the NachtKabarett
Alchemical illustration of Saturn devouring his son, as presented in the Holy Wood album artworkAll Writing & Content © Nick Kushner Unless Noted Otherwise
The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola"Saturn or Chronos is shown emasculated, like is father Uranus. Having been told that one of his children would dethrone him, he ate them at birth. Jupiter, the last, eluded him by substituting a stone. Saturn's action reflects the Night or Blackness of Dissolution, the Raven's Head or Caput Corvi: the Crow which is the Crown of the Work, since there can be no Generation without Putrefaction."
NK Note - And by emasculated what is being referred to is that Saturn was castrated and when his testicles were thrown into the sea they gave birth to Venus, or Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
In Greek and Roman mythology it was prophesied that one of Saturn's children would one day usurp him and kill him. To circumvent fate he devoured each of his children upon birth until his wife hid from him the infant Jupiter, feeding Saturn a stone shrouded with a blanket. Jupiter did grow and mature in secret and he did kill his father to assume the throne as the King Of The Gods. The image which appears within Holy Wood is a depiction of Saturn devouring his child. This image appears in the Italian alchemical book Chymica Vannus written by Thoman Vaughn (1622-1666). To read the original Italian version in PDF format click here: CHYMICA VANNUS (Note: must have Adobe PDF Viewer installed). The Saturni image is on page 278.
Along with Mercury, to a greater extent the element of Saturn has many more insidious connotations than the other elements. See the figure below, the Sixth Pentacle Of Saturn from The Key Of Solomon The King translated by S. Liddell Macgregor Mathers:
The Key of Solomon the KingFigure 16. - The Sixth Pentacle of Saturn. - Around this Pentacle is each Name symbolized as it should be. The person against whom thou shalt pronounce it shall be obsessed by Demons.
Editor's Note. - It is formed from Mystical Characters of Saturn. Around it is written in Hebrew: 'Set thou a wicked one to be ruler over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand.'
See also, The Third Pentacle Of Mercury in the TheLambOfGod.com section of The NACHTKABARETT which Manson used before the release of Holy Wood on the hidden site
Saturn Devouring One of His ChildrenFrancisco de Goya, c. 1820-23
Still frame from The Nobodies video revealing it's thematic nature in the subtle hint
of Goya's Saturn Devouring painting in the lower right of this frame
Another allusion to Saturn which Manson made during Holy Wood , or at least which can be paralleled to, was in the video for The Nobodies. The video is Manson's retelling of the Grimm's Fairy Tale Hansel & Gretel: two children who run away from their wicked parents in search of a better life, then finding an idyllic gingerbread house but instead of it being realized paradise they come to see the truth in that the owner of that house is a witch who wants to cook and eat them. The irony behind the traditional retelling is that stories like this and other Grimm's Fairy Tales (a repository of them can be found here for innocuous enjoyment) is that they're masqueraded as children's stories but when looked at objectively they're often very dark and morbid; full of lies & treachery, poison apples, parents casting out and/or devouring children, offenses for which committed in the real world would result in life in prison and a guaranteed 15 magazine covers. That's the irony behind them, that this is what children grow up hearing before bed and yet America looks at it as a surprise or as inspiration from an insidious demagogue such as Manson when those children grow up and enact these atrocities as opposed to these ideas being implanted in them from their upbringing, Columbine specifically being referred to in the case of The Nobodies. Manson used a similar analogy with the fact that the sex, famine, murder, plague, incest, torture and child murder in the Bible is more responsible for such actions of children rather than anything they're witnessed on television or compact disc. And for the sake of argument, even if those children were inspired by Manson, it was the same sick and morbid world which he grew up in which in turns influences those growing up today.
In regard to the subject at hand in this retelling, Manson is the owner of the "gingerbread" house which the children ran to, who can be seen as an allusion to Saturn, the devourer. The difference in Manson's retelling however is that instead of the children being devoured and eaten, the wicked guardians of them are ground into a meal by machines and then eaten by those very children they repressed. This as the grand turning of tables with Manson helping the children rise up against those guardians who were supposed to have loved and protected them but instead made them feel like Nobodies.
Manson from The Nobodies video, the owner of the "gingerbread house" in this
retelling of Hansel & Gretel, who can be alluded to as Saturn, the devourer.
In regard to Alchemy & Kabbalah, the enhanced portion of The Nobodies
single with details of The Tetragrammaton and the Four Kabbalistic Worlds.