Lewis Ashmore

Lewis Ashmore

Lewis Leland Ashmore (October 18, 1931 – March 24, 2008)^[1] was a 20th-century American religious pioneer and a little-known pioneer of "garage band/psychedelic" music.^[2] He was a member of the Board of Directors and the founding Vice President of the Universal Life Church founded by Kirby J. Hensley. When Ashmore helped his friend Kirby J. Hensley to found the Universal Life Church in Modesto, California (1959-1962), they were both freelance southern ministers who had migrated to California.^[3] A Mississippi native, he ran a church in Tehachapi, California. While a member of the church he wrote the book The Modesto Messiah: The Famous Mail-Order Minister and produced a movie of the same title.^[4] The movie did not see general release^[1] and there are no known publicly available copies in existence. In the 1977 book, Universal Press of Bakersfield listed four additional books written by Mr Ashmore: My Love, The Immortal Species, Love Divinely - Sex & Immortality and Highlights of Hensley's Life. According to Universal Press, Ashmore was a UFO expert and an inventor, as well as a musician and composer. In collaboration with guitarist Ted McClaren and other musicians, billed as Space Walkers and Swinging Saucers (according to his book publisher), or just The Space Walkers (according to his record label), he released a vinyl EP, Other Worlds, and some singles, on his own label, UFO records, circa 1967. Space Walkers titles known to have been recorded include Swamp Gas/Gemini Jump (guitar in orbit),^[5][6] Time Sound, Too Many Light Years, Space Walk, and The Invader. (sources: Universal Press, YouTube and Brian Geddes' Vinyl Record Talk blog^[7]) Many of these recordings were UFO-themed. A few tracks were included on limited-release compilations of unknown origins in the late 1990s.^[8][9] Around the time of this compilation in the late 1990s, original "fuzz" guitarist Ted McClaren was a keyboardist in David Bailey's Kern River Boys country gospel group in Bakersfield.^[10]

MULTIPLE DISAMBIGUATIONS regarding Ashmore's music--- Space Walkers are not to be confused with The Spacewalkers, a 1965 one-off studio project of Rene Hall and Plas Johnson (Gemini Go Baby Go!/Tecumseh),^[11] The Spacewalkers, a current English pop duo formed in the 1980s,^[12][13] The Spacewalkers, a 21st-century Scottish duo,^[14][15] techno artist(s) Spacewalkerz^[16] or the Space Walker Recordings label operating in Budapest, Hungary;.^[17]

Ashmore was also a noted exorcist having performed hundreds of exorcisms since the 1950s. "For decades Rev. Lewis Ashmore cast out devils during tent revivals in the Central Valley. People foamed at the mouth, talked back to him in a strange voice and writhed uncontrollably on the ground." At 75, 2 years before he expired, Ashmore concluded that demonic possession could be explained in the 21st century by modern medicine. "Back in Christ’s day, these mental conditions weren’t yet diagnosed,” he said. “All exorcisms can be explained by psychology and science.” ^[18]

Published works

• Ashmore, Lewis (1977). The Modesto messiah: The famous mail-order minister. Universal Press. ISBN 0-918950-01-5. 

References

Footnotes

• Hensley, Kirby J. (1986). The Buffer Zone. Universal Life Church. ASIN B00071NQX0.