Now I a fourfold vision see,And a fourfold vision is given to me;
William Blake
‘Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah’s night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newton’s sleep!
Maybe today, we need more of the mystery that was William Blake's approach to the world.
Blake’s contemporaries often regarded him as eccentric or mad. But today we can be found singing Jeruslalem with gusto at proms––even if we don't understand a word of what he meant––yet still drawn to the idea that the 'dark satanic mills' can be defeated with 'mental strife'.
Blake was a mystic, an early Rosicrucian. He studied British (and Norse) mythology and works of Jacob Boehme, and his favourite book, it is said, was St John's Revelation, and he'd experienced visions and
His who tried to explain his constant prophetic visions through his poetry and unique art. It seems that he was telling us about human imagination. How through vision, meditation and other penetrating thought methods––shamanism included, I think––it reveals the truths of existence. ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed,' he wrote, 'every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.’
I first encountered this idea at a Temenos Meeting at Lampeter University, where Susanne Sklar explained how Blake's Fourfold mythic system is designed to change the way we think and see, leading us into a world where imagination and forgiveness are social structuring principles, and how he evolved these theories throughout his working life, culminating in his book Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, in which he imagines how war, poverty, and repression no longer exist when Jerusalem, which Blake seems to witness as a feminine-divine, rises and we enter the state of Eternity.
Blake spoke a lot about fourfold vision' but he didn't invent the term. He would have known very well that it is in the Bible and in
Paradise Lost, (Blake wrote a long poem about Milton). Also, before Blake was born, Thomas Boston's book of theology entitled Human Nature, in its Four-fold State, names these 'states' as Ulro, Generation, Beulah, and Eternity. Blake refers to these in Jerusalem. Because the four visionary paths mean different things depending on the interpretation, I wonder if these inner names offer clues to what what Blake actually meant.
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| Jacob having his mysterious dream of angels going up his Ladder. |
Blake considered 'single vision'…Ulro…to be the way a person sees the world in either/or dynamics, beliving only in the reality that one can see in front of oneself. In the quote at the top of this blogpost, Blake mentions Newton’s sleep, believing it to be the sleep of reason where the world is viewed solely through the narrow lens of science. Rather, Blake urges people to be 'twofold always', recognizing that everything is multi-dimensional with layers of meaning, one leading to another. Twofold Vision…Generation…invites a focus on patterns and interconnections within relationships, a constant search for sincronicity, and an understanding of omens and oracles.
Threefold Vision…Beulah…concentrates on relationships. In Hebrew, Beulah means 'married', and in this instance, it suggests a constant search for personal connection, the lived experience of empathy, and intuitive, emotional engagement with others. This vision acknowledges that as we encounter the world, we are changed. Blake explained the way he saw things in a letter to the Reverend Dr. Trusler, in 1799: I know that This World Is a World of IMAGINATION & Vision. I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. To the eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun, & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. ... It's nice to acknowledge that Blake's own marraige to Catherine was a happy union that lasted to his death.
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| the fourfold imagination |
Eternity––the fourfold vision experience––includes and makes sense of the best of the other states. Reasoning, basic drives, love and other emotions and, most important, imagination, to innterelate and allow a person's senses to be open. This can lead to immense 'seeing', or visionary experiences. Therapist Hugh Palmer says; Fourfold Vision, combines precision, relationship, empathy, and creativity in a dynamic, ethical interplay. This state of eternity might offer the artist a window, or mirror, or culvert or path towards new and original thinking, be it in paint, stone, words or any other creative outlet.
Anyone who has taken a shamanic journey will have quickly found themselves shaken out of their single vision status and into recognising there is more inside and outside the world than we can simply see. The fourfold vision offers a 'glimpse of eternity' and a shamanic journey can offer someting very close to that; a relationship with the ancestors, an ability to learn in new ways and a chance to bond and communicate with spirit guides and deities.
Blake was revolutionary in every way, as these words might show; Nature has no Outline, but Imagination has. Nature has no Tune, but Imagination has. Nature has no Supernatural and dissolves: Imagination is Eternity.
His poem, Auguries of Innocence, is a statement on the right to life and freedom without qualification, suggesting he would have been just as comfortable and outspoken if he'd lived in the 21st century:
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear.
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spider’s enmity.
Each couplet is an illustration of a philosophical perspective suggesting that so long as anyone is imprisoned, none of us is free. It is the ultimate call for justice that includes all creatures.
Blake lived almost 70 years, and just before his death, he created the picture below, The Ancient of Days Striking the First Circle of the Earth, after reading again, in Paradise Lost, …He took the golden Compasses….
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| The Ancient of Days Striking the First Circle of the Earth |
