Psychics are drawn to Asheville because they believe its powerful energy vortex enhances psychic abilities including one’s sixth sense. Is that the explanation for the strange events that occurred on the stage of Asheville’s Civic Center on July 23, 1975? Did Elvis Presley see his impending death? Did he have some native psychic ability enhanced by the quartz laden mountains surrounding him in Asheville that awakened a premonition of things to come?
Elvis was performing that night. He interrupted his performance to call out to a young college student in the audience. Elvis asked to join him at the edge of the stage. When Mike Harris did as asked, Elvis gave the twenty-one-year-old his beloved Gibson Ebony Dove guitar. Harris says he had never met Elvis before that night, and to this day, he claims that he has no idea why Elvis selected him out of the audience or why Elvis gave him his prized possession. The guitar had been a gift from Elvis’s father. But that was just the beginning of Elvis’s generosity that night. Other items Elvis gave away included diamond rings and a necklace. These were not costumed pieces, but the real thing. One of the rings had a cluster of nineteen diamonds. Elvis seemed to be preparing for something, distributing some of his most precious belongings to fans because he would no longer need them. This was Elvis’s last performance in Asheville. He was booked for a return engagement but never made it back to Asheville. He died ten days before the scheduled date for that return performance. Is that the vision Elvis saw that led him to give away his favorite guitar?
I grew up in Memphis in the shadow of Graceland. There had been rumors about Elvis having a sixth sense. I cannot say one way or the other if they were true or not, but the events of July 23, 1975, certainly make me wonder.