Madonna has "relied" on the Kabbalah ever since she started studying it.

She said: "I started studying Kabbalah when I was pregnant with my daughter, so I guess they're connected.

"It made me become more conscious of my choices, my decisions, what I wanted to say, how it affected people, stuff like that.

"I feel like it made me become a more responsible person. I mean there are aspects of Kabbalah that I still don't understand.

"But I would have to devote my life to studying it all the time and then I wouldn't be the person that I am. But I certainly have relied on it and it has informed me as a mother, as an artist, in many ways.

"[It] pushed me in the direction of asking more questions. Thou doth not protest too much."

Whilst Madonna - who was born to a Catholic family - has previously admitted that her 1989 song 'Like A Prayer' stemmed from the uneasiness she feels about being punished for doing something wrong, she believes it is important to reference "our institutions".

Speaking about the single's catholic references, she added to MOJO magazine: "The Catholic church needs to have a stick poked at it, for God sakes. Doesn't it?

"On the other hand, I love going to a beautiful Catholic church and hearing the mass in Latin and smelling the incense and the whole pomp and circumstance and drama of it all.

"It's beautiful, it's hypocrisy. But we have to poke at our institutions. If you can't poke at institutions, then you might as well just live in a fascist state.

"Which is what we're living in now. Yay! Woo!"