Rock & Roll is full of legends and mysteries, to the point that it is said that many rockstars did have their own witches that helped them. One of them was Walli Elmlark, a woman who practiced Wicca, saved David Bowie from his addictions, and inspired many artists of the time.
Walli was born in 1939, in a conservative family who never accepted her lifestyle, nor the way she dressed and wanted her to become a housewife.
When Walli was away from her parents she shined and felt free to be who she really was, standing out in the music scene, wearing black clothes and silver jewelry. But her fame came mostly from the fact that she was the witch of many musicians, she helped them in any way she could and never did it for money so she became known in the scene for being the ‘White Witch of New York’.
Walli defined Wicca as “it’s all about love and praise, the only thing we don’t practice is hurting others, but if we do hurt someone, the next basic belief is that we must take care of our mistake”.
She also emphasized that witches had no heaven of hell, but what in fact does exist are low vibrational beings called elementals or demons, who can attach themselves to human beings with low self-esteem or perform self-destructive activities and this is where David Bowie comes in.
Walli and her relationship with David Bowie
During the mid-1970s, Bowie entered his “Thin White Duke” phase, a unique period in Bowie’s life, marked by several paranoia episodes caused by excessive drugs consumption.
This obviously led him to a very dark place and time in his life to the point of believing that Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin guitarist, bought the house of Aleister Crowley, an influential occultist, mystic, alchemist, writer, and ceremonial magician, as a strategy to gather witches and send them to his house with the intention of turning him into a father and then take his son.
Bowie was lost, so one day his publicist decided to introduce him to Walli and they quickly formed a friendship. David told her everything that was happening to him and emphasized that a demon was living in his pool and that it came out of there at night, so he convinced Walli to perform an exorcism to the pool.
As if it couldn’t sound any wilder, Bowie’s ex-wife, Angie Bowie, describes in her book “Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie”, the thorough preparation that Walli and her ex-husband went through in order to perform the rite.
According Angie, hours later after they started, the pool began to bubble in a very intense way, reaching the point of creating waves. Angie, still skeptical, says she lost her temper when she saw in the depth of the pool a large shadow with a shape similar to a gargoyle. Hours later the exorcism was done.
Bowie was always grateful to Walli and they never lost contact. In fact, she helped him to overcome his worst demons, to restore his psyche, and to get away from his addictions. Thanks to Walli, Bowie found the spiritual love he needed and was missing.
The famous 27 club
Walli noticed a pattern among the great and influential artists of the time that would follow for years: the famous 27-year-old club, or the curse of the “j”, where artists of this age (27) passed away and curiously had a J in their names, such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Brian Jones, among others.
Walli believed that there were forces that opposed the spiritual liberation of the youth and that is why these important artists died at that age.
Walli became a spiritual guide for many musicians, always helping them; but she could never help herself so one day, Sandy Becker, Walli’s neighbor received a call in which Walli told her she leaved all her belongings to her. Sandy didn’t know that this would be Walli’s last call.
So you may or may not believe in her spiritual powers, but what is not in doubt is the enormous heart this woman had and the ability to touch so many lives and change them in the same way. She was a woman who inspired many women by her philosophy and way of life.
