the three & consummated in Mental fires
But if thou dost refuse Another body will be prepared
PAGE 86
For me & thou annihilate evaporate & be no more
For thou art but a form & organ of life & of thyself
Art nothing being Created Continually by Mercy & Love divine
Los furious answerd. Spectre horrible thy words astound my Ear
With irresistible conviction I feel I am not one of those
Who when convincd can still persist. tho furious.controllable
By Reasons power. Even I already feel a World within
Opening its gates & in it all the real substances
Of which these in the outward World are shadows which pass away"
Letters, To Butts (E 721)
"So I spoke & struck in my wrath
The old man weltering upon my path
Then Los appeard in all his power
In the Sun he appeard descending before
My face in fierce flames in my double sight
Twas outward a Sun: inward Los in his might"
All Religions are One, (E 1)
"PRINCIPLE 1st That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic
Genius. Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from
their Genius. which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit
& Demon."
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