Notes 7

The meaning of the word 'pity' has changed radically from Blake's day. 
It was much closer to compassion than it is in our day.

According to the Blake Concordance the word is mentioned 178 times in 
Blake's Complete Works. But the poem that best defines the meaning that 
pity had for him is The Divine Image from Songs of Innocence.
.
In Plate 7 of Blake's Milton we read about the "three classes of mortal men": 
the elect (self-righteous), the redeemed (saved sinners), and the reprobate 
(prophets harried from place to place).

Tirzah is one of Blake's bad women; for a short poem where Blake vividly 
describes his use of the word look at To Tirzah.

The word 'unbelief", used by Blake was much like what Jesus railed about, 
while using the positive mode. Neither of them meant by unbelief failure to 
adhere to the intellectual propositions which are supposed to define the 
Christian faith. For both men belief meant commitment to the reality of a 
loving God.

Ulro: this material world; also called the 'seat of Satan' as in 'the ruler of this 
present world". This world (in the same sense the term is used in the New 
Testament); also this vale of tears; also the seat of Satan, and a dread sleep 
(many such usages in 4Z).

Urizen The Zoa who represented Reason. In Blake's thought he became 
closely related to Nobodaddy, the unforgiving and cruel Old Testament God. 
In 'Milton' Blake describes the contest between the old god, Urizen and 'Milton' 
(a surrogate here for Christ). It's a vivid description of the humanizing of God 
that came to us with the words of Jesus, about the loving heavenly father.

Vala: the original name of the Four Zoas was Vala. In Blake's mythology she 
was the consort of Luvah (the god of love). Vala represents woman in general; 
she is also called Tirzah (purely earthly woman) and Jerusalem (heavenly 
woman).

In Jerusalem, after the Moment of Grace, Blake wrote "The Wheel of Religion". 
In it he showed once again the difference between false and true Christianity, 
using almost entirely biblical figures:

"Both read the same Bible day and night But you read black where I read white."
(from The Everlasting Gospel by William Blake)

The Covering Cherub for Blake sums up [indicated] the 27 Christian heavens 
which shut man out from Eternity (Damon 93)

In the Everlasting gospel we read " Was Jesus Born of a Virgin pure..." To 
appreciate these verses look at The Marriage of Heaven and Earth.

Blake developed a vividly graphic image of the priestly cocoon in his major work 
called Milton (See plate 33). His poetry here is almost invincibly opaque, but the 
meaning has extreme significance in regard to his pscyhology, his world view, his 
religious outlook. The Mundane Shell represents fallen man, and particularly the 
worship of materiality rather than spirit. And more particularly the encrustation of 
organized religion (and law) over the spirit of humanity. Viewed individually it 
represents the psyche of a person whose consciousness has not yet evolved form 
the purely material. Or to look at this from another viewpoint: a child who has lost 
his innocence.

Science, like everything else fell and then ascended. In the fallen 80% of Blake's 
myth purely material science, ignoring any spiritual content, was denoted by Bacon, 
Newton and Locke. However it will be redeemed in the 'Last Judgment'.

Notes 6

The 'Selfhood' is one of many super complex metaphors that fill Blake's works. We can see three different levels in which he used it:

1. At the moral level it represents the egocentricity, the term Blake gave for the fallen man, He also calls it the Spectre and Satan. In modern psychological parlance it has the meaning of the egocentric self as opposed to the Self, which Jung equated with Christ- the Divine Image.

2. The blindness to the spiritual (Eternal) shown by the person (or culture) who depends exclusively upon the material, the life that one lives in the Sea of Time and Space.

3. A necessity to act in the material world. This led to Blake's understanding of the necessity to continually annihilate and continually regenerate the Selfhood. The Selfhood acts in the light of good and evil, chooses good to adhere to and evil to abhor or confront. In Eternity this is no longer necessary, but in this vale of tears there's no other way to interact.

Christ gives the Christian work to do, and it must be done in the realm of materiality. Mortal life means materiality (among other things of course).

(For an introduction to Self-Annilation look at Plate 40 of Milton. To read this is a difficult assignment, but it abounds in the particular Blake ideas that will help you understand the whole bit.)

And first he found the Limit of Opacity & namd it Satan In Albions bosom. 
For in every human bosom these limits stand/
And next he found the Limit of Contraction & namd it Adam
While yet those beings were not born nor knew of good or Evil 
 (Four Zoas, Night 4 56:20 Erdman 338)

         ************************************************************************
Cave of the Nymphs

"Each man is in his Spectre's power until the arrival of that hour when his Humanity awake and cast his Spectre in the lake." (Jerusalem, plate 37 E184) 

"I stood among my valleys of the south,
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation, and devour'd all things in its loud
Fury and thundering course round heaven and earth
By it the Sun was rolled into an orb;
By it the Moon faded into a globe,
Travelling thro' the night; for from its dire
And restless fury Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher and a Holy One
Its name. He answer'd: "It is the Wheel of Religion."
I wept and said: "Is this the law of Jesus,
This terrible devouring sword turning every way?"
He answer'd: "Jesus died because He strove
Against the current of this Wheel: its name
Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death, 
Of sin, of sorrow, and of punishment,
Opposing Nature. It is Natural Religion.
"But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life,
Creating Nature from this fiery Law
By self-denial and Forgiveness of Sin.
Go, therefore, cast out devils in Christ's name,
Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease,
Pity the evil; for thou art not sent
To smite with terror and with punishments
Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees,
Crucifying, and encompassing sea and land,
For proselytes to tyranny and wrath.
"But to the Publicans and Harlots go:
Teach them true happiness, but let no curse
Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace.
For Hell is open'd to Heaven; thine eyes beheld
The dungeons burst, and the prisoners set free."
(Jerusalem, 77)

Urthona rises from the ruinous walls In all his ancient strength 
to form the golden armour of scienceFor intellectual War, 
the war of swords is departed now,the dark Religions are departed 
and sweet Science reigns. (Four Zoas Night ix 139:8-10 407)

For Blake (and before him for Swedenborg) states are the stages or conditions through which we pass in our journey through life. Blake had colorful designations for the various states. For example Satan is the state of Death, Adam, Abraham, and many other biblical figures serve to designate various states we may pass through in time. Jesus was the Divine Humanity, the final and perfect state that we achieve.

According to Damon (page 386) "States are stages of error, which the Divine Mercy creates so that the State and not the individual in it shall be blamed."

Once you realize that a person is not a state, but in a state, it becomes possible to forgive. 
Forgiving is the characteristic of the Divine Humanity (Jesus), the one state that is not error.

Blake did not consider Adam, Abraham, Moses, etc. to be merely individuals in history. No, they were types of states through which we may pass in our journey upward or downward. Christ is the ultimate state toward which we aspire, a state of forgiveness rather than judgment.

The states represent "all that can happen to Man in his pilgrimage of seventy years" 
(Jer 16:67 E161).

Satan has varying identities in Blake's poems, but Friedlander, describing Blake's Milton indicated Satan was "any person who thinks himself "righteous in his vegetated spectre, holy by following the laws of conventional piety". (Thus he is very close to Jesus and Paul, both of whom considered self-righteous judgment as the Ultimate human evil.)

Another word for this is the limit of opacity.

(From Damon, page 386): "the stars symbolize Reason"; they belong to Urizen; in Eternity they were part of Albion, but with the Fall they fled, and formed the Mundane Shell. Blake also provided a redemptive dimension to stars.

Time and Space are creatures like Adam and Eve. Blake tells us that Los created time and Enitharmon space. The magnificent Arlington Tempera is often called the Sea of Time and Space.

Water symbolizes matter or the material world. In Genesis God moved over the face of the waters. Here it stands for chaos. Creation was made out of chaos, but in Blake's myth water continuously symbolizes the fall from Eternity into materiality. Narciss fell in love with his watery shadow-- and chose it for his life. Albion did the same in his descent from Eternity into the water of material life.

Notes on Thel: Har is the place of primeval innocence where Thel lived until her unhappy journey into time and space. (Damon p. 174) (Har has an entirely different meaning in the poem, Tiriel.)

the Cave of the Nymphs, used by Blake in the Arlington Tempera, a painting portraying man's descent into the Sea of Time and Space (by the "northern bar"). This reference in Thel is an early example of a mythological figure much more extravagantly elaborated at a later date with the painting. (Kathleen Raines' bookBlake and Tradition gives a good source for interpretation of the Cave of the Nymphs as used by Blake.)

The northern and southern gates symbolize the descent of human beings from the Eternal into the material via the northern gate and the return to the Eternal via the southern. The Book of Thel amply demonstrates that where "The eternal gates' terrific Porter lifted the northern bar" and Thel, an eternal being "entered the land of sorrows".

Notes 4

Oothoon

A quick summary of the political import of Visions of the Daughters of Albion came in a letter from Scholar James Rovira: 
"I read VDA (only in part) as a critique of US democracy in the light of its violation of democratic ideals (personified by Oothoon) by its legalization of slavery. The forces that would combat slavery are overly passive (Theotormon, God-tormented, conscience in the light of democratic ideals) while the forces of market capitalism that benefit from slavery (Bromion) actively rape/violate these ideals. But, these democratic ideals are still in charge, yet unable to fully give themselves to their ideals, so that the most seriously damaged victim of Bromion's rape was Theotormon, not Oothoon, who is still at least capable of selfless love and who is going to bring forth life."
______________________________________________________________

Blake defined the poetic genius as Principle 1 in All Religions are One:

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 and Spirit and Demon.
PINCIPLE 2d As all men are alike in outward
form, So (and with the same infinite variety) b all are alike in the Poetic Genius.
PRINCIPLE 3d No man can think write or speak
from his heart, but he must intend truth.
Thus all sects of Philosophy are from the Poetic
Genius adapted to the weaknesses of every individual.
PRINCIPLE 4. As none by traveling over known
lands can find out the unknown. So from already
acquired knowledge Man could not acquire more.
therefore an universal Poetic Genius exists
PRINCIPLE. 5. The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nations different reception of
the Poetic Genius which is every where call'd
the Spirit of Prophecy.
PRINCIPLE 6 The Jewish and Christian
Testaments are An original derivation from the
Poetic Genius. this is necessary from the
confined nature of bodily sensation.

       He originally ascribed this to Jesus, but then added Urthona and Los (the Lord's representatives in his system).

---

       Rahab: the name Blake applied to the Whore of Babylon of Revelation. However the Bible, and Blake as well, used the name for some more honorable women.

---

       In Blake's conception (as in the Bible) we come into the world with innocence, lose it (See 'Songs of Experience') and hopefully evolve to a higher level of consciousness. Blake and the Bible refer to these two developments as falland return.

---

       The mundane shell and the 'covering cherub' are two ways Blake described the fallen condition, and organized religion has a prominent place in both myths.

       Two (relatively) contemporary authors deserve mention:
Joseph Chilton Pearce's Crack in the Cosmic Egg deserves study. It looks like an elaborate expansion of Blake's ideas here. I haven't recently determined what if any recognition he gave to Blake, although I found the mundane shellmentioned on page xiv of the 1988 edition.
Marcus Borg, on page 114 of his The God We Never Knew, speaks of 'the hatching of the heart', i.e. the conversion of the hard heart to the open heart: "If what is within is to live, the egg must hatch, the shell must break, the heart must open." And he refers us to Jeremiah's New Covenant.
In Blake's long poem, Milton, the older poet, Milton, imitating his friend, Jesus, comes down from Heaven, and cracks the mundane egg on his way to the center.

       Marriage is a sacrament in Christian thought, and for many of us it's the primary sacrament of life. But in 19th century British society, we may get the idea (from Dickens or Trollope) that matrimony served commercial rather than religious purposes. Blake violently objected to that (obviously objectionable) custom; it led him to use such phrases as the  marriage hearse.

Blake's Bible 4

Ezekiel

       If a poll were taken to choose the most obscure of the major books of the Bible, Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New might win by a wide margin. Strangely enough these very books seemed to mean the most to Blake. Their meanings are largely symbolic; Blake adopted their symbols and strenuously commented upon their meanings.

       In his major work, 'Jerusalem', Blake took a great deal from Ezekiel: the structural format, the oratorical style, the dialectic of judgment and grace. But he used Ezekiel's style and material to refute Ezekiel's vision of a jealous and punishing God.

       The first chapter of Ezekiel contains his definitive epiphany, the encounter with God that initiated and sustained his prophetic activity. The vision of the four living creatures, the wheels, the fiery chariot, all are the trappings of the Shekinah, the Glory of God. This vision originally empowered Ezekiel to prophesy; it recurred throughout his prophetic life.

       In a climactic scene shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem the prophet saw it hovering over the Temple and departing (read Ezekiel 10 with special attention to verse 18). Years later he saw it returning to Jerusalem as the liberated pilgrims arrived from Babylon.

       Blake took Ezekiel's living creatures (zoas in Greek) as the subject of his epic poem, 'The Four Zoas'. He humanized the Zoas and enacted through them the destructive tendencies of the human psyche which have led to the fracture and fall of Mankind. With their fall Blake's Zoas became the "rulers of the darkness of this world". As you study 4Z, keeping always in mind the biblical source, you become aware that it all relates to Ezekiel's vision of God.

       The striving found in 4Z was interrupted by the Moment of Grace. This led to a radical reorientation of Blake's theology. He didn't change his mind about Ezekiel's God, but he met a new and more loving God in the person of Jesus. In 'Jerusalem' he gave the most overt and candid evaluation of the relationship between these two visions. The Negro spiritual has it that Ezekiel saw the wheel. Here, in the language of Old Testament prophecy, Blake tells us what the Wheel has meant to Mankind:

       Plate 77 of Jerusalem might well be considered Blake's valedictory: he tell us pretty plainly the meaning of true religion:

I stood among my valleys of the south
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heaven: it went
From west to east, against the current of
Creation, and devour'd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth.
By it the Sun was roll'd into an orb,
By it the Moon faded into a globe
Travelling thro' the night; for, from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-one
Its Name; he answered: "It is the Wheel of Religion."
I wept & said: "Is this the law of Jesus,
"This terrible devouring sword turning every way?"
He answer'd: "Jesus died because he strove
"Against the current of this Wheel; its Name
"Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death,
"Of sin, of sorrow & of punishment:
"Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion;
"But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
"Creating Nature from this fiery Law
"By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.
"Go therefore, cast out devils in Christ's name,
"Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease,

"Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
"To smite with terror & with punishments
"Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees
"Crucifying & encompassing sea & land
"For proselytes to tyranny & wrath;
"But to the Publicans & harlots go,
"Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
"Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace;
"For Hell is open'd to Heaven: thine eyes beheld
"The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free."

       Here Blake with unparalleled eloquence has set forth the opposition between the God of Wrath and the God of Mercy, the dark Preacher of Death and the bright Preacher of Life. Mankind in every age has turned Ezekiel's wheel into a juggernaut to enforce a worldly solidarity under the banner of priest and king. And every age has had its dissenters who strove against it and were all too often crushed.

Pilgrim's Progress 1

Here are the words with which Pilgrims's Progress begins:

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den,3 and laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.Isa 64:6; Luke 14:33; Psalm 38:4.

I looked and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, “What shall I do?” Acts 2:37; 16:30; Habak 1:2,3.

In this plight, therefore, he went home, and restrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and children; and thus he began to talk to them: “O, my dear wife,” said he, “and you the children of my bowels, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am certainly informed that this our city will be burnt with fire from heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of escape can be found whereby we may be delivered.”

At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, “Worse and worse:” he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened.

They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying: and thus for some days he spent his time.

Beginning of PP:
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan (1628–1688) and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature,^[1][2][3][4] has been translated into  more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.^[5][6] Bunyan began his work while in theBedfordshire county prison for violations of the Conventicle Act, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England. Early Bunyan scholars like John Brown believed The Pilgrim's Progress was begun in Bunyan's second, shorter imprisonment for six months in 1675,^[7]but more recent scholars like Roger Sharrock believe that it was begun during Bunyan's initial, more lengthy imprisonment from 1660–72 right after he had written his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.^[8]

Plate 1 of Pilgrims Progress
Wikipedia

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

In the Similitude of a Dream

{10} As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. [Isa. 64:6; Luke 14:33; Ps. 38:4; Hab. 2:2; Acts 16:30,31]

I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein;