David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God

Name: David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God
Start: 2026-07-21T19:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-07-21T23:00:00+01:00
Location: Reference Point

Schedule

Tue Jul 21 2026 at 07:00 pm to 11:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Reference Point | London, EN

Peter Ormerod x Kieran Saint Leonard in-conversation
About this Event

Join us at Reference Point for an evening exploring the hidden spiritual world of David Bowie.

To mark the publication of David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God, author Peter Ormerod discusses the spiritual obsessions that ran through Bowie’s life and work—from occult ritual and Kabbalistic symbolism to a lifelong dialogue with forces beyond the rational.

Ormerod is joined by musician and author Kieran Saint Leonard, whose neo-gothic, psychedelic, occult debut novel A Muse brings its own engagement with esoteric tradition. As a practitioner who has worked within some of the same mystical currents Bowie drew upon, Saint Leonard offers a rare perspective from inside these worlds.

Through readings, conversation, and audience discussion, this promises to be a fascinating evening for anyone who has ever suspected there was more to Bowie than the music.

Kieran Saint Leonard is a musician and author whose debut novel A Muse (Hyperidean Press, 2025) draws on his own practice of esoteric and occult traditions to chart a psychedelic journey through California's spiritual underworld. Praised by Jonathan Meades, Carl Barât, Rob Doyle, and Andy West, and covered by VICE and the Financial Times, A Muse has established Saint Leonard as one of the most singular new voices in literary fiction.

Peter Ormerod is a journalist and writer who has written extensively about culture and faith for the Guardian, and serves as arts editor for NationalWorld. His book David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God (Bloomsbury, 2026) is the first full-length study of the spiritual and esoteric obsessions at the heart of Bowie's work, from the Kabbalah-influenced Station to Station to the profound affinity between Heroes and Christian thought. It has been called "one of the best and most original books" published to mark a decade since Bowie's death by Helen Barrett in The Spectator.