William Blake and Emanuel Swedenborg

While the connection between William Blake and Emanuel Swedenborg is a difficult topic to address, especially when considering Blake's early years, one may assume from Blake's later writings that he was heavily influenced by Swedenborg's religious teachings. Some argue that Blake was born into a Swedenborgian household, whereas others refute the idea entirely claiming it to be nothing but a legend (Schorer 157; Erdman 247). Whether Blake's boyhood was steeped in New Church discussions or not, it is clear through Blake's annotations on two of Swedenborg's texts, and his direct references to Swedenborg in later works, that Swedenborg held a profound influence on Blake. Through a comparison of Blake and Swedenborg's writings one can easily see the similarities between the two; in concepts, beliefs and prophetic visions; both Blake and Swedenborg adhered to Christian doctrine while shedding new light on alternative, more mystical views.

William Blake was born into a middle-class English family in London during the year 1757; which also marks Swedenborg's beginning of the Last Judgment:

It was granted [him] to see from beginning to end how the Last Judgment was accomplished; and also how Babylon was destroyed, also how those
who are meant by "the dragon" were cast into the abyss, and how the New Heaven was formed, and the New Church instituted in the heavens, which is
meant by "the New Jerusalem." It was granted [him] to see all these things with [his] own eyes, in order that [he] might be able to testify of them. This
Last Judgment was commenced in the beginning of the year 1757 and was fully accomplished at the end of that year (The Last Judgment, 45).

Emanuel Swedenborg, born nearly a century earlier in 1668 was a Swedish scientist turned Christian mystic (Garret, 68). Unlike Blake who began having visions at age four; Swedenborg did not necessarily start his extreme spiritual phase until he was in his late fifties. Once this phase began he wrote and published 18 theological works, including Heaven and Hell and The Last Judgment, both of which heavily influenced Blake in his later writings. Because Swedenborg was a trained Scientist and Engineer his writings lack the poetic beauty of Blake yet present a 'divine influx that illumines the spiritual man as the sun illumines the natural man'(Garrett, 69). Due to the advent of Swedenborg's mystical writings he often spoke of a new church which would be founded based on his revelations. He never strongly attempted to start the New Church, but following his death The Swedenborgian Church was founded in 1787, and quickly gained followers - due in large part to the widely growing occultism and interest in mystical writings; the connection of esoteric thought to Swedenborg lying in his angel-guided journey through Heaven and Hell, as recorded in The Last Judgment.

Most Blakean historians or biographers have argued that he was influenced by Swedenborg from an early age, claiming that his father was "a dissenter interested in Swedenborg and sympathetic to his teachings if not, like William's brother Robert, actively associated with a Community" (Schorer, 157). Another says Blake was "brought up as a Swedenborgian, and up to 1787 remained entirely within the limits of Swedenborgianism, whence he derived his anti-intellectualism and, above all, the idea of correspondence" (Macphail, 6). Although most cases argue for a Swedenborgian upbringing, it is highly unlikely; the first translation of Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell weren't until 1778, when Blake was twenty-one years old, and the first London New Church (Swedenborgian Church) was not formed until 1787 after the death of both Blake's brother and father (Erdman, 247). Once again, more evidence that Blake was not brought up as a Swedenborgian lies in the fact that the supposed books his father owned weren't translated into English until 1784, the year of his fathers death, thus it is safe "to assume that none of the Blake family read these works in their original Latin" (Erdman, 247).

With his early years set aside, one could gather simply from Blake's own annotated Swedenborgian texts (Divine Love and Wisdom & Divine Providence) that at least in older years, he was of high interest to Blake (Schorer, 159). For Blake Swedenborg was the starting point for many of his writings. If it weren't for Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell we would not have Blake's. This is true as well for Blake's Jerusalem; Swedenborg was his "foundation for this grand thing, for Blake's concept of Jerusalem exists only because Swedenborg's New Jerusalem existed first" (Schorer, 160). Swedenborg is even referenced in Blake's Milton.

One can gather from a reading of Blake's Marriage that as quickly as he gained interest in Swedenborg's New Church doctrines he dismissed them, or at least attacked them vehemently. In Blake's epic poem Miltonhe references Swedenborg saying:

O Swedenborg! strongest of men, the Samson shorn by the Churches;
Showing the Transgressors in Hell, the proud Warriors in Heaven,
Heaven as a Punisher, and Hell as One under Punishment;
With Laws from Plato and his Greeks to renew the Trojan Gods
In Albion, and to deny the value of the Saviour's blood (Milton, Plate 22)

At this point Blake viewed Swedenborg as a visionary comparable to Dante, in that he would correct many errors by previous visionaries or people of theological importance, such as Calvin or Luther (Damon, 393). In Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell Swedenborg is proclaimed as the "angel of the millennium" (Schorer, 160): "As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb; his writings are the linen clothes folded up" (Marriage, Plate 3). Even though it is safe to say that Blake's Marriage reads as a parody of Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell it serves as an excellent example of the connection between the two visionaries. Blake sought to mimic Swedenborg's "memorable relations" with his own "memorable fancies" in the Marriage; both for Blake and Swedenborg these represented "experiences with angels and other spiritual creatures who instructed [them] in [...] theological truths [...]" (Schorer, 164).

From the 3^rd plate's comparison of Swedenborg's writings to "the grave clothing cast off by the resurrected Christ" one assumes that "the Swedenborgian New Heaven must already be out of date. The spirit of Christ now resurrected will appear Devil-like to the orthodox" (Marriage notes, 86). The end of the 20^th plate claims that "Opposition is true Friendship" and on the following plates Blake blatantly attacks Swedenborg saying "Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new, tho' it is only the Contents or Index of already publish'd books", later continuing:

Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falshoods.

And now hear the reason: He conversed with Angels who are all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion,
for he was incapable thro' his conceited notions.

Thus Swedenborg's writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further
(Marriage, Plates 20-22).

Blake attacked Swedenborg so vehemently in the Marriage after saying that Swedenborg's doctrines were "genuine Truths revealed from Heaven" because he realized "that Swedenborg was actually a force for conservatism and that in trying to abolish churches he had merely added a new one" (Johnson and Grant, 82). Blake attacked his doctrines because, as the phrase 'Opposition is True Friendship' bares witness, he admired him so much (Damon, 395).

Despite Blake's attack on Swedenborg in the Marriage they were very alike in concept and beliefs; essentially, both men preached the same religion. It was during the time of the two men that a sort of Mystical Enlightenment was taking place: it is said that the "eighteenth century discovered, or re-discovered, whole works of experience beyond the five senses of Lockean empiricism" (Garrett, 68). Blake and Swedenborg fall directly into this realm of thought; the spiritual enhancement of man through the expansion of his senses. Although Swedenborg's vernacular in explaining his visions were more scientific, specific and less poetically metaphorical than Blake's, the manner in which the visions happened for both is strikingly similar. Blake freely took Swedenborg's doctrines and made them his own 'Poetic Genius', for example. For Blake, 'Poetic Genius' was the God inherent in Man, showing the 'Human Form Divine'; this frequent insistence upon humanity as divinity relates to Swedenborg's recurrent utterances of the unity of God and Christ (Schorer, 170). While annotating Swedenborg's The Wisdom of Angels, Concerning Divine Love and Divine Wisdom Blake agrees with the idea of man as great:

Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man, as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness. But God is a man, not because he is so
percievd by man, but because he is the creator of man (Vision of the Last Judgment, 410)

Because humans were Divine they could thus experience the Divine, or God-like through art and extra-sensory experience.

Both men claimed 'automatic writing' (and painting in Blake's case) or the direct influence of Heavenly Angels over their literature. God or his angels dictated to Blake and Swedenborg and they weren't ashamed to say so. Swedenborg stated that the Lord "opened the sight of [his] spirit" allowing him to traverse spiritual planes and converse with angels and spirits (Schorer, 163). Blake unabashedly states in a letter "what Ought to be Told: That [he is] under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily & Nightly" (Letters, 100). The phenomenon of Vision is explained by both Blake and Swedenborg as something close to dreaming; Blake explains it as follows:

As when a man dreams he reflects not that his body sleeps,

Else he would wake, so seem'd he entering his shadow: but

With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence

Entering, they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body

Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth

Image Divine tho' darken'd and tho' walking as one walks

In sleep, and the Seven comforted and supported him (Milton, Section 2).

And Swedenborg:

Man is brought into a certain state, which is a middle state between sleep and waking, [...] in this state, also, spirits and angels are seen altogether to
the life; they are likewise heard, and, what is wonderful, touched and in this case scarcely anything of the body intervenes: this is the state which is called
being withdrawn from the body, and of which it is said by one who experienced it, that he knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body (Heaven
and Hell, 440).

These unusual, hypnotic states can be rationalized by modern psychologists using terms such as "hypnagogia" - a hallucinatory state occurring between wakefulness and sleep; and "astral projection" - an ability many occultists, or dream enthusiasts claim to have in which they are able to leave their physical body and enter the spiritual or "astral" realm and converse with spirits (DeGracia, 1). Both of these frames of mind, among other lucid dreaming states seem to have been unwittingly practiced by Blake and Swedenborg.

Probably the most important connection between Swedenborg and Blake's beliefs, because of the way they received them through Divine dictation, was the Swedenborgian concept of 'Correspondence' or that "every natural object bears Heaven and Hell, line 89). Swedenborg even goes as far as saying that every single organ has significance in relation to something spiritual:

For the same reason these same members, organs, and viscera have a like significance in the Word; for every thing there has a meaning in accordance with correspondence. Thus the "head" signifies intelligence and wisdom; the " breast" charity; the "loins" marriage love; the "arms and hands" power of
truth; the "feet" what is natural; the "eyes" understanding; the "nostrils" perception; the "ears" obedience, the "kidneys" the scrutiny of truth, and so on
(Heaven and Hell, 97)

Thus for Swedenborg the reality of God can be explained within the realm of man through the connection of the natural and earthly to that of the spiritual and heavenly. Essentially these 'Correspondences' are revelations of the hidden meaning of the Word.

For Blake the relation between the natural and the spiritual was more akin to the Imagination and its function. To Blake the "creation of man himself was the province of the merciful divine imagination; man was created so that he could rise from the fall, overcome blind reason, and re-achieve the imaginative region, Eden" (Gleckner, 360). However, this imaginative region is difficult to achieve because man is confined in his body, with only his five senses, thus he cannot realize the infinite and eternal nature of all things. In relation to Swedenborg's Correspondence's, Blake's are essentially the faculties of the natural senses allotted to man, which can be used in order to broaden one's imagination, thus becoming closer to God, or sensing the Divine in man. Blake explains this cosmic imaginative humanity as follows:

A Poet, a Painter, a Musician, an Architect: the Man Or

Woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.

You must leave Fathers & Mothers & Houses & Lands if they

stand in the way of Art.

Prayer is the Study of Art.

Praise is the Practise of Art.

Fast&c., all relate to Art.

The outward ceremony is Antichrist (The Laocoön, 426).

To Blake "this world of Imagination is the world of Eternity", it is infinite and beautiful, everlasting and holy; all that is "vegetable", or natural, is only a mirror of the spiritual infinite glories of God that await (A Vision of the Last Judgment, 410). In a letter to a friend (George Cumberland) Blake asserts that "[he] has been very near the Gates of Death & [has] returned very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life, not The Real Man, The Imagination which Liveth for Ever" (Letters, 477). Through Blake's poetry, prose, and paintings he attempted and succeeded in the same task as Swedenborg - revealing the hidden meaning of God to man. The difference between their 'correspondences' were that Swedenborg's encompassed the whole body with the whole celestial realm, or Heaven, while Blake "limited these to four of the senses (hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting), and to the head, the heart, the bowels, and the loins (Schorer, 168).

Perhaps the greatest contribution from Swedenborg to Blake was his liberation of Ideas, as if Swedenborg added a new flame to the already raging fire that was Blake; that is, added if not started. Whether or not Blake's family was part of the London Swedenborgian's, before the real beginning of the New Church, he is still in debt to Swedenborg for many concepts. If one were able to delve deeper into the subject one would find a plethora of speculation and guessing, and a surplus of evidence supporting the similarities of Blake and Swedenborg; and the refutations or borrowings of Blake from Swedenborg. What Blake did with Swedenborg's concepts was, "by the alchemy of poetry, [change] dull lead into silver and bright gold," often giving meaning to "what was mere arid dispute in Swedenborg" (Schorer, 178). As only Blake could put it best, applying to Swedenborg and himself, it is not that of this Earth that is important, merely what is beyond it:

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise

Since all the Riches of this World

May be gifts from the Devil & Earthly Kings

I should suspect that I worshipd the Devil

If I thankd my God for Worldly things (Eternity, 183)

Works Cited

Blake, William. The Norton Critical Edition: Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: Norton, 1979. NOTE: All of Blake's texts used have been taken from this collection.

Damon, Samuel Foster and Eaves, Morris. A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake. New England: Brown University Press, 1988.

DeGracia, Donald J. "Paradigms of Consciousness During Sleep" Wayne State University (1997): 1-9.

Erdman, David V. "Blake's Early Swedenborgianism: A Twentieth-Century Legend" Comparative Literature 5 (1953): 247-257.

Garret, Clarke. "Swedenborg and the Mystical Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-Century England" Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984): 67-81.

Gleckner, Robert F. "Blake's Religion of Imagination" The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 14 (1956): 359-369.

Macphail, J. H. "Blake and Switzerland" The Modern Language Review 38 (1943): 81-87.

Schorer, Mark. "Swedenborg and Blake" Modern Philology 36 (1938): 157-178.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. The Swedenborg Society, 1958.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed, Showing That at This Day All the Predictions of theBook of Revelation Have Been Fulfilled - From Things Heard and Seen. Small Canon Search.

Tatham, Frederick. The Letters of William Blake. Kessinger Publishing, 2007.