Original 4

• And these are the Sons of Los & Enitharmon. Rintrah Palamabron
• Theotormon Bromion Antamon Ananton Ozoth Ohana
• Sotha Mydon Ellayol Natho Gon Harhath Satan
• Har Ochim Ijim Adam Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali
• Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Joseph Benjamin David Solomon
• Paul Constantine Charlemaine Luther Milton

   (FZ8-107.6 Erdman 380)

   One might think here that Blake has descended to obscurity; but wait a minute: many of these early 'sons' are characters in other works (and 4Z is really more a notebook than a finished poem. Reuben-Benjamin are of course the 12 sons of Israel (and the 12 tribes). Then he names the leading lights of our faith from David to Milton.

  And from Dr. Ed Friedlander, in his classic William Blake's Milton had this to say about the sons of Los and Enitharmon:

Twelve of the Sons of Los and Enitharmon were lost to Urizenism. These remaining Four embrace all humanistic endeavor. All are forms of Orc, but unlike the terrible child, the drive of the Four toward a comfortable and happy world is controlled and directed by Los, prime agent of regeneration. Because Milton is a poem about people as we know them rather than a cosmic chronicle, the Four are very important in our epic. In particular, Rintrah, Palamabron, Theotormon, and Bromion are the enlightened, socially conscious people of Blake's age.

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Tharmas

   The first three zoas have a lot more coverage than Tharmas; they describe attitudes, activities, and changes of Humankind. Tharmas represents the body; his emanation Enion represents Nature.

   In particular Tharmas is said to be body's energy (Percival 42). In Night i of The Four Zoas Blake referred to him as the "parent power":

• Begin with Tharmas Parent power, darkning in the West.

         (Four Zoas Night 1 page 4:6 301)

   Damon (122) tells us that Blake used the separation of Thamas and Enion to depict the struggles of the growing lad when he discovers for the first time the power of his awakening sex, and tries "in agonized despair to suppress or control it" page 4 (of Night 1). This likely may not be the issue in our day that it was in Blake's (or in mine). The lad (Tharmas in this case) has learned from his emanation that it is sin:

• Lost! Lost! Lost! are my Emanations Enion O Enion
• We are become a Victim to the
• Living We hide in secret (Four Zoas 1:4:7-8 301)
• Enion said--Thy fear has made me tremble thy terrors have surrounded me
• All Love is lost Terror succeeds & Hatred instead of Love
• And stern demands of Right & Duty instead of Liberty.
• Once thou wast to Me the loveliest son of heaven--But now Why art thou Terrible 
• (Four Zoas 4.17-21 301)
• 
  
• I have lookd into the secret soul of him I lovd
• And in the Dark recesses found Sin & cannot return
• (Four Zoas 1.4:26-7)

   Here is the birth of the concept of sexuality as sin which has cursed Western culture for 2000 years. Blake called it Mystery Religion and throughout his works he expressed inveterate hostility again the control of sexual mores by the priest.

  
 In the Four Zoas there follows a loveless embrace of the Spectre from which comes forth Enitharmon (who is the emanation of Los). (This is one of several ways Blake described the appearance of the emanations as the zoas divided into their contraries.)

  "As bodily energy Tharmas is the regent of sex" (Percival 42), but much more than that in Eden. There he is the poetic genius and "the symbol of the united world", a "portion of soul":

• Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age

         (MHH4; 34)

   With the disasters precipitated by Urizen and Luvah Tharmas became a raging storm (in fact he became the deluge). Blake believed that the ante-diluvian age was closer to Eden; with the deluge of Tharmas man is put down into Ulro.

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Ahania

Blake wrote less about Ahania, Urizen's emanation, than the other three emanations. She dropped out early in The Four Zoas and dosen't appear in later works.

   Ahania represented Urizen's intuitive and visual self; he seems to have preferred reposing in Ahania rather than continuing his activity spreading the seeds of Science in his golden chariot (or plow!). The upshot of this was a level of doubt that caused him to cast Ahania out. Unfortunately when he did this, his intuition failed and he resorted more and more to vindictive law rather than 'sweet reason'; his creations thereafter were fallen (although the golden chain remained, even when it turned to iron).

• Am I not God said Urizen. Who is Equal to me
• Do I not stretch the heavens abroad or fold them up like a garment
• ......
• His visage changd to darkness & his strong right hand came forth
• To cast Ahania to the Earth. He seizd her by the hair
• And threw her from the steps of ice that froze around his throne.............
• Saying Art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.
• Shall the feminine indolent bliss
• Set herself up to give her laws to the active masculine virtue,
• Thou little diminutive portion that darst be a counterpart
• Thy passivity, thy laws of obedience & insincerity
• Are my abhorrence.
• And art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.

      (Four Zoas Night 3 42:19-43:22 [328]

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Vala

Blake called The Four Zoas Vala in the beginning. The emanation of Luvah, she has a checkered career. In Eternity she is Jerusalem; fallen she became Vala, somewhat comparable to Eve in the garden. She carries all creation, all love, but in Ulro love is totally bad (not so in regeneration and in Eternity).

   Vala was the contrary (opposite) of Jerusalem (the bride of Christ). She represents all the negativity of the feminine character. She also goes by the names of Rahab and Tirzah.

• Among the Flowers of Beulah walkd the Eternal Man & Saw
• Vala the lilly of the desart. Melting in high noon
• Upon her bosom in sweet bliss he fainted. Wonder siezd
• All heaven, they saw him dark. They built a golden wall
• Round Beulah. There he reveld in delight among the Flowers.
• Vala was pregnant & brought forth Urizen, Prince of Light,
• First born of Generation. Then behold: a wonder to the Eyes
• Of the now fallen Man a double form Vala appeard. A Male
• And female; shuddring pale the Fallen Man recoild
• From the Enormity & calld them Luvah & Vala. Turning down
• The vales to find his way back into Heaven, but found none
• For his frail eyes were faded & his ears heavy & dull.

      (Four Zoas 7a:83:8-18; [E358])

   So we can see that in Blake's myth Vala occupied the same symbolic role that Eve did in the Garden.

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Enitharmon

   The fallen emanation of Los, Enitharmon, behaving like a frustrated and restrained housewife, gives a condensed account of the central calamity in Night One in her Song of Death:

• Hear! I will sing a Song of Death! it is a Song of Vala!
• The Fallen Man takes his repose: Urizen sleeps in the porch
• Luvah and Vala woke & flew up from the Human Heart
• Into the Brain; from thence upon the pillow Vala slumber'd.
• And Luvah seiz'd the Horses of Light, & rose into the Chariot of Day
• Sweet laughter siezd me in my sleep! silent & close I laughd
• For in the visions of Vala I walkd with the mighty Fallen One
• I heard his voice among the branches, & among sweet flowers.

   (Four Zoas 1:10-16, 305)

   In even fewer words The Fall can be described as

Love gone bad!

original 3 Urothona/Los

Urthona

   "Earth owner": the creative imagination of the individual is the Damon first describes Urthona. He is the contrary of Urizen: In Blake's generation students of Kant and of other philosophers postulated "a form of intelligence superior to the rational mind" (Percival page 37), which eventually went by the name of the unconscious. Blake referred to it as the poetic genius and ascribed it to Urthona.

   Urthona is dark, but it isn't the darkness of fallenness; it's a creative darkness--the kind of darkness we find in The Cloud of Unknowing. The dark Urthona and Urizen are a pair: the dark (unconscious) superior intelligence and the light plodding, legalistic mind. With the initial Fall Urizen took control of the universe, but he soon made a mess and was succeeded by Los, Urthona's earthly manifestation.

   It might be appropriate to define Urthona as intuition. Blake used the word only once, in Annotations to the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (whom he disliked), but the quotation is juicy:

• Demonstration Similitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning
• Invention Identity & Melody are Objects of Intuition.

   (Annotations to Reynolds page 200, 659)

   You might also say that Urthona brought whatever we have of Eternity to Earth. His creative work took place in his earthly manifestation, Los.

• In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd,
• Mortality begins to roll the billows of Eternal Death
• Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los.

   (Jerusalem 35: 7-9 181)

   Urthona's fall brought forth a triad:

      Los

      Enitharmon, Los' emanation,  the Spectre:
    Pure negativity, totally commited to absolute materialism negating any spiritual reality. Inventing good and evil the spectre reveled in the evil (of others) and saw none in himself.

   Blake saw, and hated the continually intrusive spectre in himself, who doubted, who judged, who forgot Eternity. The spectre condemns us to Ulro where Eden and Beulah are alike forgotten and acting as 'realists', we evaluate life as dismal. There is a spectre in every man, and his unwelcome presence is most acutely suffered (night and day) by men of discernment.

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Los

• Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
• Of a bright Universe Empery attended day & night
• Days & nights of revolving joy, Urthona was his name

      (Four Zoas 1-3:9-11; 301)

   Los is "the expression in this world of the creative imagination" (Damon, 246), and in Beulah his name reverts to Urthona.

   A master smith, worker in metal, Los worked at the furnaces, hopefully changing iron to gold; this happens, but it's realized only at the end of time. Los, master of time, is trying to work himself out of a job, and at the end he is in fact reabsorbed into Urthona, the poetic genius. (For that we're still waiting.)

   In Ulro Urizen's sun has virtually gone out; Los labors to create a worldly sun (Sun is Los backward).

• Then wondrously the Starry Wheels felt the divine hand.
• Limit Was put to Eternal Death Los felt the Limit & saw
• The Finger of God touch the Seventh furnace in terror
• And Los beheld the hand of God over his furnaces

Beneath the Deeps in dismal Darkness beneath immensity (Four Zoas 4-56:23-26 338)

   The paradoxical significance of the furnace is borne out in the Bible with Shadrach, Meshach. and Abednego.

   Once escaped from Ulro Los, the master builder, proceeded to build Golgonooza, representing material progress. Los builded it and builded it 'time on time'; each time a society went into eclipse, Golgonooza must be built again. This of course is a figure for worldly progress, all very good, but not in the same dimension as the City of God.

   However Blake wrote to Hayley: "The Ruins of Time builds Mansions in Eternity." (Letter 9), referring to the final transformation of the best of Golgonooza into Jerusalem, which is the meaning of the Last Judgment.

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Children of Los and Enitharmon

  Their first born was called Orc; he represented Revolution. We can surmise that Blake was much attached to Revolution in his early years, but with the debacle of the French Revolution his attitude changed.

   Blake had important 'prophecies' re America and The French Revolution.

   The Book of Urizen, especially chapters vi and vii, gives much insight into the mythical identity of Orc. (This little prophecy in fact is an excellent introduction to some of the important threads of 4Z.)

• 
  

boehme

The Brits called him Behmen, but for Blake Jacob Boehme ,  the humble shoe maker was a twin soul. Both Christian of the best sort, their value structure was close to identical.

In a letter to Flaxman Blake wrote:

"Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood &    shewd me his face

Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years  gave me his hand
Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me."

(Erdman 707)

This appears also in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

" Have now another plain fact: Any man of mechanical talentsmay from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's

and from those of Dante or Shakespear, an infinite number.
 But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows
better than his master, for he only holds a candle in

sunshine."
(Erdman 43)

Look at 'The Key', translated into English by William Law, which Blake knew and loved:

On page 20 he explains a great version of the Trinity:

"God is threefold namely only one Essence...especially represented to us as Fire, Light, and Air, which are three several sorts of workings, yet but one only ground and substance…..

likewise the Eternal unity is the cause and ground and  and  cause and  ground  of  the  Eternal Trinity….

it brings forth itself;

First in Desire of Will

Secondly in Pleasure or Delight

Thirdly Proceeding or Outgrowing

The Desire is the Father

the Pleasure is the Son

the Proceeding is the Holy Ghost”

And he goes on with a valiant attempt to make some kind of sense of the Trinity.

In contrast Blake tackled the Trinity in a diabolic sense:

“A Scene in the Last Judgment
 Satans' holy Trinity The Accuser The Judge & The Executioner”

(This is a good example of the freedom Blake used in dealing with the Bible.)

Jung was not happy with the Trinity and felt it should be a Quatenity, including in the Mother.

In numerology three is a number representing incompletness and four of fullness.

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Wikipedia
Jakob Böhme (probably April 24, 1575[1] – November 17, 1624) was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition, and his first book, commonly known as Aurora, caused a great scandal. In contemporary English, his name may be spelled Jacob Boehme; in seventeenth-century England it was also spelled Behmen, approximating the contemporary English pronunciation of the German Böhme.

Here's a good Boehme website.

Urizen a

There's a great deal to be read about Blake's 'Urizen'.
Here are a few places:

This was found in Blake's Primer: Urizen    The word strongly suggests reason, the primary quality of Urizen. Blake felt that the hegemony of rational thinking since The Enlightment had had a stultifying and destructive influence on the British culture. He chose Bacon, Newton and Locke to epitomize that destructive influence. He chose Urizen to exemplify it in his myth.    At the final consummation Blake rehabilitated Bacon, Newton and Locke. They appeared counterbalancing Blake's three great poets. The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing terrific vanishing J98.7; E257| Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect J98.8; E257| The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven J98.9; E257| And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear & Chaucer        (Jerusalem 98: 6-9 [257])    In Night II of The Four Zoas Urizen lost his faith and in vision saw the world collapsing into darkness: Urizen rose from the bright Feast like a star thro' the evening sky. First he beheld the body of Man pale, cold; the horrors of death Beneath his feet shot thro' him as he stood in the Human Brain, Pale he beheld futurity; pale he beheld the Abyss ......[he said:] Build we a Bower for heavens darling in the grizzly deep, Build we the Mundane Shell around the Rock of Albion.       FZ2: 23:9-24.8; (314) This is found in this blog. In Globes of Fire II we read: "Los, the Imagination, carries his globe of fire to provide light and energy to the intuitive mind which discerns the spiritual dimension. Urizen is likewise endowed with a globe of fire so that the mind might reason and understand through the intellect. No light is brighter than that of the Eternal Urizen before the fall. The role of reason is preeminent until Urizen, the Prince of Light, refuses to accept the role of guide to the newly created man. Urizen continues to carry his globe of fire after his fall into the dark abyss. His fate is to explore with a dim light which leads him into erroneous pathways. He substitutes his books of descriptions and laws for his faith in the ever expanding light. It was Blake's belief that if man's ability to reason led him to depend on his own powers to give structure and meaning to the world, he was sorely deceived. Reason is capable of discerning and manipulating the finite and material; Intuition or Imagination sees the Infinite and Eternal. From Blake's Book of Urizen: Book of  Urizen, Plate 20, (E 81) "1. Urizen explor'd his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy'd By cruel enormities: forms                                        Plate 23 n

Urizen Y

This was found in Blake's Primer: Urizen    The word strongly suggests reason, the primary quality of Urizen. Blake felt that the hegemony of rational thinking since The Enlightment had had a stultifying and destructive influence on the British culture. He chose Bacon, Newton and Locke to epitomize that destructive influence. He chose Urizen to exemplify it in his myth.    At the final consummation Blake rehabilitated Bacon, Newton and Locke. They appeared counterbalancing Blake's three great poets. The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing terrific vanishing J98.7; E257| Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect J98.8; E257| The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven J98.9; E257| And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear & Chaucer        (Jerusalem 98: 6-9 [257])    In Night II of The Four Zoas Urizen lost his faith and in vision saw the world collapsing into darkness: Urizen rose from the bright Feast like a star thro' the evening sky. First he beheld the body of Man pale, cold; the horrors of death Beneath his feet shot thro' him as he stood in the Human Brain, Pale he beheld futurity; pale he beheld the Abyss ......[he said:] Build we a Bower for heavens darling in the grizzly deep, Build we the Mundane Shell around the Rock of Albion.       FZ2: 23:9-24.8; (314) This is found in this blog at http://ramhornd.blogspot.com/search/label/Urizen: In Globes of Fire II we read: "Los, the Imagination, carries his globe of fire to provide light and energy to the intuitive mind which discerns the spiritual dimension. Urizen is likewise endowed with a globe of fire so that the mind might reason and understand through the intellect. No light is brighter than that of the Eternal Urizen before the fall. The role of reason is preeminent until Urizen, the Prince of Light, refuses to accept the role of guide to the newly created man. Urizen continues to carry his globe of fire after his fall into the dark abyss. His fate is to explore with a dim light which leads him into erroneous pathways. He substitutes his books of descriptions and laws for his faith in the ever expanding light. It was Blake's belief that if man's ability to reason led him to depend on his own powers to give structure and meaning to the world, he was sorely deceived. Reason is capable of discerning and manipulating the finite and material; Intuition or Imagination sees the Infinite and Eternal. From Blake's Book of Urizen: Book of  Urizen, Plate 20, (E 81) "1. Urizen explor'd his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy'd By cruel enormities: forms                                        Plate 23