Yeats and Theosophy by Monteith Ken;

Author:Monteith, Ken;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1702391
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Instead of a textual analysis which illustrates the points made through an analysis of Blake’s own work, Yeats again calls upon the parallels he finds in other traditions to substantiate his claims. Yeats begins the section by explaining “the Zoas are sometimes to be considered as mental states in which men may dwell for a time”(1: 255). Yeats then shows his reader several charts of his own design which arrange Blake’s Zoas as the four points on the compass. Yeats finishes the section by flooding his reader with terminology intended to confirm Yeats’ convictions, yet this flood of information also helps create a community of apparent knowledge. The presentation has a condescending tone about it—the reader either understands what has been illustrated, or, the reader should be impressed by the scope of the material presented. It is up to the reader to discover exactly what “the five tatwas of Hindu occultism” might be. If the reader does not understand, then it is his/her own fault for not knowing enough.

In addition to calling upon theosophy by name when he needs a contemporary authority to validate his claims, Yeats uses theosophical ideas to gloss and explicate Blake’s work. However, Yeats does not name his explication and approach as deriving from theosophy. Working under the assumption that all Blake’s texts can be understood by the application of his four Zoas, Yeats applies an additional layer of theosophy over the texts he reads. Particularly, Yeats relies upon his own readings of A.P. Sinnett and Blavatsky’s ideas concerning astral shells, astral bodies, and reincarnation to inform his examination of Blake’s artistry. In other words, Blake, as Yeats presents him, appears to live in the world described by theosophists: a world in which individual men can see auras and visions, and a world in which all men are subject to the cyclical laws of Karma.

When examining the “mundane egg” described in Blake’s Milton, Yeats’s reading relies upon A.P. Sinnett’s description of astral light and astral bodies4. Yeats does not specifically cite Sinnett or include an explanation of the astral plane; Yeats makes the assumption that his reader already is aware of the concept. Yeats describes Blake’s mundane egg as the line of separation between two states of being. In Milton, this egg (or the shell of the egg) surrounds Blake’s city of Golgonooza, a city “situated on the point where the translucent becomes opaque” (1: 317). But since all aspects of Blake’s system (according to Yeats) are reflected in other aspects of the system, Yeats translates the egg which surrounds Golgonooza as correspondent with a field or shell of energy which surrounds the human body. While Yeats does specifically refer to theosophy in this example, his unstated assumptions place Blake squarely in the universe described by Blavatsky. Assuming Blavatsky’s hermetic axiom of “As above, so below,” Yeats comments:

The egg has one apex at the nadir and the other at the zenith, and is drawn in Blake’s one diagram (“Milton” page 32.) It is the microcosmic aspect

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