URIZEN & AHANIA

Contained in The Book of Ahania, is the account of the anger of Urizen at Fuzon for assuming leadership of the children of Urizen, as he did at the end of the Book of Urizen. The struggle between the father and son leaves them both maimed. Following that account Urizen's Emanation, Ahania, laments the disintegration of Urizen and reminisces on the happy days they shared in Eternity.

Book of Ahania, Chap V 
4: "Weeping I walk over rocks
Over dens & thro' valleys of death
Why didst thou despise Ahania
To cast me from thy bright presence
Into the World of Loneness
5: I cannot touch his hand:
Nor weep on his knees, nor hear
His voice & bow, nor see his eyes
And joy, nor hear his footsteps, and
My heart leap at the lovely sound!"

Seeing the conditions that Urizen's system have created, Ahania attempts to show Urizen the consequences of the path that that he is following. The results of her entreaties are not what she desires.

 Image of Urizen and Ahania 

In Four Zoas, Plate 38:12,(E 326) we read: 

 "Ahania bow'd her head & wept seven days before the King 

And on the eighth day when his clouds unfolded from his throne

She rais'd her bright head sweet perfumd & thus with heavenly voice

O Prince the Eternal One hath set thee leader of his hosts 

Leave all futurity to him Resume thy fields of Light

Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread morn

To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful hands 

No longer now obedient to thy will thou art compell'd 

To forge the curbs of iron & brass to build the iron mangers

To feed them with intoxication from the wine presses of Luvah 

Till the Divine Vision & Fruition is quite obliterated" 

Plate 43:1 (E 328)

"Then thunders rolld around & lightnings darted to & fro

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

To cast Ahania to the Earth be siezd her by the hair

And threw her from the steps of ice that froze around his throne"

Unfortunately for Urizen, he is worse off without Ahania than he was with her. Percival, on page 28 of Circle of Destiny, explains it thus: "Separated from Ahania, Urizen becomes the 'selfish father of men.' A spirit of wrath replaces the tolerance toward which his feminine desire inclined him....So long as an intuitive understanding of the objects of sense is maintained, the senses are the feeders of the mind; when that understanding is lost they are the mind's destroyers. With Ahania cast out and his intuitive comprehension gone, Urizen is overwhelmed by the world of sense, incapable of seeing that it, too, is holy. Thus overcome he loses the power to create and becomes an impotent figure."

The downward spiral has not yet reached its nadir.