ABSTRACT
Mary Butts frequently affirmed that her great-grandfather, Thomas Butts, the friend and generous patron of Blake, was 'an early Swedenborgian'. Firmly believing in greatgrandfather Butts's Swedenborgianism, she agreed when the Magus asserted that 'the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg dominated his early development', but she eventually rejected his argument that the Kabbalistic Tree of Life 'actually framed the code of his thought'. Mary Butts and Hilda Doolittle despite their erotic adventurism, continued to search for the 'mystical marriage' described by Zinzendorf, Swedenborg and William Blake. Blake and Butts argued that female sexuality should be used, not repressed, and that spiritual illumination 'will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment'. Mary Butts was familiar with Blake's engraving of the Greek figures on the Portland Vase, which portrayed scenes from the Eleusinian mysteries. Probably reacting to Thomas Butts's privileging of art over magic, he argued that Blake is therefore rather the great man of science than the artist and in form.
