While up late one night drinking with Willy Blake He told me about the time he dreamt he had dinner with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekial.
Blake "asked them how they dared so roundly assert that God Spake to them; and whether they did not thingk at the time that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answer’d: “I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover’d the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded, & remain confirm’d, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for Consequences, but wrote.”
Then I asked: “Does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?”
He replied: “All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imaginationthis firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing.”
Marriage of Heaven and Earth Plate 13
I think that society today is very capable of a “firm perswasion,” and in a sense, the world is full of prophets today.
Did you directly apprehend this “sign” of agreement, or are you just firmly persuaded?
As for me, I’m firmly persuaded of three things; that beer drinking and pondering Blake do not mix, that the two together seem to preclude the correct spelling of “persuasion”, and that Willy never had the benefit of modern anti-psychotic drugs (too bad for Blake, good thing for Art).
Persuasion can indeed remove mountains, if the persuasive methods include explosives and excavating equipment.
(BTW, does anybody else think Isaiah sounds alot like our Libertarian?)
. . . and certainly not when the Beer-Blake cocktail includes a swizzle of Internet access.
Blake responsibly; better to drink hard and drive and use your brakes than to drink, blake, and use your hard drive. (What I just wrote works better if you imagine that it was very clever and that it worked.)
I was kind of hoping somebody might tell me what I meant. Now that I’m sober, it’s not that clear anymore.
Xenophon41 Said:
“Did you directly apprehend this “sign” of agreement, or are you just firmly persuaded?”
I’m firmly perswaded.
As for me, I’m firmly persuaded of three things; that beer drinking and pondering Blake do not mix,"
I’ll try not to drink and Blake in a public forum anymore.
“that the two together seem to preclude the correct spelling of “persuasion”,”
Wrong! That’s the way Blake spelled it. I was just faithfully reproducing it.
“(BTW, does anybody else think Isaiah sounds alot like our Libertarian?)”
Hmmm. That’s an ominous thought. I wonder what it means?
lissener:
“Blake responsibly”
If only you had gotten the message out sooner, perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided.
There’s something about the guy though. If you’re in that certain mood, and somewhere between beers 4-7 his work kind of calls to you.
Perhaps this thread shoud be in MPSIMS. It doesn’t quite seem as significant now as it did then, and it doesn’t look like a debate is likely to break out concerning the nature of Old Testament Prophets.
Nor does it seem that anyone wants to argue if the “voice of righteous indignation” is actually God’s.
Maybe all poets believe that it does, but I don’t recall too many poets (or artists of any type) being famous for their powers of logic. That is not intended as a put-down, but as a description of how I view art. Art is intended to be emotional, not logical. And as emotional art, the firm perswasion of a talented poet can indeed move mountains of public opinion. But it cannot change other facts, which either are so, or are not so, independent of the poet. A thing may be so, but the firm perswasion is not what makes it so.
“No words to describe it. Poetry! They should’ve sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful… I had no idea.”
Jodie Foster, in Contact
1 The assertion that Isiah and Ezikiel never saw God is Blake’s. I disgaree with it. Can’t back this up really. Biblical quotes wouldn’t help as any prophet could claim to see a vision and then dictate it for posterity.
2 Stephen Hawking once said “Science is based on observation. Religion is based on revelation.” It is entirely possible for someone to look at a cloud, a shadow, or a scrap of litter and have a religious experience. Whether God has spoken to them or not, they genuinely believe he has.
3 The world IS full of prophets. Read One Flew Over The Cuckoos (sp?) Nest. The Combine (a conspiracy of military/indsustrial/media/educational forces) is very real. While there is no secret cabal running the world, these forces often move in concert to shape society. We are all surrounded by a massive ideomorph(an organism composed of ideas). I turn to the Simpsons for an example “Bart! An earring! How rebellious. In a conformist sort of way.”
"The assertion that Isiah and Ezikiel never saw God is Blake’s. "
Yes, but I find it interesting that what Blake does attribute to inspiration is “honest indignation.” That phrase just wrings a bell, and something about it seems correct. When I picture somebody bombing an abortion clinic, or throwing blood on a woman in faux fur, or nailing spikes into trees (that will kill loggers if their chainsaw meets it,) I know that they are full of “honest indignation.”
When I think of my wife’s relative’s Chuirch of God fundie preacher with the alcoholic nose by the name of “Brother Junior” railing against the gays and the Catholics and single mothers, I believe that he is filled with “honest indignation.”
I think a lot of people think that if they feel something so strongly and deeply, that it must be true, that it is not arguable, and that there must be something evil, corrupt or otherwise wrong with anybody who disagrees.
Now I’ve had two beers and I don’t want to brink and Blake again, but I think that what Blake was getting at was that this kind of “Firm perswasion” or “honest indignation” is what’s worst in religion, and indeed the nature of man himself.