The Church of Elvis by Jamie Hildebrand I have reason to believe those who subscribe to its premises. The We aU will be received anthropological study of religion involves an In Graceland analysis of the "meanings embodied in the symbols which make up the religion proper" coupled with the relating of these symbols to social structural and psychological processes". Elvis Presley. the anointed King of rock and "All human societies have myths" and roll. died on August 16. 1977. Empirical fact? Many certain themes are common to all myths. Religion people are undeterred by this trivial piece of seeks to resolve binary opposites. life and death information from believing a mythology which being the most compelling example of this seems to be constructing itself on the premise that opposition. Religion is also concerned with Elvis lives on. There are two fundamental providing a "bridge between man and God". explanations for a surviving Elvis. Many believe Mythologies must also provide. through symbols. a that Elvis' death was a hoax:.perpetrated by the star "template" for social activity and world view; himself to escape the relentless scrutiny of his fans "models of' and "models for" the way in which a and the media. Still others feel Elvis is among the people see the world and their relationship to it. living in supematural form. comforting the sick Religion seeks to mediate the binary and the troubled as a ghostly and benevolent opposites that are "intrinsic to human thought". apparition. Many might well scoff at these beliefs The most fundamental example. life and death. is as completely irrational. And yet this phenomena resolved through the creation of a third and special can no longer be relegated to the collective category. that of the supematural. In order to obsession of the lunatic fringe. About 2.000 visitors mediate death. the supematural category must a day make the pilgrimage to Graceland. 700.000 transcend the confines of mortal life. It should annually. and the tenth anniversary drew 10.000. come as no surprise that "non-rationality" is the There are over 600.000 members of fan clubs in the "very essence of myth". Myth is constructed United States alone; and the nation is petitioning specifically to function in areas where rationality the govemment for a commemorative postage fails. From this perspective when a girl utters" here stamp. Stories of sightings of a live Elvis or a comes Elvis" as her dying words from her hospital supematural Elvis are spilling out of supemiarkets bed. she is looking to Elvis to mitigate the despair and into bookstores. Abandoning the standard of in the finality of death. Elvis returning from the rationality and looking at these beliefs as pure dead is comfort in the reassurance that there is myth from the anthropological perspective sheds a another world beyond the mortal one. great deal of lig..11ton how and why a mythology Redundancy, a trait characteristic of all with Elvis Presley as its focus comes into being. mythology. is well attested to in the sheer bulk of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines stories regarding Elvis' survival. These stories religion as a "cause. principle. or system of beliefs present themselves in many different versions. held to with ardor and faith". and myth as a story another characteristic of myths. In a book entitled which serves to unfold part of a world view of a Is Elvis Alive?.•.Gail Brewer-Giogio presents a people or explain a practice or belief'. According to number of hypotheses. all varying in their specific Edmund Leach" a belief which is factually untrue is details. of how Elvis faked his death to escape the a species of religious dogma." Roughly paraphrased. destructive adulation of his fans. Dr. Raymond A. Clifford Geertz' view of religion is of a cultural Moody Jr .. in the book Elvis After Life has system reliant on symbols which establish and chronicled many accounts of posthumous reflect the world view of a people. For the sake of visitations from an Elvis of the spirit world. The this discussion the terms religion and mythology infinite variety of conflicting details does not at all are interchangeable and are explored in the affect the credibility of myth since "each aforementioned context. I.e. a system of symbols altemative version of a myth confirms his (the based on beliefs not reliant on empirical believers) understanding and reinforces the phenomena. that are an expression of the ethos of essential meaning of all the others". The essential meaning in this example is the mediation of the purposes a complete stranger? The "sexual binary link between life and death. attractiveness of male prophets is to be accounted Redundancy and non-rationality as for less in the amatory skills of the prophet. and essential elements of mythology point to an more in the conditions of being women". In many interesting relationship between myth and the societies women constitute an "underprivileged supermarket tabloid. Tabloids are completely class". The relationships between men and women reliant on sensationalism. Boca Raton, publisher of have been determined for the most part through the National Examiner, goes for the "Hard to "overt ordering of different kinds of sexual access". believe, the harder to believe the better. because Access to power or wealth is realized in "being the that's what our readers are looking for". According wife of a rich and important man". To be a wife or to Edmund Leach. the myth that is the "least lover of Elvis would represent access to the ultimate probable" is also the one to which is attached the degree in power and prestige. Where sexual access is greatest importance". Finding a ready market in the an accepted form of currency it is to be expected that fascination for outrageous stories concerning Elvis power and access to wealth will be expressed in Presley provides the incentive for proliferation of these terms. For women the prophet Elvis mediates material. Proliferation and non-rationality a class distinction imposed via sexuality. In a actually lend credibility in fulfilling fundamental social climate that regards women as "chattels", criteria of mythology. Proliferation leads to both men and women must subscribe to this order. credibility leads to proliferation ad infinitum. The male view expressed in these terms would be This is no explanation of why a large segment of the unlimited access to women as a consequence of population finds its religious focal point in Elvis, power. Scores of hysterical female fans would but it does describe a special relationship between certainly b'6lster this image. If Elvis ever the tabloid and the spontaneous generation of committed a crime in his B movies it was the crime myth. In so-called technologically primitive of womantzing, an indiscretion which more often societies myths are transferred by word of mouth elicits a slap on the back than on the wrist. across generations. In our modem media-oriented "Women have come to Memphis to deliver society, the nature of the media and the babies, claiming Elvis is the father and that he will fundamental desire for ever-increasing market size come down from heaven when the boy is 16 to accelerates the process. I mention this because it is anoint him, sort of like Jesus in the Jordan River." somewhat amusing that in a society which views Another woman is convinced that her living son is the beliefs of primitive cultures as backwards and Elvis reincamated.· These stories are another naive of scientific realities, we display an even example of a "common structural theme" found in greater propensity to create myth. The point here is many religions; that "women may sometimes be not so much prophet created for profit, but more made pregnant by means other than insemination correctly, prophet as a by-product of profit, by by a human male". A main task of religion, once it acceleration of a process which affords credibility. has created the category of the supematural , is to Religions which look forward to a future provide a "bridge between man and God".. Rather resurrection of a prophet are termed as than the rather fooUsh literal interpretation millenarian. With Elvis as prophet, the mythology advanced by a consensus of theologians which surrounding the dead singer displays a millenarian concluded the Virgin Mary was inseminated aspect in almost all of its manifestations. From the through the ear, these myths express a theme which belief that Elvis will come down from heaven, to the attempts to untte man and God in a vital way. prospect of an emergence from a shadowy retreat Virgin birth, or in the case of Elvis, supematural opposite the Kalamazoo Burger King, to the belief insemination, describes a "metaphysical that Elvis will be reincamated through their topography of the relationship between gods and children, acolytes yeam for the retum of their men".. It provides a route of access to the mystical spiritual leader. Characteristic of the prophet in power of the prophet. The situation which places millenarian movements is his or her powerful the emphasis on the physical reincarnation of the sexual attractiveness. The power of sexual prophet will naturally find its expression in the attraction of Elvis over his female fans is yearning of the more devout that it should be their overwhehning. In a documentary film depicting the child. events surrounding and including an Elvis concert Perhaps it is tenuous to claim that Elvis can in the Intemational Hotel in Las Vegas, a woman in be described as a prophet at all. Prophets are the crowd informed an interviewer that her love of generally associated with specific and articulated Elvis was of the deepest and most sincere form.