Blake is considered by scholars to be one of the most original and radical thinkers in English history. His ideas about society and God remain controversial; people who cannot accept his vision of life often dismiss him as insane. The central element in Blake's philosophy is "four-fold vision"—four hierarchical stages of awareness, the highest of which permits direct communication with God and the afterlife.

Blake vehemently believed that he had reached this fourth level himself; when he stated that he had seen angels in a tree or talked to his dead brother, he by no means meant that he had done so only in a symbolic sense.

Blake was also controversial in his unorthodox beliefs about the nature of God. He often said that every person had the potential to elevate himself or herself to the same level of divinity as Jesus. This idea...