Gareth Lewis

Manchester Evening News
Salford Church Interview With William Roache M.B.E And Demonstration Review With Gareth Lewis And John Harrop

Monday, 23rd October 2006 Psychic Night @ Salford Spiritualist Church Paul O'Brien

PRIOR to the event at Salford’s Spiritualist Church, I caught up with guest speaker Bill Roache (Ken Barlow from Coronation Street) for a few words: What brings you here tonight? Well I got invited here to talk, I’m not a spiritualist, but my understandings have a close affinity with what the spiritualist movement say. I first got invited to a spiritualist church about eight years ago, and in general I get invited to all sorts of places to talk. But the main reason why I’m here is because I was invited. Advertisement your story continues below What are your beliefs towards spiritualism? Well belief is a word I don’t like, I’m interested in finding out what the truth is, and I always have done since I was a child. I had a fear of death and a fear of infinity, and my father used to be a doctor, and I used to be worried when he went out to treat people, and he lead me to want to know more. I wasn’t getting the answers and I wanted to know the truth. I don’t belong to any groups, any cults or any particular religion at all; I’m a student of the truth. So on my journey, which I’ve been doing for twenty years or so through meditation and other things, I’ve found out certain truths that I know to be true. It’s an individual process, and everyone is on a different level and has to find out for him or herself. So I come here and say what I’ve discovered, talk about my life, and things that have affected me, and if that helps anyone on there journey, then that’s great, I’m rewarded. With things like reincarnation, we are all spiritual beings, no matter what race or religion, and once you recognise that and allow that to manifest into whatever form you wish, you become a loving and caring person. So you needn’t belong to a religion for that. Reincarnation is the only thing that makes sense for me, to say you’ve got just one chance, where is the fairness in that? Cot death, or a child born in famine ridden Ethiopia compared to a child born to a millionaire. Where’s the fairness. To say you only have one go of things just isn’t right. I believe that we are all immortal, as we are all spiritual beings. The body is like a car, it will be discarded, and you’ll get a new one till you reach a point of spiritual development when you don’t need to come back. My meeting with Bill, and his talk to follow certainly got my mind thinking on a different level. It opened my eyes to ideas and theologies I didn’t know existed. Mixing his talk from his acting past and growing up, to his time of not knowing which journey to take was both entertaining and educational. It was the perfect warm up to what was to follow with mediums Gareth Lewis and John Harrop, who were joined on stage by psychic artist Pauline Montgomery. It was my first time at an event like this, and could have easily been on edge, much like all the others in attendance. But the good humour from John and Gareth certainly made everyone at ease and relaxed for the night ahead, with Gareth cracking jokes about reincarnation, “knowing my luck I’ll come back as myself”. All three mediums hit on things that could quite easily be picked up on in the local press, but adding pieces of information that would have been unbeknownst to the public. Though there were messages from car crash victims, passed on elderly neighbours and work colleagues, the night was lightened some more when John Harrop seemed to receive visits from a German shepherd and a parrot. The Salford public who attended the event did so with an open mind, and expectations. I expected that the people who would receive the contact would do so with tearful emotion, but this wasn’t the case. They were pleased to hear the relatives and friends who have passed over are in a good place, and a happy and free of pain. It was an eye opening experience for me, and one that I would be putting myself through again. As discussed with Bill Roache, events like this are proving all the more popular amongst the public, and I for one can now see why.