This is a Gnostic reading of Trent Reznor’s 1994 masterpiece, The Downward Spiral.
Ostensibly, this album tells the story of a man’s descent into despair, culminating in his suicide. However, the album can also be interpreted in Gnostic terms as a man’s severing of his ego and his unification with his higher self as he rises up towards Gnosis. The path towards such divine heights is perilous and terrifying, beset with all manner of obstacles and a constant temptation to abandon the quest and succomb to simpler pleasures, hence the dark, violent nature of the music.
Mr. Self Destruct
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce3xOgg9mtk
The overture to the album presents the man’s first contact with his ‘shadow’, the element of his psyche that is the antithesis of his ego. It is everything he believes he is not, it houses everything about himself that he despises, fears and denies. Here, his shadow communicates with him directly, stating exactly who and what he is:
I am the voice inside your head, and I control you,
I am the lover in your bed, and I control you,
I am the sex that you provide, and I control you,
I am the hate you try to hide, and I control you.
The shadow is the source of all of one’s dark impulses that stands in opposition to how the ego perceives itself. Hitherto, the shadow has been locked deep within the psyche, only rarely bursting forth in moments of intensity, but now the shadow has been unleashed and threatens to fully control the ego:
I take you where you want to go,
I give you all you need to know,
I drag you down, I use you up,
Mr. Self Destruct.
The shadow is threatening to destroy the man’s self, or rather, what he perceives to be his self, which is in fact merely his ego. The realisation of this will only come later, for now, the ego only perceives the shadow as a terrible enemy who opposes him.
Piggy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ4S9ydkMG4
Here, the man reflects on his loneliness after a failed relationship. This failure has altered his view of the world (perhaps why he has summoned his shadow in the first place) and he has realised that such things no longer matter to him:
Nothing can stop me now
I don’t care anymore.
He is beginning to see the world for what it is, a hell from which he must escape, he no longer cares about this false world, and as such there is nothing that can stop his ascension out of it.
Heresy
From this personal tragedy the man now analyses the universal tragedy of mankind’s misplaced faith in ‘God’, whom he now realises is a malevolent figure holding man back from his own divine destiny, the shadow figure of all mankind. However, the man’s newfound outlook on the world has led him to realise that this ‘God’ no longer has any control over him:
Your god is dead, and no one cares,
If there is a hell, I’ll see you there.
He blames this ‘God’ for all of the ills of the world, but his attack on ‘God’ is also his response to his own personal shadow, whom he is blaming for all of his own personal ills.
March Of The Pigs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mDQNRs5JCs
Now in a world without ‘God’, the man looks around him at all the other people aimlessly wandering about in this desolate hell. They are the pigs, endlessly marching on towards nothing, and the man rages against what he sees, wishing he could destroy it all:
Don’t like the look of it, don’t like the taste of it, don’t like the smell of it,
I want to watch it come down.
However, despite his rage, the pigs will not be turned away from their hellish world, and continue to blunder on, there is nothing that man can do to stop them, for they must save themselves as must the man:
Now doesn’t that make you feel better?
The pigs have won tonight,
Now they can all sleep soundly,
And everything is all right.
Closer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA4zHMnwDs
Turning away from the outside world, the man now retreats back into his own psyche, once again encountering his shadow, who is gaining power over him and tells him so:
You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you,
You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you.
Now the man has no one else to turn to and begs his shadow for help:
Help me, I broke apart my insides, help me, I’ve got no soul to sell,
Help me, the only thing that works for me, help me get away from myself.
Here the desires of the ego and those of the shadow begin to become one and the same. The man is seeking to get away from his former idea of his self, he wants to progress to something new and knows that he must first pass his shadow. The man has thus begun to embrace his shadow and see it as a vital part of his self:
My whole existence is flawed,
You get me closer to God.
Ruiner
With this realisation, the man’s fear of his shadow begins to recede and he now stands tall and faces it and begins to realise the effect it has always had on him:
How’d you get so big?
How’d you get so strong?
How’d you get so hard?
How’d you get so long?
With the realisation that the shadow is truly a part of himself, the man begins to condemn his shadow for its former actions:
What you gave to me,
My perfect ring of scars,
You know I can see what you really are.
The man’s ego has now overcome his shadow and the two have begun to fuse together, with the ego no longer subservient to the shadow. The man now no longer fears his shadow:
You didn’t hurt me, nothing can hurt me,
You didn’t hurt me, nothing can stop me now.
The Becoming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCxz-d7jQwU
With the shadow overcome, the man can truly begin his transformation into something higher:
I beat my machine, it’s a part of me, it’s inside of me,
I’m stuck in this dream, it’s changing me, I am becoming.
The shadow has now been relegated to a machine-like part of the man’s psyche, driving his ego onwards towards his True self. The ego is not what it once was, fear returns, but there is no turning back now:
I can try to get away, but I’ve strapped myself in.
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears.
I can see it killing away all my bad parts.
I don’t want to listen but it’s all too clear.
I Do Not Want This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKNo3J4daDk
The unification with the shadow now nears completion and the man must now come to the realisation that his ego is not his True self, but is something which must also be overcome. Of course, the ego resists this at first:
I do not want this,
Don’t you tell me how I feel.
Ultimately, however, the ego realises that it wants the same thing that the shadow always wanted, the complete knowledge of the world:
I want to know everything.
I want to be everywhere.
Big Man With A Gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSwKpbGZe5Y
The fusion of the ego with the shadow causes a sudden outburst of extreme madness, as the ego now feels a surge of relentless power and is overcome with the darkest of desires to have complete power of the world:
I can reduce you if I want,
I can devour
This is the last mad gasp of the shadow’s dark impulses, which reaches an epic crescendo of insanity before being suddenly stopped in its tracks.
A Warm Place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN6sfJ1qFQg
Now the man has come into contact with his True self, and the shadow is completely sublimated in an instant. All dark desire is eliminated as the man comes to recognise the full extent of his psyche, and the majesty of his potential. He is past the point of no return and the glory of the divine awaits him after one final trial.
Eraser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5KlwGB9A5I
For remnants of his ego are still to be found, and the man knows he must remove all traces of that former version of himself before he can achieve divinity. His ego now longs for his True self to come and absolve it:
Need you,
Dream you,
Find you,
Taste you,
But the ego also knows that it must be destroyed by the True self:
Lose me,
Hate me,
Smash me,
Erase me,
Kill me.
Reptile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfhkXxmnYHc
The man is now ready to become his True self and he now views his former ego with disgust. It now seems alien to him, even changing gender:
She spreads herself wide open to let the insects in.
She leaves a trail of honey to show me where she’s been.
She has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin.
Seeds from a thousand others drip down from within.
The continued presence of the ego is now seen as an impurity which must be removed:
Oh my beautiful liar,
Oh my precious whore,
My disease, my infection,
I am so impure.
The Downward Spiral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKZRcIGnaqE
Now the ego can finally be destroyed, as the True self watches on:
He couldn’t believe how easy it was,
He put the gun into his face,
Bang!
(So much blood from such a tiny little hole).
Hurt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPz21cDK7dg
This is the final moment of catharsis as the remnants of the ego slip away. The True self has emerged and become what it was always meant to be and the ego, as it is absorbed into this True self, warns the self not to assume a new ego, which would undo what has been done:
You could have it all,
My empire of dirt,
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt.
But the cyclical nature of the universe is known to the True Self. He knows that, despite his new divinity, the whole process must be repeated again and again for all eternity:
If I could start again,
A million miles away,
I would keep myself,
I would find a way.
The spiral is eternal. Down is up, death is life, cycling on and on.
Omega Synthesis 