Addendum to “A Sun by Rising Set“
“A Sun by Rising Set“ is the expression of an ecstatic, triumphant dance about battling a God – a sun-god
called Elagabal, the banished emperor of ancient Rome, who fell victim to the lies and intrigues of man-
kind. Born in Emesa, he became an archpriest before being crowned as the imperator of the Roman Empire.
Due to his religious background Elagabal's paramount goal was to keep his Syrian set of beliefs alive and
to spread it among the Roman citizens. But he merely encounted the hate and ignorance of his nation. He
was defamed and portrayed as a transsexual, gay and child sacrificing monster by ancient historiography.
Elagabal was about 18 years old when he and his mother got killed. They were beheaded, their bodies
disgraced, shown to the Roman public and eventually thrown into the Tiber - hence his posthumous nick-
name “Tiberinus“. All documents and inscriptons about the ostracised imperator were destroyed due to
the damnatio memoriae. He went down as a beast and the spawn of evil. For the scientifically unbiased
public this image hasn't changed much until today. Nearly 1.800 years after his death, Elagabal chooses
the godly writer Elilah to let him tell his real story to posterity. Here begins “A Sun by Rising Set“,
which takes its title out of John Donne's poem „Good-Friday, 1613, Riding Westward“. Subdivided into
two chapters, the album tells story of a young Elilah, who has been taken possesion by Elagabal trying
to prey him to take revenge on humanity, which becomes manifest in the total inversion of all things:
Light turns into darkness, male into female, sun into moon and putative truth into lie. All this in order
to clean up the messed up view about his person that was drawn by historians. It's about the battle and
the dance of principles, the union of all opposites, and thus the evocation of the void's last stand!
Elagabal derives advantage from a drug induced psychosis in Elilah to establish contact. He unties with
the young writer and guides him into the past to show him the truth about his life and to inform him
about the most disgusting lies that were told about him. Elilah achieves insights into the unknown depths
of a time that was long ago. The world falls into and endless and unescapable derangement. Thanks to
his profound faith Elilah succeeds in saving himself and mankind from Elagabal's terrible vengeance after
all. He manages to get rid of his inner demons in wild struggle and forces Elagabal to relive his own death
by confronting him with poetical and christian mythology. “A Sun by Rising Set“ is a journey into a world
of christian myths, eastern rites, bygone legends and inebriation-like nightmare of schizophrenia. It
begins where this story is already past to tell it right now.
By J.Wingens
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