Elvis’ Claims of Being a Faith Healer Were Completely False, Said His Bodyguard

Elvis Presley had many talents, and he believed faith healing was among them. The singer, who grew up in the church and remained spiritual for the entirety of his life, thought he could heal ailments and injuries with a brush of his hand. According to his friend, whom Elvis tried to heal multiple times, there was no truth to the singer’s claim.

Elvis believed he was a faith healer

As Elvis’ interest in the metaphysical grew, he became more interested in honing spiritual powers. He was wholly convinced he could heal a person by laying his hands on them. Red West, whom Elvis tried to heal more than once, tried to avoid the singer’s touch.

“Since my days playing football, I’ve always had a bad back, and sometimes at the top of my neck it gives me hell,” he said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Well, after a while I learned not to complain about it when I was around Elvis, because I knew what would happen. Whenever he knew I had the pain, he would ask me to sit down in front of him, and then he would lay on his hands, telling me over and over that the pain would go away, that he was drawing out the pain.”

Every time this happened, West would agree that he could feel the pain leaving his back and thank Elvis. In reality, though, nothing changed.

“He would give me one of those little secretive smiles that told the world that he had these powers, and he would walk away pleased with himself,” West said. “I would walk away and my back and neck were still hurting like hell. It was a case where I didn’t want to tell him that he was kidding himself, because he really had the best of intentions, but he was convinced that he had fixed me up.”

Priscilla Presley firmly believed Elvis was capable of faith healing

West rolled his eyes at Elvis’ belief in his healing abilities, Priscilla Presley spoke about it reverently. She claimed that her former husband was capable of healing her headaches with ease.

“He was capable of spiritual hearing; one touch of his hands to my temples and the most painful headaches disappeared,” she wrote in the book Elvis and Me.

1 bodyguard believed he could have done more damage than good

It seemed that Priscilla was one of the few people who believed Elvis could heal with a touch. West said Elvis never made things better. One bodyguard believed the singer could have actively made things worse. After an entourage member fell while skiing, Elvis tried to fix what people thought was a broken leg.

“We thought it was broken, because he was in a lot of pain,” Sonny West said. “We carried him back to the chalet and laid him down, and he was groaning in pain. Then old psychic healer Elvis comes along. He starts laying on the hands and grabbing the leg. Poor old Dean is nearly passing out with pain. But Elvis is convinced he is fixing the leg.”

Luckily, Sonny said, Dean had only bruised his leg. In Elvis’ eyes, though, this was likely proof that he had fixed the break.

“Now, as it turned out, it wasn’t broken, just a very bad bruise,” he said, “but if it had been broken, Elvis’s fooling around and grabbing it could have got it worse.”