POSITIONS OF ZOAS

Uniting Heaven and Earth: A Jungian and Taoist Exploration of the Masculine and Feminine in Human Consciousness by Sukie Colegrave makes this comment on the fall of Adam and Eve is terms of consciousness:

"But when one day the serpent explained to Eve why God had forbidden them to eat the fruit, saying God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof , then your eyes will be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil', the desire for wisdom proved irresistible. She ate the fruit and persuaded Adam also to accompany her into the new world of consciousness. Until that moment both and been naked and knew not their nakedness, but now they recognized it and hastily covered themselves. In eating the fruit they rent apart their pre-conscious identity with the supreme principle. They lost their instinctive communication with God and gained freedom of choice and the possibility of understanding. They fell from innocence and instinctive perfection into consciousness and a world of good and evil...

Such wisdom is costly. Tranquility and spontaneous order were possible in Paradise precisely because there was no consciousness. With its emergence humanity severed itself, a little, from the cosmos and began the slow, difficult and painful struggle towards self-consciousness and understanding." (Page 15)


The orderly structure of the universes of the Zoas was thrown into turmoil by the fall whatever initiated it and however it proceeded. Blake was kind enough to give us a diagram of the Eternal situation before 'time' intervened through the rearrangement.


Image from
Milton, Plate 36


Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)
"Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine!
But when Luvah assum'd the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his mountains, & in his tent;
All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path."

Position	Original	Changed, Milton, Plate 19	Changed	J, Plate 59
N	Urthona	solid, unfathomable, without end	Urthona	solid darkness
E	Luvah	void	Urizen	void
S	Urizen	burning fire	Luvah	burning fire
W	Tharmas	world of raging waters	Tharmas	raging waters

Jerusalem, Plate 59,(E 208)
"But when Luvah assumed the World of Urizen Southward

And Albion was slain upon his Mountains & in his Tent.
All fell towards the Center, sinking downwards in dire ruin,
In the South remains a burning Fire: in the East. a Void
In the West, a World of raging Waters: in the North; solid Darkness
Unfathomable without end: but in the midst of these
Is Built eternally the sublime Universe of Los & Enitharmon"

The unity of the One Man Albion was 'slain'; consciousness of multiplicity upset the balance which held the body together. What had been inward was driven outward. But without the destruction of completeness the 'sublime Universe of Los & Enitharmon' would not be 'built eternally'.