WILLIAM BLAKE ON - nevillegoddardbooks.com · The Poetical Works of William Blake," edited with a prefatory memoir by W. M. Rosetti, 1874. ("The Aldine Poets." George Bell & Sons.)"

WILLIAM BLAKE

ON

THE LORD'S PRAYER

WILLIAM BLAKE(1757-1827 ,

ON

THE LORD'S PRAYER

BY

JOHN HENRY CLARKE. M.D.

THE HERMES PRESS.

MCMXXVII.

"To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the Immortal"Eyes of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought;"into Eternity; Ever expanding into the Bosom of"God, the Human Imagination."

TO

"THE YOUNG MEN OF THE NEW AGE"

- OUR OWN

WHOM BLAKE ADDRESSED

IN

DESPAIR

OF FINDING VISION AND UNDERSTANDING

IN HIS OWN TIME

THIS FRAGMENT

IS

DEDICATED

IN

HOPE.

Copyright InGre..t Brlt&in.

PREFACE.

Some thirty odd years ago, having a long journey

into the country bejore me, I put into my travelling

bag the Aldine edition of Blane's poems. up to then

I had been familiar with the "Songs 01 Innocenceand of Experience." I had now the isolation from

external affairs and the solitude sometimes to be found

in a long train-journey, and I embarked upon that

amazing document, " The Everlasting Gospel." From

that moment Blase gripped me with a hold which time

has only strengthened.

Blake says his conception of the most sublime poetry

is an allegory addressed to the intellectual powers and

entirely hidden from the corporeal understanding.

My "corporeal understanding" did not attempt the

task of comprehending, but my inner understanding

knew it jar divine truth.Since that day I have seized every opportunity which

has come in my way of acquiring such aids as have

presented themselves of educating my corporeal under

standing up to such a point that I could shape for

myself, and possibly for others, the essence of the

Message which Blake completed on his death-bed just

one hundred years ago. A nd there has been no lack

of such aids. They have been gathering in numbersand power for the last half-century and scarcely a daynow passes in which some addition to them of momentis not announced.

One of Blake's designs depicts N ebuchadnezzar

in his madness. We live, as Blake lived, in a

Nebuchadnezzar age. We are madly clinging withhands and feet to the materiality oj earth when we

should be standing erect upon it or moving over itssurface ruling empires of the mind. Blake has revealedto us, as no one else ever did before, what those empiresare, and what are the powers in man of recognisingthem and oj exercising his rule.

The point oj advantage in our age over that inwhich Blake lived and wrote is this, that now there

is a wide-spread recognition oj the fact that thematerial diet on which our minds are banquettingcan never satisjy the soul of man. Thus it iscoming about that the more like Nebuchadnezearman becomes in mentality the keener is the revoltagainst the madness. That the revolt is taking many

forms, some of them only a little less insane thanthat against which it is protesting, need not bedenied;but the revolt itself is an advance.

The essence of the Revolt means this, that althoughwe are all more or less wedded to our own conceptions

of eternal truth and mistake our conceptions for truthitself, yet the discovery of our error is awakening ourminds to rebel against the obsession. Our conceptionsof truths are much dearer to our temporal egos thanare the truths themselves, and anything whichmilitates, or appears to militate, against our finiteconceptions we resent as personal injuries. And theRevolt against this cardinal error is the one thingwhich Blake is arousing in every line he writes andevery stroke of his pencil and graver and brush. Hisinspiration will not allow him to "cease from mental

fight" against this Satan-Man's self-hood ortemporal ego-until the temporal personality of M anhas subjected itself and all it loves and desires to thedeity whose throne every man is.

One aspect of this mental figh t, which Bloke isurging with ever-increasing ardour, is to be found inhis pencilled comments on a certain academic versionof the Lord's Prayer, and it has seemed to me thataround this as a text may be drawn a picture of theSpiritual Form of Bloke in his contest with "TheAccuser of Sins," the God of This World.

J. H. C.

Pett Level,

Good Friday, 1926.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

"The Life of William BIake." By Alexander Gilchrist.

First published 1863.The first book to make known to the world the Man andhis Works in a comprehensive volume. A new editionedited by W. Grah..m Robertson was published by John] .ane in 1906.

"Williarn Blake." A Critical Essay. By Algernon

Charles Swinburne. First written 1866.The first appreciation of Blnke by 1\ brother poet of thehighest rank .

.. The Poetical Works of William Blake," edited with

a prefatory memoir by W. M. Rosetti, 1874. (" The

Aldine Poets." George Bell & Sons.)

" The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic and

Critical," By Edward John Ellis and William Butler

Yeats. (Ql1aritch, 1893.)This was the first work which made it possible to read

Blake'g Poems ao; 1\ whole.

"The Poetical Works of William Blake," edited with

a Bibliographical Introduction and Textual Notes by

John Sampson. ( Oxford University Press, 1913. )This is the most complete small edition of Blake's poems

and the most carefudy and satisfactorily edited upto its dnte,

11 The Paintings of William Blake," by Darrell Figgis,

with 100 Plates, 16 in colour and 84 in colloty pe.

(Ernest Berm, 1925.)

11 The Writings of William Blake," edited in three

Volumes by Geoffrey Keynes. (The Nonesuch Press,

16, Great James Street, London, 1925.)The final textual authority on all the writings of Blake

both poetical and prose. Keynes has made it possible,for the first time to read all Blake's writings, in theirproper setting in a single work.

"Williarn Blake, his Philosophy and Symbols." by

S. Foster Damon. (Constable, 1924.)This is by far the most luminous and profound as well 8S

the most complete of the interpretations of Blake'swritings known to me.

11 Blake's Vision of the Book of Job," with repro

ductions of the illustrations. A study by Joseph Wick

steed. 2nd Edition. (London, Dent. New York,

Dutton, 1924.)

11 William Blake," by G. K. Chesterton. (Duck~

worth & Co.)

"Life of Paracelsus (1493-1541) and the Substance

of his Teachings," by Franz Hartrnann, M.D. (Kegan

Paul.)

"The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme (1575

1624), the God-taught Philosopher," with an Intro

duction and Notes by Franz Hartmann, M. D. ( Macoy

Publishing Co., New York, 1919.)

" Clothed with the Sun." Being the book of I1Iuminations of Anna (Bonus) Kingsford, M.D. (Watkins,1912.)

"The Life of Jehoshua, the Prophet of Nazareth," byFranz Hartmann, M.D. ( Kegan Paul, 1909.)

"Bhagavad Gita" (The Songs of the Master.)

Translated with an Introduction and Commentary byCharles Johnston, (Quarterly Book Department. NewYork, 1908.)

Logia Iesu, New sayings of Jesus and A Fragmentof a Lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus. Edited withTranslation and Commentary by Bernard F. GrenfeIland Arthur S. Hunt. (Henry Frowde, 1904.)

CONTENTS.

Chapter. Page.

I. SELF- KNOWLEDGE 1II. THE Two VISIONS 17Ill. THE GOD OF THE JEWS 29VI. THE CODE OF THE JEWS 44V. GOOD AND EVIL 54VI. BLAKE'S GOD ... 65VII. IDOL WORSHIP ... 76VIII. CREEDS ... S3XI. DR. THORNTON ON THE

LORD'S PRAYER 99X. THE PRAYER ITSELF IN

SEVERAL TONGUES 118XI. A PARAPHRASE OF THE PRAYER 126XII. THE HISTORICITY OF THE

BIBLE 131XIII. UNBERUFEN 146XIV. WISDOM AND VISION 154

The quotations from Blake's writings, except such asare embodied in the text, will be found printed in

special type. No inverted commas will be needed there

fore to distinguish them, and such as do appear will

be Blake's own. The Capitals are also his.

CHAPTER 1.

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

IT is told of a certain university tutor,not unversed in the works of Plato, that

he had an original question to put to everypupil whom he received. The question was.something like this: " Well, Mr. Studiosus,is your ignorance simple or compound?""I am afraid, Sir," was the usual rejoinder,"I fail to understand the distinction."HSimple ignorance" he would explain, Hiswhen you don't know, and you know youdon't know. Compound ignorance is whenyou don't know, and you don't know youdon't know." Conversely, there is simpleand compound knowledge-a knowledgewhich knows that it knows, and aknowledge which knows and is quite

1 B

BLAKE ON THE LORD'S PRAYER

unconscious of its knowing. This .latterkind of knowledge is called instinct in theanimal world. It is the knowledge of thespider which enables her to weave her webon strict mathematical principles; theknowledge of the bee which impels her tobuild her cells on the most economicallines, the knowledge of the swallow whichteaches her to find her way back from thesouth to her northern nesting place ofyester year.

In the human economy there is aninfinite variety of the same kind of unconscious, and semi-conscious knowledge."Intuition" is the name by which some partof it is known, and this means "inwardvision." It implies the possession of afaculty of seeing things which are hiddenfrom the external senses, a faculty whichpre-supposes the existence of an invisibleorganism with invisible organs within thevisible body. Again, every human beingpossesses a knowledge of the profoundestalchemy by means of which he is able, for

z

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

example, to transmute bread into blood.The ordinary man does not know that hehas this knowledge, and yet he exercisesit, and that without the help of any otherperson. It is only when the occultmachinery by which he works the miracleis out of harmony that he becomes conscious of its presence through the languageof pain.

This is only one among numberlessinstances of knowledge in man whichman's simple knowledge does not know.It is compound knowledge-the knowledgewhich knows it knows-which man mustnow acquire, and with this his wholeexistence as part of nature is in processof endowing him. Experience, indeed, isthe Daily Bread which is being alchemisedby him into soul self-knowledge. Toattain this end the bread of one life-time isby no means sufficient. How many it mayrequire depends upon the aptness of eachindividual pupil in his successive schoolsof life.

3


This much every man does know-thathe has a Will to create ideas, and a Mind toexecute his designs; that he has affectionsand emotions-all this he knows, and healso knows that will, desire, mind, affections, emotions, are all intangible, invisibleand imperceptible to his external senses.

It is not a great step from this point to theconsciousness that he is himself in possessionof a dual nature and is leading a double existence, one material and sensual and oneimmaterial. For the moment, the former,the sensual world, seems to claim all hisallegiance, for he is apt to designate it as his" real" world, as distinguished from theworld which he knows to exist, but which isbeyond the cornpass ofhis fi.vesenses to define.

This is the natural result of the presenttopsey-turveydom in the world's affairs.The spirit of man is submerged-headdownwards-in the material. The kingdom of the world is the Kingdom of theMaterial, and the god of this World is thedivinity of its worship.

4

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

But although submerged the spirit ofMan has never been and never can beextinguished. From the remotest timesthere have been those whose vision wasunconfined by material organs, who wereable tc read the language which is independent of human speech, and which isfound expressed in countless signs andsymbols. Symbols may be and often havebeen turned to base uses, but for those whocan read them they tell their true story.The human body is itself a symbol.

There is a symbol of great antiquity,representing two equilateral triangles, onewi th its base parallel with earth and itsapex pointing upward, the other with thesame-base line and its apex pointingdownward. The latter triangle is theshadow of the former and represents thetemporal and mortal part of man as theother triangle represents his spirit and soul.

Now the shadow triangle has risen untilit has almost obscured the first and hasbrought the centres of the two to coincide,

5


THE PERMANENT EGO AND ITSSHADOW.

6

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

THE SEAL OF SOLOMON.

7


and when the centres coincide we havethe "Seal of Solomon"-dremon est Deustnoersus.

This is the great Event which has happened in the Universe of Man. The Mindof Man is this central point-with .itsdouble aspect and double polarity, and theconflict, or controversy, between these twopolarities is the origin of the" Fall of Man,"of Creation, of Nature herself, and constitutes the Celestial Bread of Man's experienceout of which his Self-Knowledge grows.

The shadow triangle represents thematerial part of the bodily organisationwith its apex polarised downwards or outwards, towards the material. The real andpermanent triangle represents the invisible,indestructible organism in man, polarisedupward or inward, away from all that ismaterial, finite and temporal. The mentalorganism of man is the arena in which thetwo centres-the infinite and the finite-arefused, and the self-consciousness of the oneis being constantly lost within that of the

8

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

other ego. The whole of life, of history, ofpolitics, of creation may be found in thisone point.

There is in life nothing real which hasnot i"LS shadow and nothing true whichhas not its counterfeit. All the development of every individual consists in hismaking continual choice between thesetwo. There is a real ego in every manand there is also a shadow ego as there isin every animal. The shadow ego knowsitself as-that is to say, believes itself tobe-a separate, self-existent entity; whichit is not. There is nothing separate in theuniverse. Everything is related to everyother thing and connected with every otherthing. But that is not the worst of thetrouble. This illusory, temporal, shadow,counterfeit ego, with its downward andoutward polarisation, claims dominion overthe real, invisible infinite ego which is,as it were, married to-it. The end of everylife is for every infini te ego to recover its

9


own self-consciousness-self-knowledgeand to claim the kingdom of the Man forits own. Then will there be but onetriangle-the shadow will be digested andtransmuted into essential substance andwill vanish. The umbilical cord whichfetters man to the material and sensualattractions of mother Nature will besevered, there will be one polarisationonly-to the true centre ; Man will be reborn.

It must not be supposed that the realego is either unconscious or inactive all thetime that he is under the dominion ofhis shadow. There is no act of kindness,of self-denial, which he does not prompt.There is no right choice made betweentruth and error which he does not inspire.And whenever the shadow will is allowedto conquer in a fight the pangs of conscience in the shadow are the witness ofthe true ego's protest.

The conquest of the real over the shadowself may take an age or it may takeplace in a moment of time.

10

SELF - KNO\VLEDGE

Many years ago I remember reading ofan instance of the latter kind. A quarryman was engaged. in supervising thehaulage of stones up a very deep shaft.It was his duty to receive each load atthe top, and if any fragments fell to givewarning to those below with the cry "Wareout." This enabled those below to standclear before the stones reached the bottom.One day his own foot slipped and hehimself fell down the shaft. But as he fellthe cry "Ware out" rang clear down theshaft-and his own body after it. In thatsupreme moment of self-forgetfulness of theouter ego, the inner ego found its ownself-knowledge. In mystic parlance, thequarryman had "squared the circle" andhad "found the philosopher's stone."

It is possible to obtain a conceptionof individual man's place in the greatuniverse by a consideration of his ownblood-stream. To ordinary sight bloodlooks like an uniform red paint, but the

11


microscope reveals that it is composedof an infinite number of separate livingbodies floating in a fluid medium. Everyone of these bodies has its own life, itsown function, and some of them behaveas if they had independent wills and movements of their own. And to a certainextent they have. And yet their life isnot separate from the life of the bloodstream, and the life of the blood-stream isnot separate from the life of the organsand tissues which it feeds and from whichit originates. And the life of the bloodand of the organs and tissues is notseparate from the life, the mind, the soul,the spirit, the will and the understandingof the man of whose organism it formspart. In actual fact the life of the ope isthe life of the other.

So is it with each individual man andwoman in the great universe. They arein no wise separate from or independentof the life, mind, heart and soul of theplanet, of the solar system and the entire

12

SELF - KNO\VLEDGE

great universe. If we picture to ourselvesevery one of our own blood corpuscles asbeing under the illusion that it is somethingcomplete in itself with separate aims andseparate interests we can understand alittle of the illusion under which we areall enslaved until our own inner sensesawake and we learn to know ourselvesas we actually are.

" Polarisation" is a word which containsa key to unlock many secrets. The entirevisible animal organism like the blooditself, is made up of countless myriads ofliving organisms all within the microcosmof the individual, and all with individualwills, so to speak, of their own. Everyorgan, every tissue, every organic fluid ismade up of living cells and their products,Every cell has its own body, soul andspirit-membrane, nucleus and nucleolusor innermost centre; its own life-historyand destiny. And every cell has its ownpolarity. The cell elements are all

13


polarised - have their powers focussedtowards and in their own nucleolus orcentre. But the centres have also theirown polarity; all the centres of everyorgan are polarised to that organ's vitalcentre. The organs themselves, again, haveeach its own polarity, and all are polarisedto the particular centre immediately above,be it flesh, blood, gland, nerve, solar plexus,spinal cord, brain, up to the invisiblemind and emotional centre of the man.When there is no assertion of independentindividual will on the part of any cell orany organ then is the organism in a stateof health. When any of this proletariatasserts a will and rule of its own, independent of the innermost centre, thereis disorder, disease, ruin, corruption, andif vital connections are cut, revolution anddeath of the microcosmos-separation ofthe life from the form.

Let it not be supposed for a momentthat the shadow-self has not its profoundlyimportant uses and purposes in the organ-

14

SELF - KNOWLEDGE

ism, one of which is to provide anexercise-ground for practising the facultyof choice. The light of the moon, whichis a reflexion of the light of the sun hasits uses. But if we mistake the originof the moon's light, and attribute it tothe moon itself we are in error. Theevents of outer existence appear to ourouter ego real and solid and permanent.Our inner ego knows them to be temporaland derived. Nevertheless we are obligedto accept the convention that they are real,and to act as if they were. Just in thesame way we do not refuse to accept thelight of the moon although we know itdoes not originate with her. Thus theevents of outer life provide us with discipline and judgment by accepting them attheir face value. But, all the same, wemust know that they are passing andillusory.

Nevertheless they are real illusions, andif the inner ego recognises them as such,then all will be well. It is the error

15


of mistaking them for eternal realitieswhich brings all the trouble. This isinsanity. But if we were to act as if theywere illusions, that also would be insanity.We are existing in a world of conventions,and nothing is to be gained by pretendingthat we are not. The two planes-theinner and the outer-the ruler and theruled-though uni ted, are discrete andshould be kept each in its own place.

When this knowledge is attained-whenMan can envisage Life from the standpointof his Eternal ego-Man can be said toknow himself with a compound knowledge-with a knowledge that knows thatit knows.

16

CHAPTER H.

THE TWO VISIONS

THE foregoing chapter may seem a some-what long preamble on the way to

Blake, but there is still some distance totravel before we can appreciate the passionwhich consumed him when confronted witha materialised interpretation of one of themost spiritual documents in the world'streasury. And as that is the version whichnearly all the world of Christianity acceptsat the present day, it becomes necessarythat we should be able to find our wayout of the shadow-consciousness-the fivesensual world-into Blake's world of Lightand Vision. For it was in this world, theworld of intuition, that Blake lived andsaw and thought and designed and wrote.The five senses were to him so many

17 c


11 windows" of the soullighting man in his11 caverned " state (the mortal body), butby no means limiting his possibilities ofVISIOn. To accept the evidences of thesenses, as if they told all the truth, was toBlake supreme folly. To look throughthem, as through a window, was wisdom;to see with them, as if they were the facultyof vision and not its instrument, led onlyto error. Thus it becomes necessary to riseabove the 11 Five windows of the Soul,"which "distorts the heavens"-the "heavens"be it noted-"from pole to pole," and todevelop the inward vision-intuition-if weare not to be perpetual slaves of illusion.For this internal vision is just as much anintegral part of man as are his flesh andbones. This inward vision is in continualoperation, but in ordinary mortals this ispart of the unconscious knowledge whichdoes not know that it knows. The consciousness of that part of man, which isrightly described as animal intellect hasnot yet made contact with it.

18

THE T\VO VISIONS

It may be fairly said that the sense ofsight is the premier sense of the five. Sightis the mystical sense. In the sensual worldall things are divided by this sense intotwo sections-the Visible and the Invisible. This is not so to the same extentwith the other senses. But it is necessaryto remember that this is not the samedivision as between the material and theimmaterial. For there are infinitely morethings in the universe which are materialand yet invisible than there are which arediscernable by the mortal sense of sight.The air we breathe is invisible, but yetit is matter. Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,are equally invisible and yet they arematter. Oxygen and hydrogen unitedbecome visible as water, and water becomesinvisible as steam. So that the test ofsight is not the test of matter.

Take, for another example, an egg. Wesee the shell of an egg and say we haveseen an egg, but we do not see the yolk,the white, the germ, the lining membrane,

19


until we break the shell. And when wehave broken the shell and have seen allthese, we have not really seen the egg, forthe egg is much more than them all. Theegg is a living organism, comprisingpowers and principles invisible which arecapable of developing from the egg anactive, mobile, sensitive, conscious entity.

And we have not even seen the shell ofthe egg, though we think we have. Wehave seen its colour and shape, but wehave not seen the innumerable poresthrough which the coming chick will drawits breath, and from which, if the shell isvarnished, Of covered with flour, no chickwill ever come. The life of the shell noman has ever seen, and yet it is there readyto transfer its lime into the blood andbones of the bird, and leave the shell sothin that when incubation is complete thebird can easily break it and escape.

We have not seen-no mortal eye hasever seen-the Life-principle of the egg.It is there all the same, ready to vitalise

20

THE TWO VISIONS

the embryo which contains, in epitome,every organ, every cell, every feather of theegg's two parents, to be revealed to sightlater on, if it finds the proper conditions.Life is invisible, indestructible, infinite.Life may be driven from a form but itcannot be destroyed. It can be drivenfrom an egg by excess of heat as in cooking,or by putrefaction, but the Life is notdestroyed. And when the egg becomes abird of the air, there is revealed to thePoet's vision, something vastly greaterthan the form which our senses perceive:

How do you know but every bird that wings

the aery way

Is an infinite world of delight shut in by

your senses five?

How much invisible intelligence can bepacked into the compass of a tiny egg-shellmay be gathered from an incident whichhappened to a medical friend of mine. Inthe course of a country ramble he cameupon a water-hen's nest on the margin ofa lake. Alarmed by his approach the

21


mother bird took to the water and swamaway, followed by her brood, leaving whatappeared to be one egg behind in the nest.Thinking that this was a spoiled egg, myfriend picked it up, when, to his amazement, out dropped a bit of animated fluffinto the water and swam away after itsmother like the rest, leaving an emptyshell in his hand.

Recurring to the physiological fact ofthe relationship of the cells of the humanblood to the being of man, let us imagineone of these elements becoming consciousof its relationship to the universe of theman who has created it-how it is part ofthe man's body, mind, soul, spirit, havinga body, soul, spirit, life of its own, and yetnot its own personal, separate possession-then we can gather some idea of theindividual man's place in the infiniteuniverse, the macrocosm. Man's five sensesseparate man into divisions and compartments, and so long as we understand thatthis separation, division, is a convention

22

THE T\VO VISIONS

for the use of man's corporeal understanding, and not a spiritual fact no harm isdone. It is a convention which is necessaryfor man's temporal, corporeal mind on itsway to spiritual evolution.

As no man can truly say that he hasever seen an egg, so, in like manner, itmay be said that no mortal eye has everseen any human being. All that the eye hasseen of man is his shell or outer garment,whilst the real Man who has made his ownvisible part just as surely as the snail hascreated its own shell, is invisible and intangible to the outer senses.

But to the Seer the organism whichweaves the visible "garment" of Man isnot invisible. "The Soul is form and doththe body make" wrote Spenser, and thePoet sees the soul and the soul-world evenmore clearly than he sees the world ofmatter.

"I assert for myself," wrote Blake, "thatI do not behold the outward creation, andthat to me it is hindrance and not action.

23

BLAKE ON THE LOH.D'S PRAYER

'What!' it will be questioned, 'when thesun rises, do you not see a disc of fire,somewhat like a guinea?' Oh! no, no!I see an innumerable company of theheavenly host, crying, 'Holy, holy, holy, isthe Lord God Almighty! ' I question notmy corporeal eye, any more than I wouldquestion a window, concerning a sight. Ilook through it, and not with it."

The two poems from letters to Mr. Buttsare vivid examples of the nature of thevision which was habitual to Blake. Atone time it was two-fold-he sees thesymbol and its meaning. Again it IS

three-fold and yet again it is four-fold:

Now I a four-fold vision see,

And a four-fold vision is given to me;

'Tis four-fold in my supreme delight,

And three-fold in soft Beulah's night

And two-fold Always.-May God us keepFrom Single vision, and Newton's sleep. *

By "Newton's sleep" Blake referred toNewton's dictum "God can only be known

* Letter to Thomas Butts, 22nd, Nov., 1802.

24

THE TWO VISIONS

by his attributes." The knowledge whichdepends on corporeal reason and experiment is a profound sleep when cornpared to the interior vision and soul-selfknowledge of the spiritually awake. Inthe quatrain of his" Auguries of Innocence"Blake again describes the vision which isthe native property of the unfallen soulof man:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,And a Heaven in a Wild Flower;Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,And Eternity in an hour.

This vision man lost when he steppedfrom the State of Innocence into the Stateof Experience, when he began to taste theBread of Knowledge and put on the garment of his five-sensual body, which is alsohis tomb, from which, if he cannot transcendhis limitations whilst in the body, kindlydeath will release him to find Self-Knowledge in his interior faculties, which havelain buried since his entry into his materialForm.

25


The human Form is a symbol, and asymbol taken apart from its significationis an idol, and those who worship suchsymbols are idolators. Of such idolatrythe world of civilisation is full. Thesavage with his totems knows better.

That Blake always saw the spirit withinthe form is evident throughout his life,and his complaint against his age wasthat it was blind. In Art from his boyhood the painters and poets who felt andsaw and interpreted the spiritual worldwere those who attracted him, and thosewhose works went no further than thedelineation of material forms were to himanathema. Raphael, Michael Angelo, andAlbrecht Durer were his heroes amongpainters and designers.

According to Blake there are in Manthree powers-Painting, Poetry andMusic-which have not been" swept awayby the flood of Time and Space," andby which it is still possible for man to"converse with Paradise." The Poet or

26

THE TWO VISIONS

the inspired man, "Poietes "-the word isGreek,-is a "Maker" or "Creator," andthe Poetic Genius is the Inspiring Deity.Painting is the Art which speaks to manthrough the symbolism of Colour and Form.Music is the embodiment in sound of the"Word," the "Logos," whose utterancesare human beings.

I have said something in this chapterabout the Egg and its Shell. One ofBlake's symbols for the entire materialuniverse is that of the Shell of the WorldEgg; he called the Visible Creation" TheMundane Shell." Inside this World-Shellthe Soul of Man is in process of beinghatched. Most people regard Creation asbeing an end in itself. That is not Blake'svision of Man: Creation for him is a Meansand not an End. Consequently those wholook for something finished and completein this phase of things are looking forsomething which is not there. A halfhatched chick is a sad looking object, but

27


it is only passing through a phase whichis essential to it before its perfect vehiclecan be attained. And that is precisely thestate in which Creation finds itself atpresent. Nevertheless, in the midst ofwhat appears to be almost pure chaos, theDivine Image still is there concealed, andthe Perfect Bird will emerge from its Shellwhen Hatching-Time is ripe.

28

CHAPTER Ill.

JUST as truly as God made man in Hisown Image, so man makes his God in his

own image. If a man has a material mind,he will worship a material God. If he hasa Satanic mind he will worship Satan. Ifhe has a sectarian mind he will create andworship a sectarian God. If he has arevengeful nature he will create for himselfa god of vengeance and revenge. If he isa Pharisee, his God will be a Pharisee. If aman believes that his temporal personalityis all that there is of him he will fashionfor himself a corporeal limited deity. Ifhe imagines himself to be a thing de-

29


pendent on the personal favour of analmighty celestial monarch, his God willbe a magnified Augustus Caesar.

If, on the other hand, a man sees himselfa vital part of the Universe-a leaf onthe Tree of the Life of Infinity, of whichhe is an integral part-he will worship theUniversal Spirit of Divine Wisdom inwhom all things subsist. It was Blake'scomplaint against his age that it had puta limit on deity and had thus becomeitself limited, according to the ancientoccult maxim that a man" becomes" thatwhich he "beholds," the" eyes" being the"instrument" of "marriage" and sightbeing the mystical sense. It had been prophesied, he wrote, that all the world wouldbecome subject to the Jews, and this, hesaid, is exactly what has come to pass, for"all the world believes the jews' code andworships the jews' god, and," he asks,"what greater subjection can be?"

The" Code of the Jew" will be dealtwi th in the following chapter; suffice it to

30

say here that Blake refers chiefly to theTen Commandments (which are, in asense, the antithesis of the Lord's Prayer)and the pharisaic doctrine that man (andconsequently his God) can have a self-hoodseparate from the Universal Will. Theresult of this is that the Jew has createdfor himself-and, alas! for us-a pharisaicGod whom Blake has depicted in his greatdesigns of Urizen, the" Accuser of Sins,"the "God of this World," who has entangled humanity-and finally himself-inhis net of Druidic religion which demandsthe sacrifice of others, in contradistinctionto the Christian religion which demandsthe sacrifice of self,

It is an unfortunate complication of truevision that names have, to a very largeextent, taken the place of actualities, thatthe shadow man is mistaken-by himselfand others-for the essential being, andthat an infinite number of persons whothink themselves Christians are actuallyworshippers at the shrine of Satan.

31


In the Epilogue to his poem, "TheGates of Paradise," Blake thus addresses"The Accuser of Sins, who is the God ofthis Wodd" :

Truly, My Satan, thou art but a DunceAnd dost not know the Garment from the Man.Every Harlot was a Virgin onceNor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.

Though thou are worshipped by the Names DivineOf Jesus and Jehooali, thou art stillThe Son of Man at weary night's decline,The lost traveller's dream under the hill.

The italics are mine. The Verse is accompanied by a design of.the "Lost-Traveller"under Sinai's Hill, whose dream is Lucifer.This is another way of putting into wordsthe gospel saying that not all who say" LordLord" will' find themselves acknowledged.

A prologue to the same poem "The Keysof the Gates" opens with these words;-

Mutual forgiveness of each vice-Such are the Gates of Paradise.

-which, again, are a translation of a clausein the Lord's Prayer. No man can forgive

32

THE JE\\TS' GOD

his own sins, any more than a man wi th onlyone hand can cut his own finger-nails. Forgiveness relates to a second person. TheForgiveness of Sins which Christianity enjoins is not getting forgiveness for one's ownsins, but granting forg-iveness to those whohave injured us. And since each individualis an integral part of the Universe, and as theUniverse consists of one's own self and allthe other selves, in forgiving others we areactually forgiving our greater" self."

There can be, therefore, no admission toParadise except through the Gates of theForgiveness of others, which is a doctrinedirectly opposed to the Spirit of the TenCommandments, which Blake calls" TheAccuser's chief desire": and the Prologueto the same Poem concludes with thiscouplet relating to the "dead corpse" ofthese " stony commands" :-

Oh Christians! Christians! tell me why

You rear it on your Altars high?

-a question, by the way, which has neverbeen answered.

33 ·D


"Bible history" is universally recognisedto be something very different from thatwhich is generally known as "history"outside the Bible. In point of fact it isnot history at all, and only touches thewritten and recorded histories of thenations at certain points. The Jews claimfor themselves a miraculous origin just assome other races do. But there is thisdifference. Other nations, with their fabledancestral gods and demi-gods have leftsome tangible evidences of their powerand greatness in the monumental buildings,temples and inscriptions which remainwith us to this day. Even the cave menhave done this much, but the Jews havenot one stone with one Hebrew inscriptionto show of their legendary heroes.

The real origin of the wandering tribewhich has scattered itself all over theworld will perhaps never be settled. Somesay their progenitors came from the provinceof Oude in India and from this were named" Ioudaioi" by the Greeks. They boast

34

THE JEWS' GOD

that they are all descended from the patriarch Abraham, but this is clearly confutedin the New Testament, and St. Paulroundly says that the story of Abrahamand his two wives and two sons is anallegory with a spiritual meaning. Thevery name of their putative parent is suggestive of Brahma and the ancient Brahmins of India. "A-Braham" is, in fact,"Brahm-a," and the Jews have as muchright to "take the name to themselves as.they have to take the names of "Montagu"and" Montmorency."

One great function and service of theJews in the world is that of being theWorld's great collectors. They have aperfect genius for collecting and preservingthe works of other peoples, whether literaryor artistic. For this function they areeminently qualified on account of thehighly mixed nature of their race andblood.

When a man boasts of a certain thingwe may be pretty certain that this is his

35


weakest spot. It is the same with a race,and the" Children of Abraham" myth isa case in point. The late Mr. IsraelZangwill,-who, by the way, has given usa very graphic description of the characterof his race in his poem "Israel"-hasdescribed America as being" The Meltingpot of the Nations." But the descriptionapplies much more exactly to his ownrace. It might be truly called a " meltedpot of Asiatic and African races." Palestine, which Jews call theirs, never wasinhabited by them as a pure tribe. Theland has always been a sort of" Macedonia."But apart from that, as long as there isany record of them in profane history theyhave been a scattered tribe, polygamouswherever polygamy has been the custom,and at one time, at least, an entire tribeof Tartars was absorbed into this meltingpot. The admixture of negro blood inthe Jews is very evident in many Jewishindividuals whom we constantly meet inour streets, and medical investigators who

36

THE JEWS' GOD

examined the blood of the various components of the forces engaged in theMesopotamian campaign found abundantblack elements in the blood of all theJews examined. The fact that someJews of Asia and Africa are as blackas the darkest negroes, and that allshades of colour exist within the tribe,is another evidence that the tribe itself,as it exists at present, is a "Macedoine"of humanity.

This fact accounts for the extraordinaryversatility of the Jew, and it may "alsoaccount for the characteristic above referredto, that of being the collector and preserverof the works and treasures of other peoples.Among these collections are some of themyths of the ancient world, a number ofwhich are contained in the books of theOld Testament.

That the Jews are a people who originally possessed a language of their own,Hebrew to wit, is one of the notions whichthey have industriously spread, but there

37


is no evidence that such was ever the case.The nearest thing to a language of theirown which they ever have possessed isYiddish, and that is a mixture like therace itself, a German dialect written inHebrew characters and read from rightto left. Hebrew itself is a hieratic languageoriginating in Egypt, written withoutvowels or stops. The Jews in adoptingit as their own sacred language gave itsome of their own characteristics andintroduced "points" and stops to bringit into line with other languages. Butthereby they corrupted it as they corrupteverything corruptible which they touch.In ancient days Aramaic and not Hebrewwas the principal language they spoke.

How far the scriptures, gathered f:ommany sources, which we now know as theOld Testament, were originally Jewishwill, in all probability, never be known.But much of it has, in the process ofadoption, acquired characteristics whichare undoubtedly Jewish. Translation into

38

THE JEWS' GOD

Greek in the Septuagint, has, perhaps,modified this somewhat, and, again, bytranslation into continental languagesfurther modification has been effected.The various Councils of the Church whichsettled the Canon of the Scriptures exeluded much which is now collected in the"Apocrypha." The English Version, whichwas made at a period when our languagewas at its perfection, has communicatedto the Old Testament much of the spiritand piety of our race and a dignity ofstyle which is an incomparable treasure.

But all this could not alter or eliminatethe character of the Jewish deity. Whatever Jewry touches it materialises. Whatever Jewry tells us its laws command it todo,· that we may be certain it is leavingundone, and whatever it is ordered toavoid that we know is the very thingwhich we are sure to find it engaged in.

The consequence of this has been thatall the documents which have come intothe possession of Jewry have received a

39


material interpretation at their hands, andall the world which has accepted thisinterpretation has come under the spell.

The early chapters of the Book ofGenesis, which deal with a myth of profound spiritual significance, have beenmade out to contain a "history" of theorigin of this particular globe and of theJewish race as its heirs apparent, and allthe ingenuity of theologians has been bentto the task of endeavouring to make arespectable human entity out of thematerialised deity which the Jews havecreated for themselves. Not being themselves capable of seeing" Man," but only his"garment,"-only the visible part of hisbody which he leaves behind him atdeath, and not at all the invisible organism of which this is no more than theshadow,-not being able to perceive thesoul and spirit of Man which never weregenerated, or, as Blake calls it, "vegetated,"and which never can die, they could nothelp producing a God who is partial, who

40

THE JEWS' GOD

cares for the material welfare of the Jewsand their advancement in worldly possessions above all other peoples, and whotakes vengeance on the peoples who resenttheir religion, and on themselves if theydo not keep his laws. And as these laws areof such a nature that they cannot be kept, ascheme of forgiveness is arranged for themby which they can obtain it through thecruel sacrifice of innocent animals.

Of course the" animals" which man hasto sacrifice are the animal desires andpassions in his own organism. It is onlyin this way that he can approach to thehighest sphere in his own being. Theonly Paradise man ever had or ever willhave is in his own mind and brain, wherealso may be seen the Tree of Life and theRivers which water it. The Holy Landand the Throne of Divinity are to be foundin the Heart of Humanity and all the warsand horrors which have followed the delusion that Deity favours one spot of earthmore than another, and loves one man's

41


progeny more than another man's, mighthave been spared mankind if it had not beenfor the materialising of spiritual thingswrought by the tribe which boasts itselfas being the Chosen of its God.

The English reader of the Bible unconsciously, or consciously, reads into theBible stories a spiritual meaning, but forall that he cannot get away from thedominance of the Jews' Satanic God.

It is belief in this God which is theparent of almost all the" Atheism" of thepresent day, and it is disbelief in thedivinity of Man which is the parent of thisinhuman Jewish idol.

The Jews' God is his tribe personified.The tribe itself is the unit, not the mdividual as with more evolved races.

That God does and always did converse withhonest men Paine never denies. He only deniesthat God conversed with Murderers and Revengerssuch as the Jews were, and of course he holds that

the Jews conversed with their State Religion whicbthey called God and so were liars as Christ said.

42

THE JEWS' GOD

This is Blake's way of putting it. Andin the Preface to the Third Book ofJerusalem he shows how easy it is to COD.

found the two religions :-

Man must and will have Some Religion j if he

has not the Religion of Jesus, he will havethe Religion of Satan, and will erect the Synagogueof Satan, calling the Prince of this World, God, anddestroying all who do not worship Satan under thename of God. Will anyone say, "Where arethose who worship Satan under the Name of God?"Where are they? Listen! Every Religion thatPreaches Vengeance for Sin is the Religion of theEnemy and Avenger; and not of the Forgiver ofSins, and their God is Satan, Named by the DivineName. Your Religion 0 Deists! Deism is theworship of the God of this World by the means of

what you call Natural Religion and Natural Philosophy, and of Natural Moralitv or Self-Righteousness,the Selfish VIrtues of the Natural Heart. This wasthe Religion of the Pharisees who murdered Jesus,

In the Jewish World of 15th March, 1925,an inspired writer expressed the sameeternal truth thus-" Fundamentally Judaism is Anti-Christian,"

4-3

CHAPTER IV.

THE JEWS' CODE

IT is the aim of the Jew to make Gentilesbelieve that the writings of the Old Tes

tament contain the religion of the Jew in itscompleteness; that all the pious reverencewhich Christians give to the Old Testament,especially to the Psalms and the Prophets,is shared with them by the Jews, and thatthey and the Jews are at one in thatrespect. A closer reading of passages inDeuteronomy and elsewhere would revealthe error of this notion. When the Jew istold that he may practise usury on Gentilesbut not on Jews; that he is not to eat theflesh of animals which have died a naturaldeath, but that he may feed the stranger

44

THE JEWS' CODE

within his gates on it, and he may evensell it to a Gentile outsider, the principlethat the Jews' God has one law for theJew and another for the Gentile is revealedbeyond the possibility of spiritualisingaway.

But the Old Testament, with its doublemorality and its Ten Commandments is,after all, not the first or the last word inthe Code of the Jew. That is to be foundin the Talmud. The Old Testament isnothing to the Jew apart from the glosses andsophistications of the ancient scribes andrabbis who compiled this amazing work.It is amazing in its bestialities, itssophistriesand its blasphemies. But it is the realCode of the Jew for all that. The tribeboasts that in presenting the world withthe Ten Commandments it really inventedthe moral sense, and it celebrates annuallythe compliment its God paid to it on thealleged day of the alleged month when"the law" was "given" to the Jews byMoses on Mount Sinai. The" Giving of

45


the Law" is one of the principal feasts ofthe jews' year.

The strength of a chain is the strengthof its weakest link. The Talmud maycontain moral and humanitarian maxims,and these same maxims may be taught toJewish children in their Talmud Torahs.But the Talmud is a secret book and notintended for Gentile consumption.

The fundamental difference between theJew and the Christian is shown in nothingmore clearly than in the way in whichthey severally treat their sacred books.The Christian believes the written Word ofhis Scriptures to contain the only methodby which the soul of the individual can besaved from destruction. It is, therefore,natural for him to do his best to spread theBook, through which he believes he hasfound nourishment for his soul, throughoutthe world in all the languages man speaks.

The Jews' method is the opposite of allthis. The Talmud is not to be found onbookstalls. There is no society formed by

46

THE JEWS' CODE

Jews to provide the world with it gratis,or translate it into all the tongues. If thiswere done it is safe to say the world wouldsoon make an end of the Jewish" religion,"if not of the Tribe itself.

Among its many boasts- --for Jewry canonly live among the nations by perpetualboasting and advertisement of its supposedvirtues-is this, that it is "The people ofthe Book." By this it is intended to makeGentiles believe that the" Book" of whichit is "the people" is the Old Testamentwhich they also revere. But that is not atall the case. The" Book" of which theyare "the people" is their Talmud. Andthe Talmud is also their" fatherland," andnot Palestine, nor Poland, nor Johannesburg, nor even New York. The Jew poet,Heine, well said that the Jews have a" portable fatherland," their" Torah."

How fatally this Torah has infectedChristianity and its Churches is revealedin another inspired saying of this sameJew. "Puritanism," he said, "is only

47


Judaism with the addition of a license toeat pork." It is the deliverance of men'sminds and souls from the blight of thispuritan mentality which Blake felt himselfinspired to effect. His poem "Milton" isdevoted to this object. He felt that Miltoncame to him in spirit in order to urge himto undo the injury wrought by the doctrinesof his great poems. The austere religionof the Pilgrim Fathers is depicted for usby Nathaniel Hawthorne in his novel "TheScarlet Letter." The puritan deity of theWelsh Calvinists is portrayed in the terriblebooks of Caradoc Evans. The Puri tanCromwell,-glorified in recent years by theScotch Puritan, Carlyle,-a man of bloodand iron, who was financed by Jews andwho employed them as his spies, paid thetribe for their services to himself by handing over to them England-England whichhad been free from them since the daysof King Edward 1., one of the very greatestrulers England ever possessed. It is notwithout significance that a Scottish Primier

48

THE JEWS' CODE

of England, the son-in-law of a Rothschild..has erected a statue to Cromwell in Westminster, but the instinct of the nationrefused to allow it to be placed within theHouse of England's Parliament, and it has;to be content with a place in an areaoutside.

The essence of puritanism is that it is areligion of self-righteousness as is Judaism.And puritanism is not confined to anyChurch. Rome no less than Geneva hasproduced examples in abundance of votariesat the shrine of Sinai, which demandsthat humanity shall be ordered by someexternal God to obey certain laws and beschooled into obedience to them. Only byso doing can the crown of self-righteous.ness be obtained. The inspired puritan,Bunyan, revolted against the creed in hisepic story of the Pilgrim, and beautifullydescribed the religion of Sinai as the burning mountain to the foot of which Christianwas seduced by "Mr. Worldly Wiseman" ofthe" Village of Morality."

49 E


According to Blake "obedience" canmake no man" good." Virtue comes fromwithin. "Religion" as popularly understood is imposed from without in "stony"laws and commands. Blake said it wasabsurd to take" laws of prudence and callthem laws of God." "Prudence," he said,"is a rich, ugly old maid courted byIncapacity"; all Christ's acts arose from"impulse" and not from obedience to laws.

The fact is, the "law of God" is notwritten on any tables of stone or on tablesof any material thing. It is written in theessence of things, in the heart and conscience of humanity. It is written in theprogress of the sun through the twelvesigns of the Zodiac. It is revealed in everygrain of sand, and in every herb and tree,in every animal, and every man. It hasmany forms and has received many names,the" force of gravity" being one of them,"attraction and repulsion" being another," polarity" another, manifesting as "maleand female," "right and left," "love and

50

THE JEWS' CODE

hate," "positive and negative"-but not asU good and evil." "I care not," says Blakein the words of one of his creations,11 whether a man is good or evil. All Icare is whether he is a wise man or a fool; "and in another passage he says, 11 Thecombats of good and evil is eating thefruit of the Tree of Death. The combatsof Truth and Error is eating of the Tree ofLife." Blake saw Humanity whole and notin the sections which the Five Sensesnecessarily impose on those whose vision isconfined to what they show. He sawMan's corporeal Reason claiming for itselfa separate self-hood and falling by thisvery claim, into division-into creation,in fact.

The claim of the Jews that" inspiration"ended with the last book of the Old Testament, and of Christians that it endedwith the Book of Revelation, was regardedas blasphemy by Blake. According to himthere is nothing of permanent value in lifethat is not the fruit of inspiration. "The

51


daughters of Memory," the inspirers ofclassic poetry, were to him of very minorconsequence. "The daughters of Inspiration" were his only loves. "There is noGod," he exclaims, "but that God who isthe Intellectual fountain of Humanity."To put a limit on the capacities of theGreat Humanity Divine is the direstblasphemy; as disbelief in Humanity is theworst form of Atheism.

Thou art a Man. God is no more.Thine own Humanity learn to adore.

The puritanic divinity is the SatanicUrizen, become a self-hood and demandingrighteousness and obedience to his stonycommands.

But these stony commands, which, toBlake's horror, Christians raise on theirhigh altars, are after all not so lowas the Code of the Rabbis. The poetGoethe said of the first of these same commands, "Thou shalt not kill," that therewas no tribe on earth except the Jews who

52

THE JEWS' CODE

were base enough to require to be toldthat. But the Rabbis are not contentwith even that. Their gloss upon it is thatit only means "Thou shalt not kill a Jew."In the words of the Talmud (Tosefta, AbdaZara VIII,5.) "If a Gentile kills a Jew heis responsible, but if a Jew kills a Gentilehe is not responsible."

53

CHAPTER V:

GOOD AND EVIL

I HAVE already referred to the passagefrom Blake in which he says that" the

combats of Good and Evil is eating of thefruit of the Tree of Death." It is necessaryto be a little more explicit on this matteror we shall not be able to follow muchof his thought.

" Good" and" Evil" are purely relativequalities. They are not essential actualities but depend entirely on the illusionof the separate self. The source of evilresides in the belief in self-hood. Selfdenial does not mean abstaining fromsome favourite indulgence and giving theproceeds to a good object j it means

54

GOOD AND EVIL

denying that our self-hood has any realexistence at all. This belief-the beliefthat our mortal, temporal self-hood hasany essential separate reality-is the evilbelief from which we are to pray to bedelivered.

Man's personal ego belongs to time, andTime-Kronos-Saturn-is the devourerof all its children. The dark triangle isthe reflexion in Time of the white triangle,which is the real, essential, eternal, infiniteMan. The light of the moon has in itselfno essential reality as originating in andfrom the moon. It is a reflexion only ofthat which issues from the sun. Themoon is the symbol of Nature as the Sunis the symbol of eternity. Man is an Eternalbut the Spirit of man has been so longimprisoned in a vehicle derived from Time,that it has come to believe it is itself achild of Time. But man's Spirit may beconsciously, if it so wills, a child of Eterni ty, knowing itself to be such, endowedwith, and not imprisoned in, a vehicle of

55


Time, through which it may gather experience - its Daily Bread - and attaingrowth until it expands into its own properinfinite divine dimensions and recognisesItself.

"The combats of Truth and Error iseating of the fruit of the Tree of Life."The great error, the original Lie, is thebelief that the Spiri t of man is mortal,that his vehicle is himself. It is the beliefof the blood-corpuscle that it is somethingin itself, and is separate from the life andspirit of the organism which has producedit. Every sin which man has committedor can commit has arisen from this poisonous lie. This is at once the serpent andthe apple, and it is to be found in theparadise of every man and woman born.It is in fighting this error that man gainslife and strength throughout his existencein Time, and when Time has devoured allthat is temporal, and therefore its own, inhis constitution, Man will then haverecovered his lost freedom, his raised body

56

GOOD AND EVIL

will have been freed from material limitations, his Paradise will have been regained.

For everything which has been or canbe created must be annihilated. Onlythat which is wholly pure and divinecan endure.

The fighting of this primeval Error iswhat Blake calls Spiritual Warfare, andSpiritual Warfare gives life as temporalwarfare gives death. That is what hemeans in the line "I will not cease frommental fight." For it is the mind of Manwhich is the arena of the battle. Man'smind is the meeting place between the soulof nature and the soul of immortality, andit is there that the conflict occurs.

The cardinal error of the Garden ofEden is nowhere more vividly manifestedthan in the belief that the Scriptures are"history." They are just as true and justas little historical as are the events ofBunyan's inspired dream. We are explicitly told that" The letter killeth" and

57


that it is the spirit and the letter, the.spiritual interpretation, which gives life.And yet we have all the Christian Churches,and all the sects, from their temporal andmortal readings of the letter of Scriptureas if it were history, claiming that theyalone are right, and making war upon oneanother on the basis of that misunderstanding. It is on this misunderstandingalone that the Tribe of modern Jewryclaims to have rights to a land which isnot theirs, and it is this which is setting thenations of the world at loggerheads throughChristians' adoption of this false view,a view inspired by the tribe itself.

The adoption by Christians of the Jews'god for their own deity has led to most ofthe trouble which confronts the Churchesand sects to-day. An extra-cosmic deitywith a limited personality who can beangry and jealous, and can be placatedlike any Czesar is the god the Jews haveplanted on the Christian world.

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GOOD AND EVIL

To Blake God was no extra-cosmic,external deity, but was part of Man asMan is part God-as a single cell of man'sbody is part of the organism of the Man.As the universe of Matter is the body ofdeity made manifest, so the physical bodyof man is the visible part of man's souland spirit. In Blake's vision man's spiritis infinite as God is infinite, and the factthat it has a physical vehicle does notlimit it thereto. Blake perceives that manhas to be awakened from his deadly sleepin which he dreams that he is limited;he perceives that man is Spirit as God isSpirit, manifested in Time and crucifiedin Matter; that Spirit is all and thatMatter is Spirit condensed; that" Adam"is the" limit of contraction "-" shrunk upto a little root, a fathom long,"-and that"Satan" is the" limit of opacity" throughwhich no spiritual light can penetrate.

We say" the pen writes"; but the pendoes not wri te, neither does the hand wri te

59


with the pen. It is the spirit whichwrites, passing "through the portals ofthe brain down the right arm." We sayU the tongue talks"; but the tongue doesnot talk, only the spiri t talks through theinstrumentality of the tongue. The spiritof man is infinite, but being U drowned inthe deluge of Time and Space" it nolonger knows itself, except by flashes, andimagines itself to be the vehicle in whichit works. This is the outer self, theshadow self, on the digestion, extinction,and annihilation of which its own resurrection depends.

That Christianity has survived in spiteof the enthronement of the Jews' god ofthis World is due to the fact that the reasonof the outer senses on which the existenceof the Jews' god depends is not the controlling power with most Christians.Happily, logic is not their strong point.It is possible to hold a number of mutuallycontradictory" beliefs" without our noticing the fact. The organism which is

60

GOOD AND EVIL

popularly known as the sub-conscious, orthe sub-liminal self-the one which transmutes the bread we eat into blood and boneswithout our knowing it-is also capable ofdoing many other things quite regardless ofwhat the logical faculty may approve.Thus it comes about that the interiorfaculties of Man may attain to substantialtruth whilst correct logic based on faulty orimperfect data may lead only to error. "Allreligions are one," says Blake, and the samemay be said of all churches and all sects.They are so many different approaches tothe Temple of Truth, created by and adaptedto the particular limitations of the mindsof their adherents. " Religion "-fromreligera-is, or should be, the binding ofman back to his source in the Supreme. Butin ordinary use the word" religion" connotes much that is the opposite of this,and in Blake's writings the word almostexclusively refers to this bad sense. It isa power which "binds," truly enough, butinstead of uniting the shadow ego with

61


the Supreme Power from which it originated, it seeks to bind the infinite withinthe terms of the finite, with its "Thoushalt," and its "Thou shalt not," untilthe " Mistaken Demon" of the Jews' god isenthroned as the World Power.

The Moral Law of Sinai-" one law forthe lion and the ox, which is oppression"is the outcome of this code. Not that theScribes of Jewry are content with TenCommandments, their Talmud has multiplied them till they now number Sixhundred and thirteen. Virtue, says Blake,is something positive and infinite and nota thing which can be codified andrestrained. The word "Virtue" is derivedfrom Vir-" Man "-and connotes all thatis of true manhood and manliness."Morality" is something of a very differentorder. It belongs to " manners "-moresas "ethics" - Ta eeL/Ca _. belongs to "customs," and is of the earth, earthy. Whatis "moral" in one part of the world is"immoral" in another part. The old

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GOOD AND EVIL

Sunday-school division of humanity into" good men" and" bad men" belongs to thisorder, and derives from the shadow-consciousness of man, and not from his divinecentre, from the illusory aspect of the temporal, and not from the eternal in Man.

Charles Kingsley betrayed the Jewishstrain in him when he wrote the words:

"Be good, sweet maid, and let whowill be clever."

Outside a nursery or a Sunday School itis impossible to "be good" to order, as itis impossible to "be happy" to order anywhere. Righteousness is a perfectly impossible ideal in this shadow phase ofexistence, but Truth is not; and theseparation of Truth from error is the primefunction of life on this plane.

Although overwhelmed in the Deluge ofTime and Space, Man's spirit is not dead.In fact there could be no life if it were. Inspite of the domination of the temporal,illusory ego, the real ego is ever coming tothe surface in Man's mind.

63


It is to the temporal plane that the distinction between "good" and " evil"belongs, and it is the eating of the fruitof the Tree which gives the consciousnessof this difference that brings experience;and experience eventually leads to thedeath of the illusion. The warfare of thespirit of man against acceptance of theillusion for the real is eating of the Treeof Life. Blake felt it to be his mission,his order, his instruction, his inspirationto show the world that the cherubic guardat the Tree of Life was now removed byhis writings, and that the eating of thefruit of the Tree of Life was henceforthopen to alL

64

CHAPTER VI.

BLAKE'S GOD

ALMOST two centuries before Blakeappeared on this scene, there was born

another seer of visions, Jacob Boehme.Boehme was born in 1575, Blake in 1757.Both were" uneducated" in the ordinarysense of that much abused word, Boehmebeing a shoemaker and Blake never havingbeen to school. But both were endowedwith the faculty of soul-vision, which seesthrough and not with the mortal eye, andboth were able to understand the thingsof man's true nature, the things of theSpirit which is the child of eternity, and isonly a traveller through Time:

This life's five windows of the soulDistorts the heauens from pole to pole,

And leads you to believe a lieWhen you see with, not through the eye,Which was born in a night, to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light. •

• The Everla.tiflg Gospel, Section d.

65 F


That is to say, if we take that which the soulcan perceive through the limited externalsenses as being All, we believe a lie andall our apprehensions of spiritual things"the heavens "-are "distorted from poleto pole."

When a man believes that his temporal,personal self is all that there is of him, heshuts himself out from his own eternal lifeand adopts an animal existence.

The seer does not require to be convincedby argument and reasoning-he has visionand knows. There is an occult saying thata man becomes what he beholds. If he onlysees external things he is an external, if hesees the soul of the living universe he becomes himself a living soul. If he sees onlya material world he is himself material, ifhe sees infinite divinity in everything, heis himself infinite and divine. If he seesGod in Man, Man becomes God. The Incarnation and the Crucifixion are bothcomprised in the saying that" God becameas we are that we might be as He is."

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BLAKE'S GOD

The fundamental difficulty with theconception of the deity entertained by themajority of Christians is that they acceptthe Jewish idea that God is "SomebodyElse," and not all that is real and permanent of themselves. It has been saidthat the Rugby Arnolds are of Jewishextraction, but whether that is so or not,the poet of the family, Matthew Arnold,certainly revealed oriental traits. In thefamous phrase in which he described thedeity as " A power not ourselveswhich makesfor Righteousness" he spoke as the Jewsthink and speak. Blake's God was our veryself, our only real self. Tennyson had thetrue conception with his" Closer is He thanbreathing; nearer than hands and feet."

Again, Matthew Arnold is Jewish in hisputting" Righteousness" as the end and aimof all things. This is Blake's " Urizen ""Your Reason"-who claimed for himselfa separate self-hood and exalted himselfover all that is called God and so introduced disorder into the Cosmos.

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An exclusively literal reading of the Biblemakes it appear that Man is one and thatGod is Somebody Else. When we read"The Lord said unto Moses," or when aProphet says" Thus saith the Lord," weimagine that some external deity waspresent and ordered his" servants" to sayor write as he dictated. This is the" distortion of the heavens" of which Blakecomplained. For him there was only oneGod, who is the Inspirer of Poets andProphets, and who always has been" the"Intellectual fountain of Humanity." Forhim the "Heavens" were in the soul ofevery Man and nowhere else; man is notseparate from God, and God is not separatefrom man.

Consciousness is Being. Where and whatman's consciousness is there and that is he.If man's consciousness is fixed in that partof himself which is limited, in his temporalpersonality which has a name in theworld's directory, his God is necessarilyalso a limited Being, such as is the Jews'

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BLAKE'S GOD

God, which has been imposed upon andaccepted by the bulk of Christianity.

It may be well in this connection toreproduce three aphoristic statementsengraved by Blake in the early part of hiscareer. They may be called three, althoughthe second is a second edition and amplification of the first. The title of the twois "There is no natural Religion."

In Blake's day the rationalising sectionof the intellectual world endeavoured tomake out that Religion was a matter ofReason and was evolved from Nature.Nature became a divinity to be worshipped,and this was supported by the poetWordsworth with his laudation of"Natural Piety." To Blake, this was error:there is no such thing, he said, as "NaturalReligion," Nature itself being derived, anda creation of the five senses. The worshipof "Reason" based on the knowledgederived from the five senses alone was theworship of Satan, the limiting principle,which imposes a separate selfhood on man.

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Here follow the three statements :-

I

THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION

(FIRST SERIX,)

Etched about 1789

The Argument: Man has no notion of moral fitness

but from Education. Naturally he is only a natural

organ subject to sense.I. Man cannot naturally Perceive but through his

natural or bodily organs.II. Man by reasoning power can only compare and

judge of what he has already perceived.Ill. From a perception of only three senses or three

elements none could deduce a fourth or fifth.IV. None could have other than natural or organic

thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions.V. Man's desires are limited by his perceptions, none

can desire what he has Dot perceived.VI. The desires and perceptions 01 man, untaught

by anything but organs of sense, must be limited toobjects of sense.

Conclllsion.-If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic

character, the Philosophic and Experimental would soon

be at the ratio of all things, and stand still, unable to doother than repeat the same dull round over again.

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BLAKE'S GOD

II

THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION

(SECOND SJo:RIES)

Etched about 1789

I. Man's perceptions are not bounded by organs ofperception; he perceives more than sense (though everso acute) can discover.

Il, Reason, or the ratio of all we have already

known, is not the same as it shall be when we knowmore.

Ill. [This proposition has been lost.]

IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. Thesame dull round, even of a universe, would soon becomea mill with complicated wheels.

V. If the many become the same as the few when

possessed. More! More! is the cry of the mistakensoul; less than ALL cannot satisfy Man.

V.!. If any could desire what he is incapable ofpossessing, despair must be his eternal lot.

VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession

is Infinite and himself Infinite.Application.-He who sees the Infinite in all things,

sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself

only.Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as

He is.

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III

ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE

Etched about 1789

THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

The A rgument.-As the true method of knowledge

is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the

faculty which experiences. This faculty I treat of.

PRINCIPLE. 1ST. That the Poetic Genius is the true

Man, and that the body or outward form of Man isderived from the Poetic Genius. Likewise that the

forms of all things are derived from their Genius, which

by the Ancients was called an Angel end Spirit and

Demon.

PRINCIPLE 2ND. As all men are alike in outward form,

So (and with the same infinite variety) all are alike in

the Poetic Genius.

PRINCIPLE 3RD. 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 4TH. As none by travelling over known

lands can find out the unknown, So from already

acquired knowledge Man could not acquire more:

therefore an universal Poetic Genius exists.

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BLAKE'S GOD

PRINCIPLE 5TH. The Religions of all Nations are

derived from each Nation's different reception of the

Poetic Genius, which is everywhere called the Spirit of

Prophecy.

PRINCIPLE 6TH. The Jewi ...h and Christian Testa

ments are an original derivation from the Poetic

Genius; this is necessary from the confined nature of

bodily sensation.

PRINCIPLE 7TH. As all men are alike (though infinitely

various), So all Religious and, as all sirnilars, have

one source.

The true Man is the source, he being the Poetic

Genius.

It may be helpful to quote here threepassages from the writings of Jacob Boehme,which I will take from Dr. Hartmann'svolume.

"To believe merely in a historical Christ,to be satisfied with the belief that at sometime in the past Jesus died to satisfythe anger of God, does not constitute aChristian. Such a speculative Christianevery devil may be, for everyone wouldlike to obtain, without any effort of his

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own, something good which he does notdeserve. But that which is born from theflesh cannot enter the Kingdom of God.To enter that Kingdom one must be rebornin the Spirit." (p. 19)

"The theologians and sectarians keepon continually disputing about the letterand form, while they care nothing for thespirit, without which the form is emptyand the letter dead. Each one imaginesthat he has the truth in his keeping andwants to be admired by the world asa keeper of the truth. As theIsraelites dance around the golden calf, sothe modern Christians dance around theirself-constructed fetishes whom they callGod, and on account of this fetish-worshipthey will not be able to enter the promisedland." (p. 20)

Here is another passage which illustratesBlake's saying that to see "with" thecorporeal eye and not" through" it is to" believe a lie."

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BLAKE'S GOD

"The superficial reasoner believes thatthere exists no faculty of seeing except bythe exterior eye, and that if that sighthas departed there will be an end of seeing.It is very unfortunate if the soul can onlysee through the external mirror of the eye.What will such a soul see if that mirror isbroken? " (p. 2)

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CHAPTER VII.

IDOL WORSHIP

WE are told in scripture that" The letterkilleth, but the Spirit giveth Life,"

but this is a scripture which very fewChristians believe. " The Bible, the wholeBible, and nothing but the Bible," is thecry, and by "the Bible" they mean theliteral written word, that every word andevery letter (especially in the AuthorisedEnglish version) has come by direct inspiration. The acceptance of this view has ledto the creation of all the sects, which arebased on different interpretations of somany different passages. There was sometruth in the jibe that in his Reformationre-formation-Luther had only exchanged

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IDOL WORSHIP

the Pope of Rome for a Paper Pope, whichhe set up in place of the other. Blake saidof Voltaire that with all his ribaldry he hadat least done Christianity this enormousservice, that he had destroyed the tyrannyof the written word as exalted above itsspiri t.

There is only one Scripture which cannotbe falsified and that is to be read in thehandwriting of Nature. It is written inthe story of the rocks, of the plants andthe animal world; and workers in this fieldhave done much to complete the work ofVoltaire in destroying the tyranny of thisverbal idol. It is just as easy to make anidol of the Bible itself and commit the sinof idolatry-Bibliolatry-in its worship, asit is to make and worship idols of woodand stone. The Scriptures, in so far asthey are pure, are spiritual and mystic.But they are a human production and ahuman collection at best, and thus cannotbe free from the errors to which humanhandiwork is prone.

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But whatever they may be, they arecertainly not History, Geography, Biography or Science, and to worship them assuch is a most deadly form of idol worship.

It has been said that you cannot make areligion out of a history. This is true;but all the same the bulk of the Christianworld are guilty of this very same speciesof idolatry.

A friend of the writer's, the late EdwinJohnson, an eminent Nonconformist scholar,and a professor in a theological college, notbeing satisfied with all the evidences ofso-called" Bible history" available, askedleave of his college authorities to travel tothe centres where the great libraries of theworld were to be consulted, including thatof the Vatican. He spent two years on thetask and the result is to be found in hisbooks" Antiqua Mater" and" The Rise ofChristendom." His researches had theresult of robbing him of his position.Because his faith having been pinned on to abelief that the Bible was" historic," when

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IDOL VV'ORSHIP

he made the discovery that it is not, hecould no longer fill a chair in an establishment which required that it should betaught.

Neither is the Bible a book to beconsulted on Geography any more thanis Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," withits" City of Destruction," its "village ofMorality," its" town of Fair-speech" and its"Vanity Fair." An American who had allhis life placed his faith in the Geography ofthe" Holy Land" recently seized the opportunity of the opening up of Palestine to paya visit to the geographical divinity of hisfaith. Asked soon after his arrival what hethought of the Holy Land of his religiousdreams, he replied sadly, "Well, Sir, twodays in this place has made me an infidell"For Palestine is about as unholy a land ascan be found anywhere on earth. This pilgrim's geographical idol was shattered andhe had nothing better to put in its place.

Neither can Scripture be taken as anauthority on genealogies-as a kind of

79


Debrett of ancient days. It is particularlythis claim on which the Jews insist, andif they are robbed of this legend-which byno possible ingenuity can be upheld-alltheir much proclaimed "rights" to anyland, or any posi tion, vanish. People whoreally possess rights do not ask for themthey take them. If they are wise they usethem wisely. Those who grant "rights"to illegitimate claimants to them, are guiltyof something like theft, since they are givmgaway something which is not theirs to giveto those to whom it does not belong.

Finally, the Scriptures are in no sense tobe regarded as an authority on materialScience. It was the assumption of thiserroneous belief which led to the persecutionby the Church of men like Galileo andGiordano Bruno, and limited by centuriesthe acquisition of knowledge in one of itsaspects. The dogmas of the Church contain all the truths in closed caskets andthose who have the key are able to readthem. But the priests of the Church with

80

IDOL WORSHIP

the help of the Jews have thrown away thekey and materialised all the dogmas, andin so doing have effectually crucified theSaviour.

In spelling out certain series of facts ofNature, Darwin and the evolutionists ofold days, together with the readers of theScripture of the rocks, have done much tobreak down this idol. The trouble withthem is that their vision is limited to whattheir five senses can show them, and theworkings of the invisible powers behindevolution are to them a closed book. Thusit has come about that their work, admirable as it is from one point of view, hashad the result of setting up another idol" Evolution "-in the place of the onewhich they have destroyed.

In point of fact, if we could only seeit, there is vastly more idolatry amongChristians, ] ews and in tellectuals thanthere is among the so-called heathen.

The futility of teaching as "history" theOld Testament legends to so-called

81 G


heathens is illustrated by a story relatedin a recent number of a missionary magazinedealing with the South Sea Islands. Anative named Tulang had suffered muchfrom malaria and the missionaries explainedto him that malaria was caused by mosquitos. Tulang, who had been dulyinstructed in Bible history asked thisquestion of his instructor: "If mosquitoesare the cause of fever, why did Noah letthem into the Ark?" and as the missionary'sreply to this historical puzzle was slow incoming, Tulang feelingly added, much tothe missionary's relief,-" Well, I hope hewas well bitten!" Tulang, it may beadded, was not altogether convinced ofthe truth of the mosquito doctrine. Hehad been told by a native doctor that hisfever came from having drunk of a certainbrackish water on a distant island andthat he would not be cured until he wentagain to that island and took another gooddrink of the same water. This he did andwas promptly cured.

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CHAPTER VIII.

CREEDS

THOSE readers who have been able tofollow the trend of Blake's vision

thus far will now be in a position toappreciate what he has to say on theLord's Prayer. But before dealing withthat it may be useful to say a word oncreeds.

The average creed of the historicallyminded reader of the books of the OldTestament may be formulated somethinglike the following:

I BELIEVE IN

Adam and Eve,The Garden of Eden,The Serpent,

83


The Apple,The Deluge,The Ark,The Tower of Babel,Aaron's Rod that budded,The ten Plagues of Egypt,The Red Sea Passage,The Brazen Serpent,The Tables of Stone,Balaam's Ass,The Sun standing still,Daniel in the Lions' Den,The \Vhale that swallowed Jonah.

Amen.People have been heard to say that they

believe the story of Jonah being swallowedby the whale because it is in the Bible, andif the Bible had reversed the story and saidthat Jonah swallowed the whale, theywould have believed that.

Now, a " belief" of that order will savenobody and no thing.

Blake's creed is written at large in everyone of his works and in some of them

84

CREEDS

explicitly, but, for those who prefer thecanonical form, Jacob Boehme, Blake'sspiritual peer, has formulated a credowhich may well be given in this place,as the words very accurately describeBlake's own conception.

"A historical BELIEF," writes Boehrne,"is merely an opinion based upon someadopted explanation of the letter of thewritten word, having been learned in theschools, heard by the external ear, andwhich produces dogmatists and sophistsand opinionated servants of the letter.But FAITH is the result of the direct perception oj the truth, heard and understoodby the inner sense." (p. 22)

Like Blake, Boehme, says Franz Hartmann, "taught a conception of God whichwas far too grand to be grasped by thenarrow - minded clergy, who saw theirauthority weakened by a poor shoemaker,and who therefore became his unrelentingenemies; for the God of whom they conceived was a limited Being, a Person who,

85


at the time of his death, had given his divinepower into the hands of the clergy," whilstthe God whom Boehme and Blake worshipped was still living and filling theuniverse with his glory. (p. 17.)

BOEHME'S CREED.

In reply to the charge of heresy madeagainst him, Boehme formulated his credo

in these words :-"I acknowledge a universal God, being

a Unity, and the primordial power of Goodin the Universe; self-existent, independentof forms, unmeasurable and not subject tothe intellectual comprehension of any being.I acknowledge this power to be a Trinity inOne, each of the Three being of (qualpower, being called the Father, the Son, andthe Holy Ghost ; I acknowledge that thistriune principle fills at one and the sametime all things; that it has been, and stillcontinues to be, the cause, foundation andbeginning of all things. I believe and

86

CREEDS

acknowledge that the eternal power of thisprinciple caused the existence of theuniverse; that its power, in a mannercomparable to a breath or speech (theWord), radiated from its centre and produced the germs out of which grow visibleforms, and that in this exhaled Breathor Word (the Logos) is contained the innerheaven and the visible world with allthings existing within them." (p. 18.)

* * * * *This was Blake's creed also. The Christ

he worshipped was the Infinite UniversalChrist who is living and acting in everyhuman soul which is not anti-Christian,and riot merely the historic Person whosespiritual Life the gospels describe. It isactually this creed which vivifies allChristians-whether it has reached theirself-knowledge or not-and not the beliefin any historic person who lived in anygeographical place, although the preachersand missionaries may imagine that it is.But it must be admitted that the majority

87


of Christians pin their faith on the temporalhistoric humanity of Christ and not on hisinfinite, eternal, universal Power, just asthey believe that their own temporal personality is all there is that matters of themselves. Thus do Christians create theirown Christ after their own image, just as theJews have created their own pharisaic,Satanic god after their own image. " IsChrist God?" Blake was once asked." He is the only God," was his reply, and headded, "and so am I, and so are you."

In his great epic he wrote:

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 and 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." ...

...Jerusalem, plate 96.

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CREEDS

The futility of endeavouring- to base afaith on history was further exemplifiedwhen the near approach of the Planet Marsto the earth set men's minds wonderingwhether it might not be possible for us tocommunicate with the inhabitants of thatplanet, if any such exist. This again setmany good people anxiously questioningwhether or not the "Martians" were" Christians."

Of course, if there are human beings inMars, they are like ourselves in beingconstituted as individuals made up ofbody, soul and spirit, and capable of selfknowledge. If their soul and spirit are inharmony with the soul and spirit of theplanet of which they are part and thespirit of the Universe, they are consciouslypart of the Universal Christ and areChristians. If they are wilfully in opposition to that spirit, they are anti-Christ;but whether or not they know anythingabout Palestine and the things that havebeen written about it, is quite another

89


matter. If their "salvation" were todepend on their being able to pass anexamination in that" history" it is to befeared they would be eternally damned.

But many of the Christians who aretroubled about the souls of the Martiansonly regard as real Christians those whobelong to their own sect-Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist,Plymouth Brethren, and what not. Sectsare based on partial understandings of theliteral reading of certain parts of the Bible,And the underlying idea is that only thosewho understand these as they do canpossibly be "saved." But this only leadsto division on division and is apt to end inthe fate of a worthy couple of the ScottishCapital, which is renowned for punctiliouscorrectitude in doctrinal matters. Thecouple had gone the round of all thePresbyterian Churches and many others.On each occasion a doctrinal point arosewhich remained unsolved and resulted inthe secession of the two. At last they

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CREEDS

determined to be a sect by themselves, buteven that did not avert a tragic end. Forthe wife, when asked by a neighbour ifthey were not quite at rest now, wascompelled to own that" she was not verysure about "-her husband! *

Of course doctrinal correctness hasnothing whatever to do with spiritualunderstanding. They are on two entirelydifferent planes of vision. One belongsto the external, temporal, animal intellect,the other belongs to the inner principlewhich is in every man, but of which most

* 'I All our religious systems are only the works ofintellectual children. We ought to repudiate all our personaldesires, disputes, science, and will, if we want to restore theharmony with the mother which guve us birth at the beginning; for at present our souls are the playgrounds of manyhundreds of malicious animals, which we have put there inthe place of God. and which we worship for Gods. * * *

" The true Christian does not cling to any particularsect. He may participate in the ceremonial service of everysect, and still belong to none. "--Jacob Boehme. (pp. 19, 23)

"Among all sects there is none which possesses intellectually the true religion. We must read the Bible morewith our heart than with our brains, until at some futuretime the true religion will come into the world."-Paracelsus.

As it is now four centuries since Paracelsus wrote this,it may be Mid that the advent of the true religion is somewhat overdue.

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men are, until awakened, profoundlyunconscious. When once awakened, "aman is released from the conflict of opinionsand possesses self-knowledge," as JacobBoehme puts it, and Blake has said thesame thing over and over again. The Godof this world, Urizen, the" Mistaken demonof Heaven," who claimed an independentself-hood and wove the slimy net of hisself-righteous religion in which the worldis now floundering, is Blake's vision of theresult of the idolisation of the letter ofScripture. Happily, in these matters itis the inner apprehension which counts.Many who think they are great sticklersfor special points of doctrine really havethe inner sense, more or less, awake, andare ruled by this when they think they arebeing ruled by something else.

The extract quoted on p. 88 from theclosing portion of the Jerusalem containsthe creed by which all real Christians liveand by which real conversions are made

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CREEDS

and souls are saved. But, just as manygood people would rather have a tooth ofthe Buddha, or a bone of a saint, than theliving spirit of either, so many good peoplethink their friends are atheistic who preferto find a spiritual meaning in the story of] onah rather than a record of actual facts.

Man's spirit is confined to the shadowhe works in, and unless he is awakened toa knowledge of his true self, he takes foractualities the things of the shadow. He"does not know the Garment from theMan." And the reason why so many" converts" are failures is that the goodmissionaries do not themselves consciouslyknow the difference. They insist on tryingto make their flocks believe in certain.alleged facts of external history andgeography, forgetting that devils can

.believe all these without becoming Christians. The internal Man, the internal lifewas the beginning and end of all things forBlake. The shadowy man-the garmentthe natural man-has his function. It is

93


to be perpetually changed into its opposite-as bread for humanity is perpetuallybeing converted into blood and flesh. Theone is not "good" and the other "bad,"but the shadow should follow and serveand feed the substantial, invisible, eternalman.

There is vastly more essential truth inHan's Anderson's Fairy Tales than is to befound in all the histories. His story of"The Shadow" is a case in point. Alearned man of the North visiting a hotcountry in the South observed one nighthis shadow, cast by the lamp in his room,fall upon a house opposite whose interiorhe wished to explore. Therefore he toldthe shadow to enter when the door opened,and find out for him what was therein.This the shadow did, and in the morningthe learned man found himself shadowless.Years after, the shadow returned to him,having acquired in the meantime a bodilyhuman form. The owner, who, on hispart, had grown a new shadow in the

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CREEDS

interval, received the old shadow as aguest, and by degrees the shadow led hisoriginal about, completely dominated him,imprisoned him, and, finally, executed him.

This is the story of many of the Shadowswe meet in the streets at the present daytheir owners are imprisoned within them,if they are not actually extinct.

In very truth it is absolutely possible forthe mortal part of man, which he derivesfrom his earthly parents-from Nature-tofollow and serve and give strength andgrowth to the inner Man-whose Father isin the man's own heaven,-or to reverse theprocess and become a tumour on the innerlife until it is all absorbed or driven out.

It may be noted here that in the Latinand Greek versions of the Lord's Prayerthe first clause reads "Our Father whichart in the heavens." The word is plural.The recognised versions of the Prayer inmodern languages, the French, so far asI know, alone excepted, give the word" heaven" in the singular. But the plural

95


is important. Every man has his heavenand his hell in his own make-up, and thisis implied by the word being in the pluralnumber.

As the Shadow is nothing without theSubstance, so the "shadowy man "-inBlake's phrase-is nothing without thespirit. Therefore, it is extremely ridiculousfor the Shadow-the temporal personality-to boast itself about anything or to taketo itself credit for anything. This is wherethe folly of "conceit" arises; and it isthis which makes conceit the proper objectof ridicule wherever it appears. The innersense of the ordinary man recognises it forwhat it is.

And this is really the origin and functionof the sense of humour. The humoristnaturally takes his stand on the upper andinner plane and from thence observes allthe incongruities of those who take theirshadow-selves seriously, and act and speakas if they were the only things whichmatter. The value of laughter and the

96

CREEDS

sense of humour lies in this, that it exposesthis cardinal error. The saying that noone who has once laughed heartily can beentirely bad has much truth in it. Laughteris a mental antiseptic and tonic. Likeeverything else, laughter can be used for abad purpose as well as a good one, andthings that are worthy can be made toappear ridiculous by malicious minds. Buthearty laughter is entirely wholesome, since11 no man can speak [or laugh] from hisheart and not intend truth." Honestlaughter is the antidote to folly.

It is extreme folly on the part of theShadow to claim for itself any virtue orany merit. The Order of Merit is none ofits concern.* This is the meaning of the

* The founding of an " Order of Merit" among England'sorders of Christian chivalry marks the nadir of English andthe zenith of Jewish ideas of honour and honours. The manwho said, on being made a Knight of the Garter, that whathe liked in the Order was that there was" no damned meritabout it," showed much more true Christian sentiment thandid those whose brains originated the pharisaical O.M. Itwould be interesting to watch at a gathering of the Orderthe expression of mutual self-conscious merit on the countenances of the decorated ones.

97 H


saying" We are unprofitable servants, wehave done that which was our duty todo." It is also the meaning of the saying"Judge not." No man in his shadowcapacity can condemn another. There issomething incongruous even in a scarletclad Judge on the bench lecturing theworst of criminals.

The Error of Hero-worship lies in this,that it is glorifying the personal, temporalaspect of the hero - the Shadow andnot the Substance. This is certainly not"hallowing" the" Name" of the" Fatherin the heavens."

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CHAPTER IX.

DR. THORNTON'S TRANSLATION OF

THE LORD'S PRAYER WITH

BLAKE'S COMMENTS

IN the last year of his life Blake scribbledin pencil on the fly-leaves and margins

of " Dr. Thornton's New Translation of theLord's Prayer, London, MDCCCXXVI"his own annotations thereon.

Blake had previously illustrated withwood-cuts Dr. Thornton's translation ofthe Pastorals of Virgil. Dr. Thornton wasthe author of several other works, chieflymedical and botanical. Blake's quarrelwith Virgil and the Classics generally wasthat they exalted war and empire above Art,and to Blake Art was life and inspiration:

99


" Whoever is not an artist is not a Christian.Christ and his apostles were all artists"that is, in Blake's sense.

Commenting on a saying of Dr. Johnson,quoted by Dr. Thornton, that the Bible"cannot be understood at all by the unlearned, except through the aid of criticaland explanatory notes," Blake says:

Christ and His Apostles were Illiterate Men;Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod were Learned.

On a passage quoted by Thornton fromLord Byron on the" Ethics of Christ"" What made Socrates the greatest of men?His mor.al truths, his Ethics. What provedJesus Christ to be the Son of God, hardlyless than his miracles did? His moralprecepts."-Blake comments:

If Morality was Christianity, Socrates was theSaviour.

The Beauty of the Bible is that the mostIgnorant and Simple Minds understand it best.

On this passage from Thornton-" Menfrom their childhood have been so ac-

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DR. THORNTON'S TRANSLATION

customed to mouth the Lord's Prayer, thatthey continue this through life, and call itsaying their prayers."-Blake's comment is:

It is the learned that Mouth, nut the Vulgar.

'iV e will now take Dr. Thornton's translation of the Prayer, but before doing so itwill be well to give Blake's view of Thornton's entire pamphlet:

I look upon this as a Most Malignant andArtful attack upon the Kingdom of Jesus bythe Classical Learned, thro' the Instrumentalityof Dr. Thomton. The Greek and RomanClassics is Anti-Christ.

Here is Thornton's Translation:

" THE LORD'S PRAYER.

" Translated from the Greek by Dr. Thornion.

" Come let us worship and bow down," and kneel before the Lord, our Maker.

" Psalm xcv."0 Father of Mankind, Thou who

" dwellest in the highest of the Heavens," Reverenc'd be Thy Name.

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" May Thy Reign be, everywhere, pro" claimed so that Thy Will may be done" upon the Earth, as it is in the Mansions" of Heaven:

" Grant unto me, and the whole world,"day by day, an abundant supply of" spiritual and corporeal Food:

"Forgive our transgressions against"Thee, as we extend our Kindness, and" Forgiveness to all :

"0 God! abandon us not, when sur" rounded, by trials:

" But preserve us from the Dominion of"Satan! for Thine only, is the Sovereignty,"the power, and the glory, throughout" Eternity ! ! ! Amen."

This version will probably strike most.people as a particularly prosaic and uninspired attempt at a rendering of the greatoriginal, but Blake saw in it somethinginfinitely more pernicious.

In all sacred writings, "Bread" is symbolic of a spiritual state and to translate

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the" Bread" of the Prayer into the materialbread which could be taxed, and boughtwith a price, was in Blake's view somewhatperilously near to blasphemy. It was, asBlake put it, saying the Prayer" backwardswhich, they say, raises the devil." *

In this Blake was at one with NicholasBreakspeare, the first and last Englishmanwho became Pope. And a very good Popetoo was Adrian IV, whose pontificatecovered part of the reign of our Henry 11.He also made a translation of the Prayer,a metrical one, which will be given in fullin the next chapter, and from this versionI will now quote the clause relating to"Bread." "Give us this day our dailybread," becomes:

"Thou give to ous this ilke day" That holy Bread which lasteth ay."

* Reading material bread into this clause and prayingfor it is falling before the First Temptation. The Saviourwas invited to use His Spiritual Power for a selfish endthe satisfaction of bodily hunger-and He instantly referredthe Tempter to the Spiritual source and sustenance of all Life.

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Dr. Thornton would find himself supported in his material view of the Prayerby the four-year old child of whom HansAndersen writes in his Tale, "\Vhat theMoon Saw." On this occasion the Moonsaw a little girl saying her prayers in hercrib whilst her mother sat beside her. Inrepeating the Prayer aloud, the child alwaysadded under her breath something on herown account. Questioned by her motherwhat it was she added after the words,"Give us this day our daily bread," thechild replied, "don't be angry mother-Ionly said, and please put plenty of butteron it." This the Moon saw, and the Moonmight have seen Dr. Thornton's mindworking in the same direction when he"said his prayers."

And Dr. Thornton would also find support among the Jews. One of their writers( Jewish Chronicle, March 12, 1926) hasexpressed the Jewish view of the Prayer,which he regards as "a composition (!)lacking in virility, backboneless and de-

104


pendent when compared with the morerobust and vigorous style of Jewish productions of the kind." Doubtless thewriter is thinking of Kol Nidri and otherTalmudic treasures. It is particularly inthe Rread clause that he touches Dr. Thornton. "Give us this day our daily bread," hesays, "is in accord with the whole of theteaching which Jesus impressed upon hisfollowers-that their daily wants would besupplied them, and that they need not workand toil for their needs. He, in fact, debasesLabour and does not, as does Judaism,dignifiy it for its own inherent value. TrueJudaism would have said: 'Give us powerand energy to earn our daily bread '."

There is no possibility of mistaking thematerialistic mentality of Judaism revealedin this passage, with an absolute lack ofcraving for spiritual food in its soul. "Thatholy Bread which lasteth ay" of Adrian IV'sversion has no attraction for the Jews. Itis really for the money to buy food that heis asking, and those who are well enough

105


off to buy bread without working for ithave no need, according to Jewry, to saythis prayer at all !

This is how Blake interpreted the innermeaning of Dr. Thornton's translation ofthe clause; in effect it was asking for

Lawful Bread, bought with Lawful Money, und a

Lawful Heaven, seen thro' a Lawful Telescope, by

means of a Lawful Window Ligl.t l The Holy

Ghost and whatever cannot be taxed is Unlawful

and Witchcraft.

[I may here by way of parenthesis cite apassage from Jacob Boehme which bears onDr. Thornton's "Highest Heavens" whichBlake calls" Telescopic" :

Before I knew that which I deeply know now, I, like

others, thought that there was no other true heaven than

that which as a blue circle encloses the world high above

the stars, thinking that God had a separate existence

therein and that He was ruling this world by means of

His Holy Spirit. (p. 59).]

I would warn readers that the very lastthing for them to do in order to understand

106


Blake's vision is to try to understand it.The faculty which has any need to make aneffort is incapable of achieving this end. Itis like Dr. Thornton looking for his heavenwith a telescope. To one who has the trueinner vision neither telescope, nor microscope, nor reasoning intellect is necessary.As Blake put it:

He who does not Know Truth at Sight isunworthy of Her Notice.

Speaking of his early youth Blake thusdescribes his heaven:

Inspiration and Vision was then, and now is,and I hope will always remain, my Element,my Eternal Dwelling place.

Two further extracts from Boehmewritings may help to clear our ideas ofwhat" heaven" is in the mystic vision:

(1). He is calledour Father in heaven; not as if heavencontained Him-for He is greater than All-but for thepurpose of indicating that the glory and power of theFather appears pure, clear and radiant in the celestialkingdom wherein the Holy Trinity is triumphantlymanifest. (Auro,a, iii., p. 2.)

107


(2). A man's heaven exists for him not outside ofhimself. If heaven is in him, then will he be in heaven,wherever he may be. Heaven is throughout the wholeworld and outside of it ; everywhere without any separatelocality or place; existing only within itself through thepower 01 divine (interior) revelation. It is nothing but amanifestation of the Eternal One. (Sujersensual

.life, 42.)

We will now take Blake's version of whathe termed Dr. Thornton's "Tory Translation" of the Prayer, re-translated "outof its disg-uise in the Classical and Scottishlanguage into the vulgar English." According- to Blake it amounted to this:

Our father Augustus Csesar, who art in these thy Substantial Telescopic Heavens. Holiness to Thy Name orTitle, & reverence to Thy Shadow. Thy Kingship comeupon Earth first & then in Heaven. Give us day by dayour Real Taxed Substantial Money bought Bread [take ...del.] i deliver from the Holy Ghost [words illegible • . .debt thatwasowingto him del.] whatever cannot be Taxed;for all is debts & Taxes between Ceesar & us & one another;lead us not to read the Bible, but let our Bible be Virgil&Shakespeare, & deliver us from Poverty in Jesus, that EvilOne. For thine is the Kingship, [or] Allegoric Godship,& the Power or War, & the Glory, or Law, Ages afterAges in thy descendants; for God is only an Allegoryof Kings & nothing else. Amen.

108


That Dr. Thornton's conception of thedeity was that of an extra-cosmic Power,and not the spiritual source of all life isseen from the following quotation:

"What is the Will of God we are orderedto cbey? Let us consider whoseWill it is. It is the Will of ourMaker. It is finally the Will ofHim, who is uncontrollably powerful."

On which Blake comments:

So you See that God is just such a Tyrant as Augustus

Csesar , and is not this Good and Learned and Wiseand Classical?

Thornton wrote:"Dim at best are the conceptions we

have of the Supreme Being, who, as itwere, keeps the human race in suspense,neither discovering nor hiding himself."

On which Blake exclaims:

A Female God!

Lest any should misunderstand him,Blake pencilled his own version of thePrayer. It meant this to him:

109

BLAKE ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

Jesus, our Father, who art in Thy heaven called byThy Name the Holy Ghost. Thy Kingdom on Earth isNot, nor Thy Will done, but Satan's who is God of thisWorld (the Accuser. Let his judgment be Forgivenessthat he may be consumed on his own Throne).

Give us this Eternal Day our own right Bread, Takeaway Money or a Price or Debtor Tax.

Leave us not in Parsimony, Satan's Kingdom; liberateus from the Natural Man of Satan's Kingdom.

For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and theGlory and not Cresar's or Satan's.

On the page opposite to this Blake wroteanother version of the "Bread" clause:

Give us the Bread that is our due and Right by takingaway Money or a Price or Tax upon what is Commonto all in Thy Kingdom . . . everything has as muchright to Eternal life as God, who is the Servant of Man.His judgment shall be forgiveness that he may beconsumed on his own Throne.

There is nothing which man can rightlyask for which is not" common to all," andwhich is not beyond any" price" which mancan pay. In the Prayer of the Gospels noexclusively, personal favour is desired.

110


It will be seen that in the reading of thePrayer everything depends on the conception of what Man is, and what God is.The jew's God, with his accusation of sinsand his codes of law, is identical withBlake's Urizen-" You Reason," or "YourReason," - who claimed for himself aseparate self-hood and sought to imposethe limits of the Reason of the self-hoodon the Infinite. Reason is the Servantof Man and not his master. It is Man'spart to return Reason to its proper stationas the Servant of Inspiration. This is thework of Jesus, the Divine Image, who thusappeared to Blake's vision:

THE DIVINE IMAGE.

To Mercy, Pity, Peace and LoveAll pray in their distress;And to these virtues of delightReturn their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace and LoveIs God our Father dear,And Mercy, Pity, Peace and LoveIs Man, his child and care.

111


For Mercy has a human heart,Pity a human face,And Love, the human form divine,And Peace the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,That prays in his distress,Prays to the human form divine,Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,In heathen, turk or jew ;Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwellThere God is dwelling too.

But Blake had a vision of anotherdivinity which must be given also. Thisis not" The Divine Image," but" A DivineImage." This is additional to the" Songsof Experience," the former belonging to theperiod of Innocence before the" Fall."

A DIVINE IMAGIi:.

Cruelty has a Human Heart,And Jealousy a Human Face,Terror the Human Form Divine,And Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is Forged IronThe Human Form a fiery Forge,The Human Face a Furnace SeaI'dThe Human Heart its hungry gorge.

112


It is not difficult to recognise in thedivinity of this vision the "God of this.World" or the Jews' God of Accusation,Jealousy and Vengeance, whom Blake sawworshipped under the "Names Divine ofJesus and Jehovah " by the classical learnedof his day.

But even this divinity, this "mistakenDemon of Heaven," is still part of UniversalMan, and is to be redeemed by the Power ofForgiveness, the religion of Jesus, and assoon as the Demon issues this fiat he is"consumed on his own Throne." Then" Jesus becomes Jehovah."

In the poem, "The Ghost of Abel," Satandemands of Jehovah-" Thou shalt Thyselfbe Sacrificed to Me, thy God, on Calvary."

To which the answer came, with thunder:

Jehovah. Such is My Will Thunders.

that Thou Thyself go to Eternal Death

In Self Annihilation, even till Satan, Self-subdu'd,Put off Satan

Into the Bottomless Abyss, whose torment arises forever & ever.

113


It will make this more clear if I quotefrom the lyric at the opening of thesecond Chapter of the Jerusalem. "Albion"is Humanity as a whole in its aspect asfallen into Experience,* and the" Spectre"is the" Reasoning Power in Man."

Albion's Spectre from his loinsTore forth in all the pomp of War :

Satan his name: in flames of fireHe stretch'd his Druid Pillars far.

* .. * *He wither'd up the Human Form

By laws of sacrifice for sin,Till it became a Mortal Worm,

But O! translucent all within.

The Divine Vision still was seen,Still was the Human Form Divine,

Weeping in weak and mortal clay,o Jesus, still the Form was thine.

* .,Not patriotism alone caused Blake to choose the nameof the ancient Giant as the name of the Eternal Man, forboth Geography and the traditional history of Albion, orEngland, were unusually felicitous as symbols. M&n, likeEngland, is a little island entirely surrounded by the Sea ofTime and Space. It was originally inhabited by Giants(netaral forces). which were subdued by a noble, the TrojanBrutus, who was exiled from a finer land (symbolically fromEternity). But Albion'a ocean wall did not prove a definitebarrier : it Bent its ships &CraBS the Sea. of Time and Space,JUBt aB the Poet is the Explorer of Eternity." (fIosterDomon, p. 144.)

114


And thine the Human Face, & thineThe Human Hands & Feet & Breath,

Entering thro' the Gates of BirthAnd passing thro' the Gates of Death.

And 0 thou Lamb of God, whom ISlew in my dark self-righteous pride,

Art thou returned to Albion's Land?And is Jerusalem thy Bride?

Come to my arms & never moreDepart, but dwell for ever here:

Create my Spirit to thy Love:Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear.

Spectre of Albion! Warlike Fiend!In clouds of blood & ruin roll'd,

I here reclaim thee for my own,My Self-hood! Satan arm'd in Gold."

In Blake's cosmogony there was nothingseparate from Humanity, and Satan no lessthan'the Divine Image was part of his ownorganism. This self-hood must be "consumed on its own Throne" by the fiat ofForgiveness of Sins, and denial of theseparate self and then all is well. This isthe consummation of all Blake's epics.

115


There is another quotation which mustbe made here from the final Chapter ofJerusalem, plate 96 :

Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as theGood Shepherd

By the lost Sheep that he hath found, &Albion knew that It

Was the Lord, the Universal Humanity; &

Albion saw his FormA Man, and they conversed as Man with Man in

Aies of Eternity.And the Divine Appearance was the likeness and

similitude of Los.

Albion said: "0. Lord, what can I do? my selfhood cruel

" Marches against thee, deceitful, from Sinai & fromEdam

" Into the Wilderness of Judah, to meet thee ID hispride.

" I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of SixThousand years

" Dazzling around thy skirts like a Serpent of preciousstones & gold

"I know It is my Self, 0 my Divine Creator &

Redeemer."

116


Jesus replied : "Fear not, Albion; unless I diethou 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 onin darkness

Overshadowed them, & Jesus said: "Thus do Menin Eternity

" One for another to put off, by forgiveness, everysin."

Albion replied: "Cannot Man exist withoutMysterious

" Offering of Self for Another? is this Friendship &Brotherhood ?

" I see thee in the likeness & similitude of Los myFriend."

Jesus said: "Wouldestthou love one who neverdied

"For thee, or ever die for one who had not died forthee?

" And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself" Eternally for Mall, Man could not exist j 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."

117

CHAPTER X.

THE PRAYER ITSELF IN SEVERAL

TONGUES

IT will be convenient now to reproducethe Prayer in its original form in the

Greek and Latin Testaments, and in severalother languages, so that it may be seenhow these have interpreted its meaning.And first we will take it in the Greek ofSt. Matthew's Gospel, beginning ChapterVI, verse 9.

118

THE PRAYER ITSELF

I

FROM THE GREEK TESTAMENT:

IIuTep ~f.J.W)I () f)l TO/S' ovpaI'OLS'.

a:yWtTeJ(rW TO 01'0!J.& aov,

fAefTW ~ (3atTlAela tTOU,

'Ye)l~eI]-rW TO ee.\~f.J.ci tTOU,

WS' fl' oupal'w /Cat f7rt T~S' "IqS"

TOI' apTOI' ~f.J.WI' Tal' f7rIOUtTtOI' Oaf ~pil' a7J!J.epoll'

/Cat atpef ~!J.il' Ta orpetM!J.aTa ~!J.r;,I',

Wf /Ca; ~f.J.etf atple!J.e)l TOtf o<petAb-atS' ~,.,.wll'

Kat !J.~ et'tTel'f'Y/C~f ~!J.af· et'f 7retpatT!J.ol'•

. aAXci putTat ~f.J.af a7r() TOU 7rOIlFJPOV

" "" Q \' ,C'~, ,OTt tTOU etTTtl' '1 f'JatTtl\.eta, Kat '1 ouva!J.tf. Kat 'I

oo~a, Etf Touf alr;,uar- a!J.rjl'.

119

BLAKE ON THE LORD'S PRAYEH

11

FROM THE VULGATE EDITION OF SIXTUS V

AND CLEMENT VIII:

Pater noster, qui es in ccelis :Sanctificetur nomen tuum.:Adveniat regnum tuum.Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in ccelo et in

terra.Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da

nobis hodie.Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et

nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.Sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

120

THE PRAYER ITSELF

III

THE FRENCH VERSION:

Notre Pere qui es aux cieux,Ton nom soit sanctifie ;Ton regne vienne ;Ta volonte soit faite sur la terre comme

au ciel;Donne-nous audjourd'hui notre pain

quotidien;Pardonne-nous nos peches, comme nous

les pardonnons a ceux qui nous antoffenses ;

Et ne nous induis point en tentation ;Mais delivre-nous du mal;Car c'est a toi qu'appartient la regne,

la puissance, et la gloire. Amen.

121


IV

THE GERMAN VERSION:

Unser Vater in dem Himmel!Dein Name werde geheiliget.Dein Reich komme.Dein Wille geschehe auf Erden, wie im

Himmel.Unser tagliches Brad gieb uns heute.Und vergieb uns unsere Schulden, wie

wir unsern Schuldigern vergeben.Und fiihre uns nicht in versuchung,

sondern erlose uns van dern Ubel.Denn dein ist das Reich, und die Kraft,

und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit. Amen.

122

THE PRAYER ITSELF

vENGLISH VERSIONS

(1)

THE LORD'S PRAYER TRANSLATED BY POPE

ADRIAN IV:

(Copied from "A. Tarleton on NicholasBreakspear," p. 254.)

Paternoster in Anglico

Vre Fadir in heuene richeThi name be halied everliche,Thou bring us to thi michilblische,Thi will to wirche thee ve wisse,Als hit is in heuene ido,Euer in earth ben hit also,That holi bred that lasteth ay,Thou send hit ous this ilke day,Forgiue ous all that we hauith don,Als we forgiuet vch other monoHe let us falle in no founding,Ak scilde us fro the foule thing. Amen.

123


(2)

FROM THE REVISED VERSION,

ST. MATTHEW VI, 9 et seq.

Our Father which art in heaven,Hallowed be thy name.Thy kingdom come.Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on

earth.Give us this day our daily bread.And forgive us our debts, as we also have

forgiven our debtors.And bring us not into temptation, but

deliver us from the evil one.(F or Thine is the Kingdom, and the

power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.)

124

THE PRAYER ITSELF

(3)

THE VERSION FROM ST. LUKE, XI, 2 :( Marginal additions being added in brackets.)

Our Father (which art in heaven)Hallowed be Thy name.Thy Kingdom come.(Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on

earth.)Give us day by day our daily bread.And forgive us our sins; for we our

selves also forgive everyone that is indebtedto us.

And bring us not into temptation;(But deliver us from the evil one.)

CHAPTER XI.

A PARAPHRASE

Such are the versions of the prayer asexpressed in different tongues and bydifferent writers. In F. Hartrnann's "Jehoshua, the Prophet of Nazareth," there is aparaphrase of it in a positive aspect whichthrows light on it from another point. Inplace of "Hallowed be Thy Name" wehave "Let us glorify" Thy Name, and sothroughout the prayer. This paraphrase,which shall be given presently with SO'11emodifications, brings out the purelyspiritual nature of the prayer, and confirmsBlake's interpretation of prayer in generalwhen he says:

I should suspect that I worshipped the devilIf I thanked my God for worldly things.

126

A PARAPHRASE

And in the" Everlasting Gospel" he says" I never will pray for the world." Thusin the Lord's Prayer, it is the spiritualaspect of man which is the object ofpetition all through, and when we haveprayed to the Father of us all that Hisname may be hallowed, this clause of thepetition includes implicitly all the rest.

In the first three clauses of the Prayer inall the versions, the position of "Thy"gives it tremendous emphasis. It is " ThyName," " Thy Kingdom" and" Thy Will."This almost inevitably suggests an antithesis-not some other kingdom, not someother will, etc. This Blake makes clear inhis version: "Thy Kingdom on Earth isNot, nor Thy Will done, but Satan's"; and"For Thine is the Kingdom and the Powerand the Glory and not Cresar's or Satan's."

The Hartmann Paraphrase in its originalform uses the third person in referring tothe Father-"Worship Him," "His Sphere,"etc. I have thought it better to restorethe original directness and use" Thy."

127


Our Father which art in the heavensof all men.

Let us glorify Thee, the Universal Spiritof Divine Wisdom, from whose Lightthe consciousness of all beingsoriginates.

Let us worship Thee by sacrificing toThee all thoughts of self and allindividualself-interests, and by risingup to Thy sphere in our thoughtsand aspirations.

May no earthly wish ever cause us toact against the Universal Will ofthe Supreme, who rulest all thingsin the visible and invisible Universeby Thine unchangeable Law.

May Thy power cause all mankind togrow in daily Knowledge and toexpand in Love, and may all menawaken to realise their true state asSpiritual Powers, temporarily connected wi th mortal forms.

128

A PARAPHRASE

Let no thoughts of our past deeds,when we were in a state of darkness,mar our present state of supremehappiness, and may we forget allthe evils that have ever beeninflicted on us by others.

Let us strive to become free from all theattractions of matter and sensuality,and submerging our consciousnessinto that of the Universal andSupreme, become redeemed from theIllusion of Self, the source of all Evil.

For the mortal self of man is merely anunsubstantial Shadow, whilst theReal and Substantial is the Indivisible, Eternal, and Infinite Spirit.

Contemplation of this paraphrase willreveal that all is implicit in the originalPrayer, which, like all truly inspiredwritings, is infinite in meaning and bearings; and when the Saviour enjoined itupon His disciples, He had given them theentire scope of all prayer.

129 K

BLAKE ON THE LOHD'S PHAYER

There is a divine magic in the livingwords which all the centuries have bornewitness to. The frequent repetition of theprayer in the Church Service is not a vainrepetition, but the contrary.

If the paraphrase is committed to memoryand repeated from the heart, clause byclause, after the original in our own or inany other language, it will be found to bea spiritual exercise which will clear themind of the earthly clouds which areconstantly obscuring- its heaven.

It is worthy of note that in German theword for "prayer," Gebet, is identical withgeben, "to give." Moreover the gesture ofgiving is identical with the gesture of receiving. Natural gesture is instinct; it is noteducation, and it is not convention. Aperson praying is actually giving himseljwill, thought and word. This is selfsurrender; it is not asking for any thing.Prayer is the sacrifice of the personal will,and Heaven is the celestial state of will-theinner spiritual world.

130

CHAPTER XII.

THE HISTORICITY OF THE BIBLE

Blake's fundamental ideas of Life andInspiration were put into tangible shapein his marginal comments on a criticismby . Bishop Watson of a pamphlet byBlake's friend, Thomas Paine, the revolutionary. Blake was himself in revoltagainst the accepted ideas of his age, andone of his spiritual enemies was the prevalent Deism of that time. This was arationalistic religion associated with thenames of Voltaire and Rousseau, whichtaught that Natural Man was born goodand that Natural Religion was inherentin him. To this Blake replied that manwas born a "spectre" and that the whole

131


business of his life was to be continuallytransformed into his opposite. The" Natural Man" is a child of Nature like theanimal world, but there is in Man a voicewhich is continually impelling him to actagainst his" natural" instincts and desires.This is the Holy Ghost in Man and the voiceis heard in the conscience. The conscienceis the" Word of God universal," as inspiredwritings are the" Peculiar Word of God."To "prophesy" is not to foretell futureevents on the temporal plane, but to"speak for God," to utter in Time thewords of Eternity. All true poets, saidBlake, speak by Inspiration. And, moreover, he held that all true action-whichis art-begins from the inner plane, and inthat way in Blake's vision" Christ and theApostles were all Artists." They did notact from reason-the chief God of thedeists-but from impulse-as they wereinspired. In the same way, as he wouldhave said, there is no word uttered and nodeed done that is of any worth, which is

132

HISTORICITY OF THE BIBLE.

not the utterance of inspiration. "Thereis no God but that God who is the intellectual fountain of humanity." " Theworship of God consists in honouring thegreatest men best, each according to hisgenius, which is the Holy Ghost in Man."

But Blake was no bigot. For all hishatred of "deism," Thomas Paine was hisfriend, and when Paine was right in hisattack on the historicity and literality of theOld Testament, and when a bishop tookupon himself to defend both, Blake recognised that it was the so-called Atheist whowas "inspired" and that the Bishop wasanti-Christian in defending the indefensible.

In Blake's view the books of the OldTestament were not dictated by anextrinsic God to an external ear, but wereinspired poems; the persons described werenot especially favoured persons who coulddo deeds which the instinct of humanitycries out against as wrong, and yet beabsolved from guilt because they were" told" to do them by this external god.

133


The common idea that the fount of" inspiration" dried up for the Jews withthe Book of Zachariah, and for the Christians with the Book of Revelation, which isupheld by Bishop Watson, Blake regardedas nothing short of blasphemy: "Therenever was a time when an honest mancould not speak with God." Rememberinghis dictum in his" All Religions are one,"that "No man can speak from his heartand not intend truth" and his other saying" No truth can be stated so as to be understood and not be believed," we shall be ina position to follow the annotations Blakemade to "An Apology for the Bible in aSeries of Letters addressed to ThomasPaine by R. Watson, D.D., F.R.S., Bishopof Lichfield."

One passage should be noted. Blake isdealing with Watson's claim that thebooks of the Pentateuch were the authenticwritings of the man, Moses. This Blakesays no one can prove or disprove; butevery man knows the impression they make

134

HISTORICITY OF THE BIBLE

on his own mind. And this impression isthe important thing. The deeds recordedare so recorded, not as examples to beapproved or imitated, but as things to beabhorred.

I will now give Blake's annotations,without the passages commented upon, asthey contain thei r own message. Keynes,from whom I quote, gives both. The firstrefers to the Bishop's endeavour to excusethe Bible for saying that the Israeliteswere ordered by God to exterminate theCanaanites. Paine had said that to believethe Bible to be truly historic we must"unbelieve all our belief in the Justice ofGod." To this the Bishop had repliedthat earthquakes did the same kind ofthing.

[The quotations are taken from the2nd volume of The Writings of WilliamBlake by Geoffrey Keynes, and the numbersat the head of each are the numbers of thepages of that work on which they occur.]

135


Blake writes:152

The perversions of Christ's words and acts areattacked by Paine and also the perversions of the Bible.Who dare defend either the Acts of Christ or the Bibleunperverted ?

But to him who sees this mortal pilgrimage in thelight that I see it, duty to his country is the firstconsideration and safety the last.

Read patiently; take not up this book in an idlehour; the consideration of these things is the wholeduty of man and the affairs of life and death trifles andsports of time. But these considerations are thebusiness of Eternity.

Paine has not attacked Christianity. Watson hasdefended anti-Christ.

156

If conscience is not a Criterion of Moral Rectitude,what is it? He who thinks that Honesty is changeableknows nothing about it. Virtue and honestyor the dictates of Conscience, are of no doubtful signification to anyone. Opinion is one Thing. Principleanother. He who supposes that his principles are to bechanged is a Dissembler, who Disguises his Principlesand calls that change. The Truth and certaintyof Virtue and Honesty, i.e., Inspiration, needs no one toprove it; it is evident as the Sun and 1\100n .

136


No man can do a Vicious action and think it to beVirtuous. No man can take darkness for light. Tome, who believe the Bible and profess myselfa Christian,a defender of the Wickedness of the Israelites inmurdering so many thousands under pretence of acommand from God is altogether abominable andblasphemous. Why did Christ come? Was it notto abolish the Jewish Imposture? Was not Christmartyr'd because he taught that God loved all menand was their Father and forbade all contentions forWorldly prosperity in opposition to the Jewish Scriptures, which are only an example of the wickedness anddeceit of the Jews and were written as an example of thepossibility of Human Beastliness, in all its branches.

158

Christ died as an Unbeliever and if the Bishophad his will so would Paine ; but he who speaks aword against the Son of Man shall be forgiven. Letthe Bishop prove that he has not spoken against theHoly Ghost, who in Paine strives with Christendomas in Christ he strove with the Jews.

159

Horrible I The Bishop is an inquisitor, Godnever makes one man murder another, nor one nation.

137


There is a vast difference between an accidentbrought on by a man's own carelessness and a destruction from the designs of another. The earthquakes atLisbon, etc., were the natural result of Sin, but thedestruction of the Canaanites by Joshua was theUnnatural design of wicked men. To extirpate a nationby another is as wicked as to destroy an individual bymeans of another individual, which God considers (inthe Bible) as murder and commands that it shall not bedone.

160

That God does and always did converse with honestmen, Paine never denies. He only denies that Godconversed with Murderers and Revengers such as theJews were, and of course he holds that the Jews conversed with their own State Religion which they calledGod and so were liars as Christ says. That the Jewsassumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God willbe a lasting witness against them and the same will it beagainst Christians.

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Read the Edda ot Iceland, the Songs of Fingal, theaccounts of North American Savages (as they are called).Likewise read Homer's Iliad. He was certainly aSavage in the Bishop's sense. He knew nothing of Godin the Bishop's sense of the word and yet he was no

fool.

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160

The Bible or Peculiar Word of God, Exclusive ofthe Conscience or the Word of God Universal," is thatabomination, which, like the Jewish ceremonies, is forever removed, and henceforth every man may conversewith God and be a King and Priest in his own house.

161

The Bible teIls me that the plan of Providence wassubverted at the FaIl of Adam and that it was notrestored till Christ.

161

I t is strange that God should speak to men formerlyand not now, because it is not true. t

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He who writes things for true which none wouldwrite but the actor (such are most of the acts of Moses)

if "Everything that happens takes place through thewill of the Supreme. Conscience is the state which we havereceived from God in which we should see our own image,and according to the dictates of which we should act, without attempting to discover reasons in the guidance of ourlife in regard to morals and virtues. We should do thatwhich our conscience teaches for no other reason thanbecause our conscience teaches it. To learn from others, toaccept the opinion of others, to act in a certain mannerbecause others are acting in that way. is temptation."

Paraeelsus, p.12.t Watson had said tha.t it WaB .. strange" that God made

an immediate manifestation of Himself in the first ages andnot since.

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must either be the actor or a fable writer or a liar. IfMoses did not write the history of his acts, it takesaway. the authority altogether; it ceases to be historyand becomes a Poem of probable impossibilities,fabricated for pleasure, as modems say, but I sayby Inspiration.

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Jesus could not do miracles where unbeliefhindered,hence we must conclude that the man who holdsmiracles to have ceased puts it out of his own power toever witness one. The manner of a miracle beingperformed is in modem times considered as an arbitrarycommand of the agent upon the patient, but this is animpossibility, and not a miracle, neither did Jesus everdo such a miracle. Is it a greater miracle to feed fivethousand men with five loaves than to overthrow all thearmies of Europe with a small pamphlet? Look overthe events of your own life and if you do not find thatyou have both done such miracles and lived by suchyou do not see as I do. True, I cannot do a miracleto experiment and domineer over and prove to othersmy superior power as neither could Christ. But I canand do work such as both astonish and comfort me andmine. How can Paine, the worker of miracles, everdoubt Christ's in the above sense of the word Miracle?But how can Watson ever believe the above sense of theword Miracle, who considers it as an arbitrary act of the

HO


agent upon an unbelieving patient, whereas the Gospel

says that Christ could not do a miracle because ofUnbelief?

If Christ could not do miracles because of Unbelief, the reason alleged by Priests for miracles is false;for those who believe want not to be confounded bymiracles. Christ and His Prophets and Apostles were

not ambitious miracle mongers. *

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Prophets in the modem sense of the word havenever existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modemsense, for his prophesy of Nineveh failed. Every honestman is a prophet, he utters his opinion both of private

and public matters. Thus: If you go on So, theresult is So. He never says, such a thing will happenlet you do what you will. A Prophet IS a Seer, not anArbitrary Dictator. It is man's fault if God IS

not able to do him good, for he gives to the just &

the unjust, hut the unjust reject his gift.

.. A curious example of the belief that Christ was a"Miracle Monger" is to be found in Disraeli's novel,Tanere», Tanored was a Christian; and the heroine of thestory, "The Rose of Sharon," a Jewess, with whom he wasin love, remarked to Tancred that his Saviour Wall "so fondof performing miracles." This is the Jewish conception, andthe "Christian" hero crested in the Jewish brain sawnothing to resent in the suggestion!

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165

Nothing can be more contemptible than to supposePublic RECORDS to be True. Of what consequenceis it whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or no? IfPaine trifles with some of his objections, it is folly toconfute him seriously in these and leave his morematerial ones unanswered. Public Records! as if PublicRecords were True! Impossible; for the facts aresuch as none but the actor could tell. If it is True.Moses and none but he could write it. unless we allowit to be Poetry and that poetry inspired.

If historical facts can be written by inspiration,Milton's Paradise Lost is as true as Genesis orExodus; but the Evidence is nothing, for how can hewho writes what he has neither seen nor heard of bean Evidence of The Truth of his history?

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I cannot conceive the Divinity of the books in theBible to consist either in who they were written by, orat what time, or in the historical evidence which may beall false in the eyes of one man and true in the eyes ofanother. but in the sentiments and examples, which,whether true or Parabolic. are Equally useful as Examplesgiven to us of the perverseness of some and its consequent evil and the honesty of others and its consequentgood, This sense of the Bible is equally true to all and

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equally plain to all. None can doubt the impressionwhich he receives from a book of Examples. If he isgood he wiIJ abhor wickedness in David or Abraham ;if he is wicked he wiIJ make their wickedness an excusefor his and so he would do by any other book.

All Penal Laws court Transgression and thereforeare cruelty and Murder. The lawsof the Jews were (bothceremonial and real) the basest and most oppressive othuman codes, and being like all other codes given underpretence of divine command, were what Christ pronounced them, The Abomination that maketh Desolate,i.e. State Religion, VIhich is the source of all cruelty.

169

The Gospel is Forgiveness of Sins and has no MoralPrecepts. These belong to Plato and Seneca and Nero,

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Christ came not to call the Virtuous.

Who does the Bishop call Bad Men? Are theythe Publicans and Sinners that Christ loved to associatewith? Does God love the Righteous according to theGospel, or does He not cast them off?

170

For who is really Righteous? It is all Pretention.

It appears to me now that Tom Paine is a betterChristian than the Bishop.

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I have read this book with attention and find thatthe Bishop has only hurt Paine's heel while Paine has

broken his head. The Bishop has not answered one ofPaine's grand objections.

A passage from Blake's "DescriptiveCatalogue" may be cited here as showingthat he did not regard the Hebrew Scripturesas different in origin and essence from theScriptures of other nations:

The antiquities of every Nation under Heaven, isno less sacred than that of the Jews. They are the samething, as ]acob Bryant and all antiquarians have proved.How other antiquities came to be neglected and disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected andarranged, is an enquiry worthy both of the Antiquarian

and the Divine.

This Chapter may fitly close with aquotation from Paine's book, The Age ofReason. It throws light on Blake's use ofthe word "Prophesy" as a description ofsome of his poems:

"There is not throughout the wholebook called the Bible any word thatdenotes to us what we call a poet, nor any

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word that describes what we call poetry.The case is that the word prophet, towhich later times affixed a new idea, wasthe Bible word for poet, and the art ofprophesying meant the art of makingpoetry. It also meant the art of playingpoetry to a tune on any instrument ofmusic." (Thomas Paine, The Age ofReason, Ch. VII.)

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CHAPTER XIII.

UNBERUFEN

THERE are two things in life which noman ought ever to do: the one is to

congratulate himself, and the other is topity himself. The spiritual instinct ofman is telling us this all day long. Thatis the meaning of the superstition (as it iscalled) of "touching wood" after everyself-congratulatory exclamation; or theimmediate taking of it back with thephrase "Be it un-spoken." There is nosuperstition in the matter at all, but a factof solid importance. It is again aquestion of the illusory personal Shadowand the spiritual substantiality. When aman has congratulated himself on any per-

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UNBERUFEN

formance of his own, or on any acquisitionthat he has made, he has, in so doing,planted it on the Shadow, which has nobasis on which it can stand. In this wayhe has spent his advantage. When a manpities himself for his suffering, or his misfortunes, he has, again, transferred to hisunsubstantial Shadow all that his experience had in it to teach him, and thushe has squandered the Bread at Experiencewhich is the toad of the soul. " Every misfortune" says Paracelsus, "is a fortune,"but self-pity only perpetuates the miserableside of it, and effectually prevents aman from reaping the fruits which it conceals. *

of ... God loves all mankind alike; but not all men loveGod with the same kind of love. Each of God's childrenhas the same inheritance; but one squanders while anotherpreserves it. That which God has made equal is madeunequal by the actions of men. Each man taking his crossupon himself finds therein his reward. Every misfortuneis g fortune, because divine goodness gives to everyone thatwhich he most needs for his future development; thesuffering begins only when discontent, the result of thenon-recognition of eternal law, steps in. The greater theobstacle to combat the greater will be the victory."

Paracelsua, Philosophia V.

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The nearest approach to self-congratulation which anyone may safely indulge in,when apparent fortune smiles upon him, isto adopt the biblical attitude and" rejoicewith fear and trembling."

Boehme's motto is another way of putting the sametruth:

" He to whom sorrow is the same as joy," And joy the same as sorrow," May thank God for his equanimity."

Boehme's contemporary, Shakespeare, drew his inspirationfrom the same fount. He made Hamlet 8IIy to Horatio :

" For thou has been" As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;" A man that fortune's buffets and rewards" Has ta'en with equal thanks."

And milleniums before these Seers the author of Bluiqaoa.LGit'L had seen the same vision and had said the same thing:

( Krishna is addressing Arguna-).. Making equal good and ill fortune, gain and loss, victory

and defeat, gird thyself for the fight, for thus thou shaltnot fall into sin! "

" Thy right is to the work, but never to its fruits i let notthe fruit of thy work be thy motive, nor take refuge inabstinence from work."

"Standing in union with the Soul, carry out thy work,putting away attachment, U conqueror of wealth; equal insuccess and failure, for equalness [Boehme's "equanimity"].. is called union with the Soul." (Book lI, 38, 47, 48).

And this:"Let him not exult when he meets happiness, let him

not grieve when he meets Borrow i firm in Soul-Vision,undeluded, knowing the Eternal, he stands firm in theEternaL" (Book V, 20 ).

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The well- known occurrence of personsexperiencing some illness or other mishapalmost immediately after having told someone that they had been free from it for ever solong, can be easily explained by those whohave vision enough to trace the occult connection. The more developed in spiri tuali tythe person who makes the boast, the moreimmediate the repercussion. And hereagain, if he does not waste the experience,the misfortune is immediately transmutedinto fortune and restores him to his properpolarity. Blake saw all this clearly enoughas may be perceived from his verse:

Since all the Riches of this worldMay be gifts from the Devil & Earthly KingsI should think that I worship'd the Devil

. IF I THANK'D MY GOD FOR WORLDLY THINGS.

make has himself put the same truth into verse in his.. Auguries of Innocence" :

Man was made for Joy and Woe jAnd when this we rightly knowThro' the World we safely go.Joy and Woe are woven fineA Clothing for the Soul divine j

Under every grief and pineRuns a joy with silken twine.

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It is with nations and races as it iswith individuals. Such a combination ofself-congratulation and self-pity is nowhereso signally exemplified as it is with the Tribeof the Jews. They are continually plumingthemselves on their "religion" of which theytell us they are very proud-a curious combination !-and boasting of their" spirituality." Now boasting is only possible tothe Shadow-self, and true spiritualityconsists entirely in the sacrifice of this very"self" and the denial of its reali ty. Therefore if anyone boasts of his" spirituality,"we know that he cannot possibly possess any.

When the Jew experiences the consequences of his selfish principles in thenatural reaction which their operationproduces on his neighbours, he fills theworld with his cries of self-pity anddemands for revenge. How unutterablycruel self-pi ty can be has been fully revealedin our own time. The complete story ofthe Jewish hegemony in Russia can neverbe told, but enough is known to understand

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UNBERUFEN

the full meaning of the Jewish excuse putforward for all the murders and atrocitiescommitted on Russians by the usurpingJews. The Jewish papers said of the Jew,Leon Braunstein, alias Trotsky, when hewas in his full career of exterminating allthat was best and noblest in ChristianRussia, that he was" unconsciously revenging the wrongs of his race for centuries past!"

The belief that the Shadow consciousness,the temporal, personal ego, can be"righteous" is in Blake's vision the only sin.It bringsaman into the "Wilderness of MoralLaw," and the belief that Righteousnessinstead of Forgiveness, is the end and aimof mortal man. This leads inevi tably to apharisaic religion of self-righteousness, andto all sorts of hypocri tical devices formaking men and things appear to be thatwhich they are not.

All the sufferings and all the quarrels ofhumanity can be traced to this initial lie.The acquirement of self-knowledge is alife-long process, and, except in the case of

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the most experienced of the souls born intothis world, is only attained by slow degrees.It follows that since so few of us reallyknow our own selves there is little wonderthat we are constantly making mistakesabout our friends and relations. We expectothers to be that which our apprehensionmakes them, and when they fail to comeup to the artificial standard which we havecreated for them we resent the failure as apersonal injury to ourselves! Whereas thefault is entirely in our own vision. Theynever were and never professed themselvesto be that which we had wrongly picturedthem. The present chaotic state of all thecountries of the world is traceable to thishypocritical habit of taking the conventionalaspect of things as being the true one.Thus it comes about that we can onlyexclaim with Blake:

The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowedperceptions,

Are become weak Visions of Time & Space,fixed into furrows of Death,

Till deep dissimulation is the only defence anhonest man has left. (Jerusalem, 49)

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UNBERUFEN

This "dissimulation" is rendered necessary for intercourse with the blind believersin the events of Time. Those who haveVision enough to distinguish betweenconvention and reality will be able to findin the denial of the eternity of the Shadow,in the sacrifice of the ternporal ego and allits loves and longings, the pathway to theKnowledge of the Ego which owes nothingto Time.

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CHAPTER XIV.

WISDOM AND VISION

IN Alexander Gilchrist's The Life ofWilliam Blake, in the chapter describing

his" Youthful Disciples," an incident isrecorded of a visit paid to the Blakes bythe portrait painter, George Richmond:

"As a lad of sixteen he met Blake oneday at the elder Tatharn's and was allowedto walk home with him. To the boy itwas 'as if he were walking with theprophet Isaiah,' for he had heard much ofBlake, greatly admired all he had heard,and all he had seen of his designs. Theprophet talked fully and kindly, freelyopening his mind, as was his wont withwith the young-with men of eighteen ortwenty say-even more freely and favourably, perhaps, than with their elders.There was more community of sentimenta bond of sympathy. He was not provoked

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\VISDOM AND VISION

by them to utter extravagances and extremeopinions. On this occasion he talked ofhis own youth and of his visions. Just asMr. Palmer speaks of Blake's tolerant kindness towards young men, Mr. Richmondrelates that, in their intercourse, he wouldhimself, as young men are prone to do,boldly argue and disagree, as though theywere equal in years and wisdom, andBlake would take it all good-humouredly.'Never,' adds Mr. Richmond, 'have I knownan artist so spiritual, so devoted, so simpleminded, or cherishing imagination as hedid.' Once, the young artist, finding hisinvention Hag during a whole fortnight,went to Blake, as was his wont, for someadvice or comfort. He found him sitting attea with his wife. He related his distress;how he felt deserted by the power of invention. To his astonishment Blake turnedto his wife suddenly and said: 'It is just sowith us, is it not, when the visions forsakeus? What do we do then, Kate?' , Wekneel down and pray, Mr. Blake.' "

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Truly the Power to SEE that which ISthrough the obscurity of all that SEEAfS,is the Daily Bread of Eternity for whichMan must pray. Because-

.... What seems to Be, Is, To those to whomIt seems to Be, & is productive of the most dreadfulConsequences to those to whom it seems to Be ....

(Jerusalem, 36: 50-53.)

A Vision of the Last Judgment is one ofthe greatest of Blake's designs, and his owndescription of the picture contains some ofthe profoundest expressions of his SpiritualWisdom. "The Last Judgment" is anexperience that happens to every personwhenever Error is cast out and Truthembraced. The Description of the Vision isamong the Blake M.S. acquired by D. G.Rossetti, and is published in full byKeynes, from whom I take the followingextracts, and whose arrangement I follow.The number of the pages at the end ofeach extract refers to the pages in theoriginal M.S.

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WISDOM AND VISION

Of the great picture itself there arenumerous reproductions, and these are tobe found in most of the recent illustratedbooks on Blake's works, and, of course,very beautifully produced in Keynes',

Here are the extracts:

The Last Judgment [will be] when all those are Castaway who trouble Religion with Questioning concerningGood & Evil or Eating of the Tree of those Knowledgesor Reasonings which hinder the Vision of God, turningall into a Consuming Fire. When Imagination, Art &Science & all Intellectual Gifts, all the Gifts of the HolyGhost, are look'd upon as of no use and only Contentionremains to Man, then the Last Judgment begins, and itsVision is seen by the Imaginative Eye of Every oneaccording to the situation he holds. (p. 70.)

The Last Judgment is not Fable or Allegory, butVision. Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct andinferior kind of Poetry. Vision or Imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists; Really and Un changeably. Fable or Allegory is Form'd by the daughters ofMemory, Imagination is surrounded by the daughters

01 Inspiration, who in the aggregate are call'd Jerusalem.Fable is Allegory, but what critics call The Fable, is

Vision itself. The Hebrew Bible and the Gospel of Jesus

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are not Allegory, but Eternal Vision or Imagination ofAll that Exists. Note here that Fable or Allegory isseldom without some Vision. Pilgrim's Progress is full

of it, the Greek Poets the same; but Allegory andVision ought to be known as Two Distinct Things, andso called for the Sake of Eternal Life. (p. 68.)

The Last Judgment is one of these StupendousVisions. I have represented it as I saw it; to different

People it appears differently as everything else does;for tho' on Earth things seem Permanent, they are lesspermanent than a Shadow, as we know too well.

The Nature of Visionary Fancy, or Imagination, isvery little known, & the Eternal nature & permanenceof its ever Existent Images is consider'd as lesspermanent than the things of Vegetative and Generative

Nature; yet the Oak dies as well as the Lettuce, but itsEternal Image and Individuality never dies, but renewsby its seed, just as the Imaginative Image returns by theseed of Comtemplative Thought; the Writings of the

Prophets illustrate these conceptions of the VisionaryFancy by their various sublime or Divine Images asseen in the Worlds of Vision. (pp. 68, 69.)

The Nature of my Work is Visionary or Imaginative;

it is an endeavour to Restore what the Ancients calledthe Golden Age (p. 72.)

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WISDOM AND VISION

No man of Sense ever supposes that Copying fromNature is the Art of Painting; if Art is no more thanthis, it is no better than any other Manual Labour;anybody may do it & the fool often will do it best asit is a work of no Mind. (p. 76.)

The world of Imagination is the world of Eternity;it is the divine bosom into which we shall all go afterthe death of the Vegetated body. This World of

Imagination is Infinite and Eternal, whereas the Worldof Generation, or Vegetation is Finite & Temporal.There Exist in that Eternal World the PermanentRealities of Every Thing which we see reflected in theVegetable Glass of Nature. All Things are comprehended in these Eternal Forms in the divine bodyof the Saviour, the True Vine of Eternity, the Human

Imagination, who appear'd to Me as Coming toJudgment among his Saints & throwing off theTemporal that the Eternal might be Establish'd;

around him were seen the Images of Existencesaccording to a certain order suited to my ImaginativeEye. (pp. 69, 70.)

In Eternity one Thing never changes into anotherThing. Each Identity is Eternal; consequentlyApuleius's Golden Ass & Ovid's Metamorphosis

& others of the like kind are Fable; yet they contain

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Vision in a sublime degree, being derived from realVision in more ancient writings. Lot's Wife beingChanged into a Pillar of Salt alluded to the MortalBody being rendered a Permanent Statue, but notChanged or Transformed into another Identity whileIt retains its own Individuality. (p. 79.)

Many suppose that before the Creation all wasSolitude & Chaos. This is the most pernicious Idea

that can enter the Mind, as it takes away all sublimityfrom the Bible & Limits all Existence to Creation &to Chaos, to the Time & Space fixed by the CorporealVegetative Eye, & leaves the man who entertains suchan Idea the habitation of Unbelieving demons. EternityExists, and All things in Eternity, Independent ofof Creation, which was an act of Mercy. (pp. 91, 92.)

The Greeks represent Chronos or Time as a very

Aged Man; this is a Fable, but the Real Vision ofTime is in Eternal Youth. I have, however, somewhataccommodated my Figure of Time to the commonopinion, as I myself am also infected by it, & my visionsalso infected, & and I see Time Aged, alas, too much so.

. Allegories are things that relate to Moral Virtues thatdo not Exist; they are Allegories and dissimulations.But Time & Space are Real Beings, a Male & a Female.Time is Man, Space is Woman, and & Masculine

Portion is Death. (p. 91.)

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The Combats of Good & Evil is Eating of the Tree ofKnowledge. The Combats of Truth & Error is Eatingof the Tree of Life; these are not only Universal,but Particular. Each are Personified. There is not anError but has a Man for its Agent, that is, it is a Man.There is not a Truth but it has also a Man. Good &Evil are Qualities in Every Man, whether a Good or EvilMan. These are Enemies & destroy one another byevery means in their power, both of Deceit & of openViolence. The deist & the Christian are but the Resultsof these Opposing Natures. Many are deists who wouldin certain circumstances have been Christians in outwardappearance. Voltaire was one of this number i he wasas intolerant as an Inquisitor. Manners make the Man,not Habits. It is the same in Art: by their works yeshall know them; the Knave who is Converted to Deism,& the Knave who is Converted to Christianity is still a.

Knave, but he himself will not know it, tho' Every bodyelse does. Christ comes, as he came at first, to deliverthose who are bound under the Knave, not to deliver theKnave. He Comes to deliver Man, the Accused, & notSatan, the Accuser. We do not find anywhere that Satanis accused ot Sin; he is only accused of Unbelief &thereby drawing Man into Sin that he may accuse him.Satan thinks that Sin is displeasing to God j he ought toknow that Nothmg is displeasing to God but Unbelief& Eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good andEvil. (pp. 86, 90.)

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Men are admitted into Heaven not because theyhave curbed & governed their Passions or have No

Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negationsof Passions, but Realities of Intellect, from whichall Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory.The Fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be everso Holy. (p. 87.)

The Last Judgment is an Overwhelming of BadArt & Science. Mental things are alone Real; what

is call'd Corporeal, Nobody knows of its DwellingPlace: it is a Fallacy, and its Existence an Imposture.Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought?Where is it but in the Mind of a Fool? Some peopleflatter themselves that there will be No Last Judgment& that Bad Art will be adopted & mixed with Good

Art, that Error or Experiment will be made a partof Truth, & they boast that it is its Foundation;these people flatter themselves: I will not flatter them.Error is Created. Truth is Eternal. Error, or Creation,will be burned up, & then, & not till Then, Truthor Eternity will appear. It is Burnt up the MomentMen Cease to behold it. I assert for My Self that I donot behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is

hindrance & not Action; it is as the dirt upon myfeet, No part of Me. "What" it will be Question'd,

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WISDOM AND VISION

" When the Sun rises do you not see a round disc of firesomewhat like a Guinea?" 0 no, no, I see anInnumerable company of the Heavenly host crying,

•Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.' Iquestion not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any morethan I would Question a Window concerning a Sight.I look thro' it & not with it. (p. 95.)

[END OF A VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT.]

I will next quote from the Introductionto the Fourth Chapter of Jerusalem apassage which will throw further lighton the above. But before doing so a fewwords on what Blake means by "Jerusalem"may not be out of place. Readers will notimagine that Blake's Jerusalem has anything to do with Palestine, since "Jerusalem" can be "builded in England'sgreen & pleasant land," and also in anyother land. " Jerusalem" is the CelestialSoul of Man, that is, of Humanity, as"Vala," or "The Shadowy Female" of thepoems, is Man's Terrestrial Soul. Thisapplies to Universal Man and IndividualMan alike. In the Fall-the fall into

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division-the Masculine Intellect and theFeminine Intuition and Inspiration wereSeparated, and the trend of Evolution andRedemption is towards a Re-surrectioninto Unity.

" Jerusalem" of the poem is at once awoman and a city.. And as a city is composed of its inhabitants, so each individualof a ci ty is the ci ty itself in epi tome. Someyears ago there was discovered in Egypt afragment of a lost Gospel since publishedunder the title of Logia I esu in which thereis a passage which illustrates Blake'sVision.I will now quote it. Jesus is speaking tohis disciples :

The Kingdom oithe Heavens is within you; and whoever shall know himself shall find it. Strive therefore to

know yoursvlves and ye shall be aware that ye are the Sonsof the Heavenly Father; and ye shall know that ye arein the City of God, and ye are the City.

I have italicised the last words as theyshow how a city can be personified and howa person can be a city. I will now give thequotation from Jerusalem (Plate 77) :

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I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospelthan the liberty, both of body & mind, to exercise theDivine Arts of Imagination, Imagination, the real &Eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but afaint Shadow, & in which we shall live in our Eternalor Imaginative Bodies when these Vegetable MortalBodies are no more. The Apostles knew of no otherGospel. What were all their spiritual gifts? What isthe Divine Spirit? Is the Holy Ghost any other than

an Intellectual Fountain? What is the Harvest of theGospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which itis a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heavenwhich we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any otherthan Mental Studies & Performances? What are all theGifts of the Gospel, are they not all Mental Gifts? IsGod a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & in Truth,

and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man?o ye Religious, discountenance everyone among you whoshall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon youin the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man butArt & Science? is it Meat and Drinlc.? is not the Bodymore than Raiment? What is Mortality but things relating to the Body which Dies? What is Immortality but thethings relating to the Spirit which Lives Eternally. Whatis the Joy of Heaven but Improvement in the things of the

Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance, BodilyLust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the Spirit?

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Let it not be imagined that anyonecan plume himself on his wisdom anddespise the fools. Neither folly nor wisdomis the monopoly of any man. " If othershad not been foolish, we should be," wroteBlake. Also," If the Fool would persistin his Folly he would become Wise."For my part I confess that it is mainlyby the latter method that such wisdomas I can lay claim to has been acquired.I am, therefore, profoundly grateful toDr. Thornton and to Bishop Watson forwhat they have written. I am consciousthat in their place I could have writtenmuch in the same sense as they wrote,and if they had not written what theydid, I for one should not have beenstartled by Blake out of a foolishcomplacency to open my eyes to itsfolly.

When we are told to "lay up treasuresin heaven," it does not mean that we areto earn or buy some heavenly benefit for

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ourselves in a future life by practisingmoral virtues, giving alms, or bymeticulously observing the Sabbath andceremonial ordinances. That can neverbe. There is no debtor and creditoraccount with Heaven. It is in theCelestial aspect of the Individual Mindthat the treasures must be stored. Eachman must introduce them into his ownheaven. No one can do this for him,any more than a man can be nourishedby food consumed by others. Everyman has Heaven and Earth and Hell inhis own constitution, and it lies entirelyin himself which he shall inhabit, andin which he shall lay up his treasures."Hell is in Heaven," says Boehme, "andHeaven is in Hell. But angels see onlythe light, and devils only the Darkness."" It is not because Angels are Holier thanmen or devils that makes them Angels"says Blake, "but because they do notExpect Holiness from one another, but fromGod only."

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By "cultivating our understandings "we are increasing our power of perceivingand digesting the treasures of thoughtand wisdom in which the world abounds,and so of "building Jerusalem in England'sgreen and pleasant land." We are makingthem part of our Permanent Selves. Andin order to attain this point of CelestialVision we must sacrifice to it the TemporalSelf with all its powers of mind and body.

The Light of Reason is comparable tothe light of the stars. It is scattered andineffectual. Star-light is sufficient to enablethe Mariner to steer his ship over thepathless Sea of Time and Space, but itis not sufficient to disclose the objectswhich he passes to his view. The lightof the Moon is the light of Imaginationand the stars of Reason pale before it,but both are eclipsed when the Sun ofWisdom unfolds his beams. Then allRatiocination is swept away and argumentand disputing become folly

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WISDOM AND VISION

This world, in Blake's Vision, is a graveyard, and our bodies are our Tombs. Butwe need not wait until our tombs aredestroyed before we rise above them. Thatpower lies in our opening our inward eyesand using them. The Day of man's bodyis the Night of his soul. Blake's poemsare one prolonged call on "Albion" toawake-to open his eyes, and see as hereally IS. This is the theme of Jerusalem" Jerusalem" being the parted soul ofAlbion, as "Eve" was parted from" Adam."

At the opening of the Poem, in anaddress" To the Public" there is this:

Reader! lover of books! lover of heaven,And of that God from whom all things are given,Who in mysterious Sinai's awful caveTo Man the wondrous 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 hearWithin the unfathomed caverns of mv Ear.Therefore I print j nor vain my types shall be:Heaven, Earth & Hell henceforth shall live

in harmony.

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I have italicised the last line becauseit shows that in Blake's Vision the entireeconomy of man-Heaven, Earth andHell-are included in the process ofRedemption. Elsewhere he wrote:

When Thought is c1os'd in Caves Then loveshall show its root in deepest Hell.

Here is the Invocation at the openingof the poem:

Of the Sleep of Ulro ! and of the passage throughEternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, &every mom

Awakes me at sun-rise j then I see the Saviourover me

Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the wordsof this mild song.

" Awake! awake 0 sleeper of the land of shadows," wake! expand!

" I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine;" Fibres of love from man to man thro' Albion's

" pleasant land.

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WISDOM AND VISION

" I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;., Within your bosom I reside, and you reside in me ;

11 Lo! we are One; forgiving all evil; Not seeking11

recompense;11 Ye are my members 0 ye sleepers of Beulah, land

" of Shades."

Here is another passage from the samepoem, Plate 5, describing what Blake feltto be the task imposed upon him:

Trembling I sit day and night, my friends areastonished at me,

Yet they Forgive my wanderings. I rest not frommy great task!

To open the Eternal VVorlds, to open the immortal

EyesOf Man inwards into the World oj Thought, into

Eternity

Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human

[magination.

o Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness& love:

Annihilate the Self-hood in rne ; be thou all mylife!

Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedinglyupon the rock of ages

While I write ...•.

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The italics are mine. "Ulro " is Matter-Materiality. This "Life" is "EternalDeath," that is to say, Death from Eternity.The "Caves" in which "Thought" isenclosed, are, of course, our skulls.

One need not be able to follow all theworkings of the poet's mind in penningthese passages, but it is impossible not tofeel the force of the inspiration workingwi thin them.

In the innermost sphere of Man Seeing isBeing. "To See" is "to Be," and" to Be"is "to See." Man is where and what hisconsciousness is, and his awaking fromsphere to sphere is the story of his progressthrough Eternal Death to Eternal Life.Not that eternal life is somewhere beyondthe stars-it is all a matter of theawakening and opening of the facultiesand powers that are already ours-therising up of Man from the Nebuchadnezzarinsanity into the dignity of the HumanForm Divine.

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WISDOM AND VISION

"I care not whether a man is goodor evil; all I care is whether he is a Wiseman or a Fool." " Good" and "Evil"are relativities and temporalities and haveno actual existence in Eternity; butWisdom is a different matter.

Says Paracelsus :

All numbers are multiples of One;All sciences converge to a Common point;All Wisdom comes out of one Centre,And the Number of Wisdom is One.

Wisdom is Vision married to Judgment. The word is derived from twoNordic roots Vid "to see" and dam"judgment." The same root is foundin the Sanskrit Vid, in the Greek t'OElJl,

and in the Latin Videre. And whenthe Latin word for Wisdom, Sapientia,and the Greek word for Wisdom, 2-orjJla, aretraced to their source, it will be found that" Vision" is not far from the roots of themboth in the Greek word for the EYE-ay;.So when Blake says that he only cares

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whether a man is a wise man or is a fool, it isanother way of saying that with him everything is Vision united with the power ofinterpreting and understanding that whichVision-internal Vision-reveals.

It is not for nothing that at the close ofthe century following Blake's death, everyline which he wrote, every stroke of his penand pencil, graver and brush, is beinggreedily sought for. This is of the happiestaugury for the "New Age "-which is nowour own Age-on which his eyes were fixed.It is not everyone who brings into the worldwith him the faculties of "conversing withParadise" in the degree which was habitualwith him. But the blindest of us can seesomething of the paradises he has openedto our view, and the most foolish of usmay find in ourselves an echo of theWisdom of Eternity, and refuse any longerto be deluded by the Follies of Time.

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Documents

WILLIAM BLAKE ON - nevillegoddardbooks.com · The Poetical Works of William Blake," edited with a prefatory memoir by W. M. Rosetti, 1874. ("The Aldine Poets." George Bell & Sons.)"