Blake's View of the '3 Great Errors'

Posted by William Blake on 27 August 2010 | 4 Comments

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A passage from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".

"All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3 Energy is Eternal Delight."

 

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

 


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  • In the last ten years there has been a mainstream shift towards seeing greater interaction between the brain and the body, in particular between visceral responses and the emotions. This contrasts with a 20th century orthodoxy of the brain as an isolated computer (brain in a vat) and the emotions as something to be disregarded in respectable academic circles.

    Posted by Simon Raggett, 01/09/2010 6:48pm (1 year ago)

  • If "Man has no Body distinct from his Soul" by (1.), should not Blake in (2.) better say: "Energy is the only life and is from the Soul" ?

    What does he gain by saying that our life is from only the visible part of the soul? That restriction means something to him, perhaps, but it does not make sense to me.

    Posted by Ian Thompson, 27/08/2010 6:59pm (1 year ago)

  • I interpret it somewhat differently. Blake says:

    "Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age."

    The visible body 'is a portion' of a much larger being, named by him as the soul, and the 5 senses therefore have access only to that small portion of life. Energy (i.e. passion) comes from the body, which is a part of the soul, and therefore energy comes from the soul.

    Posted by Blakey, 27/08/2010 6:09pm (1 year ago)

  • So Blake is claiming that our "only life" is from that part of the soul that the five senses CAN see???
    If one thing I learn from SMN, is that our life comes from a part of us that our five senses can NOT see!!

    I guess, from this simultaneous restriction and enhancement of the 'body', that Blake has an ulterior motive here: to both proclaim the body over reason, while still acknowledging (with tradition) the limited part of 'body' in our life. Somewhat contradictory!

    Posted by Ian Thompson, 27/08/2010 5:39pm (1 year ago)

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