On the whole Blake gives almost passionate approval to The Angelic Wisdom. Only in rare instances does he differ. Swedenborg’s doctrine of state made explicit what Blake had vaguely perceived all his life. It also helped him to formulate a theoretic explanation of his own supersensual vision. This is so important that I must quote an entire paragraph from The Angelic Wisdom, for the sake of Blake’s comment and the reader’s understanding.
69. The Divine fills All the Spaces of the Universe Apart from Space. There are two things proper to nature, Space and Time. Out of these man in the natural world forms the ideas of his thought and therefore his understanding. If he remains in these ideas and does not raise his mind above them he is nowise able to perceive anything spiritual and Divine, for he involves them in ideas which derive from space and time; and in proportion as he does this, the light—the lumen—of his understanding becomes merely natural. To think from the lumen in reasoning about spiritual and Divine things, is like thinking from the thick darkness of night concerning the things which appear only in the light of day. This is the origin of naturalism. But he who knows how to raise his mind above the ideas of thought which derive from space and time, passes from thick darkness into light, and apprehends spiritual and Divine things, and, at last, sees those things which are in them and from them, and then by virtue of that light he disperses the thick darkness of the natural lumen, and relegates its fallacies from the middle to the sides. Every man with an understanding is able to think, and actually does think, above those properties of nature; and then he affirms and sees that the Divine, being omnipresent, is not in space. He is also able to affirm and to see those things which have been adduced above. But if he denies the Divine Omnipresence and ascribes all things to nature, then he is not willing to be elevated, although he is able.
In the above Blake changed the word middle into centre, and sides into circumference, commenting: “When the fallacies of darkness are in the circumference they cast a bound about the infinite.” In paragraph 70, Swedenborg adds what is a corollary to the above: Angels do not comprehend when we say that the divine fills spaces, for they do not know what spaces are, but they understand when we say that the divine fills all things. On this Blake makes the comment “Excellent.”
Since the inhabitants of heaven have no idea of space and time, their perceptions and modes of thought are entirely governed by their state. This is true also of the visionary, and it decides what he reports of the other world. Everyone will easily perceive from this of what paramount importance his state is in assigning the right value to his visions. As Swedenborg says: “Spaces and times in spiritual life have relation to states of love and are mutable with these.”
Blake fully approved of Swedenborg’s doctrine that the heart and lungs correspond to the will and understanding. Those who would understand Blake must remember this while reading the prophetic books.
But there are signs of disagreements that deepened with time.
Swedenborg wrote (237): Man at birth comes first into the natural degree, and this increases in him by continuity, according to his various knowledge ... until he reaches the highest point of the understanding which is called the rational. But still the second degree, which is the spiritual, is not opened by this means. This is opened by love towards the neighbour ... the third degree by love towards the Lord.
With all Blake’s devout admiration for Swedenborg this was too much for him. A child born solely into the natural degree! That! after all Blake knew, and all Christ had said about little children! Heaven save us all, especially Swedenborg! Blake’s comment is important. Note that even when he is differing from his teacher, his language is Swedenborgian. He says:
“Study science till you are blind. Study intellectuals until you are cold. Yet science cannot teach intellect. Much less can intellect teach affection. How foolish it is then to assert that man is born in only one degree, when that one degree is receptive of the three degrees: two of which he must destroy or close up or they will descend. If he closes up the two superior, then he is not truly in the third but descends out of it into mere Nature or Hell. Is it not also evident that one degree will not open the other, and that science will not open intellect, but that they are discrete and not continuous so as to explain each other, except by correspondence, which has nothing to do with demonstration, for you cannot demonstrate one degree by the other, for how can science be brought to demonstrate intellect without making them continuous and not discrete?”
There are three comments in which Blake introduces an element lacking in the voluminous writings of Swedenborg. On Swedenborg’s statement: “A spiritual idea does not derive anything from space, but it derives its all from state,” he remarks: “Poetic idea”; on paragraph 10, Blake comments: “He who loves feels love descend into him, and if he is wise, may perceive it from the Poetic Genius, which is the Lord”; on Swedenborg’s phrase: “The negation of God constitutes hell,” he remarks: “The negation of the Poetic Genius.”