The Life Beyond the Veil Volume I: The Lowlands of Heaven - George Owen, Kenroy Hunter, Geoff Cutler (best novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

a quantity of sheets of paper before he began to write. He placed these in a block before him on the table in the vestry. Then, using shaded candle-light to illuminate the sheet of paper and with his pencil in his hand, he would wait until he felt the influence to write. When once he started the influence was maintained without a stop until the message for the evening was concluded by the communicator. H. W. E.

 

2 See notes on Kathleen here.

 

3 A planchette is a very basic (and material) instrument used to communicate with spirit, and it is not generally used by the more advanced spirits, hence there is often some risk in it’s use, if low level spirits are attracted. It is not by accident that Rev. George Vale Owen was encouraged to develop the ability to use automatic writing. G.J.C.

 

4 This sounds very similar to the phenomenon called bilocation when it involves living humans. Several Indian gurus have been reported capable of this, as was also Padre Pio amongst many others. There is another technique that I am familar with that can be used by spirit, and it is termed Universe Reflectivity. Given the vast size of the Universe it follows that there would be such abilities or facilities. G.J.C.

 

SPECIAL NOTE.—Initials only are used throughout this volume when reference is made to any person outside Mr. Vale Owen’s own family. The name Rose refers to Mr. Vale Owen’s wife, and Rene is their daughter. H. W. E.

Preface (1949)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Script—transmitted by automatic or, more correctly, by inspirational writing—falls into four distinct sections, all, however, forming one progressive whole. It was all, quite evidently, planned out in advance by those who had its transmission in hand.1

 

The link between mother and son was, no doubt, considered the most likely avenue through which to open up communication in the first instance. It was my mother, therefore, and a band of friends who transmitted to me the first part.

 

The experiment proving successful, another teacher was introduced named Astriel, one of higher rank and of more philosophic mind and diction. The messages given by my mother’s band and Astriel form the first book of the Script, The Lowlands of Heaven.

 

Having passed this test I was handed over to Zabdiel, whose messages are on a higher level than the simpler narrative of my mother. These form The Highlands of Heaven.

 

The next phase was The Ministry of Heaven, given by one who called himself “Leader,” and his band. Subsequently he seems to have assumed, more or less, sole control of communication. Then he speaks of himself as “Arnel.” Under this name his narrative, which forms the fourth book, The Battalions of Heaven, is the climax of the whole. His messages are of a more intense nature than any of the foregoing, which were evidently preparatory.

 

It will be obvious that, in order to obtain the true perspective, the books should be read in the sequence given above. Otherwise some of the references in the later volumes to incidents narrated in the earlier may not be quite clear.

 

As to the personages concerned in the transmission of the messages : my mother passed into the higher life in 1909, aged sixty-three. Astriel was the Headmaster of a school in Warwick in mid-eighteenth century. Of Zabdiel’s earth life I know little or nothing certain. Arnel gives some account of himself in the text. Kathleen, who acted as amanuensis on the spirit side, lived in Anfield, Liverpool. She was a seamstress and died, at the age of twenty-eight,

about three years before my daughter Ruby who is mentioned in the text and who passed over in 1896 at the age of fifteen months.

 

 

 

How The Messages Came

 

There is an opinion abroad that the clergy are very credulous beings. But our training in the exercise of the critical faculty places us among the most hard-to-convince when any new truth is in question. It took a quarter of a century to convince me—ten years that spirit communication was a fact, and fifteen that the fact was legitimate and good.

 

From the moment I had taken this decision, the answer began to appear. First my wife developed the power of automatic writing. Then through her I received requests that I would sit quietly, pencil in hand, and take down any thoughts which seemed to come into my mind projected there by some external personality and not consequent on the exercise of my own mentality. Reluctance lasted a long time, but at last I felt that friends were at hand who wished very earnestly to speak with me. They did not overrule or compel my will in any way—that would have settled the matter at once, so far as I was concerned-—but their wishes were made ever more plain.

I felt at last that I ought to give them an opportunity, for I was impressed with the feeling that the influence was a good one, so, at last, very doubtfully, I decided to sit in my cassock in the vestry after Evensong.

 

The first four or five messages wandered aimlessly from one subject to another But gradually the sentences began to take consecutive form, and at last I got some which were understandable. From that time, development kept pace with practice. The reader will find the result in the pages following.

 

G. Vale Owen.

 

Autumn, 1925.

 

 

1 I have located a fifth volume and will also publish that as a Kindle ebook.

Introduction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

THE long battle is nearly won. The future may be chequered. It may hold many a setback and many a disappointment, but the end is sure.

 

It has always seemed certain to those who were in touch with truth, that if any inspired document of the new revelation could get really into the hands of the mass of the public, it would be sure by its innate beauty and reasonableness to sweep away every doubt and every prejudice.

 

Now world-wide publicity is being given to the very one of all others which one would have selected, the purest, the highest, the most complete, the most exalted in its source. Verily the hand of the Lord is here!

The narrative is before you and ready to speak for itself. Do not judge it merely by the opening, lofty as that may be, but mark the ever ascending beauty of the narrative, rising steadily until it reaches a level of sustained grandeur.

 

Do not carp about minute details, but judge it by the general impression. Do not be unduly humorous because it is new and strange.

 

Remember that there is no narrative upon Earth, not even the most sacred of all, which could not be turned to ridicule by the extraction of passages from their context and by over-accentuation of what is immaterial. The total effect upon your mind and soul is the only standard by which to judge the sweep and power of this revelation.

 

Why should God have sealed up the founts of inspiration two thousand years ago? What warrant have we anywhere for so unnatural a belief?

 

Is it not infinitely more reasonable that a living God should continue to show living force, and that fresh help and knowledge should be poured out from Him to meet the evolution and increased power of comprehension of a more receptive human nature, now purified by suffering.

 

All these marvels and wonders, these preternatural

 

happenings during the last seventy years, so obvious and notorious that only shut eyes have failed to see them, are trivial in themselves, but are the signals which have called our material minds to attention, and have directed them towards those messages of which this particular script may be said to be the most complete example.

 

There are many others, varying in detail according to the sphere described or the opacity of the transmitter, for each tinges the light to greater or less extent as it passes through. Only with pure spirit will absolutely pure teaching be received, and yet this story of Heaven must, one would think, be as near to it as mortal conditions allow.

 

And is it subversive of old beliefs? A thousand times No. It broadens them, it defines them, it beautifies them, it fills in the empty voids which have bewildered us, but save to narrow pedants of the exact word who have lost touch with the spirit, it is infinitely reassuring and illuminating.

 

How many fleeting phrases of the old Scriptures now take visible shape and meaning?

 

Do we not begin to understand that “House with many mansions,” and realize Paul’s “House not made with hands,” even as we catch some fleeting glance of that

glory which the mind of man has not conceived, neither has his tongue spoken.

 

It all ceases to be a far-off elusive vision and it becomes real, solid, assured, a bright light ahead as we sail the dark waters of Time, adding a deeper joy to our hours of gladness and wiping away the tear of sorrow by assuring us that if we are only true to God’s law and our own higher instincts there are no words to express the happiness which awaits us.

 

Those who mistake words for things will say that Mr. Vale Owen got all this from his subconscious self. Can they then explain why so many others have had the same experience, if in a less exalted degree?1

 

I have myself epitomized in two small volumes the general account of the other world, drawn from a great number of sources. It was done as independently of Mr. Vale Owen as his account was independent of mine.

 

Neither had possible access to the other. And yet as I read this far grander and more detailed conception I do not find one single point of importance in which I have erred.

 

How, then, is this agreement possible if the general scheme is not resting upon inspired truth?

The world needs some stronger driving force. It has been running on old inspiration as a train runs when the engine is removed. New impulse is needed. If religion had been a real compelling thing, then it would show itself in the greatest affairs of all—the affairs of nations, and the late war would have been impossible. What church is there which came well out of that supreme test? Is it not manifest that the things of the spirit need to be restated and to be recoupled with the things of life?

 

A new era is beginning. Those who have worked for it may be excused if they feel some sense of reverent satisfaction as they see the truths for which they laboured and testified gaining wider attention from the world.

 

It is not an occasion for self-assertion, for every man and woman who has been honoured by being allowed to work in such a cause is well aware that he or she is but in agent in the hands of unseen but very real, wise, and dominating forces. And yet one would not be human if one were not relieved when one sees fresh sources of strength, and realizes the all-precious ship is held more firmly than ever upon her course.

 

[Signature Shown}

 

INTO THE LIGHT

 

The good God is, and God is good,

 

And when to us ’tis dimly seen

 

’Tis but the mists that come between

 

Like darkness round the Holy Rood,

 

Or Sinai Mount where they adored

 

The Rising Glory of the Lord. He giveth life, so life is good, As all is good that He has given. Earth is the vestibule of Heaven; And so He feeds with angel’s food Those in His likeness He has made, That death may find us unafraid. Death is no wraith, of visage pale, Out of this darkened womb of Earth,

But waits attendant on our birth

 

To lead us gently through the Veil,

 

To realms of radiance, broad and free,

 

To Christ and immortality.

 

 

September, 1915.

 

 

1 I have added a list of reading recommendations at the end which include books similar to this series, but also some I would consider more advanced. This is a very small selection of books