Mutant Christ: A Lyrical Analysis

 Canadian technical death metal band Cryptopsy’s “Mutant Christ” is quite possibly the most popular song of the band’s discography. While the song was performed with excellent musicianship, the message of its lyrics may play a role in its deserved popularity. The lyrics present the figure of Christ in a diminished and deformed manner. Though presented within a surreal fashion, they suggest a type of relationship existing between the narrator and this distorted Christ. This post will serve as an analysis of these lyrics, attempting to extrapolate the presented meaning behind them.

For context, it is necessary to see the lyrics themselves. They are presented below:

Abobinated, tiny god of mine

Overseeing my rest, my lust, my life

Torched in hatred

Loved in Horror sublime

Almost formless

Darkened, and yet you shine

You made me in your image

I deformed yours into mine

Now we're even, O loving god

Equals in my melting eyes

Mutant christ, loving christ

Know me with thine naked eyes

Holy christ, one tenth the size

So unlike the other christs

God-made man (with)

man-made god to adore

Idolatry?

My faith has been restored

Gaze upon me

Bless me, lord, or die

I'll find another little lord to fry

You baked me in this image

so I burned yours into mine

Eye for eye and tooth for tooth

I love you now, O twisted christ

Mutant Christ

The central notion of mutant Christ is that which is already presented in its proverbial nomenclature; the presence of a world-famous deity who has been distorted into a miniature, twisted caricature of his formal image. While Christ presented a message of peace, charity and the coming kingdom of God to the Jewish peasantry, his image has been distorted by the likes of Paul and simple repetition. The message of Christ has been altered from a “love thy neighbor” and “give to the poor”, to a simple “faith alone” paradigm, allowing it to transition from the Jewish community and traverse the world over as the planet's dominant faith. Mutant Christ alludes to that truth, inferring about the several thousand Christs which have been conceived by humanity, each with a contrasting message, altered image and infinitely diverse caricature of the character. Let us examine each passage in detail.

The narrator begins by alluding to his “tiny god” who is abominable in his nature. The tiny description alludes to it being an aspect of his mind, living within him as a little companion.  Nonetheless, the narrator retains a relationship with this god, as it is overseeing the various aspects of his life.

Next, our narrator admits the nature of this god. He is not a god of love, but a god that has been “torched in hatred.” The figure of Christ in Christianity is one that has been embued with much cathartic hate; a character who demands love, peace and charity, with the result of non-compliance being eternal torture. This hateful character is nonetheless revered, as he allows for a schadenfreudian sense of justice towards the non-believers. The result of this is that he is “loved in Horror sublime.” What cryptopsy also references is how Christ has become “almost formless”. Various denominations present extremely different variations of Christ, representing the beliefs, needs and desires of the group's believers. As such, Christ (almost) no longer possesses an established form, with the same character being adored by the religion despite completely different iterations established by the collective imagination. Though Christ has been “darkened” via the imbued hate of the character in addition to the ambiguity of his nature, the character continues to shine in the eyes of his believers, as Christ establishes various psychological functions for those who revere him.

Being a believer, the narrator acknowledges that he was made in Christ’s image. In a brilliant analog of psychology, he also acknowledges that “I deformed yours into mine.” This reflects the nature of the believer and his relationship with Christ. Rare is it to encounter a believer who follows the original message of Jesus. What has happened is that the caricature of Christ has been distorted time and time again in response to differences in belief stemming from the viewpoint and necessities of the believer. Christ, at the end of the day, serves the function of the believer and as such has been deformed to match the image of the one who believes. In this process, Christ is now one with the believer as he is an extension of the believer's psychological needs. The end result is of the two being “equals in my melting eyes.”

Next, the narrator addresses this “tiny Christ” of his, acknowledging its parsimonious duality as both loving and mutated. He acknowledges Christ’s ability to know of his nature with “thine naked eyes,” a reflection of Christ’s ontological structure as an extension of the believer. What puts this perspective into account is his description of Christ as “one-tenth the size” and being “so unlike the other Christs.” We see this reference demonstrates proof that it is not Christ himself whom the narrator is addressing, but this distorted Christ that lives within his own mind. Christ has become mutated, because the several iterations of Christ within the world make reference to the same character through the lens of a completely different cosmological paradigm. Any church entered will not depict Christ proper, but an iteration of Christ manufactured for the purposes of the denomination. As such, each believer contains their own miniature Christ, serving as the articulation of separate, distorted messages.

In the next passage, our narrator begins by expressing how God made man. However, the sentence ends abruptly, as if reality has entered the narrator's awareness. Following this, he expresses the opposite opinion, that it was humanity that created God for the purposes of adoration. He questions if this is mere idolatry, before stating his faith has been restored. This seems to allude further to the notion that this distorted Christ was invented for the purpose of psychological equilibrium. In serving this function, the idol of Christ is established in the narrator's mind, allowing the perseverance of his faith as a result of its psychological benefit.

In our penultimate stanza, the narrator demands that Christ gazes upon him and that he be blessed, or that his lord will die. The irony is in Christ normally being established as the master. However, here, the narrator retains control, demanding that Christ serve his established function. Should he not, the protagonist will find “another little lord to fry.” It is this stanza that puts things into perspective. This Christ is serving the functions that the narrator demands, bringing him emotional contentment in the process. However, Christianity offers several iterations of Christ, and should this Christ not serve the proper function, he may kill him and adopt another “little lord” who will adopt the functions demanded of him.

In the final stanza, the protagonist reiterates his previous message, that we were baked in the image of Christ, to which he responded by burning Christ into his own image. In this exploitative symbiosis, the authenticity of Christ's image was sacrificed so that the narrator may benefit, while the narrator adopts the demands of the belief so that this Christ may persevere within his mind. As such, an “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” negotiation has been established, to which he concludes that he now loves this Christ precisely through his distortion.

So what can we take away from this music? Mutant Christ is an insightful piece about one’s nature with a deity and the distortions that inevitably arise. At the end of the day, Christ is the imaginary fantasm present in the minds of those indoctrinated into the religion. His purpose is to provide psychological equilibrium to those who believe in him, and his image is distorted into whatever caricature is necessary for that end. To be a Christian in the modern world is to choose which Christ will suit your ends, with any previous Christ being discarded in favor of a more useful “little lord.” The guttural death metal vocals brought by Lord Worm create a sense of perversity in the feel of the lyric’s message, adding to the corrupted sense of Christ's image. They also bring a vomit aesthetic, contributing to the sense of a “sickening truth” being “vomited” to all those with a “tiny god.” All-in-all, Mutant Christ creates a genuine horror aesthetic to the image of Christ and reveals an unpleasant truth on the nature of religion.

The Sense of Self as Home: A Metaphorical Analogy for The Narcissism Spectrum

Within the philosophical inquiries of psychology, a relevant analogy to an individual's sense of self is via the symbol of the house. The house contains within its walls a reflection of its inhabitants psyche. It is a space for us to feel comfortable in, to function as a nucleus for our life and to protect us from the harsh elements of the external world. The self plays the same function, serving as an internal space to reflect on ourselves, our place in the world, feel comfortable in our own skin and defend against external trauma. However, much like the house, the self can have various levels of stability and security. Ideally, it is our home within ourselves to soothe ourselves and protect against trauma, criticism and failure. Sometimes however, the house can be in a state of disrepair, lacking a proper foundation, being filled with clutter, failing in structural integrity or having areas of neglect. An individual within this self will preserve more time and energy into various maintenance for structural repair and self-preservation. In some cases, the house can barely be called shelter at all, completely dilapidated in its structure and offering no shelter from the elements. With regard to the self, this is the territory of narcissistic personality disorder, a condition where self-affirmation and defense of the self-image becomes all encompassing.

For the proper building and maintenance of a house, one must possess the proper skillsets to verify that the home is structurally sound and stable in its foundation. Similarly, a self is constructed via proper skillsets taught via stable and healthy caregivers who set examples of behavior, care for the child's individual needs and demonstrate that they are loved unconditionally. This allows the child to begin exploring the world and learning the skillsets of basic psychological function with healthy role models set as an example. This functions as a base for the grounding of the child's emerging self, which with time is constructed and if done right, gives the individual and internal psychological space that allows them to love themselves and which can be depended upon in difficult circumstances.

When the basis for the self is not adequately met, the foundations of the self do not allow for the formation of a stable and concrete blueprint. Such individuals place increasing time and energy in preserving a fragile self-esteem. To cope with this self-delapidation, they begin to invest into an artificial self-image which requires external validation from others. Increasingly concerned with the instabilities of the self, these individuals have less capacity to invest outwardly due to the constant preoccupations directed inwardly.

Narcissistic personality disorder is what occurs when this need for external validation for the affirmation of the self-image becomes all pervasive and compromises the personality. Individuals with this tendency can think of little else as they incessantly try to maintain a fragile, artificially inflated self image. Rather than putting energy into conducting structural repairs within their proper home, they present an artificial image of an aggrandized mansion. This is precisely where the grandiosity lies within narcissism. But as the dilapidated house exists behind this image, the grandiose perception is merely a compensation to ward off deep feelings of emptiness and inferiority. It is here that the narcissist lies, trying to coalesce between an artificially inflated image and a broken, vulnerable one. Just as a photo of a mansion may be two-dimensional and vulnerable to storms, the grandiose self-image is easily toppled down, giving way to the broken, true home beneath. In response, the narcissist will rapidly assert time into re-afferming the grandiose image, exaggerating it further in response to increased stress. The greater the burden in the narcissist's life, the more exaggerated this image becomes.

Because the narcissist becomes increasingly preoccupied with presenting this grandiose image, they can think of little else. Like a person who is starving, affirming this aggrandized image becomes of sole importance, preventing the narcissist from seeing others as anything more than one-dimensional instruments specifically for the purposes of validation. Rather than placing repairs into their true home, they present this two dimensional mansion, trying to convince others and themselves of its validity.

As can be expected, therapy for NPD is quite challenging and requires a great deal of effort and patience on the part of the therapist. However, the recently asserted notion that NPD is untreatable lies purely in myth. As the narcissist's internal home is structurally unsound, therapy for this disorder involves laying the foundation for the self and contributing repair to damaged and neglected areas. With time, the narcissist learns to construct their internal self-image, creating a comfortable internal environment for them to feel secure and accepting towards themselves. As such, less time and energy is required for the maintenance of the self-image, allowing the individual to invest more time and energy in their relationship with others.

Colossal Post Incoming

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Perhaps I shall transform this post into a series to provide greater consistency. In any case, the majority of sequential posts shall be brief and covered in rapid succession. I hope that it shall be worth it, because a big topic is coming your way. Keep an eye out, and stay tuned!

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Why Religious Denominations Emerge: A Memetic Explanation

 Few traditions extend further back in our history than the telling of stories. The combination of language and our remarkable cognitive power produces a combined effect of narrative construction, serving as entertainment and advice on proper conduct in the world.

Stories also serve as a means of the articulation of ideas. We use stories to articulate and understand the world, and within these stories are the ideas that the story serves as a catalyst to justify. Religions thrive exactly on this, having an idea being presented under the paradigm of a mythological substrate. Christianity has served the idea of Jesus’ death serving as an intermediate state of uniting humanity back to God for over two millenia. While the idea remains the same, the articulation of the idea and its various symbolic explanations differ depending on the denomination. Indeed, a denomination is a group within the religion who possesses a differentiating perspective on the stories validity and interpretation.

The implication seen here is that stories have the tendency to evolve over time, giving rise to new ideas and producing differentiation in mythological frameworks, manifesting various cultural consequences and differing impact as a result. Christianity presents three main denominations: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. But why the discord? While the answer is heterogenous and multifaceted, one such explanation is what we shall explore here, the theory of memes presented by Richard Dawkins and further supported via Daniel Dennett. In this post, I shall explain the central aspects of this theory while using Christianity as a concrete example. Let us examine further.

The Meme

The idea of the meme was posited by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In it, Dawkins proposes that genetics are not the only replicators that exist. Genes serve as the biological replicators, being composed of nucleic acid, be it DNA or RNA and serve as the code for the protein synthesis necessary for life. As a thought experiment, Dawkins proposed the idea of the meme, a cultural equivalent to genes that are composed of information and serve as replicators of ideas. Note; an idea alone is not a meme. Imagining a yellow submarine does not define the meme, but rather the idea becomes a meme when the Beatles serve to sing of the idea, replicating it and passing it on through the culture.

Just as genes are privy to mutation, ideas and their resulting memes experience mutation as well. Indeed, the mutation rate of memes is much higher than that of genes. Genes are not meant to mutate. They are designed to replicate themselves with one-hundred percent accuracy. Roughly speaking, they achieve this goal two-hundred million, nine-hundred ninety nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety nine times out of thirty-million. But every thirty million times, more or less, a base pair mutates. The majority of these mutations are neutral, having no effect on the organism overall. Some of these mutations can be harmful, resulting in dysfunction in the organism in various forms, such as cystic fibrosis or fatal familial insomnia. Finally, mutations may be beneficial to the organism, giving rise to phenotypical characteristics that aid in the organisms survival and are continued into the next generation. Memes mutate at a much faster rate than this. When one has a line of twenty people which whispers a message from one person to another and continues the message all the way down the line, the chance that the message will be completely garbled at the end is quite high. This is because each transference of the message may be considered a “generation” of the meme, with the passing of the message giving rise to the possibility of informational mutation.

In this same way, the memetic information composing stories is prone to mutation. As the story is continuously retold, details are molded and changed as the result of various environmental circumstances, be it cultural differences, discord, preference for differentiating details on the part of the listener or the forgetting/omission of information. In this, the meme is subject to change which gives rise to different information, changing the overall “phenotypical” congruence of the narrative.

While memes may be compared to the genes of organisms, a more accurate biological agent for understanding them are viruses. Viruses are the most common biological agents, being rogue nucleic acid contained inside of a protein capsid. Following only one of the five rules of life, that being reproduction, viruses are generally not considered living things. The only parallel to life that viruses have is in their objective to find a carrier and reproduce. This is the only thing that a virus does, infecting organisms and leading to epidemics in the process.

As stated, viruses contain various forms of nucleic acid. While some viruses contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) such as the chickenpox virus, the majority of viruses are ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, such as rhinoviruses and COVID-19. Virologists have ascertained that RNA viruses are much more prone to mutation than are DNA viruses. While this is because RNA is more unstable in its polymer syntheses, these viruses also lack the enzyme associated with allele-error correction, meaning that said viruses mutate very easily and quickly. The result is virtually parallel to that of organisms, giving rise to neutral, harmful or beneficial mutations and thereby potentially giving rise to different strains of the same virus. Memes function in virtually the same way, giving rise to various versions or “strains” of the idea.

Applicability to Christianity

While beginning as a heretical sect of Judaism as founded by Jesus of Nazareth, the future apostle Paul claimed to have had a vision of Jesus on the road of Damascus around the time of 36 a.d. It was at this point that he officially founded “paulinistic” Christianity, differentiating it from the religion of Judaism and converting followers around the Empire through the promise of faith alone and the lack of necessity of Judaic rituals. Here we see the first mutation to the message of Christianity, which was further implemented via the conversion of various political leaders, emperors and legalization of Christianity which eventually led to its officialization as the religion of Rome, “outpacing” the previous “pagan” faith which was rendered practically extinct in the process.

The officialization of Christian faith via the Nicean creed in 325 a.d brought about the definition of Christianity, allowing an official understanding of the religion that was being practiced. The memetic “viral” characteristics had been cemented, and it solidified into the institution of the Orthodox Catholic Church.

While this church was the official representation of Christianity, other denominations continued to emerge and exist, though they were outpaced by Orthodox Catholicism. However, changes slowly began to erode at the theological concordance of the church, through various doctrines such as the authority of the pope and the filioque of the trinity. This eventually led to the great schism of 1054, causing the church to split into two factions: the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. These two “strains” of Christianity still remain present today, with Roman Catholicism being the dominant denomination, upheld and believed by 1.3 billion of the current 2.4 billion Christians. Orthodox Christianity has found less success, though it is still believed by 300 million followers.

These two “viral strains” existed in rivalry for over four centuries, until Christianity experienced another “mutation” with the Protestant revolution. Martin Luther encouraged followers of Christ to interpret the gospel for themselves, have a personal relationship with Jesus and to stop relying on church authority. Now, the church was of less importance to varying degrees, with the central doctrine being scripture interpretation and personal salvation through belief. With these core characteristics and openness to interpretation, Christianity began to mutate at a much more rapid rate, giving rise to tens of thousands of denominations over the last five-hundred years, with more still appearing on a yearly basis.

Much like a virus, the idea of Christianity contains a central message: Jesus was the son of/God; He was the reconciliation between God and man; He died for our sins; He rose from the dead three days later and He shall return to judge the living and the dead. However, details of the religion are almost as variable as the believers themselves. While all Christian denominations (with the exception of “heretical” groups) share the founding doctrines of Christianity, researching the denominations even superficially shows immense difference in the beliefs, practices and cosmology of the denominations. Each denomination functions parallel to a viral strain, having different levels of fitness via transmission, preservation, infectibility and manifestation of beliefs. To this day, Roman Catholicism is the fittest of all the denominations. However, other, newer denominations are seeing rise and success as a result of cultural shifts and value change. As of this moment, Pentecostalism is the fastest growing denomination, seeing great prominence in places like South America, where passion and mystical experiences are increasingly valued.

In terms of the memetic nature of religion, let us not forget that Christianity is the dominant religion on the planet, being the “fittest” religion memetically and occupying the minds of the largest percent of religious believers. It has also been in competition with other memetic ideas throughout history, almost being superseded by Manichaeism before the thirteenth century and currently at risk of being outpaced by Islam. Finally, Christianity, like all other monotheistic religions, evolved from Polytheistic “pagan” faiths which emerged as a result of animistic thinking, the precursor to any upheld belief in supernatural agents.

Conclusion

The parallel between genetic inheritance and memetic preservation need not be elaborated; it is a ubiquitous, albeit unconscious characteristic of all ideas. We are the only creatures on the planet with the capacity to live and die for our ideas, and the same brain which allows for the generation and preservation of these ideas also allows for mutation in opinion, narrative and overall expression. As these ideas are generated by the mind, differentiation in opinions and interpretation will inevitably lead to variation in upheld belief. This is part of the beauty of being human. Whatever practices you take part in, whether it be humming a tune, a practice of greeting or subscribing to a religious faith, give thanks to the remarkable pattern-devising machine that creates said ideas for your conceptualization of the world.