“”Each man is in his spectre’s power
Until the arrival of that hour
When his humanity awake
And cast his own spectre into the lake.” William Blake
Long before Freud and Jung, William Blake coined the word spectre to signify the illusory self that, by its appetites and desires, overrules and dictates to the true self. The illusory self becomes our personal image, the projected likeness we want others to see.
The spectre is fed by our patterns of appeasement, by our fear of authority, by our need to be perfect. Lest it take hold of our lives, we have to return to our essential humanity, to the core of our being, to the soul within us, and clarify by the soul’s mirror what constitutes self and illusory self. In everything we do, we need to determine whether we are acting out of the core of our integrity or at the dictates of the spectre.
Where mind and heart, reason and compassion are separated, there Blake’s spectre roams hungry and unchecked through our life. Casting off our illusory self is an act of maturity that strengthens the light of the soul. Acting out of our own heart, rather than out of projected self, we come once more to the true likeness with which we have been endowed.”
From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews
Chorlton Unitarians 