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About the Book
The secret and mystical sexual practices at the heart of William Blake’s creative and spiritual life
• Reveals newly discovered family documents connecting Blake’s mother and Blake himself to Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation
• Shows Blake had access to kabbalistic and tantric techniques of psychoerotic meditation, which used sexual arousal to achieve spiritual vision
William Blake (1757-1827) has long been treasured as an artist and poet whose work was born out of authentic spiritual vision. The acutely personal, almost otherworldly look of his artwork, combined with its archetypal casting and depth of emotion, transcend societal conventions and ordinary experience. But much of the overtly sexual work has been destroyed or altered, deemed too heretical by conservative elements among the mystic Moravians and Swedenborgians, whose influence on Blake has been uncovered only recently.
The author’s investigation into the radical psychosexual spiritual practices surrounding William Blake, which includes new archival discoveries of Blake family documents, reveals that Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation fueled much of Blake’s creative and spiritual life. Drawing also upon modern art restoration techniques, Marsha Keith Schuchard shows that Blake and his wife, Catherine, were influenced by secret kabbalistic and tantric rituals designed to transcend the bonds of social convention. Her exhaustive research provides a new context for understanding the mystical practices at the heart of Blake’s most radical beliefs about sexualized spirituality and its relation to visionary art.
• Reveals newly discovered family documents connecting Blake’s mother and Blake himself to Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation
• Shows Blake had access to kabbalistic and tantric techniques of psychoerotic meditation, which used sexual arousal to achieve spiritual vision
William Blake (1757-1827) has long been treasured as an artist and poet whose work was born out of authentic spiritual vision. The acutely personal, almost otherworldly look of his artwork, combined with its archetypal casting and depth of emotion, transcend societal conventions and ordinary experience. But much of the overtly sexual work has been destroyed or altered, deemed too heretical by conservative elements among the mystic Moravians and Swedenborgians, whose influence on Blake has been uncovered only recently.
The author’s investigation into the radical psychosexual spiritual practices surrounding William Blake, which includes new archival discoveries of Blake family documents, reveals that Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation fueled much of Blake’s creative and spiritual life. Drawing also upon modern art restoration techniques, Marsha Keith Schuchard shows that Blake and his wife, Catherine, were influenced by secret kabbalistic and tantric rituals designed to transcend the bonds of social convention. Her exhaustive research provides a new context for understanding the mystical practices at the heart of Blake’s most radical beliefs about sexualized spirituality and its relation to visionary art.
About the Author(s) of William Blake's Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision
Marsha Keith Schuchard received a Ph.D. in British literature for her explorations into the esoteric-erotic underground traditions of 17th- to 20th-century secret societies and their influence on British and Irish poets and artists. She is the author of Restoring the Temple of Vision and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Praise for William Blake's Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision
“Influenced by alchemists, kabbalists, and Emanuel Swedenborg, Blake became interested in sexual techniques in order to achieve spiritual vision. . . . [This book] bravely explores the ‘sexual-spiritual underworld’of this great poet and artist, drawing on newly uncovered archives and photographic techniques that reveal the extreme eroticism of Blake’s drawings before they were censored. . . . A fascinating history of both the erotic and the occult. The prose is fast-paced and accessible, and the author thoroughly reanimates her subject’s extraordinarily unorthodox ideals of sexuality.”
Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, The Sunday Times
Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, The Sunday Times
“Schuchard places Blake at the heart of a secret London as high on spiritualized sexuality as San Francisco in the ‘summer of love.’”
Miranda Seymour, The Sunday Times
Miranda Seymour, The Sunday Times
“This remarkable book opens the reader’s eyes to what fired Blake’s writings and art.”
David V. Bennett, The Independent
David V. Bennett, The Independent
