Jerusalem

William Blake and the Spiritual Form of Tony Blair, by Rod Tweedy

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The Rise and Fall of Urizen: Psychopathy and Rationality

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Introduction: The Triumph of the Left Hemisphere

In his startling conclusion to his illuminated prophecy Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, Blake depicts Urizen (“your Reason”) in his final, contemporary form: completely dissociated or divided: no longer the originally luminous and enlightening power within the human brain, that he had once been, but now a totally unempathic, ruthless, manipulative drive, obsessed only with power and control. Blake refers to this “debased” or “insane” and dysfunctional form of the former “Holy Reasoning Power” as the “Red Dragon”, “the Dragon Urizen”.

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Blake’s Left Foot: William Blake and how to enter new States, by Jennifer Keith

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“And did those Feet?” Radical incarnation and the Spirituality of Physiology in Blake’s Milton 

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Introduction: The Mental Traveller

In a work with the spiritual aspirations of Blake’s Milton, the pedestrian topic of feet may seem less than deserving of critical attention, but because Blake himself repeatedly focuses on the foot in his brief epic, surely the reader should attend to this lowest part of human anatomy.

As an anatomical feature, the foot automatically assumes importance given Blake’s declaration in Milton that “more extensive / Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments.” In verses noted for their narrative convolutions and complex imagery, Blake’s poetic feet figure among Milton‘s most memorable fancies: “covered with Human gore,” Zelophehad’s Daughters’ feet treadle the loom (29.58); a “Vegetable World” appears on Blake’s left foot (21.12); and Albion’s enormous feet cover a good portion of southern England (39.36-40).

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The Eighth Eye: Prophetic Vision in Blake’s Poetry and Design, by Rachel V. Billigheimer

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Apocalypse and Perception: Moving beyond Natural Perception

‘The Man Who Taught Blake Painting in his Dreams’ (c. 1825). This is a replica of one of Blake’s drawings of figures that appeared to him in visions. It has also been proposed that Blake’s image might be a ‘visionary self-portrait’, showing the artist himself at the moment of the inspiration. The strange form on the forehead may represent flames.

“Through the eighth Eye man is able to cast off the error of tradition and dogma and achieve individual inspiration”. Picture: ‘The Sun At His Eastern Gate’. Many people see the sun as a natural object in the sky, i.e., see it in terms of the dogmas of natural science, literality, and tradition, without the reality-based eight eye.

 

Prophetic Vision in Blake’s Poetry

In a previous study, Blake’s Eyes of God Cycles to Apocalypse and Redemption, the seven Eyes of God in Blake’s prophetic books were correlated with biblical and historical periods. Directed by the spirit of imagination, these cycles were seen as intrinsic to apocalypse. Here we examine the poetic inspiration of Blake’s eighth Eye and relate it to the prophetic vision in some of Blake’s designs.

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William Blake, Brexit and the Re-Awakening of Albion, by Rod Tweedy

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Albion versus Britain PLC: The Political Dimension of Albion’s Awakening

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In a remarkable article in the Guardian last year, associate editor Martin Kettle argued that “English radicalism needs to recapture the spirit of Blake” – that in a political world dominated by bureaucracy, think-tanking, consumerism, and a small-minded, reductive sense of cultural identity we need a re-infusion of imagination, passion, vision, and integrity. Indeed, he ended his piece with the provocative question, “Without the dream of Albion, how can England arise and Britain come together again in the common cause?” (Guardian)

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