I was discussing evolution and how museum displays on the astral planes revealed much greater information than anything we have on Earth, going into the past or zooming in on the present. (1)
I wanted to cite the testimony of G. Vale Owen’s mother on a museum display of the Earth she was shown in the Higher Summerlands of the astral plane (probably twelfth subdimension of the Fourth Dimension in our “New Map of Heaven”).
Rev. G. Vale Owen was very well known in the mid-20th Century, especially in British spiritualist circles, for his series Life Beyond the Veil. Consequently his mother’s testimony would have been accepted as very credible.
Clearly it was well received by Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, hero of the Battle of Britain, a well-known spiritualist in his day.
The mother of G. Vale Owens quoted in Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Many Mansions. London, etc.: Rider and Co., n.d. , 57-9.
We were told that a small demonstration would be made for our benefit in order that we might get some idea of the use to which these [musuem] things were put.
At length a blue mist began to fill the central space. Then a ray of light swept round the hall and rested on the globe which represented the earth. As it hovered about it the sphere appeared to absorb the ray and became luminous, and, after a time, the ray being withdrawn, we saw the earth globe was shining as if from within. Then another ray was sent on to it of a deeper and different kind and the globe slowly left the pedestal, or pivot, or whatever it rested on and began to float out from the wall.
As it approached the centre of the space it entered the blue mist and immediately on contact began to enlarge until it became a great sphere glowing with its own light and floating in the blue space. It was exceedingly beautiful.
Slowly, very slowly, it revolved on its own axis, evidently in the same way the earth does and we were able to see the oceans and continents. These were flat patterns, like those on the terrestrial globes used on earth. But as it revolved they began to assume a different aspect.
The mountains and hills began to stand out and the waters to sway and ripple: and presently we saw minute models of the cities, and even details of the buildings. And still more detailed grew the model of the earth till we could see the people themselves, first the crowds and then the individuals.
This will be hard for you to understand, that on a globe of some perhaps eighty to a hundred feet in diameter we are able to see individual men and animals. But that is part of the science of this institution – the enabling of these details being seen individually.
Still more distinct grew these wonderful scenes, and, as the globe revolved, we saw men hurrying about the cities and working in the fields. We saw the wide spaces of prairie and desert and forest and the animals roaming in them. And as the globe slowly circled we saw the oceans and the seas, some placid and the others tossing and roaring, and here and there a ship. And all the life of earth passed before our eyes….
Soon the scenes began to change on the revolving sphere and we were taken back thousands of years of the life of the earth and the generations of men and animals and plant life which had been from the present to the ages when men were just emerging from the forest to settle in colonies on the plains. … When we had satisfied our eyes for a while, the globe gradually became smaller and smaller and floated back to the niche in the wall and then the light faded out from it and it looked like an alabaster carving, just as we had seen it at first, set there as an ornament. …
The animals about the walls were also used for a like purpose. One would be vivified by these powerful rays and / brought into the centre of the hall. When so treated it could walk of itself like a live animal, which it was temporarily and in a certain restricted way. When it had ascended a platform in the centre space, then it was treated with the enlarging rays – as I may call them, not knowing their scientific name – and then with others which rendered it transparent and all the internal organisms of the animal became plainly visible to the students assembled.
Then it was possible to bring over the living model a change so that it began to evolve backwards- or should I say ‘involve’? – towards its simpler and primal state as a mammal, and so on. The whole structural history of the animal was shown in that life-like process. …
Also it was possible for any student to take charge and continue the development according to his own idea and this not of the animals alone, but of the heavenly bodies and also of nations and peoples, which are dealt with in another hall, however, specially adapted to that study.