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Occult Elvis: was Presley a telepathic demigod who could heal the sick and change the weather?

According to a lively new book, the King of Rock’n’Roll claimed to be a faith healer from Jupiter’s ninth moon – who as a boy was given a future vision of himself in a white jumpsuit by aliens. We talk to its author

From his earliest days, Conner writes, Presley was surrounded by strange happenings: he supposedly received psychic guidance from his stillborn twin brother, Jesse; and he recalled to girlfriend June Juanico that, as a boy, he would astrally project himself into the stars. Photograph: Keystone/Getty ImagesPresley’s parents had met through Pentecostalism – which, with its emphasis on direct communion with God via faith healing and rhythmic dancing, influenced musicians from Presley to Little Richard, BB King, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. Presley would take hundreds of books on tour, writes Conner, cloistering himself away to annotate works such as Kahlil Gibran’s Sufism-tinged collection of fables, The Prophet, or the 1947 quasi-gnostic text The Infinite Way, by mystic and lecturer Joel S Goldsmith.

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