Editing David Bowie (section)

===Spirituality and religion===
Beginning in 1967 from the influence of his half-brother,{{sfn|O'Leary|2015|loc=chap. 4}} Bowie became interested in Buddhism and, with commercial success eluding him,{{sfn|Spitz|2009|p=83}} he considered becoming a Buddhist monk.<ref>{{cite web |title=Thurston Moore Reflects on David Bowie |url=https://pitchfork.com/news/62878-thurston-moore-reflects-on-david-bowie/ |access-date=24 September 2019 |website=Pitchfork |date=12 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308223038/https://pitchfork.com/news/62878-thurston-moore-reflects-on-david-bowie/ |archive-date=8 March 2021}}</ref> Biographer [[Marc Spitz]] states that the religion reminded the young artist that other goals in life existed outside fame and material gain and one can learn about themselves through meditation and chanting.{{sfn|Spitz|2009|p=83}} After a few months' study at Tibet House in London, he was told by his [[Lama]], [[Chime Rinpoche]], "You don't want to be Buddhist.{{nbsp}}... You should follow music."{{sfn|Cann|2010|pp=113–114}} By 1975, Bowie admitted, "I felt totally, absolutely alone. And I probably was alone because I pretty much had abandoned God."<ref name="Arena1993">{{cite magazine |last=Parsons |first=Tony |title=Bowie, what is he like? |url=https://exploringdavidbowie.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/bowie-what-is-he-like/ |url-status=live |magazine=[[Arena (magazine)|Arena]] |volume=Spring/Summer 1993 |access-date=31 January 2016 |via=Exploring David Bowie |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725111353/https://exploringdavidbowie.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/bowie-what-is-he-like/ |archive-date=25 July 2018}}</ref>

After Bowie married Iman in a private ceremony in 1992, he said they knew that their "real marriage, sanctified by God, had to happen in a church in Florence".<ref name=PJ>[https://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_hello-jun92.html THE WEDDING OF DAVID BOWIE AND IMAN] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025161012/https://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_hello-jun92.html |date=25 October 2021 }}. Hello!, 13 June 1992</ref> Earlier that year, he knelt on stage at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recited the Lord's Prayer before a television audience.<ref name="LA Times Mercury"/><!-- Per source: "with the potential to reach 1 billion viewers". -->{{efn|Asked why he knelt and prayed, Bowie said he had a friend who was dying of AIDS. "He was just dropping into a coma that day. And just before I went on stage something just told me to say the Lord's Prayer. The great irony is that he died two days after the show".<ref name=Arena1993/>}} In 1993, Bowie said he had an "undying" belief in the "unquestionable" existence of God.<ref name=Arena1993/> In a separate 1993 interview, while describing the genesis of the music for his album ''Black Tie White Noise'', he said "it was important for me to find something [musically] that also had no sort of representation of institutionalized and organized religion, of which I'm not a believer, I must make that clear."<ref>[[Simon Bates]] radio interviews, [[BBC Radio 1]], 29–31 March 1993</ref> Interviewed in 2005, Bowie said whether God exists "is not a question that can be answered.{{nbsp}}... I'm not quite an [[atheist]] and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm ''almost'' an atheist. Give me a couple of months.{{nbsp}}... I've nearly got it right.{{'"}}<ref name="DeCurtis2005">{{cite book|last=DeCurtis|first=Anthony|title=In Other Words: Artists Talk About Life And Work|url=https://archive.org/details/inotherwordsarti0000decu|url-access=registration|access-date=14 May 2012|date=5 May 2005|publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation|isbn=978-0-634-06655-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/inotherwordsarti0000decu/page/262 262–263] }}</ref> He had a tattoo of the [[Serenity Prayer]] in Japanese on his calf.{{sfn|Morley|2016|p=437}}

Bowie stated that "questioning [his] spiritual life [was] always&nbsp;... germane" to his songwriting.<ref name="DeCurtis2005"/> The song "Station to Station" is "very much concerned with the [[Stations of the Cross]]"; the song also specifically references [[Christian Kabbalah|Kabbalah]]. Bowie called the album "extremely dark{{nbsp}}... the nearest album to a [[magick]] treatise that I've written".{{efn|He later said he was influenced by his cocaine addiction and the "psychological terror" from making ''The Man Who Fell To Earth'', marking "the first time I'd really seriously thought about Christ and God&nbsp;... I very nearly got suckered into that narrow [view of] finding the Cross as the salvation of mankind".{{sfn|Egan|2015|p=116}}}}<ref name="Cavanaugh">{{cite magazine|last=Cavanagh|first=David|title=ChangesFiftyBowie|magazine=[[Q (magazine)|Q]]|date=February 1997|issue=125|pages=52–59}}</ref> ''Earthling'' showed "the abiding need in me to vacillate between atheism or a kind of [[gnosticism]]{{nbsp}}... What I need is to find a balance, spiritually, with the way I live and my demise."<ref name="Cavanaugh" /> ''Hours'' boasted overtly Christian themes, with its artwork inspired by the [[Pietà]].{{sfn|Pegg|2016|pp=433–437}} ''Blackstar''{{'s}} "[[Lazarus (David Bowie song)|Lazarus]]" began with the words, "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" while the rest of the album deals with other matters of mysticism and mortality.<ref>{{cite web|last=Clement|first=Olivia|url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/look-up-here-im-in-heaven-poignant-lyrics-to-bowies-lazarus-signal-his-farewell-378793|title='Look Up Here, I'm in Heaven' – Poignant Lyrics to Bowie's 'Lazarus' Signal His Farewell|magazine=[[Playbill]]|date=11 January 2016|access-date=18 January 2016|archive-date=27 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170927224655/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/look-up-here-im-in-heaven-poignant-lyrics-to-bowies-lazarus-signal-his-farewell-378793|url-status=live}}</ref>