Renck, the director, indicates there were links to Aleister Crowley. Donny McCaslin said that Bowie told him the solitary candle was a reference to ISIS. While this has been refuted by PR, McCaslin may have misheard him; Bowie may have been speaking of Isis, the Egyptian Goddess of rebirth. With the connection to villa of Ormen -Ormen meaning snake, a symbol of rebirth for their ability to shed their skin, this song seems to intentionally be at least in part about rebirth or reincarnation.
My sense is that Bowie is speaking metaphorically. When looking at the video, the female cult takes this gilded skull from the Starman away with them, leaving the body to rot away and pass into death (the Black Star). They worship the ideas and perform a ritual to bring these ideas back to life, who is born at the execution of the three scarecrows -a creature of life and chaos being born from stagnation and blindness. Out with the old, in with the new, as it were. AKA, much like Bowie was his own generation's version of Elvis (connection to BlackStar and the worshiping nature of female fans swooning and shaking over their idol), there will come out of death a new idol, who will look nothing like the old version -may even be frightening to those of the old order (the gyrating hips of the trickster -another connection to Elvis -are seen being performed by the scarecrows).
Anyway, those are some quick thoughts, based in part by a reddit thread I saw on the matter, though they went way too far with it.
Renck, the director, indicates there were links to Aleister Crowley. Donny McCaslin said that Bowie told him the solitary candle was a reference to ISIS. While this has been refuted by PR, McCaslin may have misheard him; Bowie may have been speaking of Isis, the Egyptian Goddess of rebirth. With the connection to villa of Ormen -Ormen meaning snake, a symbol of rebirth for their ability to shed their skin, this song seems to intentionally be at least in part about rebirth or reincarnation.
My sense is that Bowie is speaking metaphorically. When looking at the video, the female cult takes this gilded skull from the Starman away with them, leaving the body to rot away and pass into death (the Black Star). They worship the ideas and perform a ritual to bring these ideas back to life, who is born at the execution of the three scarecrows -a creature of life and chaos being born from stagnation and blindness. Out with the old, in with the new, as it were. AKA, much like Bowie was his own generation's version of Elvis (connection to BlackStar and the worshiping nature of female fans swooning and shaking over their idol), there will come out of death a new idol, who will look nothing like the old version -may even be frightening to those of the old order (the gyrating hips of the trickster -another connection to Elvis -are seen being performed by the scarecrows).
Anyway, those are some quick thoughts, based in part by a reddit thread I saw on the matter, though they went way too far with it.