Opposites have always fascinated me.

 William Blake’s (1757 – 1827)   influential work “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” written more than 250 years ago manifests a vision that is astonishing in clarity, wisdom and insights. A dynamic relationship between a stable "Heaven" and an energized "Hell" has fascinated theologians, aestheticians and psychologists. A book of paradoxical aphorisms and Blake's principal prose work. "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."  he wrote. The work expressed Blake's revolt against the established values of his time. Radically he sided with the Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost and attacked the conventional religious views in a series of aphorisms.

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,

Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.

Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing

from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

And yet, before you dismiss him as one of those run of the mill thinkers, cast an eye on the ‘Proverbs of Hell’ excerpted from the book,  and marvel at their outspoken, candid and utterly forward looking contrary thinking that would put Richard Dawkins to shade. And all that, packaged in the simplest and yet most profound verse. A rebel. A revolutionary.  A mystic. A prophet.

A treat for every no nonsense mind. Who can conceive of a better marriage?

It is the age of this work that astonishes me. And its progressive thinking. There is Osho, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Sun Tzu, Zen, Muhammad, Socrates, Gibran, Gandhi, Freud, Jung and Neitsche in these allegorical aphorisms. Blake did live in the age of persecution and therefore his beliefs are cleverly concealed in innocuous images that have  the ring of aesop's fables. He was considered a harmless lunatic. A couple of aphorisms on God in this list stands out as red herrings to fool the clergy.  

If you read carefully these are the various thoughts you will encounter:

- irreverence to authority and age.

-espousal to indulgence in experience as the road to wisdom.

-a demasking of posturing  as  virtue and its hypocrisy.

- the bane of inaction.

- there is nothing after sentient life - all is silence.

- Go with the natural flow in children.

- All men are not alike. Their perspectives on the same thing are different.

- Change begins with me.

- change is life /growth /health.

- time has a scope that is eternal and infinite that Man cannot fathom.

- vegetarianism and non violence.

- moderation in all things.

- frugality in misfortune and celebration in good times.

-the traditional 'sins' table is meant to restrain / repress and sicken.

- paradoxes of joy and sorrow.

- all events however small, invalid, harmful have their place in time.

-  to everything there is a season / right action at the right time .

- your adversity is not you.

-true friends are your solace and shelter.

- anything that can be imagined can be achieved.

-dont spare the rod; it has its uses.

-the mind can hold unreal spaces.

- know that your enemy knows you.

- passion is better than knowledge; aggression is better than passivity.

-unity of body and  elements/matter.

- brain over brawn.

- empty the cup to receive joy.

-appreciate all things great and small.

- beware of priests who are kill joys.

-understand basic nature of all matter.

-understand differences of all matter.

- acknowledge desires and do not run from them.

- understand that perversity is a common human trait.

- imperfection is the short cut to  creativity.

- there is a natural satiation level for all things.

Finally the evolution of 'God'  from pantheism to idol worship to philosophy - to religion and indoctrination - all of which have resulted in God not residing where He should reside - in the human breast.

Blake could not predict fundamentalism and terrorism - his world had not been corrupted as much as ours - his worries must have only been limited to being decapitated.

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of their Proverbs: thinking that as the sayings used in a nation, mark its character, so the Proverbs of Hell, shew the nature of Infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments.
When I came home; on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world. I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now percieved by the minds of men, & read by them on earth.

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
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 plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
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.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
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 fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.
The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others bad not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much.

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.