The Dark Art

Bowie on being an Artist, a theatrical clown...

“In the early 1974 live shows he played the rôle of the 'Cracked Actor,' parodying a Hollywood Pierrot Hamlet who addressed a skull with the lyrics: ‘you sold me illusions for a sack full of cheques / you've made a bad connection 'cause I just want your sex’…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 hairstyle 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.’" – Peter R. Koenig (‘The Laughing Gnostic - David Bowie and the Occult,’ 1996/2014, www.parareligion.ch/bowie.htm).

Our pop culture zeitgeist (?) in England was transferred from Crowley to Bowie?

Crowley died in Hastings in 1947 and Bowie was born in 1947 (8 January 1947)

Crowley, Hitler and Napoleon each started out in a more positive way but became egomaniacs.

“Already in 1969, Bowie had said about England: ‘This country is crying out for a leader. God knows what it is looking for, but if it's not careful it's going to end up with a Hitler. This place is so ready to be picked up by anybody who has a strong enough personality to lead.’ [Bowie interviewed by Kate Simpson, in Music Now! December 1969]…

’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.]”

- Peter–R. Koenig (‘The Laughing Gnostic - David Bowie and the Occult,’1996/2014, www.parareligion.ch/bowie.htm).

“The chorus of the song, in part, goes like this: Fuck this/ I don't need it/ The devil's only son is going to save you from the holy one/ Dad you are my motherfucker funky chicken space brother/ Did you ever love my mother?/ I guess about as much as I loved you. ‘I'm pretty proud of those lyrics,’ he says later. ‘People sometimes get mad at musicians, but that's the healthy way to explore those things - through art. This is what's festering in my subconscious.’" - Matthew Roberts (one of Charles Manson’s love children).