Holy Wood (in the shadow of the valley of death) analysis

• Release date: November 13, 2000
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 68:19
• Label: Nothing, Interscope
• Written by: Marilyn Manson, Twiggy Ramirez, John 5, M. W. Gacy

Track List

Introduction

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two high school students at Columbine High School in Colorado, arrived at the school armed with multiple firearms and a collection of improvised explosives, intending to kill as many people as possible. Though not all aspects of their plan worked (for example, the bombs that were meant for the cafeteria failed to detonate), they still managed to execute the worst school shooting in American history up to that point, with 13 dead and 24 injured. The event ended with the pair committing suicide.

In the moral panic that ensued, a rumor came up that the two were fans of Marilyn Manson and was widely propagated by the media. Even though it later came out that they weren't Marilyn Manson fans at all, and in fact even disliked his music, by then the damage has already been done, as America found its scapegoat for the tragedy.

The effect on Manson was quite severe. Years later he characterized this event as something that nearly ruined his career. He cancelled the remainder of his North America tour and had to pursue legal action against news outlets that carelessly continued to perpetuate the rumor that the shooters were Manson fans even after it was already found to be untrue. While controversy was high, Manson refused to give any interviews, and overall retreated from public view. But he also knew that eventually, he'll have to return to the spotlight and have an answer to the accusations. Holy Wood was that answer; one that pointed the finger at the proliferation of violence in American culture, and at the media for giving a voice to those who are willing to do terrible things to get noticed.

Setting and Story

The album's setting features two different worlds. One is Holy Wood, the world of mainstream society, the in-group everybody wants to be a part of because it's the dominant culture. Its culture is one of religion and violence, where people who die on TV receive so much attention from the media, it becomes indistinguishable from religious worship. Some of the revered dead personalities Holy Wood is obsessed with include JFK, John Lennon, and Jesus Christ.

On the opposite end there's Death Valley, the world of society's outcasts, the pitiful nobodies who couldn't find a place in Holy Wood. These are the people who develop a desperation-fueled resentment over having no future in this world, and who are eventually driven to acts of violence. It's the place people like Mark David, Lee Oswald, Charles Manson, and the Columbine shooters come from.

The story follows Adam, a denizen of Death Valley, as he tries to figure out how to live in this world. At first Adam wants to be a part of the glamor of Holy Wood, and feels terrible inadequacy for not fitting in. But after breaking through into that world, he realizes that the grass isn't greener on the other side, and that the people around him are the same assholes that have been keeping him down all his life. Resentment swells inside, and his initial reaction is to try to change the world, only to see his revolution watered down into a product. When the corruption of the world finally costs him the thing that he values the most- the woman he loves, his resentment becomes murderous, and he follows in the footsteps of Oswald, Mark David, and the Columbine killers, resolute to make the world pay.

Origin of the Death Valley

The album's subtitle "In the shadow of the valley of death", the similarly named 7th song, and first section of the track list, all make a reference to Psalms 23, verse 4:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The Death Valley is also a reference to Charles Manson, an individual Manson has a well-documented interest in.

Charles Manson was a crazy criminal who in the 60s led a hippie cult of misfits to commit murder. He prophesized that African Americans were about to begin a race war against whites, and that his group of hippies will survive it by hiding in a secret underground city beneath Death Valley, which is a real place in California. When time went by and the war didn't seem to be starting, Charles sent some of his cult members on multiple missions to commit murder and make it look racially motivated to "show the blacks how to do it". He and his cult were apprehended by law enforcement as they tried to run away to Death Valley.

Proof that Marilyn Manson had the Charles Manson murders in mind comes from multiple interviews, such as the one with Hotpress where he said:

So, the valley of death is the place misfits come from, and we are in its shadow because the threat from the misfits that society creates forever looms over us. Just as Charles Manson's cult was a group of misfits that meted out violence upon the world that rejected them, so did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold take vengeance for their outcast status on their school mates.

As for the biblical angle, Psalms 23 is a poem that speaks of the comfort of being God's follower, and how it gets you through tough periods in your life. It is the basis for The Lord Is My Shepherd prayer, which is often uttered in funerals, a fact that connects us to the tragedy of the Columbine shootings. You could say that there were two versions to the story of the Columbine shootings: the one which the denizens of Holy Wood saw, for whom this was an unexpected tragedy that came out of nowhere. A society in the grace of God that suddenly found itself in the shadow of death. Then there is the other version, the one Manson as a public commentator was seeing: you weren't in the shadow of death… You were in the shadow of Death Valley; the shadow of the outcasts that you yourself created.

The protagonist: Adam vs Adam Kadmon vs Adam Rishon

The protagonist of the story of Holy Wood is called Adam. There are multiple references in the Holy Wood era to a being called Adam Kadmon, which means "primordial man", or "primal man". These references include:

• Manson's official BBS (bulletin board system, the precursor for internet forums) featured a graphic of Adam Kadmon during the Holy Wood era.
• In the same official BBS, right next to the image of Adam Kadmon, was the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, which also appears in the album artwork. The Tree of Life is associated with Adam Kadmon (see artwork section for more information).

These clues, and a general lack of distinction between Adam Kadmon and Adam Rishon (the Adam of the Garden of Eden story), led many people to conclude that the protagonist of the story is supposed to be Adam Kadmon. In my opinion, this is an incorrect interpretation.

First of all, Adam Kadmon is not a physical being. He is an archetype, a blueprint for humanity from which all humans are built, so our protagonist can't be Adam Kadmon because Adam Kadmon is an abstraction, not a real person. Second, the album also features associations to a different Adam, the Adam of Genesis:

• The song name The Fall of Adam is an obvious allusion to the biblical fall of Adam in Genesis.
• The artwork features references to Milton's Paradise Lost, where the story of Adam and Eve is a major plot element.
• Adam of Genesis is said to have been made from the earth. This is referenced in the 3rd section of the song list, called "of red earth".
• In some Jewish traditions it is believed that Adam of Genesis was initially created as an androgynous creature, which is why God was able to extract Eve from him. This is referenced in the 2nd section of the song list, called "the androgyn".

The Adam of Genesis is not the same "being" as Adam Kadmon. Rather, he is "Adam Rishon", the first physical human, made from Adam Kadmon's blueprint. Our Adam can't be Adam Rishon either, since the story of Holy Wood happens many years after Genesis. So if our Adam is neither Adam Kadmon, nor Adam Rishon, what kind of Adam is he?

I think that Holy Wood's Adam is his own character, and that both Adam Kadmon and Adam Rishon are artistic references that are invoked in the story through the shared name. Holy Wood's Adam is associated with the Genesis Adam because his story follows a similar theme of starting from a state of innocence and then falling out of "heaven" (or what he thought was heaven). Holy Wood's Adam is associated with Adam Kadmon in the sense that he is built from Adam Kadmon's blueprint, and Manson uses this fact to make the statement that violence is part of human nature. This idea can be seen in promotional photos for the Holy Wood era, where we can see Manson as Adam Kadmon holding a gun. Since Adam Kadmon is humanity's blueprint, the fact that he is holding a gun means that violence is part of humanity's blueprint. The idea that this image represents Adam Kadmon is based on the following clues:

• The Mercury symbol ☿. Mercury is associated with the intellect, which is why it's on his forehead, but it is also alchemically associated with Adam Rishon, who is often considered to be the first alchemist. At first glance, this isn't making my case, since it's referring to the wrong Adam. However, on the shoulder that Manson is covering with a gun there's a symbol for sublimation 🝞 (this can be seen in other photos from this photoshoot). The combination of sublimation and Mercury gives us Mercury Sublimate 🜐, the "higher", or transcendent, variety of Mercury. In other words, this is not the physical Adam Rishon, it's the spiritual Adam Kadmon.
• In this photoshoot Manson is not just bald, but hairless in general. This is because hair is not part of the blueprint of man, it's what we start to grow after we spawn in the world, just like how babies are born hairless.

Recurring Themes

Revolution and Evolution

Evolution and revolution are recurring themes in the album. Evolution is usually mentioned in the context of comparing man to ape, with the main point being that evolved as we are, we haven't really progressed very far. We're still as unsophisticated and violent as the apes we evolved from.

The topic of revolution ties in with the themes of the album on multiple levels. It comes up in the way people with revolutionary ideas often become martyred for standing up for those ideas. Jesus Christ is the quintessential example of that. Another example that is featured in the album is John Lennon. The subject of revolution also comes up as a plot element of the album's story: when Adam realizes that the world he so desperately wanted to fit-in is corrupt, it evokes a desire in him to change the world.

Murderers on TV, the makers of divine martyrs

The album features many references to famous killings: the Columbine massacre, the assassination of JFK, the assassination of John Lennon, and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Sometimes this is done to point out that violence is part of our cultural mythology, sometimes it's done to examine why someone might do such a thing, and sometimes it's done to point out the power of TV. A key point that Manson makes on the album is that when the media televises tragedies like the Columbine massacre, or the assassination of Kennedy, it elevates the cultural status of everybody involved. The perpetrators get their 15 minutes of fame, and this sets an example to other desperate and resentful individuals, who learn that they can get noticed if they do something violent enough. Meanwhile, the deceased become the subject of societal obsession, so much that it begins to resemble religious worship, as if the deceased became god himself. Manson repeats this concept again and again throughout the record, that "the camera will make you god".

On the album, the most prominent martyrs are JFK and Jesus Christ.

JFK

John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States. His family was very prominent in American politics for many years and was held in high esteem by the American public. You could say they were the closest thing America had to the United Kingdom's royal family. Although JFK was already an American icon in his own right, being a president and a member of a highly accomplished and influential family, his cultural status became elevated to even greater heights on November 22, 1963, when he was assassinated in Dallas while travelling in a presidential motorcade. What made the event particularly notorious, was the fact that by sheer chance, his assassination was captured on film by Abraham Zapruder, a clothing manufacturer who just wanted a clip of the president he voted for. Although Zapruder wasn't the only one who was filming and taking photographs on that day, his film features the most complete record of the event and includes a clear view of the headshot moment. This film became known as the Zapruder Film, and the headshot moment as Frame 313. The film was initially only published in selected stills, but was eventually aired on TV in full. The first TV broadcast of the whole film was done by Los Angeles station KTLA on February 14, 1969, which was Valentine's Day in the year Marilyn Manson was born.

The man implicated in the shooting was Lee Harvey Oswald, a US marine veteran. His motive was never properly ascertained, partly because he himself was assassinated two days after killing JFK. However, the report submitted by the Warren Commission, which was created to investigate the assassination, featured some speculation on his motives:

It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history - a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times.

The Warren Commission also concluded that Oswald was acting alone and was not part of any conspiracy. Many people refused to accept this finding, and the conspiracy theories about the assassination still persist to this day. The theories postulate the involvement of the CIA, the KGB, the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, or any combination of those people and organizations.

The assassination of JFK is featured heavily on this album, mentioned in about one third of all the songs. Often when Manson talks about JFK, he calls him Jack, which is a common nickname for John. The reason for this is that the story of Jesus is also featured heavily on the album, and that story also has a character named John (the Baptist). Referring to JFK as Jack is done to avoid confusion between the two.

JFK is also often referred to as "the king". This is a reference to the conspiracy theory "King Kill 33", which claims that it was the Freemasons who assassinated JFK in order to perform the Killing of The King rite.

Jesus Christ

While in previous albums Manson took an antagonistic approach to Christianity, on Holy Wood he started drawing inspiration from it. Of all the people referenced on this album, Christ encompasses the largest number of Holy Wood's topics: being a revolutionary, being a martyr, being a celebrity, being an image of violence:

The cosmic egg

There are many alchemical and Kabbalistic references in the Holy Wood era. For the most part, these elements appear in the artwork and music videos, and will be discussed in those sections of this article. But there is one alchemical metaphor that made it into the lyrics and became a recurring metaphor, and that's the egg.

There seem to be two meanings to the egg, which together capture the recurring idea in Holy Wood that dying on TV makes you into a god. First, the egg represents the frailty of human beings. On the song Godeatgod the egg is mentioned in reference to JFK being shot in the head, and in Coma Black it's in reference to breaking someone's heart. Both cases are described as fatal, something that cannot be repaired, much like how there is no way to mend a broken egg. In 2016, Manson posted this image to social media that is a pretty good illustration of a broken egg being a representation of death:

The Egg with smooth arrogant completeness, trembles in the green plastic-pagan grass. This is why the Rabbit crushes him...And a martyr is born.
--Instagram post caption

Although this image was posted many years after the release of Holy Wood, it's possible that Manson was aware of this illustration much earlier, and the image's Instagram caption does mention martyrdom, one of the main themes on the album. At the very least, even if no connection exists between this image and the album, it's still a nice representation of how the broken egg imagery works to represent being broken beyond repair.

The second meaning of the egg metaphor lies in the album's connection to alchemy. Eggs have a history of being used in alchemy, mysticism, and mythology to represent the mysteries of the world. Some of those uses appear in the album artwork:

The meaning of the egg that I believe is most relevant to the album lies in the mythology of the cosmic egg, a concept Manson is familiar with, having mentioned it in a Holy Wood era interview, and also tattooed it on his body. The cosmic egg is a motif in world creation myths of many proto-Indo-European cultures. In those cosmogonic stories, the world, or the gods, come into existence by hatching from an egg.

In conclusion: death is a breaking of an egg, and when the egg "breaks", a god is born.

Relationship to the Triptych

The albums Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals, and Holy Wood, comprise the trinity of albums that Manson and the fans call "the triptych". The idea of the triptych is that there's supposedly a coherent story that is told across the three albums, one that was planned by Manson ahead of time. In actuality, there's pretty much no hard evidence that the albums were premeditated. All of them seem to be a product of whatever was going on in Manson's life at the time, which is to say based on events that Manson couldn't possibly have anticipated.

Over the years of working on the triptych, Manson changed the way he viewed its chronology. At the time of Holy Wood's release, he conceptualized the album to be the beginning of the story. This is reflected in naming the protagonist "Adam", a name strongly associated with the story of Genesis, the beginning of the world, as well as Manson drawing inspiration from the year of his birth, his own beginning:

Song Analysis

A: In The Shadow

This section describes the things that are in the shadow [...of Death Valley]. In other words, it's an exposition piece about the cultural setting of the story, a society where revolution ends in martyrdom, death is broadcast on TV, and teenagers who were once eager to fit in, but were rejected and discarded, are ready for a fight.

Godeatgod

The title of this song is a play on the phrase "dog eat dog", which means fierce competition where people are willing to do anything for success, even if it means hurting someone else. Replacing "dog" with "god" takes that cruelty and frames it in the concept of martyrdom, which on this album, is how one achieves godlike status in society.

In an interview with Kerrang magazine, Manson said that this song is "loosely about the character of Adam. The song is about him contemplating things from Death Valley". We can surmise from this that the narrator in this song is Adam, who is watching a martyr-crucifixion happening.

The song opens with a distorted sample of the sounds that seal the album: a revolver being cocked and fired, and the sound of fireworks. It reflects the idea that this is a recurring story, a cycle that repeats itself. Upon first listening, it acts as foreshadowing.

The Love Song

In an interview with Kerrang magazine, Manson said this about the song:

In this song, a child is represented by a bullet, who is in love with the society where he wants to fit in. The hand and pistol that end up firing the bullet are either the society that rejects the bullet, or the parents that raised the bullet, depending on how you want to look at the lyrics.

Samples

The song ends with this sample: "Maybe it's the best night... I think he should have done... twelve hail Marys... get long..." Source unknown.

The Fight Song

In an interview with Kerrang magazine, Manson said this about the song:

Disposable Teens

This song is like the anthem of misfit teenagers. It describes their status in society, and their subsequent mentality towards that society. As an aside, it also hints at some generational tension, between the idealists of the 60s and 70s, and the children they ended up raising. This is something that is easy to miss, since the references are very subtle and ambiguous, and you can certainly interpret the entire song without addressing that aspect of it. However, Manson pointed it out in an interview with Metal Edge magazine:

D: The Androgyn

There is an idea that comes from Jewish Midrash, specifically the Genesis Rabbah, an ancient text of rabbinical interpretations for the Book of Genesis, that postulates that Adam was created as an androgynous creature, which is why God was later able to separate him into man and woman. Manson's previous album Mechanical Animals featured an androgynous alien as a main character. The androgynous nature of the alien was meant to represent the idea that he doesn't fit in with anyone, since his androgyny makes him incompatible with both sexes. In summary, the androgyn is Adam, and the androgyn is a misfit. This suggests that this section is will be about Adam's point of view as a misfit, unlike the previous section which was more about describing the societal setting in general.

Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis)

In an interview with Kerrang magazine Manson said that "[this song] to me is about being a nobody and wanting to be somebody". The song is written like a sarcastic apology for not fitting in with society. The speaker is clearly resentful of this fact, but being a pitiful anonymous, he can't do anything about it.

The song also discusses the role TV plays in shaping society. The name of the song, Target Audience, is a media term that refers to the demographic that the media tries to appeal to. The subtitle Narcissus Narcosis is also a media reference, this time for the work of Marshal McLuhan, a famous media analyst that Manson has a well-established fascination with. Chapter 4 of his book Understanding Media starts with a segment called "narcissus as narcosis", where McLuhan uses the story of Narcissus from Greek mythology as an introduction to the subject of the chapter. The idea of that chapter, called The Gadget Lover, is that depictions of ourselves outside of ourselves (for example the TV, or in Narcissus' case- his reflection in the water) numb us, and thus provide comfort that counteracts the various stresses that life imposes on us. In other words, TV induced numbness is a coping strategy. Together, the title and subtitle evoke the image of a society self-medicating through addiction to the media, which is controlled by "old deceivers", who know very well what they are doing when they target their audience. By invoking Marshal's work, Manson attempts to give insight into why the TV holds the power that it does.

So, to summarize, our speaker is a misfit who wishes he could be somebody, and he learns from watching TV that the media can make him be heard.

Samples

The song ends with a sample "The president is dead. Let us pray."" It is taken from a WABC Radio broadcast by Don Gardiner, which confirmed JFK's death after previously reporting the shooting incident. It segues us to the next song.

"President Dead"

The name of this song is in reference to the headline that appeared in printed press covering the assassination of JFK.

This song has a duration of 3 minutes and 13 seconds. Frame 313 in the famous Zapruder Film is the precise frame in which JFK is shot. Manson said in interviews that this was a coincidence, but a welcome one.

This is a silly and humorous song with quirky imagery and word play. We have the dumbass President Dead, egg people, and God who is a piggy in a fair. Overall, the song pokes fun at the culture of violence where martyrdom and dead presidents are worshipped.

In The Shadow of The Valley of Death

In this song, Adam laments the fact that he doesn't fit in, and how lonely and worthless it makes him feel.

Cruci-Fiction In Space

The name of this song comes from the book Monumental Christianity, by John P. Lundy. This is a scholarly book that studies the art and symbolism of early Christian church. In chapter 7, The Good Shepherd, Lundy points out that the story of Jesus has parallels in many pre-Christianity stories. One way in which Lundy demonstrates it, is by discussing a Hindu art piece, which is reproduced in Holy Wood's artwork:

Of this image, Lundy wrote the following:

The notion that the victim-savior archetype is universal, and thus appears in multiple mythologies, connects to multiple ideas in this song. The first idea is the innate nature of violence. Just as we've been killing each other since the dawn of time, way before we had Rock music, video games, and TV to "inspire" such behavior, so does the appeal of martyrdom seems to be primeval. In fact, it seems like we didn't even need Christianity for it to be invented. Second, there's the "cruci-fiction" word play, which addresses the idea that this is a recurring story. It recurs in world mythologies, as it does in real life. In this song, Manson embraces this concept to write some of his own "fan fiction" about what a modern-day gospel of Jesus Christ would've been like.

A Place in The Dirt

In this song, the speaker descends into nihilism, and begins to develop a relationship with death, the only thing of beauty he can see in an ugly world. Inspired by JFK's death, he is ready to become another celebrity who dies on TV.

A: Of Red Earth

The Hebrew word "Adamah" means "earth" (the ground, not the planet). The Hebrew word "Adom" means "red". Adam, Adamah, and Adom all have the same Hebrew root (אדם), meaning they are etymologically connected. This connection is considered meaningful in traditional Jewish theology, as it reinforces the world creation narrative of the Old Testament wherein man is created from the dust of the ground. In other words, Adam is "of the earth", and specifically "of red earth", or red clay. Outside of the theological context, we can also reasonably interpret that the earth is red because it is covered in blood, an image very apt for the theme of Holy Wood.

While the first section of the album- In The Shadow- could be thought of as an exposition for the setting of the story, and the second section, The Androgyn, an exposition about Adam- his thoughts and feelings about being an outsider, this third section is more about the here and now of coping with being an "insider". You made the effort to step into society, try to participate, only to be greeted by terrible disillusionment. The grass isn't greener on that side; it's actually just as bad, if not worse, as the place you came from, and not everyone can deal with it in a healthy manner. Some are driven to shoot up their school (The Nobodies), someone else may be driven to kill a celebrity (Lamb of God), and Adam just becomes incredibly cynical, giving up on caring in the face of an almost Kafkaesque levels of societal absurdity.

The Nobodies

This is the song that speaks in the most direct way about the Columbine massacre, and how it was treated by the media.

Lyrics	Commentary
Today I am dirty and I want to be pretty Tomorrow, I know that I'm just dirt	A straightforward way to understand this verse is that it's about feeling unworthy, and thinking this will never change. A more ominous way to understand this verse is by employing a double meaning to the word dirty, where in the first line it means "bad" or "unworthy", and in the third line it implies being one with the earth, or in other words- dead and buried. Finally, some people associate the word choice in this verse with a quote from Carl Panzram, although I'm not aware of any interview in which Manson admitted the connection. Panzram was a serial criminal who truly hated life and devoted all of his effort to take vengeance on the world. His list of crimes includes murder, rape, arson, and robbery, and at some point, he even contemplated ways to provoke a war between the United States and Britain. While he was in prison, he made friends with a physician who encouraged him to write his autobiography, and he did. It's called Panzram, and one passage from it is theorized to inspire this song's lyrics: So if I succeed in my effort at suicide tonight then this will sure be the last I'll ever say or write on this earth. The choice is mine and I fully realize just what I am doing. I would like to have it known just why I do this. I had no choice about coming into this world and nearly all of my 38 years in it I have had very little to say or do about how I should live my life. People have driven me into doing everything I have ever done. Now the time has come when I refuse to be driven any further. Tonight I die and tomorrow I go to the grave farther than that no man can drive me I am sure glad to leave this lousy world and the lousier people that live in it. But of all the lousy people in this world I believe that I am the lousiest of them all. Today I am dirty but tomorrow I'll be just DIRT. --Carl Panzram, autobiogrpahy
We are the nobodies we wanna be somebodies when we're dead, they'll know just who we are	There is a theory that the word choice in this chorus is inspired by Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon. He told the authorities that: "I was an acute nobody. I had to usurp someone else's importance, someone else's success. I was 'Mr. Nobody' until I killed the biggest Somebody on earth." --Mark David Unlike the Panzram theory, this one is considerably more substantiated, since Manson mentions Mark David explicitly in the song Lamb of God. However, I'm still not aware of any official word on the matter.
Yesterday I was dirty wanted to be pretty I know now that I'm forever dirt We are the nobodies we wanna be somebodies when we're dead, they'll know just who we are
Some children died the other day we fed machines and then we prayed puked up and down in morbid faith you should have seen the ratings that day...	This part speaks of the aftermath of the shooting, and how society reacted to it. How the media was all over the story (the machines being fed are news cameras), and how everybody tried to put the "god band aid" on the event, saying "comforting" things such as "they're with god now", which is way more morbid than it is comforting if you think about it. Everybody tuned in to watch the news, with the rating being as high as the most popular entertainment events like the super bowl, or the finale of a popular TV series. This is why the merchandise for the era included a T-shirt that said: Is adult entertainment killing our children? Or is killing children entertains our adults?

The Death Song

This is a song about disillusionment with how you've been told to live your life, the realization that the grass isn't greener on the other side, that there's no "greener" place nor future to aim for, and the nihilistic attitude it inspires.

In an interview with Metal Edge magazine, Manson said that this song is "very sarcastic and nihilistic. It's like 'we have no future, and we don't give a fuck'".

Samples

The song ends with a choir singing "(You reign now) in heaven with Jesus our King" from "Immaculate Mary - Lourdes Hymn".

Lamb of God

Lamb of God is a title for Jesus Christ. It appears in the Gospel of John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and says:

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The term originates from the ancient practice of sacrificing lambs to God as an act of worship, and as an act of atonement for sin. Jesus is the lamb of God because God sent him to be sacrificed to cleanse the world of sin.

Born Again

A born again is someone who converts to Christianity. The term represents the spiritual rebirth that happens when one accepts Jesus Christ as the lord and savior. Thus, the term can be seen as the act of joining a group, and attempting to fit in by accepting their values. In this song, Manson uses the term as a metaphor for an artist selling out.

Burning Flag

A burning flag is a metaphor for a nation in turmoil. A great deal of the song describes how fucked up things have become, and the rest of the lyrics are about being a misfit in such an environment.

M: The Fallen

This is the part of the story where everything ends badly for our protagonist. The way in which I think the songs connect with one another, is that:

15. The world creates a rift between Adam and his lover, causing him to lose the only good thing in his life. At first, he simply wants to kill himself. But then...
16. He sees a girl committing suicide on TV. Maybe this girl is his lover, maybe it's just some random girl. Adam is haunted by this image and decides that a world where something like this is celebrated deserves to be punished. His plan turns to a killing spree.
17. He prepares to assassinate the president.
18. He goes on a killing spree.
19. Having evaded the police long enough to reach home, Adam knows there's nowhere left to run, and he commits suicide.

Coma Black: a) Eden Eye, b) The Apple of Discord

Manson's previous album Mechanical Animals had a song called Coma White. Naturally, this gives rise to a contrast with Coma Black, though the nature and the extent of the contrast is not obvious. There's no official information about this song that I'm aware of that can shed some clear light on how much of it ties in with Coma White, and in what way, and how much of it is meant to stand on its own, and the song is abstract enough that you could interpret it either way. You could interpret it as a work of Holy Woodian fiction that bears only superficial similarities to the concept of the original song, but it is also possible to interpret it as something that is rooted deeply in the original concept of Coma White, and that's the direction that I lean to, since I think that the name of the song is too specific to not be meaningful.

Coma White was inspired by Manson's fiancé Rose McGowan. Rose had a long series of abusive experiences in Hollywood that left her emotionally wounded, and Coma White was essentially about that. Manson and Rose broke up following the Columbine fiasco, in late 2000, with Rose implying that it was due to his drug use. Since the Columbine incident was undoubtedly a stressful period for Manson, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a contributing factor which intensified Manson's drug use beyond what Rose was able to tolerate. So, one tempting interpretation is that Coma Black was inspired by Manson losing Rose in the midst of a difficult period of his life. The spoken words that open the song, which aren't part of the official lyrics, seem to fit with this concept:

A loved one laid his head in her lap
Red roses fell to the floor
And the world stood still.

Rose co-starred with Manson in the music video for Coma White, where they played Jackie Onassis and JFK, respectively. The video recreated the JFK assassination, which looked like this:

Wounded by the world (in this case Columbine), Manson laid his head in her lap for comfort. Then, Rose slipped away from him (roses fell to the floor), and life as he knew it stopped (the world stood still).

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is the holiday of love. In this case, the love that's being celebrated is the Holy Woodian love of death, so every joyous occasion in which someone dies is like Valentine's Day.

It's interesting to note that the first time that the Zapruder Film was shown in full on TV was February 14, 1969, which was Valentine's Day in the year Manson was born, so this could be what inspired the concept of the song.

The Fall of Adam

The fall of Adam is a term in Christianity that refers to the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. In the bible it happens when Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge. On Holy Wood, it happens when an outcast finally makes the decision to open fire at the world that wronged him.

King Kill 33°

King-Kill/33: Masonic Symbolism in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy is a conspiratorial essay written by James Shelby Downard, originally published in the first edition of the book Apocalyptic Culture. Shelby was a conspiracy theorist who focused on analyzing occult symbolism and synchronicity of historic events, and in King Kill 33 he advances a theory that it was the Freemasons who orchestrated the assassination of JFK to perform a ritual called the Killing of The King. The number 33 refers to the highest degree in the Scottish rite of Masonry.

This song is the angry manifest of someone who felt so mistreated by society that they decided to take vengeance upon the world. The statements made in the lyrics would not look out of place in the diaries of the Columbine shooters. In the context of the story that is told in the album, this would be the song in which Adam goes on a shooting spree.

Count To Six And Die (The Vacuum of Infinite Space Encompassing)

The name "Count To Six And Die" is a reference to the revolver pistol, a pistol that has a 6 bullet cylinder. In the Russian Roulette game, only one chamber in the cylinder is loaded with a bullet. The participants take turn firing the pistol at their own head until one of them ends up shooting the bullet at their head.

The subtitle "The Vacuum of Infinite Space Encompassing" is a reference to a diagram that appeared in an 1879 illustrated edition of Milton's Paradise Lost.

This diagram is a map of the universe according to Milton's Paradise Lost, as interpreted by Homer B. Sprague. The black half circle at the top is Heaven, or The Empyrean, AKA the kingdom of God. The sphere with the many circles (our starry universe) is the kingdom of man, the "new world" that God created, suspended from the Heaven by a golden chain (not depicted here). At the very bottom is hell, the place Satan and his angels fall to after being defeated by the army of God. In between hell and the Empyrean is the realm of chaos and night, a vast expanse of untamed potential that was never shaped by God into anything concrete.

According to this diagram, there's a space of ultimate nothingness outside of the universe created by God, a place so empty it lacks even the spirit of God. In Count To Six And Die, it represents the nothingness that your consciousness disappears into when you die.

The song begins with the sound of a door shutting, followed by silence, followed by music that retains the feeling of a quiet empty space. The protagonist of our story managed to escape somewhere private after the killing spree in the previous song, but he knows that the world is on his heels, and judgment is just a few steps behind him. It is now or never. Adam commits suicide.

The song ends with the sound of the revolver being cocked and shot 5 times, each one a firing of an empty chamber. The gun cocks one last time, and the album ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper, because dead people don't hear the gunshot that killed them.

Artwork

Front

In an interview for Hotpress, Manson had this to say about the cover of the album:

It's a combination of my jawless face with the statue of Christ taken from a church. The image was supposed to suggest that something we've take for granted all our lives can be looked at as something violent and sexual as well. So religious people who indict entertainment as being violent, it's kind of ironic because Christ was the first celebrity and all entertainment comes from religion. And my jaw being removed is to represent the silencing of people with dangerous opinions.
--Marilyn Manson, Hotpress interview

Above Manson's head are the letters RI, and the letter omega. The omega represents "the end", based on the line from Revelation:

I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
--Revelation 21:6

The letters RI are from the initialism INRI (Latin: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum), which means "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews" (John 19:19). At the very bottom, poking through the tears, is a page from JFK's autopsy report.

Back

The symbol Manson is resting his head on is the Sigillum Dei, the seal of God, AKA the Seal of Truth in John Dee's version. It is believed to allow a magician to possess the spirit of God, and become God among humans.

Booklet

The flower coming out of the head is inspired by an interpretation of William Blake's work. One of the images that appear in the album artwork is a diagram of the world cosmology according to Blake's poetry. The parts of the diagram that are relevant to this picture are:

"The Mundane Shell": represents the skull, which encloses the brain in which consciousness resides.

...and right underneath it:

"Iris as Allamanda": In Blake's work, Allamanda is the nervous system. However, Allamanda is also a flower.

So, underneath the skull is a flower, and when a bullet creates a hole in the skull, it allows the flower to grow out through the hole. For more information, see section Visionary Geography in William Blake's Poetry.

This image is also surrounded by some text, which is taken from JFK's autopsy report:

...as well as images depicting the evolution of man's skull from ape to modern man, which seem to be from Evolution by Ruth Moore.

Alchemy and Mysticism

Most of the alchemical images in the artwork appear in the book Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob. In fact, one of the alchemical images that appears in the artwork, the one with the words "The vacuum of infinite space encompassing all", has the same truncation of the word "all", as in Roob's book. It is therefore my belief that this book is the source and inspiration for the artwork.

The essence of God

Innermost text:
This Abyssal Nothing will introduce itself into - Something Viz into Nature; that is into Properties: and through Nature into Glory & Majesty. This now is done

...the end of this text continues into two spirals:

Inner spiral:
by a Sharp, Harsh or Strong Desire, represented by this Gross and Dark Circling Line: Which Desire is turning out, together with the Lubet (yet not mixed nor...

Outer spiral:
by a Soft, Meek or Tender Lubet, represented by this finer Circling Line: Which Lubet goes: along with (but secretly and incomprehensibly to) the Desire through.

This illustration is taken from volume 2 of The Works of Jacob Behmen, a four-volume collection of Jakob Böhme's writings, compiled by William Law. Jakob Böhme was a German mystic whose work featured many alchemical references, as well as elements of Gnosticism and the Kabbalah. The illustration itself was done by another German mystic, Dionysius Andreas Freher, whose work focused primarily on Jakob Böhme's theories.

This illustration belongs to a sequence of thirteen illustrations that depict the story of creation, fall of Lucifer, fall of Adam, and then man's redemption through Jesus. It is the first illustration in the sequence, representing the pre-creation beginning, in which there was only God and nothing else. The spiraling nature of the illustration might be in reference to Böhme's idea that "The essence of God is like a wheel", and that God consists of two centrifugal and centripetal forces of will and unwill. This is why the inner spiral reads "which desire is turning out" (meaning outward), and the outer spiral reads "which lubet goes along with (but secretly to) the desire", meaning inward towards the inner circle.

The triangle represents the trinity. The Hebrew word in the middle of the triangle is called Tetragrammaton. It represents God's true name, and reads something like "Yahweh", although the true pronunciation is unknown, having been lost to time due to a Jewish superstition against uttering the name. It is considered to have immense power and is featured heavily in occult theories.

Further analysis from the author himself can be found in the appendix of the book where the image appears, which has a few pages "explaining" the 13 illustrations. For this illustration, the explanation reads as follows:

GOD, without all Nature and Creature. The Unformed Word in Trinity without all Nature. Vid. et N.B. Mysterium Magnum, iv. 3. The Eternal Unity, or Oneness, deeper than any Thought can reach. A and Ω; the Eternal Beginning and the Eternal End, the First and the Last. The greatest softness, Meekness, Stillness, Etc. Nothing and All. Eternal Liberty. Abyss, without Ground, Time, and Place. The Still Eternity. Mysterium Magnum without Nature. Chaos. The Mirror of Wonders, or Wonderful Eye of Eternity. The first Temperature, or Temperature of Nothingness; a Calm, Serene Habitation, but without all Luster and Glory. The Trinity Unmanifest, or rather, that Triune Unsearchable Being, which cannot be an Object of any created Understanding.

Egg astrology

This illustration comes from John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica, a series of 24 theorems interpreting a symbol that he invented, called the Hieroglyphic Monad. The illustration appears in Theorem 18, which states that:

Theor. 18: From our twelfth and thirteenth Theorems it may be gathered that Celestial Astronomy is like a parent and master to INFERIOR [Astronomy].
[...]
As we were contemplating both the Theoretical and the Heavenly motions of that Celestial MESSENGER [Mercury], we were taught that the figure of an EGG might be applied to these COORDINATIONS. For it is well-known to Astronomers that he makes an OVAL-shaped Circuit on his course through the Aether.

Dee's theory is rooted in a school of thought that sees the fields of astronomy and alchemy as being derivatives of the same ancient principles, and therefore are really the same field of study, just coming at it from different directions. So, in theorem 18, when he speaks of "inferior astronomy", he actually refers to alchemy, the non-celestial astronomy.

The illustration shows the orbit of the planets, and how the varying radiuses of those orbits form the shape of an egg. From bottom to top, the symbols of the planets are: moon, "lunar" mercury, Venus, sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. If you are surprised by the fact that the Earth doesn't appear in the illustration, or confused by the strange order of the planets, the reason for that is because it is based on a geocentric world view which puts the Earth as the center of the universe. So, the Earth has no orbit, and would logically be located at the bottom tip of the egg.

The illustration has an inner circle, which divides the egg into inner and outer spaces, corresponding to the egg whites and the yolk. This divides the planets into "solar" planets, located in the yolk, and "lunar" planets, located in the white. The solar planets are planets whose symbols contain the sun symbol (a circle), and the lunar are the ones that contain the lunar symbol (the half circle). This separation is also demonstrated in the table below, with solar planets on the right, and lunar on the left:

It's interesting to note that Mercury appears as both a lunar and a solar planet, due to there being two versions of symbols that represent it. Of the solar version of Mercury, Dee wrote that:

In this progression Appears another Mercury, who indeed is the Uterine Brother of the first. This is clearly the fully complete Lunar and Solar Magic of the Elements, as the Hieroglyphic Messenger tells us most expressly, if only we fix our eyes upon him and lend him an attentive ear. He is (GOD WILLING) that most Famous Mercury of the Philosophers, the MICROCOSM and ADAM.

All of this bears an interesting connection to the theme of the album. In Holy Wood, a mortal can ascend to the status of a god, much like how the symbol of Mercury, which represents Adam, has an inferior (lunar) and superior (solar) version.

He who wields the elements

These two images are from the 1676 alchemical work De Goude Leeuw of den aſijn der wijſen (The Gold Lion or The Vinegar Of The Wise) by Goossen van Vreeswyk. Goossen was a mining expert who had extensive knowledge of minerals, and his alchemical work was heavily focused on preparing extracts from animals, vegetables, and minerals.

Interpreting these two images within the context of Holy Wood requires some speculation since we have no idea where Manson got them from. However, it is my assumption that Manson probably did not delve into the alchemical technicalities of the images, and instead relied on third party interpretations. Had he actually studied the source material for these specific images, I do not believe it would've been very useful for him artistically, since based on partial reading of Goossen's book, I can report that it leans very heavily on the chemistry part of alchemy.

These two images are notable for the fact that they do not appear in Alchemy & Mysticism, unlike most of the alchemical images in this album. One place where they do appear is the book The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola, which provides the following analysis:

Image with the man:

Hercules as a child throttled the snakes sent by Juno to kill him. In alchemical symbolism Hercules is the Artist; the killing of the snakes is Fixation of the Volatile; and the flight of the Birds is Volatilization. The Four Elements are represented by Dolphin, Dragon, Bird and Salamander. As all the Philosophers maintain, he who can convert Earth into Water, the same Water into Air, the same Air into Fire, and the same Fire into Earth, shall know the entire process of the Philosopher's Stone.

Image without the man:

Opened by the martial sword, our Subject yields the Vitriol of the Wise.

Although the phrase "vitriol of the wise" sounds like it means "cruel and bitter criticism by the wise" to a modern ear, it actually means something else alchemically. First of all, the word "vitriol" used to mean "sulfuric acid", and second, if you look at the BLAD-WYSER appendix in Goossen's book, which features an index of the topics discussed in the book and the page numbers on which they appear, it becomes apparent that by "vitriol" he actually meant "vinegar":
The appendix says that "Vitriool of Acetum der Wyʃen" is referenced in page number 1. The translation of this entry means "Vitriol or acetum of the wise", with acetum being an archaic name for vinegar. The page number it points us to is the book cover, which contains the phrase "or the vinegar of the wise".

We do not have information about whether Manson is familiar with Stanislas' book and the quotes it contains about the above images, but Stanislas' book does seem to have some level of fame, based on the fact that it is listed for ridiculous prices in the second hand market, and there is another image in the artwork of Holy Wood that doesn't appear in Alchemy & Mysticism, but does appear in The Golden Game (Saturn devouring his child). Therefore, it seems plausible that this book was also used by Manson as reference, though this is still within the realm of speculation. What is interesting to note is that the analysis provided by Stanislas can be easily tied to Holy Wood.

The idea that the conduit of transformation is an artist, is something that would undoubtedly appeal to Manson. And while it's unclear to me whether the man in the image is really supposed to be Hercules, he could just as easily be Adam, because Adam has a unique status in alchemy, often referred to as the first alchemist, so a depiction of him wielding the elements with skill is apt. The fact that the two pictures feature exactly the same alchemical symbols could be tied to the idea that you cannot change the world: Adam came and tried to wield the elements to transform the world, and when he was gone, the world was still the same. Finally, let's consider the commentary for the second image: opened by the martial sword, our Subject yields the Vitriol of the Wise. If you interpret "vitriol of the wise" in the modern sense of "cruel and bitter criticism by the wise", which is an easy mistake to make for anyone who isn't working with the source material, we get something that fits the story of Holy Wood really well: our martyr protagonist has insight about society, hence he is wise. He unleashes his cruel and bitter criticism on the world by violently sacrificing himself using the martial sword.

It is finished when seven are one

This image appears in The Paradoxical Emblems by Dionysius Andreas Freher, emblem number 139. The Paradoxical Emblems is a book of illustrations that represent concepts from the alchemical work of Jakob Böhme. Alchemy & Mysticism quotes Jakob Böhme in relation to this image:

It Is Finished When Seven Are One. "'The curse of God has entered the seven figures, so they are in conflict with one another.' Just as the human will was transformed 'into eternal sun, calm in God,' 'so in the Philosophical Work must all figures be transformed into one, into Sol. From seven must come one, and yet it remains in seven but in one desire, as every figure desires the others in love, so there is no longer any conflict.'

The concept of the seven becoming one is represented in the illustration by the symbols in the outer ring becoming enmeshed together in the inner circle, which itself looks like the symbol for Sol (a circle with a point in the middle). The featured symbols are the alchemical symbols for various planets (which also represent metals), specifically Moon, the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars and Venus. The phrase "it is finished when the seven are one" represents the completion of the Great Work of the alchemist, the achievement of alchemy's holy grail. It also represents a personal transformation, since alchemical philosophy considered transmutation of the inner self to be strongly related to the material-altering aspects of alchemical work. The process of personal transmutation involves the purification of the soul, the integration of inner urges, achievement of balance, and spiritual enlightenment. To complete the Great Work in relation to the self means achieving transcendence.

This connection between changing the material world and changing the self connects to the idea in Holy Wood that if you try to change the world, you'll just end up changing yourself.

Saturn devouring his child

This image appears in Chymica Vannus, an alchemical book written by an unknown author.

The image depicts the Roman/Greek god Saturn devouring his child to prevent the prophesy that his children will one day overthrow him. The idea of parents standing in the way of their children appears not only on Holy Wood, but in Manson's previous work as well.

For easy reading, the text in the image is reproduced below:

CHEMICÆ VANNI
Orbis
SATURNI;
Quòd SaturI color in coronide2 lautâ prodeat urnâ 3 :
Penſum quotidianum.
Outer circle: Natus ut ontne coronari rex poßit in avum.
Inner circle: Non benecum multis veneris lapidisque fit uſus.
Sacellum Saturni

Footer:
I. Hic idem eſt, quod perfectus plenus &c. quiſcilicetnon amplius mutiua, vel inſicitur, ut aliquid ulterius tinctura admittat.
2. Ie. Infine operis, ſeu corontione ejusdein; dictum ?? corouis idis, quaſi corrona operis.
3. E.e. Ingenti cum quaſi quia urna, ex uſu antiqisorum, ponitur pro magns ſortis delfortuna lucro & c.
PHŒNICIS five HEL.

Levi's Tetragrammaton Pentagram

This image was created by the French occultist Eliphas Levi, published in his book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. It is composed of symbols that represent "human existence", and implies that humanity has aspects of divinity by surrounding it with the word "tetragrammaton". The concept was inspired by the work of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, who published a version of the pentagram that represented man as the perfect work of God.

A lot of the symbolism in the image has already been pointed out on the image itself. Here are some additional points:

• Around the pentagram is the word "tetragrammaton", which is Greek for "the four-letter word". It is a reference to the Hebrew word יהוה, which is God's true name, and reads something like "Yahweh", although the true pronunciation is unknown, having been lost to time due to a Jewish superstition against uttering the name.
• The pentagram represents the 4 elements: water, air, earth, and fire, as well as the 5th element, which is spirit. When the top point is facing up, it represents a person, with the top being the head, the tips below it as the arms, and the bottom tips as the legs.
• Notice the many depictions of balance in the image: the alpha and the omega, the moon and the sun, masculine and feminine.
• Next to the letter Omega is the caduceus (two snakes encircling a staff).

The Hebrew letters in the pentagram are a total mess:

• אדמ - the most natural way to read this is Adam, and this is how most people interpret these letters. However, the letters have multiple oddities. The first oddity is that the middle letter actually looks like the letter Reish (ר), not the letter Daled (ד). This is a problem that appears all over Levi's pentagram- there's no proper distinction between ד and ר, and the viewer has to make an educated guess based on knowledge of Hebrew. In this case, since ארמ is meaningless, אדמ is assumed to be the intended meaning. Another oddity is that the last letter (מ) is in its incorrect form: when the letter Mem appears at the end of the word, it's supposed to look like this: ם.
• הוה - it's not entirely clear if these letters are meant to be הוה or הוח. The most common interpretation is that it's הוה, like the tetragrammaton word יהוה but without the first letter. There are reinterpretations of Levi's pentagram that actually feature the full word יהוה instead of the three letters. The הוח option is meaningless when read in the normal direction (right to left), but if you read it in reverse, you get Eve. Since these letters are on the opposite side of the letters for Adam, it's a plausible interpretation in my opinion.
• כתר - Keter, the topmost Sephira. This one is confusing in all three letters. The first letter could be either פ or כ. It's probably supposed to be כ, since the aspects that make it look like פ seem to be part of the "shading" scribbles, but it's not 100% clear which option is correct. The middle letter looks like ח, but if the first letter is indeed כ, then it makes more sense for the second letter to be ת. The last letter could either be ד or ר. Overall, the word that is spelled here could either be פחד, which means fear, or כתר, which is one of the Sephirot. כתר seems to be the most common interpretation.
• כפר - there are multiple ways to read this word. Depending on the context it could mean ransom, village, frost, atonement, or heresy.

The Vacuum(?) of Infinite Space Encompassing All

This is a map of the universe according to Milton's Paradise Lost, as interpreted by Homer B. Sprague. It appeared in an 1879 illustrated edition of the novel. See the song Count To Six And Die for more information.

Visionary Geography in William Blake's Poetry

Alchemy & Mysticism offers the following commentary on this image:

Large parts of William Blake's poetry are concerned with a detailed engagement with Isaac Newton's materialist view of the world, particularly his optics. In Blake's view the physical eye is dull and dim 'like a black pebble in a churning sea,' and the optic nerve, to which Newton pays homage, 'builds stone bulwarks against the raging sea.' (Blake, Milton, 1804) Blake instead turned to the work of Jacon Böhme, and attempted to develop an optics of the visionary.

According to the hypothesis of Easson and Easson, which fails to take into account many aspects of the poetry, every level of Blake's poem 'Milton' is based on an optical model, inscribed within the form of the cosmic egg.

K.P. Easson and R.R. Easson, A hypothetical model for the visionary geography in 'Milton,' from W. Blake, Milton, London, 1979

Explanation of the diagram:

Retina as Eden: the Empyrean, the kingdom of God.

Adam Space: the sphere that contains the world of humanity.

Chamber of vitreous humor as Beulah: "the realm of the Subconscious, the source of poetic inspiration and of dreams." According to Alexander S. Gourlay, a Blake scholar, it is "a dreamy paradise where the sexes, though divided, blissfully converse in shameless selflessness. Beulah is available through dreams and visions to those in Ulro, the utterly fallen world."

Rock of Ages: the Rock of Ages is a Christian hymn, written by Augustus Toplady. The term refers to the strength of God, and the stability and protection this strength provides to his followers.

Golgonooza: a mythical city in the work of William Blake. It is a city of imagination, built by Los. It appears in his poem Jerusalem, and also makes an appearance in the poem Milton.

Mundane Shell: represents the skull in which encloses the brain in which consciousness resides. This is why it's a microcosm.

Iris as Allamanda: The country which supplies sustinance to Golgonooza. The nervous system of the body. Allamanda is also a flower. The Polypus (or polyp) is a term that appears multiple times in Blake's poetry, representing an aquatic living thing.

Bowlahoola: furnaces in the middle of Golgonooza.

Udan-Adan: the name of a lake of space from Blake's The Four Zoas.

Entuthon Benython: a land of Urizen east of Golgonooza. "A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end. Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination."

Ulro: is the internal condition of blackness, opacity, and darkness which occurs when the Divine Vision is lost.

Jacob's Ladder

This diagram is called Jacob's Ladder. It is composed of 4 repetitions of the Tree of Life (the Kabbalistic diagram of Sephirot), corresponding to the 4 worlds. From top to bottom, the worlds are Atziluth (Emanation/Close), Beriah (Creation), Yetzirah (Formation), Assiah (Action). A fifth world also exists, which comes before the other four. That world is Adam Kadmon, which means the "primal man", the prototype of humanity. Adam Kadmon is considered transcendent above the worlds, and is therefore not represented in Jacob's Ladder. However, he is represented in the Tree of Life's upright position, so in a sense he is still represented in the ladder. He is also considered to be united with the Ein Sof at the top of the ladder, so he is represented in this way as well.

Within the context of Holy Wood, the 4 worlds seem analogous to the 4 sections of the album: in the ladder, the divine emanation begins with Adam at the Ein Sof, and as we descend down the ladder, the emanation takes form and develops into action in the physical world, the Assiah Gishmi, at the very bottom of the ladder. In the Holy Wood track list, we follow a progression of thought that begins with Adam as the story's protagonist, and as we descend down the track list, his thoughts develop into an action in the physical world, the killing of the king, at the very bottom of the track list.

This interpretation helps explain why the 4 sections of the album are prefixed with letters spell ADAM. Just as Adam is a meta-pattern of Jacob's Ladder, so is the name Adam a pattern that emerges across the 4 sections of the album.

Crucifixion In Space

See the song Cruci-Fiction In Space for analysis on this image.

Other illustrations

Distribution on body of suicidal incised wounds and stab wounds over body during 8 year period

Nothing to say about this image, included here for easy reading.

Kennedy's Magic Bullet

This image is from Cover-Up: The Governmental Conspiracy to Conceal the Facts About the Public Execution of John Kennedy by J. Gary Shaw. As the name suggests, this is a conspiracy book that attempts to promote the theory that JFK was not assassinated by a lone nut who acted alone, but was instead an organized act, and that the government covered it up. It advocates for reopening the investigation into the assassination so that we could learn what really happened.

One piece of "evidence" that Gary cites in his book is that the information about the gunshot wounds that Kennedy and Connally sustained doesn't match the information about how many bullets were fired. According to the Warren Commission, which was charged with investigating the assassination, a single bullet wounded both Kennedy and Connally. In the above diagram, Gary claims that the single bullet would have to complete an impossible trajectory in order to injure both Kennedy and Connally the way they were injured.

Tarot

The artwork features redesigns of Tarot cards, most of which are based on the popular Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

The Fool

The Fool represents taking the first step in a journey from innocence to wisdom. It's about new beginnings, endless potential, and walking into the unknown. The fool lacks life experience. He is oblivious to the dangers of the world, setting out on a journey with very little supplies, and doesn't even see the cliff edge he is walking towards. His dog companion is trying to warn him of the danger ahead, but the fool doesn't hear it.

In Manson's version, the fool is one of JFK's secret service guards. Him stepping off a cliff could be interpreted as a metaphor for how oblivious they were of the disaster that was to come (JFK's assassination). The only thing he carries is a poster of JFK, since that is his only concern, and in the back, we see Jackie Onassis. Instead of a dog he has a monkey for a companion, which isn't trying to warn him, unlike the dog.

The Magician

The Magician represents logic and intellect, willpower and manifestation, and the transformation of potential to reality. He is standing in a garden, which represents the manifestation of his desires. In Manson's tarot, the magician seems to be in a cemetery, because in Holy Wood, people's desire is for death. The magician is the conduit between the spiritual and the physical, drawing from the heavens using one hand, and directing it to the earth with the other. Manson's magician lacks the hand pointing down, which could be a reference to the idea that you cannot change the physical world, you can only change yourself.

The magician's staff is his means for connecting with the divine. Manson's connection to the divine is via the crucifix, a symbol of martyrdom. The crucifix Manson is holding has a snake wrapped around it. This has both a biblical meaning, and a conspiratorial one. In the conspiratorial article King Kill 33, James Shelby claims that the killing of JFK was done in order to perform the Killing of The King rite, and that:

in alchemy the Killing of the King was symbolized by a crucified snake on a tau cross, a variant of the crucifixion of Jesus.
--James Shelby Downard, King Kill 33

So, the snake around the cross in Manson's tarot is a veiled reference to JFK. As for the biblical angle, in Numbers 21:8, God tells Moses: "Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover". This concept is later echoed in John 3:14-15:
"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life". In other words, the snake on the cross is a symbol of physical and spiritual healing.

Finally, notice that Manson's magician is hollow inside. Another card that is hollow inside in Manson's deck is the High Priestess. This connection is not incidental, since the Magician and the High Priestess are each other's counterparts, with the Magician representing classic masculine traits, and the High Priestess representing classic feminine traits. If we interpret the two to be Adam and Eve, we can say that the hole in the Magician is from the part God took out of him to create Eve, while the High Priestess is hollow inside because she is with child, which came from the empty space inside of her.

The High Priestess

The high priestess is about intuition, the subconscious, spiritual insight, inner voice, the divine feminine. She is the guide that lets you step out of rationality, out of established knowledge, out of conscious thought, and into the spiritual realm of the unknown.

Manson's version seems to have very little to do with the Raider-Waite version of the card, because it is actually a reference to its predecessor: The Popess. This card is based on a legend that in the 9th century, a woman named Joan disguised herself as a man in order to join the priesthood to be with her lover, and was able to advance in ranks to eventually be elected pope. She served in that position for two years before her sex was discovered when she gave birth in the middle of a procession. This seems to be the reason why Manson's High Priestess is holding a small human figure (a baby).

Another reference to The Popess is the structure behind Manson's High Priestess. That structure resembles St. Peter's baldachin, which is believed to be located over the tomb of St. Peter, aka the first pope.

The Emperor

The Emperor represent authority, leadership, structure. In one hand he is holding a scepter, which represents authority and power, while the other hand holds an orb, which represents the world the emperor is ruling over. Manson's version doesn't have an orb, but his source of authority and power is a gun. The emperor sits on a stone throne, which represents stability, while Manson's emperor is sitting in a wheelchair, which represents his lack of stability as he clearly can't stand on his own. The emperor's beard represents wisdom; Manson's emperor has no beard.

Instead of a crown, Manson's emperor is wearing a German Pickelhaube helmet, because a ruler in a country of violence is a warmonger. This specific Pickelhaube is adorned with an eagle, which is rooted in The Emperor's symbolism, as older versions of the card used to feature a shield decorated with an eagle. It's worth noting that the Pickelhaube is not a Nazi reference. The use of these helmets was discontinued in the middle of World War I, and the version with the eagle represented Prussia. So, this is not a symbol of fascism, only of war.

The Hierophant

The Hierophant is the card of tradition and convention. He is a teacher figure, symbolizing spiritual wisdom, religion, institutions, and conformity. In other versions of the tarot this card is known as The Pope. Manson's version of the card takes every opportunity to separate itself from the tradition of the Pope, while still remaining rooted in Christian symbolism.

In the original tarot the hierophant is holding a triple cross, also known as the Papal Cross, representing the office of the Pope, religious acumen, and spiritual wisdom. In Manson's tarot the triple cross is part of a dikirion, a 2-candle liturgical candlestick that is used by a bishop of eastern orthodox and eastern catholic churches to bless the faithful. It is usually in conjunction with a trikirion, a 3-candle liturgical candlestick, and arranged such that the dikirion is on the left, and the trikirion is on the right. This is in accordance with Manson holding the dikirion in his left hand.

In the original tarot the hierophant is holding his right hand in a sign of benediction, while Manson's version is an open palm with an eye in the middle, resembling a Hamsa, which is a talisman of protection against evil. Today the Hamsa hand is mostly popular in the middle east, but all major religions adopted some interpretation of the Hamsa, including Christianity where it was dubbed the Hand of Mary. While often stylized as a symmetric hand, with no left or right orientation, it is historically associated with the right hand.

In the original tarot the hierophant's robe is decorated with generic crosses, while Manson's is decorated with the cross of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar was a French military order of the catholic faith who fought in the crusades and pioneered innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking, which allowed them to become one of the wealthiest organizations of their times. Their demise came at the start of the 14th century, when the order was violently persecuted by king Philip IV of France, who borrowed a lot of money from the organization and wanted a way to avoid paying it back. As part of his persecution of the templars, king Philip pressured Pope Clements V to disband the order.

In Manson's tarot, the hierophant is standing in front of red stained glass, which represents the blood of Christ, or martyrdom. Also of note is that Manson's version is missing the triple crown that represents the power of the Pope as the father of kings, governor of the world, and vicar of Christ.

The twin keys at the bottom of the original hierophant card, are on the top side of Manson's card. Such changes in direction (left vs right, up vs down) usually represent the opposite of the original meaning. In this case, the meaning of the keys themselves is not altered, but the context in which they appear changes. This is akin to saying: "same message but told my way".

Overall, it seems like Manson's version represents an anti-authoritarian message. It's not opposing the Christian symbolism, it simply refuses to express it using the Pope's orthodoxy, as if saying that the Pope does not have a monopoly on Christianity.

The Hermit

The Hermit represents the spiritual journey that we all take alone. It is a journey fueled by dedication and learned wisdom, one that is already in progress. In contrast, The Fool card represents the beginning of a journey, from the point of lack of wisdom. The lamp that the hermit carries represents the wisdom that lights our path. In Manson's version, this light comes from burning of a prosthetic hand made from twigs, and the hermit is also carrying a supply of twigs on his back, presumably for burning later. This could be symbolic of the light of wisdom that is gained by shedding off the parts of ourselves that are "dead"- no longer working- and the getting rid of "dead wood" (people or things that are no longer useful) that we carry with us.

Justice

The Justice card represents truth, fairness, and law.

Meaningful differences from the original:

• In Manson's version, the scales are not balanced. The bible outweighs the brain.
• The curtain represents the cultural backdrop that colors all ideas of justice. In Manson's version, the cultural backdrop is the crazy world of Holy Wood: America turned upside down.

The Hanged Man

Surprise! The album cover itself can be interpreted as a tarot reference, this time to The Hanged Man card. However, Manson's version isn't actually inspired by the original card, and is simply a depiction of the Crucifixion In Space image (see song Cruci-Fiction In Space for more information). This card does not appear in the album artwork, but it was featured in the set of printed tarot cards that came with The Fight Song single.

Death

The Death card represents an end, transformation, new beginnings. In this case, Manson's version is not based on Rider-Waite's design and is simply a representation of "death is TV", from the song In the Shadow of The Valley of Death. On the TV is a black crow, a bird that is associated with death and misfortune.

The Devil

The devil represents harmful temptations and indulgence in sensual pleasures. It alludes to addiction, greed, lust, and being a slave to the physical world. Manson's version is quite faithful to the original design. Aside from maintaining most of the devil's visual features, it also maintains the key aspects of the people that the devil controls: in the original card, the man and the woman, while looking like humans, do have horns and a tail, which are elements of the devil. It represents the idea that if you stay close to the devil, you'll start becoming like him. In Manson's version, the little girls appear to have legs like those of the devil. In the original card, the man and the woman are chained to the devil, but the chains are loose, and can be easily removed, meaning that the man and woman are really there by choice. Similarly, in Manson's version, the little girls are also free of any bondage, and are staying in the vicinity the devil of their own choice.

The apron that the devil is wearing in Manson's tarot is a Masonic Knights Templar apron. The Freemasons are a religious fraternity that is not strictly Christian, only requiring a belief in a God to be a member. However, the Knights Templar Masonic fraternity is strictly Christian, as were the original Knights Templar. Both the Freemasons and Knights Templar ended up being renounced by the Pope. In the case of the Knights Templar, it was a result of political persecution by king Philip IV of France, who accused the Templars of heresy and pressured Pope V to disband the order. In the case of the Freemasons, Pope Clements XII issued a ban on all Catholics from becoming Freemasons, citing the Freemason's oaths of secrecy as one of the reasons:

"To join these associations is precisely synonymous with incurring the taint of evil and infamy, for if they were not involved in evil doing, they would never be so very averse to the light [of publicity]"".
--Pope Clements XII

This makes the apron both a sign of evil (because of the association with the Freemasons), and a thing that's rooted in Christianity (because of the association with the Knights Templar), much like how the devil is an evil being that is rooted in Christian mythology.

The final difference between Manson's version of the card and the original is the hand gestures. Manson's version uses the hand gestures from Eliphas Levi's Baphomet.

Autopsy video

When the Holy Wood CD is inserted into a computer, it launches a program that plays a short film called Autopsy. This film is inspired by JFK's autopsy.

In both JFK's and Manson's autopsy, the head is open. In Manson's autopsy, a fetus is removed from Manson's head.

This fetus-inside-skull concept seems to be based on the work of William Blake. One of the diagrams that appear in the artwork of Holy Wood depicts the cosmology of William Blake's poetry represented as the anatomy of the eye:

The two parts that are relevant for our analysis are:

Mundane Shell: represents the skull which encloses the brain in which consciousness resides.

...and under the skull is:

Iris as Allamanda (polypus): The Polypus (or polyp) is a term that appears multiple times in Blake's poetry, representing an aquatic living thing. Blake's poetry also refers to the fetus as a polyp-like creature.

...the combination of the two gives us a fetus inside the head.

What is the point of the fetus in the head? Since it's being removed from a corpse, it's for all intents and purposes an aborted fetus. Perhaps this is meant to remind us of the tragedy of the situation. An adult man killed, is a child who did not live up to their full potential.

Beyond The Record

The Holy Wood era yielded 4 singles, 4 music videos, a live DVD and Blue Ray, and 1 original B-Side (Diamonds & Pollen). There was also a Holy Wood novel that Manson wrote but was unable to release.

Singles

Disposable Teens

The Disposable Teens single features a sketch at the bottom right. It is taken from JFK's autopsy report.

The Fight Song

There were two versions for The Fight Song single artwork, one featuring Manson-as-Adam aiming a rifle, and one of Manson with a TV, a closeup of the Death tarot card from the album artwork. The image on the TV is the infamous frame 313 from the Zapruder Film, which shows the exact moment when JFK is shot in the head. The round sketch that appears in both versions is a sketch of JFK's head wound as seen from above, made by Dr. Boswell during the autopsy.

B-Sides

Diamonds & Pollen

This song appeared on one of the Disposable Teens singles. It's a very odd song, which uses a bunch of metaphors that Manson never used before, nor since. It also draws lyrical inspiration from Manson's previous album, Mechanical Animals. This makes me suspect that it is an early song in the Holy Wood era, written before the motifs and metaphors of Holy Wood were fully fleshed out.

The song is written like the contemptuous confession of someone who is nihilistic and hates existence, and who just carried out a Columbine-style massacre.

The Love Song Bon Harris remix

The Bon Harris remix of The Love Song has some added content not present in the original song. A man is heard delivering the following monologue:

Lyrics	Commentary
Man: Music that began with a fanfare of thundering drums... Music that inflamed people's wild patriot fervor... Clerk: 12 dollars...78 cents Man: machine guns... Clerk: 12 dollars...78 cents Man: mountains of human corpses	It's unknown where these voices are from, but we do know based on a tour poster for the Rape of The World tour (in support of the album Eat Me, Drink Me), that $12.78 is a reference to the price of the 6.5 Italian Carbine rifle that Oswald used to assassinate JFK.
Man: They found that music can help incite beast-like behavior... arouse the desire to kill. killing...break...kill...killing
12 dollars and 78 cents to rock the world

Disposable Teens Bon Harris remix

The Bon Harris remix of Disposable Teens has some additional content.

Samples

• At the beginning of the track there's a backmasked sample. When reversed, it is revealed to be a speech from the movie Planet of The Apes:
  "Beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair: For he is the harbinger of death".
• "Children were executed", "get in the fire". Source unknown.
• "Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world".
  This sample previously appeared on the song Revelation #9. It's from the Christian children's song Jesus Loves The Little Children, originally composed by George Frederick Root.

Music videos

Disposable Teens

The beast and crucifixion in space

In the biblical book of Daniel, we have descriptions of 4 beasts, each one coming from the sea. The fourth beast is described in Daniel 7:

After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had horns.
--Daniel 7:7

The opening scene in Disposable Teens has Manson rising from the water with what looks like iron teeth. He rises to tremendous height that certainly allows him to "trample victims underfoot", and he has long strands of hair, which could represent might, like in the story of Samson, whose power came from his long hair.

Once Manson reaches his full height, he opens up his hand in a crucifixion position, against the backdrop of dark skies. This is a reference to the Crucifixion In Space imagery that is discussed in the song Cruci-Fiction In Space. This scene has become a feature of the God Guns And Government tour, where it was common for Manson to perform Cruci-Fiction In Space while being lifted up on a rising platform, just like in the music video.

The False Prophet

In this scene, we see Manson wearing lamb skin. He also has a silver Tau cross on his face, which represents the crucifixion. Although this could be mistaken for a representation of the Lamb of God, there are key features that contradict this interpretation. First, he is sitting on a throne. In the book of Revelation, where we meet the lamb as a lamb, rather than as a man, the lamb is never depicted as sitting on a throne. It is always in the midst of the throne, never on the actual throne, which is occupied by God. Second, Manson's depiction has what looks like wings of meat, which is another feature that's uncharacteristic of the lamb. The meat wings do resemble the meat wings that appear on Manson's version of The Devil tarot card. This leads me to conclude that what we are seeing here is a depiction of the false prophet, as warned about in Matthew 7: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves".

Christianity

Another scene features Manson dressed like the Pope standing in front of a cross, with a monkey hanging on the cross.

The painting behind Manson depicts John the Baptist baptizing the Neophytes in the river Jordan, and is from a series of paintings called Scenes From The Life of St John The Baptist, located in the Oratory of St John the Baptist in Italy. It was painted by Italian painters Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni.

The painting in the Disposable Teens video is covered in scribbles, which include:

• "And I'm the ape of God"
• "You say you want a revolition[sic]" written in a speech bubble coming out of one of the characters.
• "Sixteen knives"
• "68¢T"
• "Altmont" (probably a misspelling of Altamont)
• "Fig. four and five"

The monkey that is hanging on the cross in Disposable Teens is of course a reference to the theme of evolution and ape vs. man that runs through the album, but it also directly references Jesus, because later in the video we see a recreation of the famous painting The Last Supper, where the role of Jesus is once again played by the monkey:

The Fight Song

The music video for The Fight Song depicts a high school football game between goths and jocks, the eternal high school enemies. The scoreboard shows that the game is between teams Holy Wood and Death Valley. Football is very popular in America, and is a rather violent sport, so this choice of competition further demonstrates Manson's point that American culture is steeped in violence. Adding to the violent theme is the school mascot, who is brandishing two guns, while the cheerleaders provide the sexual aspect of the entertainment. The game stops when a kid from Death Valley rebels against the situation and blows up the scoreboard.

The Nobodies

In an interview with Metal Edge, Manson described the concept of the video as follows:

In the music video, Manson plays the devil, and also some kind of pagan guardian of the forest. The strict and oppressive environment that the orphanage guardians create lead the orphans to not only escape, but also to seek the devil for protection.

The devil decides to help the children get revenge on their guardians and visits the orphanage. First, he confronts the dog, who senses who he is and acts hostile towards him. Then he meets the guardians, who are both holding a picture of an eye in front of Manson, as if using it as a talisman of protection. This might be in reference to the Evil Eye talisman. The Evil Eye superstition is the belief that a malevolent gaze can invoke a curse. The Nazar is a talisman that protects against the Evil Eye, and it itself looks like an eye.

The devil disarms the guardians of their apprehension by throwing some money their way. The guardians are apparently so greedy that they'll gladly kiss the hand of anyone who pays them, even if that someone is the devil. As they get down on the floor to collect the coins, they are ensnared by twigs, presumably thanks to the powers of the pagan lord they met earlier. They are pulled into a grinder and turned into dirt, which the orphans and the devil eat. The transformation to dirt might be in reference to the theological idea that humans are of the earth, and when we die, we are made one with the earth again. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The orphans eating the guardians can be seen as a subversion of fairytale expectations, where it is usually the orphans that (almost) get eaten by an evil character whom they encounter.

The dinner scene at the end of the music video features 3 paintings. One of them is too obscured to identify, but the other two are not. The painting in the bottom right is Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya. The painting hanging from the wall is Tiger Hunt by Eugene Delacroix. Goya's painting represents parents standing in the way of their children, while Eugene's painting represents a scene of violence.

Tainted Love

Both the music video and the decision to cover a song like Tainted Love were very unusual choices for Manson. Manson commented on this in a post to his official BBS (a Bulletin Board System, the predecessor of online forums):

"I hope everyone was able to enjoy the seething sarcasm in the video and notice that it was just plain entertaining to those of us who made it. As I am between records, I really felt the music world needed something a little less serious right now. If you don't get it or like it, that's your call".

The Tainted Love music video is based on the parody movie Not Another Teen Movie. It co-stars the movie's original cast, who reprise their roles from the film. In the music video, Manson and his goth friends crash a high school party that takes place in the house of the lead cheerleader Priscilla. The nerdy Janey Briggs, who was the main protagonist in the movie, gets a little story arc that mirrors the one from the movie. In the movie, Jake Wyler, the most popular boy in school, transforms Janey from a nerdy "freak with glasses and ponytail" to an attractive girl, and in the music video Manson, the most popular boy in the goth party, inspires her to transform to an attractive goth girl.

The car Manson arrives in is a modified Lincoln Continental, from the same lineup as the model JFK was riding when he was assassinated.

The goth-rapper version of Manson seems to be inspired by Ali G, a satirical character played by Sasha Baron Cohen that was a parody of "suburban, privileged youth acting in a way that they think is typical of black people". Ali G was at the height of his popularity in 2001, the year Manson released Tainted Love.

Another reference cultural reference in the video is to Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, whose trademark look included wearing a bathrobe as part of his formal attire. Women who worked in Playboy nightclubs were known as "bunnies", wearing sexy costumes and bunny ears.

Holy Wood novel

The Holy Wood novel was based on the Holy Wood album, but also on the triptych as a whole. It featured characters such as Adam, who is a musician, Coma White, the president's daughter, and Valentine, who seems to be the president's advisor. The novel was never published, and the details on why were never fully revealed. In a post made by Manson in The Oracle section of his website, Manson said that:

The book has been written for over 3 years, but the censorship of certain ideas, ideals and opinions has kept me from releasing it to the public. I'm sorry I can't say more, but there is a religious objection to its release because the story's inspiration was not only my own life (the three albums included) but also some "private" documents I discovered. This is a deep and dark road, and I haven't found the off-ramp.

It is rumored that the religious objection came from the Church of Scientology.

Over the years Manson expressed interest in releasing it, or turning it into a movie, but none of these plans materialized. To date, the only thing that was ever released was chapter 10 of the novel, which Manson posted on thisasvalentinesday.com as a 2001 Valentine's Day gift to the fans, and the cover art. In an interview with the fan site The Hierophant, Manson confirmed that the arrangement of the guns and text in the novel's cover was meant to evoke the shape of the Cross of Lorraine (depicted in red), which Manson initially adopted as the symbol for the Celebretarian Corporation, and later for himself.

Tour

The tour for the album was called God Guns and Government. Some of the Holy Wood themed elements of the show included a mic stand shaped like a rifle, the Pope outfit from the Disposable Teens music video, Manson recreating the crucifixion in space image by being lifted up on a rising platform during the song Cruci-Fiction In Space, and the podium that is used on the song Antichrist Superstar was redesigned with a crucifix of guns.

Perhaps the most interesting and surprising theatrical element was Manson entering the stage on a steampunk version of a Roman chariot, pulled by two women with horse heads. Manson is also wearing a Roman helmet with 5 horns and a skull-and-crossbones.

This is most likely a reference to the Roman Caesar Nero, who was the first Caesar to persecute the Christians, punishing them in various cruel ways, including feeding them to the lions. The case for this being a reference to Nero can be found in an interview quote from the Holy Wood era:

Although Manson named the wrong Caesar, the fact remains that a Roman emperor who is known for feeding Christians to the lions was on his mind during that time. Years later, in the High End of Low era, Manson started comparing himself in interviews to Nero again (this time using the correct name), so clearly, it's a character that caught his attention.

The Death Song bible speech

During the God Guns and Government tour, Manson was once again the target of many protests, particularly from Christian groups. For his Denver, Colorado show, he announced on his website that he would balance his show by reading from the bible, saying that "This way, fans will not only hear my so-called 'violent' point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me.

That bible reading appears on The Nobodies single as an intro to The Death Song.