Blake on Religion (Second Delivery)

William Blake was born in England in 1757, died there seventy years later in 1827. Blake never went to school, and yet today, anyone familiar with the English language — if he had to make a list of the six greatest users of the language — could not, if he’s familiar with the language, could not omit the name of Blake in any list of six. I asked that question of Aldous Huxley about five or six years ago, and he said to me, “Guess what I’ve just said to you.” No one familiar with English literature, all the way back to Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare — you might alter the list somewhat — but no one could omit the name of Blake in any list of six of the greatest users of the English style. And he never saw the inside of a school. He taught himself Hebrew, Greek, Italian — of course he was the master of the English tongue. He had his visions in the time he was a child, and when he died, he was still communing with the world of eternity. Really, he was singing hymns, and he said, “They’re not mine, they belong — but they’re of eternity — they’re not really mine.” He said, of religion, “I know of no other Christianity, and of no other gospel, than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination. Imagination is the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow, and into which we shall go, in our eternal or imaginative bodies, when these vegetable, mortal bodies are no more.”9010 ¶1

There’s no one who’s given more to this world, considering the secret of imagining, than Blake — unless, of course, you speak of the Bible. The Bible to him was pure vision from beginning to end; it was his textbook. And so he was asked, this very prominent man of the day, “Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book?” And he answered, “Is it not because it is addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only mediately to the understanding, or reason? For the whole Bible is pure revelation — God’s word.”9010 ¶2

He wrote what he considered the grandest poem in the world, Jerusalem. He said, “I may praise it, because I am only the secretary — its authors are in eternity.” Here, in a very short period of time, Blake completed this grand poem. He said it was dictated to him — sometimes twelve, and times twenty and thirty lines at a time — but lines at a time. So here, work that should have taken a lifetime of labor came without labor, in so short a period of time. And he starts in the beginning, and he states the theme before he allows the dictation, and the theme is stated in the very first two lines: of the Sleep of Ulro, and of the passage through eternal death, and of the awakening to eternal life. Then he said, this thing calls to me night after night in sleep, and every morn awakes me at sunrise, when I see the spirit of my Savior hovering over me, and dictating the words of this mild song — the spirit of his Savior, hovering over him, and dictating — well, twenty, thirty lines at a time. And then the dictation begins with an appeal to man: “Awake! Awake! O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake, expand! I am in you, and you in me, mutual in love divine.”9010 ¶3

Then said he, the perturbed man — a way turns down to about his dog, he can’t believe it — man imputes sin and righteousness to individuals, are not to states. You understand, Blake, you’ve got to draw a line of demarcation between the individual — your immortal you — and the state, the present stage of that individual. He said, “As the Pilgrim passes, while the country permanent remains, so men pass on, but states remain permanent forever.”9010 ¶4

So we must distinguish between the state and the individual occupying that state, to understand Blake. “It is all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” And it constantly reminds the reader never to condemn any one of this world. Or, said he, “I do not consider the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, not to be states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” So, “Come, Lord Jesus,” said he, “and create states to deliver man evermore.”9010 ¶5

You see, someone who is not feeding well, maybe he’s up against it financially, maybe things aren’t going as they ought to go — that’s a state. If you know the difference between the individual in that state, and of all the state — or a future state that you can create — you can lift him out of it by representing that individual to yourself as you would like to see him, and put him in that state. Do it without his knowledge, do it without his consent — you can do it, you can create a state and pull people out of horrible states into lovely states, leave them with a lovely state, and they will simply occupy it beautifully. And today will be the only state, the only real thing — what they’re in at the moment — when you pull them into it.9010 ¶6

And he shows us how to do it. He said, “I have fourfold vision” — now I a fourfold vision see, and a fourfold vision is given to me; ’tis fourfold in my supreme delight, and threefold in soft Beulah’s night, and twofold always. May God us keep from single vision and Newton’s sleep.9010 ¶7

Single vision, to him, was simply the ordinary physical sight, where this is what appears to be and nothing more. Double vision is when everything is but a symbol. I told you the story — the morning I opened up — the little girl, five years old — well, her little sister, who was three, this past year, taken to the beach by her grandmother. On the beach, or out in the sea, were piles driven into the sand, marking some boundary, and she turns to the grandmother and she said, “Grandma, look — sticks bathing.” Well, it struck the grandmother funny, and she recorded it and told me about it. But this little child, not yet fitted with the adult mind, saw sticks bathing — they were not simply piles in the sand, unsightly. After her, he rejoiced, and wished, at the moment, she saw a stick and out of that water bathing — the sticks, because, to the little mind, she endowed the sticks with animation, with something alive, and they were bathing. That’s double vision.9010 ¶8

And he speaks of it: “To my outward eye it is simply heaven, or a person along the way; or, with my inward eye, it’s an old man gray.” He looked at a flower — he saw a flower with the outer eye, and with the inner eye he saw something entirely different. Don’t you practice that? You look at something along the way, and you see it entirely differently. It is right, away to the heath, in the wild, the thorns and the thistles of the way, and they told me how they were beguiled, driven out — and then compelled to be chaste that he called it — their things were the outward eye of Ololon, and he communed with epistle, and thought, and they spoke to him and told him that they will soon be the embodiment of the suppressed longings, the normal longings, of the human heart. He communed with them, and they spoke to him. All this was double vision.9010 ¶9

Now, threefold vision — you must practice it tonight, everyone must, or should, practice it — while the little girl did that, threefold vision. See, imagine yourself in a living room with all glass walls — that’s an image. Her mother’s an image, and all that she did, she blended it and intermingled images; she married them, and then they produced offspring. The offspring was the result — in the world, the home was bought by her, her father. He did not consult the father — she simply took her mother into her confidence, and together they played the part, and then the father had a change of jobs, increased income, then he bought the home. So that is threefold vision. If I bring you into my mind’s eye and represent you to myself as I would like to see you, and persuade myself of the reality of this imaginal act of mine — that’s threefold vision. What does it imply? Good fortune for you. So I’m doing something which would imply something else — that which is implying is the offspring of my imagery. I bring you — what I imagine, an expression on your face, I listen to words coming from you where you tell me how well things are going for you — all this imagery I intermingle and blend it, and marry it, and then it produces the result I am looking for. The result is the offspring of this blending of images. Threefold vision.9010 ¶10

Fourfold vision, rather — you’ve had it or not, I do not know. I will share with you an experience I’ve had time and again. But here is what I think I’ve told you this before, but it links itself to this vision, and so I want to share it with you.9010 ¶11

Many years ago, in Beverly Hills, four in the morning, I’m on my right side, and I know what I am seeing I should not see. All my eyes opened, I should see a little tiny bureau and a picture on it, and on the wall above it just a small little picture — but I should not see what I’m seeing. I am seeing the interior of a very lush and plush hotel. I am seeing it as vividly, and more so, than I’m seeing you now. Yeah, I know, but I am — I’m on my bed, it’s in Beverly Hills, on El Camino, I’m on my right side, I can feel all this, and I should not be seeing what I’m seeing, but I am seeing it, and I can’t deny it. So, as this fourfold vision — as I walk into my image, and the image is just as real as this room — I remembered where the body was, so I returned to the body, returning to the body and once more in a horizontal position. And I am now in a vertical position — I step right into this interior, I came back and went forward, back and forth, about a dozen times. Did I say to myself, “I’m going to venture, regardless of the consequences.” I am going to venture. With that decision made, I stepped into the interior, and then it closed around me — I’m actually the occupant of the image, and the room is just as solid as this room. But I am shut out, there is no way back to Beverly Hills, and earth, and that body on the bed. Yeah, I am in an entirely different world, but the world is solid.9010 ¶12

I touch the bureau, and it’s solid. I touch the wall on the side, and I thought, well, now I’ll explore, I’m here for this purpose. So I came out of this room, as it closed around me, I came into a large passageway which led down to another hallway. I walked to the end, and then, as I got there, it was quite well lit, and I saw two ladies walking by, and as they started by, I spoke to them, and I said, “Ladies, this is the dream, you know.” And they were afraid, as any lady would be afraid of a total stranger who met them in a public hallway and told them that this is the dream. “I know you would be afraid,” and so they either thought they’re in the presence of a person, or something — but they were startled. But that world was so solid, they couldn’t go through the wall — they wished they could, but they couldn’t. It’s a real world. And I looked at it, and I noticed over my head a peculiar ornament. I had seen a similar one in North Hollywood, in a friend’s home, at the time. I asked him how does this thing remain up, and he said to me, if you look closely you will notice an almost, but not quite, an almost invisible thread, and it’s anchored to the ceiling by that almost invisible thread, and it gives the illusion of floating. It was a copper thing, very lightly done, beautiful leaves, but a very large picture. And so I thought, well, now, this is only a memory image of what I saw in Hollywood, so this I know is gossala — so I put my hand on it, and I say to the ladies, “I’ll show you, ladies,” and I really thought that when I touched it, it would disappear. As I held it, it was solidly real, just like this. I then said to myself, though never — you know exactly how this thing happened — your body is in Beverly Hills, on a bed, your wife is in that bed, it’s a double bed, that house is on El Camino, and that’s in the state of California, and California is in America. This is a dream, you know — it’s a dream. Exactly how the whole thing started: you saw, while on the bed, what you should not have seen, and you ventured, you stepped into your image, and the image became real, as real as it is now to you. So wake up. And I said to myself, “Come on, wake up.” And I actually felt myself leaking, as it were, coming to, and I’m breaking fully awake, and I’m standing in that hallway — I’m no — possibility of return, there’s no roll back. I say to myself, now, you know this is stupid, you have unfinished business on earth, you have a child not yet educated, he’s in high school and she has the ambition and the talent to go to college, and so it is unfinished business. When you’re — the more money — your wife will wake, and the body will be dead. You’ll have the performance, autopsy, because you weren’t ill, and they’re going to bring in some kind of a verdict, but whatever the verdict is, you’re dead. And here you walk, and you live in an entirely different world. They’re standing there, I shut my eyes, and as would happen to anyone else, I couldn’t see anything with my lids closed. I open my eyes, and here I’m still in this room, this hallway.9010 ¶13

I did it several times, and then I decided to try something that once before succeeded in bringing me back, and that was the sense of touch. That’s why I know, beyond all doubt, that Blake was quite right when he said imagination is spiritual sensation. So, standing vertically, I assume that my head was on a pillow. I simply assumed it, and imagined the sensation that I would feel were it true, and I could feel a pillow. I’m — strangely enough — I’m feeling a pillow. I had the sensation of being now on a horizontal level, not vertical, and then I could feel the pillow. I said to myself, “Well, at least I’m back,” but I’m cataleptic — I could not move my body, I couldn’t move any position. In about, say, twenty seconds, I could, with tremendous effort, move this little thing on my left hand. A little while later, I could move it from the elbow. As I got that motion, I pushed it out, and I thought to my wife’s body — I do — then I was back, but I could not open my lips, my eyes were actually sealed. Then, maybe another fifteen, thirty-five seconds, with tremendous effort, I got the eye open, and here are the familiar objects on the wall, the little picture on the bureau, the bureau, and I’m back. Then I can begin to move a bit, and then return to normalcy. That’s fourfold vision.9010 ¶14

And you’re seated in a chair, and you see what you didn’t see — not the familiar objects, but something entirely different. When you venture now, and step into your image — that’s what he meant. “If the spectator into these images, in his imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if he could make a friend and a companion of any one of these images of wonder, then he would rise from the grave, then he would meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be happy.” That stepping into the image, and the image takes on all the qualities of reality, just as real as this room here, and you know, beyond all doubt, that nothing dies. You actually see it, then nothing passes away, that the world does not come to an end where my senses cease to register it — it continues, everything continues. And then he brought out even a little sigh, a tear, a smile — even a grain of dust passes not away, nothing passes away.9010 ¶15

But he saw the world entirely differently from the world that appears to us. I saw that world on several occasions. I pulled it and shared it with you too. He said, “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act.” You know what he means — everything from the cradle to the grave that you have, a good experience, as though you saw them all in individual little moments, but they are not moving — they could be seen if you saw them from a higher dimension, the entire unfolding picture, not animated. No — he makes a statement: “When weary man enters his cave, he meets his savior in the grave. Some kind of female garment, and some are male, woven with clay — thus the sexual garment, sweet, should weave a devouring binding sheet, one dies, alas, the living and the dead, honestly, and what is made.” So, when you enter your cave — he’s speaking of the body — and you meet your savior in the grave, this is the grave, and you actually find there — one wife, my mother and my wife, my daughter, their son’s female garments. My son, my — following from male gods, but I am not a male, and they are female. When we’re a man — and he capitalizes Man — so man is above the organization of sex. Why, then, entering, he meets his savior in the grave, and then he wears around him a female or a male garment — but he is neither female nor male, he’s Man, and Man is above the organization of sex.9010 ¶16

So here, as we enter, we are seeing — and then he said, “You do not see what I see.” And then he tells us what he sees. In the furnaces — and then he tells us — was cast into the furnaces of affliction, and sealed. Well, love, to him, is love, and love is Jesus Christ, love is God — infinite love. You imagine, right, in the cave, when you enter, and there you find your savior in the grave. He said he was cast into this grave, and sealed, and he calls it furnaces of affliction. But he tells us it is for a purpose, and the purpose is to bring perfection to the individual. See, over the savior, while in the grave — and he paints so vividly these states through which you and I must pass, and pass as a group, the states remain permanent, but we pass on, because we are moving from state to state to state.9010 ¶17

So here, in this fourfold vision — and may you have it tonight — it’s a thrill, my friends, a little disturbing, when you have unfinished business, I assure you, because I didn’t want, at that moment, to leave behind a wife unprotected, a daughter uneducated. Yes, I believe I loved her, but I didn’t feel, as a husband who loves her, that it was equal to what I wanted to give her, and so I had unfinished business, and yet there was no way back. I’m in an entirely different world, and the world is just as real as this, and I knew reason telling me the body had to be discovered the next day — my body is wearing extremely — solid, but here is a body, I knew I left the body in Beverly Hills. And so I walked, I went back through feeling — I simply sensed the villain — and so when he made the statement in his letter to Dr. Trusler — is it not spiritual sensation? He said, is not the Bible addressed to that in man which is all imagination — well, I felt it, because years before that I did step into an image, I became awake in the image, as Thoreau said, reliving is to be in a dream awake. When one is in a dream awake, well, this is a dream, and then you awake in the dream, and the dream ceases to be a dream — it’s just like this. If what I did was a dream, this here is just as much — I’ll show you — for that image simply became just like this room. But once before I found myself in an image, and some object in that experience scared me, and I knew exactly how to get back, to the sense of touch, and I’d try to think, and it worked. If I find myself dreaming now, and I know I’m dreaming, I have prolonged a dream, or woke in the dream, with a sense of touch, and I find, if I hold an object that is not movable — I wouldn’t hold a cat, or a door, or even a person, but I will hold a stationary thing that is seemingly inanimate, like a table, or any inanimate fixed object — when I hold it, I then say to myself, “Come on, grab it, but don’t let go, I will not let go the object” — I’m not letting it go, I awake. I wake in the image, and the object is just as real as are you. It would be, when I obey it. So what is real to us, when you’re in the dream itself, is the dream. We speak of a dream when we wake from the dream, as subjective — as we reflect upon the experience, we say, “Oh, that was a subjective experience,” but it wasn’t subjective when you were dreaming — it was entirely objective to you, the dreamer. It’s only subjective after the experience.9010 ¶18

Well, that’s what he means by fourfold vision. He didn’t always have it — he confessed that “now I have fourfold vision see, on a fourfold vision is given to me, it is fourfold in my supreme delight,” and it is — or, when you can sit quietly in the chair, and leave behind you all the things of the day, and step right into an entirely different world, and the world is just like this, real, and people — it’s a sheer delight. Fourfold vision is what you and I are called upon to practice, to bring about changes of state for those we love.9010 ¶19

So you meet a person, and things aren’t going well — all right, it doesn’t really matter, he’s only in a state. So you represent him to yourself as other than what he appears to be, persuade yourself of the reality of that imaginal act — that’s another state altogether relative to him, he will conform to it, and you will meet, in the next day, or the next week, next month, and you will see a change in his behavior. You’re real, then, according to this blending of images in your imagination, which — union creates whatever the union implies, leading one to the conclusion that causation is simply the assemblage of mental states which, occurring, creates that which the assemblage implies. So you assemble images — what do they imply? Whatever they imply, they’re going to create. So always see that which you are going to create, something. Well, the imagery blending — if they are occurring, invariably creates what they imply. Anyone can do it, and you’re invited to try it — that’s what Blake taught.9010 ¶20

And from the time that he could breathe, he was teaching those that he met the difference between the individual and states, and begging men not to impute sin and righteousness to the individual — not to the state. He gets out of the state, and he leaves behind him all that state radiated. When he’s in a state, he seems to be the only reality; when you’re not in a state, it seems shadowy, a mere possibility, but not when you’re in it. When you step into one image, that image closes around you, it’s real — are we all together? Just like this room here — and you can train yourself to step into these images, and prove the being that you really are. You’re not confined to the little body of five senses at all — you are a man, all imagination.9010 ¶21

So when he said, “What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be” — even of despair, and eternal death. But said he, “Divine Mercy steps beyond, and redeems man, in the body of Jesus.” And so he steps right beyond, and redeems us. We can go from state to state to state, but we cannot save ourselves. Salvation is initiated by God — it is not given to us for any good deeds done, I assure you; on the other hand, it’s not given as due reward for merit, that I assure you — it is bestowed by grace alone. And, if you’re told in the scripture, why — in virtue of his own mercy, not because of anything I did, not because of anything you did — when you are salvaged from this world of states, the furnaces of affliction, bear in mind, you didn’t earn it. Not one being in the world can earn his own salvation, but it’s going to be given to him by the mercy of God, and it’s called in the scripture grace — your grace, unearned. No one could earn it.9010 ¶22

And Blake’s also clear, and told us all: in spite of all these glorious states, you could be pure in your own mind’s eye, you could be impure in the eyes of others, but whether you were just or wicked, it was not to him anything that you could brag about, because your only — you fell into a state, and found yourself in a pure state, and thought yourself so pure — the state was, I knew, the occupant activated it, you animated it, and it became real to you. I mean, if you liked it, and remained in that state. But you could easily fall into another state, a wicked state, and when you are in a state, you partake of the nature of that state, and you animate it, and make it all alive. But you’re neither wicked nor pure — you’re just immortal being, putting through — putting through the furnace, use of perfection, and you pass through all these businesses for a divine reason, to be made perfect as he is perfect. And when, in his eye, you are perfect, it brings you up. “Divine Mercy steps beyond, and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” And so all will be redeemed, because you can’t earn it, and Blake made it so clear.9010 ¶23

If you haven’t read Jerusalem, what a thrill, what a treat in store for you. There are only a hundred plates, and a plate doesn’t even run a full page, and so you could really read it in an hour easily. Onwards, maybe a little bit difficult to grasp, because he does invoke, by calling a certain attribute, Los, or Los’s imagination — that divine being that remains faithful to vision in the time of trouble. If you turn it back, it’s the sun — it really is the soul, the animating principle of everything in this world.9010 ¶24

And so, when you see through his eyes, you’ll have to experience — I have felt — we are separated in time, but we are two figures closely woven in this tapestry of life. I imagined, just about a year ago — and he showed me exactly how to fall in order to see what he describes so beautifully in Jerusalem. I stood very still, to let myself go backwards, and so I threw myself back, like a backward dive, and I came whirling through interstellar space, as though I were a medium, and when the motion was arrested and I stood still, here I’m looking at the most wonderful being, and he’s seen — as I looked at him, one being, as I came close, multitudes of nations are in that being — all races, all nations. As I look closer, their heart is like glowing brutally, but it is made up of numerous races and nations. I look still closer, and our whole body containing all races — I’m looking at myself. Here the face is my face, and yet in that one being all the races, all the nations, are contained. I’m looking right into my own face, and my heart is going like — but it contains all men, all women, all these bodies are in it. And it was Blake who showed me how to fall backwards in order to see the vision, and so I tumble backwards, just like some medium rolling yourself through space, and then arrested — that’s what I saw. So although we are parted in time — he died in 1827, and I was born in 1905 — so while we never met on earth, but in the spirit we certainly meet, and so his visions are my visions.9010 ¶25

When you say, “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act” — I’ll tell you exactly what he means. One day I stepped in, in spirit, into a room — a family of four, two boys in their early twenties, and father, mother, and coming through the door is a lady bringing food to the table. Through the huge, big, last window, I could see birds in flight, I could see the ripple of the grass as the wind blew it, I could see leaves falling. The other diners didn’t attract me, but they were diners — but they didn’t attract me. The waitress attracted me, and this bowl of food that attracted me, and the other things that I’ve just mentioned. And at that moment, while I’m looking at the four of them, something in the depths of my soul knew that if I could arrest in me an activity, that I felt everything would freeze. I somehow knew it, but I tried it. I felt something gel in my head at that moment, and it gelled and froze in me — everything, the friends and the waitress, walking — walking not — and the diners dining. I can see the face now — the young lad, yes, a spoon in his hand, he was drinking soup, and he came this far with his mouth expecting it, and he couldn’t move it, and the waitress could not walk, and the bird in flight was arrested, and it couldn’t move, and the leaves falling couldn’t fall. And suddenly I’m looking at a world that is dead, everything is dead, and where was the life in it? In me. Now, a bird in flight, if arrested, should fall to the ground, if the law that we speak of, of gravity, is in operation — but the bird didn’t fall. And the leaves — all right, unless some other pressure equal to it kept it alive, or kept it afloat — but not the bird. The waitress — yes, if she doesn’t — if she is arrested, she doesn’t have to fall, but she was frozen, as though she were made of clay — they could have been made of clay. And then I released the activity that I had arrested, and I did so, each continued in their course — and the waitress walked, and he completed the action of drinking his soup, and the bird which was perfectly still went into the action of flight, and the leaves continued to fall, and once more all became animated.9010 ¶26

That’s what he meant: he — eternity, and all things in eternity, in the end of the creation, which was an activity. And so we are inserted into this dead body, as he — turned dead — and then we animate, and eventually we will come out of it with light in ourselves, or we are told, as the father has light in himself, so he’s granted the son also to have life in himself. And the purpose of it all is simply to awaken sons who have light in themselves, and not simply animated parts of the structure of the universe.9010 ¶27

One day a lady asked me concerning animals — I didn’t know the answer — she said, “Neville, what is the future evolution of the animal world? I am very fond of animals, and I hate to see them destroyed.” So, what is the future evolution of the animal? I didn’t know the answer, I could have given her some theory, but I could not speak then from experience. Two nights later, I find myself at the top of a ladder, and looking down — here is the jungle, wild beast — I mean, really wild — tiger, lion, panther, everything that is greedy, what you would call the wild beast of the jungle, and they’re in an angry mood, the whole thing is moving, snarling, stalking beasts. I am alone at the top of a ladder. At the moment, I’m a little bit apprehensive, and a little concerned for my own safety, and as I was concerned and apprehensive, that became all the more — they became all the more angry. And in the depths of myself, again I knew, as though something crystal-clear whispered — I knew that they were only externalized emotions of myself, that they’re simply born witness of my own emotions. When I lost all fear, they became docile, like house cats. Then I went further — as I would now repeat it — “I will arrest within thee the activity that makes them alive,” and once more I arrested it, and in my head — in a jail — I went down that entire ladder, they were made of clay. When I said clay, they were solid, just as though I walked into a museum, and I saw these things carved beautifully by some great sculptor — that’s what they were. And then I went back up the ladder, released this activity, and once more they came into animation, and they moved like living beasts of the jungle. So I know, we experience today, the whole vast world, as Blake said: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” And I know it, I’ve experienced it, so I tell you, if you haven’t experienced it, you’re going to — well, that’s the purpose of being here, and you will find the whole thing is within you, it’s not out there at all.9010 ¶28

I mean, if you would like me to be improved beyond what I seem to be in your eye now, and in your own mind’s eye make me all the greater — if that’s what you want, for if you want me to come back next year bringing something far deeper than this year — see me in that light, don’t do it if I consent, do it without my consent, if that’s your desire for me. If my desire for you, knowing that you will be limited, is to see you free of this limitation — without your knowledge, without your consent — I should know the difference between you and states, I should create the state I want to see you expressing this world, and put you in that state. So, right now, to see you as you would like to see yourself, and I remain faithful to that vision of you. Come back next year, you encounter you in that state, or you, rightly, or others, would like me to tell me of a transformed being that you seem to be. It works that way. All this, bear in mind the distinction between you, the immortal you, and the state you occupy, because you know you could easily fall into a state through an argument, through a headline in the paper, you can fall into it in some other way, and think you are it, all — you are the immortal being, one day will be extracted from the furnaces of affliction, and being brought out, you are one with your father, who is God, and you are healed.9010 ¶29

So Blake, to me, is a spiritual joy, one of the truly awakened gods. And when your mission — he looks like some super-terrestrial being, when you see him — a giant of a man, until you saw a giant, air — but he was radiant, a man is radiant, just completely awake among the gods. Thou wearest thy robe, as in the eighty-second psalm, “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” Blake is in the midst of the gods. When I travel now — I’m leaving here, uh, Sunday — I take back my three books: one I brought just to show my friend Freeman, the other two are my constant companions — one is Blake, the other is the Bible. I’ll be flying to New York on the fifteenth of September, I’ll be carrying two books, one will be Blake, and one will be my Bible — that’s all I will be carrying, my constant companions.9010 ¶30

First of all, the joy of reading Blake, with his use of English, that fantastic use of English, all weaving in the imagination. And so, no one outside of the Bible has given to the world as much as Blake, when it comes to the secret of imagining, how to do it. And so, these four visions of his — the fourfold, the threefold, the twofold, and the single — while the single is simply any normal physical sight, where the thing is what it appears to be, and nothing more, that’s single vision, and he prayed to be saved from single vision, because everything has a meaning in God’s word. I used to sit in the park years ago with my old friend Abdullah, and if two people walked by, it had meaning, it was male and female, and therefore, if too many different birds in flight — and he gave meaning to all the moving, animated stage of God’s world, entirely different language. God is speaking every moment of time, you see, to every one of us, but we can’t see it, we do not understand the language of God — it’s all spoken in symbolism, and the birds in flight reveal something to him. He got up — and he wasn’t superstitious — he got up at a certain moment, when something passed by, he could interpret the language of God, others couldn’t, and there was reason for his getting up, as time proved. You simply moved for what reason — thereafter was an accident, but everything is meaning in this world, everything.9010 ¶31

The very beginning of the Book of John: “In the beginning was the Word” — well, the Greek word, logos, that is translated word, has the meaning “meaning.” So you could say, “In the beginning was meaning, and meaning was with God, and meaning was God.” There is a meaning, there’s a purpose, a plan behind everything in this world, and eventually you and I will understand it.9010 ¶32

I assure you, the whole vast world, if you could arrest your power now, would stand still, absolutely still. There’s only one thing outside of Blake’s — and one little passage in my book, where I try to record the experience I’ve ever seen — it was in the Apocryphal New Testament, in the Gospel of James, and here in the Book of James the words are put into the mouth of Joseph, the night of the birth of Christ, where he goes in search of a Hebrew midwife, because he wants it for his wife, and as he starts, the heaven stood still, and the shepherds tending their flock, they stood still, and the little lambs drinking stood still, and the men eating stood still, and everything was frozen, as though — and then suddenly all moved on in their course. So it’s the only recorded thing I’ve ever heard of that’s like it, in the Book of James, and you can get it — the Apocryphal New Testament, and look up the passage called “The Infant Gospels,” and look at the one under the Gospel of James. This was an experience given, as an experience of Joseph, the night that he was born, that Christ — then the heavens stood still. That’s the power that he tasted of the age to come, for that’s the power you’re going to wield in the age to come. You taste of it now, there’s glimpses of it, because you’re rising into a world completely subject to your imaginative power.9010 ¶33

So, if you haven’t read Blake, may I thank you — get a copy and read them, you may not understand in the very first moment, but reread them, I keep on rereading. First of all, for your — well, if you like English, as for the joy of reading good English, Blake — and take words and do with words what he did, and left for the world. So, two hundred years ago he made his entrance, and then, known to us, although he himself is completely unknown — and you’d mention anyone in the day when he walked the earth, and they’re completely unknown today, but Blake has become known, and he grows bigger and bigger every year, in the eyes of those who understand the literature, and those who are considered great in his day are completely — today are not. Because the king of England in those days was simply mad King George, and we only know him today because he lost — for which we are very thankful that he lost, but he lost his greatest colony, which was America, and we are very grateful he did, but he was only known for that, for his madness.9010 ¶34

While Blake was not mad, but because of his visions they called him mad, and said the man is mad, because he spoke with the mortal eyes could not see — yet the same who called him mad would read the Bible. But can you conceive of the description of God on his throne, as described in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, and he — he held — “the Lord, the most high, is sitting on his throne,” and he paints a picture — can you conceive of any cameraman photographing it? You’re about to take the words of Isaiah, because you couldn’t possibly pick some anonymous artist and have him set God on his throne, and you couldn’t take any cameraman who could photograph the vision of Isaiah. Well, once it was made, we have it in the book, and we read it all the time — all the visions recorded in the Bible could not be photographed. And so, because Blake could not photograph his own vision, he could draw them — he had the talent to draw them — but they called him mad.9010 ¶35

When he drew the flea, and he drew the flea like a man — a monstrous man, with a neck that wasn’t the neck, the head was simply stuck on. Yes, but he was trying to put over a marvelous lesson — to him, a flea is a blood-sucking insect. Well, any man who takes the life, not of another, who works no more or less than the man, really should be paid — he’s taking his blood, he doesn’t get on the man and actually suck blood, but there was a day, there’s still a day, when a man doesn’t pay what he’s worth, and yet the man is using him — that man goes home to a wife and children that need food, need to be educated, and he’s not being properly paid — isn’t he the employer a blood-sucking insect? Well, that’s the thing — I was showing that everything is man, so the little flea is only the projection of a blood-sucking man. So everyone in the world who looks at that picture — it’s a monstrous picture, and he wrote everything into it, and he said he saw the ghost of a flea, and the ghost of the flea was man, for this — nothing but man.9010 ¶36

I saw it — the animal world is simply man’s emotions being made visible. If a man arrested in him the life that makes them alive, they all stand, and they’re dead. The whole verse were — one day will be seen by you as still, and then you know the words of Blake: “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act.” And so we are being molded and shaped in this fabulous world of states, by the uncreated God, where the uncreated shapes himself upon the more that is permanent. Now let us go into the silence.9010 ¶37

Good — you have questions, please. I didn’t quite hear it.9010 ¶38

Any other questions, please.9010 ¶41

Well, we’re here on Sunday morning, and that would be our last for a year, but then, you repeat, is not the last of the message, or friends, in our midst, and I think you all know it. Okay, let me ask you to please take one of his columns and read it — it gives you all the information that you will need, entering the class. Okay, thank you.9010 ¶44