Daniel Foix
On January 8, 2016, English singer and songwriter David Bowie released his 27th studio album: ★(pronounced “Blackstar”). Upon its release, the record was met by widespread critical acclaim and initiated a surge of reinterest in Bowie’s career. However, a mere two days after the release, David Bowie passed away following an eighteen-month battle with liver cancer – a battle which had been carefully kept secret from the general public. Following this surprising twist of fate, the infant surge of reinterest in Bowie’s career grew exponentially – a passage of discovery for new fans and a rite of mourning for old ones. As reported by Business Insider, this postmortem Bowie fervor led to the artist breaking Vevo’s record for the most videos viewed in a single day, with over 51 million views (Oswald).
To satisfy this public hunger, Bowie’s career received an immense quantity of publicity from
many major news outlets. Primarily, this publicity revolved around the artistic influence of David Bowie and of his ever-changing personas – invented personalities used to explore the musical theater. Predominantly, this publicity focused on either his more famous personas (such as Ziggy Stardust) or his grandest, most influential persona – that of “David Bowie” himself – whereas the man behind the glitz and glamour tends to be glossed over [1]. That is to say, the focus on Bowie’s musical work and the influence thereof tends to distract from acknowledging his personal life. Most prominently, the evolution of Bowie’s personal spirituality – a focal point of the musician’s life and art (as will be discussed) – has been largely unrecognized.
In a similar fashion to his artistic career – which is renowned for reinvention and experimentation – throughout the course of his life, Bowie’s theology has undergone a plethora of “changes.” Despite originating from a Christian background, Bowie’s early life was characterized by conflicting systems of spiritual beliefs: ranging from Satanism, to Kabbalism, and to Buddhism (Buckley 233; Trynka 280, 314). In 1967, Bowie had considered becoming a Buddhist monk before being advised to continue pursuing music; however, he maintained an attachment to Buddhist philosophy for the remainder of his life (Buckley 47; Sawer). Though his spiritual drive assumed a slower tempo as he progressed into middle-age, it was never entirely subdued. In 1993, Bowie would profess an “undying belief in God’s existence,” only to engage in a serious flirtation with atheism as he entered the 21st century (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”; Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”). Suffice to say, Bowie’s spirituality emerges as consistent motif in his artistic work, lyrically and thematically.
Even at a surface glance upon Bowie’s life, the personal significance of his spirituality is deeply evident; hence, discussing the personal evolution of his spirituality and the effects it played upon his artistic work holds substantial erudite prospects. By diminishing the gap between act and actor, this analysis will serve to provide background information on the musician’s life for eager Bowie neophytes while simultaneously illustrating a new perspective for old Bowie acolytes. Furthermore, the interconnectivity between life experience and artistic production is prominently emphasized through Bowie’s life, and such an analysis will serve to emphasize the direct relationship between art and artist. Therefore, to facilitate this discussion, several questions must be posed and evaluated: Why has spirituality been of such prominent interest to Bowie; from where did this spiritual hunger originate? How has Bowie’s spirituality influenced his artistic output and to what extent are these aspects interconnected? For that matter, where did Bowie’s spiritual journey finally end and why was this route chosen?
The Effects of Bowie’s Dichotomous Childhood
David Bowie’s spiritual journey begins in the same place Bowie himself began: at 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, on January 8, 1947. Though he was raised in a loving, supportive environment, Bowie’s childhood was characterized by a religious dichotomy – a dynamic resulting from a Catholic mother and a Protestant father. These differing religious philosophies provided a continual source of contention which Bowie’s parents readily utilized; the morality of their chosen philosophies was argued between them on a nigh-constant basis (Bowie, “Bowie on 9/11 and God”). During a 1997 interview with USA Today, David Bowie would later recount that this dynamic resulted in a sense of religious alienation during his childhood; specifically, he remembered doubting the validity of Christianity and questioning
where he “fit in” at an early age (Gardner and Gundersen). Significantly, during this same interview, Bowie cautiously suggested that his lifelong spiritual search may have been a result of this conflicting religious background (Gardner and Gundersen).
Though Bowie presents his spiritual hunger’s origins with a degree of skepticism, the findings
of Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin during their longitudinal study on the effects of religion on child
development suggest that Bowie may have produced a valid self-diagnosis. Taking note of previous evidence which emphasizes the influence parental relationships have upon childhood spiritual development, their study sought to evaluate the positive and negative effects which parents’ religiousity (based on attendance, faith homogeneity, and how religion is discussed) play upon psychological and social child development. Their findings demonstrate that religiously homogeneous parents generally provide positive effects on child development, whereas religiously heterogeneous parents are typically associated with negative effects on both child development and familial relationships (Bartkowski, Xu,
and Levin 21, 33). Furthermore, when considering the contentious role religion served between Bowie’s parents, the report’s discussion of familial religious conflict holds especial significance:
Frequent parent–child discussions about religion often yield positive effects on child development, while any effects associated with family arguments about religion are deleterious for children. Thus, religion can serve as a bridge that links generations and yields pro-social outcomes, but can also function as a wedge that fosters division and conflict, thereby undermining children’s development. (Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin 33)
Regardless of the implications toward Bowie’s early psychological and social development, it seems reasonable to suggest that religion impeded his early relationship with his parents. A later comment Bowie made about his mother gives credence to this suggestion; in 2002, when questioned about their relationship, he proceeded to recite Phillip Larkin’s poem “This Be the Verse,” which opens with the line “They fuck you up, your mom and dad” and continues on to describe misery deepening like a coastal shelf (Trynka 8).
The significance of the fractured relationship between David Bowie and his parents is
emphasized by social psychologist Lee Kirkpatrick’s attachment-theory perspective on the psychology of religion. According to Kirkpatrick, one’s religious beliefs are heavily influenced by the religious convictions of one’s parents’, yet the precise nature of this influence is dependent upon the quality of the relationship between parent and child (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 11). For example, children with secure parental relationships tend to espouse the religious doctrine of their parents, whereas children with insecure parental relationships are less likely to uphold their parents’ beliefs (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 11). Furthermore, such insecure relationships hold the risk of promoting atheism/agnosticism, which Bowie himself would later espouse (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 12).
An individual develops their view of God at an early age (qtd. in Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin
19). In a 2002 interview, Bowie would recount that the judgment of God always loomed over their household (a focal point of his parents’ debates); he described this sensation as “terrible” (“Bowie on 9/11 and God”). The nature of Bowie’s childhood resulted in an early distrust of Christianity and God’s nature and witheld him from adopting either of his parents’ belief systems. Without a stable system of beliefs to uphold, yet filled with spiritual unease, Bowie would proceed into adulthood on a quest to determine the exact nature of God and thereby escape the spiritual ambivalence of his childhood.
As a corollary to the spiritual unease of Bowie’s childhood, he would also suffer from
significant psychological struggles during his early life. Many years later, he would recount he had serious struggles with low self-esteem and personal/artistic inadequacy throughout his early career (Egan and Bowie 276, 323). In an 1997 interview with David Cavanagh of Q Magazine, Bowie uneasily details this aspect:
. . . A lot of the negativity when I first started was about myself. I was convinced I wasn’t worth very much. I had enormous self-image problems and very low selfesteem, which I hid behind obsessive writing and performing . . . I thought I didn’t need to exist. I really felt so utterly inadequate. I thought the work [my art] was the only thing of value. (Egan and Bowie 323)
Based on the findings of Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin, as discussed in the previous section, this feeling of personal inadequacy likely resulted from the spiritual conflict that characterized his childhood. Bowie’s initial belief in the supremacy of his art – a corollary of his early lack of self-esteem – is not to be ignored; however, since he believed his sole purpose was to produce art, then the purpose of his art must also be considered. On multiple occasions, Bowie would state the central focus behind his entire work – regardless of the surface themes present – was exploring and locating his spirituality (Bowie, “Bowie on 9/11 and God”; Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”; qtd. in Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 66). Therefore, since musical output was of paramount importance to young Bowie, it
corresponds that determining his spirituality was of equal value; locating this spirituality would provide his existence with meaning and circumvent his battle with self-esteem. Accordingly, the exaggerated exploration of Bowie’s spirituality during the ’70s coincides with the apex of his artistic production, further emphasizing the interconnectivity of both aspects. Hence, beyond surface commercial motives, Bowie’s passion for music was used as a tool to explore and express his personal spirituality, and thereby escape the inadequacy and fractured religiosity he derived from childhood. Furthermore, this information provides an oculus to examine the interconnectivity between Bowie’s spiritual and artistic evolution.
Spirituality as Expressed Through Music
At the age of thirteen, two years prior to forming his first band, young Bowie took an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, an interest which originated from reading from T. Lobsang Rampa’s book “The Rampa Story” (Gamboa). In actuality, Rampa was a pen-name used by Cyril Hoskin, an unemployed surgical fitter, who believed that his body was inhabited by a Tibetan Lama named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa following a process of transmigration of the soul [2] (Lopez 99-103; Rampa 149-155). Rampa’s work revolved around metaphysics, aura-reading, and other paranormal/occultic themes; in addition to Buddhism, this book likely served to develop Bowie’s later interests in occultism and Tibetan blackmagic, or, as it would later be described by him, “the dark side of Buddhism” (“Tuesday Lobsang Rampa”; König).
During Bowie’s formative years, his fascination with Buddhism developed to the point at which it threatened to supersede his musical ambitions completely. By the time he was seventeen, he began studying at a Tibetan Centre about four days per week; during this time, he met a high holy Tibetan Lama named Chime Yong Dong Rinpoche who would become his guru (Gamboa; König). After several months of study, Bowie was strongly considering becoming a Buddhist monk; however, Chime Rinpoche ultimately dissuaded him from this path, saying “You don’t want to be Buddhist. You should follow music” (Buckley 47; Gamboa).
Though he heeded Chime Rinpoche’s advice, Bowie’s Buddhist studies remained a lasting influence for the rest of his life. Immediately, these teachings were reflected in “Silly Boy Blue,” one of the first songs Bowie ever wrote (“Child of the Tibet, you’re a gift from the sun / Reincarnation of one better man”), and his twenty-minute pantomime 1968 performance to his song “Yet-San and the Eagle” – a coming-of-age tale of a Tibetan boy during Communist Chinese persecution (Bowie, David Bowie; Mendelssohn). Bowie’s later career continued to pay homage to Buddhism, as is exemplified by the semi-autobiographical soundtrack he wrote for the BBC miniseries The Buddha of Suburbia and his 2001 performance for the Tibet House benefit, which was intended to honor his Buddhist teachers and facilitate the preservation of Tibetan culture (O’Leary; Gamboa).
Though Bowie would soon explore a plethora of other spiritual philosophies following the 60s, he would never entirely stray from his Buddhist influences. In 1996, Bowie would state that the principles of Buddhism which initially interested him still held great personal values, citing specifically the concepts of transience and the fleeting nature of life – themes echoed throughout his entire career (Egan and Bowie 312-313). Appropriately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Bowie would have his ashes scattered on the Indonesian island Bali “in accordance with the Buddhist rituals,” following his death (Sawer).
Following Bowie’s early experiences with Buddhism, he would fluctuate between and investigate a variety of religions and philosophies (including Nietzsche and pottery, as quipped during an interview in 2004) (Bowie, “David Bowie”). His spiritual exploration of the ’70s largely culminated during the mid-’70s, with a fixation on Egyptology, Kabbalism, and black-magic. Occultic themes had long been present in Bowie’s work, as evidenced by references to Crowley and the Golden Dawn on his 1971 album Hunky Dory, yet as the years progressed his mild interest in occultism evolved into an all consuming obsession, leaving the musician in a state of “psychic terror” (Bowie, Hunky Dory; Buckley 226). During this period, Bowie spent his days scrawling pentagrams over the walls of his Los Angeles apartment, being visited by “disembodied beings,” burning black candles, storing urine in his refrigerator (lest his enemies use it to enchant him), and even exorcising his swimming pool (Buckley 227; König). While this spiritual crisis was fueled in part by an overwhelming cocaine addiction, a sober Bowie would later state in the early ’90s that his distress was likely a result of abandoning God (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”).
It was during this state of spiritual, physic, and physical distress that David Bowie recorded his seminal work, Station to Station. Interestingly, and perhaps contradictorily, despite being produced in this state of malady, Station to Station would be hailed as a “masterpiece of invention” by biographer David Buckley and argued among critics to be one of Bowie’s “finest records” (Buckley 263, 269). Fittingly, Station to Station is also one of Bowie’s most spirituality explicit records, containing tactile evidence of both his occultic preoccupations and his contrasting yearning for spiritual liberation (a curious parallel to the album’s dichotomous production and reception). While the funk, krautrock, and “romantic balladry” permeated throughout Station to Station tend to distract from the lyrical content, the album itself is very dark in nature – Bowie himself would later describe it as the closest album to a “magical treatise” he had ever written (Carr and Shaar 78-80; Bowie, CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE).
The title track, “Station to Station,” is the most prominent example of Bowie’s occultic and spiritual fixations of the time. Though the track is often assumed to reference railway stations (which is implied by the noise of a train during the song’s opening), in actuality “Station to Station” is preoccupied with the “Stations of the Cross”[3] and the mystical Kabbalah[4] (Bowie, CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE). Traversing the stations of the Kabbalistic tree of life is lyrically depicted in a ritualistic manner:
Here are we
One magical movement
from Kether to Malkuth
There are you
You drive like a demon
from station to station (Bowie, Station to Station)
It is worth noting that a typical Kabbalist does not travel from Kether to Malkuth, but from Malkuth to Kether. As can be observed from the Tree of Life [4], Kether is the topmost Sephirot in Kabbalism and thus the most sublime and closest to God. Contrariwise, our corporeal plane of Malkuth (the physical world) resides at the bottom of the Tree of Life. To “drive” in this “magical movement” from the apex to the nadir of the Tree would signify descension from the ethereality of God to the physical plane; occultic researcher Peter R. König notes that this descent would thusly “[make] man one with the Divine” (König). In his state of spiritual darkness, Bowie sought to use the Kabbalah – through his art – in an effort to reconnect to the God he had abandoned.
However, this spiritual longing is most clearly emphasized by a later track on the album: “Word on a Wing.” Just as Station to Station is the closest Bowie had came to producing a magical pact, “Word on a Wing” is lyrically more akin to a Christian hymn than a rock and roll jaunt:
Lord, I kneel and offer you
My word on a wing
And I’m trying hard to fit among
Your scheme of things (Bowie, Station to Station)
By “kneeling” before the Lord Almighty, Bowie conjures up the image of a lost soul, offering his life for God’s love and mercy. In a 1993 interview with music journalist Tony Parson, Bowie would later express his belief in the interconnectivity between prayer and music, stating that many of his songs are “prayers for unity within [himself]” (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”). Similarly, shortly before performing “Word on a Wing” in 1999, he would describe the song as a definite “signal of distress” (Bowie, VH1 Storytellers). Rather than simply describing a generic lost soul, Bowie appears to have described himself, offering the song as a testament of his resolve to earn God’s favor – to “fit among [God’s] scheme of things” (Bowie, Station to Station). Indeed, shortly after the release of Station to Station, Bowie would move from Los Angeles to Berlin, in order to escape his cocaine addiction, occultic obsession, and the “scum” with which he surrounded himself – a move later described as a search for religious truth (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”). At this point in his career, until the late ’90s, a relationship with God began to manifest. As this connection continued to develop, the prominent occultic imagery present throughout his early career would greatly diminish. The progression this relationship is prominently expressed in 1992, by Bowie’s recitation of the Lord’s Prayer during Freddie Mercury’s tribute concert (Kaye 2).
However, toward the end of the 20th century, Bowie’s faith in God began to dissipate. Though he did not speak in great detail about the origins of this spiritual doubt until the early ’00s, the direction of Bowie’s spirituality is subtly made evident through his art. In 1997, he would record Earthling, an album which he would describe as an expression of his need to “vacillate between atheism and a kind of Gnosticism” (Bowie, Earthling). Similarly, his subsequent album ‘hours…’ would explore equally dark themes: “The Gods forgot they’ve made me / so I forgot them too” (Bowie, ‘hours…’). As the years progressed, Bowie’s spiritual incertitude would largely culminate with the release of his 2002 album, Heathen – a record saturated with anguish and cynicism.
The most marked example of Bowie’s troubled spirituality is found on the track “I Would Be Your Slave” – a desperate ballad nestled at the centre of Heathen. The song’s sparse, jazzy rhythm is notably subdued, allowing the emotional vulnerability behind Bowie’s vocals to transcend to the universal:
I don’t give a damn
I don’t see the point at all
No footprints in the sand
I bet you laugh out loud at me
A chance to strike me down
Give me peace of mind at last
Show me all you are
Open up your heart to me
And I would be your slave (Bowie, Heathen)
The song, in essence, is presented as a pleading prayer to an entity Bowie doubts is listening – a prayer for peace, for perception, and for propinquity. The most significant line is in Bowie’s reference to “No footprints in the sand,” which serves as a reference to the famous Christian poem, “Footprints” (Bowie, Heathen). The poem itself describes a man walking on a beach with God, leaving two pairs footprints on the sand behind, with each footprint representing a different stage of the man’s life. During times of hopelessness and despair, however, these footprints dwindle into one pair, suggesting that God left the man during those arduous times. When questioned by the man, God responds, “During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you” (“Footprints). By pronouncing a complete lack of footprints in the sand, Bowie suggests that God was either never there to walk beside him or had chosen to ignore his life (the subsequent lines seem to emphasize the latter). Despite this acrimony, the lyrics “Show me all you are / Open up your heart to me,” compounded with his incessant offer of subjugation, reveal the track to be a plea for God to reveal the spiritual plenum Bowie had long been denied, seemingly as a final attempt to bring “peace of mind” to his lifelong spiritual quest (Bowie, Heathen).
In a later interview discussing Heathen, Bowie would attribute much of his spiritual doubt to the “anxiety in the air” present since the early ’90s – anxiety derived from the expectations and disappointments of entering the 21st century (Bowie, “David Bowie on 9/11 and God”). Throughout the subsequent years, until his apparent retirement in 2004, Bowie’s spirituality would seem to slowly settle on a definite school of thought – a school residing on the opposite end of the spectrum from his previously “unquestionable” belief in God (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”). In 2003, a year following the release of Heathen, Bowie would state that he was “almost an atheist” and go on to say rhat he needed only a few more months to make up his mind (Bowie, “ I’m Not Quite an Atheist, and It Worries Me”). Apparently, Bowie had not been granted “peace of mind,” and thusly sought it himself (Bowie, Heathen).
From 2013 to Eternity
Relatively soon after nigh-espousing atheism, David Bowie would suffer severe health issues while on tour which would dramatically reduce his musical output and personal publicity, until his unexpected commercial return in 2013. By corollary, David Bowie’s pseudo-retirement presents an interesting conundrum in regards to analyzing the final destination of his spiritual journey. Following his health issues in 2004, Bowie would progressively slip away from the public eye until he completely disappearing from view. Though he temporarily stopped making music, he would permanently swear off interviews and personal publicity; during his hiatus, Bowie had learned to enjoy the privacy his career had long denied him of (Visconti 6). Any word concerning Bowie’s health, state of mind, or music was delivered second-hand through his collaborators (primarily from his producer/friend, Tony Visconti). Until Bowie’s tragic departure, these individuals primarily discussed the latter. Without any available personal details on his spiritually from 2004 onward, the only lens into Bowie’s life is that of his music. Hence, the only way to examine the final stages of his spiritual evolution is to examine the thematic evolution between his 2013 comeback album, The Next Day, and his subsequent final album, ★.
Both The Next Day and ★explore the same general theme: death. The difference, however, is the approach taken by either album. Whereas ★carried notes of grace and liberation, The Next Day was saturated with doubt and fear – or, as it would be described by academic writer/artist Tanja Stark: “a honeycombed-catacomb of cryptic mystery, rage and resignation” (Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 61). God and religion are featured as prominent themes throughout the record. The title track opens the album with an obvious diatribe toward the Catholic Church and religious hypocrisy: e.g., “They can work with Satan while they dress like the Saints” (Bowie, The Next Day). The accompanying music video depicted gruesome stigmata wounds, self-flagellation, and other horror/profane elements; Bowie himself is portrayed prominently as a Christ figure, vanishing at the video’s end in the twinkling of an eye (The Next Day). The video echoes Bowie’s publicized distrust of organized religion (Bowie, “CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE”; Gardner and Gundersen). However, beyond traditional religious theology, The Next Day takes a cryptic turn. After “walking the dead” on “Where Are We Now?” and mocking hanging corpses on “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die,” the album is closed with “Heat” – a spiritual reflection which Stark places among “the most torturous songs” of his career (Bowie, The Next Day; Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 73). The track itself, saturated with self-doubt and resignation, likely accumulates from his lifetime of spiritual questioning: “And I tell myself / I don’t know who I am. . .But I am a seer / I am a liar” (Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 73; Bowie, The Next Day).
The most telling example of Bowie’s spiritual state at that time is not found on the The Next Day but rather on The Next Day: Extra – an accompanying EP released eight months following The Next Day. The forth track, “The Informer,” seems to epitomize his spiritual longing:
So help me Christ
I’ve got major questions
About the Lord above
About Satan below
[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]
And I still don’t know
What we were looking for (Bowie, The Next Day: Extra)
In its entirety, the song discusses the ending of a man’s life and his attempts to reconcile his doubt in God as he lays dying. Though he claimed in 2003 to only need “a few months” to settle on atheism, ten years later Bowie still held “major questions” about the truth and existence of God with a seemingly intensified passion (Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”; The Next Day: Extra). These open ended statements about both God and Satan and the subsequent lines concerning his search suggest that Bowie turned back from his atheistic contemplation and remained certain only of his uncertainty. Interestingly, the concept of turning to and questioning Christ in the face of mortality (“So help me Christ”) would be further discussed on his future single, “Lazarus” (Bowie, The Next Day: Extra; ★).
Approximately one year after the release of The Next Day, David Bowie would be diagnosed with liver cancer. He would begin production on ★shortly thereafter (Greene). Though ★’s lyrics detail Bowie’s struggles over mortality, they also contrast the torturous doubt which characterized The Next Day. “Lazarus,” the second single, is a paramount example of this aspect. The title of the song is an obvious reference to Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus famously raised from the dead (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 11.1-45). “Lazarus’s” opening lyric (“Look up here, I’m in Heaven) is an interesting contrast to Bowie’s description of crawling through “broken windows” and “cracked doors” at life’s end, as described in “The Informer” (Bowie, ★, The Next Day). Biblical elements reverberate throughout the course of the song:
By the time I got to New York
I was living like a king
Then I used up all my money
I was looking for your ass (Bowie, ★)
While “looking for your ass” could be taken as a vulgar way of “looking for someone,” in context with the title, it likely serves as a reference to Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem in which He rode a donkey and was hailed as a king (The Holy Bible: King James Version, Matthew. 21.1-9). As Lazarus was also searching for Jesus prior to his death – desiring to be healed – the lyrics could also suggest that Bowie “used up” the value of his material goods in search of lasting spirit fulfillment (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 11.1-45). With this in mind, the opening lines of the subsequent verse (“This way or no way / You know I’ll be free”) hold an interesting parallel to one of Jesus’ most famous instructions: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 14.6). Though it would be unrealistic to conclude Bowie’s final spiritual path based on pure lyrical analysis (which is inherently speculation, after all) the liberating spiritual and emotional tones echoed on “Lazarus” and all throughout ★seem to reflect a final catharsis to his lifelong quest.
Furthermore, Bowie’s wife, Iman, shared several uplifting spiritual messages through social media in the days leading up to his passing, culminating with the tweet, “The struggle is real, but so is God” – posted mere hours before his death was publicly announced (Park). In addition, Bowie followed “God” on Twitter shortly before his death (Schnitzer). While not directly commenting on Bowie’s spiritual state, these are certainly interesting corollaries.
In time, more information about Bowie’s final days may come to light; that which is currently available is insufficient for any definite statement on his final spiritual state, and any such conclusion would be a grave hubris. However, the information available, coupled with the distinctly contrasting tones between The Next Day,★, and even Heathen, suggest that Bowie may have progressed in a positive direction toward God. At the very least, the cynical voice of spiritual doubt present throughout his post-2000s musical production became significantly at toward the end of his life.
Remembering the Starman
Were it not for his humble Brixton origins, the artist David Bowie may not have existed as we know him. Though his spiritually tumultuous childhood produced extensive feelings of insecurity and spiritual doubt, Bowie channeled this esthesis into a lifelong spiritual hunger which in turn served to fuel his musical and artistic ambitions. Through music, Bowie was able to explore, express, and examine his spiritual worldview while searching for his “tenuous connection with God” (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”). Despite the definite presence of spiritual uncertainty echoed throughout his body of work, he would continue to push these boundaries and evolve his spiritual philosophy throughout the course of his musical career. When diagnosed with cancer and confronted with the inevitably imminent prospect of his mortality, his music once again served to express and confront his beliefs. ★, his final artistic gift, suggests that he may have found some measure of spiritual peace at his life’s end; if a silver lining from his tragic passing can be gleaned, this is it.
It has been nearly four months since David Bowie passed away. The shock and sorrow of his sudden, tragic passing are beginning to fade away, yet his influence still resonates throughout the world and will likely continue to do so. Though celebrities and artists are remembered primarily for their work – their contributions to society – it is important to remember that these individuals lead intricately detailed lives much like our own. Art is not created within a vacuum. Regardless of how great or small, life experiences translate into one’s art, and the greatest works of art tend to have deeply personal origins; David Bowie’s life stands as an epitome of this concept. The utility of art to express personal beliefs and emotion is beautifully depicted through Bowie’s own thoughts on music, as recollected by his close friend, the actor Gary Oldman:
Music has given me over 40 years of extraordinary experiences. I can’t say that life’s pains or more tragic episodes have been diminished because of it, but it has allowed me so many moments of companionship when I have been lonely and sublime means of communications when I have wanted to touch people. It has been my doorway of perception and the house that I live in. (Young)
Though David Jones has passed away, David Bowie continues to live on through his art and in the lives of those he touched. While his records continue sell, the spiritual evolution and experience conveyed through his music will continue to testify to art’s provocative healing power for all those still “running down the street of life” (Bowie, Reality).
Notes
1. In actuality, “David Bowie” is a stage name used by the musician christened David Robert Jones. This nom de plume was originally invented to avoid confusion with Davy Jones, vocalist of the American rock band The Monkees (Buckley 23). For the sake of convenience, however, David Jones will generally be referred to as “David Bowie.”
2. Transmigration of the soul is a process akin to reincarnation. In the case of Cyril Hoskin/Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, Cyril Hoskin was a fully grown man prior to his transmigration. In his autobiographical work, The Rampa Story, he details falling from a fir tree and seeing a vision of a Buddhist monk. As this monk’s body was old and feeble, he sought to be incarnated within Hoskin’s body; Hoskin, citing that he was dissatisfied with his own life, willingly agreed to let Rampa take over his body (Rampa 149-155).
3. The Stations of the Cross are a series of images, or “stations,” commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; they are commonly used as a Catholic devotion. There are fourteen Stations in total, each chronicling a different event leading to Jesus being laid to rest in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The Stations of the Cross are used as a form of prayer, rather than an “intellectual exercise”; the basic purpose of this devotion is to deepen one’s understanding of and relationship with God (“Stations of the Cross”).
4. The Kabbalah is an esoteric school of mysticism originating in Judaism. While the precise definition of what the Kabbalah “is” differs according to the individual practitioner’s traditions, the purpose of Kabbalism is to understand the relationship between Ein Sof (infinity/God) and the mortal, palpable realm (Dan 4-10, 39-41). As Kabbalists hold that God is beyond human comprehension, they believe that God created ten attributes/emulations, referred to as sephirot, through which his nature is continuously revealed (“Jewish Mysticism”). With the exception of Malkhut, our physical realm, these emulations are metaphysical, with each station representing the transcendent nature of God’s divinity and the path of man’s spiritual ascent; by ascending the sephirot, man can access the power of God (“Jewish Mysticism”). The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is used as symbolic representation of these ten Sephirot.
Fig. 1: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (Kiener).
Works Cited
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