the NachtKabarett

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Anton LaVey wearing a pentagram necklace with a lightning bolt superimposed atop and the Baphomet goat's head pentagram adopted by Anton LaVey for the Church of Satan. Around it the Hebrew letters spell 'Leviathan', one of the names/incarnations of Satan, which also appear around the shock symbol. Anton LaVey, whom Manson dedicated his autobiography to, was ordained as a Minister in the Church of Satan by, wrote the foreword to LaVey's book Satan Speaks and thanked in the liner notes of Antichrist Svperstar, was a large influence philosophically throughout Manson's earlier work.

The Unicursal Hexagram adopted and stylized by Aleister Crowley in the early Twentieth Century is a derivation of the hexagram commonly referred to as The Star Of David. Just as the symbolism of the traditional hexagram consisted of two interlocked triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down to symbolize the occult principle of balance, "as above so below" the Unicursal Hexagram represents as such but drawn so with an unbroken line to signify continuous movement. And if broken down further the hexagram can be seen to be made up of two intertwined and inverted shock symbols.

Another facet which the shock symbol is made up of is a permutation of The Tetragrammaton. The principle comes from the book The Tetragrammaton by Donald Tyson which Manson quoted as reading during the recording and molding of Antichrist Svperstar where the four letters which make up the Tetragrammaton, IHVH, are arranged in a polygonal shape known as a tetragram where the order and combination of the letters each correspond to the invoking and banishing of angels. This method is where the symbols within Antichrist Svperstar come from and for those unfamiliar with this may read my essay of The Tetragrammaton in the Alchemy & Kabbalah section of The NACHTKABARETT.

Also in a context of reappropriation, Manson would later continue to affix the shock symbol within signature designs, often perverting pre-existing Christian graphics :

Church of the Antichrist Superstar, 'Smells Like Children' era.    'Eat Me, Drink Me' artwork with a double-hearted version of the arrow between Manson's initials.    Anti-Christogram on a 1997 shirt, 'Antichrist Superstar' era. MM15 logo on the 'We're From America' single back cover, evoking Manson's fall from grace.

'Flag Crown' aka 'Crowned Ruins', June 2009 new shirt design for 'The High End Of Low'.

The shock arrow itself was prominently used in merch designs and other documents through Marilyn Manson's different eras, such as the examples below :