The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

in the first place, and now I’ve inadvertently injured my drummer, nailing him with a microphone stand and landing him in the hospital. We had wanted to do a Marilyn Manson show to kick off the tour for Antichrist Superstar , but this turned into some sort of strange ego trip which I’m sure was just to make us look foolish. I’m going to go to sleep now and pretend like this didn’t happen. This wasn’t the beginning of the tour, it was one last favor.
OCTOBER 19, 1996, CLEVELAND
    Tony Ciulla, our new manager, came by and asked me to guess what number Antichrist Superstar went to on the charts today. I told him, “Three,” and I was right. It couldn’t be any other number. On the back of the record, there’s three of us. There’s three sections to the record. It’s all three. The three means something else, too, something that’s going to happen in the future, something that is going to change the world as far as we…
OCTOBER 22, 1996, TORONTO
    Someone called in a death threat today. They said they were gong to bomb the building and its occupants with mustard gas. Is that some sort of condiment? I guess I give them credit for being creative. And obviously I’m still here.
UNDATED
    For a moment tonight I felt like Christ. It was snowing on me, and I could have been anywhere—Wichita, Berlin, Golgotha. There was a mirror behind the crowd on the wall, and I watched myself like a painting, frozen. The gash in my side bled and bled. It was so beautiful I cried right there in front of five thousand people. I was letting out the boy who had died on his plastic cross in elementary school. He escaped through the hole in my ribs.
HALLOWEEN 1996, NEW JERSEY
    Tonight somehow the rumor got started I was going to kill myself. But I’ve died so much in the past year, I don’t think there’s much left to kill.
UNDATED
    I’m becoming what I used to be afraid of. When the whole world wants to destroy you, every day is your last day and every performance is your final one. The Antichrist isn’t just me, or just one person. It’s all of us, a collective state of mind that America needs to have awakened in them. I want to wake it in them. That’s the purpose of this tour, maybe even my life, to make Americans realize they don’t have to believe in something just because they’ve been told it all their lives. You can’t have someone who’s never had sex or drugs telling you it’s wrong. Only through experience can you determine your own morality. Humanity isn’t about constantly having to seek forgiveness for being human; humanity is leading a guiltless existence as an individual. That is Armageddon, because, to Christianity, if you forsake the idea of God and believe in yourself, the world is over.

    G IVEN: AS BELIEVERS IN C HRIST, WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD AND WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE AUTHORITY OVER DEMONS AND EVIL SPIRITS.
    G IVEN : T HE “ROCK” GROUP M ARILYN M ANSON CONSISTS OF DEMONS OR EVIL SPIRITS IN THAT THEY ESPOUSE HERETICAL BELIEFS, CLAIM TO BE A NTICHRISTS AND S ATANISTS, AND ATTEMPT TO TEMPT CHILDREN AWAY FROM C HRISTIANITY WITH SIN.
    P ART OF THE AUTHORITY C HRIST HAS GIVEN US OVER DEMONS IS THE POWER TO, THROUGH PRAYER, BIND, RESTRAIN AND INHIBIT THE ACTIONS OF EVIL SPIRITS.
    T HIS BINDING COMMAND HAS BEEN ISSUED IN RESPONSE TO A PLEA FOR HELP FROM STUDENTS AT SEVERAL C HRISTIAN COLLEGES IN F LORIDA . I T IS NOT INTENDED TO HARM IN ANY WAY THE PERSONS OF ANYONE IN M ARILYN M ANSON . I T IS AN ATTACK SOLELY ON THIS CONCERT AND IS INTENDED TO CAST THESE DEMONS OUT OF THE COMMUNITY OF O RLANDO ONLY.
    W ITH THIS COMMAND BELOW, WE NOW BIND THE DEMONS AND EVIL SPIRITS THAT SURROUND THE PERFORMANCE BY M ARILYN M ANSON ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE ELEVENTH MONTH IN THE YEAR OF NINETEEN-NINETY-SIX.
    O FOUL AND EVIL SPIRITS WHO HAVE BROUGHT
    T HE MUSIC GROUP M ARILYN M ANSON INTO O RLANDO,
    A ND HAVE CONSUMED AND POSSESSED THE BODIES AND MINDS
    O F ALL WHO ARE A PART OF THE GROUP OR AN AID TO THEIR MOVEMENTS,
    B Y THE POWER GIVEN US BY J ESUS C HRIST, AND IN HIS H OLY NAME,
    W E HEREBY BIND THE BUSSES AND THE TRUCKS THAT WILL BRING
    M ARILYN M ANSON AND THEIR MUSIC INTO OUR COMMUNITY.
    W E BIND THE ENGINE THAT MAKES THE CAR RUN,
    A ND THE FUEL THAT MAKES THE ENGINE RUN.
    W E BIND THE LIGHTS AND THE AMPLIFIERS,
    THE MICROPHONES AND MUSICAL EQUIPMENT,
    NEEDED FOR THEIR VILE AND BLASPHEMOUS PERFORMANCE.
    W E BIND THE MOUTH