In his heroic yet tragically short life, Elvis Presley was many things to many people: leather-clad hip-gyrating sex symbol; corruptor of youth; symbol of the American dream; helpless addict; king of rock’n’roll; challenging husband; guzzler of banana and peanut butter sandwiches; ultra-committed Christian. But a new book argues that the singer whose looks, voice and charisma changed so much more than music was one further thing: the world’s greatest occult magician.
“He was a multifaceted seeker,” says Miguel Conner, who became obsessed with the King after an ayahuasca ceremony in 2022, ayahuasca being a psychoactive drink often used in cleansing rituals. “Somebody who sought the larger questions of life. He was a man of prophecy, of experience – and my thesis is that he was the greatest magician in western civilisation.”
