The Myth

"The coherence of the Bible's narrative as a whole is created by a "U-Shaped plot" typical of comedy. That plot begins with the Genesis creation of a harmonious family and garden state, is followed by a fall into a long alternation of historical disasters and triumphs, and concludes with a final ascent back to harmony in the eternal city of Jerusalem at the end of the book of Revelation."
(Northrup Frye's Bible)

We can see the same thing in the Bible or in the works of William Blake:
Creation, the Fall, the Return and the Apocalypse.

This is the myth, in fact the primary myth that pervades all English Literature.
In a large work you may find the myth repeated often.
Look for example at The Book of Job:
The beginning, the fall, the return and finally a future for Job
much like the Return to the City of God.

We find the myth clearly in the story Blake got from the Greek myth of Psyche. .

Blake painted a tempera

that graphically illustrates the basic myth:
Heaven is above; on the right are dry souls, the nymphs;
But they hanker for mortality and descend (Fall); all expect one who chooses to go back, like Thel did! They experience the Sea of Time and Space and a variety of various forms of Fallenness.
But one succeeds and finds the path back to Eternity.

But when once I did descry

The Immortal Man that cannot Die   

Thro evening shades I haste away 
To close the Labours of my Day

God

                                               God

Thinking as I do that the Creator
of this world is a cruel being, and
being a worshipper of Christ, I have to
say: "the Son! oh how unlike the Father":
First God Almighty comes with a thump on
the head; then J.C. comes with a balm
to heal it.
(Comments on A Vision of the Last Judgment [Erdman 565])
    To put it shortly the epigraph says it all. An esoteric alternative Protestantism nurtured Blake as a child. But what he said above aptly expresses the feelings of enormous numbers of people in our society today. "I don't care for the O.T. The N.T. suits me better": there is the understated strong consensus of many today, so extravagantly stated here by William Blake.
    We might trace the development of 'God-thought' in the Thinker through the years of his spiritual growth. (For those with time or interest constraints, you may cut to the chase here.)
                           **************************************************
    The materialistic psychology dominant in Blake's age as well as our own portrays the real and the imaginative as opposites. But in truth there are only images of reality; all reality is mental, that is, mediated into consciousness by the mind. Our immediate experience is a chaos of sense perception from which we all create our own visions of reality. Like Blake "[we] must create our own system or be enslaved by another man's" Jerusalem plate 10, line 21). An authentic person consciously creates his own vision of reality. He chooses to be who he is rather than to borrow his identity from a group or from a charismatic figure.
    Each person's ultimate reality is his God. There is no known objective God (the Russian cosmonauts assured us of that many years ago); there are only images of God. Some of the outstanding images of God that have shaped the life of the world came to us from Moses, Isaiah, Buddha, and Mohammid. Finally we have the vision of Jesus, whom Christians consider to be an incarnation of God. But perhaps equally influential upon the course of history have been the visions of Alexander, Napoleon, and Stalin. Their common vision of the dominion of power is near the opposite pole from that of the gentle Galilean.
    Blake was a total and confirmed visionary, and he evisioned all of the images of God listed above and quite a few others as well. He did this by pursuing his imaginative experience wherever it led. The uncanny freedom with which he followed "the wind where it listeth" led him on a strange and fascinating spiritual journey through some remarkable byways and paths, described in his poetry. At the end of his pilgrimage he came to a definite vision of God as Jesus, the Forgiveness. After almost two centuries it remains one of the highest and best visions of God that Christians have for their inspiration.
    Full understanding of Blake's vision of God depends upon a grasp of his concepts of time and eternity. For Blake the eternal is the realm of the real, while time is the dimension of Plato's mortal cave of phantasmal dreams. Although the eternal is immortal, it does not refer simply to the hereafter; that would be just a phantasmal portion of time stretched out indefinitely. The eternal is the Mental, the Imaginative, the world to which a man may awaken as soon as he realizes that the corporeal, temporal, materialistic framework of reality is an illusion.
    The rationalists of Blake's day with their radical materialism had closed themselves off from the eternal. They had imprisoned themselves in what he called the mundane shell (Milton plate 17 line 16ff). They were exclusively this worldly. Blake perceived that they worshipped the God of this World, no matter what they called him. They had most often called him Jehovah or Jesus. As a young man Blake renamed him Urizen . He spent half a lifetime studying this God of the timebound so he could cast him off and replace him with a more authentic image. Eventually he came to realize that this god's truest name is Satan. He also referred to him as the Selfhood (Jerusalem 5:21-23) and the Spectre.
    Blake tells us that radical materialism with its worship of the God of this World is a state of mind from which a man may awaken at any moment into a realization of the infinite and of his kinship with the Divine Man, Jesus. So these two Gods, the Satan of the World and the Jesus of Eternity remain in continuous opposition in men's minds, and they are best understood in contrast to one another.
    Jesus is the Lord of the Eternal realm, which is imaginative, creative, non-violent, gracious, and above all forgiving and uniting into life. Satan is God of this World, of power, might, law, man against man, separation, finally death. One is Lord of Life, the other the Lord of Death. Satan is actually not a person but a state and will eventually go to his own place, which is a way of saying that Jesus will eventually get him off our backs. This happens at the Last Judgment when all Error is burnt up
                                                   The Journey

    We live in a secular age; the reality of God has been largely barred from the consciousness of most people. It is a significant experience for only a minority of the population. Of course many people understand that everyone has a God of some sort--his ultimate concern. But the biblical God, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not a live issue in the minds of very many people today. Our foremost modern psychologist, C.G.Jung, quite properly placed God in our unconscious and encouraged us to seek there for him. Jung understood very well Blake's statement that "all deities reside in the human breast" (end of Plate 11 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
    The secular currents so powerful today were already flowing strongly in the late 18th Century in England. The prevalent deism put God back behind the present scene, a long way behind it. Strictly the Divine Architect, having made the world like a clock, he wound it up and left it to run on its own. He also left the deists to their own devices, and they were happy in this new freedom. They felt that they had learned to control their destinies without divine assistance.
    Blake lived in the midst of these currents, but he opposed them emphatically. Unlike the deists he experienced the immediate presence and pervasive reality of God in his life. He completely filled his poetry and pictures alike with metaphysical images because his mind dwelt almost exclusively upon spiritual themes. The material realm interested him only as a shadow of the eternal. He abhored the materialism by which the deists lived. He might have been happier and more at home in the Middle Ages.
    But he was also a very modern man. He understood better than Jung that an external objective God is an unknown quantity, a projection of unsophisticated minds:
    "Mental things are alone Real....Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought? Where is it but in the mind of a Fool?" (Vision of the Last Judgment, page 565)

  The only God anyone can know is the image of God projected upon his mind or enclosed in his consciousness. Since time began, men have shared their visions of God with one another. All religions began in this way. The Bible makes most sense as an infinitely fascinating compendium of the visions of God shared by Moses, Isaiah, Paul and the other writers. This unfolding and composite vision has shaped western culture down to the present moment.
    Blake thoroughly surveyed this passing scene, not just the Bible, but every other religious document he could get his hands on, and related them all to his own direct and immediate visions. Over his lifetime he may have taken more liberties with God than any other systematic thinker ever did. He could do this because he so fully realized that all of these visions of God had come forth from human breasts like his own. Moses, Isaiah, and the others were his eternal brothers, and he joyously engaged with them in the eternal war, the intellectual war, which he called the"severe contentions of friendship" (J. 91:17).

key II

THE CLAVIS OR KEY

OR
AN EXPOSITION OF SOME PRINCIPAL
WORDS AND MATTERS.

Continuing with the words of Jacob Boehme:

13. I will write but a short description of the divine  manifestation, yet as much as I can comprehend in brief; and expound the strange words for the better understanding of our books; and set down here the sum of those writings, or a model or epitome of them, for the consideration and help of beginners: The further exposition of it is to be found in the other books. or revelation.

Boehm wrote the 'Key in 1623, a year before his death. By 'our books' we understand that 

B. is referred to all his works, in the same way that WB might refer to with his own books.

How God is to be considered without Nature and Creature.

14. MOSES saith, The Lord our God is but one only God. In another place it is said, Of him, through him, and in him are all things: in another, Am not I he that filleth all things? And in another, Through his Word are all things made, that are made. Therefore we may say that he is the original of all things: He is the eternal * unmeasurable Unity.

Blake's Jerusalem, like most of his works goes through the Fall to Ulro, Generation,

Regeneration at Beulah to the ultimate Unity.

15. For example, when - I think what would be in the place of this world, if the four elements and the starry firmament, and. also nature itself, should perish and cease to be, so that no nature or creature were to be found any more; I find there would remain this eternal Unity, from which nature and creature have received their original.

16. So likewise, when I think with myself what is many hundred thousand miles above the starry firmament, or what is in that place where no creature is, I find the eternal unchangeable Unity is there, which is that only Good, which hath nothing either before or after it, that can add anything to it, or take anything away from it, or from which this Unity could have its original: There is neither * ground, time, nor place, but there is the only eternal God, or that only Good, which a man cannot express.

A further Consideration, How this one God is Threefold.

17. The Holy Scripture sheweth us that this only God is threefold, viz. one only [1] threefold 

essence, having three manners of workings, and yet is but one only essence, as may be seen in the outflown power and virtue which is in all things, if any do but observe it: but it is especially represented to us in fire, light, and air; which are three several [2] sorts of workings, and yet but in one only ground and substance.

Boehme attempts to put a rational face on the Trinity. I don't recall that WB did that.

18. And as we see that fire, light, and air, arise from a candle (though the candle is none of the three, but a cause of them), so likewise the eternal Unity is the cause and ground of the eternal [1] Trinity, which manifesteth itself from the Unity, and bringeth forth itself, First, in desire, or will; Secondly, pleasure, or delight; Thirdly, proceeding, or outgoing.

"And this is the manner of the Daughters of Albion in their beauty
Every one is threefold in Head & Heart & Reins, & every one
Has three Gates into the Three Heavens of Beulah which shine
Translucent in their Foreheads & their Bosoms & their Loins
Surrounded with fires unapproachable: but whom they please
They take up into their Heavens in  intoxicating  delight   
For the Elect cannot be Redeemd, but Created continually
By Offering & Atonement in the crue[l]ties of Moral Law
Hence the three Classes of Men take their fix'd destinations" 

Carl Jung thought that the Trinity should change to a 

Quaternity, the fourth being the Mother, but Blake would 

have objected vigorously. Blake seems to interpret the Bible

more freely than Boehme. 

"They are the Two Contraries & the Reasoning Negative."

            Satans' holy Trinity

From page 672 of Erdman:
"<!WB>[third state of plate, 1809-10]</!WB>
     The Accusers of Theft 

Adultery Murder 
     W Blake inv & sculp
     A Scene in the Last 

Judgment
     Satans' holy Trinity The 

Accuser The Judge & The 

Executioner

The Judge,       the Accuser, the Executioner

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

19. The desire, or will is the Father; that is, the stirring or manifestation of the Unity, whereby the Unity willeth or desireth itself

20. The pleasure, or delight is the Son; and is that which the will willeth and desireth, viz, his love and pleasure, as may be seen at the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, when the Father witnessed, saying, This is my [1] beloved Son, in whom I [2] am well pleased; hear ye him.

21. The delight is the compressure in the will, whereby the will in the Unity bringeth itself a place and working, wherewith the will willeth and worketh; and it is the feelingness and virtue of the will.

22. The will is the Father, that is, the stirring desire; and the delight is the Son, that is, the 

virtue and the working in the will, with which the will worketh; and the Holy Ghost is the proceeding will, through the delight of the virtue, that is, a life of the will and of the virtue and delight.

23. Thus there are three sorts of workings in the eternal Unity, viz, the Unity is the will and desire of itself: the delight is the working substance of the will, and an eternal joy of perceptibility in the will; and the Holy Ghost is the proceeding of the power: the similitude of which may be seen in a [1] plant.

24. The [1] magnet, viz. the essential desire of nature, that is, the will of the desire of nature, [2] compresseth itself into an ens or substance, to become a plant, and in this compression of the desire becometh feeling, that is, working; and in that working the power and virtue ariseth, wherein the magnetical desire of nature, viz, the outflown will of God, worketh in a natural way.

I don't know how to relate 20-24 to Blake's poetry or pictures.

the key

Blake and Boehme had a lot in common; they had the same values; they had visions

and lived with them.  Like few people in Blake's (or our) day, they did not live by the

material, but by a spiritual consciousness.

Boehme was a simple shoemaker, but he received a mysterious call from
a mysterious stranger who cried out in the street, "Jakob , Jacob, come forth.
He continued "thou art little, but shall be great, and become another man,
such a one a whom the world shall wonder; therefore be pious, fear God and
reverence his Word, etc, etc. (For the rest of this story look at page 8 of
The Key of Boehme.)

Boehme read, studied and wrote reporting the Visions that came to him 
regularly, just as they did to Blake.  After he had written much, readers asked
him for help understanding so he wrote this short compendium of his many
books.

THE PREFACE TO THE READER OF THESE WRITINGS

1. It is written, The natural man [receives not the things of the spirit,
nor the Mystery of the kingdom of God, they are foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them: therefore I admonish and exhort the
Christian lover of Mysteries, if he will study these high writings, and
read, search, and understand them, that he does not read them
outwardly only, with sharp speculation and meditation; for in so doing,
he shall remain in the outward imaginary ground only, and obtain no
more than a counterfeit color of them.

(Boehme starts out with the radical separation between the material
(worldly) and the spiritual.  However the used 'mystery' in a very
different way than Blake did.)

2. For a man's own reason, without the light of them. God, cannot come
into the ground [of them], it is impossible; let his wit be ever so high
and subtle, it apprehends but as it were the shadow of it in a glass.

(Here WB is fully in accord with Boehme here; he considered 'Reason' without
Light to be 'of the devil'.)

3. For Christ says, without me you can do nothing; and he is the Light
of the World, and the Life of men.
Here Boehme quotes scripture directly using the same words often used by
Blake.)

4. Now if any one would search the divine ground, that is, the divine [1]

revelation, he must first consider with himself for what end he desires
to know such things; whether he desires to practice that which he
might obtain, and bestow it to the glory of God and the welfare of his
neighbor; and whether he desires to die to earthliness, and to his own
will, and to live in that which he seeks and desires, and to be one spirit
with it.

(Like Blake Boehme was keenly aware of the failure to be open and
transparent.  He obviously considered the Church of his day to be
fallen into hypocrisy and the clergy to be 'false prophets.)

5. If he have not a purpose, that if God should reveal himself and his
Mysteries to him, he would be one spirit and have one will with him,
and wholly resign and yield himself up to him, that God's spirit might do
what he pleases with him and by him, and that God might be his
knowledge, will, and  deed, he is not yet fit for such knowledge and
understanding.

(Here he reminds us that until we have become completely empty of
of our own will and fully submissive to His God has not yet made us
'Perfect', something that few of us would deny.

6. For there are many that seek Mysteries and hidden knowledge,
merely that they might be respected and highly esteemed by the world,
and for their own gain and profit; but they attain not this ground, where
the spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God: as it is
written.

7. It must be a totally resigned and yielded will, in which God himself
searches and works, and which continually pierces into God, in
yielding and resigned humility, seeking nothing but his eternal native
country, and to do his neighbor service with it; and then it may be
attained. And he must begin with effectual repentance and
amendment, and with prayer, that his understanding might be opened
from within; for then the inward will bring itself into the outward.

(In these two paragraphs Boehme simply reiterates the above.)

8. But when he reads such writings, and yet cannot understand them,
he must not presently throw them away, and think it is impossible to
understand them; no, but he must turn his mind to God, beseeching him
for grace and understanding, and read again; and then he shall see
more and more in them, till at length he be drawn by the power of God
into the very depth itself, and so come into the supernatural and
supersensual ground, viz. into the eternal unity of God; where he shall
hear unspeakable but effectual words of God, which shall bring him
back and outward again, by the divine effluence, to the very grossest
and meanest matter of the earth, and then back and inwards to God
again;then the spirit of God searches all things with him, and by
him; and so he is rightly taught and driven by God).

(This echoes Paul who spoke of things he could not say.)

9. But since the readers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am
ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short
description of the ground of those strange words; some of which are
taken from nature and [1] sense, and some are the words of strange [2]
masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit.

10. Reason will stumble, when it sees heathenish terms and words
used in the explanation of natural things, supposing we should use
none but scripture phrase (or words borrowed from the Bible); but such
words will not always ply and square themselves to the fundamental
exposition of the properties of nature, neither can a man express the
ground with them: also the wise heathen and jews have hidden the

deep ground of nature under such words, as having well understood
that the knowledge of [1] nature is not for every one, but it belongs to
those only, whom God by nature has chosen for it.


(Like Blake Boehme respects words and ideas outside of the formal
scriptures, such as Jewish or others.  "The word kills, but the spirit
gives Life".)

11. But none need stumble at it; for when God reveals his Mysteries to
any man, he then also brings him into a mind and faculty how to
express them, as God knows to be most necessary and profitable in
every age, for the setting of the confused tongues and opinions
upon the true ground again: Men must not think that it comes by
chance, or is done by human reason.

(The 'confusion of tongues reminds us of Balaam's ass (Numbers 22'.) 


12. The revelations of divine things are opened by the inward
ground of the spiritual world, and brought into visible forms, just as the
Creator will manifest them.


13. I will write but a short description of the divine manifestation,
yet as much as I can comprehend in brief; and expound the strange
words for the better understanding of our books; and set down here the
sum of those writings, or a model or epitome of them, for the
consideration and help of beginners: The further exposition of  it is
to be found in the other books or revelation. 

Boehme 2

                                  The Key or Clavis of Jacob Boehme

THE PREFACE TO THE READER OF THESE WRITINGS
1. It is written, The natural man [1] receives not the things of the spirit,
nor the Mystery of the kingdom of God, they are foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them: therefore I admonish and exhort the
Christian lover of Mysteries, if he will study these high writings, and
read, search, and understand them, that he does not read them
outwardly only, with sharp speculation and meditation; for in so doing,
he shall remain in the outward imaginary ground only, and obtain no
more than a [2] counterfeit color of them.
[1] understands or perceives not. [2] or feigned shadow of them.
2. For a man's own reason, without the light of them. God, cannot come
into the ground [of them], it is impossible; let his wit be ever so high
and subtle, it apprehends but as it were the shadow of it in a glass.
3. For Christ says, without me you can do nothing; and he is the Light
of the World, and the Life of men.

4. Now if any one would search the divine ground, that is, the divine [1]
revelation, he must first consider with himself for what end he desires
to know such things; whether he desires to practice that which he
might obtain, and bestow it to the glory of God and the welfare of his
neighbor; and whether he desires to die to earthliness, and to his own
will, and to live in that which he seeks and desires, and to be one spirit
with it.
[1] or manifestation
5. If he have not a purpose, that if God should reveal himself and his
Mysteries to him, he would be one spirit and have one will with him,
and wholly resign and yield himself up to him, thatGod's spirit might do
what he pleases with him and by him, and that God might be his knowledge, will, and [1] deed, he is not yet fit for such knowledge and understanding.
[1] or working
6. For there are many that seek Mysteries annd hidden knowledge,
merely that they might be respected and highly esteemed by the world,
and for their own gain and profit; but they attain not this ground, where
the spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God: as it is
written.
7. It must be a totally resigned and yielded will, in which God himself
searches and works, and which continually pierces into God, in
yielding and resigned humility, seeking nothing but his eternal native
country, and to do his neighbor service with it; and then it may  be
attained. And he must begin with effectual repentance and
amendment, and with prayer, that his understanding might be opened
from within; for then the inward will bring itself into the outward.
8. But when he reads such writings, and yet cannot understand them,
he must not presently throw them away, and think it is impossible to
understand them; no, but he must turn his mind to God, beseeching him
for grace and understanding, and read again; and then he shall see
more and more in them, till at length he be drawn by the power of God
into the very depth itself, and so come into the supernatural and
supersensual ground, viz. into the eternal unity of God; where he shall
hear unspeakable but effectual words of God, which shall bring him
back and outward again, by the divine effluence, to the very grossest
and meanest matter of the earth, and then back and inwards to God
again;then the spirit of God searches all things with him, and by
him;and so he is rightly taught and driven by God).
9. But since the lovers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am
ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short
description of the ground of those strange words; some of which are
taken from nature and [1] sense, and some are the words of strange [2]
masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit.

 be
attained. And he must begin with effectual repentance and
amendment, and with prayer, that his understanding might be opened
from within; for then the inward will bring itself into the outward.
8. But when he reads such writings, and yet cannot understand them,
he must not presently throw them away, and think it is impossible to
understand them; no, but he must turn his mind to God, beseeching him
for grace and understanding, and read again; and then he shall see
more and more in them, till at length he be drawn by the power of God
into the very depth itself, and so come into the supernatural and
supersensual ground, viz. into the eternal unity of God; where he shall
hear unspeakable but effectual words of God, which shall bring him
back and outward again, by the divine effluence, to the very grossest
and meanest matter of the earth, and then back and inwards to God
again;then the spirit of God searches all things with him, and by
him;and so he is rightly taught and driven by God).
9. But since the lovers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am
ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short
description of the ground of those strange words; some of which are
taken from nature and [1] sense, and some are the words of strange [2]
masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit.

[1] ex sensu [2] artists or mystical authors
10. Reason will stumble, when it sees heathenish terms and words
used in the explanation of natural things, supposing we should use
none but scripture phrase (or words borrowed from the Bible); but such
words will not always ply and square themselves to the fundamental
exposition of the properties of nature, neither can a man express the
ground with them: also the wise heathen and jews have hidden the
deep ground of nature under such words, as having well understood
that the knowledge of [1] nature is not for every one, but it belongs to
those only, whom God by nature has chosen for it.
[1] naturally inclined to it
11. But none need stumble at it; for when God reveals his Mysteries to
any man, he then also brings him into a mind and faculty how to
express them, as God knows to be most necessary and profitable in
every [1] age, for the setting of the confused tongues and opinions
upon the true ground again: Men must not think that it comes by
chance, or is done by human reason.
[1] or seculum
12. The [1] revelations of divine things are opened by the inward
ground of the spiritual world, and brought12. The [1] revelations of divine things are opened by the inward
ground of the spiritual world, and brought into visible forms, just as the
Creator will manifest them.
[1] or manifestations
13. I will write but a short description of the divine [1]manifestation,
yet as much as I can comprehend in brief; and expound the strange
words for the better understanding of ourbooks; and set down here the
sum of those writings, or a modelor epitome of them, for the
consideration and help of beginners: The further exposition of [2] it is
to be found in the other books or revelation.
[1] or revelations [2] the divine manifestation or revelation


An explanation of some principal points and ex

Sources Boehme 5

The Fall in terms of Urizen's controversy with

Ahania, is found in Night Three of the Four Zoas;

"His visage changd to darkness & his strong right hand came forth 

To cast Ahania to the Earth he siezd 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. the indulgent self of

weariness
The passive idle sleep the enormous night & darkness of Death
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. Wherefore hast thou taken that fair form
Whence is this power given to thee! once thou wast in my breast
A sluggish current of dim waters. on whose verdant margin
A cavern shaggd with horrid shades. dark cool & deadly. where
I laid my head in the hot noon after the broken clods
Had wearied me. there I laid my plow & there my horses fed
And thou hast risen with thy moist locks into a watry image
Reflecting all my indolence my weakness & my death
To weigh me down beneath the grave into non Entity
Where Luvah strives scorned by Vala age after age wandering
Shrinking & shrinking from her Lord & calling him the Tempter
And art thou also become like Vala thus I cast thee out.
So loud in thunders spoke the King folded in dark despair
And threw Ahania from his bosom obdurate She fell like lightning
Then fled the sons of Urizen from his thunderous throne petrific
They fled to East & West & left the North & South of Heaven
A crash ran thro the immense The bounds of Destiny were broken
The bounds of Destiny crashd direful & the swelling Sea
Burst from its bonds in whirlpools fierce roaring with Human
voice
Triumphing even to the Stars at bright Ahanias fall
Down from the dismal North the Prince in thunders & thick clouds

As when the thunderbolt down falleth on the appointed place
Fell down down rushing ruining thundering shuddering
Into the Caverns of the Grave & places of Human Seed
Where the impressions of Despair & Hope enroot forever
A world of Darkness. Ahania fell far into Non Entity

(Erdman 320-22)

Blake acted on scriptural grounds for this story, ie the Flood.  We are told

that God's wrath was invoked because the Nephilim found the daughters

of men fair and violence filled the land.

In Percival 180-83 continues to discuss the Fall:
"In Paradise, says Boehme, Adam lived in an inward principle, and so
living he had control  over the four elements, but when he moved outward
into the "external humanity", the four elements got control of him."

At the bottom lies Urizen 'in a stonied stupor', helpless before the
hugh inpouring of sense impressions... in the fact of casting out Ahania,
Urizen's visage changed to darkness...he became a blind and impotent
figure.

Adam became corrupt and weary, and fell into a sleep.  Here he was
undone and if the mercy of God had not help and made a women out
of him, he would still be asleep.....the earlier monism was replaced by
duality.

There are many sources outside Scripture; the void or abyss into which

the Zoas fall is of the same nature as the abyss in  Boehme, where it's

the world of God the Father in separation from the Son, the dark

fire-source in separation from the light, the first principle alone, without

manifestation; it's the world into which Lucifer and his cohorts fall.

(Boehme, Threefold Life, viz Mysterium magnum)