[plates 12-13]
The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them
how they

dared so roundly to $$#ert that God spoke to them; and whatever
they did
not think at the time that they would be so misunderstood,& so

be the
cause of imposition. Isaiah answer'd: 'I saw no God, nor heard
any, in a

finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the
infinite in
every thing, and as I was then persuaded,& remain confirm'd,

that the
voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not
for

consequences, but wrote. ' Then I asked: 'Does a firm perswasion
that a
thing is so, make it so? ' He replied: ' All poets believe that

it does,&
in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains;
but many

are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing. ' Then
Ezekiel said:
'The philosophy of the east taught the first principles of

human
perception: some nations held one principle for the origin,&
some

another; we Israel taught that the poetic genius (as you now
call it) was
the first principle and all the others merely derivative, which

was the
cause of our despising the priests & philosophers of other
countries, and

prophecying that all gods would at last be proved to originate
in ours &
to be tributaries of the poetic genius; it was this that our

great poet
king David desired so fervently & invokes so pathetic'ly, saying
this he

conquers enemies & governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God,
that we
cursed in his name all the deities of surrounding nations and

asserted
that they had rebelled; from this opinions the vulgar came to
thin that

all nations would at last be subjected to the Jews. 'This' he
said 'like
all firm perswasions, is come to pass; for all nations belive

the Jews'
code and worship the Jews' God, and what the greater subjection
can be? 'I

heard this with some wonder,& must confess my own convivtion.
After dinner
I ask'd Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works; he said

none of
equal value was lost. Ezekiel the same of his. I also asked
Isaiah what

made him go naked and bare foot three years? He answer'd: 'The
same that
made our friend Diogenes, the Grecian. 'I then asked Ezekiel why

he eat
dung,& lay so long on his right & left side? He answer'd 'The
desire of

raising other men into perception of the infinite: this the
North American
tribes practise,& is he honest who resists his genius or

conscience for
this sake of present ease or gratification? (plate 14) The
ancient

tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of
six
thousand years is true, as I have heard from hell. For the

Cherub with his
flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of
life, and

when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear
infinite and
holy, whereas it now appears finite & corrupt. This will come to
pass by
an improvement of sensual enjoyment, but first the notion that

man has a
body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do
by printing
in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in hell are
salutary and in

medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite
which was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed every
thing would
appear to man as it is. Infinite. For man has closed himself up,

till he
sees things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern