The Seeker King
A Spiritual Biography of Elvis Presley
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- 12,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A woman in the audience once handed Elvis a crown saying, “You’re the King.” “No, honey,” Elvis replied. “There is only one king — Jesus Christ. I’m just a singer.” Gary Tillery presents a coherent view of Elvis’s thoughts through such anecdotes and other recorded facts. We learn, for instance, that Elvis read thousands of books on religion; that his crisis over making bimbo movies like Girl Happy led him to writers such as Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, and Helena Blavatsky; and that, while driving in Arizona, an epiphany he had inspired him to learn Hindu practice. Elvis came to believe that the Christ shines in everyone and that God wanted him to use his light to uplift people. And so he did. Elvis’s excesses were as legendary as his generosity, yet, despite his lethal reliance on drugs, he remained ever spiritually curious. When he died, he was reading A Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. This intimate, objective portrait inspires new admiration for the flawed but exceptional man who said, “All I want is to know and experience God. I’m a searcher, that’s what I’m all about.”
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Much as he did for George Harrison in Working Class Mystic, Tillery ploddingly traces the spiritual dimensions of Elvis Presley's life. Retelling the already well-told tale (see Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis) of this young Mississippian's somewhat unlikely ascent to the heights of popular music, Tillery focuses on Elvis's 1964 meeting with Larry Geller, his hairdresser. Geller became Elvis's spiritual director, introducing him to a book that revealed to the musician his purpose in life to serve others and set him on a short-lived journey through a variety of spiritual traditions, from his own Pentecostal Christianity to Hinduism, Gnosticism, and New Age teachings. Yet Presley's manager, the domineering Colonel Parker, feeling threatened by Geller and the changes he witnessed in Elvis's personality under Geller's tutelage, eventually made it difficult for the hairdresser to remain in Elvis' entourage. Once Geller left, Elvis descended into the self-destructive behavior and excess that characterized his last seven years and from which he never recovered. Tillery illustrates Presley's deep insecurities and constant need for love, but his portrait of Elvis as a saint and seeker is ultimately unconvincing.
