From THE LAOCOÖN GROUP

(1820)

 

If Morality was Christianity, Socrates was the Saviour.

 

Art Degraded, Imagination Denied, War Governed the Nations.

 

Spiritual War: Israel deliver’d from Egypt, is Art deliver’d from Nature & Imitation.

 

A Poet, a Painter, a Musician, an Architect: the Man Or Woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.

You must leave Fathers & Mothers & Houses & Lands if they stand in the way of Art.

Prayer is the Study of Art.

Praise is the Practise of Art.

Fasting &c., all relate to Art.

The outward Ceremony is Antichrist.

The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination, that is,

It manifests itself in his Works of Art (In Eternity All is Vision).

The True Christian Charity not dependent on Money (the life’s blood of Poor Families), that is, on Caesar or Empire or Natural Religion: Money, which is The Great Satan or Reason, the Root of Good & Evil In The Accusation of Sin.

 

Good & Evil are Riches & Poverty, a Tree of Misery, propagating Generation & Death.

 

Where any view of Money exists, Art cannot be carried on, but War only (Read Matthew, c. x: 9 & 10 v.) by pretences to the Two Impossibilities, Chastity & Abstinence, Gods of the Heathen.

 

He repented that he had made Adam (of the Female, the Adamah) & it grieved him at his heart.

What can be Created Can be Destroyed.

Adam is only The Natural Man & not the Soul or Imagination.

 

Hebrew Art is called Sin by the Deist Science.

 

All that we See is Vision, from Generated Organs gone as soon as come, Permanent in The Imagination, Consider’d as Nothing by the Natural Man.

 

Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.

 

The Gods of Greece & Egypt were Mathematical Diagrams—See Plato’s Works.

 

Divine Union Deriding, And Denying Immediate Communion with God, The Spoilers say, “Where are his Works That he did in the Wilderness? Lo, what are these? Whence came they?” These are not the Works Of Egypt nor Babylon, Whose Gods are the Powers Of this World, Goddess Nature, Who first spoil & then destroy Imaginative Art; for their Glory is War and Dominion.

Empire against Art—

Satan’s Wife, The Goddess Nature, is War & Misery, & Heroism a Miser.

For every Pleasure Money Is Useless.

 

There are States in which all Visionary Men are accounted Mad Men; such are Greece & Rome: Such is Empire or Tax—See Luke, Ch. 2, v. 1.

 

Without Unceasing Practise nothing can be done. Practise is Art. If you leave off you are Lost.

 

Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples were all Artists. Their Works were destroy’d by the Seven Angels of the Seven Churches in Asia, Antichrist Science.

 

The Old & New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.

 

Art is the Tree of Life. God is Jesus.

 

Science is the Tree of Death.

 

The Whole Business of Man Is The Arts, & All Things Common. No Secresy in Art.

 

The unproductive Man is not a Christian, much less the Destroyer.

 

Christianity is Art & not Money. Money is its Curse.

 

What we call Antique Gems are the Gems of Aaron’s Breast Plate.

Is not every Vice possible to Man described in the Bible openly?

All is not Sin that Satan calls so: all the Loves & Graces of Eternity.