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Wikimedia Commons Jerusalem Detail of Plate 19 |
If man is created in the image of
God, we have access to that image always and everywhere. But it
takes some effort to remember to look and listen and respond to
God within us. We have to remember that when we live in physical
bodies, sensory data and rational processing interfere with the
ability to receive intuitive information and to perceive the
infinite. Blake wrote of Albion's fall as his losing the ability
to remember the Divine Image.
Memory is more than the ability to
reconstruct past thoughts and events, it is the ability to
create in the present a cohesive picture of a world beyond a
moment in time or a location in space. Restoration of the
ability to behold the Divine Image enables man to wake from the sleep of
identifying himself a finite being instead of an infinite one.
Quotes from the final chapter of Golgonooza: City of Imagination, by Kathleen Raine:
Page 172
"For Blake the 'Fall' is not, as for
Milton', a fall into sin through disobedience, but a fall into
'sleep' through closing of consciousness and loss of the 'divine
vision';
'Refusing to behold the Divine image which all behold
And live thereby. he is sunk down into a deadly sleep' (E 825)
The 'divine image' is the archetype of human nature imprinted in ever soul, as described in the first chapter of Genesis.
But Blake nowhere writes of the fall in terms of Christian theology (as Milton does) through man's disobedience and sin, rather he adopts the Platonic view of the human conditions one of forgetfulness of eternal things. All know Plato's myth, (in the Tenth Book of the Republic) of the souls who, as they approach generation, reach a river - the river of forgetfulness, where all must drink. Some drink deeply and their forgetfulness of eternity is complete. Others, who wisely refrain from drinking so deeply, retain some memory of eternal things. These are the philosophers, the lovers and the musical souls. For Blake held Plato's view that the soul knows everything, and needs only to remember what it already and forever knows."
Page 176
"Blake describes how Milton himself,
for Blake the supreme poet, whom he calls 'the Awakener', takes
on the human body and thereby enters the state of 'sleep'. But
in his sleep he is fed by the angels 'the food of Eden, visions
of eternal things.
'As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering; they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body;
Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden' (E 109)"
Page 177
"What is called for is a change in our consciousness itself, that will make us, like Blake, see 'not with but through the eye' - the rising and setting sun, the clouds, the moon and stars, the tree outside the window.
Our society is for ever thinking in terms of changing outer circumstances. Blake's revolution will come about when we change ourselves. From inner awakening out change will follow."
Jerusalem, Plate 66, (E 218)
"Ah! alas! at the sight of the Victim, & at sight of those who are smitten,
All who see. become what they behold. their eyes are coverd
With veils of tears and their nostrils & tongues shrunk up
Their ear bent outwards. as their Victim, so are they in the
pangs
Of unconquerable fear! amidst delights of revenge Earth-shaking!
And as their eye & ear shrunk, the heavens shrunk away
The Divine Vision became First a burning flame, then a column
Of fire, then an awful fiery wheel surrounding earth & heaven:
And then a globe of blood wandering distant in all unknown night:
Afar into the unknown night the mountains fled away:
Six months of mortality; a summer: & six months of mortality; a winter:
The Human form began to be alterd by the Daughters of Albion
And the perceptions to be dissipated into the Indefinite."
Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 52, (E 336)
"And thus began the binding of Urizen day & night in fear Circling round the dark Demon with howlings dismay & sharp blightings The Prophet of Eternity beat on his iron links & links of brass And as he beat round the hurtling Demon. terrified at the Shapes
Enslavd humanity put on he became what he beheld Raging against Tharmas his God & uttering Ambiguous words blasphemous filld with envy firm resolvd On hate Eternal in his vast disdain he labourd beating The Links of fate link after link an endless chain of sorrows Page 54 The Eternal Mind bounded began to roll eddies of wrath ceaseless Round & round & the sulphureous foam surgeing thick Settled a Lake bright & shining clear. White as the snow Forgetfulness dumbness necessity in chains of the mind lockd up In fetters of ice shrinking. disorganizd rent from Eternity Los beat on his fetters & heated his furnaces And pourd iron sodor & sodor of brass Restless the immortal inchaind heaving dolorous Anguished unbearable till a roof shaggy wild inclosd In an orb his fountain of thought"
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 11, (E 38)
"Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."
3. Six days they shrunk up from existence
And on the seventh day they rested
And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick hope:
And forgot their eternal life
4. And their thirty cities divided
In form of a human heart
No more could they rise at will
In the infinite void, but bound down
To earth by their narrowing perceptions"
Jerusalem, Plate 29 [33], (E 175)
"Turning his back to the Divine Vision, his Spectrous
Chaos before his face appeard: an Unformed Memory.
Then spoke the Spectrous Chaos to Albion darkning cold
From the back & loins where dwell the Spectrous Dead
I am your Rational Power O Albion & that Human Form
You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long
That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun
In fortuitous concourse of memorys accumulated & lost
It plows the Earth in its own conceit, it overwhelms the Hills
Beneath its winding labyrinths, till a stone of the brook
Stops it in midst of its pride among its hills & rivers[.]
Battersea & Chelsea mourn, London & Canterbury tremble
Their place shall not be found as the wind passes over[.]
The ancient Cities of the Earth remove as a traveller
And shall Albions Cities remain when I pass over them
With my deluge of forgotten remembrances over the tablet
So spoke the Spectre to Albion. he is the Great Selfhood
Satan: Worshipd as God by the Mighty Ones of the Earth"
Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 83, (E 358)
"There he reveld in delight among the Flowers
Vala was pregnant & brought forth Urizen Prince of Light
First born of Generation. Then behold a wonder to the Eyes
Of the now fallen Man a double form Vala appeard. A Male
And female shuddring pale the Fallen Man recoild
From the Enormity & calld them Luvah & Vala. turning down
The vales to find his way back into Heaven but found none
For his frail eyes were faded & his ears heavy & dull
Urizen grew up in the plains of Beulah Many Sons
And many daughters flourishd round the holy Tent of Man
Till he forgot Eternity delighted in his sweet joy
Among his family his flocks & herds & tents & pastures
But Luvah close conferrd with Urizen in darksom night
To bind the father & enslave the brethren Nought he knew
Of sweet Eternity the blood flowd round the holy tent & rivn
From its hinges uttering its final groan all Beulah fell
In dark confusion mean time Los was born & Enitharmon
But how I know not then forgetfulness quite wrapd me up
A period nor do I more remember till I stood
Beside Los in the Cavern dark enslavd to vegetative forms
According to the Will of Luvah who assumed the Place
Of the Eternal Man & smote him."
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 555)
"Reality was Forgot & the Vanities of Time & Space only Rememberd
& calld Reality Such is the Mighty difference between Allegoric
Fable & Spiritual Mystery"
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 559)
"It is the God in all that is our companion &
friend, for our God himself says, you are my brother my sister &
my mother; & St John. Whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God &
God in him. & such an one cannot judge of any but in love. & his
feelings will be attractions or repulses
See Aphorisms 549 & 554
God is in the lowest effects as well as in the highest
causes for he is become a worm that he may nourish the weak
For let it be rememberd that creation is. God descending
according to the weakness of man for our Lord is the word of God
& every thing on earth is the word of God & in its essence is God"
Genesis 1
[26] And God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him; male and female created he them.
[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 2
[7] And the LORD God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed.
[9] And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;
the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree
of knowledge of good and evil.
...
[15] And the LORD God took the
man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep
it.
[16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
[17] But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
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