Today's Topics:
Re: Ralph's questions
Re: Blake and "madness"
"schizophrenia"?
Re: Ralph's questions
A postscript and no more
Devine voices from the ether
Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply
Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply -Reply/ Are we all
semi-divine?
Re: Blake and "madness"
JAMESON, BLAKE, INNOCENCE -Reply
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 19:47:37
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph's questions
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980901194737.4557a0c0@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 11:40 PM 8/30/98 -0700, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>>(Izak:)So we find Blake saying: "All Religions Are One."
>>Then>>he sets about criticizing them, including that of
>>the Jews, >>and Deism. At best he considers them as
>>necessary vessels>>(to stem the Fall)
>(Ralph Dumain)To stem the fall? Hmmmmm.
>>(Izak:)and that they must eventually be discarded.
>(Ralph)So all religions are one in that they are emanations
>of the single evil>poetic genius, and they are all a
>crock of shit and must eventually be>discarded.
Religion is not just a bunch of intellectual concepts
that can be discarded by whim. Religion, in Blake's use of
the term, is interwoven (since we are so) with history,
culture, psyche, and "bodily sensation," and attempts to
direct us toward the Spiritual life. It is necessarily
inadequate, since based on our earthly condition, but
it protects us from falling into spiritual oblivion
by reminding us of the Spirit in us. [I am trying to
give here what I see as Blake's view, in an effort
to understand him - I don't mean to set up any personal
points of view.] This is why Blake can say that all
religions are one (they all correspond to the same
functioning), and why he emphatically says that the
source of all religions is the "Poetic Genius" in us
(thus not contained in any one religion).
This Poetic Genius is beyond Good and Evil. Blake
says that "Moral Virtues . . ." are "the business
of Plato & the Greeks" [_Anno Berkeley_ K774]
On the other hand, while in this world, we have to
deal with contraries such as good and evil.
>From _VLJ_ (K619): "Many Persons, such as Paine &
Voltaire, with some of the Ancient Greeks, say:
'we will not converse concerning Good & Evil;
we will live in Paradise & Liberty.' You may do so
in Spirit, but not in the Mortal Body as you pretend,
till after the Last Judgment . . ."
The same is true of religion: It cannot be
discarded till after the Last Judgment, simply
because its function persists as long as our
earthboundness persists.
>>(Blake:)All had>>originally one language, and one
>>religion: this was the>>religion of Jesus, the
>>everlasting Gospel. Antiquity>>preaches the Gospel
>>of Jesus." [_DC_ of 1809(K578)]
>(Ralph:)This is complete nonsense. The existence of Jesus,
>whether >a real or>fictional character, and the existence
>of Christianity is historically>placed and dated.
One should try and understand what Blake means here
by "Christianity." It is obviously not meant to
refer to historic dates or persons. His "Christianity"
is a tag for his own symbolical reading of the Bible,
in which Biblical names represent spiritual states or
qualities. These states and qualities of the Spirit
exist wherever man is found, and in Blake's view were
purer in antiquity ("Golden Age").
>(Ralph:)some of us don't find the English the most
>attractive of>peoples, and we find your pinched-up little
>Anglo-Saxon >beaks repulsive in>the extreme.
Ralph presumably refers to Blake's Note-book [K555]:
"I always thought that Jesus Christ was a Snubby
or I should not have worship'd him, if I had thought
he had been one of those long spindle nosed rascals."
I am not of Anglo-Saxon descent myself, and for historical
reasons may have even less cause to love the English
than Ralph. I will, however, let Blake have the last
word here:
Caiaphas: "He [Jesus] turn'd the devils into Swine
That he might tempt the Jews to dine;
Since which, a Pig has got a look
That for a Jew may be mistook." [_EG_ K757]
Izak Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 19:18:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dushyant Arun Viswanathan
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness"
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> mind attempting to reproduce the success of Ossian, and Milton: if not, one
> is left either with divine inspiration or the kind of altered state produced
> by drug use or mental 'illness' in which subconscious imagery is given full
> rein. If we assume as I do that it is not divine inspiration, and in the
> absence of any suggestion of drug use by Blake, then there is only one
> conclusion. I hasten to add however that I don't doubt however some level of
> conscious involvement by Blake, certainly on the level of editing, of which
> there is evidence in his manuscripts.
wow, the utterly simplistic view western psychology has on human motives
and mental states. quite interesting. of course, nowdays, the only mental
states possible are either normal, on drugs, or mental illness. thats all
psychologists think humans are capable of. people of higher consciousness
exist, mind you, the siddha purushas, the seers...just because your life
is ordinary and stuck in sensually stagnant and spiritually stagnant
routine...the illusion of academia...the mind-brain, the astral body, the
subtle body, the consciousness, all these facets must have worlds of their
own. Blake, like Swedenborg, was a man of some higher consciousness, one
more attuned to the non-sensual. Blame it all on Aldous Huxley, thinking
that drugs and mental oddity is akin to spiritual experience, or
transcendent experience. If you need a case example of such a human being,
capable of everything Blake and Swedenborg was, look at the Indian
siddha-purusha (spiritually more evolved person) Satya Sai Baba. There is
an example of how the mental world is more than just a
dancing hall for neurotransmitters and psychedelics .
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 21:30:42 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: "schizophrenia"?
Message-Id: <98090121304246@wc.stephens.edu>
Dr. Friedlander so grossly distorts my comments that I suspect there
is no point in continuing any discussion, but I will offer a couple
of comments. Dr. Friedlander can smirk all he cares to about the
"superiority" of scientific reasoning, but his own post is so filled
with argumentative fallacies as to undercut any imputed superiority.
Using false dichotomies, question begging, and inserting red herrings
into the discussion are typical debater's tricks, but hardly serve to
inspire confidence in the seriousness of the discussion. I did not
suggest that humanistic reasoning was inherently superior to scientific
reasoning, though Dr. Friedlander would have us believe that in all
circumstances, the "scientist" has only truth as his lodestar. My
point was that Dr. Friedlander had chosen one set of possible
interpretations of available "evidence" (accounts that are open to
multiple kinds of doubt) and has dismissed all others. He tries to
suggest that this is (though he does not use the phrase) an application
of Occam's Razor. I would suggest that any experimenter whether in
the hard or soft sciences needs to avoid preconceived notions. I was
not suggesting that he did not care for the truth--I am sure that
both the undergraduate and the seasoned medical practitioner are
concerned for the "truth" but in this case the exclusion of alternative
possibilities (he is not, after all, dealing with an actual cadaver
on a table or even records of such) ignores the character of the
"evidence" involved. In fact, this argument is not even over the
question of Blake's mental state, but over the manner of selection and
interpretation of evidence.
Question begging: "Tom's thesis that Blake feigned schizophrenia"
I offered no such thesis, but the Doctor imposes his own thesis on
mine and presents it as though we all agree about the meaning of
the symptoms, we only disagree on their source--a false and
misleading manner of arguing, and not the only example.
Red Herring: "As in Blake's case, Coleridge's autopsy is compatible,
etc." This is really preposterous, but it serves to confuse and
distract--Coleridge's autopsy provides physical evidence of a
condition that may or may not have had an influence on his creative
life, but the Doctor attempts to offer it as an analogy with Blake's
*reported* behavior--not even physical symptoms. This is a false
analogy designed to deflect attention from the real issues.
False Dichotomies: My critique of the Doctor's essay did not
invoke the old two cultures argument (though my allusion to
Sokal may have offered an opening for it); in fact, the standards
of argumentation and evidence are not all that different in the
different disciplines, though the manners of interpretation may be.
In this case, the Doctor is not examining physical evidence, he is
*interpreting texts*--texts of dubious value, though of great
interest. So he is not, in fact, on his own playing field, but is
claiming the privilege and the authority to apply his own rules in
a field not his own.
(I am perfectly aware of the scandals surrounding Bruno Bettelheim
since his death, by the way, and I would suggest that they have
no real bearing on the value of _The Uses of Enchantment_, nor
is it entirely clear that all psychologists agree that Bettelheim
has been entirely discredited.)
Another begged question -- "humanities people who are naive about
science"--assumes that he can safely credit me with naivete in this
discussion, but that has not been demonstrated.
The Doctor attributes both "anger" and "intemperance" to my post.
I see neither. I am simply challenging, on intellectual grounds, the
validity of an undergraduate thesis. Hardly an angry or intemperate
occasion. As it happens, I am not a trained scientist--but I am
a highly trained rhetorician (rather old fashioned field, I know)
and I am good at recognizing weaselly arguments--and I suggest that
listmembers may at their leisure examine the materials int he
post I have just commented on and decide whether I am being
intemperate or just incisive. s for the
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 19:39:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph's questions
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980901223350.3fafb954@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It looks like the process of clarification, your remarks as well as mine,
are helping to clarify the inner logic (as well as the tensions) within
Blake's reasoning about religion.
At 07:47 PM 9/1/98, Izak Bouwer wrote:
>Religion is not just a bunch of intellectual concepts
>that can be discarded by whim. Religion, in Blake's use of
>the term, is interwoven (since we are so) with history,
>culture, psyche, and "bodily sensation,"
Now this is a really important point! Even were religion totally negative,
it can't be wished away by a superficial rationalism. Also, this view of
religion is consistent with Blake's odd (to us) use of the words "belief"
and "unbelief". His use of the word "Atheist" as a pejorative, however,
would be consistent with the mainstream equation of an atheist as a person
with no principles (per Berkeley's slanders in ALCIPHRON).
>and attempts to
>direct us toward the Spiritual life. It is necessarily
>inadequate, since based on our earthly condition, but
>it protects us from falling into spiritual oblivion
>by reminding us of the Spirit in us....
Your explanation of Blake's reconciliation of historical variation with the
Poetic Genius does make sense. I'm not entirely convinced by the positive
twist the above comments gives religions. So you think (I think you said
this before) that even though they entrap the joys of eternity, these
pernicious religions set a limit to man's fall? I'll have to mull this
over. But right now I'm thinking of the Song of Los, in which Blake links
the traditional dark delusions of Moses and his ilk to Newton and Locke,
where the philosophy of five sense is complete. This is a brilliant history
of ideology on the part of Blake. But how would you interpret this
historical progression in light of the rest of your argument?
>From _VLJ_ (K619): "Many Persons, such as Paine &
>Voltaire, with some of the Ancient Greeks, say:
>'we will not converse concerning Good & Evil;
>we will live in Paradise & Liberty.' You may do so
>in Spirit, but not in the Mortal Body as you pretend,
>till after the Last Judgment . . ."
>The same is true of religion: It cannot be
>discarded till after the Last Judgment, simply
>because its function persists as long as our
>earthboundness persists.
This is the most thought-provoking quote you've adduced.
Reminds me of "Mock on Mock on", which is a very subtle poem, which, as some
of the more preceptive critics have noted (see the essay in HISTORICIZING
BLAKE), is not diametrically in opposition to Rousseau etc., but more shows
up their limitations.
>One should try and understand what Blake means here
>by "Christianity." It is obviously not meant to
>refer to historic dates or persons. His "Christianity"
>is a tag for his own symbolical reading of the Bible,
>in which Biblical names represent spiritual states or
>qualities. These states and qualities of the Spirit
>exist wherever man is found, and in Blake's view were
>purer in antiquity ("Golden Age").
Of course. But doesn't this confirm the argument that Blake is trapped within
the specific metaphorical structure of Bible belief, and taken literally,
contradicts himself? How could one argue with a well-intentioned deist
(Paine) on such a basis? Of course Blake is not so narrow not to realize
that there is a principle that goes beyond his own specific cultural
expression of it, or couldn't recognize the same principle in other
religious clothing. The same is true I'm sure for the snubby-nose business;
Blake was surely aware that everyone sees the world in their own image; that
every nation thinks of itself the primordial Albion, has its own ideal of
beauty, etc. However, when one cannot state one's principles outright in
abstract language but is forced to do so through symbolism, is this not a
limitation in the modern world? Would this not constitute the persistence
of ideological language in the midst of a critique of ideology? Does this
show (see our discussion from last summer) that a Blake was definitely the
product of a unique historical moment, and could not exist in our time in
analogous configuration?
Blake also says that man must have some religion or no, it's either the
everlasting gospel or something bad. Again the central concept of religion
determines the logical and semantic structure of all his "spiritual" rather
then literal meaning of all his terms. Such a use of terminology would not
pass muster today except among ideologists, such as those Fundamentalists
who equate secular humanism with religion. If one decodes Blake's master
trope of "religion" to mean total way of life including value system,
cultural habits, etc., you could make a case for him indeed, but only in
poetry, not in prose.
>I am not of Anglo-Saxon descent myself, and for historical
>reasons may have even less cause to love the English
>than Ralph. I will, however, let Blake have the last
>word here .....:
Well, the point is really to show the contradictions in Blake. If Blake
wants to get ugly with racial insults, two can play that game. More
importantly, though, this is the same Blake who said all must love the human
form in heathen turk and jew. Mighty white of you, Will. But seriously,
folks, it is evident that Blake knew better than his scurrilous remarks
would suggest, and it is one of those contradictions between universalizing
and particularistic language in his work. I do not think he was
duplicitous; rather, I think he was thinking through the problems of his
time in the language that he knew, and the fact that he worked out extremely
advanced, modern epistemological and political perspectives in a religious
language dates and places him such that he could not be duplicated elsewhere.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 22:57:19 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: A postscript and no more
Message-Id: <98090122571923@wc.stephens.edu>
One last thing--Dr. Friedlander suggests that anyone who disagrees with
his diagnosis of Blake as a "schizophrenic" must hold old-fashioned
negative and unenlightened prejudices about mental illness, must
by definition consider the imputation of schizophrenia to be a
stigma instead of the wonderful positive revelation, even
badge of honor, that the Doctor wants us to believe he means
it to be. In fact, the Doctor has no basis for making that
claim--he does not know my opinions about mental illness o
but finds it convenient to impute such negative thoughts as a
means of stigmatizing my argument--that is, he suggests that
I am not interested in the truth (as only he claims to be) but
only in protecting Blake from what the Doctor imagines I would
consider a blot on his reputation. Well sorry, but no cigar.
My reasons (as should be clear from my posts) for resisting
the theory are far more complex than mere prejudice about
mental illness, but since the Doctor can think of no other
reason for resisting his theory, he offers that suggestion.
So breathe easy, Seth--now in lock-off mode because this is
no longer worth pursuing.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 08:01:02 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Devine voices from the ether
Message-Id: <199809020702.IAA14480@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
(apologies for the awful pun in the subject, but I thought I should point
out that that the suggestion that there were three possible sources for
Blake's work was not Devine Inspiration, as Pam thought, but purely Linnellian)
>Perhaps it is because so many of us deny the supernatural, that we mistake
>Blake's congruency with it for madness...
I must first say that I myself do not deny the supernatural, in the sense
that what we are talking about is that which lies outside our limited
perceptions of nature.
However it's difficult to square Clint's assertion with a world of which
pretty much the entire history has been founded on superstition since the
first of us raised his eyes to the disc of the sun and ascribed supernatural
(or in point of fact super-human) qualities to it. This is a world in which
no-one even blinks to hear that the leader of 'one nation under God' prays
daily! The human yearning for 'something more than this' is so strong that
people become deaf to perfectly sound explanations of natural phenomena (and
even in some cases, for example crop circles, plain admissions of fraud) in
order to maintain their belief systems intact. There is certainly no lack of
superstition as we prepare to enter the new millenium (itself a
superstitious concept), in fact quite the reverse. What is often lacking is
sufficient critical reasoning to separate the fraud from universal truth.
The fact of the matter, and despite popular opinion to the contrary, is that
no superstitious system provides anything close to the flexibility of
science (in which theories may be dismissed overnight if they fail to match
observations) in describing the wonders of creation. A superstitious system
is firmly closed, with the convenient concept of 'faith' papering over the
cracks as they inevitably emerge.
With regard to the case of 'voices' from the dead, there are many
explanations, for example:
1) They are voices from the dead
2) The hearer is subconsciously worried about a person about to die, and a
voice forms from the worries.
3) A random thought about someone co-incident with their death is given more
than usual significance and specially remembered. Given that not all deaths
result in a voice from the dead, and millions die each year, the statistical
possibility of this happening every now and then somewhere is pretty good.
4) The trauma of hearing the news of the death of a loved one implants a
'memory' of a last message which the subject believes was received prior to
death.
etc.
Only one of these requires anything more than pure nature, but it is the one
most people would instinctively choose as most likely to be the truth. Not
exactly a denial of the supernatural, is it?
The failure of anyone on the list to offer reasoned arguments against
Friedlander's conjectures apart from threats, base insults, snide
insinuations and new-ageish spiritual meanderings is pretty depressing,
given the high academic level of many of the list members. In effect, the
argument is that Friedlander cannot be right because we do not wish it to be
so, and anyway he's an improperly educated crank and probably a liar, and if
he gets angry with us again we'll bash his head in, the pointy nosed little
shit, and then tell teacher, and of course there are more things in heaven
and earth Horatio...
Not very edifying.
My own view, as a 'closed minded naturalist', is that he has an interesting
idea, incomplete in itself but well reasoned, that merits further
independant investigation to determine its merit. It doesn't detract from
Blake's reputation in any way, in the same way that the well documented
fact that Coleridge took opium does not cloud our opinion of him. And the
unpleasant prejudice and ignorance shown against the actually rather hazy
concept of 'madness' on this list will, I hope, prove a measure of self
revelation to those who can wipe the red mist from their reading glasses and
actually think about what they are saying.
Tim Linnell
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 09:46:02 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Bert, It is such a pleasure to have your posting as Spring enters
the Southern HEmisphere again. It seems to me that the interpenetration
of science and the seemingly supernatural has been taking place in
subtle ways this century, too -- as in the effect on the way we perceive
our world and ethics since Einstein's theory of relativity became widely
known, and more recently, since quantum theory with its wave-particle
dichotomy became known. I've just finished reading a book by a woman
whose surname (interestingly, re kabbalists!) is Zohar and who relates
the quantum waves to new ways of defining the Self in relation to all
others.. ... in fact, the freely moving sub-atomic particles struch me
forcibly as being very like JErusalem who belongs to all in Eternity.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 10:04:03 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply -Reply/ Are we all
semi-divine?
Message-Id:
I seem to have wrongly attributed the 3 choices to Tom Devine rather
than you, Tim, having been in a rush when writing last. Perhaps another
alternative to the 3 presented is that, like Blake, we are all able to
access strata of the divine. This could correspond with your alternative
category of direct access to the Almighty.... and Blake's insistence that
GOd is not a God afar, but within us all when we expand our senses so
that the divine light at the core of all things becomes larger. I always
thought this was the reality behind Jesus's claim that he was/is the Son
of God.
I'm well aware of scientific explanations of near death experiences but
these do not account for the fullness, variety and individualty of the
experiences ... nor of those which occur linking this world and the next
in situations far removed from death-bed scenes. Hypnotic regression
into past lives often reveals many reincarnations ... that is, evokes many
deaths as well as lives, in fulsome detail ... often providing details not
easily found in history books but verifiable after much research into
archives. For example, a psychologist trying to help 3 ordinary
housewives in Australia who had never left their continent, regressed
them into lives in Europe, during which one described and drew a
French chateau which she was later flown in to see. She was aghast
at her own accuracy and knew of a dancing floor, in the place, which no
one else did, but the structure of which was found in the walls. There
are many examples ... I find the reading of such things very interesting
in relation to Blake.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 10:06:13 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness"
Message-Id: <199809020907.KAA01367@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>wow, the utterly simplistic view western psychology has on human motives
>and mental states. quite interesting. of course, nowdays, the only mental
>states possible are either normal, on drugs, or mental illness. thats all
>psychologists think humans are capable of. people of higher consciousness
>exist, mind you, the siddha purushas, the seers...just because your life
>is ordinary and stuck in sensually stagnant and spiritually stagnant
>routine...the illusion of academia...the mind-brain, the astral body, the
>subtle body, the consciousness, all these facets must have worlds of their
>own. Blake, like Swedenborg, was a man of some higher consciousness, one
>more attuned to the non-sensual. Blame it all on Aldous Huxley, thinking
>that drugs and mental oddity is akin to spiritual experience, or
>transcendent experience. If you need a case example of such a human being,
>capable of everything Blake and Swedenborg was, look at the Indian
>siddha-purusha (spiritually more evolved person) Satya Sai Baba. There is
>an example of how the mental world is more than just a
>dancing hall for neurotransmitters and psychedelics .
'wow' indeed.
I regret I don't bow automatically like some to the inevitable superiority of
those of self proclaimed higher consciousness. I am not familiar with Satya
Sai Baba,
but I do know that the so-called transcendental experiences of seers,
shamen, and others of the 'spiritually more evolved' (and what an arrogant
claim this is, so typically human!) can be explained and precisely simulated
experimentally by changes in brain chemistry caused by drugs or ritual
induced trance states. (in the case of shamen this is often explicit drug
use). One phenomena, two explanations.
Now you are at complete liberty to believe what you want about separate or
transcendant spiritual existences but in point of fact your explanations of
'higher consciousness' are no less simplistic than my own. Indeed in many
respects they duck the important question of whether there is indeed a
higher spiritual existence by assuming one as a prerequisite.
As someone whose view of existence is naturalistic (i.e. I believe that the
true expression of the divine is found within nature itself), I can assure
you that my life is neither sensually nor spiritually stagnant. The
difference is that I need neither God nor higher consciousness to feel a
sense of wonder before nature. When, for example I lie on my back looking at
the stars during a meteor shower, or just simply look in to the eyes of my
son as he giggles back at me, I really have no need of anything more than
Nature to give meaning to my life.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 11:02:22 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: JAMESON, BLAKE, INNOCENCE -Reply
Message-Id:
Ralph, You're dealing with some very interesting things here and, as I
have to do my regular work, I can't answer in detail, but would like to
respond to three points. I think Blake's version of God's mercy in setting
a Limit to the Fall refers more widely than the interpretation you advance
That is, it goes beyond the destruction of religious dogma and involves
the release of the fallen universe from its material chains. God allows
the fallen visions of Urizen to become fixed in permanent forms so that it
can be eliminated, like dross (or shite, in kabbalistic terms) from the divine
body.
Concomitantly, his vision of Innocence cannot, as you rightly intimate, be
dismissed as ironic since it is the way of perceiving the world to which
we, in Blake's opinion, must all return. THat is, if we preserve faith in a
divine world f love where we all participate in the godhead, then, truly,
we do not need to fear since all the cruelties of time are only for a limited
time. This relates well to the discussion of the Sweep's dream, too.
Then you raise the question as to whether Blake is for iron-willed
resistance OR forgiveness, and if, the latter, then you claim that he might
possibly be so unrealistic as to be schizophrenic. HEre, I'm afraid I have
to provoke you to do things to your tea-kettle again (can't quite imagine
what) because Blake does believe in forgiveness (as in" the cut worm
forgives the plough") even in this world, although he himself does fight
with iron-willed resistance agianst all forms of oppression of the human
spirit.As usual, the answer seems to be "Both-and", not either-or since
we always have to place all that exists in this imperfect world in relation
to the eternal world in Blake. In doing so, we do arrive at the place
where all contraries are reconciled and heaven married to hell.
In response to Tim Linnell's rather too-easy dismIssal of New Age ideas,
if some of these happen to resonate with Blake, this is not because I am
responsible for creating them ex nihilo or vapidly assimilating them ... I
simply am there to witness that many of the ideas brought forth by
new data in the fields of regression of patients with problems into past
lives, etc, seem to have a bearing on Blake's ideas. Since what he
thought long ago is becoming commonplace to many, either we are all
going weak in the head, or Blake knew well in advance where we need
to head to live fuller lives. His poem "Children of a future Age ...."
objecting to restraints on love, seems to indicate this, as well as intimate
the necessary selflessness of free love --- that wonderful floating
gluon of the universe, perhaps?
Pam
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #59
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