Tuesday, August 31, 2010

SPIRITUAL FORCES

I've been thinking of energy as unseen forces. We see the results, but the activity is produced by invisible forces. There was a Foucault Pendulum in the Smithsonian which demonstrated unseen forces - the initial push which started the motion, the momentum which kept it going, the gravity which changed the direction of the swing, and (most mystifying) the rotation of the earth which controlled the path in a 24 hour period. These were the most obvious forces moving the pendulum. How many more could a specialist innumerate?

Like Blake, I see natural phenomena as reflections of the world of spirit and ideas. Knowing that the effects we see are from unseen (and unknown) forces in the world of nature, works as a reminder of spiritual forces which are stronger, more pervasive, more varied and more important than electricity, gravity, chemical energy and such.

Blake's poem The Mental Traveller seems to be talking about these spiritual forces. Blake wanted to help us understand how they develop and mature and interact. He wanted us to see how the growth or decline of one precipitates a reaction in another. He wrote 26 verses because he wanted to show us more than a simple pattern which could be delineated in a few lines. In future posts, there will be more about The Mental Traveller.

In Milton Blake speaks of the power which is working behind the scene of the Natural world.

Milton,
PLATE 26 [28], (E 123)
"For the various Classes of Men are all markd out determinate
In Bowlahoola; & as the Spectres choose their affinities
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate
But not by Natural but by Spiritual power alone, Because
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction
Ending in Death: which would of itself be Eternal Death
And all are Class'd by Spiritual, & not by Natural power.

And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems, it is a Delusion
Of Ulro: & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory."

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