After seeing NOVA's doc on the Sphinx featuring Lehner, I came across one of his earlier books; The Egyptian Heritage: Based on the Edgar Cayce. The book clearly supports some whacky ideas, reincarnation..dating the monuments in Giza much older than archeology tells us they are..so why is this guy taken seriously, let alone credited by the Smithsonian as one of the 35 most influential archeologists?
Lehner wrote this book in his youth, when he was just a first-year student in Egypt. He was first drawn to Egyptology through the mysticism, but stayed for the archaeology. This is a good lesson for people not to publish too controversial things under your real name so early in your career.
It is slightly misleading to present the book as being written by prof. Lehner or to use his experience as attributes of the writer of the book, as he did not yet have these qualifications (or the Chicago affiliation) when he wrote it. Note that he also does not feature on the Association for Research and Enlightenment's list of supporting authors.