DISGRACELAND - David Bowie: The occult, cocaine, orgies, arrests, exorcisms, a weird flirtation with fascism and a dead body.

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

No musical artist better personified the hedonism of the ’70s than David Bowie. He captivated the imaginations of music fans all over the world with a dizzying array of creative alter egos; Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke among them, and his obsession with occultist Aleister Crowley drove him down a dark, excessive hole filled with cocaine, orgies, arrests, fascism, death and madness that very nearly destroyed him. To see the complete list of contributors, visit ⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠ This episode was originally published on February 9, 2021. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like, like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by Cotton. of our lives.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about David Bowie are insane. He was obsessed with the occult, with Alistair Crowley and the Golden Dawn. It drove him to near madness. Down a dark, excessive wormhole with cocaine, narcissistic rock star excess, orgies, arrests, exorcisms, a weird flirtation with fascism in a dead body. No musical artist better personified the hedonism of the 70s. than David Bowie. He captivated the imaginations of music fans all over the world,

not to mention fellow artists, some of whom he confounded, alienated, and annoyed, Andy Warhol, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan among them. Bowie was unlike any singular rock star before him. He was more than just David Bowie. He was a dizzying meld of creative alter egos, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke, among the few he gave voice to with his great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Showdown at the O.K. Space Corral, M.K.1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to love theme from Romeo and Juliet by Henry Mancini.

And why would I play you that specific slice of Star Crossed lover's cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on July 11. 1969. And that was the day David Bowie released the single, Space Oddity, launching into the public consciousness his first truly great artistic vision, the first of many that would significantly alter the future of rock and roll. On this episode, orgies, exorcisms, creative altered egos, and David Bowie. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. David Jones made his way through the crush of fans. and press, up the front of the stairs to the public safety building at Rochester City Court in upstate New York. He was up early on this March morning in 1976 and had arrived early

for his arraignment. A lucky fan nabbed an autograph from the accused outside the courthouse doors. Once inside, one of the most recognizable rock stars in the world at the time, was ushered into the courtroom and passed half a dozen prostitutes awaiting their own arraignment in the hallway. The pros erupted into cheers when they saw him pass. He gave them a polite smile from under his fedora, ever the gentleman. Inside the courtroom, he's settled in. The proceedings got underway. David Jones, 29, and his fellow defendants, James Osterberg, 28, and Dwayne Voss 22,

were asked by Judge Alphonse Cassetti how they pleaded to the charge of fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, marijuana, about half a pound of it. David Jones, and his dapper three-piece suit, hat and hand at his side stood alone, still, and politely answered in his proper English accent. Not guilty, sir. The judge agreed to a $2,000 bail bond for Jones and an additional $2,000 for his security guard, Dwayne Vos, as well as for his other friend, James Osterberg, who was popularly known by at least some of the record-buying public as the notorious Iggy Pop, one-time frontman for the late 60s punk rock archetypes, The Stooges.

David Jones kept such interesting friends because he was, of course, not only David Jones, he was David Bowie. He was also most famously Ziggy Stardust, the androgy bisexual rock star. Prior to Ziggy, Major Tom, the junkie astronaut, strung out in heaven's high, constantly trying to avoid the all-time low. Before Major Tom, he was the laughing gnome, bent on bringing to the masses some sort of to Jacques Brel's psychedelic Baroque, and before that he was Davy Jones,

another blue-eyed soul singer shuffling through London doing his best Bobby Blue Bland via Brian Jones' Mick Jagger. But as of late, while on tour in support of his 10th album, station to station, he was the thin white duke. And his mugshot for the arrest proved it. It's possibly the greatest rock star mugshot ever. There he is, and he is indeed thin, white, and with an air of nobility to him.

If you learned he ruled over a duchy, you would not be surprised. His eyes are two different colors. He's skeletal, haunting, almost transparent, sticking out of his starched collar and wide lapels. You get the sense that at one point in the evening, a tie was definitely in the mix. Something wide, a double winds or not, perhaps. His blonde hair is slicked back, but there's one strand slightly askew. It suggests a long night, nothing out of control, just long, most likely tiring. If he's put out, you can't really tell.

His expression is dead serious, but not me. He is beyond handsome. In a word, the mugshot is compelling. If you knew nothing about the photo or the man in it or his fame, you'd still want to know more. Who was this dude? And what was his deal? Which was why one of the non-arresting officers

working the station house that night he was arrested, pulled the mugshot from the trash when he saw it lying there on top. It was too compelling not to give it a second look, to not wonder. David Bowie had that kind of image, and his image had that kind of power, and he knew it. It was all by design,

all part of the creative package. It wasn't all about the music. It was about so much more. There was a theory that one creates a doppelganger, and then imbues that with all your faults and gilts and fears, and then eventually you destroy him, hopefully destroying all your guilt, fear, and paranoia. And I often feel that I was doing that unwittingly.

creating an alternative ego that would take on everything that I was insecure about. That's a Bowie quote, given to journalist Tony Parsons some years after the drug arrest in Rochester. But back in 76, Bowie was coming to the end of the road with the thin white duke and was contemplating a move to Berlin to dry out, clean up and get his head out of the fame and into the arm. The drug charge would eventually be dismissed by a grand jury coming to nothing. He was in need of new inspiration, a new new means. use, hell, even a new canvas, and creatively he'd get what he needed no matter what. He'd steal if necessary. It wasn't beneath him, he'd done it before. Authenticity didn't concern him like it did

Iggy. Thievery was part of the game, and he learned by watching, one of the greatest art thieves of all time. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro.

And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of family secrets. And just then, we felt the plain, turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of showed me out of the way

and said, move, and he went out the front door, and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do?

I'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going.

And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been sleepwalking. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether or it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, Mongeau. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1964, Yayoi Kusama was on her way to becoming the highest paid visual artist in the world. She was an innovator in pop art, sculpting with soft materials and working with repetition of images and symbols. Her pieces now go for an estimated $7 million each on average. Her net worth is estimated somewhere north of $20 million and naturally, her work is highly sought after.

In 1964, it wasn't just collectors and curators who had their eyes on Kusama's art. Thieves were circling two. One, in particular. He cased the gallery where Kusama's show was happening that evening. In the open, minimalist space of the Gertrude Stein Gallery was buzzing with women in maud fashions and thin men suited up in thin ties.

Cigarette smoke spiraled through the air, downtown hipsters, and major art critics zigzag between gallery rooms, taking in the latest work from the newest movement in the art world, pop art. Yayoi Kusama's work was staggering. It knocked the thief out. It overtook his senses. Kusama's artistic philosophy of self-obliteration, as she called it, was on full display.

As a child, Kusama suffered from hallucinations, the result of which was a traumatic overtaking of her own senses that she now channeled into her art through an applied perspective of what She believed the 1960s would bring, a technicolor vision of cultural subversion, celebrity, and fame. Her work exploded off of the gallery's walls, its floor, and even its ceiling. Her piece entitled Aggregation 1,000 Boat Show was immersive and all-encompassing. Yo-Yoi Kusama had papered the gallery with the same tiled image of a rowboat over and over and over again. A larger sculpture of a rowboat anchored the piece in the gallery. It was covered and stuffed and sewn. phallic protrusions.

The value of the thief's heist would be infinite. He knew it. He had a plan. A way to procure the goods without damaging or devaluing them. He wasn't like some other thieves, wasn't about to slash a painting from its frame with a razor, and then clumsily roll it up. He wasn't brazen or stupid enough to grab a sculpture in his arms and risk dropping and damaging it on escape.

No, he had a different method. Creative appropriation. It was safer to just steal another archer. artist's ideas than it was to steal her work. So that's what Andy Warhol did. Five months later, in April, 1966, Warhol's exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery featured a room completely tiled with only one image, that of a cow's head, in pink and yellow, colorful, playful, Warhol's own borrowed contribution to the fast-developing technicolor cultural subversion of the 60s. When asked where we got the inspiration for such a quote-unquote unique exhibition,

warhol credited an art dealer friend who suggested he play it safe and paid some pastoral cows but that he himself took the suggestion to this shocking and now celebrated end Andy Warhol's thievery didn't stop there like all great artists Warhol hardly appropriated into his work the influence of others this was not lost on David Bowie in 1972 Bowie set London on fire with the release of the rise of zyggy star dust and the spiders from mars which was not lost on david bowie which was a dizzying up to that point incomprehensible in seamless melding of a multitude of influences that included Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, composer Claudio Monteverdi, and French musical fabulous Michael Polanerov, among others.

But one year before Ziggy, David Bowie released what is to my ears nothing less than another masterpiece, hunky dory. On it, he paid tribute to Andy Warhol, with the far-out acoustic-driving, and possibly original track, directly titled, Andy Warhol. And Andy Warhol was not impressed. Which is ironic, given that the song and the album it appears on her as original and compelling as any Warhol creation before or since. Like Warhol,

Bowie appropriated the works of others. And also like Warhol, Bowie funneled that appropriation through a thoroughly unique point of view into something original. And again, like Warhol, Bowie's originality was not limited to his music in this appearance. His whole approach with unique. Bowie was obviously eager to meet the man who sold the world, the man from whom he appropriated his habit of appropriation. At his side that night, at Andy Warhol's famed factory on Union Square West in Manhattan, was his manager, main man, Tony DeFries. DeFries was an in ordinary rock and roll manager. He demanded his star client live up to his aspiration of becoming the greatest rock and roll star on this world or any other. So David Bowie did what he was told. He wasn't

dressed in all their ego zygi attire that night at the factory, but he was affecting the persona of a super famous pop star, which, of course, at least in America, he had yet to become. His records were selling, and there was an awareness of who he was and what he was doing, but he was far from the international music sensation he would become a few years later, and in the States, he wasn't even yet approaching the star status he'd already achieved in London. Nevertheless, he traveled everywhere by limousine and apart from his band. refused whenever possible to avoid leaving his hotel during daylight hours.

And when he did, he did so address to the hilt. He avoided restaurants and other public places at all costs. He never picked up a bag and instrument or even opened his own door, instead adopting a tactic of simply standing in front of every door he encountered awkwardly until someone offered to open it for him. He was privately doubted by Bob Dylan, who upon seeing Bowie once enter a party, Snidly asked George Harrison,

who the fuck does this guy think he is? And he was iced out by Paul and Linda McCartney, who, upon a visit to their hotel suite from Bowie and a female guest, did all they could to avoid eye contact and conversation until it was very clear that they'd rather the up-and-coming space crooner take his freaky presence elsewhere. Didn't matter. David Bowie was undeterred by the old guard.

He had a vision of this new decade, the 70s, and it didn't involve Bob Dylan or Paul. McCartney and involved him in his multitude of creative personalities. As a young adult, David Bowie watched his older brother, a schizophrenic, struggled to navigate this cruel world with multiple personalities, and he'd of course witnessed firsthand his own struggles as an artist throughout the previous decade, the 60s, where he'd bounced from one musical style and image to another, as a folk artist, a blues frontman, a crooner. None of it worked.

Nothing worked until he synthesized it all into the supernatural multi-image artist named David Bowie, whose first real creation, the Ziggy Stardust persona, would allow Bowie the space to conquer the 70s with an even greater array of creative characters. Unlike the rock stars born from the previous decade who valued authenticity over all else, David Bowie would be a vessel, and he would serve that vessel everywhere all the time, an act that would also distinguish him from the theatrical rock artist to come, Alice Cooper and Kiss, who wore their characters on stage but took the makeup off when the lights came on. Bowie didn't impersonate, Bowie became.

So even at a time when he couldn't afford it, he and his manager kept up the rock star ruse and lavishly spent money they did not have, record label money. He seldom spoke in public unless there was something in it for him, and when he did speak, he summoned the most proper British accents. He may not have been an actual alien, but compared to the rough-trade avant-garde melding of high and low art at Andy Warhol's factory in 71, David Bowie was clearly not of this world. He glided across the dance floor, Edie Sedgwick noticed him. Lou Reed didn't care. Flash photo bulbs popped, glittered against the tinfoil-wrapped silver walls.

Andy Warhol, the ultimate blank slave, listened to the conversation of others in the crowd, dressed in black with his slack silver hair, cutting an unimpressive figure compared to, well, everyone, but still, Radiant as a disco ball in his role as center of gravity for the night's downtown carnival. Tony DeFries was there that night to lock down Warhol actor Paul Morrissey for a film he was producing. David Bowie was there to kiss the ring. When he met Andy, Bowie awkwardly played him his song, Andy Warhol. It was clear from the silence afterward that Andy hated it.

David Bowie, if he was affected by the diss, didn't let it show. He was going to make it in America with or without Andy Warhol's blessing. Eventually, Ziggy Stardust broke through in the States and with it a mainstream cult of Bowie fanaticism. Fans would come to shows dressed as Bowie's alter ego, faces painted with lightning bolts, hair teased or covered with flaming red wings to mob their idol in a sea of imitations of this version of himself. Packed arenas sang along to Ziggy Tunes en masse, and the image-first philosophy of Tony DeFries was finally paying off.

In the summer of 1972, the album had peaked on the U.S. charts at a respectable 75 on the Billboard 200. But by the fall, the massively successful Ziggy Stardust Tour had come to the U.S. for the start of its North American leg, and Bowie was playing Carnegie Hall and inviting Andy Warhol in his famed factory entourage to come visit his show. The success, of course, came with perks. To call David Bowie sexually adventurous would not be an overstatement.

But more than that, he was a sexual opportunist, the conquests of his wife, Angela Bowie, were as notorious as her rock star husbands and sometimes even too much for him to handle despite their open marriage. Their home on Oakley Street in London had what Angie and David's friends referred to as, the pit, a sunken room with a big bed covered in furrow. plush carpet, perfect for sexual exhibitionism and voyeurism.

The orgies of Mr. and Mrs. David Bowie were the stuff of legend. And there it was, all 12 inches. John Bindon, the infamous London gangster's famous penis. It was every bit as prodigious as Princess Margaret had described. For her, John would stack five pint glasses on top of it, using its strength and girth to keep the glasses from falling. For Angela Bowie, he'd take on five women for the view. viewing pleasure of her and her friends until, of course, they could no longer stand the sight of it

and be forced by their own lust to join in on the fun inside the pit. But for David, there was no upside in this particular orgy. It was all spectacle, lacking in opportunity. There was nothing to gain from sex with John Bindon. There was no magic and therefore no power. Bowie knew of sexual magic, and he knew of the power it was rumored to summit, the type of power you couldn't find in smart-set orgies or in Andy Warhol's factory. The type of power that brought you closer to the golden dawn. The type of power that frightened drew you into the ragged hole that tore you between light and dark. The type of power that was found in the occult.

Specifically, in the writings of Alistair Crowley, dark power. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends...

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.

And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else? that you can do rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been sleepwalking.

David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Durbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, monjeu. Camilla Morone. Carrie Kenny Silver and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Of all the drugs readily available for rock stars

in the 1970s, none gave more of a false sense of self than cocaine. The drug gave you a blast of energy only to have you crash for days. It filled you with confidence before hollowing you out with paranoia. Nothing felt more real than the way one felt during nights spent, hoovering Escobar's finest, yet made you feel like more of a fraud the next morning. Cocaine, it's a hell of a drug. So real, but so phony. This conflict was very much on the

mind of David Bowie when he set out to record the album Young Americans. Having grown up around musicians as a teenager and a young adult, I have regrettably been on the wrong side of 5am in some stranger's kitchen listening to some stone, talentless moron blather on about the new record they had conceived of, that was going to blow your mind, man. Bowie's Young Americans is what happens when that stone moron actually has talent and just as important, ambition. Young Americans is the 5 a.m. Cocaine Concept album come to life, and it's fucking glorious. The album is unlike anything Bowie had attempted before, and in typical David Bowie fashion, it sounded like nothing the world had ever heard. It was Bowie's concept of plastic soul, a modernized, unapologetically Anglo version of

70's soul, impoppy is all hell. And for the recording session, Bowie brought together a murderous row of emerging talent to record in Philadelphia, with Tony Visconti's trusted production tying it all together. Boi was in search of that Philly Soul sound, and to that end, a baby-faced 23-year-old Carlos Alamar held down the guitar, while a co-writer and vocal arranger named Luther Vandros was over heard singing along in the control room and hired as an additional backup singer in one of his first big breaks. Bowie had a nose for talent, among other things. Of course, calling his version of soul plastic gave the white musical interlope or cover, provided a stylish sleigh of hand misdirection to obscure the appropriation. But appropriation aside, the album truly doesn't sound

like anything before it. The songs are so classic now that we take them for granted. Fascination, fame, young Americans, we are so accustomed to hearing these songs as part of our rock and roll lineage. Staples of the 70s that we, especially if we were born after the release, are denied the context from which those songs first hit the airways. Nothing sounded like them before. Now they just sound like David Bowie's songs, but in 1975, on the radio anyway, they sounded as alien as Ziggy Star Dust had looked in 1972. And we have cocaine to thank for this album. It fueled Bowie during the conception and creation of young Americans. Just as it fueled one of Bowie's fascinations at the time,

occultist, Alist, Alist, Crowley. The prolific 19th century writer Crowley had declared himself a prophet of a new religion that glorified the self and the pursuit of individual will. Crowley's deep belief in occult magic meant his vision of freedom and enlightenment included ritualistic orgies and mind-expanding drug experiences. And for Crowley,

The most tempting drug was cocaine. Give cocaine to a man already wise, and if he be really master of himself, it will do him no harm. Crowley said before warning, Alas, the power of the drug diminishes with a fearful pace. The doses wax, the pleasures wane. Side issues, invisible at first, arise. They are like devils with flaming pitchforks in their hands. Bowie sought to explore the mystic depths of Crowley's teachings.

He began attending seances where he saw clear, evidence of the activation of the dark arts. It freaked him out, and the cocaine fueled his paranoia. David Bowie wanted to know where the guns were. He was scared. The cocaine had him wired up tight and fear. Paranoia brought on from not just the coke, but some twisted sense of guilt. At least it did during that dark year, 1975, pulled up in a drug stupor in Los Angeles. 75, L.A. fame beyond as wild as dreams. The future was poor. bright, but his head was dark and stuck back in 72. After Carnegie Hall, after Springsteen at Maxis,

after the Asbury Park pilgrimage mining the boss's truly unique American gold, it was Philadelphia, the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Taco Freud, Holden Caulfield, Picasso, and the pedophiles. It was before Laurie Maddox in the West Coast, and there was no excuse for that one. It burned in retrospect. She was 15. A baby groupie, he was a man.

He took her virginity. willingly obliged. If it wasn't going to be him, it was going to be page or plan or rod or Todd. So gross. A different time, but still so gross. But not as gross as the Ben Franklin in Philly back in 72. Caruso, that Jersey Shore goddess, straight out of Wild Billy's back seat, greasy sheets, greasy lake down on the dark side of Route 88, City of Brotherly Love, Generosity, Freak Show, a true walk on the wild side. Lou would approve. The hotel's sweet doorbell rang. His The security answered. He went to see what the fuss was about, and there it was. His security guards were shocked into silence, so was he. They just stared at it. The fan, who brought

it up to the sweet stood wild-eyed. When the fan spoke, he filled the room with a dark insanity that was palpable. See what I did for you? You deserve this. You're Bowie, man. This is yours. Take it. It's for you, for sex. David was immediately nauseous. There in a suite, just inside the door, a gurney, on it, a dead body, still warm. He quickly retreated back to his hotel suite bedroom to hide under the covers with Caruso. It was horrifying. He asked her, why would someone do this? Who do they think I am? The memory still gripped him. It was a bridge too far, a bridge that he was still connected to, through the dark power of Crowley, cocaine, and sex magic. He tripped some invisible wire he knew it,

that now his whole world was unraveling. Dark power conjured, haphazardly, or neglected can run amok. It can consume you, become you. David Bowie's cocaine-induced obsession with Crowley, and the occult led him around some dark corners, particularly to fascism. He stayed up into the early morning hours getting high and viewing old, real-to-reel Nazi propaganda films.

He was fascinated by the imagery, the narcissism, the occultish symbolism, the pageantry. It had little to do with the politics. It was all so. style, gall, hubris. The theater of it all gripped him. This, around the same time, he'd recorded and released the black-inspired young Americans, an album widely accepted by the black record buying public, an album that led to him being the first white musician to appear on Soul Train. Magic, power, they work in strange ways. They can consume you, yes, and propel you, sure,

but they can also defeat you. Oh, he knew this, and it's what had him freak the fuck out in his Los Angeles home back in 75. David heard his name whispered at night. From out of nowhere, he saw things in the sky that weren't there. Ghostly visions of Alistair Crowley. He felt cold air blow through the sweltering summer nights, tasted nothing, sustained himself almost entirely on milk, jalapeno peppers, cocaine, and cigarettes. He had lost touch with himself, whoever that was anyway.

Who did they think I am? The power was clearly in the hands of someone else now. David knew this. So again, he wanted the guns. His friends slash BFF slash botanic lover slash sometime roommate slash coke buddy Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple was no help. Glenn was smart enough to not tell Bowie

where he kept the guns, but Bowie needed something to fend off the demon, the very real demon living among them, possibly within him, along with his many other alter egos, jockeying for position within the vessel that was David Bowie. His ego, his super ego, Major Tom,

the laughing gnome, Ziggy, the Sin White Duke, all battling it out and subservience to his unfettered id. Without guns, another solution was needed. So Bowie commenced to have an exorcism in his backyard to rid the demon who'd taken up residence in his swimming pool. Glenn didn't believe him at first. Who would? It was crazy.

But he saw it with his own eyes, or at least he saw what he believed to be the work of the devil. There they stood, Bowie, Glenn, a priestess, another witness in Bowie's backyard. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. The water in the pool was still. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. Then a ripple. And do thou, O prince, of the heavenly host.

The water started to roll slowly. Bowie's stomach churned with fear. Glenn felt his jaw come unhinged. By the power of God thrust into hell, Satan. Now the water in the pool began to boil to thrash, small waves crashed into and around each other. And all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls! And with that, an intense thunderclap, a blinding flash of light. Instinctively, they covered their ears with their hands, ducked and looked away.

They turned back to the pool and it was once again still, calm. A sense of relief washed over them all. David Bowie knew it then. He needed to pull his head together, pull himself together, regain his sense of self, clean up, dry out, and exercise his own demons, or he'd be dead before the end of the decade. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a late-19th, early 20th century secret society set up shop in Great Britain.

Toward the end of the 1800s, their influence was so great that members of the Golden Dawn could be found in every class of Victorian society. Celebrities of the day included, poet William Butler Yates, actress Florence Farr, and of course the occultist Renaissance man himself, Alistair Crowley. Strong, dynamic personalities, all their writings, rituals, and transgressive behavior would come to dominate the imaginations of many. The allure of a new kind of power attainable through occult magic, drugs, particularly cocaine, and gloriously hedonistic sociosexual ritual that encouraged bisexual in polyamory, was to put it mildly, wildly, wildly subversive for the time, which is kind of the point, subverting conventional society and norms.

It wasn't all that dissimilar to popular thinking in the 1960s. England's progressive pull from the establishment that began in swinging London in America's new hippie utopia that sprung from beatnik coffee shops and college campuses, started with the best of intentions. But by the time the 1970s rolled around, that idealism had been obliterated by excess Nile, and narcissism. And David Bowie was most definitely aware of the Hermetic Order. He explicitly spoke of the Golden Dawn on Honky Dory's Quicksand, and his dedication to the philosophy and its focus

on the needs of the individual over all else nearly broke him. Do what thou wilt is all well and good when you're servicing one individual. But in Bowie's case, it was many, Ziggy, the thin white Duke, little Davy Jones, etc. What began as a creative assortment of alter egos had become a schizophrenic secret society run amok in his own mind, fueled by cocaine, mad for sex, and completely subverting his sense of self. It propelled him toward madness. We all answer to many masters, or what one guru called the many eyes. We think we are one, a singular being charting our course in life, or our daily rituals, as innocuous in comparison to David Bowies or Alistair Crowley's, as those rituals may be, but the reality is, we are many people at once.

We think of ourselves in the singular, I am, I want, I do, etc. But the reality is, we are constantly conflicted by our true desires, our true selves, our many true selves. You go to bed at night and pledge to get up at 6 a.m. to exercise. You not only set your alarm, you even lay your workout clothes out and get your coffee maker ready. But that alarm goes off, and despite your best intentions the night before, the morning version of you hits snooze, grabs that extra hour of sleep, and pledges to work out the next day. You commit to reading more nonfiction to educate yourself, put 20 pages into that new Eric Larsson book on Churchill, and you're reaching for the remote to binge the floor is lava on Netflix. Are you a hypocrite? Are you weak-minded, schizophrenic?

No, of course not. You're human. We all are. And we are not singular beings. We are many eyes, all with competing agendas. It's our great challenge to unify our desires, our thinking, our beings, and attain some sort of conscious peace. A proposition that was nearly impossible for David Bowie, for his many eyes were incredibly strong manifestations of his wild imagination and creativity. Next time you're struggling to get out of bed for a 6 a.m. run, imagine trying to do so with Ziggy Stardust in your head, telling you to give it another romp with the two models lying next to you, while the thin white Duke chimes in, then in order to do that, more cocaine is needed, stat. And, oh, by the way, the tin man is calling, and Lazarus refuses to be ignored,

and Major Tom is floating around your bed and his tin can. But David Bowie eventually silenced them all. He ended the 70s by drying out with his friend Iggy Pop in Berlin, and completing a trilogy of great long players, low, heroes, and lodger. He then conquered the age of video in the 80s, a medium he was uniquely suited for and continued throughout the 9th. in early 2000s to release compelling music up until his passing in 2016 with the release of his final album, Black Star. But before passing from this world to the next, David Bowie had some

unfinished business. He knew his death was coming, but it wasn't the end. It was the beginning. But transcending this life to the next, passage on the astral plane is not a given, for any, and definitely not for many. was necessary. Major Tom had ascended some years ago, untethered, yes, but forever bound to Bowie. Ziggy Stardos had descended not of this world too charismatic to ever fully fade, and the thin white Duke had pillaged his way to control, only to be excommunicated but forever capable of ruling in exile via proxy. They were still all there with him in the end, despite their diminished capacity and influence on his life and career over his last few decades,

they were all still there. And so, too, was Crowley, incanting an occult ritual on the title track from Black Star in the first verse from David Bowie's final creative contribution. Bowie sings about the villa of Orman and a solitary candle. Solitary, singular. David Bowie was tying together loose ends, unifying. The symbolism of Black Star and its lyrics and its video,

released two days before David Bowie died, is filled with references to Bowie's many eyes, not to mention to the occult. It was directed by self-proclaimed Crowley fanatic director Johann Reng. The Black Star title itself, a reference to the occult concept of the midnight sun or the spirit of man shining through the darkness. Bowie sings about something happening on the day he died

and about meter traveling through light. Meter, the length of the path traveled by light. The midnight sun, man shining through the darkness, the Black Star. Major Tom way past 100,000 miles, 47 years later, finally located dead in a space suit on a distant planet, as portrayed in the Black Star video. The skull in Major Tom's helmet is no ordinary skull. It's ornate, a gift from the royals,

a parting acknowledgement of defeat from the Duke, the thin white Duke, a priceless artifact of the gods, of one god in particular, the rock god, Ziggy, a god whose influence on his subject of one had finally ceased. Bowie emotes near the song's end that it was somebody else who took his place. He sings, I'm a black star, I'm a black star. Finally, David Bowie had reconciled his alter egos, unified, one, absolute. Or as he said, I'm the great, I am, I'm the black star, a conscious peace at last,

unity fuel for the astral plane far from this world far from disgrace i'm jake brennan and this is disgrace land disgrace land was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double elvis credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod dot com if you're listening as a disgrace land all-access member thank you for supporting the show we really appreciate it and if not You can become a member right now by going to disgracellandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of disgrace land ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month.

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or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello-O.

I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture.

Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorwind? then Elizabeth Taylor. That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on,

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