Thrill 4-12: Gnosticism 101 {Original Sinsuality}

From a 6-minute song that is too short, to a 2-minute song that packs more action in than it has any right to.

There's a theory out there, being pushed by Tori herself, that the entire Beekeeper album has a theme based on an alternative view of the gospel. I don't buy it. It's much easier to think of Ribbons Undone being about her daughter, of The Beekeeper being about her mother's illness, of Toast being about her brother, and of Cars and Guitars being about a woman making a slightly embarrassing attempt to impress her man.

It's clear though, that a couple of songs do relate to Tori's readings of and about other interpretations of Scripture that died out in the early history of the church, primarly gnosticism. 'Gnosis' means knowledge (or secret knowledge), and Original Sinsuality has a character urging to eat of the tree of knowledge, which in traditional Judeo-Christian thought is a disastrous course of action.

A little digging in the right places (thank you, Google) will reveal that Sophia, Yalbadoath, Saklas and Samael are all pulled straight from the gnostic literature - the first being God's mother and the other three all being names for God. Except the God who created this material world is a dark being, one to be escaped from.

Refuting the heresy of Gnosticism was one of the main drivers of Christian writers in the first couple of centuries of the church, which led to things like the Nicene Creed. But I digress, this is a music topic not a theological one.

Original Sinsuality basically falls into three sections, and at first I had different reactions to each of them. I guess I still do, really. So, bear with me while I dissect a small song into even smaller pieces.

Section One: The Setup

In the beginning... quite literally. The first section of the song is a great introductory passage for the 'sermon', the ideas part. It's very factual - where (the garden, I mean THE Garden), when (before THE Fall), who (the original mother, Sophia), what (the tree, the fruit). And then the first idea, "you must eat". Everything is set up nicely.

Section Two: The...

The pause? The glib play on words? The wasted space?

To be fair, I don't feel quite like that about the middle of the song any more, I'm just recording my initial reactions, but it still seems such a shame that this section is a bit weak. Misspelling words to play on them has never been a favourite trick with me. The philosophical point of the song could have been made just as well by contrasting 'sin' with 'sensuality'. We all would have recognized the closeness of the sound without forcing the issue.

Perhaps the most irritating thing, though, is the girlish tone that suddenly enters Tori's voice here. Oh, look, aren't I clever! Yes, dear, you are, but in Australia at least we don't particularly like people who draw attention to their cleverness. Do a Google on 'tall poppies' and you'll see what I mean.

Section Three: The Payoff

I forgive everything when she utters the word "Yalbadoath" like some priestess of a mysterious cult.

She is of course helped by some well-applied reverberation, but she's the producer so I can credit her with that touch of brilliance as well. From here to the end of the song, with the great repeated cry of "You are not alone", is one of her best vocal performances in the studio ever. It's seared across my brain, asking me to give in to darkness.

It's proof of the power of this tiny section of music that I find myself adoring it despite all of the (considerable) reservations I have about the theology here. I've almost never been fond of Tori's theology (remind me to discuss one day how difficult it is for most people to comprehend that, I, a Christian whose beliefs border on what might be called fundamentalist, can be so in love with the music of someone who invests a lot of time in trying to shock fundamentalist Christian sensibilities), but the musical power on display during the last third of Original Sinsuality is, to my ears, simply undeniable.