I forgive you you forgive me
As our dear Redeemer said
This the Wine & this the Bread
(Erdman 475-77)
Two ideas occur repeatedly in this blog:
1. The Spectre
2. Forgiveness
The epigram combines these two ideas into a whole. For years I used to
think that in those four lines Blake was addressing God. But in the
Silence of early morning, reading the poem as a whole the vision came
that he wasn't addressing God at all; he was addressing the Spectre. The entire poem represents a conversation with the Spectre.
What Spectre? His Spectre! Not the universal devil, but his
personal devil, all of the 'worldly stuff' that kept him from
the visionary consciousness that he loved. Just any little old
will keep you from God. Your Spectre tries desperately to
keep your attention on 'his stuff', not God's Kingdom, not
God's will, but on anything else: your financial account, your
golfing game, your romantic life; whatever he can get you to
focus on instead of God: all your prejudices, all your holding
things against people (including yourself), lust instead of
sacred love.
This is the idea that came to our hero when he visited the
Truchsessian Gallery: I don't need all this getting ahead
stuff, this feeding of my ego. I'm okay; I'm God's child. He
realized that he was in God's hands, and he was all right.
Self control; no more worrying; perhaps he met Buddha.
Errors were no longer necessary, and a Last Judgement
passed upon him:
"What are all the Gifts of the Spirit but Mental Gifts
whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth
a Last Judgment passes upon that Individual"
(A Vision of the Last Judgment at page 562)
What is rejecting Errors and embracing Truth, but forgiving
and being forgiven. That's the wine and the bread. Jesus, the
'forgiveness' was the central element in Blake's Faith.
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