WE STUDY BLAKE

Larry was looking for stuff on Jung, and came up with a book from the Arlington County Public Library which associated Jung’s four functions with Blake’s four Zoas. His interest in Jung subsided somewhat because he focused so strongly on Blake. After he had done a lot of studies, he wrote his book, called A Primer:The Spiritual Autobiography of William Blake. When the internet had matured enough that people were building up interest groups to focus on things, he joined a Blake Study Group. Some of the participants were scholars, some of them were just enthusiasts, and it was quite a good group to be with for a while, but then these people became very contentious. They had no respect for each other. They just criticized one another and actually I felt that sometimes they were attacking Larry. I wasn’t really involved in this, but I got it second hand. So I thought, “Well I’m gonna get into this and see what’s goin’ on!” And I had started to do some reading so that I would be able to jump in and make some statements. When we decided that that group was dead, that there wasn’t any use in trying to continue there, I said, well, I’ll work on the blog with you.

To me, this is the significant thing about it. The more I read Blake and wrote about Blake, the more I saw that he encapsulated all of these ideas that I had assimilated throughout the years. It’s not an alien thing at all. Blake has a way of presenting these esoteric ideas that are the perennial philosophy.