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Elvis' Search for God
Author: Jess Stearn (with Larry Geller)
Published in hardback by Greenleaf Publications
ISBN 1-883729-07-6
Jess Stearn is a well known author of metaphysical titles. By teaming Stearn with Larry Geller, whose name is well known in the Elvis world, Greenleaf Publications believe they have a bestseller on their hands.
Perhaps some better research and checking of the information supplied in "Elvis' Search for God" would have helped them in their goal. Unfortunately, the quality is in the detail, and this book fails miserably in this respect. We are, after all, over twenty years on from Elvis's death and by now we should not still be presented with the story of Elvis having recorded "My Happiness" for his mother's birthday; and to have to read that this number was "followed up" with "That's All Right, Mama" is quite ridiculous. But there is more: we are told that Elvis's grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley, "invented" the name Elvis - okay, it's not a common name, but there were plenty of Elvises before ELVIS! The author even fails to get titles of well known Elvis songs and co-stars right, referring to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" as "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," and to Ann-Margret as Ann-Margaret! Worse still, perhaps, is that "How Great Thou Art" is referred to as "the first of his spiritual albums" and "the forerunner of many spiritual albums." Pathetic, although I would agree with the claim that "it gave hope to the forlorn and changed the lives of many." To round off this clear lack of basic Elvis knowledge, "Spinout" is referred to as "Spin Out" and we are told that it was filmed after "Easy Come, Easy Go," rather than before and that Elvis wore a wet-suit in it (he wore the wet-suit in "Easy Come, Easy Go," of course). Such disregard of basic and easily checked facts does not promote confidence.
I am always wary of books which reproduce large passages of narrative attributed to Elvis and "Elvis' Search for God" certainly does just that. Presumably the author was supplied the narrative by Geller, but this raises doubts, as Geller could have had no first-hand knowledge of much of the narrative and was unlikely to have any accurate knowledge at all of the rest, such as intimate conversations between Elvis and his father.
Geller's input to this book is clear throughout, but perhaps mostly in the discussion of Elvis's friends, commonly referred to as the Memphis Mafia. The book carefully avoids mentioning either Red or Sonny West, who are not even listed as part of the basic "inner circle" of Elvis's entourage and their names are also not specified when writing about their dismissal. Geller's lack of acceptance by the group is made plain, but some of the group are written about in a very kindly manner, especially Charlie Hodge.
Chapter 13, "All The King's Men," stands out amongst the 20 chapters which make up the book and, indeed, the general quality of the book is better from this point on: in its style, it is almost as if it were written by someone else. This particular chapter discusses the role of the Memphis Mafia and Elvis's attitude to them. It also insinuates that Elvis's partying was less raucous than many writers would have us believe and ends up with a brief but touching contemplation of the pressures of touring and the self-disillusionment of Elvis.
The unintentionally funniest passage of the book must be, "He meditated to raise the energies of the body's gonadal area to the higher spheres of the thyroid and the pituitary." This is an extremely verbose attempt to clarify Elvis's lack of sexual activity with Ginger Alden. If there was a lack of sexual activity, I think I'd put it down to Elvis being terribly ill, rather than to meditation! Anyway, according to Stearn (and therefore, presumably, Geller), Elvis did propose to Alden and she agreed to marry him — Geller was to have performed at least part of the wedding ceremony.
Other possibly surprising revelations/confirmations in the book include an offer from President Jimmy Carter to Elvis to set up and head a nationwide youth project and Elvis's own plans to create a sort of spiritual resort in Egypt(!).
The book proposes that Elvis was very aware of his approaching death and accepted and even welcomed its coming. He spoke increasingly about life after death and read and meditated ever more. The death itself is only briefly dealt with and really only as a vehicle to state that Geller had only hours before provided Elvis with the book "The Face of Jesus" and that this was the book that Elvis was reading in his bathroom at the time of his death.
Finally, the argument about what actually caused Elvis's death is stoked up again by Stearn and Geller's insistence that several weeks after the autopsy, an unnamed doctor reported to Vernon Presley and Charlie Hodge that Elvis had cancer of the bone in the advanced stages; whilst this is not proposed as the actual cause, which is listed as cardiac arrhythmia, it is suggested as the reason for Elvis's use of painkilling drugs.
The title of the book, "Elvis' Search for God" promises a lot more than is delivered. Elvis's visits to Daya Mata are quite extensively written about and his desert visions also receive good mention, as do his experiments, some apparently successful, in faith healing. It is clear, too , that Elvis read many spiritual books (and the incident when Tom Parker put an end to the first period of reading and effectively removed Geller's influence for several years is well covered) and had a great yearning to learn the mysteries of life. His obsession with Jesse Garon and his mother are also alluded to. But these things are already known to fans, so this book offered an opportunity to more fully examine them and I cannot help but feel that less narrative and more fact would have produced a work which would have made better use of the opportunity and done the title more justice.
"Elvis' Search for God" is illustrated with 24 photographs, most of which are already familiar to fans.
David G. Neale
Copyright November 1998