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Re: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision

Aug 31, 2004 07:47 AM
by Andrew Smith


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Normandebrus@a... wrote:
> 
http://adreampuppet.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_adreampuppet_archive.html
> 
> Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision 
> 
> 
> 
> According to the Kabbalistic theories adopted by Zinzendorf, God 
and the 
> universe are composed of dynamic sexual potencies (the sephiroth) 
which interact 
> with each other and produce orgasmic joy when in perfect equilbrium 
[13]. In 
> the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem, a golden sculpture 
of male and 
> female cherubim guarded the Ark of the Covenant. The Kabbalists 
claimed that the 
> cherubim were entwined in the act of marital intercourse, thus 
forming an 
> emblem of God's joyful marriage with his female emanation, the 
Shekhinah (or 
> Jerusalem). When the Temple was sacked by pagans, the erotic 
statuary was paraded 
> through the streets in order to ridicule the Jews. That Blake was 
aware of 
> this tradition is suggested by his reference to the defilement of 
Jerusalem, "Thy 
> Tabernacle taken down, thy secret Cherubim disclosed." [14]
> After the destruction of the Temple, the re-joining of the cherubim 
(and thus 
> the reintegration of the male and female within God) depends upon 
the 
> reverent act of sacramental intercourse by the devout Kabbalist and 
his wife [15]. 
> This reintegrative process can also take place within the adept's 
mind, while he 
> meditates upon the male and female potencies of Hebrew letters and 
numbers 
> until he reaches a state of visionary trance. God's androgynous 
essence is 
> manifested in the microcosmic body of Adam Kadmon (the Grand Man), 
and the 
> Kabbalists portray the divine processes within that body "in 
vividly sexual terms." 
> [16] Blake's declarations to a confused Crabb Robinson that "we are 
all 
> coexistent with God; members of the Divine Body, and Partakers of 
the Divine Nature," 
> which was originally androgynous and manifested in "a union of 
sexes in man" 
> reveal his familiarity with this Kabbalistic tradition [17].
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


This fascinates me since I wrote my Master's Thesis on "Analogical 
Space in Swedenborg and Blake". Also, have you checked out 
the "Summum" site on the net? Sex is in everything, even HPB in 
her "Stanzas of Dzyan" and throught the SD, and the earliest Egyption 
records talk about a god (Amen-Ra-Min) who masturbates creation into 
existence. Also, read "Gilgamesh I" for a good, actually 
pornographic, story that predates the Bible. The "Summum" people 
just state flat out that "consciousness knowing itself" is a form of 
copulation!




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