The Laughing Gnostic —
David Bowie and the Occultby Peter–R. Koenig
First publication: 1996, recent update: 2016Angie Bowie recalled a good deal of occult activity during the LA period of 1974–76; it was also clear that Bowie was vulnerable to the influence of sycophants and hangers–on while he was heavily into cocaine. It has been alleged that at this time he scribbled frantic cabbalistic calculations on his own correspondence, stored his own urine in a fridge of Michael Lippman’s home where he was living then, and was obsessed about preventing anyone else getting hold of his nail–clippings and hair–trimmings, so they could not fall into the hands of those he thought wished to put spells on him. This sort of voodoo superstition — a fear that bodily waste could be used for evil purposes by occult enemies — can also be found in Aleister Crowley's more secret teachings.
Here is one of those 'secret teachings': "
All bodily excrements, such as cut nails, and hair, should be burnt; spittle should be destroyed or exposed to the Sun; the urine and faeces should be so disposed of that it is unlikely that any other person should obtain possession of them.All bodily excrements, such as cut nails, and hair, should be burnt; spittle should be destroyed or exposed to the Sun; the urine and faeces should be so disposed of that it is unlikely that any other person should obtain possession of them. It is even desirable in theory that linen should not be washed by strangers, and that old clothes should not be given to the poor until some time after the occasion of wearing them." (Aleister Crowley: "Of the Secret Marriages of Gods with Men." Published for example by Francis King: "The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O.", London 1973).
Aleister Crowley: "
I note that Cocaine first excites imagination and apparently [...]
confers a quite peculiar point of view, with a strangely intense and almost drunken pleasure equally unknown to those who have not taken it. This point of view seems to be that of the animal–subconscious; it owns no censor, moral or mental, and may be criminal or insane without qualm. It possesses one, like the 'devil' in the old pathologies. (Perhaps these describe and explain facts as well as or better than, the new.) In me, of course, such tendencies are rudimentary; and the mental and moral inhibitions would cry 'Halt! Who goes there?'"
[John Symonds and Kenneth Grant: "The Magical Record of the Beast 666. The Diaries of Aleister Crowley 1914–1920", London 1972, page 228.]
Bowie constructed an altar in the living room and he graced the walls with various magick symbols which he hand–painted. Candles burned around the clock, he regularly performed banishing rituals, and he protected his friends by drawing sigils on their hands.
The seventeen–year–old Cameron Crowe allegedly found a stirred–up Bowie burning black candles against an aborted magical ritual during the LA period. Eventually Crowe published several narratives in 'Rolling Stone' and 'Playboy' of Bowie drawing black magick symbols, seeing disembodied beings, thinking he was the Messiah, keeping bottles of his urine in the fridge, etc., etc.
Yet still in March 1987 Bowie was insisting: "
I don't think I ever was particularly in the Occult."
And for all these years he sang about the 'Jean Genie' who "
keeps all your dead hair for making up [witchy]
underwear."
Angie Bowie witnessed her husband exorcising the swimming pool: "
When he did the exorcism he cited from one of the books I got for him from the magick store in Hollywood [for example, the so–called 'Rituale Romanum'] .
Some exorcism spell, who knows? I offered to bring in the Greek Orthodox Bishop from Santa Sophia’s Cathedral in Los Angeles. I though I might humilate him into behaving himself, stop doing so much cocaine and have to receive a house visitor; but that didn’t work. David performed the ‘Swimming Pool Exorcism’ himself... in fact, when I found a house in California in Los Angeles, an old Hollywood house with a second–foor solarium with a pentagram painted on the foor, he nearly had a heart attack and said we couldn’t live there! David loves to play weird. He just can’t stand not to be the head Ho Ho." [My interview with Angie Bowie in 2003]
Bowie asked someone for a mezuzah, a talisman against demons used by Qabalists. In April 1974, while in London, Angie Bowie received a phone call from her husband in LA, who claimed that he was kidnapped by a magician and two witches who wanted to steal his sperm. Allegedly, they intended him to father a Baby for Rosemary.
Angie Bowie reacted reluctantly: "
Believing he was held captive by a warlock and [*** C*** ***] and he was to inseminate the whatever by All Hallows’ Eve. I told him, I said, why did they bother to hold you captive, they just needed to ask. I’m sure you’d have been delighted to [***] AGAIN... I never bought his stories. NEVER. Flying all the way to Los Angeles for him to invent some hallucination, drug–induced, about witches and warlocks... Please!" [My interview with Angie Bowie in 2003]
"Such is the stuff from / Where dreams are woven"In February 1975, Bowie insisted, "
that Hitler was a terrible military strategist but his overall objective was very good." It was obvious that he was living in other realms.
On the CBS The Cher Show, 23.11.1975, he was undoubtedly speaking to himself in the duet with the sex icon Cher in 'Can you hear me?' Was he 'Calling Sister Midnight'?
Bowie was reading Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Georges I. Gurdjieff, and (according to Peter & Leni Gillman: "Alias David Bowie", London 1986) in 1975 allegedly he met the Crowleyite Kenneth Anger ("Anger vigorously denies this; he says he's never met David Bowie," Henry Edwards and Tony Zanetta: "Stardust: The David Bowie Story", NY 1986), and soon would develop a new alter ego: the emotionless Aryan superhuman called The Thin White Duke. In late 1975 he started recording the songs for his next album, 'Station to Station', released in January 1976.
Kenneth Anger had lived in Aleister Crowley's Boleskine House in Scotland for a summer before Jimmy Page bought it in 1970 from the Canadian who owned it.
Anger's later membership in the Crowleyan Ordo Templi Orientis is easily demonstrated by the way he signs his private letters (to me, the present author) with the abbreviation "O.T.O.", and the fact that he is a known associate of the chief of a modern–day American version of the O.T.O., called the 'Caliphate'. In fact, Anger is listed as a member of the 'Caliphate' O.T.O's IXth degree in the group's membership list (see details of Crowley's sex–magical system above). A member of Charles Manson's infamous 'Family', Robert Beausoleil, lived together with Anger for some time. Before he took up murdering Hollywood celebrities in 1969, Beausoleil had acted the part of Lucifer in Anger's movies 'Lucifer Rising' in 1966 and 'Invocation of My Demon Brother' of 1969; when he was sent to prison, he composed the music for 'Lucifer Rising'. Kenneth Anger was also instrumental in the founding of Anton LaVey's 'Church of Satan'. And allegedly it was LaVey who played the rôle of Satan in Roman Polanski's movie 'Rosemary's Baby' (this is in fact not true). Sharon Tate, one of the Family's murder victims, was Polanski's wife.
Ed Sanders: "The Family. The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion", New York / Dutton, 1971.
First edition, pages 162–163.
Keywords: Aleister Crowley, Ordo Templi Orientis, LSD ...
Ed Sanders:
In 1993, Bowie admitted that it was the atmosphere surrounding the Manson murders that had induced his fascination with what he called 'Black Magick'. Manson himself was possessed by occult fantasies.
Nonetheless, most people were far more interested in Bowie's latest hair–style than his lyrics. He still maintained, "
I'm Pierrot, I'm Everyman. What I'm doing is Theatre, and only Theatre... what you see on stage isn't sinister. It's pure clown... putting over the great sadness of 1976."
B.t.w, it is preposterous to assume that Bowie had ever been initiated into the O.T.O. After all, in the 1970s, it was a Swiss group that might be regarded as the only active O.T.O. worldwide.
In 1978, Bowie described his persona of 1976 as "
a very Aryan, Fascist type; a would–be romantic with absolutely no emotion at all but who spouted a lot of neo–romance." [Bowie interviewed by Timothy White: "Turn and Face the Strange", in 'Crawdaddy', February 1978.]
Christopher Sandford (via Angie Bowie) ("Bowie — Loving the Alien", Revised and Updated, London 1997): In March 1976 "
Bowie gave an interview in which he said, 'I want to be prime minister of England.'" — "I just want to have a revolution in England [...] T
he one thing I want to do when I get back to England is see what is happening there politically [...]
When I'm a lot older and know what I'm talking about politically, I would like to get into our politics back home. I still have my Grand King complex. I'll never lose that. I'm ultra Capricorn." [BOWIE: NOW I'M A BUSINESSMAN, 'Melody Maker' 1976, Interview by Robert Hilburn.]
Sandford: "
Then he began, with the aid of his book of magic numbers, to calculate the ideal moment for him to assume power."
According to Bowie's manager Kenneth Pitt from about 1967 to 1970, Bowie's mother, Peggy, naively joined Mosley's Blackshirts in the 1930s for no other reason than she liked the uniform. [Kenneth Pitt: "Bowie: The Pitt Report", London 1983].
On platform 8 in Victoria Station / London on 2nd May 1976 Bowie had been photographed (by the 'New Musical Express': see small scan of the item in question on the right) giving something that looked vaguely like a Nazi salute (which did not come across in both the footage ! ), and had been overheard muttering "
I am the only alternative for Premier in England. I believe Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader. After all, Fascism is really nationalism" a week before in Stockholm.
David Bowie salute that looks like a nazi salute which does NOT come across in the two videos. New Musical Express May 1976
"People aren't very bright, you know. They say they want freedom, but when they get the chance, they pass up Nietzsche and choose Hitler."
"Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars... think about it... I think he was quite as good as Jagger. It's astounding. And, boy, when he hit that stage, he worked an audience. Good God! He was no politician. He was a media artist himself. He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed and controlled the show for those 12 years."
"I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I'd be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad."
"I'd love to enter politics. I will one day. I'd adore to be Prime Minister. And yes, I believe very strongly in Fascism. The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that's hanging foul in the air at the moment is to speed up the progress of a rightwing, totally dictatorial tyranny and get it over as fast as possible."
[Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe: "A candid conversation with the actor, rock singer and sexual switch–hitter", printed in 'Playboy', September 1976.]
Bowie's flirtation with nazism fuelled the 'Rock Against Racism' (RAR) movement in 1976.
Years later he distanced himself from any taint of fascism.
"
Let me clear this up once and for all [...]
I have no political stance whatsoever. I've seen three or four variations of what I am supposed to have said." ['Daily Mirror', February 10, 1978]
"
To be insulted by these fascists — it's so degrading." ('It's No Game (Part 1)', 1980)