Solomon's Secret Arts (91 page)

Authors: Paul Kléber Monod

110.
William Preston, “The Misrepresentations of Barruel and Robison Exposed,” first published in 1799, reprinted in George Oliver,
The Golden Remains of the Early Masonic Writers
(5 vols, 1847–50), vol. 3, pp. 274–300.

111.
Francis Dobbs,
A Concise View from History and Prophecy, of the Great Predictions in the Sacred Writings, That Have Been Fulfilled; Also of Those That Are Now Fulfilling, and That Remain to Be Accomplished
(Dublin, 1800), pp. 256–61; Garrett,
Respectable Folly
, pp. 118–19. Dobbs is noticed in
ODNB
.

112.
John Clowes,
Letters to a Member of Parliament on the Character and Writings of Baron Swedenborg, Containing a Full and Compleat Refutation of All of the Abbé Barruel's Calumnies against the Honourable Author
(Manchester, 1799), p. 281; see also Theodore Compton,
The Life and Correspondence of the Reverend John Clowes, M.A.
(London, 1874), p. 62.

113.
Mary Pratt's letters to Henry Brooke, copied out by Brooke's son-in-law F.H. Holcroft, are in DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43. They are discussed in Désirée Hirst,
Hidden Riches: Traditional Symbolism from the Renaissance to Blake
(London, 1964), pp. 259–61, 276–80, and E.P. Thompson,
Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law
(New York, 1993), pp. 43–4, 138–9.

114.
Church of Latter-Day Saints, Genealogical Archive, source no. 942 B4HAV.47; source no. 0580904 (consulted online at
www.familysearch.org
);
A List of All the Liverymen of London
(London, 1776), p. 143; Marlies K. Danziger and Frank Brady, eds,
Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789–1795
(New York, 1989), pp. 117–118, 239 (Courtenay), 250 (Seward); Roger Wakefield,
Wakefield's Merchant and Tradesman's General Directory for London … for the Year 1790
(London, [1790]), p. 266;
The Proceedings on the King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London
(London, 1790–1).

115.
For middling and genteel households in the eighteenth century, see Margaret Hunt,
The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender and the Family in England, 1680–1780
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996), ch. 8; Amanda Vickery,
The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England
(New Haven, Conn., 1998).

116.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 326, 360. The “domestic dependence” of women in this period is discussed in Amanda Vickery,
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England
(New Haven, Conn., 2010), ch. 7.

117.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, p. 344. For nineteenth-century female imprisonment for madness, see Elaine Showalter,
The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830–1980
(New York, 1985).

118.
Thompson,
Witness against the Beast
, pp. 139, 148–9, 154, 170.

119.
The New Magazine
, vol. 1, pp. 229–31, 299–300. An article on the subject of madmen and the moon later appeared in the
Astrologer's Magazine
, vol. 1, Jan. 1794, p. 240.

120.
Ibid.
, vol. 2, pp. 51–3, 139–42 (“Behmen” quotation on p. 140), 191–3, 245–7, 352–3.

121.
Ibid.
, vol. 2, pp. 356–8.

122.
Ibid.
, vol. 2, pp. 387–90, quotation on p. 388.

123.
Thompson,
Witness against the Beast
, chs 8–9.

124.
Minutes of a General Conference of the Members of the New Church
(London, 1792), p. 7; G.E. Bentley, Jr.,
The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake
(New Haven, Conn., 2001), pp. 126–9.

125.
Thompson,
Witness against the Beast
, pp. 149–50; William Blake, “To Tirzah,”
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 30.

126.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 337–8.

127.
W.A. Clarke,
A Bed of Sweet Flowers; or, Jewels for Hephzi-bah
(London, 1778), p. xi.

128.
Pratt,
A List of a Few Cures
, p. 2.

129.
Ibid.
, pp. 5–6.

130.
Ibid.
, pp. 2, 8.

131.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, p. 320. For Clarke, see Hirst,
Hidden Riches
, pp. 246–63, 271–6.

132.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 328–9, 341.

133.
Ibid.
, pp. 334–5, 358, 359–60, 361.

134.
Ibid.
, pp. 341, 360.

135.
Ibid.
, pp. 349, 364.

136.
Caroline Walker Bynum,
Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987).

137.
DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 367–8.

138.
Ibid.
, p. 368.

139.
For these movements, see Alex Owen,
The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England
(London, 1989); Alex Owen,
The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Cult of the Modern
(Chicago, 2004).

140.
Kathleen Raine,
Blake and Tradition
(2 vols, London, 1968); Kathleen Raine,
Golgonooza, City of Imagination: Last Studies in William Blake
(Hudson, N.Y., 1991); also, more recently, Marsha Keith Schuchard,
Why Mrs Blake Cried: William Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision
(London, 2006); Rix,
Blake and Radical Christianity
.

141.
David V. Erdman,
Blake: Prophet against Empire
(Princeton, 1977); Thompson,
Witness against the Beast
. Jon Mee,
Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s
(Oxford, 1992), places Blake's work in both a political and a prophetic context.

142.
Keri Davies and Marsha Keith Schuchard, “Recovering the Lost Moravian History of William Blake's Family,”
Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly
, 38, 1 (2004), pp. 36–43; Rix,
Blake and Radical Christianity
, pp. 7–13.

143.
Thompson,
Witness against the Beast
, ch. 6. For the extraordinary history of the Muggletonians, see Christopher Hill, Barry Reay and William Lamont,
The World of the Muggletonians
(London, 1983). Although they held some unusual beliefs about the universe, their materialism and estrangement from traditional occult sources explain why Muggletonians have not been discussed in this book.

144.
The biographical details here are taken from Bentley,
Stranger from Paradise
, chs 1–4.

145.
Ibid.
, pp. 118–19, 158. For animal magnetism, see Robert Rix, “Healing the Spirit: William Blake and Magnetic Religion,”
Romanticism on the Net
, 25 (Feb. 2002),
http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2002/v/n25/006011ar.html
.

146.
G.E. Bentley,
Blake Records
(2nd ed., New Haven, Conn., 2004), p. 78. Blake was one of nineteen engravers who testified that they were unable to copy Tilloch's notes.

147.
William Blake,
America: A Prophecy
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 52, plate 2, l. 8; p. 55, plate 10, l. 11.

148.
William Blake,
The French Revolution
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 298, lls. 274–6.

149.
Erdman,
Blake
, ch. 23, for Blake's views of Voltaire and Rousseau. Although their disagreements were well known, he seems never to have distinguished between the two
philosophes
.

150.
William Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 43, plate 22.

151.
Ernst Benz,
Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason
, trans. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (West Chester, Pa., 2002), ch. 11. Admittedly, these ideas are mainly found in the baron's early scientific writings, with which Blake may not have been familiar, but they echo through his later thinking as well. Kathleen Raine makes the same point about
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
in
Blake and Tradition
, vol. 2, ch. 15.

152.
Emanuel Swedenborg,
The Earths in the Universe, and their Inhabitants; Also, their Spirits and Angels, from What Has Been Heard and Seen
(London, 1875). This work was first published as
De Telluribus in Mundo Nostro Solari, Quæ Vocantur Planetæ
(London, 1758), and does not appear to have been translated until the nineteenth century. Blake was probably not able to read the Latin original, but he could easily have known about it by reputation.

153.
Only one such work has come to light: Jean Henri Samuel Formey,
A Concise History of Philosophy and Philosophers
(Glasgow, 1767), pp. 154–60.

154.
William Blake,
America: A Prophecy
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 56, plate 14, ll. 5–6.

155.
William Blake,
The Song of Los
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 67, plate 3, ll. 18–19.

156.
William Blake,
Europe: A Prophecy
, in Erdman,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 62, plate 8, l. 3.

157.
Blake,
Song of Los
, p. 68, plate 5, ll. 15–17.

158.
Jacob Boehme, “The Treatise of the Incarnation,” in
The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher
(4 vols, London, 1764–81), vol. 2, ch. 4, verse 35.

159.
For Freemasonry in Blake's writings, see Stuart Peterfreund,
William Blake in a Newtonian World: Essays on Literature as Art and Science
(Norman, Oklahoma, 1998), ch. 3.

160.
William Blake,
The [First] Book of Urizen
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 14, ll 14–26.

161.
The parallel with Fludd is noted in Raine,
Blake and Tradition
, vol. 2, pp. 74–80.

162.
Ibid.
, vol. 1, pp. 50–1; vol. 2, pp. 236–8.

163.
William Blake,
The Four Zoas
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 361 [95], ll. 32–3 [88], ll. 7, 14–16; and for an interpretation of the poem, Leopold Damrosch, Jr.,
Symbol and Truth in Blake's Myth
(Princeton, 1980), ch. 4.

164.
Raine,
Blake and Tradition
, vol. 2, ch. 3;
Works of Behmen
, vol. 3, fig. 2, and GRL, Manly Hall Ms. 43, for a full-colour, hand-painted copy.

165.
Blake,
Four Zoas
, pp. 357 [82], l. 19; 379 [110], l. 2; 385 [114], l. 1; 388 [119], l. 13; 386 [115], ll. 22–3.

166.
Raine,
Blake and Tradition
, vol. 1, pp. 134–5.

167.
The fairy appears in
Europe: A Prophecy
, p. 60, plate 3, l. 7; the Zodiac pops up in
Four Zoas
, p. 385 [114], l. 17; an angel turns blue, then yellow, then pink, in
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
, p. 43, plate 23; the happy lily is in
The Book of Thel
, in Erdman, ed.,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 4, plate 2, ll. 15–25.

168.
Richard Holmes,
Coleridge: Early Visions
(New York, 1990); John B. Beer,
Coleridge the Visionary
(London, 1970).

169.
For the history of occult thinking in late nineteenth century Britain, see Victoria Butler,
Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic: Invoking Tradition
(Basingstoke, Hants, 2011).

INDEX