With a new song at the top of Britain's singles pop chart some 25 years after his death, Elvis Presley is showing he's still the "King." Unfortunately, crowning Elvis Presley the King may have been the equivalent of a death sentence, says David Rosen, a Texas A&M University professor of psychology, psychiatry & behavioral science, and humanities in medicine.
Rosen says the King label forced the troubled star to constantly wrestle with who he really was and what America wanted him to be.
Analyzing Presley's complex life through Tao, the divine principle of Taoism - the oldest Chinese religion, dating back to the sixth century B.C. - Rosen, a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst, is examining the often overlooked spiritual side of Presley.
Rosen, the McMillan Professor of Analytical Psychology, says the discrepancy between Presley's "true self" and "false (king) self" caused him immense pain and agony - evidenced by his extremely despondent nature and the fact that he sought refuge through multiple drug usage.
America lacks an actual king and queen and the mythology linking people with the divine, Rosen notes. The United States also lacks unified spiritual leadership, so this deep archetypal need is projected onto our heroes and heroines, particularly rock and movie stars, he explains.
It was easy to project this king image onto Presley, whose "heroic feats" foreshadowed the sexual revolution and women's liberation, and as a nonconformist, his style of civil disobedience broke down racial barriers in the music world, Rosen notes.
Rosen's latest book, The Tao of Elvis (Harcourt, Inc.), uses 42 Taoist concepts - one for each year of Presley's' life - to show how the Tao was and is operating through Elvis.
It attempts to answer why Presley is so omnipresent in society so many years after his death, Rosen says. On the list of sight- seeing destinations, only the White House receives more visitors than Graceland, and this year - the 25th anniversary of Presley's death - an estimated 80,000 people are expected to attend the candlelight vigil and visit his grave at Graceland, Rosen adds.
The Tao is concerned with soul, acceptance, humility, healing, nonviolence, compassion and balancing opposites - all relevant to Presley's life, Rosen says.
"No matter how he was cast - as a savior, a sinner, an idol or a has-been - Elvis was a deeply spiritual man," Rosen says. "His life was one long quest to balance opposites, from obscurity to fame and from innocence to addiction."
The duality of Presley's life was present even in the beginning of his fame, Rosen explains. What critics saw as immoral and vulgar, Presley saw as merely different - not the expression of raw sexuality, but something closer to spirituality.
"People everywhere struggle with the same thing that Elvis struggled with: the conflict between good and evil and their true and false selves," Rosen says.
"The rise and fall of Elvis reflects what has happened or can happen to each and every one of us," he adds. "We can follow a healing path or we can choose a self-destructive path as Elvis did, which ended his life prematurely.
"Elvis reflects everything good and bad about America."
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