the NachtKabarett
Horusfrom A Garden of Pomegranates by Israel Regardie
All Writing & Content © Nick Kushner Unless Noted Otherwise
Marilyn Manson, messageboard posting, July 29, 1999MARILYN MANSON - OMEGA MESSAGE 0157.29.99
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It is time for their world to be destroyed. It is time for a new age, the Age of Horus. It is time for a new standard, a new canvas, and a new artist. We must forget this wasted generation and amputate it before the mind rots away with it. Paint it, record it, write it down before they kill you with their slow poisonous stupidity. Make yourself heard.
This Internet is your middle finger to the universe, don't let them break it.
Fuck their world. Let's make our own.
The third and final Beast
Marilyn Manson
The New Aeon, The Age of Horus, was a phrase quoted by Manson on more than one occasion leading up to the release of Holy Wood, making another yet more esoteric, reference to Aleister Crowley.
The Age of Horus was lain forth in The Book of the Law, it being the cornerstone of the philosophy of Aleister Crowley and it's writing / creation was the event in his life which Crowley himself believed to be the most momentous occasion thereof, and one which he himself was merely the instrument in. The Book proclaimed the dawning of The New Aeon (or period of 2,000 year ruled over by an elemental deity), The Age of Horus and outlined the Law of Thelema, "Do What Thou Wilt Is The Whole Of The Law. Love Is The Law, Love Under Will", as further discussed below in the Marilyn Manson & Aleister Crowley article on The NACHTKABARETT.
The Aeon Tarot card, reinterpreted by Aleister Crowley in his Thoth Tarot deck.
Notably, among other Egyptian symbolism from The Book of the Law is Horus throned in the framed center;
Horus, ruler of the New AeonPredominantly quoted a select few time by Manson on his online web posts, The Age of Horus marks the beginning of the New Aeo proclaimed by Aleister Crowley which dawned April of 1904 when the Book of the Law was transcribed. Its principle definition comes from the belief of the rulership of three gods whose influences have a determining force on the fate of the world throughout their reign over the Earth. First Isis whose reign was categorized as matriarchal, nurturing. Next was her husband Osiris whose influence was categorized as patriarchal, destructive and of turmoil, hence it was during this period of time in which the medieval dark ages took place. Next in line is Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris; this is the the The Age of Horus, the age we live in today. As Horus as ruler is but a child, the beginning of his reign (ie - the early Twentieth Century) is categorized as firstly chaotic, giving birth to new ways of thinking and it was this "childlike" idealism which gave birth to such radical early movements of this era such as fascism, communism, and crazes of all sorts which obsesses mankind. The principle of this being that throughout his age we will witness the child maturing and thus the stability of the world solidifying into more harmonious new ways of thought.
IS ADULT ENTERTAINMENT KILLING OUR CHILDREN?
OR IS KILLING OUR CHILDREN ENTERTAINING ADULTS?...
This record finishes what ACSS began and its sound is unlike any of our other albums. I can say, however, it is the most violent, yet beautiful creation we have accomplished. My inspirations are being drawn from alchemy, my association with the O.T.O., JFK and our very own Holy Bible. This is a soundtrack for a world that is being sold to kids and then being destroyed by them. But maybe that's exactly what it deserves.
I have a hope for a new, stronger humanity. An age of enlightenment, an Age of Horus. The "great" are only "great" because we are on our knees. It is time to rise and time to create.
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There is a thin line between psychosis and creation. Who's to say madness isn't pure enlightenment?
YOU CAN ONLY DO!
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MARILYN MANSON
THE THIRD AND FINAL BEAST
Proclaiming the New Era, The Age of Horus, as something of a flagstaff or battle cry during the birth of Holy Wood both acted as something of an anointing or Christening for the album and era but also symbolically acts as the heralding of Manson's own Great Transformation in this era. It was this very era also which Manson proclaimed his "involvement" with the OTO as being a large influence on Holy Wood. This of course can be seen directly within the album's artwork; the symbolism, the Tarot cards and most importantly the thematic lyrical content and direction.
As quoted by Crowley himself from the introduction to the Book of the Law on the New Aeon / Age of Horus:
IV.
THE NEW AEON
The third chapter of the Book is difficult to understand, and may be very repugnant to many people born before the date of the book (April, 1904). It tells us the characteristics of the Period on which we are now entered. Superficially, they appear appalling. We see some of them already with terrifying clarity. But fear not!
It explains that certain vast 'stars' (or aggregates of experience) may be described as Gods. One of these is in charge of the destinies of this planet for periods of 2,000 years.* In the history of the world, as far as we know accurately, are three such Gods: Isis, the mother, when the Universe was conceived as simple nourishment drawn directly from her; this period is marked by matriarchal government.
Next, beginning 500 B.C., Osiris, the father, when the universe was imagined as catastrophic, love, death, resurrection, as the method by which experience was built up; this corresponds to patriarchal systems.
Now, Horus, the child, in which we come to perceive events as a continual growth partaking in its elements of both these methods, and not to be overcome by circumstance. This present period involves the recognition of the individual as the unit of society.
We realize ourselves as explained in the first paragraphs of this essay. Every event, including death, is only one more accretion to our experience, freely willed by ourselves from the beginning and therefore also predestined.
This "God," Horus, has a technical title: Heru-Ra-Ha, a combination of twin gods, Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-Paar-Kraat. The meaning of this doctrine must be studied in 'Magick.' (He is symbolized as a Hawk-Headed God enthroned.)
He rules the present period of 2,000 years, beginning in 1904. Everywhere his government is taking root. Observe for yourselves the decay of the sense of sin, the growth of innocence and irresponsibility, the strange modifications of the reproductive instinct with a tendency to become bi-sexual or epicene, the childlike confidence in progress combined with nightmare fear of catastrophe, against which we are yet half unwilling to take precautions.
Consider the outcrop of dictatorships, only possible when moral growth is in its earliest stages, and the prevalence of infantile cults like Communism, Fascism, Pacifism, Health Crazes, Occultism in nearly all its forms, religions sentimentalized to the point of practical extinction.
Consider the popularity of the cinema, the wireless, the football pools and guessing competitions, all devices for soothing fractious infants, no seed of purpose in them.
Consider sport, the babyish enthusiasms and rages which it excites, whole nations disturbed by disputes between boys.
Consider war, the atrocities which occur daily and leave us unmoved and hardly worried.
We are children.
"The Eye of Horus in the Pyramid of Fire, radiating the solar blaze. One of the Golden Dawn emblems used by Crowley"The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
V.
THE NEXT STEP
Democracy dodders. Ferocious Fascism, cackling Communism, equally frauds, cavort crazily all over the globe. They are hemming us in. They are the abortive births of Child.
Above us today hangs a danger never yet paralleled in history. We suppress the individual in more and more ways. We think in terms of the herd. War no longer kills soldiers; it kills all indiscriminately. Every new measure of the most democratic and autocratic governments is Communistic in essence. It is always restriction we are all treated as imbecile children. Dora, the Shops Act, the Motoring Laws, Sunday suffocation, the Censorship--they won't trust us to cross the roads at will.
Fascism is like Communism, and dishonest into the bargain. The dictators suppress all art, literature, theater, music, news, that does not meet their requirements; yet the world only moves by the light of genius. The heard will be destroyed in mass.
The establishment of the Law of Thelema is the only way to preserve individual liberty and to assure the future of the race.
In the words of the famous paradox of Comte de Fenix--the absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will.
Manson as the Hanged Man;The Dying God and The Cruci-Fiction in Space
Lyrically within Holy Wood is one particular, if slightly indirect, reference to The Age of Horus, in the symbolism-rich song, A Place In The Dirt. Fitting with many references to Kennedy and his assassination with Manson portraying himself, in character, in that role of grand martyrdom,
Put me in the motorcade,
Put me in the death parade
The next line which follows, "Dress me up and make me your Dying God," is a reference of course to the idea of martyrdom but also of the dawning of the New Aeon. Within Aleister Crowley's philosophy and in regard to The Age of Horus, the "old gods", those of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc, who are waning in their influence and reign over mankind. They are the "Dying Gods." As such Manson as the Dying God is an allusion to martyring him as Christ was and the perpetual theme of martyrdom within Holy Wood, yet in the language and context of this label is another reference to The Age of Horus. "The 'Dying God' is Christ; this means that Thelema transcends Christianity," from the Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
ALEISTER CROWLEY, THE LAW & ABBEY OF THELEMA, THE BOOK OF THE LAW AND ANTICHRIST SVPERSTAR