The evening world. Newspaper, July 17, 1920, Page 6

THE EVENING WORLD, SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1920, Z * De 7-3 O-MORROW The World will begin publication of a series of the } ~=most remarkable so-called ‘‘Messages From Beyond the Grave” that have ever yet been printed. : ‘They purport to have been received by the Rev. G. Vale Owen, who is vicar of Orford, Lancashire, England, and were first brought to public notice by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a speech at Leicester, England, on Oct, 19, 1919, when, replying to criticism of his views on spiritualism which had been made at the Church Congress a few days before, he said: “In Mr. Vale Owen, the Vicar of Orférd, are to be found the highest powers of automatic writing possessed by any medium in Britain. “I have read in script a long and detailed account of the next world written by Mr. Vale Owen’s liand through the impulse of a spiritual guide, and I can only say that it is one 4 the most remarkable and in- spiring nargatives I have ever encountered.” Sir Arthur concluded by expressing the hope that “the manuscript would soon be available for all the world,’’ adding that in his belief “it could not fail to produce a profound seneation.” It is this narrative that The World will begin printing next Sunday. In ali previous publications of “messages” which have purported to one from the “other world” there has been: an exasperating lack of de- s. a Here, however, is an alleged “communication” that describes in minute detail the life to which death is but the portal. Accept it or not, as you like. Needless to. say The World does not guarantee that the “messages” written by the Rev. G. Vale Owen were “actually dictated” by the spirits of his mother and others who had died; it has*no opinion to offer on this point; but the documents are of a character so different from everything else of the kind that has previously appeared and are in themselves so extraordinary that they prove of the most absorbing interest. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is a declared spiritist, said of them in a recent letter: “It is the most remarkable and interesting script, tHe highest that I have ever seen, and I have seen a great many. It is so important, and gives such splendid reading that it should be printed in good large type, and if the publisher needed a guarantee against loss I would be willing to join others for a stated sum.” The Rev. G. Vale Owen, who asserts that he received the remark- able “spirit”? messages, is a clergyman of the Church of England, de voted to his parish and completely absorbed in his work. He says nothing was farther from his thoughts, a few years ago, than that he should be made a medium for “spirit”? communications, Psychical research did not attract but was distasteful to him. His career has been uneventful. Born in Birmingham in 1869, and educated at the Midland 4mstitute and Queen’s College, in that city, he was ordained by the Bishop of Liverpool to the curacy:of Seaford in 1893; then was curate successively of Fairfield, 1895, and of St. Matthew's, Scotland Road, 1897—both of Liverpool. It was in 1900 that he went to Orford, Warrington, as curate in charge. Orford Church was built in 1908, when a new parish was formed and he became the first vicar. His vicarage was built so recently as in 1915, No one who knows the Scotland Road District of Liverpool tr the labor involved in the charge of a new parish will underestimate the value of the warm affection and esteem in which Mr, Owen is held in both places. “During April and May, 1913,” he states, “my wife was constrained by an influence independent of her wishes to take a pencil in her hand and write what was put in her mind. “This she did, and it soon became apparent that a band of people were trying to communicate, In time hey were able to get through messages of a more or less consecutive character. : “Among these were repeated invitations that I should sit in like manner. “I disregarded these, as I had not only no desire to comply with them but an aversion to doing so. “During the ensuing months, however, a steady mental pres- sure was applied to me, which I shook off, only to find it return. “It was gentle and kindly, but quite steady and cumulative in force. } felt that friends were at hand who wished very earnestly to speak with me. ‘I decided at last that I ought not to refuse any longer. So, unless nee by other business, I sat in my cassock in the vestry daily after evensong—that is, from about 5.15 P. M. to from 6.00 to 6.30 P. M., or thereabouts. “On Sept. 9, 1913, the experiment was not very successful; the writ- ing was disjointed and scrappy. On Sept. 13 it began to take a more consecutive form, and so continued until Jan. 2, 1914. “During the day-time I dismissed the matter from my mind as far as possible, and so went to any sitting free of any premeditated ideas. There were, in this period, 78 sittings, and the average rate of writing was 24 words a minute. “The first messages were from my mother and a group of friends; these continued until Oct. 31. These messages came from guides who had ascended higher in the spheres of light; they continued until Jan. 2, 1914 “Afterward, from Sept. 8, 1917, until April 4, 1919, another series of messages was! received from other guides.” An intimate friend of Mr. Vale Owen supplements this description cf hew the messages came with the following interesting particulars: “The continual sittings proved a very great strain on the health of Mr. Vale Owen, and when the writings were about two-thirds of the way through his health was in such danger that the com- municators suddenly ceased writing. “But after a quietness of nearly a year the communicators urged him to start again through his wife’s planchette. And the narrative was then taken up from the exact place where it had been broken the year previously. And. so the script, in the course of two months, was finished. . “During the past three weeks Mr. Vale Owen, after nearly a ear’s rest, has been again impelled to take up his pencil, and urther revelations are coming through.” ’ The Alleged Spiritistic Revelations of an English Clergyman ; r By the REV. G. VALE OWEN, (ie.aireEngiena THE REV. G. VALE OW ds AeA AI IY LOT IMOE MIDI LADD EDOUTEG LALA ULL bb UA ead siiaadisiaiaacnaainiana sit lily ong EN” Conditions in the Other World As described in the messages the Rey. G. Va! Owen asserts be received from the spirits Encircling the earth and reaching ever outward are zone upon zone of the realms of light. Sta es 0 life and power rather than “localities, hey are imper- ceptible to our senses. In due course the outer of these are interwoven with similar zones encircling other planets, and at length a zone embracing the Solat System is reached. Still higher zones in turn commingle with those of other systems. The messages come from zones up to the tenth. And that, as far ‘as is known, is but a beginning; there may be a hundred centred on the earth, From a borderland we may de- scend by degrees of dimness and gloom into realms of darkness. Or we may ascend by grees of light to regions of a splendor too dazzling for us now to con- ceive, At death a man passes to the sphere for which his stage of develop- ment fits him. He may, for ex- ample, pass to that part of th borderland fringing the fir zone, or sphere, of light. There is no sudden change in‘l8 personality, He is not at Ace transformed in such a manpf a8 to make him, in fact, a diffrent person. He may gradualf grow more fit for « higher spe; or remain for what we gift an age in that in which heirst are rived, In the first sphere of Rht he is among the things b knew on earth, There are theame types of trees and flowef only more varied and beaut¥l, immune from decay, and Hdowed with qualities that mee them more 7 The Firs Instalment of this remarkable manuscript will appear in to-morrow’s World, nd will be continued in the Morning World, each day thereafter, until com- leted. Order the Morning Edition of The World in advance from your newsdealer. A chehot able to get a copy of the Sunday World on account of the limited edition prints! will find a ord. the @mtire series. ’ Those in higher sp! a part of his [& Around him are birds and®ther animals he was familiar /ith, but different in many w/% and chiefly in at they «ape the fears and cruelties tat oppress gloomier region He finds ses and gardens, but of su a and at- mosphe More onsive to his prence; water whose play- ing ismusic, with wide ranging harrnies of color. ‘ He fiy's everything more radiant, meé_ io more exquisitely coiplex, and ‘while his activi- ts are multiplied his life is sore restful. [:the sp beyond the radiance is int the conditions more ealized, the power more beneficent. And thus the ascending scale continues. res may de- scend to the lower. To do 80 first “condition” for the light in a seems dim, the at- : heavy, to one from a Spirits sent on a mission to earth have thus to undergo a change before they can see and move in our dense and murky atmos- phere; still more is this neces- sary when they go on some merciful errand into the realms of darkness. Differences in “age” disappear. There are no “old” in the Spheres of Light; there are only the graceful and strong, Earth’s standards of yalue go, Outward trappings, deceptive appearances, pretenses of every sort, fall away. synopsis of Sunday instalment in_next Monday inky By advance ordering, copies of The Morning World may be obtained for LAUT a AAUULUTOL TAAL SAA ALLY TAL Ea YEE! LOLI DDE HATEVER ore my think of the revelations contained in the Rev. G. Vale Owen” manuscript—whether tHey be, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believe genuine messages dictated by the spirits of those who have “passed ott,’ or merely the outpourings of the subconscious mind of a highly igaginative Episcopalian minister who has fed himself on Dante and Milvn and Virgil and the Holy Scriptures and stadied a certain amount of nodern science—they are an important contribution to the literature of Piritism. For they pgsent “a full description of the world beyond the grave.” Here are a few the things they contain: The peole who live in those worlds, their dwellings, their dress, their work, their music, their sciences, their aims and organizatia, their whole surroundings. . }>w people are received in the spheres of light an the ealms of darkness. How friend meets friend. How youth and age are transformed. How difficult it is for most of them to plerce the veil fom the other side and reveal themselves to their dear ones on earth, Further, they will give a glimpse of the carth’s future and of t# relations with other planets. In the first instalment the ‘“‘messages’’ will describe Mr. Vale Jwen’s mother’s home and surroundings; a home of music; a great bridge over the chasm between the regions of light and of darkness; a crossing-over from earth; and the reunion of a long- separated husband and wife in the other world. Readers will observe that in the early stages of these “worlds to come” the greater part of the conditions more closely resemble those of earth than of the transcendental state generally pictured ag that of a future life. Familiar things are seen and done; the range of ideas and method of expression are easily recognizable as those of many of our everyday friends, Birds such as one fed in the garden are again met; and mes- senger birds are used, but more as pretty fancies than as a neces- sity—for there are vastly quicker means of communication than we possess. Horses are more than ever the friends of man and their willing servants; “‘little furry animals” disport themselves in the groves. The trees and flowers of our own countryside reappear, and those who have sought to find the secrets of their growth may continue their studies. But there are also, even in the early stages, conditions as strange to us and as little intelligible as are, for-example, our aeroplane, our wireless telegraphy, our electric light—in fact, most of the apparatus of our civili- zation—to a tribe buried in the forests of Central Africa. Our experience fails to give us something to compare them with, to judge them by. Also the standards of value are different; many things on which we set high value on earth are found to be of little conse- quence; qualities on which we set little store to be of the greatest importance. . As we pass beyond the earlier stages, so do the conditions of earth become more remote and those of the higher worlds more wonderful and glorious, just as those of the lower become more grim. . And these who find in the earlier messages too great an insistence on externals, on what might be called the machinery of the organizations, are bidden to wait until the full story is told, Through ‘all, so far as these alleged messages permit us to see, the individual persists; the man or woman, however ultimately transfigured, derives directly from the being who was on earth, The vicar always followed the writing as it flowed from his pencil, and in that way was able to interpose questions, here and there, which were immediately answered, and often the nature of the replies surprised him greatly. In many cases, in the latter portions of the script, the story seemed to the recipient rather abstruse. He thereupon asked if the communicator would elucidate the matter, and at once a parable or a story would be given of such a character that it immediately made clear the difficulties of previous communication. Some eminent clergymen and many psychic investigators in England who have read Mr. Vale Owen’s messages claim that one of the chief features of the entire narrative is its orthodox nature. It does not wander into theosophical speculations. They consider that the principles of Christianity and the ethics of Church teachings are observed throughout the script, although there are in many cases rather different view-points of the life hereafter from those usually accepted. This, of course, is a matter of opinion. The first instalment will appear in next Sunday’s World and instal- ments will be continued in The World (Morning Edition) Daily thereafter, &