Signs of Spirit

There is a transcendent principle both in nature and above nature. It is encountered within every work of art, most music, literature, and all the great religions. On occasion, it even surfaces in the sciences when visionary theories pierce the structure of creation, allowing our human intellects to delve more deeply into the world’s material processes. This spiritual consciousness, however, primarily takes ecological shapes and environmental forms: it sings in the symphonies of the dawn chorus; it enlightens its own splendour in the glories of a golden sunset. If therefore, as some saints have said, these are the lavish signs of a Divine Soul crucified on the cross of materiality, then we must assume that such an immense sacrifice is leading to a shared, cosmic, perfection. Only this would explain the endless moments of uplifting regeneration in a belittlingly beautiful universe.

This also partly explains why indigenous British customs often appear analogous to a spiritual habitat rather than a mere political mechanism. In a sense, they comprise a synthetic genius, raising us to previously unexpected heights. Certainly, our inherited and temperate values can neither be cropped or culled, nor can they be cleared away like unwanted bracken. After all, British folk-feelings have emerged from lush native soils, laboured over by our stubborn ancestors, who cultivated these lands for centuries untold; ancestors who themselves pollinated fertile traditions with good humour, while husbanding our inherited, verdant, resources. Yet it was the poets among them who defiantly channelled the disembodied moods of this “folk-spirit” into the verbal icons and passionate chants illuminating national sentiment.

The social necessity of this sacred service was of course, always a matter of turbulent political dispute. Among early Anglo-Saxon settlers for example, controversy surrounded the fact that there were few sacrosanct master poets, but a plenitude of roving minstrels - despite the enduring inspiration of the Eddas and Old Norse scholarship. As they acclimatised, English poetic lore became heavily embellished at third hand by Welsh, Irish and Gallic Bards, through the Norman Romances - cultural events helping to contextualise the fact that there has never been an intuitive respect for the title of poet in England. Adding further insult to injury, English poets as a body (since that time), have tended to feel apologetic regarding their vocation and more usually than not have described their calling as “writer” or “teacher” instead of wordsmith. Nevertheless, great poets did arise out of humble English stock. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), William Shakespeare (1564-1610), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), are second to none in world literature, possibly because the mediumistic origins of English poetry were never entirely forgotten.

Having said that, with so few master poets the demands of our tribal psyche became increasingly obscure, even though a collective sense of its activities continued to haunt society. Hardly anyone, including the “official” clergy, spoke authoritatively on these elevated matters or attempted to guide general debate; a silence which almost deafened English cultural life. Moreover, on those occasions when the transcendent principle did blaze through our affairs, these epiphanic moments seemed akin to pagan outbursts instead of perennial signs within a tradition already exhibiting an uncanny continuity. Somewhat predictably, religious puritans became increasingly wary of the English festal calendar, causing a paralysing religious dichotomy in our seasonal customs. As such, this seizure proved to be a period of poetic opportunity for the extraordinary William Blake (1757-1832), who, as a poet-medium, spent his life trying to use this schism to restore the ancestral practises of his profession.

Born and bred an inspired Londoner, Blake grew up the second son of a reasonably prosperous hosier. As a child of the upper working classes he was largely self-educated; an achievement at which only the uneducated continue to scoff. Yet from his earliest years he had a voracious appetite for learning and like the ancient balladeers studied philosophy as well as the arts. Among his many gifts can be counted painting, engraving and according to local Lambeth legend the composition of melodies. This may be why some critics have claimed that for want of a colleague, Blake was forced to become an entire Bardic college on his own. Clearly these pundits are correct in that his astounding textual range extended from the Lyric, to the Dramatic, Epic and Prophetic. Indeed, his avowed intention was to remind readers in every possible way that they were actually in a state of deep psychic somnambulance; a condition related to mental slavery. This contention became apparent in his poetic essay All Religions Are One, in which Blake roars that only a poet is capable of discerning Eternal Truths: “that the poet genius is the true man and that the body or outward form of man is derived from Poet Genius”. As a medium Blake hoped to unsettle his readers into wakefulness.

All of which is strangely reminiscent of the contemporary English poet Nigel Humphreys. Admittedly, Humphreys does not illuminate his work with ceaselessly shifting allegories, neither does he populate his verses with symbolic figures in order to create a “personal” mythos. Traditional textual strategies that disciples of British symbolism incautiously insist upon when examining deeply spiritual laments. Humphreys artistry is, nevertheless, strikingly similar to Blake’s in Songs of Experience, where regret, injustice, physical impermanence and the alarming intrusions of Spirit are detailed in depth. Another, less obvious, similarity is found in the fact that Humphreys also appears to adopt the role of social commentator and cultural observer, whose medicinal task is to diagnose our ethnic ills; a poetic role possibly embraced with relish despite precautionary caveats surrounding his recent work.

Put unreservedly, Humphreys first collection The Hawks Mewl (Arbor Vitae Press 2007), demands our attention. Within its possessed pages, the cold hands of northern European souls are easily discernable as they weave their bleak designs into our English sensibilities. There is an endless fascination with doom, decay, unexpected nobility and incomplete emotional closure. Humphreys even openly discusses “ectoplasm” and “apparitions”, whether metaphorical or actual, amid the unnerving atmosphere of “virtuous” paganism – a concept echoing Dante’s (1265-1321), personal religious turmoil. In the final analysis though, it is a form of spiritism that informs this text as the poet struggles with his own sense of blunted existence, made manifest in the frustrating imagery of shells and the alliteration suggested by directionless spirals. In place of well-defined themes, tacitly pointing towards an elusive higher consciousness, Humphreys delights in an unlimited literary semiosis conjured by sights and sounds into archetypal scenarios. By this, he fulfils his received vocation in giving voice to British Being, while disturbing complacent existential assumptions. Like Blake in his heyday, Humphreys has sensed a sudden and unexpected opening in the doors of English perception, exceedingly propitious to transcendent visions.
At the end of the day, it is something of a truism that only those countries privileged to enjoy material stability may actually develop a balanced spiritual life, unaccompanied by an ignorant and poisonous “Manichean” hyperbole. It is further pertinent to observe that the Second Great Tradition of English literature still encourages the activities of poet-mediums, even though their contributions to national morality are uncomprehendingly overlooked. What critics must not do, however, is deliberately disregard the beauty and profundity of their verses, because without these qualitative insights we are made vulnerable as an island as well as weakened as a people.