The geography of William Blake’s illuminated epic poem Jerusalem is organized around four principal cities: London, Babylon, Golgonooza, and Jerusalem. Three of the four are familiar enough, but the arcane city of Golgonooza is likely to seem, to an unsuspecting reader, as unapproachable as some legendary Forbidden City.
The Mind in the Cave and the Cave in the Mind
‘A nude male, almost certainly Milton or a compound of Blake and Milton, strides away from us and into his book, perhaps leading us forward into its depths. Milton may be entering his ‘Own Vortex’. His right arm and hand also cut his name in two, an action suggesting that the route to apocalypse is blocked by a ‘selfhood’ that must be self-annihilated’ – Essick & Viscomi
This essay argues that Blake’s illuminated poem, Milton a Poem in 2 Books (1804-1811), exhibits characteristics of the hallucinations also encountered in the archaeology of rock paintings made during shamanic trances in the prehistoric period. The essay will particularly focus on the trance-like episode referred to at the end of Milton and will link it to similar shamanic trances known to have occurred to southern African /Xam (San) bushmen in their practices of rock painting.
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