Tony Blair’s Gnostic Gift to David Bowie

It was once said that Tony Blair was so obsessed with David Bowie that he delayed a Cabinet meeting to discuss Bowie’s latest album.

Recently, a question has been circulating on the internet, “Was Tony Blair behind David Bowie’s fascination with Gnosticism?”

Apparently, the inquiry is in regards to the time in 1998 when Bowie visited Blair at Chequers. It was reported that Blair gave the star a Gnostic gift – The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels.

Later Bowie listed the book in his top 100 of all time.

In my article, David Bowie’s Gnostic Obsession With the Occult, Nazis, and Cocaine, I detail how Bowie was interested in the occult and Gnosticism. In 1976, he had said, “My overriding interest was Kabbalahah and Crowleyism.”

Bowie said, “That whole dark and rather fearsome never–world of the wrong side of the brain.” … And more recently, in 1995 he stated, ‘I’ve been interested in the Gnostics.’

So, there we have it.

David Bowie’s interest in the occult and Gnosticism had started well before Tony Blair gave him The Gnostic Gospels.