‘Truly astonishing in its detail … this must be one of the most illuminating and enlightening biographies to date.’ Michael Eavis cbe, Founder of the Glastonbury Festival A brilliant new biography of the mystic poet and artist William Blake – and the first to explore his startlingly original quest for spiritual truth, as well as the profound lessons he has for us all today. The hymn ‘Jerusalem’, with its famous words by William Blake, stirs our hearts with its evocation of a new holy city built in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. However, until now, the spiritual essence of William Blake has been buried under myriad inadequate biographies, college dissertations and arts commentaries, written by people who have missed the luminescent keys to Blake’s symbolism and liberating spirit. Any attempt to uncover the ‘real’ Blake is thwarted by his status as a legend or ‘national treasure’. In Jerusalem! Tobias Churton expertly takes you beyond this superficial façade, showing you Blake the esoteric genius – a myth-maker, brilliantly using symbols and theology to express his unique insights into the nature of body, mind and spirit. Churton is not only deeply knowledgeable about Blake’s life and times, but also uses his shared values with Blake to enter into his labyrinth of thought and feeling. Challenging the conventional views of Blake as either a ‘romantic poet’ or a rebel with ideas about free sex, Tobias Churton’s startling new biography reveals, at last, the real William Blake in all his glory, so that anyone who sings ‘Jerusalem’ in future will see its beauty with renewed understanding. With access to a large body of never-before-published records – letters, diaries, pamphlets and books – Tobias Churton casts unprecedented light and perspective on William Blake’s life and times. Blake’s writing – heartfelt, vivid and profound – accounts for his status as one of the best-loved poets writing in English. Americans need no reminding that Blake inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson and American visionary Walt Whitman. Yet he spent the larger part of his creative career being ridiculed and suppressed. In Jerusalem! Churton conjures a superb portrait of Blake’s London, and in particular the rivalries of the cultural community in which the poet-artist was often misunderstood. He argues that Blake believed Man does not ‘belong’ to society; rather,we are all members of the Divine Body, co-existent with God. He was concerned with a total spiritual revival – what had gone wrong with Man, and how to put it right. Blake’s message has proved to be as challenging to today’s readers as it was to his contemporaries. Blake perceived, so far ahead of his time, that the philosophy of materialism would dominate the world – a culture from which we now yearn to break free. Jerusalem! is unashamedly ambitious in its scope and objective. Churton ends once and for all the persistent notion of Blake as a startling peculiarity, whilst emancipating him from the labels of ‘Romantic poet’ or ‘national treasure’. Even if it means sacrificing some cherished illusions or uncovering a few painful surprises, this compelling biography reveals, for the first time, the true spirit of William Blake.

Jerusalem represents the culmination of Blake's artistic endeavor in poetry and picture. The author approaches Blake's masterpiece from within rather that without, in an attempt to find a clue to the poem's structure in the poetry itself.

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Susanne Sklar engages with the interpretive challenges of William Blake's illuminated epic poem Jerusalem by considering it as a piece of visionary theatre - an imaginative performance in which characters, settings, and imagery are not confined by mundane space and time - allowing readers to find coherence within its complexities.

Jerusalem, the last and most fully developed version of Blake's personal myth, is recognised as an important part of our cultural heritage, apparently full of deep meaning. But exactly what that meaning is has been little understood. At first sight Blake's poem lacks narrative continuity, presents no clear argument and shows little structural cohesion, while his illustrations, beautiful though they are, are often difficult to relate to the text. Yet underlying its baffling surface there is a coherent and relatively simple pattern, and this reveals in a unique way the psychological and spiritual processes that shape our lives and give them direction. Blake wrote of Man's "Fall into Division and his Resurrection to Unity". The pattern symbolised by the Fall occurs inevitably in every human life and it accounts for all that is evil and destructive in human behaviour and all the inner conflicts by which we are torn. While we cannot avoid it, it is open to us as individuals eventually to rise above it, to become free of those conflicts and of the compulsive behaviour associated with them. This is not just another academic interpretation. Blake's myth is considered here in a way that explains our conflicts and their origins in the delusions that we cling to. It leads to the point of letting go of the central delusion, that concerning one's own identity, or 'ego', which is a supremely challenging act of self-liberation -- Blake calls it the 'annihilation of the selfhood' -- leading to the 'Resurrection to Unity'. Blake's art and poetry help to evoke disruptive forces active within us which we prefer to keep hidden, but which we need to face intelligently if we are to become free of them. Not surprisingly, many people find this disturbing; but it can be immeasurably rewarding. Nowadays there is considerable interest in Eastern teachings which have a similar purpose; but our typical Western starting point, conditioned by centuries of Judaeo-Christian teaching of an external law-giving God, is different from that of, say, Buddhists or Hindus, for whom the supreme authority is to be found within. Blake's myth reflects Western conditioning and the particular patterns that result from it, which we may be able to recognise in ourselves; but its end-point, freedom from all conditioning, is universal. Illustrations include a complete reproduction of one of Blake's black and white copies of Jerusalem.