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brave_new_world
Hey everyone. I was reading some William Blake when I came across a poem in which William Blake expresses some wisdom quite poetically through a part of his poem called "Poverbs of Hell". Some Satanists may argue that these have nothing to do with real satanism but my argument is that satanism is about freedom of self expression without any dogmatic rigid laws ,and my philosophic eye sees that these proverbs can verily be called satanic because some of them are subtly and bluntly against satanism and some are subtly and bluntly are with the philosophy that satanism teaches.However ultimately the philosophy of satanism is that the pleasure of the ego comes first before anything else including the philosophy of Satanism therefore Im not actually going against satanism. Satanism is about the individual thinking free about how he percieves things and expressing it without regard to anything as long as one takes responsibility for onself (though according to satanism all is about gratifying the ego and one's will and therefore one doesnt even have to take responsibility for oneself if one chooses not to).

Anyway here are the Proverbs of Hell. I hope you learn something from them:

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 wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.

Bring out number, weight and 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 cloak of knavery.

Shame is Pride's 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, and 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 rabbit 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 fool's 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 receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

If others had 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 caterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, 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 and 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.



HAHAHAHAHA AWESOME AYE!@! WILLIAM LAW WAS A TRUE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHER AT HEART! tongue.gif grin2.gif laugh.gif wub.gif w00t.gif devil.gif

Any comments are welcome.
MadMachine
I think those are good, thanks for posting them. original.gif
Some of them are worded a little weirdly though;
QUOTE
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.

laugh.gif
lil gremlin
blake is definately one of my all time favourates, dont think he was a satanist tho.
it was more a case of raging against mankind's mind forged manacles of institutionalised religion.
his work is sublime and his accompanying artwork wonderfully compliments his writing, there is no one i can think of that matches his spiritual and poetic genius.
each one of his lines should be pondered over to appreciate its meaning.

BNW perhaps you should discuss the meaning of this work, its title and the proverbs, how do you interpret these lines? (there's always 2 answers, what we think he meant, and what they mean to us.)
why was it called proverbs of hell?
fullywired
I paticularly like these two



A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.







What is now proved was once only imagin'd.




I can't really give you a reason why,they just seem truisms to me


fullywired
brave_new_world
QUOTE(lil gremlin @ Jun 3 2007, 06:20 AM) [snapback]1706078[/snapback]
blake is definately one of my all time favourates, dont think he was a satanist tho.
it was more a case of raging against mankind's mind forged manacles of institutionalised religion.
his work is sublime and his accompanying artwork wonderfully compliments his writing, there is no one i can think of that matches his spiritual and poetic genius.
each one of his lines should be pondered over to appreciate its meaning.

BNW perhaps you should discuss the meaning of this work, its title and the proverbs, how do you interpret these lines? (there's always 2 answers, what we think he meant, and what they mean to us.)
why was it called proverbs of hell?


I know he was no satanist. If you read the end of my post I write that he was really a perennial philosopher. They were called proverbs of hell because as you wrote he doubted the hypocritical interpreted version of Christianity that the Church (whatever one it was) had at the time. Also by calling them proverbs of hell he knew that there would be many who would be drawn to it by its very taboo. What I mean by that is the fact that any spiritual thinking that was independent of a conventional institutionalised preistly hierachy was considered more or less heretical.
RadicalGnostic
Good man, William Blake. A good gnostic, too.

Peace,

RadicalGnostic
truethat
Wow this is really weird guys

I am doing a project on William Blake.....how weird. I am reproducing a place setting for him at the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.

As for the Proverbs of Hell the Marriage of Heaven and Hell is Blake's way of telling us to skip the "rules" and get back to the basics of spirtuality.

The Proverbs were supposed to border on nonsense to show how ridiculous the Biblical rules were.

If ya wanna I can post a picture of the place setting I've done on Blake. I just finished it.
brave_new_world
QUOTE(truethat @ Jun 3 2007, 10:35 AM) [snapback]1706360[/snapback]
Wow this is really weird guys

I am doing a project on William Blake.....how weird. I am reproducing a place setting for him at the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.

As for the Proverbs of Hell the Marriage of Heaven and Hell is Blake's way of telling us to skip the "rules" and get back to the basics of spirtuality.

The Proverbs were supposed to border on nonsense to show how ridiculous the Biblical rules were.

If ya wanna I can post a picture of the place setting I've done on Blake. I just finished it.


Please do
truethat
Oops I found out that some of what I am posting is copywritten. So I have to delete it. Sorry
RadicalGnostic
QUOTE(truethat @ Jun 2 2007, 07:35 PM) [snapback]1706360[/snapback]
If ya wanna I can post a picture of the place setting I've done on Blake. I just finished it.


I'd love to see it, truethat original.gif
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