Donna:

In the Tarot deck, the Heirophant is the fifth card of the Major Arcana, and one of the most convoluted and potent cards in the deck. The word "heirophant" is a term for a high priest who has the power to see into the future. In a tarot spread, the card is used to symbolize the outer forms of religion - the ceremonial, ritualistic aspects of God and worship. It also points to the need to conform to society, the desire to fit in to an ordinary life. The first cycle of this album touches on all of these ideas, and, like the tarot card, it is probably the hardest cycle of the album to interpret. The roots of this cycle are highly biographical, but yet contain most of the philosophical foundations upon which the album is based. The opening tracks of the album express the demands on a young Brian Warner to conform to the rules of society and religion, and the pressure to fit into the molds that his parents and his church have created. But this cycle also has the prematory power of the Heirophant, in that it can see into the future and watch it's own destruction from before it even begins.

Jim:

Heirophant. Function: Noun:

This section is Marilyn Manson, the modern day character/man explaining the growth the Brian Warner underwent. At the same time, it champions the fact that any of us can be this young boy. I believe the word 'heirophant' was chosen because it places Marilyn in the role of both narrator and advocate.

Why the future date? Simple. This song is self-fulfilling prophecy. What happened on February 14, 1997? Nothing special, except that it was the commercialized lovefest America created to sell cards & candy known as Valentines Day. The song was played that night like any other, exactly like it sounds on the record, and the children did all say "We hate love, we love hate." That, it and of itself, is the point. Any good story, be it a novel, movie or a concept album, will set you up in the modern day before trying to explain the past to you. It's a common technique in storytelling, and it's my belief that this is why 'IHA' is first on the record.

Be a part of the whole, but do it on your own terms. Be your own Antichrist... take the power for yourself.

"Irresponsible Hate Anthem" is listed in the liner notes as being recorded live on February 14, 1997 - a good few months after the album was recorded and released. I see the dating of this song in the future as being an important key that unlocks the puzzling time-line of this album. The biographical story of "Antichrist Superstar" begins when Marilyn Manson was a young boy, still named Brian Warner. However, despite its placement on the album, "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" is not the chronological beginning of this story. As with many artistic works, "Antichrist Superstar" starts in medius res - in the middle of things. "Irresponsible" is the voice of Marilyn Manson now, speaking to us as the narrator of the story he is living for us. The song sets the current stage for the listener, showing us graphically where and what Marilyn Manson is today.

So who is Marilyn Manson now? He is a man who wants nothing more than to bring down society as we know it. In this opening song, Marilyn reflects our own words and ideals back at us, showing us the contradictions that riddle the moral fabric of American society: "I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper; I am the animal who will not be himself". Marilyn shows how American society today contradicts itself with its "do what I say not what I do" model of parenting while simultaneously denouncing its own behavior as wrong. Refusing to fit into any mold or ideal, Marilyn forces his captive audience to confront the flaws in the society they themselves have created: "I am so all-American I'd sell you suicide... you are the one who put the stick in my hand". With one quick stroke, Marilyn is able to show the listener the flawed society from which he sprang and set the stage for the opus that is yet to come.

The sonic haze that opens "The Beautiful People" signals the chronological beginning of the album. We are quickly taken from 1997 to the mid 1970's as a young Brian Warner begins to observe the world around him. It's clear from the start that, for Brian, there is something very wrong with the way the society around him is working: "Don't bother to resist or I'll beat you. It's not you fault that you're always wrong; the weak ones are there to justify the strong". This is a society where the strong abuse the weak, and when the weak try to resist or question their treatment, they are beaten into submission. At the forefront of this cycle of abuse is the Christian church, in which Brian was raised as a child. The church does teach Brian one important lesson - what is beautiful is what has power. The beautiful people are the ones who can make the weak submit to their will, the ones who make and enforce the rules by which the world must play. In his world, it is the church that wields this ultimate power, creating a morality which it can then force the rest of the world to accept. It is the Nietzschian Will To Power in action, the ability of the strong to dictate the morality of the weak. And it becomes the very rule that Brian will use later in his life to bring the church down.

It is also in this song that the important worm imagery enters. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche uses an image of a worm to describe man's evolution from a weakling to the Overman, who is the height of human power and achievement: "You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm...". In "Antichrist Superstar", there is also an evolution - the evolution of Brian Warner to Marilyn Manson to the "Antichrist Superstar". The image of the worm is used to show the weakness of the young Brian Warner, unaware of the power he has to change himself and the world. But as the worm ages his power grows, triggering the metamorphosis into a angel. Nietzschian imagery and philosophy, particular that of the Overman, play a critical role in this album, and it is here that we get our first taste of it.

How many of us were beaten up in school at one time or another because we weren't the same as the popular kids? How many of us as adults are passed over for job promotions because we don't fuck the boss, or don't have nice tits, or aren't part of the power elite? How many short, ugly women get speeding tickets while the lithe, willowy blond flashes a smile and the hint of a nipple and gets not a tickets but an invitation to the policeman's balls?

"Hate every motherfucker that's in your way . . . "

Mom. Mother. Madre. This song is about Brian Warner's mother, or, at the very least, inspired by her. On a more philosophical level, it could be all our mothers to one degree or another.

We all know her. Some of us are her.

"Dried Up" is one of the most biographical songs on the album, and one of the hardest to interpret. Without knowing a great deal about Marilyn Manson's childhood, any educated analysis is difficult and shadowy. I can only base my interpretation on the strict lyrical content of the song and what information is available in the press. That being said, I personally see this song as directly referencing one of Brian Warner's greatest influences in life - his mother.

The maternal imagery in "Dried Up" is potent. The object of the song is an aging female who must "cake on some more make-up to cover all those lines". The fruit and seed imagery recalls the process of reproduction - the fruit that is Brian growing from the seeds his mother planted. Finally, the lines "you'll never read what you've written" seem to point to the process of parenting itself. Parents 'write" their children as an author would write a book, creating the character that is their child. But what happens if that parent's love is so claustrophobic that the child becomes suffocated, unable to respond to love at all? In "Dried Up", Brian's mother's love is all encompassing, consuming, almost suffocating. The repeated images of being invaded, felt from the inside, of being torn apart are graphic and poignant. In response to this crushing emotion, Brian feels trapped, unsure of how to respond. He wants to feel his mother's love more than anything in the world, and will do or be anything he can to get it. But nothing he does works, and the end result is a deadening of emotion that leaves him cut off from love altogether.

Love is again the center of this song, but it is an even more twisted version this time around. After the claustrophobic dance of emotion with his mother, Brian finds himself unable to love anyone or anything. All emotion has become unreal, fabricated, something made-up that he just can't seem to understand. In "Tourniquet" we find Brian trying to piece together broken pieces of reality to create someone or something that will love him that he can love back: "She's made of hair and bone and little teeth, and things that cannot speak". But all he can create are fractured images, objects stuck together with childish feelings, not whole people with real emotions. Notably, the first hints of an as yet unspoken-of abuse show up in this song, with lines like "if it hurts just tell me - preserve the innocence".

All attempts to love someone have left Brian hurt and afraid, and these failures have made him angry. He turns and lashes out at his society, religion, and parents, accusing them of failing to teach him what love really feels like: "Take your hatred out on me... you never ever believed in me". The image of the tourniquet itself is intriguing. A tourniquet is, of course, something that stops the flow of blood. One particular use of a tourniquet is to stop a poison from reaching the heart and killing. Brian himself is the tourniquet here, a twisted piece of flesh used to cut off truth. All around him - in his church, society, his family - people are slowly poisoning themselves with twisted morality and versions of love that aren't real. Everyone is slowly killing themselves and no one but Brian is willing to see what they are doing to themselves and others. Only by twisting and hurting him, by cutting off the poison of truth he carries can everyone around him survive. But Brian now begins see what's happening, sees his own potential, and the sleeper has awakened...

Again, this song has much to do with mother. Maybe it includes both parents or authority figures at large, but I identify it with the feminine influence in a young boy's life.