the occultism of david bowie:

In 1983 and 1984, the late Derek Jarman wanted to do a film called 'Neutron'. Prospects looked really good financially as he had lined up an impressive cast-list and who else than Bowie wanted to play the lead. The two had a meeting in Derek's apartment and everything seemed hunky-dory. But then Bowie suddenly started chain-smoking and Jarman noticed that his guest was getting more and more nervous and was shooting furtive glances at one of his bookshelves plus some drawings on the wall. Then suddenly in the middle of a conversation Bowie stood up, made a lame excuse and left. Twenty minutes later Bowie's driver and bodyguard came back to the flat and said that the master had forgotten something and then proceeded to remove the cigarette-stubs from the trash... Needless to say Bowie backed out of the project which then collapsed. Jarman never did have the time to explain that his John Dee books and the Enochian squares on the wall were souvenirs from the time when he made 'Jubilee', a film in which Dr. John Dee, Elizabeth the First's astrologer, had been one of the main characters.
Dee's 'Enochian' system of magic, with its complex magical diagrams, was an important part of Golden Dawn teachings.

There is a postscript to this story. The producer of 'Twin Peaks' for sentimental reasons bought the rights to 'Neutron'. The project was revived recently. And guess who wants to play the lead?

Here is one of Aleister Crowley's '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." Yet still in March 1987 Bowie was insisting: "I never was in the occult". But for all these years he sang about the 'Jean Genie' who "keeps all your dead hair for making up [witchy] underwear".


bowie's fascination with the occult is hardly surprising, but some of these conclusions seem, well, farfetched. but then i tend to find the little i know about crowley, the o.t.o. and scientology a bit on the silly side. via eye of the goof.