In the 1970s, two of England's most high profile rock stars David Bowie and Jimmy Page bonded over a shared interest in the occult and esoteric beliefs, specifically the teachings of the self-styled prophet and 'Wickedest Man In The World' Aleister Crowley, the philosopher, ceremonial magician, poet and artist.
But a relationship which began in 1965, when Bowie's band, The Manish Boys, hired session wizard Page to play on their cover of Bobby Bland's I Pity the Fool, soured to the point where Bowie imagined that a satanic coven of witches under the command of Led Zeppelin's guitarist were scheming to steal his bodily fluids to help birth the Antichrist.
This delusion dated back to a fateful night in February 1975 when Page was invited for drinks to the Manhattan townhouse Bowie shared with his then-girlfriend, American singer Ava Cherry. As recounted in Paul Trynka's David Bowie biography Starman, the atmosphere between the two men was "strained" on the evening, not helped by copious cocaine use on both sides, and the tension intensified when Page accidentally spilled red wine on some expensive silk cushions and sought to deflect the blame onto the innocent Cherry. At this point, Bowie apparently decided to revoke Page's guest status, and asked him to leave, coldly suggesting "Why don't you take the window."
'The two glared at each other', Trynka wrote. 'Page seemed to be invoking dark forces against David, who in turn, says Ava Cherry, "wanted to show Jimmy that his will was stronger."
