It bears repeating: We should probably take Ben Johnson with a big grain of salt. Do you remember when he had that spiritual adviser? The one who said that he was a reincarnated pharaoh and that his drug problems were due to an Egyptian curse?
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-10-22-1200954703_x.htm
"Using his "very strong spiritual gift," Farnum says he discerned that Johnson has had "many" previous lives and that "in other incarnations, I was his father."
In this life, they've been friends for a few years.
And Johnson, who was he previously?
Farnum at first laughed, then said: "Well, you know what? I'm going to tell you who he was, OK? That's OK. We can break this news, it doesn't matter. It's just going to help the book. He was Khufu, going back to Egypt ... He was a pharaoh."
"Look him up," he added. "There was a story about Khufu, about his drink, his beer, being poisoned."""
Johnson may very well be right about Lewis. But his version of reality and the rest of ours often don't overlap very much.