Sunday, September 09, 2012

Tharmas


Tharmas


Blake had more to say about Urizen, Luvah, and Los (fallen Urothona) than
he did for 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":
       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 against 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":
       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.


Enion
       The emanation of Tharmas, Enion, is called Earth Mother.  She is noted for her complaints against cold cruel nature:
       This of course is a complaint against blind nature, "red of tooth and claw"; but here's another more pointed complaint against social immorality, where the economic world too often emulates the natural one, which is to say there is no spirit evident in the world (that's Ulro).
       If nothing else Blake demonstrates here his power as a social prophet. Was it any more appropriate for his age than it is for ours?




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