I was watching a couple of his last videos ("Lazarus" and "Blackstar") and had that same impression - that he faked his death.

My thought on it wasn't that it was anything to with going "higher level" but moreso that he decided to live out the rest of his life as a woman. Do the complete expensive change. The old "David Bowie" is indeed dead and the new person moves on.

Or it may even be that some of these people regret what they did for their careers, fake their deaths and then turn in all the evidence they can. A kind of atonement. He would have been in on a lot of gossip, would have been able to name a lot of names.