Owen, Reverend George Vale

Owen, Reverend George Vale (1869–1931)

George Vale Owen was born in Birmingham, England, in 1869. He was educated at the Midland Institute and at Queen’s College, Birmingham. He was ordained and held curacies at Seaforth, Fairfield, and the Scotland Road division of Liverpool. He then became vicar of Orford, near Warrington, where he worked for twenty years, helping build a new church there.

Owen had some psychic experiences and developed an ability to do automatic writing and inspirational writing. This first came through as from his mother, but was continued by higher spirits or angels. From this writing, Owen received details of what life was like after the transition known as death. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described the information obtained by Owen as “a body of philosophy and advice from unseen sources, which seems to the author to bear every internal sign of a high origin.” Owen’s findings were published by Lord Northcliffe in the Weekly Dispatch. It was said that as a result, the Sunday newspaper’s circulation increased tremendously. But another direct result of the publication of his work was persecution by Church authorities, which eventually lead to Owen’s resignation.

Owen went on a short lecture tour of England and America, and then settled as pastor of a Spiritualist church in London. He continued to write, his best known book being the five-volume Life Beyond the Veil, published in 1921–22. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that Owen’s “great script … may be as permanent an influence as that of Swedenborg.” Owen’s other books included Facts and the Future Life (1922), The Kingdom of God (1925), Body, Soul and Spirit (1928), The Highlands of Heaven (1929), The Lowlands of Heaven (nd), The Ministry of Heaven (1928), The Outlands of Heaven (nd), and What Happens After Death (nd).

Sources:

Fodor, Nandor: Encyclopedia of Psychic Science. London: Arthurs Press, 1933