When I began to read Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith, I was taken by how vividly he described his untraditional upbringing. His father, Lew Smith, was a successful interior designer who got a calling to heal people and dramatically changed his lifestyle when he got messages about what to do to live healthier. Some people would call him eccentric, others crazy, for the habits he adopted and pushed onto his family. But no matter his habits, Lew Smith was an extraordinary man. He had a rare gift in his ability to locate where someone’s health problem originated, and then heal them. People lined up to take advantage.

Philip grew up in the midst of his father’s growing into a great healer who helped thousands of people. From an early age he was drinking and partying. It certainly wasn’t the average childhood!  Lew Smith had a gift for healing people that probably few people have. He got messages and followed the path he was led down. To many people he’d seem at best odd, but Philip rolled with his father’s unusual actions and habits. He found his own ways to cope with his embarrassment so he could recognize and appreciate the gift he’d been given–being the son to this unique mans.

Philip tells his story with candor, sharing details in a way that you can picture him growing up in his striking environment throughout the book, which is fascinating, humorous, and made me think it couldn’t be true. But there I was sitting across from Philip, who has great energy, a peaceful demeanor and a good career. Some of the things shared both in the book and here can seem hard, if not impossible to believe, since so much seems mystical, like from another realm we don’t know. Yet as I looked into Philip’s eyes, I knew they were true.

I asked him why he wrote the book. He cited 2 reasons. First, he wanted to give thanks to his father and let other people to know about his father’s life since what he did was so extraordinary that he can be an example to other people. Second, Philip said he didn’t write the book. The day before he turned the manuscript in, he began to put away all the archives and came across a box that he’d overlooked during his 8 years of research. In the folder was a message from one of his father’s spirit guides. It told his father in 1971 to organize his papers because Philip would write a book about his work.

Two days later he found unmarked audio cassettes. His father taped his healings, lectures and phone calls because he knew people thought he was crazy and wanted to leave a record that showed that what he did and experienced was real. One of the cassettes he found was a reading with a psychic, who said Lew needed to get everything organized for Philip because he would write about Lew’s life. Philip says it’s ludicrous to think he wrote the book of his own freewill. He sees himself as being the secretary. Everything was based on his archives. He can document everything in the book with the records his father left for him.

Philip eventually settled his wild ways  and grew up to become his own person. He’s an artist and former managing editor of GQ magazine I asked him to share how he went from his untraditional upbringing to becoming who he is today. Here’s what he had to say:

Describe your father? One of a kind, brilliant and creative with no real form of schooling. I wish there were more people like him.  When I was younger I was embarrassed. I wanted an Ozzie and Harriet father and didn’t realize how lucky I was.

How did growing up watching your father heal people affect your adult life? I see potential in everything. I think that things can always be better and most human beings operate under a kind of mental slavery. They don’t see the miracle that they are or recognize that they’re this magnificent, complicated work of energy that can do so much more.

What do you remember seeing your father do? I saw him do everything he did. It seemed totally normal. My favorite thing was to watch when people had one leg longer than the other. He talked to the legs and made them perfectly even in 2-3 minutes. I have it on audio tape.

Can you use any of his techniques? He taught me mostly everything but I was a bad kid and wanted to get high, go surfing and have sex so I wasn’t interested in removing tumors as a kid. I’ve helped some people in my family, but that’s it. For example, there was a family member and I always knew when their blood sugar was high. I’d call to say your blood sugar is high. I’d visualize and pray for them and a few hours later it was normal.

How did you make the gift your own? I see my paintings as like Tibetan Tonkas, where you look at the image and get good luck or an answer to a problem. I hope my paintings have some of that energy in them. I think it’s who I am so it’s normal that would come out of me. The paintings are sort of autobiographical. People say they feel the energy.

How did using the pendulum increase your father’s abilities? With the Pendulum he was able to accurately diagnose someone, whether next to him or in California. People wouldn’t tell him anything. He would ask the pendulum yes or no questions about the person. He knew what questions to ask. People can learn very quickly how to use one. Your accuracy increases with practice.

How did you find yourself as you grew into an adult? I grew up in the Addams family. For me, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched were reality shows. It took a long time to finally realize instead of being a freak, I could be more useful fitting in. In a way the book is pretty radical but it’s a funny story and people are sort of seduced into learning about things they wouldn’t learn about otherwise. What’s interesting is a lot of very orthodox physicians have read the book and written to me, saying they’re rethinking what they know about medicine, based on this book. If I wrote spooky psychic healing book they wouldn’t have read it. I humanized it in a way. My father was a regular guy that this happened to and looked normal. He believed anyone could do it. He didn’t think he was special. He just thought, “I’m working with energy so of course I will get rid of this person’s brain cancer.” He operated in that reality but to onlooker, he was a normal guy. It’s great camouflage.

How did you get your act together? The thing that’s been most helpful is I’ve been studying a traditional Zen based karate for 16 years. The practice has been very helpful in terms of normalizing me. When I started I was very scared I’d lose my creativity. As an artist, you supposedly live in a world with no rules. In karate, everything has only a right way to do it. Over years you become very proficient mentally and it refines your consciousness.

What did your father teach you that you use today? My every day experience is colored by him totally–the way I eat and interact with people. It’s the lens through which I see life–a metaphysical lens. I’m always looking for a spiritual connection and why things happen. I listen to the guides from the other side now. It took many years for it to be integrated into my cellular structure.

How do you see the place of healing in today’s world? I think we’re still maybe 40 years away and then it will be here. What my father did is the future of medicine. Dr. Oz has energy heal
ers in the O.R. All the stuff my father taught me 50 years ago–juicing, colonics, power of thought, we’re first seeing now. My father’s ability to diagnose and give medical treatment was very different from what anyone else is doing. He was able to develop those methods of healing because he felt at night his spirit guide would take him to other dimension and train him. So when he came back, as wacky as it sounds, he was able to develop these healing methods that no one has seen before.
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Whether you want to learn more about the possibilities for energy healing, or read a book that will be hard to put down since it reads like fiction, I highly recommend reading Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith. Once I began reading it, I couldn’t get enough of the story. It’s a funny read too! Knowing it really happened and then meeting Philip truly brought Lew Smith‘s extraordinary world to life and energized me about healing. I highly recommend this book on both pleasure and informative levels!

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