William Blake, Cybernetics & Bioenergetics

Marrying Heaven & Hell

I’m reading Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. It’s radical, confrontational and stunningly good. It’s also very short and can be completed within an hour. (Full text online here and images of the original engravings here.)

It’s pure Cybernetics. And, in many ways, pure Bioenergetics too. Here’s a sample from near the beginning to give you a feel.

As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity

Straight away, Blake digs into the problem with having a moral life. Yes, morality helps to stop us from killing one other, and generally protects the physically weaker from the physically stronger. But the moralised psyche is, so to speak, trapped in Heaven. Just not a very good version of Heaven. Most people, forced to make a choice, would likely actually opt for Hell. And it is extremely difficult for the moralist to develop.

Why? Because he or she tends to lack energy. The energy of the moralist, as Wilhelm Reich expounded, is bound up in holding patterns, created in his attempt to internalise a moral schema, and thus cannot flow.

Back to the text. Here are a few chunks I’ve chosen from the book’s main passage - The Proverbs of Hell…

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plough.

***

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

***

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

***

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of Eternity too great for the eye of man.

***

The cistern contains, the fountain overflows.

Sure, I’m cherry-picking. But look at this last one. It’s pure Cybernetics and indicates Blake’s central thesis here.

Cybernetics is the study of systems and how they either self-regulate or are controlled externally. There are two fundamental types of feedback loop in Cybernetics.

1. The “positive feedback loop” is a system which constantly draws in more, or self-reinforces. Imagine addiction, demanding ever greater amounts of money and drugs to sustain the same high. As a symbol, it’s like a spiral.

2. The “negative feedback loop” is a system which constantly monitors and corrects itself. Imagine a ship’s pilot checking the stars and resetting his course. As a symbol, it’s like a circle.

So, what Blake is really saying here is that there are fundamentally two types of system operating in the human world.

1. Hell - Positive Feedback Loop - Spiral - Raw creative energy breaking through boundaries and creating new forms.

2. Heaven - Negative Feedback Loop - Circle - The administration and regulation of this energy through applying reason and rationality.

And his “marriage” of the two creates an environment in which we can both survive and develop.

Too much “Heaven” - too much administration and control - and life is dismal and our head hangs low for having so many “shameful” impulses all the time.

Too much “Hell” - too much raw libidinal fire - and life is chaotic, overwhelming and destructive.

Blake envisages a “marriage” between these two aspects of life. Now check out the parallels with Bioenergetics and the work of Wilhelm Reich.

Hell is the raw libidinal energy inside of us. Chaotic, frequently destructive, but without it we will simply collapse.

Heaven is the binding force that represses that energy back into the body. It’s the muscular holding patterns that are the the result of societal moral conditioning.

In Reichian work, we are working to progressively liberate the body from the influence of Heaven! And doing it in such a fashion that the freed-up energy can be integrated into our psyche in a healthy manner.

A healthy society must have both of these forces that Blake articulates so well. But, watch out. Too much of an attempt at balance and it becomes just more administrative control, an overdose of Heaven! Some level of chaotic destruction must be accepted and not simply fought unrelentingly.

This is life.