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Well the aim of worldlyness is to get reconnected with spirituality.
That is somehow programmatic for Blake.
Well, William Blake, I mean, he is hardly known:
Born in London, two hundred and fifty years ago.
1757, wrote poems at the age of twelve, then went to a drawing shool,
his first publications with 26: "Poetical Sketches",
and then: "Songs of Innocence", of course.
Unfortunately unsuccessful,
no acknowledgement of any kind. "Songs of Innocence", his top-selling book -
in the stage of his greatest success and large request
he has to reprint three books. I mean THREE copies. Unbelievable!
His biggest success - three copies.
Blake is a multimedia artist. Today this man would be creating websites!
He'd be successful. There's no doubt about that!
And through the years again and again the theme "imagination", right?
the power of imagination, that is Blake's large topic.
This always-questioning of reality
this never-being-content with the seemingly profane.
All through his lifetime he has visions has been seeing angels, talking to demons,
and even had archangels as visitors and then: these magnificent seances,
these nightly sessions, in which you come into play Sir Owen Glendower.
You knew Blake - personally.
You have been posing for him.
You are so to say a contemporary witness.
Aha - and one can enfigure: Blake gazing into darkness,
and you appear to him, and that at about three to four in the morning.
Ah - half past three. Yes, exactly.
And of all things you appear to William Blake in his seance.
You choose him quasi as a multimedia medium, right?
You manifest in front of him, and so to speak assume shape.
This imagination is in a sense forbidden to us.
We expulse this imagination out of our children.
We ban ourselves from this world.
That means, exactly, not to be content, mmh, yeah.
Simply: "You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough."
Would you like to have another chicken drumstick?
"Paradise Lost", Milton.
Blake is sitting in his appartment, making illustrations for this great piece of work.
And while far less talented people around him are successfully selling their works,
he is staying unnoticed. And of course one may ask: Why?
The planned exhibition of biblical drawings -
is cancelled. The gallery declares bankrupcy - right before the opening.
One can say: now he is really getting unlucky.
It seems as if success is nailed up for Blake.
And nevertheless: always "Paradise Lost",
Milton's "Paradise Lost".
Blake is sitting in his garden reciting - nakedly -
with his wife Catherine from "Paradise Lost".
And this is the catastrophe -
that we don't remember, that we have forgotten where we come from.
that we have forgotten what is hidden behind the things.
that spirituality is ridiculed
And Newton is the symbol for that.
He is the human who believes he can measure the world with his compass
and somehow pocketing the world.
Yes, yes, exactly.
That we could remember, what has been...
that we could have an awareness for what will be
but that it is forbidden for us? That we are forbidding it ourselves.
And that's an explosive issue:
Blake says: "There is a secret society
a secret society which tries to destroy arts."
And now comes the change: Blake is moving to the countryside,
to Felpham. And Haley, at this point his backer, his patron, somehow,
who gives him orders, even though small orders,
turns out to be his enemy, says Blake.
For Blake he is his greatest spiritual enemy.
And Haley lets him do frills and furbelows.
He lets him draw little illustrations which are far below Blake's level
the artistic claim Blake has.
And Blake knows that. Blake is getting sick, his wife is getting sick.
He lets him draw small animals, things Blake detests.
He wants him to fail on reality.
And that is what Haley wants him to do.
And in spite of all these humiliations he manages to offtake again,
to his imagination.
You have to be born again!
He speaks about the salvation of humanity from oppression
through the resurrection of imaginative life.
Hello? - Do you hear me?
Blake wants to shake us up, he wants us to develop an awareness
for imagination. That has to be! That we develop an awareness for this way.
That means, at this moment, today, the Holy Spirit has already manifested.
We live in the apocalypse, in Blake's apokalypse.
But what can be the message for us?
That we have to restore confidence in imagination
that we have to surrender, to become a daydreamer,
to be willing to become child again,
to imagine the unimaginable.
This can change our lives.
That one gets liberated from this passivity
that we feel again that we are not subservient to the things,
but we are part of creation.
We can influence it. And that is, what they want us to believe
that we cannot change anything.
And then I'd be glad if you could tell me something
about this naked-in-the-garden-thing, right?
How Blake naked - his wife also naked,
I'd find that very interesting if you could explain that to me.