This week’s column is by Scott Thybony.
A scrawled note sat in my files for years: “Elvis has vision while crossing Arizona desert,” it stated. No date, no source. But after reading it again I couldn’t shake the idea of Elvis Presley wandering through the desert in a pair of blue suede shoes, searching for God. It didn’t exactly fit my image of the rock star who had become an idol to millions. On the other hand, I knew how often the improbable happens around here and decided to look into it.
For an entire year Elvis had been searching for the ultimate truth, I learned. He had read a hundred books on religion, guided by Larry Geller, his hairdresser and spiritual advisor. In the winter of 1965 Elvis left Graceland in a motor home to star in a movie called Harum Scarum, and on his way to Hollywood he finally found what he was seeking.
They were behind schedule and driving straight through. For hundreds of miles, Elvis brooded, rarely talking to the others in his crew. His spiritual quest had reached a crisis point, and doubts were crowding in. He was all shook up in ways few imagined. In his role as guru, the hairdresser told him a story about a Zen monk to reassure him, and reaching Amarillo Elvis took the wheel.
For hours they headed west on Route 66, crossing New Mexico into the vast, open spaces of Arizona. “Man,” he told Geller, “I needed this to really shake the past and be alone like this with nature, away from everyone else.” Elvis drove in silence across the stark expanse of the Painted Desert, and then somewhere near Two Guns it happened.
“In the distance mountains loomed in the fading light,” Geller recalled in his biography, If I Can, Elvis’ Own Story. “An iridescent blue sky seemed to drape itself over the sacred mountains of the Hopi Indians and color everything in view with a peaceful, heavenly shade.” Suddenly Elvis shouted, “Whoa!'”
He was staring at a mass of clouds building over the San Francisco Peaks. “Do you see what I see?” he asked. Geller looked up and there it was – the face of Joseph Stalin in the clouds. No doubt about it. The image dissipated as the two of them stared, but the singer continued to gaze at it transfixed.
Abruptly Elvis pulled the bus off the highway and hit the brakes, telling the hairdresser to follow him. They took off running into the desert. “It’s God! It’s God!” he cried with tears streaming down his face. “It’s love. God is love!” He hugged Geller, laughing and crying. The singer explained how he feared the face of Stalin was a projection of his inner self, and if this were true he only wanted to die. At that moment the cloud transformed into the smiling face of Jesus, and Elvis knew God had finally revealed himself.
“Can you imagine,” he asked Geller, “what the fans would think if they saw me like this?”
By the time they reached California, Elvis had decided to radically change his life and told Geller he wanted to become a monk. “I don’t want this bullshit any more,” he said. And then the realization hit the hairdresser. They stood to lose the entire Elvis brand if the singer followed through with his plans. So he had a long talk with his friend, and convinced him his talent was a gift from God, one he couldn’t renounce. After listening to the arguments, Elvis agreed to continue his career and soon slipped back into the Hollywood scene.
The singer had come a long way from Tupelo, and I suppose his fate had been locked in long before. But I wonder how different his life might have been if he had let his vision on the road to Flagstaff change his life. Instead of spending his final years as a lounge act in Vegas, a gaunt Elvis might have ended up in a monk’s robes raking pebbles in a Zen garden.
note: In 1993 an Elvis Presley guitar sold at auction for $151,000. The day before, a certified sliver of the True Cross went for $18,000.
Scott Thybony has traveled throughout North America writing award-winning articles for major magazines. His book for the National Geographic Society on the canyon country sold hundreds of thousands of copies. As a river guide he won the coveted Colorado River Jerry-Rigging Award for fixing a broken motor mount with beer cans and driftwood. His commentaries are heard regularly on Arizona Public Radio. Listen at www.npr.org/podcasts/381444137/scott-thybony-commentaries.