Of Selfhood and Awakening. William Blake and the Book of Job

The Book of Job has been used to retell the Christian story, as with Carl Jung's Answer to Job. It can also be sought for what it says about suffering.

The Hebrew tale inspired William Blake in a distinctive, brilliant way. It helped him to diagnose the modern predicament and its religious errors. Job's suffering and patience led Blake to a mature statement of his spiritual perception, found in his 21 illustrations.

In this set of reflections, I ask what Blake shows us in each of his plates, and how Blake charts a path from a mistaken religiosity of rite and righteousness to one of awakening and participation in the human form divine.

Creation is not about separation, Blake avers, but manifestation. Christianity is not about sin but sleep. Humanity does not enlarge God's consciousness. Rather, humanity can awaken to its being-in-God.

0:00 Blake’s take on Job
4:45 Critique of righteous religiosity
9:44 Satan or selfhood unleashed
12:58 The spectre in the world
16:07 Job’s incomprehension
18:29 The wastes of moral law
21:53 Job’s inner undoing
24:06 Self-righteousness fails
27:12 Job bewails his alienated being
28:50 The false god of rule and order
31:07 Job embraces unknowing
33:06 The darkness of transformation
38:00 Youthful stirrings of a new age
40:51 Job’s whirlwind ecstasy
42:59 Reality revealed
47: 33 The lesson of wonder
49:45 Selfhood falls to truth
51:55 The human divine
54:13 Perception as guide
55:51 The effects of awakening
57:55 The realisation of abundance
59:10 Eternal life