The beatific vision
‘Now that I may say to you, what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else: That I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyed, & that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams & prophecy & speak Parables unobserved & at liberty from the doubts of other Mortals. . . Doubts are always pernicious [. . .] I take your advice. I see the face of my Heavenly Father; he lays his Hand upon my head & gives a blessing to all my works. . . through Hell will I sing forth his Praises. . .Excuse my, perhaps, too great Enthusiasm.’
Letter to Thomas Butts, 25 April 1803
William Blake, who wrote the above letter, was famous for his spiritual sightings that included angels, and a vision of Ezekiel. He held Christian beliefs and drew extensively on the the Bible, but rejected organized religion. He experienced the imagination as a means to perceive ‘the invisible world’, the reality beyond the physical world. He viewed the imagination as a prophetic force that could unveil truths hidden from the ordinary senses. His writing was inspired: ‘I write when commanded by the spirits and I see the words fly about the room in all directions’.
In every age there have been people who have seen through the surface of ordinary consciousness and directly communed with the invisible world, and given visions of another world, without boundaries, out of space and out of time.
Andy Griffiths, in ‘The Hope of Seeing God’ writes about the beatific vision—the moment when God’s children are transformed by seeing God face to face: ‘…for we will see him as he is…’ There is a transformation into the divine likeness, at the culmination of all things. But while here on earth is seeing God possible? William Blake and others thought so, and Griffiths suggests through relationship and where God has become visible through Jesus Christ, we can experience God-in-Christ.
He suggests that viewed in the right spirit we can sense, perceive and experience God through contemplation, and be shown that the whole world is no longer merely physical, but imbued as transcendent, where God can be glimpsed. Opening up to our senses and learning to see God in all things our earthly world will become re-enchanted, and we too become changed.
In Thomas Merton’s talk to the novices in August 1965 he ends with this:
‘ … the Lord is present and living in the world … and so the disciples at Emmaus – their vocation is our vocation – came running back to Jerusalem bubbling over with joy and happiness not because they understood the mysteries of another world but because they had seen the Lord. This is what we are all here for. We are all here to see the Lord, and to see with the eyes of faith. But to see that the Lord really lives and that the Lord really is the Lord.’
Griffiths quotes the Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley:
‘We learn to “see the Lord”, …with absolute conviction and certainty. Many think that this doesn’t happen anymore, but let me tell you (as one who was once a hospital chaplain, ministering to the dying) it does…You will also in due course “see” the beloved Christ, as your senses and mind and desire are attuned to his presence: there he is … in those whom you love beyond measure and those whom you hate and spurn; in bread and wine and water and oil and all the glories of the earth; and finally waiting for you as your life ends.’