-Caveat Lector-
The Laughing Gnostic:
DAVID BOWIE AND THE OCCULT
by
Peter R. Koenig
http://www.cyberlink.ch/%7Ekoenig/bowie.htm
[Koenig has written authoritatively on the history of
European occult movements, especially the German OTO.]
There is much spiritual and religious symbolism in David
Bowie's lyrics. In this essay, I would like to draw the reader's
attention to just some of the occult aspects of Bowie's work.
For example, I'd like to refer you to:
** "Did You Ever Have a Dream" (astral flights)
** "After All" ("Do What Thou Wilt")
** "Quicksand" (cf. Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley)
[Again on Bowie's set list in 1997 as the opener
(sometimes after the drum'n'bass part)]
** "Station to Station" (i.e., from Kether to Malkuth)
** biographies by Angie Bowie and Marianne Faithfull
** his own 1996 Press statement during his Outside-tour:
"My overriding interest [in 1976] was in Cabbala and
Crowleyism -- that whole dark and rather fearsome
netherworld of the wrong side of the brain."
--NME, November 25, 1995
The Golden Dawn was a magical secret society at the turn of
the century which taught a unique blend of Jewish mysticism
(called Cabbala), astral travel, Yoga and communication with
angels and demons. Aleister Crowley expanded the limits of the
Golden Dawn, advocating assumption of God forms, union with Gods
(angels and demons) during orgasm and/or consumption of male and
female sexual fluids.
"Station to Station" is a beautiful example of Bowie's
dealing with occult symbols.
These "stations" refer to Jewish cabbala and magick, in
which the unmanifested God is said to pour itself into ten
manifestations/"stations" called "Sephirot". (The highest is
called "Kether" and the lowest "Malkuth.")
If you have the CD version of "Station to Station," look at
Bowie's photo on the rear: He's sitting on the floor and drawing
this so-called Tree of Life with its 10 Sephirot.
Travelling the "stations," as Bowie sings, means this:
If the direction is from Kether to Malkuth, it refers to God's
descent to the physical level, where man can be made one with the
Divine, and if the opposite direction, from Malkuth to Kether, it
means having sex, man ascending and during orgasm becoming God.
Techniques like these have become popular through Aleister
Crowley who, having formerly been in the Golden Dawn, later
became head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an order which was
and still is deeply involved with sex magick.
To the public, both the Golden Dawn and the OTO are thought
of as pseudo-freemasonic organisations, wherein the seeker (new
member) goes through ceremonial degrees of initiation wearing
Egyptian costumes -- like the one that Bowie wore for a photo
session in 1970 or 1971.
In "David Bowie's Black Book" by Miles, London, 1980, on
page 40, he gives the occult sign of "as above, so below," the
icon of Baphomet, the old idol of the Knights Templar. In the
photo on the inner sleeve of the CD version of "Space Oddity,"
Bowie portrays the Sphinx, an important occult symbol. Likewise
on the cover of the bootleg CD "The Shadow Man."
In Bowie's "After All" can be found "Do What Thou Wilt," one
of Crowley's mottos, which (among other interpretations)
represents "Thelema," the Greek word for "Will" (willpower). The
letters of WILL/THELEMA sum up to 93, the same number as EROS or
AGAPE (love) and many other important [Crowleyan] keywords.
In short, it again refers to sex magick.
Bowie's live performance of "Time" in his Glass Spider video
also shows him imitating "the Hanged Man" Tarot card, which
identifies him with the "Redeemed Redeemer," a key figure in
occultism again hinting at Baphomet, the central idol of the
Knight Templars and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). "Baphomet"
was also a magical name chosen by Crowley when identifying
himself with the Antichrist, the Beast 666.
And, as I saw during his live performance of "The Man Who
Sold The World" in Zurich on February 14, 1996, Bowie [can] sit
barefoot in a very demanding Yoga position.
It is reported that Bowie had a strong interest in the
[Grail] saga of King Arthur.
"I had this morbid obsession with the so-called '[Templar]
mysticism' of the Third Reich," he tells us.
[In Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parsifal,"] it was the Knights
Templar who were sent out to seek the Holy Grail.
As interpreted in magick and sex-magick, this grail is the
vagina containing sperm and vaginal fluids. Consuming these
combined "psychosexual fluids" --the Elixir of Life, as it is
called-- gives rise to Homo Superior, the God in Man and the Man
in God.
Like "the Golden Ones" in Bowie's "Oh! You Pretty Things."
And doesn't Angie Bowie tell us that Bowie called his penis
"Sir Lancelot," a key figure in the Grail-saga ... ?
Drafted for:
the David Bowie fan magazine,
"Crankin' Out"
Box 3268
London NW6 4NH England
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