• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer

  • About
  • Support FAQ
  • Contact
  • Login
DeliriumsRealm Logo

DeliriumsRealm.com

Demonology, Fallen Angels, and the Philosophy of Good and Evil

  • What is Demonology?
  • Demon Database
    • American Demons
    • Asian/East Demons
    • European Demons
    • Judeo-Christian Demons
    • Modern Magick Demons
  • Demonology Course
  • My Account
    • Login
    • Reset Password

Evil and Urizen: William Blake’s Visions of a Demiurge

Is reason the root of all evil? That's the core theme romantic era poet and artist, William Blake, tackles in his alternative-to-Genesis creation story, The Book of Urizen.

William Blake is justifiably considered to be among the greatest of England’s poets and artists. His place in the books of art history is assured despite his general disengagement from any definable movement, except perhaps romanticism, to which he belonged in spirit more than in form. Blake was professionally an engraver and acquired little acclaim for his work in his lifetime. To a degree this was due to Blake’s strange beliefs and obsessions – he at times claimed to see the dead, communicate with Biblical prophets and experience ecstatic visions. The Book of Urizen, Blake’s masterpiece – an epic poem originally created in seven copies using copperplate engravings, is of particular interest since it displays a unique artistic style, complex poetic form and most interestingly a spiritual vision whose intensity is at the least a mystic’s, if not a prophet’s.

The Book of Urizen is a creation story, an alternative Genesis – the connections to the Bible are many and it is not difficult to recognize the source for the protagonist, Urizen, a bearded patriarch, the most stable Western representation of Yahweh. But if Yahweh is at times a god of wrath, Urizen is a demiurge – a misguided creator whose purpose is flawed and whose world is broken – The Book of Urizen is a meditation on Evil as a seed in the very foundations of the universe. What makes Blake relevant is that his evil is neither grounded in Christian puritanism nor romantic rebellion – Blake’s evil is the evil of reason and logic (“Urizen” is taken by some critics as a word play on “your reason”). The equation of Reason and Evil is precisely what makes Blake a significant poet for the post-Enlightenment West where reason was supposed to, is supposed to save humanity from its destructive passions and desires.

The Book of Urizen

Blake’s case is very elegant. The poem opens with Urizen in the chaos that precedes Creation amongst the other Eternals. In the opening lines the Eternals note Urizen’s disappearance into a self-imposed void of solitude. Urizen emerges with his creation, a book – the Law: “one command, one joy, one desire/One curse, one weight, one measure/One King, one God, one Law”. The Eternals refuse Urizen’s Law, casting him down like Milton’s Satan, and alone, broken Urizen begins to shape his (our) universe. To keep watch on him the Eternals send a spirit, Los, who binds fallen Urizen in chains, but in the process becomes bound to him. The poem details the creation of the universe as a fetal process – the universe is made in the course of Urizen becoming flesh – chaining his infinite potential to finite matter. In the conclusion Urizen awakens and explores the world he has crafted. Seeing that none of his creatures can obey his law Urizen casts a net over humanity binding us as well, closing our eyes to infinity and locking us in Law: the laws of science and religion. Note that this presentation of creation is at odds with both science and religion – the rationalist’s claim that scientific law is sufficient for explaining the universe, is problematized every bit as much as a believer’s insistence on the law of his particular holy book – Blake’s work seeks to find a fundamental evil in Law itself.

The Book of Urizen

The Eternals refuse Urizen because he seeks to redefine himself as one opposed to their multitude – to create a Manichean division, but their refusal reinforces Urizen’s Manicheanism – by not submitting to his tyranny they define themselves as a multitude opposed to him, the Eternals become tyrants, Urizens themselves. By binding Urizen in chains Los too becomes bound and loses access to eternity. These two events are definitive because the human multitudes at the conclusion do not really have a choice, they are at the mercy of the actions of the Eternals – Urizen and the others alike. Blake’s universe is ruined the moment his demiurge forces a single choice instead of a multitude of possibility – Urizen’s either/or is the end of freedom. Blake is suggesting that the human condition is one where every choice is an either/or choice – science or faith, good or evil, life or death, but also that this is an illusory condition – the universe is infinite in possibility and variety, that we are entirely blind to: “…the shrunken eyes, clouded over/Discern’d not the woven hipocricy/ But the streaky slime in their heavens/Brought together by narrowing perceptions/Appear’d transparent air…Six days they shrunk up from existence/And on the seventh day they rested./And they bless’d the seventh day, in sick hope/And forgot their eternal life”.

Blake’s work is thus an unprecedented and confounding critique of the very cornerstones of Judeo-Christian civilization: the Word and the Law. Evil is traditionally represented as a turning away from the one or the other – from Satan’s non-servatim to the eating of the “forbidden fruit”, but here the Word and the Law are literally presented as manacles closing away the boundless possibility of the universe to the dull prison of the senses and the holy books. Science and religion cease to be opposing forces in Blake’s understanding, instead becoming obstacles to true knowledge – one by binding sight in the laws of the material universe, the other by binding thought in the words of the holy books. In this sense, the only possible “Good” as far as Blake is concerned, is the rebellion of sight – growing to see multiple possibilities through ecstatic vision. For Blake this probably meant mystical and artistic gnosis, but intellectually it can be applied to all kinds of pluralist, multilateral thinking, if not to literal “mind-expansion” (Blake’s popularity had quite an upswing in the 60’s). As such William Blake is a unique voice that is very relevant in the Faith vs. Science debate, as well as any discourse on Evil, precisely because his comprehension and definition of Evil circumvents and redefines the discourse of morality as a futile game of either/or which cannot and will not be resolved without a vision that transcends sight itself.

Reference

  • The Book of Urizen: A Facsimile in Full Color

About the Author
Daniil Leiderman is completing his studies in the fields of art history and comparative literature at New York University. He is a Russian emigre and a practicing pagan.

Category: Myth & LegendTag: Creation, Evil, Genesis
Previous Post:A Brief History of Halloween in America
Next Post:Satan and the Testament of JobSatan smiting Job with boils - William Blake

Sidebar

Want to learn more about Demons and Fallen Angels in Judaism & Christianity?

Enroll now in the course: Fallen Angels, Demons & Satan in Judeo-Christian Traditions

Get Started Today

DeliriumsRealm.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.

About | Privacy | Term of Use | Contact

  • Demon Database
  • American Demons
  • Asian/East Demons
  • European Demons
  • Judeo-Christian Demons
  • Modern Magick Demons
  • Demonology Course
  • What is Demonology?
  • What is Evil?
  • Theodicy: Why We Suffer
  • What is Apocalypticism?
  • How To Study Religion
  • Movie Reviews
  • Book Reviews


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 international license.

We use cookies to make sure you have the best experience on our website. OK?   Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT