The Urantia Book - Part III - original from:
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Part III
The History of Urantia
PAPER 57
THE ORIGIN OF URANTIA
57:0.1 IN PRESENTING excerpts from the archives of Jerusem for the records of
Urantia respecting its antecedents and early history, we are directed to
reckon time in terms of current usage -- the present leap-year calendar of
365¼ days to the year. As a rule, no attempt will be made to give exact years,
though they are of record. We will use the nearest whole numbers as the better
method of presenting these historic facts.
57:0.2 When referring to an event as of one or two millions of years ago, we
intend to date such an occurrence back that number of years from the early
decades of the twentieth century of the Christian era. We will thus depict
these far-distant events as occurring in even periods of thousands, millions,
and billions of years.
1. THE ANDRONOVER NEBULA
57:1.1 Urantia is of origin in your sun, and your sun is one of the
multifarious offspring of the Andronover nebula, which was onetime organized
as a component part of the physical power and material matter of the local
universe of Nebadon. And this great nebula itself took origin in the universal
force-charge of space in the superuniverse of Orvonton, long, long ago.
57:1.2 At the time of the beginning of this recital, the Primary Master Force
Organizers of Paradise had long been in full control of the space-energies
which were later organized as the Andronover nebula.
57:1.3 987,000,000,000 years ago associate force organizer and then acting
inspector number 811,307 of the Orvonton series, traveling out from Uversa,
reported to the Ancients of Days that space conditions were favorable for the
initiation of materialization phenomena in a certain sector of the, then,
easterly segment of Orvonton.
57:1.4 900,000,000,000 years ago the Uversa archives testify, there was
recorded a permit issued by the Uversa Council of Equilibrium to the
superuniverse government authorizing the dispatch of a force organizer and
staff to the region previously designated by inspector number 811,307. The
Orvonton authorities commissioned the original discoverer of this potential
universe to execute the mandate of the Ancients of Days calling for the
organization of a new material creation.
57:1.5 The recording of this permit signifies that the force organizer and
staff had already departed from Uversa on the long journey to that easterly
space sector where they were subsequently to engage in those protracted
activities which would terminate in the emergence of a new physical creation
in Orvonton.
57:1.6 875,000,000,000 years ago the enormous Andronover nebula number 876,926
was duly initiated. Only the presence of the force organizer and the liaison
staff was required to inaugurate the energy whirl which eventually grew into
this vast cyclone of space. Subsequent to the initiation of such nebular
revolutions, the living force organizers simply withdraw at right angles to
the plane of the revolutionary disk, and from that time forward, the inherent
qualities of energy insure the progressive and orderly evolution of such a new
physical system.
57:1.7 At about this time the narrative shifts to the functioning of the
personalities of the superuniverse. In reality the story has its proper
beginning at this point -- at just about the time the Paradise force
organizers are preparing to withdraw, having made the space-energy conditions
ready for the action of the power directors and physical controllers of the
superuniverse of Orvonton.
2. THE PRIMARY NEBULAR STAGE
57:2.1 All evolutionary material creations are born of circular and gaseous
nebulae, and all such primary nebulae are circular throughout the early part
of their gaseous existence. As they grow older, they usually become spiral,
and when their function of sun formation has run its course, they often
terminate as clusters of stars or as enormous suns surrounded by a varying
number of planets, satellites, and smaller groups of matter in many ways
resembling your own diminutive solar system.
57:2.2 800,000,000,000 years ago the Andronover creation was well established
as one of the magnificent primary nebulae of Orvonton. As the astronomers of
near-by universes looked out upon this phenomenon of space, they saw very
little to attract their attention. Gravity estimates made in adjacent
creations indicated that space materializations were taking place in the
Andronover regions, but that was all.
57:2.3 700,000,000,000 years ago the Andronover system was assuming gigantic
proportions, and additional physical controllers were dispatched to nine
surrounding material creations to afford support and supply co-operation to
the power centers of this new material system which was so rapidly evolving.
At this distant date all of the material bequeathed to the subsequent
creations was held within the confines of this gigantic space wheel, which
continued ever to whirl and, after reaching its maximum of diameter, to whirl
faster and faster as it continued to condense and contract.
57:2.4 600,000,000,000 years ago the height of the Andronover energy-
mobilization period was attained; the nebula had acquired its maximum of mass.
At this time it was a gigantic circular gas cloud in shape somewhat like a
flattened spheroid. This was the early period of differential mass formation
and varying revolutionary velocity. Gravity and other influences were about to
begin their work of converting space gases into organized matter.
3. THE SECONDARY NEBULAR STAGE
57:3.1 The enormous nebula now began gradually to assume the spiral form and
to become clearly visible to the astronomers of even distant universes. This
is the natural history of most nebulae; before they begin to throw off suns
and start upon the work of universe building, these secondary space nebulae
are usually observed as spiral phenomena.
57:3.2 The near-by star students of that faraway era, as they observed this
metamorphosis of the Andronover nebula, saw exactly what twentieth-century
astronomers see when they turn their telescopes spaceward and view the
present-age spiral nebulae of adjacent outer space.
57:3.3 About the time of the attainment of the maximum of mass, the gravity
control of the gaseous content commenced to weaken, and there ensued the stage
of gas escapement, the gas streaming forth as two gigantic and distinct arms,
which took origin on opposite sides of the mother mass. The rapid revolutions
of this enormous central core soon imparted a spiral appearance to these two
projecting gas streams. The cooling and subsequent condensation of portions of
these protruding arms eventually produced their knotted appearance. These
denser portions were vast systems and subsystems of physical matter whirling
through space in the midst of the gaseous cloud of the nebula while being held
securely within the gravity grasp of the mother wheel.
57:3.4 But the nebula had begun to contract, and the increase in the rate of
revolution further lessened gravity control; and erelong, the outer gaseous
regions began actually to escape from the immediate embrace of the nebular
nucleus, passing out into space on circuits of irregular outline, returning to
the nuclear regions to complete their circuits, and so on. But this was only a
temporary stage of nebular progression. The ever-increasing rate of whirling
was soon to throw enormous suns off into space on independent circuits.
57:3.5 And this is what happened in Andronover ages upon ages ago. The energy
wheel grew and grew until it attained its maximum of expansion, and then, when
contraction set in, it whirled on faster and faster until, eventually, the
critical centrifugal stage was reached and the great breakup began.
57:3.6 500,000,000,000 years ago the first Andronover sun was born. This
blazing streak broke away from the mother gravity grasp and tore out into
space on an independent adventure in the cosmos of creation. Its orbit was
determined by its path of escape. Such young suns quickly become spherical and
start out on their long and eventful careers as the stars of space. Excepting
terminal nebular nucleuses, the vast majority of Orvonton suns have had an
analogous birth. These escaping suns pass through varied periods of evolution
and subsequent universe service.
57:3.7 400,000,000,000 years ago began the recaptive period of the Andronover
nebula. Many of the near-by and smaller suns were recaptured as a result of
the gradual enlargement and further condensation of the mother nucleus. Very
soon there was inaugurated the terminal phase of nebular condensation, the
period which always precedes the final segregation of these immense space
aggregations of energy and matter.
57:3.8 It was scarcely a million years subsequent to this epoch that Michael
of Nebadon, a Creator Son of Paradise, selected this disintegrating nebula as
the site of his adventure in universe building. Almost immediately the
architectural worlds of Salvington and the one hundred constellation
headquarters groups of planets were begun. It required almost one million
years to complete these clusters of specially created worlds. The local system
headquarters planets were constructed over a period extending from that time
to about five billion years ago.
57:3.9 300,000,000,000 years ago the Andronover solar circuits were well
established, and the nebular system was passing through a transient period of
relative physical stability. About this time the staff of Michael arrived on
Salvington, and the Uversa government of Orvonton extended physical
recognition to the local universe of Nebadon.
57:3.10 200,000,000,000 years ago witnessed the progression of contraction and
condensation with enormous heat generation in the Andronover central cluster,
or nuclear mass. Relative space appeared even in the regions near the central
mother-sun wheel. The outer regions were becoming more stabilized and better
organized; some planets revolving around the newborn suns had cooled
sufficiently to be suitable for life implantation. The oldest inhabited
planets of Nebadon date from these times.
57:3.11 Now the completed universe mechanism of Nebadon first begins to
function, and Michael's creation is registered on Uversa as a universe of
inhabitation and progressive mortal ascension.
57:3.12 100,000,000,000 years ago the nebular apex of condensation tension was
reached; the point of maximum heat tension was attained. This critical stage
of gravity-heat contention sometimes lasts for ages, but sooner or later, heat
wins the struggle with gravity, and the spectacular period of sun dispersion
begins. And this marks the end of the secondary career of a space nebula.
4. TERTIARY AND QUARTAN STAGES
57:4.1 The primary stage of a nebula is circular; the secondary, spiral; the
tertiary stage is that of the first sun dispersion, while the quartan embraces
the second and last cycle of sun dispersion, with the mother nucleus ending
either as a globular cluster or as a solitary sun functioning as the center of
a terminal solar system.
57:4.2 75,000,000,000 years ago this nebula had attained the height of its
sun-family stage. This was the apex of the first period of sun losses. The
majority of these suns have since possessed themselves of extensive systems of
planets, satellites, dark islands, comets, meteors, and cosmic dust clouds.
57:4.3 50,000,000,000 years ago this first period of sun dispersion was
completed; the nebula was fast finishing its tertiary cycle of existence,
during which it gave origin to 876,926 sun systems.
57:4.4 25,000,000,000 years ago witnessed the completion of the tertiary cycle
of nebular life and brought about the organization and relative stabilization
of the far-flung starry systems derived from this parent nebula. But the
process of physical contraction and increased heat production continued in the
central mass of the nebular remnant.
57:4.5 10,000,000,000 years ago the quartan cycle of Andronover began. The
maximum of nuclear-mass temperature had been attained; the critical point of
condensation was approaching. The original mother nucleus was convulsing under
the combined pressure of its own internal-heat condensation tension and the
increasing gravity-tidal pull of the surrounding swarm of liberated sun
systems. The nuclear eruptions which were to inaugurate the second nebular sun
cycle were imminent. The quartan cycle of nebular existence was about to
begin.
57:4.6 8,000,000,000 years ago the terrific terminal eruption began. Only the
outer systems are safe at the time of such a cosmic upheaval. And this was the
beginning of the end of the nebula. This final sun disgorgement extended over
a period of almost two billion years.
57:4.7 7,000,000,000 years ago witnessed the height of the Andronover terminal
breakup. This was the period of the birth of the larger terminal suns and the
apex of the local physical disturbances.
57:4.8 6,000,000,000 years ago marks the end of the terminal breakup and the
birth of your sun, the fifty-sixth from the last of the Andronover second
solar family. This final eruption of the nebular nucleus gave birth to 136,702
suns, most of them solitary orbs. The total number of suns and sun systems
having origin in the Andronover nebula was 1,013,628. The number of the solar
system sun is 1,013,572.
57:4.9 And now the great Andronover nebula is no more, but it lives on in the
many suns and their planetary families which originated in this mother cloud
of space. The final nuclear remnant of this magnificent nebula still burns
with a reddish glow and continues to give forth moderate light and heat to its
remnant planetary family of one hundred and sixty-five worlds, which now
revolve about this venerable mother of two mighty generations of the monarchs
of light.
5. ORIGIN OF MONMATIA -- THE URANTIA SOLAR SYSTEM
57:5.1 5,000,000,000 years ago your sun was a comparatively isolated blazing
orb, having gathered to itself most of the near-by circulating matter of
space, remnants of the recent upheaval which attended its own birth.
57:5.2 Today, your sun has achieved relative stability, but its eleven and
one-half year sunspot cycles betray that it was a variable star in its youth.
In the early days of your sun the continued contraction and consequent gradual
increase of temperature initiated tremendous convulsions on its surface. These
titanic heaves required three and one-half days to complete a cycle of varying
brightness. This variable state, this periodic pulsation, rendered your sun
highly responsive to certain outside influences which were to be shortly
encountered.
57:5.3 Thus was the stage of local space set for the unique origin of
Monmatia, that being the name of your sun's planetary family, the solar system
to which your world belongs. Less than one per cent of the planetary systems
of Orvonton have had a similar origin.
57:5.4 4,500,000,000 years ago the enormous Angona system began its approach
to the neighborhood of this solitary sun. The center of this great system was
a dark giant of space, solid, highly charged, and possessing tremendous
gravity pull.
57:5.5 As Angona more closely approached the sun, at moments of maximum
expansion during solar pulsations, streams of gaseous material were shot out
into space as gigantic solar tongues. At first these flaming gas tongues would
invariably fall back into the sun, but as Angona drew nearer and nearer, the
gravity pull of the gigantic visitor became so great that these tongues of gas
would break off at certain points, the roots falling back into the sun while
the outer sections would become detached to form independent bodies of matter,
solar meteorites, which immediately started to revolve about the sun in
elliptical orbits of their own.
57:5.6 As the Angona system drew nearer, the solar extrusions grew larger and
larger; more and more matter was drawn from the sun to become independent
circulating bodies in surrounding space. This situation developed for about
five hundred thousand years until Angona made its closest approach to the sun;
whereupon the sun, in conjunction with one of its periodic internal
convulsions, experienced a partial disruption; from opposite sides and
simultaneously, enormous volumes of matter were disgorged. From the Angona
side there was drawn out a vast column of solar gases, rather pointed at both
ends and markedly bulging at the center, which became permanently detached
from the immediate gravity control of the sun.
57:5.7 This great column of solar gases which was thus separated from the sun
subsequently evolved into the twelve planets of the solar system. The
repercussional ejection of gas from the opposite side of the sun in tidal
sympathy with the extrusion of this gigantic solar system ancestor, has since
condensed into the meteors and space dust of the solar system, although much,
very much, of this matter was subsequently recaptured by solar gravity as the
Angona system receded into remote space.
57:5.8 Although Angona succeeded in drawing away the ancestral material of the
solar system planets and the enormous volume of matter now circulating about
the sun as asteroids and meteors, it did not secure for itself any of this
solar matter. The visiting system did not come quite close enough to actually
steal any of the sun's substance, but it did swing sufficiently close to draw
off into the intervening space all of the material comprising the present-day
solar system.
57:5.9 The five inner and five outer planets soon formed in miniature from the
cooling and condensing nucleuses in the less massive and tapering ends of the
gigantic gravity bulge which Angona had succeeded in detaching from the sun,
while Saturn and Jupiter were formed from the more massive and bulging central
portions. The powerful gravity pull of Jupiter and Saturn early captured most
of the material stolen from Angona as the retrograde motion of certain of
their satellites bears witness.
57:5.10 Jupiter and Saturn, being derived from the very center of the enormous
column of superheated solar gases, contained so much highly heated sun
material that they shone with a brilliant light and emitted enormous volumes
of heat; they were in reality secondary suns for a short period after their
formation as separate space bodies. These two largest of the solar system
planets have remained largely gaseous to this day, not even yet having cooled
off to the point of complete condensation or solidification.
57:5.11 The gas-contraction nucleuses of the other ten planets soon reached
the stage of solidification and so began to draw to themselves increasing
quantities of the meteoric matter circulating in near-by space. The worlds of
the solar system thus had a double origin: nucleuses of gas condensation later
on augmented by the capture of enormous quantities of meteors. Indeed they
still continue to capture meteors, but in greatly lessened numbers.
57:5.12 The planets do not swing around the sun in the equatorial plane of
their solar mother, which they would do if they had been thrown off by solar
revolution. Rather, they travel in the plane of the Angona solar extrusion,
which existed at a considerable angle to the plane of the sun's equator.
57:5.13 While Angona was unable to capture any of the solar mass, your sun did
add to its metamorphosing planetary family some of the circulating space
material of the visiting system. Due to the intense gravity field of Angona,
its tributary planetary family pursued orbits of considerable distance from
the dark giant; and shortly after the extrusion of the solar system ancestral
mass and while Angona was yet in the vicinity of the sun, three of the major
planets of the Angona system swung so near to the massive solar system
ancestor that its gravitational pull, augmented by that of the sun, was
sufficient to overbalance the gravity grasp of Angona and to permanently
detach these three tributaries of the celestial wanderer.
57:5.14 All of the solar system material derived from the sun was originally
endowed with a homogeneous direction of orbital swing, and had it not been for
the intrusion of these three foreign space bodies, all solar system material
would still maintain the same direction of orbital movement. As it was, the
impact of the three Angona tributaries injected new and foreign directional
forces into the emerging solar system with the resultant appearance of
retrograde motion. Retrograde motion in any astronomic system is always
accidental and always appears as a result of the collisional impact of foreign
space bodies. Such collisions may not always produce retrograde motion, but no
retrograde ever appears except in a system containing masses which have
diverse origins.
6. THE SOLAR SYSTEM STAGE -- THE PLANET-FORMING ERA
57:6.1 Subsequent to the birth of the solar system a period of diminishing
solar disgorgement ensued. Decreasingly, for another five hundred thousand
years, the sun continued to pour forth diminishing volumes of matter into
surrounding space. But during these early times of erratic orbits, when the
surrounding bodies made their nearest approach to the sun, the solar parent
was able to recapture a large portion of this meteoric material.
57:6.2 The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions
slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute
to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate
of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until
axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned
toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by
the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.
57:6.3 When the tidal frictions of the moon and the earth become equalized,
the earth will always turn the same hemisphere toward the moon, and the day
and month will be analogous -- in length about forty-seven days. When such
stability of orbits is attained, tidal frictions will go into reverse action,
no longer driving the moon farther away from the earth but gradually drawing
the satellite toward the planet. And then, in that far-distant future when the
moon approaches to within about eleven thousand miles of the earth, the
gravity action of the latter will cause the moon to disrupt, and this tidal-
gravity explosion will shatter the moon into small particles, which may
assemble about the world as rings of matter resembling those of Saturn or may
be gradually drawn into the earth as meteors.
57:6.4 If space bodies are similar in size and density, collisions may occur.
But if two space bodies of similar density are relatively unequal in size,
then, if the smaller progressively approaches the larger, the disruption of
the smaller body will occur when the radius of its orbit becomes less than two
and one-half times the radius of the larger body. Collisions among the giants
of space are rare indeed, but these gravity-tidal explosions of lesser bodies
are quite common.
57:6.5 Shooting stars occur in swarms because they are the fragments of larger
bodies of matter which have been disrupted by tidal gravity exerted by near-by
and still larger space bodies. Saturn's rings are the fragments of a disrupted
satellite. One of the moons of Jupiter is now approaching dangerously near the
critical zone of tidal disruption and, within a few million years, will either
be claimed by the planet or will undergo gravity-tidal disruption. The fifth
planet of the solar system of long, long ago traversed an irregular orbit,
periodically making closer and closer approach to Jupiter until it entered the
critical zone of gravity-tidal disruption, was swiftly fragmentized, and
became the present-day cluster of asteroids.
57:6.6 4,000,000,000 years ago witnessed the organization of the Jupiter and
Saturn systems much as observed today except for their moons, which continued
to increase in size for several billions of years. In fact, all of the planets
and satellites of the solar system are still growing as the result of
continued meteoric captures.
57:6.7 3,500,000,000 years ago the condensation nucleuses of the other ten
planets were well formed, and the cores of most of the moons were intact,
though some of the smaller satellites later united to make the present-day
larger moons. This age may be regarded as the era of planetary assembly.
57:6.8 3,000,000,000 years ago the solar system was functioning much as it
does today. Its members continued to grow in size as space meteors continued
to pour in upon the planets and their satellites at a prodigious rate.
57:6.9 About this time your solar system was placed on the physical registry
of Nebadon and given its name, Monmatia.
57:6.10 2,500,000,000 years ago the planets had grown immensely in size.
Urantia was a well-developed sphere about one tenth its present mass and was
still growing rapidly by meteoric accretion.
57:6.11 All of this tremendous activity is a normal part of the making of an
evolutionary world on the order of Urantia and constitutes the astronomic
preliminaries to the setting of the stage for the beginning of the physical
evolution of such worlds of space in preparation for the life adventures of
time.
7. THE METEORIC ERA -- THE VOLCANIC AGE
THE PRIMITIVE PLANETARY ATMOSPHERE
57:7.1 Throughout these early times the space regions of the solar system were
swarming with small disruptive and condensation bodies, and in the absence of
a protective combustion atmosphere such space bodies crashed directly on the
surface of Urantia. These incessant impacts kept the surface of the planet
more or less heated, and this, together with the increased action of gravity
as the sphere grew larger, began to set in operation those influences which
gradually caused the heavier elements, such as iron, to settle more and more
toward the center of the planet.
57:7.2 2,000,000,000 years ago the earth began decidedly to gain on the moon.
Always had the planet been larger than its satellite, but there was not so
much difference in size until about this time, when enormous space bodies were
captured by the earth. Urantia was then about one fifth its present size and
had become large enough to hold the primitive atmosphere which had begun to
appear as a result of the internal elemental contest between the heated
interior and the cooling crust.
57:7.3 Definite volcanic action dates from these times. The internal heat of
the earth continued to be augmented by the deeper and deeper burial of the
radioactive or heavier elements brought in from space by the meteors. The
study of these radioactive elements will reveal that Urantia is more than one
billion years old on its surface. The radium clock is your most reliable
timepiece for making scientific estimates of the age of the planet, but all
such estimates are too short because the radioactive materials open to your
scrutiny are all derived from the earth's surface and hence represent
Urantia's comparatively recent acquirements of these elements.
57:7.4 1,500,000,000 years ago the earth was two thirds its present size,
while the moon was nearing its present mass. Earth's rapid gain over the moon
in size enabled it to begin the slow robbery of the little atmosphere which
its satellite originally had.
57:7.5 Volcanic action is now at its height. The whole earth is a veritable
fiery inferno, the surface resembling its earlier molten state before the
heavier metals gravitated toward the center. This is the volcanic age.
Nevertheless, a crust, consisting chiefly of the comparatively lighter
granite, is gradually forming. The stage is being set for a planet which can
someday support life.
57:7.6 The primitive planetary atmosphere is slowly evolving, now containing
some water vapor, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen chloride, but
there is little or no free nitrogen or free oxygen. The atmosphere of a world
in the volcanic age presents a queer spectacle. In addition to the gases
enumerated it is heavily charged with numerous volcanic gases and, as the air
belt matures, with the combustion products of the heavy meteoric showers which
are constantly hurtling in upon the planetary surface. Such meteoric
combustion keeps the atmospheric oxygen very nearly exhausted, and the rate of
meteoric bombardment is still tremendous.
57:7.7 Presently, the atmosphere became more settled and cooled sufficiently
to start precipitation of rain on the hot rocky surface of the planet. For
thousands of years Urantia was enveloped in one vast and continuous blanket of
steam. And during these ages the sun never shone upon the earth's surface.
57:7.8 Much of the carbon of the atmosphere was abstracted to form the
carbonates of the various metals which abounded in the superficial layers of
the planet. Later on, much greater quantities of these carbon gases were
consumed by the early and prolific plant life.
57:7.9 Even in the later periods the continuing lava flows and the incoming
meteors kept the oxygen of the air almost completely used up. Even the early
deposits of the soon appearing primitive ocean contain no colored stones or
shales. And for a long time after this ocean appeared, there was virtually no
free oxygen in the atmosphere; and it did not appear in significant quantities
until it was later generated by the seaweeds and other forms of vegetable
life.
57:7.10 The primitive planetary atmosphere of the volcanic age affords little
protection against the collisional impacts of the meteoric swarms. Millions
upon millions of meteors are able to penetrate such an air belt to smash
against the planetary crust as solid bodies. But as time passes, fewer and
fewer prove large enough to resist the ever-stronger friction shield of the
oxygen-enriching atmosphere of the later eras.
8. CRUSTAL STABILIZATION
THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES
THE WORLD OCEAN AND THE FIRST CONTINENT
57:8.1 1,000,000,000 years ago is the date of the actual beginning of Urantia
history. The planet had attained approximately its present size. And about
this time it was placed upon the physical registries of Nebadon and given its
name, Urantia.
57:8.2 The atmosphere, together with incessant moisture precipitation,
facilitated the cooling of the earth's crust. Volcanic action early equalized
internal-heat pressure and crustal contraction; and as volcanoes rapidly
decreased, earthquakes made their appearance as this epoch of crustal cooling
and adjustment progressed.
57:8.3 The real geologic history of Urantia begins with the cooling of the
earth's crust sufficiently to cause the formation of the first ocean. Water-
vapor condensation on the cooling surface of the earth, once begun, continued
until it was virtually complete. By the end of this period the ocean was
world-wide, covering the entire planet to an average depth of over one mile.
The tides were then in play much as they are now observed, but this primitive
ocean was not salty; it was practically a fresh-water covering for the world.
In those days, most of the chlorine was combined with various metals, but
there was enough, in union with hydrogen, to render this water faintly acid.
57:8.4 At the opening of this faraway era, Urantia should be envisaged as a
water-bound planet. Later on, deeper and hence denser lava flows came out upon
the bottom of the present Pacific Ocean, and this part of the water-covered
surface became considerably depressed. The first continental land mass emerged
from the world ocean in compensatory adjustment of the equilibrium of the
gradually thickening earth's crust.
57:8.5 950,000,000 years ago Urantia presents the picture of one great
continent of land and one large body of water, the Pacific Ocean. Volcanoes
are still widespread and earthquakes are both frequent and severe. Meteors
continue to bombard the earth, but they are diminishing in both frequency and
size. The atmosphere is clearing up, but the amount of carbon dioxide
continues large. The earth's crust is gradually stabilizing.
57:8.6 It was at about this time that Urantia was assigned to the system of
Satania for planetary administration and was placed on the life registry of
Norlatiadek. Then began the administrative recognition of the small and
insignificant sphere which was destined to be the planet whereon Michael would
subsequently engage in the stupendous undertaking of mortal bestowal, would
participate in those experiences which have since caused Urantia to become
locally known as the "world of the cross."
57:8.7 900,000,000 years ago witnessed the arrival on Urantia of the first
Satania scouting party sent out from Jerusem to examine the planet and make a
report on its adaptation for a life-experiment station. This commission
consisted of twenty-four members, embracing Life Carriers, Lanonandek Sons,
Melchizedeks, seraphim, and other orders of celestial life having to do with
the early days of planetary organization and administration.
57:8.8 After making a painstaking survey of the planet, this commission
returned to Jerusem and reported favorably to the System Sovereign,
recommending that Urantia be placed on the life-experiment registry. Your
world was accordingly registered on Jerusem as a decimal planet, and the Life
Carriers were notified that they would be granted permission to institute new
patterns of mechanical, chemical, and electrical mobilization at the time of
their subsequent arrival with life transplantation and implantation mandates.
57:8.9 In due course arrangements for the planetary occupation were completed
by the mixed commission of twelve on Jerusem and approved by the planetary
commission of seventy on Edentia. These plans, proposed by the advisory
counselors of the Life Carriers, were finally accepted on Salvington. Soon
thereafter the Nebadon broadcasts carried the announcement that Urantia would
become the stage whereon the Life Carriers would execute their sixtieth
Satania experiment designed to amplify and improve the Satania type of the
Nebadon life patterns.
57:8.10 Shortly after Urantia was first recognized on the universe broadcasts
to all Nebadon, it was accorded full universe status. Soon thereafter it was
registered in the records of the minor and the major sector headquarters
planets of the superuniverse; and before this age was over, Urantia had found
entry on the planetary-life registry of Uversa.
57:8.11 This entire age was characterized by frequent and violent storms. The
early crust of the earth was in a state of continual flux. Surface cooling
alternated with immense lava flows. Nowhere can there be found on the surface
of the world anything of this original planetary crust. It has all been mixed
up too many times with extruding lavas of deep origins and admixed with
subsequent deposits of the early world-wide ocean.
57:8.12 Nowhere on the surface of the world will there be found more of the
modified remnants of these ancient preocean rocks than in northeastern Canada
around Hudson Bay. This extensive granite elevation is composed of stone
belonging to the preoceanic ages. These rock layers have been heated, bent,
twisted, upcrumpled, and again and again have they passed through these
distorting metamorphic experiences.
57:8.13 Throughout the oceanic ages, enormous layers of fossil-free stratified
stone were deposited on this ancient ocean bottom. (Limestone can form as a
result of chemical precipitation; not all of the older limestone was produced
by marine-life deposition.) In none of these ancient rock formations will
there be found evidences of life; they contain no fossils unless, by some
chance, later deposits of the water ages have become mixed with these older
prelife layers.
57:8.14 The earth's early crust was highly unstable, but mountains were not in
process of formation. The planet contracted under gravity pressure as it
formed. Mountains are not the result of the collapse of the cooling crust of a
contracting sphere; they appear later on as a result of the action of rain,
gravity, and erosion.
57:8.15 The continental land mass of this era increased until it covered
almost ten per cent of the earth's surface. Severe earthquakes did not begin
until the continental mass of land emerged well above the water. When they
once began, they increased in frequency and severity for ages. For millions
upon millions of years earthquakes have diminished, but Urantia still has an
average of fifteen daily.
57:8.16 850,000,000 years ago the first real epoch of the stabilization of the
earth's crust began. Most of the heavier metals had settled down toward the
center of the globe; the cooling crust had ceased to cave in on such an
extensive scale as in former ages. There was established a better balance
between the land extrusion and the heavier ocean bed. The flow of the
subcrustal lava bed became well-nigh world-wide, and this compensated and
stabilized the fluctuations due to cooling, contracting, and superficial
shifting.
57:8.17 Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes continued to diminish in frequency
and severity. The atmosphere was clearing of volcanic gases and water vapor,
but the percentage of carbon dioxide was still high.
57:8.18 Electric disturbances in the air and in the earth were also
decreasing. The lava flows had brought to the surface a mixture of elements
which diversified the crust and better insulated the planet from certain
space-energies. And all of this did much to facilitate the control of
terrestrial energy and to regulate its flow as is disclosed by the functioning
of the magnetic poles.
57:8.19 800,000,000 years ago witnessed the inauguration of the first great
land epoch, the age of increased continental emergence.
57:8.20 Since the condensation of the earth's hydrosphere, first into the
world ocean and subsequently into the Pacific Ocean, this latter body of water
should be visualized as then covering nine tenths of the earth's surface.
Meteors falling into the sea accumulated on the ocean bottom, and meteors are,
generally speaking, composed of heavy materials. Those falling on the land
were largely oxidized, subsequently worn down by erosion, and washed into the
ocean basins. Thus the ocean bottom grew increasingly heavy, and added to this
was the weight of a body of water at some places ten miles deep.
57:8.21 The increasing downthrust of the Pacific Ocean operated further to
upthrust the continental land mass. Europe and Africa began to rise out of the
Pacific depths along with those masses now called Australia, North and South
America, and the continent of Antarctica, while the bed of the Pacific Ocean
engaged in a further compensatory sinking adjustment. By the end of this
period almost one third of the earth's surface consisted of land, all in one
continental body.
57:8.22 With this increase in land elevation the first climatic differences of
the planet appeared. Land elevation, cosmic clouds, and oceanic influences are
the chief factors in climatic fluctuation. The backbone of the Asiatic land
mass reached a height of almost nine miles at the time of the maximum land
emergence. Had there been much moisture in the air hovering over these highly
elevated regions, enormous ice blankets would have formed; the ice age would
have arrived long before it did. It was several hundred millions of years
before so much land again appeared above water.
57:8.23 750,000,000 years ago the first breaks in the continental land mass
began as the great north-and-south cracking, which later admitted the ocean
waters and prepared the way for the westward drift of the continents of North
and South America, including Greenland. The long east-and-west cleavage
separated Africa from Europe and severed the land masses of Australia, the
Pacific Islands, and Antarctica from the Asiatic continent.
57:8.24 700,000,000 years ago Urantia was approaching the ripening of
conditions suitable for the support of life. The continental land drift
continued; increasingly the ocean penetrated the land as long fingerlike seas
providing those shallow waters and sheltered bays which are so suitable as a
habitat for marine life.
57:8.25 650,000,000 years ago witnessed the further separation of the land
masses and, in consequence, a further extension of the continental seas. And
these waters were rapidly attaining that degree of saltiness which was
essential to Urantia life.
57:8.26 It was these seas and their successors that laid down the life records
of Urantia, as subsequently discovered in well-preserved stone pages, volume
upon volume, as era succeeded era and age grew upon age. These inland seas of
olden times were truly the cradle of evolution.
57:8.27 Presented by a Life Carrier, a member of the original Urantia Corps
and now a resident observer.
PAPER 58
LIFE ESTABLISHMENT ON URANTIA
58:0.1 IN ALL Satania there are only sixty-one worlds similar to Urantia,
life-modification planets. The majority of inhabited worlds are peopled in
accordance with established techniques; on such spheres the Life Carriers are
afforded little leeway in their plans for life implantation. But about one
world in ten is designated as a decimal planet and assigned to the special
registry of the Life Carriers; and on such planets we are permitted to
undertake certain life experiments in an effort to modify or possibly improve
the standard universe types of living beings.
1. PHYSICAL-LIFE PREREQUISITES
58:1.1 600,000,000 years ago the commission of Life Carriers sent out from
Jerusem arrived on Urantia and began the study of physical conditions
preparatory to launching life on world number 606 of the Satania system. This
was to be our six hundred and sixth experience with the initiation of the
Nebadon life patterns in Satania and our sixtieth opportunity to make changes
and institute modifications in the basic and standard life designs of the
local universe.
58:1.2 It should be made clear that Life Carriers cannot initiate life until a
sphere is ripe for the inauguration of the evolutionary cycle. Neither can we
provide for a more rapid life development than can be supported and
accommodated by the physical progress of the planet.
58:1.3 The Satania Life Carriers had projected a sodium chloride pattern of
life; therefore no steps could be taken toward planting it until the ocean
waters had become sufficiently briny. The Urantia type of protoplasm can
function only in a suitable salt solution. All ancestral life -- vegetable and
animal -- evolved in a salt-solution habitat. And even the more highly
organized land animals could not continue to live did not this same essential
salt solution circulate throughout their bodies in the blood stream which
freely bathes, literally submerses, every tiny living cell in this "briny
deep."
58:1.4 Your primitive ancestors freely circulated about in the salty ocean;
today, this same oceanlike salty solution freely circulates about in your
bodies, bathing each individual cell with a chemical liquid in all essentials
comparable to the salt water which stimulated the first protoplasmic reactions
of the first living cells to function on the planet.
58:1.5 But as this era opens, Urantia is in every way evolving toward a state
favorable for the support of the initial forms of marine life. Slowly but
surely physical developments on earth and in adjacent space regions are
preparing the stage for the later attempts to establish such life forms as we
had decided would be best adapted to the unfolding physical environment --
both terrestrial and spatial.
58:1.6 Subsequently the Satania commission of Life Carriers returned to
Jerusem, preferring to await the further breakup of the continental land mass,
which would afford still more inland seas and sheltered bays, before actually
beginning life implantation.
58:1.7 On a planet where life has a marine origin the ideal conditions for
life implantation are provided by a large number of inland seas, by an
extensive shore line of shallow waters and sheltered bays; and just such a
distribution of the earth's waters was rapidly developing. These ancient
inland seas were seldom over five or six hundred feet deep, and sunlight can
penetrate ocean water for more than six hundred feet.
58:1.8 And it was from such seashores of the mild and equable climes of a
later age that primitive plant life found its way onto the land. There the
high degree of carbon in the atmosphere afforded the new land varieties of
life opportunity for speedy and luxuriant growth. Though this atmosphere was
then ideal for plant growth, it contained such a high degree of carbon dioxide
that no animal, much less man, could have lived on the face of the earth.
2. THE URANTIA ATMOSPHERE
58:2.1 The planetary atmosphere filters through to the earth about one two-
billionths of the sun's total light emanation. If the light falling upon North
America were paid for at the rate of two cents per kilowatt-hour, the annual
light bill would be upward of 800 quadrillion dollars. Chicago's bill for
sunshine would amount to considerably over 100 million dollars a day. And it
should be remembered that you receive from the sun other forms of energy --
light is not the only solar contribution reaching your atmosphere. Vast solar
energies pour in upon Urantia embracing wave lengths ranging both above and
below the recognition range of human vision.
58:2.2 The earth's atmosphere is all but opaque to much of the solar radiation
at the extreme ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Most of these short wave
lengths are absorbed by a layer of ozone which exists throughout a level about
ten miles above the surface of the earth, and which extends spaceward for
another ten miles. The ozone permeating this region, at conditions prevailing
on the earth's surface, would make a layer only one tenth of an inch thick;
nevertheless, this relatively small and apparently insignificant amount of
ozone protects Urantia inhabitants from the excess of these dangerous and
destructive ultraviolet radiations present in sunlight. But were this ozone
layer just a trifle thicker, you would be deprived of the highly important and
health-giving ultraviolet rays which now reach the earth's surface, and which
are ancestral to one of the most essential of your vitamins.
58:2.3 And yet some of the less imaginative of your mortal mechanists insist
on viewing material creation and human evolution as an accident. The Urantia
midwayers have assembled over fifty thousand facts of physics and chemistry
which they deem to be incompatible with the laws of accidental chance, and
which they contend unmistakably demonstrate the presence of intelligent
purpose in the material creation. And all of this takes no account of their
catalogue of more than one hundred thousand findings outside the domain of
physics and chemistry which they maintain prove the presence of mind in the
planning, creation, and maintenance of the material cosmos.
58:2.4 Your sun pours forth a veritable flood of death-dealing rays, and your
pleasant life on Urantia is due to the "fortuitous" influence of more than
two-score apparently accidental protective operations similar to the action of
this unique ozone layer.
58:2.5 Were it not for the "blanketing" effect of the atmosphere at night,
heat would be lost by radiation so rapidly that life would be impossible of
maintenance except by artificial provision.
58:2.6 The lower five or six miles of the earth's atmosphere is the
troposphere; this is the region of winds and air currents which provide
weather phenomena. Above this region is the inner ionosphere and next above is
the stratosphere. Ascending from the surface of the earth, the temperature
steadily falls for six or eight miles, at which height it registers around 70
degrees below zero F. This temperature range of from 65 to 70 degrees below
zero F. is unchanged in the further ascent for forty miles; this realm of
constant temperature is the stratosphere. At a height of forty-five or fifty
miles, the temperature begins to rise, and this increase continues until, at
the level of the auroral displays, a temperature of 1200° F. is attained, and
it is this intense heat that ionizes the oxygen. But temperature in such a
rarefied atmosphere is hardly comparable with heat reckoning at the surface of
the earth. Bear in mind that one half of all your atmosphere is to be found in
the first three miles. The height of the earth's atmosphere is indicated by
the highest auroral streamers -- about four hundred miles.
58:2.7 Auroral phenomena are directly related to sunspots, those solar
cyclones which whirl in opposite directions above and below the solar equator,
even as do the terrestrial tropical hurricanes. Such atmospheric disturbances
whirl in opposite directions when occurring above or below the equator.
58:2.8 The power of sunspots to alter light frequencies shows that these solar
storm centers function as enormous magnets. Such magnetic fields are able to
hurl charged particles from the sunspot craters out through space to the
earth's outer atmosphere, where their ionizing influence produces such
spectacular auroral displays. Therefore do you have the greatest auroral
phenomena when sunspots are at their height -- or soon thereafter -- at which
time the spots are more generally equatorially situated.
58:2.9 Even the compass needle is responsive to this solar influence since it
turns slightly to the east as the sun rises and slightly to the west as the
sun nears setting. This happens every day, but during the height of sunspot
cycles this variation of the compass is twice as great. These diurnal
wanderings of the compass are in response to the increased ionization of the
upper atmosphere, which is produced by the sunlight.
58:2.10 It is the presence of two different levels of electrified conducting
regions in the superstratosphere that accounts for the long-distance
transmission of your long- and short-wave radiobroadcasts. Your broadcasting
is sometimes disturbed by the terrific storms which occasionally rage in the
realms of these outer ionospheres.
3. SPATIAL ENVIRONMENT
58:3.1 During the earlier times of universe materialization the space regions
are interspersed with vast hydrogen clouds, just such astronomic dust clusters
as now characterize many regions throughout remote space. Much of the
organized matter which the blazing suns break down and disperse as radiant
energy was originally built up in these early appearing hydrogen clouds of
space. Under certain unusual conditions atom disruption also occurs at the
nucleus of the larger hydrogen masses. And all of these phenomena of atom
building and atom dissolution, as in the highly heated nebulae, are attended
by the emergence of flood tides of short space rays of radiant energy.
Accompanying these diverse radiations is a form of space-energy unknown on
Urantia.
58:3.2 This short-ray energy charge of universe space is four hundred times
greater than all other forms of radiant energy existing in the organized space
domains. The output of short space rays, whether coming from the blazing
nebulae, tense electric fields, outer space, or the vast hydrogen dust clouds,
is modified qualitatively and quantitatively by fluctuations of, and sudden
tension changes in, temperature, gravity, and electronic pressures.
58:3.3 These eventualities in the origin of the space rays are determined by
many cosmic occurrences as well as by the orbits of circulating matter, which
vary from modified circles to extreme ellipses. Physical conditions may also
be greatly altered because the electron spin is sometimes in the opposite
direction from that of the grosser matter behavior, even in the same physical
zone.
58:3.4 The vast hydrogen clouds are veritable cosmic chemical laboratories,
harboring all phases of evolving energy and metamorphosing matter. Great
energy actions also occur in the marginal gases of the great binary stars
which so frequently overlap and hence extensively commingle. But none of these
tremendous and far-flung energy activities of space exerts the least influence
upon the phenomena of organized life -- the germ plasm of living things and
beings. These energy conditions of space are germane to the essential
environment of life establishment, but they are not effective in the
subsequent modification of the inheritance factors of the germ plasm as are
some of the longer rays of radiant energy. The implanted life of the Life
Carriers is fully resistant to all of this amazing flood of the short space
rays of universe energy.
58:3.5 All of these essential cosmic conditions had to evolve to a favorable
status before the Life Carriers could actually begin the establishment of life
on Urantia.
4. THE LIFE-DAWN ERA
58:4.1 That we are called Life Carriers should not confuse you. We can and do
carry life to the planets, but we brought no life to Urantia. Urantia life is
unique, original with the planet. This sphere is a life-modification world;
all life appearing hereon was formulated by us right here on the planet; and
there is no other world in all Satania, even in all Nebadon, that has a life
existence just like that of Urantia.
58:4.2 550,000,000 years ago the Life Carrier corps returned to Urantia. In
co-operation with spiritual powers and superphysical forces we organized and
initiated the original life patterns of this world and planted them in the
hospitable waters of the realm. All planetary life (aside from extraplanetary
personalities) down to the days of Caligastia, the Planetary Prince, had its
origin in our three original, identical, and simultaneous marine-life
implantations. These three life implantations have been designated as: the
central or Eurasian-African, the eastern or Australasian, and the western,
embracing Greenland and the Americas.
58:4.3 500,000,000 years ago primitive marine vegetable life was well
established on Urantia. Greenland and the arctic land mass, together with
North and South America, were beginning their long and slow westward drift.
Africa moved slightly south, creating an east and west trough, the
Mediterranean basin, between itself and the mother body. Antarctica,
Australia, and the land indicated by the islands of the Pacific broke away on
the south and east and have drifted far away since that day.
58:4.4 We had planted the primitive form of marine life in the sheltered
tropic bays of the central seas of the east-west cleavage of the breaking-up
continental land mass. Our purpose in making three marine-life implantations
was to insure that each great land mass would carry this life with it, in its
warm-water seas, as the land subsequently separated. We foresaw that in the
later era of the emergence of land life large oceans of water would separate
these drifting continental land masses.
5. THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT
58:5.1 The continental land drift continued. The earth's core had become as
dense and rigid as steel, being subjected to a pressure of almost 25,000 tons
to the square inch, and owing to the enormous gravity pressure, it was and
still is very hot in the deep interior. The temperature increases from the
surface downward until at the center it is slightly above the surface
temperature of the sun.
58:5.2 The outer one thousand miles of the earth's mass consists principally
of different kinds of rock. Underneath are the denser and heavier metallic
elements. Throughout the early and preatmospheric ages the world was so nearly
fluid in its molten and highly heated state that the heavier metals sank deep
into the interior. Those found near the surface today represent the exudate of
ancient volcanoes, later and extensive lava flows, and the more recent
meteoric deposits.
58:5.3 The outer crust was about forty miles thick. This outer shell was
supported by, and rested directly upon, a molten sea of basalt of varying
thickness, a mobile layer of molten lava held under high pressure but always
tending to flow hither and yon in equalization of shifting planetary
pressures, thereby tending to stabilize the earth's crust.
58:5.4 Even today the continents continue to float upon this noncrystallized
cushiony sea of molten basalt. Were it not for this protective condition, the
more severe earthquakes would literally shake the world to pieces. Earthquakes
are caused by sliding and shifting of the solid outer crust and not by
volcanoes.
58:5.5 The lava layers of the earth's crust, when cooled, form granite. The
average density of Urantia is a little more than five and one-half times that
of water; the density of granite is less than three times that of water. The
earth's core is twelve times as dense as water.
58:5.6 The sea bottoms are more dense than the land masses, and this is what
keeps the continents above water. When the sea bottoms are extruded above the
sea level, they are found to consist largely of basalt, a form of lava
considerably heavier than the granite of the land masses. Again, if the
continents were not lighter than the ocean beds, gravity would draw the edges
of the oceans up onto the land, but such phenomena are not observable.
58:5.7 The weight of the oceans is also a factor in the increase of pressure
on the sea beds. The lower but comparatively heavier ocean beds, plus the
weight of the overlying water, approximate the weight of the higher but much
lighter continents. But all continents tend to creep into the oceans. The
continental pressure at ocean-bottom levels is about 20,000 pounds to the
square inch. That is, this would be the pressure of a continental mass
standing 15,000 feet above the ocean floor. The ocean-floor water pressure is
only about 5,000 pounds to the square inch. These differential pressures tend
to cause the continents to slide toward the ocean beds.
58:5.8 Depression of the ocean bottom during the prelife ages had upthrust a
solitary continental land mass to such a height that its lateral pressure
tended to cause the eastern, western, and southern fringes to slide downhill,
over the underlying semiviscous lava beds, into the waters of the surrounding
Pacific Ocean. This so fully compensated the continental pressure that a wide
break did not occur on the eastern shore of this ancient Asiatic continent,
but ever since has that eastern coast line hovered over the precipice of its
adjoining oceanic depths, threatening to slide into a watery grave.
6. THE TRANSITION PERIOD
58:6.1 450,000,000 years ago the transition from vegetable to animal life
occurred. This metamorphosis took place in the shallow waters of the sheltered
tropic bays and lagoons of the extensive shore lines of the separating
continents. And this development, all of which was inherent in the original
life patterns, came about gradually. There were many transitional stages
between the early primitive vegetable forms of life and the later well-defined
animal organisms. Even today the transition slime molds persist, and they can
hardly be classified either as plants or as animals.
58:6.2 Although the evolution of vegetable life can be traced into animal
life, and though there have been found graduated series of plants and animals
which progressively lead up from the most simple to the most complex and
advanced organisms, you will not be able to find such connecting links between
the great divisions of the animal kingdom nor between the highest of the
prehuman animal types and the dawn men of the human races. These so-called
"missing links" will forever remain missing, for the simple reason that they
never existed.
58:6.3 From era to era radically new species of animal life arise. They do not
evolve as the result of the gradual accumulation of small variations; they
appear as full-fledged and new orders of life, and they appear suddenly.
58:6.4 The sudden appearance of new species and diversified orders of living
organisms is wholly biologic, strictly natural. There is nothing supernatural
connected with these genetic mutations.
58:6.5 At the proper degree of saltiness in the oceans animal life evolved,
and it was comparatively simple to allow the briny waters to circulate through
the animal bodies of marine life. But when the oceans were contracted and the
percentage of salt was greatly increased, these same animals evolved the
ability to reduce the saltiness of their body fluids just as those organisms
which learned to live in fresh water acquired the ability to maintain the
proper degree of sodium chloride in their body fluids by ingenious techniques
of salt conservation.
58:6.6 Study of the rock-embraced fossils of marine life reveals the early
adjustment struggles of these primitive organisms. Plants and animals never
cease to make these adjustment experiments. Ever the environment is changing,
and always are living organisms striving to accommodate themselves to these
never-ending fluctuations.
58:6.7 The physiologic equipment and the anatomic structure of all new orders
of life are in response to the action of physical law, but the subsequent
endowment of mind is a bestowal of the adjutant mind-spirits in accordance
with innate brain capacity. Mind, while not a physical evolution, is wholly
dependent on the brain capacity afforded by purely physical and evolutionary
developments.
58:6.8 Through almost endless cycles of gains and losses, adjustments and
readjustments, all living organisms swing back and forth from age to age.
Those that attain cosmic unity persist, while those that fall short of this
goal cease to exist.
7. THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY BOOK
58:7.1 The vast group of rock systems which constituted the outer crust of the
world during the life-dawn or Proterozoic era does not now appear at many
points on the earth's surface. And when it does emerge from below all the
accumulations of subsequent ages, there will be found only the fossil remains
of vegetable and early primitive animal life. Some of these older water-
deposited rocks are commingled with subsequent layers, and sometimes they
yield fossil remains of some of the earlier forms of vegetable life, while on
the topmost layers occasionally may be found some of the more primitive forms
of the early marine-animal organisms. In many places these oldest stratified
rock layers, bearing the fossils of the early marine life, both animal and
vegetable, may be found directly on top of the older undifferentiated stone.
58:7.2 Fossils of this era yield algae, corallike plants, primitive Protozoa,
and spongelike transition organisms. But the absence of such fossils in the
early rock layers does not necessarily prove that living things were not
elsewhere in existence at the time of their deposition. Life was sparse
throughout these early times and only slowly made its way over the face of the
earth.
58:7.3 The rocks of this olden age are now at the earth's surface, or very
near the surface, over about one eighth of the present land area. The average
thickness of this transition stone, the oldest stratified rock layers, is
about one and one-half miles. At some points these ancient rock systems are as
much as four miles thick, but many of the layers which have been ascribed to
this era belong to later periods.
58:7.4 In North America this ancient and primitive fossil-bearing stone layer
comes to the surface over the eastern, central, and northern regions of
Canada. There is also an intermittent east-west ridge of this rock which
extends from Pennsylvania and the ancient Adirondack Mountains on west through
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Other ridges run from Newfoundland to
Alabama and from Alaska to Mexico.
58:7.5 The rocks of this era are exposed here and there all over the world,
but none are so easy of interpretation as those about Lake Superior and in the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, where these primitive fossil-bearing
rocks, existing in several layers, testify to the upheavals and surface
fluctuations of those faraway times.
58:7.6 This stone layer, the oldest fossil-bearing stratum in the crust of the
earth, has been crumpled, folded, and grotesquely twisted as a result of the
upheavals of earthquakes and the early volcanoes. The lava flows of this age
brought much iron, copper, and lead up near the planetary surface.
58:7.7 There are few places on the earth where such activities are more
graphically shown than in the St. Croix valley of Wisconsin. In this region
there occurred one hundred and twenty-seven successive lava flows on land with
succeeding water submergence and consequent rock deposition. Although much of
the upper rock sedimentation and intermittent lava flow is absent today, and
though the bottom of this system is buried deep in the earth, nevertheless,
about sixty-five or seventy of these stratified records of past ages are now
exposed to view.
58:7.8 In these early ages when much land was near sea level, there occurred
many successive submergences and emergences. The earth's crust was just
entering upon its later period of comparative stabilization. The undulations,
rises and dips, of the earlier continental drift contributed to the frequency
of the periodic submergence of the great land masses.
58:7.9 During these times of primitive marine life, extensive areas of the
continental shores sank beneath the seas from a few feet to half a mile. Much
of the older sandstone and conglomerates represents the sedimentary
accumulations of these ancient shores. The sedimentary rocks belonging to this
early stratification rest directly upon those layers which date back far
beyond the origin of life, back to the early appearance of the world-wide
ocean.
58:7.10 Some of the upper layers of these transition rock deposits contain
small amounts of shale or slate of dark colors, indicating the presence of
organic carbon and testifying to the existence of the ancestors of those forms
of plant life which overran the earth during the succeeding Carboniferous or
coal age. Much of the copper in these rock layers results from water
deposition. Some is found in the cracks of the older rocks and is the
concentrate of the sluggish swamp water of some ancient sheltered shore line.
The iron mines of North America and Europe are located in deposits and
extrusions lying partly in the older unstratified rocks and partly in these
later stratified rocks of the transition periods of life formation.
58:7.11 This era witnesses the spread of life throughout the waters of the
world; marine life has become well established on Urantia. The bottoms of the
shallow and extensive inland seas are being gradually overrun by a profuse and
luxuriant growth of vegetation, while the shore-line waters are swarming with
the simple forms of animal life.
58:7.12 All of this story is graphically told within the fossil pages of the
vast "stone book" of world record. And the pages of this gigantic biogeologic
record unfailingly tell the truth if you but acquire skill in their
interpretation. Many of these ancient sea beds are now elevated high upon
land, and their deposits of age upon age tell the story of the life struggles
of those early days. It is literally true, as your poet has said, "The dust we
tread upon was once alive."
58:7.13 Presented by a member of the Urantia Life Carrier Corps now resident
on the planet.
PAPER 59
THE MARINE-LIFE ERA ON URANTIA
59:0.1 WE RECKON the history of Urantia as beginning about one billion years
ago and extending through five major eras:
59:0.2 1. The prelife era extends over the initial four hundred and fifty
million years, from about the time the planet attained its present size to the
time of life establishment. Your students have designated this period as the
Archeozoic.
59:0.3 2. The life-dawn era extends over the next one hundred and fifty
million years. This epoch intervenes between the preceding prelife or
cataclysmic age and the following period of more highly developed marine life.
This era is known to your researchers as the Proterozoic.
59:0.4 3. The marine-life era covers the next two hundred and fifty million
years and is best known to you as the Paleozoic.
59:0.5 4. The early land-life era extends over the next one hundred million
years and is known as the Mesozoic.
59:0.6 5. The mammalian era occupies the last fifty million years. This
recent-times era is known as the Cenozoic.
59:0.7 The marine-life era thus covers about one quarter of your planetary
history. It may be subdivided into six long periods, each characterized by
certain well-defined developments in both the geologic realms and the biologic
domains.
59:0.8 As this era begins, the sea bottoms, the extensive continental shelves,
and the numerous shallow near-shore basins are covered with prolific
vegetation. The more simple and primitive forms of animal life have already
developed from preceding vegetable organisms, and the early animal organisms
have gradually made their way along the extensive coast lines of the various
land masses until the many inland seas are teeming with primitive marine life.
Since so few of these early organisms had shells, not many have been preserved
as fossils. Nevertheless the stage is set for the opening chapters of that
great "stone book" of the life-record preservation which was so methodically
laid down during the succeeding ages.
59:0.9 The continent of North America is wonderfully rich in the fossil-
bearing deposits of the entire marine-life era. The very first and oldest
layers are separated from the later strata of the preceding period by
extensive erosion deposits which clearly segregate these two stages of
planetary development.
1. EARLY MARINE LIFE IN THE SHALLOW SEAS
THE TRILOBITE AGE
59:1.1 By the dawn of this period of relative quiet on the earth's surface,
life is confined to the various inland seas and the oceanic shore line; as yet
no form of land organism has evolved. Primitive marine animals are well
established and are prepared for the next evolutionary development. Ameba are
typical survivors of this initial stage of animal life, having made their
appearance toward the close of the preceding transition period.
59:1.2 400,000,000 years ago marine life, both vegetable and animal, is fairly
well distributed over the whole world. The world climate grows slightly warmer
and becomes more equable. There is a general inundation of the seashores of
the various continents, particularly of North and South America. New oceans
appear, and the older bodies of water are greatly enlarged.
59:1.3 Vegetation now for the first time crawls out upon the land and soon
makes considerable progress in adaptation to a nonmarine habitat.
59:1.4 Suddenly and without gradation ancestry the first multicellular animals
make their appearance. The trilobites have evolved, and for ages they dominate
the seas. From the standpoint of marine life this is the trilobite age.
59:1.5 In the later portion of this time segment much of North America and
Europe emerged from the sea. The crust of the earth was temporarily
stabilized; mountains, or rather high elevations of land, rose along the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts, over the West Indies, and in southern Europe. The
entire Caribbean region was highly elevated.
59:1.6 390,000,000 years ago the land was still elevated. Over parts of
eastern and western America and western Europe may be found the stone strata
laid down during these times, and these are the oldest rocks which contain
trilobite fossils. There were many long fingerlike gulfs projecting into the
land masses in which were deposited these fossil-bearing rocks.
59:1.7 Within a few million years the Pacific Ocean began to invade the
American continents. The sinking of the land was principally due to crustal
adjustment, although the lateral land spread, or continental creep, was also a
factor.
59:1.8 380,000,000 years ago Asia was subsiding, and all other continents were
experiencing a short-lived emergence. But as this epoch progressed, the newly
appearing Atlantic Ocean made extensive inroads on all adjacent coast lines.
The northern Atlantic or Arctic seas were then connected with the southern
Gulf waters. When this southern sea entered the Appalachian trough, its waves
broke upon the east against mountains as high as the Alps, but in general the
continents were uninteresting lowlands, utterly devoid of scenic beauty.
59:1.9 The sedimentary deposits of these ages are of four sorts:
1. Conglomerates -- matter deposited near the shore lines.
2. Sandstones -- deposits made in shallow water but where the waves were
sufficient to prevent mud settling.
3. Shales -- deposits made in the deeper and more quiet water.
4. Limestone -- including the deposits of trilobite shells in deep water.
59:1.10 The trilobite fossils of these times present certain basic
uniformities coupled with certain well-marked variations. The early animals
developing from the three original life implantations were characteristic;
those appearing in the Western Hemisphere were slightly different from those
of the Eurasian group and from the Australasian or Australian-Antarctic type.
59:1.11 370,000,000 years ago the great and almost total submergence of North
and South America occurred, followed by the sinking of Africa and Australia.
Only certain parts of North America remained above these shallow Cambrian
seas. Five million years later the seas were retreating before the rising
land. And all of these phenomena of land sinking and land rising were
undramatic, taking place slowly over millions of years.
59:1.12 The trilobite fossil-bearing strata of this epoch outcrop here and
there throughout all the continents except in central Asia. In many regions
these rocks are horizontal, but in the mountains they are tilted and distorted
because of pressure and folding. And such pressure has, in many places,
changed the original character of these deposits. Sandstone has been turned
into quartz, shale has been changed to slate, while limestone has been
converted into marble.
59:1.13 360,000,000 years ago the land was still rising. North and South
America were well up. Western Europe and the British Isles were emerging,
except parts of Wales, which were deeply submerged. There were no great ice
sheets during these ages. The supposed glacial deposits appearing in
connection with these strata in Europe, Africa, China, and Australia are due
to isolated mountain glaciers or to the displacement of glacial debris of
later origin. The world climate was oceanic, not continental. The southern
seas were warmer then than now, and they extended northward over North America
up to the polar regions. The Gulf Stream coursed over the central portion of
North America, being deflected eastward to bathe and warm the shores of
Greenland, making that now ice-mantled continent a veritable tropic Paradise.
59:1.14 The marine life was much alike the world over and consisted of the
seaweeds, one-celled organisms, simple sponges, trilobites, and other
crustaceans -- shrimps, crabs, and lobsters. Three thousand varieties of
brachiopods appeared at the close of this period, only two hundred of which
have survived. These animals represent a variety of early life which has come
down to the present time practically unchanged.
59:1.15 But the trilobites were the dominant living creatures. They were sexed
animals and existed in many forms; being poor swimmers, they sluggishly
floated in the water or crawled along the sea bottoms, curling up in self-
protection when attacked by their later appearing enemies. They grew in length
from two inches to one foot and developed into four distinct groups:
carnivorous, herbivorous, omnivorous, and "mud eaters." The ability of the
latter group largely to subsist on inorganic matter -- being the last
multicelled animal that could -- explains their great increase and long
survival.
59:1.16 This was the biogeologic picture of Urantia at the end of that long
period of the world's history, embracing fifty million years, designated by
your geologists as the Cambrian.
2. THE FIRST CONTINENTAL FLOOD STAGE
THE INVERTEBRATE-ANIMAL AGE
59:2.1 The periodic phenomena of land elevation and land sinking
characteristic of these times were all gradual and nonspectacular, being
accompanied by little or no volcanic action. Throughout all of these
successive land elevations and depressions the Asiatic mother continent did
not fully share the history of the other land bodies. It experienced many
inundations, dipping first in one direction and then another, more
particularly in its earlier history, but it does not present the uniform rock
deposits which may be discovered on the other continents. In recent ages Asia
has been the most stable of all the land masses.
59:2.2 350,000,000 years ago saw the beginning of the great flood period of
all the continents except central Asia. The land masses were repeatedly
covered with water; only the coastal highlands remained above these shallow
but widespread oscillatory inland seas. Three major inundations characterized
this period, but before it ended, the continents again arose, the total land
emergence being fifteen per cent greater than now exists. The Caribbean region
was highly elevated. This period is not well marked off in Europe because the
land fluctuations were less, while the volcanic action was more persistent.
59:2.3 340,000,000 years ago there occurred another extensive land sinking
except in Asia and Australia. The waters of the world's oceans were generally
commingled. This was a great limestone age, much of its stone being laid down
by lime-secreting algae.
59:2.4 A few million years later large portions of the American continents and
Europe began to emerge from the water. In the Western Hemisphere only an arm
of the Pacific Ocean remained over Mexico and the present Rocky Mountain
regions, but near the close of this epoch the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
again began to sink.
59:2.5 330,000,000 years ago marks the beginning of a time sector of
comparative quiet all over the world, with much land again above water. The
only exception to this reign of terrestrial quiet was the eruption of the
great North American volcano of eastern Kentucky, one of the greatest single
volcanic activities the world has ever known. The ashes of this volcano
covered five hundred square miles to a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet.
59:2.6 320,000,000 years ago the third major flood of this period occurred.
The waters of this inundation covered all the land submerged by the preceding
deluge, while extending farther in many directions all over the Americas and
Europe. Eastern North America and western Europe were from 10,000 to 15,000
feet under water.
59:2.7 310,000,000 years ago the land masses of the world were again well up
excepting the southern parts of North America. Mexico emerged, thus creating
the Gulf Sea, which has ever since maintained its identity.
59:2.8 The life of this period continues to evolve. The world is once again
quiet and relatively peaceful; the climate remains mild and equable; the land
plants are migrating farther and farther from the seashores. The life patterns
are well developed, although few plant fossils of these times are to be found.
59:2.9 This was the great age of individual animal organismal evolution,
though many of the basic changes, such as the transition from plant to animal,
had previously occurred. The marine fauna developed to the point where every
type of life below the vertebrate scale was represented in the fossils of
those rocks which were laid down during these times. But all of these animals
were marine organisms. No land animals had yet appeared except a few types of
worms which burrowed along the seashores, nor had the land plants yet
overspread the continents; there was still too much carbon dioxide in the air
to permit of the existence of air breathers. Primarily, all animals except
certain of the more primitive ones are directly or indirectly dependent on
plant life for their existence.
59:2.10 The trilobites were still prominent. These little animals existed in
tens of thousands of patterns and were the predecessors of modern crustaceans.
Some of the trilobites had from twenty-five to four thousand tiny eyelets;
others had aborted eyes. As this period closed, the trilobites shared
domination of the seas with several other forms of invertebrate life. But they
utterly perished during the beginning of the next period.
59:2.11 Lime-secreting algae were widespread. There existed thousands of
species of the early ancestors of the corals. Sea worms were abundant, and
there were many varieties of jellyfish which have since become extinct. Corals
and the later types of sponges evolved. The cephalopods were well developed,
and they have survived as the modern pearly nautilus, octopus, cuttlefish, and
squid.
59:2.12 There were many varieties of shell animals, but their shells were not
then so much needed for defensive purposes as in subsequent ages. The
gastropods were present in the waters of the ancient seas, and they included
single-shelled drills, periwinkles, and snails. The bivalve gastropods have
come on down through the intervening millions of years much as they then
existed and embrace the muscles, clams, oysters, and scallops. The valve-
shelled organisms also evolved, and these brachiopods lived in those ancient
waters much as they exist today; they even had hinged, notched, and other
sorts of protective arrangements of their valves.
59:2.13 So ends the evolutionary story of the second great period of marine
life, which is known to your geologists as the Ordovician.
3. THE SECOND GREAT FLOOD STAGE
THE CORAL PERIOD -- THE BRACHIOPOD AGE
59:3.1 300,000,000 years ago another great period of land submergence began.
The southward and northward encroachment of the ancient Silurian seas made
ready to engulf most of Europe and North America. The land was not elevated
far above the sea so that not much deposition occurred about the shore lines.
The seas teemed with lime-shelled life, and the falling of these shells to the
sea bottom gradually built up very thick layers of limestone. This is the
first widespread limestone deposit, and it covers practically all of Europe
and North America but only appears at the earth's surface in a few places. The
thickness of this ancient rock layer averages about one thousand feet, but
many of these deposits have since been greatly deformed by tilting, upheavals,
and faulting, and many have been changed to quartz, shale, and marble.
59:3.2 No fire rocks or lava are found in the stone layers of this period
except those of the great volcanoes of southern Europe and eastern Maine and
the lava flows of Quebec. Volcanic action was largely past. This was the
height of great water deposition; there was little or no mountain building.
59:3.3 290,000,000 years ago the sea had largely withdrawn from the
continents, and the bottoms of the surrounding oceans were sinking. The land
masses were little changed until they were again submerged. The early mountain
movements of all the continents were beginning, and the greatest of these
crustal upheavals were the Himalayas of Asia and the great Caledonian
Mountains, extending from Ireland through Scotland and on to Spitzbergen.
59:3.4 It is in the deposits of this age that much of the gas, oil, zinc, and
lead are found, the gas and oil being derived from the enormous collections of
vegetable and animal matter carried down at the time of the previous land
submergence, while the mineral deposits represent the sedimentation of
sluggish bodies of water. Many of the rock salt deposits belong to this
period.
59:3.5 The trilobites rapidly declined, and the center of the stage was
occupied by the larger mollusks, or cephalopods. These animals grew to be
fifteen feet long and one foot in diameter and became masters of the seas.
This species of animal appeared suddenly and assumed dominance of sea life.
59:3.6 The great volcanic activity of this age was in the European sector. Not
in millions upon millions of years had such violent and extensive volcanic
eruptions occurred as now took place around the Mediterranean trough and
especially in the neighborhood of the British Isles. This lava flow over the
British Isles region today appears as alternate layers of lava and rock 25,000
feet thick. These rocks were laid down by the intermittent lava flows which
spread out over a shallow sea bed, thus interspersing the rock deposits, and
all of this was subsequently elevated high above the sea. Violent earthquakes
took place in northern Europe, notably in Scotland.
59:3.7 The oceanic climate remained mild and uniform, and the warm seas bathed
the shores of the polar lands. Brachiopod and other marine-life fossils may be
found in these deposits right up to the North Pole. Gastropods, brachiopods,
sponges, and reef-making corals continued to increase.
59:3.8 The close of this epoch witnesses the second advance of the Silurian
seas with another commingling of the waters of the southern and northern
oceans. The cephalopods dominate marine life, while associated forms of life
progressively develop and differentiate.
59:3.9 280,000,000 years ago the continents had largely emerged from the
second Silurian inundation. The rock deposits of this submergence are known in
North America as Niagara limestone because this is the stratum of rock over
which Niagara Falls now flows. This layer of rock extends from the eastern
mountains to the Mississippi valley region but not farther west except to the
south. Several layers extend over Canada, portions of South America,
Australia, and most of Europe, the average thickness of this Niagara series
being about six hundred feet. Immediately overlying the Niagara deposit, in
many regions may be found a collection of conglomerate, shale, and rock salt.
This is the accumulation of secondary subsidences. This salt settled in great
lagoons which were alternately opened up to the sea and then cut off so that
evaporation occurred with deposition of salt along with other matter held in
solution. In some regions these rock salt beds are seventy feet thick.
59:3.10 The climate is even and mild, and marine fossils are laid down in the
arctic regions. But by the end of this epoch the seas are so excessively salty
that little life survives.
59:3.11 Toward the close of the final Silurian submergence there is a great
increase in the echinoderms -- the stone lilies -- as is evidenced by the
crinoid limestone deposits. The trilobites have nearly disappeared, and the
mollusks continue monarchs of the seas; coral-reef formation increases
greatly. During this age, in the more favorable locations the primitive water
scorpions first evolve. Soon thereafter, and suddenly, the true scorpions --
actual air breathers -- make their appearance.
59:3.12 These developments terminate the third marine-life period, covering
twenty-five million years and known to your researchers as the Silurian.
4. THE GREAT LAND-EMERGENCE STAGE
THE VEGETATIVE LAND-LIFE PERIOD
THE AGE OF FISHES
59:4.1 In the agelong struggle between land and water, for long periods the
sea has been comparatively victorious, but times of land victory are just
ahead. And the continental drifts have not proceeded so far but that, at
times, practically all of the land of the world is connected by slender
isthmuses and narrow land bridges.
59:4.2 As the land emerges from the last Silurian inundation, an important
period in world development and life evolution comes to an end. It is the dawn
of a new age on earth. The naked and unattractive landscape of former times is
becoming clothed with luxuriant verdure, and the first magnificent forests
will soon appear.
59:4.3 The marine life of this age was very diverse due to the early species
segregation, but later on there was free commingling and association of all
these different types. The brachiopods early reached their climax, being
succeeded by the arthropods, and barnacles made their first appearance. But
the greatest event of all was the sudden appearance of the fish family. This
became the age of fishes, that period of the world's history characterized by
the vertebrate type of animal.
59:4.4 270,000,000 years ago the continents were all above water. In millions
upon millions of years not so much land had been above water at one time; it
was one of the greatest land-emergence epochs in all world history.
59:4.5 Five million years later the land areas of North and South America,
Europe, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia were briefly inundated, in North
America the submergence at one time or another being almost complete; and the
resulting limestone layers run from 500 to 5,000 feet in thickness. These
various Devonian seas extended first in one direction and then in another so
that the immense arctic North American inland sea found an outlet to the
Pacific Ocean through northern California.
59:4.6 260,000,000 years ago, toward the end of this land-depression epoch,
North America was partially overspread by seas having simultaneous connection
with the Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, and Gulf waters. The deposits of these
later stages of the first Devonian flood average about one thousand feet in
thickness. The coral reefs characterizing these times indicate that the inland
seas were clear and shallow. Such coral deposits are exposed in the banks of
the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky, and are about one hundred feet
thick, embracing more than two hundred varieties. These coral formations
extend through Canada and northern Europe to the arctic regions.
59:4.7 Following these submergences, many of the shore lines were considerably
elevated so that the earlier deposits were covered by mud or shale. There is
also a red sandstone stratum which characterizes one of the Devonian
sedimentations, and this red layer extends over much of the earth's surface,
being found in North and South America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa, and
Australia. Such red deposits are suggestive of arid or semiarid conditions,
but the climate of this epoch was still mild and even.
59:4.8 Throughout all of this period the land southeast of the Cincinnati
Island remained well above water. But very much of western Europe, including
the British Isles, was submerged. In Wales, Germany, and other places in
Europe the Devonian rocks are 20,000 feet thick.
59:4.9 250,000,000 years ago witnessed the appearance of the fish family, the
vertebrates, one of the most important steps in all prehuman evolution.
59:4.10 The arthropods, or crustaceans, were the ancestors of the first
vertebrates. The forerunners of the fish family were two modified arthropod
ancestors; one had a long body connecting a head and tail, while the other was
a backboneless, jawless prefish. But these preliminary types were quickly
destroyed when the fishes, the first vertebrates of the animal world, made
their sudden appearance from the north.
59:4.11 Many of the largest true fish belong to this age, some of the teeth-
bearing varieties being twenty-five to thirty feet long; the present-day
sharks are the survivors of these ancient fishes. The lung and armored fishes
reached their evolutionary apex, and before this epoch had ended, fishes had
adapted to both fresh and salt waters.
59:4.12 Veritable bone beds of fish teeth and skeletons may be found in the
deposits laid down toward the close of this period, and rich fossil beds are
situated along the coast of California since many sheltered bays of the
Pacific Ocean extended into the land of that region.
59:4.13 The earth was being rapidly overrun by the new orders of land
vegetation. Heretofore few plants grew on land except about the water's edge.
Now, and suddenly, the prolific fern family appeared and quickly spread over
the face of the rapidly rising land in all parts of the world. Tree types, two
feet thick and forty feet high, soon developed; later on, leaves evolved, but
these early varieties had only rudimentary foliage. There were many smaller
plants, but their fossils are not found since they were usually destroyed by
the still earlier appearing bacteria.
59:4.14 As the land rose, North America became connected with Europe by land
bridges extending to Greenland. And today Greenland holds the remains of these
early land plants beneath its mantle of ice.
59:4.15 240,000,000 years ago the land over parts of both Europe and North and
South America began to sink. This subsidence marked the appearance of the last
and least extensive of the Devonian floods. The arctic seas again moved
southward over much of North America, the Atlantic inundated a large part of
Europe and western Asia, while the southern Pacific covered most of India.
This inundation was slow in appearing and equally slow in retreating. The
Catskill Mountains along the west bank of the Hudson River are one of the
largest geologic monuments of this epoch to be found on the surface of North
America.
59:4.16 230,000,000 years ago the seas were continuing their retreat. Much of
North America was above water, and great volcanic activity occurred in the St.
Lawrence region. Mount Royal, at Montreal, is the eroded neck of one of these
volcanoes. The deposits of this entire epoch are well shown in the Appalachian
Mountains of North America where the Susquehanna River has cut a valley
exposing these successive layers, which attained a thickness of over 13,000
feet.
59:4.17 The elevation of the continents proceeded, and the atmosphere was
becoming enriched with oxygen. The earth was overspread by vast forests of
ferns one hundred feet high and by the peculiar trees of those days, silent
forests; not a sound was heard, not even the rustle of a leaf, for such trees
had no leaves.
59:4.18 And thus drew to a close one of the longest periods of marine-life
evolution, the age of fishes. This period of the world's history lasted almost
fifty million years; it has become known to your researchers as the Devonian.
5. THE CRUSTAL-SHIFTING STAGE
THE FERN-FOREST CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD
THE AGE OF FROGS
59:5.1 The appearance of fish during the preceding period marks the apex of
marine-life evolution. From this point onward the evolution of land life
becomes increasingly important. And this period opens with the stage almost
ideally set for the appearance of the first land animals.
59:5.2 220,000,000 years ago many of the continental land areas, including
most of North America, were above water. The land was overrun by luxurious
vegetation; this was indeed the age of ferns. Carbon dioxide was still present
in the atmosphere but in lessening degree.
59:5.3 Shortly thereafter the central portion of North America was inundated,
creating two great inland seas. Both the Atlantic and Pacific coastal
highlands were situated just beyond the present shore lines. These two seas
presently united, commingling their different forms of life, and the union of
these marine fauna marked the beginning of the rapid and world-wide decline in
marine life and the opening of the subsequent land-life period.
59:5.4 210,000,000 years ago the warm-water arctic seas covered most of North
America and Europe. The south polar waters inundated South America and
Australia, while both Africa and Asia were highly elevated.
59:5.5 When the seas were at their height, a new evolutionary development
suddenly occurred. Abruptly, the first of the land animals appeared. There
were numerous species of these animals that were able to live on land or in
water. These air-breathing amphibians developed from the arthropods, whose
swim bladders had evolved into lungs.
59:5.6 From the briny waters of the seas there crawled out upon the land
snails, scorpions, and frogs. Today frogs still lay their eggs in water, and
their young first exist as little fishes, tadpoles. This period could well be
known as the age of frogs.
59:5.7 Very soon thereafter the insects first appeared and, together with
spiders, scorpions, cockroaches, crickets, and locusts, soon overspread the
continents of the world. Dragon flies measured thirty inches across. One
thousand species of cockroaches developed, and some grew to be four inches
long.
59:5.8 Two groups of echinoderms became especially well developed, and they
are in reality the guide fossils of this epoch. The large shell-feeding sharks
were also highly evolved, and for more than five million years they dominated
the oceans. The climate was still mild and equable; the marine life was little
changed. Fresh-water fish were developing and the trilobites were nearing
extinction. Corals were scarce, and much of the limestone was being made by
the crinoids. The finer building limestones were laid down during this epoch.
59:5.9 The waters of many of the inland seas were so heavily charged with lime
and other minerals as greatly to interfere with the progress and development
of many marine species. Eventually the seas cleared up as the result of an
extensive stone deposit, in some places containing zinc and lead.
59:5.10 The deposits of this early Carboniferous age are from 500 to 2,000
feet thick, consisting of sandstone, shale, and limestone. The oldest strata
yield the fossils of both land and marine animals and plants, along with much
gravel and basin sediments. Little workable coal is found in these older
strata. These depositions throughout Europe are very similar to those laid
down over North America.
59:5.11 Toward the close of this epoch the land of North America began to
rise. There was a short interruption, and the sea returned to cover about half
of its previous beds. This was a short inundation, and most of the land was
soon well above water. South America was still connected with Europe by way of
Africa.
59:5.12 This epoch witnessed the beginning of the Vosges, Black Forest, and
Ural mountains. Stumps of other and older mountains are to be found all over
Great Britain and Europe.
59:5.13 200,000,000 years ago the really active stages of the Carboniferous
period began. For twenty million years prior to this time the earlier coal
deposits were being laid down, but now the more extensive coal-formation
activities were in process. The length of the actual coal-deposition epoch was
a little over twenty-five million years.
59:5.14 The land was periodically going up and down due to the shifting sea
level occasioned by activities on the ocean bottoms. This crustal uneasiness
-- the settling and rising of the land -- in connection with the prolific
vegetation of the coastal swamps, contributed to the production of extensive
coal deposits, which have caused this period to be known as the Carboniferous.
And the climate was still mild the world over.
59:5.15 The coal layers alternate with shale, stone, and conglomerate. These
coal beds over central and eastern United States vary in thickness from forty
to fifty feet. But many of these deposits were washed away during subsequent
land elevations. In some parts of North America and Europe the coal-bearing
strata are 18,000 feet in thickness.
59:5.16 The presence of roots of trees as they grew in the clay underlying the
present coal beds demonstrates that coal was formed exactly where it is now
found. Coal is the water-preserved and pressure-modified remains of the rank
vegetation growing in the bogs and on the swamp shores of this faraway age.
Coal layers often hold both gas and oil. Peat beds, the remains of past
vegetable growth, would be converted into a type of coal if subjected to
proper pressure and heat. Anthracite has been subjected to more pressure and
heat than other coal.
59:5.17 In North America the layers of coal in the various beds, which
indicate the number of times the land fell and rose, vary from ten in
Illinois, twenty in Pennsylvania, thirty-five in Alabama, to seventy-five in
Canada. Both fresh- and salt-water fossils are found in the coal beds.
59:5.18 Throughout this epoch the mountains of North and South America were
active, both the Andes and the southern ancestral Rocky Mountains rising. The
great Atlantic and Pacific high coastal regions began to sink, eventually
becoming so eroded and submerged that the coast lines of both oceans withdrew
to approximately their present positions. The deposits of this inundation
average about one thousand feet in thickness.
59:5.19 190,000,000 years ago witnessed a westward extension of the North
American Carboniferous sea over the present Rocky Mountain region, with an
outlet to the Pacific Ocean through northern California. Coal continued to be
laid down throughout the Americas and Europe, layer upon layer, as the
coastlands rose and fell during these ages of seashore oscillations.
59:5.20 180,000,000 years ago brought the close of the Carboniferous period,
during which coal had been formed all over the world -- in Europe, India,
China, North Africa, and the Americas. At the close of the coal-formation
period North America east of the Mississippi valley rose, and most of this
section has ever since remained above the sea. This land-elevation period
marks the beginning of the modern mountains of North America, both in the
Appalachian regions and in the west. Volcanoes were active in Alaska and
California and in the mountain-forming regions of Europe and Asia. Eastern
America and western Europe were connected by the continent of Greenland.
59:5.21 Land elevation began to modify the marine climate of the preceding
ages and to substitute therefor the beginnings of the less mild and more
variable continental climate.
59:5.22 The plants of these times were spore bearing, and the wind was able to
spread them far and wide. The trunks of the Carboniferous trees were commonly
seven feet in diameter and often one hundred and twenty-five feet high. The
modern ferns are truly relics of these bygone ages.
59:5.23 In general, these were the epochs of development for fresh-water
organisms; little change occurred in the previous marine life. But the
important characteristic of this period was the sudden appearance of the frogs
and their many cousins. The life features of the coal age were ferns and
frogs.
6. THE CLIMATIC TRANSITION STAGE
THE SEED-PLANT PERIOD
THE AGE OF BIOLOGIC TRIBULATION
59:6.1 This period marks the end of pivotal evolutionary development in marine
life and the opening of the transition period leading to the subsequent ages
of land animals.
59:6.2 This age was one of great life impoverishment. Thousands of marine
species perished, and life was hardly yet established on land. This was a time
of biologic tribulation, the age when life nearly vanished from the face of
the earth and from the depths of the oceans. Toward the close of the long
marine-life era there were more than one hundred thousand species of living
things on earth. At the close of this period of transition less than five
hundred had survived.
59:6.3 The peculiarities of this new period were not due so much to the
cooling of the earth's crust or to the long absence of volcanic action as to
an unusual combination of commonplace and pre-existing influences --
restrictions of the seas and increasing elevation of enormous land masses. The
mild marine climate of former times was disappearing, and the harsher
continental type of weather was fast developing.
59:6.4 170,000,000 years ago great evolutionary changes and adjustments were
taking place over the entire face of the earth. Land was rising all over the
world as the ocean beds were sinking. Isolated mountain ridges appeared. The
eastern part of North America was high above the sea; the west was slowly
rising. The continents were covered by great and small salt lakes and numerous
inland seas which were connected with the oceans by narrow straits. The strata
of this transition period vary in thickness from 1,000 to 7,000 feet.
59:6.5 The earth's crust folded extensively during these land elevations. This
was a time of continental emergence except for the disappearance of certain
land bridges, including the continents which had so long connected South
America with Africa and North America with Europe.
59:6.6 Gradually the inland lakes and seas were drying up all over the world.
Isolated mountain and regional glaciers began to appear, especially over the
Southern Hemisphere, and in many regions the glacial deposit of these local
ice formations may be found even among some of the upper and later coal
deposits. Two new climatic factors appeared -- glaciation and aridity. Many of
the earth's higher regions had become arid and barren.
59:6.7 Throughout these times of climatic change, great variations also
occurred in the land plants. The seed plants first appeared, and they afforded
a better food supply for the subsequently increased land-animal life. The
insects underwent a radical change. The resting stages evolved to meet the
demands of suspended animation during winter and drought.
59:6.8 Among the land animals the frogs reached their climax in the preceding
age and rapidly declined, but they survived because they could long live even
in the drying-up pools and ponds of these far-distant and extremely trying
times. During this declining frog age, in Africa, the first step in the
evolution of the frog into the reptile occurred. And since the land masses
were still connected, this prereptilian creature, an air breather, spread over
all the world. By this time the atmosphere had been so changed that it served
admirably to support animal respiration. It was soon after the arrival of
these prereptilian frogs that North America was temporarily isolated, cut off
from Europe, Asia, and South America.
59:6.9 The gradual cooling of the ocean waters contributed much to the
destruction of oceanic life. The marine animals of those ages took temporary
refuge in three favorable retreats: the present Gulf of Mexico region, the
Ganges Bay of India, and the Sicilian Bay of the Mediterranean basin. And it
was from these three regions that the new marine species, born to adversity,
later went forth to replenish the seas.
59:6.10 160,000,000 years ago the land was largely covered with vegetation
adapted to support land-animal life, and the atmosphere had become ideal for
animal respiration. Thus ends the period of marine-life curtailment and those
testing times of biologic adversity which eliminated all forms of life except
such as had survival value, and which were therefore entitled to function as
the ancestors of the more rapidly developing and highly differentiated life of
the ensuing ages of planetary evolution.
59:6.11 The ending of this period of biologic tribulation, known to your
students as the Permian, also marks the end of the long Paleozoic era, which
covers one quarter of the planetary history, two hundred and fifty million
years.
59:6.12 The vast oceanic nursery of life on Urantia has served its purpose.
During the long ages when the land was unsuited to support life, before the
atmosphere contained sufficient oxygen to sustain the higher land animals, the
sea mothered and nurtured the early life of the realm. Now the biologic
importance of the sea progressively diminishes as the second stage of
evolution begins to unfold on the land.
Presented by a Life Carrier of Nebadon, one of the original corps assigned to
Urantia.
PAPER 60
URANTIA DURING THE EARLY LAND-LIFE ERA
60:0.1 THE era of exclusive marine life has ended. Land elevation, cooling
crust and cooling oceans, sea restriction and consequent deepening, together
with a great increase of land in northern latitudes, all conspired greatly to
change the world's climate in all regions far removed from the equatorial
zone.
60:0.2 The closing epochs of the preceding era were indeed the age of frogs,
but these ancestors of the land vertebrates were no longer dominant, having
survived in greatly reduced numbers. Very few types outlived the rigorous
trials of the preceding period of biologic tribulation. Even the spore-bearing
plants were nearly extinct.
1. THE EARLY REPTILIAN AGE
60:1.1 The erosion deposits of this period were mostly conglomerates, shale,
and sandstone. The gypsum and red layers throughout these sedimentations over
both America and Europe indicate that the climate of these continents was
arid. These arid districts were subjected to great erosion from the violent
and periodic cloudbursts on the surrounding highlands.
60:1.2 Few fossils are to be found in these layers, but numerous sandstone
footprints of the land reptiles may be observed. In many regions the one
thousand feet of red sandstone deposit of this period contains no fossils. The
life of land animals was continuous only in certain parts of Africa.
60:1.3 These deposits vary in thickness from 3,000 to 10,000 feet, even being
18,000 on the Pacific coast. Lava was later forced in between many of these
layers. The Palisades of the Hudson River were formed by the extrusion of
basalt lava between these Triassic strata. Volcanic action was extensive in
different parts of the world.
60:1.4 Over Europe, especially Germany and Russia, may be found deposits of
this period. In England the New Red Sandstone belongs to this epoch. Limestone
was laid down in the southern Alps as the result of a sea invasion and may now
be seen as the peculiar dolomite limestone walls, peaks, and pillars of those
regions. This layer is to be found all over Africa and Australia. The Carrara
marble comes from such modified limestone. Nothing of this period will be
found in the southern regions of South America as that part of the continent
remained down and hence presents only a water or marine deposit continuous
with the preceding and succeeding epochs.
60:1.5 150,000,000 years ago the early land-life periods of the world's
history began. Life, in general, did not fare well but did better than at the
strenuous and hostile close of the marine-life era.
60:1.6 As this era opens, the eastern and central parts of North America, the
northern half of South America, most of Europe, and all of Asia are well above
water. North America for the first time is geographically isolated, but not
for long as the Bering Strait land bridge soon again emerges, connecting the
continent with Asia.
60:1.7 Great troughs developed in North America, paralleling the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts. The great eastern-Connecticut fault appeared, one side
eventually sinking two miles. Many of these North American troughs were later
filled with erosion deposits, as also were many of the basins of the fresh-
and salt-water lakes of the mountain regions. Later on, these filled land
depressions were greatly elevated by lava flows which occurred underground.
The petrified forests of many regions belong to this epoch.
60:1.8 The Pacific coast, usually above water during the continental
submergences, went down excepting the southern part of California and a large
island which then existed in what is now the Pacific Ocean. This ancient
California sea was rich in marine life and extended eastward to connect with
the old sea basin of the midwestern region.
60:1.9 140,000,000 years ago, suddenly and with only the hint of the two
prereptilian ancestors that developed in Africa during the preceding epoch,
the reptiles appeared in full-fledged form. They developed rapidly, soon
yielding crocodiles, scaled reptiles, and eventually both sea serpents and
flying reptiles. Their transition ancestors speedily disappeared.
60:1.10 These rapidly evolving reptilian dinosaurs soon became the monarchs of
this age. They were egg layers and are distinguished from all animals by their
small brains, having brains weighing less than one pound to control bodies
later weighing as much as forty tons. But earlier reptiles were smaller,
carnivorous, and walked kangaroolike on their hind legs. They had hollow avian
bones and subsequently developed only three toes on their hind feet, and many
of their fossil footprints have been mistaken for those of giant birds. Later
on, the herbivorous dinosaurs evolved. They walked on all fours, and one
branch of this group developed a protective armor.
60:1.11 Several million years later the first mammals appeared. They were
nonplacental and proved a speedy failure; none survived. This was an
experimental effort to improve mammalian types, but it did not succeed on
Urantia.
60:1.12 The marine life of this period was meager but improved rapidly with
the new invasion of the sea, which again produced extensive coast lines of
shallow waters. Since there was more shallow water around Europe and Asia, the
richest fossil beds are to be found about these continents. Today, if you
would study the life of this age, examine the Himalayan, Siberian, and
Mediterranean regions, as well as India and the islands of the southern
Pacific basin. A prominent feature of the marine life was the presence of
hosts of the beautiful ammonites, whose fossil remains are found all over the
world.
60:1.13 130,000,000 years ago the seas had changed very little. Siberia and
North America were connected by the Bering Strait land bridge. A rich and
unique marine life appeared on the Californian Pacific coast, where over one
thousand species of ammonites developed from the higher types of cephalopods.
The life changes of this period were indeed revolutionary notwithstanding that
they were transitional and gradual.
60:1.14 This period extended over twenty-five million years and is known as
the Triassic.
2. THE LATER REPTILIAN AGE
60:2.1 120,000,000 years ago a new phase of the reptilian age began. The great
event of this period was the evolution and decline of the dinosaurs. Land-
animal life reached its greatest development, in point of size, and had
virtually perished from the face of the earth by the end of this age. The
dinosaurs evolved in all sizes from a species less than two feet long up to
the huge noncarnivorous dinosaurs, seventy-five feet long, that have never
since been equaled in bulk by any living creature.
60:2.2 The largest of the dinosaurs originated in western North America. These
monstrous reptiles are buried throughout the Rocky Mountain regions, along the
whole of the Atlantic coast of North America, over western Europe, South
Africa, and India, but not in Australia.
60:2.3 These massive creatures became less active and strong as they grew
larger and larger; but they required such an enormous amount of food and the
land was so overrun by them that they literally starved to death and became
extinct -- they lacked the intelligence to cope with the situation.
60:2.4 By this time most of the eastern part of North America, which had long
been elevated, had been leveled down and washed into the Atlantic Ocean so
that the coast extended several hundred miles farther out than now. The
western part of the continent was still up, but even these regions were later
invaded by both the northern sea and the Pacific, which extended eastward to
the Dakota Black Hills region.
60:2.5 This was a fresh-water age characterized by many inland lakes, as is
shown by the abundant fresh-water fossils of the so-called Morrison beds of
Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. The thickness of these combined salt- and
fresh-water deposits varies from 2,000 to 5,000 feet; but very little
limestone is present in these layers.
60:2.6 The same polar sea that extended so far down over North America
likewise covered all of South America except the soon appearing Andes
Mountains. Most of China and Russia was inundated, but the water invasion was
greatest in Europe. It was during this submergence that the beautiful
lithographic stone of southern Germany was laid down, those strata in which
fossils, such as the most delicate wings of olden insects, are preserved as of
but yesterday.
60:2.7 The flora of this age was much like that of the preceding. Ferns
persisted, while conifers and pines became more and more like the present-day
varieties. Some coal was still being formed along the northern Mediterranean
shores.
60:2.8 The return of the seas improved the weather. Corals spread to European
waters, testifying that the climate was still mild and even, but they never
again appeared in the slowly cooling polar seas. The marine life of these
times improved and developed greatly, especially in European waters. Both
corals and crinoids temporarily appeared in larger numbers than heretofore,
but the ammonites dominated the invertebrate life of the oceans, their average
size ranging from three to four inches, though one species attained a diameter
of eight feet. Sponges were everywhere, and both cuttlefish and oysters
continued to evolve.
60:2.9 110,000,000 years ago the potentials of marine life were continuing to
unfold. The sea urchin was one of the outstanding mutations of this epoch.
Crabs, lobsters, and the modern types of crustaceans matured. Marked changes
occurred in the fish family, a sturgeon type first appearing, but the
ferocious sea serpents, descended from the land reptiles, still infested all
the seas, and they threatened the destruction of the entire fish family.
60:2.10 This continued to be, pre-eminently, the age of the dinosaurs. They so
overran the land that two species had taken to the water for sustenance during
the preceding period of sea encroachment. These sea serpents represent a
backward step in evolution. While some new species are progressing, certain
strains remain stationary and others gravitate backward, reverting to a former
state. And this is what happened when these two types of reptiles forsook the
land.
60:2.11 As time passed, the sea serpents grew to such size that they became
very sluggish and eventually perished because they did not have brains large
enough to afford protection for their immense bodies. Their brains weighed
less than two ounces notwithstanding the fact that these huge ichthyosaurs
sometimes grew to be fifty feet long, the majority being over thirty-five feet
in length. The marine crocodilians were also a reversion from the land type of
reptile, but unlike the sea serpents, these animals always returned to the
land to lay their eggs.
60:2.12 Soon after two species of dinosaurs migrated to the water in a futile
attempt at self-preservation, two other types were driven to the air by the
bitter competition of life on land. But these flying pterosaurs were not the
ancestors of the true birds of subsequent ages. They evolved from the hollow-
boned leaping dinosaurs, and their wings were of batlike formation with a
spread of twenty to twenty-five feet. These ancient flying reptiles grew to be
ten feet long, and they had separable jaws much like those of modern snakes.
For a time these flying reptiles appeared to be a success, but they failed to
evolve along lines which would enable them to survive as air navigators. They
represent the nonsurviving strains of bird ancestry.
60:2.13 Turtles increased during this period, first appearing in North
America. Their ancestors came over from Asia by way of the northern land
bridge.
60:2.14 One hundred million years ago the reptilian age was drawing to a
close. The dinosaurs, for all their enormous mass, were all but brainless
animals, lacking the intelligence to provide sufficient food to nourish such
enormous bodies. And so did these sluggish land reptiles perish in ever-
increasing numbers. Henceforth, evolution will follow the growth of brains,
not physical bulk, and the development of brains will characterize each
succeeding epoch of animal evolution and planetary progress.
60:2.15 This period, embracing the height and the beginning decline of the
reptiles, extended nearly twenty-five million years and is known as the
Jurassic.
3. THE CRETACEOUS STAGE
THE FLOWERING-PLANT PERIOD
THE AGE OF BIRDS
60:3.1 The great Cretaceous period derives its name from the predominance of
the prolific chalk-making foraminifers in the seas. This period brings Urantia
to near the end of the long reptilian dominance and witnesses the appearance
of flowering plants and bird life on land. These are also the times of the
termination of the westward and southward drift of the continents, accompanied
by tremendous crustal deformations and concomitant widespread lava flows and
great volcanic activities.
60:3.2 Near the close of the preceding geologic period much of the continental
land was up above water, although as yet there were no mountain peaks. But as
the continental land drift continued, it met with the first great obstruction
on the deep floor of the Pacific. This contention of geologic forces gave
impetus to the formation of the whole vast north and south mountain range
extending from Alaska down through Mexico to Cape Horn.
60:3.3 This period thus becomes the modern mountain-building stage of geologic
history. Prior to this time there were few mountain peaks, merely elevated
land ridges of great width. Now the Pacific coast range was beginning to
elevate, but it was located seven hundred miles west of the present shore
line. The Sierras were beginning to form, their gold-bearing quartz strata
being the product of lava flows of this epoch. In the eastern part of North
America, Atlantic sea pressure was also working to cause land elevation.
60:3.4 100,000,000 years ago the North American continent and a part of Europe
were well above water. The warping of the American continents continued,
resulting in the metamorphosing of the South American Andes and in the gradual
elevation of the western plains of North America. Most of Mexico sank beneath
the sea, and the southern Atlantic encroached on the eastern coast of South
America, eventually reaching the present shore line. The Atlantic and Indian
Oceans were then about as they are today.
60:3.5 95,000,000 years ago the American and European land masses again began
to sink. The southern seas commenced the invasion of North America and
gradually extended northward to connect with the Arctic Ocean, constituting
the second greatest submergence of the continent. When this sea finally
withdrew, it left the continent about as it now is. Before this great
submergence began, the eastern Appalachian highlands had been almost
completely worn down to the water's level. The many colored layers of pure
clay now used for the manufacture of earthenware were laid down over the
Atlantic coast regions during this age, their average thickness being about
2,000 feet.
60:3.6 Great volcanic actions occurred south of the Alps and along the line of
the present California coast-range mountains. The greatest crustal
deformations in millions upon millions of years took place in Mexico. Great
changes also occurred in Europe, Russia, Japan, and southern South America.
The climate became increasingly diversified.
60:3.7 90,000,000 years ago the angiosperms emerged from these early
Cretaceous seas and soon overran the continents. These land plants suddenly
appeared along with fig trees, magnolias, and tulip trees. Soon after this
time fig trees, breadfruit trees, and palms overspread Europe and the western
plains of North America. No new land animals appeared.
60:3.8 85,000,000 years ago Bering Strait closed, shutting off the cooling
waters of the northern seas. Theretofore the marine life of the Atlantic-Gulf
waters and that of the Pacific Ocean had differed greatly, owing to the
temperature variations of these two bodies of water, which now became uniform.
60:3.9 The deposits of chalk and greensand marl give name to this period. The
sedimentations of these times are variegated, consisting of chalk, shale,
sandstone, and small amounts of limestone, together with inferior coal or
lignite, and in many regions they contain oil. These layers vary in thickness
from 200 feet in some places to 10,000 feet in western North America and
numerous European localities. Along the eastern borders of the Rocky Mountains
these deposits may be observed in the uptilted foothills.
60:3.10 All over the world these strata are permeated with chalk, and these
layers of porous semirock pick up water at upturned outcrops and convey it
downward to furnish the water supply of much of the earth's present arid
regions.
60:3.11 80,000,000 years ago great disturbances occurred in the earth's crust.
The western advance of the continental drift was coming to a standstill, and
the enormous energy of the sluggish momentum of the hinter continental mass
upcrumpled the Pacific shore line of both North and South America and
initiated profound repercussional changes along the Pacific shores of Asia.
This circumpacific land elevation, which culminated in present-day mountain
ranges, is more than twenty-five thousand miles long. And the upheavals
attendant upon its birth were the greatest surface distortions to take place
since life appeared on Urantia. The lava flows, both above and below ground,
were extensive and widespread.
60:3.12 75,000,000 years ago marks the end of the continental drift. From
Alaska to Cape Horn the long Pacific coast mountain ranges were completed, but
there were as yet few peaks.
60:3.13 The backthrust of the halted continental drift continued the elevation
of the western plains of North America, while in the east the worn-down
Appalachian Mountains of the Atlantic coast region were projected straight up,
with little or no tilting.
60:3.14 70,000,000 years ago the crustal distortions connected with the
maximum elevation of the Rocky Mountain region took place. A large segment of
rock was overthrust fifteen miles at the surface in British Columbia; here the
Cambrian rocks are obliquely thrust out over the Cretaceous layers. On the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, near the Canadian border, there was
another spectacular overthrust; here may be found the prelife stone layers
shoved out over the then recent Cretaceous deposits.
60:3.15 This was an age of volcanic activity all over the world, giving rise
to numerous small isolated volcanic cones. Submarine volcanoes broke out in
the submerged Himalayan region. Much of the rest of Asia, including Siberia,
was also still under water.
60:3.16 65,000,000 years ago there occurred one of the greatest lava flows of
all time. The deposition layers of these and preceding lava flows are to be
found all over the Americas, North and South Africa, Australia, and parts of
Europe.
60:3.17 The land animals were little changed, but because of greater
continental emergence, especially in North America, they rapidly multiplied.
North America was the great field of the land-animal evolution of these times,
most of Europe being under water.
60:3.18 The climate was still warm and uniform. The arctic regions were
enjoying weather much like that of the present climate in central and southern
North America.
60:3.19 Great plant-life evolution was taking place. Among the land plants the
angiosperms predominated, and many present-day trees first appeared, including
beech, birch, oak, walnut, sycamore, maple, and modern palms. Fruits, grasses,
and cereals were abundant, and these seed-bearing grasses and trees were to
the plant world what the ancestors of man were to the animal world -- they
were second in evolutionary importance only to the appearance of man himself.
Suddenly and without previous gradation, the great family of flowering plants
mutated. And this new flora soon overspread the entire world.
60:3.20 60,000,000 years ago, though the land reptiles were on the decline,
the dinosaurs continued as monarchs of the land, the lead now being taken by
the more agile and active types of the smaller leaping kangaroo varieties of
the carnivorous dinosaurs. But some time previously there had appeared new
types of the herbivorous dinosaurs, whose rapid increase was due to the
appearance of the grass family of land plants. One of these new grass-eating
dinosaurs was a true quadruped having two horns and a capelike shoulder
flange. The land type of turtle, twenty feet across, appeared as did also the
modern crocodile and true snakes of the modern type. Great changes were also
occurring among the fishes and other forms of marine life.
60:3.21 The wading and swimming prebirds of earlier ages had not been a
success in the air, nor had the flying dinosaurs. They were a short-lived
species, soon becoming extinct. They, too, were subject to the dinosaur doom,
destruction, because of having too little brain substance in comparison with
body size. This second attempt to produce animals that could navigate the
atmosphere failed, as did the abortive attempt to produce mammals during this
and a preceding age.
60:3.22 55,000,000 years ago the evolutionary march was marked by the sudden
appearance of the first of the true birds, a small pigeonlike creature which
was the ancestor of all bird life. This was the third type of flying creature
to appear on earth, and it sprang directly from the reptilian group, not from
the contemporary flying dinosaurs nor from the earlier types of toothed land
birds. And so this becomes known as the age of birds as well as the declining
age of reptiles.
4. THE END OF THE CHALK PERIOD
60:4.1 The great Cretaceous period was drawing to a close, and its termination
marks the end of the great sea invasions of the continents. Particularly is
this true of North America, where there had been just twenty-four great
inundations. And though there were subsequent minor submergences, none of
these can be compared with the extensive and lengthy marine invasions of this
and previous ages. These alternate periods of land and sea dominance have
occurred in million-year cycles. There has been an agelong rhythm associated
with this rise and fall of ocean floor and continental land levels. And these
same rhythmical crustal movements will continue from this time on throughout
the earth's history but with diminishing frequency and extent.
60:4.2 This period also witnesses the end of the continental drift and the
building of the modern mountains of Urantia. But the pressure of the
continental masses and the thwarted momentum of their agelong drift are not
the exclusive influences in mountain building. The chief and underlying factor
in determining the location of a mountain range is the pre-existent lowland,
or trough, which has become filled up with the comparatively lighter deposits
of the land erosion and marine drifts of the preceding ages. These lighter
areas of land are sometimes 15,000 to 20,000 feet thick; therefore, when the
crust is subjected to pressure from any cause, these lighter areas are the
first to crumple up, fold, and rise upward to afford compensatory adjustment
for the contending and conflicting forces and pressures at work in the earth's
crust or underneath the crust. Sometimes these upthrusts of land occur without
folding. But in connection with the rise of the Rocky Mountains, great folding
and tilting occurred, coupled with enormous overthrusts of the various layers,
both underground and at the surface.
60:4.3 The oldest mountains of the world are located in Asia, Greenland, and
northern Europe among those of the older east-west systems. The mid-age
mountains are in the circumpacific group and in the second European east-west
system, which was born at about the same time. This gigantic uprising is
almost ten thousand miles long, extending from Europe over into the West
Indies land elevations. The youngest mountains are in the Rocky Mountain
system, where, for ages, land elevations had occurred only to be successively
covered by the sea, though some of the higher lands remained as islands.
Subsequent to the formation of the mid-age mountains, a real mountain highland
was elevated which was destined, subsequently, to be carved into the present
Rocky Mountains by the combined artistry of nature's elements.
60:4.4 The present North American Rocky Mountain region is not the original
elevation of land; that elevation had been long since leveled by erosion and
then re-elevated. The present front range of mountains is what is left of the
remains of the original range which was re-elevated. Pikes Peak and Longs Peak
are outstanding examples of this mountain activity, extending over two or more
generations of mountain lives. These two peaks held their heads above water
during several of the preceding inundations.
60:4.5 Biologically as well as geologically this was an eventful and active
age on land and under water. Sea urchins increased while corals and crinoids
decreased. The ammonites, of preponderant influence during a previous age,
also rapidly declined. On land the fern forests were largely replaced by pine
and other modern trees, including the gigantic redwoods. By the end of this
period, while the placental mammal has not yet evolved, the biologic stage is
fully set for the appearance, in a subsequent age, of the early ancestors of
the future mammalian types.
60:4.6 And thus ends a long era of world evolution, extending from the early
appearance of land life down to the more recent times of the immediate
ancestors of the human species and its collateral branches. This, the
Cretaceous age, covers fifty million years and brings to a close the
premammalian era of land life, which extends over a period of one hundred
million years and is known as the Mesozoic.
60:4.7 Presented by a Life Carrier of Nebadon assigned to Satania and now
functioning on Urantia.
PAPER 61
THE MAMMALIAN ERA ON URANTIA
61:0.1 THE era of mammals extends from the times of the origin of placental
mammals to the end of the ice age, covering a little less than fifty million
years.
61:0.2 During this Cenozoic age the world's landscape presented an attractive
appearance -- rolling hills, broad valleys, wide rivers, and great forests.
Twice during this sector of time the Panama Isthmus went up and down; three
times Bering Strait land bridge did the same. The animal types were both many
and varied. The trees swarmed with birds, and the whole world was an animal
paradise, notwithstanding the incessant struggle of the evolving animal
species for supremacy.
61:0.3 The accumulated deposits of the five periods of this fifty-million-year
era contain the fossil records of the successive mammalian dynasties and lead
right up through the times of the actual appearance of man himself.
1. THE NEW CONTINENTAL LAND STAGE
THE AGE OF EARLY MAMMALS
61:1.1 50,000,000 years ago the land areas of the world were very generally
above water or only slightly submerged. The formations and deposits of this
period are both land and marine, but chiefly land. For a considerable time the
land gradually rose but was simultaneously washed down to the lower levels and
toward the seas
61:1.2 Early in this period and in North America the placental type of mammals
suddenly appeared, and they constituted the most important evolutionary
development up to this time. Previous orders of nonplacental mammals had
existed, but this new type sprang directly and suddenly from the pre-existent
reptilian ancestor whose descendants had persisted on down through the times
of dinosaur decline. The father of the placental mammals was a small, highly
active, carnivorous, springing type of dinosaur.
61:1.3 Basic mammalian instincts began to be manifested in these primitive
mammalian types. Mammals possess an immense survival advantage over all other
forms of animal life in that they can:
1. Bring forth relatively mature and well-developed offspring.
2. Nourish, nurture, and protect their offspring with affectionate regard.
3. Employ their superior brain power in self-perpetuation.
4. Utilize increased agility in escaping from enemies.
5. Apply superior intelligence to environmental adjustment and adaptation.
61:1.4 45,000,000 years ago the continental backbones were elevated in
association with a very general sinking of the coast lines. Mammalian life was
evolving rapidly. A small reptilian, egg-laying type of mammal flourished, and
the ancestors of the later kangaroos roamed Australia. Soon there were small
horses, fleet-footed rhinoceroses, tapirs with proboscises, primitive pigs,
squirrels, lemurs, opossums, and several tribes of monkeylike animals. They
were all small, primitive, and best suited to living among the forests of the
mountain regions. A large ostrichlike land bird developed to a height of ten
feet and laid an egg nine by thirteen inches. These were the ancestors of the
later gigantic passenger birds that were so highly intelligent, and that
onetime transported human beings through the air.
61:1.5 The mammals of the early Cenozoic lived on land, under the water, in
the air, and among the treetops. They had from one to eleven pairs of mammary
glands, and all were covered with considerable hair. In common with the later
appearing orders, they developed two successive sets of teeth and possessed
large brains in comparison to body size. But among them all no modern forms
existed.
61:1.6 40,000,000 years ago the land areas of the Northern Hemisphere began to
elevate, and this was followed by new extensive land deposits and other
terrestrial activities, including lava flows, warping, lake formation, and
erosion.
61:1.7 During the latter part of this epoch most of Europe was submerged.
Following a slight land rise the continent was covered by lakes and bays. The
Arctic Ocean, through the Ural depression, ran south to connect with the
Mediterranean Sea as it was then expanded northward, the highlands of the
Alps, Carpathians, Apennines, and Pyrenees being up above the water as islands
of the sea. The Isthmus of Panama was up; the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were
separated. North America was connected with Asia by the Bering Strait land
bridge and with Europe by way of Greenland and Iceland. The earth circuit of
land in northern latitudes was broken only by the Ural Straits, which
connected the arctic seas with the enlarged Mediterranean.
61:1.8 Considerable foraminiferal limestone was deposited in European waters.
Today this same stone is elevated to a height of 10,000 feet in the Alps,
16,000 feet in the Himalayas, and 20,000 feet in Tibet. The chalk deposits of
this period are found along the coasts of Africa and Australia, on the west
coast of South America, and about the West Indies.
61:1.9 Throughout this so-called Eocene period the evolution of mammalian and
other related forms of life continued with little or no interruption. North
America was then connected by land with every continent except Australia, and
the world was gradually overrun by primitive mammalian fauna of various types.
2. THE RECENT FLOOD STAGE
THE AGE OF ADVANCED MAMMALS
61:2.1 This period was characterized by the further and rapid evolution of
placental mammals, the more progressive forms of mammalian life developing
during these times.
61:2.2 Although the early placental mammals sprang from carnivorous ancestors,
very soon herbivorous branches developed, and, erelong, omnivorous mammalian
families also sprang up. The angiosperms were the principal food of the
rapidly increasing mammals, the modern land flora, including the majority of
present-day plants and trees, having appeared during earlier periods.
61:2.3 35,000,000 years ago marks the beginning of the age of placental-
mammalian world domination. The southern land bridge was extensive,
reconnecting the then enormous Antarctic continent with South America, South
Africa, and Australia. In spite of the massing of land in high latitudes, the
world climate remained relatively mild because of the enormous increase in the
size of the tropic seas, nor was the land elevated sufficiently to produce
glaciers. Extensive lava flows occurred in Greenland and Iceland, some coal
being deposited between these layers.
61:2.4 Marked changes were taking place in the fauna of the planet. The sea
life was undergoing great modification; most of the present-day orders of
marine life were in existence, and foraminifers continued to play an important
role. The insect life was much like that of the previous era. The Florissant
fossil beds of Colorado belong to the later years of these far-distant times.
Most of the living insect families go back to this period, but many then in
existence are now extinct, though their fossils remain.
61:2.5 On land this was pre-eminently the age of mammalian renovation and
expansion. Of the earlier and more primitive mammals, over one hundred species
were extinct before this period ended. Even the mammals of large size and
small brain soon perished. Brains and agility had replaced armor and size in
the progress of animal survival. And with the dinosaur family on the decline,
the mammals slowly assumed domination of the earth, speedily and completely
destroying the remainder of their reptilian ancestors.
61:2.6 Along with the disappearance of the dinosaurs, other and great changes
occurred in the various branches of the saurian family. The surviving members
of the early reptilian families are turtles, snakes, and crocodiles, together
with the venerable frog, the only remaining group representative of man's
earlier ancestors.
61:2.7 Various groups of mammals had their origin in a unique animal now
extinct. This carnivorous creature was something of a cross between a cat and
a seal; it could live on land or in water and was highly intelligent and very
active. In Europe the ancestor of the canine family evolved, soon giving rise
to many species of small dogs. About the same time the gnawing rodents,
including beavers, squirrels, gophers, mice, and rabbits, appeared and soon
became a notable form of life, very little change having since occurred in
this family. The later deposits of this period contain the fossil remains of
dogs, cats, coons, and weasels in ancestral form.
61:2.8 30,000,000 years ago the modern types of mammals began to make their
appearance. Formerly the mammals had lived for the greater part in the hills,
being of the mountainous types; suddenly there began the evolution of the
plains or hoofed type, the grazing species, as differentiated from the clawed
flesh eaters. These grazers sprang from an undifferentiated ancestor having
five toes and forty-four teeth, which perished before the end of the age. Toe
evolution did not progress beyond the three-toed stage throughout this period.
61:2.9 The horse, an outstanding example of evolution, lived during these
times in both North America and Europe, though his development was not fully
completed until the later ice age. While the rhinoceros family appeared at the
close of this period, it underwent its greatest expansion subsequently. A
small hoglike creature also developed which became the ancestor of the many
species of swine, peccaries, and hippopotamuses. Camels and llamas had their
origin in North America about the middle of this period and overran the
western plains. Later, the llamas migrated to South America, the camels to
Europe, and soon both were extinct in North America, though a few camels
survived up to the ice age.
61:2.10 About this time a notable thing occurred in western North America: The
early ancestors of the ancient lemurs first made their appearance. While this
family cannot be regarded as true lemurs, their coming marked the
establishment of the line from which the true lemurs subsequently sprang.
61:2.11 Like the land serpents of a previous age which betook themselves to
the seas, now a whole tribe of placental mammals deserted the land and took up
their residence in the oceans. And they have ever since remained in the sea,
yielding the modern whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions.
61:2.12 The bird life of the planet continued to develop, but with few
important evolutionary changes. The majority of modern birds were existent,
including gulls, herons, flamingoes, buzzards, falcons, eagles, owls, quails,
and ostriches.
61:2.13 By the close of this Oligocene period, covering ten million years, the
plant life, together with the marine life and the land animals, had very
largely evolved and was present on earth much as today. Considerable
specialization has subsequently appeared, but the ancestral forms of most
living things were then alive.
3. THE MODERN MOUNTAIN STAGE
AGE OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE HORSE
61:3.1 Land elevation and sea segregation were slowly changing the world's
weather, gradually cooling it, but the climate was still mild. Sequoias and
magnolias grew in Greenland, but the subtropical plants were beginning to
migrate southward. By the end of this period these warm-climate plants and
trees had largely disappeared from the northern latitudes, their places being
taken by more hardy plants and the deciduous trees.
61:3.2 There was a great increase in the varieties of grasses, and the teeth
of many mammalian species gradually altered to conform to the present-day
grazing type.
61:3.3 25,000,000 years ago there was a slight land submergence following the
long epoch of land elevation. The Rocky Mountain region remained highly
elevated so that the deposition of erosion material continued throughout the
lowlands to the east. The Sierras were well re-elevated; in fact, they have
been rising ever since. The great four-mile vertical fault in the California
region dates from this time.
61:3.4 20,000,000 years ago was indeed the golden age of mammals. Bering
Strait land bridge was up, and many groups of animals migrated to North
America from Asia, including the four-tusked mastodons, short-legged
rhinoceroses, and many varieties of the cat family.
61:3.5 The first deer appeared, and North America was soon overrun by
ruminants -- deer, oxen, camels, bison, and several species of rhinoceroses --
but the giant pigs, more than six feet tall, became extinct.
61:3.6 The huge elephants of this and subsequent periods possessed large
brains as well as large bodies, and they soon overran the entire world except
Australia. For once the world was dominated by a huge animal with a brain
sufficiently large to enable it to carry on. Confronted by the highly
intelligent life of these ages, no animal the size of an elephant could have
survived unless it had possessed a brain of large size and superior quality.
In intelligence and adaptation the elephant is approached only by the horse
and is surpassed only by man himself. Even so, of the fifty species of
elephants in existence at the opening of this period, only two have survived.
61:3.7 15,000,000 years ago the mountain regions of Eurasia were rising, and
there was some volcanic activity throughout these regions, but nothing
comparable to the lava flows of the Western Hemisphere. These unsettled
conditions prevailed all over the world.
61:3.8 The Strait of Gibraltar closed, and Spain was connected with Africa by
the old land bridge, but the Mediterranean flowed into the Atlantic through a
narrow channel which extended across France, the mountain peaks and highlands
appearing as islands above this ancient sea. Later on, these European seas
began to withdraw. Still later, the Mediterranean was connected with the
Indian Ocean, while at the close of this period the Suez region was elevated
so that the Mediterranean became, for a time, an inland salt sea.
61:3.9 The Iceland land bridge submerged, and the arctic waters commingled
with those of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic coast of North America rapidly
cooled, but the Pacific coast remained warmer than at present. The great ocean
currents were in function and affected climate much as they do today.
61:3.10 Mammalian life continued to evolve. Enormous herds of horses joined
the camels on the western plains of North America; this was truly the age of
horses as well as of elephants. The horse's brain is next in animal quality to
that of the elephant, but in one respect it is decidedly inferior, for the
horse never fully overcame the deep-seated propensity to flee when frightened.
The horse lacks the emotional control of the elephant, while the elephant is
greatly handicapped by size and lack of agility. During this period an animal
evolved which was somewhat like both the elephant and the horse, but it was
soon destroyed by the rapidly increasing cat family.
61:3.11 As Urantia is entering the so-called "horseless age," you should pause
and ponder what this animal meant to your ancestors. Men first used horses for
food, then for travel, and later in agriculture and war. The horse has long
served mankind and has played an important part in the development of human
civilization.
61:3.12 The biologic developments of this period contributed much toward the
setting of the stage for the subsequent appearance of man. In central Asia the
true types of both the primitive monkey and the gorilla evolved, having a
common ancestor, now extinct. But neither of these species is concerned in the
line of living beings which were, later on, to become the ancestors of the
human race.
61:3.13 The dog family was represented by several groups, notably wolves and
foxes; the cat tribe, by panthers and large saber-toothed tigers, the latter
first evolving in North America. The modern cat and dog families increased in
numbers all over the world. Weasels, martins, otters, and raccoons thrived and
developed throughout the northern latitudes.
61:3.14 Birds continued to evolve, though few marked changes occurred.
Reptiles were similar to modern types -- snakes, crocodiles, and turtles.
61:3.15 Thus drew to a close a very eventful and interesting period of the
world's history. This age of the elephant and the horse is known as the
Miocene.
4. THE RECENT CONTINENTAL-ELEVATION STAGE
THE LAST GREAT MAMMALIAN MIGRATION
61:4.1 This is the period of preglacial land elevation in North America,
Europe, and Asia. The land was greatly altered in topography. Mountain ranges
were born, streams changed their courses, and isolated volcanoes broke out all
over the world.
61:4.2 10,000,000 years ago began an age of widespread local land deposits on
the lowlands of the continents, but most of these sedimentations were later
removed. Much of Europe, at this time, was still under water, including parts
of England, Belgium, and France, and the Mediterranean Sea covered much of
northern Africa. In North America extensive depositions were made at the
mountain bases, in lakes, and in the great land basins. These deposits average
only about two hundred feet, are more or less colored, and fossils are rare.
Two great fresh-water lakes existed in western North America. The Sierras were
elevating; Shasta, Hood, and Rainier were beginning their mountain careers.
But it was not until the subsequent ice age that North America began its creep
toward the Atlantic depression.
61:4.3 For a short time all the land of the world was again joined excepting
Australia, and the last great world-wide animal migration took place. North
America was connected with both South America and Asia, and there was a free
exchange of animal life. Asiatic sloths, armadillos, antelopes, and bears
entered North America, while North American camels went to China. Rhinoceroses
migrated over the whole world except Australia and South America, but they
were extinct in the Western Hemisphere by the close of this period.
61:4.4 In general, the life of the preceding period continued to evolve and
spread. The cat family dominated the animal life, and marine life was almost
at a standstill. Many of the horses were still three-toed, but the modern
types were arriving; llamas and giraffelike camels mingled with the horses on
the grazing plains. The giraffe appeared in Africa, having just as long a neck
then as now. In South America sloths, armadillos, anteaters, and the South
American type of primitive monkeys evolved. Before the continents were finally
isolated, those massive animals, the mastodons, migrated everywhere except to
Australia.
61:4.5 5,000,000 years ago the horse evolved as it now is and from North
America migrated to all the world. But the horse had become extinct on the
continent of its origin long before the red man arrived.
61:4.6 The climate was gradually getting cooler; the land plants were slowly
moving southward. At first it was the increasing cold in the north that
stopped animal migrations over the northern isthmuses; subsequently these
North American land bridges went down. Soon afterwards the land connection
between Africa and South America finally submerged, and the Western Hemisphere
was isolated much as it is today. From this time forward distinct types of
life began to develop in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
61:4.7 And thus does this period of almost ten million years' duration draw to
a close, and not yet has the ancestor of man appeared. This is the time
usually designated as the Pliocene.
5. THE EARLY ICE AGE
61:5.1 By the close of the preceding period the lands of the northeastern part
of North America and of northern Europe were highly elevated on an extensive
scale, in North America vast areas rising up to 30,000 feet and more. Mild
climates had formerly prevailed over these northern regions, and the arctic
waters were all open to evaporation, and they continued to be ice-free until
almost the close of the glacial period.
61:5.2 Simultaneously with these land elevations the ocean currents shifted,
and the seasonal winds changed their direction. These conditions eventually
produced an almost constant precipitation of moisture from the movement of the
heavily saturated atmosphere over the northern highlands. Snow began to fall
on these elevated and therefore cool regions, and it continued to fall until
it had attained a depth of 20,000 feet. The areas of the greatest depth of
snow, together with altitude, determined the central points of subsequent
glacial pressure flows. And the ice age persisted just as long as this
excessive precipitation continued to cover these northern highlands with this
enormous mantle of snow, which soon metamorphosed into solid but creeping ice.
61:5.3 The great ice sheets of this period were all located on elevated
highlands, not in mountainous regions where they are found today. One half of
the glacial ice was in North America, one fourth in Eurasia, and one fourth
elsewhere, chiefly in Antarctica. Africa was little affected by the ice, but
Australia was almost covered with the antarctic ice blanket.
61:5.4 The northern regions of this world have experienced six separate and
distinct ice invasions, although there were scores of advances and recessions
associated with the activity of each individual ice sheet. The ice in North
America collected in two and, later, three centers. Greenland was covered, and
Iceland was completely buried beneath the ice flow. In Europe the ice at
various times covered the British Isles excepting the coast of southern
England, and it overspread western Europe down to France.
61:5.5 2,000,000 years ago the first North American glacier started its
southern advance. The ice age was now in the making, and this glacier consumed
nearly one million years in its advance from, and retreat back toward, the
northern pressure centers. The central ice sheet extended south as far as
Kansas; the eastern and western ice centers were not then so extensive.
61:5.6 1,500,000 years ago the first great glacier was retreating northward.
In the meantime, enormous quantities of snow had been falling on Greenland and
on the northeastern part of North America, and erelong this eastern ice mass
began to flow southward. This was the second invasion of the ice.
61:5.7 These first two ice invasions were not extensive in Eurasia. During
these early epochs of the ice age North America was overrun with mastodons,
woolly mammoths, horses, camels, deer, musk oxen, bison, ground sloths, giant
beavers, saber-toothed tigers, sloths as large as elephants, and many groups
of the cat and dog families. But from this time forward they were rapidly
reduced in numbers by the increasing cold of the glacial period. Toward the
close of the ice age the majority of these animal species were extinct in
North America.
61:5.8 Away from the ice the land and water life of the world was little
changed. Between the ice invasions the climate was about as mild as at
present, perhaps a little warmer. The glaciers were, after all, local
phenomena, though they spread out to cover enormous areas. The coastwise
climate varied greatly between the times of glacial inaction and those times
when enormous icebergs were sliding off the coast of Maine into the Atlantic,
slipping out through Puget Sound into the Pacific, and thundering down
Norwegian fiords into the North Sea.
6. PRIMITIVE MAN IN THE ICE AGE
61:6.1 The great event of this glacial period was the evolution of primitive
man. Slightly to the west of India, on land now under water and among the
offspring of Asiatic migrants of the older North American lemur types, the
dawn mammals suddenly appeared. These small animals walked mostly on their
hind legs, and they possessed large brains in proportion to their size and in
comparison with the brains of other animals. In the seventieth generation of
this order of life a new and higher group of animals suddenly differentiated.
These new mid-mammals -- almost twice the size and height of their ancestors
and possessing proportionately increased brain power -- had only well
established themselves when the Primates, the third vital mutation, suddenly
appeared. (At this same time, a retrograde development within the mid-mammal
stock gave origin to the simian ancestry; and from that day to this the human
branch has gone forward by progressive evolution, while the simian tribes have
remained stationary or have actually retrogressed.)
61:6.2 1,000,000 years ago Urantia was registered as an inhabited world. A
mutation within the stock of the progressing Primates suddenly produced two
primitive human beings, the actual ancestors of mankind.
61:6.3 This event occurred at about the time of the beginning of the third
glacial advance; thus it may be seen that your early ancestors were born and
bred in a stimulating, invigorating, and difficult environment. And the sole
survivors of these Urantia aborigines, the Eskimos, even now prefer to dwell
in frigid northern climes.
61:6.4 Human beings were not present in the Western Hemisphere until near the
close of the ice age. But during the interglacial epochs they passed westward
around the Mediterranean and soon overran the continent of Europe. In the
caves of western Europe may be found human bones mingled with the remains of
both tropic and arctic animals, testifying that man lived in these regions
throughout the later epochs of the advancing and retreating glaciers.
7. THE CONTINUING ICE AGE
61:7.1 Throughout the glacial period other activities were in progress, but
the action of the ice overshadows all other phenomena in the northern
latitudes. No other terrestrial activity leaves such characteristic evidence
on the topography. The distinctive boulders and surface cleavages, such as
potholes, lakes, displaced stone, and rock flour, are to be found in
connection with no other phenomenon in nature. The ice is also responsible for
those gentle swells, or surface undulations, known as drumlins. And a glacier,
as it advances, displaces rivers and changes the whole face of the earth.
Glaciers alone leave behind them those telltale drifts -- the ground, lateral,
and terminal moraines. These drifts, particularly the ground moraines, extend
from the eastern seaboard north and westward in North America and are found in
Europe and Siberia.
61:7.2 750,000 years ago the fourth ice sheet, a union of the North American
central and eastern ice fields, was well on its way south; at its height it
reached to southern Illinois, displacing the Mississippi River fifty miles to
the west, and in the east it extended as far south as the Ohio River and
central Pennsylvania.
61:7.3 In Asia the Siberian ice sheet made its southernmost invasion, while in
Europe the advancing ice stopped just short of the mountain barrier of the
Alps.
61:7.4 500,000 years ago, during the fifth advance of the ice, a new
development accelerated the course of human evolution. Suddenly and in one
generation the six colored races mutated from the aboriginal human stock. This
is a doubly important date since it also marks the arrival of the Planetary
Prince.
61:7.5 In North America the advancing fifth glacier consisted of a combined
invasion by all three ice centers. The eastern lobe, however, extended only a
short distance below the St. Lawrence valley, and the western ice sheet made
little southern advance. But the central lobe reached south to cover most of
the State of Iowa. In Europe this invasion of the ice was not so extensive as
the preceding one.
61:7.6 250,000 years ago the sixth and last glaciation began. And despite the
fact that the northern highlands had begun to sink slightly, this was the
period of greatest snow deposition on the northern ice fields.
61:7.7 In this invasion the three great ice sheets coalesced into one vast ice
mass, and all of the western mountains participated in this glacial activity.
This was the largest of all ice invasions in North America; the ice moved
south over fifteen hundred miles from its pressure centers, and North America
experienced its lowest temperatures.
61:7.8 200,000 years ago, during the advance of the last glacier, there
occurred an episode which had much to do with the march of events on Urantia
-- the Lucifer rebellion.
61:7.9 150,000 years ago the sixth and last glacier reached its farthest
points of southern extension, the western ice sheet crossing just over the
Canadian border; the central coming down into Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois;
the eastern sheet advancing south and covering the greater portion of
Pennsylvania and Ohio.
61:7.10 This is the glacier that sent forth the many tongues, or ice lobes,
which carved out the present-day lakes, great and small. During its retreat
the North American system of Great Lakes was produced. And Urantian geologists
have very accurately deduced the various stages of this development and have
correctly surmised that these bodies of water did, at different times, empty
first into the Mississippi valley, then eastward into the Hudson valley, and
finally by a northern route into the St. Lawrence. It is thirty-seven thousand
years since the connected Great Lakes system began to empty out over the
present Niagara route.
61:7.11 100,000 years ago, during the retreat of the last glacier, the vast
polar ice sheets began to form, and the center of ice accumulation moved
considerably northward. And as long as the polar regions continue to be
covered with ice, it is hardly possible for another glacial age to occur,
regardless of future land elevations or modification of ocean currents.
61:7.12 This last glacier was one hundred thousand years advancing, and it
required a like span of time to complete its northern retreat. The temperate
regions have been free from the ice for a little over fifty thousand years.
61:7.13 The rigorous glacial period destroyed many species and radically
changed numerous others. Many were sorely sifted by the to-and-fro migration
which was made necessary by the advancing and retreating ice. Those animals
which followed the glaciers back and forth over the land were the bear, bison,
reindeer, musk ox, mammoth, and mastodon.
61:7.14 The mammoth sought the open prairies, but the mastodon preferred the
sheltered fringes of the forest regions. The mammoth, until a late date,
ranged from Mexico to Canada; the Siberian variety became wool covered. The
mastodon persisted in North America until exterminated by the red man much as
the white man later killed off the bison.
61:7.15 In North America, during the last glaciation, the horse, tapir, llama,
and saber-toothed tiger became extinct. In their places sloths, armadillos,
and water hogs came up from South America.
61:7.16 The enforced migration of life before the advancing ice led to an
extraordinary commingling of plants and of animals, and with the retreat of
the final ice invasion, many arctic species of both plants and animals were
left stranded high upon certain mountain peaks, whither they had journeyed to
escape destruction by the glacier. And so, today, these dislocated plants and
animals may be found high up on the Alps of Europe and even on the Appalachian
Mountains of North America.
61:7.17 The ice age is the last completed geologic period, the so-called
Pleistocene, over two million years in length.
61:7.18 35,000 years ago marks the termination of the great ice age excepting
in the polar regions of the planet. This date is also significant in that it
approximates the arrival of a Material Son and Daughter and the beginning of
the Adamic dispensation, roughly corresponding to the beginning of the
Holocene or postglacial period.
61:7.19 This narrative, extending from the rise of mammalian life to the
retreat of the ice and on down to historic times, covers a span of almost
fifty million years. This is the last -- the current -- geologic period and is
known to your researchers as the Cenozoic or recent-times era.
61:7.20 Sponsored by a Resident Life Carrier.
PAPER 62
THE DAWN RACES OF EARLY MAN
62:0.1 ABOUT one million years ago the immediate ancestors of mankind made
their appearance by three successive and sudden mutations stemming from early
stock of the lemur type of placental mammal. The dominant factors of these
early lemurs were derived from the western or later American group of the
evolving life plasm. But before establishing the direct line of human
ancestry, this strain was reinforced by contributions from the central life
implantation evolved in Africa. The eastern life group contributed little or
nothing to the actual production of the human species.
1. THE EARLY LEMUR TYPES
62:1.1 The early lemurs concerned in the ancestry of the human species were
not directly related to the pre-existent tribes of gibbons and apes then
living in Eurasia and northern Africa, whose progeny have survived to the
present time. Neither were they the offspring of the modern type of lemur,
though springing from an ancestor common to both but long since extinct.
62:1.2 While these early lemurs evolved in the Western Hemisphere, the
establishment of the direct mammalian ancestry of mankind took place in
southwestern Asia, in the original area of the central life implantation but
on the borders of the eastern regions. Several million years ago the North
American type lemurs had migrated westward over the Bering land bridge and had
slowly made their way southwestward along the Asiatic coast. These migrating
tribes finally reached the salubrious region lying between the then expanded
Mediterranean Sea and the elevating mountainous regions of the Indian
peninsula. In these lands to the west of India they united with other and
favorable strains, thus establishing the ancestry of the human race.
62:1.3 With the passing of time the seacoast of India southwest of the
mountains gradually submerged, completely isolating the life of this region.
There was no avenue of approach to, or escape from, this Mesopotamian or
Persian peninsula except to the north, and that was repeatedly cut off by the
southern invasions of the glaciers. And it was in this then almost
paradisiacal area, and from the superior descendants of this lemur type of
mammal, that there sprang two great groups, the simian tribes of modern times
and the present-day human species.
2. THE DAWN MAMMALS
62:2.1 A little more than one million years ago the Mesopotamian dawn mammals,
the direct descendants of the North American lemur type of placental mammal,
suddenly appeared. They were active little creatures, almost three feet tall;
and while they did not habitually walk on their hind legs, they could easily
stand erect. They were hairy and agile and chattered in monkeylike fashion,
but unlike the simian tribes, they were flesh eaters. They had a primitive
opposable thumb as well as a highly useful grasping big toe. From this point
onward the prehuman species successively developed the opposable thumb while
they progressively lost the grasping power of the great toe. The later ape
tribes retained the grasping big toe but never developed the human type of
thumb.
62:2.2 These dawn mammals attained full growth when three or four years of
age, having a potential life span, on the average, of about twenty years. As a
rule offspring were born singly, although twins were occasional.
62:2.3 The members of this new species had the largest brains for their size
of any animal that had theretofore existed on earth. They experienced many of
the emotions and shared numerous instincts which later characterized primitive
man, being highly curious and exhibiting considerable elation when successful
at any undertaking. Food hunger and sex craving were well developed, and a
definite sex selection was manifested in a crude form of courtship and choice
of mates. They would fight fiercely in defense of their kindred and were quite
tender in family associations, possessing a sense of self-abasement bordering
on shame and remorse. They were very affectionate and touchingly loyal to
their mates, but if circumstances separated them, they would choose new
partners.
62:2.4 Being small of stature and having keen minds to realize the dangers of
their forest habitat, they developed an extraordinary fear which led to those
wise precautionary measures that so enormously contributed to survival, such
as their construction of crude shelters in the high treetops which eliminated
many of the perils of ground life. The beginning of the fear tendencies of
mankind more specifically dates from these days.
62:2.5 These dawn mammals developed more of a tribal spirit than had ever been
previously exhibited. They were, indeed, highly gregarious but nevertheless
exceedingly pugnacious when in any way disturbed in the ordinary pursuit of
their routine life, and they displayed fiery tempers when their anger was
fully aroused. Their bellicose natures, however, served a good purpose;
superior groups did not hesitate to make war on their inferior neighbors, and
thus, by selective survival, the species was progressively improved. They very
soon dominated the life of the smaller creatures of this region, and very few
of the older noncarnivorous monkeylike tribes survived.
62:2.6 These aggressive little animals multiplied and spread over the
Mesopotamian peninsula for more than one thousand years, constantly improving
in physical type and general intelligence. And it was just seventy generations
after this new tribe had taken origin from the highest type of lemur ancestor
that the next epoch-making development occurred -- the sudden differentiation
of the ancestors of the next vital step in the evolution of human beings on
Urantia.
3. THE MID-MAMMALS
62:3.1 Early in the career of the dawn mammals, in the treetop abode of a
superior pair of these agile creatures, twins were born, one male and one
female. Compared with their ancestors, they were really handsome little
creatures. They had little hair on their bodies, but this was no disability as
they lived in a warm and equable climate.
62:3.2 These children grew to be a little over four feet in height. They were
in every way larger than their parents, having longer legs and shorter arms.
They had almost perfectly opposable thumbs, just about as well adapted for
diversified work as the present human thumb. They walked upright, having feet
almost as well suited for walking as those of the later human races.
62:3.3 Their brains were inferior to, and smaller than, those of human beings
but very superior to, and comparatively much larger than, those of their
ancestors. The twins early displayed superior intelligence and were soon
recognized as the heads of the whole tribe of dawn mammals, really instituting
a primitive form of social organization and a crude economic division of
labor. This brother and sister mated and soon enjoyed the society of twenty-
one children much like themselves, all more than four feet tall and in every
way superior to the ancestral species. This new group formed the nucleus of
the mid-mammals.
62:3.4 When the numbers of this new and superior group grew great, war,
relentless war, broke out; and when the terrible struggle was over, not a
single individual of the pre-existent and ancestral race of dawn mammals
remained alive. The less numerous but more powerful and intelligent offshoot
of the species had survived at the expense of their ancestors.
62:3.5 And now, for almost fifteen thousand years (six hundred generations),
this creature became the terror of this part of the world. All of the great
and vicious animals of former times had perished. The large beasts native to
these regions were not carnivorous, and the larger species of the cat family,
lions and tigers, had not yet invaded this peculiarly sheltered nook of the
earth's surface. Therefore did these mid-mammals wax valiant and subdue the
whole of their corner of creation.
62:3.6 Compared with the ancestral species, the mid-mammals were an
improvement in every way. Even their potential life span was longer, being
about twenty-five years. A number of rudimentary human traits appeared in this
new species. In addition to the innate propensities exhibited by their
ancestors, these mid-mammals were capable of showing disgust in certain
repulsive situations. They further possessed a well-defined hoarding instinct;
they would hide food for subsequent use and were greatly given to the
collection of smooth round pebbles and certain types of round stones suitable
for defensive and offensive ammunition.
62:3.7 These mid-mammals were the first to exhibit a definite construction
propensity, as shown in their rivalry in the building of both treetop homes
and their many-tunneled subterranean retreats; they were the first species of
mammals ever to provide for safety in both arboreal and underground shelters.
They largely forsook the trees as places of abode, living on the ground during
the day and sleeping in the treetops at night.
62:3.8 As time passed, the natural increase in numbers eventually resulted in
serious food competition and sex rivalry, all of which culminated in a series
of internecine battles that nearly destroyed the entire species. These
struggles continued until only one group of less than one hundred individuals
was left alive. But peace once more prevailed, and this lone surviving tribe
built anew its treetop bedrooms and once again resumed a normal and
semipeaceful existence.
62:3.9 You can hardly realize by what narrow margins your prehuman ancestors
missed extinction from time to time. Had the ancestral frog of all humanity
jumped two inches less on a certain occasion, the whole course of evolution
would have been markedly changed. The immediate lemurlike mother of the dawn-
mammal species escaped death no less than five times by mere hairbreadth
margins before she gave birth to the father of the new and higher mammalian
order. But the closest call of all was when lightning struck the tree in which
the prospective mother of the Primates twins was sleeping. Both of these mid-
mammal parents were severely shocked and badly burned; three of their seven
children were killed by this bolt from the skies. These evolving animals were
almost superstitious. This couple whose treetop home had been struck were
really the leaders of the more progressive group of the mid-mammal species;
and following their example, more than half the tribe, embracing the more
intelligent families, moved about two miles away from this locality and began
the construction of new treetop abodes and new ground shelters -- their
transient retreats in time of sudden danger.
62:3.10 Soon after the completion of their home, this couple, veterans of so
many struggles, found themselves the proud parents of twins, the most
interesting and important animals ever to have been born into the world up to
that time, for they were the first of the new species of Primates constituting
the next vital step in prehuman evolution.
62:3.11 Contemporaneously with the birth of these Primates twins, another
couple -- a peculiarly retarded male and female of the mid-mammal tribe, a
couple that were both mentally and physically inferior -- also gave birth to
twins. These twins, one male and one female, were indifferent to conquest;
they were concerned only with obtaining food and, since they would not eat
flesh, soon lost all interest in seeking prey. These retarded twins became the
founders of the modern simian tribes. Their descendants sought the warmer
southern regions with their mild climates and an abundance of tropical fruits,
where they have continued much as of that day except for those branches which
mated with the earlier types of gibbons and apes and have greatly deteriorated
in consequence.
62:3.12 And so it may be readily seen that man and the ape are related only in
that they sprang from the mid-mammals, a tribe in which there occurred the
contemporaneous birth and subsequent segregation of two pairs of twins: the
inferior pair destined to produce the modern types of monkey, baboon,
chimpanzee, and gorilla; the superior pair destined to continue the line of
ascent which evolved into man himself.
62:3.13 Modern man and the simians did spring from the same tribe and species
but not from the same parents. Man's ancestors are descended from the superior
strains of the selected remnant of this mid-mammal tribe, whereas the modern
simians (excepting certain pre-existent types of lemurs, gibbons, apes, and
other monkeylike creatures) are the descendants of the most inferior couple of
this mid-mammal group, a couple who only survived by hiding themselves in a
subterranean food-storage retreat for more than two weeks during the last
fierce battle of their tribe, emerging only after the hostilities were well
over.
4. THE PRIMATES
62:4.1 Going back to the birth of the superior twins, one male and one female,
to the two leading members of the mid-mammal tribe: These animal babies were
of an unusual order; they had still less hair on their bodies than their
parents and, when very young, insisted on walking upright. Their ancestors had
always learned to walk on their hind legs, but these Primates twins stood
erect from the beginning. They attained a height of over five feet, and their
heads grew larger in comparison with others among the tribe. While early
learning to communicate with each other by means of signs and sounds, they
were never able to make their people understand these new symbols.
62:4.2 When about fourteen years of age, they fled from the tribe, going west
to raise their family and establish the new species of Primates. And these new
creatures are very properly denominated Primates since they were the direct
and immediate animal ancestors of the human family itself.
62:4.3 Thus it was that the Primates came to occupy a region on the west coast
of the Mesopotamian peninsula as it then projected into the southern sea,
while the less intelligent and closely related tribes lived around the
peninsula point and up the eastern shore line.
62:4.4 The Primates were more human and less animal than their mid-mammal
predecessors. The skeletal proportions of this new species were very similar
to those of the primitive human races. The human type of hand and foot had
fully developed, and these creatures could walk and even run as well as any of
their later-day human descendants. They largely abandoned tree life, though
continuing to resort to the treetops as a safety measure at night, for like
their earlier ancestors, they were greatly subject to fear. The increased use
of their hands did much to develop inherent brain power, but they did not yet
possess minds that could really be called human.
62:4.5 Although in emotional nature the Primates differed little from their
forebears, they exhibited more of a human trend in all of their propensities.
They were, indeed, splendid and superior animals, reaching maturity at about
ten years of age and having a natural life span of about forty years. That is,
they might have lived that long had they died natural deaths, but in those
early days very few animals ever died a natural death; the struggle for
existence was altogether too intense.
62:4.6 And now, after almost nine hundred generations of development, covering
about twenty-one thousand years from the origin of the dawn mammals, the
Primates suddenly gave birth to two remarkable creatures, the first true human
beings.
62:4.7 Thus it was that the dawn mammals, springing from the North American
lemur type, gave origin to the mid-mammals, and these mid-mammals in turn
produced the superior Primates, who became the immediate ancestors of the
primitive human race. The Primates tribes were the last vital link in the
evolution of man, but in less than five thousand years not a single individual
of these extraordinary tribes was left.
5. THE FIRST HUMAN BEINGS
62:5.1 From the year A.D. 1934 back to the birth of the first two human beings
is just 993,419 years.
62:5.2 These two remarkable creatures were true human beings. They possessed
perfect human thumbs, as had many of their ancestors, while they had just as
perfect feet as the present-day human races. They were walkers and runners,
not climbers; the grasping function of the big toe was absent, completely
absent. When danger drove them to the treetops, they climbed just like the
humans of today would. They would climb up the trunk of a tree like a bear and
not as would a chimpanzee or a gorilla, swinging up by the branches.
62:5.3 These first human beings (and their descendants) reached full maturity
at twelve years of age and possessed a potential life span of about seventy-
five years.
62:5.4 Many new emotions early appeared in these human twins. They experienced
admiration for both objects and other beings and exhibited considerable
vanity. But the most remarkable advance in emotional development was the
sudden appearance of a new group of really human feelings, the worshipful
group, embracing awe, reverence, humility, and even a primitive form of
gratitude. Fear, joined with ignorance of natural phenomena, is about to give
birth to primitive religion.
62:5.5 Not only were such human feelings manifested in these primitive humans,
but many more highly evolved sentiments were also present in rudimentary form.
They were mildly cognizant of pity, shame, and reproach and were acutely
conscious of love, hate, and revenge, being also susceptible to marked
feelings of jealousy.
62:5.6 These first two humans -- the twins -- were a great trial to their
Primates parents. They were so curious and adventurous that they nearly lost
their lives on numerous occasions before they were eight years old. As it was,
they were rather well scarred up by the time they were twelve.
62:5.7 Very early they learned to engage in verbal communication; by the age
of ten they had worked out an improved sign and word language of almost half a
hundred ideas and had greatly improved and expanded the crude communicative
technique of their ancestors. But try as hard as they might, they were able to
teach only a few of their new signs and symbols to their parents.
62:5.8 When about nine years of age, they journeyed off down the river one
bright day and held a momentous conference. Every celestial intelligence
stationed on Urantia, including myself, was present as an observer of the
transactions of this noontide tryst. On this eventful day they arrived at an
understanding to live with and for each other, and this was the first of a
series of such agreements which finally culminated in the decision to flee
from their inferior animal associates and to journey northward, little knowing
that they were thus to found the human race.
62:5.9 While we were all greatly concerned with what these two little savages
were planning, we were powerless to control the working of their minds; we did
not -- could not -- arbitrarily influence their decisions. But within the
permissible limits of planetary function, we, the Life Carriers, together with
our associates, all conspired to lead the human twins northward and far from
their hairy and partially tree-dwelling people. And so, by reason of their own
intelligent choice, the twins did migrate, and because of our supervision they
migrated northward to a secluded region where they escaped the possibility of
biologic degradation through admixture with their inferior relatives of the
Primates tribes.
62:5.10 Shortly before their departure from the home forests they lost their
mother in a gibbon raid. While she did not possess their intelligence, she did
have a worthy mammalian affection of a high order for her offspring, and she
fearlessly gave her life in the attempt to save the wonderful pair. Nor was
her sacrifice in vain, for she held off the enemy until the father arrived
with reinforcements and put the invaders to rout.
62:5.11 Soon after this young couple forsook their associates to found the
human race, their Primates father became disconsolate -- he was heartbroken.
He refused to eat, even when food was brought to him by his other children.
His brilliant offspring having been lost, life did not seem worth living among
his ordinary fellows; so he wandered off into the forest, was set upon by
hostile gibbons and beaten to death.
6. EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN MIND
62:6.1 We, the Life Carriers on Urantia, had passed through the long vigil of
watchful waiting since the day we first planted the life plasm in the
planetary waters, and naturally the appearance of the first really intelligent
and volitional beings brought to us great joy and supreme satisfaction.
62:6.2 We had been watching the twins develop mentally through our observation
of the functioning of the seven adjutant mind-spirits assigned to Urantia at
the time of our arrival on the planet. Throughout the long evolutionary
development of planetary life, these tireless mind ministers had ever
registered their increasing ability to contact with the successively expanding
brain capacities of the progressively superior animal creatures.
62:6.3 At first only the spirit of intuition could function in the instinctive
and reflex behavior of the primordial animal life. With the differentiation of
higher types, the spirit of understanding was able to endow such creatures
with the gift of spontaneous association of ideas. Later on we observed the
spirit of courage in operation; evolving animals really developed a crude form
of protective self-consciousness. Subsequent to the appearance of the
mammalian groups, we beheld the spirit of knowledge manifesting itself in
increased measure. And the evolution of the higher mammals brought the
function of the spirit of counsel, with the resulting growth of the herd
instinct and the beginnings of primitive social development.
62:6.4 Increasingly, on down through the dawn mammals, the mid-mammals, and
the Primates, we had observed the augmented service of the first five
adjutants. But never had the remaining two, the highest mind ministers, been
able to function in the Urantia type of evolutionary mind.
62:6.5 Imagine our joy one day -- the twins were about ten years old -- when
the spirit of worship made its first contact with the mind of the female twin
and shortly thereafter with the male. We knew that something closely akin to
human mind was approaching culmination; and when, about a year later, they
finally resolved, as a result of meditative thought and purposeful decision,
to flee from home and journey north, then did the spirit of wisdom begin to
function on Urantia and in these two now recognized human minds.
62:6.6 There was an immediate and new order of mobilization of the seven
adjutant mind-spirits. We were alive with expectation; we realized that the
long-waited-for hour was approaching; we knew we were upon the threshold of
the realization of our protracted effort to evolve will creatures on Urantia.
7. RECOGNITION AS AN INHABITED WORLD
62:7.1 We did not have to wait long. At noon, the day after the runaway of the
twins, there occurred the initial test flash of the universe circuit signals
at the planetary reception-focus of Urantia. We were, of course, all astir
with the realization that a great event was impending; but since this world
was a life-experiment station, we had not the slightest idea of just how we
would be apprised of the recognition of intelligent life on the planet. But we
were not long in suspense. On the third day after the elopement of the twins,
and before the Life Carrier corps departed, there arrived the Nebadon
archangel of initial planetary circuit establishment.
62:7.2 It was an eventful day on Urantia when our small group gathered about
the planetary pole of space communication and received the first message from
Salvington over the newly established mind circuit of the planet. And this
first message, dictated by the chief of the archangel corps, said:
62:7.3 "To the Life Carriers on Urantia -- Greetings! We transmit assurance of
great pleasure on Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem in honor of the
registration on the headquarters of Nebadon of the signal of the existence on
Urantia of mind of will dignity. The purposeful decision of the twins to flee
northward and segregate their offspring from their inferior ancestors has been
noted. This is the first decision of mind -- the human type of mind -- on
Urantia and automatically establishes the circuit of communication over which
this initial message of acknowledgment is transmitting."
62:7.4 Next over this new circuit came the greetings of the Most Highs of
Edentia, containing instructions for the resident Life Carriers forbidding us
to interfere with the pattern of life we had established. We were directed not
to intervene in the affairs of human progress. It should not be inferred that
Life Carriers ever arbitrarily and mechanically interfere with the natural
outworking of the planetary evolutionary plans, for we do not. But up to this
time we had been permitted to manipulate the environment and shield the life
plasm in a special manner, and it was this extraordinary, but wholly natural,
supervision that was to be discontinued.
62:7.5 And no sooner had the Most Highs left off speaking than the beautiful
message of Lucifer, then sovereign of the Satania system, began to planetize.
Now the Life Carriers heard the welcome words of their own chief and received
his permission to return to Jerusem. This message from Lucifer contained the
official acceptance of the Life Carriers' work on Urantia and absolved us from
all future criticism of any of our efforts to improve the life patterns of
Nebadon as established in the Satania system.
62:7.6 These messages from Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem formally marked
the termination of the Life Carriers' agelong supervision of the planet. For
ages we had been on duty, assisted only by the seven adjutant mind-spirits and
the Master Physical Controllers. And now, will, the power of choosing to
worship and to ascend, having appeared in the evolutionary creatures of the
planet, we realized that our work was finished, and our group prepared to
depart. Urantia being a life-modification world, permission was granted to
leave behind two senior Life Carriers with twelve assistants, and I was chosen
as one of this group and have ever since been on Urantia.
62:7.7 It is just 993,408 years ago (from the year A.D. 1934) that Urantia was
formally recognized as a planet of human habitation in the universe of
Nebadon. Biologic evolution had once again achieved the human levels of will
dignity; man had arrived on planet 606 of Satania.
62:7.8 Sponsored by a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.
PAPER 63
THE FIRST HUMAN FAMILY
63:0.1 URANTIA was registered as an inhabited world when the first two human
beings -- the twins -- were eleven years old, and before they had become the
parents of the first-born of the second generation of actual human beings. And
the archangel message from Salvington, on this occasion of formal planetary
recognition, closed with these words:
63:0.2 "Man-mind has appeared on 606 of Satania, and these parents of the new
race shall be called Andon and Fonta. And all archangels pray that these
creatures may speedily be endowed with the personal indwelling of the gift of
the spirit of the Universal Father."
63:0.3 Andon is the Nebadon name which signifies "the first Fatherlike
creature to exhibit human perfection hunger." Fonta signifies "the first
Sonlike creature to exhibit human perfection hunger." Andon and Fonta never
knew these names until they were bestowed upon them at the time of fusion with
their Thought Adjusters. Throughout their mortal sojourn on Urantia they
called each other Sonta-an and Sonta-en, Sonta-an meaning "loved by mother,"
Sonta-en signifying "loved by father." They gave themselves these names, and
the meanings are significant of their mutual regard and affection.
1. ANDON AND FONTA
63:1.1 In many respects, Andon and Fonta were the most remarkable pair of
human beings that have ever lived on the face of the earth. This wonderful
pair, the actual parents of all mankind, were in every way superior to many of
their immediate descendants, and they were radically different from all of
their ancestors, both immediate and remote.
63:1.2 The parents of this first human couple were apparently little different
from the average of their tribe, though they were among its more intelligent
members, that group which first learned to throw stones and to use clubs in
fighting. They also made use of sharp spicules of stone, flint, and bone.
63:1.3 While still living with his parents, Andon had fastened a sharp piece
of flint on the end of a club, using animal tendons for this purpose, and on
no less than a dozen occasions he made good use of such a weapon in saving
both his own life and that of his equally adventurous and inquisitive sister,
who unfailingly accompanied him on all of his tours of exploration.
63:1.4 The decision of Andon and Fonta to flee from the Primates tribes
implies a quality of mind far above the baser intelligence which characterized
so many of their later descendants who stooped to mate with their retarded
cousins of the simian tribes. But their vague feeling of being something more
than mere animals was due to the possession of personality and was augmented
by the indwelling presence of the Thought Adjusters.
2. THE FLIGHT OF THE TWINS
63:2.1 After Andon and Fonta had decided to flee northward, they succumbed to
their fears for a time, especially the fear of displeasing their father and
immediate family. They envisaged being set upon by hostile relatives and thus
recognized the possibility of meeting death at the hands of their already
jealous tribesmen. As youngsters, the twins had spent most of their time in
each other's company and for this reason had never been overly popular with
their animal cousins of the Primates tribe. Nor had they improved their
standing in the tribe by building a separate, and a very superior, tree home.
63:2.2 And it was in this new home among the treetops, one night after they
had been awakened by a violent storm, and as they held each other in fearful
and fond embrace, that they finally and fully made up their minds to flee from
the tribal habitat and the home treetops.
63:2.3 They had already prepared a crude treetop retreat some half-day's
journey to the north. This was their secret and safe hiding place for the
first day away from the home forests. Notwithstanding that the twins shared
the Primates' deathly fear of being on the ground at nighttime, they sallied
forth shortly before nightfall on their northern trek. While it required
unusual courage for them to undertake this night journey, even with a full
moon, they correctly concluded that they were less likely to be missed and
pursued by their tribesmen and relatives. And they safely made their
previously prepared rendezvous shortly after midnight.
63:2.4 On their northward journey they discovered an exposed flint deposit
and, finding many stones suitably shaped for various uses, gathered up a
supply for the future. In attempting to chip these flints so that they would
be better adapted for certain purposes, Andon discovered their sparking
quality and conceived the idea of building fire. But the notion did not take
firm hold of him at the time as the climate was still salubrious and there was
little need of fire.
63:2.5 But the autumn sun was getting lower in the sky, and as they journeyed
northward, the nights grew cooler and cooler. Already they had been forced to
make use of animal skins for warmth. Before they had been away from home one
moon, Andon signified to his mate that he thought he could make fire with the
flint. They tried for two months to utilize the flint spark for kindling a
fire but only met with failure. Each day this couple would strike the flints
and endeavor to ignite the wood. Finally, one evening about the time of the
setting of the sun, the secret of the technique was unraveled when it occurred
to Fonta to climb a near-by tree to secure an abandoned bird's nest. The nest
was dry and highly inflammable and consequently flared right up into a full
blaze the moment the spark fell upon it. They were so surprised and startled
at their success that they almost lost the fire, but they saved it by the
addition of suitable fuel, and then began the first search for firewood by the
parents of all mankind.
63:2.6 This was one of the most joyous moments in their short but eventful
lives. All night long they sat up watching their fire burn, vaguely realizing
that they had made a discovery which would make it possible for them to defy
climate and thus forever to be independent of their animal relatives of the
southern lands. After three days' rest and enjoyment of the fire, they
journeyed
63:2.7 The Primates ancestors of Andon had often replenished fire which had
been kindled by lightning, but never before had the creatures of earth
possessed a method of starting fire at will. But it was a long time before the
twins learned that dry moss and other materials would kindle fire just as well
as birds' nests.
3. ANDON'S FAMILY
63:3.1 It was almost two years from the night of the twins' departure from
home before their first child was born. They named him Sontad; and Sontad was
the first creature to be born on Urantia who was wrapped in protective
coverings at the time of birth. The human race had begun, and with this new
evolution there appeared the instinct properly to care for the increasingly
enfeebled infants which would characterize the progressive development of mind
of the intellectual order as contrasted with the more purely animal type.
63:3.2 Andon and Fonta had nineteen children in all, and they lived to enjoy
the association of almost half a hundred grandchildren and half a dozen great-
grandchildren. The family was domiciled in four adjoining rock shelters, or
semicaves, three of which were interconnected by hallways which had been
excavated in the soft limestone with flint tools devised by Andon's children.
63:3.3 These early Andonites evinced a very marked clannish spirit; they
hunted in groups and never strayed very far from the homesite. They seemed to
realize that they were an isolated and unique group of living beings and
should therefore avoid becoming separated. This feeling of intimate kinship
was undoubtedly due to the enhanced mind ministry of the adjutant spirits.
63:3.4 Andon and Fonta labored incessantly for the nurture and uplift of the
clan. They lived to the age of forty-two, when both were killed at the time of
an earthquake by the falling of an overhanging rock. Five of their children
and eleven grandchildren perished with them, and almost a score of their
descendants suffered serious injuries.
63:3.5 Upon the death of his parents, Sontad, despite a seriously injured
foot, immediately assumed the leadership of the clan and was ably assisted by
his wife, his eldest sister. Their first task was to roll up stones to
effectively entomb their dead parents, brothers, sisters, and children. Undue
significance should not attach to this act of burial. Their ideas of survival
after death were very vague and indefinite, being largely derived from their
fantastic and variegated dream life.
63:3.6 This family of Andon and Fonta held together until the twentieth
generation, when combined food competition and social friction brought about
the beginning of dispersion.
4. THE ANDONIC CLANS
63:4.1 Primitive man -- the Andonites -- had black eyes and a swarthy
complexion, something of a cross between yellow and red. Melanin is a coloring
substance which is found in the skins of all human beings. It is the original
Andonic skin pigment. In general appearance and skin color these early
Andonites more nearly resembled the present-day Eskimo than any other type of
living human beings. They were the first creatures to use the skins of animals
as a protection against cold; they had little more hair on their bodies than
present-day humans.
63:4.2 The tribal life of the animal ancestors of these early men had
foreshadowed the beginnings of numerous social conventions, and with the
expanding emotions and augmented brain powers of these beings, there was an
immediate development in social organization and a new division of clan labor.
They were exceedingly imitative, but the play instinct was only slightly
developed, and the sense of humor was almost entirely absent. Primitive man
smiled occasionally, but he never indulged in hearty laughter. Humor was the
legacy of the later Adamic race. These early human beings were not so
sensitive to pain nor so reactive to unpleasant situations as were many of the
later evolving mortals. Childbirth was not a painful or distressing ordeal to
Fonta and her immediate progeny.
63:4.3 They were a wonderful tribe. The males would fight heroically for the
safety of their mates and their offspring; the females were affectionately
devoted to their children. But their patriotism was wholly limited to the
immediate clan. They were very loyal to their families; they would die without
question in defense of their children, but they were not able to grasp the
idea of trying to make the world a better place for their grandchildren.
Altruism was as yet unborn in the human heart, notwithstanding that all of the
emotions essential to the birth of religion were already present in these
Urantia aborigines.
63:4.4 These early men possessed a touching affection for their comrades and
certainly had a real, although crude, idea of friendship. It was a common
sight in later times, during their constantly recurring battles with the
inferior tribes, to see one of these primitive men valiantly fighting with one
hand while he struggled on, trying to protect and save an injured fellow
warrior. Many of the most noble and highly human traits of subsequent
evolutionary development were touchingly foreshadowed in these primitive
peoples.
63:4.5 The original Andonic clan maintained an unbroken line of leadership
until the twenty-seventh generation, when, no male offspring appearing among
Sontad's direct descendants, two rival would-be rulers of the clan fell to
fighting for supremacy.
63:4.6 Before the extensive dispersion of the Andonic clans a well-developed
language had evolved from their early efforts to intercommunicate. This
language continued to grow, and almost daily additions were made to it because
of the new inventions and adaptations to environment which were developed by
these active, restless, and curious people. And this language became the word
of Urantia, the tongue of the early human family, until the later appearance
of the colored races.
63:4.7 As time passed, the Andonic clans grew in number, and the contact of
the expanding families developed friction and misunderstandings. Only two
things came to occupy the minds of these peoples: hunting to obtain food and
fighting to avenge themselves against some real or supposed injustice or
insult at the hands of the neighboring tribes.
63:4.8 Family feuds increased, tribal wars broke out, and serious losses were
sustained among the very best elements of the more able and advanced groups.
Some of these losses were irreparable; some of the most valuable strains of
ability and intelligence were forever lost to the world. This early race and
its primitive civilization were threatened with extinction by this incessant
warfare of the clans.
63:4.9 It is impossible to induce such primitive beings long to live together
in peace. Man is the descendant of fighting animals, and when closely
associated, uncultured people irritate and offend each other. The Life
Carriers know this tendency among evolutionary creatures and accordingly make
provision for the eventual separation of developing human beings into at least
three, and more often six, distinct and separate races.
5. DISPERSION OF THE ANDONITES
63:5.1 The early Andon races did not penetrate very far into Asia, and they
did not at first enter Africa. The geography of those times pointed them
north, and farther and farther north these people journeyed until they were
hindered by the slowly advancing ice of the third glacier.
63:5.2 Before this extensive ice sheet reached France and the British Isles,
the descendants of Andon and Fonta had pushed on westward over Europe and had
established more than one thousand separate settlements along the great rivers
leading to the then warm waters of the North Sea.
63:5.3 These Andonic tribes were the early river dwellers of France; they
lived along the river Somme for tens of thousands of years. The Somme is the
one river unchanged by the glaciers, running down to the sea in those days
much as it does today. And that explains why so much evidence of the Andonic
descendants is found along the course of this river valley.
63:5.4 These aborigines of Urantia were not tree dwellers, though in
emergencies they still betook themselves to the treetops. They regularly dwelt
under the shelter of overhanging cliffs along the rivers and in hillside
grottoes which afforded a good view of the approaches and sheltered them from
the elements. They could thus enjoy the comfort of their fires without being
too much inconvenienced by the smoke. They were not really cave dwellers
either, though in subsequent times the later ice sheets came farther south and
drove their descendants to the caves. They preferred to camp near the edge of
a forest and beside a stream.
63:5.5 They very early became remarkably clever in disguising their partially
sheltered abodes and showed great skill in constructing stone sleeping
chambers, dome-shaped stone huts, into which they crawled at night. The
entrance to such a hut was closed by rolling a stone in front of it, a large
stone which had been placed inside for this purpose before the roof stones
were finally put in place.
63:5.6 The Andonites were fearless and successful hunters and, with the
exception of wild berries and certain fruits of the trees, lived exclusively
on flesh. As Andon had invented the stone ax, so his descendants early
discovered and made effective use of the throwing stick and the harpoon. At
last a tool-creating mind was functioning in conjunction with an implement-
using hand, and these early humans became highly skillful in the fashioning of
flint tools. They traveled far and wide in search of flint, much as present-
day humans journey to the ends of the earth in quest of gold, platinum, and
diamonds.
63:5.7 And in many other ways these Andon tribes manifested a degree of
intelligence which their retrogressing descendants did not attain in half a
million years, though they did again and again rediscover various methods of
kindling fire.
6. ONAGAR -- THE FIRST TRUTH TEACHER
63:6.1 As the Andonic dispersion extended, the cultural and spiritual status
of the clans retrogressed for nearly ten thousand years until the days of
Onagar, who assumed the leadership of these tribes, brought peace among them,
and for the first time, led all of them in the worship of the "Breath Giver to
men and animals."
63:6.2 Andon's philosophy had been most confused; he had barely escaped
becoming a fire worshiper because of the great comfort derived from his
accidental discovery of fire. Reason, however, directed him from his own
discovery to the sun as a superior and more awe-inspiring source of heat and
light, but it was too remote, and so he failed to become a sun worshiper.
63:6.3 The Andonites early developed a fear of the elements -- thunder,
lightning, rain, snow, hail, and ice. But hunger was the constantly recurring
urge of these early days, and since they largely subsisted on animals, they
eventually evolved a form of animal worship. To Andon, the larger food animals
were symbols of creative might and sustaining power. From time to time it
became the custom to designate various of these larger animals as objects of
worship. During the vogue of a particular animal, crude outlines of it would
be drawn on the walls of the caves, and later on, as continued progress was
made in the arts, such an animal god was engraved on various ornaments.
63:6.4 Very early the Andonic peoples formed the habit of refraining from
eating the flesh of the animal of tribal veneration. Presently, in order more
suitably to impress the minds of their youths, they evolved a ceremony of
reverence which was carried out about the body of one of these venerated
animals; and still later on, this primitive performance developed into the
more elaborate sacrificial ceremonies of their descendants. And this is the
origin of sacrifices as a part of worship. This idea was elaborated by Moses
in the Hebrew ritual and was preserved, in principle, by the Apostle Paul as
the doctrine of atonement for sin by "the shedding of blood."
63:6.5 That food was the all-important thing in the lives of these primitive
human beings is shown by the prayer taught these simple folks by Onagar, their
great teacher. And this prayer was:
63:6.6 "O Breath of Life, give us this day our daily food, deliver us from the
curse of the ice, save us from our forest enemies, and with mercy receive us
into the Great Beyond."
63:6.7 Onagar maintained headquarters on the northern shores of the ancient
Mediterranean in the region of the present Caspian Sea at a settlement called
Oban, the tarrying place on the westward turning of the travel trail leading
up northward from the Mesopotamian southland. From Oban he sent out teachers
to the remote settlements to spread his new doctrines of one Deity and his
concept of the hereafter, which he called the Great Beyond. These emissaries
of Onagar were the world's first missionaries; they were also the first human
beings to cook meat, the first regularly to use fire in the preparation of
food. They cooked flesh on the ends of sticks and also on hot stones; later on
they roasted large pieces in the fire, but their descendants almost entirely
reverted to the use of raw flesh.
63:6.8 Onagar was born 983,323 years ago (from A.D. 1934), and he lived to be
sixty-nine years of age. The record of the achievements of this master mind
and spiritual leader of the pre-Planetary Prince days is a thrilling recital
of the organization of these primitive peoples into a real society. He
instituted an efficient tribal government, the like of which was not attained
by succeeding generations in many millenniums. Never again, until the arrival
of the Planetary Prince, was there such a high spiritual civilization on
earth. These simple people had a real though primitive religion, but it was
subsequently lost to their deteriorating descendants.
63:6.9 Although both Andon and Fonta had received Thought Adjusters, as had
many of their descendants, it was not until the days of Onagar that the
Adjusters and guardian seraphim came in great numbers to Urantia. This was,
indeed, the golden age of primitive man.
7. THE SURVIVAL OF ANDON AND FONTA
63:7.1 Andon and Fonta, the splendid founders of the human race, received
recognition at the time of the adjudication of Urantia upon the arrival of the
Planetary Prince, and in due time they emerged from the regime of the mansion
worlds with citizenship status on Jerusem. Although they have never been
permitted to return to Urantia, they are cognizant of the history of the race
they founded. They grieved over the Caligastia betrayal, sorrowed because of
the Adamic failure, but rejoiced exceedingly when announcement was received
that Michael had selected their world as the theater for his final bestowal.
63:7.2 On Jerusem both Andon and Fonta were fused with their Thought
Adjusters, as also were several of their children, including Sontad, but the
majority of even their immediate descendants only achieved Spirit fusion.
63:7.3 Andon and Fonta, shortly after their arrival on Jerusem, received
permission from the System Sovereign to return to the first mansion world to
serve with the morontia personalities who welcome the pilgrims of time from
Urantia to the heavenly spheres. And they have been assigned indefinitely to
this service. They sought to send greetings to Urantia in connection with
these revelations, but this request was wisely denied them.
63:7.4 And this is the recital of the most heroic and fascinating chapter in
all the history of Urantia, the story of the evolution, life struggles, death,
and eternal survival of the unique parents of all mankind.
63:7.5 Presented by a Life Carrier resident on Urantia.
PAPER 64
THE EVOLUTIONARY RACES OF COLOR
64:0.1 THIS is the story of the evolutionary races of Urantia from the days of
Andon and Fonta, almost one million years ago, down through the times of the
Planetary Prince to the end of the ice age.
64:0.2 The human race is almost one million years old, and the first half of
its story roughly corresponds to the pre-Planetary Prince days of Urantia. The
latter half of the history of mankind begins at the time of the arrival of the
Planetary Prince and the appearance of the six colored races and roughly
corresponds to the period commonly regarded as the Old Stone Age.
1. THE ANDONIC ABORIGINES
64:1.1 Primitive man made his evolutionary appearance on earth a little less
than one million years ago, and he had a vigorous experience. He instinctively
sought to escape the danger of mingling with the inferior simian tribes. But
he could not migrate eastward because of the arid Tibetan land elevations,
30,000 feet above sea level; neither could he go south nor west because of the
expanded Mediterranean Sea, which then extended eastward to the Indian Ocean;
and as he went north, he encountered the advancing ice. But even when further
migration was blocked by the ice, and though the dispersing tribes became
increasingly hostile, the more intelligent groups never entertained the idea
of going southward to live among their hairy tree-dwelling cousins of inferior
intellect.
64:1.2 Many of man's earliest religious emotions grew out of his feeling of
helplessness in the shut-in environment of this geographic situation --
mountains to the right, water to the left, and ice in front. But these
progressive Andonites would not turn back to their inferior tree-dwelling
relatives in the south.
64:1.3 These Andonites avoided the forests in contrast with the habits of
their nonhuman relatives. In the forests man has always deteriorated; human
evolution has made progress only in the open and in the higher latitudes. The
cold and hunger of the open lands stimulate action, invention, and
resourcefulness. While these Andonic tribes were developing the pioneers of
the present human race amidst the hardships and privations of these rugged
northern climes, their backward cousins were luxuriating in the southern
tropical forests of the land of their early common origin.
64:1.4 These events occurred during the times of the third glacier, the first
according to the reckoning of geologists. The first two glaciers were not
extensive in northern Europe.
64:1.5 During most of the ice age England was connected by land with France,
while later on Africa was joined to Europe by the Sicilian land bridge. At the
time of the Andonic migrations there was a continuous land path from England
in the west on through Europe and Asia to Java in the east; but Australia was
again isolated, which further accentuated the development of its own peculiar
fauna.
64:1.6 950,000 years ago the descendants of Andon and Fonta had migrated far
to the east and to the west. To the west they passed over Europe to France and
England. In later times they penetrated eastward as far as Java, where their
bones were so recently found -- the so-called Java man -- and then journeyed
on to Tasmania.
64:1.7 The groups going west became less contaminated with the backward stocks
of mutual ancestral origin than those going east, who mingled so freely with
their retarded animal cousins. These unprogressive individuals drifted
southward and presently mated with the inferior tribes. Later on, increasing
numbers of their mongrel descendants returned to the north to mate with the
rapidly expanding Andonic peoples, and such unfortunate unions unfailingly
deteriorated the superior stock. Fewer and fewer of the primitive settlements
maintained the worship of the Breath Giver. This early dawn civilization was
threatened with extinction.
64:1.8 And thus it has ever been on Urantia. Civilizations of great promise
have successively deteriorated and have finally been extinguished by the folly
of allowing the superior freely to procreate with the inferior.
2. THE FOXHALL PEOPLES
64:2.1 900,000 years ago the arts of Andon and Fonta and the culture of Onagar
were vanishing from the face of the earth; culture, religion, and even
flintworking were at their lowest ebb.
64:2.2 These were the times when large numbers of inferior mongrel groups were
arriving in England from southern France. These tribes were so largely mixed
with the forest apelike creatures that they were scarcely human. They had no
religion but were crude flintworkers and possessed sufficient intelligence to
kindle fire.
64:2.3 They were followed in Europe by a somewhat superior and prolific
people, whose descendants soon spread over the entire continent from the ice
in the north to the Alps and Mediterranean in the south. These tribes are the
so-called Heidelberg race.
64:2.4 During this long period of cultural decadence the Foxhall peoples of
England and the Badonan tribes northwest of India continued to hold on to some
of the traditions of Andon and certain remnants of the culture of Onagar.
64:2.5 The Foxhall peoples were farthest west and succeeded in retaining much
of the Andonic culture; they also preserved their knowledge of flintworking,
which they transmitted to their descendants, the ancient ancestors of the
Eskimos.
64:2.6 Though the remains of the Foxhall peoples were the last to be
discovered in England, these Andonites were really the first human beings to
live in those regions. At that time the land bridge still connected France
with England; and since most of the early settlements of the Andon descendants
were located along the rivers and seashores of that early day, they are now
under the waters of the English Channel and the North Sea, but some three or
four are still above water on the English coast.
64:2.7 Many of the more intelligent and spiritual of the Foxhall peoples
maintained their racial superiority and perpetuated their primitive religious
customs. And these people, as they were later admixed with subsequent stocks,
journeyed on west from England after a later ice visitation and have survived
as the present-day Eskimos.
3. THE BADONAN TRIBES
64:3.1 Besides the Foxhall peoples in the west, another struggling center of
culture persisted in the east. This group was located in the foothills of the
northwestern Indian highlands among the tribes of Badonan, a great-great-
grandson of Andon. These people were the only descendants of Andon who never
practiced human sacrifice.
64:3.2 These highland Badonites occupied an extensive plateau surrounded by
forests, traversed by streams, and abounding in game. Like some of their
cousins in Tibet, they lived in crude stone huts, hillside grottoes, and
semiunderground passages.
64:3.3 While the tribes of the north grew more and more to fear the ice, those
living near the homeland of their origin became exceedingly fearful of the
water. They observed the Mesopotamian peninsula gradually sinking into the
ocean, and though it emerged several times, the traditions of these primitive
races grew up around the dangers of the sea and the fear of periodic
engulfment. And this fear, together with their experience with river floods,
explains why they sought out the highlands as a safe place in which to live.
64:3.4 To the east of the Badonan peoples, in the Siwalik Hills of northern
India, may be found fossils that approach nearer to transition types between
man and the various prehuman groups than any others on earth.
64:3.5 850,000 years ago the superior Badonan tribes began a warfare of
extermination directed against their inferior and animalistic neighbors. In
less than one thousand years most of the borderland animal groups of these
regions had been either destroyed or driven back to the southern forests. This
campaign for the extermination of inferiors brought about a slight improvement
in the hill tribes of that age. And the mixed descendants of this improved
Badonite stock appeared on the stage of action as an apparently new people --
the Neanderthal race.
4. THE NEANDERTHAL RACES
64:4.1 The Neanderthalers were excellent fighters, and they traveled
extensively. They gradually spread from the highland centers in northwest
India to France on the west, China on the east, and even down into northern
Africa. They dominated the world for almost half a million years until the
times of the migration of the evolutionary races of color.
64:4.2 800,000 years ago game was abundant; many species of deer, as well as
elephants and hippopotamuses, roamed over Europe. Cattle were plentiful;
horses and wolves were everywhere. The Neanderthalers were great hunters, and
the tribes in France were the first to adopt the practice of giving the most
successful hunters the choice of women for wives.
64:4.3 The reindeer was highly useful to these Neanderthal peoples, serving as
food, clothing, and for tools, since they made various uses of the horns and
bones. They had little culture, but they greatly improved the work in flint
until it almost reached the levels of the days of Andon. Large flints attached
to wooden handles came back into use and served as axes and picks.
64:4.4 750,000 years ago the fourth ice sheet was well on its way south. With
their improved implements the Neanderthalers made holes in the ice covering
the northern rivers and thus were able to spear the fish which came up to
these vents. Ever these tribes retreated before the advancing ice, which at
this time made its most extensive invasion of Europe.
64:4.5 In these times the Siberian glacier was making its southernmost march,
compelling early man to move southward, back toward the lands of his origin.
But the human species had so differentiated that the danger of further
mingling with its nonprogressive simian relatives was greatly lessened.
64:4.6 700,000 years ago the fourth glacier, the greatest of all in Europe,
was in recession; men and animals were returning north. The climate was cool
and moist, and primitive man again thrived in Europe and western Asia.
Gradually the forests spread north over land which had been so recently
covered by the glacier.
64:4.7 Mammalian life had been little changed by the great glacier. These
animals persisted in that narrow belt of land lying between the ice and the
Alps and, upon the retreat of the glacier, again rapidly spread out over all
Europe. There arrived from Africa, over the Sicilian land bridge, straight-
tusked elephants, broad-nosed rhinoceroses, hyenas, and African lions, and
these new animals virtually exterminated the saber-toothed tigers and the
hippopotamuses.
64:4.8 650,000 years ago witnessed the continuation of the mild climate. By
the middle of the interglacial period it had become so warm that the Alps were
almost denuded of ice and snow.
64:4.9 600,000 years ago the ice had reached its then northernmost point of
retreat and, after a pause of a few thousand years, started south again on its
fifth excursion. But there was little modification of climate for fifty
thousand years. Man and the animals of Europe were little changed. The slight
aridity of the former period lessened, and the alpine glaciers descended far
down the river valleys.
64:4.10 550,000 years ago the advancing glacier again pushed man and the
animals south. But this time man had plenty of room in the wide belt of land
stretching northeast into Asia and lying between the ice sheet and the then
greatly expanded Black Sea extension of the Mediterranean.
64:4.11 These times of the fourth and fifth glaciers witnessed the further
spread of the crude culture of the Neanderthal races. But there was so little
progress that it truly appeared as though the attempt to produce a new and
modified type of intelligent life on Urantia was about to fail. For almost a
quarter of a million years these primitive peoples drifted on, hunting and
fighting, by spells improving in certain directions, but, on the whole,
steadily retrogressing as compared with their superior Andonic ancestors.
64:4.12 During these spiritually dark ages the culture of superstitious
mankind reached its lowest levels. The Neanderthalers really had no religion
beyond a shameful superstition. They were deathly afraid of clouds, more
especially of mists and fogs. A primitive religion of the fear of natural
forces gradually developed, while animal worship declined as improvement in
tools, with abundance of game, enabled these people to live with lessened
anxiety about food; the sex rewards of the chase tended greatly to improve
hunting skill. This new religion of fear led to attempts to placate the
invisible forces behind these natural elements and culminated, later on, in
the sacrificing of humans to appease these invisible and unknown physical
forces. And this terrible practice of human sacrifice has been perpetuated by
the more backward peoples of Urantia right on down to the twentieth century.
64:4.13 These early Neanderthalers could hardly be called sun worshipers. They
rather lived in fear of the dark; they had a mortal dread of nightfall. As
long as the moon shone a little, they managed to get along, but in the dark of
the moon they grew panicky and began the sacrifice of their best specimens of
manhood and womanhood in an effort to induce the moon again to shine. The sun,
they early learned, would regularly return, but the moon they conjectured only
returned because they sacrificed their fellow tribesmen. As the race advanced,
the object and purpose of sacrifice progressively changed, but the offering of
human sacrifice as a part of religious ceremonial long persisted.
5. ORIGIN OF THE COLORED RACES
64:5.1 500,000 years ago the Badonan tribes of the northwestern highlands of
India became involved in another great racial struggle. For more than one
hundred years this relentless warfare raged, and when the long fight was
finished, only about one hundred families were left. But these survivors were
the most intelligent and desirable of all the then living descendants of Andon
and Fonta.
64:5.2 And now, among these highland Badonites there was a new and strange
occurrence. A man and woman living in the northeastern part of the then
inhabited highland region began suddenly to produce a family of unusually
intelligent children. This was the Sangik family, the ancestors of all of the
six colored races of Urantia.
64:5.3 These Sangik children, nineteen in number, were not only intelligent
above their fellows, but their skins manifested a unique tendency to turn
various colors upon exposure to sunlight. Among these nineteen children were
five red, two orange, four yellow, two green, four blue, and two indigo. These
colors became more pronounced as the children grew older, and when these
youths later mated with their fellow tribesmen, all of their offspring tended
toward the skin color of the Sangik parent.
64:5.4 And now I interrupt the chronological narrative, after calling
attention to the arrival of the Planetary Prince at about this time, while we
separately consider the six Sangik races of Urantia.
6. THE SIX SANGIK RACES OF URANTIA
64:6.1 On an average evolutionary planet the six evolutionary races of color
appear one by one; the red man is the first to evolve, and for ages he roams
the world before the succeeding colored races make their appearance. The
simultaneous emergence of all six races on Urantia, and in one family, was
most unusual.
64:6.2 The appearance of the earlier Andonites on Urantia was also something
new in Satania. On no other world in the local system has such a race of will
creatures evolved in advance of the evolutionary races of color.
64:6.3 1. The red man. These peoples were remarkable specimens of the human
race, in many ways superior to Andon and Fonta. They were a most intelligent
group and were the first of the Sangik children to develop a tribal
civilization and government. They were always monogamous; even their mixed
descendants seldom practiced plural mating.
64:6.4 In later times they had serious and prolonged trouble with their yellow
brethren in Asia. They were aided by their early invention of the bow and
arrow, but they had unfortunately inherited much of the tendency of their
ancestors to fight among themselves, and this so weakened them that the yellow
tribes were able to drive them off the Asiatic continent.
64:6.5 About eighty-five thousand years ago the comparatively pure remnants of
the red race went en masse across to North America, and shortly thereafter the
Bering land isthmus sank, thus isolating them. No red man ever returned to
Asia. But throughout Siberia, China, central Asia, India, and Europe they left
behind much of their stock blended with the other colored races.
64:6.6 When the red man crossed over into America, he brought along much of
the teachings and traditions of his early origin. His immediate ancestors had
been in touch with the later activities of the world headquarters of the
Planetary Prince. But in a short time after reaching the Americas, the red men
began to lose sight of these teachings, and there occurred a great decline in
intellectual and spiritual culture. Very soon these people again fell to
fighting so fiercely among themselves that it appeared that these tribal wars
would result in the speedy extinction of this remnant of the comparatively
pure red race.
64:6.7 Because of this great retrogression the red men seemed doomed when,
about sixty-five thousand years ago, Onamonalonton appeared as their leader
and spiritual deliverer. He brought temporary peace among the American red men
and revived their worship of the "Great Spirit." Onamonalonton lived to be
ninety-six years of age and maintained his headquarters among the great
redwood trees of California. Many of his later descendants have come down to
modern times among the Blackfoot Indians.
64:6.8 As time passed, the teachings of Onamonalonton became hazy traditions.
Internecine wars were resumed, and never after the days of this great teacher
did another leader succeed in bringing universal peace among them.
Increasingly the more intelligent strains perished in these tribal struggles;
otherwise a great civilization would have been built upon the North American
continent by these able and intelligent red men.
64:6.9 After crossing over to America from China, the northern red man never
again came in contact with other world influences (except the Eskimo) until he
was later discovered by the white man. It was most unfortunate that the red
man almost completely missed his opportunity of being upstepped by the
admixture of the later Adamic stock. As it was, the red man could not rule the
white man, and he would not willingly serve him. In such a circumstance, if
the two races do not blend, one or the other is doomed.
64:6.10 2. The orange man. The outstanding characteristic of this race was
their peculiar urge to build, to build anything and everything, even to the
piling up of vast mounds of stone just to see which tribe could build the
largest mound. Though they were not a progressive people, they profited much
from the schools of the Prince and sent delegates there for instruction.
64:6.11 The orange race was the first to follow the coast line southward
toward Africa as the Mediterranean Sea withdrew to the west. But they never
secured a favorable footing in Africa and were wiped out of existence by the
later arriving green race.
64:6.12 Before the end came, this people lost much cultural and spiritual
ground. But there was a great revival of higher living as a result of the wise
leadership of Porshunta, the master mind of this unfortunate race, who
ministered to them when their headquarters was at Armageddon some three
hundred thousand years ago.
64:6.13 The last great struggle between the orange and the green men occurred
in the region of the lower Nile valley in Egypt. This long-drawn-out battle
was waged for almost one hundred years, and at its close very few of the
orange race were left alive. The shattered remnants of these people were
absorbed by the green and by the later arriving indigo men. But as a race the
orange man ceased to exist about one hundred thousand years ago.
64:6.14 3. The yellow man. The primitive yellow tribes were the first to
abandon the chase, establish settled communities, and develop a home life
based on agriculture. Intellectually they were somewhat inferior to the red
man, but socially and collectively they proved themselves superior to all of
the Sangik peoples in the matter of fostering racial civilization. Because
they developed a fraternal spirit, the various tribes learning to live
together in relative peace, they were able to drive the red race before them
as they gradually expanded into Asia.
64:6.15 They traveled far from the influences of the spiritual headquarters of
the world and drifted into great darkness following the Caligastia apostasy;
but there occurred one brilliant age among this people when Singlangton, about
one hundred thousand years ago, assumed the leadership of these tribes and
proclaimed the worship of the "One Truth."
64:6.16 The survival of comparatively large numbers of the yellow race is due
to their intertribal peacefulness. From the days of Singlangton to the times
of modern China, the yellow race has been numbered among the more peaceful of
the nations of Urantia. This race received a small but potent legacy of the
later imported Adamic stock.
64:6.17 4. The green man. The green race was one of the less able groups of
primitive men, and they were greatly weakened by extensive migrations in
different directions. Before their dispersion these tribes experienced a great
revival of culture under the leadership of Fantad, some three hundred and
fifty thousand years ago.
64:6.18 The green race split into three major divisions: The northern tribes
were subdued, enslaved, and absorbed by the yellow and blue races. The eastern
group were amalgamated with the Indian peoples of those days, and remnants
still persist among them. The southern nation entered Africa, where they
destroyed their almost equally inferior orange cousins.
64:6.19 In many ways both groups were evenly matched in this struggle since
each carried strains of the giant order, many of their leaders being eight and
nine feet in height. These giant strains of the green man were mostly confined
to this southern or Egyptian nation.
64:6.20 The remnants of the victorious green men were subsequently absorbed by
the indigo race, the last of the colored peoples to develop and emigrate from
the original Sangik center of race dispersion.
64:6.21 5. The blue man. The blue men were a great people. They early invented
the spear and subsequently worked out the rudiments of many of the arts of
modern civilization. The blue man had the brain power of the red man
associated with the soul and sentiment of the yellow man. The Adamic
descendants preferred them to all of the later persisting colored races.
64:6.22 The early blue men were responsive to the persuasions of the teachers
of Prince Caligastia's staff and were thrown into great confusion by the
subsequent perverted teachings of those traitorous leaders. Like other
primitive races they never fully recovered from the turmoil produced by the
Caligastia betrayal, nor did they ever completely overcome their tendency to
fight among themselves.
64:6.23 About five hundred years after Caligastia's downfall a widespread
revival of learning and religion of a primitive sort -- but none the less real
and beneficial -- occurred. Orlandof became a great teacher among the blue
race and led many of the tribes back to the worship of the true God under the
name of the "Supreme Chief." This was the greatest advance of the blue man
until those later times when this race was so greatly upstepped by the
admixture of the Adamic stock.
64:6.24 The European researches and explorations of the Old Stone Age have
largely to do with unearthing the tools, bones, and artcraft of these ancient
blue men, for they persisted in Europe until recent times. The so-called white
races of Urantia are the descendants of these blue men as they were first
modified by slight mixture with yellow and red, and as they were later greatly
upstepped by assimilating the greater portion of the violet race.
64:6.25 6. The indigo race. As the red men were the most advanced of all the
Sangik peoples, so the black men were the least progressive. They were the
last to migrate from their highland homes. They journeyed to Africa, taking
possession of the continent, and have ever since remained there except when
they have been forcibly taken away, from age to age, as slaves.
64:6.26 Isolated in Africa, the indigo peoples, like the red man, received
little or none of the race elevation which would have been derived from the
infusion of the Adamic stock. Alone in Africa, the indigo race made little
advancement until the days of Orvonon, when they experienced a great spiritual
awakening. While they later almost entirely forgot the "God of Gods"
proclaimed by Orvonon, they did not entirely lose the desire to worship the
Unknown; at least they maintained a form of worship up to a few thousand years
ago.
64:6.27 Notwithstanding their backwardness, these indigo peoples have exactly
the same standing before the celestial powers as any other earthly race.
64:6.28 These were ages of intense struggles between the various races, but
near the headquarters of the Planetary Prince the more enlightened and more
recently taught groups lived together in comparative harmony, though no great
cultural conquest of the world races had been achieved up to the time of the
serious disruption of this regime by the outbreak of the Lucifer rebellion.
64:6.29 From time to time all of these different peoples experienced cultural
and spiritual revivals. Mansant was a great teacher of the post-Planetary
Prince days. But mention is made only of those outstanding leaders and
teachers who markedly influenced and inspired a whole race. With the passing
of time, many lesser teachers arose in different regions; and in the aggregate
they contributed much to the sum total of those saving influences which
prevented the total collapse of cultural civilization, especially during the
long and dark ages between the Caligastia rebellion and the arrival of Adam.
64:6.30 There are many good and sufficient reasons for the plan of evolving
either three or six colored races on the worlds of space. Though Urantia
mortals may not be in a position fully to appreciate all of these reasons, we
would call attention to the following:
64:6.31 1. Variety is indispensable to opportunity for the wide functioning of
natural selection, differential survival of superior strains.
64:6.32 2. Stronger and better races are to be had from the interbreeding of
diverse peoples when these different races are carriers of superior
inheritance factors. And the Urantia races would have benefited by such an
early amalgamation provided such a conjoint people could have been
subsequently effectively upstepped by a thoroughgoing admixture with the
superior Adamic stock. The attempt to execute such an experiment on Urantia
under present racial conditions would be highly disastrous.
64:6.33 3. Competition is healthfully stimulated by diversification of races.
64:6.34 4. Differences in status of the races and of groups within each race
are essential to the development of human tolerance and altruism.
64:6.35 5. Homogeneity of the human race is not desirable until the peoples of
an evolving world attain comparatively high levels of spiritual development.
7. DISPERSION OF THE COLORED RACES
64:7.1 When the colored descendants of the Sangik family began to multiply,
and as they sought opportunity for expansion into adjacent territory, the
fifth glacier, the third of geologic count, was well advanced on its southern
drift over Europe and Asia. These early colored races were extraordinarily
tested by the rigors and hardships of the glacial age of their origin. This
glacier was so extensive in Asia that for thousands of years migration to
eastern Asia was cut off. And not until the later retreat of the Mediterranean
Sea, consequent upon the elevation of Arabia, was it possible for them to
reach Africa.
64:7.2 Thus it was that for almost one hundred thousand years these Sangik
peoples spread out around the foothills and mingled together more or less,
notwithstanding the peculiar but natural antipathy which early manifested
itself between the different races.
64:7.3 Between the times of the Planetary Prince and Adam, India became the
home of the most cosmopolitan population ever to be found on the face of the
earth. But it was unfortunate that this mixture came to contain so much of the
green, orange, and indigo races. These secondary Sangik peoples found
existence more easy and agreeable in the southlands, and many of them
subsequently migrated to Africa. The primary Sangik peoples, the superior
races, avoided the tropics, the red man going northeast to Asia, closely
followed by the yellow man, while the blue race moved northwest into Europe.
64:7.4 The red men early began to migrate to the northeast, on the heels of
the retreating ice, passing around the highlands of India and occupying all of
northeastern Asia. They were closely followed by the yellow tribes, who
subsequently drove them out of Asia into North America.
64:7.5 When the relatively pure-line remnants of the red race forsook Asia,
there were eleven tribes, and they numbered a little over seven thousand men,
women, and children. These tribes were accompanied by three small groups of
mixed ancestry, the largest of these being a combination of the orange and
blue races. These three groups never fully fraternized with the red man and
early journeyed southward to Mexico and Central America, where they were later
joined by a small group of mixed yellows and reds. These peoples all
intermarried and founded a new and amalgamated race, one which was much less
warlike than the pure-line red men. Within five thousand years this
amalgamated race broke up into three groups, establishing the civilizations
respectively of Mexico, Central America, and South America. The South American
offshoot did receive a faint touch of the blood of Adam.
64:7.6 To a certain extent the early red and yellow men mingled in Asia, and
the offspring of this union journeyed on to the east and along the southern
seacoast and, eventually, were driven by the rapidly increasing yellow race
onto the peninsulas and near-by islands of the sea. They are the present-day
brown men.
64:7.7 The yellow race has continued to occupy the central regions of eastern
Asia. Of all the six colored races they have survived in greatest numbers.
While the yellow men now and then engaged in racial war, they did not carry on
such incessant and relentless wars of extermination as were waged by the red,
green, and orange men. These three races virtually destroyed themselves before
they were finally all but annihilated by their enemies of other races.
64:7.8 Since the fifth glacier did not extend so far south in Europe, the way
was partially open for these Sangik peoples to migrate to the northwest; and
upon the retreat of the ice the blue men, together with a few other small
racial groups, migrated westward along the old trails of the Andon tribes.
They invaded Europe in successive waves, occupying most of the continent.
64:7.9 In Europe they soon encountered the Neanderthal descendants of their
early and common ancestor, Andon. These older European Neanderthalers had been
driven south and east by the glacier and thus were in position quickly to
encounter and absorb their invading cousins of the Sangik tribes.
64:7.10 In general and to start with, the Sangik tribes were more intelligent
than, and in most ways far superior to, the deteriorated descendants of the
early Andonic plainsmen; and the mingling of these Sangik tribes with the
Neanderthal peoples led to the immediate improvement of the older race. It was
this infusion of Sangik blood, more especially that of the blue man, which
produced that marked improvement in the Neanderthal peoples exhibited by the
successive waves of increasingly intelligent tribes that swept over Europe
from the east.
64:7.11 During the following interglacial period this new Neanderthal race
extended from England to India. The remnant of the blue race left in the old
Persian peninsula later amalgamated with certain others, primarily the yellow;
and the resultant blend, subsequently somewhat upstepped by the violet race of
Adam, has persisted as the swarthy nomadic tribes of modern Arabs.
64:7.12 All efforts to identify the Sangik ancestry of modern peoples must
take into account the later improvement of the racial strains by the
subsequent admixture of Adamic blood.
64:7.13 The superior races sought the northern or temperate climes, while the
orange, green, and indigo races successively gravitated to Africa over the
newly elevated land bridge which separated the westward retreating
Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean.
64:7.14 The last of the Sangik peoples to migrate from their center of race
origin was the indigo man. About the time the green man was killing off the
orange race in Egypt and greatly weakening himself in so doing, the great
black exodus started south through Palestine along the coast; and later, when
these physically strong indigo peoples overran Egypt, they wiped the green man
out of existence by sheer force of numbers. These indigo races absorbed the
remnants of the orange man and much of the stock of the green man, and certain
of the indigo tribes were considerably improved by this racial amalgamation.
64:7.15 And so it appears that Egypt was first dominated by the orange man,
then by the green, followed by the indigo (black) man, and still later by a
mongrel race of indigo, blue, and modified green men. But long before Adam
arrived, the blue men of Europe and the mixed races of Arabia had driven the
indigo race out of Egypt and far south on the African continent.
64:7.16 As the Sangik migrations draw to a close, the green and orange races
are gone, the red man holds North America, the yellow man eastern Asia, the
blue man Europe, and the indigo race has gravitated to Africa. India harbors a
blend of the secondary Sangik races, and the brown man, a blend of the red and
yellow, holds the islands off the Asiatic coast. An amalgamated race of rather
superior potential occupies the highlands of South America. The purer
Andonites live in the extreme northern regions of Europe and in Iceland,
Greenland, and northeastern North America.
64:7.17 During the periods of farthest glacial advance the westernmost of the
Andon tribes came very near being driven into the sea. They lived for years on
a narrow southern strip of the present island of England. And it was the
tradition of these repeated glacial advances that drove them to take to the
sea when the sixth and last glacier finally appeared. They were the first
marine adventurers. They built boats and started in search of new lands which
they hoped might be free from the terrifying ice invasions. And some of them
reached Iceland, others Greenland, but the vast majority perished from hunger
and thirst on the open sea.
64:7.18 A little more than eighty thousand years ago, shortly after the red
man entered northwestern North America, the freezing over of the north seas
and the advance of local ice fields on Greenland drove these Eskimo
descendants of the Urantia aborigines to seek a better land, a new home; and
they were successful, safely crossing the narrow straits which then separated
Greenland from the northeastern land masses of North America. They reached the
continent about twenty-one hundred years after the red man arrived in Alaska.
Subsequently some of the mixed stock of the blue man journeyed westward and
amalgamated with the later-day Eskimos, and this union was slightly beneficial
to the Eskimo tribes.
64:7.19 About five thousand years ago a chance meeting occurred between an
Indian tribe and a lone Eskimo group on the southeastern shores of Hudson Bay.
These two tribes found it difficult to communicate with each other, but very
soon they intermarried with the result that these Eskimos were eventually
absorbed by the more numerous red men. And this represents the only contact of
the North American red man with any other human stock down to about one
thousand years ago, when the white man first chanced to land on the Atlantic
coast.
64:7.20 The struggles of these early ages were characterized by courage,
bravery, and even heroism. And we all regret that so many of those sterling
and rugged traits of your early ancestors have been lost to the later-day
races. While we appreciate the value of many of the refinements of advancing
civilization, we miss the magnificent persistency and superb devotion of your
early ancestors, which oftentimes bordered on grandeur and sublimity.
64:7.21 Presented by a Life Carrier resident on Urantia.
PAPER 65
THE OVERCONTROL OF EVOLUTION
65:0.1 BASIC evolutionary material life -- premind life -- is the formulation
of the Master Physical Controllers and the life-impartation ministry of the
Seven Master Spirits in conjunction with the active ministration of the
ordained Life Carriers. As a result of the co-ordinate function of this
threefold creativity there develops organismal physical capacity for mind --
material mechanisms for intelligent reaction to external environmental stimuli
and, later on, to internal stimuli, influences taking origin in the organismal
mind itself.
65:0.2 There are, then, three distinct levels of life production and
evolution:
1. The physical-energy domain -- mind-capacity production.
2. The mind ministry of the adjutant spirits -- impinging upon spirit capacity.
3. The spirit endowment of mortal mind -- culminating in Thought Adjuster
bestowal.
65:0.3 The mechanical-nonteachable levels of organismal environmental response
are the domains of the physical controllers. The adjutant mind-spirits
activate and regulate the adaptative or nonmechanical-teachable types of mind
-- those response mechanisms of organisms capable of learning from experience.
And as the spirit adjutants thus manipulate mind potentials, so do the Life
Carriers exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental
aspects of evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of
human will -- the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship
him.
65:0.4 It is the integrated functioning of the Life Carriers, the physical
controllers, and the spirit adjutants that conditions the course of organic
evolution on the inhabited worlds. And this is why evolution -- on Urantia or
elsewhere -- is always purposeful and never accidental.
1. LIFE CARRIER FUNCTIONS
65:1.1 The Life Carriers are endowed with potentials of personality
metamorphosis which but few orders of creatures possess. These Sons of the
local universe are capable of functioning in three diverse phases of being.
They ordinarily perform their duties as mid-phase Sons, that being the state
of their origin. But a Life Carrier in such a stage of existence could not
possibly function in the electrochemical domains as a fabricator of physical
energies and material particles into units of living existence.
65:1.2 Life Carriers are able to function and do function on the following
three levels:
1. The physical level of electrochemistry.
2. The usual mid-phase of quasi-morontial existence.
3. The advanced semispiritual level.
65:1.3 When the Life Carriers make ready to engage in life implantation, and
after they have selected the sites for such an undertaking, they summon the
archangel commission of Life Carrier transmutation. This group consists of ten
orders of diverse personalities, including the physical controllers and their
associates, and is presided over by the chief of archangels, who acts in this
capacity by the mandate of Gabriel and with the permission of the Ancients of
Days. When these beings are properly encircuited, they can effect such
modifications in the Life Carriers as will enable them immediately to function
on the physical levels of electrochemistry.
65:1.4 After the life patterns have been formulated and the material
organizations have been duly completed, the supermaterial forces concerned in
life propagation become forthwith active, and life is existent. Whereupon the
Life Carriers are immediately returned to their normal mid-phase of
personality existence, in which estate they can manipulate the living units
and maneuver the evolving organisms, even though they are shorn of all ability
to organize -- create -- new patterns of living matter.
65:1.5 After organic evolution has run a certain course and free will of the
human type has appeared in the highest evolving organisms, the Life Carriers
must either leave the planet or take renunciation vows; that is, they must
pledge themselves to refrain from all attempts further to influence the course
of organic evolution. And when such vows are voluntarily taken by those Life
Carriers who choose to remain on the planet as future advisers to those who
shall be intrusted with the fostering of the newly evolved will creatures,
there is summoned a commission of twelve, presided over by the chief of the
Evening Stars, acting by authority of the System Sovereign and with permission
of Gabriel; and forthwith these Life Carriers are transmuted to the third
phase of personality existence -- the semispiritual level of being. And I have
functioned on Urantia in this third phase of existence ever since the times of
Andon and Fonta.
65:1.6 We look forward to a time when the universe may be settled in light and
life, to a possible fourth stage of being wherein we shall be wholly
spiritual, but it has never been revealed to us by what technique we may
attain this desirable and advanced estate.
2. THE EVOLUTIONARY PANORAMA
65:2.1 The story of man's ascent from seaweed to the lordship of earthly
creation is indeed a romance of biologic struggle and mind survival. Man's
primordial ancestors were literally the slime and ooze of the ocean bed in the
sluggish and warm-water bays and lagoons of the vast shore lines of the
ancient inland seas, those very waters in which the Life Carriers established
the three independent life implantations on Urantia.
65:2.2 Very few species of the early types of marine vegetation that
participated in those epochal changes which resulted in the animallike
borderland organisms are in existence today. The sponges are the survivors of
one of these early midway types, those organisms through which the gradual
transition from the vegetable to the animal took place. These early transition
forms, while not identical with modern sponges, were much like them; they were
true borderline organisms -- neither vegetable nor animal -- but they
eventually led to the development of the true animal forms of life.
65:2.3 The bacteria, simple vegetable organisms of a very primitive nature,
are very little changed from the early dawn of life; they even exhibit a
degree of retrogression in their parasitic behavior. Many of the fungi also
represent a retrograde movement in evolution, being plants which have lost
their chlorophyll-making ability and have become more or less parasitic. The
majority of disease-causing bacteria and their auxiliary virus bodies really
belong to this group of renegade parasitic fungi. During the intervening ages
all of the vast kingdom of plant life has evolved from ancestors from which
the bacteria have also descended.
65:2.4 The higher protozoan type of animal life soon appeared, and appeared
suddenly. And from these far-distant times the ameba, the typical single-
celled animal organism, has come on down but little modified. He disports
himself today much as he did when he was the last and greatest achievement in
life evolution. This minute creature and his protozoan cousins are to the
animal creation what bacteria are to the plant kingdom; they represent the
survival of the first early evolutionary steps in life differentiation
together with failure of subsequent development.
65:2.5 Before long the early single-celled animal types associated themselves
in communities, first on the plan of the Volvox and presently along the lines
of the Hydra and jellyfish. Still later there evolved the starfish, stone
lilies, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, centipedes, insects, spiders, crustaceans,
and the closely related groups of earthworms and leeches, soon followed by the
mollusks -- the oyster, octopus, and snail. Hundreds upon hundreds of species
intervened and perished; mention is made only of those which survived the
long, long struggle. Such nonprogressive specimens, together with the later
appearing fish family, today represent the stationary types of early and lower
animals, branches of the tree of life which failed to progress.
65:2.6 The stage was thus set for the appearance of the first backboned
animals, the fishes. From this fish family there sprang two unique
modifications, the frog and the salamander. And it was the frog which began
that series of progressive differentiations in animal life that finally
culminated in man himself.
65:2.7 The frog is one of the earliest of surviving human-race ancestors, but
it also failed to progress, persisting today much as in those remote times.
The frog is the only species ancestor of the early dawn races now living on
the face of the earth. The human race has no surviving ancestry between the
frog and the Eskimo.
65:2.8 The frogs gave rise to the Reptilia, a great animal family which is
virtually extinct, but which, before passing out of existence, gave origin to
the whole bird family and the numerous orders of mammals.
65:2.9 Probably the greatest single leap of all prehuman evolution was
executed when the reptile became a bird. The bird types of today -- eagles,
ducks, pigeons, and ostriches -- all descended from the enormous reptiles of
long, long ago.
65:2.10 The kingdom of reptiles, descended from the frog family, is today
represented by four surviving divisions: two nonprogressive, snakes and
lizards, together with their cousins, alligators and turtles; one partially
progressive, the bird family, and the fourth, the ancestors of mammals and the
direct line of descent of the human species. But though long departed, the
massiveness of the passing Reptilia found echo in the elephant and mastodon,
while their peculiar forms were perpetuated in the leaping kangaroos.
65:2.11 Only fourteen phyla have appeared on Urantia, the fishes being the
last, and no new classes have developed since birds and mammals.
65:2.12 It was from an agile little reptilian dinosaur of carnivorous habits
but having a comparatively large brain that the placental mammals suddenly
sprang. These mammals developed rapidly and in many different ways, not only
giving rise to the common modern varieties but also evolving into marine
types, such as whales and seals, and into air navigators like the bat family.
65:2.13 Man thus evolved from the higher mammals derived principally from the
western implantation of life in the ancient east-west sheltered seas. The
eastern and central groups of living organisms were early progressing
favorably toward the attainment of prehuman levels of animal existence. But as
the ages passed, the eastern focus of life emplacement failed to attain a
satisfactory level of intelligent prehuman status, having suffered such
repeated and irretrievable losses of its highest types of germ plasm that it
was forever shorn of the power to rehabilitate human potentialities.
65:2.14 Since the quality of the mind capacity for development in this eastern
group was so definitely inferior to that of the other two groups, the Life
Carriers, with the consent of their superiors, so manipulated the environment
as further to circumscribe these inferior prehuman strains of evolving life.
To all outward appearances the elimination of these inferior groups of
creatures was accidental, but in reality it was altogether purposeful.
65:2.15 Later in the evolutionary unfolding of intelligence, the lemur
ancestors of the human species were far more advanced in North America than in
other regions; and they were therefore led to migrate from the arena of
western life implantation over the Bering land bridge and down the coast to
southwestern Asia, where they continued to evolve and to benefit by the
addition of certain strains of the central life group. Man thus evolved out of
certain western and central life strains but in the central to near-eastern
regions.
65:2.16 In this way the life that was planted on Urantia evolved until the ice
age, when man himself first appeared and began his eventful planetary career.
And this appearance of primitive man on earth during the ice age was not just
an accident; it was by design. The rigors and climatic severity of the glacial
era were in every way adapted to the purpose of fostering the production of a
hardy type of human being with tremendous survival endowment.
3. THE FOSTERING OF EVOLUTION
65:3.1 It will hardly be possible to explain to the present-day human mind
many of the queer and apparently grotesque occurrences of early evolutionary
progress. A purposeful plan was functioning throughout all of these seemingly
strange evolutions of living things, but we are not allowed arbitrarily to
interfere with the development of the life patterns after they have once been
set in operation.
65:3.2 Life Carriers may employ every possible natural resource and may
utilize any and all fortuitous circumstances which will enhance the
developmental progress of the life experiment, but we are not permitted
mechanically to intervene in, or arbitrarily to manipulate the conduct and
course of, either plant or animal evolution.
65:3.3 You have been informed that Urantia mortals evolved by way of primitive
frog development, and that this ascending strain, carried in potential in a
single frog, narrowly escaped extinction on a certain occasion. But it should
not be inferred that the evolution of mankind would have been terminated by an
accident at this juncture. At that very moment we were observing and fostering
no less than one thousand different and remotely situated mutating strains of
life which could have been directed into various different patterns of
prehuman development. This particular ancestral frog represented our third
selection, the two prior life strains having perished in spite of all our
efforts toward their conservation.
65:3.4 Even the loss of Andon and Fonta before they had offspring, though
delaying human evolution, would not have prevented it. Subsequent to the
appearance of Andon and Fonta and before the mutating human potentials of
animal life were exhausted, there evolved no less than seven thousand
favorable strains which could have achieved some sort of human type of
development. And many of these better stocks were subsequently assimilated by
the various branches of the expanding human species.
65:3.5 Long before the Material Son and Daughter, the biologic uplifters,
arrive on a planet, the human potentials of the evolving animal species have
been exhausted. This biologic status of animal life is disclosed to the Life
Carriers by the phenomenon of the third phase of adjutant spirit mobilization,
which automatically occurs concomitantly with the exhaustion of the capacity
of all animal life to give origin to the mutant potentials of prehuman
individuals.
65:3.6 Mankind on Urantia must solve its problems of mortal development with
the human stocks it has -- no more races will evolve from prehuman sources
throughout all future time. But this fact does not preclude the possibility of
the attainment of vastly higher levels of human development through the
intelligent fostering of the evolutionary potentials still resident in the
mortal races. That which we, the Life Carriers, do toward fostering and
conserving the life strains before the appearance of human will, man must do
for himself after such an event and subsequent to our retirement from active
participation in evolution. In a general way, man's evolutionary destiny is in
his own hands, and scientific intelligence must sooner or later supersede the
random functioning of uncontrolled natural selection and chance survival.
65:3.7 And in discussing the fostering of evolution, it would not be amiss to
point out that, in the long future ahead, when you may sometime be attached to
a corps of Life Carriers, you will have abundant and ample opportunity to
offer suggestions and make any possible improvements in the plans and
technique of life management and transplantation. Be patient! If you have good
ideas, if your minds are fertile with better methods of administration for any
part of the universal domains, you are certainly going to have an opportunity
to present them to your associates and fellow administrators in the ages to
come.
4. THE URANTIA ADVENTURE
65:4.1 Do not overlook the fact that Urantia was assigned to us as a life-
experiment world. On this planet we made our sixtieth attempt to modify and,
if possible, improve the Satania adaptation of the Nebadon life designs, and
it is of record that we achieved numerous beneficial modifications of the
standard life patterns. To be specific, on Urantia we worked out and have
satisfactorily demonstrated not less than twenty-eight features of life
modification which will be of service to all Nebadon throughout all future
time.
65:4.2 But the establishment of life on no world is ever experimental in the
sense that something untried and unknown is attempted. The evolution of life
is a technique ever progressive, differential, and variable, but never
haphazard, uncontrolled, nor wholly experimental, in the accidental sense.
65:4.3 Many features of human life afford abundant evidence that the
phenomenon of mortal existence was intelligently planned, that organic
evolution is not a mere cosmic accident. When a living cell is injured, it
possesses the ability to elaborate certain chemical substances which are
empowered so to stimulate and activate the neighboring normal cells that they
immediately begin the secretion of certain substances which facilitate healing
processes in the wound; and at the same time these normal and uninjured cells
begin to proliferate -- they actually start to work creating new cells to
replace any fellow cells which may have been destroyed by the accident.
65:4.4 This chemical action and reaction concerned in wound healing and cell
reproduction represents the choice of the Life Carriers of a formula embracing
over one hundred thousand phases and features of possible chemical reactions
and biologic repercussions. More than half a million specific experiments were
made by the Life Carriers in their laboratories before they finally settled
upon this formula for the Urantia life experiment.
65:4.5 When Urantia scientists know more of these healing chemicals, they will
become more efficient in the treatment of injuries, and indirectly they will
know more about controlling certain serious diseases.
65:4.6 Since life was established on Urantia, the Life Carriers have improved
this healing technique as it has been introduced on another Satania world, in
that it affords more pain relief and exercises better control over the
proliferation capacity of the associated normal cells.
65:4.7 There were many unique features of the Urantia life experiment, but the
two outstanding episodes were the appearance of the Andonic race prior to the
evolution of the six colored peoples and the later simultaneous appearance of
the Sangik mutants in a single family. Urantia is the first world in Satania
where the six colored races sprang from the same human family. They ordinarily
arise in diversified strains from independent mutations within the prehuman
animal stock and usually appear on earth one at a time and successively over
long periods of time, beginning with the red man and passing on down through
the colors to indigo.
65:4.8 Another outstanding variation of procedure was the late arrival of the
Planetary Prince. As a rule, the prince appears on a planet about the time of
will development; and if such a plan had been followed, Caligastia might have
come to Urantia even during the lifetimes of Andon and Fonta instead of almost
five hundred thousand years later, simultaneously with the appearance of the
six Sangik races.
65:4.9 On an ordinary inhabited world a Planetary Prince would have been
granted on the request of the Life Carriers at, or sometime after, the
appearance of Andon and Fonta. But Urantia having been designated a life-
modification planet, it was by preagreement that the Melchizedek observers,
twelve in number, were sent as advisers to the Life Carriers and as overseers
of the planet until the subsequent arrival of the Planetary Prince. These
Melchizedeks came at the time Andon and Fonta made the decisions which enabled
Thought Adjusters to indwell their mortal minds.
65:4.10 On Urantia the endeavors of the Life Carriers to improve the Satania
life patterns necessarily resulted in the production of many apparently
useless forms of transition life. But the gains already accrued are sufficient
to justify the Urantia modifications of the standard life designs.
65:4.11 It was our intention to produce an early manifestation of will in the
evolutionary life of Urantia, and we succeeded. Ordinarily, will does not
emerge until the colored races have long been in existence, usually first
appearing among the superior types of the red man. Your world is the only
planet in Satania where the human type of will has appeared in a precolored
race.
65:4.12 But in our effort to provide for that combination and association of
inheritance factors which finally gave rise to the mammalian ancestors of the
human race, we were confronted with the necessity of permitting hundreds and
thousands of other and comparatively useless combinations and associations of
inheritance factors to take place. Many of these seemingly strange by-products
of our efforts are certain to meet your gaze as you dig back into the
planetary past, and I can well understand how puzzling some of these things
must be to the limited human viewpoint.
5. LIFE-EVOLUTION VICISSITUDES
65:5.1 It was a source of regret to the Life Carriers that our special efforts
to modify intelligent life on Urantia should have been so handicapped by
tragic perversions beyond our control: the Caligastia betrayal and the Adamic
default.
65:5.2 But throughout all of this biologic adventure our greatest
disappointment grew out of the reversion of certain primitive plant life to
the prechlorophyll levels of parasitic bacteria on such an extensive and
unexpected scale. This eventuality in plant-life evolution caused many
distressful diseases in the higher mammals, particularly in the more
vulnerable human species. When we were confronted with this perplexing
situation, we somewhat discounted the difficulties involved because we knew
that the subsequent admixture of the Adamic life plasm would so reinforce the
resisting powers of the resulting blended race as to make it practically
immune to all diseases produced by the vegetable type of organism. But our
hopes were doomed to disappointment owing to the misfortune of the Adamic
default.
65:5.3 The universe of universes, including this small world called Urantia,
is not being managed merely to meet our approval nor just to suit our
convenience, much less to gratify our whims and satisfy our curiosity. The
wise and all-powerful beings who are responsible for universe management
undoubtedly know exactly what they are about; and so it becomes Life Carriers
and behooves mortal minds to enlist in patient waiting and hearty co-operation
with the rule of wisdom, the reign of power, and the march of progress.
65:5.4 There are, of course, certain compensations for tribulation, such as
Michael's bestowal on Urantia. But irrespective of all such considerations,
the later celestial supervisors of this planet express complete confidence in
the ultimate evolutionary triumph of the human race and in the eventual
vindication of our original plans and life patterns.
6. EVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUES OF LIFE
65:6.1 It is impossible accurately to determine, simultaneously, the exact
location and the velocity of a moving object; any attempt at measurement of
either inevitably involves change in the other. The same sort of a paradox
confronts mortal man when he undertakes the chemical analysis of protoplasm.
The chemist can elucidate the chemistry of dead protoplasm, but he cannot
discern either the physical organization or the dynamic performance of living
protoplasm. Ever will the scientist come nearer and nearer the secrets of
life, but never will he find them and for no other reason than that he must
kill protoplasm in order to analyze it. Dead protoplasm weighs the same as
living protoplasm, but it is not the same.
65:6.2 There is original endowment of adaptation in living things and beings.
In every living plant or animal cell, in every living organism -- material or
spiritual -- there is an insatiable craving for the attainment of ever-
increasing perfection of environmental adjustment, organismal adaptation, and
augmented life realization. These interminable efforts of all living things
evidence the existence within them of an innate striving for perfection.
65:6.3 The most important step in plant evolution was the development of
chlorophyll-making ability, and the second greatest advance was the evolution
of the spore into the complex seed. The spore is most efficient as a
reproductive agent, but it lacks the potentials of variety and versatility
inherent in the seed.
65:6.4 One of the most serviceable and complex episodes in the evolution of
the higher types of animals consisted in the development of the ability of the
iron in the circulating blood cells to perform in the double role of oxygen
carrier and carbon dioxide remover. And this performance of the red blood
cells illustrates how evolving organisms are able to adapt their functions to
varying or changing environment. The higher animals, including man, oxygenate
their tissues by the action of the iron of the red blood cells, which carries
oxygen to the living cells and just as efficiently removes the carbon dioxide.
But other metals can be made to serve the same purpose. The cuttlefish employs
copper for this function, and the sea squirt utilizes vanadium.
65:6.5 The continuation of such biologic adjustments is illustrated by the
evolution of teeth in the higher Urantia mammals; these attained to thirty-six
in man's remote ancestors, and then began an adaptative readjustment toward
thirty-two in the dawn man and his near relatives. Now the human species is
slowly gravitating toward twenty-eight. The process of evolution is still
actively and adaptatively in progress on this planet.
65:6.6 But many seemingly mysterious adjustments of living organisms are
purely chemical, wholly physical. At any moment of time, in the blood stream
of any human being there exists the possibility of upward of 15,000,000
chemical reactions between the hormone output of a dozen ductless glands.
65:6.7 The lower forms of plant life are wholly responsive to physical,
chemical, and electrical environment. But as the scale of life ascends, one by
one the mind ministries of the seven adjutant spirits become operative, and
the mind becomes increasingly adjustive, creative, co-ordinative, and
dominative. The ability of animals to adapt themselves to air, water, and land
is not a supernatural endowment, but it is a superphysical adjustment.
65:6.8 Physics and chemistry alone cannot explain how a human being evolved
out of the primeval protoplasm of the early seas. The ability to learn, memory
and differential response to environment, is the endowment of mind. The laws
of physics are not responsive to training; they are immutable and unchanging.
The reactions of chemistry are not modified by education; they are uniform and
dependable. Aside from the presence of the Unqualified Absolute, electrical
and chemical reactions are predictable. But mind can profit from experience,
can learn from reactive habits of behavior in response to repetition of
stimuli.
65:6.9 Preintelligent organisms react to environmental stimuli, but those
organisms which are reactive to mind ministry can adjust and manipulate the
environment itself.
65:6.10 The physical brain with its associated nervous system possesses innate
capacity for response to mind ministry just as the developing mind of a
personality possesses a certain innate capacity for spirit receptivity and
therefore contains the potentials of spiritual progress and attainment.
Intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual evolution are dependent on the mind
ministry of the seven adjutant spirits and their superphysical associates.
7. EVOLUTIONARY MIND LEVELS
65:7.1 The seven adjutant mind-spirits are the versatile mind ministers to the
lower intelligent existences of a local universe. This order of mind is
ministered from the local universe headquarters or from some world connected
therewith, but there is influential direction of lower-mind function from the
system capitals.
65:7.2 On an evolutionary world much, very much, depends on the work of these
seven adjutants. But they are mind ministers; they are not concerned in
physical evolution, the domain of the Life Carriers. Nevertheless, the perfect
integration of these spirit endowments with the ordained and natural procedure
of the unfolding and inherent regime of the Life Carriers is responsible for
the mortal inability to discern, in the phenomenon of mind, aught but the hand
of nature and the outworking of natural processes, albeit you are occasionally
somewhat perplexed in explaining all of everything connected with the natural
reactions of mind as it is associated with matter. And if Urantia were
operating more in accordance with the original plans, you would observe even
less to arrest your attention in the phenomenon of mind.
65:7.3 The seven adjutant spirits are more circuitlike than entitylike, and on
ordinary worlds they are encircuited with other adjutant functionings
throughout the local universe. On life-experiment planets, however, they are
relatively isolated. And on Urantia, owing to the unique nature of the life
patterns, the lower adjutants experienced far more difficulty in contacting
with the evolutionary organisms than would have been the case in a more
standardized type of life endowment.
65:7.4 Again, on an average evolutionary world the seven adjutant spirits are
far better synchronized with the advancing stages of animal development than
they were on Urantia. With but a single exception, the adjutants experienced
the greatest difficulty in contacting with the evolving minds of Urantia
organisms that they had ever had in all their functioning throughout the
universe of Nebadon. On this world there developed many forms of border
phenomena -- confusional combinations of the mechanical-nonteachable and the
nonmechanical-teachable types of organismal response.
65:7.5 The seven adjutant spirits do not make contact with the purely
mechanical orders of organismal environmental response. Such preintelligent
responses of living organisms pertain purely to the energy domains of the
power centers, the physical controllers, and their associates.
65:7.6 The acquisition of the potential of the ability to learn from
experience marks the beginning of the functioning of the adjutant spirits, and
they function from the lowliest minds of primitive and invisible existences up
to the highest types in the evolutionary scale of human beings. They are the
source and pattern for the otherwise more or less mysterious behavior and
incompletely understood quick reactions of mind to the material environment.
Long must these faithful and always dependable influences carry forward their
preliminary ministry before the animal mind attains the human levels of spirit
receptivity.
65:7.7 The adjutants function exclusively in the evolution of experiencing
mind up to the level of the sixth phase, the spirit of worship. At this level
there occurs that inevitable overlapping of ministry -- the phenomenon of the
higher reaching down to co-ordinate with the lower in anticipation of
subsequent attainment of advanced levels of development. And still additional
spirit ministry accompanies the action of the seventh and last adjutant, the
spirit of wisdom. Throughout the ministry of the spirit world the individual
never experiences abrupt transitions of spirit co-operation; always are these
changes gradual and reciprocal.
65:7.8 Always should the domains of the physical (electrochemical) and the
mental response to environmental stimuli be differentiated, and in turn must
they all be recognized as phenomena apart from spiritual activities. The
domains of physical, mental, and spiritual gravity are distinct realms of
cosmic reality, notwithstanding their intimate interrelations.
8. EVOLUTION IN TIME AND SPACE
65:8.1 Time and space are indissolubly linked; there is an innate association.
The delays of time are inevitable in the presence of certain space conditions.
65:8.2 If spending so much time in effecting the evolutionary changes of life
development occasions perplexity, I would say that we cannot time the life
processes to unfold any faster than the physical metamorphoses of a planet
will permit. We must wait upon the natural, physical development of a planet;
we have absolutely no control over geologic evolution. If the physical
conditions would allow, we could arrange for the completed evolution of life
in considerably less than one million years. But we are all under the
jurisdiction of the Supreme Rulers of Paradise, and time is nonexistent on
Paradise.
65:8.3 The individual's yardstick for time measurement is the length of his
life. All creatures are thus time conditioned, and therefore do they regard
evolution as being a long-drawn-out process. To those of us whose life span is
not limited by a temporal existence, evolution does not seem to be such a
protracted transaction. On Paradise, where time is nonexistent, these things
are all present in the mind of Infinity and the acts of Eternity.
65:8.4 As mind evolution is dependent on, and delayed by, the slow development
of physical conditions, so is spiritual progress dependent on mental expansion
and unfailingly delayed by intellectual retardation. But this does not mean
that spiritual evolution is dependent on education, culture, or wisdom. The
soul may evolve regardless of mental culture but not in the absence of mental
capacity and desire -- the choice of survival and the decision to achieve
ever-increasing perfection -- to do the will of the Father in heaven. Although
survival may not depend on the possession of knowledge and wisdom, progression
most certainly does.
65:8.5 In the cosmic evolutionary laboratories mind is always dominant over
matter, and spirit is ever correlated with mind. Failure of these diverse
endowments to synchronize and co-ordinate may cause time delays, but if the
individual really knows God and desires to find him and become like him, then
survival is assured regardless of the handicaps of time. Physical status may
handicap mind, and mental perversity may delay spiritual attainment, but none
of these obstacles can defeat the whole-souled choice of will.
65:8.6 When physical conditions are ripe, sudden mental evolutions may take
place; when mind status is propitious, sudden spiritual transformations may
occur; when spiritual values receive proper recognition, then cosmic meanings
become discernible, and increasingly the personality is released from the
handicaps of time and delivered from the limitations of space.
65:8.7 Sponsored by a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.
PAPER 66
THE PLANETARY PRINCE OF URANTIA
66:0.1 THE advent of a Lanonandek Son on an average world signifies that will,
the ability to choose the path of eternal survival, has developed in the mind
of primitive man. But on Urantia the Planetary Prince arrived almost half a
million years after the appearance of human will.
66:0.2 About five hundred thousand years ago and concurrent with the
appearance of the six colored or Sangik races, Caligastia, the Planetary
Prince, arrived on Urantia. There were almost one-half billion primitive human
beings on earth at the time of the Prince's arrival, and they were well
scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Prince's headquarters,
established in Mesopotamia, was at about the center of world population.
1. PRINCE CALIGASTIA
66:1.1 Caligastia was a Lanonandek Son, number 9,344 of the secondary order.
He was experienced in the administration of the affairs of the local universe
in general and, during later ages, with the management of the local system of
Satania in particular.
66:1.2 Prior to the reign of Lucifer in Satania, Caligastia had been attached
to the council of the Life Carrier advisers on Jerusem. Lucifer elevated
Caligastia to a position on his personal staff, and he acceptably filled five
successive assignments of honor and trust.
66:1.3 Caligastia very early sought a commission as Planetary Prince, but
repeatedly, when his request came up for approval in the constellation
councils, it would fail to receive the assent of the Constellation Fathers.
Caligastia seemed especially desirous of being sent as planetary ruler to a
decimal or life-modification world. His petition had several times been
disapproved before he was finally assigned to Urantia.
66:1.4 Caligastia went forth from Jerusem to his trust of world dominion with
an enviable record of loyalty and devotion to the welfare of the universe of
his origin and sojourn, notwithstanding a certain characteristic restlessness
coupled with a tendency to disagree with the established order in certain
minor matters.
66:1.5 I was present on Jerusem when the brilliant Caligastia departed from
the system capital. No prince of the planets ever embarked upon a career of
world rulership with a richer preparatory experience or with better prospects
than did Caligastia on that eventful day one-half million years ago. One thing
is certain: As I executed my assignment of putting the narrative of that event
on the broadcasts of the local universe, I never for one moment entertained
even in the slightest degree any idea that this noble Lanonandek would so
shortly betray his sacred trust of planetary custody and so horribly stain the
fair name of his exalted order of universe sonship. I really regarded Urantia
as being among the five or six most fortunate planets in all Satania in that
it was to have such an experienced, brilliant, and original mind at the helm
of world affairs. I did not then comprehend that Caligastia was insidiously
falling in love with himself; I did not then so fully understand the
subtleties of personality pride.
2. THE PRINCE'S STAFF
66:2.1 The Planetary Prince of Urantia was not sent out on his mission alone
but was accompanied by the usual corps of assistants and administrative
helpers.
66:2.2 At the head of this group was Daligastia, the associate-assistant of
the Planetary Prince. Daligastia was also a secondary Lanonandek Son, being
number 319,407 of that order. He ranked as an assistant at the time of his
assignment as Caligastia's associate.
66:2.3 The planetary staff included a large number of angelic co-operators and
a host of other celestial beings assigned to advance the interests and promote
the welfare of the human races. But from your standpoint the most interesting
group of all were the corporeal members of the Prince's staff -- sometimes
referred to as the Caligastia one hundred.
66:2.4 These one hundred rematerialized members of the Prince's staff were
chosen by Caligastia from over 785,000 ascendant citizens of Jerusem who
volunteered for embarkation on the Urantia adventure. Each one of the chosen
one hundred was from a different planet, and none of them were from Urantia.
66:2.5 These Jerusemite volunteers were brought by seraphic transport direct
from the system capital to Urantia, and upon arrival they were held
enseraphimed until they could be provided with personality forms of the dual
nature of special planetary service, literal bodies consisting of flesh and
blood but also attuned to the life circuits of the system.
66:2.6 Sometime before the arrival of these one hundred Jerusem citizens, the
two supervising Life Carriers resident on Urantia, having previously perfected
their plans, petitioned Jerusem and Edentia for permission to transplant the
life plasm of one hundred selected survivors of the Andon and Fonta stock into
the material bodies to be projected for the corporeal members of the Prince's
staff. The request was granted on Jerusem and approved on Edentia.
66:2.7 Accordingly, fifty males and fifty females of the Andon and Fonta
posterity, representing the survival of the best strains of that unique race,
were chosen by the Life Carriers. With one or two exceptions these Andonite
contributors to the advancement of the race were strangers to one another.
They were assembled from widely separated places by co-ordinated Thought
Adjuster direction and seraphic guidance at the threshold of the planetary
headquarters of the Prince. Here the one hundred human subjects were given
into the hands of the highly skilled volunteer commission from Avalon, who
directed the material extraction of a portion of the life plasm of these Andon
descendants. This living material was then transferred to the material bodies
constructed for the use of the one hundred Jerusemite members of the Prince's
staff. Meantime, these newly arrived citizens of the system capital were held
in the sleep of seraphic transport.
66:2.8 These transactions, together with the literal creation of special
bodies for the Caligastia one hundred, gave origin to numerous legends, many
of which subsequently became confused with the later traditions concerning the
planetary installation of Adam and Eve.
66:2.9 The entire transaction of repersonalization, from the time of the
arrival of the seraphic transports bearing the one hundred Jerusem volunteers
until they became conscious, threefold beings of the realm, consumed exactly
ten days.
3. DALAMATIA -- THE CITY OF THE PRINCE
66:3.1 The headquarters of the Planetary Prince was situated in the Persian
Gulf region of those days, in the district corresponding to later Mesopotamia.
66:3.2 The climate and landscape in the Mesopotamia of those times were in
every way favorable to the undertakings of the Prince's staff and their
assistants, very different from conditions which have sometimes since
prevailed. It was necessary to have such a favoring climate as a part of the
natural environment designed to induce primitive Urantians to make certain
initial advances in culture and civilization. The one great task of those ages
was to transform man from a hunter to a herder, with the hope that later on he
would evolve into a peace-loving, home-abiding farmer.
66:3.3 The headquarters of the Planetary Prince on Urantia was typical of such
stations on a young and developing sphere. The nucleus of the Prince's
settlement was a very simple but beautiful city, enclosed within a wall forty
feet high. This world center of culture was named Dalamatia in honor of
Daligastia.
66:3.4 The city was laid out in ten subdivisions with the headquarters
mansions of the ten councils of the corporeal staff situated at the centers of
these subdivisions. Centermost in the city was the temple of the unseen
Father. The administrative headquarters of the Prince and his associates was
arranged in twelve chambers immediately grouped about the temple itself.
66:3.5 The buildings of Dalamatia were all one story except the council
headquarters, which were two stories, and the central temple of the Father of
all, which was small but three stories in height.
66:3.6 The city represented the best practices of those early days in building
material -- brick. Very little stone or wood was used. Home building and
village architecture among the surrounding peoples were greatly improved by
the Dalamatian example.
66:3.7 Near the Prince's headquarters there dwelt all colors and strata of
human beings. And it was from these near-by tribes that the first students of
the Prince's schools were recruited. Although these early schools of Dalamatia
were crude, they provided all that could be done for the men and women of that
primitive age.
66:3.8 The Prince's corporeal staff continuously gathered about them the
superior individuals of the surrounding tribes and, after training and
inspiring these students, sent them back as teachers and leaders of their
respective peoples.
4. EARLY DAYS OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:4.1 The arrival of the Prince's staff created a profound impression. While
it required almost a thousand years for the news to spread abroad, those
tribes near the Mesopotamian headquarters were tremendously influenced by the
teachings and conduct of the one hundred new sojourners on Urantia. And much
of your subsequent mythology grew out of the garbled legends of these early
days when these members of the Prince's staff were repersonalized on Urantia
as supermen.
66:4.2 The serious obstacle to the good influence of such extraplanetary
teachers is the tendency of mortals to regard them as gods, but aside from the
technique of their appearance on earth the Caligastia one hundred -- fifty men
and fifty women -- did not resort to supernatural methods nor superhuman
manipulations.
66:4.3 But the corporeal staff were nonetheless superhuman. They began their
mission on Urantia as extraordinary threefold beings:
66:4.4 1. They were corporeal and relatively human, for they embodied the
actual life plasm of one of the human races, the Andonic life plasm of
Urantia.
66:4.5 These one hundred members of the Prince's staff were divided equally as
to sex and in accordance with their previous mortal status. Each person of
this group was capable of becoming coparental to some new order of physical
being, but they had been carefully instructed to resort to parenthood only
under certain conditions. It is customary for the corporeal staff of a
Planetary Prince to procreate their successors sometime prior to retiring from
special planetary service. Usually this is at, or shortly after, the time of
the arrival of the Planetary Adam and Eve.
66:4.6 These special beings therefore had little or no idea as to what type of
material creature would be produced by their sexual union. And they never did
know; before the time for such a step in the prosecution of their world work
the entire regime was upset by rebellion, and those who later functioned in
the parental role had been isolated from the life currents of the system.
66:4.7 In skin color and language these materialized members of Caligastia's
staff followed the Andonic race. They partook of food as did the mortals of
the realm with this difference: The re-created bodies of this group were fully
satisfied by a nonflesh diet. This was one of the considerations which
determined their residence in a warm region abounding in fruits and nuts. The
practice of subsisting on a nonflesh diet dates from the times of the
Caligastia one hundred, for this custom spread near and far to affect the
eating habits of many surrounding tribes, groups of origin in the once
exclusively meat-eating evolutionary races.
66:4.8 2. The one hundred were material but superhuman beings, having been
reconstituted on Urantia as unique men and women of a high and special order.
66:4.9 This group, while enjoying provisional citizenship on Jerusem, were as
yet unfused with their Thought Adjusters; and when they volunteered and were
accepted for planetary service in liaison with the descending orders of
sonship, their Adjusters were detached. But these Jerusemites were superhuman
beings -- they possessed souls of ascendant growth. During the mortal life in
the flesh the soul is of embryonic estate; it is born (resurrected) in the
morontia life and experiences growth through the successive morontia worlds.
And the souls of the Caligastia one hundred had thus expanded through the
progressive experiences of the seven mansion worlds to citizenship status on
Jerusem.
66:4.10 In conformity to their instructions the staff did not engage in sexual
reproduction, but they did painstakingly study their personal constitutions,
and they carefully explored every imaginable phase of intellectual (mind) and
morontia (soul) liaison. And it was during the thirty-third year of their
sojourn in Dalamatia, long before the wall was completed, that number two and
number seven of the Danite group accidentally discovered a phenomenon
attendant upon the liaison of their morontia selves (supposedly nonsexual and
nonmaterial); and the result of this adventure proved to be the first of the
primary midway creatures. This new being was wholly visible to the planetary
staff and to their celestial associates but was not visible to the men and
women of the various human tribes. Upon authority of the Planetary Prince the
entire corporeal staff undertook the production of similar beings, and all
were successful, following the instructions of the pioneer Danite pair. Thus
did the Prince's staff eventually bring into being the original corps of
50,000 primary midwayers.
66:4.11 These mid-type creatures were of great service in carrying on the
affairs of the world's headquarters. They were invisible to human beings, but
the primitive sojourners at Dalamatia were taught about these unseen
semispirits, and for ages they constituted the sum total of the spirit world
to these evolving mortals.
66:4.12 3. The Caligastia one hundred were personally immortal, or undying.
There circulated through their material forms the antidotal complements of the
life currents of the system; and had they not lost contact with the life
circuits through rebellion, they would have lived on indefinitely until the
arrival of a subsequent Son of God, or until their sometime later release to
resume the interrupted journey to Havona and Paradise.
66:4.13 These antidotal complements of the Satania life currents were derived
from the fruit of the tree of life, a shrub of Edentia which was sent to
Urantia by the Most Highs of Norlatiadek at the time of Caligastia's arrival.
In the days of Dalamatia this tree grew in the central courtyard of the temple
of the unseen Father, and it was the fruit of the tree of life that enabled
the material and otherwise mortal beings of the Prince's staff to live on
indefinitely as long as they had access to it.
66:4.14 While of no value to the evolutionary races, this supersustenance was
quite sufficient to confer continuous life upon the Caligastia one hundred and
also upon the one hundred modified Andonites who were associated with them.
66:4.15 It should be explained in this connection that, at the time the one
hundred Andonites contributed their human germ plasm to the members of the
Prince's staff, the Life Carriers introduced into their mortal bodies the
complement of the system circuits; and thus were they enabled to live on
concurrently with the staff, century after century, in defiance of physical
death.
66:4.16 Eventually the one hundred Andonites were made aware of their
contribution to the new forms of their superiors, and these same one hundred
children of the Andon tribes were kept at headquarters as the personal
attendants of the Prince's corporeal staff.
5. ORGANIZATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:5.1 The one hundred were organized for service in ten autonomous councils
of ten members each. When two or more of these ten councils met in joint
session, such liaison gatherings were presided over by Daligastia. These ten
groups were constituted as follows:
66:5.2 1. The council on food and material welfare. This group was presided
over by Ang. Food, water, clothes, and the material advancement of the human
species were fostered by this able corps. They taught well digging, spring
control, and irrigation. They taught those from the higher altitudes and from
the north improved methods of treating skins for use as clothing, and weaving
was later introduced by the teachers of art and science.
66:5.3 Great advances were made in methods of food storage. Food was preserved
by cooking, drying, and smoking; it thus became the earliest property. Man was
taught to provide for the hazards of famine, which periodically decimated the
world.
66:5.4 2. The board of animal domestication and utilization. This council was
dedicated to the task of selecting and breeding those animals best adapted to
help human beings in bearing burdens and transporting themselves, to supply
food, and later on to be of service in the cultivation of the soil. This able
corps was directed by Bon.
66:5.5 Several types of useful animals, now extinct, were tamed, together with
some that have continued as domesticated animals to the present day. Man had
long lived with the dog, and the blue man had already been successful in
taming the elephant. The cow was so improved by careful breeding as to become
a valuable source of food; butter and cheese became common articles of human
diet. Men were taught to use oxen for burden bearing, but the horse was not
domesticated until a later date. The members of this corps first taught men to
use the wheel for the facilitation of traction.
66:5.6 It was in these days that carrier pigeons were first used, being taken
on long journeys for the purpose of sending messages or calls for help. Bon's
group were successful in training the great fandors as passenger birds, but
they became extinct more than thirty thousand years ago.
66:5.7 3. The advisers regarding the conquest of predatory animals. It was not
enough that early man should try to domesticate certain animals, but he must
also learn how to protect himself from destruction by the remainder of the
hostile animal world. This group was captained by Dan.
66:5.8 The purpose of an ancient city wall was to protect against ferocious
beasts as well as to prevent surprise attacks by hostile humans. Those living
without the walls and in the forest were dependent on tree dwellings, stone
huts, and the maintenance of night fires. It was therefore very natural that
these teachers should devote much time to instructing their pupils in the
improvement of human dwellings. By employing improved techniques and by the
use of traps, great progress was made in animal subjugation.
66:5.9 4. The faculty on dissemination and conservation of knowledge. This
group organized and directed the purely educational endeavors of those early
ages. It was presided over by Fad. The educational methods of Fad consisted in
supervision of employment accompanied by instruction in improved methods of
labor. Fad formulated the first alphabet and introduced a writing system. This
alphabet contained twenty-five characters. For writing material these early
peoples utilized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment
made of hammered hides, and a crude form of paperlike material made from
wasps' nests. The Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the Caligastia
disaffection, comprised more than two million separate records and was known
as the "house of Fad."
66:5.10 The blue man was partial to alphabet writing and made the greatest
progress along such lines. The red man preferred pictorial writing, while the
yellow races drifted into the use of symbols for words and ideas, much like
those they now employ. But the alphabet and much more was subsequently lost to
the world during the confusion attendant upon rebellion. The Caligastia
defection destroyed the hope of the world for a universal language, at least
for untold ages.
66:5.11 5. The commission on industry and trade. This council was employed in
fostering industry within the tribes and in promoting trade between the
various peace groups. Its leader was Nod. Every form of primitive manufacture
was encouraged by this corps. They contributed directly to the elevation of
standards of living by providing many new commodities to attract the fancy of
primitive men. They greatly expanded the trade in the improved salt produced
by the council on science and art.
66:5.12 It was among these enlightened groups educated in the Dalamatia
schools that the first commercial credit was practiced. From a central
exchange of credits they secured tokens which were accepted in lieu of the
actual objects of barter. The world did not improve upon these business
methods for hundreds of thousands of years.
66:5.13 6. The college of revealed religion. This body was slow in
functioning. Urantia civilization was literally forged out between the anvil
of necessity and the hammers of fear. But this group had made considerable
progress in their attempt to substitute Creator fear for creature fear (ghost
worship) before their labors were interrupted by the later confusion attendant
upon the secession upheaval. The head of this council was Hap.
66:5.14 None of the Prince's staff would present revelation to complicate
evolution; they presented revelation only as the climax of their exhaustion of
the forces of evolution. But Hap did yield to the desire of the inhabitants of
the city for the establishment of a form of religious service. His group
provided the Dalamatians with the seven chants of worship and also gave them
the daily praise-phrase and eventually taught them "the Father's prayer,"
which was:
66:5.15 "Father of all, whose Son we honor, look down upon us with favor.
Deliver us from the fear of all save you. Make us a pleasure to our divine
teachers and forever put truth on our lips. Deliver us from violence and
anger; give us respect for our elders and that which belongs to our neighbors.
Give us this season green pastures and fruitful flocks to gladden our hearts.
We pray for the hastening of the coming of the promised uplifter, and we would
do your will on this world as others do on worlds beyond."
66:5.16 Although the Prince's staff were limited to natural means and ordinary
methods of race improvement, they held out the promise of the Adamic gift of a
new race as the goal of subsequent evolutionary growth upon the attainment of
the height of biologic development.
66:5.17 7. The guardians of health and life. This council was concerned with
the introduction of sanitation and the promotion of primitive hygiene and was
led by Lut.
66:5.18 Its members taught much that was lost during the confusion of
subsequent ages, never to be rediscovered until the twentieth century. They
taught mankind that cooking, boiling and roasting, was a means of avoiding
sickness; also that such cooking greatly reduced infant mortality and
facilitated early weaning.
66:5.19 Many of the early teachings of Lut's guardians of health persisted
among the tribes of earth on down to the days of Moses, even though they
became much garbled and were greatly changed.
66:5.20 The great obstacle in the way of promoting hygiene among these
ignorant peoples consisted in the fact that the real causes of many diseases
were too small to be seen by the naked eye, and also because they all held
fire in superstitious regard. It required thousands of years to persuade them
to burn refuse. In the meantime they were urged to bury their decaying
rubbish. The great sanitary advance of this epoch came from the dissemination
of knowledge regarding the health-giving and disease-destroying properties of
sunlight.
66:5.21 Before the Prince's arrival, bathing had been an exclusively religious
ceremonial. It was indeed difficult to persuade primitive men to wash their
bodies as a health practice. Lut finally induced the religious teachers to
include cleansing with water as a part of the purification ceremonies to be
practiced in connection with the noontime devotions, once a week, in the
worship of the Father of all.
66:5.22 These guardians of health also sought to introduce handshaking in
substitution for saliva exchange or blood drinking as a seal of personal
friendship and as a token of group loyalty. But when out from under the
compelling pressure of the teachings of their superior leaders, these
primitive peoples were not slow in reverting to their former health-destroying
and disease-breeding practices of ignorance and superstition.
66:5.23 8. The planetary council on art and science. This corps did much to
improve the industrial technique of early man and to elevate his concepts of
beauty. Their leader was Mek.
66:5.24 Art and science were at a low ebb throughout the world, but the
rudiments of physics and chemistry were taught the Dalamatians. Pottery was
advanced, decorative arts were all improved, and the ideals of human beauty
were greatly enhanced. But music made little progress until after the arrival
of the violet race.
66:5.25 These primitive men would not consent to experiment with steam power,
notwithstanding the repeated urgings of their teachers; never could they
overcome their great fear of the explosive power of confined steam. They were,
however, finally persuaded to work with metals and fire, although a piece of
red-hot metal was a terrorizing object to early man.
66:5.26 Mek did a great deal to advance the culture of the Andonites and to
improve the art of the blue man. A blend of the blue man with the Andon stock
produced an artistically gifted type, and many of them became master
sculptors. They did not work in stone or marble, but their works of clay,
hardened by baking, adorned the gardens of Dalamatia.
66:5.27 Great progress was made in the home arts, most of which were lost in
the long and dark ages of rebellion, never to be rediscovered until modern
times.
66:5.28 9. The governors of advanced tribal relations. This was the group
intrusted with the work of bringing human society up to the level of
statehood. Their chief was Tut.
66:5.29 These leaders contributed much to bringing about intertribal
marriages. They fostered courtship and marriage after due deliberation and
full opportunity to become acquainted. The purely military war dances were
refined and made to serve valuable social ends. Many competitive games were
introduced, but these ancient folk were a serious people; little humor graced
these early tribes. Few of these practices survived the subsequent
disintegration of planetary insurrection.
66:5.30 Tut and his associates labored to promote group associations of a
peaceful nature, to regulate and humanize warfare, to co-ordinate intertribal
relations, and to improve tribal governments. In the vicinity of Dalamatia
there developed a more advanced culture, and these improved social relations
were very helpful in influencing more remote tribes. But the pattern of
civilization prevailing at the Prince's headquarters was quite different from
the barbaric society evolving elsewhere, just as the twentieth-century society
of Capetown, South Africa, is totally unlike the crude culture of the
diminutive Bushmen to the north.
66:5.31 10. The supreme court of tribal co-ordination and racial co-operation.
This supreme council was directed by Van and was the court of appeals for all
of the other nine special commissions charged with the supervision of human
affairs. This council was one of wide function, being intrusted with all
matters of earthly concern which were not specifically assigned to the other
groups. This selected corps had been approved by the Constellation Fathers of
Edentia before they were authorized to assume the functions of the supreme
court of Urantia.
6. THE PRINCE'S REIGN
66:6.1 The degree of a world's culture is measured by the social heritage of
its native beings, and the rate of cultural expansion is wholly determined by
the ability of its inhabitants to comprehend new and advanced ideas.
66:6.2 Slavery to tradition produces stability and co-operation by
sentimentally linking the past with the present, but it likewise stifles
initiative and enslaves the creative powers of the personality. The whole
world was caught in the stalemate of tradition-bound mores when the Caligastia
one hundred arrived and began the proclamation of the new gospel of individual
initiative within the social groups of that day. But this beneficent rule was
so soon interrupted that the races never have been wholly liberated from the
slavery of custom; fashion still unduly dominates Urantia.
66:6.3 The Caligastia one hundred -- graduates of the Satania mansion worlds
-- well knew the arts and culture of Jerusem, but such knowledge is nearly
valueless on a barbaric planet populated by primitive humans. These wise
beings knew better than to undertake the sudden transformation, or the en
masse uplifting, of the primitive races of that day. They well understood the
slow evolution of the human species, and they wisely refrained from any
radical attempts at modifying man's mode of life on earth.
66:6.4 Each of the ten planetary commissions set about slowly and naturally to
advance the interests intrusted to them. Their plan consisted in attracting
the best minds of the surrounding tribes and, after training them, sending
them back to their people as emissaries of social uplift.
66:6.5 Foreign emissaries were never sent to a race except upon the specific
request of that people. Those who labored for the uplift and advancement of a
given tribe or race were always natives of that tribe or race. The one hundred
would not attempt to impose the habits and mores of even a superior race upon
another tribe. Always they patiently worked to uplift and advance the time-
tried mores of each race. The simple folk of Urantia brought their social
customs to Dalamatia, not to exchange them for new and better practices, but
to have them uplifted by contact with a higher culture and by association with
superior minds. The process was slow but very effectual.
66:6.6 The Dalamatia teachers sought to add conscious social selection to the
purely natural selection of biologic evolution. They did not derange human
society, but they did markedly accelerate its normal and natural evolution.
Their motive was progression by evolution and not revolution by revelation.
The human race had spent ages in acquiring the little religion and morals it
had, and these supermen knew better than to rob mankind of these few advances
by the confusion and dismay which always result when enlightened and superior
beings undertake to uplift the backward races by overteaching and
overenlightenment.
66:6.7 When Christian missionaries go into the heart of Africa, where sons and
daughters are supposed to remain under the control and direction of their
parents throughout the lifetime of the parents, they only bring about
confusion and the breakdown of all authority when they seek, in a single
generation, to supplant this practice by teaching that these children should
be free from all parental restraint after they have attained the age of
twenty-one.
7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA
66:7.1 The Prince's headquarters, though exquisitely beautiful and designed to
awe the primitive men of that age, was altogether modest. The buildings were
not especially large as it was the motive of these imported teachers to
encourage the eventual development of agriculture through the introduction of
animal husbandry. The land provision within the city walls was sufficient to
provide for pasturage and gardening for the support of a population of about
twenty thousand.
66:7.2 The interiors of the central temple of worship and the ten council
mansions of the supervising groups of supermen were indeed beautiful works of
art. And while the residential buildings were models of neatness and
cleanliness, everything was very simple and altogether primitive in comparison
with later-day developments. At this headquarters of culture no methods were
employed which did not naturally belong on Urantia.
66:7.3 The Prince's corporeal staff presided over simple and exemplary abodes
which they maintained as homes designed to inspire and favorably impress the
student observers sojourning at the world's social center and educational
headquarters.
66:7.4 The definite order of family life and the living of one family together
in one residence of comparatively settled location date from these times of
Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the example and teachings of the one hundred
and their pupils. The home as a social unit never became a success until the
supermen and superwomen of Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for their
grandchildren and their grandchildren's children. Savage man loves his child,
but civilized man loves also his grandchild.
66:7.5 The Prince's staff lived together as fathers and mothers. True, they
had no children of their own, but the fifty pattern homes of Dalamatia never
sheltered less than five hundred adopted little ones assembled from the
superior families of the Andonic and Sangik races; many of these children were
orphans. They were favored with the discipline and training of these
superparents; and then, after three years in the schools of the Prince (they
entered from thirteen to fifteen), they were eligible for marriage and ready
to receive their commissions as emissaries of the Prince to the needy tribes
of their respective races.
66:7.6 Fad sponsored the Dalamatia plan of teaching that was carried out as an
industrial school in which the pupils learned by doing, and through which they
worked their way by the daily performance of useful tasks. This plan of
education did not ignore thinking and feeling in the development of character;
but it gave first place to manual training. The instruction was individual and
collective. The pupils were taught by both men and women and by the two acting
conjointly. One half of this group instruction was by sexes; the other half
was coeducational. Students were taught manual dexterity as individuals and
were socialized in groups or classes. They were trained to fraternize with
younger groups, older groups, and adults, as well as to do teamwork with those
of their own ages. They were also familiarized with such associations as
family groups, play squads, and school classes.
66:7.7 Among the later students trained in Mesopotamia for work with their
respective races were Andonites from the highlands of western India together
with representatives of the red men and the blue men; still later a small
number of the yellow race were also received.
66:7.8 Hap presented the early races with a moral law. This code was known as
"The Father's Way" and consisted of the following seven commands:
66:7.9 1. You shall not fear nor serve any God but the Father of all.
66:7.10 2. You shall not disobey the Father's Son, the world's ruler, nor show
disrespect to his superhuman associates.
66:7.11 3. You shall not speak a lie when called before the judges of the
people.
66:7.12 4. You shall not kill men, women, or children.
66:7.13 5. You shall not steal your neighbor's goods or cattle.
66:7.14 6. You shall not touch your friend's wife.
66:7.15 7. You shall not show disrespect to your parents or to the elders of
the tribe.
66:7.16 This was the law of Dalamatia for almost three hundred thousand years.
And many of the stones on which this law was inscribed now lie beneath the
waters off the shores of Mesopotamia and Persia. It became the custom to hold
one of these commands in mind for each day of the week, using it for
salutations and mealtime thanksgiving.
66:7.17 The time measurement of these days was the lunar month, this period
being reckoned as twenty-eight days. That, with the exception of day and
night, was the only time reckoning known to the early peoples. The seven-day
week was introduced by the Dalamatia teachers and grew out of the fact that
seven was one fourth of twenty-eight. The significance of the number seven in
the superuniverse undoubtedly afforded them opportunity to introduce a
spiritual reminder into the common reckoning of time. But there is no natural
origin for the weekly period.
66:7.18 The country around the city was quite well settled within a radius of
one hundred miles. Immediately surrounding the city, hundreds of graduates of
the Prince's schools engaged in animal husbandry and otherwise carried out the
instruction they had received from his staff and their numerous human helpers.
A few engaged in agriculture and horticulture.
66:7.19 Mankind was not consigned to agricultural toil as the penalty of
supposed sin. "In the sweat of your face shall you eat the fruit of the
fields" was not a sentence of punishment pronounced because of man's
participation in the follies of the Lucifer rebellion under the leadership of
the traitorous Caligastia. The cultivation of the soil is inherent in the
establishment of an advancing civilization on the evolutionary worlds, and
this injunction was the center of all teaching of the Planetary Prince and his
staff throughout the three hundred thousand years which intervened between
their arrival on Urantia and those tragic days when Caligastia threw in his
lot with the rebel Lucifer. Work with the soil is not a curse; rather is it
the highest blessing to all who are thus permitted to enjoy the most human of
all human activities.
66:7.20 At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dalamatia had a resident population
of almost six thousand. This number includes the regular students but does not
embrace the visitors and observers, who always numbered more than one
thousand. But you can have little or no concept of the marvelous progress of
those faraway times; practically all of the wonderful human gains of those
days were wiped out by the horrible confusion and abject spiritual darkness
which followed the Caligastia catastrophe of deception and sedition.
8. MISFORTUNES OF CALIGASTIA
66:8.1 In looking back over the long career of Caligastia, we find only one
outstanding feature of his conduct that might have challenged attention; he
was ultraindividualistic. He was inclined to take sides with almost every
party of protest, and he was usually sympathetic with those who gave mild
expression to implied criticism. We detect the early appearance of this
tendency to be restless under authority, to mildly resent all forms of
supervision. While slightly resentful of senior counsel and somewhat restive
under superior authority, nonetheless, whenever a test had come, he had always
proved loyal to the universe rulers and obedient to the mandates of the
Constellation Fathers. No real fault was ever found in him up to the time of
his shameful betrayal of Urantia.
66:8.2 It should be noted that both Lucifer and Caligastia had been patiently
instructed and lovingly warned respecting their critical tendencies and the
subtle development of their pride of self and its associated exaggeration of
the feeling of self-importance. But all of these attempts to help had been
misconstrued as unwarranted criticism and as unjustified interference with
personal liberties. Both Caligastia and Lucifer judged their friendly advisers
as being actuated by the very reprehensible motives which were beginning to
dominate their own distorted thinking and misguided planning. They judged
their unselfish advisers by their own evolving selfishness.
66:8.3 From the arrival of Prince Caligastia, planetary civilization
progressed in a fairly normal manner for almost three hundred thousand years.
Aside from being a life-modification sphere and therefore subject to numerous
irregularities and unusual episodes of evolutionary fluctuation, Urantia
progressed very satisfactorily in its planetary career up to the times of the
Lucifer rebellion and the concurrent Caligastia betrayal. All subsequent
history has been definitely modified by this catastrophic blunder as well as
by the later failure of Adam and Eve to fulfill their planetary mission.
66:8.4 The Prince of Urantia went into darkness at the time of the Lucifer
rebellion, thus precipitating the long confusion of the planet. He was
subsequently deprived of sovereign authority by the co-ordinate action of the
constellation rulers and other universe authorities. He shared the inevitable
vicissitudes of isolated Urantia down to the time of Adam's sojourn on the
planet and contributed something to the miscarriage of the plan to uplift the
mortal races through the infusion of the lifeblood of the new violet race --
the descendants of Adam and Eve.
66:8.5 The power of the fallen Prince to disturb human affairs was enormously
curtailed by the mortal incarnation of Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of
Abraham; and subsequently, during the life of Michael in the flesh, this
traitorous Prince was finally shorn of all authority on Urantia.
66:8.6 The doctrine of a personal devil on Urantia, though it had some
foundation in the planetary presence of the traitorous and iniquitous
Caligastia, was nevertheless wholly fictitious in its teachings that such a
"devil" could influence the normal human mind against its free and natural
choosing. Even before Michael's bestowal on Urantia, neither Caligastia nor
Daligastia was ever able to oppress mortals or to coerce any normal individual
into doing anything against the human will. The free will of man is supreme in
moral affairs; even the indwelling Thought Adjuster refuses to compel man to
think a single thought or to perform a single act against the choosing of
man's own will.
66:8.7 And now this rebel of the realm, shorn of all power to harm his former
subjects, awaits the final adjudication, by the Uversa Ancients of Days, of
all who participated in the Lucifer rebellion.
66:8.8 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 67
THE PLANETARY REBELLION
67:0.1 THE problems associated with human existence on Urantia are impossible
of understanding without a knowledge of certain great epochs of the past,
notably the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion. Although
this upheaval did not seriously interfere with the progress of organic
evolution, it did markedly modify the course of social evolution and of
spiritual development. The entire superphysical history of the planet was
profoundly influenced by this devastating calamity.
1. THE CALIGASTIA BETRAYAL
67:1.1 For three hundred thousand years Caligastia had been in charge of
Urantia when Satan, Lucifer's assistant, made one of his periodic inspection
calls. And when Satan arrived on the planet, his appearance in no way
resembled your caricatures of his nefarious majesty. He was, and still is, a
Lanonandek Son of great brilliance. "And no marvel, for Satan himself is a
brilliant creature of light."
67:1.2 In the course of this inspection Satan informed Caligastia of Lucifer's
then proposed "Declaration of Liberty," and as we now know, the Prince agreed
to betray the planet upon the announcement of the rebellion. The loyal
universe personalities look with peculiar disdain upon Prince Caligastia
because of this premeditated betrayal of trust. The Creator Son voiced this
contempt when he said: "You are like your leader, Lucifer, and you have
sinfully perpetuated his iniquity. He was a falsifier from the beginning of
his self-exaltation because he abode not in the truth."
67:1.3 In all the administrative work of a local universe no high trust is
deemed more sacred than that reposed in a Planetary Prince who assumes
responsibility for the welfare and guidance of the evolving mortals on a newly
inhabited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more destructive of
personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to one's confiding
friends. In committing this deliberate sin, Caligastia so completely distorted
his personality that his mind has never since been able fully to regain its
equilibrium.
67:1.4 There are many ways of looking at sin, but from the universe
philosophic viewpoint sin is the attitude of a personality who is knowingly
resisting cosmic reality. Error might be regarded as a misconception or
distortion of reality. Evil is a partial realization of, or maladjustment to,
universe realities. But sin is a purposeful resistance to divine reality -- a
conscious choosing to oppose spiritual progress -- while iniquity consists in
an open and persistent defiance of recognized reality and signifies such a
degree of personality disintegration as to border on cosmic insanity.
67:1.5 Error suggests lack of intellectual keenness; evil, deficiency of
wisdom; sin, abject spiritual poverty; but iniquity is indicative of vanishing
personality control.
67:1.6 And when sin has so many times been chosen and so often been repeated,
it may become habitual. Habitual sinners can easily become iniquitous, become
wholehearted rebels against the universe and all of its divine realities.
While all manner of sins may be forgiven, we doubt whether the established
iniquiter would ever sincerely experience sorrow for his misdeeds or accept
forgiveness for his sins.
2. THE OUTBREAK OF REBELLION
67:2.1 Shortly after Satan's inspection and when the planetary administration
was on the eve of the realization of great things on Urantia, one day,
midwinter of the northern continents, Caligastia held a prolonged conference
with his associate, Daligastia, after which the latter called the ten councils
of Urantia in session extraordinary. This assembly was opened with the
statement that Prince Caligastia was about to proclaim himself absolute
sovereign of Urantia and demanded that all administrative groups abdicate by
resigning all of their functions and powers into the hands of Daligastia as
trustee, pending the reorganization of the planetary government and the
subsequent redistribution of these offices of administrative authority.
67:2.2 The presentation of this astounding demand was followed by the masterly
appeal of Van, chairman of the supreme council of co-ordination. This
distinguished administrator and able jurist branded the proposed course of
Caligastia as an act bordering on planetary rebellion and appealed to his
conferees to abstain from all participation until an appeal could be taken to
Lucifer, the System Sovereign of Satania; and he won the support of the entire
staff. Accordingly, appeal was taken to Jerusem, and forthwith came back the
orders designating Caligastia as supreme sovereign on Urantia and commanding
absolute and unquestioning allegiance to his mandates. And it was in reply to
this amazing message that the noble Van made his memorable address of seven
hours' length in which he formally drew his indictment of Daligastia,
Caligastia, and Lucifer as standing in contempt of the sovereignty of the
universe of Nebadon; and he appealed to the Most Highs of Edentia for support
and confirmation.
67:2.3 Meantime the system circuits had been severed; Urantia was isolated.
Every group of celestial life on the planet found itself suddenly and without
warning isolated, utterly cut off from all outside counsel and advice.
67:2.4 Daligastia formally proclaimed Caligastia "God of Urantia and supreme
over all." With this proclamation before them, the issues were clearly drawn;
and each group drew off by itself and began deliberations, discussions
destined eventually to determine the fate of every superhuman personality on
the planet.
67:2.5 Seraphim and cherubim and other celestial beings were involved in the
decisions of this bitter struggle, this long and sinful conflict. Many
superhuman groups that chanced to be on Urantia at the time of its isolation
were detained here and, like the seraphim and their associates, were compelled
to choose between sin and righteousness -- between the ways of Lucifer and the
will of the unseen Father.
67:2.6 For more than seven years this struggle continued. Not until every
personality concerned had made a final decision, would or did the authorities
of Edentia interfere or intervene. Not until then did Van and his loyal
associates receive vindication and release from their prolonged anxiety and
intolerable suspense.
3. THE SEVEN CRUCIAL YEARS
67:3.1 The outbreak of rebellion on Jerusem, the capital of Satania, was
broadcast by the Melchizedek council. The emergency Melchizedeks were
immediately dispatched to Jerusem, and Gabriel volunteered to act as the
representative of the Creator Son, whose authority had been challenged. With
this broadcast of the fact of rebellion in Satania the system was isolated,
quarantined, from her sister systems. There was "war in heaven," the
headquarters of Satania, and it spread to every planet in the local system.
67:3.2 On Urantia forty members of the corporeal staff of one hundred
(including Van) refused to join the insurrection. Many of the staff's human
assistants (modified and otherwise) were also brave and noble defenders of
Michael and his universe government. There was a terrible loss of
personalities among seraphim and cherubim. Almost one half of the
administrator and transition seraphim assigned to the planet joined their
leader and Daligastia in support of the cause of Lucifer. Forty thousand one
hundred and nineteen of the primary midway creatures joined hands with
Caligastia, but the remainder of these beings remained true to their trust.
67:3.3 The traitorous Prince marshaled the disloyal midway creatures and other
groups of rebel personalities and organized them to execute his bidding, while
Van assembled the loyal midwayers and other faithful groups and began the
great battle for the salvation of the planetary staff and other marooned
celestial personalities.
67:3.4 During the times of this struggle the loyalists dwelt in an unwalled
and poorly protected settlement a few miles to the east of Dalamatia, but
their dwellings were guarded day and night by the alert and ever-watchful
loyal midway creatures, and they had possession of the priceless tree of life.
67:3.5 Upon the outbreak of rebellion, loyal cherubim and seraphim, with the
aid of three faithful midwayers, assumed the custody of the tree of life and
permitted only the forty loyalists of the staff and their associated modified
mortals to partake of the fruit and leaves of this energy plant. There were
fifty-six of these modified Andonite associates of the staff, sixteen of the
Andonite attendants of the disloyal staff refusing to go into rebellion with
their masters.
67:3.6 Throughout the seven crucial years of the Caligastia rebellion, Van was
wholly devoted to the work of ministry to his loyal army of men, midwayers,
and angels. The spiritual insight and moral steadfastness which enabled Van to
maintain such an unshakable attitude of loyalty to the universe government was
the product of clear thinking, wise reasoning, logical judgment, sincere
motivation, unselfish purpose, intelligent loyalty, experiential memory,
disciplined character, and the unquestioning dedication of his personality to
the doing of the will of the Father in Paradise.
67:3.7 This seven years of waiting was a time of heart searching and soul
discipline. Such crises in the affairs of a universe demonstrate the
tremendous influence of mind as a factor in spiritual choosing. Education,
training, and experience are factors in most of the vital decisions of all
evolutionary moral creatures. But it is entirely possible for the indwelling
spirit to make direct contact with the decision-determining powers of the
human personality so as to empower the fully consecrated will of the creature
to perform amazing acts of loyal devotion to the will and the way of the
Father in Paradise. And this is just what occurred in the experience of
Amadon, the modified human associate of Van.
67:3.8 Amadon is the outstanding human hero of the Lucifer rebellion. This
male descendant of Andon and Fonta was one of the one hundred who contributed
life plasm to the Prince's staff, and ever since that event he had been
attached to Van as his associate and human assistant. Amadon elected to stand
with his chief throughout the long and trying struggle. And it was an
inspiring sight to behold this child of the evolutionary races standing
unmoved by the sophistries of Daligastia while throughout the seven-year
struggle he and his loyal associates resisted with unyielding fortitude all of
the deceptive teachings of the brilliant Caligastia.
67:3.9 Caligastia, with a maximum of intelligence and a vast experience in
universe affairs, went astray -- embraced sin. Amadon, with a minimum of
intelligence and utterly devoid of universe experience, remained steadfast in
the service of the universe and in loyalty to his associate. Van utilized both
mind and spirit in a magnificent and effective combination of intellectual
determination and spiritual insight, thereby achieving an experiential level
of personality realization of the highest attainable order. Mind and spirit,
when fully united, are potential for the creation of superhuman values, even
morontia realities.
67:3.10 There is no end to the recital of the stirring events of these tragic
days. But at last the final decision of the last personality was made, and
then, but only then, did a Most High of Edentia arrive with the emergency
Melchizedeks to seize authority on Urantia. The Caligastia panoramic reign-
records on Jerusem were obliterated, and the probationary era of planetary
rehabilitation was inaugurated.
4. THE CALIGASTIA ONE HUNDRED AFTER REBELLION
67:4.1 When the final roll was called, the corporeal members of the Prince's
staff were found to have aligned themselves as follows: Van and his entire
court of co-ordination had remained loyal. Ang and three members of the food
council had survived. The board of animal husbandry were all swept into
rebellion as were all of the animal-conquest advisers. Fad and five members of
the educational faculty were saved. Nod and all of the commission on industry
and trade joined Caligastia. Hap and the entire college of revealed religion
remained loyal with Van and his noble band. Lut and the whole board of health
were lost. The council of art and science remained loyal in its entirety, but
Tut and the commission on tribal government all went astray. Thus were forty
out of the one hundred saved, later to be transferred to Jerusem, where they
resumed their Paradise journey.
67:4.2 The sixty members of the planetary staff who went into rebellion chose
Nod as their leader. They worked wholeheartedly for the rebel Prince but soon
discovered that they were deprived of the sustenance of the system life
circuits. They awakened to the fact that they had been degraded to the status
of mortal beings. They were indeed superhuman but, at the same time, material
and mortal. In an effort to increase their numbers, Daligastia ordered
immediate resort to sexual reproduction, knowing full well that the original
sixty and their forty-four modified Andonite associates were doomed to suffer
extinction by death, sooner or later. After the fall of Dalamatia the disloyal
staff migrated to the north and the east. Their descendants were long known as
the Nodites, and their dwelling place as "the land of Nod."
67:4.3 The presence of these extraordinary supermen and superwomen, stranded
by rebellion and presently mating with the sons and daughters of earth, easily
gave origin to those traditional stories of the gods coming down to mate with
mortals. And thus originated the thousand and one legends of a mythical
nature, but founded on the facts of the postrebellion days, which later found
a place in the folk tales and traditions of the various peoples whose
ancestors had participated in these contacts with the Nodites and their
descendants.
67:4.4 The staff rebels, deprived of spiritual sustenance, eventually died a
natural death. And much of the subsequent idolatry of the human races grew out
of the desire to perpetuate the memory of these highly honored beings of the
days of Caligastia.
67:4.5 When the staff of one hundred came to Urantia, they were temporarily
detached from their Thought Adjusters. Immediately upon the arrival of the
Melchizedek receivers the loyal personalities (except Van) were returned to
Jerusem and were reunited with their waiting Adjusters. We know not the fate
of the sixty staff rebels; their Adjusters still tarry on Jerusem. Matters
will undoubtedly rest as they now are until the entire Lucifer rebellion is
finally adjudicated and the fate of all participants decreed.
67:4.6 It was very difficult for such beings as angels and midwayers to
conceive of brilliant and trusted rulers like Caligastia and Daligastia going
astray -- committing traitorous sin. Those beings who fell into sin -- they
did not deliberately or premeditatedly enter upon rebellion -- were misled by
their superiors, deceived by their trusted leaders. It was likewise easy to
win the support of the primitive-minded evolutionary mortals.
67:4.7 The vast majority of all human and superhuman beings who were victims
of the Lucifer rebellion on Jerusem and the various misled planets have long
since heartily repented of their folly; and we truly believe that all such
sincere penitents will in some manner be rehabilitated and restored to some
phase of universe service when the Ancients of Days finally complete the
adjudication of the affairs of the Satania rebellion, which they have so
recently begun.
5. IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF REBELLION
67:5.1 Great confusion reigned in Dalamatia and thereabout for almost fifty
years after the instigation of rebellion. The complete and radical
reorganization of the whole world was attempted; revolution displaced
evolution as the policy of cultural advancement and racial improvement. Among
the superior and partially trained sojourners in and near Dalamatia there
appeared a sudden advancement in cultural status, but when these new and
radical methods were attempted on the outlying peoples, indescribable
confusion and racial pandemonium was the immediate result. Liberty was quickly
translated into license by the half-evolved primitive men of those days.
67:5.2 Very soon after the rebellion the entire staff of sedition were engaged
in energetic defense of the city against the hordes of semisavages who
besieged its walls as a result of the doctrines of liberty which had been
prematurely taught them. And years before the beautiful headquarters went down
beneath the southern waves, the misled and mistaught tribes of the Dalamatia
hinterland had already swept down in semisavage assault on the splendid city,
driving the secession staff and their associates northward.
67:5.3 The Caligastia scheme for the immediate reconstruction of human society
in accordance with his ideas of individual freedom and group liberties, proved
a swift and more or less complete failure. Society quickly sank back to its
old biologic level, and the forward struggle began all over, starting not very
far in advance of where it was at the beginning of the Caligastia regime, this
upheaval having left the world in confusion worse confounded.
67:5.4 One hundred and sixty-two years after the rebellion a tidal wave swept
up over Dalamatia, and the planetary headquarters sank beneath the waters of
the sea, and this land did not again emerge until almost every vestige of the
noble culture of those splendid ages had been obliterated.
67:5.5 When the first capital of the world was engulfed, it harbored only the
lowest types of the Sangik races of Urantia, renegades who had already
converted the Father's temple into a shrine dedicated to Nog, the false god of
light and fire.
6. VAN -- THE STEADFAST
67:6.1 The followers of Van early withdrew to the highlands west of India,
where they were exempt from attacks by the confused races of the lowlands, and
from which place of retirement they planned for the rehabilitation of the
world as their early Badonite predecessors had once all unwittingly worked for
the welfare of mankind just before the days of the birth of the Sangik tribes.
67:6.2 Before the arrival of the Melchizedek receivers, Van placed the
administration of human affairs in the hands of ten commissions of four each,
groups identical with those of the Prince's regime. The senior resident Life
Carriers assumed temporary leadership of this council of forty, which
functioned throughout the seven years of waiting. Similar groups of Amadonites
assumed these responsibilities when the thirty-nine loyal staff members
returned to Jerusem.
67:6.3 These Amadonites were derived from the group of 144 loyal Andonites to
which Amadon belonged, and who have become known by his name. This group
comprised thirty-nine men and one hundred and five women. Fifty-six of this
number were of immortality status, and all (except Amadon) were translated
along with the loyal members of the staff. The remainder of this noble band
continued on earth to the end of their mortal days under the leadership of Van
and Amadon. They were the biologic leaven which multiplied and continued to
furnish leadership for the world down through the long dark ages of the
postrebellion era.
67:6.4 Van was left on Urantia until the time of Adam, remaining as titular
head of all superhuman personalities functioning on the planet. He and Amadon
were sustained by the technique of the tree of life in conjunction with the
specialized life ministry of the Melchizedeks for over one hundred and fifty
thousand years.
67:6.5 The affairs of Urantia were for a long time administered by a council
of planetary receivers, twelve Melchizedeks, confirmed by the mandate of the
senior constellation ruler, the Most High Father of Norlatiadek. Associated
with the Melchizedek receivers was an advisory council consisting of: one of
the loyal aids of the fallen Prince, the two resident Life Carriers, a
Trinitized Son in apprenticeship training, a volunteer Teacher Son, a
Brilliant Evening Star of Avalon (periodically), the chiefs of seraphim and
cherubim, advisers from two neighboring planets, the director general of
subordinate angelic life, and Van, the commander in chief of the midway
creatures. And thus was Urantia governed and administered until the arrival of
Adam. It is not strange that the courageous and loyal Van was assigned a place
on the council of planetary receivers which for so long administered the
affairs of Urantia.
67:6.6 The twelve Melchizedek receivers of Urantia did heroic work. They
preserved the remnants of civilization, and their planetary policies were
faithfully executed by Van. Within one thousand years after the rebellion he
had more than three hundred and fifty advanced groups scattered abroad in the
world. These outposts of civilization consisted largely of the descendants of
the loyal Andonites slightly admixed with the Sangik races, particularly the
blue men, and with the Nodites.
67:6.7 Notwithstanding the terrible setback of rebellion there were many good
strains of biologic promise on earth. Under the supervision of the Melchizedek
receivers, Van and Amadon continued the work of fostering the natural
evolution of the human race, carrying forward the physical evolution of man
until it reached that culminating attainment which warranted the dispatch of a
Material Son and Daughter to Urantia.
67:6.8 Van and Amadon remained on earth until shortly after the arrival of
Adam and Eve. Some years thereafter they were translated to Jerusem, where Van
was reunited with his waiting Adjuster. Van now serves in behalf of Urantia
while awaiting the order to go forward on the long, long trail to Paradise
perfection and the unrevealed destiny of the assembling Corps of Mortal
Finality.
67:6.9 It should be recorded that, when Van appealed to the Most Highs of
Edentia after Lucifer had sustained Caligastia on Urantia, the Constellation
Fathers dispatched an immediate decision sustaining Van on every point of his
contention. This verdict failed to reach him because the planetary circuits of
communication were severed while it was in transit. Only recently was this
actual ruling discovered lodged in the possession of a relay energy
transmitter where it had been marooned ever since the isolation of Urantia.
Without this discovery, made as the result of the investigations of the
Urantia midwayers, the release of this decision would have awaited the
restoration of Urantia to the constellation circuits. And this apparent
accident of interplanetary communication was possible because energy
transmitters can receive and transmit intelligence, but they cannot initiate
communication.
67:6.10 The technical status of Van on the legal records of Satania was not
actually and finally settled until this ruling of the Edentia Fathers was
recorded on Jerusem.
7. REMOTE REPERCUSSIONS OF SIN
67:7.1 The personal (centripetal) consequences of the creature's willful and
persistent rejection of light are both inevitable and individual and are of
concern only to Deity and to that personal creature. Such a soul-destroying
harvest of iniquity is the inner reaping of the iniquitous will creature.
67:7.2 But not so with the external repercussions of sin: The impersonal
(centrifugal) consequences of embraced sin are both inevitable and collective,
being of concern to every creature functioning within the affect-range of such
events.
67:7.3 By fifty thousand years after the collapse of the planetary
administration, earthly affairs were so disorganized and retarded that the
human race had gained very little over the general evolutionary status
existing at the time of Caligastia's arrival three hundred and fifty thousand
years previously. In certain respects progress had been made; in other
directions much ground had been lost.
67:7.4 Sin is never purely local in its effects. The administrative sectors of
the universes are organismal; the plight of one personality must to a certain
extent be shared by all. Sin, being an attitude of the person toward reality,
is destined to exhibit its inherent negativistic harvest upon any and all
related levels of universe values. But the full consequences of erroneous
thinking, evil-doing, or sinful planning are experienced only on the level of
actual performance. The transgression of universe law may be fatal in the
physical realm without seriously involving the mind or impairing the spiritual
experience. Sin is fraught with fatal consequences to personality survival
only when it is the attitude of the whole being, when it stands for the
choosing of the mind and the willing of the soul.
67:7.5 Evil and sin visit their consequences in material and social realms and
may sometimes even retard spiritual progress on certain levels of universe
reality, but never does the sin of any being rob another of the realization of
the divine right of personality survival. Eternal survival can be jeopardized
only by the decisions of the mind and the choice of the soul of the individual
himself.
67:7.6 Sin on Urantia did very little to delay biologic evolution, but it did
operate to deprive the mortal races of the full benefit of the Adamic
inheritance. Sin enormously retards intellectual development, moral growth,
social progress, and mass spiritual attainment. But it does not prevent the
highest spiritual achievement by any individual who chooses to know God and
sincerely do his divine will.
67:7.7 Caligastia rebelled, Adam and Eve did default, but no mortal
subsequently born on Urantia has suffered in his personal spiritual experience
because of these blunders. Every mortal born on Urantia since Caligastia's
rebellion has been in some manner time-penalized, but the future welfare of
such souls has never been in the least eternity-jeopardized. No person is ever
made to suffer vital spiritual deprivation because of the sin of another. Sin
is wholly personal as to moral guilt or spiritual consequences,
notwithstanding its far-flung repercussions in administrative, intellectual,
and social domains.
67:7.8 While we cannot fathom the wisdom that permits such catastrophes, we
can always discern the beneficial outworking of these local disturbances as
they are reflected out upon the universe at large.
8. THE HUMAN HERO OF THE REBELLION
67:8.1 The Lucifer rebellion was withstood by many courageous beings on the
various worlds of Satania; but the records of Salvington portray Amadon as the
outstanding character of the entire system in his glorious rejection of the
flood tides of sedition and in his unswerving devotion to Van -- they stood
together unmoved in their loyalty to the supremacy of the invisible Father and
his Son Michael.
67:8.2 At the time of these momentous transactions I was stationed on Edentia,
and I am still conscious of the exhilaration I experienced as I perused the
Salvington broadcasts which told from day to day of the unbelievable
steadfastness, the transcendent devotion, and the exquisite loyalty of this
onetime semisavage springing from the experimental and original stock of the
Andonic race.
67:8.3 From Edentia up through Salvington and even on to Uversa, for seven
long years the first inquiry of all subordinate celestial life regarding the
Satania rebellion, ever and always, was: "What of Amadon of Urantia, does he
still stand unmoved?"
67:8.4 If the Lucifer rebellion has handicapped the local system and its
fallen worlds, if the loss of this Son and his misled associates has
temporarily hampered the progress of the constellation of Norlatiadek, then
weigh the effect of the far-flung presentation of the inspiring performance of
this one child of nature and his determined band of 143 comrades in standing
steadfast for the higher concepts of universe management and administration in
the face of such tremendous and adverse pressure exerted by his disloyal
superiors. And let me assure you, this has already done more good in the
universe of Nebadon and the superuniverse of Orvonton than can ever be
outweighed by the sum total of all the evil and sorrow of the Lucifer
rebellion.
67:8.5 And all this is a beautifully touching and superbly magnificent
illumination of the wisdom of the Father's universal plan for mobilizing the
Corps of Mortal Finality on Paradise and for recruiting this vast group of
mysterious servants of the future largely from the common clay of the mortals
of ascending progression -- just such mortals as the impregnable Amadon.
67:8.6 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 68
THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
68:0.1 THIS is the beginning of the narrative of the long, long forward
struggle of the human species from a status that was little better than an
animal existence, through the intervening ages, and down to the later times
when a real, though imperfect, civilization had evolved among the higher races
of mankind.
68:0.2 Civilization is a racial acquirement; it is not biologically inherent;
hence must all children be reared in an environment of culture, while each
succeeding generation of youth must receive anew its education. The superior
qualities of civilization -- scientific, philosophic, and religious -- are not
transmitted from one generation to another by direct inheritance. These
cultural achievements are preserved only by the enlightened conservation of
social inheritance.
68:0.3 Social evolution of the co-operative order was initiated by the
Dalamatia teachers, and for three hundred thousand years mankind was nurtured
in the idea of group activities. The blue man most of all profited by these
early social teachings, the red man to some extent, and the black man least of
all. In more recent times the yellow race and the white race have presented
the most advanced social development on Urantia.
1. PROTECTIVE SOCIALIZATION
68:1.1 When brought closely together, men often learn to like one another, but
primitive man was not naturally overflowing with the spirit of brotherly
feeling and the desire for social contact with his fellows. Rather did the
early races learn by sad experience that "in union there is strength"; and it
is this lack of natural brotherly attraction that now stands in the way of
immediate realization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia.
68:1.2 Association early became the price of survival. The lone man was
helpless unless he bore a tribal mark which testified that he belonged to a
group which would certainly avenge any assault made upon him. Even in the days
of Cain it was fatal to go abroad alone without some mark of group
association. Civilization has become man's insurance against violent death,
while the premiums are paid by submission to society's numerous law demands.
68:1.3 Primitive society was thus founded on the reciprocity of necessity and
on the enhanced safety of association. And human society has evolved in
agelong cycles as a result of this isolation fear and by means of reluctant
co-operation.
68:1.4 Primitive human beings early learned that groups are vastly greater and
stronger than the mere sum of their individual units. One hundred men united
and working in unison can move a great stone; a score of well-trained
guardians of the peace can restrain an angry mob. And so society was born, not
of mere association of numbers, but rather as a result of the organization of
intelligent co-operators. But co-operation is not a natural trait of man; he
learns to co-operate first through fear and then later because he discovers it
is most beneficial in meeting the difficulties of time and guarding against
the supposed perils of eternity.
68:1.5 The peoples who thus early organized themselves into a primitive
society became more successful in their attacks on nature as well as in
defense against their fellows; they possessed greater survival possibilities;
hence has civilization steadily progressed on Urantia, notwithstanding its
many setbacks. And it is only because of the enhancement of survival value in
association that man's many blunders have thus far failed to stop or destroy
human civilization.
68:1.6 That contemporary cultural society is a rather recent phenomenon is
well shown by the present-day survival of such primitive social conditions as
characterize the Australian natives and the Bushmen and Pygmies of Africa.
Among these backward peoples may be observed something of the early group
hostility, personal suspicion, and other highly antisocial traits which were
so characteristic of all primitive races. These miserable remnants of the
nonsocial peoples of ancient times bear eloquent testimony to the fact that
the natural individualistic tendency of man cannot successfully compete with
the more potent and powerful organizations and associations of social
progression. These backward and suspicious antisocial races that speak a
different dialect every forty or fifty miles illustrate what a world you might
now be living in but for the combined teaching of the corporeal staff of the
Planetary Prince and the later labors of the Adamic group of racial uplifters.
68:1.7 The modern phrase, "back to nature," is a delusion of ignorance, a
belief in the reality of the onetime fictitious "golden age." The only basis
for the legend of the golden age is the historic fact of Dalamatia and Eden.
But these improved societies were far from the realization of utopian dreams.
2. FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESSION
68:2.1 Civilized society is the result of man's early efforts to overcome his
dislike of isolation. But this does not necessarily signify mutual affection,
and the present turbulent state of certain primitive groups well illustrates
what the early tribes came up through. But though the individuals of a
civilization may collide with each other and struggle against one another, and
though civilization itself may appear to be an inconsistent mass of striving
and struggling, it does evidence earnest striving, not the deadly monotony of
stagnation.
68:2.2 While the level of intelligence has contributed considerably to the
rate of cultural progress, society is essentially designed to lessen the risk
element in the individual's mode of living, and it has progressed just as fast
as it has succeeded in lessening pain and increasing the pleasure element in
life. Thus does the whole social body push on slowly toward the goal of
destiny -- extinction or survival -- depending on whether that goal is self-
maintenance or self-gratification. Self-maintenance originates society, while
excessive self-gratification destroys civilization.
68:2.3 Society is concerned with self-perpetuation, self-maintenance, and
self-gratification, but human self-realization is worthy of becoming the
immediate goal of many cultural groups.
68:2.4 The herd instinct in natural man is hardly sufficient to account for
the development of such a social organization as now exists on Urantia. Though
this innate gregarious propensity lies at the bottom of human society, much of
man's sociability is an acquirement. Two great influences which contributed to
the early association of human beings were food hunger and sex love; these
instinctive urges man shares with the animal world. Two other emotions which
drove human beings together and held them together were vanity and fear, more
particularly ghost fear.
68:2.5 History is but the record of man's agelong food struggle. Primitive man
only thought when he was hungry; food saving was his first self-denial, self-
discipline. With the growth of society, food hunger ceased to be the only
incentive for mutual association. Numerous other sorts of hunger, the
realization of various needs, all led to the closer association of mankind.
But today society is top-heavy with the overgrowth of supposed human needs.
Occidental civilization of the twentieth century groans wearily under the
tremendous overload of luxury and the inordinate multiplication of human
desires and longings. Modern society is enduring the strain of one of its most
dangerous phases of far-flung interassociation and highly complicated
interdependence.
68:2.6 Hunger, vanity, and ghost fear were continuous in their social
pressure, but sex gratification was transient and spasmodic. The sex urge
alone did not impel primitive men and women to assume the heavy burdens of
home maintenance. The early home was founded upon the sex restlessness of the
male when deprived of frequent gratification and upon that devoted mother love
of the human female, which in measure she shares with the females of all the
higher animals. The presence of a helpless baby determined the early
differentiation of male and female activities; the woman had to maintain a
settled residence where she could cultivate the soil. And from earliest times,
where woman was has always been regarded as the home.
68:2.7 Woman thus early became indispensable to the evolving social scheme,
not so much because of the fleeting sex passion as in consequence of food
requirement; she was an essential partner in self-maintenance. She was a food
provider, a beast of burden, and a companion who would stand great abuse
without violent resentment, and in addition to all of these desirable traits,
she was an ever-present means of sex gratification.
68:2.8 Almost everything of lasting value in civilization has its roots in the
family. The family was the first successful peace group, the man and woman
learning how to adjust their antagonisms while at the same time teaching the
pursuits of peace to their children.
68:2.9 The function of marriage in evolution is the insurance of race
survival, not merely the realization of personal happiness; self-maintenance
and self-perpetuation are the real objects of the home. Self-gratification is
incidental and not essential except as an incentive insuring sex association.
Nature demands survival, but the arts of civilization continue to increase the
pleasures of marriage and the satisfactions of family life.
68:2.10 If vanity be enlarged to cover pride, ambition, and honor, then we may
discern not only how these propensities contribute to the formation of human
associations, but how they also hold men together, since such emotions are
futile without an audience to parade before. Soon vanity associated with
itself other emotions and impulses which required a social arena wherein they
might exhibit and gratify themselves. This group of emotions gave origin to
the early beginnings of all art, ceremonial, and all forms of sportive games
and contests.
68:2.11 Vanity contributed mightily to the birth of society; but at the time
of these revelations the devious strivings of a vainglorious generation
threaten to swamp and submerge the whole complicated structure of a highly
specialized civilization. Pleasure-want has long since superseded hunger-want;
the legitimate social aims of self-maintenance are rapidly translating
themselves into base and threatening forms of self-gratification. Self-
maintenance builds society; unbridled self-gratification unfailingly destroys
civilization.
3. SOCIALIZING INFLUENCE OF GHOST FEAR
68:3.1 Primitive desires produced the original society, but ghost fear held it
together and imparted an extrahuman aspect to its existence. Common fear was
physiological in origin: fear of physical pain, unsatisfied hunger, or some
earthly calamity; but ghost fear was a new and sublime sort of terror.
68:3.2 Probably the greatest single factor in the evolution of human society
was the ghost dream. Although most dreams greatly perturbed the primitive
mind, the ghost dream actually terrorized early men, driving these
superstitious dreamers into each other's arms in willing and earnest
association for mutual protection against the vague and unseen imaginary
dangers of the spirit world. The ghost dream was one of the earliest appearing
differences between the animal and human types of mind. Animals do not
visualize survival after death.
68:3.3 Except for this ghost factor, all society was founded on fundamental
needs and basic biologic urges. But ghost fear introduced a new factor in
civilization, a fear which reaches out and away from the elemental needs of
the individual, and which rises far above even the struggles to maintain the
group. The dread of the departed spirits of the dead brought to light a new
and amazing form of fear, an appalling and powerful terror, which contributed
to whipping the loose social orders of early ages into the more thoroughly
disciplined and better controlled primitive groups of ancient times. This
senseless superstition, some of which still persists, prepared the minds of
men, through superstitious fear of the unreal and the supernatural, for the
later discovery of "the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom."
The baseless fears of evolution are designed to be supplanted by the awe for
Deity inspired by revelation. The early cult of ghost fear became a powerful
social bond, and ever since that far-distant day mankind has been striving
more or less for the attainment of spirituality.
68:3.4 Hunger and love drove men together; vanity and ghost fear held them
together. But these emotions alone, without the influence of peace-promoting
revelations, are unable to endure the strain of the suspicions and irritations
of human interassociations. Without help from superhuman sources the strain of
society breaks down upon reaching certain limits, and these very influences of
social mobilization -- hunger, love, vanity, and fear -- conspire to plunge
mankind into war and bloodshed.
68:3.5 The peace tendency of the human race is not a natural endowment; it is
derived from the teachings of revealed religion, from the accumulated
experience of the progressive races, but more especially from the teachings of
Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
4. EVOLUTION OF THE MORES
68:4.1 All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the
primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the
modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual,
custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal
traditions -- mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the
institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin.
68:4.2 It must be borne in mind that the mores originated in an effort to
adjust group living to the conditions of mass existence; the mores were man's
first social institution. And all of these tribal reactions grew out of the
effort to avoid pain and humiliation while at the same time seeking to enjoy
pleasure and power. The origin of folkways, like the origin of languages, is
always unconscious and unintentional and therefore always shrouded in mystery.
68:4.3 Ghost fear drove primitive man to envision the supernatural and thus
securely laid the foundations for those powerful social influences of ethics
and religion which in turn preserved inviolate the mores and customs of
society from generation to generation. The one thing which early established
and crystallized the mores was the belief that the dead were jealous of the
ways by which they had lived and died; therefore would they visit dire
punishment upon those living mortals who dared to treat with careless disdain
the rules of living which they had honored when in the flesh. All this is best
illustrated by the present reverence of the yellow race for their ancestors.
Later developing primitive religion greatly reinforced ghost fear in
stabilizing the mores, but advancing civilization has increasingly liberated
mankind from the bondage of fear and the slavery of superstition.
68:4.4 Prior to the liberating and liberalizing instruction of the Dalamatia
teachers, ancient man was held a helpless victim of the ritual of the mores;
the primitive savage was hedged about by an endless ceremonial. Everything he
did from the time of awakening in the morning to the moment he fell asleep in
his cave at night had to be done just so -- in accordance with the folkways of
the tribe. He was a slave to the tyranny of usage; his life contained nothing
free, spontaneous, or original. There was no natural progress toward a higher
mental, moral, or social existence.
68:4.5 Early man was mightily gripped by custom; the savage was a veritable
slave to usage; but there have arisen ever and anon those variations from type
who have dared to inaugurate new ways of thinking and improved methods of
living. Nevertheless, the inertia of primitive man constitutes the biologic
safety brake against precipitation too suddenly into the ruinous maladjustment
of a too rapidly advancing civilization.
68:4.6 But these customs are not an unmitigated evil; their evolution should
continue. It is nearly fatal to the continuance of civilization to undertake
their wholesale modification by radical revolution. Custom has been the thread
of continuity which has held civilization together. The path of human history
is strewn with the remnants of discarded customs and obsolete social
practices; but no civilization has endured which abandoned its mores except
for the adoption of better and more fit customs.
68:4.7 The survival of a society depends chiefly on the progressive evolution
of its mores. The process of custom evolution grows out of the desire for
experimentation; new ideas are put forward -- competition ensues. A
progressing civilization embraces the progressive idea and endures; time and
circumstance finally select the fitter group for survival. But this does not
mean that each separate and isolated change in the composition of human
society has been for the better. No! indeed no! for there have been many, many
retrogressions in the long forward struggle of Urantia civilization.
5. LAND TECHNIQUES -- MAINTENANCE ARTS
68:5.1 Land is the stage of society; men are the actors. And man must ever
adjust his performances to conform to the land situation. The evolution of the
mores is always dependent on the land-man ratio. This is true notwithstanding
the difficulty of its discernment. Man's land technique, or maintenance arts,
plus his standards of living, equal the sum total of the folkways, the mores.
And the sum of man's adjustment to the life demands equals his cultural
civilization.
68:5.2 The earliest human cultures arose along the rivers of the Eastern
Hemisphere, and there were four great steps in the forward march of
civilization. They were:
68:5.3 1. The collection stage. Food coercion, hunger, led to the first form
of industrial organization, the primitive food-gathering lines. Sometimes such
a line of hunger march would be ten miles long as it passed over the land
gleaning food. This was the primitive nomadic stage of culture and is the mode
of life now followed by the African Bushmen.
68:5.4 2. The hunting stage. The invention of weapon tools enabled man to
become a hunter and thus to gain considerable freedom from food slavery. A
thoughtful Andonite who had severely bruised his fist in a serious combat
rediscovered the idea of using a long stick for his arm and a piece of hard
flint, bound on the end with sinews, for his fist. Many tribes made
independent discoveries of this sort, and these various forms of hammers
represented one of the great forward steps in human civilization. Today some
Australian natives have progressed little beyond this stage.
68:5.5 The blue men became expert hunters and trappers; by fencing the rivers
they caught fish in great numbers, drying the surplus for winter use. Many
forms of ingenious snares and traps were employed in catching game, but the
more primitive races did not hunt the larger animals.
68:5.6 3. The pastoral stage. This phase of civilization was made possible by
the domestication of animals. The Arabs and the natives of Africa are among
the more recent pastoral peoples.
68:5.7 Pastoral living afforded further relief from food slavery; man learned
to live on the interest of his capital, the increase in his flocks; and this
provided more leisure for culture and progress.
68:5.8 Prepastoral society was one of sex co-operation, but the spread of
animal husbandry reduced women to the depths of social slavery. In earlier
times it was man's duty to secure the animal food, woman's business to provide
the vegetable edibles. Therefore, when man entered the pastoral era of his
existence, woman's dignity fell greatly. She must still toil to produce the
vegetable necessities of life, whereas the man need only go to his herds to
provide an abundance of animal food. Man thus became relatively independent of
woman; throughout the entire pastoral age woman's status steadily declined. By
the close of this era she had become scarcely more than a human animal,
consigned to work and to bear human offspring, much as the animals of the herd
were expected to labor and bring forth young. The men of the pastoral ages had
great love for their cattle; all the more pity they could not have developed a
deeper affection for their wives.
68:5.9 4. The agricultural stage. This era was brought about by the
domestication of plants, and it represents the highest type of material
civilization. Both Caligastia and Adam endeavored to teach horticulture and
agriculture. Adam and Eve were gardeners, not shepherds, and gardening was an
advanced culture in those days. The growing of plants exerts an ennobling
influence on all races of mankind.
68:5.10 Agriculture more than quadrupled the land-man ratio of the world. It
may be combined with the pastoral pursuits of the former cultural stage. When
the three stages overlap, men hunt and women till the soil.
68:5.11 There has always been friction between the herders and the tillers of
the soil. The hunter and herder were militant, warlike; the agriculturist is a
more peace-loving type. Association with animals suggests struggle and force;
association with plants instills patience, quiet, and peace. Agriculture and
industrialism are the activities of peace. But the weakness of both, as world
social activities, is that they lack excitement and adventure.
68:5.12 Human society has evolved from the hunting stage through that of the
herders to the territorial stage of agriculture. And each stage of this
progressive civilization was accompanied by less and less of nomadism; more
and more man began to live at home.
68:5.13 And now is industry supplementing agriculture, with consequently
increased urbanization and multiplication of nonagricultural groups of
citizenship classes. But an industrial era cannot hope to survive if its
leaders fail to recognize that even the highest social developments must ever
rest upon a sound agricultural basis.
6. EVOLUTION OF CULTURE
68:6.1 Man is a creature of the soil, a child of nature; no matter how
earnestly he may try to escape from the land, in the last reckoning he is
certain to fail. "Dust you are and to dust shall you return" is literally true
of all mankind. The basic struggle of man was, and is, and ever shall be, for
land. The first social associations of primitive human beings were for the
purpose of winning these land struggles. The land-man ratio underlies all
social civilization.
68:6.2 Man's intelligence, by means of the arts and sciences, increased the
land yield; at the same time the natural increase in offspring was somewhat
brought under control, and thus was provided the sustenance and leisure to
build a cultural civilization.
68:6.3 Human society is controlled by a law which decrees that the population
must vary directly in accordance with the land arts and inversely with a given
standard of living. Throughout these early ages, even more than at present,
the law of supply and demand as concerned men and land determined the
estimated value of both. During the times of plentiful land -- unoccupied
territory -- the need for men was great, and therefore the value of human life
was much enhanced; hence the loss of life was more horrifying. During periods
of land scarcity and associated overpopulation, human life became
comparatively cheapened so that war, famine, and pestilence were regarded with
less concern.
68:6.4 When the land yield is reduced or the population is increased, the
inevitable struggle is renewed; the very worst traits of human nature are
brought to the surface. The improvement of the land yield, the extension of
the mechanical arts, and the reduction of population all tend to foster the
development of the better side of human nature.
68:6.5 Frontier society develops the unskilled side of humanity; the fine arts
and true scientific progress, together with spiritual culture, have all
thrived best in the larger centers of life when supported by an agricultural
and industrial population slightly under the land-man ratio. Cities always
multiply the power of their inhabitants for either good or evil.
68:6.6 The size of the family has always been influenced by the standards of
living. The higher the standard the smaller the family, up to the point of
established status or gradual extinction.
68:6.7 All down through the ages the standards of living have determined the
quality of a surviving population in contrast with mere quantity. Local class
standards of living give origin to new social castes, new mores. When
standards of living become too complicated or too highly luxurious, they
speedily become suicidal. Caste is the direct result of the high social
pressure of keen competition produced by dense populations.
68:6.8 The early races often resorted to practices designed to restrict
population; all primitive tribes killed deformed and sickly children. Girl
babies were frequently killed before the times of wife purchase. Children were
sometimes strangled at birth, but the favorite method was exposure. The father
of twins usually insisted that one be killed since multiple births were
believed to be caused either by magic or by infidelity. As a rule, however,
twins of the same sex were spared. While these taboos on twins were once well-
nigh universal, they were never a part of the Andonite mores; these peoples
always regarded twins as omens of good luck.
68:6.9 Many races learned the technique of abortion, and this practice became
very common after the establishment of the taboo on childbirth among the
unmarried. It was long the custom for a maiden to kill her offspring, but
among more civilized groups these illegitimate children became the wards of
the girl's mother. Many primitive clans were virtually exterminated by the
practice of both abortion and infanticide. But regardless of the dictates of
the mores, very few children were ever destroyed after having once been
suckled -- maternal affection is too strong.
68:6.10 Even in the twentieth century there persist remnants of these
primitive population controls. There is a tribe in Australia whose mothers
refuse to rear more than two or three children. Not long since, one
cannibalistic tribe ate every fifth child born. In Madagascar some tribes
still destroy all children born on certain unlucky days, resulting in the
death of about twenty-five per cent of all babies.
68:6.11 From a world standpoint, overpopulation has never been a serious
problem in the past, but if war is lessened and science increasingly controls
human diseases, it may become a serious problem in the near future. At such a
time the great test of the wisdom of world leadership will present itself.
Will Urantia rulers have the insight and courage to foster the multiplication
of the average or stabilized human being instead of the extremes of the
supernormal and the enormously increasing groups of the subnormal? The normal
man should be fostered; he is the backbone of civilization and the source of
the mutant geniuses of the race. The subnormal man should be kept under
society's control; no more should be produced than are required to administer
the lower levels of industry, those tasks requiring intelligence above the
animal level but making such low-grade demands as to prove veritable slavery
and bondage for the higher types of mankind.
68:6.12 Presented by a Melchizedek sometime stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 69
PRIMITIVE HUMAN INSTITUTIONS
69:0.1 EMOTIONALLY, man transcends his animal ancestors in his ability to
appreciate humor, art, and religion. Socially, man exhibits his superiority in
that he is a toolmaker, a communicator, and an institution builder.
69:0.2 When human beings long maintain social groups, such aggregations always
result in the creation of certain activity trends which culminate in
institutionalization. Most of man's institutions have proved to be laborsaving
while at the same time contributing something to the enhancement of group
security.
69:0.3 Civilized man takes great pride in the character, stability, and
continuity of his established institutions, but all human institutions are
merely the accumulated mores of the past as they have been conserved by taboos
and dignified by religion. Such legacies become traditions, and traditions
ultimately metamorphose into conventions.
1. BASIC HUMAN INSTITUTIONS
69:1.1 All human institutions minister to some social need, past or present,
notwithstanding that their overdevelopment unfailingly detracts from the
worth-whileness of the individual in that personality is overshadowed and
initiative is diminished. Man should control his institutions rather than
permit himself to be dominated by these creations of advancing civilization.
69:1.2 Human institutions are of three general classes:
69:1.3 1. The institutions of self-maintenance. These institutions embrace
those practices growing out of food hunger and its associated instincts of
self-preservation. They include industry, property, war for gain, and all the
regulative machinery of society. Sooner or later the fear instinct fosters the
establishment of these institutions of survival by means of taboo, convention,
and religious sanction. But fear, ignorance, and superstition have played a
prominent part in the early origin and subsequent development of all human
institutions.
69:1.4 2. The institutions of self-perpetuation. These are the establishments
of society growing out of sex hunger, maternal instinct, and the higher tender
emotions of the races. They embrace the social safeguards of the home and the
school, of family life, education, ethics, and religion. They include marriage
customs, war for defense, and home building.
69:1.5 3. The institutions of self-gratification. These are the practices
growing out of vanity proclivities and pride emotions; and they embrace
customs in dress and personal adornment, social usages, war for glory,
dancing, amusement, games, and other phases of sensual gratification. But
civilization has never evolved distinctive institutions of self-gratification.
69:1.6 These three groups of social practices are intimately interrelated and
minutely interdependent the one upon the other. On Urantia they represent a
complex organization which functions as a single social mechanism.
2. THE DAWN OF INDUSTRY
69:2.1 Primitive industry slowly grew up as an insurance against the terrors
of famine. Early in his existence man began to draw lessons from some of the
animals that, during a harvest of plenty, store up food against the days of
scarcity.
69:2.2 Before the dawn of early frugality and primitive industry the lot of
the average tribe was one of destitution and real suffering. Early man had to
compete with the whole animal world for his food. Competition-gravity ever
pulls man down toward the beast level; poverty is his natural and tyrannical
estate. Wealth is not a natural gift; it results from labor, knowledge, and
organization.
69:2.3 Primitive man was not slow to recognize the advantages of association.
Association led to organization, and the first result of organization was
division of labor, with its immediate saving of time and materials. These
specializations of labor arose by adaptation to pressure -- pursuing the paths
of lessened resistance. Primitive savages never did any real work cheerfully
or willingly. With them conformity was due to the coercion of necessity.
69:2.4 Primitive man disliked hard work, and he would not hurry unless
confronted by grave danger. The time element in labor, the idea of doing a
given task within a certain time limit, is entirely a modern notion. The
ancients were never rushed. It was the double demands of the intense struggle
for existence and of the ever-advancing standards of living that drove the
naturally inactive races of early man into avenues of industry.
69:2.5 Labor, the efforts of design, distinguishes man from the beast, whose
exertions are largely instinctive. The necessity for labor is man's paramount
blessing. The Prince's staff all worked; they did much to ennoble physical
labor on Urantia. Adam was a gardener; the God of the Hebrews labored -- he
was the creator and upholder of all things. The Hebrews were the first tribe
to put a supreme premium on industry; they were the first people to decree
that "he who does not work shall not eat." But many of the religions of the
world reverted to the early ideal of idleness. Jupiter was a reveler, and
Buddha became a reflective devotee of leisure.
69:2.6 The Sangik tribes were fairly industrious when residing away from the
tropics. But there was a long, long struggle between the lazy devotees of
magic and the apostles of work -- those who exercised foresight.
69:2.7 The first human foresight was directed toward the preservation of fire,
water, and food. But primitive man was a natural-born gambler; he always
wanted to get something for nothing, and all too often during these early
times the success which accrued from patient practice was attributed to
charms. Magic was slow to give way before foresight, self-denial, and
industry.
3. THE SPECIALIZATION OF LABOR
69:3.1 The divisions of labor in primitive society were determined first by
natural, and then by social, circumstances. The early order of specialization
in labor was:
69:3.2 1. Specialization based on sex. Woman's work was derived from the
selective presence of the child; women naturally love babies more than men do.
Thus woman became the routine worker, while man became the hunter and fighter,
engaging in accentuated periods of work and rest.
69:3.3 All down through the ages the taboos have operated to keep woman
strictly in her own field. Man has most selfishly chosen the more agreeable
work, leaving the routine drudgery to woman. Man has always been ashamed to do
woman's work, but woman has never shown any reluctance to doing man's work.
But strange to record, both men and women have always worked together in
building and furnishing the home.
69:3.4 2. Modification consequent upon age and disease. These differences
determined the next division of labor. The old men and cripples were early set
to work making tools and weapons. They were later assigned to building
irrigation works.
69:3.5 3. Differentiation based on religion. The medicine men were the first
human beings to be exempted from physical toil; they were the pioneer
professional class. The smiths were a small group who competed with the
medicine men as magicians. Their skill in working with metals made the people
afraid of them. The "white smiths" and the "black smiths" gave origin to the
early beliefs in white and black magic. And this belief later became involved
in the superstition of good and bad ghosts, good and bad spirits.
69:3.6 Smiths were the first nonreligious group to enjoy special privileges.
They were regarded as neutrals during war, and this extra leisure led to their
becoming, as a class, the politicians of primitive society. But through gross
abuse of these privileges the smiths became universally hated, and the
medicine men lost no time in fostering hatred for their competitors. In this
first contest between science and religion, religion (superstition) won. After
being driven out of the villages, the smiths maintained the first inns, public
lodginghouses, on the outskirts of the settlements.
69:3.7 4. Master and slave. The next differentiation of labor grew out of the
relations of the conqueror to the conquered, and that meant the beginning of
human slavery.
69:3.8 5. Differentiation based on diverse physical and mental endowments.
Further divisions of labor were favored by the inherent differences in men;
all human beings are not born equal.
69:3.9 The early specialists in industry were the flint flakers and
stonemasons; next came the smiths. Subsequently group specialization
developed; whole families and clans dedicated themselves to certain sorts of
labor. The origin of one of the earliest castes of priests, apart from the
tribal medicine men, was due to the superstitious exaltation of a family of
expert swordmakers.
69:3.10 The first group specialists in industry were rock salt exporters and
potters. Women made the plain pottery and men the fancy. Among some tribes
sewing and weaving were done by women, in others by the men.
69:3.11 The early traders were women; they were employed as spies, carrying on
commerce as a side line. Presently trade expanded, the women acting as
intermediaries -- jobbers. Then came the merchant class, charging a
commission, profit, for their services. Growth of group barter developed into
commerce; and following the exchange of commodities came the exchange of
skilled labor.
4. THE BEGINNINGS OF TRADE
69:4.1 Just as marriage by contract followed marriage by capture, so trade by
barter followed seizure by raids. But a long period of piracy intervened
between the early practices of silent barter and the later trade by modern
exchange methods.
69:4.2 The first barter was conducted by armed traders who would leave their
goods on a neutral spot. Women held the first markets; they were the earliest
traders, and this was because they were the burden bearers; the men were
warriors. Very early the trading counter was developed, a wall wide enough to
prevent the traders reaching each other with weapons.
69:4.3 A fetish was used to stand guard over the deposits of goods for silent
barter. Such market places were secure against theft; nothing would be removed
except by barter or purchase; with a fetish on guard the goods were always
safe. The early traders were scrupulously honest within their own tribes but
regarded it as all right to cheat distant strangers. Even the early Hebrews
recognized a separate code of ethics in their dealings with the gentiles.
69:4.4 For ages silent barter continued before men would meet, unarmed, on the
sacred market place. These same market squares became the first places of
sanctuary and in some countries were later known as "cities of refuge." Any
fugitive reaching the market place was safe and secure against attack.
69:4.5 The first weights were grains of wheat and other cereals. The first
medium of exchange was a fish or a goat. Later the cow became a unit of
barter.
69:4.6 Modern writing originated in the early trade records; the first
literature of man was a trade-promotion document, a salt advertisement. Many
of the earlier wars were fought over natural deposits, such as flint, salt,
and metals. The first formal tribal treaty concerned the intertribalizing of a
salt deposit. These treaty spots afforded opportunity for friendly and
peaceful interchange of ideas and the intermingling of various tribes.
69:4.7 Writing progressed up through the stages of the "message stick,"
knotted cords, picture writing, hieroglyphics, and wampum belts, to the early
symbolic alphabets. Message sending evolved from the primitive smoke signal up
through runners, animal riders, railroads, and airplanes, as well as
telegraph, telephone, and wireless communication.
69:4.8 New ideas and better methods were carried around the inhabited world by
the ancient traders. Commerce, linked with adventure, led to exploration and
discovery. And all of these gave birth to transportation. Commerce has been
the great civilizer through promoting the cross-fertilization of culture.
5. THE BEGINNINGS OF CAPITAL
69:5.1 Capital is labor applied as a renunciation of the present in favor of
the future. Savings represent a form of maintenance and survival insurance.
Food hoarding developed self-control and created the first problems of capital
and labor. The man who had food, provided he could protect it from robbers,
had a distinct advantage over the man who had no food.
69:5.2 The early banker was the valorous man of the tribe. He held the group
treasures on deposit, while the entire clan would defend his hut in event of
attack. Thus the accumulation of individual capital and group wealth
immediately led to military organization. At first such precautions were
designed to defend property against foreign raiders, but later on it became
the custom to keep the military organization in practice by inaugurating raids
on the property and wealth of neighboring tribes.
69:5.3 The basic urges which led to the accumulation of capital were:
69:5.4 1. Hunger -- associated with foresight. Food saving and preservation
meant power and comfort for those who possessed sufficient foresight thus to
provide for future needs. Food storage was adequate insurance against famine
and disaster. And the entire body of primitive mores was really designed to
help man subordinate the present to the future.
69:5.5 2. Love of family -- desire to provide for their wants. Capital
represents the saving of property in spite of the pressure of the wants of
today in order to insure against the demands of the future. A part of this
future need may have to do with one's posterity.
69:5.6 3. Vanity -- longing to display one's property accumulations. Extra
clothing was one of the first badges of distinction. Collection vanity early
appealed to the pride of man.
69:5.7 4. Position -- eagerness to buy social and political prestige. There
early sprang up a commercialized nobility, admission to which depended on the
performance of some special service to royalty or was granted frankly for the
payment of money.
69:5.8 5. Power -- the craving to be master. Treasure lending was carried on
as a means of enslavement, one hundred per cent a year being the loan rate of
these ancient times. The moneylenders made themselves kings by creating a
standing army of debtors. Bond servants were among the earliest form of
property to be accumulated, and in olden days debt slavery extended even to
the control of the body after death.
69:5.9 6. Fear of the ghosts of the dead -- priest fees for protection. Men
early began to give death presents to the priests with a view to having their
property used to facilitate their progress through the next life. The
priesthoods thus became very rich; they were chief among ancient capitalists.
69:5.10 7. Sex urge -- the desire to buy one or more wives. Man's first form
of trading was woman exchange; it long preceded horse trading. But never did
the barter in sex slaves advance society; such traffic was and is a racial
disgrace, for at one and the same time it hindered the development of family
life and polluted the biologic fitness of superior peoples.
69:5.11 8. Numerous forms of self-gratification. Some sought wealth because it
conferred power; others toiled for property because it meant ease. Early man
(and some later-day ones) tended to squander his resources on luxury.
Intoxicants and drugs intrigued the primitive races.
69:5.12 As civilization developed, men acquired new incentives for saving; new
wants were rapidly added to the original food hunger. Poverty became so
abhorred that only the rich were supposed to go direct to heaven when they
died. Property became so highly valued that to give a pretentious feast would
wipe a dishonor from one's name.
69:5.13 Accumulations of wealth early became the badge of social distinction.
Individuals in certain tribes would accumulate property for years just to
create an impression by burning it up on some holiday or by freely
distributing it to fellow tribesmen. This made them great men. Even modern
peoples revel in the lavish distribution of Christmas gifts, while rich men
endow great institutions of philanthropy and learning. Man's technique varies,
but his disposition remains quite unchanged.
69:5.14 But it is only fair to record that many an ancient rich man
distributed much of his fortune because of the fear of being killed by those
who coveted his treasures. Wealthy men commonly sacrificed scores of slaves to
show disdain for wealth.
69:5.15 Though capital has tended to liberate man, it has greatly complicated
his social and industrial organization. The abuse of capital by unfair
capitalists does not destroy the fact that it is the basis of modern
industrial society. Through capital and invention the present generation
enjoys a higher degree of freedom than any that ever preceded it on earth.
This is placed on record as a fact and not in justification of the many
misuses of capital by thoughtless and selfish custodians.
6. FIRE IN RELATION TO CIVILIZATION
69:6.1 Primitive society with its four divisions -- industrial, regulative,
religious, and military -- rose through the instrumentality of fire, animals,
slaves, and property.
69:6.2 Fire building, by a single bound, forever separated man from animal; it
is the basic human invention, or discovery. Fire enabled man to stay on the
ground at night as all animals are afraid of it. Fire encouraged eventide
social intercourse; it not only protected against cold and wild beasts but was
also employed as security against ghosts. It was at first used more for light
than heat; many backward tribes refuse to sleep unless a flame burns all
night.
69:6.3 Fire was a great civilizer, providing man with his first means of being
altruistic without loss by enabling him to give live coals to a neighbor
without depriving himself. The household fire, which was attended by the
mother or eldest daughter, was the first educator, requiring watchfulness and
dependability. The early home was not a building but the family gathered about
the fire, the family hearth. When a son founded a new home, he carried a
firebrand from the family hearth.
69:6.4 Though Andon, the discoverer of fire, avoided treating it as an object
of worship, many of his descendants regarded the flame as a fetish or as a
spirit. They failed to reap the sanitary benefits of fire because they would
not burn refuse. Primitive man feared fire and always sought to keep it in
good humor, hence the sprinkling of incense. Under no circumstances would the
ancients spit in a fire, nor would they ever pass between anyone and a burning
fire. Even the iron pyrites and flints used in striking fire were held sacred
by early mankind.
69:6.5 It was a sin to extinguish a flame; if a hut caught fire, it was
allowed to burn. The fires of the temples and shrines were sacred and were
never permitted to go out except that it was the custom to kindle new flames
annually or after some calamity. Women were selected as priests because they
were custodians of the home fires.
69:6.6 The early myths about how fire came down from the gods grew out of the
observations of fire caused by lightning. These ideas of supernatural origin
led directly to fire worship, and fire worship led to the custom of "passing
through fire," a practice carried on up to the times of Moses. And there still
persists the idea of passing through fire after death. The fire myth was a
great bond in early times and still persists in the symbolism of the Parsees.
69:6.7 Fire led to cooking, and "raw eaters" became a term of derision. And
cooking lessened the expenditure of vital energy necessary for the digestion
of food and so left early man some strength for social culture, while animal
husbandry, by reducing the effort necessary to secure food, provided time for
social activities.
69:6.8 It should be remembered that fire opened the doors to metalwork and led
to the subsequent discovery of steam power and the present-day uses of
electricity.
7. THE UTILIZATION OF ANIMALS
69:7.1 To start with, the entire animal world was man's enemy; human beings
had to learn to protect themselves from the beasts. First, man ate the animals
but later learned to domesticate and make them serve him.
69:7.2 The domestication of animals came about accidentally. The savage would
hunt herds much as the American Indians hunted the bison. By surrounding the
herd they could keep control of the animals, thus being able to kill them as
they were required for food. Later, corrals were constructed, and entire herds
would be captured.
69:7.3 It was easy to tame some animals, but like the elephant, many of them
would not reproduce in captivity. Still further on it was discovered that
certain species of animals would submit to man's presence, and that they would
reproduce in captivity. The domestication of animals was thus promoted by
selective breeding, an art which has made great progress since the days of
Dalamatia.
69:7.4 The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, and the difficult
experience of taming it began when a certain dog, after following a hunter
around all day, actually went home with him. For ages dogs were used for food,
hunting, transportation, and companionship. At first dogs only howled, but
later on they learned to bark. The dog's keen sense of smell led to the notion
it could see spirits, and thus arose the dog-fetish cults. The employment of
watchdogs made it first possible for the whole clan to sleep at night. It then
became the custom to employ watchdogs to protect the home against spirits as
well as material enemies. When the dog barked, man or beast approached, but
when the dog howled, spirits were near. Even now many still believe that a
dog's howling at night betokens death.
69:7.5 When man was a hunter, he was fairly kind to woman, but after the
domestication of animals, coupled with the Caligastia confusion, many tribes
shamefully treated their women. They treated them altogether too much as they
treated their animals. Man's brutal treatment of woman constitutes one of the
darkest chapters of human history.
8. SLAVERY AS A FACTOR IN CIVILIZATION
69:8.1 Primitive man never hesitated to enslave his fellows. Woman was the
first slave, a family slave. Pastoral man enslaved woman as his inferior sex
partner. This sort of sex slavery grew directly out of man's decreased
dependence upon woman.
69:8.2 Not long ago enslavement was the lot of those military captives who
refused to accept the conqueror's religion. In earlier times captives were
either eaten, tortured to death, set to fighting each other, sacrificed to
spirits, or enslaved. Slavery was a great advancement over massacre and
cannibalism
69:8.3 Enslavement was a forward step in the merciful treatment of war
captives. The ambush of Ai, with the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and
children, only the king being saved to gratify the conqueror's vanity, is a
faithful picture of the barbaric slaughter practiced by even supposedly
civilized peoples. The raid upon Og, the king of Bashan, was equally brutal
and effective. The Hebrews "utterly destroyed" their enemies, taking all their
property as spoils. They put all cities under tribute on pain of the
"destruction of all males." But many of the contemporary tribes, those having
less tribal egotism, had long since begun to practice the adoption of superior
captives.
69:8.4 The hunter, like the American red man, did not enslave. He either
adopted or killed his captives. Slavery was not prevalent among the pastoral
peoples, for they needed few laborers. In war the herders made a practice of
killing all men captives and taking as slaves only the women and children. The
Mosaic code contained specific directions for making wives of these women
captives. If not satisfactory, they could be sent away, but the Hebrews were
not allowed to sell such rejected consorts as slaves -- that was at least one
advance in civilization. Though the social standards of the Hebrews were
crude, they were far above those of the surrounding tribes.
69:8.5 The herders were the first capitalists; their herds represented
capital, and they lived on the interest -- the natural increase. And they were
disinclined to trust this wealth to the keeping of either slaves or women. But
later on they took male prisoners and forced them to cultivate the soil. This
is the early origin of serfdom -- man attached to the land. The Africans could
easily be taught to till the soil; hence they became the great slave race.
69:8.6 Slavery was an indispensable link in the chain of human civilization.
It was the bridge over which society passed from chaos and indolence to order
and civilized activities; it compelled backward and lazy peoples to work and
thus provide wealth and leisure for the social advancement of their superiors.
69:8.7 The institution of slavery compelled man to invent the regulative
mechanism of primitive society; it gave origin to the beginnings of
government. Slavery demands strong regulation and during the European Middle
Ages virtually disappeared because the feudal lords could not control the
slaves. The backward tribes of ancient times, like the native Australians of
today, never had slaves.
69:8.8 True, slavery was oppressive, but it was in the schools of oppression
that man learned industry. Eventually the slaves shared the blessings of a
higher society which they had so unwillingly helped create. Slavery creates an
organization of culture and social achievement but soon insidiously attacks
society internally as the gravest of all destructive social maladies.
69:8.9 Modern mechanical invention rendered the slave obsolete. Slavery, like
polygamy, is passing because it does not pay. But it has always proved
disastrous suddenly to liberate great numbers of slaves; less trouble ensues
when they are gradually emancipated.
69:8.10 Today, men are not social slaves, but thousands allow ambition to
enslave them to debt. Involuntary slavery has given way to a new and improved
form of modified industrial servitude.
69:8.11 While the ideal of society is universal freedom, idleness should never
be tolerated. All able-bodied persons should be compelled to do at least a
self-sustaining amount of work.
69:8.12 Modern society is in reverse. Slavery has nearly disappeared;
domesticated animals are passing. Civilization is reaching back to fire -- the
inorganic world -- for power. Man came up from savagery by way of fire,
animals, and slavery; today he reaches back, discarding the help of slaves and
the assistance of animals, while he seeks to wrest new secrets and sources of
wealth and power from the elemental storehouse of nature.
9. PRIVATE PROPERTY
69:9.1 While primitive society was virtually communal, primitive man did not
adhere to the modern doctrines of communism. The communism of these early
times was not a mere theory or social doctrine; it was a simple and practical
automatic adjustment. Communism prevented pauperism and want; begging and
prostitution were almost unknown among these ancient tribes.
69:9.2 Primitive communism did not especially level men down, nor did it exalt
mediocrity, but it did put a premium on inactivity and idleness, and it did
stifle industry and destroy ambition. Communism was indispensable scaffolding
in the growth of primitive society, but it gave way to the evolution of a
higher social order because it ran counter to four strong human proclivities:
69:9.3 1. The family. Man not only craves to accumulate property; he desires
to bequeath his capital goods to his progeny. But in early communal society a
man's capital was either immediately consumed or distributed among the group
at his death. There was no inheritance of property -- the inheritance tax was
one hundred per cent. The later capital-accumulation and property-inheritance
mores were a distinct social advance. And this is true notwithstanding the
subsequent gross abuses attendant upon the misuse of capital.
69:9.4 2. Religious tendencies. Primitive man also wanted to save up property
as a nucleus for starting life in the next existence. This motive explains why
it was so long the custom to bury a man's personal belongings with him. The
ancients believed that only the rich survived death with any immediate
pleasure and dignity. The teachers of revealed religion, more especially the
Christian teachers, were the first to proclaim that the poor could have
salvation on equal terms with the rich.
69:9.5 3. The desire for liberty and leisure. In the earlier days of social
evolution the apportionment of individual earnings among the group was
virtually a form of slavery; the worker was made slave to the idler. This was
the suicidal weakness of communism: The improvident habitually lived off the
thrifty. Even in modern times the improvident depend on the state (thrifty
taxpayers) to take care of them. Those who have no capital still expect those
who have to feed them.
69:9.6 4. The urge for security and power. Communism was finally destroyed by
the deceptive practices of progressive and successful individuals who resorted
to diverse subterfuges in an effort to escape enslavement to the shiftless
idlers of their tribes. But at first all hoarding was secret; primitive
insecurity prevented the outward accumulation of capital. And even at a later
time it was most dangerous to amass too much wealth; the king would be sure to
trump up some charge for confiscating a rich man's property, and when a
wealthy man died, the funeral was held up until the family donated a large sum
to public welfare or to the king, an inheritance tax.
69:9.7 In earliest times women were the property of the community, and the
mother dominated the family. The early chiefs owned all the land and were
proprietors of all the women; marriage required the consent of the tribal
ruler. With the passing of communism, women were held individually, and the
father gradually assumed domestic control. Thus the home had its beginning,
and the prevailing polygamous customs were gradually displaced by monogamy.
(Polygamy is the survival of the female-slavery element in marriage. Monogamy
is the slave-free ideal of the matchless association of one man and one woman
in the exquisite enterprise of home building, offspring rearing, mutual
culture, and self-improvement.)
69:9.8 At first, all property, including tools and weapons, was the common
possession of the tribe. Private property first consisted of all things
personally touched. If a stranger drank from a cup, the cup was henceforth
his. Next, any place where blood was shed became the property of the injured
person or group.
69:9.9 Private property was thus originally respected because it was supposed
to be charged with some part of the owner's personality. Property honesty
rested safely on this type of superstition; no police were needed to guard
personal belongings. There was no stealing within the group, though men did
not hesitate to appropriate the goods of other tribes. Property relations did
not end with death; early, personal effects were burned, then buried with the
dead, and later, inherited by the surviving family or by the tribe.
69:9.10 The ornamental type of personal effects originated in the wearing of
charms. Vanity plus ghost fear led early man to resist all attempts to relieve
him of his favorite charms, such property being valued above necessities.
69:9.11 Sleeping space was one of man's earliest properties. Later, homesites
were assigned by the tribal chiefs, who held all real estate in trust for the
group. Presently a fire site conferred ownership; and still later, a well
constituted title to the adjacent land.
69:9.12 Water holes and wells were among the first private possessions. The
whole fetish practice was utilized to guard water holes, wells, trees, crops,
and honey. Following the loss of faith in the fetish, laws were evolved to
protect private belongings. But game laws, the right to hunt, long preceded
land laws. The American red man never understood private ownership of land; he
could not comprehend the white man's view.
69:9.13 Private property was early marked by family insignia, and this is the
early origin of family crests. Real estate could also be put under the
watchcare of spirits. The priests would "consecrate" a piece of land, and it
would then rest under the protection of the magic taboos erected thereon.
Owners thereof were said to have a "priest's title." The Hebrews had great
respect for these family landmarks: "Cursed be he who removes his neighbor's
landmark." These stone markers bore the priest's initials. Even trees, when
initialed, became private property.
69:9.14 In early days only the crops were private, but successive crops
conferred title; agriculture was thus the genesis of the private ownership of
land. Individuals were first given only a life tenureship; at death land
reverted to the tribe. The very first land titles granted by tribes to
individuals were graves -- family burying grounds. In later times land
belonged to those who fenced it. But the cities always reserved certain lands
for public pasturage and for use in case of siege; these "commons" represent
the survival of the earlier form of collective ownership.
69:9.15 Eventually the state assigned property to the individual, reserving
the right of taxation. Having made secure their titles, landlords could
collect rents, and land became a source of income -- capital. Finally land
became truly negotiable, with sales, transfers, mortgages, and foreclosures.
69:9.16 Private ownership brought increased liberty and enhanced stability;
but private ownership of land was given social sanction only after communal
control and direction had failed, and it was soon followed by a succession of
slaves, serfs, and landless classes. But improved machinery is gradually
setting men free from slavish toil.
69:9.17 The right to property is not absolute; it is purely social. But all
government, law, order, civil rights, social liberties, conventions, peace,
and happiness, as they are enjoyed by modern peoples, have grown up around the
private ownership of property.
69:9.18 The present social order is not necessarily right -- not divine or
sacred -- but mankind will do well to move slowly in making changes. That
which you have is vastly better than any system known to your ancestors. Make
certain that when you change the social order you change for the better. Do
not be persuaded to experiment with the discarded formulas of your
forefathers. Go forward, not backward! Let evolution proceed! Do not take a
backward step.
69:9.19 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 70
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT
70:0.1 NO SOONER had man partially solved the problem of making a living than
he was confronted with the task of regulating human contacts. The development
of industry demanded law, order, and social adjustment; private property
necessitated government.
70:0.2 On an evolutionary world, antagonisms are natural; peace is secured
only by some sort of social regulative system. Social regulation is
inseparable from social organization; association implies some controlling
authority. Government compels the co-ordination of the antagonisms of the
tribes, clans, families, and individuals.
70:0.3 Government is an unconscious development; it evolves by trial and
error. It does have survival value; therefore it becomes traditional. Anarchy
augmented misery; therefore government, comparative law and order, slowly
emerged or is emerging. The coercive demands of the struggle for existence
literally drove the human race along the progressive road to civilization.
1. THE GENESIS OF WAR
70:1.1 War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man; peace is the
social yardstick measuring civilization's advancement. Before the partial
socialization of the advancing races man was exceedingly individualistic,
extremely suspicious, and unbelievably quarrelsome. Violence is the law of
nature, hostility the automatic reaction of the children of nature, while war
is but these same activities carried on collectively. And wherever and
whenever the fabric of civilization becomes stressed by the complications of
society's advancement, there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to
these early methods of violent adjustment of the irritations of human
interassociations.
70:1.2 War is an animalistic reaction to misunderstandings and irritations;
peace attends upon the civilized solution of all such problems and
difficulties. The Sangik races, together with the later deteriorated Adamites
and Nodites, were all belligerent. The Andonites were early taught the golden
rule, and, even today, their Eskimo descendants live very much by that code;
custom is strong among them, and they are fairly free from violent
antagonisms.
70:1.3 Andon taught his children to settle disputes by each beating a tree
with a stick, meanwhile cursing the tree; the one whose stick broke first was
the victor. The later Andonites used to settle disputes by holding a public
show at which the disputants made fun of and ridiculed each other, while the
audience decided the winner by its applause.
70:1.4 But there could be no such phenomenon as war until society had evolved
sufficiently far to actually experience periods of peace and to sanction
warlike practices. The very concept of war implies some degree of
organization.
70:1.5 With the emergence of social groupings, individual irritations began to
be submerged in the group feelings, and this promoted intratribal tranquillity
but at the expense of intertribal peace. Peace was thus first enjoyed by the
in-group, or tribe, who always disliked and hated the out-group, foreigners.
Early man regarded it a virtue to shed alien blood.
70:1.6 But even this did not work at first. When the early chiefs would try to
iron out misunderstandings, they often found it necessary, at least once a
year, to permit the tribal stone fights. The clan would divide up into two
groups and engage in an all-day battle. And this for no other reason than just
the fun of it; they really enjoyed fighting.
70:1.7 Warfare persists because man is human, evolved from an animal, and all
animals are bellicose. Among the early causes of war were:
70:1.8 1. Hunger, which led to food raids. Scarcity of land has always brought
on war, and during these struggles the early peace tribes were practically
exterminated.
70:1.9 2. Woman scarcity -- an attempt to relieve a shortage of domestic help.
Woman stealing has always caused war.
70:1.10 3. Vanity -- the desire to exhibit tribal prowess. Superior groups
would fight to impose their mode of life upon inferior peoples.
70:1.11 4. Slaves -- need of recruits for the labor ranks.
70:1.12 5. Revenge was the motive for war when one tribe believed that a
neighboring tribe had caused the death of a fellow tribesman. Mourning was
continued until a head was brought home. The war for vengeance was in good
standing right on down to comparatively modern times.
70:1.13 6. Recreation -- war was looked upon as recreation by the young men of
these early times. If no good and sufficient pretext for war arose, when peace
became oppressive, neighboring tribes were accustomed to go out in
semifriendly combat to engage in a foray as a holiday, to enjoy a sham battle.
70:1.14 7. Religion -- the desire to make converts to the cult. The primitive
religions all sanctioned war. Only in recent times has religion begun to frown
upon war. The early priesthoods were, unfortunately, usually allied with the
military power. One of the great peace moves of the ages has been the attempt
to separate church and state.
70:1.15 Always these olden tribes made war at the bidding of their gods, at
the behest of their chiefs or medicine men. The Hebrews believed in such a
"God of battles"; and the narrative of their raid on the Midianites is a
typical recital of the atrocious cruelty of the ancient tribal wars; this
assault, with its slaughter of all the males and the later killing of all male
children and all women who were not virgins, would have done honor to the
mores of a tribal chieftain of two hundred thousand years ago. And all this
was executed in the "name of the Lord God of Israel."
70:1.16 This is a narrative of the evolution of society -- the natural
outworking of the problems of the races -- man working out his own destiny on
earth. Such atrocities are not instigated by Deity, notwithstanding the
tendency of man to place the responsibility on his gods.
70:1.17 Military mercy has been slow in coming to mankind. Even when a woman,
Deborah, ruled the Hebrews, the same wholesale cruelty persisted. Her general
in his victory over the gentiles caused "all the host to fall upon the sword;
there was not one left."
70:1.18 Very early in the history of the race, poisoned weapons were used. All
sorts of mutilations were practiced. Saul did not hesitate to require one
hundred Philistine foreskins as the dowry David should pay for his daughter
Michal.
70:1.19 Early wars were fought between tribes as a whole, but in later times,
when two individuals in different tribes had a dispute, instead of both tribes
fighting, the two disputants engaged in a duel. It also became a custom for
two armies to stake all on the outcome of a contest between a representative
chosen from each side, as in the instance of David and Goliath.
70:1.20 The first refinement of war was the taking of prisoners. Next, women
were exempted from hostilities, and then came the recognition of
noncombatants. Military castes and standing armies soon developed to keep pace
with the increasing complexity of combat. Such warriors were early prohibited
from associating with women, and women long ago ceased to fight, though they
have always fed and nursed the soldiers and urged them on to battle.
70:1.21 The practice of declaring war represented great progress. Such
declarations of intention to fight betokened the arrival of a sense of
fairness, and this was followed by the gradual development of the rules of
"civilized" warfare. Very early it became the custom not to fight near
religious sites and, still later, not to fight on certain holy days. Next came
the general recognition of the right of asylum; political fugitives received
protection.
70:1.22 Thus did warfare gradually evolve from the primitive man hunt to the
somewhat more orderly system of the later-day "civilized" nations. But only
slowly does the social attitude of amity displace that of enmity.
2. THE SOCIAL VALUE OF WAR
70:2.1 In past ages a fierce war would institute social changes and facilitate
the adoption of new ideas such as would not have occurred naturally in ten
thousand years. The terrible price paid for these certain war advantages was
that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery; civilized reason had
to abdicate. War is strong medicine, very costly and most dangerous; while
often curative of certain social disorders, it sometimes kills the patient,
destroys the society.
70:2.2 The constant necessity for national defense creates many new and
advanced social adjustments. Society, today, enjoys the benefit of a long list
of useful innovations which were at first wholly military and is even indebted
to war for the dance, one of the early forms of which was a military drill.
70:2.3 War has had a social value to past civilizations because it:
1. Imposed discipline, enforced co-operation.
2. Put a premium on fortitude and courage.
3. Fostered and solidified nationalism.
4. Destroyed weak and unfit peoples.
5. Dissolved the illusion of primitive equality and selectively stratified
society.
70:2.4 War has had a certain evolutionary and selective value, but like
slavery, it must sometime be abandoned as civilization slowly advances. Olden
wars promoted travel and cultural intercourse; these ends are now better
served by modern methods of transport and communication. Olden wars
strengthened nations, but modern struggles disrupt civilized culture. Ancient
warfare resulted in the decimation of inferior peoples; the net result of
modern conflict is the selective destruction of the best human stocks. Early
wars promoted organization and efficiency, but these have now become the aims
of modern industry. During past ages war was a social ferment which pushed
civilization forward; this result is now better attained by ambition and
invention. Ancient warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but
modern man has been told that God is love. War has served many valuable
purposes in the past, it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building
of civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally bankrupt -- incapable
of producing dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the
terrible losses attendant upon its invocation.
70:2.5 At one time physicians believed in bloodletting as a cure for many
diseases, but they have since discovered better remedies for most of these
disorders. And so must the international bloodletting of war certainly give
place to the discovery of better methods for curing the ills of nations.
70:2.6 The nations of Urantia have already entered upon the gigantic struggle
between nationalistic militarism and industrialism, and in many ways this
conflict is analogous to the agelong struggle between the herder-hunter and
the farmer. But if industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid
the dangers which beset it. The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:
70:2.7 1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual blindness.
70:2.8 2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.
70:2.9 3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.
70:2.10 4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service insensitivity.
70:2.11 5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic deterioration.
70:2.12 6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery, personality
stagnation. Labor is ennobling but drudgery is benumbing.
70:2.13 Militarism is autocratic and cruel -- savage. It promotes social
organization among the conquerors but disintegrates the vanquished.
Industrialism is more civilized and should be so carried on as to promote
initiative and to encourage individualism. Society should in every way
possible foster originality.
70:2.14 Do not make the mistake of glorifying war; rather discern what it has
done for society so that you may the more accurately visualize what its
substitutes must provide in order to continue the advancement of civilization.
And if such adequate substitutes are not provided, then you may be sure that
war will long continue.
70:2.15 Man will never accept peace as a normal mode of living until he has
been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced that peace is best for his material
welfare, and until society has wisely provided peaceful substitutes for the
gratification of that inherent tendency periodically to let loose a collective
drive designed to liberate those ever-accumulating emotions and energies
belonging to the self-preservation reactions of the human species.
70:2.16 But even in passing, war should be honored as the school of experience
which compelled a race of arrogant individualists to submit themselves to
highly concentrated authority -- a chief executive. Old-fashioned war did
select the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does
this. To discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests of peace:
industry, science, and social achievement.
3. EARLY HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS
70:3.1 In the most primitive society the horde is everything; even children
are its common property. The evolving family displaced the horde in child
rearing, while the emerging clans and tribes took its place as the social
unit.
70:3.2 Sex hunger and mother love establish the family. But real government
does not appear until superfamily groups have begun to form. In the prefamily
days of the horde, leadership was provided by informally chosen individuals.
The African Bushmen have never progressed beyond this primitive stage; they do
not have chiefs in the horde.
70:3.3 Families became united by blood ties in clans, aggregations of kinsmen;
and these subsequently evolved into tribes, territorial communities. Warfare
and external pressure forced the tribal organization upon the kinship clans,
but it was commerce and trade that held these early and primitive groups
together with some degree of internal peace.
70:3.4 The peace of Urantia will be promoted far more by international trade
organizations than by all the sentimental sophistry of visionary peace
planning. Trade relations have been facilitated by development of language and
by improved methods of communication as well as by better transportation.
70:3.5 The absence of a common language has always impeded the growth of peace
groups, but money has become the universal language of modern trade. Modern
society is largely held together by the industrial market. The gain motive is
a mighty civilizer when augmented by the desire to serve.
70:3.6 In the early ages each tribe was surrounded by concentric circles of
increasing fear and suspicion; hence it was once the custom to kill all
strangers, later on, to enslave them. The old idea of friendship meant
adoption into the clan; and clan membership was believed to survive death --
one of the earliest concepts of eternal life.
70:3.7 The ceremony of adoption consisted in drinking each other's blood. In
some groups saliva was exchanged in the place of blood drinking, this being
the ancient origin of the practice of social kissing. And all ceremonies of
association, whether marriage or adoption, were always terminated by feasting.
70:3.8 In later times, blood diluted with red wine was used, and eventually
wine alone was drunk to seal the adoption ceremony, which was signified in the
touching of the wine cups and consummated by the swallowing of the beverage.
The Hebrews employed a modified form of this adoption ceremony. Their Arab
ancestors made use of the oath taken while the hand of the candidate rested
upon the generative organ of the tribal native. The Hebrews treated adopted
aliens kindly and fraternally. "The stranger that dwells with you shall be as
one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself."
70:3.9 "Guest friendship" was a relation of temporary hospitality. When
visiting guests departed, a dish would be broken in half, one piece being
given the departing friend so that it would serve as a suitable introduction
for a third party who might arrive on a later visit. It was customary for
guests to pay their way by telling tales of their travels and adventures. The
storytellers of olden times became so popular that the mores eventually
forbade their functioning during either the hunting or harvest seasons.
70:3.10 The first treaties of peace were the "blood bonds." The peace
ambassadors of two warring tribes would meet, pay their respects, and then
proceed to prick the skin until it bled; whereupon they would suck each
other's blood and declare peace.
70:3.11 The earliest peace missions consisted of delegations of men bringing
their choice maidens for the sex gratification of their onetime enemies, the
sex appetite being utilized in combating the war urge. The tribe so honored
would pay a return visit, with its offering of maidens; whereupon peace would
be firmly established. And soon intermarriages between the families of the
chiefs were sanctioned.
4. CLANS AND TRIBES
70:4.1 The first peace group was the family, then the clan, the tribe, and
later on the nation, which eventually became the modern territorial state. The
fact that the present-day peace groups have long since expanded beyond blood
ties to embrace nations is most encouraging, despite the fact that Urantia
nations are still spending vast sums on war preparations.
70:4.2 The clans were blood-tie groups within the tribe, and they owed their
existence to certain common interests, such as:
1. Tracing origin back to a common ancestor.
2. Allegiance to a common religious totem.
3. Speaking the same dialect.
4. Sharing a common dwelling place.
5. Fearing the same enemies.
6. Having had a common military experience.
70:4.3 The clan headmen were always subordinate to the tribal chief, the early
tribal governments being a loose confederation of clans. The native
Australians never developed a tribal form of government.
70:4.4 The clan peace chiefs usually ruled through the mother line; the tribal
war chiefs established the father line. The courts of the tribal chiefs and
early kings consisted of the headmen of the clans, whom it was customary to
invite into the king's presence several times a year. This enabled him to
watch them and the better secure their co-operation. The clans served a
valuable purpose in local self-government, but they greatly delayed the growth
of large and strong nations.
5. THE BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT
70:5.1 Every human institution had a beginning, and civil government is a
product of progressive evolution just as much as are marriage, industry, and
religion. From the early clans and primitive tribes there gradually developed
the successive orders of human government which have come and gone right on
down to those forms of social and civil regulation that characterize the
second third of the twentieth century.
70:5.2 With the gradual emergence of the family units the foundations of
government were established in the clan organization, the grouping of
consanguineous families. The first real governmental body was the council of
the elders. This regulative group was composed of old men who had
distinguished themselves in some efficient manner. Wisdom and experience were
early appreciated even by barbaric man, and there ensued a long age of the
domination of the elders. This reign of the oligarchy of age gradually grew
into the patriarchal idea.
70:5.3 In the early council of the elders there resided the potential of all
governmental functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. When the council
interpreted the current mores, it was a court; when establishing new modes of
social usage, it was a legislature; to the extent that such decrees and
enactments were enforced, it was the executive. The chairman of the council
was one of the forerunners of the later tribal chief.
70:5.4 Some tribes had female councils, and from time to time many tribes had
women rulers. Certain tribes of the red man preserved the teaching of
Onamonalonton in following the unanimous rule of the "council of seven."
70:5.5 It has been hard for mankind to learn that neither peace nor war can be
run by a debating society. The primitive "palavers" were seldom useful. The
race early learned that an army commanded by a group of clan heads had no
chance against a strong one-man army. War has always been a kingmaker.
70:5.6 At first the war chiefs were chosen only for military service, and they
would relinquish some of their authority during peacetimes, when their duties
were of a more social nature. But gradually they began to encroach upon the
peace intervals, tending to continue to rule from one war on through to the
next. They often saw to it that one war was not too long in following another.
These early war lords were not fond of peace.
70:5.7 In later times some chiefs were chosen for other than military service,
being selected because of unusual physique or outstanding personal abilities.
The red men often had two sets of chiefs -- the sachems, or peace chiefs, and
the hereditary war chiefs. The peace rulers were also judges and teachers.
70:5.8 Some early communities were ruled by medicine men, who often acted as
chiefs. One man would act as priest, physician, and chief executive. Quite
often the early royal insignias had originally been the symbols or emblems of
priestly dress.
70:5.9 And it was by these steps that the executive branch of government
gradually came into existence. The clan and tribal councils continued in an
advisory capacity and as forerunners of the later appearing legislative and
judicial branches. In Africa, today, all these forms of primitive government
are in actual existence among the various tribes.
6. MONARCHIAL GOVERNMENT
70:6.1 Effective state rule only came with the arrival of a chief with full
executive authority. Man found that effective government could be had only by
conferring power on a personality, not by endowing an idea.
70:6.2 Rulership grew out of the idea of family authority or wealth. When a
patriarchal kinglet became a real king, he was sometimes called "father of his
people." Later on, kings were thought to have sprung from heroes. And still
further on, rulership became hereditary, due to belief in the divine origin of
kings.
70:6.3 Hereditary kingship avoided the anarchy which had previously wrought
such havoc between the death of a king and the election of a successor. The
family had a biologic head; the clan, a selected natural leader; the tribe and
later state had no natural leader, and this was an additional reason for
making the chief-kings hereditary. The idea of royal families and aristocracy
was also based on the mores of "name ownership" in the clans.
70:6.4 The succession of kings was eventually regarded as supernatural, the
royal blood being thought to extend back to the times of the materialized
staff of Prince Caligastia. Thus kings became fetish personalities and were
inordinately feared, a special form of speech being adopted for court usage.
Even in recent times it was believed that the touch of kings would cure
disease, and some Urantia peoples still regard their rulers as having had a
divine origin.
70:6.5 The early fetish king was often kept in seclusion; he was regarded as
too sacred to be viewed except on feast days and holy days. Ordinarily a
representative was chosen to impersonate him, and this is the origin of prime
ministers. The first cabinet officer was a food administrator; others shortly
followed. Rulers soon appointed representatives to be in charge of commerce
and religion; and the development of a cabinet was a direct step toward
depersonalization of executive authority. These assistants of the early kings
became the accepted nobility, and the king's wife gradually rose to the
dignity of queen as women came to be held in higher esteem.
70:6.6 Unscrupulous rulers gained great power by the discovery of poison.
Early court magic was diabolical; the king's enemies soon died. But even the
most despotic tyrant was subject to some restrictions; he was at least
restrained by the ever-present fear of assassination. The medicine men, witch
doctors, and priests have always been a powerful check on the kings.
Subsequently, the landowners, the aristocracy, exerted a restraining
influence. And ever and anon the clans and tribes would simply rise up and
overthrow their despots and tyrants. Deposed rulers, when sentenced to death,
were often given the option of committing suicide, which gave origin to the
ancient social vogue of suicide in certain circumstances.
7. PRIMITIVE CLUBS AND SECRET SOCIETIES
70:7.1 Blood kinship determined the first social groups; association enlarged
the kinship clan. Intermarriage was the next step in group enlargement, and
the resultant complex tribe was the first true political body. The next
advance in social development was the evolution of religious cults and the
political clubs. These first appeared as secret societies and originally were
wholly religious; subsequently they became regulative. At first they were
men's clubs; later women's groups appeared. Presently they became divided into
two classes: sociopolitical and religio-mystical.
70:7.2 There were many reasons for the secrecy of these societies, such as:
1. Fear of incurring the displeasure of the rulers because of the violation of
some taboo.
2. In order to practice minority religious rites.
3. For the purpose of preserving valuable "spirit" or trade secrets.
4. For the enjoyment of some special charm or magic.
70:7.3 The very secrecy of these societies conferred on all members the power
of mystery over the rest of the tribe. Secrecy also appeals to vanity; the
initiates were the social aristocracy of their day. After initiation the boys
hunted with the men; whereas before they had gathered vegetables with the
women. And it was the supreme humiliation, a tribal disgrace, to fail to pass
the puberty tests and thus be compelled to remain outside the men's abode with
the women and children, to be considered effeminate. Besides, noninitiates
were not allowed to marry.
70:7.4 Primitive people very early taught their adolescent youths sex control.
It became the custom to take boys away from parents from puberty to marriage,
their education and training being intrusted to the men's secret societies.
And one of the chief functions of these clubs was to keep control of
adolescent young men, thus preventing illegitimate children.
70:7.5 Commercialized prostitution began when these men's clubs paid money for
the use of women from other tribes. But the earlier groups were remarkably
free from sex laxity.
70:7.6 The puberty initiation ceremony usually extended over a period of five
years. Much self-torture and painful cutting entered into these ceremonies.
Circumcision was first practiced as a rite of initiation into one of these
secret fraternities. The tribal marks were cut on the body as a part of the
puberty initiation; the tattoo originated as such a badge of membership. Such
torture, together with much privation, was designed to harden these youths, to
impress them with the reality of life and its inevitable hardships. This
purpose is better accomplished by the later appearing athletic games and
physical contests.
70:7.7 But the secret societies did aim at the improvement of adolescent
morals; one of the chief purposes of the puberty ceremonies was to impress
upon the boy that he must leave other men's wives alone.
70:7.8 Following these years of rigorous discipline and training and just
before marriage, the young men were usually released for a short period of
leisure and freedom, after which they returned to marry and to submit to
lifelong subjection to the tribal taboos. And this ancient custom has
continued down to modern times as the foolish notion of "sowing wild oats."
70:7.9 Many later tribes sanctioned the formation of women's secret clubs, the
purpose of which was to prepare adolescent girls for wifehood and motherhood.
After initiation girls were eligible for marriage and were permitted to attend
the "bride show," the coming-out party of those days. Women's orders pledged
against marriage early came into existence.
70:7.10 Presently nonsecret clubs made their appearance when groups of
unmarried men and groups of unattached women formed their separate
organizations. These associations were really the first schools. And while
men's and women's clubs were often given to persecuting each other, some
advanced tribes, after contact with the Dalamatia teachers, experimented with
coeducation, having boarding schools for both sexes.
70:7.11 Secret societies contributed to the building up of social castes
chiefly by the mysterious character of their initiations. The members of these
societies first wore masks to frighten the curious away from their mourning
rites -- ancestor worship. Later this ritual developed into a pseudo seance at
which ghosts were reputed to have appeared. The ancient societies of the "new
birth" used signs and employed a special secret language; they also forswore
certain foods and drinks. They acted as night police and otherwise functioned
in a wide range of social activities.
70:7.12 All secret associations imposed an oath, enjoined confidence, and
taught the keeping of secrets. These orders awed and controlled the mobs; they
also acted as vigilance societies, thus practicing lynch law. They were the
first spies when the tribes were at war and the first secret police during
times of peace. Best of all they kept unscrupulous kings on the anxious seat.
To offset them, the kings fostered their own secret police.
70:7.13 These societies gave rise to the first political parties. The first
party government was "the strong" vs. "the weak." In ancient times a change of
administration only followed civil war, abundant proof that the weak had
become strong.
70:7.14 These clubs were employed by merchants to collect debts and by rulers
to collect taxes. Taxation has been a long struggle, one of the earliest forms
being the tithe, one tenth of the hunt or spoils. Taxes were originally levied
to keep up the king's house, but it was found that they were easier to collect
when disguised as an offering for the support of the temple service.
70:7.15 By and by these secret associations grew into the first charitable
organizations and later evolved into the earlier religious societies -- the
forerunners of churches. Finally some of these societies became intertribal,
the first international fraternities.
8. SOCIAL CLASSES
70:8.1 The mental and physical inequality of human beings insures that social
classes will appear. The only worlds without social strata are the most
primitive and the most advanced. A dawning civilization has not yet begun the
differentiation of social levels, while a world settled in light and life has
largely effaced these divisions of mankind, which are so characteristic of all
intermediate evolutionary stages.
70:8.2 As society emerged from savagery to barbarism, its human components
tended to become grouped in classes for the following general reasons:
70:8.3 1. Natural -- contact, kinship, and marriage; the first social
distinctions were based on sex, age, and blood -- kinship to the chief.
70:8.4 2. Personal -- the recognition of ability, endurance, skill, and
fortitude; soon followed by the recognition of language mastery, knowledge,
and general intelligence.
70:8.5 3. Chance -- war and emigration resulted in the separating of human
groups. Class evolution was powerfully influenced by conquest, the relation of
the victor to the vanquished, while slavery brought about the first general
division of society into free and bond.
70:8.6 4. Economic -- rich and poor. Wealth and the possession of slaves was a
genetic basis for one class of society.
70:8.7 5. Geographic -- classes arose consequent upon urban or rural
settlement. City and country have respectively contributed to the
differentiation of the herder-agriculturist and the trader-industrialist, with
their divergent viewpoints and reactions.
70:8.8 6. Social -- classes have gradually formed according to popular
estimate of the social worth of different groups. Among the earliest divisions
of this sort were the demarcations between priest-teachers, ruler-warriors,
capitalist-traders, common laborers, and slaves. The slave could never become
a capitalist, though sometimes the wage earner could elect to join the
capitalistic ranks.
70:8.9 7. Vocational -- as vocations multiplied, they tended to establish
castes and guilds. Workers divided into three groups: the professional
classes, including the medicine men, then the skilled workers, followed by the
unskilled laborers.
70:8.10 8. Religious -- the early cult clubs produced their own classes within
the clans and tribes, and the piety and mysticism of the priests have long
perpetuated them as a separate social group.
70:8.11 9. Racial -- the presence of two or more races within a given nation
or territorial unit usually produces color castes. The original caste system
of India was based on color, as was that of early Egypt.
70:8.12 10. Age -- youth and maturity. Among the tribes the boy remained under
the watchcare of his father as long as the father lived, while the girl was
left in the care of her mother until married.
70:8.13 Flexible and shifting social classes are indispensable to an evolving
civilization, but when class becomes caste, when social levels petrify, the
enhancement of social stability is purchased by diminishment of personal
initiative. Social caste solves the problem of finding one's place in
industry, but it also sharply curtails individual development and virtually
prevents social co-operation.
70:8.14 Classes in society, having naturally formed, will persist until man
gradually achieves their evolutionary obliteration through intelligent
manipulation of the biologic, intellectual, and spiritual resources of a
progressing civilization, such as:
70:8.15 1. Biologic renovation of the racial stocks -- the selective
elimination of inferior human strains. This will tend to eradicate many mortal
inequalities.
70:8.16 2. Educational training of the increased brain power which will arise
out of such biologic improvement.
70:8.17 3. Religious quickening of the feelings of mortal kinship and
brotherhood.
70:8.18 But these measures can bear their true fruits only in the distant
millenniums of the future, although much social improvement will immediately
result from the intelligent, wise, and patient manipulation of these
acceleration factors of cultural progress. Religion is the mighty lever that
lifts civilization from chaos, but it is powerless apart from the fulcrum of
sound and normal mind resting securely on sound and normal heredity.
9. HUMAN RIGHTS
70:9.1 Nature confers no rights on man, only life and a world in which to live
it. Nature does not even confer the right to live, as might be deduced by
considering what would likely happen if an unarmed man met a hungry tiger face
to face in the primitive forest. Society's prime gift to man is security.
70:9.2 Gradually society asserted its rights and, at the present time, they
are:
1. Assurance of food supply.
2. Military defense -- security through preparedness.
3. Internal peace preservation -- prevention of personal violence and social
disorder.
4. Sex control -- marriage, the family institution.
5. Property -- the right to own.
6. Fostering of individual and group competition.
7. Provision for educating and training youth.
8. Promotion of trade and commerce -- industrial development.
9. Improvement of labor conditions and rewards.
10. The guarantee of the freedom of religious practices to the end that all of
these other social activities may be exalted by becoming spiritually motivated.
70:9.3 When rights are old beyond knowledge of origin, they are often called
natural rights. But human rights are not really natural; they are entirely
social. They are relative and ever changing, being no more than the rules of
the game -- recognized adjustments of relations governing the ever-changing
phenomena of human competition.
70:9.4 What may be regarded as right in one age may not be so regarded in
another. The survival of large numbers of defectives and degenerates is not
because they have any natural right thus to encumber twentieth-century
civilization, but simply because the society of the age, the mores, thus
decrees.
70:9.5 Few human rights were recognized in the European Middle Ages; then
every man belonged to someone else, and rights were only privileges or favors
granted by state or church. And the revolt from this error was equally
erroneous in that it led to the belief that all men are born equal.
70:9.6 The weak and the inferior have always contended for equal rights; they
have always insisted that the state compel the strong and superior to supply
their wants and otherwise make good those deficiencies which all too often are
the natural result of their own indifference and indolence.
70:9.7 But this equality ideal is the child of civilization; it is not found
in nature. Even culture itself demonstrates conclusively the inherent
inequality of men by their very unequal capacity therefor. The sudden and
nonevolutionary realization of supposed natural equality would quickly throw
civilized man back to the crude usages of primitive ages. Society cannot offer
equal rights to all, but it can promise to administer the varying rights of
each with fairness and equity. It is the business and duty of society to
provide the child of nature with a fair and peaceful opportunity to pursue
self-maintenance, participate in self-perpetuation, while at the same time
enjoying some measure of self-gratification, the sum of all three constituting
human happiness.
10. EVOLUTION OF JUSTICE
70:10.1 Natural justice is a man-made theory; it is not a reality. In nature,
justice is purely theoretic, wholly a fiction. Nature provides but one kind of
justice -- inevitable conformity of results to causes.
70:10.2 Justice, as conceived by man, means getting one's rights and has,
therefore, been a matter of progressive evolution. The concept of justice may
well be constitutive in a spirit-endowed mind, but it does not spring full-
fledgedly into existence on the worlds of space.
70:10.3 Primitive man assigned all phenomena to a person. In case of death the
savage asked, not what killed him, but who? Accidental murder was not
therefore recognized, and in the punishment of crime the motive of the
criminal was wholly disregarded; judgment was rendered in accordance with the
injury done.
70:10.4 In the earliest primitive society public opinion operated directly;
officers of law were not needed. There was no privacy in primitive life. A
man's neighbors were responsible for his conduct; therefore their right to pry
into his personal affairs. Society was regulated on the theory that the group
membership should have an interest in, and some degree of control over, the
behavior of each individual.
70:10.5 It was very early believed that ghosts administered justice through
the medicine men and priests; this constituted these orders the first crime
detectors and officers of the law. Their early methods of detecting crime
consisted in conducting ordeals of poison, fire, and pain. These savage
ordeals were nothing more than crude techniques of arbitration; they did not
necessarily settle a dispute justly. For example: When poison was
administered, if the accused vomited, he was innocent.
70:10.6 The Old Testament records one of these ordeals, a marital guilt test:
If a man suspected his wife of being untrue to him, he took her to the priest
and stated his suspicions, after which the priest would prepare a concoction
consisting of holy water and sweepings from the temple floor. After due
ceremony, including threatening curses, the accused wife was made to drink the
nasty potion. If she was guilty, "the water that causes the curse shall enter
into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thighs shall
rot, and the woman shall be accursed among her people." If, by any chance, any
woman could quaff this filthy draught and not show symptoms of physical
illness, she was acquitted of the charges made by her jealous husband.
70:10.7 These atrocious methods of crime detection were practiced by almost
all the evolving tribes at one time or another. Dueling is a modern survival
of the trial by ordeal.
70:10.8 It is not to be wondered that the Hebrews and other semicivilized
tribes practiced such primitive techniques of justice administration three
thousand years ago, but it is most amazing that thinking men would
subsequently retain such a relic of barbarism within the pages of a collection
of sacred writings. Reflective thinking should make it clear that no divine
being ever gave mortal man such unfair instructions regarding the detection
and adjudication of suspected marital unfaithfulness.
70:10.9 Society early adopted the paying-back attitude of retaliation: an eye
for an eye, a life for a life. The evolving tribes all recognized this right
of blood vengeance. Vengeance became the aim of primitive life, but religion
has since greatly modified these early tribal practices. The teachers of
revealed religion have always proclaimed, "`Vengeance is mine,' says the
Lord." Vengeance killing in early times was not altogether unlike present-day
murders under the pretense of the unwritten law.
70:10.10 Suicide was a common mode of retaliation. If one were unable to
avenge himself in life, he died entertaining the belief that, as a ghost, he
could return and visit wrath upon his enemy. And since this belief was very
general, the threat of suicide on an enemy's doorstep was usually sufficient
to bring him to terms. Primitive man did not hold life very dear; suicide over
trifles was common, but the teachings of the Dalamatians greatly lessened this
custom, while in more recent times leisure, comforts, religion, and philosophy
have united to make life sweeter and more desirable. Hunger strikes are,
however, a modern analogue of this old-time method of retaliation.
70:10.11 One of the earliest formulations of advanced tribal law had to do
with the taking over of the blood feud as a tribal affair. But strange to
relate, even then a man could kill his wife without punishment provided he had
fully paid for her. The Eskimos of today, however, still leave the penalty for
a crime, even for murder, to be decreed and administered by the family
wronged.
70:10.12 Another advance was the imposition of fines for taboo violations, the
provision of penalties. These fines constituted the first public revenue. The
practice of paying "blood money" also came into vogue as a substitute for
blood vengeance. Such damages were usually paid in women or cattle; it was a
long time before actual fines, monetary compensation, were assessed as
punishment for crime. And since the idea of punishment was essentially
compensation, everything, including human life, eventually came to have a
price which could be paid as damages. The Hebrews were the first to abolish
the practice of paying blood money. Moses taught that they should "take no
satisfaction for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; he shall
surely be put to death."
70:10.13 Justice was thus first meted out by the family, then by the clan, and
later on by the tribe. The administration of true justice dates from the
taking of revenge from private and kin groups and lodging it in the hands of
the social group, the state.
70:10.14 Punishment by burning alive was once a common practice. It was
recognized by many ancient rulers, including Hammurabi and Moses, the latter
directing that many crimes, particularly those of a grave sex nature, should
be punished by burning at the stake. If "the daughter of a priest" or other
leading citizen turned to public prostitution, it was the Hebrew custom to
"burn her with fire."
70:10.15 Treason -- the "selling out" or betrayal of one's tribal associates
-- was the first capital crime. Cattle stealing was universally punished by
summary death, and even recently horse stealing has been similarly punished.
But as time passed, it was learned that the severity of the punishment was not
so valuable a deterrent to crime as was its certainty and swiftness.
70:10.16 When society fails to punish crimes, group resentment usually asserts
itself as lynch law; the provision of sanctuary was a means of escaping this
sudden group anger. Lynching and dueling represent the unwillingness of the
individual to surrender private redress to the state.
11. LAWS AND COURTS
70:11.1 It is just as difficult to draw sharp distinctions between mores and
laws as to indicate exactly when, at the dawning, night is succeeded by day.
Mores are laws and police regulations in the making. When long established,
the undefined mores tend to crystallize into precise laws, concrete
regulations, and well-defined social conventions.
70:11.2 Law is always at first negative and prohibitive; in advancing
civilizations it becomes increasingly positive and directive. Early society
operated negatively, granting the individual the right to live by imposing
upon all others the command, "you shall not kill." Every grant of rights or
liberty to the individual involves curtailment of the liberties of all others,
and this is effected by the taboo, primitive law. The whole idea of the taboo
is inherently negative, for primitive society was wholly negative in its
organization, and the early administration of justice consisted in the
enforcement of the taboos. But originally these laws applied only to fellow
tribesmen, as is illustrated by the later-day Hebrews, who had a different
code of ethics for dealing with the gentiles.
70:11.3 The oath originated in the days of Dalamatia in an effort to render
testimony more truthful. Such oaths consisted in pronouncing a curse upon
oneself. Formerly no individual would testify against his native group.
70:11.4 Crime was an assault upon the tribal mores, sin was the transgression
of those taboos which enjoyed ghost sanction, and there was long confusion due
to the failure to segregate crime and sin.
70:11.5 Self-interest established the taboo on killing, society sanctified it
as traditional mores, while religion consecrated the custom as moral law, and
thus did all three conspire in rendering human life more safe and sacred.
Society could not have held together during early times had not rights had the
sanction of religion; superstition was the moral and social police force of
the long evolutionary ages. The ancients all claimed that their olden laws,
the taboos, had been given to their ancestors by the gods.
70:11.6 Law is a codified record of long human experience, public opinion
crystallized and legalized. The mores were the raw material of accumulated
experience out of which later ruling minds formulated the written laws. The
ancient judge had no laws. When he handed down a decision, he simply said, "It
is the custom."
70:11.7 Reference to precedent in court decisions represents the effort of
judges to adapt written laws to the changing conditions of society. This
provides for progressive adaptation to altering social conditions combined
with the impressiveness of traditional continuity.
70:11.8 Property disputes were handled in many ways, such as:
1. By destroying the disputed property.
2. By force -- the contestants fought it out.
3. By arbitration -- a third party decided.
4. By appeal to the elders -- later to the courts.
70:11.9 The first courts were regulated fistic encounters; the judges were
merely umpires or referees. They saw to it that the fight was carried on
according to approved rules. On entering a court combat, each party made a
deposit with the judge to pay the costs and fine after one had been defeated
by the other. "Might was still right." Later on, verbal arguments were
substituted for physical blows.
70:11.10 The whole idea of primitive justice was not so much to be fair as to
dispose of the contest and thus prevent public disorder and private violence.
But primitive man did not so much resent what would now be regarded as an
injustice; it was taken for granted that those who had power would use it
selfishly. Nevertheless, the status of any civilization may be very accurately
determined by the thoroughness and equity of its courts and by the integrity
of its judges.
12. ALLOCATION OF CIVIL AUTHORITY
70:12.1 The great struggle in the evolution of government has concerned the
concentration of power. The universe administrators have learned from
experience that the evolutionary peoples on the inhabited worlds are best
regulated by the representative type of civil government when there is
maintained proper balance of power between the well-co-ordinated executive,
legislative, and judicial branches.
70:12.2 While primitive authority was based on strength, physical power, the
ideal government is the representative system wherein leadership is based on
ability, but in the days of barbarism there was entirely too much war to
permit representative government to function effectively. In the long struggle
between division of authority and unity of command, the dictator won. The
early and diffuse powers of the primitive council of elders were gradually
concentrated in the person of the absolute monarch. After the arrival of real
kings the groups of elders persisted as quasi-legislative-judicial advisory
bodies; later on, legislatures of co-ordinate status made their appearance,
and eventually supreme courts of adjudication were established separate from
the legislatures.
70:12.3 The king was the executor of the mores, the original or unwritten law.
Later he enforced the legislative enactments, the crystallization of public
opinion. A popular assembly as an expression of public opinion, though slow in
appearing, marked a great social advance.
70:12.4 The early kings were greatly restricted by the mores -- by tradition
or public opinion. In recent times some Urantia nations have codified these
mores into documentary bases for government.
70:12.5 Urantia mortals are entitled to liberty; they should create their
systems of government; they should adopt their constitutions or other charters
of civil authority and administrative procedure. And having done this, they
should select their most competent and worthy fellows as chief executives. For
representatives in the legislative branch they should elect only those who are
qualified intellectually and morally to fulfill such sacred responsibilities.
As judges of their high and supreme tribunals only those who are endowed with
natural ability and who have been made wise by replete experience should be
chosen.
70:12.6 If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen
their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless
interpretation to the end that there may be prevented:
1. Usurpation of unwarranted power by either the executive or legislative
branches.
2. Machinations of ignorant and superstitious agitators.
3. Retardation of scientific progress.
4. Stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity.
5. Domination by vicious minorities.
6. Control by ambitious and clever would-be dictators.
7. Disastrous disruption of panics.
8. Exploitation by the unscrupulous.
9. Taxation enslavement of the citizenry by the state.
10. Failure of social and economic fairness.
11. Union of church and state.
12. Loss of personal liberty.
70:12.7 These are the purposes and aims of constitutional tribunals acting as
governors upon the engines of representative government on an evolutionary
world.
70:12.8 Mankind's struggle to perfect government on Urantia has to do with
perfecting channels of administration, with adapting them to ever-changing
current needs, with improving power distribution within government, and then
with selecting such administrative leaders as are truly wise. While there is a
divine and ideal form of government, such cannot be revealed but must be
slowly and laboriously discovered by the men and women of each planet
throughout the universes of time and space.
70:12.9 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 71
DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
71:0.1 THE state is a useful evolution of civilization; it represents
society's net gain from the ravages and sufferings of war. Even statecraft is
merely the accumulated technique for adjusting the competitive contest of
force between the struggling tribes and nations.
71:0.2 The modern state is the institution which survived in the long struggle
for group power. Superior power eventually prevailed, and it produced a
creature of fact -- the state -- together with the moral myth of the absolute
obligation of the citizen to live and die for the state. But the state is not
of divine genesis; it was not even produced by volitionally intelligent human
action; it is purely an evolutionary institution and was wholly automatic in
origin.
1. THE EMBRYONIC STATE
71:1.1 The state is a territorial social regulative organization, and the
strongest, most efficient, and enduring state is composed of a single nation
whose people have a common language, mores, and institutions.
71:1.2 The early states were small and were all the result of conquest. They
did not originate in voluntary associations. Many were founded by conquering
nomads, who would swoop down on peaceful herders or settled agriculturists to
overpower and enslave them. Such states, resulting from conquest, were,
perforce, stratified; classes were inevitable, and class struggles have ever
been selective.
71:1.3 The northern tribes of the American red men never attained real
statehood. They never progressed beyond a loose confederation of tribes, a
very primitive form of state. Their nearest approach was the Iroquois
federation, but this group of six nations never quite functioned as a state
and failed to survive because of the absence of certain essentials to modern
national life, such as:
71:1.4 1. Acquirement and inheritance of private property.
71:1.5 2. Cities plus agriculture and industry.
71:1.6 3. Helpful domestic animals.
71:1.7 4. Practical family organization. These red men clung to the mother-
family and nephew inheritance.
71:1.8 5. Definite territory.
71:1.9 6. A strong executive head.
71:1.10 7. Enslavement of captives -- they either adopted or massacred them.
71:1.11 8. Decisive conquests.
71:1.12 The red men were too democratic; they had a good government, but it
failed. Eventually they would have evolved a state had they not prematurely
encountered the more advanced civilization of the white man, who was pursuing
the governmental methods of the Greeks and the Romans.
71:1.13 The successful Roman state was based on:
1. The father-family.
2. Agriculture and the domestication of animals.
3. Condensation of population -- cities.
4. Private property and land.
5. Slavery -- classes of citizenship.
6. Conquest and reorganization of weak and backward peoples.
7. Definite territory with roads.
8. Personal and strong rulers.
71:1.14 The great weakness in Roman civilization, and a factor in the ultimate
collapse of the empire, was the supposed liberal and advanced provision for
the emancipation of the boy at twenty-one and the unconditional release of the
girl so that she was at liberty to marry a man of her own choosing or to go
abroad in the land to become immoral. The harm to society consisted not in
these reforms themselves but rather in the sudden and extensive manner of
their adoption. The collapse of Rome indicates what may be expected when a
state undergoes too rapid extension associated with internal degeneration.
71:1.15 The embryonic state was made possible by the decline of the blood bond
in favor of the territorial, and such tribal federations were usually firmly
cemented by conquest. While a sovereignty that transcends all minor struggles
and group differences is the characteristic of the true state, still, many
classes and castes persist in the later state organizations as remnants of the
clans and tribes of former days. The later and larger territorial states had a
long and bitter struggle with these smaller consanguineous clan groups, the
tribal government proving a valuable transition from family to state
authority. During later times many clans grew out of trades and other
industrial associations.
71:1.16 Failure of state integration results in retrogression to prestate
conditions of governmental techniques, such as the feudalism of the European
Middle Ages. During these dark ages the territorial state collapsed, and there
was a reversion to the small castle groups, the reappearance of the clan and
tribal stages of development. Similar semistates even now exist in Asia and
Africa, but not all of them are evolutionary reversions; many are the
embryonic nucleuses of states of the future.
2. THE EVOLUTION OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
71:2.1 Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of
evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:
1. Glorification of mediocrity.
2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers.
3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution.
4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent
majorities.
5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.
71:2.2 Public opinion, common opinion, has always delayed society;
nevertheless, it is valuable, for, while retarding social evolution, it does
preserve civilization. Education of public opinion is the only safe and true
method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and
cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots.
Public opinion, the mores, is the basic and elemental energy in social
evolution and state development, but to be of state value it must be
nonviolent in expression.
71:2.3 The measure of the advance of society is directly determined by the
degree to which public opinion can control personal behavior and state
regulation through nonviolent expression. The really civilized government had
arrived when public opinion was clothed with the powers of personal franchise.
Popular elections may not always decide things rightly, but they represent the
right way even to do a wrong thing. Evolution does not at once produce
superlative perfection but rather comparative and advancing practical
adjustment.
71:2.4 There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and
efficient form of representative government, and these are:
71:2.5 1. Freedom of the person. Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human
bondage must disappear.
71:2.6 2. Freedom of the mind. Unless a free people are educated -- taught to
think intelligently and plan wisely -- freedom usually does more harm than
good.
71:2.7 3. The reign of law. Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and
whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance
with accepted fundamental law.
71:2.8 4. Freedom of speech. Representative government is unthinkable without
freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions.
71:2.9 5. Security of property. No government can long endure if it fails to
provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the
right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal
property.
71:2.10 6. The right of petition. Representative government assumes the right
of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free
citizenship.
71:2.11 7. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of
petition must progress to the actual management of the government.
71:2.12 8. Universal suffrage. Representative government presupposes an
intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a
government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who
compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal
for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise
differentiated.
71:2.13 9. Control of public servants. No civil government will be serviceable
and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding
and controlling officeholders and public servants.
71:2.14 10. Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy
is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned
upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are
technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally
fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and
for the people be preserved.
3. THE IDEALS OF STATEHOOD
71:3.1 The political or administrative form of a government is of little
consequence provided it affords the essentials of civil progress -- liberty,
security, education, and social co-ordination. It is not what a state is but
what it does that determines the course of social evolution. And after all, no
state can transcend the moral values of its citizenry as exemplified in their
chosen leaders. Ignorance and selfishness will insure the downfall of even the
highest type of government.
71:3.2 Much as it is to be regretted, national egotism has been essential to
social survival. The chosen people doctrine has been a prime factor in tribal
welding and nation building right on down to modern times. But no state can
attain ideal levels of functioning until every form of intolerance is
mastered; it is everlastingly inimical to human progress. And intolerance is
best combated by the co-ordination of science, commerce, play, and religion.
71:3.3 The ideal state functions under the impulse of three mighty and co-
ordinated drives:
1. Love loyalty derived from the realization of human brotherhood.
2. Intelligent patriotism based on wise ideals.
3. Cosmic insight interpreted in terms of planetary facts, needs, and goals.
71:3.4 The laws of the ideal state are few in number, and they have passed out
of the negativistic taboo age into the era of the positive progress of
individual liberty consequent upon enhanced self-control. The exalted state
not only compels its citizens to work but also entices them into profitable
and uplifting utilization of the increasing leisure which results from toil
liberation by the advancing machine age. Leisure must produce as well as
consume.
71:3.5 No society has progressed very far when it permits idleness or
tolerates poverty. But poverty and dependence can never be eliminated if the
defective and degenerate stocks are freely supported and permitted to
reproduce without restraint.
71:3.6 A moral society should aim to preserve the self-respect of its
citizenry and afford every normal individual adequate opportunity for self-
realization. Such a plan of social achievement would yield a cultural society
of the highest order. Social evolution should be encouraged by governmental
supervision which exercises a minimum of regulative control. That state is
best which co-ordinates most while governing least.
71:3.7 The ideals of statehood must be attained by evolution, by the slow
growth of civic consciousness, the recognition of the obligation and privilege
of social service. At first men assume the burdens of government as a duty,
following the end of the administration of political spoilsmen, but later on
they seek such ministry as a privilege, as the greatest honor. The status of
any level of civilization is faithfully portrayed by the caliber of its
citizens who volunteer to accept the responsibilities of statehood.
71:3.8 In a real commonwealth the business of governing cities and provinces
is conducted by experts and is managed just as are all other forms of economic
and commercial associations of people.
71:3.9 In advanced states, political service is esteemed as the highest
devotion of the citizenry. The greatest ambition of the wisest and noblest of
citizens is to gain civil recognition, to be elected or appointed to some
position of governmental trust, and such governments confer their highest
honors of recognition for service upon their civil and social servants. Honors
are next bestowed in the order named upon philosophers, educators, scientists,
industrialists, and militarists. Parents are duly rewarded by the excellency
of their children, and purely religious leaders, being ambassadors of a
spiritual kingdom, receive their real rewards in another world.
4. PROGRESSIVE CIVILIZATION
71:4.1 Economics, society, and government must evolve if they are to remain.
Static conditions on an evolutionary world are indicative of decay; only those
institutions which move forward with the evolutionary stream persist.
71:4.2 The progressive program of an expanding civilization embraces:
1. Preservation of individual liberties.
2. Protection of the home.
3. Promotion of economic security.
4. Prevention of disease.
5. Compulsory education.
6. Compulsory employment.
7. Profitable utilization of leisure.
8. Care of the unfortunate.
9. Race improvement.
10. Promotion of science and art.
11. Promotion of philosophy -- wisdom.
12. Augmentation of cosmic insight -- spirituality.
71:4.3 And this progress in the arts of civilization leads directly to the
realization of the highest human and divine goals of mortal endeavor -- the
social achievement of the brotherhood of man and the personal status of God-
consciousness, which becomes revealed in the supreme desire of every
individual to do the will of the Father in heaven.
71:4.4 The appearance of genuine brotherhood signifies that a social order has
arrived in which all men delight in bearing one another's burdens; they
actually desire to practice the golden rule. But such an ideal society cannot
be realized when either the weak or the wicked lie in wait to take unfair and
unholy advantage of those who are chiefly actuated by devotion to the service
of truth, beauty, and goodness. In such a situation only one course is
practical: The "golden rulers" may establish a progressive society in which
they live according to their ideals while maintaining an adequate defense
against their benighted fellows who might seek either to exploit their pacific
predilections or to destroy their advancing civilization.
71:4.5 Idealism can never survive on an evolving planet if the idealists in
each generation permit themselves to be exterminated by the baser orders of
humanity. And here is the great test of idealism: Can an advanced society
maintain that military preparedness which renders it secure from all attack by
its war-loving neighbors without yielding to the temptation to employ this
military strength in offensive operations against other peoples for purposes
of selfish gain or national aggrandizement? National survival demands
preparedness, and religious idealism alone can prevent the prostitution of
preparedness into aggression. Only love, brotherhood, can prevent the strong
from oppressing the weak.
5. THE EVOLUTION OF COMPETITION
71:5.1 Competition is essential to social progress, but competition,
unregulated, breeds violence. In current society, competition is slowly
displacing war in that it determines the individual's place in industry, as
well as decreeing the survival of the industries themselves. (Murder and war
differ in their status before the mores, murder having been outlawed since the
early days of society, while war has never yet been outlawed by mankind as a
whole.)
71:5.2 The ideal state undertakes to regulate social conduct only enough to
take violence out of individual competition and to prevent unfairness in
personal initiative. Here is a great problem in statehood: How can you
guarantee peace and quiet in industry, pay the taxes to support state power,
and at the same time prevent taxation from handicapping industry and keep the
state from becoming parasitical or tyrannical?
71:5.3 Throughout the earlier ages of any world, competition is essential to
progressive civilization. As the evolution of man progresses, co-operation
becomes increasingly effective. In advanced civilizations co-operation is more
efficient than competition. Early man is stimulated by competition. Early
evolution is characterized by the survival of the biologically fit, but later
civilizations are the better promoted by intelligent co-operation,
understanding fraternity, and spiritual brotherhood.
71:5.4 True, competition in industry is exceedingly wasteful and highly
ineffective, but no attempt to eliminate this economic lost motion should be
countenanced if such adjustments entail even the slightest abrogation of any
of the basic liberties of the individual.
6. THE PROFIT MOTIVE
71:6.1 Present-day profit-motivated economics is doomed unless profit motives
can be augmented by service motives. Ruthless competition based on narrow-
minded self-interest is ultimately destructive of even those things which it
seeks to maintain. Exclusive and self-serving profit motivation is
incompatible with Christian ideals -- much more incompatible with the
teachings of Jesus.
71:6.2 In economics, profit motivation is to service motivation what fear is
to love in religion. But the profit motive must not be suddenly destroyed or
removed; it keeps many otherwise slothful mortals hard at work. It is not
necessary, however, that this social energy arouser be forever selfish in its
objectives.
71:6.3 The profit motive of economic activities is altogether base and wholly
unworthy of an advanced order of society; nevertheless, it is an indispensable
factor throughout the earlier phases of civilization. Profit motivation must
not be taken away from men until they have firmly possessed themselves of
superior types of nonprofit motives for economic striving and social serving
-- the transcendent urges of superlative wisdom, intriguing brotherhood, and
excellency of spiritual attainment.
7. EDUCATION
71:7.1 The enduring state is founded on culture, dominated by ideals, and
motivated by service. The purpose of education should be acquirement of skill,
pursuit of wisdom, realization of selfhood, and attainment of spiritual
values.
71:7.2 In the ideal state, education continues throughout life, and philosophy
sometime becomes the chief pursuit of its citizens. The citizens of such a
commonwealth pursue wisdom as an enhancement of insight into the significance
of human relations, the meanings of reality, the nobility of values, the goals
of living, and the glories of cosmic destiny.
71:7.3 Urantians should get a vision of a new and higher cultural society.
Education will jump to new levels of value with the passing of the purely
profit-motivated system of economics. Education has too long been localistic,
militaristic, ego exalting, and success seeking; it must eventually become
world-wide, idealistic, self-realizing, and cosmic grasping.
71:7.4 Education recently passed from the control of the clergy to that of
lawyers and businessmen. Eventually it must be given over to the philosophers
and the scientists. Teachers must be free beings, real leaders, to the end
that philosophy, the search for wisdom, may become the chief educational
pursuit.
71:7.5 Education is the business of living; it must continue throughout a
lifetime so that mankind may gradually experience the ascending levels of
mortal wisdom, which are:
1. The knowledge of things.
2. The realization of meanings.
3. The appreciation of values.
4. The nobility of work -- duty.
5. The motivation of goals -- morality.
6. The love of service -- character.
7. Cosmic insight -- spiritual discernment.
71:7.6 And then, by means of these achievements, many will ascend to the
mortal ultimate of mind attainment, God-consciousness.
8. THE CHARACTER OF STATEHOOD
71:8.1 The only sacred feature of any human government is the division of
statehood into the three domains of executive, legislative, and judicial
functions. The universe is administered in accordance with such a plan of
segregation of functions and authority. Aside from this divine concept of
effective social regulation or civil government, it matters little what form
of state a people may elect to have provided the citizenry is ever progressing
toward the goal of augmented self-control and increased social service. The
intellectual keenness, economic wisdom, social cleverness, and moral stamina
of a people are all faithfully reflected in statehood.
71:8.2 The evolution of statehood entails progress from level to level, as
follows:
71:8.3 1. The creation of a threefold government of executive, legislative,
and judicial branches.
71:8.4 2. The freedom of social, political, and religious activities.
71:8.5 3. The abolition of all forms of slavery and human bondage.
71:8.6 4. The ability of the citizenry to control the levying of taxes.
71:8.7 5. The establishment of universal education -- learning extended from
the cradle to the grave.
71:8.8 6. The proper adjustment between local and national governments.
71:8.9 7. The fostering of science and the conquest of disease.
71:8.10 8. The due recognition of sex equality and the co-ordinated
functioning of men and women in the home, school, and church, with specialized
service of women in industry and government.
71:8.11 9. The elimination of toiling slavery by machine invention and the
subsequent mastery of the machine age.
71:8.12 10. The conquest of dialects -- the triumph of a universal language.
71:8.13 11. The ending of war -- international adjudication of national and
racial differences by continental courts of nations presided over by a supreme
planetary tribunal automatically recruited from the periodically retiring
heads of the continental courts. The continental courts are authoritative; the
world court is advisory -- moral.
71:8.14 12. The world-wide vogue of the pursuit of wisdom -- the exaltation of
philosophy. The evolution of a world religion, which will presage the entrance
of the planet upon the earlier phases of settlement in light and life.
71:8.15 These are the prerequisites of progressive government and the earmarks
of ideal statehood. Urantia is far from the realization of these exalted
ideals, but the civilized races have made a beginning -- mankind is on the
march toward higher evolutionary destinies.
71:8.16 Sponsored by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 72
GOVERNMENT ON A NEIGHBORING PLANET
72:0.1 BY PERMISSION of Lanaforge and with the approval of the Most Highs of
Edentia, I am authorized to narrate something of the social, moral, and
political life of the most advanced human race living on a not far-distant
planet belonging to the Satania system.
72:0.2 Of all the Satania worlds which became isolated because of
participation in the Lucifer rebellion, this planet has experienced a history
most like that of Urantia. The similarity of the two spheres undoubtedly
explains why permission to make this extraordinary presentation was granted,
for it is most unusual for the system rulers to consent to the narration on
one planet of the affairs of another.
72:0.3 This planet, like Urantia, was led astray by the disloyalty of its
Planetary Prince in connection with the Lucifer rebellion. It received a
Material Son shortly after Adam came to Urantia, and this Son also defaulted,
leaving the sphere isolated, since a Magisterial Son has never been bestowed
upon its mortal races.
1. THE CONTINENTAL NATION
72:1.1 Notwithstanding all these planetary handicaps a very superior
civilization is evolving on an isolated continent about the size of Australia.
This nation numbers about 140 million. Its people are a mixed race,
predominantly blue and yellow, having a slightly greater proportion of violet
than the so-called white race of Urantia. These different races are not yet
fully blended, but they fraternize and socialize very acceptably. The average
length of life on this continent is now ninety years, fifteen per cent higher
than that of any other people on the planet.
72:1.2 The industrial mechanism of this nation enjoys a certain great
advantage derived from the unique topography of the continent. The high
mountains, on which heavy rains fall eight months in the year, are situated at
the very center of the country. This natural arrangement favors the
utilization of water power and greatly facilitates the irrigation of the more
arid western quarter of the continent.
72:1.3 These people are self-sustaining, that is, they can live indefinitely
without importing anything from the surrounding nations. Their natural
resources are replete, and by scientific techniques they have learned how to
compensate for their deficiencies in the essentials of life. They enjoy a
brisk domestic commerce but have little foreign trade owing to the universal
hostility of their less progressive neighbors.
72:1.4 This continental nation, in general, followed the evolutionary trend of
the planet: The development from the tribal stage to the appearance of strong
rulers and kings occupied thousands of years. The unconditional monarchs were
succeeded by many different orders of government -- abortive republics,
communal states, and dictators came and went in endless profusion. This growth
continued until about five hundred years ago when, during a politically
fermenting period, one of the nation's powerful dictator-triumvirs had a
change of heart. He volunteered to abdicate upon condition that one of the
other rulers, the baser of the remaining two, also vacate his dictatorship.
Thus was the sovereignty of the continent placed in the hands of one ruler.
The unified state progressed under strong monarchial rule for over one hundred
years, during which there evolved a masterful charter of liberty.
72:1.5 The subsequent transition from monarchy to a representative form of
government was gradual, the kings remaining as mere social or sentimental
figureheads, finally disappearing when the male line of descent ran out. The
present republic has now been in existence just two hundred years, during
which time there has been a continuous progression toward the governmental
techniques about to be narrated, the last developments in industrial and
political realms having been made within the past decade.
2. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
72:2.1 This continental nation now has a representative government with a
centrally located national capital. The central government consists of a
strong federation of one hundred comparatively free states. These states elect
their governors and legislators for ten years, and none are eligible for re-
election. State judges are appointed for life by the governors and confirmed
by their legislatures, which consist of one representative for each one
hundred thousand citizens.
72:2.2 There are five different types of metropolitan government, depending on
the size of the city, but no city is permitted to have more than one million
inhabitants. On the whole, these municipal governing schemes are very simple,
direct, and economical. The few offices of city administration are keenly
sought by the highest types of citizens.
72:2.3 The federal government embraces three co-ordinate divisions: executive,
legislative, and judicial. The federal chief executive is elected every six
years by universal territorial suffrage. He is not eligible for re-election
except upon the petition of at least seventy-five state legislatures concurred
in by the respective state governors, and then but for one term. He is advised
by a supercabinet composed of all living ex-chief executives.
72:2.4 The legislative division embraces three houses:
72:2.5 1. The upper house is elected by industrial, professional,
agricultural, and other groups of workers, balloting in accordance with
economic function.
72:2.6 2. The lower house is elected by certain organizations of society
embracing the social, political, and philosophic groups not included in
industry or the professions. All citizens in good standing participate in the
election of both classes of representatives, but they are differently grouped,
depending on whether the election pertains to the upper or lower house.
72:2.7 3. The third house -- the elder statesmen -- embraces the veterans of
civic service and includes many distinguished persons nominated by the chief
executive, by the regional (subfederal) executives, by the chief of the
supreme tribunal, and by the presiding officers of either of the other
legislative houses. This group is limited to one hundred, and its members are
elected by the majority action of the elder statesmen themselves. Membership
is for life, and when vacancies occur, the person receiving the largest ballot
among the list of nominees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is
purely advisory, but it is a mighty regulator of public opinion and exerts a
powerful influence upon all branches of the government.
72:2.8 Very much of the federal administrative work is carried on by the ten
regional (subfederal) authorities, each consisting of the association of ten
states. These regional divisions are wholly executive and administrative,
having neither legislative nor judicial functions. The ten regional executives
are the personal appointees of the federal chief executive, and their term of
office is concurrent with his -- six years. The federal supreme tribunal
approves the appointment of these ten regional executives, and while they may
not be reappointed, the retiring executive automatically becomes the associate
and adviser of his successor. Otherwise, these regional chiefs choose their
own cabinets of administrative officials.
72:2.9 This nation is adjudicated by two major court systems -- the law courts
and the socioeconomic courts. The law courts function on the following three
levels:
72:2.10 1. Minor courts of municipal and local jurisdiction, whose decisions
may be appealed to the high state tribunals.
72:2.11 2. State supreme courts, whose decisions are final in all matters not
involving the federal government or jeopardy of citizenship rights and
liberties. The regional executives are empowered to bring any case at once to
the bar of the federal supreme court.
72:2.12 3. Federal supreme court -- the high tribunal for the adjudication of
national contentions and the appellate cases coming up from the state courts.
This supreme tribunal consists of twelve men over forty and under seventy-five
years of age who have served two or more years on some state tribunal, and who
have been appointed to this high position by the chief executive with the
majority approval of the supercabinet and the third house of the legislative
assembly. All decisions of this supreme judicial body are by at least a two-
thirds vote.
72:2.13 The socioeconomic courts function in the following three divisions:
1. Parental courts, associated with the legislative and executive divisions of
the home and social system.
2. Educational courts -- the juridical bodies connected with the state and
regional school systems and associated with the executive and legislative
branches of the educational administrative mechanism.
3. Industrial courts -- the jurisdictional tribunals vested with full authority
for the settlement of all economic misunderstandings.
72:2.14 The federal supreme court does not pass upon socioeconomic cases
except upon the three-quarters vote of the third legislative branch of the
national government, the house of elder statesmen. Otherwise, all decisions of
the parental, educational, and industrial high courts are final.
3. THE HOME LIFE
72:3.1 On this continent it is against the law for two families to live under
the same roof. And since group dwellings have been outlawed, most of the
tenement type of buildings have been demolished. But the unmarried still live
in clubs, hotels, and other group dwellings. The smallest homesite permitted
must provide fifty thousand square feet of land. All land and other property
used for home purposes are free from taxation up to ten times the minimum
homesite allotment.
72:3.2 The home life of this people has greatly improved during the last
century. Attendance of parents, both fathers and mothers, at the parental
schools of child culture is compulsory. Even the agriculturists who reside in
small country settlements carry on this work by correspondence, going to the
near-by centers for oral instruction once in ten days -- every two weeks, for
they maintain a five-day week.
72:3.3 The average number of children in each family is five, and they are
under the full control of their parents or, in case of the demise of one or
both, under that of the guardians designated by the parental courts. It is
considered a great honor for any family to be awarded the guardianship of a
full orphan. Competitive examinations are held among parents, and the orphan
is awarded to the home of those displaying the best parental qualifications.
72:3.4 These people regard the home as the basic institution of their
civilization. It is expected that the most valuable part of a child's
education and character training will be secured from his parents and at home,
and fathers devote almost as much attention to child culture as do mothers.
72:3.5 All sex instruction is administered in the home by parents or by legal
guardians. Moral instruction is offered by teachers during the rest periods in
the school shops, but not so with religious training, which is deemed to be
the exclusive privilege of parents, religion being looked upon as an integral
part of home life. Purely religious instruction is given publicly only in the
temples of philosophy, no such exclusively religious institutions as the
Urantia churches having developed among this people. In their philosophy,
religion is the striving to know God and to manifest love for one's fellows
through service for them, but this is not typical of the religious status of
the other nations on this planet. Religion is so entirely a family matter
among these people that there are no public places devoted exclusively to
religious assembly. Politically, church and state, as Urantians are wont to
say, are entirely separate, but there is a strange overlapping of religion and
philosophy.
72:3.6 Until twenty years ago the spiritual teachers (comparable to Urantia
pastors), who visit each family periodically to examine the children to
ascertain if they have been properly instructed by their parents, were under
governmental supervision. These spiritual advisers and examiners are now under
the direction of the newly created Foundation of Spiritual Progress, an
institution supported by voluntary contributions. Possibly this institution
may not further evolve until after the arrival of a Paradise Magisterial Son.
72:3.7 Children remain legally subject to their parents until they are
fifteen, when the first initiation into civic responsibility is held.
Thereafter, every five years for five successive periods similar public
exercises are held for such age groups at which their obligations to parents
are lessened, while new civic and social responsibilities to the state are
assumed. Suffrage is conferred at twenty, the right to marry without parental
consent is not bestowed until twenty-five, and children must leave home on
reaching the age of thirty.
72:3.8 Marriage and divorce laws are uniform throughout the nation. Marriage
before twenty -- the age of civil enfranchisement -- is not permitted.
Permission to marry is only granted after one year's notice of intention, and
after both bride and groom present certificates showing that they have been
duly instructed in the parental schools regarding the responsibilities of
married life.
72:3.9 Divorce regulations are somewhat lax, but decrees of separation, issued
by the parental courts, may not be had until one year after application
therefor has been recorded, and the year on this planet is considerably longer
than on Urantia. Notwithstanding their easy divorce laws, the present rate of
divorces is only one tenth that of the civilized races of Urantia.
4. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
72:4.1 The educational system of this nation is compulsory and coeducational
in the precollege schools that the student attends from the ages of five to
eighteen. These schools are vastly different from those of Urantia. There are
no classrooms, only one study is pursued at a time, and after the first three
years all pupils become assistant teachers, instructing those below them.
Books are used only to secure information that will assist in solving the
problems arising in the school shops and on the school farms. Much of the
furniture used on the continent and the many mechanical contrivances -- this
is a great age of invention and mechanization -- are produced in these shops.
Adjacent to each shop is a working library where the student may consult the
necessary reference books. Agriculture and horticulture are also taught
throughout the entire educational period on the extensive farms adjoining
every local school.
72:4.2 The feeble-minded are trained only in agriculture and animal husbandry,
and are committed for life to special custodial colonies where they are
segregated by sex to prevent parenthood, which is denied all subnormals. These
restrictive measures have been in operation for seventy-five years; the
commitment decrees are handed down by the parental courts.
72:4.3 Everyone takes one month's vacation each year. The precollege schools
are conducted for nine months out of the year of ten, the vacation being spent
with parents or friends in travel. This travel is a part of the adult-
education program and is continued throughout a lifetime, the funds for
meeting such expenses being accumulated by the same methods as those employed
in old-age insurance.
72:4.4 One quarter of the school time is devoted to play -- competitive
athletics -- the pupils progressing in these contests from the local, through
the state and regional, and on to the national trials of skill and prowess.
Likewise, the oratorical and musical contests, as well as those in science and
philosophy, occupy the attention of students from the lower social divisions
on up to the contests for national honors.
72:4.5 The school government is a replica of the national government with its
three correlated branches, the teaching staff functioning as the third or
advisory legislative division. The chief object of education on this continent
is to make every pupil a self-supporting citizen.
72:4.6 Every child graduating from the precollege school system at eighteen is
a skilled artisan. Then begins the study of books and the pursuit of special
knowledge, either in the adult schools or in the colleges. When a brilliant
student completes his work ahead of schedule, he is granted an award of time
and means wherewith he may execute some pet project of his own devising. The
entire educational system is designed to adequately train the individual.
5. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
72:5.1 The industrial situation among this people is far from their ideals;
capital and labor still have their troubles, but both are becoming adjusted to
the plan of sincere co-operation. On this unique continent the workers are
increasingly becoming shareholders in all industrial concerns; every
intelligent laborer is slowly becoming a small capitalist.
72:5.2 Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is growing apace. No
grave economic problems have arisen out of the abolition of slavery (over one
hundred years ago) since this adjustment was effected gradually by the
liberation of two per cent each year. Those slaves who satisfactorily passed
mental, moral, and physical tests were granted citizenship; many of these
superior slaves were war captives or children of such captives. Some fifty
years ago they deported the last of their inferior slaves, and still more
recently they are addressing themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of
their degenerate and vicious classes.
72:5.3 These people have recently developed new techniques for the adjustment
of industrial misunderstandings and for the correction of economic abuses
which are marked improvements over their older methods of settling such
problems. Violence has been outlawed as a procedure in adjusting either
personal or industrial differences. Wages, profits, and other economic
problems are not rigidly regulated, but they are in general controlled by the
industrial legislatures, while all disputes arising out of industry are passed
upon by the industrial courts.
72:5.4 The industrial courts are only thirty years old but are functioning
very satisfactorily. The most recent development provides that hereafter the
industrial courts shall recognize legal compensation as falling in three
divisions:
1. Legal rates of interest on invested capital.
2. Reasonable salary for skill employed in industrial operations.
3. Fair and equitable wages for labor.
72:5.5 These shall first be met in accordance with contract, or in the face of
decreased earnings they shall share proportionally in transient reduction. And
thereafter all earnings in excess of these fixed charges shall be regarded as
dividends and shall be prorated to all three divisions: capital, skill, and
labor.
72:5.6 Every ten years the regional executives adjust and decree the lawful
hours of daily gainful toil. Industry now operates on a five-day week, working
four and playing one. These people labor six hours each working day and, like
students, nine months in the year of ten. Vacation is usually spent in travel,
and new methods of transportation having been so recently developed, the whole
nation is travel bent. The climate favors travel about eight months in the
year, and they are making the most of their opportunities.
72:5.7 Two hundred years ago the profit motive was wholly dominant in
industry, but today it is being rapidly displaced by other and higher driving
forces. Competition is keen on this continent, but much of it has been
transferred from industry to play, skill, scientific achievement, and
intellectual attainment. It is most active in social service and governmental
loyalty. Among this people public service is rapidly becoming the chief goal
of ambition. The richest man on the continent works six hours a day in the
office of his machine shop and then hastens over to the local branch of the
school of statesmanship, where he seeks to qualify for public service.
72:5.8 Labor is becoming more honorable on this continent, and all able-bodied
citizens over eighteen work either at home and on farms, at some recognized
industry, on the public works where the temporarily unemployed are absorbed,
or else in the corps of compulsory laborers in the mines.
72:5.9 These people are also beginning to foster a new form of social disgust
-- disgust for both idleness and unearned wealth. Slowly but certainly they
are conquering their machines. Once they, too, struggled for political liberty
and subsequently for economic freedom. Now are they entering upon the
enjoyment of both while in addition they are beginning to appreciate their
well-earned leisure, which can be devoted to increased self-realization.
6. OLD-AGE INSURANCE
72:6.1 This nation is making a determined effort to replace the self-respect-
destroying type of charity by dignified government-insurance guarantees of
security in old age. This nation provides every child an education and every
man a job; therefore can it successfully carry out such an insurance scheme
for the protection of the infirm and aged.
72:6.2 Among this people all persons must retire from gainful pursuit at
sixty-five unless they secure a permit from the state labor commissioner which
will entitle them to remain at work until the age of seventy. This age limit
does not apply to government servants or philosophers. The physically disabled
or permanently crippled can be placed on the retired list at any age by court
order countersigned by the pension commissioner of the regional government.
72:6.3 The funds for old-age pensions are derived from four sources:
72:6.4 1. One day's earnings each month are requisitioned by the federal
government for this purpose, and in this country everybody works.
72:6.5 2. Bequests -- many wealthy citizens leave funds for this purpose.
72:6.6 3. The earnings of compulsory labor in the state mines. After the
conscript workers support themselves and set aside their own retirement
contributions, all excess profits on their labor are turned over to this
pension fund.
72:6.7 4. The income from natural resources. All natural wealth on the
continent is held as a social trust by the federal government, and the income
therefrom is utilized for social purposes, such as disease prevention,
education of geniuses, and expenses of especially promising individuals in the
statesmanship schools. One half of the income from natural resources goes to
the old-age pension fund.
72:6.8 Although state and regional actuarial foundations supply many forms of
protective insurance, old-age pensions are solely administered by the federal
government through the ten regional departments.
72:6.9 These government funds have long been honestly administered. Next to
treason and murder, the heaviest penalties meted out by the courts are
attached to betrayal of public trust. Social and political disloyalty are now
looked upon as being the most heinous of all crimes.
7. TAXATION
72:7.1 The federal government is paternalistic only in the administration of
old-age pensions and in the fostering of genius and creative originality; the
state governments are slightly more concerned with the individual citizen,
while the local governments are much more paternalistic or socialistic. The
city (or some subdivision thereof) concerns itself with such matters as
health, sanitation, building regulations, beautification, water supply,
lighting, heating, recreation, music, and communication.
72:7.2 In all industry first attention is paid to health; certain phases of
physical well-being are regarded as industrial and community prerogatives, but
individual and family health problems are matters of personal concern only. In
medicine, as in all other purely personal matters, it is increasingly the plan
of government to refrain from interfering.
72:7.3 Cities have no taxing power, neither can they go in debt. They receive
per capita allowances from the state treasury and must supplement such revenue
from the earnings of their socialistic enterprises and by licensing various
commercial activities.
72:7.4 The rapid-transit facilities, which make it practical greatly to extend
the city boundaries, are under municipal control. The city fire departments
are supported by the fire-prevention and insurance foundations, and all
buildings, in city or country, are fireproof -- have been for over seventy-
five years.
72:7.5 There are no municipally appointed peace officers; the police forces
are maintained by the state governments. This department is recruited almost
entirely from the unmarried men between twenty-five and fifty. Most of the
states assess a rather heavy bachelor tax, which is remitted to all men
joining the state police. In the average state the police force is now only
one tenth as large as it was fifty years ago.
72:7.6 There is little or no uniformity among the taxation schemes of the one
hundred comparatively free and sovereign states as economic and other
conditions vary greatly in different sections of the continent. Every state
has ten basic constitutional provisions which cannot be modified except by
consent of the federal supreme court, and one of these articles prevents
levying a tax of more than one per cent on the value of any property in any
one year, homesites, whether in city or country, being exempted.
72:7.7 The federal government cannot go in debt, and a three-fourths
referendum is required before any state can borrow except for purposes of war.
Since the federal government cannot incur debt, in the event of war the
National Council of Defense is empowered to assess the states for money, as
well as for men and materials, as it may be required. But no debt may run for
more than twenty-five years.
72:7.8 Income to support the federal government is derived from the following
five sources:
72:7.9 1. Import duties. All imports are subject to a tariff designed to
protect the standard of living on this continent, which is far above that of
any other nation on the planet. These tariffs are set by the highest
industrial court after both houses of the industrial congress have ratified
the recommendations of the chief executive of economic affairs, who is the
joint appointee of these two legislative bodies. The upper industrial house is
elected by labor, the lower by capital.
72:7.10 2. Royalties. The federal government encourages invention and original
creations in the ten regional laboratories, assisting all types of geniuses --
artists, authors, and scientists -- and protecting their patents. In return
the government takes one half the profits realized from all such inventions
and creations, whether pertaining to machines, books, artistry, plants, or
animals.
72:7.11 3. Inheritance tax. The federal government levies a graduated
inheritance tax ranging from one to fifty per cent, depending on the size of
an estate as well as on other conditions.
72:7.12 4. Military equipment. The government earns a considerable sum from
the leasing of military and naval equipment for commercial and recreational
usages.
72:7.13 5. Natural resources. The income from natural resources, when not
fully required for the specific purposes designated in the charter of federal
statehood, is turned into the national treasury.
72:7.14 Federal appropriations, except war funds assessed by the National
Council of Defense, are originated in the upper legislative house, concurred
in by the lower house, approved by the chief executive, and finally validated
by the federal budget commission of one hundred. The members of this
commission are nominated by the state governors and elected by the state
legislatures to serve for twenty-four years, one quarter being elected every
six years. Every six years this body, by a three-fourths ballot, chooses one
of its number as chief, and he thereby becomes director-controller of the
federal treasury.
8. THE SPECIAL COLLEGES
72:8.1 In addition to the basic compulsory education program extending from
the ages of five to eighteen, special schools are maintained as follows:
72:8.2 1. Statesmanship schools. These schools are of three classes: national,
regional, and state. The public offices of the nation are grouped in four
divisions. The first division of public trust pertains principally to the
national administration, and all officeholders of this group must be graduates
of both regional and national schools of statesmanship. Individuals may accept
political, elective, or appointive office in the second division upon
graduating from any one of the ten regional schools of statesmanship; their
trusts concern responsibilities in the regional administration and the state
governments. Division three includes state responsibilities, and such
officials are only required to have state degrees of statesmanship. The fourth
and last division of officeholders are not required to hold statesmanship
degrees, such offices being wholly appointive. They represent minor positions
of assistantship, secretaryships, and technical trusts which are discharged by
the various learned professions functioning in governmental administrative
capacities.
72:8.3 Judges of the minor and state courts hold degrees from the state
schools of statesmanship. Judges of the jurisdictional tribunals of social,
educational, and industrial matters hold degrees from the regional schools.
Judges of the federal supreme court must hold degrees from all these schools
of statesmanship.
72:8.4 2. Schools of philosophy. These schools are affiliated with the temples
of philosophy and are more or less associated with religion as a public
function.
72:8.5 3. Institutions of science. These technical schools are co-ordinated
with industry rather than with the educational system and are administered
under fifteen divisions.
72:8.6 4. Professional training schools. These special institutions provide
the technical training for the various learned professions, twelve in number.
72:8.7 5. Military and naval schools. Near the national headquarters and at
the twenty-five coastal military centers are maintained those institutions
devoted to the military training of volunteer citizens from eighteen to thirty
years of age. Parental consent is required before twenty-five in order to gain
entrance to these schools.
9. THE PLAN OF UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
72:9.1 Although candidates for all public offices are restricted to graduates
of the state, regional, or federal schools of statesmanship, the progressive
leaders of this nation discovered a serious weakness in their plan of
universal suffrage and about fifty years ago made constitutional provision for
a modified scheme of voting which embraces the following features:
72:9.2 1. Every man and woman of twenty years and over has one vote. Upon
attaining this age, all citizens must accept membership in two voting groups:
They will join the first in accordance with their economic function --
industrial, professional, agricultural, or trade; they will enter the second
group according to their political, philosophic, and social inclinations. All
workers thus belong to some economic franchise group, and these guilds, like
the noneconomic associations, are regulated much as is the national government
with its threefold division of powers. Registration in these groups cannot be
changed for twelve years.
72:9.3 2. Upon nomination by the state governors or by the regional executives
and by the mandate of the regional supreme councils, individuals who have
rendered great service to society, or who have demonstrated extraordinary
wisdom in government service, may have additional votes conferred upon them
not oftener than every five years and not to exceed nine such superfranchises.
The maximum suffrage of any multiple voter is ten. Scientists, inventors,
teachers, philosophers, and spiritual leaders are also thus recognized and
honored with augmented political power. These advanced civic privileges are
conferred by the state and regional supreme councils much as degrees are
bestowed by the special colleges, and the recipients are proud to attach the
symbols of such civic recognition, along with their other degrees, to their
lists of personal achievements.
72:9.4 3. All individuals sentenced to compulsory labor in the mines and all
governmental servants supported by tax funds are, for the periods of such
services, disenfranchised. This does not apply to aged persons who may be
retired on pensions at sixty-five.
72:9.5 4. There are five brackets of suffrage reflecting the average yearly
taxes paid for each half-decade period. Heavy taxpayers are permitted extra
votes up to five. This grant is independent of all other recognition, but in
no case can any person cast over ten ballots.
72:9.6 5. At the time this franchise plan was adopted, the territorial method
of voting was abandoned in favor of the economic or functional system. All
citizens now vote as members of industrial, social, or professional groups,
regardless of their residence. Thus the electorate consists of solidified,
unified, and intelligent groups who elect only their best members to positions
of governmental trust and responsibility. There is one exception to this
scheme of functional or group suffrage: The election of a federal chief
executive every six years is by nation-wide ballot, and no citizen casts over
one vote.
72:9.7 Thus, except in the election of the chief executive, suffrage is
exercised by economic, professional, intellectual, and social groupings of the
citizenry. The ideal state is organic, and every free and intelligent group of
citizens represents a vital and functioning organ within the larger
governmental organism.
72:9.8 The schools of statesmanship have power to start proceedings in the
state courts looking toward the disenfranchisement of any defective, idle,
indifferent, or criminal individual. These people recognize that, when fifty
per cent of a nation is inferior or defective and possesses the ballot, such a
nation is doomed. They believe the dominance of mediocrity spells the downfall
of any nation. Voting is compulsory, heavy fines being assessed against all
who fail to cast their ballots.
10. DEALING WITH CRIME
72:10.1 The methods of this people in dealing with crime, insanity, and
degeneracy, while in some ways pleasing, will, no doubt, in others prove
shocking to most Urantians. Ordinary criminals and the defectives are placed,
by sexes, in different agricultural colonies and are more than self-
supporting. The more serious habitual criminals and the incurably insane are
sentenced to death in the lethal gas chambers by the courts. Numerous crimes
aside from murder, including betrayal of governmental trust, also carry the
death penalty, and the visitation of justice is sure and swift.
72:10.2 These people are passing out of the negative into the positive era of
law. Recently they have gone so far as to attempt the prevention of crime by
sentencing those who are believed to be potential murderers and major
criminals to life service in the detention colonies. If such convicts
subsequently demonstrate that they have become more normal, they may be either
paroled or pardoned. The homicide rate on this continent is only one per cent
of that among the other nations.
72:10.3 Efforts to prevent the breeding of criminals and defectives were begun
over one hundred years ago and have already yielded gratifying results. There
are no prisons or hospitals for the insane. For one reason, there are only
about ten per cent as many of these groups as are found on Urantia.
11. MILITARY PREPAREDNESS
72:11.1 Graduates of the federal military schools may be commissioned as
"guardians of civilization" in seven ranks, in accordance with ability and
experience, by the president of the National Council of Defense. This council
consists of twenty-five members, nominated by the highest parental,
educational, and industrial tribunals, confirmed by the federal supreme court,
and presided over ex officio by the chief of staff of co-ordinated military
affairs. Such members serve until they are seventy years of age.
72:11.2 The courses pursued by such commissioned officers are four years in
length and are invariably correlated with the mastery of some trade or
profession. Military training is never given without this associated
industrial, scientific, or professional schooling. When military training is
finished, the individual has, during his four years' course, received one half
of the education imparted in any of the special schools where the courses are
likewise four years in length. In this way the creation of a professional
military class is avoided by providing this opportunity for a large number of
men to support themselves while securing the first half of a technical or
professional training.
72:11.3 Military service during peacetime is purely voluntary, and the
enlistments in all branches of the service are for four years, during which
every man pursues some special line of study in addition to the mastery of
military tactics. Training in music is one of the chief pursuits of the
central military schools and of the twenty-five training camps distributed
about the periphery of the continent. During periods of industrial slackness
many thousands of unemployed are automatically utilized in upbuilding the
military defenses of the continent on land and sea and in the air.
72:11.4 Although these people maintain a powerful war establishment as a
defense against invasion by the surrounding hostile peoples, it may be
recorded to their credit that they have not in over one hundred years employed
these military resources in an offensive war. They have become civilized to
that point where they can vigorously defend civilization without yielding to
the temptation to utilize their war powers in aggression. There have been no
civil wars since the establishment of the united continental state, but during
the last two centuries these people have been called upon to wage nine fierce
defensive conflicts, three of which were against mighty confederations of
world powers. Although this nation maintains adequate defense against attack
by hostile neighbors, it pays far more attention to the training of statesmen,
scientists, and philosophers.
72:11.5 When at peace with the world, all mobile defense mechanisms are quite
fully employed in trade, commerce, and recreation. When war is declared, the
entire nation is mobilized. Throughout the period of hostilities military pay
obtains in all industries, and the chiefs of all military departments become
members of the chief executive's cabinet.
12. THE OTHER NATIONS
72:12.1 Although the society and government of this unique people are in many
respects superior to those of the Urantia nations, it should be stated that on
the other continents (there are eleven on this planet) the governments are
decidedly inferior to the more advanced nations of Urantia.
72:12.2 Just now this superior government is planning to establish
ambassadorial relations with the inferior peoples, and for the first time a
great religious leader has arisen who advocates the sending of missionaries to
these surrounding nations. We fear they are about to make the mistake that so
many others have made when they have endeavored to force a superior culture
and religion upon other races. What a wonderful thing could be done on this
world if this continental nation of advanced culture would only go out and
bring to itself the best of the neighboring peoples and then, after educating
them, send them back as emissaries of culture to their benighted brethren! Of
course, if a Magisterial Son should soon come to this advanced nation, great
things could quickly happen on this world.
72:12.3 This recital of the affairs of a neighboring planet is made by special
permission with the intent of advancing civilization and augmenting
governmental evolution on Urantia. Much more could be narrated that would no
doubt interest and intrigue Urantians, but this disclosure covers the limits
of our permissive mandate.
72:12.4 Urantians should, however, take note that their sister sphere in the
Satania family has benefited by neither magisterial nor bestowal missions of
the Paradise Sons. Neither are the various peoples of Urantia set off from
each other by such disparity of culture as separates the continental nation
from its planetary fellows.
72:12.5 The pouring out of the Spirit of Truth provides the spiritual
foundation for the realization of great achievements in the interests of the
human race of the bestowal world. Urantia is therefore far better prepared for
the more immediate realization of a planetary government with its laws,
mechanisms, symbols, conventions, and language -- all of which could
contribute so mightily to the establishment of world-wide peace under law and
could lead to the sometime dawning of a real age of spiritual striving; and
such an age is the planetary threshold to the utopian ages of light and life.
72:12.6 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 73
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
73:0.1 THE cultural decadence and spiritual poverty resulting from the
Caligastia downfall and consequent social confusion had little effect on the
physical or biologic status of the Urantia peoples. Organic evolution
proceeded apace, quite regardless of the cultural and moral setback which so
swiftly followed the disaffection of Caligastia and Daligastia. And there came
a time in the planetary history, almost forty thousand years ago, when the
Life Carriers on duty took note that, from a purely biologic standpoint, the
developmental progress of the Urantia races was nearing its apex. The
Melchizedek receivers, concurring in this opinion, readily agreed to join the
Life Carriers in a petition to the Most Highs of Edentia asking that Urantia
be inspected with a view to authorizing the dispatch of biologic uplifters, a
Material Son and Daughter.
73:0.2 This request was addressed to the Most Highs of Edentia because they
had exercised direct jurisdiction over many of Urantia's affairs ever since
Caligastia's downfall and the temporary vacation of authority on Jerusem.
73:0.3 Tabamantia, sovereign supervisor of the series of decimal or
experimental worlds, came to inspect the planet and, after his survey of
racial progress, duly recommended that Urantia be granted Material Sons. In a
little less than one hundred years from the time of this inspection, Adam and
Eve, a Material Son and Daughter of the local system, arrived and began the
difficult task of attempting to untangle the confused affairs of a planet
retarded by rebellion and resting under the ban of spiritual isolation.
1. THE NODITES AND THE AMADONITES
73:1.1 On a normal planet the arrival of the Material Son would ordinarily
herald the approach of a great age of invention, material progress, and
intellectual enlightenment. The post-Adamic era is the great scientific age of
most worlds, but not so on Urantia. Though the planet was peopled by races
physically fit, the tribes languished in the depths of savagery and moral
stagnation.
73:1.2 Ten thousand years after the rebellion practically all the gains of the
Prince's administration had been effaced; the races of the world were little
better off than if this misguided Son had never come to Urantia. Only among
the Nodites and the Amadonites was there persistence of the traditions of
Dalamatia and the culture of the Planetary Prince.
73:1.3 The Nodites were the descendants of the rebel members of the Prince's
staff, their name deriving from their first leader, Nod, onetime chairman of
the Dalamatia commission on industry and trade. The Amadonites were the
descendants of those Andonites who chose to remain loyal with Van and Amadon.
"Amadonite" is more of a cultural and religious designation than a racial
term; racially considered the Amadonites were essentially Andonites. "Nodite"
is both a cultural and racial term, for the Nodites themselves constituted the
eighth race of Urantia.
73:1.4 There existed a traditional enmity between the Nodites and the
Amadonites. This feud was constantly coming to the surface whenever the
offspring of these two groups would try to engage in some common enterprise.
Even later, in the affairs of Eden, it was exceedingly difficult for them to
work together in peace.
73:1.5 Shortly after the destruction of Dalamatia the followers of Nod became
divided into three major groups. The central group remained in the immediate
vicinity of their original home near the headwaters of the Persian Gulf. The
eastern group migrated to the highland regions of Elam just east of the
Euphrates valley. The western group was situated on the northeastern Syrian
shores of the Mediterranean and in adjacent territory.
73:1.6 These Nodites had freely mated with the Sangik races and had left
behind an able progeny. And some of the descendants of the rebellious
Dalamatians subsequently joined Van and his loyal followers in the lands north
of Mesopotamia. Here, in the vicinity of Lake Van and the southern Caspian Sea
region, the Nodites mingled and mixed with the Amadonites, and they were
numbered among the "mighty men of old."
73:1.7 Prior to the arrival of Adam and Eve these groups -- Nodites and
Amadonites -- were the most advanced and cultured races on earth.
2. PLANNING FOR THE GARDEN
73:2.1 For almost one hundred years prior to Tabamantia's inspection, Van and
his associates, from their highland headquarters of world ethics and culture,
had been preaching the advent of a promised Son of God, a racial uplifter, a
teacher of truth, and the worthy successor of the traitorous Caligastia.
Though the majority of the world's inhabitants of those days exhibited little
or no interest in such a prediction, those who were in immediate contact with
Van and Amadon took such teaching seriously and began to plan for the actual
reception of the promised Son.
73:2.2 Van told his nearest associates the story of the Material Sons on
Jerusem; what he had known of them before ever he came to Urantia. He well
knew that these Adamic Sons always lived in simple but charming garden homes
and proposed, eighty-three years before the arrival of Adam and Eve, that they
devote themselves to the proclamation of their advent and to the preparation
of a garden home for their reception.
73:2.3 From their highland headquarters and from sixty-one far-scattered
settlements, Van and Amadon recruited a corps of over three thousand willing
and enthusiastic workers who, in solemn assembly, dedicated themselves to this
mission of preparing for the promised -- at least expected -- Son.
73:2.4 Van divided his volunteers into one hundred companies with a captain
over each and an associate who served on his personal staff as a liaison
officer, keeping Amadon as his own associate. These commissions all began in
earnest their preliminary work, and the committee on location for the Garden
sallied forth in search of the ideal spot.
73:2.5 Although Caligastia and Daligastia had been deprived of much of their
power for evil, they did everything possible to frustrate and hamper the work
of preparing the Garden. But their evil machinations were largely offset by
the faithful activities of the almost ten thousand loyal midway creatures who
so tirelessly labored to advance the enterprise.
3. THE GARDEN SITE
73:3.1 The committee on location was absent for almost three years. It
reported favorably concerning three possible locations: The first was an
island in the Persian Gulf; the second, the river location subsequently
occupied as the second garden; the third, a long narrow peninsula -- almost an
island -- projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
Sea.
73:3.2 The committee almost unanimously favored the third selection. This site
was chosen, and two years were occupied in transferring the world's cultural
headquarters, including the tree of life, to this Mediterranean peninsula. All
but a single group of the peninsula dwellers peaceably vacated when Van and
his company arrived.
73:3.3 This Mediterranean peninsula had a salubrious climate and an equable
temperature; this stabilized weather was due to the encircling mountains and
to the fact that this area was virtually an island in an inland sea. While it
rained copiously on the surrounding highlands, it seldom rained in Eden
proper. But each night, from the extensive network of artificial irrigation
channels, a "mist would go up" to refresh the vegetation of the Garden.
73:3.4 The coast line of this land mass was considerably elevated, and the
neck connecting with the mainland was only twenty-seven miles wide at the
narrowest point. The great river that watered the Garden came down from the
higher lands of the peninsula and flowed east through the peninsular neck to
the mainland and thence across the lowlands of Mesopotamia to the sea beyond.
It was fed by four tributaries which took origin in the coastal hills of the
Edenic peninsula, and these are the "four heads" of the river which "went out
of Eden," and which later became confused with the branches of the rivers
surrounding the second garden.
73:3.5 The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and
metals, though these received very little attention. The dominant idea was to
be the glorification of horticulture and the exaltation of agriculture.
73:3.6 The site chosen for the Garden was probably the most beautiful spot of
its kind in all the world, and the climate was then ideal. Nowhere else was
there a location which could have lent itself so perfectly to becoming such a
paradise of botanic expression. In this rendezvous the cream of the
civilization of Urantia was forgathering. Without and beyond, the world lay in
darkness, ignorance, and savagery. Eden was the one bright spot on Urantia; it
was naturally a dream of loveliness, and it soon became a poem of exquisite
and perfected landscape glory.
4. ESTABLISHING THE GARDEN
73:4.1 When Material Sons, the biologic uplifters, begin their sojourn on an
evolutionary world, their place of abode is often called the Garden of Eden
because it is characterized by the floral beauty and the botanic grandeur of
Edentia, the constellation capital. Van well knew of these customs and
accordingly provided that the entire peninsula be given over to the Garden.
Pasturage and animal husbandry were projected for the adjoining mainland. Of
animal life, only the birds and the various domesticated species were to be
found in the park. Van's instructions were that Eden was to be a garden, and
only a garden. No animals were ever slaughtered within its precincts. All
flesh eaten by the Garden workers throughout all the years of construction was
brought in from the herds maintained under guard on the mainland.
73:4.2 The first task was the building of the brick wall across the neck of
the peninsula. This once completed, the real work of landscape beautification
and home building could proceed unhindered.
73:4.3 A zoological garden was created by building a smaller wall just outside
the main wall; the intervening space, occupied by all manner of wild beasts,
served as an additional defense against hostile attacks. This menagerie was
organized in twelve grand divisions, and walled paths led between these groups
to the twelve gates of the Garden, the river and its adjacent pastures
occupying the central area.
73:4.4 In the preparation of the Garden only volunteer laborers were employed;
no hirelings were ever used. They cultivated the Garden and tended their herds
for support; contributions of food were also received from near-by believers.
And this great enterprise was carried through to completion in spite of the
difficulties attendant upon the confused status of the world during these
troublous times.
73:4.5 But it was a cause for great disappointment when Van, not knowing how
soon the expected Son and Daughter might come, suggested that the younger
generation also be trained in the work of carrying on the enterprise in case
their arrival should be delayed. This seemed like an admission of lack of
faith on Van's part and made considerable trouble, caused many desertions; but
Van went forward with his plan of preparedness, meantime filling the places of
the deserters with younger volunteers.
5. THE GARDEN HOME
73:5.1 At the center of the Edenic peninsula was the exquisite stone temple of
the Universal Father, the sacred shrine of the Garden. To the north the
administrative headquarters was established; to the south were built the homes
for the workers and their families; to the west was provided the allotment of
ground for the proposed schools of the educational system of the expected Son,
while in the "east of Eden" were built the domiciles intended for the promised
Son and his immediate offspring. The architectural plans for Eden provided
homes and abundant land for one million human beings.
73:5.2 At the time of Adam's arrival, though the Garden was only one-fourth
finished, it had thousands of miles of irrigation ditches and more than twelve
thousand miles of paved paths and roads. There were a trifle over five
thousand brick buildings in the various sectors, and the trees and plants were
almost beyond number. Seven was the largest number of houses composing any one
cluster in the park. And though the structures of the Garden were simple, they
were most artistic. The roads and paths were well built, and the landscaping
was exquisite.
73:5.3 The sanitary arrangements of the Garden were far in advance of anything
that had been attempted theretofore on Urantia. The drinking water of Eden was
kept wholesome by the strict observance of the sanitary regulations designed
to conserve its purity. During these early times much trouble came about from
neglect of these rules, but Van gradually impressed upon his associates the
importance of allowing nothing to fall into the water supply of the Garden.
73:5.4 Before the later establishment of a sewage-disposal system the Edenites
practiced the scrupulous burial of all waste or decomposing material. Amadon's
inspectors made their rounds each day in search for possible causes of
sickness. Urantians did not again awaken to the importance of the prevention
of human diseases until the later times of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Before the disruption of the Adamic regime a covered brick-conduit
disposal system had been constructed which ran beneath the walls and emptied
into the river of Eden almost a mile beyond the outer or lesser wall of the
Garden.
73:5.5 By the time of Adam's arrival most of the plants of that section of the
world were growing in Eden. Already had many of the fruits, cereals, and nuts
been greatly improved. Many modern vegetables and cereals were first
cultivated here, but scores of varieties of food plants were subsequently lost
to the world.
73:5.6 About five per cent of the Garden was under high artificial
cultivation, fifteen per cent partially cultivated, the remainder being left
in a more or less natural state pending the arrival of Adam, it being thought
best to finish the park in accordance with his ideas.
73:5.7 And so was the Garden of Eden made ready for the reception of the
promised Adam and his consort. And this Garden would have done honor to a
world under perfected administration and normal control. Adam and Eve were
well pleased with the general plan of Eden, though they made many changes in
the furnishings of their own personal dwelling.
73:5.8 Although the work of embellishment was hardly finished at the time of
Adam's arrival, the place was already a gem of botanic beauty; and during the
early days of his sojourn in Eden the whole Garden took on new form and
assumed new proportions of beauty and grandeur. Never before this time nor
after has Urantia harbored such a beautiful and replete exhibition of
horticulture and agriculture.
6. THE TREE OF LIFE
73:6.1 In the center of the Garden temple Van planted the long-guarded tree of
life, whose leaves were for the "healing of the nations," and whose fruit had
so long sustained him on earth. Van well knew that Adam and Eve would also be
dependent on this gift of Edentia for their life maintenance after they once
appeared on Urantia in material form.
73:6.2 The Material Sons on the system capitals do not require the tree of
life for sustenance. Only in the planetary repersonalization are they
dependent on this adjunct to physical immortality.
73:6.3 The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" may be a figure of speech,
a symbolic designation covering a multitude of human experiences, but the
"tree of life" was not a myth; it was real and for a long time was present on
Urantia. When the Most Highs of Edentia approved the commission of Caligastia
as Planetary Prince of Urantia and those of the one hundred Jerusem citizens
as his administrative staff, they sent to the planet, by the Melchizedeks, a
shrub of Edentia, and this plant grew to be the tree of life on Urantia. This
form of nonintelligent life is native to the constellation headquarters
spheres, being also found on the headquarters worlds of the local and
superuniverses as well as on the Havona spheres, but not on the system
capitals.
73:6.4 This superplant stored up certain space-energies which were antidotal
to the age-producing elements of animal existence. The fruit of the tree of
life was like a superchemical storage battery, mysteriously releasing the
life-extension force of the universe when eaten. This form of sustenance was
wholly useless to the ordinary evolutionary beings on Urantia, but
specifically it was serviceable to the one hundred materialized members of
Caligastia's staff and to the one hundred modified Andonites who had
contributed of their life plasm to the Prince's staff, and who, in return,
were made possessors of that complement of life which made it possible for
them to utilize the fruit of the tree of life for an indefinite extension of
their otherwise mortal existence.
73:6.5 During the days of the Prince's rule the tree was growing from the
earth in the central and circular courtyard of the Father's temple. Upon the
outbreak of the rebellion it was regrown from the central core by Van and his
associates in their temporary camp. This Edentia shrub was subsequently taken
to their highland retreat, where it served both Van and Amadon for more than
one hundred and fifty thousand years.
73:6.6 When Van and his associates made ready the Garden for Adam and Eve,
they transplanted the Edentia tree to the Garden of Eden, where, once again,
it grew in a central, circular courtyard of another temple to the Father. And
Adam and Eve periodically partook of its fruit for the maintenance of their
dual form of physical life.
73:6.7 When the plans of the Material Son went astray, Adam and his family
were not permitted to carry the core of the tree away from the Garden. When
the Nodites invaded Eden, they were told that they would become as "gods if
they partook of the fruit of the tree." Much to their surprise they found it
unguarded. They ate freely of the fruit for years, but it did nothing for
them; they were all material mortals of the realm; they lacked that endowment
which acted as a complement to the fruit of the tree. They became enraged at
their inability to benefit from the tree of life, and in connection with one
of their internal wars, the temple and the tree were both destroyed by fire;
only the stone wall stood until the Garden was subsequently submerged. This
was the second temple of the Father to perish.
73:6.8 And now must all flesh on Urantia take the natural course of life and
death. Adam, Eve, their children, and their children's children, together with
their associates, all perished in the course of time, thus becoming subject to
the ascension scheme of the local universe wherein mansion world resurrection
follows material death.
7. THE FATE OF EDEN
73:7.1 After the first garden was vacated by Adam, it was occupied variously
by the Nodites, Cutites, and the Suntites. It later became the dwelling place
of the northern Nodites who opposed co-operation with the Adamites. The
peninsula had been overrun by these lower-grade Nodites for almost four
thousand years after Adam left the Garden when, in connection with the violent
activity of the surrounding volcanoes and the submergence of the Sicilian land
bridge to Africa, the eastern floor of the Mediterranean Sea sank, carrying
down beneath the waters the whole of the Edenic peninsula. Concomitant with
this vast submergence the coast line of the eastern Mediterranean was greatly
elevated. And this was the end of the most beautiful natural creation that
Urantia has ever harbored. The sinking was not sudden, several hundred years
being required completely to submerge the entire peninsula.
73:7.2 We cannot regard this disappearance of the Garden as being in any way a
result of the miscarriage of the divine plans or as a result of the mistakes
of Adam and Eve. We do not regard the submergence of Eden as anything but a
natural occurrence, but it does seem to us that the sinking of the Garden was
timed to occur at just about the date of the accumulation of the reserves of
the violet race for undertaking the work of rehabilitating the world peoples.
73:7.3 The Melchizedeks counseled Adam not to initiate the program of racial
uplift and blending until his own family had numbered one-half million. It was
never intended that the Garden should be the permanent home of the Adamites.
They were to become emissaries of a new life to all the world; they were to
mobilize for unselfish bestowal upon the needy races of earth.
73:7.4 The instructions given Adam by the Melchizedeks implied that he was to
establish racial, continental, and divisional headquarters to be in the charge
of his immediate sons and daughters, while he and Eve were to divide their
time between these various world capitals as advisers and co-ordinators of the
world-wide ministry of biologic uplift, intellectual advancement, and moral
rehabilitation.
73:7.5 Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
PAPER 74
ADAM AND EVE
74:0.1 ADAM AND EVE arrived on Urantia, from the year A.D. 1934, 37,848 years
ago. It was in midseason when the Garden was in the height of bloom that they
arrived. At high noon and unannounced, the two seraphic transports,
accompanied by the Jerusem personnel intrusted with the transportation of the
biologic uplifters to Urantia, settled slowly to the surface of the revolving
planet in the vicinity of the temple of the Universal Father. All the work of
rematerializing the bodies of Adam and Eve was carried on within the precincts
of this newly created shrine. And from the time of their arrival ten days
passed before they were re-created in dual human form for presentation as the
world's new rulers. They regained consciousness simultaneously. The Material
Sons and Daughters always serve together. It is the essence of their service
at all times and in all places never to be separated. They are designed to
work in pairs; seldom do they function alone.
1. ADAM AND EVE ON JERUSEM
74:1.1 The Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia were members of the senior corps
of Material Sons on Jerusem, being jointly number 14,311. They belonged to the
third physical series and were a little more than eight feet in height.
74:1.2 At the time Adam was chosen to come to Urantia, he was employed, with
his mate, in the trial-and-testing physical laboratories of Jerusem. For more
than fifteen thousand years they had been directors of the division of
experimental energy as applied to the modification of living forms. Long
before this they had been teachers in the citizenship schools for new arrivals
on Jerusem. And all this should be borne in mind in connection with the
narration of their subsequent conduct on Urantia.
74:1.3 When the proclamation was issued calling for volunteers for the mission
of Adamic adventure on Urantia, the entire senior corps of Material Sons and
Daughters volunteered. The Melchizedek examiners, with the approval of
Lanaforge and the Most Highs of Edentia, finally selected the Adam and Eve who
subsequently came to function as the biologic uplifters of Urantia.
74:1.4 Adam and Eve had remained loyal to Michael during the Lucifer
rebellion; nevertheless, the pair were called before the System Sovereign and
his entire cabinet for examination and instruction. The details of Urantia
affairs were fully presented; they were exhaustively instructed as to the
plans to be pursued in accepting the responsibilities of rulership on such a
strife-torn world. They were put under joint oaths of allegiance to the Most
Highs of Edentia and to Michael of Salvington. And they were duly advised to
regard themselves as subject to the Urantia corps of Melchizedek receivers
until that governing body should see fit to relinquish rule on the world of
their assignment.
74:1.5 This Jerusem pair left behind them on the capital of Satania and
elsewhere, one hundred offspring -- fifty sons and fifty daughters --
magnificent creatures who had escaped the pitfalls of progression, and who
were all in commission as faithful stewards of universe trust at the time of
their parents' departure for Urantia. And they were all present in the
beautiful temple of the Material Sons attendant upon the farewell exercises
associated with the last ceremonies of the bestowal acceptance. These children
accompanied their parents to the dematerialization headquarters of their order
and were the last to bid them farewell and divine speed as they fell asleep in
the personality lapse of consciousness which precedes the preparation for
seraphic transport. The children spent some time together at the family
rendezvous rejoicing that their parents were soon to become the visible heads,
in reality the sole rulers, of planet 606 in the system of Satania.
74:1.6 And thus did Adam and Eve leave Jerusem amidst the acclaim and well-
wishing of its citizens. They went forth to their new responsibilities
adequately equipped and fully instructed concerning every duty and danger to
be encountered on Urantia.
2. ARRIVAL OF ADAM AND EVE
74:2.1 Adam and Eve fell asleep on Jerusem, and when they awakened in the
Father's temple on Urantia in the presence of the mighty throng assembled to
welcome them, they were face to face with two beings of whom they had heard
much, Van and his faithful associate Amadon. These two heroes of the
Caligastia secession were the first to welcome them in their new garden home.
74:2.2 The tongue of Eden was an Andonic dialect as spoken by Amadon. Van and
Amadon had markedly improved this language by creating a new alphabet of
twenty-four letters, and they had hoped to see it become the tongue of Urantia
as the Edenic culture would spread throughout the world. Adam and Eve had
fully mastered this human dialect before they departed from Jerusem so that
this son of Andon heard the exalted ruler of his world address him in his own
tongue.
74:2.3 And on that day there was great excitement and joy throughout Eden as
the runners went in great haste to the rendezvous of the carrier pigeons
assembled from near and far, shouting: "Let loose the birds; let them carry
the word that the promised Son has come." Hundreds of believer settlements had
faithfully, year after year, kept up the supply of these home-reared pigeons
for just such an occasion.
74:2.4 As the news of Adam's arrival spread abroad, thousands of the near-by
tribesmen accepted the teachings of Van and Amadon, while for months and
months pilgrims continued to pour into Eden to welcome Adam and Eve and to do
homage to their unseen Father.
74:2.5 Soon after their awakening, Adam and Eve were escorted to the formal
reception on the great mound to the north of the temple. This natural hill had
been enlarged and made ready for the installation of the world's new rulers.
Here, at noon, the Urantia reception committee welcomed this Son and Daughter
of the system of Satania. Amadon was chairman of this committee, which
consisted of twelve members embracing a representative of each of the six
Sangik races; the acting chief of the midwayers; Annan, a loyal daughter and
spokesman for the Nodites; Noah, the son of the architect and builder of the
Garden and executive of his deceased father's plans; and the two resident Life
Carriers.
74:2.6 The next act was the delivery of the charge of planetary custody to
Adam and Eve by the senior Melchizedek, chief of the council of receivership
on Urantia. The Material Son and Daughter took the oath of allegiance to the
Most Highs of Norlatiadek and to Michael of Nebadon and were proclaimed rulers
of Urantia by Van, who thereby relinquished the titular authority which for
over one hundred and fifty thousand years he had held by virtue of the action
of the Melchizedek receivers.
74:2.7 And Adam and Eve were invested with kingly robes on this occasion, the
time of their formal induction into world rulership. Not all of the arts of
Dalamatia had been lost to the world; weaving was still practiced in the days
of Eden.
74:2.8 Then was heard the archangels' proclamation, and the broadcast voice of
Gabriel decreed the second judgment roll call of Urantia and the resurrection
of the sleeping survivors of the second dispensation of grace and mercy on 606
of Satania. The dispensation of the Prince has passed, the age of Adam, the
third planetary epoch, opens amidst scenes of simple grandeur; and the new
rulers of Urantia start their reign under seemingly favorable conditions,
notwithstanding the world-wide confusion occasioned by lack of the co-
operation of their predecessor in authority on the planet.
3. ADAM AND EVE LEARN ABOUT THE PLANET
74:3.1 And now, after their formal installation, Adam and Eve became painfully
aware of their planetary isolation. Silent were the familiar broadcasts, and
absent were all the circuits of extraplanetary communication. Their Jerusem
fellows had gone to worlds running along smoothly with a well-established
Planetary Prince and an experienced staff ready to receive them and competent
to co-operate with them during their early experience on such worlds. But on
Urantia rebellion had changed everything. Here the Planetary Prince was very
much present, and though shorn of most of his power to work evil, he was still
able to make the task of Adam and Eve difficult and to some extent hazardous.
It was a serious and disillusioned Son and Daughter of Jerusem who walked that
night through the Garden under the shining of the full moon, discussing plans
for the next day.
74:3.2 Thus ended the first day of Adam and Eve on isolated Urantia, the
confused planet of the Caligastia betrayal; and they walked and talked far
into the night, their first night on earth -- and it was so lonely.
74:3.3 Adam's second day on earth was spent in session with the planetary
receivers and the advisory council. From the Melchizedeks, and their
associates, Adam and Eve learned more about the details of the Caligastia
rebellion and the result of that upheaval upon the world's progress. And it
was, on the whole, a disheartening story, this long recital of the
mismanagement of world affairs. They learned all the facts regarding the utter
collapse of the Caligastia scheme for accelerating the process of social
evolution. They also arrived at a full realization of the folly of attempting
to achieve planetary advancement independently of the divine plan of
progression. And thus ended a sad but enlightening day -- their second on
Urantia.
74:3.4 The third day was devoted to an inspection of the Garden. From the
large passenger birds -- the fandors -- Adam and Eve looked down upon the vast
stretches of the Garden while being carried through the air over this, the
most beautiful spot on earth. This day of inspection ended with an enormous
banquet in honor of all who had labored to create this garden of Edenic beauty
and grandeur. And again, late into the night of their third day, the Son and
his mate walked in the Garden and talked about the immensity of their
problems.
74:3.5 On the fourth day Adam and Eve addressed the Garden assembly. From the
inaugural mount they spoke to the people concerning their plans for the
rehabilitation of the world and outlined the methods whereby they would seek
to redeem the social culture of Urantia from the low levels to which it had
fallen as a result of sin and rebellion. This was a great day, and it closed
with a feast for the council of men and women who had been selected to assume
responsibilities in the new administration of world affairs. Take note! women
as well as men were in this group, and that was the first time such a thing
had occurred on earth since the days of Dalamatia. It was an astounding
innovation to behold Eve, a woman, sharing the honors and responsibilities of
world affairs with a man. And thus ended the fourth day on earth.
74:3.6 The fifth day was occupied with the organization of the temporary
government, the administration which was to function until the Melchizedek
receivers should leave Urantia.
74:3.7 The sixth day was devoted to an inspection of the numerous types of men
and animals. Along the walls eastward in Eden, Adam and Eve were escorted all
day, viewing the animal life of the planet and arriving at a better
understanding as to what must be done to bring order out of the confusion of a
world inhabited by such a variety of living creatures.
74:3.8 It greatly surprised those who accompanied Adam on this trip to observe
how fully he understood the nature and function of the thousands upon
thousands of animals shown him. The instant he glanced at an animal, he would
indicate its nature and behavior. Adam could give names descriptive of the
origin, nature, and function of all material creatures on sight. Those who
conducted him on this tour of inspection did not know that the world's new
ruler was one of the most expert anatomists of all Satania; and Eve was
equally proficient. Adam amazed his associates by describing hosts of living
things too small to be seen by human eyes.
74:3.9 When the sixth day of their sojourn on earth was over, Adam and Eve
rested for the first time in their new home in "the east of Eden." The first
six days of the Urantia adventure had been very busy, and they looked forward
with great pleasure to an entire day of freedom from all activities.
74:3.10 But circumstances dictated otherwise. The experience of the day just
past in which Adam had so intelligently and so exhaustively discussed the
animal life of Urantia, together with his masterly inaugural address and his
charming manner, had so won the hearts and overcome the intellects of the
Garden dwellers that they were not only wholeheartedly disposed to accept the
newly arrived Son and Daughter of Jerusem as rulers, but the majority were
about ready to fall down and worship them as gods.
4. THE FIRST UPHEAVAL
74:4.1 That night, the night following the sixth day, while Adam and Eve
slumbered, strange things were transpiring in the vicinity of the Father's
temple in the central sector of Eden. There, under the rays of the mellow
moon, hundreds of enthusiastic and excited men and women listened for hours to
the impassioned pleas of their leaders. They meant well, but they simply could
not understand the simplicity of the fraternal and democratic manner of their
new rulers. And long before daybreak the new and temporary administrators of
world affairs reached a virtually unanimous conclusion that Adam and his mate
were altogether too modest and unassuming. They decided that Divinity had
descended to earth in bodily form, that Adam and Eve were in reality gods or
else so near such an estate as to be worthy of reverent worship.
74:4.2 The amazing events of the first six days of Adam and Eve on earth were
entirely too much for the unprepared minds of even the world's best men; their
heads were in a whirl; they were swept along with the proposal to bring the
noble pair up to the Father's temple at high noon in order that everyone might
bow down in respectful worship and prostrate themselves in humble submission.
And the Garden dwellers were really sincere in all of this.
74:4.3 Van protested. Amadon was absent, being in charge of the guard of honor
which had remained behind with Adam and Eve overnight. But Van's protest was
swept aside. He was told that he was likewise too modest, too unassuming; that
he was not far from a god himself, else how had he lived so long on earth, and
how had he brought about such a great event as the advent of Adam? And as the
excited Edenites were about to seize him and carry him up to the mount for
adoration, Van made his way out through the throng and, being able to
communicate with the midwayers, sent their leader in great haste to Adam.
74:4.4 It was near the dawn of their seventh day on earth that Adam and Eve
heard the startling news of the proposal of these well-meaning but misguided
mortals; and then, even while the passenger birds were swiftly winging to
bring them to the temple, the midwayers, being able to do such things,
transported Adam and Eve to the Father's temple. It was early on the morning
of this seventh day and from the mount of their so recent reception that Adam
held forth in explanation of the orders of divine sonship and made clear to
these earth minds that only the Father and those whom he designates may be
worshiped. Adam made it plain that he would accept any honor and receive all
respect, but worship never!
74:4.5 It was a momentous day, and just before noon, about the time of the
arrival of the seraphic messenger bearing the Jerusem acknowledgment of the
installation of the world's rulers, Adam and Eve, moving apart from the
throng, pointed to the Father's temple and said: "Go you now to the material
emblem of the Father's invisible presence and bow down in worship of him who
made us all and who keeps us living. And let this act be the sincere pledge
that you never will again be tempted to worship anyone but God." They all did
as Adam directed. The Material Son and Daughter stood alone on the mount with
bowed heads while the people prostrated themselves about the temple.
74:4.6 And this was the origin of the Sabbath-day tradition. Always in Eden
the seventh day was devoted to the noontide assembly at the temple; long it
was the custom to devote this day to self-culture. The forenoon was devoted to
physical improvement, the noontime to spiritual worship, the afternoon to mind
culture, while the evening was spent in social rejoicing. This was never the
law in Eden, but it was the custom as long as the Adamic administration held
sway on earth.
5. ADAM'S ADMINISTRATION
74:5.1 For almost seven years after Adam's arrival the Melchizedek receivers
remained on duty, but the time finally came when they turned the
administration of world affairs over to Adam and returned to Jerusem.
74:5.2 The farewell of the receivers occupied the whole of a day, and during
the evening the individual Melchizedeks gave Adam and Eve their parting advice
and best wishes. Adam had several times requested his advisers to remain on
earth with him, but always were these petitions denied. The time had come when
the Material Sons must assume full responsibility for the conduct of world
affairs. And so, at midnight, the seraphic transports of Satania left the
planet with fourteen beings for Jerusem, the translation of Van and Amadon
occurring simultaneously with the departure of the twelve Melchizedeks.
74:5.3 All went fairly well for a time on Urantia, and it appeared that Adam
would, eventually, be able to develop some plan for promoting the gradual
extension of the Edenic civilization. Pursuant to the advice of the
Melchizedeks, he began to foster the arts of manufacture with the idea of
developing trade relations with the outside world. When Eden was disrupted,
there were over one hundred primitive manufacturing plants in operation, and
extensive trade relations with the near-by tribes had been established.
74:5.4 For ages Adam and Eve had been instructed in the technique of improving
a world in readiness for their specialized contributions to the advancement of
evolutionary civilization; but now they were face to face with pressing
problems, such as the establishment of law and order in a world of savages,
barbarians, and semicivilized human beings. Aside from the cream of the
earth's population, assembled in the Garden, only a few groups, here and
there, were at all ready for the reception of the Adamic culture.
74:5.5 Adam made a heroic and determined effort to establish a world
government, but he met with stubborn resistance at every turn. Adam had
already put in operation a system of group control throughout Eden and had
federated all of these companies into the Edenic league. But trouble, serious
trouble, ensued when he went outside the Garden and sought to apply these
ideas to the outlying tribes. The moment Adam's associates began to work
outside the Garden, they met the direct and well-planned resistance of
Caligastia and Daligastia. The fallen Prince had been deposed as world ruler,
but he had not been removed from the planet. He was still present on earth and
able, at least to some extent, to resist all of Adam's plans for the
rehabilitation of human society. Adam tried to warn the races against
Caligastia, but the task was made very difficult because his archenemy was
invisible to the eyes of mortals.
74:5.6 Even among the Edenites there were those confused minds that leaned
toward the Caligastia teaching of unbridled personal liberty; and they caused
Adam no end of trouble; always were they upsetting the best-laid plans for
orderly progression and substantial development. He was finally compelled to
withdraw his program for immediate socialization; he fell back on Van's method
of organization, dividing the Edenites into companies of one hundred with
captains over each and with lieutenants in charge of groups of ten.
74:5.7 Adam and Eve had come to institute representative government in the
place of monarchial, but they found no government worthy of the name on the
face of the whole earth. For the time being Adam abandoned all effort to
establish representative government, and before the collapse of the Edenic
regime he succeeded in establishing almost one hundred outlying trade and
social centers where strong individuals ruled in his name. Most of these
centers had been organized aforetime by Van and Amadon.
74:5.8 The sending of ambassadors from one tribe to another dates from the
times of Adam. This was a great forward step in the evolution of government.
6. HOME LIFE OF ADAM AND EVE
74:6.1 The Adamic family grounds embraced a little over five square miles.
Immediately surrounding this homesite, provision had been made for the care of
more than three hundred thousand of the pure-line offspring. But only the
first unit of the projected buildings was ever constructed. Before the size of
the Adamic family outgrew these early provisions, the whole Edenic plan had
been disrupted and the Garden vacated.
74:6.2 Adamson was the first-born of the violet race of Urantia, being
followed by his sister and Eveson, the second son of Adam and Eve. Eve was the
mother of five children before the Melchizedeks left -- three sons and two
daughters. The next two were twins. She bore sixty-three children, thirty-two
daughters and thirty-one sons, before the default. When Adam and Eve left the
Garden, their family consisted of four generations numbering 1,647 pure-line
descendants. They had forty-two children after leaving the Garden besides the
two offspring of joint parentage with the mortal stock of earth. And this does
not include the Adamic parentage to the Nodite and evolutionary races.
74:6.3 The Adamic children did not take milk from animals when they ceased to
nurse the mother's breast at one year of age. Eve had access to the milk of a
great variety of nuts and to the juices of many fruits, and knowing full well
the chemistry and energy of these foods, she suitably combined them for the
nourishment of her children until the appearance of teeth.
74:6.4 While cooking was universally employed outside of the immediate Adamic
sector of Eden, there was no cooking in Adam's household. They found their
foods -- fruits, nuts, and cereals -- ready prepared as they ripened. They ate
once a day, shortly after noontime. Adam and Eve also imbibed "light and
energy" direct from certain space emanations in conjunction with the ministry
of the tree of life.
74:6.5 The bodies of Adam and Eve gave forth a shimmer of light, but they
always wore clothing in conformity with the custom of their associates. Though
wearing very little during the day, at eventide they donned night wraps. The
origin of the traditional halo encircling the heads of supposed pious and holy
men dates back to the days of Adam and Eve. Since the light emanations of
their bodies were so largely obscured by clothing, only the radiating glow
from their heads was discernible. The descendants of Adamson always thus
portrayed their concept of individuals believed to be extraordinary in
spiritual development.
74:6.6 Adam and Eve could communicate with each other and with their immediate
children over a distance of about fifty miles. This thought exchange was
effected by means of the delicate gas chambers located in close proximity to
their brain structures. By this mechanism they could send and receive thought
oscillations. But this power was instantly suspended upon the mind's surrender
to the discord and disruption of evil.
74:6.7 The Adamic children attended their own schools until they were sixteen,
the younger being taught by the elder. The little folks changed activities
every thirty minutes, the older every hour. And it was certainly a new sight
on Urantia to observe these children of Adam and Eve at play, joyous and
exhilarating activity just for the sheer fun of it. The play and humor of the
present-day races are largely derived from the Adamic stock. The Adamites all
had a great appreciation of music as well as a keen sense of humor.
74:6.8 The average age of betrothal was eighteen, and these youths then
entered upon a two years' course of instruction in preparation for the
assumption of marital responsibilities. At twenty they were eligible for
marriage; and after marriage they began their lifework or entered upon special
preparation therefor.
74:6.9 The practice of some subsequent nations of permitting the royal
families, supposedly descended from the gods, to marry brother to sister,
dates from the traditions of the Adamic offspring -- mating, as they must
needs, with one another. The marriage ceremonies of the first and second
generations of the Garden were always performed by Adam and Eve.
7. LIFE IN THE GARDEN
74:7.1 The children of Adam, except for four years' attendance at the western
schools, lived and worked in the "east of Eden." They were trained
intellectually until they were sixteen in accordance with the methods of the
Jerusem schools. From sixteen to twenty they were taught in the Urantia
schools at the other end of the Garden, serving there also as teachers in the
lower grades.
74:7.2 The entire purpose of the western school system of the Garden was
socialization. The forenoon periods of recess were devoted to practical
horticulture and agriculture, the afternoon periods to competitive play. The
evenings were employed in social intercourse and the cultivation of personal
friendships. Religious and sexual training were regarded as the province of
the home, the duty of parents.
74:7.3 The teaching in these schools included instruction regarding:
1. Health and the care of the body.
2. The golden rule, the standard of social intercourse.
3. The relation of individual rights to group rights and community obligations.
4. History and culture of the various earth races.
5. Methods of advancing and improving world trade.
6. Co-ordination of conflicting duties and emotions.
7. The cultivation of play, humor, and competitive substitutes for physical
fighting.
74:7.4 The schools, in fact every activity of the Garden, were always open to
visitors. Unarmed observers were freely admitted to Eden for short visits. To
sojourn in the Garden a Urantian had to be "adopted." He received instructions
in the plan and purpose of the Adamic bestowal, signified his intention to
adhere to this mission, and then made declaration of loyalty to the social
rule of Adam and the spiritual sovereignty of the Universal Father.
74:7.5 The laws of the Garden were based on the older codes of Dalamatia and
were promulgated under seven heads:
1. The laws of health and sanitation.
2. The social regulations of the Garden.
3. The code of trade and commerce.
4. The laws of fair play and competition.
5. The laws of home life.
6. The civil codes of the golden rule.
7. The seven commands of supreme moral rule.
74:7.6 The moral law of Eden was little different from the seven commandments
of Dalamatia. But the Adamites taught many additional reasons for these
commands; for instance, regarding the injunction against murder, the
indwelling of the Thought Adjuster was presented as an additional reason for
not destroying human life. They taught that "whoso sheds man's blood by man
shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man."
74:7.7 The public worship hour of Eden was noon; sunset was the hour of family
worship. Adam did his best to discourage the use of set prayers, teaching that
effective prayer must be wholly individual, that it must be the "desire of the
soul"; but the Edenites continued to use the prayers and forms handed down
from the times of Dalamatia. Adam also endeavored to substitute the offerings
of the fruit of the land for the blood sacrifices in the religious ceremonies
but had made little progress before the disruption of the Garden.
74:7.8 Adam endeavored to teach the races sex equality. The way Eve worked by
the side of her husband made a profound impression upon all dwellers in the
Garden. Adam definitely taught them that the woman, equally with the man,
contributes those life factors which unite to form a new being. Theretofore,
mankind had presumed that all procreation resided in the "loins of the
father." They had looked upon the mother as being merely a provision for
nurturing the unborn and nursing the newborn.
74:7.9 Adam taught his contemporaries all they could comprehend, but that was
not very much, comparatively speaking. Nevertheless, the more intelligent of
the races of earth looked forward eagerly to the time when they would be
permitted to intermarry with the superior children of the violet race. And
what a different world Urantia would have become if this great plan of
uplifting the races had been carried out! Even as it was, tremendous gains
resulted from the small amount of the blood of this imported race which the
evolutionary peoples incidentally secured.
74:7.10 And thus did Adam work for the welfare and uplift of the world of his
sojourn. But it was a difficult task to lead these mixed and mongrel peoples
in the better way.
8. THE LEGEND OF CREATION
74:8.1 The story of the creation of Urantia in six days was based on the
tradition that Adam and Eve had spent just six days in their initial survey of
the Garden. This circumstance lent almost sacred sanction to the time period
of the week, which had been originally introduced by the Dalamatians. Adam's
spending six days inspecting the Garden and formulating preliminary plans for
organization was not prearranged; it was worked out from day to day. The
choosing of the seventh day for worship was wholly incidental to the facts
herewith narrated.
74:8.2 The legend of the making of the world in six days was an afterthought,
in fact, more than thirty thousand years afterwards. One feature of the
narrative, the sudden appearance of the sun and moon, may have taken origin in
the traditions of the onetime sudden emergence of the world from a dense space
cloud of minute matter which had long obscured both sun and moon.
74:8.3 The story of creating Eve out of Adam's rib is a confused condensation
of the Adamic arrival and the celestial surgery connected with the interchange
of living substances associated with the coming of the corporeal staff of the
Planetary Prince more than four hundred and fifty thousand years previously.
74:8.4 The majority of the world's peoples have been influenced by the
tradition that Adam and Eve had physical forms created for them upon their
arrival on Urantia. The belief in man's having been created from clay was
well-nigh universal in the Eastern Hemisphere; this tradition can be traced
from the Philippine Islands around the world to Africa. And many groups
accepted this story of man's clay origin by some form of special creation in
the place of the earlier beliefs in progressive creation -- evolution.
74:8.5 Away from the influences of Dalamatia and Eden, mankind tended toward
the belief in the gradual ascent of the human race. The fact of evolution is
not a modern discovery; the ancients understood the slow and evolutionary
character of human progress. The early Greeks had clear ideas of this despite
their proximity to Mesopotamia. Although the various races of earth became
sadly mixed up in their notions of evolution, nevertheless, many of the
primitive tribes believed and taught that they were the descendants of various
animals. Primitive peoples made a practice of selecting for their "totems" the
animals of their supposed ancestry. Certain North American Indian tribes
believed they originated from beavers and coyotes. Certain African tribes
teach that they are descended from the hyena, a Malay tribe from the lemur, a
New Guinea group from the parrot.
74:8.6 The Babylonians, because of immediate contact with the remnants of the
civilization of the Adamites, enlarged and embellished the story of man's
creation; they taught that he had descended directly from the gods. They held
to an aristocratic origin for the race which was incompatible with even the
doctrine of creation out of clay.
74:8.7 The Old Testament account of creation dates from long after the time of
Moses; he never taught the Hebrews such a distorted story. But he did present
a simple and condensed narrative of creation to the Israelites, hoping thereby
to augment his appeal to worship the Creator, the Universal Father, whom he
called the Lord God of Israel.
74:8.8 In his early teachings, Moses very wisely did not attempt to go back of
Adam's time, and since Moses was the supreme teacher of the Hebrews, the
stories of Adam became intimately associated with those of creation. That the
earlier traditions recognized pre-Adamic civilization is clearly shown by the
fact that later editors, intending to eradicate all reference to human affairs
before Adam's time, neglected to remove the telltale reference to Cain's
emigration to the "land of Nod," where he took himself a wife.
74:8.9 The Hebrews had no written language in general usage for a long time
after they reached Palestine. They learned the use of an alphabet from the
neighboring Philistines, who were political refugees from the higher
civilization of Crete. The Hebrews did little writing until about 900 B.C.,
and having no written language until such a late date, they had several
different stories of creation in circulation, but after the Babylonian
captivity they inclined more toward accepting a modified Mesopotamian version.
74:8.10 Jewish tradition became crystallized about Moses, and because he
endeavored to trace the lineage of Abraham back to Adam, the Jews assumed that
Adam was the first of all mankind. Yahweh was the creator, and since Adam was
supposed to be the first man, he must have made the world just prior to making
Adam. And then the tradition of Adam's six days got woven into the story, with
the result that almost a thousand years after Moses' sojourn on earth the
tradition of creation in six days was written out and subsequently credited to
him.
74:8.11 When the Jewish priests returned to Jerusalem, they had already
completed the writing of their narrative of the beginning of things. Soon they
made claims that this recital was a recently discovered story of creation
written by Moses. But the contemporary Hebrews of around 500 B.C. did not
consider these writings to be divine revelations; they looked upon them much
as later peoples regard mythological narratives.
74:8.12 This spurious document, reputed to be the teachings of Moses, was
brought to the attention of Ptolemy, the Greek king of Egypt, who had it
translated into Greek by a commission of seventy scholars for his new library
at Alexandria. And so this account found its place among those writings which
subsequently became a part of the later collections of the "sacred scriptures"
of the Hebrew and Christian religions. And through identification with these
theological systems, such concepts for a long time profoundly influenced the
philosophy of many Occidental peoples.
74:8.13 The Christian teachers perpetuated the belief in the fiat creation of
the human race, and all this led directly to the formation of the hypothesis
of a onetime golden age of utopian bliss and the theory of the fall of man or
superman which accounted for the nonutopian condition of society. These
outlooks on life and man's place in the universe were at best discouraging
since they were predicated upon a belief in retrogression rather than
progression, as well as implying a vengeful Deity, who had vented wrath upon
the human race in retribution for the errors of certain onetime planetary
administrators.
74:8.14 The "golden age" is a myth, but Eden was a fact, and the Garden
civilization was actually overthrown. Adam and Eve carried on in the Garden
for one hundred and seventeen years when, through the impatience of Eve and
the errors of judgment of Adam, they presumed to turn aside from the ordained
way, speedily bringing disaster upon themselves and ruinous retardation upon
the developmental progression of all Urantia.
74:8.15 Narrated by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
PAPER 75
THE DEFAULT OF ADAM AND EVE
75:0.1 AFTER more than one hundred years of effort on Urantia, Adam was able
to see very little progress outside the Garden; the world at large did not
seem to be improving much. The realization of race betterment appeared to be a
long way off, and the situation seemed so desperate as to demand something for
relief not embraced in the original plans. At least that is what often passed
through Adam's mind, and he so expressed himself many times to Eve. Adam and
his mate were loyal, but they were isolated from their kind, and they were
sorely distressed by the sorry plight of their world.
1. THE URANTIA PROBLEM
75:1.1 The Adamic mission on experimental, rebellion-seared, and isolated
Urantia was a formidable undertaking. And the Material Son and Daughter early
became aware of the difficulty and complexity of their planetary assignment.
Nevertheless, they courageously set about the task of solving their manifold
problems. But when they addressed themselves to the all-important work of
eliminating the defectives and degenerates from among the human strains, they
were quite dismayed. They could see no way out of the dilemma, and they could
not take counsel with their superiors on either Jerusem or Edentia. Here they
were, isolated and day by day confronted with some new and complicated tangle,
some problem that seemed to be unsolvable.
75:1.2 Under normal conditions the first work of a Planetary Adam and Eve
would be the co-ordination and blending of the races. But on Urantia such a
project seemed just about hopeless, for the races, while biologically fit, had
never been purged of their retarded and defective strains.
75:1.3 Adam and Eve found themselves on a sphere wholly unprepared for the
proclamation of the brotherhood of man, a world groping about in abject
spiritual darkness and cursed with confusion worse confounded by the
miscarriage of the mission of the preceding administration. Mind and morals
were at a low level, and instead of beginning the task of effecting religious
unity, they must begin all anew the work of converting the inhabitants to the
most simple forms of religious belief. Instead of finding one language ready
for adoption, they were confronted by the world-wide confusion of hundreds
upon hundreds of local dialects. No Adam of the planetary service was ever set
down on a more difficult world; the obstacles seemed insuperable and the
problems beyond creature solution.
75:1.4 They were isolated, and the tremendous sense of loneliness which bore
down upon them was all the more heightened by the early departure of the
Melchizedek receivers. Only indirectly, by means of the angelic orders, could
they communicate with any being off the planet. Slowly their courage weakened,
their spirits drooped, and sometimes their faith almost faltered.
75:1.5 And this is the true picture of the consternation of these two noble
souls as they pondered the tasks which confronted them. They were both keenly
aware of the enormous undertaking involved in the execution of their planetary
assignment.
75:1.6 Probably no Material Sons of Nebadon were ever faced with such a
difficult and seemingly hopeless task as confronted Adam and Eve in the sorry
plight of Urantia. But they would have sometime met with success had they been
more farseeing and patient. Both of them, especially Eve, were altogether too
impatient; they were not willing to settle down to the long, long endurance
test. They wanted to see some immediate results, and they did, but the results
thus secured proved most disastrous both to themselves and to their world.
2. CALIGASTIA'S PLOT
75:2.1 Caligastia paid frequent visits to the Garden and held many conferences
with Adam and Eve, but they were adamant to all his suggestions of compromise
and short-cut adventures. They had before them enough of the results of
rebellion to produce effective immunity against all such insinuating
proposals. Even the young offspring of Adam were uninfluenced by the overtures
of Daligastia. And of course neither Caligastia nor his associate had power to
influence any individual against his will, much less to persuade the children
of Adam to do wrong.
75:2.2 It must be remembered that Caligastia was still the titular Planetary
Prince of Urantia, a misguided but nevertheless high Son of the local
universe. He was not finally deposed until the times of Christ Michael on
Urantia.
75:2.3 But the fallen Prince was persistent and determined. He soon gave up
working on Adam and decided to try a wily flank attack on Eve. The evil one
concluded that the only hope for success lay in the adroit employment of
suitable persons belonging to the upper strata of the Nodite group, the
descendants of his onetime corporeal-staff associates. And the plans were
accordingly laid for entrapping the mother of the violet race.
75:2.4 It was farthest from Eve's intention ever to do anything which would
militate against Adam's plans or jeopardize their planetary trust. Knowing the
tendency of woman to look upon immediate results rather than to plan
farsightedly for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks, before departing, had
especially enjoined Eve as to the peculiar dangers besetting their isolated
position on the planet and had in particular warned her never to stray from
the side of her mate, that is, to attempt no personal or secret methods of
furthering their mutual undertakings. Eve had most scrupulously carried out
these instructions for more than one hundred years, and it did not occur to
her that any danger would attach to the increasingly private and confidential
visits she was enjoying with a certain Nodite leader named Serapatatia. The
whole affair developed so gradually and naturally that she was taken unawares.
75:2.5 The Garden dwellers had been in contact with the Nodites since the
early days of Eden. From these mixed descendants of the defaulting members of
Caligastia's staff they had received much valuable help and co-operation, and
through them the Edenic regime was now to meet its complete undoing and final
overthrow.
3. THE TEMPTATION OF EVE
75:3.1 Adam had just finished his first one hundred years on earth when
Serapatatia, upon the death of his father, came to the leadership of the
western or Syrian confederation of the Nodite tribes. Serapatatia was a brown-
tinted man, a brilliant descendant of the onetime chief of the Dalamatia
commission on health mated with one of the master female minds of the blue
race of those distant days. All down through the ages this line had held
authority and wielded a great influence among the western Nodite tribes.
75:3.2 Serapatatia had made several visits to the Garden and had become deeply
impressed with the righteousness of Adam's cause. And shortly after assuming
the leadership of the Syrian Nodites, he announced his intention of
establishing an affiliation with the work of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The
majority of his people joined him in this program, and Adam was cheered by the
news that the most powerful and the most intelligent of all the neighboring
tribes had swung over almost bodily to the support of the program for world
improvement; it was decidedly heartening. And shortly after this great event,
Serapatatia and his new staff were entertained by Adam and Eve in their own
home.
75:3.3 Serapatatia became one of the most able and efficient of all of Adam's
lieutenants. He was entirely honest and thoroughly sincere in all of his
activities; he was never conscious, even later on, that he was being used as a
circumstantial tool of the wily Caligastia.
75:3.4 Presently, Serapatatia became the associate chairman of the Edenic
commission on tribal relations, and many plans were laid for the more vigorous
prosecution of the work of winning the remote tribes to the cause of the
Garden.
75:3.5 He held many conferences with Adam and Eve -- especially with Eve --
and they talked over many plans for improving their methods. One day, during a
talk with Eve, it occurred to Serapatatia that it would be very helpful if,
while awaiting the recruiting of large numbers of the violet race, something
could be done in the meantime immediately to advance the needy waiting tribes.
Serapatatia contended that, if the Nodites, as the most progressive and co-
operative race, could have a leader born to them of part origin in the violet
stock, it would constitute a powerful tie binding these peoples more closely
to the Garden. And all of this was soberly and honestly considered to be for
the good of the world since this child, to be reared and educated in the
Garden, would exert a great influence for good over his father's people.
75:3.6 It should again be emphasized that Serapatatia was altogether honest
and wholly sincere in all that he proposed. He never once suspected that he
was playing into the hands of Caligastia and Daligastia. Serapatatia was
entirely loyal to the plan of building up a strong reserve of the violet race
before attempting the world-wide upstepping of the confused peoples of
Urantia. But this would require hundreds of years to consummate, and he was
impatient; he wanted to see some immediate results -- something in his own
lifetime. He made it clear to Eve that Adam was oftentimes discouraged by the
little that had been accomplished toward uplifting the world.
75:3.7 For more than five years these plans were secretly matured. At last
they had developed to the point where Eve consented to have a secret
conference with Cano, the most brilliant mind and active leader of the near-by
colony of friendly Nodites. Cano was very sympathetic with the Adamic regime;
in fact, he was the sincere spiritual leader of those neighboring Nodites who
favored friendly relations with the Garden.
75:3.8 The fateful meeting occurred during the twilight hours of the autumn
evening, not far from the home of Adam. Eve had never before met the beautiful
and enthusiastic Cano -- and he was a magnificent specimen of the survival of
the superior physique and outstanding intellect of his remote progenitors of
the Prince's staff. And Cano also thoroughly believed in the righteousness of
the Serapatatia project. (Outside of the Garden, multiple mating was a common
practice.)
75:3.9 Influenced by flattery, enthusiasm, and great personal persuasion, Eve
then and there consented to embark upon the much-discussed enterprise, to add
her own little scheme of world saving to the larger and more far-reaching
divine plan. Before she quite realized what was transpiring, the fatal step
had been taken. It was done.
4. THE REALIZATION OF DEFAULT
75:4.1 The celestial life of the planet was astir. Adam recognized that
something was wrong, and he asked Eve to come aside with him in the Garden.
And now, for the first time, Adam heard the entire story of the long-nourished
plan for accelerating world improvement by operating simultaneously in two
directions: the prosecution of the divine plan concomitantly with the
execution of the Serapatatia enterprise.
75:4.2 And as the Material Son and Daughter thus communed in the moonlit
Garden, "the voice in the Garden" reproved them for disobedience. And that
voice was none other than my own announcement to the Edenic pair that they had
transgressed the Garden covenant; that they had disobeyed the instructions of
the Melchizedeks; that they had defaulted in the execution of their oaths of
trust to the sovereign of the universe.
75:4.3 Eve had consented to participate in the practice of good and evil. Good
is the carrying out of the divine plans; sin is a deliberate transgression of
the divine will; evil is the misadaptation of plans and the maladjustment of
techniques resulting in universe disharmony and planetary confusion.
75:4.4 Every time the Garden pair had partaken of the fruit of the tree of
life, they had been warned by the archangel custodian to refrain from yielding
to the suggestions of Caligastia to combine good and evil. They had been thus
admonished: "In the day that you commingle good and evil, you shall surely
become as the mortals of the realm; you shall surely die."
75:4.5 Eve had told Cano of this oft-repeated warning on the fateful occasion
of their secret meeting, but Cano, not knowing the import or significance of
such admonitions, had assured her that men and women with good motives and
true intentions could do no evil; that she should surely not die but rather
live anew in the person of their offspring, who would grow up to bless and
stabilize the world.
75:4.6 Even though this project of modifying the divine plan had been
conceived and executed with entire sincerity and with only the highest motives
concerning the welfare of the world, it constituted evil because it
represented the wrong way to achieve righteous ends, because it departed from
the right way, the divine plan.
75:4.7 True, Eve had found Cano pleasant to the eyes, and she realized all
that her seducer promised by way of "new and increased knowledge of human
affairs and quickened understanding of human nature as supplemental to the
comprehension of the Adamic nature."
75:4.8 I talked to the father and mother of the violet race that night in the
Garden as became my duty under the sorrowful circumstances. I listened fully
to the recital of all that led up to the default of Mother Eve and gave both
of them advice and counsel concerning the immediate situation. Some of this
advice they followed; some they disregarded. This conference appears in your
records as "the Lord God calling to Adam and Eve in the Garden and asking,
`Where are you?'" It was the practice of later generations to attribute
everything unusual and extraordinary, whether natural or spiritual, directly
to the personal intervention of the Gods.
5. REPERCUSSIONS OF DEFAULT
75:5.1 Eve's disillusionment was truly pathetic. Adam discerned the whole
predicament and, while heartbroken and dejected, entertained only pity and
sympathy for his erring mate.
75:5.2 It was in the despair of the realization of failure that Adam, the day
after Eve's misstep, sought out Laotta, the brilliant Nodite woman who was
head of the western schools of the Garden, and with premeditation committed
the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam was not beguiled; he knew
exactly what he was about; he deliberately chose to share the fate of Eve. He
loved his mate with a supermortal affection, and the thought of the
possibility of a lonely vigil on Urantia without her was more than he could
endure.
75:5.3 When they learned what had happened to Eve, the infuriated inhabitants
of the Garden became unmanageable; they declared war on the near-by Nodite
settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden and down upon these
unprepared people, utterly destroying them -- not a man, woman, or child was
spared. And Cano, the father of Cain yet unborn, also perished.
75:5.4 Upon the realization of what had happened, Serapatatia was overcome
with consternation and beside himself with fear and remorse. The next day he
drowned himself in the great river.
75:5.5 The children of Adam sought to comfort their distracted mother while
their father wandered in solitude for thirty days. At the end of that time
judgment asserted itself, and Adam returned to his home and began to plan for
their future course of action.
75:5.6 The consequences of the follies of misguided parents are so often
shared by their innocent children. The upright and noble sons and daughters of
Adam and Eve were overwhelmed by the inexplicable sorrow of the unbelievable
tragedy which had been so suddenly and so ruthlessly thrust upon them. Not in
fifty years did the older of these children recover from the sorrow and
sadness of those tragic days, especially the terror of that period of thirty
days during which their father was absent from home while their distracted
mother was in complete ignorance of his whereabouts or fate.
75:5.7 And those same thirty days were as long years of sorrow and suffering
to Eve. Never did this noble soul fully recover from the effects of that
excruciating period of mental suffering and spiritual sorrow. No feature of
their subsequent deprivations and material hardships ever began to compare in
Eve's memory with those terrible days and awful nights of loneliness and
unbearable uncertainty. She learned of the rash act of Serapatatia and did not
know whether her mate had in sorrow destroyed himself or had been removed from
the world in retribution for her misstep. And when Adam returned, Eve
experienced a satisfaction of joy and gratitude that never was effaced by
their long and difficult life partnership of toiling service.
75:5.8 Time passed, but Adam was not certain of the nature of their offense
until seventy days after the default of Eve, when the Melchizedek receivers
returned to Urantia and assumed jurisdiction over world affairs. And then he
knew they had failed.
75:5.9 But still more trouble was brewing: The news of the annihilation of the
Nodite settlement near Eden was not slow in reaching the home tribes of
Serapatatia to the north, and presently a great host was assembling to march
on the Garden. And this was the beginning of a long and bitter warfare between
the Adamites and the Nodites, for these hostilities kept up long after Adam
and his followers emigrated to the second garden in the Euphrates valley.
There was intense and lasting "enmity between that man and the woman, between
his seed and her seed."
6. ADAM AND EVE LEAVE THE GARDEN
75:6.1 When Adam learned that the Nodites were on the march, he sought the
counsel of the Melchizedeks, but they refused to advise him, only telling him
to do as he thought best and promising their friendly co-operation, as far as
possible, in any course he might decide upon. The Melchizedeks had been
forbidden to interfere with the personal plans of Adam and Eve.
75:6.2 Adam knew that he and Eve had failed; the presence of the Melchizedek
receivers told him that, though he still knew nothing of their personal status
or future fate. He held an all-night conference with some twelve hundred loyal
followers who pledged themselves to follow their leader, and the next day at
noon these pilgrims went forth from Eden in quest of new homes. Adam had no
liking for war and accordingly elected to leave the first garden to the
Nodites unopposed.
75:6.3 The Edenic caravan was halted on the third day out from the Garden by
the arrival of the seraphic transports from Jerusem. And for the first time
Adam and Eve were informed of what was to become of their children. While the
transports stood by, those children who had arrived at the age of choice
(twenty years) were given the option of remaining on Urantia with their
parents or of becoming wards of the Most Highs of Norlatiadek. Two thirds
chose to go to Edentia; about one third elected to remain with their parents.
All children of prechoice age were taken to Edentia. No one could have beheld
the sorrowful parting of this Material Son and Daughter and their children
without realizing that the way of the transgressor is hard. These offspring of
Adam and Eve are now on Edentia; we do not know what disposition is to be made
of them.
75:6.4 It was a sad, sad caravan that prepared to journey on. Could anything
have been more tragic! To have come to a world in such high hopes, to have
been so auspiciously received, and then to go forth in disgrace from Eden,
only to lose more than three fourths of their children even before finding a
new abiding place!
7. DEGRADATION OF ADAM AND EVE
75:7.1 It was while the Edenic caravan was halted that Adam and Eve were
informed of the nature of their transgressions and advised concerning their
fate. Gabriel appeared to pronounce judgment. And this was the verdict: The
Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in default; they have violated
the covenant of their trusteeship as the rulers of this inhabited world.
75:7.2 While downcast by the sense of guilt, Adam and Eve were greatly cheered
by the announcement that their judges on Salvington had absolved them from all
charges of standing in "contempt of the universe government." They had not
been held guilty of rebellion.
75:7.3 The Edenic pair were informed that they had degraded themselves to the
status of the mortals of the realm; that they must henceforth conduct
themselves as man and woman of Urantia, looking to the future of the world
races for their future.
75:7.4 Long before Adam and Eve left Jerusem, their instructors had fully
explained to them the consequences of any vital departure from the divine
plans. I had personally and repeatedly warned them, both before and after they
arrived on Urantia, that reduction to the status of mortal flesh would be the
certain result, the sure penalty, which would unfailingly attend default in
the execution of their planetary mission. But a comprehension of the
immortality status of the material order of sonship is essential to a clear
understanding of the consequences attendant upon the default of Adam and Eve.
75:7.5 1. Adam and Eve, like their fellows on Jerusem, maintained immortal
status through intellectual association with the mind-gravity circuit of the
Spirit. When this vital sustenance is broken by mental disjunction, then,
regardless of the spiritual level of creature existence, immortality status is
lost. Mortal status followed by physical dissolution was the inevitable
consequence of the intellectual default of Adam and Eve.
75:7.6 2. The Material Son and Daughter of Urantia, being also personalized in
the similitude of the mortal flesh of this world, were further dependent on
the maintenance of a dual circulatory system, the one derived from their
physical natures, the other from the superenergy stored in the fruit of the
tree of life. Always had the archangel custodian admonished Adam and Eve that
default of trust would culminate in degradation of status, and access to this
source of energy was denied them subsequent to their default.
75:7.7 Caligastia did succeed in trapping Adam and Eve, but he did not
accomplish his purpose of leading them into open rebellion against the
universe government. What they had done was indeed evil, but they were never
guilty of contempt for truth, neither did they knowingly enlist in rebellion
against the righteous rule of the Universal Father and his Creator Son.
8. THE SO-CALLED FALL OF MAN
75:8.1 Adam and Eve did fall from their high estate of material sonship down
to the lowly status of mortal man. But that was not the fall of man. The human
race has been uplifted despite the immediate consequences of the Adamic
default. Although the divine plan of giving the violet race to the Urantia
peoples miscarried, the mortal races have profited enormously from the limited
contribution which Adam and his descendants made to the Urantia races.
75:8.2 There has been no "fall of man." The history of the human race is one
of progressive evolution, and the Adamic bestowal left the world peoples
greatly improved over their previous biologic condition. The more superior
stocks of Urantia now contain inheritance factors derived from as many as four
separate sources: Andonite, Sangik, Nodite, and Adamic.
75:8.3 Adam should not be regarded as the cause of a curse on the human race.
While he did fail in carrying forward the divine plan, while he did transgress
his covenant with Deity, while he and his mate were most certainly degraded in
creature status, notwithstanding all this, their contribution to the human
race did much to advance civilization on Urantia.
75:8.4 In estimating the results of the Adamic mission on your world, justice
demands the recognition of the condition of the planet. Adam was confronted
with a well-nigh hopeless task when, with his beautiful mate, he was
transported from Jerusem to this dark and confused planet. But had they been
guided by the counsel of the Melchizedeks and their associates, and had they
been more patient, they would have eventually met with success. But Eve
listened to the insidious propaganda of personal liberty and planetary freedom
of action. She was led to experiment with the life plasm of the material order
of sonship in that she allowed this life trust to become prematurely
commingled with that of the then mixed order of the original design of the
Life Carriers which had been previously combined with that of the reproducing
beings once attached to the staff of the Planetary Prince.
75:8.5 Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will you gain anything by
impatiently attempting to circumvent the established and divine plan by short
cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of
perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection.
75:8.6 All in all, there probably never was a more disheartening miscarriage
of wisdom on any planet in all Nebadon. But it is not surprising that these
missteps occur in the affairs of the evolutionary universes. We are a part of
a gigantic creation, and it is not strange that everything does not work in
perfection; our universe was not created in perfection. Perfection is our
eternal goal, not our origin.
75:8.7 If this were a mechanistic universe, if the First Great Source and
Center were only a force and not also a personality, if all creation were a
vast aggregation of physical matter dominated by precise laws characterized by
unvarying energy actions, then might perfection obtain, even despite the
incompleteness of universe status. There would be no disagreement; there would
be no friction. But in our evolving universe of relative perfection and
imperfection we rejoice that disagreement and misunderstanding are possible,
for thereby is evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the universe.
And if our creation is an existence dominated by personality, then can you be
assured of the possibilities of personality survival, advancement, and
achievement; we can be confident of personality growth, experience, and
adventure. What a glorious universe, in that it is personal and progressive,
not merely mechanical or even passively perfect!
75:8.8 Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
PAPER 76
THE SECOND GARDEN
76:0.1 WHEN Adam elected to leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed,
he and his followers could not go west, for the Edenites had no boats suitable
for such a marine adventure. They could not go north; the northern Nodites
were already on the march toward Eden. They feared to go south; the hills of
that region were infested with hostile tribes. The only way open was to the
east, and so they journeyed eastward toward the then pleasant regions between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And many of those who were left behind later
journeyed eastward to join the Adamites in their new valley home.
76:0.2 Cain and Sansa were both born before the Adamic caravan had reached its
destination between the rivers in Mesopotamia. Laotta, the mother of Sansa,
perished at the birth of her daughter; Eve suffered much but survived, owing
to superior strength. Eve took Sansa, the child of Laotta, to her bosom, and
she was reared along with Cain. Sansa grew up to be a woman of great ability.
She became the wife of Sargan, the chief of the northern blue races, and
contributed to the advancement of the blue men of those times.
1. THE EDENITES ENTER MESOPOTAMIA
76:1.1 It required almost a full year for the caravan of Adam to reach the
Euphrates River. Finding it in flood tide, they remained camped on the plains
west of the stream almost six weeks before they made their way across to the
land between the rivers which was to become the second garden.
76:1.2 When word had reached the dwellers in the land of the second garden
that the king and high priest of the Garden of Eden was marching on them, they
had fled in haste to the eastern mountains. Adam found all of the desired
territory vacated when he arrived. And here in this new location Adam and his
helpers set themselves to work to build new homes and establish a new center
of culture and religion.
76:1.3 This site was known to Adam as one of the three original selections of
the committee assigned to choose possible locations for the Garden proposed by
Van and Amadon. The two rivers themselves were a good natural defense in those
days, and a short way north of the second garden the Euphrates and Tigris came
close together so that a defense wall extending fifty-six miles could be built
for the protection of the territory to the south and between the rivers.
76:1.4 After getting settled in the new Eden, it became necessary to adopt
crude methods of living; it seemed entirely true that the ground had been
cursed. Nature was once again taking its course. Now were the Adamites
compelled to wrest a living from unprepared soil and to cope with the
realities of life in the face of the natural hostilities and incompatibilities
of mortal existence. They found the first garden partially prepared for them,
but the second had to be created by the labor of their own hands and in the
"sweat of their faces."
2. CAIN AND ABEL
76:2.1 Less than two years after Cain's birth, Abel was born, the first child
of Adam and Eve to be born in the second garden. When Abel grew up to the age
of twelve years, he elected to be a herder; Cain had chosen to follow
agriculture.
76:2.2 Now, in those days it was customary to make offerings to the priesthood
of the things at hand. Herders would bring of their flocks, farmers of the
fruits of the fields; and in accordance with this custom, Cain and Abel
likewise made periodic offerings to the priests. The two boys had many times
argued about the relative merits of their vocations, and Abel was not slow to
note that preference was shown for his animal sacrifices. In vain did Cain
appeal to the traditions of the first Eden, to the former preference for the
fruits of the fields. But this Abel would not allow, and he taunted his older
brother in his discomfiture.
76:2.3 In the days of the first Eden Adam had indeed sought to discourage the
offering of animal sacrifice so that Cain had a justifiable precedent for his
contentions. It was, however, difficult to organize the religious life of the
second Eden. Adam was burdened with a thousand and one details associated with
the work of building, defense, and agriculture. Being much depressed
spiritually, he intrusted the organization of worship and education to those
of Nodite extraction who had served in these capacities in the first garden;
and in even so short a time the officiating Nodite priests were reverting to
the standards and rulings of pre-Adamic times.
76:2.4 The two boys never got along well, and this matter of sacrifices
further contributed to the growing hatred between them. Abel knew he was the
son of both Adam and Eve and never failed to impress upon Cain that Adam was
not his father. Cain was not pure violet as his father was of the Nodite race
later admixed with the blue and the red man and with the aboriginal Andonic
stock. And all of this, with Cain's natural bellicose inheritance, caused him
to nourish an ever-increasing hatred for his younger brother.
76:2.5 The boys were respectively eighteen and twenty years of age when the
tension between them was finally resolved, one day, when Abel's taunts so
infuriated his bellicose brother that Cain turned upon him in wrath and slew
him.
76:2.6 The observation of Abel's conduct establishes the value of environment
and education as factors in character development. Abel had an ideal
inheritance, and heredity lies at the bottom of all character; but the
influence of an inferior environment virtually neutralized this magnificent
inheritance. Abel, especially during his younger years, was greatly influenced
by his unfavorable surroundings. He would have become an entirely different
person had he lived to be twenty-five or thirty; his superb inheritance would
then have shown itself. While a good environment cannot contribute much toward
really overcoming the character handicaps of a base heredity, a bad
environment can very effectively spoil an excellent inheritance, at least
during the younger years of life. Good social environment and proper education
are indispensable soil and atmosphere for getting the most out of a good
inheritance.
76:2.7 The death of Abel became known to his parents when his dogs brought the
flocks home without their master. To Adam and Eve, Cain was fast becoming the
grim reminder of their folly, and they encouraged him in his decision to leave
the garden.
76:2.8 Cain's life in Mesopotamia had not been exactly happy since he was in
such a peculiar way symbolic of the default. It was not that his associates
were unkind to him, but he had not been unaware of their subconscious
resentment of his presence. But Cain knew that, since he bore no tribal mark,
he would be killed by the first neighboring tribesmen who might chance to meet
him. Fear, and some remorse, led him to repent. Cain had never been indwelt by
an Adjuster, had always been defiant of the family discipline and disdainful
of his father's religion. But he now went to Eve, his mother, and asked for
spiritual help and guidance, and when he honestly sought divine assistance, an
Adjuster indwelt him. And this Adjuster, dwelling within and looking out, gave
Cain a distinct advantage of superiority which classed him with the greatly
feared tribe of Adam.
76:2.9 And so Cain departed for the land of Nod, east of the second Eden. He
became a great leader among one group of his father's people and did, to a
certain degree, fulfill the predictions of Serapatatia, for he did promote
peace between this division of the Nodites and the Adamites throughout his
lifetime. Cain married Remona, his distant cousin, and their first son, Enoch,
became the head of the Elamite Nodites. And for hundreds of years the Elamites
and the Adamites continued to be at peace.
3. LIFE IN MESOPOTAMIA
76:3.1 As time passed in the second garden, the consequences of default became
increasingly apparent. Adam and Eve greatly missed their former home of beauty
and tranquillity as well as their children who had been deported to Edentia.
It was indeed pathetic to observe this magnificent couple reduced to the
status of the common flesh of the realm; but they bore their diminished estate
with grace and fortitude.
76:3.2 Adam wisely spent most of the time training his children and their
associates in civil administration, educational methods, and religious
devotions. Had it not been for this foresight, pandemonium would have broken
loose upon his death. As it was, the death of Adam made little difference in
the conduct of the affairs of his people. But long before Adam and Eve passed
away, they recognized that their children and followers had gradually learned
to forget the days of their glory in Eden. And it was better for the majority
of their followers that they did forget the grandeur of Eden; they were not so
likely to experience undue dissatisfaction with their less fortunate
environment.
76:3.3 The civil rulers of the Adamites were derived hereditarily from the
sons of the first garden. Adam's first son, Adamson (Adam ben Adam), founded a
secondary center of the violet race to the north of the second Eden. Adam's
second son, Eveson, became a masterly leader and administrator; he was the
great helper of his father. Eveson lived not quite so long as Adam, and his
eldest son, Jansad, became the successor of Adam as the head of the Adamite
tribes.
76:3.4 The religious rulers, or priesthood, originated with Seth, the eldest
surviving son of Adam and Eve born in the second garden. He was born one
hundred and twenty-nine years after Adam's arrival on Urantia. Seth became
absorbed in the work of improving the spiritual status of his father's people,
becoming the head of the new priesthood of the second garden. His son, Enos,
founded the new order of worship, and his grandson, Kenan, instituted the
foreign missionary service to the surrounding tribes, near and far.
76:3.5 The Sethite priesthood was a threefold undertaking, embracing religion,
health, and education. The priests of this order were trained to officiate at
religious ceremonies, to serve as physicians and sanitary inspectors, and to
act as teachers in the schools of the garden.
76:3.6 Adam's caravan had carried the seeds and bulbs of hundreds of plants
and cereals of the first garden with them to the land between the rivers; they
also had brought along extensive herds and some of all the domesticated
animals. Because of this they possessed great advantages over the surrounding
tribes. They enjoyed many of the benefits of the previous culture of the
original Garden.
76:3.7 Up to the time of leaving the first garden, Adam and his family had
always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts. On the way to Mesopotamia they
had, for the first time, partaken of herbs and vegetables. The eating of meat
was early introduced into the second garden, but Adam and Eve never partook of
flesh as a part of their regular diet. Neither did Adamson nor Eveson nor the
other children of the first generation of the first garden become flesh
eaters.
76:3.8 The Adamites greatly excelled the surrounding peoples in cultural
achievement and intellectual development. They produced the third alphabet and
otherwise laid the foundations for much that was the forerunner of modern art,
science, and literature. Here in the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates
they maintained the arts of writing, metalworking, pottery making, and weaving
and produced a type of architecture that was not excelled in thousands of
years.
76:3.9 The home life of the violet peoples was, for their day and age, ideal.
Children were subjected to courses of training in agriculture, craftsmanship,
and animal husbandry or else were educated to perform the threefold duty of a
Sethite: to be priest, physician, and teacher.
76:3.10 And when thinking of the Sethite priesthood, do not confuse those
high-minded and noble teachers of health and religion, those true educators,
with the debased and commercial priesthoods of the later tribes and
surrounding nations. Their religious concepts of Deity and the universe were
advanced and more or less accurate, their health provisions were, for their
time, excellent, and their methods of education have never since been
surpassed.
4. THE VIOLET RACE
76:4.1 Adam and Eve were the founders of the violet race of men, the ninth
human race to appear on Urantia. Adam and his offspring had blue eyes, and the
violet peoples were characterized by fair complexions and light hair color --
yellow, red, and brown.
76:4.2 Eve did not suffer pain in childbirth; neither did the early
evolutionary races. Only the mixed races produced by the union of evolutionary
man with the Nodites and later with the Adamites suffered the severe pangs of
childbirth.
76:4.3 Adam and Eve, like their brethren on Jerusem, were energized by dual
nutrition, subsisting on both food and light, supplemented by certain
superphysical energies unrevealed on Urantia. Their Urantia offspring did not
inherit the parental endowment of energy intake and light circulation. They
had a single circulation, the human type of blood sustenance. They were
designedly mortal though long-lived, albeit longevity gravitated toward the
human norm with each succeeding generation.
76:4.4 Adam and Eve and their first generation of children did not use the
flesh of animals for food. They subsisted wholly upon "the fruits of the
trees." After the first generation all of the descendants of Adam began to
partake of dairy products, but many of them continued to follow a nonflesh
diet. Many of the southern tribes with whom they later united were also
nonflesh eaters. Later on, most of these vegetarian tribes migrated to the
east and survived as now admixed in the peoples of India.
76:4.5 Both the physical and spiritual visions of Adam and Eve were far
superior to those of the present-day peoples. Their special senses were much
more acute, and they were able to see the midwayers and the angelic hosts, the
Melchizedeks, and the fallen Prince Caligastia, who several times came to
confer with his noble successor. They retained the ability to see these
celestial beings for over one hundred years after the default. These special
senses were not so acutely present in their children and tended to diminish
with each succeeding generation.
76:4.6 The Adamic children were usually Adjuster indwelt since they all
possessed undoubted survival capacity. These superior offspring were not so
subject to fear as the children of evolution. So much of fear persists in the
present-day races of Urantia because your ancestors received so little of
Adam's life plasm, owing to the early miscarriage of the plans for racial
physical uplift.
76:4.7 The body cells of the Material Sons and their progeny are far more
resistant to disease than are those of the evolutionary beings indigenous to
the planet. The body cells of the native races are akin to the living disease-
producing microscopic and ultramicroscopic organisms of the realm. These facts
explain why the Urantia peoples must do so much by way of scientific effort to
withstand so many physical disorders. You would be far more disease resistant
if your races carried more of the Adamic life.
76:4.8 After becoming established in the second garden on the Euphrates, Adam
elected to leave behind as much of his life plasm as possible to benefit the
world after his death. Accordingly, Eve was made the head of a commission of
twelve on race improvement, and before Adam died this commission had selected
1,682 of the highest type of women on Urantia, and these women were
impregnated with the Adamic life plasm. Their children all grew up to maturity
except 112, so that the world, in this way, was benefited by the addition of
1,570 superior men and women. Though these candidate mothers were selected
from all the surrounding tribes and represented most of the races on earth,
the majority were chosen from the highest strains of the Nodites, and they
constituted the early beginnings of the mighty Andite race. These children
were born and reared in the tribal surroundings of their respective mothers.
5. DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE
76:5.1 Not long after the establishment of the second Eden, Adam and Eve were
duly informed that their repentance was acceptable, and that, while they were
doomed to suffer the fate of the mortals of their world, they should certainly
become eligible for admission to the ranks of the sleeping survivors of
Urantia. They fully believed this gospel of resurrection and rehabilitation
which the Melchizedeks so touchingly proclaimed to them. Their transgression
had been an error of judgment and not the sin of conscious and deliberate
rebellion.
76:5.2 Adam and Eve did not, as citizens of Jerusem, have Thought Adjusters,
nor were they Adjuster indwelt when they functioned on Urantia in the first
garden. But shortly after their reduction to mortal status they became
conscious of a new presence within them and awakened to the realization that
human status coupled with sincere repentance had made it possible for
Adjusters to indwell them. It was this knowledge of being Adjuster indwelt
that greatly heartened Adam and Eve throughout the remainder of their lives;
they knew that they had failed as Material Sons of Satania, but they also knew
that the Paradise career was still open to them as ascending sons of the
universe.
76:5.3 Adam knew about the dispensational resurrection which occurred
simultaneously with his arrival on the planet and he believed that he and his
companion would probably be repersonalized in connection with the advent of
the next order of sonship. He did not know that Michael, the sovereign of this
universe, was so soon to appear on Urantia; he expected that the next Son to
arrive would be of the Avonal order. Even so, it was always a comfort to Adam
and Eve, as well as something difficult for them to understand, to ponder the
only personal message they ever received from Michael. This message, among
other expressions of friendship and comfort, said: "I have given consideration
to the circumstances of your default, I have remembered the desire of your
hearts ever to be loyal to my Father's will, and you will be called from the
embrace of mortal slumber when I come to Urantia if the subordinate Sons of my
realm do not send for you before that time."
76:5.4 And this was a great mystery to Adam and Eve. They could comprehend the
veiled promise of a possible special resurrection in this message, and such a
possibility greatly cheered them, but they could not grasp the meaning of the
intimation that they might rest until the time of a resurrection associated
with Michael's personal appearance on Urantia. And so the Edenic pair always
proclaimed that a Son of God would sometime come, and they communicated to
their loved ones the belief, at least the longing hope, that the world of
their blunders and sorrows might possibly be the realm whereon the ruler of
this universe would elect to function as the Paradise bestowal Son. It seemed
too good to be true, but Adam did entertain the thought that strife-torn
Urantia might, after all, turn out to be the most fortunate world in the
system of Satania, the envied planet of all Nebadon.
76:5.5 Adam lived for 530 years; he died of what might be termed old age. His
physical mechanism simply wore out; the process of disintegration gradually
gained on the process of repair, and the inevitable end came. Eve had died
nineteen years previously of a weakened heart. They were both buried in the
center of the temple of divine service which had been built in accordance with
their plans soon after the wall of the colony had been completed. And this was
the origin of the practice of burying noted and pious men and women under the
floors of the places of worship.
76:5.6 The supermaterial government of Urantia, under the direction of the
Melchizedeks, continued, but direct physical contact with the evolutionary
races had been severed. From the distant days of the arrival of the corporeal
staff of the Planetary Prince, down through the times of Van and Amadon to the
arrival of Adam and Eve, physical representatives of the universe government
had been stationed on the planet. But with the Adamic default this regime,
extending over a period of more than four hundred and fifty thousand years,
came to an end. In the spiritual spheres, angelic helpers continued to
struggle in conjunction with the Thought Adjusters, both working heroically
for the salvage of the individual; but no comprehensive plan for far-reaching
world welfare was promulgated to the mortals of earth until the arrival of
Machiventa Melchizedek, in the times of Abraham, who, with the power,
patience, and authority of a Son of God, did lay the foundations for the
further uplift and spiritual rehabilitation of unfortunate Urantia.
76:5.7 Misfortune has not, however, been the sole lot of Urantia; this planet
has also been the most fortunate in the local universe of Nebadon. Urantians
should count it all gain if the blunders of their ancestors and the mistakes
of their early world rulers so plunged the planet into such a hopeless state
of confusion, all the more confounded by evil and sin, that this very
background of darkness should so appeal to Michael of Nebadon that he selected
this world as the arena wherein to reveal the loving personality of the Father
in heaven. It is not that Urantia needed a Creator Son to set its tangled
affairs in order; it is rather that the evil and sin on Urantia afforded the
Creator Son a more striking background against which to reveal the matchless
love, mercy, and patience of the Paradise Father.
6. SURVIVAL OF ADAM AND EVE
76:6.1 Adam and Eve went to their mortal rest with strong faith in the
promises made to them by the Melchizedeks that they would sometime awake from
the sleep of death to resume life on the mansion worlds, worlds all so
familiar to them in the days preceding their mission in the material flesh of
the violet race on Urantia.
76:6.2 They did not long rest in the oblivion of the unconscious sleep of the
mortals of the realm. On the third day after Adam's death, the second
following his reverent burial, the orders of Lanaforge, sustained by the
acting Most High of Edentia and concurred in by the Union of Days on
Salvington, acting for Michael, were placed in Gabriel's hands, directing the
special roll call of the distinguished survivors of the Adamic default on
Urantia. And in accordance with this mandate of special resurrection, number
twenty-six of the Urantia series, Adam and Eve were repersonalized and
reassembled in the resurrection halls of the mansion worlds of Satania
together with 1,316 of their associates in the experience of the first garden.
Many other loyal souls had already been translated at the time of Adam's
arrival, which was attended by a dispensational adjudication of both the
sleeping survivors and of the living qualified ascenders.
76:6.3 Adam and Eve quickly passed through the worlds of progressive ascension
until they attained citizenship on Jerusem, once again to be residents of the
planet of their origin but this time as members of a different order of
universe personalities. They left Jerusem as permanent citizens -- Sons of
God; they returned as ascendant citizens -- sons of man. They were immediately
attached to the Urantia service on the system capital, later being assigned
membership among the four and twenty counselors who constitute the present
advisory-control body of Urantia.
76:6.4 And thus ends the story of the Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia, a
story of trial, tragedy, and triumph, at least personal triumph for your well-
meaning but deluded Material Son and Daughter and undoubtedly, in the end, a
story of ultimate triumph for their world and its rebellion-tossed and evil-
harassed inhabitants. When all is summed up, Adam and Eve made a mighty
contribution to the speedy civilization and accelerated biologic progress of
the human race. They left a great culture on earth, but it was not possible
for such an advanced civilization to survive in the face of the early dilution
and the eventual submergence of the Adamic inheritance. It is the people who
make a civilization; civilization does not make the people.
76:6.5 Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
PAPER 77
THE MIDWAY CREATURES
77:0.1 MOST of the inhabited worlds of Nebadon harbor one or more groups of
unique beings existing on a life-functioning level about midway between those
of the mortals of the realms and of the angelic orders; hence are they called
midway creatures. They appear to be an accident of time, but they occur so
widespreadly and are so valuable as helpers that we have all long since
accepted them as one of the essential orders of our combined planetary
ministry.
77:0.2 On Urantia there function two distinct orders of midwayers: the primary
or senior corps, who came into being back in the days of Dalamatia, and the
secondary or younger group, whose origin dates from the times of Adam.
1. THE PRIMARY MIDWAYERS
77:1.1 The primary midwayers have their genesis in a unique interassociation
of the material and the spiritual on Urantia. We know of the existence of
similar creatures on other worlds and in other systems, but they originated by
dissimilar techniques.
77:1.2 It is well always to bear in mind that the successive bestowals of the
Sons of God on an evolving planet produce marked changes in the spiritual
economy of the realm and sometimes so modify the workings of the
interassociation of spiritual and material agencies on a planet as to create
situations indeed difficult of understanding. The status of the one hundred
corporeal members of Prince Caligastia's staff illustrates just such a unique
interassociation: As ascendant morontia citizens of Jerusem they were
supermaterial creatures without reproductive prerogatives. As descendant
planetary ministers on Urantia they were material sex creatures capable of
procreating material offspring (as some of them later did). What we cannot
satisfactorily explain is how these one hundred could function in the parental
role on a supermaterial level, but that is exactly what happened. A
supermaterial (nonsexual) liaison of a male and a female member of the
corporeal staff resulted in the appearance of the first-born of the primary
midwayers.
77:1.3 It was immediately discovered that a creature of this order, midway
between the mortal and angelic levels, would be of great service in carrying
on the affairs of the Prince's headquarters, and each couple of the corporeal
staff was accordingly granted permission to produce a similar being. This
effort resulted in the first group of fifty midway creatures.
77:1.4 After a year of observing the work of this unique group, the Planetary
Prince authorized the reproduction of midwayers without restriction. This plan
was carried out as long as the power to create continued, and the original
corps of 50,000 was accordingly brought into being.
77:1.5 A period of one-half year intervened between the production of each
midwayer, and when one thousand such beings had been born to each couple, no
more were ever forthcoming. And there is no explanation available as to why
this power was exhausted upon the appearance of the one thousandth offspring.
No amount of further experimentation ever resulted in anything but failure.
77:1.6 These creatures constituted the intelligence corps of the Prince's
administration. They ranged far and wide, studying and observing the world
races and rendering other invaluable services to the Prince and his staff in
the work of influencing human society remote from the planetary headquarters.
77:1.7 This regime continued until the tragic days of the planetary rebellion,
which ensnared a little over four fifths of the primary midwayers. The loyal
corps entered the service of the Melchizedek receivers, functioning under the
titular leadership of Van until the days of Adam.
2. THE NODITE RACE
77:2.1 While this is the narrative of the origin, nature, and function of the
midway creatures of Urantia, the kinship between the two orders -- primary and
secondary -- makes it necessary to interrupt the story of the primary
midwayers at this point in order to follow out the line of descent from the
rebel members of the corporeal staff of Prince Caligastia from the days of the
planetary rebellion to the times of Adam. It was this line of inheritance
which, in the early days of the second garden, furnished one half of the
ancestry for the secondary order of midway creatures.
77:2.2 The physical members of the Prince's staff had been constituted sex
creatures for the purpose of participating in the plan of procreating
offspring embodying the combined qualities of their special order united with
those of the selected stock of the Andon tribes, and all of this was in
anticipation of the subsequent appearance of Adam. The Life Carriers had
planned a new type of mortal embracing the union of the conjoint offspring of
the Prince's staff with the first-generation offspring of Adam and Eve. They
had thus projected a plan envisioning a new order of planetary creatures whom
they hoped would become the teacher-rulers of human society. Such beings were
designed for social sovereignty, not civil sovereignty. But since this project
almost completely miscarried, we shall never know what an aristocracy of
benign leadership and matchless culture Urantia was thus deprived of. For when
the corporeal staff later reproduced, it was subsequent to the rebellion and
after they had been deprived of their connection with the life currents of the
system.
77:2.3 The postrebellion era on Urantia witnessed many unusual happenings. A
great civilization -- the culture of Dalamatia -- was going to pieces. "The
Nephilim (Nodites) were on earth in those days, and when these sons of the
gods went in to the daughters of men and they bore to them, their children
were the `mighty men of old,' the `men of renown.'" While hardly "sons of the
gods," the staff and their early descendants were so regarded by the
evolutionary mortals of those distant days; even their stature came to be
magnified by tradition. This, then, is the origin of the well-nigh universal
folk tale of the gods who came down to earth and there with the daughters of
men begot an ancient race of heroes. And all this legend became further
confused with the race mixtures of the later appearing Adamites in the second
garden.
77:2.4 Since the one hundred corporeal members of the Prince's staff carried
germ plasm of the Andonic human strains, it would naturally be expected that,
if they engaged in sexual reproduction, their progeny would altogether
resemble the offspring of other Andonite parents. But when the sixty rebels of
the staff, the followers of Nod, actually engaged in sexual reproduction,
their children proved to be far superior in almost every way to both the
Andonite and the Sangik peoples. This unexpected excellence characterized not
only physical and intellectual qualities but also spiritual capacities.
77:2.5 These mutant traits appearing in the first Nodite generation resulted
from certain changes which had been wrought in the configuration and in the
chemical constituents of the inheritance factors of the Andonic germ plasm.
These changes were caused by the presence in the bodies of the staff members
of the powerful life-maintenance circuits of the Satania system. These life
circuits caused the chromosomes of the specialized Urantia pattern to
reorganize more after the patterns of the standardized Satania specialization
of the ordained Nebadon life manifestation. The technique of this germ plasm
metamorphosis by the action of the system life currents is not unlike those
procedures whereby Urantia scientists modify the germ plasm of plants and
animals by the use of X rays.
77:2.6 Thus did the Nodite peoples arise out of certain peculiar and
unexpected modifications occurring in the life plasm which had been
transferred from the bodies of the Andonite contributors to those of the
corporeal staff members by the Avalon surgeons.
77:2.7 It will be recalled that the one hundred Andonite germ plasm
contributors were in turn made possessors of the organic complement of the
tree of life so that the Satania life currents likewise invested their bodies.
The forty-four modified Andonites who followed the staff into rebellion also
mated among themselves and made a great contribution to the better strains of
the Nodite people.
77:2.8 These two groups, embracing 104 individuals who carried the modified
Andonite germ plasm, constitute the ancestry of the Nodites, the eighth race
to appear on Urantia. And this new feature of human life on Urantia represents
another phase of the outworking of the original plan of utilizing this planet
as a life-modification world, except that this was one of the unforeseen
developments.
77:2.9 The pure-line Nodites were a magnificent race, but they gradually
mingled with the evolutionary peoples of earth, and before long great
deterioration had occurred. Ten thousand years after the rebellion they had
lost ground to the point where their average length of life was little more
than that of the evolutionary races.
77:2.10 When archaeologists dig up the clay-tablet records of the later-day
Sumerian descendants of the Nodites, they discover lists of Sumerian kings
running back for several thousand years; and as these records go further back,
the reigns of the individual kings lengthen from around twenty-five or thirty
years up to one hundred and fifty years and more. This lengthening of the
reigns of these older kings signifies that some of the early Nodite rulers
(immediate descendants of the Prince's staff) did live longer than their
later-day successors and also indicates an effort to stretch the dynasties
back to Dalamatia.
77:2.11 The records of such long-lived individuals are also due to the
confusion of months and years as time periods. This may also be observed in
the Biblical genealogy of Abraham and in the early records of the Chinese. The
confusion of the twenty-eight-day month, or season, with the later introduced
year of more than three hundred and fifty days is responsible for the
traditions of such long human lives. There are records of a man who lived over
nine hundred "years." This period represents not quite seventy years, and such
lives were regarded for ages as very long, "threescore years and ten" as such
a life span was later designated.
77:2.12 The reckoning of time by the twenty-eight-day month persisted long
after the days of Adam. But when the Egyptians undertook to reform the
calendar, about seven thousand years ago, they did it with great accuracy,
introducing the year of 365 days.
3. THE TOWER OF BABEL
77:3.1 After the submergence of Dalamatia the Nodites moved north and east,
presently founding the new city of Dilmun as their racial and cultural
headquarters. And about fifty thousand years after the death of Nod, when the
offspring of the Prince's staff had become too numerous to find subsistence in
the lands immediately surrounding their new city of Dilmun, and after they had
reached out to intermarry with the Andonite and Sangik tribes adjoining their
borders, it occurred to their leaders that something should be done to
preserve their racial unity. Accordingly a council of the tribes was called,
and after much deliberation the plan of Bablot, a descendant of Nod, was
indorsed.
77:3.2 Bablot proposed to erect a pretentious temple of racial glorification
at the center of their then occupied territory. This temple was to have a
tower the like of which the world had never seen. It was to be a monumental
memorial to their passing greatness. There were many who wished to have this
monument erected in Dilmun, but others contended that such a great structure
should be placed a safe distance from the dangers of the sea, remembering the
traditions of the engulfment of their first capital, Dalamatia.
77:3.3 Bablot planned that the new buildings should become the nucleus of the
future center of the Nodite culture and civilization. His counsel finally
prevailed, and construction was started in accordance with his plans. The new
city was to be named Bablot after the architect and builder of the tower. This
location later became known as Bablod and eventually as Babel.
77:3.4 But the Nodites were still somewhat divided in sentiment as to the
plans and purposes of this undertaking. Neither were their leaders altogether
agreed concerning either construction plans or usage of the buildings after
they should be completed. After four and one-half years of work a great
dispute arose about the object and motive for the erection of the tower: The
contentions became so bitter that all work stopped. The food carriers spread
the news of the dissension, and large numbers of the tribes began to forgather
at the building site. Three differing views were propounded as to the purpose
of building the tower:
77:3.5 1. The largest group, almost one half, desired to see the tower built
as a memorial of Nodite history and racial superiority. They thought it ought
to be a great and imposing structure which would challenge the admiration of
all future generations.
77:3.6 2. The next largest faction wanted the tower designed to commemorate
the Dilmun culture. They foresaw that Bablot would become a great center of
commerce, art, and manufacture.
77:3.7 3. The smallest and minority contingent held that the erection of the
tower presented an opportunity for making atonement for the folly of their
progenitors in participating in the Caligastia rebellion. They maintained that
the tower should be devoted to the worship of the Father of all, that the
whole purpose of the new city should be to take the place of Dalamatia -- to
function as the cultural and religious center for the surrounding barbarians.
77:3.8 The religious group were promptly voted down. The majority rejected the
teaching that their ancestors had been guilty of rebellion; they resented such
a racial stigma. Having disposed of one of the three angles to the dispute and
failing to settle the other two by debate, they fell to fighting. The
religionists, the noncombatants, fled to their homes in the south, while their
fellows fought until well-nigh obliterated.
77:3.9 About twelve thousand years ago a second attempt to erect the tower of
Babel was made. The mixed races of the Andites (Nodites and Adamites)
undertook to raise a new temple on the ruins of the first structure, but there
was not sufficient support for the enterprise; it fell of its own pretentious
weight. This region was long known as the land of Babel.
4. NODITE CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION
77:4.1 The dispersion of the Nodites was an immediate result of the
internecine conflict over the tower of Babel. This internal war greatly
reduced the numbers of the purer Nodites and was in many ways responsible for
their failure to establish a great pre-Adamic civilization. From this time on
Nodite culture declined for over one hundred and twenty thousand years until
it was upstepped by Adamic infusion. But even in the times of Adam the Nodites
were still an able people. Many of their mixed descendants were numbered among
the Garden builders, and several of Van's group captains were Nodites. Some of
the most capable minds serving on Adam's staff were of this race.
77:4.2 Three out of the four great Nodite centers were established immediately
following the Bablot conflict:
77:4.3 1. The western or Syrian Nodites. The remnants of the nationalistic or
racial memorialists journeyed northward, uniting with the Andonites to found
the later Nodite centers to the northwest of Mesopotamia. This was the largest
group of the dispersing Nodites, and they contributed much to the later
appearing Assyrian stock.
77:4.4 2. The eastern or Elamite Nodites. The culture and commerce advocates
migrated in large numbers eastward into Elam and there united with the mixed
Sangik tribes. The Elamites of thirty to forty thousand years ago had become
largely Sangik in nature, although they continued to maintain a civilization
superior to that of the surrounding barbarians.
77:4.5 After the establishment of the second garden it was customary to allude
to this near-by Nodite settlement as "the land of Nod"; and during the long
period of relative peace between this Nodite group and the Adamites, the two
races were greatly blended, for it became more and more the custom for the
Sons of God (the Adamites) to intermarry with the daughters of men (the
Nodites).
77:4.6 3. The central or pre-Sumerian Nodites. A small group at the mouth of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers maintained more of their racial integrity.
They persisted for thousands of years and eventually furnished the Nodite
ancestry which blended with the Adamites to found the Sumerian peoples of
historic times.
77:4.7 And all this explains how the Sumerians appeared so suddenly and
mysteriously on the stage of action in Mesopotamia. Investigators will never
be able to trace out and follow these tribes back to the beginning of the
Sumerians, who had their origin two hundred thousand years ago after the
submergence of Dalamatia. Without a trace of origin elsewhere in the world,
these ancient tribes suddenly loom upon the horizon of civilization with a
full-grown and superior culture, embracing temples, metalwork, agriculture,
animals, pottery, weaving, commercial law, civil codes, religious ceremonial,
and an old system of writing. At the beginning of the historical era they had
long since lost the alphabet of Dalamatia, having adopted the peculiar writing
system originating in Dilmun. The Sumerian language, though virtually lost to
the world, was not Semitic; it had much in common with the so-called Aryan
tongues.
77:4.8 The elaborate records left by the Sumerians describe the site of a
remarkable settlement which was located on the Persian Gulf near the earlier
city of Dilmun. The Egyptians called this city of ancient glory Dilmat, while
the later Adamized Sumerians confused both the first and second Nodite cities
with Dalamatia and called all three Dilmun. And already have archaeologists
found these ancient Sumerian clay tablets which tell of this earthly paradise
"where the Gods first blessed mankind with the example of civilized and
cultured life." And these tablets, descriptive of Dilmun, the paradise of men
and God, are now silently resting on the dusty shelves of many museums.
77:4.9 The Sumerians well knew of the first and second Edens but, despite
extensive intermarriage with the Adamites, continued to regard the garden
dwellers to the north as an alien race. Sumerian pride in the more ancient
Nodite culture led them to ignore these later vistas of glory in favor of the
grandeur and paradisiacal traditions of the city of Dilmun.
77:4.10 4. The northern Nodites and Amadonites -- the Vanites. This group
arose prior to the Bablot conflict. These northernmost Nodites were
descendants of those who had forsaken the leadership of Nod and his successors
for that of Van and Amadon.
77:4.11 Some of the early associates of Van subsequently settled about the
shores of the lake which still bears his name, and their traditions grew up
about this locality. Ararat became their sacred mountain, having much the same
meaning to later-day Vanites that Sinai had to the Hebrews. Ten thousand years
ago the Vanite ancestors of the Assyrians taught that their moral law of seven
commandments had been given to Van by the Gods upon Mount Ararat. They firmly
believed that Van and his associate Amadon were taken alive from the planet
while they were up on the mountain engaged in worship.
77:4.12 Mount Ararat was the sacred mountain of northern Mesopotamia, and
since much of your tradition of these ancient times was acquired in connection
with the Babylonian story of the flood, it is not surprising that Mount Ararat
and its region were woven into the later Jewish story of Noah and the
universal flood.
77:4.13 About 35,000 B.C. Adamson visited one of the easternmost of the old
Vanite settlements to found his center of civilization.
5. ADAMSON AND RATTA
77:5.1 Having delineated the Nodite antecedents of the ancestry of the
secondary midwayers, this narrative should now give consideration to the
Adamic half of their ancestry, for the secondary midwayers are also the
grandchildren of Adamson, the first-born of the violet race of Urantia.
77:5.2 Adamson was among that group of the children of Adam and Eve who
elected to remain on earth with their father and mother. Now this eldest son
of Adam had often heard from Van and Amadon the story of their highland home
in the north, and sometime after the establishment of the second garden he
determined to go in search of this land of his youthful dreams.
77:5.3 Adamson was 120 years old at this time and had been the father of
thirty-two pure-line children of the first garden. He wanted to remain with
his parents and assist them in upbuilding the second garden, but he was
greatly disturbed by the loss of his mate and their children, who had all
elected to go to Edentia along with those other Adamic children who chose to
become wards of the Most Highs.
77:5.4 Adamson would not desert his parents on Urantia, he was disinclined to
flee from hardship or danger, but he found the associations of the second
garden far from satisfying. He did much to forward the early activities of
defense and construction but decided to leave for the north at the earliest
opportunity. And though his departure was wholly pleasant, Adam and Eve were
much grieved to lose their eldest son, to have him go out into a strange and
hostile world, as they feared, never to return.
77:5.5 A company of twenty-seven followed Adamson northward in quest of these
people of his childhood fantasies. In a little over three years Adamson's
party actually found the object of their adventure, and among these people he
discovered a wonderful and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who claimed to
be the last pure-line descendant of the Prince's staff. This woman, Ratta,
said that her ancestors were all descendants of two of the fallen staff of the
Prince. She was the last of her race, having no living brothers or sisters.
She had about decided not to mate, had about made up her mind to die without
issue, but she lost her heart to the majestic Adamson. And when she heard the
story of Eden, how the predictions of Van and Amadon had really come to pass,
and as she listened to the recital of the Garden default, she was encompassed
with but a single thought -- to marry this son and heir of Adam. And quickly
the idea grew upon Adamson. In a little more than three months they were
married.
77:5.6 Adamson and Ratta had a family of sixty-seven children. They gave
origin to a great line of the world's leadership, but they did something more.
It should be remembered that both of these beings were really superhuman.
Every fourth child born to them was of a unique order. It was often invisible.
Never in the world's history had such a thing occurred. Ratta was greatly
perturbed -- even superstitious -- but Adamson well knew of the existence of
the primary midwayers, and he concluded that something similar was transpiring
before his eyes. When the second strangely behaving offspring arrived, he
decided to mate them, since one was male and the other female, and this is the
origin of the secondary order of midwayers. Within one hundred years, before
this phenomenon ceased, almost two thousand were brought into being.
77:5.7 Adamson lived for 396 years. Many times he returned to visit his father
and mother. Every seven years he and Ratta journeyed south to the second
garden, and meanwhile the midwayers kept him informed regarding the welfare of
his people. During Adamson's life they did great service in upbuilding a new
and independent world center for truth and righteousness.
77:5.8 Adamson and Ratta thus had at their command this corps of marvelous
helpers, who labored with them throughout their long lives to assist in the
propagation of advanced truth and in the spread of higher standards of
spiritual, intellectual, and physical living. And the results of this effort
at world betterment never did become fully eclipsed by subsequent
retrogressions.
77:5.9 The Adamsonites maintained a high culture for almost seven thousand
years from the times of Adamson and Ratta. Later on they became admixed with
the neighboring Nodites and Andonites and were also included among the "mighty
men of old." And some of the advances of that age persisted to become a latent
part of the cultural potential which later blossomed into European
civilization.
77:5.10 This center of civilization was situated in the region east of the
southern end of the Caspian Sea, near the Kopet Dagh. A short way up in the
foothills of Turkestan are the vestiges of what was onetime the Adamsonite
headquarters of the violet race. In these highland sites, situated in a narrow
and ancient fertile belt lying in the lower foothills of the Kopet range,
there successively arose at various periods four diverse cultures respectively
fostered by four different groups of Adamson's descendants. It was the second
of these groups which migrated westward to Greece and the islands of the
Mediterranean. The residue of Adamson's descendants migrated north and west to
enter Europe with the blended stock of the last Andite wave coming out of
Mesopotamia, and they were also numbered among the Andite-Aryan invaders of
India.
6. THE SECONDARY MIDWAYERS
77:6.1 While the primary midwayers had a well-nigh superhuman origin, the
secondary order are the offspring of the pure Adamic stock united with a
humanized descendant of ancestors common to the parentage of the senior corps.
77:6.2 Among the children of Adamson there were just sixteen of the peculiar
progenitors of the secondary midwayers. These unique children were equally
divided as regards sex, and each couple was capable of producing a secondary
midwayer every seventy days by a combined technique of sex and nonsex liaison.
And such a phenomenon was never possible on earth before that time, nor has it
ever occurred since.
77:6.3 These sixteen children lived and died (except for their peculiarities)
as mortals of the realm, but their electrically energized offspring live on
and on, not being subject to the limitations of mortal flesh.
77:6.4 Each of the eight couples eventually produced 248 midwayers, and thus
did the original secondary corps -- 1,984 in number -- come into existence.
There are eight subgroups of secondary midwayers. They are designated as A-B-C
the first, second, third, and so on. And then there are D-E-F the first,
second, and so on.
77:6.5 After the default of Adam the primary midwayers returned to the service
of the Melchizedek receivers, while the secondary group were attached to the
Adamson center until his death. Thirty-three of these secondary midwayers, the
chiefs of their organization at the death of Adamson, endeavored to swing the
whole order over to the service of the Melchizedeks, thus effecting a liaison
with the primary corps. But failing to accomplish this, they deserted their
companions and went over in a body to the service of the planetary receivers.
77:6.6 After the death of Adamson the remainder of the secondary midwayers
became a strange, unorganized, and unattached influence on Urantia. From that
time to the days of Machiventa Melchizedek they led an irregular and
unorganized existence. They were partially brought under control by this
Melchizedek but were still productive of much mischief up to the days of
Christ Michael. And during his sojourn on earth they all made final decisions
as to their future destiny, the loyal majority then enlisting under the
leadership of the primary midwayers.
7. THE REBEL MIDWAYERS
77:7.1 The majority of the primary midwayers went into sin at the time of the
Lucifer rebellion. When the devastation of the planetary rebellion was
reckoned up, among other losses it was discovered that of the original 50,000,
40,119 had joined the Caligastia secession.
77:7.2 The original number of secondary midwayers was 1,984, and of these 873
failed to align themselves with the rule of Michael and were duly interned in
connection with the planetary adjudication of Urantia on the day of Pentecost.
No one can forecast the future of these fallen creatures.
77:7.3 Both groups of rebel midwayers are now held in custody awaiting the
final adjudication of the affairs of the system rebellion. But they did many
strange things on earth prior to the inauguration of the present planetary
dispensation.
77:7.4 These disloyal midwayers were able to reveal themselves to mortal eyes
under certain circumstances, and especially was this true of the associates of
Beelzebub, the leader of the apostate secondary midwayers. But these unique
creatures must not be confused with certain of the rebel cherubim and seraphim
who also were on earth up to the time of Christ's death and resurrection. Some
of the older writers designated these rebellious midway creatures as evil
spirits and demons, and the apostate seraphim as evil angels.
77:7.5 On no world can evil spirits possess any mortal mind subsequent to the
life of a Paradise bestowal Son. But before the days of Christ Michael on
Urantia -- before the universal coming of the Thought Adjusters and the
pouring out of the Master's spirit upon all flesh -- these rebel midwayers
were actually able to influence the minds of certain inferior mortals and
somewhat to control their actions. This was accomplished in much the same way
as the loyal midway creatures function when they serve as efficient contact
guardians of the human minds of the Urantia reserve corps of destiny at those
times when the Adjuster is, in effect, detached from the personality during a
season of contact with superhuman intelligences.
77:7.6 It is no mere figure of speech when the record states: "And they
brought to Him all sorts of sick peoples, those who were possessed by devils
and those who were lunatics." Jesus knew and recognized the difference between
insanity and demoniacal possession, although these states were greatly
confused in the minds of those who lived in his day and generation.
77:7.7 Even prior to Pentecost no rebel spirit could dominate a normal human
mind, and since that day even the weak minds of inferior mortals are free from
such possibilities. The supposed casting out of devils since the arrival of
the Spirit of Truth has been a matter of confounding a belief in demoniacal
possession with hysteria, insanity, and feeble-mindedness. But just because
Michael's bestowal has forever liberated all human minds on Urantia from the
possibility of demoniacal possession, do not imagine that such was not a
reality in former ages.
77:7.8 The entire group of rebel midwayers is at present held prisoner by
order of the Most Highs of Edentia. No more do they roam this world on
mischief bent. Regardless of the presence of the Thought Adjusters, the
pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh forever made it impossible
for disloyal spirits of any sort or description ever again to invade even the
most feeble of human minds. Since the day of Pentecost there never again can
be such a thing as demoniacal possession.
8. THE UNITED MIDWAYERS
77:8.1 At the last adjudication of this world, when Michael removed the
slumbering survivors of time, the midway creatures were left behind, left to
assist in the spiritual and semispiritual work on the planet. They now
function as a single corps, embracing both orders and numbering 10,992. The
United Midwayers of Urantia are at present governed alternately by the senior
member of each order. This regime has obtained since their amalgamation into
one group shortly after Pentecost.
77:8.2 The members of the older or primary order are generally known by
numerals; they are often given names such as 1-2-3 the first, 4-5-6 the first,
and so on. On Urantia the Adamic midwayers are designated alphabetically in
order to distinguish them from the numerical designation of the primary
midwayers.
77:8.3 Both orders are nonmaterial beings as regards nutrition and energy
intake, but they partake of many human traits and are able to enjoy and follow
your humor as well as your worship. When attached to mortals, they enter into
the spirit of human work, rest, and play. But midwayers do not sleep, neither
do they possess powers of procreation. In a certain sense the secondary group
are differentiated along the lines of maleness and femaleness, often being
spoken of as "he" or "she." They often work together in such pairs.
77:8.4 Midwayers are not men, neither are they angels, but secondary midwayers
are, in nature, nearer man than angel; they are, in a way, of your races and
are, therefore, very understanding and sympathetic in their contact with human
beings; they are invaluable to the seraphim in their work for and with the
various races of mankind, and both orders are indispensable to the seraphim
who serve as personal guardians to mortals.
77:8.5 The United Midwayers of Urantia are organized for service with the
planetary seraphim in accordance with innate endowments and acquired skills,
in the following groups:
77:8.6 1. Midway messengers. This group bear names; they are a small corps and
are of great assistance on an evolutionary world in the service of quick and
reliable personal communication.
77:8.7 2. Planetary sentinels. Midwayers are the guardians, the sentinels, of
the worlds of space. They perform the important duties of observers for all
the numerous phenomena and types of communication which are of import to the
supernatural beings of the realm. They patrol the invisible spirit realm of
the planet.
77:8.8 3. Contact personalities. In the contacts made with the mortal beings
of the material worlds, such as with the subject through whom these
communications were transmitted, the midway creatures are always employed.
They are an essential factor in such liaisons of the spiritual and the
material levels.
77:8.9 4. Progress helpers. These are the more spiritual of the midway
creatures, and they are distributed as assistants to the various orders of
seraphim who function in special groups on the planet.
77:8.10 Midwayers vary greatly in their abilities to make contact with the
seraphim above and with their human cousins below. It is exceedingly
difficult, for instance, for the primary midwayers to make direct contact with
material agencies. They are considerably nearer the angelic type of being and
are therefore usually assigned to working with, and ministering to, the
spiritual forces resident on the planet. They act as companions and guides for
celestial visitors and student sojourners, whereas the secondary creatures are
almost exclusively attached to the ministry of the material beings of the
realm.
77:8.11 The 1,111 loyal secondary midwayers are engaged in important missions
on earth. As compared with their primary associates, they are decidedly
material. They exist just outside the range of mortal vision and possess
sufficient latitude of adaptation to make, at will, physical contact with what
humans call "material things." These unique creatures have certain definite
powers over the things of time and space, not excepting the beasts of the
realm.
77:8.12 Many of the more literal phenomena ascribed to angels have been
performed by the secondary midway creatures. When the early teachers of the
gospel of Jesus were thrown into prison by the ignorant religious leaders of
that day, an actual "angel of the Lord" "by night opened the prison doors and
brought them forth." But in the case of Peter's deliverance after the killing
of James by Herod's order, it was a secondary midwayer who performed the work
ascribed to an angel.
77:8.13 Their chief work today is that of unperceived personal-liaison
associates of those men and women who constitute the planetary reserve corps
of destiny. It was the work of this secondary group, ably seconded by certain
of the primary corps, that brought about the co-ordination of personalities
and circumstances on Urantia which finally induced the planetary celestial
supervisors to initiate those petitions that resulted in the granting of the
mandates making possible the series of revelations of which this presentation
is a part. But it should be made clear that the midway creatures are not
involved in the sordid performances taking place under the general designation
of "spiritualism." The midwayers at present on Urantia, all of whom are of
honorable standing, are not connected with the phenomena of so-called
"mediumship"; and they do not, ordinarily, permit humans to witness their
sometimes necessary physical activities or other contacts with the material
world, as they are perceived by human senses.
9. THE PERMANENT CITIZENS OF URANTIA
77:9.1 Midwayers may be regarded as the first group of the permanent
inhabitants to be found on the various orders of worlds throughout the
universes in contrast with evolutionary ascenders like the mortal creatures
and the angelic hosts. Such permanent citizens are encountered at various
points in the Paradise ascent.
77:9.2 Unlike the various orders of celestial beings who are assigned to
minister on a planet, the midwayers live on an inhabited world. The seraphim
come and go, but the midway creatures remain and will remain, albeit they are
nonetheless ministers for being natives of the planet, and they provide the
one continuing regime which harmonizes and connects the changing
administrations of the seraphic hosts.
77:9.3 As actual citizens of Urantia, the midwayers have a kinship interest in
the destiny of this sphere. They are a determined association, persistently
working for the progress of their native planet. Their determination is
suggested by the motto of their order: "What the United Midwayers undertake,
the United Midwayers do."
77:9.4 Although their ability to traverse the energy circuits makes planetary
departure feasible to any midwayer, they have individually pledged themselves
not to leave the planet prior to their sometime release by the universe
authorities. Midwayers are anchored on a planet until the ages of settled
light and life. With the exception of 1-2-3 the first, no loyal midway
creatures have ever departed from Urantia.
77:9.5 1-2-3 the first, the eldest of the primary order, was released from
immediate planetary duties shortly after Pentecost. This noble midwayer stood
steadfast with Van and Amadon during the tragic days of the planetary
rebellion, and his fearless leadership was instrumental in reducing the
casualties in his order. He serves at present on Jerusem as a member of the
twenty-four counselors, having already functioned as governor general of
Urantia once since Pentecost.
77:9.6 Midwayers are planet bound, but much as mortals talk with travelers
from afar and thus learn about remote places on the planet, so do midwayers
converse with celestial travelers to learn about the far places of the
universe. So do they become conversant with this system and universe, even
with Orvonton and its sister creations, and so do they prepare themselves for
citizenship on the higher levels of creature existence.
77:9.7 While the midwayers were brought into existence fully developed --
experiencing no period of growth or development from immaturity -- they never
cease to grow in wisdom and experience. Like mortals they are evolutionary
creatures, and they have a culture which is a bona fide evolutionary
attainment. There are many great minds and mighty spirits among the Urantia
midway corps.
77:9.8 In the larger aspect the civilization of Urantia is the joint product
of the Urantia mortals and the Urantia midwayers, and this is true despite the
present differential between the two levels of culture, a differential which
will not be compensated prior to the ages of light and life.
77:9.9 The midway culture, being the product of an immortal planetary
citizenry, is relatively immune to those temporal vicissitudes which beset
human civilization. The generations of men forget; the corps of midwayers
remembers, and that memory is the treasure house of the traditions of your
inhabited world. Thus does the culture of a planet remain ever present on that
planet, and in proper circumstances such treasured memories of past events are
made available, even as the story of the life and teachings of Jesus has been
given by the midwayers of Urantia to their cousins in the flesh.
77:9.10 Midwayers are the skillful ministers who compensate that gap between
the material and spiritual affairs of Urantia which appeared upon the death of
Adam and Eve. They are likewise your elder brethren, comrades in the long
struggle to attain a settled status of light and life on Urantia. The United
Midwayers are a rebellion-tested corps, and they will faithfully enact their
part in planetary evolution until this world attains the goal of the ages,
until that distant day when in fact peace does reign on earth and in truth is
there good will in the hearts of men.
77:9.11 Because of the valuable work performed by these midwayers, we have
concluded that they are a truly essential part of the spirit economy of the
realms. And where rebellion has not marred a planet's affairs, they are of
still greater assistance to the seraphim.
77:9.12 The entire organization of high spirits, angelic hosts, and midway
fellows is enthusiastically devoted to the furtherance of the Paradise plan
for the progressive ascension and perfection attainment of evolutionary
mortals, one of the supernal businesses of the universe -- the superb survival
plan of bringing God down to man and then, by a sublime sort of partnership,
carrying man up to God and on to eternity of service and divinity of
attainment -- alike for mortal and midwayer.
77:9.13 Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
PAPER 78
THE VIOLET RACE AFTER THE DAYS OF ADAM
78:0.1 THE second Eden was the cradle of civilization for almost thirty
thousand years. Here in Mesopotamia the Adamic peoples held forth, sending out
their progeny to the ends of the earth, and latterly, as amalgamated with the
Nodite and Sangik tribes, were known as the Andites. From this region went
those men and women who initiated the doings of historic times, and who have
so enormously accelerated cultural progress on Urantia.
78:0.2 This paper depicts the planetary history of the violet race, beginning
soon after the default of Adam, about 35,000 B.C., and extending down through
its amalgamation with the Nodite and Sangik races, about 15,000 B.C., to form
the Andite peoples and on to its final disappearance from the Mesopotamian
homelands, about 2000 B.C.
1. RACIAL AND CULTURAL DISTRIBUTION
78:1.1 Although the minds and morals of the races were at a low level at the
time of Adam's arrival, physical evolution had gone on quite unaffected by the
exigencies of the Caligastia rebellion. Adam's contribution to the biologic
status of the races, notwithstanding the partial failure of the undertaking,
enormously upstepped the people of Urantia.
78:1.2 Adam and Eve also contributed much that was of value to the social,
moral, and intellectual progress of mankind; civilization was immensely
quickened by the presence of their offspring. But thirty-five thousand years
ago the world at large possessed little culture. Certain centers of
civilization existed here and there, but most of Urantia languished in
savagery. Racial and cultural distribution was as follows:
78:1.3 1. The violet race -- Adamites and Adamsonites. The chief center of
Adamite culture was in the second garden, located in the triangle of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers; this was indeed the cradle of Occidental and
Indian civilizations. The secondary or northern center of the violet race was
the Adamsonite headquarters, situated east of the southern shore of the
Caspian Sea near the Kopet mountains. From these two centers there went forth
to the surrounding lands the culture and life plasm which so immediately
quickened all the races.
78:1.4 2. Pre-Sumerians and other Nodites. There were also present in
Mesopotamia, near the mouth of the rivers, remnants of the ancient culture of
the days of Dalamatia. With the passing millenniums, this group became
thoroughly admixed with the Adamites to the north, but they never entirely
lost their Nodite traditions. Various other Nodite groups that had settled in
the Levant were, in general, absorbed by the later expanding violet race.
78:1.5 3. The Andonites maintained five or six fairly representative
settlements to the north and east of the Adamson headquarters. They were also
scattered throughout Turkestan, while isolated islands of them persisted
throughout Eurasia, especially in mountainous regions. These aborigines still
held the northlands of the Eurasian continent, together with Iceland and
Greenland, but they had long since been driven from the plains of Europe by
the blue man and from the river valleys of farther Asia by the expanding
yellow race.
78:1.6 4. The red man occupied the Americas, having been driven out of Asia
over fifty thousand years before the arrival of Adam.
78:1.7 5. The yellow race. The Chinese peoples were well established in
control of eastern Asia. Their most advanced settlements were situated to the
northwest of modern China in regions bordering on Tibet.
78:1.8 6. The blue race. The blue men were scattered all over Europe, but
their better centers of culture were situated in the then fertile valleys of
the Mediterranean basin and in northwestern Europe. Neanderthal absorption had
greatly retarded the culture of the blue man, but he was otherwise the most
aggressive, adventurous, and exploratory of all the evolutionary peoples of
Eurasia.
78:1.9 7. Pre-Dravidian India. The complex mixture of races in India --
embracing every race on earth, but especially the green, orange, and black --
maintained a culture slightly above that of the outlying regions.
78:1.10 8. The Sahara civilization. The superior elements of the indigo race
had their most progressive settlements in what is now the great Sahara desert.
This indigo-black group carried extensive strains of the submerged orange and
green races.
78:1.11 9. The Mediterranean basin. The most highly blended race outside of
India occupied what is now the Mediterranean basin. Here blue men from the
north and Saharans from the south met and mingled with Nodites and Adamites
from the east.
78:1.12 This was the picture of the world prior to the beginnings of the great
expansions of the violet race, about twenty-five thousand years ago. The hope
of future civilization lay in the second garden between the rivers of
Mesopotamia. Here in southwestern Asia there existed the potential of a great
civilization, the possibility of the spread to the world of the ideas and
ideals which had been salvaged from the days of Dalamatia and the times of
Eden.
78:1.13 Adam and Eve had left behind a limited but potent progeny, and the
celestial observers on Urantia waited anxiously to find out how these
descendants of the erring Material Son and Daughter would acquit themselves.
2. THE ADAMITES IN THE SECOND GARDEN
78:2.1 For thousands of years the sons of Adam labored along the rivers of
Mesopotamia, working out their irrigation and flood-control problems to the
south, perfecting their defenses to the north, and attempting to preserve
their traditions of the glory of the first Eden.
78:2.2 The heroism displayed in the leadership of the second garden
constitutes one of the amazing and inspiring epics of Urantia's history. These
splendid souls never wholly lost sight of the purpose of the Adamic mission,
and therefore did they valiantly fight off the influences of the surrounding
and inferior tribes while they willingly sent forth their choicest sons and
daughters in a steady stream as emissaries to the races of earth. Sometimes
this expansion was depleting to the home culture, but always these superior
peoples would rehabilitate themselves.
78:2.3 The civilization, society, and cultural status of the Adamites were far
above the general level of the evolutionary races of Urantia. Only among the
old settlements of Van and Amadon and the Adamsonites was there a civilization
in anyway comparable. But the civilization of the second Eden was an
artificial structure -- it had not been evolved -- and was therefore doomed to
deteriorate until it reached a natural evolutionary level.
78:2.4 Adam left a great intellectual and spiritual culture behind him, but it
was not advanced in mechanical appliances since every civilization is limited
by available natural resources, inherent genius, and sufficient leisure to
insure inventive fruition. The civilization of the violet race was predicated
on the presence of Adam and on the traditions of the first Eden. After Adam's
death and as these traditions grew dim through the passing millenniums, the
cultural level of the Adamites steadily deteriorated until it reached a state
of reciprocal balance with the status of the surrounding peoples and the
naturally evolving cultural capacities of the violet race.
78:2.5 But the Adamites were a real nation around 19,000 B.C., numbering four
and a half million, and already they had poured forth millions of their
progeny into the surrounding peoples.
3. EARLY EXPANSIONS OF THE ADAMITES
78:3.1 The violet race retained the Edenic traditions of peacefulness for many
millenniums, which explains their long delay in making territorial conquests.
When they suffered from population pressure, instead of making war to secure
more territory, they sent forth their excess inhabitants as teachers to the
other races. The cultural effect of these earlier migrations was not enduring,
but the absorption of the Adamite teachers, traders, and explorers was
biologically invigorating to the surrounding peoples.
78:3.2 Some of the Adamites early journeyed westward to the valley of the
Nile; others penetrated eastward into Asia, but these were a minority. The
mass movement of the later days was extensively northward and thence westward.
It was, in the main, a gradual but unremitting northward push, the greater
number making their way north and then circling westward around the Caspian
Sea into Europe.
78:3.3 About twenty-five thousand years ago many of the purer elements of the
Adamites were well on their northern trek. And as they penetrated northward,
they became less and less Adamic until, by the times of their occupation of
Turkestan, they had become thoroughly admixed with the other races,
particularly the Nodites. Very few of the pure-line violet peoples ever
penetrated far into Europe or Asia.
78:3.4 From about 30,000 to 10,000 B.C. epoch-making racial mixtures were
taking place throughout southwestern Asia. The highland inhabitants of
Turkestan were a virile and vigorous people. To the northwest of India much of
the culture of the days of Van persisted. Still to the north of these
settlements the best of the early Andonites had been preserved. And both of
these superior races of culture and character were absorbed by the northward-
moving Adamites. This amalgamation led to the adoption of many new ideas; it
facilitated the progress of civilization and greatly advanced all phases of
art, science, and social culture.
78:3.5 As the period of the early Adamic migrations ended, about 15,000 B.C.,
there were already more descendants of Adam in Europe and central Asia than
anywhere else in the world, even than in Mesopotamia. The European blue races
had been largely infiltrated. The lands now called Russia and Turkestan were
occupied throughout their southern stretches by a great reservoir of the
Adamites mixed with Nodites, Andonites, and red and yellow Sangiks. Southern
Europe and the Mediterranean fringe were occupied by a mixed race of Andonite
and Sangik peoples -- orange, green, and indigo -- with a sprinkling of the
Adamite stock. Asia Minor and the central-eastern European lands were held by
tribes that were predominantly Andonite.
78:3.6 A blended colored race, about this time greatly reinforced by arrivals
from Mesopotamia, held forth in Egypt and prepared to take over the
disappearing culture of the Euphrates valley. The black peoples were moving
farther south in Africa and, like the red race, were virtually isolated.
78:3.7 The Saharan civilization had been disrupted by drought and that of the
Mediterranean basin by flood. The blue races had, as yet, failed to develop an
advanced culture. The Andonites were still scattered over the Arctic and
central Asian regions. The green and orange races had been exterminated as
such. The indigo race was moving south in Africa, there to begin its slow but
long-continued racial deterioration.
78:3.8 The peoples of India lay stagnant, with a civilization that was
unprogressing; the yellow man was consolidating his holdings in central Asia;
the brown man had not yet begun his civilization on the near-by islands of the
Pacific.
78:3.9 These racial distributions, associated with extensive climatic changes,
set the world stage for the inauguration of the Andite era of Urantia
civilization. These early migrations extended over a period of ten thousand
years, from 25,000 to 15,000 B.C. The later or Andite migrations extended from
about 15,000 to 6000 B.C.
78:3.10 It took so long for the earlier waves of Adamites to pass over Eurasia
that their culture was largely lost in transit. Only the later Andites moved
with sufficient speed to retain the Edenic culture at any great distance from
Mesopotamia.
4. THE ANDITES
78:4.1 The Andite races were the primary blends of the pure-line violet race
and the Nodites plus the evolutionary peoples. In general, Andites should be
thought of as having a far greater percentage of Adamic blood than the modern
races. In the main, the term Andite is used to designate those peoples whose
racial inheritance was from one-eighth to one-sixth violet. Modern Urantians,
even the northern white races, contain much less than this percentage of the
blood of Adam.
78:4.2 The earliest Andite peoples took origin in the regions adjacent to
Mesopotamia more than twenty-five thousand years ago and consisted of a blend
of the Adamites and Nodites. The second garden was surrounded by concentric
circles of diminishing violet blood, and it was on the periphery of this
racial melting pot that the Andite race was born. Later on, when the migrating
Adamites and Nodites entered the then fertile regions of Turkestan, they soon
blended with the superior inhabitants, and the resultant race mixture extended
the Andite type northward.
78:4.3 The Andites were the best all-round human stock to appear on Urantia
since the days of the pure-line violet peoples. They embraced most of the
highest types of the surviving remnants of the Adamite and Nodite races and,
later, some of the best strains of the yellow, blue, and green men.
78:4.4 These early Andites were not Aryan; they were pre-Aryan. They were not
white; they were pre-white. They were neither an Occidental nor an Oriental
people. But it is Andite inheritance that gives to the polyglot mixture of the
so-called white races that generalized homogeneity which has been called
Caucasoid.
78:4.5 The purer strains of the violet race had retained the Adamic tradition
of peace-seeking, which explains why the earlier race movements had been more
in the nature of peaceful migrations. But as the Adamites united with the
Nodite stocks, who were by this time a belligerent race, their Andite
descendants became, for their day and age, the most skillful and sagacious
militarists ever to live on Urantia. Thenceforth the movements of the
Mesopotamians grew increasingly military in character and became more akin to
actual conquests.
78:4.6 These Andites were adventurous; they had roving dispositions. An
increase of either Sangik or Andonite stock tended to stabilize them. But even
so, their later descendants never stopped until they had circumnavigated the
globe and discovered the last remote continent.
5. THE ANDITE MIGRATIONS
78:5.1 For twenty thousand years the culture of the second garden persisted,
but it experienced a steady decline until about 15,000 B.C., when the
regeneration of the Sethite priesthood and the leadership of Amosad
inaugurated a brilliant era. The massive waves of civilization which later
spread over Eurasia immediately followed the great renaissance of the Garden
consequent upon the extensive union of the Adamites with the surrounding mixed
Nodites to form the Andites.
78:5.2 These Andites inaugurated new advances throughout Eurasia and North
Africa. From Mesopotamia through Sinkiang the Andite culture was dominant, and
the steady migration toward Europe was continuously offset by new arrivals
from Mesopotamia. But it is hardly correct to speak of the Andites as a race
in Mesopotamia proper until near the beginning of the terminal migrations of
the mixed descendants of Adam. By this time even the races in the second
garden had become so blended that they could no longer be considered Adamites.
78:5.3 The civilization of Turkestan was constantly being revived and
refreshed by the newcomers from Mesopotamia, especially by the later Andite
cavalrymen. The so-called Aryan mother tongue was in process of formation in
the highlands of Turkestan; it was a blend of the Andonic dialect of that
region with the language of the Adamsonites and later Andites. Many modern
languages are derived from this early speech of these central Asian tribes who
conquered Europe, India, and the upper stretches of the Mesopotamian plains.
This ancient language gave the Occidental tongues all of that similarity which
is called Aryan.
78:5.4 By 12,000 B.C. three quarters of the Andite stock of the world was
resident in northern and eastern Europe, and when the later and final exodus
from Mesopotamia took place, sixty-five per cent of these last waves of
emigration entered Europe.
78:5.5 The Andites not only migrated to Europe but to northern China and
India, while many groups penetrated to the ends of the earth as missionaries,
teachers, and traders. They contributed considerably to the northern groups of
the Saharan Sangik peoples. But only a few teachers and traders ever
penetrated farther south in Africa than the headwaters of the Nile. Later on,
mixed Andites and Egyptians followed down both the east and west coasts of
Africa well below the equator, but they did not reach Madagascar.
78:5.6 These Andites were the so-called Dravidian and later Aryan conquerors
of India; and their presence in central Asia greatly upstepped the ancestors
of the Turanians. Many of this race journeyed to China by way of both Sinkiang
and Tibet and added desirable qualities to the later Chinese stocks. From time
to time small groups made their way into Japan, Formosa, the East Indies, and
southern China, though very few entered southern China by the coastal route.
78:5.7 One hundred and thirty-two of this race, embarking in a fleet of small
boats from Japan, eventually reached South America and by intermarriage with
the natives of the Andes established the ancestry of the later rulers of the
Incas. They crossed the Pacific by easy stages, tarrying on the many islands
they found along the way. The islands of the Polynesian group were both more
numerous and larger then than now, and these Andite sailors, together with
some who followed them, biologically modified the native groups in transit.
Many flourishing centers of civilization grew up on these now submerged lands
as a result of Andite penetration. Easter Island was long a religious and
administrative center of one of these lost groups. But of the Andites who
navigated the Pacific of long ago none but the one hundred and thirty-two ever
reached the mainland of the Americas.
78:5.8 The migratory conquests of the Andites continued on down to their final
dispersions, from 8000 to 6000 B.C. As they poured out of Mesopotamia, they
continuously depleted the biologic reserves of their homelands while markedly
strengthening the surrounding peoples. And to every nation to which they
journeyed, they contributed humor, art, adventure, music, and manufacture.
They were skillful domesticators of animals and expert agriculturists. For the
time being, at least, their presence usually improved the religious beliefs
and moral practices of the older races. And so the culture of Mesopotamia
quietly spread out over Europe, India, China, northern Africa, and the Pacific
Islands.
6. THE LAST ANDITE DISPERSIONS
78:6.1 The last three waves of Andites poured out of Mesopotamia between 8000
and 6000 B.C. These three great waves of culture were forced out of
Mesopotamia by the pressure of the hill tribes to the east and the harassment
of the plainsmen of the west. The inhabitants of the Euphrates valley and
adjacent territory went forth in their final exodus in several directions:
78:6.2 Sixty-five per cent entered Europe by the Caspian Sea route to conquer
and amalgamate with the newly appearing white races -- the blend of the blue
men and the earlier Andites.
78:6.3 Ten per cent, including a large group of the Sethite priests, moved
eastward through the Elamite highlands to the Iranian plateau and Turkestan.
Many of their descendants were later driven into India with their Aryan
brethren from the regions to the north.
78:6.4 Ten per cent of the Mesopotamians turned eastward in their northern
trek, entering Sinkiang, where they blended with the Andite-yellow
inhabitants. The majority of the able offspring of this racial union later
entered China and contributed much to the immediate improvement of the
northern division of the yellow race.
78:6.5 Ten per cent of these fleeing Andites made their way across Arabia and
entered Egypt.
78:6.6 Five per cent of the Andites, the very superior culture of the coastal
district about the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates who had kept themselves
free from intermarriage with the inferior neighboring tribesmen, refused to
leave their homes. This group represented the survival of many superior Nodite
and Adamite strains.
78:6.7 The Andites had almost entirely evacuated this region by 6000 B.C.,
though their descendants, largely mixed with the surrounding Sangik races and
the Andonites of Asia Minor, were there to give battle to the northern and
eastern invaders at a much later date.
78:6.8 The cultural age of the second garden was terminated by the increasing
infiltration of the surrounding inferior stocks. Civilization moved westward
to the Nile and the Mediterranean islands, where it continued to thrive and
advance long after its fountainhead in Mesopotamia had deteriorated. And this
unchecked influx of inferior peoples prepared the way for the later conquest
of all Mesopotamia by the northern barbarians who drove out the residual
strains of ability. Even in later years the cultured residue still resented
the presence of these ignorant and uncouth invaders.
7. THE FLOODS IN MESOPOTAMIA
78:7.1 The river dwellers were accustomed to rivers overflowing their banks at
certain seasons; these periodic floods were annual events in their lives. But
new perils threatened the valley of Mesopotamia as a result of progressive
geologic changes to the north.
78:7.2 For thousands of years after the submergence of the first Eden the
mountains about the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and those to the
northwest and northeast of Mesopotamia continued to rise. This elevation of
the highlands was greatly accelerated about 5000 B.C., and this, together with
greatly increased snowfall on the northern mountains, caused unprecedented
floods each spring throughout the Euphrates valley. These spring floods grew
increasingly worse so that eventually the inhabitants of the river regions
were driven to the eastern highlands. For almost a thousand years scores of
cities were practically deserted because of these extensive deluges.
78:7.3 Almost five thousand years later, as the Hebrew priests in Babylonian
captivity sought to trace the Jewish people back to Adam, they found great
difficulty in piecing the story together; and it occurred to one of them to
abandon the effort, to let the whole world drown in its wickedness at the time
of Noah's flood, and thus to be in a better position to trace Abraham right
back to one of the three surviving sons of Noah.
78:7.4 The traditions of a time when water covered the whole of the earth's
surface are universal. Many races harbor the story of a world-wide flood some
time during past ages. The Biblical story of Noah, the ark, and the flood is
an invention of the Hebrew priesthood during the Babylonian captivity. There
has never been a universal flood since life was established on Urantia. The
only time the surface of the earth was completely covered by water was during
those Archeozoic ages before the land had begun to appear.
78:7.5 But Noah really lived; he was a wine maker of Aram, a river settlement
near Erech. He kept a written record of the days of the river's rise from year
to year. He brought much ridicule upon himself by going up and down the river
valley advocating that all houses be built of wood, boat fashion, and that the
family animals be put on board each night as the flood season approached. He
would go to the neighboring river settlements every year and warn them that in
so many days the floods would come. Finally a year came in which the annual
floods were greatly augmented by unusually heavy rainfall so that the sudden
rise of the waters wiped out the entire village; only Noah and his immediate
family were saved in their houseboat.
78:7.6 These floods completed the disruption of Andite civilization. With the
ending of this period of deluge, the second garden was no more. Only in the
south and among the Sumerians did any trace of the former glory remain.
78:7.7 The remnants of this, one of the oldest civilizations, are to be found
in these regions of Mesopotamia and to the northeast and northwest. But still
older vestiges of the days of Dalamatia exist under the waters of the Persian
Gulf, and the first Eden lies submerged under the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea.
8. THE SUMERIANS -- LAST OF THE ANDITES
78:8.1 When the last Andite dispersion broke the biologic backbone of
Mesopotamian civilization, a small minority of this superior race remained in
their homeland near the mouths of the rivers. These were the Sumerians, and by
6000 B.C. they had become largely Andite in extraction, though their culture
was more exclusively Nodite in character, and they clung to the ancient
traditions of Dalamatia. Nonetheless, these Sumerians of the coastal regions
were the last of the Andites in Mesopotamia. But the races of Mesopotamia were
already thoroughly blended by this late date, as is evidenced by the skull
types found in the graves of this era.
78:8.2 It was during the floodtimes that Susa so greatly prospered. The first
and lower city was inundated so that the second or higher town succeeded the
lower as the headquarters for the peculiar artcrafts of that day. With the
later diminution of these floods, Ur became the center of the pottery
industry. About seven thousand years ago Ur was on the Persian Gulf, the river
deposits having since built up the land to its present limits. These
settlements suffered less from the floods because of better controlling works
and the widening mouths of the rivers.
78:8.3 The peaceful grain growers of the Euphrates and Tigris valleys had long
been harassed by the raids of the barbarians of Turkestan and the Iranian
plateau. But now a concerted invasion of the Euphrates valley was brought
about by the increasing drought of the highland pastures. And this invasion
was all the more serious because these surrounding herdsmen and hunters
possessed large numbers of tamed horses. It was the possession of horses which
gave them a tremendous military advantage over their rich neighbors to the
south. In a short time they overran all Mesopotamia, driving forth the last
waves of culture which spread out over all of Europe, western Asia, and
northern Africa.
78:8.4 These conquerors of Mesopotamia carried in their ranks many of the
better Andite strains of the mixed northern races of Turkestan, including some
of the Adamson stock. These less advanced but more vigorous tribes from the
north quickly and willingly assimilated the residue of the civilization of
Mesopotamia and presently developed into those mixed peoples found in the
Euphrates valley at the beginning of historic annals. They quickly revived
many phases of the passing civilization of Mesopotamia, adopting the arts of
the valley tribes and much of the culture of the Sumerians. They even sought
to build a third tower of Babel and later adopted the term as their national
name.
78:8.5 When these barbarian cavalrymen from the northeast overran the whole
Euphrates valley, they did not conquer the remnants of the Andites who dwelt
about the mouth of the river on the Persian Gulf. These Sumerians were able to
defend themselves because of superior intelligence, better weapons, and their
extensive system of military canals, which were an adjunct to their irrigation
scheme of interconnecting pools. They were a united people because they had a
uniform group religion. They were thus able to maintain their racial and
national integrity long after their neighbors to the northwest were broken up
into isolated city-states. No one of these city groups was able to overcome
the united Sumerians.
78:8.6 And the invaders from the north soon learned to trust and prize these
peace-loving Sumerians as able teachers and administrators. They were greatly
respected and sought after as teachers of art and industry, as directors of
commerce, and as civil rulers by all peoples to the north and from Egypt in
the west to India in the east.
78:8.7 After the breakup of the early Sumerian confederation the later city-
states were ruled by the apostate descendants of the Sethite priests. Only
when these priests made conquests of the neighboring cities did they call
themselves kings. The later city kings failed to form powerful confederations
before the days of Sargon because of deity jealousy. Each city believed its
municipal god to be superior to all other gods, and therefore they refused to
subordinate themselves to a common leader.
78:8.8 The end of this long period of the weak rule of the city priests was
terminated by Sargon, the priest of Kish, who proclaimed himself king and
started out on the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and adjoining lands.
And for the time, this ended the city-states, priest-ruled and priest-ridden,
each city having its own municipal god and its own ceremonial practices.
78:8.9 After the breakup of this Kish confederation there ensued a long period
of constant warfare between these valley cities for supremacy. And the
rulership variously shifted between Sumer, Akkad, Kish, Erech, Ur, and Susa.
78:8.10 About 2500 B.C. the Sumerians suffered severe reverses at the hands of
the northern Suites and Guites. Lagash, the Sumerian capital built on flood
mounds, fell. Erech held out for thirty years after the fall of Akkad. By the
time of the establishment of the rule of Hammurabi the Sumerians had become
absorbed into the ranks of the northern Semites, and the Mesopotamian Andites
passed from the pages of history.
78:8.11 From 2500 to 2000 B.C. the nomads were on a rampage from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. The Nerites constituted the final eruption of the Caspian
group of the Mesopotamian descendants of the blended Andonite and Andite
races. What the barbarians failed to do to effect the ruination of
Mesopotamia, subsequent climatic changes succeeded in accomplishing.
78:8.12 And this is the story of the violet race after the days of Adam and of
the fate of their homeland between the Tigris and Euphrates. Their ancient
civilization finally fell due to the emigration of superior peoples and the
immigration of their inferior neighbors. But long before the barbarian
cavalrymen conquered the valley, much of the Garden culture had spread to
Asia, Africa, and Europe, there to produce the ferments which have resulted in
the twentieth-century civilization of Urantia.
78:8.13 Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
PAPER 79
ANDITE EXPANSION IN THE ORIENT
79:0.1 ASIA is the homeland of the human race. It was on a southern peninsula
of this continent that Andon and Fonta were born; in the highlands of what is
now Afghanistan, their descendant Badonan founded a primitive center of
culture that persisted for over one-half million years. Here at this eastern
focus of the human race the Sangik peoples differentiated from the Andonic
stock, and Asia was their first home, their first hunting ground, their first
battlefield. Southwestern Asia witnessed the successive civilizations of
Dalamatians, Nodites, Adamites, and Andites, and from these regions the
potentials of modern civilization spread to the world.
1. THE ANDITES OF TURKESTAN
79:1.1 For over twenty-five thousand years, on down to nearly 2000 B.C., the
heart of Eurasia was predominantly, though diminishingly, Andite. In the
lowlands of Turkestan the Andites made the westward turning around the inland
lakes into Europe, while from the highlands of this region they infiltrated
eastward. Eastern Turkestan (Sinkiang) and, to a lesser extent, Tibet were the
ancient gateways through which these peoples of Mesopotamia penetrated the
mountains to the northern lands of the yellow men. The Andite infiltration of
India proceeded from the Turkestan highlands into the Punjab and from the
Iranian grazing lands through Baluchistan. These earlier migrations were in no
sense conquests; they were, rather, the continual drifting of the Andite
tribes into western India and China.
79:1.2 For almost fifteen thousand years centers of mixed Andite culture
persisted in the basin of the Tarim River in Sinkiang and to the south in the
highland regions of Tibet, where the Andites and Andonites had extensively
mingled. The Tarim valley was the easternmost outpost of the true Andite
culture. Here they built their settlements and entered into trade relations
with the progressive Chinese to the east and with the Andonites to the north.
In those days the Tarim region was a fertile land; the rainfall was plentiful.
To the east the Gobi was an open grassland where the herders were gradually
turning to agriculture. This civilization perished when the rain winds shifted
to the southeast, but in its day it rivaled Mesopotamia itself.
79:1.3 By 8000 B.C. the slowly increasing aridity of the highland regions of
central Asia began to drive the Andites to the river bottoms and the
seashores. This increasing drought not only drove them to the valleys of the
Nile, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers, but it produced a new development
in Andite civilization. A new class of men, the traders, began to appear in
large numbers.
79:1.4 When climatic conditions made hunting unprofitable for the migrating
Andites, they did not follow the evolutionary course of the older races by
becoming herders. Commerce and urban life made their appearance. From Egypt
through Mesopotamia and Turkestan to the rivers of China and India, the more
highly civilized tribes began to assemble in cities devoted to manufacture and
trade. Adonia became the central Asian commercial metropolis, being located
near the present city of Ashkhabad. Commerce in stone, metal, wood, and
pottery was accelerated on both land and water.
79:1.5 But ever-increasing drought gradually brought about the great Andite
exodus from the lands south and east of the Caspian Sea. The tide of migration
began to veer from northward to southward, and the Babylonian cavalrymen began
to push into Mesopotamia.
79:1.6 Increasing aridity in central Asia further operated to reduce
population and to render these people less warlike; and when the diminishing
rainfall to the north forced the nomadic Andonites southward, there was a
tremendous exodus of Andites from Turkestan. This is the terminal movement of
the so-called Aryans into the Levant and India. It culminated that long
dispersal of the mixed descendants of Adam during which every Asiatic and most
of the island peoples of the Pacific were to some extent improved by these
superior races.
79:1.7 Thus, while they dispersed over the Eastern Hemisphere, the Andites
were dispossessed of their homelands in Mesopotamia and Turkestan, for it was
this extensive southward movement of Andonites that diluted the Andites in
central Asia nearly to the vanishing point.
79:1.8 But even in the twentieth century after Christ there are traces of
Andite blood among the Turanian and Tibetan peoples, as is witnessed by the
blond types occasionally found in these regions. The early Chinese annals
record the presence of the red-haired nomads to the north of the peaceful
settlements of the Yellow River, and there still remain paintings which
faithfully record the presence of both the blond-Andite and the brunet-
Mongolian types in the Tarim basin of long ago.
79:1.9 The last great manifestation of the submerged military genius of the
central Asiatic Andites was in A.D. 1200, when the Mongols under Genghis Khan
began the conquest of the greater portion of the Asiatic continent. And like
the Andites of old, these warriors proclaimed the existence of "one God in
heaven." The early breakup of their empire long delayed cultural intercourse
between Occident and Orient and greatly handicapped the growth of the
monotheistic concept in Asia.
2. THE ANDITE CONQUEST OF INDIA
79:2.1 India is the only locality where all the Urantia races were blended,
the Andite invasion adding the last stock. In the highlands northwest of India
the Sangik races came into existence, and without exception members of each
penetrated the subcontinent of India in their early days, leaving behind them
the most heterogeneous race mixture ever to exist on Urantia. Ancient India
acted as a catch basin for the migrating races. The base of the peninsula was
formerly somewhat narrower than now, much of the deltas of the Ganges and
Indus being the work of the last fifty thousand years.
79:2.2 The earliest race mixtures in India were a blending of the migrating
red and yellow races with the aboriginal Andonites. This group was later
weakened by absorbing the greater portion of the extinct eastern green peoples
as well as large numbers of the orange race, was slightly improved through
limited admixture with the blue man, but suffered exceedingly through
assimilation of large numbers of the indigo race. But the so-called aborigines
of India are hardly representative of these early people; they are rather the
most inferior southern and eastern fringe, which was never fully absorbed by
either the early Andites or their later appearing Aryan cousins.
79:2.3 By 20,000 B.C. the population of western India had already become
tinged with the Adamic blood, and never in the history of Urantia did any one
people combine so many different races. But it was unfortunate that the
secondary Sangik strains predominated, and it was a real calamity that both
the blue and the red man were so largely missing from this racial melting pot
of long ago; more of the primary Sangik strains would have contributed very
much toward the enhancement of what might have been an even greater
civilization. As it developed, the red man was destroying himself in the
Americas, the blue man was disporting himself in Europe, and the early
descendants of Adam (and most of the later ones) exhibited little desire to
admix with the darker colored peoples, whether in India, Africa, or elsewhere.
79:2.4 About 15,000 B.C. increasing population pressure throughout Turkestan
and Iran occasioned the first really extensive Andite movement toward India.
For over fifteen centuries these superior peoples poured in through the
highlands of Baluchistan, spreading out over the valleys of the Indus and
Ganges and slowly moving southward into the Deccan. This Andite pressure from
the northwest drove many of the southern and eastern inferiors into Burma and
southern China but not sufficiently to save the invaders from racial
obliteration.
79:2.5 The failure of India to achieve the hegemony of Eurasia was largely a
matter of topography; population pressure from the north only crowded the
majority of the people southward into the decreasing territory of the Deccan,
surrounded on all sides by the sea. Had there been adjacent lands for
emigration, then would the inferiors have been crowded out in all directions,
and the superior stocks would have achieved a higher civilization.
79:2.6 As it was, these earlier Andite conquerors made a desperate attempt to
preserve their identity and stem the tide of racial engulfment by the
establishment of rigid restrictions regarding intermarriage. Nonetheless, the
Andites had become submerged by 10,000 B.C., but the whole mass of the people
had been markedly improved by this absorption.
79:2.7 Race mixture is always advantageous in that it favors versatility of
culture and makes for a progressive civilization, but if the inferior elements
of racial stocks predominate, such achievements will be short-lived. A
polyglot culture can be preserved only if the superior stocks reproduce
themselves in a safe margin over the inferior. Unrestrained multiplication of
inferiors, with decreasing reproduction of superiors, is unfailingly suicidal
of cultural civilization.
79:2.8 Had the Andite conquerors been in numbers three times what they were,
or had they driven out or destroyed the least desirable third of the mixed
orange-green-indigo inhabitants, then would India have become one of the
world's leading centers of cultural civilization and undoubtedly would have
attracted more of the later waves of Mesopotamians that flowed into Turkestan
and thence northward to Europe.
3. DRAVIDIAN INDIA
79:3.1 The blending of the Andite conquerors of India with the native stock
eventually resulted in that mixed people which has been called Dravidian. The
earlier and purer Dravidians possessed a great capacity for cultural
achievement, which was continuously weakened as their Andite inheritance
became progressively attenuated. And this is what doomed the budding
civilization of India almost twelve thousand years ago. But the infusion of
even this small amount of the blood of Adam produced a marked acceleration in
social development. This composite stock immediately produced the most
versatile civilization then on earth.
79:3.2 Not long after conquering India, the Dravidian Andites lost their
racial and cultural contact with Mesopotamia, but the later opening up of the
sea lanes and the caravan routes re-established these connections; and at no
time within the last ten thousand years has India ever been entirely out of
touch with Mesopotamia on the west and China to the east, although the
mountain barriers greatly favored western intercourse.
79:3.3 The superior culture and religious leanings of the peoples of India
date from the early times of Dravidian domination and are due, in part, to the
fact that so many of the Sethite priesthood entered India, both in the earlier
Andite and in the later Aryan invasions. The thread of monotheism running
through the religious history of India thus stems from the teachings of the
Adamites in the second garden.
79:3.4 As early as 16,000 B.C. a company of one hundred Sethite priests
entered India and very nearly achieved the religious conquest of the western
half of that polyglot people. But their religion did not persist. Within five
thousand years their doctrines of the Paradise Trinity had degenerated into
the triune symbol of the fire god.
79:3.5 But for more than seven thousand years, down to the end of the Andite
migrations, the religious status of the inhabitants of India was far above
that of the world at large. During these times India bid fair to produce the
leading cultural, religious, philosophic, and commerical civilization of the
world. And but for the complete submergence of the Andites by the peoples of
the south, this destiny would probably have been realized.
79:3.6 The Dravidian centers of culture were located in the river valleys,
principally of the Indus and Ganges, and in the Deccan along the three great
rivers flowing through the Eastern Ghats to the sea. The settlements along the
seacoast of the Western Ghats owed their prominence to maritime relationships
with Sumeria.
79:3.7 The Dravidians were among the earliest peoples to build cities and to
engage in an extensive export and import business, both by land and sea. By
7000 B.C. camel trains were making regular trips to distant Mesopotamia;
Dravidian shipping was pushing coastwise across the Arabian Sea to the
Sumerian cities of the Persian Gulf and was venturing on the waters of the Bay
of Bengal as far as the East Indies. An alphabet, together with the art of
writing, was imported from Sumeria by these seafarers and merchants.
79:3.8 These commercial relationships greatly contributed to the further
diversification of a cosmopolitan culture, resulting in the early appearance
of many of the refinements and even luxuries of urban life. When the later
appearing Aryans entered India, they did not recognize in the Dravidians their
Andite cousins submerged in the Sangik races, but they did find a well-
advanced civilization. Despite biologic limitations, the Dravidians founded a
superior civilization. It was well diffused throughout all India and has
survived on down to modern times in the Deccan.
4. THE ARYAN INVASION OF INDIA
79:4.1 The second Andite penetration of India was the Aryan invasion during a
period of almost five hundred years in the middle of the third millennium
before Christ. This migration marked the terminal exodus of the Andites from
their homelands in Turkestan.
79:4.2 The early Aryan centers were scattered over the northern half of India,
notably in the northwest. These invaders never completed the conquest of the
country and subsequently met their undoing in this neglect since their lesser
numbers made them vulnerable to absorption by the Dravidians of the south, who
subsequently overran the entire peninsula except the Himalayan provinces.
79:4.3 The Aryans made very little racial impression on India except in the
northern provinces. In the Deccan their influence was cultural and religious
more than racial. The greater persistence of the so-called Aryan blood in
northern India is not only due to their presence in these regions in greater
numbers but also because they were reinforced by later conquerors, traders,
and missionaries. Right on down to the first century before Christ there was a
continuous infiltration of Aryan blood into the Punjab, the last influx being
attendant upon the campaigns of the Hellenistic peoples.
79:4.4 On the Gangetic plain Aryan and Dravidian eventually mingled to produce
a high culture, and this center was later reinforced by contributions from the
northeast, coming from China.
79:4.5 In India many types of social organizations flourished from time to
time, from the semidemocratic systems of the Aryans to despotic and monarchial
forms of government. But the most characteristic feature of society was the
persistence of the great social castes that were instituted by the Aryans in
an effort to perpetuate racial identity. This elaborate caste system has been
preserved on down to the present time.
79:4.6 Of the four great castes, all but the first were established in the
futile effort to prevent racial amalgamation of the Aryan conquerors with
their inferior subjects. But the premier caste, the teacher-priests, stems
from the Sethites; the Brahmans of the twentieth century after Christ are the
lineal cultural descendants of the priests of the second garden, albeit their
teachings differ greatly from those of their illustrious predecessors.
79:4.7 When the Aryans entered India, they brought with them their concepts of
Deity as they had been preserved in the lingering traditions of the religion
of the second garden. But the Brahman priests were never able to withstand the
pagan momentum built up by the sudden contact with the inferior religions of
the Deccan after the racial obliteration of the Aryans. Thus the vast majority
of the population fell into the bondage of the enslaving superstitions of
inferior religions; and so it was that India failed to produce the high
civilization which had been foreshadowed in earlier times.
79:4.8 The spiritual awakening of the sixth century before Christ did not
persist in India, having died out even before the Mohammedan invasion. But
someday a greater Gautama may arise to lead all India in the search for the
living God, and then the world will observe the fruition of the cultural
potentialities of a versatile people so long comatose under the benumbing
influence of an unprogressing spiritual vision.
79:4.9 Culture does rest on a biologic foundation, but caste alone could not
perpetuate the Aryan culture, for religion, true religion, is the
indispensable source of that higher energy which drives men to establish a
superior civilization based on human brotherhood.
5. RED MAN AND YELLOW MAN
79:5.1 While the story of India is that of Andite conquest and eventual
submergence in the older evolutionary peoples, the narrative of eastern Asia
is more properly that of the primary Sangiks, particularly the red man and the
yellow man. These two races largely escaped that admixture with the debased
Neanderthal strain which so greatly retarded the blue man in Europe, thus
preserving the superior potential of the primary Sangik type.
79:5.2 While the early Neanderthalers were spread out over the entire breadth
of Eurasia, the eastern wing was the more contaminated with debased animal
strains. These subhuman types were pushed south by the fifth glacier, the same
ice sheet which so long blocked Sangik migration into eastern Asia. And when
the red man moved northeast around the highlands of India, he found
northeastern Asia free from these subhuman types. The tribal organization of
the red races was formed earlier than that of any other peoples, and they were
the first to migrate from the central Asian focus of the Sangiks. The inferior
Neanderthal strains were destroyed or driven off the mainland by the later
migrating yellow tribes. But the red man had reigned supreme in eastern Asia
for almost one hundred thousand years before the yellow tribes arrived.
79:5.3 More than three hundred thousand years ago the main body of the yellow
race entered China from the south as coastwise migrants. Each millennium they
penetrated farther and farther inland, but they did not make contact with
their migrating Tibetan brethren until comparatively recent times.
79:5.4 Growing population pressure caused the northward-moving yellow race to
begin to push into the hunting grounds of the red man. This encroachment,
coupled with natural racial antagonism, culminated in increasing hostilities,
and thus began the crucial struggle for the fertile lands of farther Asia.
79:5.5 The story of this agelong contest between the red and yellow races is
an epic of Urantia history. For over two hundred thousand years these two
superior races waged bitter and unremitting warfare. In the earlier struggles
the red men were generally successful, their raiding parties spreading havoc
among the yellow settlements. But the yellow man was an apt pupil in the art
of warfare, and he early manifested a marked ability to live peaceably with
his compatriots; the Chinese were the first to learn that in union there is
strength. The red tribes continued their internecine conflicts, and presently
they began to suffer repeated defeats at the aggressive hands of the
relentless Chinese, who continued their inexorable march northward.
79:5.6 One hundred thousand years ago the decimated tribes of the red race
were fighting with their backs to the retreating ice of the last glacier, and
when the land passage to the west, over the Bering isthmus, became passable,
these tribes were not slow in forsaking the inhospitable shores of the Asiatic
continent. It is eighty-five thousand years since the last of the pure red men
departed from Asia, but the long struggle left its genetic imprint upon the
victorious yellow race. The northern Chinese peoples, together with the
Andonite Siberians, assimilated much of the red stock and were in considerable
measure benefited thereby.
79:5.7 The North American Indians never came in contact with even the Andite
offspring of Adam and Eve, having been dispossessed of their Asiatic homelands
some fifty thousand years before the coming of Adam. During the age of Andite
migrations the pure red strains were spreading out over North America as
nomadic tribes, hunters who practiced agriculture to a small extent. These
races and cultural groups remained almost completely isolated from the
remainder of the world from their arrival in the Americas down to the end of
the first millennium of the Christian era, when they were discovered by the
white races of Europe. Up to that time the Eskimos were the nearest to white
men the northern tribes of red men had ever seen.
79:5.8 The red and the yellow races are the only human stocks that ever
achieved a high degree of civilization apart from the influences of the
Andites. The oldest Amerindian culture was the Onamonalonton center in
California, but this had long since vanished by 35,000 B.C. In Mexico, Central
America, and in the mountains of South America the later and more enduring
civilizations were founded by a race predominantly red but containing a
considerable admixture of the yellow, orange, and blue.
79:5.9 These civilizations were evolutionary products of the Sangiks,
notwithstanding that traces of Andite blood reached Peru. Excepting the
Eskimos in North America and a few Polynesian Andites in South America, the
peoples of the Western Hemisphere had no contact with the rest of the world
until the end of the first millennium after Christ. In the original
Melchizedek plan for the improvement of the Urantia races it had been
stipulated that one million of the pure-line descendants of Adam should go to
upstep the red men of the Americas.
6. DAWN OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION
79:6.1 Sometime after driving the red man across to North America, the
expanding Chinese cleared the Andonites from the river valleys of eastern
Asia, pushing them north into Siberia and west into Turkestan, where they were
soon to come in contact with the superior culture of the Andites.
79:6.2 In Burma and the peninsula of Indo-China the cultures of India and
China mixed and blended to produce the successive civilizations of those
regions. Here the vanished green race has persisted in larger proportion than
anywhere else in the world.
79:6.3 Many different races occupied the islands of the Pacific. In general,
the southern and then more extensive islands were occupied by peoples carrying
a heavy percentage of green and indigo blood. The northern islands were held
by Andonites and, later on, by races embracing large proportions of the yellow
and red stocks. The ancestors of the Japanese people were not driven off the
mainland until 12,000 B.C., when they were dislodged by a powerful southern-
coastwise thrust of the northern Chinese tribes. Their final exodus was not so
much due to population pressure as to the initiative of a chieftain whom they
came to regard as a divine personage.
79:6.4 Like the peoples of India and the Levant, victorious tribes of the
yellow man established their earliest centers along the coast and up the
rivers. The coastal settlements fared poorly in later years as the increasing
floods and the shifting courses of the rivers made the lowland cities
untenable.
79:6.5 Twenty thousand years ago the ancestors of the Chinese had built up a
dozen strong centers of primitive culture and learning, especially along the
Yellow River and the Yangtze. And now these centers began to be reinforced by
the arrival of a steady stream of superior blended peoples from Sinkiang and
Tibet. The migration from Tibet to the Yangtze valley was not so extensive as
in the north, neither were the Tibetan centers so advanced as those of the
Tarim basin. But both movements carried a certain amount of Andite blood
eastward to the river settlements.
79:6.6 The superiority of the ancient yellow race was due to four great
factors:
79:6.7 1. Genetic. Unlike their blue cousins in Europe, both the red and
yellow races had largely escaped mixture with debased human stocks. The
northern Chinese, already strengthened by small amounts of the superior red
and Andonic strains, were soon to benefit by a considerable influx of Andite
blood. The southern Chinese did not fare so well in this regard, and they had
long suffered from absorption of the green race, while later on they were to
be further weakened by the infiltration of the swarms of inferior peoples
crowded out of India by the Dravidian-Andite invasion. And today in China
there is a definite difference between the northern and southern races.
79:6.8 2. Social. The yellow race early learned the value of peace among
themselves. Their internal peaceableness so contributed to population increase
as to insure the spread of their civilization among many millions. From 25,000
to 5000 B.C. the highest mass civilization on Urantia was in central and
northern China. The yellow man was first to achieve a racial solidarity -- the
first to attain a large-scale cultural, social, and political civilization.
79:6.9 The Chinese of 15,000 B.C. were aggressive militarists; they had not
been weakened by an overreverence for the past, and numbering less than twelve
million, they formed a compact body speaking a common language. During this
age they built up a real nation, much more united and homogeneous than their
political unions of historic times.
79:6.10 3. Spiritual. During the age of Andite migrations the Chinese were
among the more spiritual peoples of earth. Long adherence to the worship of
the One Truth proclaimed by Singlangton kept them ahead of most of the other
races. The stimulus of a progressive and advanced religion is often a decisive
factor in cultural development; as India languished, so China forged ahead
under the invigorating stimulus of a religion in which truth was enshrined as
the supreme Deity.
79:6.11 This worship of truth was provocative of research and fearless
exploration of the laws of nature and the potentials of mankind. The Chinese
of even six thousand years ago were still keen students and aggressive in
their pursuit of truth.
79:6.12 4. Geographic. China is protected by the mountains to the west and the
Pacific to the east. Only in the north is the way open to attack, and from the
days of the red man to the coming of the later descendants of the Andites, the
north was not occupied by any aggressive race.
79:6.13 And but for the mountain barriers and the later decline in spiritual
culture, the yellow race undoubtedly would have attracted to itself the larger
part of the Andite migrations from Turkestan and unquestionably would have
quickly dominated world civilization.
7. THE ANDITES ENTER CHINA
79:7.1 About fifteen thousand years ago the Andites, in considerable numbers,
were traversing the pass of Ti Tao and spreading out over the upper valley of
the Yellow River among the Chinese settlements of Kansu. Presently they
penetrated eastward to Honan, where the most progressive settlements were
situated. This infiltration from the west was about half Andonite and half
Andite.
79:7.2 The northern centers of culture along the Yellow River had always been
more progressive than the southern settlements on the Yangtze. Within a few
thousand years after the arrival of even the small numbers of these superior
mortals, the settlements along the Yellow River had forged ahead of the
Yangtze villages and had achieved an advanced position over their brethren in
the south which has ever since been maintained.
79:7.3 It was not that there were so many of the Andites, nor that their
culture was so superior, but amalgamation with them produced a more versatile
stock. The northern Chinese received just enough of the Andite strain to
mildly stimulate their innately able minds but not enough to fire them with
the restless, exploratory curiosity so characteristic of the northern white
races. This more limited infusion of Andite inheritance was less disturbing to
the innate stability of the Sangik type.
79:7.4 The later waves of Andites brought with them certain of the cultural
advances of Mesopotamia; this is especially true of the last waves of
migration from the west. They greatly improved the economic and educational
practices of the northern Chinese; and while their influence upon the
religious culture of the yellow race was short-lived, their later descendants
contributed much to a subsequent spiritual awakening. But the Andite
traditions of the beauty of Eden and Dalamatia did influence Chinese
traditions; early Chinese legends place "the land of the gods" in the west.
79:7.5 The Chinese people did not begin to build cities and engage in
manufacture until after 10,000 B.C., subsequent to the climatic changes in
Turkestan and the arrival of the later Andite immigrants. The infusion of this
new blood did not add so much to the civilization of the yellow man as it
stimulated the further and rapid development of the latent tendencies of the
superior Chinese stocks. From Honan to Shensi the potentials of an advanced
civilization were coming to fruit. Metalworking and all the arts of
manufacture date from these days.
79:7.6 The similarities between certain of the early Chinese and Mesopotamian
methods of time reckoning, astronomy, and governmental administration were due
to the commercial relationships between these two remotely situated centers.
Chinese merchants traveled the overland routes through Turkestan to
Mesopotamia even in the days of the Sumerians. Nor was this exchange one-sided
-- the valley of the Euphrates benefited considerably thereby, as did the
peoples of the Gangetic plain. But the climatic changes and the nomadic
invasions of the third millennium before Christ greatly reduced the volume of
trade passing over the caravan trails of central Asia.
8. LATER CHINESE CIVILIZATION
79:8.1 While the red man suffered from too much warfare, it is not altogether
amiss to say that the development of statehood among the Chinese was delayed
by the thoroughness of their conquest of Asia. They had a great potential of
racial solidarity, but it failed properly to develop because the continuous
driving stimulus of the ever-present danger of external aggression was
lacking.
79:8.2 With the completion of the conquest of eastern Asia the ancient
military state gradually disintegrated -- past wars were forgotten. Of the
epic struggle with the red race there persisted only the hazy tradition of an
ancient contest with the archer peoples. The Chinese early turned to
agricultural pursuits, which contributed further to their pacific tendencies,
while a population well below the land-man ratio for agriculture still further
contributed to the growing peacefulness of the country.
79:8.3 Consciousness of past achievements (somewhat diminished in the
present), the conservatism of an overwhelmingly agricultural people, and a
well-developed family life equaled the birth of ancestor veneration,
culminating in the custom of so honoring the men of the past as to border on
worship. A very similar attitude prevailed among the white races in Europe for
some five hundred years following the disruption of Graeco-Roman civilization.
79:8.4 The belief in, and worship of, the "One Truth" as taught by Singlangton
never entirely died out; but as time passed, the search for new and higher
truth became overshadowed by a growing tendency to venerate that which was
already established. Slowly the genius of the yellow race became diverted from
the pursuit of the unknown to the preservation of the known. And this is the
reason for the stagnation of what had been the world's most rapidly
progressing civilization.
79:8.5 Between 4000 and 500 B.C. the political reunification of the yellow
race was consummated, but the cultural union of the Yangtze and Yellow river
centers had already been effected. This political reunification of the later
tribal groups was not without conflict, but the societal opinion of war
remained low; ancestor worship, increasing dialects, and no call for military
action for thousands upon thousands of years had rendered this people
ultrapeaceful.
79:8.6 Despite failure to fulfill the promise of an early development of
advanced statehood, the yellow race did progressively move forward in the
realization of the arts of civilization, especially in the realms of
agriculture and horticulture. The hydraulic problems faced by the
agriculturists in Shensi and Honan demanded group co-operation for solution.
Such irrigation and soil-conservation difficulties contributed in no small
measure to the development of interdependence with the consequent promotion of
peace among farming groups.
79:8.7 Soon developments in writing, together with the establishment of
schools, contributed to the dissemination of knowledge on a previously
unequaled scale. But the cumbersome nature of the ideographic writing system
placed a numerical limit upon the learned classes despite the early appearance
of printing. And above all else, the process of social standardization and
religio-philosophic dogmatization continued apace. The religious development
of ancestor veneration became further complicated by a flood of superstitions
involving nature worship, but lingering vestiges of a real concept of God
remained preserved in the imperial worship of Shang-ti.
79:8.8 The great weakness of ancestor veneration is that it promotes a
backward-looking philosophy. However wise it may be to glean wisdom from the
past, it is folly to regard the past as the exclusive source of truth. Truth
is relative and expanding; it lives always in the present, achieving new
expression in each generation of men -- even in each human life.
79:8.9 The great strength in a veneration of ancestry is the value that such
an attitude places upon the family. The amazing stability and persistence of
Chinese culture is a consequence of the paramount position accorded the
family, for civilization is directly dependent on the effective functioning of
the family; and in China the family attained a social importance, even a
religious significance, approached by few other peoples.
79:8.10 The filial devotion and family loyalty exacted by the growing cult of
ancestor worship insured the building up of superior family relationships and
of enduring family groups, all of which facilitated the following factors in
the preservation of civilization:
1. Conservation of property and wealth.
2. Pooling of the experience of more than one generation.
3. Efficient education of children in the arts and sciences of the past.
4. Development of a strong sense of duty, the enhancement of morality, and the
augmentation of ethical sensitivity.
79:8.11 The formative period of Chinese civilization, opening with the coming
of the Andites, continues on down to the great ethical, moral, and
semireligious awakening of the sixth century before Christ. And Chinese
tradition preserves the hazy record of the evolutionary past; the transition
from mother- to father-family, the establishment of agriculture, the
development of architecture, the initiation of industry -- all these are
successively narrated. And this story presents, with greater accuracy than any
other similar account, the picture of the magnificent ascent of a superior
people from the levels of barbarism. During this time they passed from a
primitive agricultural society to a higher social organization embracing
cities, manufacture, metalworking, commercial exchange, government, writing,
mathematics, art, science, and printing.
79:8.12 And so the ancient civilization of the yellow race has persisted down
through the centuries. It is almost forty thousand years since the first
important advances were made in Chinese culture, and though there have been
many retrogressions, the civilization of the sons of Han comes the nearest of
all to presenting an unbroken picture of continual progression right on down
to the times of the twentieth century. The mechanical and religious
developments of the white races have been of a high order, but they have never
excelled the Chinese in family loyalty, group ethics, or personal morality.
79:8.13 This ancient culture has contributed much to human happiness; millions
of human beings have lived and died, blessed by its achievements. For
centuries this great civilization has rested upon the laurels of the past, but
it is even now reawakening to envision anew the transcendent goals of mortal
existence, once again to take up the unremitting struggle for never-ending
progress.
79:8.14 Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
PAPER 80
ANDITE EXPANSION IN THE OCCIDENT
80:0.1 ALTHOUGH the European blue man did not of himself achieve a great
cultural civilization, he did supply the biologic foundation which, when its
Adamized strains were blended with the later Andite invaders, produced one of
the most potent stocks for the attainment of aggressive civilization ever to
appear on Urantia since the times of the violet race and their Andite
successors.
80:0.2 The modern white peoples incorporate the surviving strains of the
Adamic stock which became admixed with the Sangik races, some red and yellow
but more especially the blue. There is a considerable percentage of the
original Andonite stock in all the white races and still more of the early
Nodite strains.
1. THE ADAMITES ENTER EUROPE
80:1.1 Before the last Andites were driven out of the Euphrates valley, many
of their brethren had entered Europe as adventurers, teachers, traders, and
warriors. During the earlier days of the violet race the Mediterranean trough
was protected by the Gibraltar isthmus and the Sicilian land bridge. Some of
man's very early maritime commerce was established on these inland lakes,
where blue men from the north and the Saharans from the south met Nodites and
Adamites from the east.
80:1.2 In the eastern trough of the Mediterranean the Nodites had established
one of their most extensive cultures and from these centers had penetrated
somewhat into southern Europe but more especially into northern Africa. The
broad-headed Nodite-Andonite Syrians very early introduced pottery and
agriculture in connection with their settlements on the slowly rising Nile
delta. They also imported sheep, goats, cattle, and other domesticated animals
and brought in greatly improved methods of metalworking, Syria then being the
center of that industry.
80:1.3 For more than thirty thousand years Egypt received a steady stream of
Mesopotamians, who brought along their art and culture to enrich that of the
Nile valley. But the ingress of large numbers of the Sahara peoples greatly
deteriorated the early civilization along the Nile so that Egypt reached its
lowest cultural level some fifteen thousand years ago.
80:1.4 But during earlier times there was little to hinder the westward
migration of the Adamites. The Sahara was an open grazing land overspread by
herders and agriculturists. These Saharans never engaged in manufacture, nor
were they city builders. They were an indigo-black group which carried
extensive strains of the extinct green and orange races. But they received a
very limited amount of the violet inheritance before the upthrust of land and
the shifting water-laden winds dispersed the remnants of this prosperous and
peaceful civilization.
80:1.5 Adam's blood has been shared with most of the human races, but some
secured more than others. The mixed races of India and the darker peoples of
Africa were not attractive to the Adamites. They would have mixed freely with
the red man had he not been far removed in the Americas, and they were kindly
disposed toward the yellow man, but he was likewise difficult of access in
faraway Asia. Therefore, when actuated by either adventure or altruism, or
when driven out of the Euphrates valley, they very naturally chose union with
the blue races of Europe.
80:1.6 The blue men, then dominant in Europe, had no religious practices which
were repulsive to the earlier migrating Adamites, and there was great sex
attraction between the violet and the blue races. The best of the blue men
deemed it a high honor to be permitted to mate with the Adamites. Every blue
man entertained the ambition of becoming so skillful and artistic as to win
the affection of some Adamite woman, and it was the highest aspiration of a
superior blue woman to receive the attentions of an Adamite.
80:1.7 Slowly these migrating sons of Eden united with the higher types of the
blue race, invigorating their cultural practices while ruthlessly
exterminating the lingering strains of Neanderthal stock. This technique of
race blending, combined with the elimination of inferior strains, produced a
dozen or more virile and progressive groups of superior blue men, one of which
you have denominated the Cro-Magnons.
80:1.8 For these and other reasons, not the least of which was more favorable
paths of migration, the early waves of Mesopotamian culture made their way
almost exclusively to Europe. And it was these circumstances that determined
the antecedents of modern European civilization.
2. CLIMATIC AND GEOLOGIC CHANGES
80:2.1 The early expansion of the violet race into Europe was cut short by
certain rather sudden climatic and geologic changes. With the retreat of the
northern ice fields the water-laden winds from the west shifted to the north,
gradually turning the great open pasture regions of Sahara into a barren
desert. This drought dispersed the smaller-statured brunets, dark-eyed but
long-headed dwellers of the great Sahara plateau.
80:2.2 The purer indigo elements moved southward to the forests of central
Africa, where they have ever since remained. The more mixed groups spread out
in three directions: The superior tribes to the west migrated to Spain and
thence to adjacent parts of Europe, forming the nucleus of the later
Mediterranean long-headed brunet races. The least progressive division to the
east of the Sahara plateau migrated to Arabia and thence through northern
Mesopotamia and India to faraway Ceylon. The central group moved north and
east to the Nile valley and into Palestine.
80:2.3 It is this secondary Sangik substratum that suggests a certain degree
of kinship among the modern peoples scattered from the Deccan through Iran,
Mesopotamia, and along both shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
80:2.4 About the time of these climatic changes in Africa, England separated
from the continent, and Denmark arose from the sea, while the isthmus of
Gibraltar, protecting the western basin of the Mediterranean, gave way as the
result of an earthquake, quickly raising this inland lake to the level of the
Atlantic ocean. Presently the Sicilian land bridge submerged, creating one sea
of the Mediterranean and connecting it with the Atlantic Ocean. This cataclysm
of nature flooded scores of human settlements and occasioned the greatest loss
of life by flood in all the world's history.
80:2.5 This engulfment of the Mediterranean basin immediately curtailed the
westward movements of the Adamites, while the great influx of Saharans led
them to seek outlets for their increasing numbers to the north and east of
Eden. As the descendants of Adam journeyed northward from the valleys of the
Tigris and Euphrates, they encountered mountainous barriers and the then
expanded Caspian Sea. And for many generations the Adamites hunted, herded,
and tilled the soil around their settlements scattered throughout Turkestan.
Slowly this magnificent people extended their territory into Europe. But now
the Adamites enter Europe from the east and find the culture of the blue man
thousands of years behind that of Asia since this region has been almost
entirely out of touch with Mesopotamia.
3. THE CRO-MAGNOID BLUE MAN
80:3.1 The ancient centers of the culture of the blue man were located along
all the rivers of Europe, but only the Somme now flows in the same channel
which it followed during preglacial times.
80:3.2 While we speak of the blue man as pervading the European continent,
there were scores of racial types. Even thirty-five thousand years ago the
European blue races were already a highly blended people carrying strains of
both red and yellow, while on the Atlantic coastlands and in the regions of
present-day Russia they had absorbed a considerable amount of Andonite blood
and to the south were in contact with the Saharan peoples. But it would be
fruitless to attempt to enumerate the many racial groups.
80:3.3 The European civilization of this early post-Adamic period was a unique
blend of the vigor and art of the blue men with the creative imagination of
the Adamites. The blue men were a race of great vigor, but they greatly
deteriorated the cultural and spiritual status of the Adamites. It was very
difficult for the latter to impress their religion upon the Cro-Magnoids
because of the tendency of so many to cheat and to debauch the maidens. For
ten thousand years religion in Europe was at a low ebb as compared with the
developments in India and Egypt.
80:3.4 The blue men were perfectly honest in all their dealings and were
wholly free from the sexual vices of the mixed Adamites. They respected
maidenhood, only practicing polygamy when war produced a shortage of males.
80:3.5 These Cro-Magnon peoples were a brave and farseeing race. They
maintained an efficient system of child culture. Both parents participated in
these labors, and the services of the older children were fully utilized. Each
child was carefully trained in the care of the caves, in art, and in flint
making. At an early age the women were well versed in the domestic arts and in
crude agriculture, while the men were skilled hunters and courageous warriors.
80:3.6 The blue men were hunters, fishers, and food gatherers; they were
expert boatbuilders. They made stone axes, cut down trees, erected log huts,
partly below ground and roofed with hides. And there are peoples who still
build similar huts in Siberia. The southern Cro-Magnons generally lived in
caves and grottoes.
80:3.7 It was not uncommon during the rigors of winter for their sentinels
standing on night guard at cave entrances to freeze to death. They had
courage, but above all they were artists; the Adamic mixture suddenly
accelerated creative imagination. The height of the blue man's art was about
fifteen thousand years ago, before the days when the darker-skinned races came
north from Africa through Spain.
80:3.8 About fifteen thousand years ago the Alpine forests were spreading
extensively. The European hunters were being driven to the river valleys and
to the seashores by the same climatic coercion that had turned the world's
happy hunting grounds into dry and barren deserts. As the rain winds shifted
to the north, the great open grazing lands of Europe became covered by
forests. These great and relatively sudden climatic modifications drove the
races of Europe to change from open-space hunters to herders, and in some
measure to fishers and tillers of the soil.
80:3.9 These changes, while resulting in cultural advances, produced certain
biologic retrogressions. During the previous hunting era the superior tribes
had intermarried with the higher types of war captives and had unvaryingly
destroyed those whom they deemed inferior. But as they commenced to establish
settlements and engage in agriculture and commerce, they began to save many of
the mediocre captives as slaves. And it was the progeny of these slaves that
subsequently so greatly deteriorated the whole Cro-Magnon type. This
retrogression of culture continued until it received a fresh impetus from the
east when the final and en masse invasion of the Mesopotamians swept over
Europe, quickly absorbing the Cro-Magnon type and culture and initiating the
civilization of the white races.
4. THE ANDITE INVASIONS OF EUROPE
80:4.1 While the Andites poured into Europe in a steady stream, there were
seven major invasions, the last arrivals coming on horseback in three great
waves. Some entered Europe by way of the islands of the Aegean and up the
Danube valley, but the majority of the earlier and purer strains migrated to
northwestern Europe by the northern route across the grazing lands of the
Volga and the Don.
80:4.2 Between the third and fourth invasions a horde of Andonites entered
Europe from the north, having come from Siberia by way of the Russian rivers
and the Baltic. They were immediately assimilated by the northern Andite
tribes.
80:4.3 The earlier expansions of the purer violet race were far more pacific
than were those of their later semimilitary and conquest-loving Andite
descendants. The Adamites were pacific; the Nodites were belligerent. The
union of these stocks, as later mingled with the Sangik races, produced the
able, aggressive Andites who made actual military conquests.
80:4.4 But the horse was the evolutionary factor which determined the
dominance of the Andites in the Occident. The horse gave the dispersing
Andites the hitherto nonexistent advantage of mobility, enabling the last
groups of Andite cavalrymen to progress quickly around the Caspian Sea to
overrun all of Europe. All previous waves of Andites had moved so slowly that
they tended to disintegrate at any great distance from Mesopotamia. But these
later waves moved so rapidly that they reached Europe as coherent groups,
still retaining some measure of higher culture.
80:4.5 The whole inhabited world, outside of China and the Euphrates region,
had made very limited cultural progress for ten thousand years when the hard-
riding Andite horsemen made their appearance in the sixth and seventh
millenniums before Christ. As they moved westward across the Russian plains,
absorbing the best of the blue man and exterminating the worst, they became
blended into one people. These were the ancestors of the so-called Nordic
races, the forefathers of the Scandinavian, German, and Anglo-Saxon peoples.
80:4.6 It was not long before the superior blue strains had been fully
absorbed by the Andites throughout all northern Europe. Only in Lapland (and
to a certain extent in Brittany) did the older Andonites retain even a
semblance of identity.
5. THE ANDITE CONQUEST OF NORTHERN EUROPE
80:5.1 The tribes of northern Europe were being continuously reinforced and
upstepped by the steady stream of migrants from Mesopotamia through the
Turkestan-south Russian regions, and when the last waves of Andite cavalry
swept over Europe, there were already more men with Andite inheritance in that
region than were to be found in all the rest of the world.
80:5.2 For three thousand years the military headquarters of the northern
Andites was in Denmark. From this central point there went forth the
successive waves of conquest, which grew decreasingly Andite and increasingly
white as the passing centuries witnessed the final blending of the
Mesopotamian conquerors with the conquered peoples.
80:5.3 While the blue man had been absorbed in the north and eventually
succumbed to the white cavalry raiders who penetrated the south, the advancing
tribes of the mixed white race met with stubborn and protracted resistance
from the Cro-Magnons, but superior intelligence and ever-augmenting biologic
reserves enabled them to wipe the older race out of existence.
80:5.4 The decisive struggles between the white man and the blue man were
fought out in the valley of the Somme. Here, the flower of the blue race
bitterly contested the southward-moving Andites, and for over five hundred
years these Cro-Magnoids successfully defended their territories before
succumbing to the superior military strategy of the white invaders. Thor, the
victorious commander of the armies of the north in the final battle of the
Somme, became the hero of the northern white tribes and later on was revered
as a god by some of them.
80:5.5 The strongholds of the blue man which persisted longest were in
southern France, but the last great military resistance was overcome along the
Somme. The later conquest progressed by commercial penetration, population
pressure along the rivers, and by continued intermarriage with the superiors,
coupled with the ruthless extermination of the inferiors.
80:5.6 When the tribal council of the Andite elders had adjudged an inferior
captive to be unfit, he was, by elaborate ceremony, committed to the shaman
priests, who escorted him to the river and administered the rites of
initiation to the "happy hunting grounds" -- lethal submergence. In this way
the white invaders of Europe exterminated all peoples encountered who were not
quickly absorbed into their own ranks, and thus did the blue man come to an
end -- and quickly.
80:5.7 The Cro-Magnoid blue man constituted the biologic foundation for the
modern European races, but they have survived only as absorbed by the later
and virile conquerors of their homelands. The blue strain contributed many
sturdy traits and much physical vigor to the white races of Europe, but the
humor and imagination of the blended European peoples were derived from the
Andites. This Andite-blue union, resulting in the northern white races,
produced an immediate lapse of Andite civilization, a retardation of a
transient nature. Eventually, the latent superiority of these northern
barbarians manifested itself and culminated in present-day European
civilization.
80:5.8 By 5000 B.C. the evolving white races were dominant throughout all of
northern Europe, including northern Germany, northern France, and the British
Isles. Central Europe was for sometime controlled by the blue man and the
round-headed Andonites. The latter were mainly situated in the Danube valley
and were never entirely displaced by the Andites.
6. THE ANDITES ALONG THE NILE
80:6.1 From the times of the terminal Andite migrations, culture declined in
the Euphrates valley, and the immediate center of civilization shifted to the
valley of the Nile. Egypt became the successor of Mesopotamia as the
headquarters of the most advanced group on earth.
80:6.2 The Nile valley began to suffer from floods shortly before the
Mesopotamian valleys but fared much better. This early setback was more than
compensated by the continuing stream of Andite immigrants, so that the culture
of Egypt, though really derived from the Euphrates region, seemed to forge
ahead. But in 5000 B.C., during the flood period in Mesopotamia, there were
seven distinct groups of human beings in Egypt; all of them, save one, came
from Mesopotamia.
80:6.3 When the last exodus from the Euphrates valley occurred, Egypt was
fortunate in gaining so many of the most skillful artists and artisans. These
Andite artisans found themselves quite at home in that they were thoroughly
familiar with river life, its floods, irrigations, and dry seasons. They
enjoyed the sheltered position of the Nile valley; they were there much less
subject to hostile raids and attacks than along the Euphrates. And they added
greatly to the metalworking skill of the Egyptians. Here they worked iron ores
coming from Mount Sinai instead of from the Black Sea regions.
80:6.4 The Egyptians very early assembled their municipal deities into an
elaborate national system of gods. They developed an extensive theology and
had an equally extensive but burdensome priesthood. Several different leaders
sought to revive the remnants of the early religious teachings of the
Sethites, but these endeavors were short-lived. The Andites built the first
stone structures in Egypt. The first and most exquisite of the stone pyramids
was erected by Imhotep, an Andite architectural genius, while serving as prime
minister. Previous buildings had been constructed of brick, and while many
stone structures had been erected in different parts of the world, this was
the first in Egypt. But the art of building steadily declined from the days of
this great architect.
80:6.5 This brilliant epoch of culture was cut short by internal warfare along
the Nile, and the country was soon overrun, as Mesopotamia had been, by the
inferior tribes from inhospitable Arabia and by the blacks from the south. As
a result, social progress steadily declined for more than five hundred years.
7. ANDITES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ISLES
80:7.1 During the decline of culture in Mesopotamia there persisted for
sometime a superior civilization on the islands of the eastern Mediterranean.
80:7.2 About 12,000 B.C. a brilliant tribe of Andites migrated to Crete. This
was the only island settled so early by such a superior group, and it was
almost two thousand years before the descendants of these mariners spread to
the neighboring isles. This group were the narrow-headed, smaller-statured
Andites who had intermarried with the Vanite division of the northern Nodites.
They were all under six feet in height and had been literally driven off the
mainland by their larger and inferior fellows. These emigrants to Crete were
highly skilled in textiles, metals, pottery, plumbing, and the use of stone
for building material. They engaged in writing and carried on as herders and
agriculturists.
80:7.3 Almost two thousand years after the settlement of Crete a group of the
tall descendants of Adamson made their way over the northern islands to
Greece, coming almost directly from their highland home north of Mesopotamia.
These progenitors of the Greeks were led westward by Sato, a direct descendant
of Adamson and Ratta.
80:7.4 The group which finally settled in Greece consisted of three hundred
and seventy-five of the selected and superior people comprising the end of the
second civilization of the Adamsonites. These later sons of Adamson carried
the then most valuable strains of the emerging white races. They were of a
high intellectual order and, physically regarded, the most beautiful of men
since the days of the first Eden.
80:7.5 Presently Greece and the Aegean Islands region succeeded Mesopotamia
and Egypt as the Occidental center of trade, art, and culture. But as it was
in Egypt, so again practically all of the art and science of the Aegean world
was derived from Mesopotamia except for the culture of the Adamsonite
forerunners of the Greeks. All the art and genius of these latter people is a
direct legacy of the posterity of Adamson, the first son of Adam and Eve, and
his extraordinary second wife, a daughter descended in an unbroken line from
the pure Nodite staff of Prince Caligastia. No wonder the Greeks had
mythological traditions that they were directly descended from gods and
superhuman beings.
80:7.6 The Aegean region passed through five distinct cultural stages, each
less spiritual than the preceding, and erelong the last glorious era of art
perished beneath the weight of the rapidly multiplying mediocre descendants of
the Danubian slaves who had been imported by the later generations of Greeks.
80:7.7 It was during this age in Crete that the mother cult of the descendants
of Cain attained its greatest vogue. This cult glorified Eve in the worship of
the "great mother." Images of Eve were everywhere. Thousands of public shrines
were erected throughout Crete and Asia Minor. And this mother cult persisted
on down to the times of Christ, becoming later incorporated in the early
Christian religion under the guise of the glorification and worship of Mary
the earth mother of Jesus.
80:7.8 By about 6500 B.C. there had occurred a great decline in the spiritual
heritage of the Andites. The descendants of Adam were widespreadly dispersed
and had been virtually swallowed up in the older and more numerous human
races. And this decadence of Andite civilization, together with the
disappearance of their religious standards, left the spiritually impoverished
races of the world in a deplorable condition.
80:7.9 By 5000 B.C. the three purest strains of Adam's descendants were in
Sumeria, northern Europe, and Greece. The whole of Mesopotamia was being
slowly deteriorated by the stream of mixed and darker races which filtered in
from Arabia. And the coming of these inferior peoples contributed further to
the scattering abroad of the biologic and cultural residue of the Andites.
From all over the fertile crescent the more adventurous peoples poured
westward to the islands. These migrants cultivated both grain and vegetables,
and they brought domesticated animals with them.
80:7.10 About 5000 B.C. a mighty host of progressive Mesopotamians moved out
of the Euphrates valley and settled upon the island of Cyprus; this
civilization was wiped out about two thousand years subsequently by the
barbarian hordes from the north.
80:7.11 Another great colony settled on the Mediterranean near the later site
of Carthage. And from north Africa large numbers of Andites entered Spain and
later mingled in Switzerland with their brethren who had earlier come to Italy
from the Aegean Islands.
80:7.12 When Egypt followed Mesopotamia in cultural decline, many of the more
able and advanced families fled to Crete, thus greatly augmenting this already
advanced civilization. And when the arrival of inferior groups from Egypt
later threatened the civilization of Crete, the more cultured families moved
on west to Greece.
80:7.13 The Greeks were not only great teachers and artists, they were also
the world's greatest traders and colonizers. Before succumbing to the flood of
inferiority which eventually engulfed their art and commerce, they succeeded
in planting so many outposts of culture to the west that a great many of the
advances in early Greek civilization persisted in the later peoples of
southern Europe, and many of the mixed descendants of these Adamsonites became
incorporated in the tribes of the adjacent mainlands.
8. THE DANUBIAN ANDONITES
80:8.1 The Andite peoples of the Euphrates valley migrated north to Europe to
mingle with the blue men and west into the Mediterranean regions to mix with
the remnants of the commingled Saharans and the southern blue men. And these
two branches of the white race were, and now are, widely separated by the
broad-headed mountain survivors of the earlier Andonite tribes which had long
inhabited these central regions.
80:8.2 These descendants of Andon were dispersed through most of the
mountainous regions of central and southeastern Europe. They were often
reinforced by arrivals from Asia Minor, which region they occupied in
considerable strength. The ancient Hittites stemmed directly from the Andonite
stock; their pale skins and broad heads were typical of that race. This strain
was carried in Abraham's ancestry and contributed much to the characteristic
facial appearance of his later Jewish descendants who, while having a culture
and religion derived from the Andites, spoke a very different language. Their
tongue was distinctly Andonite.
80:8.3 The tribes that dwelt in houses erected on piles or log piers over the
lakes of Italy, Switzerland, and southern Europe were the expanding fringes of
the African, Aegean, and, more especially, the Danubian migrations.
80:8.4 The Danubians were Andonites, farmers and herders who had entered
Europe through the Balkan peninsula and were moving slowly northward by way of
the Danube valley. They made pottery and tilled the land, preferring to live
in the valleys. The most northerly settlement of the Danubians was at Liege in
Belgium. These tribes deteriorated rapidly as they moved away from the center
and source of their culture. The best pottery is the product of the earlier
settlements.
80:8.5 The Danubians became mother worshipers as the result of the work of the
missionaries from Crete. These tribes later amalgamated with groups of
Andonite sailors who came by boats from the coast of Asia Minor, and who were
also mother worshipers. Much of central Europe was thus early settled by these
mixed types of the broad-headed white races which practiced mother worship and
the religious rite of cremating the dead, for it was the custom of the mother
cultists to burn their dead in stone huts.
9. THE THREE WHITE RACES
80:9.1 The racial blends in Europe toward the close of the Andite migrations
became generalized into the three white races as follows:
80:9.2 1. The northern white race. This so-called Nordic race consisted
primarily of the blue man plus the Andite but also contained a considerable
amount of Andonite blood, together with smaller amounts of the red and yellow
Sangik. The northern white race thus encompassed these four most desirable
human stocks. But the largest inheritance was from the blue man. The typical
early Nordic was long-headed, tall, and blond. But long ago this race became
thoroughly mixed with all of the branches of the white peoples.
80:9.3 The primitive culture of Europe, which was encountered by the invading
Nordics, was that of the retrograding Danubians blended with the blue man. The
Nordic-Danish and the Danubian-Andonite cultures met and mingled on the Rhine
as is witnessed by the existence of two racial groups in Germany today.
80:9.4 The Nordics continued the trade in amber from the Baltic coast,
building up a great commerce with the broadheads of the Danube valley via the
Brenner Pass. This extended contact with the Danubians led these northerners
into mother worship, and for several thousands of years cremation of the dead
was almost universal throughout Scandinavia. This explains why remains of the
earlier white races, although buried all over Europe, are not to be found --
only their ashes in stone and clay urns. These white men also built dwellings;
they never lived in caves. And again this explains why there are so few
evidences of the white man's early culture, although the preceding Cro-Magnon
type is well preserved where it has been securely sealed up in caves and
grottoes. As it were, one day in northern Europe there is a primitive culture
of the retrogressing Danubians and the blue man and the next that of a
suddenly appearing and vastly superior white man.
80:9.5 2. The central white race. While this group includes strains of blue,
yellow, and Andite, it is predominantly Andonite. These people are broad-
headed, swarthy, and stocky. They are driven like a wedge between the Nordic
and Mediterranean races, with the broad base resting in Asia and the apex
penetrating eastern France.
80:9.6 For almost twenty thousand years the Andonites had been pushed farther
and farther to the north of central Asia by the Andites. By 3000 B.C.
increasing aridity was driving these Andonites back into Turkestan. This
Andonite push southward continued for over a thousand years and, splitting
around the Caspian and Black seas, penetrated Europe by way of both the
Balkans and the Ukraine. This invasion included the remaining groups of
Adamson's descendants and, during the latter half of the invasion period,
carried with it considerable numbers of the Iranian Andites as well as many of
the descendants of the Sethite priests.
80:9.7 By 2500 B.C. the westward thrust of the Andonites reached Europe. And
this overrunning of all Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the Danube basin by the
barbarians of the hills of Turkestan constituted the most serious and lasting
of all cultural setbacks up to that time. These invaders definitely Andonized
the character of the central European races, which have ever since remained
characteristically Alpine.
80:9.8 3. The southern white race. This brunet Mediterranean race consisted of
a blend of the Andite and the blue man, with a smaller Andonite strain than in
the north. This group also absorbed a considerable amount of secondary Sangik
blood through the Saharans. In later times this southern division of the white
race was infused by strong Andite elements from the eastern Mediterranean.
80:9.9 The Mediterranean coastlands did not, however, become permeated by the
Andites until the times of the great nomadic invasions of 2500 B.C. Land
traffic and trade were nearly suspended during these centuries when the nomads
invaded the eastern Mediterranean districts. This interference with land
travel brought about the great expansion of sea traffic and trade;
Mediterranean sea-borne commerce was in full swing about forty-five hundred
years ago. And this development of marine traffic resulted in the sudden
expansion of the descendants of the Andites throughout the entire coastal
territory of the Mediterranean basin.
80:9.10 These racial mixtures laid the foundations for the southern European
race, the most highly mixed of all. And since these days this race has
undergone still further admixture, notably with the blue-yellow-Andite peoples
of Arabia. This Mediterranean race is, in fact, so freely admixed with the
surrounding peoples as to be virtually indiscernible as a separate type, but
in general its members are short, long-headed, and brunet.
80:9.11 In the north the Andites, through warfare and marriage, obliterated
the blue men, but in the south they survived in greater numbers. The Basques
and the Berbers represent the survival of two branches of this race, but even
these peoples have been thoroughly admixed with the Saharans.
80:9.12 This was the picture of race mixture presented in central Europe about
3000 B.C. In spite of the partial Adamic default, the higher types did blend.
80:9.13 These were the times of the New Stone Age overlapping the oncoming
Bronze Age. In Scandinavia it was the Bronze Age associated with mother
worship. In southern France and Spain it was the New Stone Age associated with
sun worship. This was the time of the building of the circular and roofless
sun temples. The European white races were energetic builders, delighting to
set up great stones as tokens to the sun, much as did their later-day
descendants at Stonehenge. The vogue of sun worship indicates that this was a
great period of agriculture in southern Europe.
80:9.14 The superstitions of this comparatively recent sun-worshiping era even
now persist in the folkways of Brittany. Although Christianized for over
fifteen hundred years, these Bretons still retain charms of the New Stone Age
for warding off the evil eye. They still keep thunderstones in the chimney as
protection against lightning. The Bretons never mingled with the Scandinavian
Nordics. They are survivors of the original Andonite inhabitants of western
Europe, mixed with the Mediterranean stock.
80:9.15 But it is a fallacy to presume to classify the white peoples as
Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. There has been altogether too much blending
to permit such a grouping. At one time there was a fairly well-defined
division of the white race into such classes, but widespread intermingling has
since occurred, and it is no longer possible to identify these distinctions
with any clarity. Even in 3000 B.C. the ancient social groups were no more of
one race than are the present inhabitants of North America.
80:9.16 This European culture for five thousand years continued to grow and to
some extent intermingle. But the barrier of language prevented the full
reciprocation of the various Occidental nations. During the past century this
culture has been experiencing its best opportunity for blending in the
cosmopolitan population of North America; and the future of that continent
will be determined by the quality of the racial factors which are permitted to
enter into its present and future populations, as well as by the level of the
social culture which is maintained.
80:9.17 Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
PAPER 81
DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CIVILIZATION
81:0.1 REGARDLESS of the ups and downs of the miscarriage of the plans for
world betterment projected in the missions of Caligastia and Adam, the basic
organic evolution of the human species continued to carry the races forward in
the scale of human progress and racial development. Evolution can be delayed
but it cannot be stopped.
81:0.2 The influence of the violet race, though in numbers smaller than had
been planned, produced an advance in civilization which, since the days of
Adam, has far exceeded the progress of mankind throughout its entire previous
existence of almost a million years.
1. THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
81:1.1 For about thirty-five thousand years after the days of Adam, the cradle
of civilization was in southwestern Asia, extending from the Nile valley
eastward and slightly to the north across northern Arabia, through
Mesopotamia, and on into Turkestan. And climate was the decisive factor in the
establishment of civilization in that area.
81:1.2 It was the great climatic and geologic changes in northern Africa and
western Asia that terminated the early migrations of the Adamites, barring
them from Europe by the expanded Mediterranean and diverting the stream of
migration north and east into Turkestan. By the time of the completion of
these land elevations and associated climatic changes, about 15,000 B.C.,
civilization had settled down to a world-wide stalemate except for the
cultural ferments and biologic reserves of the Andites still confined by
mountains to the east in Asia and by the expanding forests in Europe to the
west.
81:1.3 Climatic evolution is now about to accomplish what all other efforts
had failed to do, that is, to compel Eurasian man to abandon hunting for the
more advanced callings of herding and farming. Evolution may be slow, but it
is terribly effective.
81:1.4 Since slaves were so generally employed by the earlier agriculturists,
the farmer was formerly looked down on by both the hunter and the herder. For
ages it was considered menial to till the soil; wherefore the idea that soil
toil is a curse, whereas it is the greatest of all blessings. Even in the days
of Cain and Abel the sacrifices of the pastoral life were held in greater
esteem than the offerings of agriculture.
81:1.5 Man ordinarily evolved into a farmer from a hunter by transition
through the era of the herder, and this was also true among the Andites, but
more often the evolutionary coercion of climatic necessity would cause whole
tribes to pass directly from hunters to successful farmers. But this
phenomenon of passing immediately from hunting to agriculture only occurred in
those regions where there was a high degree of race mixture with the violet
stock.
81:1.6 The evolutionary peoples (notably the Chinese) early learned to plant
seeds and to cultivate crops through observation of the sprouting of seeds
accidentally moistened or which had been put in graves as food for the
departed. But throughout southwest Asia, along the fertile river bottoms and
adjacent plains, the Andites were carrying out the improved agricultural
techniques inherited from their ancestors, who had made farming and gardening
the chief pursuits within the boundaries of the second garden.
81:1.7 For thousands of years the descendants of Adam had grown wheat and
barley, as improved in the Garden, throughout the highlands of the upper
border of Mesopotamia. The descendants of Adam and Adamson here met, traded,
and socially mingled.
81:1.8 It was these enforced changes in living conditions which caused such a
large proportion of the human race to become omnivorous in dietetic practice.
And the combination of the wheat, rice, and vegetable diet with the flesh of
the herds marked a great forward step in the health and vigor of these ancient
peoples.
2. THE TOOLS OF CIVILIZATION
81:2.1 The growth of culture is predicated upon the development of the tools
of civilization. And the tools which man utilized in his ascent from savagery
were effective just to the extent that they released man power for the
accomplishment of higher tasks.
81:2.2 You who now live amid latter-day scenes of budding culture and
beginning progress in social affairs, who actually have some little spare time
in which to think about society and civilization, must not overlook the fact
that your early ancestors had little or no leisure which could be devoted to
thoughtful reflection and social thinking.
81:2.3 The first four great advances in human civilization were:
1. The taming of fire.
2. The domestication of animals.
3. The enslavement of captives.
4. Private property.
81:2.4 While fire, the first great discovery, eventually unlocked the doors of
the scientific world, it was of little value in this regard to primitive man.
He refused to recognize natural causes as explanations for commonplace
phenomena.
81:2.5 When asked where fire came from, the simple story of Andon and the
flint was soon replaced by the legend of how some Prometheus stole it from
heaven. The ancients sought a supernatural explanation for all natural
phenomena not within the range of their personal comprehension; and many
moderns continue to do this. The depersonalization of so-called natural
phenomena has required ages, and it is not yet completed. But the frank,
honest, and fearless search for true causes gave birth to modern science: It
turned astrology into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, and magic into
medicine.
81:2.6 In the premachine age the only way in which man could accomplish work
without doing it himself was to use an animal. Domestication of animals placed
in his hands living tools, the intelligent use of which prepared the way for
both agriculture and transportation. And without these animals man could not
have risen from his primitive estate to the levels of subsequent civilization.
81:2.7 Most of the animals best suited to domestication were found in Asia,
especially in the central to southwest regions. This was one reason why
civilization progressed faster in that locality than in other parts of the
world. Many of these animals had been twice before domesticated, and in the
Andite age they were retamed once again. But the dog had remained with the
hunters ever since being adopted by the blue man long, long before.
81:2.8 The Andites of Turkestan were the first peoples to extensively
domesticate the horse, and this is another reason why their culture was for so
long predominant. By 5000 B.C. the Mesopotamian, Turkestan, and Chinese
farmers had begun the raising of sheep, goats, cows, camels, horses, fowls,
and elephants. They employed as beasts of burden the ox, camel, horse, and
yak. Man was himself at one time the beast of burden. One ruler of the blue
race once had one hundred thousand men in his colony of burden bearers.
81:2.9 The institutions of slavery and private ownership of land came with
agriculture. Slavery raised the master's standard of living and provided more
leisure for social culture.
81:2.10 The savage is a slave to nature, but scientific civilization is slowly
conferring increasing liberty on mankind. Through animals, fire, wind, water,
electricity, and other undiscovered sources of energy, man has liberated, and
will continue to liberate, himself from the necessity for unremitting toil.
Regardless of the transient trouble produced by the prolific invention of
machinery, the ultimate benefits to be derived from such mechanical inventions
are inestimable. Civilization can never flourish, much less be established,
until man has leisure to think, to plan, to imagine new and better ways of
doing things.
81:2.11 Man first simply appropriated his shelter, lived under ledges or dwelt
in caves. Next he adapted such natural materials as wood and stone to the
creation of family huts. Lastly he entered the creative stage of home
building, learned to manufacture brick and other building materials.
81:2.12 The peoples of the Turkestan highlands were the first of the more
modern races to build their homes of wood, houses not at all unlike the early
log cabins of the American pioneer settlers. Throughout the plains human
dwellings were made of brick; later on, of burned bricks.
81:2.13 The older river races made their huts by setting tall poles in the
ground in a circle; the tops were then brought together, making the skeleton
frame for the hut, which was interlaced with transverse reeds, the whole
creation resembling a huge inverted basket. This structure could then be
daubed over with clay and, after drying in the sun, would make a very
serviceable weatherproof habitation.
81:2.14 It was from these early huts that the subsequent idea of all sorts of
basket weaving independently originated. Among one group the idea of making
pottery arose from observing the effects of smearing these pole frameworks
with moist clay. The practice of hardening pottery by baking was discovered
when one of these clay-covered primitive huts accidentally burned. The arts of
olden days were many times derived from the accidental occurrences attendant
upon the daily life of early peoples. At least, this was almost wholly true of
the evolutionary progress of mankind up to the coming of Adam.
81:2.15 While pottery had been first introduced by the staff of the Prince
about one-half million years ago, the making of clay vessels had practically
ceased for over one hundred and fifty thousand years. Only the gulf coast pre-
Sumerian Nodites continued to make clay vessels. The art of pottery making was
revived during Adam's time. The dissemination of this art was simultaneous
with the extension of the desert areas of Africa, Arabia, and central Asia,
and it spread in successive waves of improving technique from Mesopotamia out
over the Eastern Hemisphere.
81:2.16 These civilizations of the Andite age cannot always be traced by the
stages of their pottery or other arts. The smooth course of human evolution
was tremendously complicated by the regimes of both Dalamatia and Eden. It
often occurs that the later vases and implements are inferior to the earlier
products of the purer Andite peoples.
3. CITIES, MANUFACTURE, AND COMMERCE
81:3.1 The climatic destruction of the rich, open grassland hunting and
grazing grounds of Turkestan, beginning about 12,000 B.C., compelled the men
of those regions to resort to new forms of industry and crude manufacturing.
Some turned to the cultivation of domesticated flocks, others became
agriculturists or collectors of water-borne food, but the higher type of
Andite intellects chose to engage in trade and manufacture. It even became the
custom for entire tribes to dedicate themselves to the development of a single
industry. From the valley of the Nile to the Hindu Kush and from the Ganges to
the Yellow River, the chief business of the superior tribes became the
cultivation of the soil, with commerce as a side line.
81:3.2 The increase in trade and in the manufacture of raw materials into
various articles of commerce was directly instrumental in producing those
early and semipeaceful communities which were so influential in spreading the
culture and the arts of civilization. Before the era of extensive world trade,
social communities were tribal -- expanded family groups. Trade brought into
fellowship different sorts of human beings, thus contributing to a more speedy
cross-fertilization of culture.
81:3.3 About twelve thousand years ago the era of the independent cities was
dawning. And these primitive trading and manufacturing cities were always
surrounded by zones of agriculture and cattle raising. While it is true that
industry was promoted by the elevation of the standards of living, you should
have no misconception regarding the refinements of early urban life. The early
races were not overly neat and clean, and the average primitive community rose
from one to two feet every twenty-five years as the result of the mere
accumulation of dirt and trash. Certain of these olden cities also rose above
the surrounding ground very quickly because their unbaked mud huts were short-
lived, and it was the custom to build new dwellings directly on top of the
ruins of the old.
81:3.4 The widespread use of metals was a feature of this era of the early
industrial and trading cities. You have already found a bronze culture in
Turkestan dating before 9000 B.C., and the Andites early learned to work in
iron, gold, and copper, as well. But conditions were very different away from
the more advanced centers of civilization. There were no distinct periods,
such as the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages; all three existed at the same time
in different localities.
81:3.5 Gold was the first metal to be sought by man; it was easy to work and,
at first, was used only as an ornament. Copper was next employed but not
extensively until it was admixed with tin to make the harder bronze. The
discovery of mixing copper and tin to make bronze was made by one of the
Adamsonites of Turkestan whose highland copper mine happened to be located
alongside a tin deposit.
81:3.6 With the appearance of crude manufacture and beginning industry,
commerce quickly became the most potent influence in the spread of cultural
civilization. The opening up of the trade channels by land and by sea greatly
facilitated travel and the mixing of cultures as well as the blending of
civilizations. By 5000 B.C. the horse was in general use throughout civilized
and semicivilized lands. These later races not only had the domesticated horse
but also various sorts of wagons and chariots. Ages before, the wheel had been
used, but now vehicles so equipped became universally employed both in
commerce and war.
81:3.7 The traveling trader and the roving explorer did more to advance
historic civilization than all other influences combined. Military conquests,
colonization, and missionary enterprises fostered by the later religions were
also factors in the spread of culture; but these were all secondary to the
trading relations, which were ever accelerated by the rapidly developing arts
and sciences of industry.
81:3.8 Infusion of the Adamic stock into the human races not only quickened
the pace of civilization, but it also greatly stimulated their proclivities
toward adventure and exploration to the end that most of Eurasia and northern
Africa was presently occupied by the rapidly multiplying mixed descendants of
the Andites.
4. THE MIXED RACES
81:4.1 As contact is made with the dawn of historic times, all of Eurasia,
northern Africa, and the Pacific Islands is overspread with the composite
races of mankind. And these races of today have resulted from a blending and
reblending of the five basic human stocks of Urantia.
81:4.2 Each of the Urantia races was identified by certain distinguishing
physical characteristics. The Adamites and Nodites were long-headed; the
Andonites were broad-headed. The Sangik races were medium-headed, with the
yellow and blue men tending to broad-headedness. The blue races, when mixed
with the Andonite stock, were decidedly broad-headed. The secondary Sangiks
were medium- to long-headed.
81:4.3 Although these skull dimensions are serviceable in deciphering racial
origins, the skeleton as a whole is far more dependable. In the early
development of the Urantia races there were originally five distinct types of
skeletal structure:
1. Andonic, Urantia aborigines.
2. Primary Sangik, red, yellow, and blue.
3. Secondary Sangik, orange, green, and indigo.
4. Nodites, descendants of the Dalamatians.
5. Adamites, the violet race.
81:4.4 As these five great racial groups extensively intermingled, continual
mixture tended to obscure the Andonite type by Sangik hereditary dominance.
The Lapps and the Eskimos are blends of Andonite and Sangik-blue races. Their
skeletal structures come the nearest to preserving the aboriginal Andonic
type. But the Adamites and the Nodites have become so admixed with the other
races that they can be detected only as a generalized Caucasoid order.
81:4.5 In general, therefore, as the human remains of the last twenty thousand
years are unearthed, it will be impossible clearly to distinguish the five
original types. Study of such skeletal structures will disclose that mankind
is now divided into approximately three classes:
81:4.6 1. The Caucasoid -- the Andite blend of the Nodite and Adamic stocks,
further modified by primary and (some) secondary Sangik admixture and by
considerable Andonic crossing. The Occidental white races, together with some
Indian and Turanian peoples, are included in this group. The unifying factor
in this division is the greater or lesser proportion of Andite inheritance.
81:4.7 2. The Mongoloid -- the primary Sangik type, including the original
red, yellow, and blue races. The Chinese and Amerinds belong to this group. In
Europe the Mongoloid type has been modified by secondary Sangik and Andonic
mixture; still more by Andite infusion. The Malayan and other Indonesian
peoples are included in this classification, though they contain a high
percentage of secondary Sangik blood.
81:4.8 3. The Negroid -- the secondary Sangik type, which originally included
the orange, green, and indigo races. This is the type best illustrated by the
Negro, and it will be found through Africa, India, and Indonesia wherever the
secondary Sangik races located.
81:4.9 In North China there is a certain blending of Caucasoid and Mongoloid
types; in the Levant the Caucasoid and Negroid have intermingled; in India, as
in South America, all three types are represented. And the skeletal
characteristics of the three surviving types still persist and help to
identify the later ancestry of present-day human races.
5. CULTURAL SOCIETY
81:5.1 Biologic evolution and cultural civilization are not necessarily
correlated; organic evolution in any age may proceed unhindered in the very
midst of cultural decadence. But when lengthy periods of human history are
surveyed, it will be observed that eventually evolution and culture become
related as cause and effect. Evolution may advance in the absence of culture,
but cultural civilization does not flourish without an adequate background of
antecedent racial progression. Adam and Eve introduced no art of civilization
foreign to the progress of human society, but the Adamic blood did augment the
inherent ability of the races and did accelerate the pace of economic
development and industrial progression. Adam's bestowal improved the brain
power of the races, thereby greatly hastening the processes of natural
evolution.
81:5.2 Through agriculture, animal domestication, and improved architecture,
mankind gradually escaped the worst of the incessant struggle to live and
began to cast about to find wherewith to sweeten the process of living; and
this was the beginning of the striving for higher and ever higher standards of
material comfort. Through manufacture and industry man is gradually augmenting
the pleasure content of mortal life.
81:5.3 But cultural society is no great and beneficent club of inherited
privilege into which all men are born with free membership and entire
equality. Rather is it an exalted and ever-advancing guild of earth workers,
admitting to its ranks only the nobility of those toilers who strive to make
the world a better place in which their children and their children's children
may live and advance in subsequent ages. And this guild of civilization exacts
costly admission fees, imposes strict and rigorous disciplines, visits heavy
penalties on all dissenters and nonconformists, while it confers few personal
licenses or privileges except those of enhanced security against common
dangers and racial perils.
81:5.4 Social association is a form of survival insurance which human beings
have learned is profitable; therefore are most individuals willing to pay
those premiums of self-sacrifice and personal-liberty curtailment which
society exacts from its members in return for this enhanced group protection.
In short, the present-day social mechanism is a trial-and-error insurance plan
designed to afford some degree of assurance and protection against a return to
the terrible and antisocial conditions which characterized the early
experiences of the human race.
81:5.5 Society thus becomes a co-operative scheme for securing civil freedom
through institutions, economic freedom through capital and invention, social
liberty through culture, and freedom from violence through police regulation.
81:5.6 Might does not make right, but it does enforce the commonly recognized
rights of each succeeding generation. The prime mission of government is the
definition of the right, the just and fair regulation of class differences,
and the enforcement of equality of opportunity under the rules of law. Every
human right is associated with a social duty; group privilege is an insurance
mechanism which unfailingly demands the full payment of the exacting premiums
of group service. And group rights, as well as those of the individual, must
be protected, including the regulation of the sex propensity.
81:5.7 Liberty subject to group regulation is the legitimate goal of social
evolution. Liberty without restrictions is the vain and fanciful dream of
unstable and flighty human minds.
6. THE MAINTENANCE OF CIVILIZATION
81:6.1 While biologic evolution has proceeded ever upward, much of cultural
evolution went out from the Euphrates valley in waves, which successively
weakened as time passed until finally the whole of the pure-line Adamic
posterity had gone forth to enrich the civilizations of Asia and Europe. The
races did not fully blend, but their civilizations did to a considerable
extent mix. Culture did slowly spread throughout the world. And this
civilization must be maintained and fostered, for there exist today no new
sources of culture, no Andites to invigorate and stimulate the slow progress
of the evolution of civilization.
81:6.2 The civilization which is now evolving on Urantia grew out of, and is
predicated on, the following factors:
81:6.3 1. Natural circumstances. The nature and extent of a material
civilization is in large measure determined by the natural resources
available. Climate, weather, and numerous physical conditions are factors in
the evolution of culture.
81:6.4 At the opening of the Andite era there were only two extensive and
fertile open hunting areas in all the world. One was in North America and was
overspread by the Amerinds; the other was to the north of Turkestan and was
partly occupied by an Andonic-yellow race. The decisive factors in the
evolution of a superior culture in southwestern Asia were race and climate.
The Andites were a great people, but the crucial factor in determining the
course of their civilization was the increasing aridity of Iran, Turkestan,
and Sinkiang, which forced them to invent and adopt new and advanced methods
of wresting a livelihood from their decreasingly fertile lands.
81:6.5 The configuration of continents and other land-arrangement situations
are very influential in determining peace or war. Very few Urantians have ever
had such a favorable opportunity for continuous and unmolested development as
has been enjoyed by the peoples of North America -- protected on practically
all sides by vast oceans.
81:6.6 2. Capital goods. Culture is never developed under conditions of
poverty; leisure is essential to the progress of civilization. Individual
character of moral and spiritual value may be acquired in the absence of
material wealth, but a cultural civilization is only derived from those
conditions of material prosperity which foster leisure combined with ambition.
81:6.7 During primitive times life on Urantia was a serious and sober
business. And it was to escape this incessant struggle and interminable toil
that mankind constantly tended to drift toward the salubrious climate of the
tropics. While these warmer zones of habitation afforded some remission from
the intense struggle for existence, the races and tribes who thus sought ease
seldom utilized their unearned leisure for the advancement of civilization.
Social progress has invariably come from the thoughts and plans of those races
that have, by their intelligent toil, learned how to wrest a living from the
land with lessened effort and shortened days of labor and thus have been able
to enjoy a well-earned and profitable margin of leisure.
81:6.8 3. Scientific knowledge. The material aspects of civilization must
always await the accumulation of scientific data. It was a long time after the
discovery of the bow and arrow and the utilization of animals for power
purposes before man learned how to harness wind and water, to be followed by
the employment of steam and electricity. But slowly the tools of civilization
improved. Weaving, pottery, the domestication of animals, and metalworking
were followed by an age of writing and printing.
81:6.9 Knowledge is power. Invention always precedes the acceleration of
cultural development on a world-wide scale. Science and invention benefited
most of all from the printing press, and the interaction of all these cultural
and inventive activities has enormously accelerated the rate of cultural
advancement.
81:6.10 Science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and
trains his thoughts along lines of exacting precision. And science also
stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies
religion by the destruction of superstition.
81:6.11 4. Human resources. Man power is indispensable to the spread of
civilization. All things equal, a numerous people will dominate the
civilization of a smaller race. Hence failure to increase in numbers up to a
certain point prevents the full realization of national destiny, but there
comes a point in population increase where further growth is suicidal.
Multiplication of numbers beyond the optimum of the normal man-land ratio
means either a lowering of the standards of living or an immediate expansion
of territorial boundaries by peaceful penetration or by military conquest,
forcible occupation.
81:6.12 You are sometimes shocked at the ravages of war, but you should
recognize the necessity for producing large numbers of mortals so as to afford
ample opportunity for social and moral development; with such planetary
fertility there soon occurs the serious problem of overpopulation. Most of the
inhabited worlds are small. Urantia is average, perhaps a trifle undersized.
The optimum stabilization of national population enhances culture and prevents
war. And it is a wise nation which knows when to cease growing.
81:6.13 But the continent richest in natural deposits and the most advanced
mechanical equipment will make little progress if the intelligence of its
people is on the decline. Knowledge can be had by education, but wisdom, which
is indispensable to true culture, can be secured only through experience and
by men and women who are innately intelligent. Such a people are able to learn
from experience; they may become truly wise.
81:6.14 5. Effectiveness of material resources. Much depends on the wisdom
displayed in the utilization of natural resources, scientific knowledge,
capital goods, and human potentials. The chief factor in early civilization
was the force exerted by wise social masters; primitive man had civilization
literally thrust upon him by his superior contemporaries. Well-organized and
superior minorities have largely ruled this world.
81:6.15 Might does not make right, but might does make what is and what has
been in history. Only recently has Urantia reached that point where society is
willing to debate the ethics of might and right.
81:6.16 6. Effectiveness of language. The spread of civilization must wait
upon language. Live and growing languages insure the expansion of civilized
thinking and planning. During the early ages important advances were made in
language. Today, there is great need for further linguistic development to
facilitate the expression of evolving thought.
81:6.17 Language evolved out of group associations, each local group
developing its own system of word exchange. Language grew up through gestures,
signs, cries, imitative sounds, intonation, and accent to the vocalization of
subsequent alphabets. Language is man's greatest and most serviceable thinking
tool, but it never flourished until social groups acquired some leisure. The
tendency to play with language develops new words -- slang. If the majority
adopt the slang, then usage constitutes it language. The origin of dialects is
illustrated by the indulgence in "baby talk" in a family group.
81:6.18 Language differences have ever been the great barrier to the extension
of peace. The conquest of dialects must precede the spread of a culture
throughout a race, over a continent, or to a whole world. A universal language
promotes peace, insures culture, and augments happiness. Even when the tongues
of a world are reduced to a few, the mastery of these by the leading cultural
peoples mightily influences the achievement of world-wide peace and
prosperity.
81:6.19 While very little progress has been made on Urantia toward developing
an international language, much has been accomplished by the establishment of
international commercial exchange. And all these international relations
should be fostered, whether they involve language, trade, art, science,
competitive play, or religion.
81:6.20 7. Effectiveness of mechanical devices. The progress of civilization
is directly related to the development and possession of tools, machines, and
channels of distribution. Improved tools, ingenious and efficient machines,
determine the survival of contending groups in the arena of advancing
civilization.
81:6.21 In the early days the only energy applied to land cultivation was man
power. It was a long struggle to substitute oxen for men since this threw men
out of employment. Latterly, machines have begun to displace men, and every
such advance is directly contributory to the progress of society because it
liberates man power for the accomplishment of more valuable tasks.
81:6.22 Science, guided by wisdom, may become man's great social liberator. A
mechanical age can prove disastrous only to a nation whose intellectual level
is too low to discover those wise methods and sound techniques for
successfully adjusting to the transition difficulties arising from the sudden
loss of employment by large numbers consequent upon the too rapid invention of
new types of laborsaving machinery.
81:6.23 8. Character of torchbearers. Social inheritance enables man to stand
on the shoulders of all who have preceded him, and who have contributed aught
to the sum of culture and knowledge. In this work of passing on the cultural
torch to the next generation, the home will ever be the basic institution. The
play and social life comes next, with the school last but equally
indispensable in a complex and highly organized society.
81:6.24 Insects are born fully educated and equipped for life -- indeed, a
very narrow and purely instinctive existence. The human baby is born without
an education; therefore man possesses the power, by controlling the
educational training of the younger generation, greatly to modify the
evolutionary course of civilization.
81:6.25 The greatest twentieth-century influences contributing to the
furtherance of civilization and the advancement of culture are the marked
increase in world travel and the unparalleled improvements in methods of
communication. But the improvement in education has not kept pace with the
expanding social structure; neither has the modern appreciation of ethics
developed in correspondence with growth along more purely intellectual and
scientific lines. And modern civilization is at a standstill in spiritual
development and the safeguarding of the home institution.
81:6.26 9. The racial ideals. The ideals of one generation carve out the
channels of destiny for immediate posterity. The quality of the social
torchbearers will determine whether civilization goes forward or backward. The
homes, churches, and schools of one generation predetermine the character
trend of the succeeding generation. The moral and spiritual momentum of a race
or a nation largely determines the cultural velocity of that civilization.
81:6.27 Ideals elevate the source of the social stream. And no stream will
rise any higher than its source no matter what technique of pressure or
directional control may be employed. The driving power of even the most
material aspects of a cultural civilization is resident in the least material
of society's achievements. Intelligence may control the mechanism of
civilization, wisdom may direct it, but spiritual idealism is the energy which
really uplifts and advances human culture from one level of attainment to
another.
81:6.28 At first life was a struggle for existence; now, for a standard of
living; next it will be for quality of thinking, the coming earthly goal of
human existence.
81:6.29 10. Co-ordination of specialists. Civilization has been enormously
advanced by the early division of labor and by its later corollary of
specialization. Civilization is now dependent on the effective co-ordination
of specialists. As society expands, some method of drawing together the
various specialists must be found.
81:6.30 Social, artistic, technical, and industrial specialists will continue
to multiply and increase in skill and dexterity. And this diversification of
ability and dissimilarity of employment will eventually weaken and
disintegrate human society if effective means of co-ordination and co-
operation are not developed. But the intelligence which is capable of such
inventiveness and such specialization should be wholly competent to devise
adequate methods of control and adjustment for all problems resulting from the
rapid growth of invention and the accelerated pace of cultural expansion.
81:6.31 11. Place-finding devices. The next age of social development will be
embodied in a better and more effective co-operation and co-ordination of
ever-increasing and expanding specialization. And as labor more and more
diversifies, some technique for directing individuals to suitable employment
must be devised. Machinery is not the only cause for unemployment among the
civilized peoples of Urantia. Economic complexity and the steady increase of
industrial and professional specialism add to the problems of labor placement.
81:6.32 It is not enough to train men for work; in a complex society there
must also be provided efficient methods of place finding. Before training
citizens in the highly specialized techniques of earning a living, they should
be trained in one or more methods of commonplace labor, trades or callings
which could be utilized when they were transiently unemployed in their
specialized work. No civilization can survive the long-time harboring of large
classes of unemployed. In time, even the best of citizens will become
distorted and demoralized by accepting support from the public treasury. Even
private charity becomes pernicious when long extended to able-bodied citizens.
81:6.33 Such a highly specialized society will not take kindly to the ancient
communal and feudal practices of olden peoples. True, many common services can
be acceptably and profitably socialized, but highly trained and
ultraspecialized human beings can best be managed by some technique of
intelligent co-operation. Modernized co-ordination and fraternal regulation
will be productive of longer-lived co-operation than will the older and more
primitive methods of communism or dictatorial regulative institutions based on
force.
81:6.34 12. The willingness to co-operate. One of the great hindrances to the
progress of human society is the conflict between the interests and welfare of
the larger, more socialized human groups and of the smaller, contrary-minded
asocial associations of mankind, not to mention antisocially-minded single
individuals.
81:6.35 No national civilization long endures unless its educational methods
and religious ideals inspire a high type of intelligent patriotism and
national devotion. Without this sort of intelligent patriotism and cultural
solidarity, all nations tend to disintegrate as a result of provincial
jealousies and local self-interests.
81:6.36 The maintenance of world-wide civilization is dependent on human
beings learning how to live together in peace and fraternity. Without
effective co-ordination, industrial civilization is jeopardized by the dangers
of ultraspecialization: monotony, narrowness, and the tendency to breed
distrust and jealousy.
81:6.37 13. Effective and wise leadership. In civilization much, very much,
depends on an enthusiastic and effective load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of
little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together
-- all at the same moment. And such teamwork -- social co-operation -- is
dependent on leadership. The cultural civilizations of the past and the
present have been based upon the intelligent co-operation of the citizenry
with wise and progressive leaders; and until man evolves to higher levels,
civilization will continue to be dependent on wise and vigorous leadership.
81:6.38 High civilizations are born of the sagacious correlation of material
wealth, intellectual greatness, moral worth, social cleverness, and cosmic
insight.
81:6.39 14. Social changes. Society is not a divine institution; it is a
phenomenon of progressive evolution; and advancing civilization is always
delayed when its leaders are slow in making those changes in the social
organization which are essential to keeping pace with the scientific
developments of the age. For all that, things must not be despised just
because they are old, neither should an idea be unconditionally embraced just
because it is novel and new.
81:6.40 Man should be unafraid to experiment with the mechanisms of society.
But always should these adventures in cultural adjustment be controlled by
those who are fully conversant with the history of social evolution; and
always should these innovators be counseled by the wisdom of those who have
had practical experience in the domains of contemplated social or economic
experiment. No great social or economic change should be attempted suddenly.
Time is essential to all types of human adjustment -- physical, social, or
economic. Only moral and spiritual adjustments can be made on the spur of the
moment, and even these require the passing of time for the full outworking of
their material and social repercussions. The ideals of the race are the chief
support and assurance during the critical times when civilization is in
transit from one level to another.
81:6.41 15. The prevention of transitional breakdown. Society is the offspring
of age upon age of trial and error; it is what survived the selective
adjustments and readjustments in the successive stages of mankind's agelong
rise from animal to human levels of planetary status. The great danger to any
civilization -- at any one moment -- is the threat of breakdown during the
time of transition from the established methods of the past to those new and
better, but untried, procedures of the future.
81:6.42 Leadership is vital to progress. Wisdom, insight, and foresight are
indispensable to the endurance of nations. Civilization is never really
jeopardized until able leadership begins to vanish. And the quantity of such
wise leadership has never exceeded one per cent of the population.
81:6.43 And it was by these rungs on the evolutionary ladder that civilization
climbed to that place where those mighty influences could be initiated which
have culminated in the rapidly expanding culture of the twentieth century. And
only by adherence to these essentials can man hope to maintain his present-day
civilizations while providing for their continued development and certain
survival.
81:6.44 This is the gist of the long, long struggle of the peoples of earth to
establish civilization since the age of Adam. Present-day culture is the net
result of this strenuous evolution. Before the discovery of printing, progress
was relatively slow since one generation could not so rapidly benefit from the
achievements of its predecessors. But now human society is plunging forward
under the force of the accumulated momentum of all the ages through which
civilization has struggled.
81:6.45 Sponsored by an Archangel of Nebadon.
PAPER 82
THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
82:0.1 MARRIAGE -- mating -- grows out of bisexuality. Marriage is man's
reactional adjustment to such bisexuality, while the family life is the sum
total resulting from all such evolutionary and adaptative adjustments.
Marriage is enduring; it is not inherent in biologic evolution, but it is the
basis of all social evolution and is therefore certain of continued existence
in some form. Marriage has given mankind the home, and the home is the
crowning glory of the whole long and arduous evolutionary struggle.
82:0.2 While religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential
to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer.
A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the
neighbors.
82:0.3 The humans of olden times did not possess a very rich social
civilization, but such as they had they faithfully and effectively passed on
to the next generation. And you should recognize that most of these
civilizations of the past continued to evolve with a bare minimum of other
institutional influences because the home was effectively functioning. Today
the human races possess a rich social and cultural heritage, and it should be
wisely and effectively passed on to succeeding generations. The family as an
educational institution must be maintained.
1. THE MATING INSTINCT
82:1.1 Notwithstanding the personality gulf between men and women, the sex
urge is sufficient to insure their coming together for the reproduction of the
species. This instinct operated effectively long before humans experienced
much of what was later called love, devotion, and marital loyalty. Mating is
an innate propensity, and marriage is its evolutionary social repercussion.
82:1.2 Sex interest and desire were not dominating passions in primitive
peoples; they simply took them for granted. The entire reproductive experience
was free from imaginative embellishment. The all-absorbing sex passion of the
more highly civilized peoples is chiefly due to race mixtures, especially
where the evolutionary nature has been stimulated by the associative
imagination and beauty appreciation of the Nodites and Adamites. But this
Andite inheritance was absorbed by the evolutionary races in such limited
amounts as to fail to provide sufficient self-control for the animal passions
thus quickened and aroused by the endowment of keener sex consciousness and
stronger mating urges. Of the evolutionary races, the red man had the highest
sex code.
82:1.3 The regulation of sex in relation to marriage indicates:
82:1.4 1. The relative progress of civilization. Civilization has increasingly
demanded that sex be gratified in useful channels and in accordance with the
mores.
82:1.5 2. The amount of Andite stock in any people. Among such groups sex has
become expressive of both the highest and the lowest in both the physical and
emotional natures.
82:1.6 The Sangik races had normal animal passion, but they displayed little
imagination or appreciation of the beauty and physical attractiveness of the
opposite sex. What is called sex appeal is virtually absent even in present-
day primitive races; these unmixed peoples have a definite mating instinct but
insufficient sex attraction to create serious problems requiring social
control.
82:1.7 The mating instinct is one of the dominant physical driving forces of
human beings; it is the one emotion which, in the guise of individual
gratification, effectively tricks selfish man into putting race welfare and
perpetuation high above individual ease and personal freedom from
responsibility.
82:1.8 As an institution, marriage, from its early beginnings down to modern
times, pictures the social evolution of the biologic propensity for self-
perpetuation. The perpetuation of the evolving human species is made certain
by the presence of this racial mating impulse, an urge which is loosely called
sex attraction. This great biologic urge becomes the impulse hub for all sorts
of associated instincts, emotions, and usages -- physical, intellectual,
moral, and social.
82:1.9 With the savage, the food supply was the impelling motivation, but when
civilization insures plentiful food, the sex urge many times becomes a
dominant impulse and therefore ever stands in need of social regulation. In
animals, instinctive periodicity checks the mating propensity, but since man
is so largely a self-controlled being, sex desire is not altogether periodic;
therefore does it become necessary for society to impose self-control upon the
individual.
82:1.10 No human emotion or impulse, when unbridled and overindulged, can
produce so much harm and sorrow as this powerful sex urge. Intelligent
submission of this impulse to the regulations of society is the supreme test
of the actuality of any civilization. Self-control, more and more self-
control, is the ever-increasing demand of advancing mankind. Secrecy,
insincerity, and hypocrisy may obscure sex problems, but they do not provide
solutions, nor do they advance ethics.
2. THE RESTRICTIVE TABOOS
82:2.1 The story of the evolution of marriage is simply the history of sex
control through the pressure of social, religious, and civil restrictions.
Nature hardly recognizes individuals; it takes no cognizance of so-called
morals; it is only and exclusively interested in the reproduction of the
species. Nature compellingly insists on reproduction but indifferently leaves
the consequential problems to be solved by society, thus creating an ever-
present and major problem for evolutionary mankind. This social conflict
consists in the unending war between basic instincts and evolving ethics.
82:2.2 Among the early races there was little or no regulation of the
relations of the sexes. Because of this sex license, no prostitution existed.
Today, the Pygmies and other backward groups have no marriage institution; a
study of these peoples reveals the simple mating customs followed by primitive
races. But all ancient peoples should always be studied and judged in the
light of the moral standards of the mores of their own times.
82:2.3 Free love, however, has never been in good standing above the scale of
rank savagery. The moment societal groups began to form, marriage codes and
marital restrictions began to develop. Mating has thus progressed through a
multitude of transitions from a state of almost complete sex license to the
twentieth-century standards of relatively complete sex restriction.
82:2.4 In the earliest stages of tribal development the mores and restrictive
taboos were very crude, but they did keep the sexes apart -- this favored
quiet, order, and industry -- and the long evolution of marriage and the home
had begun. The sex customs of dress, adornment, and religious practices had
their origin in these early taboos which defined the range of sex liberties
and thus eventually created concepts of vice, crime, and sin. But it was long
the practice to suspend all sex regulations on high festival days, especially
May Day.
82:2.5 Women have always been subject to more restrictive taboos than men. The
early mores granted the same degree of sex liberty to unmarried women as to
men, but it has always been required of wives that they be faithful to their
husbands. Primitive marriage did not much curtail man's sex liberties, but it
did render further sex license taboo to the wife. Married women have always
borne some mark which set them apart as a class by themselves, such as
hairdress, clothing, veil, seclusion, ornamentation, and rings.
3. EARLY MARRIAGE MORES
82:3.1 Marriage is the institutional response of the social organism to the
ever-present biologic tension of man's unremitting urge to reproduction --
self-propagation. Mating is universally natural, and as society evolved from
the simple to the complex, there was a corresponding evolution of the mating
mores, the genesis of the marital institution. Wherever social evolution has
progressed to the stage at which mores are generated, marriage will be found
as an evolving institution.
82:3.2 There always have been and always will be two distinct realms of
marriage: the mores, the laws regulating the external aspects of mating, and
the otherwise secret and personal relations of men and women. Always has the
individual been rebellious against the sex regulations imposed by society; and
this is the reason for this agelong sex problem: Self-maintenance is
individual but is carried on by the group; self-perpetuation is social but is
secured by individual impulse.
82:3.3 The mores, when respected, have ample power to restrain and control the
sex urge, as has been shown among all races. Marriage standards have always
been a true indicator of the current power of the mores and the functional
integrity of the civil government. But the early sex and mating mores were a
mass of inconsistent and crude regulations. Parents, children, relatives, and
society all had conflicting interests in the marriage regulations. But in
spite of all this, those races which exalted and practiced marriage naturally
evolved to higher levels and survived in increased numbers.
82:3.4 In primitive times marriage was the price of social standing; the
possession of a wife was a badge of distinction. The savage looked upon his
wedding day as marking his entrance upon responsibility and manhood. In one
age, marriage has been looked upon as a social duty; in another, as a
religious obligation; and in still another, as a political requirement to
provide citizens for the state.
82:3.5 Many early tribes required feats of stealing as a qualification for
marriage; later peoples substituted for such raiding forays, athletic contests
and competitive games. The winners in these contests were awarded the first
prize -- choice of the season's brides. Among the head-hunters a youth might
not marry until he possessed at least one head, although such skulls were
sometimes purchasable. As the buying of wives declined, they were won by
riddle contests, a practice that still survives among many groups of the black
man.
82:3.6 With advancing civilization, certain tribes put the severe marriage
tests of male endurance in the hands of the women; they thus were able to
favor the men of their choice. These marriage tests embraced skill in hunting,
fighting, and ability to provide for a family. The groom was long required to
enter the bride's family for at least one year, there to live and labor and
prove that he was worthy of the wife he sought.
82:3.7 The qualifications of a wife were the ability to perform hard work and
to bear children. She was required to execute a certain piece of agricultural
work within a given time. And if she had borne a child before marriage, she
was all the more valuable; her fertility was thus assured.
82:3.8 The fact that ancient peoples regarded it as a disgrace, or even a sin,
not to be married, explains the origin of child marriages; since one must be
married, the earlier the better. It was also a general belief that unmarried
persons could not enter spiritland, and this was a further incentive to child
marriages even at birth and sometimes before birth, contingent upon sex. The
ancients believed that even the dead must be married. The original matchmakers
were employed to negotiate marriages for deceased individuals. One parent
would arrange for these intermediaries to effect the marriage of a dead son
with a dead daughter of another family.
82:3.9 Among later peoples, puberty was the common age of marriage, but this
has advanced in direct proportion to the progress of civilization. Early in
social evolution peculiar and celibate orders of both men and women arose;
they were started and maintained by individuals more or less lacking normal
sex urge.
82:3.10 Many tribes allowed members of the ruling group to have sex relations
with the bride just before she was to be given to her husband. Each of these
men would give the girl a present, and this was the origin of the custom of
giving wedding presents. Among some groups it was expected that a young woman
would earn her dowry, which consisted of the presents received in reward for
her sex service in the bride's exhibition hall.
82:3.11 Some tribes married the young men to the widows and older women and
then, when they were subsequently left widowers, would allow them to marry the
young girls, thus insuring, as they expressed it, that both parents would not
be fools, as they conceived would be the case if two youths were allowed to
mate. Other tribes limited mating to similar age groups. It was the limitation
of marriage to certain age groups that first gave origin to ideas of incest.
(In India there are even now no age restrictions on marriage.)
82:3.12 Under certain mores widowhood was greatly to be feared, widows being
either killed or allowed to commit suicide on their husbands' graves, for they
were supposed to go over into spiritland with their spouses. The surviving
widow was almost invariably blamed for her husband's death. Some tribes burned
them alive. If a widow continued to live, her life was one of continuous
mourning and unbearable social restriction since remarriage was generally
disapproved.
82:3.13 In olden days many practices now regarded as immoral were encouraged.
Primitive wives not infrequently took great pride in their husbands' affairs
with other women. Chastity in girls was a great hindrance to marriage; the
bearing of a child before marriage greatly increased a girl's desirability as
a wife since the man was sure of having a fertile companion.
82:3.14 Many primitive tribes sanctioned trial marriage until the woman became
pregnant, when the regular marriage ceremony would be performed; among other
groups the wedding was not celebrated until the first child was born. If a
wife was barren, she had to be redeemed by her parents, and the marriage was
annulled. The mores demanded that every pair have children.
82:3.15 These primitive trial marriages were entirely free from all semblance
of license; they were simply sincere tests of fecundity. The contracting
individuals married permanently just as soon as fertility was established.
When modern couples marry with the thought of convenient divorce in the
background of their minds if they are not wholly pleased with their married
life, they are in reality entering upon a form of trial marriage and one that
is far beneath the status of the honest adventures of their less civilized
ancestors.
4. MARRIAGE UNDER THE PROPERTY MORES
82:4.1 Marriage has always been closely linked with both property and
religion. Property has been the stabilizer of marriage; religion, the
moralizer.
82:4.2 Primitive marriage was an investment, an economic speculation; it was
more a matter of business than an affair of flirtation. The ancients married
for the advantage and welfare of the group; wherefore their marriages were
planned and arranged by the group, their parents and elders. And that the
property mores were effective in stabilizing the marriage institution is borne
out by the fact that marriage was more permanent among the early tribes than
it is among many modern peoples.
82:4.3 As civilization advanced and private property gained further
recognition in the mores, stealing became the great crime. Adultery was
recognized as a form of stealing, an infringement of the husband's property
rights; it is not therefore specifically mentioned in the earlier codes and
mores. Woman started out as the property of her father, who transferred his
title to her husband, and all legalized sex relations grew out of these pre-
existent property rights. The Old Testament deals with women as a form of
property; the Koran teaches their inferiority. Man had the right to lend his
wife to a friend or guest, and this custom still obtains among certain
peoples.
82:4.4 Modern sex jealousy is not innate; it is a product of the evolving
mores. Primitive man was not jealous of his wife; he was just guarding his
property. The reason for holding the wife to stricter sex account than the
husband was because her marital infidelity involved descent and inheritance.
Very early in the march of civilization the illegitimate child fell into
disrepute. At first only the woman was punished for adultery; later on, the
mores also decreed the chastisement of her partner, and for long ages the
offended husband or the protector father had the full right to kill the male
trespasser. Modern peoples retain these mores, which allow so-called crimes of
honor under the unwritten law.
82:4.5 Since the chastity taboo had its origin as a phase of the property
mores, it applied at first to married women but not to unmarried girls. In
later years, chastity was more demanded by the father than by the suitor; a
virgin was a commercial asset to the father -- she brought a higher price. As
chastity came more into demand, it was the practice to pay the father a bride
fee in recognition of the service of properly rearing a chaste bride for the
husband-to-be. When once started, this idea of female chastity took such hold
on the races that it became the practice literally to cage up girls, actually
to imprison them for years, in order to assure their virginity. And so the
more recent standards and virginity tests automatically gave origin to the
professional prostitute classes; they were the rejected brides, those women
who were found by the grooms' mothers not to be virgins.
5. ENDOGAMY AND EXOGAMY
82:5.1 Very early the savage observed that race mixture improved the quality
of the offspring. It was not that inbreeding was always bad, but that
outbreeding was always comparatively better; therefore the mores tended to
crystallize in restriction of sex relations among near relatives. It was
recognized that outbreeding greatly increased the selective opportunity for
evolutionary variation and advancement. The outbred individuals were more
versatile and had greater ability to survive in a hostile world; the
inbreeders, together with their mores, gradually disappeared. This was all a
slow development; the savage did not consciously reason about such problems.
But the later and advancing peoples did, and they also made the observation
that general weakness sometimes resulted from excessive inbreeding.
82:5.2 While the inbreeding of good stock sometimes resulted in the upbuilding
of strong tribes, the spectacular cases of the bad results of the inbreeding
of hereditary defectives more forcibly impressed the mind of man, with the
result that the advancing mores increasingly formulated taboos against all
marriages among near relatives.
82:5.3 Religion has long been an effective barrier against outmarriage; many
religious teachings have proscribed marriage outside the faith. Woman has
usually favored the practice of in-marriage; man, outmarriage. Property has
always influenced marriage, and sometimes, in an effort to conserve property
within a clan, mores have arisen compelling women to choose husbands within
their fathers' tribes. Rulings of this sort led to a great multiplication of
cousin marriages. In-mating was also practiced in an effort to preserve craft
secrets; skilled workmen sought to keep the knowledge of their craft within
the family.
82:5.4 Superior groups, when isolated, always reverted to consanguineous
mating. The Nodites for over one hundred and fifty thousand years were one of
the great in-marriage groups. The later-day in-marriage mores were
tremendously influenced by the traditions of the violet race, in which, at
first, matings were, perforce, between brother and sister. And brother and
sister marriages were common in early Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and
throughout the lands once occupied by the Andites. The Egyptians long
practiced brother and sister marriages in an effort to keep the royal blood
pure, a custom which persisted even longer in Persia. Among the Mesopotamians,
before the days of Abraham, cousin marriages were obligatory; cousins had
prior marriage rights to cousins. Abraham himself married his half sister, but
such unions were not allowed under the later mores of the Jews.
82:5.5 The first move away from brother and sister marriages came about under
the plural-wife mores because the sister-wife would arrogantly dominate the
other wife or wives. Some tribal mores forbade marriage to a dead brother's
widow but required the living brother to beget children for his departed
brother. There is no biologic instinct against any degree of in-marriage; such
restrictions are wholly a matter of taboo.
82:5.6 Outmarriage finally dominated because it was favored by the man; to get
a wife from the outside insured greater freedom from in-laws. Familiarity
breeds contempt; so, as the element of individual choice began to dominate
mating, it became the custom to choose partners from outside the tribe.
82:5.7 Many tribes finally forbade marriages within the clan; others limited
mating to certain castes. The taboo against marriage with a woman of one's own
totem gave impetus to the custom of stealing women from neighboring tribes.
Later on, marriages were regulated more in accordance with territorial
residence than with kinship. There were many steps in the evolution of in-
marriage into the modern practice of outmarriage. Even after the taboo rested
upon in-marriages for the common people, chiefs and kings were permitted to
marry those of close kin in order to keep the royal blood concentrated and
pure. The mores have usually permitted sovereign rulers certain licenses in
sex matters.
82:5.8 The presence of the later Andite peoples had much to do with increasing
the desire of the Sangik races to mate outside their own tribes. But it was
not possible for out-mating to become prevalent until neighboring groups had
learned to live together in relative peace.
82:5.9 Outmarriage itself was a peace promoter; marriages between the tribes
lessened hostilities. Outmarriage led to tribal co-ordination and to military
alliances; it became dominant because it provided increased strength; it was a
nation builder. Outmarriage was also greatly favored by increasing trade
contacts; adventure and exploration contributed to the extension of the mating
bounds and greatly facilitated the cross-fertilization of racial cultures.
82:5.10 The otherwise inexplicable inconsistencies of the racial marriage
mores are largely due to this outmarriage custom with its accompanying wife
stealing and buying from foreign tribes, all of which resulted in a
compounding of the separate tribal mores. That these taboos respecting in-
marriage were sociologic, not biologic, is well illustrated by the taboos on
kinship marriages, which embraced many degrees of in-law relationships, cases
representing no blood relation whatsoever.
6. RACIAL MIXTURES
82:6.1 There are no pure races in the world today. The early and original
evolutionary peoples of color have only two representative races persisting in
the world, the yellow man and the black man; and even these two races are much
admixed with the extinct colored peoples. While the so-called white race is
predominantly descended from the ancient blue man, it is admixed more or less
with all other races much as is the red man of the Americas.
82:6.2 Of the six colored Sangik races, three were primary and three were
secondary. Though the primary races -- blue, red, and yellow -- were in many
respects superior to the three secondary peoples, it should be remembered that
these secondary races had many desirable traits which would have considerably
enhanced the primary peoples if their better strains could have been absorbed.
82:6.3 Present-day prejudice against "half-castes," "hybrids," and "mongrels"
arises because modern racial crossbreeding is, for the greater part, between
the grossly inferior strains of the races concerned. You also get
unsatisfactory offspring when the degenerate strains of the same race
intermarry.
82:6.4 If the present-day races of Urantia could be freed from the curse of
their lowest strata of deteriorated, antisocial, feeble-minded, and outcast
specimens, there would be little objection to a limited race amalgamation. And
if such racial mixtures could take place between the highest types of the
several races, still less objection could be offered.
82:6.5 Hybridization of superior and dissimilar stocks is the secret of the
creation of new and more vigorous strains. And this is true of plants,
animals, and the human species. Hybridization augments vigor and increases
fertility. Race mixtures of the average or superior strata of various peoples
greatly increase creative potential, as is shown in the present population of
the United States of North America. When such matings take place between the
lower or inferior strata, creativity is diminished, as is shown by the
present-day peoples of southern India.
82:6.6 Race blending greatly contributes to the sudden appearance of new
characteristics, and if such hybridization is the union of superior strains,
then these new characteristics will also be superior traits.
82:6.7 As long as present-day races are so overloaded with inferior and
degenerate strains, race intermingling on a large scale would be most
detrimental, but most of the objections to such experiments rest on social and
cultural prejudices rather than on biological considerations. Even among
inferior stocks, hybrids often are an improvement on their ancestors.
Hybridization makes for species improvement because of the role of the
dominant genes. Racial intermixture increases the likelihood of a larger
number of the desirable dominants being present in the hybrid.
82:6.8 For the past hundred years more racial hybridization has been taking
place on Urantia than has occurred in thousands of years. The danger of gross
disharmonies as a result of crossbreeding of human stocks has been greatly
exaggerated. The chief troubles of "half-breeds" are due to social prejudices.
82:6.9 The Pitcairn experiment of blending the white and Polynesian races
turned out fairly well because the white men and the Polynesian women were of
fairly good racial strains. Interbreeding between the highest types of the
white, red, and yellow races would immediately bring into existence many new
and biologically effective characteristics. These three peoples belong to the
primary Sangik races. Mixtures of the white and black races are not so
desirable in their immediate results, neither are such mulatto offspring so
objectionable as social and racial prejudice would seek to make them appear.
Physically, such white-black hybrids are excellent specimens of humanity,
notwithstanding their slight inferiority in some other respects.
82:6.10 When a primary Sangik race amalgamates with a secondary Sangik race,
the latter is considerably improved at the expense of the former. And on a
small scale -- extending over long periods of time -- there can be little
serious objection to such a sacrificial contribution by the primary races to
the betterment of the secondary groups. Biologically considered, the secondary
Sangiks were in some respects superior to the primary races.
82:6.11 After all, the real jeopardy of the human species is to be found in
the unrestrained multiplication of the inferior and degenerate strains of the
various civilized peoples rather than in any supposed danger of their racial
interbreeding.
82:6.12 Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 83
THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION
83:0.1 THIS is the recital of the early beginnings of the institution of
marriage. It has progressed steadily from the loose and promiscuous matings of
the herd through many variations and adaptations, even to the appearance of
those marriage standards which eventually culminated in the realization of
pair matings, the union of one man and one woman to establish a home of the
highest social order.
83:0.2 Marriage has been many times in jeopardy, and the marriage mores have
drawn heavily on both property and religion for support; but the real
influence which forever safeguards marriage and the resultant family is the
simple and innate biologic fact that men and women positively will not live
without each other, be they the most primitive savages or the most cultured
mortals.
83:0.3 It is because of the sex urge that selfish man is lured into making
something better than an animal out of himself. The self-regarding and self-
gratifying sex relationship entails the certain consequences of self-denial
and insures the assumption of altruistic duties and numerous race-benefiting
home responsibilities. Herein has sex been the unrecognized and unsuspected
civilizer of the savage; for this same sex impulse automatically and
unerringly compels man to think and eventually leads him to love.
1. MARRIAGE AS A SOCIETAL INSTITUTION
83:1.1 Marriage is society's mechanism designed to regulate and control those
many human relations which arise out of the physical fact of bisexuality. As
such an institution, marriage functions in two directions:
1. In the regulation of personal sex relations.
2. In the regulation of descent, inheritance, succession, and social order, this
being its older and original function.
83:1.2 The family, which grows out of marriage, is itself a stabilizer of the
marriage institution together with the property mores. Other potent factors in
marriage stability are pride, vanity, chivalry, duty, and religious
convictions. But while marriages may be approved or disapproved on high, they
are hardly made in heaven. The human family is a distinctly human institution,
an evolutionary development. Marriage is an institution of society, not a
department of the church. True, religion should mightily influence it but
should not undertake exclusively to control and regulate it.
83:1.3 Primitive marriage was primarily industrial; and even in modern times
it is often a social or business affair. Through the influence of the mixture
of the Andite stock and as a result of the mores of advancing civilization,
marriage is slowly becoming mutual, romantic, parental, poetical,
affectionate, ethical, and even idealistic. Selection and so-called romantic
love, however, were at a minimum in primitive mating. During early times
husband and wife were not much together; they did not even eat together very
often. But among the ancients, personal affection was not strongly linked to
sex attraction; they became fond of one another largely because of living and
working together.
2. COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL
83:2.1 Primitive marriages were always planned by the parents of the boy and
girl. The transition stage between this custom and the times of free choosing
was occupied by the marriage broker or professional matchmaker. These
matchmakers were at first the barbers; later, the priests. Marriage was
originally a group affair; then a family matter; only recently has it become
an individual adventure.
83:2.2 Coercion, not attraction, was the approach to primitive marriage. In
early times woman had no sex aloofness, only sex inferiority as inculcated by
the mores. As raiding preceded trading, so marriage by capture preceded
marriage by contract. Some women would connive at capture in order to escape
the domination of the older men of their tribe; they preferred to fall into
the hands of men of their own age from another tribe. This pseudo elopement
was the transition stage between capture by force and subsequent courtship by
charming.
83:2.3 An early type of wedding ceremony was the mimic flight, a sort of
elopement rehearsal which was once a common practice. Later, mock capture
became a part of the regular wedding ceremony. A modern girl's pretensions to
resist "capture," to be reticent toward marriage, are all relics of olden
customs. The carrying of the bride over the threshold is reminiscent of a
number of ancient practices, among others, of the days of wife stealing.
83:2.4 Woman was long denied full freedom of self-disposal in marriage, but
the more intelligent women have always been able to circumvent this
restriction by the clever exercise of their wits. Man has usually taken the
lead in courtship, but not always. Woman sometimes formally, as well as
covertly, initiates marriage. And as civilization has progressed, women have
had an increasing part in all phases of courtship and marriage.
83:2.5 Increasing love, romance, and personal selection in premarital
courtship are an Andite contribution to the world races. The relations between
the sexes are evolving favorably; many advancing peoples are gradually
substituting somewhat idealized concepts of sex attraction for those older
motives of utility and ownership. Sex impulse and feelings of affection are
beginning to displace cold calculation in the choosing of life partners.
83:2.6 The betrothal was originally equivalent to marriage; and among early
peoples sex relations were conventional during the engagement. In recent
times, religion has established a sex taboo on the period between betrothal
and marriage.
3. PURCHASE AND DOWRY
83:3.1 The ancients mistrusted love and promises; they thought that abiding
unions must be guaranteed by some tangible security, property. For this
reason, the purchase price of a wife was regarded as a forfeit or deposit
which the husband was doomed to lose in case of divorce or desertion. Once the
purchase price of a bride had been paid, many tribes permitted the husband's
brand to be burned upon her. Africans still buy their wives. A love wife, or a
white man's wife, they compare to a cat because she costs nothing.
83:3.2 The bride shows were occasions for dressing up and decorating daughters
for public exhibition with the idea of their bringing higher prices as wives.
But they were not sold as animals -- among the later tribes such a wife was
not transferable. Neither was her purchase always just a cold-blooded money
transaction; service was equivalent to cash in the purchase of a wife. If an
otherwise desirable man could not pay for his wife, he could be adopted as a
son by the girl's father and then could marry. And if a poor man sought a wife
and could not meet the price demanded by a grasping father, the elders would
often bring pressure to bear upon the father which would result in a
modification of his demands, or else there might be an elopement.
83:3.3 As civilization progressed, fathers did not like to appear to sell
their daughters, and so, while continuing to accept the bride purchase price,
they initiated the custom of giving the pair valuable presents which about
equaled the purchase money. And upon the later discontinuance of payment for
the bride, these presents became the bride's dowry.
83:3.4 The idea of a dowry was to convey the impression of the bride's
independence, to suggest far removal from the times of slave wives and
property companions. A man could not divorce a dowered wife without paying
back the dowry in full. Among some tribes a mutual deposit was made with the
parents of both bride and groom to be forfeited in case either deserted the
other, in reality a marriage bond. During the period of transition from
purchase to dowry, if the wife were purchased, the children belonged to the
father; if not, they belonged to the wife's family.
4. THE WEDDING CEREMONY
83:4.1 The wedding ceremony grew out of the fact that marriage was originally
a community affair, not just the culmination of a decision of two individuals.
Mating was of group concern as well as a personal function.
83:4.2 Magic, ritual, and ceremony surrounded the entire life of the ancients,
and marriage was no exception. As civilization advanced, as marriage became
more seriously regarded, the wedding ceremony became increasingly pretentious.
Early marriage was a factor in property interests, even as it is today, and
therefore required a legal ceremony, while the social status of subsequent
children demanded the widest possible publicity. Primitive man had no records;
therefore must the marriage ceremony be witnessed by many persons.
83:4.3 At first the wedding ceremony was more on the order of a betrothal and
consisted only in public notification of intention of living together; later
it consisted in formal eating together. Among some tribes the parents simply
took their daughter to the husband; in other cases the only ceremony was the
formal exchange of presents, after which the bride's father would present her
to the groom. Among many Levantine peoples it was the custom to dispense with
all formality, marriage being consummated by sex relations. The red man was
the first to develop the more elaborate celebration of weddings.
83:4.4 Childlessness was greatly dreaded, and since barrenness was attributed
to spirit machinations, efforts to insure fecundity also led to the
association of marriage with certain magical or religious ceremonials. And in
this effort to insure a happy and fertile marriage, many charms were employed;
even the astrologers were consulted to ascertain the birth stars of the
contracting parties. At one time the human sacrifice was a regular feature of
all weddings among well-to-do people.
83:4.5 Lucky days were sought out, Thursday being most favorably regarded, and
weddings celebrated at the full of the moon were thought to be exceptionally
fortunate. It was the custom of many Near Eastern peoples to throw grain upon
the newlyweds; this was a magical rite which was supposed to insure fecundity.
Certain Oriental peoples used rice for this purpose.
83:4.6 Fire and water were always considered the best means of resisting
ghosts and evil spirits; hence altar fires and lighted candles, as well as the
baptismal sprinkling of holy water, were usually in evidence at weddings. For
a long time it was customary to set a false wedding day and then suddenly
postpone the event so as to put the ghosts and spirits off the track.
83:4.7 The teasing of newlyweds and the pranks played upon honeymooners are
all relics of those far-distant days when it was thought best to appear
miserable and ill at ease in the sight of the spirits so as to avoid arousing
their envy. The wearing of the bridal veil is a relic of the times when it was
considered necessary to disguise the bride so that ghosts might not recognize
her and also to hide her beauty from the gaze of the otherwise jealous and
envious spirits. The bride's feet must never touch the ground just prior to
the ceremony. Even in the twentieth century it is still the custom under the
Christian mores to stretch carpets from the carriage landing to the church
altar.
83:4.8 One of the most ancient forms of the wedding ceremony was to have a
priest bless the wedding bed to insure the fertility of the union; this was
done long before any formal wedding ritual was established. During this period
in the evolution of the marriage mores the wedding guests were expected to
file through the bedchamber at night, thus constituting legal witness to the
consummation of marriage.
83:4.9 The luck element, that in spite of all premarital tests certain
marriages turned out bad, led primitive man to seek insurance protection
against marriage failure; led him to go in quest of priests and magic. And
this movement culminated directly in modern church weddings. But for a long
time marriage was generally recognized as consisting in the decisions of the
contracting parents -- later of the pair -- while for the last five hundred
years church and state have assumed jurisdiction and now presume to make
pronouncements of marriage.
5. PLURAL MARRIAGES
83:5.1 In the early history of marriage the unmarried women belonged to the
men of the tribe. Later on, a woman had only one husband at a time. This
practice of one-man-at-a-time was the first step away from the promiscuity of
the herd. While a woman was allowed but one man, her husband could sever such
temporary relationships at will. But these loosely regulated associations were
the first step toward living pairwise in distinction to living herdwise. In
this stage of marriage development children usually belonged to the mother.
83:5.2 The next step in mating evolution was the group marriage. This communal
phase of marriage had to intervene in the unfolding of family life because the
marriage mores were not yet strong enough to make pair associations permanent.
The brother and sister marriages belonged to this group; five brothers of one
family would marry five sisters of another. All over the world the looser
forms of communal marriage gradually evolved into various types of group
marriage. And these group associations were largely regulated by the totem
mores. Family life slowly and surely developed because sex and marriage
regulation favored the survival of the tribe itself by insuring the survival
of larger numbers of children.
83:5.3 Group marriages gradually gave way before the emerging practices of
polygamy -- polygyny and polyandry -- among the more advanced tribes. But
polyandry was never general, being usually limited to queens and rich women;
furthermore, it was customarily a family affair, one wife for several
brothers. Caste and economic restrictions sometimes made it necessary for
several men to content themselves with one wife. Even then, the woman would
marry only one, the others being loosely tolerated as "uncles" of the joint
progeny.
83:5.4 The Jewish custom requiring that a man consort with his deceased
brother's widow for the purpose of "raising up seed for his brother," was the
custom of more than half the ancient world. This was a relic of the time when
marriage was a family affair rather than an individual association.
83:5.5 The institution of polygyny recognized, at various times, four sorts of
wives:
1. The ceremonial or legal wives.
2. Wives of affection and permission.
3. Concubines, contractual wives.
4. Slave wives.
83:5.6 True polygyny, where all the wives are of equal status and all the
children equal, has been very rare. Usually, even with plural marriages, the
home was dominated by the head wife, the status companion. She alone had the
ritual wedding ceremony, and only the children of such a purchased or dowered
spouse could inherit unless by special arrangement with the status wife.
83:5.7 The status wife was not necessarily the love wife; in early times she
usually was not. The love wife, or sweetheart, did not appear until the races
were considerably advanced, more particularly after the blending of the
evolutionary tribes with the Nodites and Adamites.
83:5.8 The taboo wife -- one wife of legal status -- created the concubine
mores. Under these mores a man might have only one wife, but he could maintain
sex relations with any number of concubines. Concubinage was the steppingstone
to monogamy, the first move away from frank polygyny. The concubines of the
Jews, Romans, and Chinese were very frequently the handmaidens of the wife.
Later on, as among the Jews, the legal wife was looked upon as the mother of
all children born to the husband.
83:5.9 The olden taboos on sex relations with a pregnant or nursing wife
tended greatly to foster polygyny. Primitive women aged very early because of
frequent childbearing coupled with hard work. (Such overburdened wives only
managed to exist by virtue of the fact that they were put in isolation one
week out of each month when they were not heavy with child.) Such a wife often
grew tired of bearing children and would request her husband to take a second
and younger wife, one able to help with both childbearing and the domestic
work. The new wives were therefore usually hailed with delight by the older
spouses; there existed nothing on the order of sex jealousy.
83:5.10 The number of wives was only limited by the ability of the man to
provide for them. Wealthy and able men wanted large numbers of children, and
since the infant mortality was very high, it required an assembly of wives to
recruit a large family. Many of these plural wives were mere laborers, slave
wives.
83:5.11 Human customs evolve, but very slowly. The purpose of a harem was to
build up a strong and numerous body of blood kin for the support of the
throne. A certain chief was once convinced that he should not have a harem,
that he should be contented with one wife; so he promptly dismissed his harem.
The dissatisfied wives went to their homes, and their offended relatives swept
down on the chief in wrath and did away with him then and there.
6. TRUE MONOGAMY -- PAIR MARRIAGE
83:6.1 Monogamy is monopoly; it is good for those who attain this desirable
state, but it tends to work a biologic hardship on those who are not so
fortunate. But quite regardless of the effect on the individual, monogamy is
decidedly best for the children.
83:6.2 The earliest monogamy was due to force of circumstances, poverty.
Monogamy is cultural and societal, artificial and unnatural, that is,
unnatural to evolutionary man. It was wholly natural to the purer Nodites and
Adamites and has been of great cultural value to all advanced races.
83:6.3 The Chaldean tribes recognized the right of a wife to impose a
premarital pledge upon her spouse not to take a second wife or concubine; both
the Greeks and the Romans favored monogamous marriage. Ancestor worship has
always fostered monogamy, as has the Christian error of regarding marriage as
a sacrament. Even the elevation of the standard of living has consistently
militated against plural wives. By the time of Michael's advent on Urantia
practically all of the civilized world had attained the level of theoretical
monogamy. But this passive monogamy did not mean that mankind had become
habituated to the practice of real pair marriage.
83:6.4 While pursuing the monogamic goal of the ideal pair marriage, which is,
after all, something of a monopolistic sex association, society must not
overlook the unenviable situation of those unfortunate men and women who fail
to find a place in this new and improved social order, even when having done
their best to co-operate with, and enter into, its requirements. Failure to
gain mates in the social arena of competition may be due to insurmountable
difficulties or multitudinous restrictions which the current mores have
imposed. Truly, monogamy is ideal for those who are in, but it must inevitably
work great hardship on those who are left out in the cold of solitary
existence.
83:6.5 Always have the unfortunate few had to suffer that the majority might
advance under the developing mores of evolving civilization; but always should
the favored majority look with kindness and consideration on their less
fortunate fellows who must pay the price of failure to attain membership in
the ranks of those ideal sex partnerships which afford the satisfaction of all
biologic urges under the sanction of the highest mores of advancing social
evolution.
83:6.6 Monogamy always has been, now is, and forever will be the idealistic
goal of human sex evolution. This ideal of true pair marriage entails self-
denial, and therefore does it so often fail just because one or both of the
contracting parties are deficient in that acme of all human virtues, rugged
self-control.
83:6.7 Monogamy is the yardstick which measures the advance of social
civilization as distinguished from purely biologic evolution. Monogamy is not
necessarily biologic or natural, but it is indispensable to the immediate
maintenance and further development of social civilization. It contributes to
a delicacy of sentiment, a refinement of moral character, and a spiritual
growth which are utterly impossible in polygamy. A woman never can become an
ideal mother when she is all the while compelled to engage in rivalry for her
husband's affections.
83:6.8 Pair marriage favors and fosters that intimate understanding and
effective co-operation which is best for parental happiness, child welfare,
and social efficiency. Marriage, which began in crude coercion, is gradually
evolving into a magnificent institution of self-culture, self-control, self-
expression, and self-perpetuation.
7. THE DISSOLUTION OF WEDLOCK
83:7.1 In the early evolution of the marital mores, marriage was a loose union
which could be terminated at will, and the children always followed the
mother; the mother-child bond is instinctive and has functioned regardless of
the developmental stage of the mores.
83:7.2 Among primitive peoples only about one half the marriages proved
satisfactory. The most frequent cause for separation was barrenness, which was
always blamed on the wife; and childless wives were believed to become snakes
in the spirit world. Under the more primitive mores, divorce was had at the
option of the man alone, and these standards have persisted to the twentieth
century among some peoples.
83:7.3 As the mores evolved, certain tribes developed two forms of marriage:
the ordinary, which permitted divorce, and the priest marriage, which did not
allow for separation. The inauguration of wife purchase and wife dowry, by
introducing a property penalty for marriage failure, did much to lessen
separation. And, indeed, many modern unions are stabilized by this ancient
property factor.
83:7.4 The social pressure of community standing and property privileges has
always been potent in the maintenance of the marriage taboos and mores. Down
through the ages marriage has made steady progress and stands on advanced
ground in the modern world, notwithstanding that it is threateningly assailed
by widespread dissatisfaction among those peoples where individual choice -- a
new liberty -- figures most largely. While these upheavals of adjustment
appear among the more progressive races as a result of suddenly accelerated
social evolution, among the less advanced peoples marriage continues to thrive
and slowly improve under the guidance of the older mores.
83:7.5 The new and sudden substitution of the more ideal but extremely
individualistic love motive in marriage for the older and long-established
property motive, has unavoidably caused the marriage institution to become
temporarily unstable. Man's marriage motives have always far transcended
actual marriage morals, and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the
Occidental ideal of marriage has suddenly far outrun the self-centered and but
partially controlled sex impulses of the races. The presence of large numbers
of unmarried persons in any society indicates the temporary breakdown or the
transition of the mores.
83:7.6 The real test of marriage, all down through the ages, has been that
continuous intimacy which is inescapable in all family life. Two pampered and
spoiled youths, educated to expect every indulgence and full gratification of
vanity and ego, can hardly hope to make a great success of marriage and home
building -- a life-long partnership of self-effacement, compromise, devotion,
and unselfish dedication to child culture.
83:7.7 The high degree of imagination and fantastic romance entering into
courtship is largely responsible for the increasing divorce tendencies among
modern Occidental peoples, all of which is further complicated by woman's
greater personal freedom and increased economic liberty. Easy divorce, when
the result of lack of self-control or failure of normal personality
adjustment, only leads directly back to those crude societal stages from which
man has emerged so recently and as the result of so much personal anguish and
racial suffering.
83:7.8 But just so long as society fails to properly educate children and
youths, so long as the social order fails to provide adequate premarital
training, and so long as unwise and immature youthful idealism is to be the
arbiter of the entrance upon marriage, just so long will divorce remain
prevalent. And in so far as the social group falls short of providing marriage
preparation for youths, to that extent must divorce function as the social
safety valve which prevents still worse situations during the ages of the
rapid growth of the evolving mores.
83:7.9 The ancients seem to have regarded marriage just about as seriously as
some present-day people do. And it does not appear that many of the hasty and
unsuccessful marriages of modern times are much of an improvement over the
ancient practices of qualifying young men and women for mating. The great
inconsistency of modern society is to exalt love and to idealize marriage
while disapproving of the fullest examination of both.
8. THE IDEALIZATION OF MARRIAGE
83:8.1 Marriage which culminates in the home is indeed man's most exalted
institution, but it is essentially human; it should never have been called a
sacrament. The Sethite priests made marriage a religious ritual; but for
thousands of years after Eden, mating continued as a purely social and civil
institution.
83:8.2 The likening of human associations to divine associations is most
unfortunate. The union of husband and wife in the marriage-home relationship
is a material function of the mortals of the evolutionary worlds. True,
indeed, much spiritual progress may accrue consequent upon the sincere human
efforts of husband and wife to progress, but this does not mean that marriage
is necessarily sacred. Spiritual progress is attendant upon sincere
application to other avenues of human endeavor.
83:8.3 Neither can marriage be truly compared to the relation of the Adjuster
to man nor to the fraternity of Christ Michael and his human brethren. At
scarcely any point are such relationships comparable to the association of
husband and wife. And it is most unfortunate that the human misconception of
these relationships has produced so much confusion as to the status of
marriage.
83:8.4 It is also unfortunate that certain groups of mortals have conceived of
marriage as being consummated by divine action. Such beliefs lead directly to
the concept of the indissolubility of the marital state regardless of the
circumstances or wishes of the contracting parties. But the very fact of
marriage dissolution itself indicates that Deity is not a conjoining party to
such unions. If God has once joined any two things or persons together, they
will remain thus joined until such a time as the divine will decrees their
separation. But, regarding marriage, which is a human institution, who shall
presume to sit in judgment, to say which marriages are unions that might be
approved by the universe supervisors in contrast with those which are purely
human in nature and origin?
83:8.5 Nevertheless, there is an ideal of marriage on the spheres on high. On
the capital of each local system the Material Sons and Daughters of God do
portray the height of the ideals of the union of man and woman in the bonds of
marriage and for the purpose of procreating and rearing offspring. After all,
the ideal mortal marriage is humanly sacred.
83:8.6 Marriage always has been and still is man's supreme dream of temporal
ideality. Though this beautiful dream is seldom realized in its entirety, it
endures as a glorious ideal, ever luring progressing mankind on to greater
strivings for human happiness. But young men and women should be taught
something of the realities of marriage before they are plunged into the
exacting demands of the interassociations of family life; youthful
idealization should be tempered with some degree of premarital
disillusionment.
83:8.7 The youthful idealization of marriage should not, however, be
discouraged; such dreams are the visualization of the future goal of family
life. This attitude is both stimulating and helpful providing it does not
produce an insensitivity to the realization of the practical and commonplace
requirements of marriage and subsequent family life.
83:8.8 The ideals of marriage have made great progress in recent times; among
some peoples woman enjoys practically equal rights with her consort. In
concept, at least, the family is becoming a loyal partnership for rearing
offspring, accompanied by sexual fidelity. But even this newer version of
marriage need not presume to swing so far to the extreme as to confer mutual
monopoly of all personality and individuality. Marriage is not just an
individualistic ideal; it is the evolving social partnership of a man and a
woman, existing and functioning under the current mores, restricted by the
taboos, and enforced by the laws and regulations of society.
83:8.9 Twentieth-century marriages stand high in comparison with those of past
ages, notwithstanding that the home institution is now undergoing a serious
testing because of the problems so suddenly thrust upon the social
organization by the precipitate augmentation of woman's liberties, rights so
long denied her in the tardy evolution of the mores of past generations.
83:8.10 Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 84
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE
84:0.1 MATERIAL necessity founded marriage, sex hunger embellished it,
religion sanctioned and exalted it, the state demanded and regulated it, while
in later times evolving love is beginning to justify and glorify marriage as
the ancestor and creator of civilization's most useful and sublime
institution, the home. And home building should be the center and essence of
all educational effort.
84:0.2 Mating is purely an act of self-perpetuation associated with varying
degrees of self-gratification; marriage, home building, is largely a matter of
self-maintenance, and it implies the evolution of society. Society itself is
the aggregated structure of family units. Individuals are very temporary as
planetary factors -- only families are continuing agencies in social
evolution. The family is the channel through which the river of culture and
knowledge flows from one generation to another.
84:0.3 The home is basically a sociologic institution. Marriage grew out of
co-operation in self-maintenance and partnership in self-perpetuation, the
element of self-gratification being largely incidental. Nevertheless, the home
does embrace all three of the essential functions of human existence, while
life propagation makes it the fundamental human institution, and sex sets it
off from all other social activities.
1. PRIMITIVE PAIR ASSOCIATIONS
84:1.1 Marriage was not founded on sex relations; they were incidental
thereto. Marriage was not needed by primitive man, who indulged his sex
appetite freely without encumbering himself with the responsibilities of wife,
children, and home.
84:1.2 Woman, because of physical and emotional attachment to her offspring,
is dependent on co-operation with the male, and this urges her into the
sheltering protection of marriage. But no direct biologic urge led man into
marriage -- much less held him in. It was not love that made marriage
attractive to man, but food hunger which first attracted savage man to woman
and the primitive shelter shared by her children.
84:1.3 Marriage was not even brought about by the conscious realization of the
obligations of sex relations. Primitive man comprehended no connection between
sex indulgence and the subsequent birth of a child. It was once universally
believed that a virgin could become pregnant. The savage early conceived the
idea that babies were made in spiritland; pregnancy was believed to be the
result of a woman's being entered by a spirit, an evolving ghost. Both diet
and the evil eye were also believed to be capable of causing pregnancy in a
virgin or unmarried woman, while later beliefs connected the beginnings of
life with the breath and with sunlight.
84:1.4 Many early peoples associated ghosts with the sea; hence virgins were
greatly restricted in their bathing practices; young women were far more
afraid of bathing in the sea at high tide than of having sex relations.
Deformed or premature babies were regarded as the young of animals which had
found their way into a woman's body as a result of careless bathing or through
malevolent spirit activity. Savages, of course, thought nothing of strangling
such offspring at birth.
84:1.5 The first step in enlightenment came with the belief that sex relations
opened up the way for the impregnating ghost to enter the female. Man has
since discovered that father and mother are equal contributors of the living
inheritance factors which initiate offspring. But even in the twentieth
century many parents still endeavor to keep their children in more or less
ignorance as to the origin of human life.
84:1.6 A family of some simple sort was insured by the fact that the
reproductive function entails the mother-child relationship. Mother love is
instinctive; it did not originate in the mores as did marriage. All mammalian
mother love is the inherent endowment of the adjutant mind-spirits of the
local universe and is in strength and devotion always directly proportional to
the length of the helpless infancy of the species.
84:1.7 The mother and child relation is natural, strong, and instinctive, and
one which, therefore, constrained primitive women to submit to many strange
conditions and to endure untold hardships. This compelling mother love is the
handicapping emotion which has always placed woman at such a tremendous
disadvantage in all her struggles with man. Even at that, maternal instinct in
the human species is not overpowering; it may be thwarted by ambition,
selfishness, and religious conviction.
84:1.8 While the mother-child association is neither marriage nor home, it was
the nucleus from which both sprang. The great advance in the evolution of
mating came when these temporary partnerships lasted long enough to rear the
resultant offspring, for that was homemaking.
84:1.9 Regardless of the antagonisms of these early pairs, notwithstanding the
looseness of the association, the chances for survival were greatly improved
by these male-female partnerships. A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside
from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men
or two women. This pairing of the sexes enhanced survival and was the very
beginning of human society. The sex division of labor also made for comfort
and increased happiness.
2. THE EARLY MOTHER-FAMILY
84:2.1 The woman's periodic hemorrhage and her further loss of blood at
childbirth early suggested blood as the creator of the child (even as the seat
of the soul) and gave origin to the blood-bond concept of human relationships.
In early times all descent was reckoned in the female line, that being the
only part of inheritance which was at all certain.
84:2.2 The primitive family, growing out of the instinctive biologic blood
bond of mother and child, was inevitably a mother-family; and many tribes long
held to this arrangement. The mother-family was the only possible transition
from the stage of group marriage in the horde to the later and improved home
life of the polygamous and monogamous father-families. The mother-family was
natural and biologic; the father-family is social, economic, and political.
The persistence of the mother-family among the North American red men is one
of the chief reasons why the otherwise progressive Iroquois never became a
real state.
84:2.3 Under the mother-family mores the wife's mother enjoyed virtually
supreme authority in the home; even the wife's brothers and their sons were
more active in family supervision than was the husband. Fathers were often
renamed after their own children.
84:2.4 The earliest races gave little credit to the father, looking upon the
child as coming altogether from the mother. They believed that children
resembled the father as a result of association, or that they were "marked" in
this manner because the mother desired them to look like the father. Later on,
when the switch came from the mother-family to the father-family, the father
took all credit for the child, and many of the taboos on a pregnant woman were
subsequently extended to include her husband. The prospective father ceased
work as the time of delivery approached, and at childbirth he went to bed,
along with the wife, remaining at rest from three to eight days. The wife
might arise the next day and engage in hard labor, but the husband remained in
bed to receive congratulations; this was all a part of the early mores
designed to establish the father's right to the child.
84:2.5 At first, it was the custom for the man to go to his wife's people, but
in later times, after a man had paid or worked out the bride price, he could
take his wife and children back to his own people. The transition from the
mother-family to the father-family explains the otherwise meaningless
prohibitions of some types of cousin marriages while others of equal kinship
are approved.
84:2.6 With the passing of the hunter mores, when herding gave man control of
the chief food supply, the mother-family came to a speedy end. It failed
simply because it could not successfully compete with the newer father-family.
Power lodged with the male relatives of the mother could not compete with
power concentrated in the husband-father. Woman was not equal to the combined
tasks of childbearing and of exercising continuous authority and increasing
domestic power. The oncoming of wife stealing and later wife purchase hastened
the passing of the mother-family.
84:2.7 The stupendous change from the mother-family to the father-family is
one of the most radical and complete right-about-face adjustments ever
executed by the human race. This change led at once to greater social
expression and increased family adventure.
3. THE FAMILY UNDER FATHER DOMINANCE
84:3.1 It may be that the instinct of motherhood led woman into marriage, but
it was man's superior strength, together with the influence of the mores, that
virtually compelled her to remain in wedlock. Pastoral living tended to create
a new system of mores, the patriarchal type of family life; and the basis of
family unity under the herder and early agricultural mores was the
unquestioned and arbitrary authority of the father. All society, whether
national or familial, passed through the stage of the autocratic authority of
a patriarchal order.
84:3.2 The scant courtesy paid womankind during the Old Testament era is a
true reflection of the mores of the herdsmen. The Hebrew patriarchs were all
herdsmen, as is witnessed by the saying, "The Lord is my Shepherd."
84:3.3 But man was no more to blame for his low opinion of woman during past
ages than was woman herself. She failed to get social recognition during
primitive times because she did not function in an emergency; she was not a
spectacular or crisis hero. Maternity was a distinct disability in the
existence struggle; mother love handicapped women in the tribal defense.
84:3.4 Primitive women also unintentionally created their dependence on the
male by their admiration and applause for his pugnacity and virility. This
exaltation of the warrior elevated the male ego while it equally depressed
that of the female and made her more dependent; a military uniform still
mightily stirs the feminine emotions.
84:3.5 Among the more advanced races, women are not so large or so strong as
men. Woman, being the weaker, therefore became the more tactful; she early
learned to trade upon her sex charms. She became more alert and conservative
than man, though slightly less profound. Man was woman's superior on the
battlefield and in the hunt; but at home woman has usually outgeneraled even
the most primitive of men.
84:3.6 The herdsman looked to his flocks for sustenance, but throughout these
pastoral ages woman must still provide the vegetable food. Primitive man
shunned the soil; it was altogether too peaceful, too unadventuresome. There
was also an old superstition that women could raise better plants; they were
mothers. In many backward tribes today, the men cook the meat, the women the
vegetables, and when the primitive tribes of Australia are on the march, the
women never attack game, while a man would not stoop to dig a root.
84:3.7 Woman has always had to work; at least right up to modern times the
female has been a real producer. Man has usually chosen the easier path, and
this inequality has existed throughout the entire history of the human race.
Woman has always been the burden bearer, carrying the family property and
tending the children, thus leaving the man's hands free for fighting or
hunting.
84:3.8 Woman's first liberation came when man consented to till the soil,
consented to do what had theretofore been regarded as woman's work. It was a
great step forward when male captives were no longer killed but were enslaved
as agriculturists. This brought about the liberation of woman so that she
could devote more time to homemaking and child culture.
84:3.9 The provision of milk for the young led to earlier weaning of babies,
hence to the bearing of more children by the mothers thus relieved of their
sometimes temporary barrenness, while the use of cow's milk and goat's milk
greatly reduced infant mortality. Before the herding stage of society, mothers
used to nurse their babies until they were four and five years old.
84:3.10 Decreasing primitive warfare greatly lessened the disparity between
the division of labor based on sex. But women still had to do the real work
while men did picket duty. No camp or village could be left unguarded day or
night, but even this task was alleviated by the domestication of the dog. In
general, the coming of agriculture has enhanced woman's prestige and social
standing; at least this was true up to the time man himself turned
agriculturist. And as soon as man addressed himself to the tilling of the
soil, there immediately ensued great improvement in methods of agriculture,
extending on down through successive generations. In hunting and war man had
learned the value of organization, and he introduced these techniques into
industry and later, when taking over much of woman's work, greatly improved on
her loose methods of labor.
4. WOMAN'S STATUS IN EARLY SOCIETY
84:4.1 Generally speaking, during any age woman's status is a fair criterion
of the evolutionary progress of marriage as a social institution, while the
progress of marriage itself is a reasonably accurate gauge registering the
advances of human civilization.
84:4.2 Woman's status has always been a social paradox; she has always been a
shrewd manager of men; she has always capitalized man's stronger sex urge for
her own interests and to her own advancement. By trading subtly upon her sex
charms, she has often been able to exercise dominant power over man, even when
held by him in abject slavery.
84:4.3 Early woman was not to man a friend, sweetheart, lover, and partner but
rather a piece of property, a servant or slave and, later on, an economic
partner, plaything, and childbearer. Nonetheless, proper and satisfactory sex
relations have always involved the element of choice and co-operation by
woman, and this has always given intelligent women considerable influence over
their immediate and personal standing, regardless of their social position as
a sex. But man's distrust and suspicion were not helped by the fact that women
were all along compelled to resort to shrewdness in the effort to alleviate
their bondage.
84:4.4 The sexes have had great difficulty in understanding each other. Man
found it hard to understand woman, regarding her with a strange mixture of
ignorant mistrust and fearful fascination, if not with suspicion and contempt.
Many tribal and racial traditions relegate trouble to Eve, Pandora, or some
other representative of womankind. These narratives were always distorted so
as to make it appear that the woman brought evil upon man; and all this
indicates the onetime universal distrust of woman. Among the reasons cited in
support of a celibate priesthood, the chief was the baseness of woman. The
fact that most supposed witches were women did not improve the olden
reputation of the sex.
84:4.5 Men have long regarded women as peculiar, even abnormal. They have even
believed that women did not have souls; therefore were they denied names.
During early times there existed great fear of the first sex relation with a
woman; hence it became the custom for a priest to have initial intercourse
with a virgin. Even a woman's shadow was thought to be dangerous.
84:4.6 Childbearing was once generally looked upon as rendering a woman
dangerous and unclean. And many tribal mores decreed that a mother must
undergo extensive purification ceremonies subsequent to the birth of a child.
Except among those groups where the husband participated in the lying-in, the
expectant mother was shunned, left alone. The ancients even avoided having a
child born in the house. Finally, the old women were permitted to attend the
mother during labor, and this practice gave origin to the profession of
midwifery. During labor, scores of foolish things were said and done in an
effort to facilitate delivery. It was the custom to sprinkle the newborn with
holy water to prevent ghost interference.
84:4.7 Among the unmixed tribes, childbirth was comparatively easy, occupying
only two or three hours; it is seldom so easy among the mixed races. If a
woman died in childbirth, especially during the delivery of twins, she was
believed to have been guilty of spirit adultery. Later on, the higher tribes
looked upon death in childbirth as the will of heaven; such mothers were
regarded as having perished in a noble cause.
84:4.8 The so-called modesty of women respecting their clothing and the
exposure of the person grew out of the deadly fear of being observed at the
time of a menstrual period. To be thus detected was a grievous sin, the
violation of a taboo. Under the mores of olden times, every woman, from
adolescence to the end of the childbearing period, was subjected to complete
family and social quarantine one full week each month. Everything she might
touch, sit upon, or lie upon was "defiled." It was for long the custom to
brutally beat a girl after each monthly period in an effort to drive the evil
spirit out of her body. But when a woman passed beyond the childbearing age,
she was usually treated more considerately, being accorded more rights and
privileges. In view of all this it was not strange that women were looked down
upon. Even the Greeks held the menstruating woman as one of the three great
causes of defilement, the other two being pork and garlic.
84:4.9 However foolish these olden notions were, they did some good since they
gave overworked females, at least when young, one week each month for welcome
rest and profitable meditation. Thus could they sharpen their wits for dealing
with their male associates the rest of the time. This quarantine of women also
protected men from over-sex indulgence, thereby indirectly contributing to the
restriction of population and to the enhancement of self-control.
84:4.10 A great advance was made when a man was denied the right to kill his
wife at will. Likewise, it was a forward step when a woman could own the
wedding gifts. Later, she gained the legal right to own, control, and even
dispose of property, but she was long deprived of the right to hold office in
either church or state. Woman has always been treated more or less as
property, right up to and in the twentieth century after Christ. She has not
yet gained world-wide freedom from seclusion under man's control. Even among
advanced peoples, man's attempt to protect woman has always been a tacit
assertion of superiority.
84:4.11 But primitive women did not pity themselves as their more recently
liberated sisters are wont to do. They were, after all, fairly happy and
contented; they did not dare to envision a better or different mode of
existence.
5. WOMAN UNDER THE DEVELOPING MORES
84:5.1 In self-perpetuation woman is man's equal, but in the partnership of
self-maintenance she labors at a decided disadvantage, and this handicap of
enforced maternity can only be compensated by the enlightened mores of
advancing civilization and by man's increasing sense of acquired fairness.
84:5.2 As society evolved, the sex standards rose higher among women because
they suffered more from the consequences of the transgression of the sex
mores. Man's sex standards are only tardily improving as a result of the sheer
sense of that fairness which civilization demands. Nature knows nothing of
fairness -- makes woman alone suffer the pangs of childbirth.
84:5.3 The modern idea of sex equality is beautiful and worthy of an expanding
civilization, but it is not found in nature. When might is right, man lords it
over woman; when more justice, peace, and fairness prevail, she gradually
emerges from slavery and obscurity. Woman's social position has generally
varied inversely with the degree of militarism in any nation or age.
84:5.4 But man did not consciously nor intentionally seize woman's rights and
then gradually and grudgingly give them back to her; all this was an
unconscious and unplanned episode of social evolution. When the time really
came for woman to enjoy added rights, she got them, and all quite regardless
of man's conscious attitude. Slowly but surely the mores change so as to
provide for those social adjustments which are a part of the persistent
evolution of civilization. The advancing mores slowly provided increasingly
better treatment for females; those tribes which persisted in cruelty to them
did not survive.
84:5.5 The Adamites and Nodites accorded women increased recognition, and
those groups which were influenced by the migrating Andites have tended to be
influenced by the Edenic teachings regarding women's place in society.
84:5.6 The early Chinese and the Greeks treated women better than did most
surrounding peoples. But the Hebrews were exceedingly distrustful of them. In
the Occident woman has had a difficult climb under the Pauline doctrines which
became attached to Christianity, although Christianity did advance the mores
by imposing more stringent sex obligations upon man. Woman's estate is little
short of hopeless under the peculiar degradation which attaches to her in
Mohammedanism, and she fares even worse under the teachings of several other
Oriental religions.
84:5.7 Science, not religion, really emancipated woman; it was the modern
factory which largely set her free from the confines of the home. Man's
physical abilities became no longer a vital essential in the new maintenance
mechanism; science so changed the conditions of living that man power was no
longer so superior to woman power.
84:5.8 These changes have tended toward woman's liberation from domestic
slavery and have brought about such a modification of her status that she now
enjoys a degree of personal liberty and sex determination that practically
equals man's. Once a woman's value consisted in her food-producing ability,
but invention and wealth have enabled her to create a new world in which to
function -- spheres of grace and charm. Thus has industry won its unconscious
and unintended fight for woman's social and economic emancipation. And again
has evolution succeeded in doing what even revelation failed to accomplish.
84:5.9 The reaction of enlightened peoples from the inequitable mores
governing woman's place in society has indeed been pendulumlike in its
extremeness. Among industrialized races she has received almost all rights and
enjoys exemption from many obligations, such as military service. Every
easement of the struggle for existence has redounded to the liberation of
woman, and she has directly benefited from every advance toward monogamy. The
weaker always makes disproportionate gains in every adjustment of the mores in
the progressive evolution of society.
84:5.10 In the ideals of pair marriage, woman has finally won recognition,
dignity, independence, equality, and education; but will she prove worthy of
all this new and unprecedented accomplishment? Will modern woman respond to
this great achievement of social liberation with idleness, indifference,
barrenness, and infidelity? Today, in the twentieth century, woman is
undergoing the crucial test of her long world existence!
84:5.11 Woman is man's equal partner in race reproduction, hence just as
important in the unfolding of racial evolution; therefore has evolution
increasingly worked toward the realization of women's rights. But women's
rights are by no means men's rights. Woman cannot thrive on man's rights any
more than man can prosper on woman's rights.
84:5.12 Each sex has its own distinctive sphere of existence, together with
its own rights within that sphere. If woman aspires literally to enjoy all of
man's rights, then, sooner or later, pitiless and emotionless competition will
certainly replace that chivalry and special consideration which many women now
enjoy, and which they have so recently won from men.
84:5.13 Civilization never can obliterate the behavior gulf between the sexes.
From age to age the mores change, but instinct never. Innate maternal
affection will never permit emancipated woman to become man's serious rival in
industry. Forever each sex will remain supreme in its own domain, domains
determined by biologic differentiation and by mental dissimilarity.
84:5.14 Each sex will always have its own special sphere, albeit they will
ever and anon overlap. Only socially will men and women compete on equal
terms.
6. THE PARTNERSHIP OF MAN AND WOMAN
84:6.1 The reproductive urge unfailingly brings men and women together for
self-perpetuation but, alone, does not insure their remaining together in
mutual co-operation -- the founding of a home.
84:6.2 Every successful human institution embraces antagonisms of personal
interest which have been adjusted to practical working harmony, and homemaking
is no exception. Marriage, the basis of home building, is the highest
manifestation of that antagonistic co-operation which so often characterizes
the contacts of nature and society. The conflict is inevitable. Mating is
inherent; it is natural. But marriage is not biologic; it is sociologic.
Passion insures that man and woman will come together, but the weaker parental
instinct and the social mores hold them together.
84:6.3 Male and female are, practically regarded, two distinct varieties of
the same species living in close and intimate association. Their viewpoints
and entire life reactions are essentially different; they are wholly incapable
of full and real comprehension of each other. Complete understanding between
the sexes is not attainable.
84:6.4 Women seem to have more intuition than men, but they also appear to be
somewhat less logical. Woman, however, has always been the moral standard-
bearer and the spiritual leader of mankind. The hand that rocks the cradle
still fraternizes with destiny.
84:6.5 The differences of nature, reaction, viewpoint, and thinking between
men and women, far from occasioning concern, should be regarded as highly
beneficial to mankind, both individually and collectively. Many orders of
universe creatures are created in dual phases of personality manifestation.
Among mortals, Material Sons, and midsoniters, this difference is described as
male and female; among seraphim, cherubim, and Morontia Companions, it has
been denominated positive or aggressive and negative or retiring. Such dual
associations greatly multiply versatility and overcome inherent limitations,
even as do certain triune associations in the Paradise-Havona system.
84:6.6 Men and women need each other in their morontial and spiritual as well
as in their mortal careers. The differences in viewpoint between male and
female persist even beyond the first life and throughout the local and
superuniverse ascensions. And even in Havona, the pilgrims who were once men
and women will still be aiding each other in the Paradise ascent. Never, even
in the Corps of the Finality, will the creature metamorphose so far as to
obliterate the personality trends that humans call male and female; always
will these two basic variations of humankind continue to intrigue, stimulate,
encourage, and assist each other; always will they be mutually dependent on
co-operation in the solution of perplexing universe problems and in the
overcoming of manifold cosmic difficulties.
84:6.7 While the sexes never can hope fully to understand each other, they are
effectively complementary, and though co-operation is often more or less
personally antagonistic, it is capable of maintaining and reproducing society.
Marriage is an institution designed to compose sex differences, meanwhile
effecting the continuation of civilization and insuring the reproduction of
the race.
84:6.8 Marriage is the mother of all human institutions, for it leads directly
to home founding and home maintenance, which is the structural basis of
society. The family is vitally linked to the mechanism of self-maintenance; it
is the sole hope of race perpetuation under the mores of civilization, while
at the same time it most effectively provides certain highly satisfactory
forms of self-gratification. The family is man's greatest purely human
achievement, combining as it does the evolution of the biologic relations of
male and female with the social relations of husband and wife.
7. THE IDEALS OF FAMILY LIFE
84:7.1 Sex mating is instinctive, children are the natural result, and the
family thus automatically comes into existence. As are the families of the
race or nation, so is its society. If the families are good, the society is
likewise good. The great cultural stability of the Jewish and of the Chinese
peoples lies in the strength of their family groups.
84:7.2 Woman's instinct to love and care for children conspired to make her
the interested party in promoting marriage and primitive family life. Man was
only forced into home building by the pressure of the later mores and social
conventions; he was slow to take an interest in the establishment of marriage
and home because the sex act imposes no biologic consequences upon him.
84:7.3 Sex association is natural, but marriage is social and has always been
regulated by the mores. The mores (religious, moral, and ethical), together
with property, pride, and chivalry, stabilize the institutions of marriage and
family. Whenever the mores fluctuate, there is fluctuation in the stability of
the home-marriage institution. Marriage is now passing out of the property
stage into the personal era. Formerly man protected woman because she was his
chattel, and she obeyed for the same reason. Regardless of its merits this
system did provide stability. Now, woman is no longer regarded as property,
and new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home
institution:
84:7.4 1. The new role of religion -- the teaching that parental experience is
essential, the idea of procreating cosmic citizens, the enlarged understanding
of the privilege of procreation -- giving sons to the Father.
84:7.5 2. The new role of science -- procreation is becoming more and more
voluntary, subject to man's control. In ancient times lack of understanding
insured the appearance of children in the absence of all desire therefor.
84:7.6 3. The new function of pleasure lures -- this introduces a new factor
into racial survival; ancient man exposed undesired children to die; moderns
refuse to bear them.
84:7.7 4. The enhancement of parental instinct. Each generation now tends to
eliminate from the reproductive stream of the race those individuals in whom
parental instinct is insufficiently strong to insure the procreation of
children, the prospective parents of the next generation.
84:7.8 But the home as an institution, a partnership between one man and one
woman, dates more specifically from the days of Dalamatia, about one-half
million years ago, the monogamous practices of Andon and his immediate
descendants having been abandoned long before. Family life, however, was not
much to boast of before the days of the Nodites and the later Adamites. Adam
and Eve exerted a lasting influence on all mankind; for the first time in the
history of the world men and women were observed working side by side in the
Garden. The Edenic ideal, the whole family as gardeners, was a new idea on
Urantia.
84:7.9 The early family embraced a related working group, including the
slaves, all living in one dwelling. Marriage and family life have not always
been identical but have of necessity been closely associated. Woman always
wanted the individual family, and eventually she had her way.
84:7.10 Love of offspring is almost universal and is of distinct survival
value. The ancients always sacrificed the mother's interests for the welfare
of the child; an Eskimo mother even yet licks her baby in lieu of washing. But
primitive mothers only nourished and cared for their children when very young;
like the animals, they discarded them as soon as they grew up. Enduring and
continuous human associations have never been founded on biologic affection
alone. The animals love their children; man -- civilized man -- loves his
children's children. The higher the civilization, the greater the joy of
parents in the children's advancement and success; thus the new and higher
realization of name pride comes into existence.
84:7.11 The large families among ancient peoples were not necessarily
affectional. Many children were desired because:
84:7.12 1. They were valuable as laborers.
84:7.13 2. They were old-age insurance.
84:7.14 3. Daughters were salable.
84:7.15 4. Family pride required extension of name.
84:7.16 5. Sons afforded protection and defense.
84:7.17 6. Ghost fear produced a dread of being alone.
84:7.18 7. Certain religions required offspring.
84:7.19 Ancestor worshipers view the failure to have sons as the supreme
calamity for all time and eternity. They desire above all else to have sons to
officiate in the post-mortem feasts, to offer the required sacrifices for the
ghost's progress through spiritland.
84:7.20 Among ancient savages, discipline of children was begun very early;
and the child early realized that disobedience meant failure or even death
just as it did to the animals. It is civilization's protection of the child
from the natural consequences of foolish conduct that contributes so much to
modern insubordination.
84:7.21 Eskimo children thrive on so little discipline and correction simply
because they are naturally docile little animals; the children of both the red
and the yellow men are almost equally tractable. But in races containing
Andite inheritance, children are not so placid; these more imaginative and
adventurous youths require more training and discipline. Modern problems of
child culture are rendered increasingly difficult by:
84:7.22 1. The large degree of race mixture.
84:7.23 2. Artificial and superficial education.
84:7.24 3. Inability of the child to gain culture by imitating parents -- the
parents are absent from the family picture so much of the time.
84:7.25 The olden ideas of family discipline were biologic, growing out of the
realization that parents were creators of the child's being. The advancing
ideals of family life are leading to the concept that bringing a child into
the world, instead of conferring certain parental rights, entails the supreme
responsibility of human existence.
84:7.26 Civilization regards the parents as assuming all duties, the child as
having all the rights. Respect of the child for his parents arises, not in
knowledge of the obligation implied in parental procreation, but naturally
grows as a result of the care, training, and affection which are lovingly
displayed in assisting the child to win the battle of life. The true parent is
engaged in a continuous service-ministry which the wise child comes to
recognize and appreciate.
84:7.27 In the present industrial and urban era the marriage institution is
evolving along new economic lines. Family life has become more and more
costly, while children, who used to be an asset, have become economic
liabilities. But the security of civilization itself still rests on the
growing willingness of one generation to invest in the welfare of the next and
future generations. And any attempt to shift parental responsibility to state
or church will prove suicidal to the welfare and advancement of civilization.
84:7.28 Marriage, with children and consequent family life, is stimulative of
the highest potentials in human nature and simultaneously provides the ideal
avenue for the expression of these quickened attributes of mortal personality.
The family provides for the biologic perpetuation of the human species. The
home is the natural social arena wherein the ethics of blood brotherhood may
be grasped by the growing children. The family is the fundamental unit of
fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience,
altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization
of brotherhood among all men.
84:7.29 Human society would be greatly improved if the civilized races would
more generally return to the family-council practices of the Andites. They did
not maintain the patriarchal or autocratic form of family government. They
were very brotherly and associative, freely and frankly discussing every
proposal and regulation of a family nature. They were ideally fraternal in all
their family government. In an ideal family filial and parental affection are
both augmented by fraternal devotion.
84:7.30 Family life is the progenitor of true morality, the ancestor of the
consciousness of loyalty to duty. The enforced associations of family life
stabilize personality and stimulate its growth through the compulsion of
necessitous adjustment to other and diverse personalities. But even more, a
true family -- a good family -- reveals to the parental procreators the
attitude of the Creator to his children, while at the same time such true
parents portray to their children the first of a long series of ascending
disclosures of the love of the Paradise parent of all universe children.
8. DANGERS OF SELF-GRATIFICATION
84:8.1 The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of
self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania. The prime incentive to marriage
used to be economic; sex attraction was secondary. Marriage, founded on self-
maintenance, led to self-perpetuation and concomitantly provided one of the
most desirable forms of self-gratification. It is the only institution of
human society which embraces all three of the great incentives for living.
84:8.2 Originally, property was the basic institution of self-maintenance,
while marriage functioned as the unique institution of self-perpetuation.
Although food satisfaction, play, and humor, along with periodic sex
indulgence, were means of self-gratification, it remains a fact that the
evolving mores have failed to build any distinct institution of self-
gratification. And it is due to this failure to evolve specialized techniques
of pleasurable enjoyment that all human institutions are so completely shot
through with this pleasure pursuit. Property accumulation is becoming an
instrument for augmenting all forms of self-gratification, while marriage is
often viewed only as a means of pleasure. And this overindulgence, this widely
spread pleasure mania, now constitutes the greatest threat that has ever been
leveled at the social evolutionary institution of family life, the home.
84:8.3 The violet race introduced a new and only imperfectly realized
characteristic into the experience of humankind -- the play instinct coupled
with the sense of humor. It was there in measure in the Sangiks and Andonites,
but the Adamic strain elevated this primitive propensity into the potential of
pleasure, a new and glorified form of self-gratification. The basic type of
self-gratification, aside from appeasing hunger, is sex gratification, and
this form of sensual pleasure was enormously heightened by the blending of the
Sangiks and the Andites.
84:8.4 There is real danger in the combination of restlessness, curiosity,
adventure, and pleasure-abandon characteristic of the post-Andite races. The
hunger of the soul cannot be satisfied with physical pleasures; the love of
home and children is not augmented by the unwise pursuit of pleasure. Though
you exhaust the resources of art, color, sound, rhythm, music, and adornment
of person, you cannot hope thereby to elevate the soul or to nourish the
spirit. Vanity and fashion cannot minister to home building and child culture;
pride and rivalry are powerless to enhance the survival qualities of
succeeding generations.
84:8.5 Advancing celestial beings all enjoy rest and the ministry of the
reversion directors. All efforts to obtain wholesome diversion and to engage
in uplifting play are sound; refreshing sleep, rest, recreation, and all
pastimes which prevent the boredom of monotony are worth while. Competitive
games, storytelling, and even the taste of good food may serve as forms of
self-gratification. (When you use salt to savor food, pause to consider that,
for almost a million years, man could obtain salt only by dipping his food in
ashes.)
84:8.6 Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand
and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-
gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well
earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the
goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying
property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-
gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse
of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home --
man's supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization's only hope of
survival.
84:8.7 Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 85
THE ORIGINS OF WORSHIP
85:0.1 PRIMITIVE religion had a biologic origin, a natural evolutionary
development, aside from moral associations and apart from all spiritual
influences. The higher animals have fears but no illusions, hence no religion.
Man creates his primitive religions out of his fears and by means of his
illusions.
85:0.2 In the evolution of the human species, worship in its primitive
manifestations appears long before the mind of man is capable of formulating
the more complex concepts of life now and in the hereafter which deserve to be
called religion. Early religion was wholly intellectual in nature and was
entirely predicated on associational circumstances. The objects of worship
were altogether suggestive; they consisted of the things of nature which were
close at hand, or which loomed large in the commonplace experience of the
simple-minded primitive Urantians.
85:0.3 When religion once evolved beyond nature worship, it acquired roots of
spirit origin but was nevertheless always conditioned by the social
environment. As nature worship developed, man's concepts envisioned a division
of labor in the supermortal world; there were nature spirits for lakes, trees,
waterfalls, rain, and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrial phenomena.
85:0.4 At one time or another mortal man has worshiped everything on the face
of the earth, including himself. He has also worshiped about everything
imaginable in the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man
feared all manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he
could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as
storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold,
greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life
are still termed "acts of God" and "mysterious dispensations of Providence."
1. WORSHIP OF STONES AND HILLS
85:1.1 The first object to be worshiped by evolving man was a stone. Today the
Kateri people of southern India still worship a stone, as do numerous tribes
in northern India. Jacob slept on a stone because he venerated it; he even
anointed it. Rachel concealed a number of sacred stones in her tent.
85:1.2 Stones first impressed early man as being out of the ordinary because
of the manner in which they would so suddenly appear on the surface of a
cultivated field or pasture. Men failed to take into account either erosion or
the results of the overturning of soil. Stones also greatly impressed early
peoples because of their frequent resemblance to animals. The attention of
civilized man is arrested by numerous stone formations in the mountains which
so much resemble the faces of animals and even men. But the most profound
influence was exerted by meteoric stones which primitive humans beheld
hurtling through the atmosphere in flaming grandeur. The shooting star was
awesome to early man, and he easily believed that such blazing streaks marked
the passage of a spirit on its way to earth. No wonder men were led to worship
such phenomena, especially when they subsequently discovered the meteors. And
this led to greater reverence for all other stones. In Bengal many worship a
meteor which fell to earth in A.D. 1880.
85:1.3 All ancient clans and tribes had their sacred stones, and most modern
peoples manifest a degree of veneration for certain types of stones -- their
jewels. A group of five stones was reverenced in India; in Greece it was a
cluster of thirty; among the red men it was usually a circle of stones. The
Romans always threw a stone into the air when invoking Jupiter. In India even
to this day a stone can be used as a witness. In some regions a stone may be
employed as a talisman of the law, and by its prestige an offender can be
haled into court. But simple mortals do not always identify Deity with an
object of reverent ceremony. Such fetishes are many times mere symbols of the
real object of worship.
85:1.4 The ancients had a peculiar regard for holes in stones. Such porous
rocks were supposed to be unusually efficacious in curing diseases. Ears were
not perforated to carry stones, but the stones were put in to keep the ear
holes open. Even in modern times superstitious persons make holes in coins. In
Africa the natives make much ado over their fetish stones. In fact, among all
backward tribes and peoples stones are still held in superstitious veneration.
Stone worship is even now widespread over the world. The tombstone is a
surviving symbol of images and idols which were carved in stone in connection
with beliefs in ghosts and the spirits of departed fellow beings.
85:1.5 Hill worship followed stone worship, and the first hills to be
venerated were large stone formations. It presently became the custom to
believe that the gods inhabited the mountains, so that high elevations of land
were worshiped for this additional reason. As time passed, certain mountains
were associated with certain gods and therefore became holy. The ignorant and
superstitious aborigines believed that caves led to the underworld, with its
evil spirits and demons, in contrast with the mountains, which were identified
with the later evolving concepts of good spirits and deities.
2. WORSHIP OF PLANTS AND TREES
85:2.1 Plants were first feared and then worshiped because of the intoxicating
liquors which were derived therefrom. Primitive man believed that intoxication
rendered one divine. There was supposed to be something unusual and sacred
about such an experience. Even in modern times alcohol is known as "spirits."
85:2.2 Early man looked upon sprouting grain with dread and superstitious awe.
The Apostle Paul was not the first to draw profound spiritual lessons from,
and predicate religious beliefs on, the sprouting grain.
85:2.3 The cults of tree worship are among the oldest religious groups. All
early marriages were held under the trees, and when women desired children,
they would sometimes be found out in the forest affectionately embracing a
sturdy oak. Many plants and trees were venerated because of their real or
fancied medicinal powers. The savage believed that all chemical effects were
due to the direct activity of supernatural forces.
85:2.4 Ideas about tree spirits varied greatly among different tribes and
races. Some trees were indwelt by kindly spirits; others harbored the
deceptive and cruel. The Finns believed that most trees were occupied by kind
spirits. The Swiss long mistrusted the trees, believing they contained tricky
spirits. The inhabitants of India and eastern Russia regard the tree spirits
as being cruel. The Patagonians still worship trees, as did the early Semites.
Long after the Hebrews ceased tree worship, they continued to venerate their
various deities in the groves. Except in China, there once existed a universal
cult of the tree of life.
85:2.5 The belief that water or precious metals beneath the earth's surface
can be detected by a wooden divining rod is a relic of the ancient tree cults.
The Maypole, the Christmas tree, and the superstitious practice of rapping on
wood perpetuate certain of the ancient customs of tree worship and the later-
day tree cults.
85:2.6 Many of these earliest forms of nature veneration became blended with
the later evolving techniques of worship, but the earliest mind-adjutant-
activated types of worship were functioning long before the newly awakening
religious nature of mankind became fully responsive to the stimulus of
spiritual influences.
3. THE WORSHIP OF ANIMALS
85:3.1 Primitive man had a peculiar and fellow feeling for the higher animals.
His ancestors had lived with them and even mated with them. In southern Asia
it was early believed that the souls of men came back to earth in animal form.
This belief was a survival of the still earlier practice of worshiping
animals.
85:3.2 Early men revered the animals for their power and their cunning. They
thought the keen scent and the farseeing eyes of certain creatures betokened
spirit guidance. The animals have all been worshiped by one race or another at
one time or another. Among such objects of worship were creatures that were
regarded as half human and half animal, such as centaurs and mermaids.
85:3.3 The Hebrews worshiped serpents down to the days of King Hezekiah, and
the Hindus still maintain friendly relations with their house snakes. The
Chinese worship of the dragon is a survival of the snake cults. The wisdom of
the serpent was a symbol of Greek medicine and is still employed as an emblem
by modern physicians. The art of snake charming has been handed down from the
days of the female shamans of the snake love cult, who, as the result of daily
snake bites, became immune, in fact, became genuine venom addicts and could
not get along without this poison.
85:3.4 The worship of insects and other animals was promoted by a later
misinterpretation of the golden rule -- doing to others (every form of life)
as you would be done by. The ancients once believed that all winds were
produced by the wings of birds and therefore both feared and worshiped all
winged creatures. The early Nordics thought that eclipses were caused by a
wolf that devoured a portion of the sun or moon. The Hindus often show Vishnu
with a horse's head. Many times an animal symbol stands for a forgotten god or
a vanished cult. Early in evolutionary religion the lamb became the typical
sacrificial animal and the dove the symbol of peace and love.
85:3.5 In religion, symbolism may be either good or bad just to the extent
that the symbol does or does not displace the original worshipful idea. And
symbolism must not be confused with direct idolatry wherein the material
object is directly and actually worshiped.
4. WORSHIP OF THE ELEMENTS
85:4.1 Mankind has worshiped earth, air, water, and fire. The primitive races
venerated springs and worshiped rivers. Even now in Mongolia there flourishes
an influential river cult. Baptism became a religious ceremonial in Babylon,
and the Greeks practiced the annual ritual bath. It was easy for the ancients
to imagine that the spirits dwelt in the bubbling springs, gushing fountains,
flowing rivers, and raging torrents. Moving waters vividly impressed these
simple minds with beliefs of spirit animation and supernatural power.
Sometimes a drowning man would be refused succor for fear of offending some
river god.
85:4.2 Many things and numerous events have functioned as religious stimuli to
different peoples in different ages. A rainbow is yet worshiped by many of the
hill tribes of India. In both India and Africa the rainbow is thought to be a
gigantic celestial snake; Hebrews and Christians regard it as "the bow of
promise." Likewise, influences regarded as beneficent in one part of the world
may be looked upon as malignant in other regions. The east wind is a god in
South America, for it brings rain; in India it is a devil because it brings
dust and causes drought. The ancient Bedouins believed that a nature spirit
produced the sand whirls, and even in the times of Moses belief in nature
spirits was strong enough to insure their perpetuation in Hebrew theology as
angels of fire, water, and air.
85:4.3 Clouds, rain, and hail have all been feared and worshiped by numerous
primitive tribes and by many of the early nature cults. Windstorms with
thunder and lightning overawed early man. He was so impressed with these
elemental disturbances that thunder was regarded as the voice of an angry god.
The worship of fire and the fear of lightning were linked together and were
widespread among many early groups.
85:4.4 Fire was mixed up with magic in the minds of primitive fear-ridden
mortals. A devotee of magic will vividly remember one positive chance result
in the practice of his magic formulas, while he nonchalantly forgets a score
of negative results, out-and-out failures. Fire reverence reached its height
in Persia, where it long persisted. Some tribes worshiped fire as a deity
itself; others revered it as the flaming symbol of the purifying and purging
spirit of their venerated deities. Vestal virgins were charged with the duty
of watching sacred fires, and in the twentieth century candles still burn as a
part of the ritual of many religious services.
5. WORSHIP OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES
85:5.1 The worship of rocks, hills, trees, and animals naturally developed up
through fearful veneration of the elements to the deification of the sun,
moon, and stars. In India and elsewhere the stars were regarded as the
glorified souls of great men who had departed from the life in the flesh. The
Chaldean star cultists considered themselves to be the children of the sky
father and the earth mother.
85:5.2 Moon worship preceded sun worship. Veneration of the moon was at its
height during the hunting era, while sun worship became the chief religious
ceremony of the subsequent agricultural ages. Solar worship first took
extensive root in India, and there it persisted the longest. In Persia sun
veneration gave rise to the later Mithraic cult. Among many peoples the sun
was regarded as the ancestor of their kings. The Chaldeans put the sun in the
center of "the seven circles of the universe." Later civilizations honored the
sun by giving its name to the first day of the week.
85:5.3 The sun god was supposed to be the mystic father of the virgin-born
sons of destiny who ever and anon were thought to be bestowed as saviors upon
favored races. These supernatural infants were always put adrift upon some
sacred river to be rescued in an extraordinary manner, after which they would
grow up to become miraculous personalities and the deliverers of their
peoples.
6. WORSHIP OF MAN
85:6.1 Having worshiped everything else on the face of the earth and in the
heavens above, man has not hesitated to honor himself with such adoration. The
simple-minded savage makes no clear distinction between beasts, men, and gods.
85:6.2 Early man regarded all unusual persons as superhuman, and he so feared
such beings as to hold them in reverential awe; to some degree he literally
worshiped them. Even having twins was regarded as being either very lucky or
very unlucky. Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped
by their normal-minded fellows, who believed that such abnormal beings were
indwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and prophets were worshiped; the holy men
of old were looked upon as inspired by the deities.
85:6.3 Tribal chiefs died and were deified. Later, distinguished souls passed
on and were sainted. Unaided evolution never originated gods higher than the
glorified, exalted, and evolved spirits of deceased humans. In early evolution
religion creates its own gods. In the course of revelation the Gods formulate
religion. Evolutionary religion creates its gods in the image and likeness of
mortal man; revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into
the image and likeness of God.
85:6.4 The ghost gods, who are of supposed human origin, should be
distinguished from the nature gods, for nature worship did evolve a pantheon
-- nature spirits elevated to the position of gods. The nature cults continued
to develop along with the later appearing ghost cults, and each exerted an
influence upon the other. Many religious systems embraced a dual concept of
deity, nature gods and ghost gods; in some theologies these concepts are
confusingly intertwined, as is illustrated by Thor, a ghost hero who was also
master of the lightning.
85:6.5 But the worship of man by man reached its height when temporal rulers
commanded such veneration from their subjects and, in substantiation of such
demands, claimed to have descended from deity.
7. THE ADJUTANTS OF WORSHIP AND WISDOM
85:7.1 Nature worship may seem to have arisen naturally and spontaneously in
the minds of primitive men and women, and so it did; but there was operating
all this time in these same primitive minds the sixth adjutant spirit, which
had been bestowed upon these peoples as a directing influence of this phase of
human evolution. And this spirit was constantly stimulating the worship urge
of the human species, no matter how primitive its first manifestations might
be. The spirit of worship gave definite origin to the human impulse to
worship, notwithstanding that animal fear motivated the expression of
worshipfulness, and that its early practice became centered upon objects of
nature.
85:7.2 You must remember that feeling, not thinking, was the guiding and
controlling influence in all evolutionary development. To the primitive mind
there is little difference between fearing, shunning, honoring, and
worshiping.
85:7.3 When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom --
meditative and experiential thinking -- it then begins to develop into the
phenomenon of real religion. When the seventh adjutant spirit, the spirit of
wisdom, achieves effective ministration, then in worship man begins to turn
away from nature and natural objects to the God of nature and to the eternal
Creator of all things natural.
85:7.4 Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
PAPER 86
EARLY EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
86:0.1 THE evolution of religion from the preceding and primitive worship urge
is not dependent on revelation. The normal functioning of the human mind under
the directive influence of the sixth and seventh mind-adjutants of universal
spirit bestowal is wholly sufficient to insure such development.
86:0.2 Man's earliest prereligious fear of the forces of nature gradually
became religious as nature became personalized, spiritized, and eventually
deified in human consciousness. Religion of a primitive type was therefore a
natural biologic consequence of the psychologic inertia of evolving animal
minds after such minds had once entertained concepts of the supernatural.
1. CHANCE: GOOD LUCK AND BAD LUCK
86:1.1 Aside from the natural worship urge, early evolutionary religion had
its roots of origin in the human experiences of chance -- so-called luck,
commonplace happenings. Primitive man was a food hunter. The results of
hunting must ever vary, and this gives certain origin to those experiences
which man interprets as good luck and bad luck. Mischance was a great factor
in the lives of men and women who lived constantly on the ragged edge of a
precarious and harassed existence.
86:1.2 The limited intellectual horizon of the savage so concentrates the
attention upon chance that luck becomes a constant factor in his life.
Primitive Urantians struggled for existence, not for a standard of living;
they lived lives of peril in which chance played an important role. The
constant dread of unknown and unseen calamity hung over these savages as a
cloud of despair which effectively eclipsed every pleasure; they lived in
constant dread of doing something that would bring bad luck. Superstitious
savages always feared a run of good luck; they viewed such good fortune as a
certain harbinger of calamity.
86:1.3 This ever-present dread of bad luck was paralyzing. Why work hard and
reap bad luck -- nothing for something -- when one might drift along and
encounter good luck -- something for nothing? Unthinking men forget good luck
-- take it for granted -- but they painfully remember bad luck.
86:1.4 Early man lived in uncertainty and in constant fear of chance -- bad
luck. Life was an exciting game of chance; existence was a gamble. It is no
wonder that partially civilized people still believe in chance and evince
lingering predispositions to gambling. Primitive man alternated between two
potent interests: the passion of getting something for nothing and the fear of
getting nothing for something. And this gamble of existence was the main
interest and the supreme fascination of the early savage mind.
86:1.5 The later herders held the same views of chance and luck, while the
still later agriculturists were increasingly conscious that crops were
immediately influenced by many things over which man had little or no control.
The farmer found himself the victim of drought, floods, hail, storms, pests,
and plant diseases, as well as heat and cold. And as all of these natural
influences affected individual prosperity, they were regarded as good luck or
bad luck.
86:1.6 This notion of chance and luck strongly pervaded the philosophy of all
ancient peoples. Even in recent times in the Wisdom of Solomon it is said: "I
returned and saw that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor
favor to men of skill; but fate and chance befall them all. For man knows not
his fate; as fishes are taken in an evil net, and as birds are caught in a
snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly
upon them."
2. THE PERSONIFICATION OF CHANCE
86:2.1 Anxiety was a natural state of the savage mind. When men and women fall
victims to excessive anxiety, they are simply reverting to the natural estate
of their far-distant ancestors; and when anxiety becomes actually painful, it
inhibits activity and unfailingly institutes evolutionary changes and biologic
adaptations. Pain and suffering are essential to progressive evolution.
86:2.2 The struggle for life is so painful that certain backward tribes even
yet howl and lament over each new sunrise. Primitive man constantly asked,
"Who is tormenting me?" Not finding a material source for his miseries, he
settled upon a spirit explanation. And so was religion born of the fear of the
mysterious, the awe of the unseen, and the dread of the unknown. Nature fear
thus became a factor in the struggle for existence first because of chance and
then because of mystery.
86:2.3 The primitive mind was logical but contained few ideas for intelligent
association; the savage mind was uneducated, wholly unsophisticated. If one
event followed another, the savage considered them to be cause and effect.
What civilized man regards as superstition was just plain ignorance in the
savage. Mankind has been slow to learn that there is not necessarily any
relationship between purposes and results. Human beings are only just
beginning to realize that the reactions of existence appear between acts and
their consequences. The savage strives to personalize everything intangible
and abstract, and thus both nature and chance become personalized as ghosts --
spirits -- and later on as gods.
86:2.4 Man naturally tends to believe that which he deems best for him, that
which is in his immediate or remote interest; self-interest largely obscures
logic. The difference between the minds of savage and civilized men is more
one of content than of nature, of degree rather than of quality.
86:2.5 But to continue to ascribe things difficult of comprehension to
supernatural causes is nothing less than a lazy and convenient way of avoiding
all forms of intellectual hard work. Luck is merely a term coined to cover the
inexplicable in any age of human existence; it designates those phenomena
which men are unable or unwilling to penetrate. Chance is a word which
signifies that man is too ignorant or too indolent to determine causes. Men
regard a natural occurrence as an accident or as bad luck only when they are
destitute of curiosity and imagination, when the races lack initiative and
adventure. Exploration of the phenomena of life sooner or later destroys man's
belief in chance, luck, and so-called accidents, substituting therefor a
universe of law and order wherein all effects are preceded by definite causes.
Thus is the fear of existence replaced by the joy of living.
86:2.6 The savage looked upon all nature as alive, as possessed by something.
Civilized man still kicks and curses those inanimate objects which get in his
way and bump him. Primitive man never regarded anything as accidental; always
was everything intentional. To primitive man the domain of fate, the function
of luck, the spirit world, was just as unorganized and haphazard as was
primitive society. Luck was looked upon as the whimsical and temperamental
reaction of the spirit world; later on, as the humor of the gods.
86:2.7 But all religions did not develop from animism. Other concepts of the
supernatural were contemporaneous with animism, and these beliefs also led to
worship. Naturalism is not a religion -- it is the offspring of religion.
3. DEATH -- THE INEXPLICABLE
86:3.1 Death was the supreme shock to evolving man, the most perplexing
combination of chance and mystery. Not the sanctity of life but the shock of
death inspired fear and thus effectively fostered religion. Among savage
peoples death was ordinarily due to violence, so that nonviolent death became
increasingly mysterious. Death as a natural and expected end of life was not
clear to the consciousness of primitive people, and it has required age upon
age for man to realize its inevitability.
86:3.2 Early man accepted life as a fact, while he regarded death as a
visitation of some sort. All races have their legends of men who did not die,
vestigial traditions of the early attitude toward death. Already in the human
mind there existed the nebulous concept of a hazy and unorganized spirit
world, a domain whence came all that is inexplicable in human life, and death
was added to this long list of unexplained phenomena.
86:3.3 All human disease and natural death was at first believed to be due to
spirit influence. Even at the present time some civilized races regard disease
as having been produced by "the enemy" and depend upon religious ceremonies to
effect healing. Later and more complex systems of theology still ascribe death
to the action of the spirit world, all of which has led to such doctrines as
original sin and the fall of man.
86:3.4 It was the realization of impotency before the mighty forces of nature,
together with the recognition of human weakness before the visitations of
sickness and death, that impelled the savage to seek for help from the
supermaterial world, which he vaguely visualized as the source of these
mysterious vicissitudes of life.
4. THE DEATH-SURVIVAL CONCEPT
86:4.1 The concept of a supermaterial phase of mortal personality was born of
the unconscious and purely accidental association of the occurrences of
everyday life plus the ghost dream. The simultaneous dreaming about a departed
chief by several members of his tribe seemed to constitute convincing evidence
that the old chief had really returned in some form. It was all very real to
the savage who would awaken from such dreams reeking with sweat, trembling,
and screaming.
86:4.2 The dream origin of the belief in a future existence explains the
tendency always to imagine unseen things in the terms of things seen. And
presently this new dream-ghost-future-life concept began effectively to
antidote the death fear associated with the biologic instinct of self-
preservation.
86:4.3 Early man was also much concerned about his breath, especially in cold
climates, where it appeared as a cloud when exhaled. The breath of life was
regarded as the one phenomenon which differentiated the living and the dead.
He knew the breath could leave the body, and his dreams of doing all sorts of
queer things while asleep convinced him that there was something immaterial
about a human being. The most primitive idea of the human soul, the ghost, was
derived from the breath-dream idea-system.
86:4.4 Eventually the savage conceived of himself as a double -- body and
breath. The breath minus the body equaled a spirit, a ghost. While having a
very definite human origin, ghosts, or spirits, were regarded as superhuman.
And this belief in the existence of disembodied spirits seemed to explain the
occurrence of the unusual, the extraordinary, the infrequent, and the
inexplicable.
86:4.5 The primitive doctrine of survival after death was not necessarily a
belief in immortality. Beings who could not count over twenty could hardly
conceive of infinity and eternity; they rather thought of recurring
incarnations.
86:4.6 The orange race was especially given to belief in transmigration and
reincarnation. This idea of reincarnation originated in the observance of
hereditary and trait resemblance of offspring to ancestors. The custom of
naming children after grandparents and other ancestors was due to belief in
reincarnation. Some later-day races believed that man died from three to seven
times. This belief (residual from the teachings of Adam about the mansion
worlds), and many other remnants of revealed religion, can be found among the
otherwise absurd doctrines of twentieth-century barbarians.
86:4.7 Early man entertained no ideas of hell or future punishment. The savage
looked upon the future life as just like this one, minus all ill luck. Later
on, a separate destiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts -- heaven and hell --
was conceived. But since many primitive races believed that man entered the
next life just as he left this one, they did not relish the idea of becoming
old and decrepit. The aged much preferred to be killed before becoming too
infirm.
86:4.8 Almost every group had a different idea regarding the destiny of the
ghost soul. The Greeks believed that weak men must have weak souls; so they
invented Hades as a fit place for the reception of such anemic souls; these
unrobust specimens were also supposed to have shorter shadows. The early
Andites thought their ghosts returned to the ancestral homelands. The Chinese
and Egyptians once believed that soul and body remained together. Among the
Egyptians this led to careful tomb construction and efforts at body
preservation. Even modern peoples seek to arrest the decay of the dead. The
Hebrews conceived that a phantom replica of the individual went down to Sheol;
it could not return to the land of the living. They did make that important
advance in the doctrine of the evolution of the soul.
5. THE GHOST-SOUL CONCEPT
86:5.1 The nonmaterial part of man has been variously termed ghost, spirit,
shade, phantom, specter, and latterly soul. The soul was early man's dream
double; it was in every way exactly like the mortal himself except that it was
not responsive to touch. The belief in dream doubles led directly to the
notion that all things animate and inanimate had souls as well as men. This
concept tended long to perpetuate the nature-spirit beliefs; the Eskimos still
conceive that everything in nature has a spirit.
86:5.2 The ghost soul could be heard and seen, but not touched. Gradually the
dream life of the race so developed and expanded the activities of this
evolving spirit world that death was finally regarded as "giving up the
ghost." All primitive tribes, except those little above animals, have
developed some concept of the soul. As civilization advances, this
superstitious concept of the soul is destroyed, and man is wholly dependent on
revelation and personal religious experience for his new idea of the soul as
the joint creation of the God-knowing mortal mind and its indwelling divine
spirit, the Thought Adjuster.
86:5.3 Early mortals usually failed to differentiate the concepts of an
indwelling spirit and a soul of evolutionary nature. The savage was much
confused as to whether the ghost soul was native to the body or was an
external agency in possession of the body. The absence of reasoned thought in
the presence of perplexity explains the gross inconsistencies of the savage
view of souls, ghosts, and spirits.
86:5.4 The soul was thought of as being related to the body as the perfume to
the flower. The ancients believed that the soul could leave the body in
various ways, as in:
1. Ordinary and transient fainting.
2. Sleeping, natural dreaming.
3. Coma and unconsciousness associated with disease and accidents.
4. Death, permanent departure.
86:5.5 The savage looked upon sneezing as an abortive attempt of the soul to
escape from the body. Being awake and on guard, the body was able to thwart
the soul's attempted escape. Later on, sneezing was always accompanied by some
religious expression, such as "God bless you!"
86:5.6 Early in evolution sleep was regarded as proving that the ghost soul
could be absent from the body, and it was believed that it could be called
back by speaking or shouting the sleeper's name. In other forms of
unconsciousness the soul was thought to be farther away, perhaps trying to
escape for good -- impending death. Dreams were looked upon as the experiences
of the soul during sleep while temporarily absent from the body. The savage
believes his dreams to be just as real as any part of his waking experience.
The ancients made a practice of awaking sleepers gradually so that the soul
might have time to get back into the body.
86:5.7 All down through the ages men have stood in awe of the apparitions of
the night season, and the Hebrews were no exception. They truly believed that
God spoke to them in dreams, despite the injunctions of Moses against this
idea. And Moses was right, for ordinary dreams are not the methods employed by
the personalities of the spiritual world when they seek to communicate with
material beings.
86:5.8 The ancients believed that souls could enter animals or even inanimate
objects. This culminated in the werewolf ideas of animal identification. A
person could be a law-abiding citizen by day, but when he fell asleep, his
soul could enter a wolf or some other animal to prowl about on nocturnal
depredations.
86:5.9 Primitive men thought that the soul was associated with the breath, and
that its qualities could be imparted or transferred by the breath. The brave
chief would breathe upon the newborn child, thereby imparting courage. Among
early Christians the ceremony of bestowing the Holy Spirit was accompanied by
breathing on the candidates. Said the Psalmist: "By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." It was
long the custom of the eldest son to try to catch the last breath of his dying
father.
86:5.10 The shadow came, later on, to be feared and revered equally with the
breath. The reflection of oneself in the water was also sometimes looked upon
as proof of the double self, and mirrors were regarded with superstitious awe.
Even now many civilized persons turn the mirror to the wall in the event of
death. Some backward tribes still believe that the making of pictures,
drawings, models, or images removes all or a part of the soul from the body;
hence such are forbidden.
86:5.11 The soul was generally thought of as being identified with the breath,
but it was also located by various peoples in the head, hair, heart, liver,
blood, and fat. The "crying out of Abel's blood from the ground" is expressive
of the onetime belief in the presence of the ghost in the blood. The Semites
taught that the soul resided in the bodily fat, and among many the eating of
animal fat was taboo. Head hunting was a method of capturing an enemy's soul,
as was scalping. In recent times the eyes have been regarded as the windows of
the soul.
86:5.12 Those who held the doctrine of three or four souls believed that the
loss of one soul meant discomfort, two illness, three death. One soul lived in
the breath, one in the head, one in the hair, one in the heart. The sick were
advised to stroll about in the open air with the hope of recapturing their
strayed souls. The greatest of the medicine men were supposed to exchange the
sick soul of a diseased person for a new one, the "new birth."
86:5.13 The children of Badanan developed a belief in two souls, the breath
and the shadow. The early Nodite races regarded man as consisting of two
persons, soul and body. This philosophy of human existence was later reflected
in the Greek viewpoint. The Greeks themselves believed in three souls; the
vegetative resided in the stomach, the animal in the heart, the intellectual
in the head. The Eskimos believe that man has three parts: body, soul, and
name.
6. THE GHOST-SPIRIT ENVIRONMENT
86:6.1 Man inherited a natural environment, acquired a social environment, and
imagined a ghost environment. The state is man's reaction to his natural
environment, the home to his social environment, the church to his illusory
ghost environment.
86:6.2 Very early in the history of mankind the realities of the imaginary
world of ghosts and spirits became universally believed, and this newly
imagined spirit world became a power in primitive society. The mental and
moral life of all mankind was modified for all time by the appearance of this
new factor in human thinking and acting.
86:6.3 Into this major premise of illusion and ignorance, mortal fear has
packed all of the subsequent superstition and religion of primitive peoples.
This was man's only religion up to the times of revelation, and today many of
the world's races have only this crude religion of evolution.
86:6.4 As evolution progressed, good luck became associated with good spirits
and bad luck with bad spirits. The discomfort of enforced adaptation to a
changing environment was regarded as ill luck, the displeasure of the spirit
ghosts. Primitive man slowly evolved religion out of his innate worship urge
and his misconception of chance. Civilized man provides schemes of insurance
to overcome these chance occurrences; modern science puts an actuary with
mathematical reckoning in the place of fictitious spirits and whimsical gods.
86:6.5 Each passing generation smiles at the foolish superstitions of its
ancestors while it goes on entertaining those fallacies of thought and worship
which will give cause for further smiling on the part of enlightened
posterity.
86:6.6 But at last the mind of primitive man was occupied with thoughts which
transcended all of his inherent biologic urges; at last man was about to
evolve an art of living based on something more than response to material
stimuli. The beginnings of a primitive philosophic life policy were emerging.
A supernatural standard of living was about to appear, for, if the spirit
ghost in anger visits ill luck and in pleasure good fortune, then must human
conduct be regulated accordingly. The concept of right and wrong had at last
evolved; and all of this long before the times of any revelation on earth.
86:6.7 With the emergence of these concepts, there was initiated the long and
wasteful struggle to appease the ever-displeased spirits, the slavish bondage
to evolutionary religious fear, that long waste of human effort upon tombs,
temples, sacrifices, and priesthoods. It was a terrible and frightful price to
pay, but it was worth all it cost, for man therein achieved a natural
consciousness of relative right and wrong; human ethics was born!
7. THE FUNCTION OF PRIMITIVE RELIGION
86:7.1 The savage felt the need of insurance, and he therefore willingly paid
his burdensome premiums of fear, superstition, dread, and priest gifts toward
his policy of magic insurance against ill luck. Primitive religion was simply
the payment of premiums on insurance against the perils of the forests;
civilized man pays material premiums against the accidents of industry and the
exigencies of modern modes of living.
86:7.2 Modern society is removing the business of insurance from the realm of
priests and religion, placing it in the domain of economics. Religion is
concerning itself increasingly with the insurance of life beyond the grave.
Modern men, at least those who think, no longer pay wasteful premiums to
control luck. Religion is slowly ascending to higher philosophic levels in
contrast with its former function as a scheme of insurance against bad luck.
86:7.3 But these ancient ideas of religion prevented men from becoming
fatalistic and hopelessly pessimistic; they believed they could at least do
something to influence fate. The religion of ghost fear impressed upon men
that they must regulate their conduct, that there was a supermaterial world
which was in control of human destiny.
86:7.4 Modern civilized races are just emerging from ghost fear as an
explanation of luck and the commonplace inequalities of existence. Mankind is
achieving emancipation from the bondage of the ghost-spirit explanation of ill
luck. But while men are giving up the erroneous doctrine of a spirit cause of
the vicissitudes of life, they exhibit a surprising willingness to accept an
almost equally fallacious teaching which bids them attribute all human
inequalities to political misadaptation, social injustice, and industrial
competition. But new legislation, increasing philanthropy, and more industrial
reorganization, however good in and of themselves, will not remedy the facts
of birth and the accidents of living. Only comprehension of facts and wise
manipulation within the laws of nature will enable man to get what he wants
and to avoid what he does not want. Scientific knowledge, leading to
scientific action, is the only antidote for so-called accidental ills.
86:7.5 Industry, war, slavery, and civil government arose in response to the
social evolution of man in his natural environment; religion similarly arose
as his response to the illusory environment of the imaginary ghost world.
Religion was an evolutionary development of self-maintenance, and it has
worked, notwithstanding that it was originally erroneous in concept and
utterly illogical.
86:7.6 Primitive religion prepared the soil of the human mind, by the powerful
and awesome force of false fear, for the bestowal of a bona fide spiritual
force of supernatural origin, the Thought Adjuster. And the divine Adjusters
have ever since labored to transmute God-fear into God-love. Evolution may be
slow, but it is unerringly effective.
86:7.7 Presented by an Evening Star of Nebadon.
PAPER 87
THE GHOST CULTS
87:0.1 THE ghost cult evolved as an offset to the hazards of bad luck; its
primitive religious observances were the outgrowth of anxiety about bad luck
and of the inordinate fear of the dead. None of these early religions had much
to do with the recognition of Deity or with reverence for the superhuman;
their rites were mostly negative, designed to avoid, expel, or coerce ghosts.
The ghost cult was nothing more nor less than insurance against disaster; it
had nothing to do with investment for higher and future returns.
87:0.2 Man has had a long and bitter struggle with the ghost cult. Nothing in
human history is designed to excite more pity than this picture of man's
abject slavery to ghost-spirit fear. With the birth of this very fear mankind
started on the upgrade of religious evolution. Human imagination cast off from
the shores of self and will not again find anchor until it arrives at the
concept of a true Deity, a real God.
1. GHOST FEAR
87:1.1 Death was feared because death meant the liberation of another ghost
from its physical body. The ancients did their best to prevent death, to avoid
the trouble of having to contend with a new ghost. They were always anxious to
induce the ghost to leave the scene of death, to embark on the journey to
deadland. The ghost was feared most of all during the supposed transition
period between its emergence at the time of death and its later departure for
the ghost homeland, a vague and primitive concept of pseudo heaven.
87:1.2 Though the savage credited ghosts with supernatural powers, he hardly
conceived of them as having supernatural intelligence. Many tricks and
stratagems were practiced in an effort to hoodwink and deceive the ghosts;
civilized man still pins much faith on the hope that an outward manifestation
of piety will in some manner deceive even an omniscient Deity.
87:1.3 The primitives feared sickness because they observed it was often a
harbinger of death. If the tribal medicine man failed to cure an afflicted
individual, the sick man was usually removed from the family hut, being taken
to a smaller one or left in the open air to die alone. A house in which death
had occurred was usually destroyed; if not, it was always avoided, and this
fear prevented early man from building substantial dwellings. It also
militated against the establishment of permanent villages and cities.
87:1.4 The savages sat up all night and talked when a member of the clan died;
they feared they too would die if they fell asleep in the vicinity of a
corpse. Contagion from the corpse substantiated the fear of the dead, and all
peoples, at one time or another, have employed elaborate purification
ceremonies designed to cleanse an individual after contact with the dead. The
ancients believed that light must be provided for a corpse; a dead body was
never permitted to remain in the dark. In the twentieth century, candles are
still burned in death chambers, and men still sit up with the dead. So-called
civilized man has hardly yet completely eliminated the fear of dead bodies
from his philosophy of life.
87:1.5 But despite all this fear, men still sought to trick the ghost. If the
death hut was not destroyed, the corpse was removed through a hole in the
wall, never by way of the door. These measures were taken to confuse the
ghost, to prevent its tarrying, and to insure against its return. Mourners
also returned from a funeral by a different road, lest the ghost follow.
Backtracking and scores of other tactics were practiced to insure that the
ghost would not return from the grave. The sexes often exchanged clothes in
order to deceive the ghost. Mourning costumes were designed to disguise
survivors; later on, to show respect for the dead and thus appease the ghosts.
2. GHOST PLACATION
87:2.1 In religion the negative program of ghost placation long preceded the
positive program of spirit coercion and supplication. The first acts of human
worship were phenomena of defense, not reverence. Modern man deems it wise to
insure against fire; so the savage thought it the better part of wisdom to
provide insurance against ghost bad luck. The effort to secure this protection
constituted the techniques and rituals of the ghost cult.
87:2.2 It was once thought that the great desire of a ghost was to be quickly
"laid" so that it might proceed undisturbed to deadland. Any error of
commission or omission in the acts of the living in the ritual of laying the
ghost was sure to delay its progress to ghostland. This was believed to be
displeasing to the ghost, and an angered ghost was supposed to be a source of
calamity, misfortune, and unhappiness.
87:2.3 The funeral service originated in man's effort to induce the ghost soul
to depart for its future home, and the funeral sermon was originally designed
to instruct the new ghost how to get there. It was the custom to provide food
and clothes for the ghost's journey, these articles being placed in or near
the grave. The savage believed that it required from three days to a year to
"lay the ghost" -- to get it away from the vicinity of the grave. The Eskimos
still believe that the soul stays with the body three days.
87:2.4 Silence or mourning was observed after a death so that the ghost would
not be attracted back home. Self-torture -- wounds -- was a common form of
mourning. Many advanced teachers tried to stop this, but they failed. Fasting
and other forms of self-denial were thought to be pleasing to the ghosts, who
took pleasure in the discomfort of the living during the transition period of
lurking about before their actual departure for deadland.
87:2.5 Long and frequent periods of mourning inactivity were one of the great
obstacles to civilization's advancement. Weeks and even months of each year
were literally wasted in this nonproductive and useless mourning. The fact
that professional mourners were hired for funeral occasions indicates that
mourning was a ritual, not an evidence of sorrow. Moderns may mourn the dead
out of respect and because of bereavement, but the ancients did this because
of fear.
87:2.6 The names of the dead were never spoken. In fact, they were often
banished from the language. These names became taboo, and in this way the
languages were constantly impoverished. This eventually produced a
multiplication of symbolic speech and figurative expression, such as "the name
or day one never mentions."
87:2.7 The ancients were so anxious to get rid of a ghost that they offered it
everything which might have been desired during life. Ghosts wanted wives and
servants; a well-to-do savage expected that at least one slave wife would be
buried alive at his death. It later became the custom for a widow to commit
suicide on her husband's grave. When a child died, the mother, aunt, or
grandmother was often strangled in order that an adult ghost might accompany
and care for the child ghost. And those who thus gave up their lives usually
did so willingly; indeed, had they lived in violation of custom, their fear of
ghost wrath would have denuded life of such few pleasures as the primitives
enjoyed.
87:2.8 It was customary to dispatch a large number of subjects to accompany a
dead chief; slaves were killed when their master died that they might serve
him in ghostland. The Borneans still provide a courier companion; a slave is
speared to death to make the ghost journey with his deceased master. Ghosts of
murdered persons were believed to be delighted to have the ghosts of their
murderers as slaves; this notion motivated men to head hunting.
87:2.9 Ghosts supposedly enjoyed the smell of food; food offerings at funeral
feasts were once universal. The primitive method of saying grace was, before
eating, to throw a bit of food into the fire for the purpose of appeasing the
spirits, while mumbling a magic formula.
87:2.10 The dead were supposed to use the ghosts of the tools and weapons that
were theirs in life. To break an article was to "kill it," thus releasing its
ghost to pass on for service in ghostland. Property sacrifices were also made
by burning or burying. Ancient funeral wastes were enormous. Later races made
paper models and substituted drawings for real objects and persons in these
death sacrifices. It was a great advance in civilization when the inheritance
of kin replaced the burning and burying of property. The Iroquois Indians made
many reforms in funeral waste. And this conservation of property enabled them
to become the most powerful of the northern red men. Modern man is not
supposed to fear ghosts, but custom is strong, and much terrestrial wealth is
still consumed on funeral rituals and death ceremonies.
3. ANCESTOR WORSHIP
87:3.1 The advancing ghost cult made ancestor worship inevitable since it
became the connecting link between common ghosts and the higher spirits, the
evolving gods. The early gods were simply glorified departed humans.
87:3.2 Ancestor worship was originally more of a fear than a worship, but such
beliefs did definitely contribute to the further spread of ghost fear and
worship. Devotees of the early ancestor-ghost cults even feared to yawn lest a
malignant ghost enter their bodies at such a time.
87:3.3 The custom of adopting children was to make sure that some one would
provide offerings after death for the peace and progress of the soul. The
savage lived in fear of the ghosts of his fellows and spent his spare time
planning for the safe conduct of his own ghost after death.
87:3.4 Most tribes instituted an all-souls' feast at least once a year. The
Romans had twelve ghost feasts and accompanying ceremonies each year. Half the
days of the year were dedicated to some sort of ceremony associated with these
ancient cults. One Roman emperor tried to reform these practices by reducing
the number of feast days to 135 a year.
87:3.5 The ghost cult was in continuous evolution. As ghosts were envisioned
as passing from the incomplete to the higher phase of existence, so did the
cult eventually progress to the worship of spirits, and even gods. But
regardless of varying beliefs in more advanced spirits, all tribes and races
once believed in ghosts.
4. GOOD AND BAD SPIRIT GHOSTS
87:4.1 Ghost fear was the fountainhead of all world religion; and for ages
many tribes clung to the old belief in one class of ghosts. They taught that
man had good luck when the ghost was pleased, bad luck when he was angered.
87:4.2 As the cult of ghost fear expanded, there came about the recognition of
higher types of spirits, spirits not definitely identifiable with any
individual human. They were graduate or glorified ghosts who had progressed
beyond the domain of ghostland to the higher realms of spiritland.
87:4.3 The notion of two kinds of spirit ghosts made slow but sure progress
throughout the world. This new dual spiritism did not have to spread from
tribe to tribe; it sprang up independently all over the world. In influencing
the expanding evolutionary mind, the power of an idea lies not in its reality
or reasonableness but rather in its vividness and the universality of its
ready and simple application.
87:4.4 Still later the imagination of man envisioned the concept of both good
and bad supernatural agencies; some ghosts never evolved to the level of good
spirits. The early monospiritism of ghost fear was gradually evolving into a
dual spiritism, a new concept of the invisible control of earthly affairs. At
last good luck and bad luck were pictured as having their respective
controllers. And of the two classes, the group that brought bad luck were
believed to be the more active and numerous.
87:4.5 When the doctrine of good and bad spirits finally matured, it became
the most widespread and persistent of all religious beliefs. This dualism
represented a great religio-philosophic advance because it enabled man to
account for both good luck and bad luck while at the same time believing in
supermortal beings who were to some extent consistent in their behavior. The
spirits could be counted on to be either good or bad; they were not thought of
as being completely temperamental as the early ghosts of the monospiritism of
most primitive religions had been conceived to be. Man was at last able to
conceive of supermortal forces that were consistent in behavior, and this was
one of the most momentous discoveries of truth in the entire history of the
evolution of religion and in the expansion of human philosophy.
87:4.6 Evolutionary religion has, however, paid a terrible price for the
concept of dual spiritism. Man's early philosophy was able to reconcile spirit
constancy with the vicissitudes of temporal fortune only by postulating two
kinds of spirits, one good and the other bad. And while this belief did enable
man to reconcile the variables of chance with a concept of unchanging
supermortal forces, this doctrine has ever since made it difficult for
religionists to conceive of cosmic unity. The gods of evolutionary religion
have generally been opposed by the forces of darkness.
87:4.7 The tragedy of all this lies in the fact that, when these ideas were
taking root in the primitive mind of man, there really were no bad or
disharmonious spirits in all the world. Such an unfortunate situation did not
develop until after the Caligastic rebellion and only persisted until
Pentecost. The concept of good and evil as cosmic co-ordinates is, even in the
twentieth century, very much alive in human philosophy; most of the world's
religions still carry this cultural birthmark of the long-gone days of the
emerging ghost cults.
5. THE ADVANCING GHOST CULT
87:5.1 Primitive man viewed the spirits and ghosts as having almost unlimited
rights but no duties; the spirits were thought to regard man as having
manifold duties but no rights. The spirits were believed to look down upon man
as constantly failing in the discharge of his spiritual duties. It was the
general belief of mankind that ghosts levied a continuous tribute of service
as the price of noninterference in human affairs, and the least mischance was
laid to ghost activities. Early humans were so afraid they might overlook some
honor due the gods that, after they had sacrificed to all known spirits, they
did another turn to the "unknown gods," just to be thoroughly safe.
87:5.2 And now the simple ghost cult is followed by the practices of the more
advanced and relatively complex spirit-ghost cult, the service and worship of
the higher spirits as they evolved in man's primitive imagination. Religious
ceremonial must keep pace with spirit evolution and progress. The expanded
cult was but the art of self-maintenance practiced in relation to belief in
supernatural beings, self-adjustment to spirit environment. Industrial and
military organizations were adjustments to natural and social environments.
And as marriage arose to meet the demands of bisexuality, so did religious
organization evolve in response to the belief in higher spirit forces and
spiritual beings. Religion represents man's adjustment to his illusions of the
mystery of chance. Spirit fear and subsequent worship were adopted as
insurance against misfortune, as prosperity policies.
87:5.3 The savage visualizes the good spirits as going about their business,
requiring little from human beings. It is the bad ghosts and spirits who must
be kept in good humor. Accordingly, primitive peoples paid more attention to
their malevolent ghosts than to their benign spirits.
87:5.4 Human prosperity was supposed to be especially provocative of the envy
of evil spirits, and their method of retaliation was to strike back through a
human agency and by the technique of the evil eye. That phase of the cult
which had to do with spirit avoidance was much concerned with the machinations
of the evil eye. The fear of it became almost world-wide. Pretty women were
veiled to protect them from the evil eye; subsequently many women who desired
to be considered beautiful adopted this practice. Because of this fear of bad
spirits, children were seldom allowed out after dark, and the early prayers
always included the petition, "deliver us from the evil eye."
87:5.5 The Koran contains a whole chapter devoted to the evil eye and magic
spells, and the Jews fully believed in them. The whole phallic cult grew up as
a defense against evil eye. The organs of reproduction were thought to be the
only fetish which could render it powerless. The evil eye gave origin to the
first superstitions respecting prenatal marking of children, maternal
impressions, and the cult was at one time well-nigh universal.
87:5.6 Envy is a deep-seated human trait; therefore did primitive man ascribe
it to his early gods. And since man had once practiced deception upon the
ghosts, he soon began to deceive the spirits. Said he, "If the spirits are
jealous of our beauty and prosperity, we will disfigure ourselves and speak
lightly of our success." Early humility was not, therefore, debasement of ego
but rather an attempt to foil and deceive the envious spirits.
87:5.7 The method adopted to prevent the spirits from becoming jealous of
human prosperity was to heap vituperation upon some lucky or much loved thing
or person. The custom of depreciating complimentary remarks regarding oneself
or family had its origin in this way, and it eventually evolved into civilized
modesty, restraint, and courtesy. In keeping with the same motive, it became
the fashion to look ugly. Beauty aroused the envy of spirits; it betokened
sinful human pride. The savage sought for an ugly name. This feature of the
cult was a great handicap to the advancement of art, and it long kept the
world somber and ugly.
87:5.8 Under the spirit cult, life was at best a gamble, the result of spirit
control. One's future was not the result of effort, industry, or talent except
as they might be utilized to influence the spirits. The ceremonies of spirit
propitiation constituted a heavy burden, rendering life tedious and virtually
unendurable. From age to age and from generation to generation, race after
race has sought to improve this superghost doctrine, but no generation has
ever yet dared to wholly reject it.
87:5.9 The intention and will of the spirits were studied by means of omens,
oracles, and signs. And these spirit messages were interpreted by divination,
soothsaying, magic, ordeals, and astrology. The whole cult was a scheme
designed to placate, satisfy, and buy off the spirits through this disguised
bribery.
87:5.10 And thus there grew up a new and expanded world philosophy consisting
in:
1. Duty -- those things which must be done to keep the spirits favorably
disposed, at least neutral.
2. Right -- the correct conduct and ceremonies designed to win the spirits
actively to one's interests.
3. Truth -- the correct understanding of, and attitude toward, spirits, and
hence toward life and death.
87:5.11 It was not merely out of curiosity that the ancients sought to know
the future; they wanted to dodge ill luck. Divination was simply an attempt to
avoid trouble. During these times, dreams were regarded as prophetic, while
everything out of the ordinary was considered an omen. And even today the
civilized races are cursed with the belief in signs, tokens, and other
superstitious remnants of the advancing ghost cult of old. Slow, very slow, is
man to abandon those methods whereby he so gradually and painfully ascended
the evolutionary scale of life.
6. COERCION AND EXORCISM
87:6.1 When men believed in ghosts only, religious ritual was more personal,
less organized, but the recognition of higher spirits necessitated the
employment of "higher spiritual methods" in dealing with them. This attempt to
improve upon, and to elaborate, the technique of spirit propitiation led
directly to the creation of defenses against the spirits. Man felt helpless
indeed before the uncontrollable forces operating in terrestrial life, and his
feeling of inferiority drove him to attempt to find some compensating
adjustment, some technique for evening the odds in the one-sided struggle of
man versus the cosmos.
87:6.2 In the early days of the cult, man's efforts to influence ghost action
were confined to propitiation, attempts by bribery to buy off ill luck. As the
evolution of the ghost cult progressed to the concept of good as well as bad
spirits, these ceremonies turned toward attempts of a more positive nature,
efforts to win good luck. Man's religion no longer was completely
negativistic, nor did he stop with the effort to win good luck; he shortly
began to devise schemes whereby he could compel spirit co-operation. No longer
does the religionist stand defenseless before the unceasing demands of the
spirit phantasms of his own devising; the savage is beginning to invent
weapons wherewith he may coerce spirit action and compel spirit assistance.
87:6.3 Man's first efforts at defense were directed against the ghosts. As the
ages passed, the living began to devise methods of resisting the dead. Many
techniques were developed for frightening ghosts and driving them away, among
which may be cited the following:
1. Cutting off the head and tying up the body in the grave.
2. Stoning the death house.
3. Castration or breaking the legs of the corpse.
4. Burying under stones, one origin of the modern tombstone.
5. Cremation, a later-day invention to prevent ghost trouble.
6. Casting the body into the sea.
7. Exposure of the body to be eaten by wild animals.
87:6.4 Ghosts were supposed to be disturbed and frightened by noise; shouting,
bells, and drums drove them away from the living; and these ancient methods
are still in vogue at "wakes" for the dead. Foul-smelling concoctions were
utilized to banish unwelcome spirits. Hideous images of the spirits were
constructed so that they would flee in haste when they beheld themselves. It
was believed that dogs could detect the approach of ghosts, and that they gave
warning by howling; that cocks would crow when they were near. The use of a
cock as a weather vane is in perpetuation of this superstition.
87:6.5 Water was regarded as the best protection against ghosts. Holy water
was superior to all other forms, water in which the priests had washed their
feet. Both fire and water were believed to constitute impassable barriers to
ghosts. The Romans carried water three times around the corpse; in the
twentieth century the body is sprinkled with holy water, and hand washing at
the cemetery is still a Jewish ritual. Baptism was a feature of the later
water ritual; primitive bathing was a religious ceremony. Only in recent times
has bathing become a sanitary practice.
87:6.6 But man did not stop with ghost coercion; through religious ritual and
other practices he was soon attempting to compel spirit action. Exorcism was
the employment of one spirit to control or banish another, and these tactics
were also utilized for frightening ghosts and spirits. The dual-spiritism
concept of good and bad forces offered man ample opportunity to attempt to pit
one agency against another, for, if a powerful man could vanquish a weaker
one, then certainly a strong spirit could dominate an inferior ghost.
Primitive cursing was a coercive practice designed to overawe minor spirits.
Later this custom expanded into the pronouncing of curses upon enemies.
87:6.7 It was long believed that by reverting to the usages of the more
ancient mores the spirits and demigods could be forced into desirable action.
Modern man is guilty of the same procedure. You address one another in common,
everyday language, but when you engage in prayer, you resort to the older
style of another generation, the so-called solemn style.
87:6.8 This doctrine also explains many religious-ritual reversions of a sex
nature, such as temple prostitution. These reversions to primitive customs
were considered sure guards against many calamities. And with these simple-
minded peoples all such performances were entirely free from what modern man
would term promiscuity.
87:6.9 Next came the practice of ritual vows, soon to be followed by religious
pledges and sacred oaths. Most of these oaths were accompanied by self-torture
and self-mutilation; later on, by fasting and prayer. Self-denial was
subsequently looked upon as being a sure coercive; this was especially true in
the matter of sex suppression. And so primitive man early developed a decided
austerity in his religious practices, a belief in the efficacy of self-torture
and self-denial as rituals capable of coercing the unwilling spirits to react
favorably toward all such suffering and deprivation.
87:6.10 Modern man no longer attempts openly to coerce the spirits, though he
still evinces a disposition to bargain with Deity. And he still swears, knocks
on wood, crosses his fingers, and follows expectoration with some trite
phrase; once it was a magical formula.
7. NATURE OF CULTISM
87:7.1 The cult type of social organization persisted because it provided a
symbolism for the preservation and stimulation of moral sentiments and
religious loyalties. The cult grew out of the traditions of "old families" and
was perpetuated as an established institution; all families have a cult of
some sort. Every inspiring ideal grasps for some perpetuating symbolism --
seeks some technique for cultural manifestation which will insure survival and
augment realization -- and the cult achieves this end by fostering and
gratifying emotion.
87:7.2 From the dawn of civilization every appealing movement in social
culture or religious advancement has developed a ritual, a symbolic
ceremonial. The more this ritual has been an unconscious growth, the stronger
it has gripped its devotees. The cult preserved sentiment and satisfied
emotion, but it has always been the greatest obstacle to social reconstruction
and spiritual progress.
87:7.3 Notwithstanding that the cult has always retarded social progress, it
is regrettable that so many modern believers in moral standards and spiritual
ideals have no adequate symbolism -- no cult of mutual support -- nothing to
belong to. But a religious cult cannot be manufactured; it must grow. And
those of no two groups will be identical unless their rituals are arbitrarily
standardized by authority.
87:7.4 The early Christian cult was the most effective, appealing, and
enduring of any ritual ever conceived or devised, but much of its value has
been destroyed in a scientific age by the destruction of so many of its
original underlying tenets. The Christian cult has been devitalized by the
loss of many fundamental ideas.
87:7.5 In the past, truth has grown rapidly and expanded freely when the cult
has been elastic, the symbolism expansile. Abundant truth and an adjustable
cult have favored rapidity of social progression. A meaningless cult vitiates
religion when it attempts to supplant philosophy and to enslave reason; a
genuine cult grows.
87:7.6 Regardless of the drawbacks and handicaps, every new revelation of
truth has given rise to a new cult, and even the restatement of the religion
of Jesus must develop a new and appropriate symbolism. Modern man must find
some adequate symbolism for his new and expanding ideas, ideals, and
loyalties. This enhanced symbol must arise out of religious living, spiritual
experience. And this higher symbolism of a higher civilization must be
predicated on the concept of the Fatherhood of God and be pregnant with the
mighty ideal of the brotherhood of man.
87:7.7 The old cults were too egocentric; the new must be the outgrowth of
applied love. The new cult must, like the old, foster sentiment, satisfy
emotion, and promote loyalty; but it must do more: It must facilitate
spiritual progress, enhance cosmic meanings, augment moral values, encourage
social development, and stimulate a high type of personal religious living.
The new cult must provide supreme goals of living which are both temporal and
eternal -- social and spiritual.
87:7.8 No cult can endure and contribute to the progress of social
civilization and individual spiritual attainment unless it is based on the
biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the home. A surviving cult
must symbolize that which is permanent in the presence of unceasing change; it
must glorify that which unifies the stream of ever-changing social
metamorphosis. It must recognize true meanings, exalt beautiful relations, and
glorify the good values of real nobility.
87:7.9 But the great difficulty of finding a new and satisfying symbolism is
because modern men, as a group, adhere to the scientific attitude, eschew
superstition, and abhor ignorance, while as individuals they all crave mystery
and venerate the unknown. No cult can survive unless it embodies some
masterful mystery and conceals some worthful unattainable. Again, the new
symbolism must not only be significant for the group but also meaningful to
the individual. The forms of any serviceable symbolism must be those which the
individual can carry out on his own initiative, and which he can also enjoy
with his fellows. If the new cult could only be dynamic instead of static, it
might really contribute something worth while to the progress of mankind, both
temporal and spiritual.
87:7.10 But a cult -- a symbolism of rituals, slogans, or goals -- will not
function if it is too complex. And there must be the demand for devotion, the
response of loyalty. Every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy
symbolism, and its devotees would do well to prevent the crystallization of
such a ritual into cramping, deforming, and stifling stereotyped ceremonials
which can only handicap and retard all social, moral, and spiritual progress.
No cult can survive if it retards moral growth and fails to foster spiritual
progress. The cult is the skeletal structure around which grows the living and
dynamic body of personal spiritual experience -- true religion.
87:7.11 Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
PAPER 88
FETISHES, CHARMS, AND MAGIC
88:0.1 THE concept of a spirit's entering into an inanimate object, an animal,
or a human being, is a very ancient and honorable belief, having prevailed
since the beginning of the evolution of religion. This doctrine of spirit
possession is nothing more nor less than fetishism. The savage does not
necessarily worship the fetish; he very logically worships and reverences the
spirit resident therein.
88:0.2 At first, the spirit of a fetish was believed to be the ghost of a dead
man; later on, the higher spirits were supposed to reside in fetishes. And so
the fetish cult eventually incorporated all of the primitive ideas of ghosts,
souls, spirits, and demon possession.
1. BELIEF IN FETISHES
88:1.1 Primitive man always wanted to make anything extraordinary into a
fetish; chance therefore gave origin to many. A man is sick, something
happens, and he gets well. The same thing is true of the reputation of many
medicines and the chance methods of treating disease. Objects connected with
dreams were likely to be converted into fetishes. Volcanoes, but not
mountains, became fetishes; comets, but not stars. Early man regarded shooting
stars and meteors as indicating the arrival on earth of special visiting
spirits.
88:1.2 The first fetishes were peculiarly marked pebbles, and "sacred stones"
have ever since been sought by man; a string of beads was once a collection of
sacred stones, a battery of charms. Many tribes had fetish stones, but few
have survived as have the Kaaba and the Stone of Scone. Fire and water were
also among the early fetishes, and fire worship, together with belief in holy
water, still survives.
88:1.3 Tree fetishes were a later development, but among some tribes the
persistence of nature worship led to belief in charms indwelt by some sort of
nature spirit. When plants and fruits became fetishes, they were taboo as
food. The apple was among the first to fall into this category; it was never
eaten by the Levantine peoples.
88:1.4 If an animal ate human flesh, it became a fetish. In this way the dog
came to be the sacred animal of the Parsees. If the fetish is an animal and
the ghost is permanently resident therein, then fetishism may impinge on
reincarnation. In many ways the savages envied the animals; they did not feel
superior to them and were often named after their favorite beasts.
88:1.5 When animals became fetishes, there ensued the taboos on eating the
flesh of the fetish animal. Apes and monkeys, because of resemblance to man,
early became fetish animals; later, snakes, birds, and swine were also
similarly regarded. At one time the cow was a fetish, the milk being taboo
while the excreta were highly esteemed. The serpent was revered in Palestine,
especially by the Phoenicians, who, along with the Jews, considered it to be
the mouthpiece of evil spirits. Even many moderns believe in the charm powers
of reptiles. From Arabia on through India to the snake dance of the Moqui
tribe of red men the serpent has been revered.
88:1.6 Certain days of the week were fetishes. For ages Friday has been
regarded as an unlucky day and the number thirteen as an evil numeral. The
lucky numbers three and seven came from later revelations; four was the lucky
number of primitive man and was derived from the early recognition of the four
points of the compass. It was held unlucky to count cattle or other
possessions; the ancients always opposed the taking of a census, "numbering
the people."
88:1.7 Primitive man did not make an undue fetish out of sex; the reproductive
function received only a limited amount of attention. The savage was natural
minded, not obscene or prurient.
88:1.8 Saliva was a potent fetish; devils could be driven out by spitting on a
person. For an elder or superior to spit on one was the highest compliment.
Parts of the human body were looked upon as potential fetishes, particularly
the hair and nails. The long-growing fingernails of the chiefs were highly
prized, and the trimmings thereof were a powerful fetish. Belief in skull
fetishes accounts for much of later-day head-hunting. The umbilical cord was a
highly prized fetish; even today it is so regarded in Africa. Mankind's first
toy was a preserved umbilical cord. Set with pearls, as was often done, it was
man's first necklace.
88:1.9 Hunchbacked and crippled children were regarded as fetishes; lunatics
were believed to be moon-struck. Primitive man could not distinguish between
genius and insanity; idiots were either beaten to death or revered as fetish
personalities. Hysteria increasingly confirmed the popular belief in
witchcraft; epileptics often were priests and medicine men. Drunkenness was
looked upon as a form of spirit possession; when a savage went on a spree, he
put a leaf in his hair for the purpose of disavowing responsibility for his
acts. Poisons and intoxicants became fetishes; they were deemed to be
possessed.
88:1.10 Many people looked upon geniuses as fetish personalities possessed by
a wise spirit. And these talented humans soon learned to resort to fraud and
trickery for the advancement of their selfish interests. A fetish man was
thought to be more than human; he was divine, even infallible. Thus did
chiefs, kings, priests, prophets, and church rulers eventually wield great
power and exercise unbounded authority.
2. EVOLUTION OF THE FETISH
88:2.1 It was a supposed preference of ghosts to indwell some object which had
belonged to them when alive in the flesh. This belief explains the efficacy of
many modern relics. The ancients always revered the bones of their leaders,
and the skeletal remains of saints and heroes are still regarded with
superstitious awe by many. Even today, pilgrimages are made to the tombs of
great men.
88:2.2 Belief in relics is an outgrowth of the ancient fetish cult. The relics
of modern religions represent an attempt to rationalize the fetish of the
savage and thus elevate it to a place of dignity and respectability in the
modern religious systems. It is heathenish to believe in fetishes and magic
but supposedly all right to accept relics and miracles.
88:2.3 The hearth -- fireplace -- became more or less of a fetish, a sacred
spot. The shrines and temples were at first fetish places because the dead
were buried there. The fetish hut of the Hebrews was elevated by Moses to that
place where it harbored a superfetish, the then existent concept of the law of
God. But the Israelites never gave up the peculiar Canaanite belief in the
stone altar: "And this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be God's
house." They truly believed that the spirit of their God dwelt in such stone
altars, which were in reality fetishes.
88:2.4 The earliest images were made to preserve the appearance and memory of
the illustrious dead; they were really monuments. Idols were a refinement of
fetishism. The primitives believed that a ceremony of consecration caused the
spirit to enter the image; likewise, when certain objects were blessed, they
became charms.
88:2.5 Moses, in the addition of the second commandment to the ancient
Dalamatian moral code, made an effort to control fetish worship among the
Hebrews. He carefully directed that they should make no sort of image that
might become consecrated as a fetish. He made it plain, "You shall not make a
graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the
earth beneath, or in the waters of the earth." While this commandment did much
to retard art among the Jews, it did lessen fetish worship. But Moses was too
wise to attempt suddenly to displace the olden fetishes, and he therefore
consented to the putting of certain relics alongside the law in the combined
war altar and religious shrine which was the ark.
88:2.6 Words eventually became fetishes, more especially those which were
regarded as God's words; in this way the sacred books of many religions have
become fetishistic prisons incarcerating the spiritual imagination of man.
Moses' very effort against fetishes became a supreme fetish; his commandment
was later used to stultify art and to retard the enjoyment and adoration of
the beautiful.
88:2.7 In olden times the fetish word of authority was a fear-inspiring
doctrine, the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal
fetish will lead mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry,
fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous
cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from
the fetish-making tendency up to the higher levels of thinking and reasoning.
Concerning the accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as
sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the book is true, but
also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books
happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations,
otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the
planet is round.
88:2.8 The practice of opening one of these sacred books to let the eye chance
upon a passage, the following of which may determine important life decisions
or projects, is nothing more nor less than arrant fetishism. To take an oath
on a "holy book" or to swear by some object of supreme veneration is a form of
refined fetishism.
88:2.9 But it does represent real evolutionary progress to advance from the
fetish fear of a savage chief's fingernail trimmings to the adoration of a
superb collection of letters, laws, legends, allegories, myths, poems, and
chronicles which, after all, reflect the winnowed moral wisdom of many
centuries, at least up to the time and event of their being assembled as a
"sacred book."
88:2.10 To become fetishes, words had to be considered inspired, and the
invocation of supposed divinely inspired writings led directly to the
establishment of the authority of the church, while the evolution of civil
forms led to the fruition of the authority of the state.
3. TOTEMISM
88:3.1 Fetishism ran through all the primitive cults from the earliest belief
in sacred stones, through idolatry, cannibalism, and nature worship, to
totemism.
88:3.2 Totemism is a combination of social and religious observances.
Originally it was thought that respect for the totem animal of supposed
biologic origin insured the food supply. Totems were at one and the same time
symbols of the group and their god. Such a god was the clan personified.
Totemism was one phase of the attempted socialization of otherwise personal
religion. The totem eventually evolved into the flag, or national symbol, of
the various modern peoples.
88:3.3 A fetish bag, a medicine bag, was a pouch containing a reputable
assortment of ghost-impregnated articles, and the medicine man of old never
allowed his bag, the symbol of his power, to touch the ground. Civilized
peoples in the twentieth century see to it that their flags, emblems of
national consciousness, likewise never touch the ground.
88:3.4 The insignia of priestly and kingly office were eventually regarded as
fetishes, and the fetish of the state supreme has passed through many stages
of development, from clans to tribes, from suzerainty to sovereignty, from
totems to flags. Fetish kings have ruled by "divine right," and many other
forms of government have obtained. Men have also made a fetish of democracy,
the exaltation and adoration of the common man's ideas when collectively
called "public opinion." One man's opinion, when taken by itself, is not
regarded as worth much, but when many men are collectively functioning as a
democracy, this same mediocre judgment is held to be the arbiter of justice
and the standard of righteousness.
4. MAGIC
88:4.1 Civilized man attacks the problems of a real environment through his
science; savage man attempted to solve the real problems of an illusory ghost
environment by magic. Magic was the technique of manipulating the conjectured
spirit environment whose machinations endlessly explained the inexplicable; it
was the art of obtaining voluntary spirit co-operation and of coercing
involuntary spirit aid through the use of fetishes or other and more powerful
spirits.
88:4.2 The object of magic, sorcery, and necromancy was twofold:
1. To secure insight into the future.
2. Favorably to influence environment.
88:4.3 The objects of science are identical with those of magic. Mankind is
progressing from magic to science, not by meditation and reason, but rather
through long experience, gradually and painfully. Man is gradually backing
into the truth, beginning in error, progressing in error, and finally
attaining the threshold of truth. Only with the arrival of the scientific
method has he faced forward. But primitive man had to experiment or perish.
88:4.4 The fascination of early superstition was the mother of the later
scientific curiosity. There was progressive dynamic emotion -- fear plus
curiosity -- in these primitive superstitions; there was progressive driving
power in the olden magic. These superstitions represented the emergence of the
human desire to know and to control planetary environment.
88:4.5 Magic gained such a strong hold upon the savage because he could not
grasp the concept of natural death. The later idea of original sin helped much
to weaken the grip of magic on the race in that it accounted for natural
death. It was at one time not at all uncommon for ten innocent persons to be
put to death because of supposed responsibility for one natural death. This is
one reason why ancient peoples did not increase faster, and it is still true
of some African tribes. The accused individual usually confessed guilt, even
when facing death.
88:4.6 Magic is natural to a savage. He believes that an enemy can actually be
killed by practicing sorcery on his shingled hair or fingernail trimmings. The
fatality of snake bites was attributed to the magic of the sorcerer. The
difficulty in combating magic arises from the fact that fear can kill.
Primitive peoples so feared magic that it did actually kill, and such results
were sufficient to substantiate this erroneous belief. In case of failure
there was always some plausible explanation; the cure for defective magic was
more magic.
5. MAGICAL CHARMS
88:5.1 Since anything connected with the body could become a fetish, the
earliest magic had to do with hair and nails. Secrecy attendant upon body
elimination grew up out of fear that an enemy might get possession of
something derived from the body and employ it in detrimental magic; all
excreta of the body were therefore carefully buried. Public spitting was
refrained from because of the fear that saliva would be used in deleterious
magic; spittle was always covered. Even food remnants, clothing, and ornaments
could become instruments of magic. The savage never left any remnants of his
meal on the table. And all this was done through fear that one's enemies might
use these things in magical rites, not from any appreciation of the hygienic
value of such practices.
88:5.2 Magical charms were concocted from a great variety of things: human
flesh, tiger claws, crocodile teeth, poison plant seeds, snake venom, and
human hair. The bones of the dead were very magical. Even the dust from
footprints could be used in magic. The ancients were great believers in love
charms. Blood and other forms of bodily secretions were able to insure the
magic influence of love.
88:5.3 Images were supposed to be effective in magic. Effigies were made, and
when treated ill or well, the same effects were believed to rest upon the real
person. When making purchases, superstitious persons would chew a bit of hard
wood in order to soften the heart of the seller.
88:5.4 The milk of a black cow was highly magical; so also were black cats.
The staff or wand was magical, along with drums, bells, and knots. All ancient
objects were magical charms. The practices of a new or higher civilization
were looked upon with disfavor because of their supposedly evil magical
nature. Writing, printing, and pictures were long so regarded.
88:5.5 Primitive man believed that names must be treated with respect,
especially names of the gods. The name was regarded as an entity, an influence
distinct from the physical personality; it was esteemed equally with the soul
and the shadow. Names were pawned for loans; a man could not use his name
until it had been redeemed by payment of the loan. Nowadays one signs his name
to a note. An individual's name soon became important in magic. The savage had
two names; the important one was regarded as too sacred to use on ordinary
occasions, hence the second or everyday name -- a nickname. He never told his
real name to strangers. Any experience of an unusual nature caused him to
change his name; sometimes it was in an effort to cure disease or to stop bad
luck. The savage could get a new name by buying it from the tribal chief; men
still invest in titles and degrees. But among the most primitive tribes, such
as the African Bushmen, individual names do not exist.
6. THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC
88:6.1 Magic was practiced through the use of wands, "medicine" ritual, and
incantations, and it was customary for the practitioner to work unclothed.
Women outnumbered the men among primitive magicians. In magic, "medicine"
means mystery, not treatment. The savage never doctored himself; he never used
medicines except on the advice of the specialists in magic. And the voodoo
doctors of the twentieth century are typical of the magicians of old.
88:6.2 There was both a public and a private phase to magic. That performed by
the medicine man, shaman, or priest was supposed to be for the good of the
whole tribe. Witches, sorcerers, and wizards dispensed private magic, personal
and selfish magic which was employed as a coercive method of bringing evil on
one's enemies. The concept of dual spiritism, good and bad spirits, gave rise
to the later beliefs in white and black magic. And as religion evolved, magic
was the term applied to spirit operations outside one's own cult, and it also
referred to older ghost beliefs.
88:6.3 Word combinations, the ritual of chants and incantations, were highly
magical. Some early incantations finally evolved into prayers. Presently,
imitative magic was practiced; prayers were acted out; magical dances were
nothing but dramatic prayers. Prayer gradually displaced magic as the
associate of sacrifice.
88:6.4 Gesture, being older than speech, was the more holy and magical, and
mimicry was believed to have strong magical power. The red men often staged a
buffalo dance in which one of their number would play the part of a buffalo
and, in being caught, would insure the success of the impending hunt. The sex
festivities of May Day were simply imitative magic, a suggestive appeal to the
sex passions of the plant world. The doll was first employed as a magic
talisman by the barren wife.
88:6.5 Magic was the branch off the evolutionary religious tree which
eventually bore the fruit of a scientific age. Belief in astrology led to the
development of astronomy; belief in a philosopher's stone led to the mastery
of metals, while belief in magic numbers founded the science of mathematics.
88:6.6 But a world so filled with charms did much to destroy all personal
ambition and initiative. The fruits of extra labor or of diligence were looked
upon as magical. If a man had more grain in his field than his neighbor, he
might be haled before the chief and charged with enticing this extra grain
from the indolent neighbor's field. Indeed, in the days of barbarism it was
dangerous to know very much; there was always the chance of being executed as
a black artist.
88:6.7 Gradually science is removing the gambling element from life. But if
modern methods of education should fail, there would be an almost immediate
reversion to the primitive beliefs in magic. These superstitions still linger
in the minds of many so-called civilized people. Language contains many
fossils which testify that the race has long been steeped in magical
superstition, such words as spellbound, ill-starred, possessions, inspiration,
spirit away, ingenuity, entrancing, thunderstruck, and astonished. And
intelligent human beings still believe in good luck, evil eye, and astrology.
88:6.8 Ancient magic was the cocoon of modern science, indispensable in its
time but now no longer useful. And so the phantasms of ignorant superstition
agitated the primitive minds of men until the concepts of science could be
born. Today, Urantia is in the twilight zone of this intellectual evolution.
One half the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of
scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient
superstition and but thinly disguised magic.
88:6.9 Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
PAPER 89
SIN, SACRIFICE, AND ATONEMENT
89:0.1 PRIMITIVE man regarded himself as being in debt to the spirits, as
standing in need of redemption. As the savages looked at it, in justice the
spirits might have visited much more bad luck upon them. As time passed, this
concept developed into the doctrine of sin and salvation. The soul was looked
upon as coming into the world under forfeit -- original sin. The soul must be
ransomed; a scapegoat must be provided. The head-hunter, in addition to
practicing the cult of skull worship, was able to provide a substitute for his
own life, a scapeman.
89:0.2 The savage was early possessed with the notion that spirits derive
supreme satisfaction from the sight of human misery, suffering, and
humiliation. At first, man was only concerned with sins of commission, but
later he became exercised over sins of omission. And the whole subsequent
sacrificial system grew up around these two ideas. This new ritual had to do
with the observance of the propitiation ceremonies of sacrifice. Primitive man
believed that something special must be done to win the favor of the gods;
only advanced civilization recognizes a consistently even-tempered and
benevolent God. Propitiation was insurance against immediate ill luck rather
than investment in future bliss. And the rituals of avoidance, exorcism,
coercion, and propitiation all merge into one another.
1. THE TABOO
89:1.1 Observance of a taboo was man's effort to dodge ill luck, to keep from
offending the spirit ghosts by the avoidance of something. The taboos were at
first nonreligious, but they early acquired ghost or spirit sanction, and when
thus reinforced, they became lawmakers and institution builders. The taboo is
the source of ceremonial standards and the ancestor of primitive self-control.
It was the earliest form of societal regulation and for a long time the only
one; it is still a basic unit of the social regulative structure.
89:1.2 The respect which these prohibitions commanded in the mind of the
savage exactly equaled his fear of the powers who were supposed to enforce
them. Taboos first arose because of chance experience with ill luck; later
they were proposed by chiefs and shamans -- fetish men who were thought to be
directed by a spirit ghost, even by a god. The fear of spirit retribution is
so great in the mind of a primitive that he sometimes dies of fright when he
has violated a taboo, and this dramatic episode enormously strengthens the
hold of the taboo on the minds of the survivors.
89:1.3 Among the earliest prohibitions were restrictions on the appropriation
of women and other property. As religion began to play a larger part in the
evolution of the taboo, the article resting under ban was regarded as unclean,
subsequently as unholy. The records of the Hebrews are full of the mention of
things clean and unclean, holy and unholy, but their beliefs along these lines
were far less cumbersome and extensive than were those of many other peoples.
89:1.4 The seven commandments of Dalamatia and Eden, as well as the ten
injunctions of the Hebrews, were definite taboos, all expressed in the same
negative form as were the most ancient prohibitions. But these newer codes
were truly emancipating in that they took the place of thousands of pre-
existent taboos. And more than this, these later commandments definitely
promised something in return for obedience.
89:1.5 The early food taboos originated in fetishism and totemism. The swine
was sacred to the Phoenicians, the cow to the Hindus. The Egyptian taboo on
pork has been perpetuated by the Hebraic and Islamic faiths. A variant of the
food taboo was the belief that a pregnant woman could think so much about a
certain food that the child, when born, would be the echo of that food. Such
viands would be taboo to the child.
89:1.6 Methods of eating soon became taboo, and so originated ancient and
modern table etiquette. Caste systems and social levels are vestigial remnants
of olden prohibitions. The taboos were highly effective in organizing society,
but they were terribly burdensome; the negative-ban system not only maintained
useful and constructive regulations but also obsolete, outworn, and useless
taboos.
89:1.7 There would, however, be no civilized society to sit in criticism upon
primitive man except for these far-flung and multifarious taboos, and the
taboo would never have endured but for the upholding sanctions of primitive
religion. Many of the essential factors in man's evolution have been highly
expensive, have cost vast treasure in effort, sacrifice, and self-denial, but
these achievements of self-control were the real rungs on which man climbed
civilization's ascending ladder.
2. THE CONCEPT OF SIN
89:2.1 The fear of chance and the dread of bad luck literally drove man into
the invention of primitive religion as supposed insurance against these
calamities. From magic and ghosts, religion evolved through spirits and
fetishes to taboos. Every primitive tribe had its tree of forbidden fruit,
literally the apple but figuratively consisting of a thousand branches hanging
heavy with all sorts of taboos. And the forbidden tree always said, "Thou
shalt not."
89:2.2 As the savage mind evolved to that point where it envisaged both good
and bad spirits, and when the taboo received the solemn sanction of evolving
religion, the stage was all set for the appearance of the new conception of
sin. The idea of sin was universally established in the world before revealed
religion ever made its entry. It was only by the concept of sin that natural
death became logical to the primitive mind. Sin was the transgression of
taboo, and death was the penalty of sin.
89:2.3 Sin was ritual, not rational; an act, not a thought. And this entire
concept of sin was fostered by the lingering traditions of Dilmun and the days
of a little paradise on earth. The tradition of Adam and the Garden of Eden
also lent substance to the dream of a onetime "golden age" of the dawn of the
races. And all this confirmed the ideas later expressed in the belief that man
had his origin in a special creation, that he started his career in
perfection, and that transgression of the taboos -- sin -- brought him down to
his later sorry plight.
89:2.4 The habitual violation of a taboo became a vice; primitive law made
vice a crime; religion made it a sin. Among the early tribes the violation of
a taboo was a combined crime and sin. Community calamity was always regarded
as punishment for tribal sin. To those who believed that prosperity and
righteousness went together, the apparent prosperity of the wicked occasioned
so much worry that it was necessary to invent hells for the punishment of
taboo violators; the numbers of these places of future punishment have varied
from one to five.
89:2.5 The idea of confession and forgiveness early appeared in primitive
religion. Men would ask forgiveness at a public meeting for sins they intended
to commit the following week. Confession was merely a rite of remission, also
a public notification of defilement, a ritual of crying "unclean, unclean!"
Then followed all the ritualistic schemes of purification. All ancient peoples
practiced these meaningless ceremonies. Many apparently hygienic customs of
the early tribes were largely ceremonial.
3. RENUNCIATION AND HUMILIATION
89:3.1 Renunciation came as the next step in religious evolution; fasting was
a common practice. Soon it became the custom to forego many forms of physical
pleasure, especially of a sexual nature. The ritual of the fast was deeply
rooted in many ancient religions and has been handed down to practically all
modern theologic systems of thought.
89:3.2 Just about the time barbarian man was recovering from the wasteful
practice of burning and burying property with the dead, just as the economic
structure of the races was beginning to take shape, this new religious
doctrine of renunciation appeared, and tens of thousands of earnest souls
began to court poverty. Property was regarded as a spiritual handicap. These
notions of the spiritual dangers of material possession were widespreadly
entertained in the times of Philo and Paul, and they have markedly influenced
European philosophy ever since.
89:3.3 Poverty was just a part of the ritual of the mortification of the flesh
which, unfortunately, became incorporated into the writings and teachings of
many religions, notably Christianity. Penance is the negative form of this
ofttimes foolish ritual of renunciation. But all this taught the savage self-
control, and that was a worth-while advancement in social evolution. Self-
denial and self-control were two of the greatest social gains from early
evolutionary religion. Self-control gave man a new philosophy of life; it
taught him the art of augmenting life's fraction by lowering the denominator
of personal demands instead of always attempting to increase the numerator of
selfish gratification.
89:3.4 These olden ideas of self-discipline embraced flogging and all sorts of
physical torture. The priests of the mother cult were especially active in
teaching the virtue of physical suffering, setting the example by submitting
themselves to castration. The Hebrews, Hindus, and Buddhists were earnest
devotees of this doctrine of physical humiliation.
89:3.5 All through the olden times men sought in these ways for extra credits
on the self-denial ledgers of their gods. It was once customary, when under
some emotional stress, to make vows of self-denial and self-torture. In time
these vows assumed the form of contracts with the gods and, in that sense,
represented true evolutionary progress in that the gods were supposed to do
something definite in return for this self-torture and mortification of the
flesh. Vows were both negative and positive. Pledges of this harmful and
extreme nature are best observed today among certain groups in India.
89:3.6 It was only natural that the cult of renunciation and humiliation
should have paid attention to sexual gratification. The continence cult
originated as a ritual among soldiers prior to engaging in battle; in later
days it became the practice of "saints." This cult tolerated marriage only as
an evil lesser than fornication. Many of the world's great religions have been
adversely influenced by this ancient cult, but none more markedly than
Christianity. The Apostle Paul was a devotee of this cult, and his personal
views are reflected in the teachings which he fastened onto Christian
theology: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." "I would that all men
were even as I myself." "I say, therefore, to the unmarried and widows, it is
good for them to abide even as I." Paul well knew that such teachings were not
a part of Jesus' gospel, and his acknowledgment of this is illustrated by his
statement, "I speak this by permission and not by commandment." But this cult
led Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that his personal
opinions have long influenced the teachings of a great world religion. If the
advice of the tentmaker-teacher were to be literally and universally obeyed,
then would the human race come to a sudden and inglorious end. Furthermore,
the involvement of a religion with the ancient continence cult leads directly
to a war against marriage and the home, society's veritable foundation and the
basic institution of human progress. And it is not to be wondered at that all
such beliefs fostered the formation of celibate priesthoods in the many
religions of various peoples.
89:3.7 Someday man should learn how to enjoy liberty without license,
nourishment without gluttony, and pleasure without debauchery. Self-control is
a better human policy of behavior regulation than is extreme self-denial. Nor
did Jesus ever teach these unreasonable views to his followers.
4. ORIGINS OF SACRIFICE
89:4.1 Sacrifice as a part of religious devotions, like many other worshipful
rituals, did not have a simple and single origin. The tendency to bow down
before power and to prostrate oneself in worshipful adoration in the presence
of mystery is foreshadowed in the fawning of the dog before its master. It is
but one step from the impulse of worship to the act of sacrifice. Primitive
man gauged the value of his sacrifice by the pain which he suffered. When the
idea of sacrifice first attached itself to religious ceremonial, no offering
was contemplated which was not productive of pain. The first sacrifices were
such acts as plucking hair, cutting the flesh, mutilations, knocking out
teeth, and cutting off fingers. As civilization advanced, these crude concepts
of sacrifice were elevated to the level of the rituals of self-abnegation,
asceticism, fasting, deprivation, and the later Christian doctrine of
sanctification through sorrow, suffering, and the mortification of the flesh.
89:4.2 Early in the evolution of religion there existed two conceptions of the
sacrifice: the idea of the gift sacrifice, which connoted the attitude of
thanksgiving, and the debt sacrifice, which embraced the idea of redemption.
Later there developed the notion of substitution.
89:4.3 Man still later conceived that his sacrifice of whatever nature might
function as a message bearer to the gods; it might be as a sweet savor in the
nostrils of deity. This brought incense and other aesthetic features of
sacrificial rituals which developed into sacrificial feasting, in time
becoming increasingly elaborate and ornate.
89:4.4 As religion evolved, the sacrificial rites of conciliation and
propitiation replaced the older methods of avoidance, placation, and exorcism.
89:4.5 The earliest idea of the sacrifice was that of a neutrality assessment
levied by ancestral spirits; only later did the idea of atonement develop. As
man got away from the notion of the evolutionary origin of the race, as the
traditions of the days of the Planetary Prince and the sojourn of Adam
filtered down through time, the concept of sin and of original sin became
widespread, so that sacrifice for accidental and personal sin evolved into the
doctrine of sacrifice for the atonement of racial sin. The atonement of the
sacrifice was a blanket insurance device which covered even the resentment and
jealousy of an unknown god.
89:4.6 Surrounded by so many sensitive spirits and grasping gods, primitive
man was face to face with such a host of creditor deities that it required all
the priests, ritual, and sacrifices throughout an entire lifetime to get him
out of spiritual debt. The doctrine of original sin, or racial guilt, started
every person out in serious debt to the spirit powers.
89:4.7 Gifts and bribes are given to men; but when tendered to the gods, they
are described as being dedicated, made sacred, or are called sacrifices.
Renunciation was the negative form of propitiation; sacrifice became the
positive form. The act of propitiation included praise, glorification,
flattery, and even entertainment. And it is the remnants of these positive
practices of the olden propitiation cult that constitute the modern forms of
divine worship. Present-day forms of worship are simply the ritualization of
these ancient sacrificial techniques of positive propitiation.
89:4.8 Animal sacrifice meant much more to primitive man than it could ever
mean to modern races. These barbarians regarded the animals as their actual
and near kin. As time passed, man became shrewd in his sacrificing, ceasing to
offer up his work animals. At first he sacrificed the best of everything,
including his domesticated animals.
89:4.9 It was no empty boast that a certain Egyptian ruler made when he stated
that he had sacrificed: 113,433 slaves, 493,386 head of cattle, 88 boats,
2,756 golden images, 331,702 jars of honey and oil, 228,380 jars of wine,
680,714 geese, 6,744,428 loaves of bread, and 5,740,352 sacks of coin. And in
order to do this he must needs have sorely taxed his toiling subjects.
89:4.10 Sheer necessity eventually drove these semisavages to eat the material
part of their sacrifices, the gods having enjoyed the soul thereof. And this
custom found justification under the pretense of the ancient sacred meal, a
communion service according to modern usage.
5. SACRIFICES AND CANNIBALISM
89:5.1 Modern ideas of early cannibalism are entirely wrong; it was a part of
the mores of early society. While cannibalism is traditionally horrible to
modern civilization, it was a part of the social and religious structure of
primitive society. Group interests dictated the practice of cannibalism. It
grew up through the urge of necessity and persisted because of the slavery of
superstition and ignorance. It was a social, economic, religious, and military
custom.
89:5.2 Early man was a cannibal; he enjoyed human flesh, and therefore he
offered it as a food gift to the spirits and his primitive gods. Since ghost
spirits were merely modified men, and since food was man's greatest need, then
food must likewise be a spirit's greatest need.
89:5.3 Cannibalism was once well-nigh universal among the evolving races. The
Sangiks were all cannibalistic, but originally the Andonites were not, nor
were the Nodites and Adamites; neither were the Andites until after they had
become grossly admixed with the evolutionary races.
89:5.4 The taste for human flesh grows. Having been started through hunger,
friendship, revenge, or religious ritual, the eating of human flesh goes on to
habitual cannibalism. Man-eating has arisen through food scarcity, though this
has seldom been the underlying reason. The Eskimos and early Andonites,
however, seldom were cannibalistic except in times of famine. The red men,
especially in Central America, were cannibals. It was once a general practice
for primitive mothers to kill and eat their own children in order to renew the
strength lost in childbearing, and in Queensland the first child is still
frequently thus killed and devoured. In recent times cannibalism has been
deliberately resorted to by many African tribes as a war measure, a sort of
frightfulness with which to terrorize their neighbors.
89:5.5 Some cannibalism resulted from the degeneration of once superior
stocks, but it was mostly prevalent among the evolutionary races. Man-eating
came on at a time when men experienced intense and bitter emotions regarding
their enemies. Eating human flesh became part of a solemn ceremony of revenge;
it was believed that an enemy's ghost could, in this way, be destroyed or
fused with that of the eater. It was once a widespread belief that wizards
attained their powers by eating human flesh.
89:5.6 Certain groups of man-eaters would consume only members of their own
tribes, a pseudospiritual inbreeding which was supposed to accentuate tribal
solidarity. But they also ate enemies for revenge with the idea of
appropriating their strength. It was considered an honor to the soul of a
friend or fellow tribesman if his body were eaten, while it was no more than
just punishment to an enemy thus to devour him. The savage mind made no
pretensions to being consistent.
89:5.7 Among some tribes aged parents would seek to be eaten by their
children; among others it was customary to refrain from eating near relations;
their bodies were sold or exchanged for those of strangers. There was
considerable commerce in women and children who had been fattened for
slaughter. When disease or war failed to control population, the surplus was
unceremoniously eaten.
89:5.8 Cannibalism has been gradually disappearing because of the following
influences:
89:5.9 1. It sometimes became a communal ceremony, the assumption of
collective responsibility for inflicting the death penalty upon a fellow
tribesman. The blood guilt ceases to be a crime when participated in by all,
by society. The last of cannibalism in Asia was this eating of executed
criminals.
89:5.10 2. It very early became a religious ritual, but the growth of ghost
fear did not always operate to reduce man-eating.
89:5.11 3. Eventually it progressed to the point where only certain parts or
organs of the body were eaten, those parts supposed to contain the soul or
portions of the spirit. Blood drinking became common, and it was customary to
mix the "edible" parts of the body with medicines.
89:5.12 4. It became limited to men; women were forbidden to eat human flesh.
89:5.13 5. It was next limited to the chiefs, priests, and shamans.
89:5.14 6. Then it became taboo among the higher tribes. The taboo on man-
eating originated in Dalamatia and slowly spread over the world. The Nodites
encouraged cremation as a means of combating cannibalism since it was once a
common practice to dig up buried bodies and eat them.
89:5.15 7. Human sacrifice sounded the death knell of cannibalism. Human flesh
having become the food of superior men, the chiefs, it was eventually reserved
for the still more superior spirits; and thus the offering of human sacrifices
effectively put a stop to cannibalism, except among the lowest tribes. When
human sacrifice was fully established, man-eating became taboo; human flesh
was food only for the gods; man could eat only a small ceremonial bit, a
sacrament.
89:5.16 Finally animal substitutes came into general use for sacrificial
purposes, and even among the more backward tribes dog-eating greatly reduced
man-eating. The dog was the first domesticated animal and was held in high
esteem both as such and as food.
6. EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
89:6.1 Human sacrifice was an indirect result of cannibalism as well as its
cure. Providing spirit escorts to the spirit world also led to the lessening
of man-eating as it was never the custom to eat these death sacrifices. No
race has been entirely free from the practice of human sacrifice in some form
and at some time, even though the Andonites, Nodites, and Adamites were the
least addicted to cannibalism.
89:6.2 Human sacrifice has been virtually universal; it persisted in the
religious customs of the Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Hebrews, Mesopotamians,
Greeks, Romans, and many other peoples, even on to recent times among the
backward African and Australian tribes. The later American Indians had a
civilization emerging from cannibalism and, therefore, steeped in human
sacrifice, especially in Central and South America. The Chaldeans were among
the first to abandon the sacrificing of humans for ordinary occasions,
substituting therefor animals. About two thousand years ago a tenderhearted
Japanese emperor introduced clay images to take the place of human sacrifices,
but it was less than a thousand years ago that these sacrifices died out in
northern Europe. Among certain backward tribes, human sacrifice is still
carried on by volunteers, a sort of religious or ritual suicide. A shaman once
ordered the sacrifice of a much respected old man of a certain tribe. The
people revolted; they refused to obey. Whereupon the old man had his own son
dispatch him; the ancients really believed in this custom.
89:6.3 There is no more tragic and pathetic experience on record, illustrative
of the heart-tearing contentions between ancient and time-honored religious
customs and the contrary demands of advancing civilization, than the Hebrew
narrative of Jephthah and his only daughter. As was common custom, this well-
meaning man had made a foolish vow, had bargained with the "god of battles,"
agreeing to pay a certain price for victory over his enemies. And this price
was to make a sacrifice of that which first came out of his house to meet him
when he returned to his home. Jephthah thought that one of his trusty slaves
would thus be on hand to greet him, but it turned out that his daughter and
only child came out to welcome him home. And so, even at that late date and
among a supposedly civilized people, this beautiful maiden, after two months
to mourn her fate, was actually offered as a human sacrifice by her father,
and with the approval of his fellow tribesmen. And all this was done in the
face of Moses' stringent rulings against the offering of human sacrifice. But
men and women are addicted to making foolish and needless vows, and the men of
old held all such pledges to be highly sacred.
89:6.4 In olden times, when a new building of any importance was started, it
was customary to slay a human being as a "foundation sacrifice." This provided
a ghost spirit to watch over and protect the structure. When the Chinese made
ready to cast a bell, custom decreed the sacrifice of at least one maiden for
the purpose of improving the tone of the bell; the girl chosen was thrown
alive into the molten metal.
89:6.5 It was long the practice of many groups to build slaves alive into
important walls. In later times the northern European tribes substituted the
walling in of the shadow of a passerby for this custom of entombing living
persons in the walls of new buildings. The Chinese buried in a wall those
workmen who died while constructing it.
89:6.6 A petty king in Palestine, in building the walls of Jericho, "laid the
foundation thereof in Abiram, his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in
his youngest son, Segub." At that late date, not only did this father put two
of his sons alive in the foundation holes of the city's gates, but his action
is also recorded as being "according to the word of the Lord." Moses had
forbidden these foundation sacrifices, but the Israelites reverted to them
soon after his death. The twentieth-century ceremony of depositing trinkets
and keepsakes in the cornerstone of a new building is reminiscent of the
primitive foundation sacrifices.
89:6.7 It was long the custom of many peoples to dedicate the first fruits to
the spirits. And these observances, now more or less symbolic, are all
survivals of the early ceremonies involving human sacrifice. The idea of
offering the first-born as a sacrifice was widespread among the ancients,
especially among the Phoenicians, who were the last to give it up. It used to
be said upon sacrificing, "life for life." Now you say at death, "dust to
dust."
89:6.8 The spectacle of Abraham constrained to sacrifice his son Isaac, while
shocking to civilized susceptibilities, was not a new or strange idea to the
men of those days. It was long a prevalent practice for fathers, at times of
great emotional stress, to sacrifice their first-born sons. Many peoples have
a tradition analogous to this story, for there once existed a world-wide and
profound belief that it was necessary to offer a human sacrifice when anything
extraordinary or unusual happened.
7. MODIFICATIONS OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
89:7.1 Moses attempted to end human sacrifices by inaugurating the ransom as a
substitute. He established a systematic schedule which enabled his people to
escape the worst results of their rash and foolish vows. Lands, properties,
and children could be redeemed according to the established fees, which were
payable to the priests. Those groups which ceased to sacrifice their first-
born soon possessed great advantages over less advanced neighbors who
continued these atrocious acts. Many such backward tribes were not only
greatly weakened by this loss of sons, but even the succession of leadership
was often broken.
89:7.2 An outgrowth of the passing child sacrifice was the custom of smearing
blood on the house doorposts for the protection of the first-born. This was
often done in connection with one of the sacred feasts of the year, and this
ceremony once obtained over most of the world from Mexico to Egypt.
89:7.3 Even after most groups had ceased the ritual killing of children, it
was the custom to put an infant away by itself, off in the wilderness or in a
little boat on the water. If the child survived, it was thought that the gods
had intervened to preserve him, as in the traditions of Sargon, Moses, Cyrus,
and Romulus. Then came the practice of dedicating the first-born sons as
sacred or sacrificial, allowing them to grow up and then exiling them in lieu
of death; this was the origin of colonization. The Romans adhered to this
custom in their scheme of colonization.
89:7.4 Many of the peculiar associations of sex laxity with primitive worship
had their origin in connection with human sacrifice. In olden times, if a
woman met head-hunters, she could redeem her life by sexual surrender. Later,
a maiden consecrated to the gods as a sacrifice might elect to redeem her life
by dedicating her body for life to the sacred sex service of the temple; in
this way she could earn her redemption money. The ancients regarded it as
highly elevating to have sex relations with a woman thus engaged in ransoming
her life. It was a religious ceremony to consort with these sacred maidens,
and in addition, this whole ritual afforded an acceptable excuse for
commonplace sexual gratification. This was a subtle species of self-deception
which both the maidens and their consorts delighted to practice upon
themselves. The mores always drag behind in the evolutionary advance of
civilization, thus providing sanction for the earlier and more savagelike sex
practices of the evolving races.
89:7.5 Temple harlotry eventually spread throughout southern Europe and Asia.
The money earned by the temple prostitutes was held sacred among all peoples
-- a high gift to present to the gods. The highest types of women thronged the
temple sex marts and devoted their earnings to all kinds of sacred services
and works of public good. Many of the better classes of women collected their
dowries by temporary sex service in the temples, and most men preferred to
have such women for wives.
8. REDEMPTION AND COVENANTS
89:8.1 Sacrificial redemption and temple prostitution were in reality
modifications of human sacrifice. Next came the mock sacrifice of daughters.
This ceremony consisted in bloodletting, with dedication to life-long
virginity, and was a moral reaction to the older temple harlotry. In more
recent times virgins dedicated themselves to the service of tending the sacred
temple fires.
89:8.2 Men eventually conceived the idea that the offering of some part of the
body could take the place of the older and complete human sacrifice. Physical
mutilation was also considered to be an acceptable substitute. Hair, nails,
blood, and even fingers and toes were sacrificed. The later and well-nigh
universal ancient rite of circumcision was an outgrowth of the cult of partial
sacrifice; it was purely sacrificial, no thought of hygiene being attached
thereto. Men were circumcised; women had their ears pierced.
89:8.3 Subsequently it became the custom to bind fingers together instead of
cutting them off. Shaving the head and cutting the hair were likewise forms of
religious devotion. The making of eunuchs was at first a modification of the
idea of human sacrifice. Nose and lip piercing is still practiced in Africa,
and tattooing is an artistic evolution of the earlier crude scarring of the
body.
89:8.4 The custom of sacrifice eventually became associated, as a result of
advancing teachings, with the idea of the covenant. At last, the gods were
conceived of as entering into real agreements with man; and this was a major
step in the stabilization of religion. Law, a covenant, takes the place of
luck, fear, and superstition.
89:8.5 Man could never even dream of entering into a contract with Deity until
his concept of God had advanced to the level whereon the universe controllers
were envisioned as dependable. And man's early idea of God was so
anthropomorphic that he was unable to conceive of a dependable Deity until he
himself became relatively dependable, moral, and ethical.
89:8.6 But the idea of making a covenant with the gods did finally arrive.
Evolutionary man eventually acquired such moral dignity that he dared to
bargain with his gods. And so the business of offering sacrifices gradually
developed into the game of man's philosophic bargaining with God. And all this
represented a new device for insuring against bad luck or, rather, an enhanced
technique for the more definite purchase of prosperity. Do not entertain the
mistaken idea that these early sacrifices were a free gift to the gods, a
spontaneous offering of gratitude or thanksgiving; they were not expressions
of true worship.
89:8.7 Primitive forms of prayer were nothing more nor less than bargaining
with the spirits, an argument with the gods. It was a kind of bartering in
which pleading and persuasion were substituted for something more tangible and
costly. The developing commerce of the races had inculcated the spirit of
trade and had developed the shrewdness of barter; and now these traits began
to appear in man's worship methods. And as some men were better traders than
others, so some were regarded as better prayers than others. The prayer of a
just man was held in high esteem. A just man was one who had paid all accounts
to the spirits, had fully discharged every ritual obligation to the gods.
89:8.8 Early prayer was hardly worship; it was a bargaining petition for
health, wealth, and life. And in many respects prayers have not much changed
with the passing of the ages. They are still read out of books, recited
formally, and written out for emplacement on wheels and for hanging on trees,
where the blowing of the winds will save man the trouble of expending his own
breath.
9. SACRIFICES AND SACRAMENTS
89:9.1 The human sacrifice, throughout the course of the evolution of Urantian
rituals, has advanced from the bloody business of man-eating to higher and
more symbolic levels. The early rituals of sacrifice bred the later ceremonies
of sacrament. In more recent times the priest alone would partake of a bit of
the cannibalistic sacrifice or a drop of human blood, and then all would
partake of the animal substitute. These early ideas of ransom, redemption, and
covenants have evolved into the later-day sacramental services. And all this
ceremonial evolution has exerted a mighty socializing influence.
89:9.2 In connection with the Mother of God cult, in Mexico and elsewhere, a
sacrament of cakes and wine was eventually utilized in lieu of the flesh and
blood of the older human sacrifices. The Hebrews long practiced this ritual as
a part of their Passover ceremonies, and it was from this ceremonial that the
later Christian version of the sacrament took its origin.
89:9.3 The ancient social brotherhoods were based on the rite of blood
drinking; the early Jewish fraternity was a sacrificial blood affair. Paul
started out to build a new Christian cult on "the blood of the everlasting
covenant." And while he may have unnecessarily encumbered Christianity with
teachings about blood and sacrifice, he did once and for all make an end of
the doctrines of redemption through human or animal sacrifices. His theologic
compromises indicate that even revelation must submit to the graduated control
of evolution. According to Paul, Christ became the last and all-sufficient
human sacrifice; the divine Judge is now fully and forever satisfied.
89:9.4 And so, after long ages the cult of the sacrifice has evolved into the
cult of the sacrament. Thus are the sacraments of modern religions the
legitimate successors of those shocking early ceremonies of human sacrifice
and the still earlier cannibalistic rituals. Many still depend upon blood for
salvation, but it has at least become figurative, symbolic, and mystic.
10. FORGIVENESS OF SIN
89:10.1 Ancient man only attained consciousness of favor with God through
sacrifice. Modern man must develop new techniques of achieving the self-
consciousness of salvation. The consciousness of sin persists in the mortal
mind, but the thought patterns of salvation therefrom have become outworn and
antiquated. The reality of the spiritual need persists, but intellectual
progress has destroyed the olden ways of securing peace and consolation for
mind and soul.
89:10.2 Sin must be redefined as deliberate disloyalty to Deity. There are
degrees of disloyalty: the partial loyalty of indecision; the divided loyalty
of confliction; the dying loyalty of indifference; and the death of loyalty
exhibited in devotion to godless ideals.
89:10.3 The sense or feeling of guilt is the consciousness of the violation of
the mores; it is not necessarily sin. There is no real sin in the absence of
conscious disloyalty to Deity.
89:10.4 The possibility of the recognition of the sense of guilt is a badge of
transcendent distinction for mankind. It does not mark man as mean but rather
sets him apart as a creature of potential greatness and ever-ascending glory.
Such a sense of unworthiness is the initial stimulus that should lead quickly
and surely to those faith conquests which translate the mortal mind to the
superb levels of moral nobility, cosmic insight, and spiritual living; thus
are all the meanings of human existence changed from the temporal to the
eternal, and all values are elevated from the human to the divine.
89:10.5 The confession of sin is a manful repudiation of disloyalty, but it in
no wise mitigates the time-space consequences of such disloyalty. But
confession -- sincere recognition of the nature of sin -- is essential to
religious growth and spiritual progress.
89:10.6 The forgiveness of sin by Deity is the renewal of loyalty relations
following a period of the human consciousness of the lapse of such relations
as the consequence of conscious rebellion. The forgiveness does not have to be
sought, only received as the consciousness of re-establishment of loyalty
relations between the creature and the Creator. And all the loyal sons of God
are happy, service-loving, and ever-progressive in the Paradise ascent.
89:10.7 Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
PAPER 90
SHAMANISM -- MEDICINE MEN AND PRIESTS
90:0.1 THE evolution of religious observances progressed from placation,
avoidance, exorcism, coercion, conciliation, and propitiation to sacrifice,
atonement, and redemption. The technique of religious ritual passed from the
forms of the primitive cult through fetishes to magic and miracles; and as
ritual became more complex in response to man's increasingly complex concept
of the supermaterial realms, it was inevitably dominated by medicine men,
shamans, and priests.
90:0.2 In the advancing concepts of primitive man the spirit world was
eventually regarded as being unresponsive to the ordinary mortal. Only the
exceptional among humans could catch the ear of the gods; only the
extraordinary man or woman would be heard by the spirits. Religion thus enters
upon a new phase, a stage wherein it gradually becomes secondhanded; always
does a medicine man, a shaman, or a priest intervene between the religionist
and the object of worship. And today most Urantia systems of organized
religious belief are passing through this level of evolutionary development.
90:0.3 Evolutionary religion is born of a simple and all-powerful fear, the
fear which surges through the human mind when confronted with the unknown, the
inexplicable, and the incomprehensible. Religion eventually achieves the
profoundly simple realization of an all-powerful love, the love which sweeps
irresistibly through the human soul when awakened to the conception of the
limitless affection of the Universal Father for the sons of the universe. But
in between the beginning and the consummation of religious evolution, there
intervene the long ages of the shamans, who presume to stand between man and
God as intermediaries, interpreters, and intercessors.
1. THE FIRST SHAMANS -- THE MEDICINE MEN
90:1.1 The shaman was the ranking medicine man, the ceremonial fetishman, and
the focus personality for all the practices of evolutionary religion. In many
groups the shaman outranked the war chief, marking the beginning of the church
domination of the state. The shaman sometimes functioned as a priest and even
as a priest-king. Some of the later tribes had both the earlier shaman-
medicine men (seers) and the later appearing shaman-priests. And in many cases
the office of shaman became hereditary.
90:1.2 Since in olden times anything abnormal was ascribed to spirit
possession, any striking mental or physical abnormality constituted
qualification for being a medicine man. Many of these men were epileptic, many
of the women hysteric, and these two types accounted for a good deal of
ancient inspiration as well as spirit and devil possession. Quite a few of
these earliest of priests were of a class which has since been denominated
paranoiac.
90:1.3 While they may have practiced deception in minor matters, the great
majority of the shamans believed in the fact of their spirit possession. Women
who were able to throw themselves into a trance or a cataleptic fit became
powerful shamanesses; later, such women became prophets and spirit mediums.
Their cataleptic trances usually involved alleged communications with the
ghosts of the dead. Many female shamans were also professional dancers.
90:1.4 But not all shamans were self-deceived; many were shrewd and able
tricksters. As the profession developed, a novice was required to serve an
apprenticeship of ten years of hardship and self-denial to qualify as a
medicine man. The shamans developed a professional mode of dress and affected
a mysterious conduct. They frequently employed drugs to induce certain
physical states which would impress and mystify the tribesmen. Sleight-of-hand
feats were regarded as supernatural by the common folk, and ventriloquism was
first used by shrewd priests. Many of the olden shamans unwittingly stumbled
onto hypnotism; others induced autohypnosis by prolonged staring at their
navels.
90:1.5 While many resorted to these tricks and deceptions, their reputation as
a class, after all, stood on apparent achievement. When a shaman failed in his
undertakings, if he could not advance a plausible alibi, he was either demoted
or killed. Thus the honest shamans early perished; only the shrewd actors
survived.
90:1.6 It was shamanism that took the exclusive direction of tribal affairs
out of the hands of the old and the strong and lodged it in the hands of the
shrewd, the clever, and the farsighted.
2. SHAMANISTIC PRACTICES
90:2.1 Spirit conjuring was a very precise and highly complicated procedure,
comparable to present-day church rituals conducted in an ancient tongue. The
human race very early sought for superhuman help, for revelation; and men
believed that the shaman actually received such revelations. While the shamans
utilized the great power of suggestion in their work, it was almost invariably
negative suggestion; only in very recent times has the technique of positive
suggestion been employed. In the early development of their profession the
shamans began to specialize in such vocations as rain making, disease healing,
and crime detecting. To heal diseases was not, however, the chief function of
a shamanic medicine man; it was, rather, to know and to control the hazards of
living.
90:2.2 Ancient black art, both religious and secular, was called white art
when practiced by either priests, seers, shamans, or medicine men. The
practitioners of the black art were called sorcerers, magicians, wizards,
witches, enchanters, necromancers, conjurers, and soothsayers. As time passed,
all such purported contact with the supernatural was classified either as
witchcraft or shamancraft.
90:2.3 Witchcraft embraced the magic performed by earlier, irregular, and
unrecognized spirits; shamancraft had to do with miracles performed by regular
spirits and recognized gods of the tribe. In later times the witch became
associated with the devil, and thus was the stage set for the many
comparatively recent exhibitions of religious intolerance. Witchcraft was a
religion with many primitive tribes.
90:2.4 The shamans were great believers in the mission of chance as revelatory
of the will of the spirits; they frequently cast lots to arrive at decisions.
Modern survivals of this proclivity for casting lots are illustrated, not only
in the many games of chance, but also in the well-known "counting-out" rhymes.
Once, the person counted out must die; now, he is only it in some childish
game. That which was serious business to primitive man has survived as a
diversion of the modern child.
90:2.5 The medicine men put great trust in signs and omens, such as, "When you
hear the sound of a rustling in the tops of the mulberry trees, then shall you
bestir yourself." Very early in the history of the race the shamans turned
their attention to the stars. Primitive astrology was a world-wide belief and
practice; dream interpreting also became widespread. All this was soon
followed by the appearance of those temperamental shamanesses who professed to
be able to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
90:2.6 Though of ancient origin, the rain makers, or weather shamans, have
persisted right on down through the ages. A severe drought meant death to the
early agriculturists; weather control was the object of much ancient magic.
Civilized man still makes the weather the common topic of conversation. The
olden peoples all believed in the power of the shaman as a rain maker, but it
was customary to kill him when he failed, unless he could offer a plausible
excuse to account for the failure.
90:2.7 Again and again did the Caesars banish the astrologers, but they
invariably returned because of the popular belief in their powers. They could
not be driven out, and even in the sixteenth century after Christ the
directors of Occidental church and state were the patrons of astrology.
Thousands of supposedly intelligent people still believe that one may be born
under the domination of a lucky or an unlucky star; that the juxtaposition of
the heavenly bodies determines the outcome of various terrestrial adventures.
Fortunetellers are still patronized by the credulous.
90:2.8 The Greeks believed in the efficacy of oracular advice, the Chinese
used magic as protection against demons, shamanism flourished in India, and it
still openly persists in central Asia. It is an only recently abandoned
practice throughout much of the world.
90:2.9 Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose to denounce and expose
shamanism. Even the vanishing red man had such a prophet within the past
hundred years, the Shawnee Teuskwatowa, who predicted the eclipse of the sun
in 1808 and denounced the vices of the white man. Many true teachers have
appeared among the various tribes and races all through the long ages of
evolutionary history. And they will ever continue to appear to challenge the
shamans or priests of any age who oppose general education and attempt to
thwart scientific progress.
90:2.10 In many ways and by devious methods the olden shamans established
their reputations as voices of God and custodians of providence. They
sprinkled the newborn with water and conferred names upon them; they
circumcised the males. They presided over all burial ceremonies and made due
announcement of the safe arrival of the dead in spiritland.
90:2.11 The shamanic priests and medicine men often became very wealthy
through the accretion of their various fees which were ostensibly offerings to
the spirits. Not infrequently a shaman would accumulate practically all the
material wealth of his tribe. Upon the death of a wealthy man it was customary
to divide his property equally with the shaman and some public enterprise or
charity. This practice still obtains in some parts of Tibet, where one half
the male population belongs to this class of nonproducers.
90:2.12 The shamans dressed well and usually had a number of wives; they were
the original aristocracy, being exempt from all tribal restrictions. They were
very often of low-grade mind and morals. They suppressed their rivals by
denominating them witches or sorcerers and very frequently rose to such
positions of influence and power that they were able to dominate the chiefs or
kings.
90:2.13 Primitive man regarded the shaman as a necessary evil; he feared him
but did not love him. Early man respected knowledge; he honored and rewarded
wisdom. The shaman was mostly fraud, but the veneration for shamanism well
illustrates the premium put upon wisdom in the evolution of the race.
3. THE SHAMANIC THEORY OF DISEASE AND DEATH
90:3.1 Since ancient man regarded himself and his material environment as
being directly responsive to the whims of the ghosts and the fancies of the
spirits, it is not strange that his religion should have been so exclusively
concerned with material affairs. Modern man attacks his material problems
directly; he recognizes that matter is responsive to the intelligent
manipulation of mind. Primitive man likewise desired to modify and even to
control the life and energies of the physical domains; and since his limited
comprehension of the cosmos led him to the belief that ghosts, spirits, and
gods were personally and immediately concerned with the detailed control of
life and matter, he logically directed his efforts to winning the favor and
support of these superhuman agencies.
90:3.2 Viewed in this light, much of the inexplicable and irrational in the
ancient cults is understandable. The ceremonies of the cult were primitive
man's attempt to control the material world in which he found himself. And
many of his efforts were directed to the end of prolonging life and insuring
health. Since all diseases and death itself were originally regarded as spirit
phenomena, it was inevitable that the shamans, while functioning as medicine
men and priests, should also have labored as doctors and surgeons.
90:3.3 The primitive mind may be handicapped by lack of facts, but it is for
all that logical. When thoughtful men observe disease and death, they set
about to determine the causes of these visitations, and in accordance with
their understanding, the shamans and the scientists have propounded the
following theories of affliction:
90:3.4 1. Ghosts -- direct spirit influences. The earliest hypothesis advanced
in explanation of disease and death was that spirits caused disease by
enticing the soul out of the body; if it failed to return, death ensued. The
ancients so feared the malevolent action of disease-producing ghosts that
ailing individuals would often be deserted without even food or water.
Regardless of the erroneous basis for these beliefs, they did effectively
isolate afflicted individuals and prevent the spread of contagious disease.
90:3.5 2. Violence -- obvious causes. The causes for some accidents and deaths
were so easy to identify that they were early removed from the category of
ghost action. Fatalities and wounds attendant upon war, animal combat, and
other readily identifiable agencies were considered as natural occurrences.
But it was long believed that the spirits were still responsible for delayed
healing or for the infection of wounds of even "natural" causation. If no
observable natural agent could be discovered, the spirit ghosts were still
held responsible for disease and death.
90:3.6 Today, in Africa and elsewhere may be found primitive peoples who kill
someone every time a nonviolent death occurs. Their medicine men indicate the
guilty parties. If a mother dies in childbirth, the child is immediately
strangled -- a life for a life.
90:3.7 3. Magic -- the influence of enemies. Much sickness was thought to be
caused by bewitchment, the action of the evil eye and the magic pointing bow.
At one time it was really dangerous to point a finger at anyone; it is still
regarded as ill-mannered to point. In cases of obscure disease and death the
ancients would hold a formal inquest, dissect the body, and settle upon some
finding as the cause of death; otherwise the death would be laid to
witchcraft, thus necessitating the execution of the witch responsible
therefor. These ancient coroner's inquests saved many a supposed witch's life.
Among some it was believed that a tribesman could die as a result of his own
witchcraft, in which event no one was accused.
90:3.8 4. Sin -- punishment for taboo violation. In comparatively recent times
it has been believed that sickness is a punishment for sin, personal or
racial. Among peoples traversing this level of evolution the prevailing theory
is that one cannot be afflicted unless one has violated a taboo. To regard
sickness and suffering as "arrows of the Almighty within them" is typical of
such beliefs. The Chinese and Mesopotamians long regarded disease as the
result of the action of evil demons, although the Chaldeans also looked upon
the stars as the cause of suffering. This theory of disease as a consequence
of divine wrath is still prevalent among many reputedly civilized groups of
Urantians.
90:3.9 5. Natural causation. Mankind has been very slow to learn the material
secrets of the interrelationship of cause and effect in the physical domains
of energy, matter, and life. The ancient Greeks, having preserved the
traditions of Adamson's teachings, were among the first to recognize that all
disease is the result of natural causes. Slowly and certainly the unfolding of
a scientific era is destroying man's age-old theories of sickness and death.
Fever was one of the first human ailments to be removed from the category of
supernatural disorders, and progressively the era of science has broken the
fetters of ignorance which so long imprisoned the human mind. An understanding
of old age and contagion is gradually obliterating man's fear of ghosts,
spirits, and gods as the personal perpetrators of human misery and mortal
suffering.
90:3.10 Evolution unerringly achieves its end: It imbues man with that
superstitious fear of the unknown and dread of the unseen which is the
scaffolding for the God concept. And having witnessed the birth of an advanced
comprehension of Deity, through the co-ordinate action of revelation, this
same technique of evolution then unerringly sets in motion those forces of
thought which will inexorably obliterate the scaffolding, which has served its
purpose.
4. MEDICINE UNDER THE SHAMANS
90:4.1 The entire life of ancient men was prophylactic; their religion was in
no small measure a technique for disease prevention. And regardless of the
error in their theories, they were wholehearted in putting them into effect;
they had unbounded faith in their methods of treatment, and that, in itself,
is a powerful remedy.
90:4.2 The faith required to get well under the foolish ministrations of one
of these ancient shamans was, after all, not materially different from that
which is required to experience healing at the hands of some of his later-day
successors who engage in the nonscientific treatment of disease.
90:4.3 The more primitive tribes greatly feared the sick, and for long ages
they were carefully avoided, shamefully neglected. It was a great advance in
humanitarianism when the evolution of shamancraft produced priests and
medicine men who consented to treat disease. Then it became customary for the
entire clan to crowd into the sickroom to assist the shaman in howling the
disease ghosts away. It was not uncommon for a woman to be the diagnosing
shaman, while a man would administer treatment. The usual method of diagnosing
disease was to examine the entrails of an animal.
90:4.4 Disease was treated by chanting, howling, laying on of hands, breathing
on the patient, and many other techniques. In later times the resort to temple
sleep, during which healing supposedly took place, became widespread. The
medicine men eventually essayed actual surgery in connection with temple
slumber; among the first operations was that of trephining the skull to allow
a headache spirit to escape. The shamans learned to treat fractures and
dislocations, to open boils and abscesses; the shamanesses became adept at
midwifery.
90:4.5 It was a common method of treatment to rub something magical on an
infected or blemished spot on the body, throw the charm away, and supposedly
experience a cure. If anyone should chance to pick up the discarded charm, it
was believed he would immediately acquire the infection or blemish. It was a
long time before herbs and other real medicines were introduced. Massage was
developed in connection with incantation, rubbing the spirit out of the body,
and was preceded by efforts to rub medicine in, even as moderns attempt to rub
liniments in. Cupping and sucking the affected parts, together with
bloodletting, were thought to be of value in getting rid of a disease-
producing spirit.
90:4.6 Since water was a potent fetish, it was utilized in the treatment of
many ailments. For long it was believed that the spirit causing the sickness
could be eliminated by sweating. Vapor baths were highly regarded; natural hot
springs soon blossomed as primitive health resorts. Early man discovered that
heat would relieve pain; he used sunlight, fresh animal organs, hot clay, and
hot stones, and many of these methods are still employed. Rhythm was practiced
in an effort to influence the spirits; the tom-toms were universal.
90:4.7 Among some people disease was thought to be caused by a wicked
conspiracy between spirits and animals. This gave rise to the belief that
there existed a beneficent plant remedy for every animal-caused disease. The
red men were especially devoted to the plant theory of universal remedies;
they always put a drop of blood in the root hole left when the plant was
pulled up.
90:4.8 Fasting, dieting, and counterirritants were often used as remedial
measures. Human secretions, being definitely magical, were highly regarded;
blood and urine were thus among the earliest medicines and were soon augmented
by roots and various salts. The shamans believed that disease spirits could be
driven out of the body by foul-smelling and bad-tasting medicines. Purging
very early became a routine treatment, and the values of raw cocoa and quinine
were among the earliest pharmaceutical discoveries.
90:4.9 The Greeks were the first to evolve truly rational methods of treating
the sick. Both the Greeks and the Egyptians received their medical knowledge
from the Euphrates valley. Oil and wine was a very early medicine for treating
wounds; castor oil and opium were used by the Sumerians. Many of these ancient
and effective secret remedies lost their power when they became known; secrecy
has always been essential to the successful practice of fraud and
superstition. Only facts and truth court the full light of comprehension and
rejoice in the illumination and enlightenment of scientific research.
5. PRIESTS AND RITUALS
90:5.1 The essence of the ritual is the perfection of its performance; among
savages it must be practiced with exact precision. It is only when the ritual
has been correctly carried out that the ceremony possesses compelling power
over the spirits. If the ritual is faulty, it only arouses the anger and
resentment of the gods. Therefore, since man's slowly evolving mind conceived
that the technique of ritual was the decisive factor in its efficacy, it was
inevitable that the early shamans should sooner or later evolve into a
priesthood trained to direct the meticulous practice of the ritual. And so for
tens of thousands of years endless rituals have hampered society and cursed
civilization, have been an intolerable burden to every act of life, every
racial undertaking.
90:5.2 Ritual is the technique of sanctifying custom; ritual creates and
perpetuates myths as well as contributing to the preservation of social and
religious customs. Again, ritual itself has been fathered by myths. Rituals
are often at first social, later becoming economic and finally acquiring the
sanctity and dignity of religious ceremonial. Ritual may be personal or group
in practice -- or both -- as illustrated by prayer, dancing, and drama.
90:5.3 Words become a part of ritual, such as the use of terms like amen and
selah. The habit of swearing, profanity, represents a prostitution of former
ritualistic repetition of holy names. The making of pilgrimages to sacred
shrines is a very ancient ritual. The ritual next grew into elaborate
ceremonies of purification, cleansing, and sanctification. The initiation
ceremonies of the primitive tribal secret societies were in reality a crude
religious rite. The worship technique of the olden mystery cults was just one
long performance of accumulated religious ritual. Ritual finally developed
into the modern types of social ceremonials and religious worship, services
embracing prayer, song, responsive reading, and other individual and group
spiritual devotions.
90:5.4 The priests evolved from shamans up through oracles, diviners, singers,
dancers, weathermakers, guardians of religious relics, temple custodians, and
foretellers of events, to the status of actual directors of religious worship.
Eventually the office became hereditary; a continuous priestly caste arose.
90:5.5 As religion evolved, priests began to specialize according to their
innate talents or special predilections. Some became singers, others prayers,
and still others sacrificers; later came the orators -- preachers. And when
religion became institutionalized, these priests claimed to "hold the keys of
heaven."
90:5.6 The priests have always sought to impress and awe the common people by
conducting the religious ritual in an ancient tongue and by sundry magical
passes so to mystify the worshipers as to enhance their own piety and
authority. The great danger in all this is that the ritual tends to become a
substitute for religion.
90:5.7 The priesthoods have done much to delay scientific development and to
hinder spiritual progress, but they have contributed to the stabilization of
civilization and to the enhancement of certain kinds of culture. But many
modern priests have ceased to function as directors of the ritual of the
worship of God, having turned their attention to theology -- the attempt to
define God.
90:5.8 It is not denied that the priests have been a millstone about the neck
of the races, but the true religious leaders have been invaluable in pointing
the way to higher and better realities.
90:5.9 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 91
THE EVOLUTION OF PRAYER
91:0.1 PRAYER, as an agency of religion, evolved from previous nonreligious
monologue and dialogue expressions. With the attainment of self-consciousness
by primitive man there occurred the inevitable corollary of other-
consciousness, the dual potential of social response and God recognition.
91:0.2 The earliest prayer forms were not addressed to Deity. These
expressions were much like what you would say to a friend as you entered upon
some important undertaking, "Wish me luck." Primitive man was enslaved to
magic; luck, good and bad, entered into all the affairs of life. At first,
these luck petitions were monologues -- just a kind of thinking out loud by
the magic server. Next, these believers in luck would enlist the support of
their friends and families, and presently some form of ceremony would be
performed which included the whole clan or tribe.
91:0.3 When the concepts of ghosts and spirits evolved, these petitions became
superhuman in address, and with the consciousness of gods, such expressions
attained to the levels of genuine prayer. As an illustration of this, among
certain Australian tribes primitive religious prayers antedated their belief
in spirits and superhuman personalities.
91:0.4 The Toda tribe of India now observes this practice of praying to no one
in particular, just as did the early peoples before the times of religious
consciousness. Only, among the Todas, this represents a regression of their
degenerating religion to this primitive level. The present-day rituals of the
dairymen priests of the Todas do not represent a religious ceremony since
these impersonal prayers do not contribute anything to the conservation or
enhancement of any social, moral, or spiritual values.
91:0.5 Prereligious praying was part of the mana practices of the Melanesians,
the oudah beliefs of the African Pygmies, and the manitou superstitions of the
North American Indians. The Baganda tribes of Africa have only recently
emerged from the mana level of prayer. In this early evolutionary confusion
men pray to gods -- local and national -- to fetishes, amulets, ghosts,
rulers, and to ordinary people.
1. PRIMITIVE PRAYER
91:1.1 The function of early evolutionary religion is to conserve and augment
the essential social, moral, and spiritual values which are slowly taking
form. This mission of religion is not consciously observed by mankind, but it
is chiefly effected by the function of prayer. The practice of prayer
represents the unintended, but nonetheless personal and collective, effort of
any group to secure (to actualize) this conservation of higher values. But for
the safeguarding of prayer, all holy days would speedily revert to the status
of mere holidays.
91:1.2 Religion and its agencies, the chief of which is prayer, are allied
only with those values which have general social recognition, group approval.
Therefore, when primitive man attempted to gratify his baser emotions or to
achieve unmitigated selfish ambitions, he was deprived of the consolation of
religion and the assistance of prayer. If the individual sought to accomplish
anything antisocial, he was obliged to seek the aid of nonreligious magic,
resort to sorcerers, and thus be deprived of the assistance of prayer. Prayer,
therefore, very early became a mighty promoter of social evolution, moral
progress, and spiritual attainment.
91:1.3 But the primitive mind was neither logical nor consistent. Early men
did not perceive that material things were not the province of prayer. These
simple-minded souls reasoned that food, shelter, rain, game, and other
material goods enhanced the social welfare, and therefore they began to pray
for these physical blessings. While this constituted a perversion of prayer,
it encouraged the effort to realize these material objectives by social and
ethical actions. Such a prostitution of prayer, while debasing the spiritual
values of a people, nevertheless directly elevated their economic, social, and
ethical mores.
91:1.4 Prayer is only monologuous in the most primitive type of mind. It early
becomes a dialogue and rapidly expands to the level of group worship. Prayer
signifies that the premagical incantations of primitive religion have evolved
to that level where the human mind recognizes the reality of beneficent powers
or beings who are able to enhance social values and to augment moral ideals,
and further, that these influences are superhuman and distinct from the ego of
the self-conscious human and his fellow mortals. True prayer does not,
therefore, appear until the agency of religious ministry is visualized as
personal.
91:1.5 Prayer is little associated with animism, but such beliefs may exist
alongside emerging religious sentiments. Many times, religion and animism have
had entirely separate origins.
91:1.6 With those mortals who have not been delivered from the primitive
bondage of fear, there is a real danger that all prayer may lead to a morbid
sense of sin, unjustified convictions of guilt, real or fancied. But in modern
times it is not likely that many will spend sufficient time at prayer to lead
to this harmful brooding over their unworthiness or sinfulness. The dangers
attendant upon the distortion and perversion of prayer consist in ignorance,
superstition, crystallization, devitalization, materialism, and fanaticism.
2. EVOLVING PRAYER
91:2.1 The first prayers were merely verbalized wishes, the expression of
sincere desires. Prayer next became a technique of achieving spirit co-
operation. And then it attained to the higher function of assisting religion
in the conservation of all worth-while values.
91:2.2 Both prayer and magic arose as a result of man's adjustive reactions to
Urantian environment. But aside from this generalized relationship, they have
little in common. Prayer has always indicated positive action by the praying
ego; it has been always psychic and sometimes spiritual. Magic has usually
signified an attempt to manipulate reality without affecting the ego of the
manipulator, the practitioner of magic. Despite their independent origins,
magic and prayer often have been interrelated in their later stages of
development. Magic has sometimes ascended by goal elevation from formulas
through rituals and incantations to the threshold of true prayer. Prayer has
sometimes become so materialistic that it has degenerated into a pseudomagical
technique of avoiding the expenditure of that effort which is requisite for
the solution of Urantian problems.
91:2.3 When man learned that prayer could not coerce the gods, then it became
more of a petition, favor seeking. But the truest prayer is in reality a
communion between man and his Maker.
91:2.4 The appearance of the sacrifice idea in any religion unfailingly
detracts from the higher efficacy of true prayer in that men seek to
substitute the offerings of material possessions for the offering of their own
consecrated wills to the doing of the will of God.
91:2.5 When religion is divested of a personal God, its prayers translate to
the levels of theology and philosophy. When the highest God concept of a
religion is that of an impersonal Deity, such as in pantheistic idealism,
although affording the basis for certain forms of mystic communion, it proves
fatal to the potency of true prayer, which always stands for man's communion
with a personal and superior being.
91:2.6 During the earlier times of racial evolution and even at the present
time, in the day-by-day experience of the average mortal, prayer is very much
a phenomenon of man's intercourse with his own subconscious. But there is also
a domain of prayer wherein the intellectually alert and spiritually
progressing individual attains more or less contact with the superconscious
levels of the human mind, the domain of the indwelling Thought Adjuster. In
addition, there is a definite spiritual phase of true prayer which concerns
its reception and recognition by the spiritual forces of the universe, and
which is entirely distinct from all human and intellectual association.
91:2.7 Prayer contributes greatly to the development of the religious
sentiment of an evolving human mind. It is a mighty influence working to
prevent isolation of personality.
91:2.8 Prayer represents one technique associated with the natural religions
of racial evolution which also forms a part of the experiential values of the
higher religions of ethical excellence, the religions of revelation.
3. PRAYER AND THE ALTER EGO
91:3.1 Children, when first learning to make use of language, are prone to
think out loud, to express their thoughts in words, even if no one is present
to hear them. With the dawn of creative imagination they evince a tendency to
converse with imaginary companions. In this way a budding ego seeks to hold
communion with a fictitious alter ego. By this technique the child early
learns to convert his monologue conversations into pseudo dialogues in which
this alter ego makes replies to his verbal thinking and wish expression. Very
much of an adult's thinking is mentally carried on in conversational form.
91:3.2 The early and primitive form of prayer was much like the semimagical
recitations of the present-day Toda tribe, prayers that were not addressed to
anyone in particular. But such techniques of praying tend to evolve into the
dialogue type of communication by the emergence of the idea of an alter ego.
In time the alter-ego concept is exalted to a superior status of divine
dignity, and prayer as an agency of religion has appeared. Through many phases
and during long ages this primitive type of praying is destined to evolve
before attaining the level of intelligent and truly ethical prayer.
91:3.3 As it is conceived by successive generations of praying mortals, the
alter ego evolves up through ghosts, fetishes, and spirits to polytheistic
gods, and eventually to the One God, a divine being embodying the highest
ideals and the loftiest aspirations of the praying ego. And thus does prayer
function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the
highest values and ideals of those who pray. From the moment of the conceiving
of an alter ego to the appearance of the concept of a divine and heavenly
Father, prayer is always a socializing, moralizing, and spiritualizing
practice.
91:3.4 The simple prayer of faith evidences a mighty evolution in human
experience whereby the ancient conversations with the fictitious symbol of the
alter ego of primitive religion have become exalted to the level of communion
with the spirit of the Infinite and to that of a bona fide consciousness of
the reality of the eternal God and Paradise Father of all intelligent
creation.
91:3.5 Aside from all that is superself in the experience of praying, it
should be remembered that ethical prayer is a splendid way to elevate one's
ego and reinforce the self for better living and higher attainment. Prayer
induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the
subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to
the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual,
with the Mystery Monitor.
91:3.6 Prayer ever has been and ever will be a twofold human experience: a
psychologic procedure interassociated with a spiritual technique. And these
two functions of prayer can never be fully separated.
91:3.7 Enlightened prayer must recognize not only an external and personal God
but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, the indwelling Adjuster. It is
altogether fitting that man, when he prays, should strive to grasp the concept
of the Universal Father on Paradise; but the more effective technique for most
practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of a near-by alter ego,
just as the primitive mind was wont to do, and then to recognize that the idea
of this alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God's
indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can
talk face to face, as it were, with a real and genuine and divine alter ego
that indwells him and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the
Universal Father.
4. ETHICAL PRAYING
91:4.1 No prayer can be ethical when the petitioner seeks for selfish
advantage over his fellows. Selfish and materialistic praying is incompatible
with the ethical religions which are predicated on unselfish and divine love.
All such unethical praying reverts to the primitive levels of pseudo magic and
is unworthy of advancing civilizations and enlightened religions. Selfish
praying transgresses the spirit of all ethics founded on loving justice.
91:4.2 Prayer must never be so prostituted as to become a substitute for
action. All ethical prayer is a stimulus to action and a guide to the
progressive striving for idealistic goals of superself-attainment.
91:4.3 In all your praying be fair; do not expect God to show partiality, to
love you more than his other children, your friends, neighbors, even enemies.
But the prayer of the natural or evolved religions is not at first ethical, as
it is in the later revealed religions. All praying, whether individual or
communal, may be either egoistic or altruistic. That is, the prayer may be
centered upon the self or upon others. When the prayer seeks nothing for the
one who prays nor anything for his fellows, then such attitudes of the soul
tend to the levels of true worship. Egoistic prayers involve confessions and
petitions and often consist in requests for material favors. Prayer is
somewhat more ethical when it deals with forgiveness and seeks wisdom for
enhanced self-control.
91:4.4 While the nonselfish type of prayer is strengthening and comforting,
materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment
as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical
universe of law and order. The childhood of an individual or a race is
characterized by primitive, selfish, and materialistic praying. And, to a
certain extent, all such petitions are efficacious in that they unvaryingly
lead to those efforts and exertions which are contributory to achieving the
answers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith always contributes to the
augmentation of the technique of living, even if such petitions are not worthy
of spiritual recognition. But the spiritually advanced person should exercise
great caution in attempting to discourage the primitive or immature mind
regarding such prayers.
91:4.5 Remember, even if prayer does not change God, it very often effects
great and lasting changes in the one who prays in faith and confident
expectation. Prayer has been the ancestor of much peace of mind, cheerfulness,
calmness, courage, self-mastery, and fair-mindedness in the men and women of
the evolving races.
5. SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS OF PRAYER
91:5.1 In ancestor worship, prayer leads to the cultivation of ancestral
ideals. But prayer, as a feature of Deity worship, transcends all other such
practices since it leads to the cultivation of divine ideals. As the concept
of the alter ego of prayer becomes supreme and divine, so are man's ideals
accordingly elevated from mere human toward supernal and divine levels, and
the result of all such praying is the enhancement of human character and the
profound unification of human personality.
91:5.2 But prayer need not always be individual. Group or congregational
praying is very effective in that it is highly socializing in its
repercussions. When a group engages in community prayer for moral enhancement
and spiritual uplift, such devotions are reactive upon the individuals
composing the group; they are all made better because of participation. Even a
whole city or an entire nation can be helped by such prayer devotions.
Confession, repentance, and prayer have led individuals, cities, nations, and
whole races to mighty efforts of reform and courageous deeds of valorous
achievement.
91:5.3 If you truly desire to overcome the habit of criticizing some friend,
the quickest and surest way of achieving such a change of attitude is to
establish the habit of praying for that person every day of your life. But the
social repercussions of such prayers are dependent largely on two conditions:
91:5.4 1. The person who is prayed for should know that he is being prayed
for.
91:5.5 2. The person who prays should come into intimate social contact with
the person for whom he is praying.
91:5.6 Prayer is the technique whereby, sooner or later, every religion
becomes institutionalized. And in time prayer becomes associated with numerous
secondary agencies, some helpful, others decidedly deleterious, such as
priests, holy books, worship rituals, and ceremonials.
91:5.7 But the minds of greater spiritual illumination should be patient with,
and tolerant of, those less endowed intellects that crave symbolism for the
mobilization of their feeble spiritual insight. The strong must not look with
disdain upon the weak. Those who are God-conscious without symbolism must not
deny the grace-ministry of the symbol to those who find it difficult to
worship Deity and to revere truth, beauty, and goodness without form and
ritual. In prayerful worship, most mortals envision some symbol of the object-
goal of their devotions.
6. THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER
91:6.1 Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions of the personal
spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct
effect upon one's physical environment. While there is a very definite limit
to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply
to the faith of those who pray.
91:6.2 Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic diseases, but it
has contributed enormously to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the cure
of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous ailments. And even in actual
bacterial disease, prayer has many times added to the efficacy of other
remedial procedures. Prayer has turned many an irritable and complaining
invalid into a paragon of patience and made him an inspiration to all other
human sufferers.
91:6.3 No matter how difficult it may be to reconcile the scientific doubtings
regarding the efficacy of prayer with the ever-present urge to seek help and
guidance from divine sources, never forget that the sincere prayer of faith is
a mighty force for the promotion of personal happiness, individual self-
control, social harmony, moral progress, and spiritual attainment.
91:6.4 Prayer, even as a purely human practice, a dialogue with one's alter
ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization
of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored and conserved in the
unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychologic practice,
aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance. It is a
fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will
pray in some way to some source of help.
91:6.5 Do not be so slothful as to ask God to solve your difficulties, but
never hesitate to ask him for wisdom and spiritual strength to guide and
sustain you while you yourself resolutely and courageously attack the problems
at hand.
91:6.6 Prayer has been an indispensable factor in the progress and
preservation of religious civilization, and it still has mighty contributions
to make to the further enhancement and spiritualization of society if those
who pray will only do so in the light of scientific facts, philosophic wisdom,
intellectual sincerity, and spiritual faith. Pray as Jesus taught his
disciples -- honestly, unselfishly, with fairness, and without doubting.
91:6.7 But the efficacy of prayer in the personal spiritual experience of the
one who prays is in no way dependent on such a worshiper's intellectual
understanding, philosophic acumen, social level, cultural status, or other
mortal acquirements. The psychic and spiritual concomitants of the prayer of
faith are immediate, personal, and experiential. There is no other technique
whereby every man, regardless of all other mortal accomplishments, can so
effectively and immediately approach the threshold of that realm wherein he
can communicate with his Maker, where the creature contacts with the reality
of the Creator, with the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
7. MYSTICISM, ECSTASY, AND INSPIRATION
91:7.1 Mysticism, as the technique of the cultivation of the consciousness of
the presence of God, is altogether praiseworthy, but when such practices lead
to social isolation and culminate in religious fanaticism, they are all but
reprehensible. Altogether too frequently that which the overwrought mystic
evaluates as divine inspiration is the uprisings of his own deep mind. The
contact of the mortal mind with its indwelling Adjuster, while often favored
by devoted meditation, is more frequently facilitated by wholehearted and
loving service in unselfish ministry to one's fellow creatures.
91:7.2 The great religious teachers and the prophets of past ages were not
extreme mystics. They were God-knowing men and women who best served their God
by unselfish ministry to their fellow mortals. Jesus often took his apostles
away by themselves for short periods to engage in meditation and prayer, but
for the most part he kept them in service-contact with the multitudes. The
soul of man requires spiritual exercise as well as spiritual nourishment.
91:7.3 Religious ecstasy is permissible when resulting from sane antecedents,
but such experiences are more often the outgrowth of purely emotional
influences than a manifestation of deep spiritual character. Religious persons
must not regard every vivid psychologic presentiment and every intense
emotional experience as a divine revelation or a spiritual communication.
Genuine spiritual ecstasy is usually associated with great outward calmness
and almost perfect emotional control. But true prophetic vision is a
superpsychologic presentiment. Such visitations are not pseudo hallucinations,
neither are they trancelike ecstasies.
91:7.4 The human mind may perform in response to so-called inspiration when it
is sensitive either to the uprisings of the subconscious or to the stimulus of
the superconscious. In either case it appears to the individual that such
augmentations of the content of consciousness are more or less foreign.
Unrestrained mystical enthusiasm and rampant religious ecstasy are not the
credentials of inspiration, supposedly divine credentials.
91:7.5 The practical test of all these strange religious experiences of
mysticism, ecstasy, and inspiration is to observe whether these phenomena
cause an individual:
1. To enjoy better and more complete physical health.
2. To function more efficiently and practically in his mental life.
3. More fully and joyfully to socialize his religious experience.
4. More completely to spiritualize his day-by-day living while faithfully
discharging the commonplace duties of routine mortal existence.
5. To enhance his love for, and appreciation of, truth, beauty, and goodness.
6. To conserve currently recognized social, moral, ethical, and spiritual
values.
7. To increase his spiritual insight -- God-consciousness.
91:7.6 But prayer has no real association with these exceptional religious
experiences. When prayer becomes overmuch aesthetic, when it consists almost
exclusively in beautiful and blissful contemplation of paradisiacal divinity,
it loses much of its socializing influence and tends toward mysticism and the
isolation of its devotees. There is a certain danger associated with overmuch
private praying which is corrected and prevented by group praying, community
devotions.
8. PRAYING AS A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
91:8.1 There is a truly spontaneous aspect to prayer, for primitive man found
himself praying long before he had any clear concept of a God. Early man was
wont to pray in two diverse situations: When in dire need, he experienced the
impulse to reach out for help; and when jubilant, he indulged the impulsive
expression of joy.
91:8.2 Prayer is not an evolution of magic; they each arose independently.
Magic was an attempt to adjust Deity to conditions; prayer is the effort to
adjust the personality to the will of Deity. True prayer is both moral and
religious; magic is neither.
91:8.3 Prayer may become an established custom; many pray because others do.
Still others pray because they fear something direful may happen if they do
not offer their regular supplications.
91:8.4 To some individuals prayer is the calm expression of gratitude; to
others, a group expression of praise, social devotions; sometimes it is the
imitation of another's religion, while in true praying it is the sincere and
trusting communication of the spiritual nature of the creature with the
anywhere presence of the spirit of the Creator.
91:8.5 Prayer may be a spontaneous expression of God-consciousness or a
meaningless recitation of theologic formulas. It may be the ecstatic praise of
a God-knowing soul or the slavish obeisance of a fear-ridden mortal. It is
sometimes the pathetic expression of spiritual craving and sometimes the
blatant shouting of pious phrases. Prayer may be joyous praise or a humble
plea for forgiveness.
91:8.6 Prayer may be the childlike plea for the impossible or the mature
entreaty for moral growth and spiritual power. A petition may be for daily
bread or may embody a wholehearted yearning to find God and to do his will. It
may be a wholly selfish request or a true and magnificent gesture toward the
realization of unselfish brotherhood.
91:8.7 Prayer may be an angry cry for vengeance or a merciful intercession for
one's enemies. It may be the expression of a hope of changing God or the
powerful technique of changing one's self. It may be the cringing plea of a
lost sinner before a supposedly stern Judge or the joyful expression of a
liberated son of the living and merciful heavenly Father.
91:8.8 Modern man is perplexed by the thought of talking things over with God
in a purely personal way. Many have abandoned regular praying; they only pray
when under unusual pressure -- in emergencies. Man should be unafraid to talk
to God, but only a spiritual child would undertake to persuade, or presume to
change, God.
91:8.9 But real praying does attain reality. Even when the air currents are
ascending, no bird can soar except by outstretched wings. Prayer elevates man
because it is a technique of progressing by the utilization of the ascending
spiritual currents of the universe.
91:8.10 Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and
yields that satisfaction which comes from communion with divinity. It is a
spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness.
91:8.11 God answers man's prayer by giving him an increased revelation of
truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of
goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty
objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a
meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent
spiritual-growth stimulus.
91:8.12 Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual
channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The
word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and
sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul's attitude, not the
words.
91:8.13 Prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict but rather a
stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict. Pray only for values, not
things; for growth, not for gratification.
9. CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVE PRAYER
91:9.1 If you would engage in effective praying, you should bear in mind the
laws of prevailing petitions:
91:9.2 1. You must qualify as a potent prayer by sincerely and courageously
facing the problems of universe reality. You must possess cosmic stamina.
91:9.3 2. You must have honestly exhausted the human capacity for human
adjustment. You must have been industrious.
91:9.4 3. You must surrender every wish of mind and every craving of soul to
the transforming embrace of spiritual growth. You must have experienced an
enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values.
91:9.5 4. You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must
obliterate the dead center of indecision.
91:9.6 5. You not only recognize the Father's will and choose to do it, but
you have effected an unqualified consecration, and a dynamic dedication, to
the actual doing of the Father's will.
91:9.7 6. Your prayer will be directed exclusively for divine wisdom to solve
the specific human problems encountered in the Paradise ascension -- the
attainment of divine perfection.
91:9.8 7. And you must have faith -- living faith.
91:9.9 Presented by the Chief of the Urantia Midwayers.
PAPER 92
THE LATER EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
92:0.1 MAN possessed a religion of natural origin as a part of his
evolutionary experience long before any systematic revelations were made on
Urantia. But this religion of natural origin was, in itself, the product of
man's superanimal endowments. Evolutionary religion arose slowly throughout
the millenniums of mankind's experiential career through the ministry of the
following influences operating within, and impinging upon, savage, barbarian,
and civilized man:
92:0.2 1. The adjutant of worship -- the appearance in animal consciousness of
superanimal potentials for reality perception. This might be termed the
primordial human instinct for Deity.
92:0.3 2. The adjutant of wisdom -- the manifestation in a worshipful mind of
the tendency to direct its adoration in higher channels of expression and
toward ever-expanding concepts of Deity reality.
92:0.4 3. The Holy Spirit -- this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it
unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a
worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize
the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual
and factual personality experience.
92:0.5 The co-ordinate functioning of these three divine ministrations is
quite sufficient to initiate and prosecute the growth of evolutionary
religion. These influences are later augmented by Thought Adjusters, seraphim,
and the Spirit of Truth, all of which accelerate the rate of religious
development. These agencies have long functioned on Urantia, and they will
continue here as long as this planet remains an inhabited sphere. Much of the
potential of these divine agencies has never yet had opportunity for
expression; much will be revealed in the ages to come as mortal religion
ascends, level by level, toward the supernal heights of morontia value and
spirit truth.
1. THE EVOLUTIONARY NATURE OF RELIGION
92:1.1 The evolution of religion has been traced from early fear and ghosts
down through many successive stages of development, including those efforts
first to coerce and then to cajole the spirits. Tribal fetishes grew into
totems and tribal gods; magic formulas became modern prayers. Circumcision, at
first a sacrifice, became a hygienic procedure.
92:1.2 Religion progressed from nature worship up through ghost worship to
fetishism throughout the savage childhood of the races. With the dawn of
civilization the human race espoused the more mystic and symbolic beliefs,
while now, with approaching maturity, mankind is ripening for the appreciation
of real religion, even a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.
92:1.3 Religion arises as a biologic reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and
the environment; it is the last thing to perish or change in a race. Religion
is society's adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious. As a social
institution it embraces rites, symbols, cults, scriptures, altars, shrines,
and temples. Holy water, relics, fetishes, charms, vestments, bells, drums,
and priesthoods are common to all religions. And it is impossible entirely to
divorce purely evolved religion from either magic or sorcery.
92:1.4 Mystery and power have always stimulated religious feelings and fears,
while emotion has ever functioned as a powerful conditioning factor in their
development. Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus. Fear fashions
the gods of evolutionary religion and motivates the religious ritual of the
primitive believers. As civilization advances, fear becomes modified by
reverence, admiration, respect, and sympathy and is then further conditioned
by remorse and repentance.
92:1.5 One Asiatic people taught that "God is a great fear"; that is the
outgrowth of purely evolutionary religion. Jesus, the revelation of the
highest type of religious living, proclaimed that "God is love."
2. RELIGION AND THE MORES
92:2.1 Religion is the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions,
but it does tardily adjust to changing society. Eventually, evolutionary
religion does reflect the changing mores, which, in turn, may have been
affected by revealed religion. Slowly, surely, but grudgingly, does religion
(worship) follow in the wake of wisdom -- knowledge directed by experiential
reason and illuminated by divine revelation.
92:2.2 Religion clings to the mores; that which was is ancient and supposedly
sacred. For this reason and no other, stone implements persisted long into the
age of bronze and iron. This statement is of record: "And if you will make me
an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for, if you use your
tools in making it, you have polluted it." Even today, the Hindus kindle their
altar fires by using a primitive fire drill. In the course of evolutionary
religion, novelty has always been regarded as sacrilege. The sacrament must
consist, not of new and manufactured food, but of the most primitive of
viands: "The flesh roasted with fire and unleavened bread served with bitter
herbs." All types of social usage and even legal procedures cling to the old
forms.
92:2.3 When modern man wonders at the presentation of so much in the
scriptures of different religions that may be regarded as obscene, he should
pause to consider that passing generations have feared to eliminate what their
ancestors deemed to be holy and sacred. A great deal that one generation might
look upon as obscene, preceding generations have considered a part of their
accepted mores, even as approved religious rituals. A considerable amount of
religious controversy has been occasioned by the never-ending attempts to
reconcile olden but reprehensible practices with newly advanced reason, to
find plausible theories in justification of creedal perpetuation of ancient
and outworn customs.
92:2.4 But it is only foolish to attempt the too sudden acceleration of
religious growth. A race or nation can only assimilate from any advanced
religion that which is reasonably consistent and compatible with its current
evolutionary status, plus its genius for adaptation. Social, climatic,
political, and economic conditions are all influential in determining the
course and progress of religious evolution. Social morality is not determined
by religion, that is, by evolutionary religion; rather are the forms of
religion dictated by the racial morality.
92:2.5 Races of men only superficially accept a strange and new religion; they
actually adjust it to their mores and old ways of believing. This is well
illustrated by the example of a certain New Zealand tribe whose priests, after
nominally accepting Christianity, professed to have received direct
revelations from Gabriel to the effect that this selfsame tribe had become the
chosen people of God and directing that they be permitted freely to indulge in
loose sex relations and numerous other of their olden and reprehensible
customs. And immediately all of the new-made Christians went over to this new
and less exacting version of Christianity.
92:2.6 Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary
and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that
is now regarded as immoral or sinful. Conscience, untaught by experience and
unaided by reason, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide
to human conduct. Conscience is not a divine voice speaking to the human soul.
It is merely the sum total of the moral and ethical content of the mores of
any current stage of existence; it simply represents the humanly conceived
ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances.
3. THE NATURE OF EVOLUTIONARY RELIGION
92:3.1 The study of human religion is the examination of the fossil-bearing
social strata of past ages. The mores of the anthropomorphic gods are a
truthful reflection of the morals of the men who first conceived such deities.
Ancient religions and mythology faithfully portray the beliefs and traditions
of peoples long since lost in obscurity. These olden cult practices persist
alongside newer economic customs and social evolutions and, of course, appear
grossly inconsistent. The remnants of the cult present a true picture of the
racial religions of the past. Always remember, the cults are formed, not to
discover truth, but rather to promulgate their creeds.
92:3.2 Religion has always been largely a matter of rites, rituals,
observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. It has usually become tainted with that
persistently mischief-making error, the chosen-people delusion. The cardinal
religious ideas of incantation, inspiration, revelation, propitiation,
repentance, atonement, intercession, sacrifice, prayer, confession, worship,
survival after death, sacrament, ritual, ransom, salvation, redemption,
covenant, uncleanness, purification, prophecy, original sin -- they all go
back to the early times of primordial ghost fear.
92:3.3 Primitive religion is nothing more nor less than the struggle for
material existence extended to embrace existence beyond the grave. The
observances of such a creed represented the extension of the self-maintenance
struggle into the domain of an imagined ghost-spirit world. But when tempted
to criticize evolutionary religion, be careful. Remember, that is what
happened; it is a historical fact. And further recall that the power of any
idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its
human appeal.
92:3.4 Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike
science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved
religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; "the
faith once delivered to the saints" must, in theory, be both final and
infallible. The cult resists development because real progress is certain to
modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced
upon it.
92:3.5 Only two influences can modify and uplift the dogmas of natural
religion: the pressure of the slowly advancing mores and the periodic
illumination of epochal revelation. And it is not strange that progress was
slow; in ancient days, to be progressive or inventive meant to be killed as a
sorcerer. The cult advances slowly in generation epochs and agelong cycles.
But it does move forward. Evolutionary belief in ghosts laid the foundation
for a philosophy of revealed religion which will eventually destroy the
superstition of its origin.
92:3.6 Religion has handicapped social development in many ways, but without
religion there would have been no enduring morality nor ethics, no worth-while
civilization. Religion enmothered much nonreligious culture: Sculpture
originated in idol making, architecture in temple building, poetry in
incantations, music in worship chants, drama in the acting for spirit
guidance, and dancing in the seasonal worship festivals.
92:3.7 But while calling attention to the fact that religion was essential to
the development and preservation of civilization, it should be recorded that
natural religion has also done much to cripple and handicap the very
civilization which it otherwise fostered and maintained. Religion has hampered
industrial activities and economic development; it has been wasteful of labor
and has squandered capital; it has not always been helpful to the family; it
has not adequately fostered peace and good will; it has sometimes neglected
education and retarded science; it has unduly impoverished life for the
pretended enrichment of death. Evolutionary religion, human religion, has
indeed been guilty of all these and many more mistakes, errors, and blunders;
nevertheless, it did maintain cultural ethics, civilized morality, and social
coherence, and made it possible for later revealed religion to compensate for
these many evolutionary shortcomings.
92:3.8 Evolutionary religion has been man's most expensive but incomparably
effective institution. Human religion can be justified only in the light of
evolutionary civilization. If man were not the ascendant product of animal
evolution, then would such a course of religious development stand without
justification.
92:3.9 Religion facilitated the accumulation of capital; it fostered work of
certain kinds; the leisure of the priests promoted art and knowledge; the
race, in the end, gained much as a result of all these early errors in ethical
technique. The shamans, honest and dishonest, were terribly expensive, but
they were worth all they cost. The learned professions and science itself
emerged from the parasitical priesthoods. Religion fostered civilization and
provided societal continuity; it has been the moral police force of all time.
Religion provided that human discipline and self-control which made wisdom
possible. Religion is the efficient scourge of evolution which ruthlessly
drives indolent and suffering humanity from its natural state of intellectual
inertia forward and upward to the higher levels of reason and wisdom.
92:3.10 And this sacred heritage of animal ascent, evolutionary religion, must
ever continue to be refined and ennobled by the continuous censorship of
revealed religion and by the fiery furnace of genuine science.
4. THE GIFT OF REVELATION
92:4.1 Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. Down through the
ages of a world's history, the revelations of religion are ever-expanding and
successively more enlightening. It is the mission of revelation to sort and
censor the successive religions of evolution. But if revelation is to exalt
and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations
portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions
of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always
keep in touch with evolution. Always must the religion of revelation be
limited by man's capacity of receptivity.
92:4.2 But regardless of apparent connection or derivation, the religions of
revelation are always characterized by a belief in some Deity of final value
and in some concept of the survival of personality identity after death.
92:4.3 Evolutionary religion is sentimental, not logical. It is man's reaction
to belief in a hypothetical ghost-spirit world -- the human belief-reflex,
excited by the realization and fear of the unknown. Revelatory religion is
propounded by the real spiritual world; it is the response of the
superintellectual cosmos to the mortal hunger to believe in, and depend upon,
the universal Deities. Evolutionary religion pictures the circuitous gropings
of humanity in quest of truth; revelatory religion is that very truth.
92:4.4 There have been many events of religious revelation but only five of
epochal significance. These were as follows:
92:4.5 1. The Dalamatian teachings. The true concept of the First Source and
Center was first promulgated on Urantia by the one hundred corporeal members
of Prince Caligastia's staff. This expanding revelation of Deity went on for
more than three hundred thousand years until it was suddenly terminated by the
planetary secession and the disruption of the teaching regime. Except for the
work of Van, the influence of the Dalamatian revelation was practically lost
to the whole world. Even the Nodites had forgotten this truth by the time of
Adam's arrival. Of all who received the teachings of the one hundred, the red
men held them longest, but the idea of the Great Spirit was but a hazy concept
in Amerindian religion when contact with Christianity greatly clarified and
strengthened it.
92:4.6 2. The Edenic teachings. Adam and Eve again portrayed the concept of
the Father of all to the evolutionary peoples. The disruption of the first
Eden halted the course of the Adamic revelation before it had ever fully
started. But the aborted teachings of Adam were carried on by the Sethite
priests, and some of these truths have never been entirely lost to the world.
The entire trend of Levantine religious evolution was modified by the
teachings of the Sethites. But by 2500 B.C. mankind had largely lost sight of
the revelation sponsored in the days of Eden.
92:4.7 3. Melchizedek of Salem. This emergency Son of Nebadon inaugurated the
third revelation of truth on Urantia. The cardinal precepts of his teachings
were trust and faith. He taught trust in the omnipotent beneficence of God and
proclaimed that faith was the act by which men earned God's favor. His
teachings gradually commingled with the beliefs and practices of various
evolutionary religions and finally developed into those theologic systems
present on Urantia at the opening of the first millennium after Christ.
92:4.8 4. Jesus of Nazareth. Christ Michael presented for the fourth time to
Urantia the concept of God as the Universal Father, and this teaching has
generally persisted ever since. The essence of his teaching was love and
service, the loving worship which a creature son voluntarily gives in
recognition of, and response to, the loving ministry of God his Father; the
freewill service which such creature sons bestow upon their brethren in the
joyous realization that in this service they are likewise serving God the
Father.
92:4.9 5. The Urantia Papers. The papers, of which this is one, constitute the
most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia. These papers
differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single
universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings. But no
revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be
complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial,
transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space.
While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force
and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is
advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the
future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of
truth to the mortal races of Urantia.
5. THE GREAT RELIGIOUS LEADERS
92:5.1 In evolutionary religion, the gods are conceived to exist in the
likeness of man's image; in revelatory religion, men are taught that they are
God's sons -- even fashioned in the finite image of divinity; in the
synthesized beliefs compounded from the teachings of revelation and the
products of evolution, the God concept is a blend of:
1. The pre-existent ideas of the evolutionary cults.
2. The sublime ideals of revealed religion.
3. The personal viewpoints of the great religious leaders, the prophets and
teachers of mankind.
92:5.2 Most great religious epochs have been inaugurated by the life and
teachings of some outstanding personality; leadership has originated a
majority of the worth-while moral movements of history. And men have always
tended to venerate the leader, even at the expense of his teachings; to revere
his personality, even though losing sight of the truths which he proclaimed.
And this is not without reason; there is an instinctive longing in the heart
of evolutionary man for help from above and beyond. This craving is designed
to anticipate the appearance on earth of the Planetary Prince and the later
Material Sons. On Urantia man has been deprived of these superhuman leaders
and rulers, and therefore does he constantly seek to make good this loss by
enshrouding his human leaders with legends pertaining to supernatural origins
and miraculous careers.
92:5.3 Many races have conceived of their leaders as being born of virgins;
their careers are liberally sprinkled with miraculous episodes, and their
return is always expected by their respective groups. In central Asia the
tribesmen still look for the return of Genghis Khan; in Tibet, China, and
India it is Buddha; in Islam it is Mohammed; among the Amerinds it was
Hesunanin Onamonalonton; with the Hebrews it was, in general, Adam's return as
a material ruler. In Babylon the god Marduk was a perpetuation of the Adam
legend, the son-of-God idea, the connecting link between man and God.
Following the appearance of Adam on earth, so-called sons of God were common
among the world races.
92:5.4 But regardless of the superstitious awe in which they were often held,
it remains a fact that these teachers were the temporal personality fulcrums
on which the levers of revealed truth depended for the advancement of the
morality, philosophy, and religion of mankind.
92:5.5 There have been hundreds upon hundreds of religious leaders in the
million-year human history of Urantia from Onagar to Guru Nanak. During this
time there have been many ebbs and flows of the tide of religious truth and
spiritual faith, and each renaissance of Urantian religion has, in the past,
been identified with the life and teachings of some religious leader. In
considering the teachers of recent times, it may prove helpful to group them
into the seven major religious epochs of post-Adamic Urantia:
92:5.6 1. The Sethite period. The Sethite priests, as regenerated under the
leadership of Amosad, became the great post-Adamic teachers. They functioned
throughout the lands of the Andites, and their influence persisted longest
among the Greeks, Sumerians, and Hindus. Among the latter they have continued
to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith. The Sethites and their
followers never entirely lost the Trinity concept revealed by Adam.
92:5.7 2. Era of the Melchizedek missionaries. Urantia religion was in no
small measure regenerated by the efforts of those teachers who were
commissioned by Machiventa Melchizedek when he lived and taught at Salem
almost two thousand years before Christ. These missionaries proclaimed faith
as the price of favor with God, and their teachings, though unproductive of
any immediately appearing religions, nevertheless formed the foundations on
which later teachers of truth were to build the religions of Urantia.
92:5.8 3. The post-Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton both taught
in this period, the outstanding religious genius of the post-Melchizedek era
was the leader of a group of Levantine Bedouins and the founder of the Hebrew
religion -- Moses. Moses taught monotheism. Said he: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God is one God." "The Lord he is God. There is none beside him." He
persistently sought to uproot the remnants of the ghost cult among his people,
even prescribing the death penalty for its practitioners. The monotheism of
Moses was adulterated by his successors, but in later times they did return to
many of his teachings. The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity.
Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so
successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs.
92:5.9 4. The sixth century before Christ. Many men arose to proclaim truth in
this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on
Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao-tse,
Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers. The teachings of Gautama have become
widespread in Asia, and he is revered as the Buddha by millions. Confucius was
to Chinese morality what Plato was to Greek philosophy, and while there were
religious repercussions to the teachings of both, strictly speaking, neither
was a religious teacher; Lao-tse envisioned more of God in Tao than did
Confucius in humanity or Plato in idealism. Zoroaster, while much affected by
the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same
time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate
victory of light over darkness.
92:5.10 5. The first century after Christ. As a religious teacher, Jesus of
Nazareth started out with the cult which had been established by John the
Baptist and progressed as far as he could away from fasts and forms. Aside
from Jesus, Paul of Tarsus and Philo of Alexandria were the greatest teachers
of this era. Their concepts of religion have played a dominant part in the
evolution of that faith which bears the name of Christ.
92:5.11 6. The sixth century after Christ. Mohammed founded a religion which
was superior to many of the creeds of his time. His was a protest against the
social demands of the faiths of foreigners and against the incoherence of the
religious life of his own people.
92:5.12 7. The fifteenth century after Christ. This period witnessed two
religious movements: the disruption of the unity of Christianity in the
Occident and the synthesis of a new religion in the Orient. In Europe
institutionalized Christianity had attained that degree of inelasticity which
rendered further growth incompatible with unity. In the Orient the combined
teachings of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism were synthesized by Nanak and his
followers into Sikhism, one of the most advanced religions of Asia.
92:5.13 The future of Urantia will doubtless be characterized by the
appearance of teachers of religious truth -- the Fatherhood of God and the
fraternity of all creatures. But it is to be hoped that the ardent and sincere
efforts of these future prophets will be directed less toward the
strengthening of interreligious barriers and more toward the augmentation of
the religious brotherhood of spiritual worship among the many followers of the
differing intellectual theologies which so characterize Urantia of Satania.
6. THE COMPOSITE RELIGIONS
92:6.1 Twentieth-century Urantia religions present an interesting study of the
social evolution of man's worship impulse. Many faiths have progressed very
little since the days of the ghost cult. The Pygmies of Africa have no
religious reactions as a class, although some of them believe slightly in a
spirit environment. They are today just where primitive man was when the
evolution of religion began. The basic belief of primitive religion was
survival after death. The idea of worshiping a personal God indicates advanced
evolutionary development, even the first stage of revelation. The Dyaks have
evolved only the most primitive religious practices. The comparatively recent
Eskimos and Amerinds had very meager concepts of God; they believed in ghosts
and had an indefinite idea of survival of some sort after death. Present-day
native Australians have only a ghost fear, dread of the dark, and a crude
ancestor veneration. The Zulus are just evolving a religion of ghost fear and
sacrifice. Many African tribes, except through missionary work of Christians
and Mohammedans, are not yet beyond the fetish stage of religious evolution.
But some groups have long held to the idea of monotheism, like the onetime
Thracians, who also believed in immortality.
92:6.2 On Urantia, evolutionary and revelatory religion are progressing side
by side while they blend and coalesce into the diversified theologic systems
found in the world in the times of the inditement of these papers. These
religions, the religions of twentieth-century Urantia, may be enumerated as
follows:
1. Hinduism -- the most ancient.
2. The Hebrew religion.
3. Buddhism.
4. The Confucian teachings.
5. The Taoist beliefs.
6. Zoroastrianism.
7. Shinto.
8. Jainism.
9. Christianity.
10. Islam.
11. Sikhism -- the most recent.
92:6.3 The most advanced religions of ancient times were Hinduism and Judaism,
and each respectively has greatly influenced the course of religious
development in Orient and Occident. Both Hindus and Hebrews believed that
their religions were inspired and revealed, and they believed all others to be
decadent forms of the one true faith.
92:6.4 India is divided among Hindu, Sikh, Mohammedan, and Jain, each
picturing God, man, and the universe as these are variously conceived. China
follows the Taoist and the Confucian teachings; Shinto is revered in Japan.
92:6.5 The great international, interracial faiths are the Hebraic, Buddhist,
Christian, and Islamic. Buddhism stretches from Ceylon and Burma through Tibet
and China to Japan. It has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples
that has been equaled only by Christianity.
92:6.6 The Hebrew religion encompasses the philosophic transition from
polytheism to monotheism; it is an evolutionary link between the religions of
evolution and the religions of revelation. The Hebrews were the only western
people to follow their early evolutionary gods straight through to the God of
revelation. But this truth never became widely accepted until the days of
Isaiah, who once again taught the blended idea of a racial deity combined with
a Universal Creator: "O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, you are God, even you
alone; you have made heaven and earth." At one time the hope of the survival
of Occidental civilization lay in the sublime Hebraic concepts of goodness and
the advanced Hellenic concepts of beauty.
92:6.7 The Christian religion is the religion about the life and teachings of
Christ based upon the theology of Judaism, modified further through the
assimilation of certain Zoroastrian teachings and Greek philosophy, and
formulated primarily by three individuals: Philo, Peter, and Paul. It has
passed through many phases of evolution since the time of Paul and has become
so thoroughly Occidentalized that many non-European peoples very naturally
look upon Christianity as a strange revelation of a strange God and for
strangers.
92:6.8 Islam is the religio-cultural connective of North Africa, the Levant,
and southeastern Asia. It was Jewish theology in connection with the later
Christian teachings that made Islam monotheistic. The followers of Mohammed
stumbled at the advanced teachings of the Trinity; they could not comprehend
the doctrine of three divine personalities and one Deity. It is always
difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced revealed
truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion
by evolutionary techniques.
92:6.9 Ancestor worship onetime constituted a decided advance in religious
evolution, but it is both amazing and regrettable that this primitive concept
persists in China, Japan, and India amidst so much that is relatively more
advanced, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. In the Occident, ancestor worship
developed into the veneration of national gods and respect for racial heroes.
In the twentieth century this hero-venerating nationalistic religion makes its
appearance in the various radical and nationalistic secularisms which
characterize many races and nations of the Occident. Much of this same
attitude is also found in the great universities and the larger industrial
communities of the English-speaking peoples. Not very different from these
concepts is the idea that religion is but "a shared quest of the good life."
The "national religions" are nothing more than a reversion to the early Roman
emperor worship and to Shinto -- worship of the state in the imperial family.
7. THE FURTHER EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
92:7.1 Religion can never become a scientific fact. Philosophy may, indeed,
rest on a scientific basis, but religion will ever remain either evolutionary
or revelatory, or a possible combination of both, as it is in the world today.
92:7.2 New religions cannot be invented; they are either evolved, or else they
are suddenly revealed. All new evolutionary religions are merely advancing
expressions of the old beliefs, new adaptations and adjustments. The old does
not cease to exist; it is merged with the new, even as Sikhism budded and
blossomed out of the soil and forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other
contemporary cults. Primitive religion was very democratic; the savage was
quick to borrow or lend. Only with revealed religion did autocratic and
intolerant theologic egotism appear.
92:7.3 The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they
bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a
fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth;
such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of
faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and
assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all
contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their
neighbors' living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their
lingering superstitions and outworn rituals.
92:7.4 All these religions have arisen as a result of man's variable
intellectual response to his identical spiritual leading. They can never hope
to attain a uniformity of creeds, dogmas, and rituals -- these are
intellectual; but they can, and some day will, realize a unity in true worship
of the Father of all, for this is spiritual, and it is forever true, in the
spirit all men are equal.
92:7.5 Primitive religion was largely a material-value consciousness, but
civilization elevates religious values, for true religion is the devotion of
the self to the service of meaningful and supreme values. As religion evolves,
ethics becomes the philosophy of morals, and morality becomes the discipline
of self by the standards of highest meanings and supreme values -- divine and
spiritual ideals. And thus religion becomes a spontaneous and exquisite
devotion, the living experience of the loyalty of love.
92:7.6 The quality of a religion is indicated by:
1. Level of values -- loyalties.
2. Depth of meanings -- the sensitization of the individual to the idealistic
appreciation of these highest values.
3. Consecration intensity -- the degree of devotion to these divine values.
4. The unfettered progress of the personality in this cosmic path of idealistic
spiritual living, realization of sonship with God and never-ending progressive
citizenship in the universe.
92:7.7 Religious meanings progress in self-consciousness when the child
transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God. And the entire
religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or
love has dominated the parent-child relationship. Slaves have always
experienced great difficulty in transferring their master-fear into concepts
of God-love. Civilization, science, and advanced religions must deliver
mankind from those fears born of the dread of natural phenomena. And so should
greater enlightenment deliver educated mortals from all dependence on
intermediaries in communion with Deity.
92:7.8 These intermediate stages of idolatrous hesitation in the transfer of
veneration from the human and the visible to the divine and invisible are
inevitable, but they should be shortened by the consciousness of the
facilitating ministry of the indwelling divine spirit. Nevertheless, man has
been profoundly influenced, not only by his concepts of Deity, but also by the
character of the heroes whom he has chosen to honor. It is most unfortunate
that those who have come to venerate the divine and risen Christ should have
overlooked the man -- the valiant and courageous hero -- Joshua ben Joseph.
92:7.9 Modern man is adequately self-conscious of religion, but his worshipful
customs are confused and discredited by his accelerated social metamorphosis
and unprecedented scientific developments. Thinking men and women want
religion redefined, and this demand will compel religion to re-evaluate
itself.
92:7.10 Modern man is confronted with the task of making more readjustments of
human values in one generation than have been made in two thousand years. And
this all influences the social attitude toward religion, for religion is a way
of living as well as a technique of thinking.
92:7.11 True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal
foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations.
92:7.12 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 93
MACHIVENTA MELCHIZEDEK
93:0.1 THE Melchizedeks are widely known as emergency Sons, for they engage in
an amazing range of activities on the worlds of a local universe. When any
extraordinary problem arises, or when something unusual is to be attempted, it
is quite often a Melchizedek who accepts the assignment. The ability of the
Melchizedek Sons to function in emergencies and on widely divergent levels of
the universe, even on the physical level of personality manifestation, is
peculiar to their order. Only the Life Carriers share to any degree this
metamorphic range of personality function.
93:0.2 The Melchizedek order of universe sonship has been exceedingly active
on Urantia. A corps of twelve served in conjunction with the Life Carriers. A
later corps of twelve became receivers for your world shortly after the
Caligastia secession and continued in authority until the time of Adam and
Eve. These twelve Melchizedeks returned to Urantia upon the default of Adam
and Eve, and they continued thereafter as planetary receivers on down to the
day when Jesus of Nazareth, as the Son of Man, became the titular Planetary
Prince of Urantia.
1. THE MACHIVENTA INCARNATION
93:1.1 Revealed truth was threatened with extinction during the millenniums
which followed the miscarriage of the Adamic mission on Urantia. Though making
progress intellectually, the human races were slowly losing ground
spiritually. About 3000 B.C. the concept of God had grown very hazy in the
minds of men.
93:1.2 The twelve Melchizedek receivers knew of Michael's impending bestowal
on their planet, but they did not know how soon it would occur; therefore they
convened in solemn council and petitioned the Most Highs of Edentia that some
provision be made for maintaining the light of truth on Urantia. This plea was
dismissed with the mandate that "the conduct of affairs on 606 of Satania is
fully in the hands of the Melchizedek custodians." The receivers then appealed
to the Father Melchizedek for help but only received word that they should
continue to uphold truth in the manner of their own election "until the
arrival of a bestowal Son," who "would rescue the planetary titles from
forfeiture and uncertainty."
93:1.3 And it was in consequence of having been thrown so completely on their
own resources that Machiventa Melchizedek, one of the twelve planetary
receivers, volunteered to do that which had been done only six times in all
the history of Nebadon: to personalize on earth as a temporary man of the
realm, to bestow himself as an emergency Son of world ministry. Permission was
granted for this adventure by the Salvington authorities, and the actual
incarnation of Machiventa Melchizedek was consummated near what was to become
the city of Salem, in Palestine. The entire transaction of the materialization
of this Melchizedek Son was completed by the planetary receivers with the co-
operation of the Life Carriers, certain of the Master Physical Controllers,
and other celestial personalities resident on Urantia.
2. THE SAGE OF SALEM
93:2.1 It was 1,973 years before the birth of Jesus that Machiventa was
bestowed upon the human races of Urantia. His coming was unspectacular; his
materialization was not witnessed by human eyes. He was first observed by
mortal man on that eventful day when he entered the tent of Amdon, a Chaldean
herder of Sumerian extraction. And the proclamation of his mission was
embodied in the simple statement which he made to this shepherd, "I am
Melchizedek, priest of El Elyon, the Most High, the one and only God."
93:2.2 When the herder had recovered from his astonishment, and after he had
plied this stranger with many questions, he asked Melchizedek to sup with him,
and this was the first time in his long universe career that Machiventa had
partaken of material food, the nourishment which was to sustain him throughout
his ninety-four years of life as a material being.
93:2.3 And that night, as they talked out under the stars, Melchizedek began
his mission of the revelation of the truth of the reality of God when, with a
sweep of his arm, he turned to Amdon, saying, "El Elyon, the Most High, is the
divine creator of the stars of the firmament and even of this very earth on
which we live, and he is also the supreme God of heaven."
93:2.4 Within a few years Melchizedek had gathered around himself a group of
pupils, disciples, and believers who formed the nucleus of the later community
of Salem. He was soon known throughout Palestine as the priest of El Elyon,
the Most High, and as the sage of Salem. Among some of the surrounding tribes
he was often referred to as the sheik, or king, of Salem. Salem was the site
which after the disappearance of Melchizedek became the city of Jebus,
subsequently being called Jerusalem.
93:2.5 In personal appearance, Melchizedek resembled the then blended Nodite
and Sumerian peoples, being almost six feet in height and possessing a
commanding presence. He spoke Chaldean and a half dozen other languages. He
dressed much as did the Canaanite priests except that on his breast he wore an
emblem of three concentric circles, the Satania symbol of the Paradise
Trinity. In the course of his ministry this insignia of three concentric
circles became regarded as so sacred by his followers that they never dared to
use it, and it was soon forgotten with the passing of a few generations.
93:2.6 Though Machiventa lived after the manner of the men of the realm, he
never married, nor could he have left offspring on earth. His physical body,
while resembling that of the human male, was in reality on the order of those
especially constructed bodies used by the one hundred materialized members of
Prince Caligastia's staff except that it did not carry the life plasm of any
human race. Nor was there available on Urantia the tree of life. Had
Machiventa remained for any long period on earth, his physical mechanism would
have gradually deteriorated; as it was, he terminated his bestowal mission in
ninety-four years long before his material body had begun to disintegrate.
93:2.7 This incarnated Melchizedek received a Thought Adjuster, who indwelt
his superhuman personality as the monitor of time and the mentor of the flesh,
thus gaining that experience and practical introduction to Urantian problems
and to the technique of indwelling an incarnated Son which enabled this spirit
of the Father to function so valiantly in the human mind of the later Son of
God, Michael, when he appeared on earth in the likeness of mortal flesh. And
this is the only Thought Adjuster who ever functioned in two minds on Urantia,
but both minds were divine as well as human.
93:2.8 During the incarnation in the flesh, Machiventa was in full contact
with his eleven fellows of the corps of planetary custodians, but he could not
communicate with other orders of celestial personalities. Aside from the
Melchizedek receivers, he had no more contact with superhuman intelligences
than a human being.
3. MELCHIZEDEK'S TEACHINGS
93:3.1 With the passing of a decade, Melchizedek organized his schools at
Salem, patterning them on the olden system which had been developed by the
early Sethite priests of the second Eden. Even the idea of a tithing system,
which was introduced by his later convert Abraham, was also derived from the
lingering traditions of the methods of the ancient Sethites.
93:3.2 Melchizedek taught the concept of one God, a universal Deity, but he
allowed the people to associate this teaching with the Constellation Father of
Norlatiadek, whom he termed El Elyon -- the Most High. Melchizedek remained
all but silent as to the status of Lucifer and the state of affairs on
Jerusem. Lanaforge, the System Sovereign, had little to do with Urantia until
after the completion of Michael's bestowal. To a majority of the Salem
students Edentia was heaven and the Most High was God.
93:3.3 The symbol of the three concentric circles, which Melchizedek adopted
as the insignia of his bestowal, a majority of the people interpreted as
standing for the three kingdoms of men, angels, and God. And they were allowed
to continue in that belief; very few of his followers ever knew that these
three circles were emblematic of the infinity, eternity, and universality of
the Paradise Trinity of divine maintenance and direction; even Abraham rather
regarded this symbol as standing for the three Most Highs of Edentia, as he
had been instructed that the three Most Highs functioned as one. To the extent
that Melchizedek taught the Trinity concept symbolized in his insignia, he
usually associated it with the three Vorondadek rulers of the constellation of
Norlatiadek.
93:3.4 To the rank and file of his followers he made no effort to present
teaching beyond the fact of the rulership of the Most Highs of Edentia -- Gods
of Urantia. But to some, Melchizedek taught advanced truth, embracing the
conduct and organization of the local universe, while to his brilliant
disciple Nordan the Kenite and his band of earnest students he taught the
truths of the superuniverse and even of Havona.
93:3.5 The members of the family of Katro, with whom Melchizedek lived for
more than thirty years, knew many of these higher truths and long perpetuated
them in their family, even to the days of their illustrious descendant Moses,
who thus had a compelling tradition of the days of Melchizedek handed down to
him on this, his father's side, as well as through other sources on his
mother's side.
93:3.6 Melchizedek taught his followers all they had capacity to receive and
assimilate. Even many modern religious ideas about heaven and earth, of man,
God, and angels, are not far removed from these teachings of Melchizedek. But
this great teacher subordinated everything to the doctrine of one God, a
universe Deity, a heavenly Creator, a divine Father. Emphasis was placed upon
this teaching for the purpose of appealing to man's adoration and of preparing
the way for the subsequent appearance of Michael as the Son of this same
Universal Father.
93:3.7 Melchizedek taught that at some future time another Son of God would
come in the flesh as he had come, but that he would be born of a woman; and
that is why numerous later teachers held that Jesus was a priest, or minister,
"forever after the order of Melchizedek."
93:3.8 And thus did Melchizedek prepare the way and set the monotheistic stage
of world tendency for the bestowal of an actual Paradise Son of the one God,
whom he so vividly portrayed as the Father of all, and whom he represented to
Abraham as a God who would accept man on the simple terms of personal faith.
And Michael, when he appeared on earth, confirmed all that Melchizedek had
taught concerning the Paradise Father.
4. THE SALEM RELIGION
93:4.1 The ceremonies of the Salem worship were very simple. Every person who
signed or marked the clay-tablet rolls of the Melchizedek church committed to
memory, and subscribed to, the following belief:
93:4.2 1. I believe in El Elyon, the Most High God, the only Universal Father
and Creator of all things.
93:4.3 2. I accept the Melchizedek covenant with the Most High, which bestows
the favor of God on my faith, not on sacrifices and burnt offerings.
93:4.4 3. I promise to obey the seven commandments of Melchizedek and to tell
the good news of this covenant with the Most High to all men.
93:4.5 And that was the whole of the creed of the Salem colony. But even such
a short and simple declaration of faith was altogether too much and too
advanced for the men of those days. They simply could not grasp the idea of
getting divine favor for nothing -- by faith. They were too deeply confirmed
in the belief that man was born under forfeit to the gods. Too long and too
earnestly had they sacrificed and made gifts to the priests to be able to
comprehend the good news that salvation, divine favor, was a free gift to all
who would believe in the Melchizedek covenant. But Abraham did believe
halfheartedly, and even that was "counted for righteousness."
93:4.6 The seven commandments promulgated by Melchizedek were patterned along
the lines of the ancient Dalamatian supreme law and very much resembled the
seven commands taught in the first and second Edens. These commands of the
Salem religion were:
93:4.7 1. You shall not serve any God but the Most High Creator of heaven and
earth.
93:4.8 2. You shall not doubt that faith is the only requirement for eternal
salvation.
93:4.9 3. You shall not bear false witness.
93:4.10 4. You shall not kill.
93:4.11 5. You shall not steal.
93:4.12 6. You shall not commit adultery.
93:4.13 7. You shall not show disrespect for your parents and elders.
93:4.14 While no sacrifices were permitted within the colony, Melchizedek well
knew how difficult it is to suddenly uproot long-established customs and
accordingly had wisely offered these people the substitute of a sacrament of
bread and wine for the older sacrifice of flesh and blood. It is of record,
"Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine." But even this
cautious innovation was not altogether successful; the various tribes all
maintained auxiliary centers on the outskirts of Salem where they offered
sacrifices and burnt offerings. Even Abraham resorted to this barbarous
practice after his victory over Chedorlaomer; he simply did not feel quite at
ease until he had offered a conventional sacrifice. And Melchizedek never did
succeed in fully eradicating this proclivity to sacrifice from the religious
practices of his followers, even of Abraham.
93:4.15 Like Jesus, Melchizedek attended strictly to the fulfillment of the
mission of his bestowal. He did not attempt to reform the mores, to change the
habits of the world, nor to promulgate even advanced sanitary practices or
scientific truths. He came to achieve two tasks: to keep alive on earth the
truth of the one God and to prepare the way for the subsequent mortal bestowal
of a Paradise Son of that Universal Father.
93:4.16 Melchizedek taught elementary revealed truth at Salem for ninety-four
years, and during this time Abraham attended the Salem school three different
times. He finally became a convert to the Salem teachings, becoming one of
Melchizedek's most brilliant pupils and chief supporters.
5. THE SELECTION OF ABRAHAM
93:5.1 Although it may be an error to speak of "chosen people," it is not a
mistake to refer to Abraham as a chosen individual. Melchizedek did lay upon
Abraham the responsibility of keeping alive the truth of one God as
distinguished from the prevailing belief in plural deities.
93:5.2 The choice of Palestine as the site for Machiventa's activities was in
part predicated upon the desire to establish contact with some human family
embodying the potentials of leadership. At the time of the incarnation of
Melchizedek there were many families on earth just as well prepared to receive
the doctrine of Salem as was that of Abraham. There were equally endowed
families among the red men, the yellow men, and the descendants of the Andites
to the west and north. But, again, none of these localities were so favorably
situated for Michael's subsequent appearance on earth as was the eastern shore
of the Mediterranean Sea. The Melchizedek mission in Palestine and the
subsequent appearance of Michael among the Hebrew people were in no small
measure determined by geography, by the fact that Palestine was centrally
located with reference to the then existent trade, travel, and civilization of
the world.
93:5.3 For some time the Melchizedek receivers had been observing the
ancestors of Abraham, and they confidently expected offspring in a certain
generation who would be characterized by intelligence, initiative, sagacity,
and sincerity. The children of Terah, the father of Abraham, in every way met
these expectations. It was this possibility of contact with these versatile
children of Terah that had considerable to do with the appearance of
Machiventa at Salem, rather than in Egypt, China, India, or among the northern
tribes.
93:5.4 Terah and his whole family were halfhearted converts to the Salem
religion, which had been preached in Chaldea; they learned of Melchizedek
through the preaching of Ovid, a Phoenician teacher who proclaimed the Salem
doctrines in Ur. They left Ur intending to go directly through to Salem, but
Nahor, Abraham's brother, not having seen Melchizedek, was lukewarm and
persuaded them to tarry at Haran. And it was a long time after they arrived in
Palestine before they were willing to destroy all of the household gods they
had brought with them; they were slow to give up the many gods of Mesopotamia
for the one God of Salem.
93:5.5 A few weeks after the death of Abraham's father, Terah, Melchizedek
sent one of his students, Jaram the Hittite, to extend this invitation to both
Abraham and Nahor: "Come to Salem, where you shall hear our teachings of the
truth of the eternal Creator, and in the enlightened offspring of you two
brothers shall all the world be blessed." Now Nahor had not wholly accepted
the Melchizedek gospel; he remained behind and built up a strong city-state
which bore his name; but Lot, Abraham's nephew, decided to go with his uncle
to Salem.
93:5.6 Upon arriving at Salem, Abraham and Lot chose a hilly fastness near the
city where they could defend themselves against the many surprise attacks of
northern raiders. At this time the Hittites, Assyrians, Philistines, and other
groups were constantly raiding the tribes of central and southern Palestine.
From their stronghold in the hills Abraham and Lot made frequent pilgrimages
to Salem.
93:5.7 Not long after they had established themselves near Salem, Abraham and
Lot journeyed to the valley of the Nile to obtain food supplies as there was
then a drought in Palestine. During his brief sojourn in Egypt Abraham found a
distant relative on the Egyptian throne, and he served as the commander of two
very successful military expeditions for this king. During the latter part of
his sojourn on the Nile he and his wife, Sarah, lived at court, and when
leaving Egypt, he was given a share of the spoils of his military campaigns.
93:5.8 It required great determination for Abraham to forego the honors of the
Egyptian court and return to the more spiritual work sponsored by Machiventa.
But Melchizedek was revered even in Egypt, and when the full story was laid
before Pharaoh, he strongly urged Abraham to return to the execution of his
vows to the cause of Salem.
93:5.9 Abraham had kingly ambitions, and on the way back from Egypt he laid
before Lot his plan to subdue all Canaan and bring its people under the rule
of Salem. Lot was more bent on business; so, after a later disagreement, he
went to Sodom to engage in trade and animal husbandry. Lot liked neither a
military nor a herder's life.
93:5.10 Upon returning with his family to Salem, Abraham began to mature his
military projects. He was soon recognized as the civil ruler of the Salem
territory and had confederated under his leadership seven near-by tribes.
Indeed, it was with great difficulty that Melchizedek restrained Abraham, who
was fired with a zeal to go forth and round up the neighboring tribes with the
sword that they might thus more quickly be brought to a knowledge of the Salem
truths.
93:5.11 Melchizedek maintained peaceful relations with all the surrounding
tribes; he was not militaristic and was never attacked by any of the armies as
they moved back and forth. He was entirely willing that Abraham should
formulate a defensive policy for Salem such as was subsequently put into
effect, but he would not approve of his pupil's ambitious schemes for
conquest; so there occurred a friendly severance of relationship, Abraham
going over to Hebron to establish his military capital.
93:5.12 Abraham, because of his close connection with the illustrious
Melchizedek, possessed great advantage over the surrounding petty kings; they
all revered Melchizedek and unduly feared Abraham. Abraham knew of this fear
and only awaited an opportune occasion to attack his neighbors, and this
excuse came when some of these rulers presumed to raid the property of his
nephew Lot, who dwelt in Sodom. Upon hearing of this, Abraham, at the head of
his seven confederated tribes, moved on the enemy. His own bodyguard of 318
officered the army, numbering more than 4,000, which struck at this time.
93:5.13 When Melchizedek heard of Abraham's declaration of war, he went forth
to dissuade him but only caught up with his former disciple as he returned
victorious from the battle. Abraham insisted that the God of Salem had given
him victory over his enemies and persisted in giving a tenth of his spoils to
the Salem treasury. The other ninety per cent he removed to his capital at
Hebron.
93:5.14 After this battle of Siddim, Abraham became leader of a second
confederation of eleven tribes and not only paid tithes to Melchizedek but saw
to it that all others in that vicinity did the same. His diplomatic dealings
with the king of Sodom, together with the fear in which he was so generally
held, resulted in the king of Sodom and others joining the Hebron military
confederation; Abraham was really well on the way to establishing a powerful
state in Palestine.
6. MELCHIZEDEK'S COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM
93:6.1 Abraham envisaged the conquest of all Canaan. His determination was
only weakened by the fact that Melchizedek would not sanction the undertaking.
But Abraham had about decided to embark upon the enterprise when the thought
that he had no son to succeed him as ruler of this proposed kingdom began to
worry him. He arranged another conference with Melchizedek; and it was in the
course of this interview that the priest of Salem, the visible Son of God,
persuaded Abraham to abandon his scheme of material conquest and temporal rule
in favor of the spiritual concept of the kingdom of heaven.
93:6.2 Melchizedek explained to Abraham the futility of contending with the
Amorite confederation but made it equally clear that these backward clans were
certainly committing suicide by their foolish practices so that in a few
generations they would be so weakened that the descendants of Abraham,
meanwhile greatly increased, could easily overcome them.
93:6.3 And Melchizedek made a formal covenant with Abraham at Salem. Said he
to Abraham: "Look now up to the heavens and number the stars if you are able;
so numerous shall your seed be." And Abraham believed Melchizedek, "and it was
counted to him for righteousness." And then Melchizedek told Abraham the story
of the future occupation of Canaan by his offspring after their sojourn in
Egypt.
93:6.4 This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham represents the great Urantian
agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything;
man only agrees to believe God's promises and follow his instructions.
Heretofore it had been believed that salvation could be secured only by works
-- sacrifices and offerings; now, Melchizedek again brought to Urantia the
good news that salvation, favor with God, is to be had by faith. But this
gospel of simple faith in God was too advanced; the Semitic tribesmen
subsequently preferred to go back to the older sacrifices and atonement for
sin by the shedding of blood.
93:6.5 It was not long after the establishment of this covenant that Isaac,
the son of Abraham, was born in accordance with the promise of Melchizedek.
After the birth of Isaac, Abraham took a very solemn attitude toward his
covenant with Melchizedek, going over to Salem to have it stated in writing.
It was at this public and formal acceptance of the covenant that he changed
his name from Abram to Abraham.
93:6.6 Most of the Salem believers had practiced circumcision, though it had
never been made obligatory by Melchizedek. Now Abraham had always so opposed
circumcision that on this occasion he decided to solemnize the event by
formally accepting this rite in token of the ratification of the Salem
covenant.
93:6.7 It was following this real and public surrender of his personal
ambitions in behalf of the larger plans of Melchizedek that the three
celestial beings appeared to him on the plains of Mamre. This was an
appearance of fact, notwithstanding its association with the subsequently
fabricated narratives relating to the natural destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah. And these legends of the happenings of those days indicate how
retarded were the morals and ethics of even so recent a time.
93:6.8 Upon the consummation of the solemn covenant, the reconciliation
between Abraham and Melchizedek was complete. Abraham again assumed the civil
and military leadership of the Salem colony, which at its height carried over
one hundred thousand regular tithe payers on the rolls of the Melchizedek
brotherhood. Abraham greatly improved the Salem temple and provided new tents
for the entire school. He not only extended the tithing system but also
instituted many improved methods of conducting the business of the school,
besides contributing greatly to the better handling of the department of
missionary propaganda. He also did much to effect improvement of the herds and
the reorganization of the Salem dairying projects. Abraham was a shrewd and
efficient business man, a wealthy man for his day; he was not overly pious,
but he was thoroughly sincere, and he did believe in Machiventa Melchizedek.
7. THE MELCHIZEDEK MISSIONARIES
93:7.1 Melchizedek continued for some years to instruct his students and to
train the Salem missionaries, who penetrated to all the surrounding tribes,
especially to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. And as the decades passed,
these teachers journeyed farther and farther from Salem, carrying with them
Machiventa's gospel of belief and faith in God.
93:7.2 The descendants of Adamson, clustered about the shores of the lake of
Van, were willing listeners to the Hittite teachers of the Salem cult. From
this onetime Andite center, teachers were dispatched to the remote regions of
both Europe and Asia. Salem missionaries penetrated all Europe, even to the
British Isles. One group went by way of the Faroes to the Andonites of
Iceland, while another traversed China and reached the Japanese of the eastern
islands. The lives and experiences of the men and women who ventured forth
from Salem, Mesopotamia, and Lake Van to enlighten the tribes of the Eastern
Hemisphere present a heroic chapter in the annals of the human race.
93:7.3 But the task was so great and the tribes were so backward that the
results were vague and indefinite. From one generation to another the Salem
gospel found lodgment here and there, but except in Palestine, never was the
idea of one God able to claim the continued allegiance of a whole tribe or
race. Long before the coming of Jesus the teachings of the early Salem
missionaries had become generally submerged in the older and more universal
superstitions and beliefs. The original Melchizedek gospel had been almost
wholly absorbed in the beliefs in the Great Mother, the Sun, and other ancient
cults.
93:7.4 You who today enjoy the advantages of the art of printing little
understand how difficult it was to perpetuate truth during these earlier
times; how easy it was to lose sight of a new doctrine from one generation to
another. There was always a tendency for the new doctrine to become absorbed
into the older body of religious teaching and magical practice. A new
revelation is always contaminated by the older evolutionary beliefs.
8. DEPARTURE OF MELCHIZEDEK
93:8.1 It was shortly after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that
Machiventa decided to end his emergency bestowal on Urantia. Melchizedek's
decision to terminate his sojourn in the flesh was influenced by numerous
conditions, chief of which was the growing tendency of the surrounding tribes,
and even of his immediate associates, to regard him as a demigod, to look upon
him as a supernatural being, which indeed he was; but they were beginning to
reverence him unduly and with a highly superstitious fear. In addition to
these reasons, Melchizedek wanted to leave the scene of his earthly activities
a sufficient length of time before Abraham's death to insure that the truth of
the one and only God would become strongly established in the minds of his
followers. Accordingly Machiventa retired one night to his tent at Salem,
having said good night to his human companions, and when they went to call him
in the morning, he was not there, for his fellows had taken him.
9. AFTER MELCHIZEDEK'S DEPARTURE
93:9.1 It was a great trial for Abraham when Melchizedek so suddenly
disappeared. Although he had fully warned his followers that he must sometime
go as he had come, they were not reconciled to the loss of their wonderful
leader. The great organization built up at Salem nearly disappeared, though
the traditions of these days were what Moses built upon when he led the Hebrew
slaves out of Egypt.
93:9.2 The loss of Melchizedek produced a sadness in the heart of Abraham that
he never fully overcame. Hebron he had abandoned when he gave up the ambition
of building a material kingdom; and now, upon the loss of his associate in the
building of the spiritual kingdom, he departed from Salem, going south to live
near his interests at Gerar.
93:9.3 Abraham became fearful and timid immediately after the disappearance of
Melchizedek. He withheld his identity upon arrival at Gerar, so that Abimelech
appropriated his wife. (Shortly after his marriage to Sarah, Abraham one night
had overheard a plot to murder him in order to get his brilliant wife. This
dread became a terror to the otherwise brave and daring leader; all his life
he feared that someone would kill him secretly in order to get Sarah. And this
explains why, on three separate occasions, this brave man exhibited real
cowardice.)
93:9.4 But Abraham was not long to be deterred in his mission as the successor
of Melchizedek. Soon he made converts among the Philistines and of Abimelech's
people, made a treaty with them, and, in turn, became contaminated with many
of their superstitions, particularly with their practice of sacrificing first-
born sons. Thus did Abraham again become a great leader in Palestine. He was
held in reverence by all groups and honored by all kings. He was the spiritual
leader of all the surrounding tribes, and his influence continued for some
time after his death. During the closing years of his life he once more
returned to Hebron, the scene of his earlier activities and the place where he
had worked in association with Melchizedek. Abraham's last act was to send
trusty servants to the city of his brother, Nahor, on the border of
Mesopotamia, to secure a woman of his own people as a wife for his son Isaac.
It had long been the custom of Abraham's people to marry their cousins. And
Abraham died confident in that faith in God which he had learned from
Melchizedek in the vanished schools of Salem.
93:9.5 It was hard for the next generation to comprehend the story of
Melchizedek; within five hundred years many regarded the whole narrative as a
myth. Isaac held fairly well to the teachings of his father and nourished the
gospel of the Salem colony, but it was harder for Jacob to grasp the
significance of these traditions. Joseph was a firm believer in Melchizedek
and was, largely because of this, regarded by his brothers as a dreamer.
Joseph's honor in Egypt was chiefly due to the memory of his great-grandfather
Abraham. Joseph was offered military command of the Egyptian armies, but being
such a firm believer in the traditions of Melchizedek and the later teachings
of Abraham and Isaac, he elected to serve as a civil administrator, believing
that he could thus better labor for the advancement of the kingdom of heaven.
93:9.6 The teaching of Melchizedek was full and replete, but the records of
these days seemed impossible and fantastic to the later Hebrew priests,
although many had some understanding of these transactions, at least up to the
times of the en masse editing of the Old Testament records in Babylon.
93:9.7 What the Old Testament records describe as conversations between
Abraham and God were in reality conferences between Abraham and Melchizedek.
Later scribes regarded the term Melchizedek as synonymous with God. The record
of so many contacts of Abraham and Sarah with "the angel of the Lord" refers
to their numerous visits with Melchizedek.
93:9.8 The Hebrew narratives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are far more reliable
than those about Abraham, although they also contain many diversions from the
facts, alterations made intentionally and unintentionally at the time of the
compilation of these records by the Hebrew priests during the Babylonian
captivity. Keturah was not a wife of Abraham; like Hagar, she was merely a
concubine. All of Abraham's property went to Isaac, the son of Sarah, the
status wife. Abraham was not so old as the records indicate, and his wife was
much younger. These ages were deliberately altered in order to provide for the
subsequent alleged miraculous birth of Isaac.
93:9.9 The national ego of the Jews was tremendously depressed by the
Babylonian captivity. In their reaction against national inferiority they
swung to the other extreme of national and racial egotism, in which they
distorted and perverted their traditions with the view of exalting themselves
above all races as the chosen people of God; and hence they carefully edited
all their records for the purpose of raising Abraham and their other national
leaders high up above all other persons, not excepting Melchizedek himself.
The Hebrew scribes therefore destroyed every record of these momentous times
which they could find, preserving only the narrative of the meeting of Abraham
and Melchizedek after the battle of Siddim, which they deemed reflected great
honor upon Abraham.
93:9.10 And thus, in losing sight of Melchizedek, they also lost sight of the
teaching of this emergency Son regarding the spiritual mission of the promised
bestowal Son; lost sight of the nature of this mission so fully and completely
that very few of their progeny were able or willing to recognize and receive
Michael when he appeared on earth and in the flesh as Machiventa had foretold.
93:9.11 But one of the writers of the Book of Hebrews understood the mission
of Melchizedek, for it is written: "This Melchizedek, priest of the Most High,
was also king of peace; without father, without mother, without pedigree,
having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like a Son of God,
he abides a priest continually." This writer designated Melchizedek as a type
of the later bestowal of Michael, affirming that Jesus was "a minister forever
on the order of Melchizedek." While this comparison was not altogether
fortunate, it was literally true that Christ did receive provisional title to
Urantia "upon the orders of the twelve Melchizedek receivers" on duty at the
time of his world bestowal.
10. PRESENT STATUS OF MACHIVENTA MELCHIZEDEK
93:10.1 During the years of Machiventa's incarnation the Urantia Melchizedek
receivers functioned as eleven. When Machiventa considered that his mission as
an emergency Son was finished, he signalized this fact to his eleven
associates, and they immediately made ready the technique whereby he was to be
released from the flesh and safely restored to his original Melchizedek
status. And on the third day after his disappearance from Salem he appeared
among his eleven fellows of the Urantia assignment and resumed his interrupted
career as one of the planetary receivers of 606 of Satania.
93:10.2 Machiventa terminated his bestowal as a creature of flesh and blood
just as suddenly and unceremoniously as he had begun it. Neither his
appearance nor departure were accompanied by any unusual announcement or
demonstration; neither resurrection roll call nor ending of planetary
dispensation marked his appearance on Urantia; his was an emergency bestowal.
But Machiventa did not end his sojourn in the flesh of human beings until he
had been duly released by the Father Melchizedek and had been informed that
his emergency bestowal had received the approval of the chief executive of
Nebadon, Gabriel of Salvington.
93:10.3 Machiventa Melchizedek continued to take a great interest in the
affairs of the descendants of those men who had believed in his teachings when
he was in the flesh. But the progeny of Abraham through Isaac as intermarried
with the Kenites were the only line which long continued to nourish any clear
concept of the Salem teachings.
93:10.4 This same Melchizedek continued to collaborate throughout the nineteen
succeeding centuries with the many prophets and seers, thus endeavoring to
keep alive the truths of Salem until the fullness of the time for Michael's
appearance on earth.
93:10.5 Machiventa continued as a planetary receiver up to the times of the
triumph of Michael on Urantia. Subsequently, he was attached to the Urantia
service on Jerusem as one of the four and twenty directors, only just recently
having been elevated to the position of personal ambassador on Jerusem of the
Creator Son, bearing the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. It is
our belief that, as long as Urantia remains an inhabited planet, Machiventa
Melchizedek will not be fully returned to the duties of his order of sonship
but will remain, speaking in the terms of time, forever a planetary minister
representing Christ Michael.
93:10.6 As his was an emergency bestowal on Urantia, it does not appear from
the records what Machiventa's future may be. It may develop that the
Melchizedek corps of Nebadon have sustained the permanent loss of one of their
number. Recent rulings handed down from the Most Highs of Edentia, and later
confirmed by the Ancients of Days of Uversa, strongly suggest that this
bestowal Melchizedek is destined to take the place of the fallen Planetary
Prince, Caligastia. If our conjectures in this respect are correct, it is
altogether possible that Machiventa Melchizedek may again appear in person on
Urantia and in some modified manner resume the role of the dethroned Planetary
Prince, or else appear on earth to function as vicegerent Planetary Prince
representing Christ Michael, who now actually holds the title of Planetary
Prince of Urantia. While it is far from clear to us as to what Machiventa's
destiny may be, nevertheless, events which have so recently taken place
strongly suggest that the foregoing conjectures are probably not far from the
truth.
93:10.7 We well understand how, by his triumph on Urantia, Michael became the
successor of both Caligastia and Adam; how he became the planetary Prince of
Peace and the second Adam. And now we behold the conferring upon this
Melchizedek of the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. Will he also
be constituted Vicegerent Material Son of Urantia? Or is there a possibility
that an unexpected and unprecedented event is to take place, the sometime
return to the planet of Adam and Eve or certain of their progeny as
representatives of Michael with the titles vicegerents of the second Adam of
Urantia?
93:10.8 And all these speculations associated with the certainty of future
appearances of both Magisterial and Trinity Teacher Sons, in conjunction with
the explicit promise of the Creator Son to return sometime, make Urantia a
planet of future uncertainty and render it one of the most interesting and
intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon. It is altogether possible
that, in some future age when Urantia is approaching the era of light and
life, after the affairs of the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia secession
have been finally adjudicated, we may witness the presence on Urantia,
simultaneously, of Machiventa, Adam, Eve, and Christ Michael, as well as
either a Magisterial Son or even Trinity Teacher Sons.
93:10.9 It has long been the opinion of our order that Machiventa's presence
on the Jerusem corps of Urantia directors, the four and twenty counselors, is
sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that he is destined to follow the
mortals of Urantia on through the universe scheme of progression and ascension
even to the Paradise Corps of the Finality. We know that Adam and Eve are thus
destined to accompany their earth fellows on the Paradise adventure when
Urantia has become settled in light and life.
93:10.10 Less than a thousand years ago this same Machiventa Melchizedek, the
onetime sage of Salem, was invisibly present on Urantia for a period of one
hundred years, acting as resident governor general of the planet; and if the
present system of directing planetary affairs should continue, he will be due
to return in the same capacity in a little over one thousand years.
93:10.11 This is the story of Machiventa Melchizedek, one of the most unique
of all characters ever to become connected with the history of Urantia and a
personality who may be destined to play an important role in the future
experience of your irregular and unusual world.
93:10.12 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 94
THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN THE ORIENT
94:0.1 THE early teachers of the Salem religion penetrated to the remotest
tribes of Africa and Eurasia, ever preaching Machiventa's gospel of man's
faith and trust in the one universal God as the only price of obtaining divine
favor. Melchizedek's covenant with Abraham was the pattern for all the early
propaganda that went out from Salem and other centers. Urantia has never had
more enthusiastic and aggressive missionaries of any religion than these noble
men and women who carried the teachings of Melchizedek over the entire Eastern
Hemisphere. These missionaries were recruited from many peoples and races, and
they largely spread their teachings through the medium of native converts.
They established training centers in different parts of the world where they
taught the natives the Salem religion and then commissioned these pupils to
function as teachers among their own people.
1. THE SALEM TEACHINGS IN VEDIC INDIA
94:1.1 In the days of Melchizedek, India was a cosmopolitan country which had
recently come under the political and religious dominance of the Aryan-Andite
invaders from the north and west. At this time only the northern and western
portions of the peninsula had been extensively permeated by the Aryans. These
Vedic newcomers had brought along with them their many tribal deities. Their
religious forms of worship followed closely the ceremonial practices of their
earlier Andite forebears in that the father still functioned as a priest and
the mother as a priestess, and the family hearth was still utilized as an
altar.
94:1.2 The Vedic cult was then in process of growth and metamorphosis under
the direction of the Brahman caste of teacher-priests, who were gradually
assuming control over the expanding ritual of worship. The amalgamation of the
onetime thirty-three Aryan deities was well under way when the Salem
missionaries penetrated the north of India.
94:1.3 The polytheism of these Aryans represented a degeneration of their
earlier monotheism occasioned by their separation into tribal units, each
tribe having its venerated god. This devolution of the original monotheism and
trinitarianism of Andite Mesopotamia was in process of resynthesis in the
early centuries of the second millennium before Christ. The many gods were
organized into a pantheon under the triune leadership of Dyaus pitar, the lord
of heaven; Indra, the tempestuous lord of the atmosphere; and Agni, the three-
headed fire god, lord of the earth and the vestigial symbol of an earlier
Trinity concept.
94:1.4 Definite henotheistic developments were paving the way for an evolved
monotheism. Agni, the most ancient deity, was often exalted as the father-head
of the entire pantheon. The deity-father principle, sometimes called
Prajapati, sometimes termed Brahma, was submerged in the theologic battle
which the Brahman priests later fought with the Salem teachers. The Brahman
was conceived as the energy-divinity principle activating the entire Vedic
pantheon.
94:1.5 The Salem missionaries preached the one God of Melchizedek, the Most
High of heaven. This portrayal was not altogether disharmonious with the
emerging concept of the Father-Brahma as the source of all gods, but the Salem
doctrine was nonritualistic and hence ran directly counter to the dogmas,
traditions, and teachings of the Brahman priesthood. Never would the Brahman
priests accept the Salem teaching of salvation through faith, favor with God
apart from ritualistic observances and sacrificial ceremonials.
94:1.6 The rejection of the Melchizedek gospel of trust in God and salvation
through faith marked a vital turning point for India. The Salem missionaries
had contributed much to the loss of faith in all the ancient Vedic gods, but
the leaders, the priests of Vedism, refused to accept the Melchizedek teaching
of one God and one simple faith.
94:1.7 The Brahmans culled the sacred writings of their day in an effort to
combat the Salem teachers, and this compilation, as later revised, has come on
down to modern times as the Rig-Veda, one of the most ancient of sacred books.
The second, third, and fourth Vedas followed as the Brahmans sought to
crystallize, formalize, and fix their rituals of worship and sacrifice upon
the peoples of those days. Taken at their best, these writings are the equal
of any other body of similar character in beauty of concept and truth of
discernment. But as this superior religion became contaminated with the
thousands upon thousands of superstitions, cults, and rituals of southern
India, it progressively metamorphosed into the most variegated system of
theology ever developed by mortal man. An examination of the Vedas will
disclose some of the highest and some of the most debased concepts of Deity
ever to be conceived.
2. BRAHMANISM
94:2.1 As the Salem missionaries penetrated southward into the Dravidian
Deccan, they encountered an increasing caste system, the scheme of the Aryans
to prevent loss of racial identity in the face of a rising tide of the
secondary Sangik peoples. Since the Brahman priest caste was the very essence
of this system, this social order greatly retarded the progress of the Salem
teachers. This caste system failed to save the Aryan race, but it did succeed
in perpetuating the Brahmans, who, in turn, have maintained their religious
hegemony in India to the present time.
94:2.2 And now, with the weakening of Vedism through the rejection of higher
truth, the cult of the Aryans became subject to increasing inroads from the
Deccan. In a desperate effort to stem the tide of racial extinction and
religious obliteration, the Brahman caste sought to exalt themselves above all
else. They taught that the sacrifice to deity in itself was all-efficacious,
that it was all-compelling in its potency. They proclaimed that, of the two
essential divine principles of the universe, one was Brahman the deity, and
the other was the Brahman priesthood. Among no other Urantia peoples did the
priests presume to exalt themselves above even their gods, to relegate to
themselves the honors due their gods. But they went so absurdly far with these
presumptuous claims that the whole precarious system collapsed before the
debasing cults which poured in from the surrounding and less advanced
civilizations. The vast Vedic priesthood itself floundered and sank beneath
the black flood of inertia and pessimism which their own selfish and unwise
presumption had brought upon all India.
94:2.3 The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the
nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive
incarnations as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the contaminating beliefs
which could have become fastened upon what may have been an emerging
monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration -- the
doctrine of the reincarnation of souls -- which came from the Dravidian
Deccan. This belief in the weary and monotonous round of repeated
transmigrations robbed struggling mortals of their long-cherished hope of
finding that deliverance and spiritual advancement in death which had been a
part of the earlier Vedic faith.
94:2.4 This philosophically debilitating teaching was soon followed by the
invention of the doctrine of the eternal escape from self by submergence in
the universal rest and peace of absolute union with Brahman, the oversoul of
all creation. Mortal desire and human ambition were effectually ravished and
virtually destroyed. For more than two thousand years the better minds of
India have sought to escape from all desire, and thus was opened wide the door
for the entrance of those later cults and teachings which have virtually
shackled the souls of many Hindu peoples in the chains of spiritual
hopelessness. Of all civilizations, the Vedic-Aryan paid the most terrible
price for its rejection of the Salem gospel.
94:2.5 Caste alone could not perpetuate the Aryan religio-cultural system, and
as the inferior religions of the Deccan permeated the north, there developed
an age of despair and hopelessness. It was during these dark days that the
cult of taking no life arose, and it has ever since persisted. Many of the new
cults were frankly atheistic, claiming that such salvation as was attainable
could come only by man's own unaided efforts. But throughout a great deal of
all this unfortunate philosophy, distorted remnants of the Melchizedek and
even the Adamic teachings can be traced.
94:2.6 These were the times of the compilation of the later scriptures of the
Hindu faith, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. Having rejected the teachings
of personal religion through the personal faith experience with the one God,
and having become contaminated with the flood of debasing and debilitating
cults and creeds from the Deccan, with their anthropomorphisms and
reincarnations, the Brahmanic priesthood experienced a violent reaction
against these vitiating beliefs; there was a definite effort to seek and to
find true reality. The Brahmans set out to deanthropomorphize the Indian
concept of deity, but in so doing they stumbled into the grievous error of
depersonalizing the concept of God, and they emerged, not with a lofty and
spiritual ideal of the Paradise Father, but with a distant and metaphysical
idea of an all-encompassing Absolute.
94:2.7 In their efforts at self-preservation the Brahmans had rejected the one
God of Melchizedek, and now they found themselves with the hypothesis of
Brahman, that indefinite and illusive philosophic self, that impersonal and
impotent it which has left the spiritual life of India helpless and prostrate
from that unfortunate day to the twentieth century.
94:2.8 It was during the times of the writing of the Upanishads that Buddhism
arose in India. But despite its successes of a thousand years, it could not
compete with later Hinduism; despite a higher morality, its early portrayal of
God was even less well-defined than was that of Hinduism, which provided for
lesser and personal deities. Buddhism finally gave way in northern India
before the onslaught of a militant Islam with its clear-cut concept of Allah
as the supreme God of the universe.
3. BRAHMANIC PHILOSOPHY
94:3.1 While the highest phase of Brahmanism was hardly a religion, it was
truly one of the most noble reaches of the mortal mind into the domains of
philosophy and metaphysics. Having started out to discover final reality, the
Indian mind did not stop until it had speculated about almost every phase of
theology excepting the essential dual concept of religion: the existence of
the Universal Father of all universe creatures and the fact of the ascending
experience in the universe of these very creatures as they seek to attain the
eternal Father, who has commanded them to be perfect, even as he is perfect.
94:3.2 In the concept of Brahman the minds of those days truly grasped at the
idea of some all-pervading Absolute, for this postulate was at one and the
same time identified as creative energy and cosmic reaction. Brahman was
conceived to be beyond all definition, capable of being comprehended only by
the successive negation of all finite qualities. It was definitely a belief in
an absolute, even an infinite, being, but this concept was largely devoid of
personality attributes and was therefore not experiencible by individual
religionists.
94:3.3 Brahman-Narayana was conceived as the Absolute, the infinite IT IS, the
primordial creative potency of the potential cosmos, the Universal Self
existing static and potential throughout all eternity. Had the philosophers of
those days been able to make the next advance in deity conception, had they
been able to conceive of the Brahman as associative and creative, as a
personality approachable by created and evolving beings, then might such a
teaching have become the most advanced portraiture of Deity on Urantia since
it would have encompassed the first five levels of total deity function and
might possibly have envisioned the remaining two.
94:3.4 In certain phases the concept of the One Universal Oversoul as the
totality of the summation of all creature existence led the Indian
philosophers very close to the truth of the Supreme Being, but this truth
availed them naught because they failed to evolve any reasonable or rational
personal approach to the attainment of their theoretic monotheistic goal of
Brahman-Narayana.
94:3.5 The karma principle of causality continuity is, again, very close to
the truth of the repercussional synthesis of all time-space actions in the
Deity presence of the Supreme; but this postulate never provided for the co-
ordinate personal attainment of Deity by the individual religionist, only for
the ultimate engulfment of all personality by the Universal Oversoul.
94:3.6 The philosophy of Brahmanism also came very near to the realization of
the indwelling of the Thought Adjusters, only to become perverted through the
misconception of truth. The teaching that the soul is the indwelling of the
Brahman would have paved the way for an advanced religion had not this concept
been completely vitiated by the belief that there is no human individuality
apart from this indwelling of the Universal One.
94:3.7 In the doctrine of the merging of the self-soul with the Oversoul, the
theologians of India failed to provide for the survival of something human,
something new and unique, something born of the union of the will of man and
the will of God. The teaching of the soul's return to the Brahman is closely
parallel to the truth of the Adjuster's return to the bosom of the Universal
Father, but there is something distinct from the Adjuster which also survives,
the morontial counterpart of mortal personality. And this vital concept was
fatally absent from Brahmanic philosophy.
94:3.8 Brahmanic philosophy has approximated many of the facts of the universe
and has approached numerous cosmic truths, but it has all too often fallen
victim to the error of failing to differentiate between the several levels of
reality, such as absolute, transcendental, and finite. It has failed to take
into account that what may be finite-illusory on the absolute level may be
absolutely real on the finite level. And it has also taken no cognizance of
the essential personality of the Universal Father, who is personally
contactable on all levels from the evolutionary creature's limited experience
with God on up to the limitless experience of the Eternal Son with the
Paradise Father.
4. THE HINDU RELIGION
94:4.1 With the passing of the centuries in India, the populace returned in
measure to the ancient rituals of the Vedas as they had been modified by the
teachings of the Melchizedek missionaries and crystallized by the later
Brahman priesthood. This, the oldest and most cosmopolitan of the world's
religions, has undergone further changes in response to Buddhism and Jainism
and to the later appearing influences of Mohammedanism and Christianity. But
by the time the teachings of Jesus arrived, they had already become so
Occidentalized as to be a "white man's religion," hence strange and foreign to
the Hindu mind.
94:4.2 Hindu theology, at present, depicts four descending levels of deity and
divinity:
94:4.3 1. The Brahman, the Absolute, the Infinite One, the IT IS.
94:4.4 2. The Trimurti, the supreme trinity of Hinduism. In this association
Brahma, the first member, is conceived as being self-created out of the
Brahman -- infinity. Were it not for close identification with the pantheistic
Infinite One, Brahma could constitute the foundation for a concept of the
Universal Father. Brahma is also identified with fate.
94:4.5 The worship of the second and third members, Siva and Vishnu, arose in
the first millennium after Christ. Siva is lord of life and death, god of
fertility, and master of destruction. Vishnu is extremely popular due to the
belief that he periodically incarnates in human form. In this way, Vishnu
becomes real and living in the imaginations of the Indians. Siva and Vishnu
are each regarded by some as supreme over all.
94:4.6 3. Vedic and post-Vedic deities. Many of the ancient gods of the
Aryans, such as Agni, Indra, Soma, have persisted as secondary to the three
members of the Trimurti. Numerous additional gods have arisen since the early
days of Vedic India, and these have also been incorporated into the Hindu
pantheon.
94:4.7 4. The demigods: supermen, semigods, heroes, demons, ghosts, evil
spirits, sprites, monsters, goblins, and saints of the later-day cults.
94:4.8 While Hinduism has long failed to vivify the Indian people, at the same
time it has usually been a tolerant religion. Its great strength lies in the
fact that it has proved to be the most adaptive, amorphic religion to appear
on Urantia. It is capable of almost unlimited change and possesses an unusual
range of flexible adjustment from the high and semimonotheistic speculations
of the intellectual Brahman to the arrant fetishism and primitive cult
practices of the debased and depressed classes of ignorant believers.
94:4.9 Hinduism has survived because it is essentially an integral part of the
basic social fabric of India. It has no great hierarchy which can be disturbed
or destroyed; it is interwoven into the life pattern of the people. It has an
adaptability to changing conditions that excels all other cults, and it
displays a tolerant attitude of adoption toward many other religions, Gautama
Buddha and even Christ himself being claimed as incarnations of Vishnu.
94:4.10 Today, in India, the great need is for the portrayal of the Jesusonian
gospel -- the Fatherhood of God and the sonship and consequent brotherhood of
all men, which is personally realized in loving ministry and social service.
In India the philosophical framework is existent, the cult structure is
present; all that is needed is the vitalizing spark of the dynamic love
portrayed in the original gospel of the Son of Man, divested of the Occidental
dogmas and doctrines which have tended to make Michael's life bestowal a white
man's religion.
5. THE STRUGGLE FOR TRUTH IN CHINA
94:5.1 As the Salem missionaries passed through Asia, spreading the doctrine
of the Most High God and salvation through faith, they absorbed much of the
philosophy and religious thought of the various countries traversed. But the
teachers commissioned by Melchizedek and his successors did not default in
their trust; they did penetrate to all peoples of the Eurasian continent, and
it was in the middle of the second millennium before Christ that they arrived
in China. At See Fuch, for more than one hundred years, the Salemites
maintained their headquarters, there training Chinese teachers who taught
throughout all the domains of the yellow race.
94:5.2 It was in direct consequence of this teaching that the earliest form of
Taoism arose in China, a vastly different religion than the one which bears
that name today. Early or proto-Taoism was a compound of the following
factors:
94:5.3 1. The lingering teachings of Singlangton, which persisted in the
concept of Shang-ti, the God of Heaven. In the times of Singlangton the
Chinese people became virtually monotheistic; they concentrated their worship
on the One Truth, later known as the Spirit of Heaven, the universe ruler. And
the yellow race never fully lost this early concept of Deity, although in
subsequent centuries many subordinate gods and spirits insidiously crept into
their religion.
94:5.4 2. The Salem religion of a Most High Creator Deity who would bestow his
favor upon mankind in response to man's faith. But it is all too true that, by
the time the Melchizedek missionaries had penetrated to the lands of the
yellow race, their original message had become considerably changed from the
simple doctrines of Salem in the days of Machiventa.
94:5.5 3. The Brahman-Absolute concept of the Indian philosophers, coupled
with the desire to escape all evil. Perhaps the greatest extraneous influence
in the eastward spread of the Salem religion was exerted by the Indian
teachers of the Vedic faith, who injected their conception of the Brahman --
the Absolute -- into the salvationistic thought of the Salemites.
94:5.6 This composite belief spread through the lands of the yellow and brown
races as an underlying influence in religio-philosophic thought. In Japan this
proto-Taoism was known as Shinto, and in this country, far distant from Salem
of Palestine, the peoples learned of the incarnation of Machiventa
Melchizedek, who dwelt upon earth that the name of God might not be forgotten
by mankind.
94:5.7 In China all of these beliefs were later confused and compounded with
the ever-growing cult of ancestor worship. But never since the time of
Singlangton have the Chinese fallen into helpless slavery to priestcraft. The
yellow race was the first to emerge from barbaric bondage into orderly
civilization because it was the first to achieve some measure of freedom from
the abject fear of the gods, not even fearing the ghosts of the dead as other
races feared them. China met her defeat because she failed to progress beyond
her early emancipation from priests; she fell into an almost equally
calamitous error, the worship of ancestors.
94:5.8 But the Salemites did not labor in vain. It was upon the foundations of
their gospel that the great philosophers of sixth-century China built their
teachings. The moral atmosphere and the spiritual sentiments of the times of
Lao-tse and Confucius grew up out of the teachings of the Salem missionaries
of an earlier age.
6. LAO-TSE AND CONFUCIUS
94:6.1 About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to
Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his
teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the
older Urantia beliefs. It appeared for a time that his mission as a forerunner
of Michael might be in danger of failing. And in the sixth century before
Christ, through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of
which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a
most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of
several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized, and as
it was then presented, much has persisted to the times of this writing.
94:6.2 This unique century of spiritual progress was characterized by great
religious, moral, and philosophic teachers all over the civilized world. In
China, the two outstanding teachers were Lao-tse and Confucius.
94:6.3 Lao-tse built directly upon the concepts of the Salem traditions when
he declared Tao to be the One First Cause of all creation. Lao was a man of
great spiritual vision. He taught that "man's eternal destiny was everlasting
union with Tao, Supreme God and Universal King." His comprehension of ultimate
causation was most discerning, for he wrote: "Unity arises out of the Absolute
Tao, and from Unity there appears cosmic Duality, and from such Duality,
Trinity springs forth into existence, and Trinity is the primal source of all
reality." "All reality is ever in balance between the potentials and the
actuals of the cosmos, and these are eternally harmonized by the spirit of
divinity."
94:6.4 Lao-tse also made one of the earliest presentations of the doctrine of
returning good for evil: "Goodness begets goodness, but to the one who is
truly good, evil also begets goodness."
94:6.5 He taught the return of the creature to the Creator and pictured life
as the emergence of a personality from the cosmic potentials, while death was
like the returning home of this creature personality. His concept of true
faith was unusual, and he too likened it to the "attitude of a little child."
94:6.6 His understanding of the eternal purpose of God was clear, for he said:
"The Absolute Deity does not strive but is always victorious; he does not
coerce mankind but always stands ready to respond to their true desires; the
will of God is eternal in patience and eternal in the inevitability of its
expression." And of the true religionist he said, in expressing the truth that
it is more blessed to give than to receive: "The good man seeks not to retain
truth for himself but rather attempts to bestow these riches upon his fellows,
for that is the realization of truth. The will of the Absolute God always
benefits, never destroys; the purpose of the true believer is always to act
but never to coerce."
94:6.7 Lao's teaching of nonresistance and the distinction which he made
between action and coercion became later perverted into the beliefs of
"seeing, doing, and thinking nothing." But Lao never taught such error, albeit
his presentation of nonresistance has been a factor in the further development
of the pacific predilections of the Chinese peoples.
94:6.8 But the popular Taoism of twentieth-century Urantia has very little in
common with the lofty sentiments and the cosmic concepts of the old
philosopher who taught the truth as he perceived it, which was: That faith in
the Absolute God is the source of that divine energy which will remake the
world, and by which man ascends to spiritual union with Tao, the Eternal Deity
and Creator Absolute of the universes.
94:6.9 Confucius (Kung Fu-tze) was a younger contemporary of Lao in sixth-
century China. Confucius based his doctrines upon the better moral traditions
of the long history of the yellow race, and he was also somewhat influenced by
the lingering traditions of the Salem missionaries. His chief work consisted
in the compilation of the wise sayings of ancient philosophers. He was a
rejected teacher during his lifetime, but his writings and teachings have ever
since exerted a great influence in China and Japan. Confucius set a new pace
for the shamans in that he put morality in the place of magic. But he built
too well; he made a new fetish out of order and established a respect for
ancestral conduct that is still venerated by the Chinese at the time of this
writing.
94:6.10 The Confucian preachment of morality was predicated on the theory that
the earthly way is the distorted shadow of the heavenly way; that the true
pattern of temporal civilization is the mirror reflection of the eternal order
of heaven. The potential God concept in Confucianism was almost completely
subordinated to the emphasis placed upon the Way of Heaven, the pattern of the
cosmos.
94:6.11 The teachings of Lao have been lost to all but a few in the Orient,
but the writings of Confucius have ever since constituted the basis of the
moral fabric of the culture of almost a third of Urantians. These Confucian
precepts, while perpetuating the best of the past, were somewhat inimical to
the very Chinese spirit of investigation that had produced those achievements
which were so venerated. The influence of these doctrines was unsuccessfully
combated both by the imperial efforts of Ch'in Shih Huang Ti and by the
teachings of Mo Ti, who proclaimed a brotherhood founded not on ethical duty
but on the love of God. He sought to rekindle the ancient quest for new truth,
but his teachings failed before the vigorous opposition of the disciples of
Confucius.
94:6.12 Like many other spiritual and moral teachers, both Confucius and Lao-
tse were eventually deified by their followers in those spiritually dark ages
of China which intervened between the decline and perversion of the Taoist
faith and the coming of the Buddhist missionaries from India. During these
spiritually decadent centuries the religion of the yellow race degenerated
into a pitiful theology wherein swarmed devils, dragons, and evil spirits, all
betokening the returning fears of the unenlightened mortal mind. And China,
once at the head of human society because of an advanced religion, then fell
behind because of temporary failure to progress in the true path of the
development of that God-consciousness which is indispensable to the true
progress, not only of the individual mortal, but also of the intricate and
complex civilizations which characterize the advance of culture and society on
an evolutionary planet of time and space.
7. GAUTAMA SIDDHARTHA
94:7.1 Contemporary with Lao-tse and Confucius in China, another great teacher
of truth arose in India. Gautama Siddhartha was born in the sixth century
before Christ in the north Indian province of Nepal. His followers later made
it appear that he was the son of a fabulously wealthy ruler, but, in truth, he
was the heir apparent to the throne of a petty chieftain who ruled by
sufferance over a small and secluded mountain valley in the southern
Himalayas.
94:7.2 Gautama formulated those theories which grew into the philosophy of
Buddhism after six years of the futile practice of Yoga. Siddhartha made a
determined but unavailing fight against the growing caste system. There was a
lofty sincerity and a unique unselfishness about this young prophet prince
that greatly appealed to the men of those days. He detracted from the practice
of seeking individual salvation through physical affliction and personal pain.
And he exhorted his followers to carry his gospel to all the world.
94:7.3 Amid the confusion and extreme cult practices of India, the saner and
more moderate teachings of Gautama came as a refreshing relief. He denounced
gods, priests, and their sacrifices, but he too failed to perceive the
personality of the One Universal. Not believing in the existence of individual
human souls, Gautama, of course, made a valiant fight against the time-honored
belief in transmigration of the soul. He made a noble effort to deliver men
from fear, to make them feel at ease and at home in the great universe, but he
failed to show them the pathway to that real and supernal home of ascending
mortals -- Paradise -- and to the expanding service of eternal existence.
94:7.4 Gautama was a real prophet, and had he heeded the instruction of the
hermit Godad, he might have aroused all India by the inspiration of the
revival of the Salem gospel of salvation by faith. Godad was descended through
a family that had never lost the traditions of the Melchizedek missionaries.
94:7.5 At Benares Gautama founded his school, and it was during its second
year that a pupil, Bautan, imparted to his teacher the traditions of the Salem
missionaries about the Melchizedek covenant with Abraham; and while Siddhartha
did not have a very clear concept of the Universal Father, he took an advanced
stand on salvation through faith -- simple belief. He so declared himself
before his followers and began sending his students out in groups of sixty to
proclaim to the people of India "the glad tidings of free salvation; that all
men, high and low, can attain bliss by faith in righteousness and justice."
94:7.6 Gautama's wife believed her husband's gospel and was the founder of an
order of nuns. His son became his successor and greatly extended the cult; he
grasped the new idea of salvation through faith but in his later years wavered
regarding the Salem gospel of divine favor through faith alone, and in his old
age his dying words were, "Work out your own salvation."
94:7.7 When proclaimed at its best, Gautama's gospel of universal salvation,
free from sacrifice, torture, ritual, and priests, was a revolutionary and
amazing doctrine for its time. And it came surprisingly near to being a
revival of the Salem gospel. It brought succor to millions of despairing
souls, and notwithstanding its grotesque perversion during later centuries, it
still persists as the hope of millions of human beings.
94:7.8 Siddhartha taught far more truth than has survived in the modern cults
bearing his name. Modern Buddhism is no more the teachings of Gautama
Siddhartha than is Christianity the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
8. THE BUDDHIST FAITH
94:8.1 To become a Buddhist, one merely made public profession of the faith by
reciting the Refuge: "I take my refuge in the Buddha; I take my refuge in the
Doctrine; I take my refuge in the Brotherhood."
94:8.2 Buddhism took origin in a historic person, not in a myth. Gautama's
followers called him Sasta, meaning master or teacher. While he made no
superhuman claims for either himself or his teachings, his disciples early
began to call him the enlightened one, the Buddha; later on, Sakyamuni Buddha.
94:8.3 The original gospel of Gautama was based on the four noble truths:
1. The noble truths of suffering.
2. The origins of suffering.
3. The destruction of suffering.
4. The way to the destruction of suffering.
94:8.4 Closely linked to the doctrine of suffering and the escape therefrom
was the philosophy of the Eightfold Path: right views, aspirations, speech,
conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and contemplation. It was not
Gautama's intention to attempt to destroy all effort, desire, and affection in
the escape from suffering; rather was his teaching designed to picture to
mortal man the futility of pinning all hope and aspirations entirely on
temporal goals and material objectives. It was not so much that love of one's
fellows should be shunned as that the true believer should also look beyond
the associations of this material world to the realities of the eternal
future.
94:8.5 The moral commandments of Gautama's preachment were five in number:
94:8.6 1. You shall not kill.
94:8.7 2. You shall not steal.
94:8.8 3. You shall not be unchaste.
94:8.9 4. You shall not lie.
94:8.10 5. You shall not drink intoxicating liquors.
94:8.11 There were several additional or secondary commandments, whose
observance was optional with believers.
94:8.12 Siddhartha hardly believed in the immortality of the human
personality; his philosophy only provided for a sort of functional continuity.
He never clearly defined what he meant to include in the doctrine of Nirvana.
The fact that it could theoretically be experienced during mortal existence
would indicate that it was not viewed as a state of complete annihilation. It
implied a condition of supreme enlightenment and supernal bliss wherein all
fetters binding man to the material world had been broken; there was freedom
from the desires of mortal life and deliverance from all danger of ever again
experiencing incarnation.
94:8.13 According to the original teachings of Gautama, salvation is achieved
by human effort, apart from divine help; there is no place for saving faith or
prayers to superhuman powers. Gautama, in his attempt to minimize the
superstitions of India, endeavored to turn men away from the blatant claims of
magical salvation. And in making this effort, he left the door wide open for
his successors to misinterpret his teaching and to proclaim that all human
striving for attainment is distasteful and painful. His followers overlooked
the fact that the highest happiness is linked with the intelligent and
enthusiastic pursuit of worthy goals, and that such achievements constitute
true progress in cosmic self-realization.
94:8.14 The great truth of Siddhartha's teaching was his proclamation of a
universe of absolute justice. He taught the best godless philosophy ever
invented by mortal man; it was the ideal humanism and most effectively removed
all grounds for superstition, magical rituals, and fear of ghosts or demons.
94:8.15 The great weakness in the original gospel of Buddhism was that it did
not produce a religion of unselfish social service. The Buddhistic brotherhood
was, for a long time, not a fraternity of believers but rather a community of
student teachers. Gautama forbade their receiving money and thereby sought to
prevent the growth of hierarchal tendencies. Gautama himself was highly
social; indeed, his life was much greater than his preachment.
9. THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM
94:9.1 Buddhism prospered because it offered salvation through belief in the
Buddha, the enlightened one. It was more representative of the Melchizedek
truths than any other religious system to be found throughout eastern Asia.
But Buddhism did not become widespread as a religion until it was espoused in
self-protection by the low-caste monarch Asoka, who, next to Ikhnaton in
Egypt, was one of the most remarkable civil rulers between Melchizedek and
Michael. Asoka built a great Indian empire through the propaganda of his
Buddhist missionaries. During a period of twenty-five years he trained and
sent forth more than seventeen thousand missionaries to the farthest frontiers
of all the known world. In one generation he made Buddhism the dominant
religion of one half the world. It soon became established in Tibet, Kashmir,
Ceylon, Burma, Java, Siam, Korea, China, and Japan. And generally speaking, it
was a religion vastly superior to those which it supplanted or upstepped.
94:9.2 The spread of Buddhism from its homeland in India to all of Asia is one
of the thrilling stories of the spiritual devotion and missionary persistence
of sincere religionists. The teachers of Gautama's gospel not only braved the
perils of the overland caravan routes but faced the dangers of the China Seas
as they pursued their mission over the Asiatic continent, bringing to all
peoples the message of their faith. But this Buddhism was no longer the simple
doctrine of Gautama; it was the miraculized gospel which made him a god. And
the farther Buddhism spread from its highland home in India, the more unlike
the teachings of Gautama it became, and the more like the religions it
supplanted, it grew to be.
94:9.3 Buddhism, later on, was much affected by Taoism in China, Shinto in
Japan, and Christianity in Tibet. After a thousand years, in India Buddhism
simply withered and expired. It became Brahmanized and later abjectly
surrendered to Islam, while throughout much of the rest of the Orient it
degenerated into a ritual which Gautama Siddhartha would never have
recognized.
94:9.4 In the south the fundamentalist stereotype of the teachings of
Siddhartha persisted in Ceylon, Burma, and the Indo-China peninsula. This is
the Hinayana division of Buddhism which clings to the early or asocial
doctrine.
94:9.5 But even before the collapse in India, the Chinese and north Indian
groups of Gautama's followers had begun the development of the Mahayana
teaching of the "Great Road" to salvation in contrast with the purists of the
south who held to the Hinayana, or "Lesser Road." And these Mahayanists cast
loose from the social limitations inherent in the Buddhist doctrine, and ever
since has this northern division of Buddhism continued to evolve in China and
Japan.
94:9.6 Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in
conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes
calmness and self-control, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to
prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better
lives than many who do not.
10. RELIGION IN TIBET
94:10.1 In Tibet may be found the strangest association of the Melchizedek
teachings combined with Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity. When the
Buddhist missionaries entered Tibet, they encountered a state of primitive
savagery very similar to that which the early Christian missionaries found
among the northern tribes of Europe.
94:10.2 These simple-minded Tibetans would not wholly give up their ancient
magic and charms. Examination of the religious ceremonials of present-day
Tibetan rituals reveals an overgrown brotherhood of priests with shaven heads
who practice an elaborate ritual embracing bells, chants, incense,
processionals, rosaries, images, charms, pictures, holy water, gorgeous
vestments, and elaborate choirs. They have rigid dogmas and crystallized
creeds, mystic rites and special fasts. Their hierarchy embraces monks, nuns,
abbots, and the Grand Lama. They pray to angels, saints, a Holy Mother, and
the gods. They practice confessions and believe in purgatory. Their
monasteries are extensive and their cathedrals magnificent. They keep up an
endless repetition of sacred rituals and believe that such ceremonials bestow
salvation. Prayers are fastened to a wheel, and with its turning they believe
the petitions become efficacious. Among no other people of modern times can be
found the observance of so much from so many religions; and it is inevitable
that such a cumulative liturgy would become inordinately cumbersome and
intolerably burdensome.
94:10.3 The Tibetans have something of all the leading world religions except
the simple teachings of the Jesusonian gospel: sonship with God, brotherhood
with man, and ever-ascending citizenship in the eternal universe.
11. BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
94:11.1 Buddhism entered China in the first millennium after Christ, and it
fitted well into the religious customs of the yellow race. In ancestor worship
they had long prayed to the dead; now they could also pray for them. Buddhism
soon amalgamated with the lingering ritualistic practices of disintegrating
Taoism. This new synthetic religion with its temples of worship and definite
religious ceremonial soon became the generally accepted cult of the peoples of
China, Korea, and Japan.
94:11.2 While in some respects it is unfortunate that Buddhism was not carried
to the world until after Gautama's followers had so perverted the traditions
and teachings of the cult as to make of him a divine being, nonetheless this
myth of his human life, embellished as it was with a multitude of miracles,
proved very appealing to the auditors of the northern or Mahayana gospel of
Buddhism.
94:11.3 Some of his later followers taught that Sakyamuni Buddha's spirit
returned periodically to earth as a living Buddha, thus opening the way for an
indefinite perpetuation of Buddha images, temples, rituals, and impostor
"living Buddhas." Thus did the religion of the great Indian protestant
eventually find itself shackled with those very ceremonial practices and
ritualistic incantations against which he had so fearlessly fought, and which
he had so valiantly denounced.
94:11.4 The great advance made in Buddhist philosophy consisted in its
comprehension of the relativity of all truth. Through the mechanism of this
hypothesis Buddhists have been able to reconcile and correlate the
divergencies within their own religious scriptures as well as the differences
between their own and many others. It was taught that the small truth was for
little minds, the large truth for great minds.
94:11.5 This philosophy also held that the Buddha (divine) nature resided in
all men; that man, through his own endeavors, could attain to the realization
of this inner divinity. And this teaching is one of the clearest presentations
of the truth of the indwelling Adjusters ever to be made by a Urantian
religion.
94:11.6 But a great limitation in the original gospel of Siddhartha, as it was
interpreted by his followers, was that it attempted the complete liberation of
the human self from all the limitations of the mortal nature by the technique
of isolating the self from objective reality. True cosmic self-realization
results from identification with cosmic reality and with the finite cosmos of
energy, mind, and spirit, bounded by space and conditioned by time.
94:11.7 But though the ceremonies and outward observances of Buddhism became
grossly contaminated with those of the lands to which it traveled, this
degeneration was not altogether the case in the philosophical life of the
great thinkers who, from time to time, embraced this system of thought and
belief. Through more than two thousand years, many of the best minds of Asia
have concentrated upon the problem of ascertaining absolute truth and the
truth of the Absolute.
94:11.8 The evolution of a high concept of the Absolute was achieved through
many channels of thought and by devious paths of reasoning. The upward ascent
of this doctrine of infinity was not so clearly defined as was the evolution
of the God concept in Hebrew theology. Nevertheless, there were certain broad
levels which the minds of the Buddhists reached, tarried upon, and passed
through on their way to the envisioning of the Primal Source of universes:
94:11.9 1. The Gautama legend. At the base of the concept was the historic
fact of the life and teachings of Siddhartha, the prophet prince of India.
This legend grew in myth as it traveled through the centuries and across the
broad lands of Asia until it surpassed the status of the idea of Gautama as
the enlightened one and began to take on additional attributes.
94:11.10 2. The many Buddhas. It was reasoned that, if Gautama had come to the
peoples of India, then, in the remote past and in the remote future, the races
of mankind must have been, and undoubtedly would be, blessed with other
teachers of truth. This gave rise to the teaching that there were many
Buddhas, an unlimited and infinite number, even that anyone could aspire to
become one -- to attain the divinity of a Buddha.
94:11.11 3. The Absolute Buddha. By the time the number of Buddhas was
approaching infinity, it became necessary for the minds of those days to
reunify this unwieldy concept. Accordingly it began to be taught that all
Buddhas were but the manifestation of some higher essence, some Eternal One of
infinite and unqualified existence, some Absolute Source of all reality. From
here on, the Deity concept of Buddhism, in its highest form, becomes divorced
from the human person of Gautama Siddhartha and casts off from the
anthropomorphic limitations which have held it in leash. This final conception
of the Buddha Eternal can well be identified as the Absolute, sometimes even
as the infinite I AM.
94:11.12 While this idea of Absolute Deity never found great popular favor
with the peoples of Asia, it did enable the intellectuals of these lands to
unify their philosophy and to harmonize their cosmology. The concept of the
Buddha Absolute is at times quasi-personal, at times wholly impersonal -- even
an infinite creative force. Such concepts, though helpful to philosophy, are
not vital to religious development. Even an anthropomorphic Yahweh is of
greater religious value than an infinitely remote Absolute of Buddhism or
Brahmanism.
94:11.13 At times the Absolute was even thought of as contained within the
infinite I AM. But these speculations were chill comfort to the hungry
multitudes who craved to hear words of promise, to hear the simple gospel of
Salem, that faith in God would assure divine favor and eternal survival.
12. THE GOD CONCEPT OF BUDDHISM
94:12.1 The great weakness in the cosmology of Buddhism was twofold: its
contamination with many of the superstitions of India and China and its
sublimation of Gautama, first as the enlightened one, and then as the Eternal
Buddha. Just as Christianity has suffered from the absorption of much
erroneous human philosophy, so does Buddhism bear its human birthmark. But the
teachings of Gautama have continued to evolve during the past two and one-half
millenniums. The concept of Buddha, to an enlightened Buddhist, is no more the
human personality of Gautama than the concept of Jehovah is identical with the
spirit demon of Horeb to an enlightened Christian. Paucity of terminology,
together with the sentimental retention of olden nomenclature, is often
provocative of the failure to understand the true significance of the
evolution of religious concepts.
94:12.2 Gradually the concept of God, as contrasted with the Absolute, began
to appear in Buddhism. Its sources are back in the early days of this
differentiation of the followers of the Lesser Road and the Greater Road. It
was among the latter division of Buddhism that the dual conception of God and
the Absolute finally matured. Step by step, century by century, the God
concept has evolved until, with the teachings of Ryonin, Honen Shonin, and
Shinran in Japan, this concept finally came to fruit in the belief in Amida
Buddha.
94:12.3 Among these believers it is taught that the soul, upon experiencing
death, may elect to enjoy a sojourn in Paradise prior to entering Nirvana, the
ultimate of existence. It is proclaimed that this new salvation is attained by
faith in the divine mercies and loving care of Amida, God of the Paradise in
the west. In their philosophy, the Amidists hold to an Infinite Reality which
is beyond all finite mortal comprehension; in their religion, they cling to
faith in the all-merciful Amida, who so loves the world that he will not
suffer one mortal who calls on his name in true faith and with a pure heart to
fail in the attainment of the supernal happiness of Paradise.
94:12.4 The great strength of Buddhism is that its adherents are free to
choose truth from all religions; such freedom of choice has seldom
characterized a Urantian faith. In this respect the Shin sect of Japan has
become one of the most progressive religious groups in the world; it has
revived the ancient missionary spirit of Gautama's followers and has begun to
send teachers to other peoples. This willingness to appropriate truth from any
and all sources is indeed a commendable tendency to appear among religious
believers during the first half of the twentieth century after Christ.
94:12.5 Buddhism itself is undergoing a twentieth-century renaissance. Through
contact with Christianity the social aspects of Buddhism have been greatly
enhanced. The desire to learn has been rekindled in the hearts of the monk
priests of the brotherhood, and the spread of education throughout this faith
will be certainly provocative of new advances in religious evolution.
94:12.6 At the time of this writing, much of Asia rests its hope in Buddhism.
Will this noble faith, that has so valiantly carried on through the dark ages
of the past, once again receive the truth of expanded cosmic realities even as
the disciples of the great teacher in India once listened to his proclamation
of new truth? Will this ancient faith respond once more to the invigorating
stimulus of the presentation of new concepts of God and the Absolute for which
it has so long searched?
94:12.7 All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message
of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen
centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is
striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the
peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual
reality of the gospel of Jesus.
94:12.8 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 95
THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN THE LEVANT
95:0.1 AS INDIA gave rise to many of the religions and philosophies of eastern
Asia, so the Levant was the homeland of the faiths of the Occidental world.
The Salem missionaries spread out all over southwestern Asia, through
Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, and Arabia, everywhere proclaiming the
good news of the gospel of Machiventa Melchizedek. In some of these lands
their teachings bore fruit; in others they met with varying success. Sometimes
their failures were due to lack of wisdom, sometimes to circumstances beyond
their control.
1. THE SALEM RELIGION IN MESOPOTAMIA
95:1.1 By 2000 B.C. the religions of Mesopotamia had just about lost the
teachings of the Sethites and were largely under the influence of the
primitive beliefs of two groups of invaders, the Bedouin Semites who had
filtered in from the western desert and the barbarian horsemen who had come
down from the north.
95:1.2 But the custom of the early Adamite peoples in honoring the seventh day
of the week never completely disappeared in Mesopotamia. Only, during the
Melchizedek era, the seventh day was regarded as the worst of bad luck. It was
taboo-ridden; it was unlawful to go on a journey, cook food, or make a fire on
the evil seventh day. The Jews carried back to Palestine many of the
Mesopotamian taboos which they had found resting on the Babylonian observance
of the seventh day, the Shabattum.
95:1.3 Although the Salem teachers did much to refine and uplift the religions
of Mesopotamia, they did not succeed in bringing the various peoples to the
permanent recognition of one God. Such teaching gained the ascendency for more
than one hundred and fifty years and then gradually gave way to the older
belief in a multiplicity of deities.
95:1.4 The Salem teachers greatly reduced the number of the gods of
Mesopotamia, at one time bringing the chief deities down to seven: Bel,
Shamash, Nabu, Anu, Ea, Marduk, and Sin. At the height of the new teaching
they exalted three of these gods to supremacy over all others, the Babylonian
triad: Bel, Ea, and Anu, the gods of earth, sea, and sky. Still other triads
grew up in different localities, all reminiscent of the trinity teachings of
the Andites and the Sumerians and based on the belief of the Salemites in
Melchizedek's insignia of the three circles.
95:1.5 Never did the Salem teachers fully overcome the popularity of Ishtar,
the mother of gods and the spirit of sex fertility. They did much to refine
the worship of this goddess, but the Babylonians and their neighbors had never
completely outgrown their disguised forms of sex worship. It had become a
universal practice throughout Mesopotamia for all women to submit, at least
once in early life, to the embrace of strangers; this was thought to be a
devotion required by Ishtar, and it was believed that fertility was largely
dependent on this sex sacrifice.
95:1.6 The early progress of the Melchizedek teaching was highly gratifying
until Nabodad, the leader of the school at Kish, decided to make a concerted
attack upon the prevalent practices of temple harlotry. But the Salem
missionaries failed in their effort to bring about this social reform, and in
the wreck of this failure all their more important spiritual and philosophic
teachings went down in defeat.
95:1.7 This defeat of the Salem gospel was immediately followed by a great
increase in the cult of Ishtar, a ritual which had already invaded Palestine
as Ashtoreth, Egypt as Isis, Greece as Aphrodite, and the northern tribes as
Astarte. And it was in connection with this revival of the worship of Ishtar
that the Babylonian priests turned anew to stargazing; astrology experienced
its last great Mesopotamian revival, fortunetelling became the vogue, and for
centuries the priesthood increasingly deteriorated.
95:1.8 Melchizedek had warned his followers to teach about the one God, the
Father and Maker of all, and to preach only the gospel of divine favor through
faith alone. But it has often been the error of the teachers of new truth to
attempt too much, to attempt to supplant slow evolution by sudden revolution.
The Melchizedek missionaries in Mesopotamia raised a moral standard too high
for the people; they attempted too much, and their noble cause went down in
defeat. They had been commissioned to preach a definite gospel, to proclaim
the truth of the reality of the Universal Father, but they became entangled in
the apparently worthy cause of reforming the mores, and thus was their great
mission sidetracked and virtually lost in frustration and oblivion.
95:1.9 In one generation the Salem headquarters at Kish came to an end, and
the propaganda of the belief in one God virtually ceased throughout
Mesopotamia. But remnants of the Salem schools persisted. Small bands
scattered here and there continued their belief in the one Creator and fought
against the idolatry and immorality of the Mesopotamian priests.
95:1.10 It was the Salem missionaries of the period following the rejection of
their teaching who wrote many of the Old Testament Psalms, inscribing them on
stone, where later-day Hebrew priests found them during the captivity and
subsequently incorporated them among the collection of hymns ascribed to
Jewish authorship. These beautiful psalms from Babylon were not written in the
temples of Bel-Marduk; they were the work of the descendants of the earlier
Salem missionaries, and they are a striking contrast to the magical
conglomerations of the Babylonian priests. The Book of Job is a fairly good
reflection of the teachings of the Salem school at Kish and throughout
Mesopotamia.
95:1.11 Much of the Mesopotamian religious culture found its way into Hebrew
literature and liturgy by way of Egypt through the work of Amenemope and
Ikhnaton. The Egyptians remarkably preserved the teachings of social
obligation derived from the earlier Andite Mesopotamians and so largely lost
by the later Babylonians who occupied the Euphrates valley.
2. EARLY EGYPTIAN RELIGION
95:2.1 The original Melchizedek teachings really took their deepest root in
Egypt, from where they subsequently spread to Europe. The evolutionary
religion of the Nile valley was periodically augmented by the arrival of
superior strains of Nodite, Adamite, and later Andite peoples of the Euphrates
valley. From time to time, many of the Egyptian civil administrators were
Sumerians. As India in these days harbored the highest mixture of the world
races, so Egypt fostered the most thoroughly blended type of religious
philosophy to be found on Urantia, and from the Nile valley it spread to many
parts of the world. The Jews received much of their idea of the creation of
the world from the Babylonians, but they derived the concept of divine
Providence from the Egyptians.
95:2.2 It was political and moral, rather than philosophic or religious,
tendencies that rendered Egypt more favorable to the Salem teaching than
Mesopotamia. Each tribal leader in Egypt, after fighting his way to the
throne, sought to perpetuate his dynasty by proclaiming his tribal god the
original deity and creator of all other gods. In this way the Egyptians
gradually got used to the idea of a supergod, a steppingstone to the later
doctrine of a universal creator Deity. The idea of monotheism wavered back and
forth in Egypt for many centuries, the belief in one God always gaining ground
but never quite dominating the evolving concepts of polytheism.
95:2.3 For ages the Egyptian peoples had been given to the worship of nature
gods; more particularly did each of the two-score separate tribes have a
special group god, one worshiping the bull, another the lion, a third the ram,
and so on. Still earlier they had been totem tribes, very much like the
Amerinds.
95:2.4 In time the Egyptians observed that dead bodies placed in brickless
graves were preserved -- embalmed -- by the action of the soda-impregnated
sand, while those buried in brick vaults decayed. These observations led to
those experiments which resulted in the later practice of embalming the dead.
The Egyptians believed that preservation of the body facilitated one's passage
through the future life. That the individual might properly be identified in
the distant future after the decay of the body, they placed a burial statue in
the tomb along with the corpse, carving a likeness on the coffin. The making
of these burial statues led to great improvement in Egyptian art.
95:2.5 For centuries the Egyptians placed their faith in tombs as the
safeguard of the body and of consequent pleasurable survival after death. The
later evolution of magical practices, while burdensome to life from the cradle
to the grave, most effectually delivered them from the religion of the tombs.
The priests would inscribe the coffins with charm texts which were believed to
be protection against a "man's having his heart taken away from him in the
nether world." Presently a diverse assortment of these magical texts was
collected and preserved as The Book of the Dead. But in the Nile valley
magical ritual early became involved with the realms of conscience and
character to a degree not often attained by the rituals of those days. And
subsequently these ethical and moral ideals, rather than elaborate tombs, were
depended upon for salvation.
95:2.6 The superstitions of these times are well illustrated by the general
belief in the efficacy of spittle as a healing agent, an idea which had its
origin in Egypt and spread therefrom to Arabia and Mesopotamia. In the
legendary battle of Horus with Set the young god lost his eye, but after Set
was vanquished, this eye was restored by the wise god Thoth, who spat upon the
wound and healed it.
95:2.7 The Egyptians long believed that the stars twinkling in the night sky
represented the survival of the souls of the worthy dead; other survivors they
thought were absorbed into the sun. During a certain period, solar veneration
became a species of ancestor worship. The sloping entrance passage of the
great pyramid pointed directly toward the Pole Star so that the soul of the
king, when emerging from the tomb, could go straight to the stationary and
established constellations of the fixed stars, the supposed abode of the
kings.
95:2.8 When the oblique rays of the sun were observed penetrating earthward
through an aperture in the clouds, it was believed that they betokened the
letting down of a celestial stairway whereon the king and other righteous
souls might ascend. "King Pepi has put down his radiance as a stairway under
his feet whereon to ascend to his mother."
95:2.9 When Melchizedek appeared in the flesh, the Egyptians had a religion
far above that of the surrounding peoples. They believed that a disembodied
soul, if properly armed with magic formulas, could evade the intervening evil
spirits and make its way to the judgment hall of Osiris, where, if innocent of
"murder, robbery, falsehood, adultery, theft, and selfishness," it would be
admitted to the realms of bliss. If this soul were weighed in the balances and
found wanting, it would be consigned to hell, to the Devouress. And this was,
relatively, an advanced concept of a future life in comparison with the
beliefs of many surrounding peoples.
95:2.10 The concept of judgment in the hereafter for the sins of one's life in
the flesh on earth was carried over into Hebrew theology from Egypt. The word
judgment appears only once in the entire Book of Hebrew Psalms, and that
particular psalm was written by an Egyptian.
3. EVOLUTION OF MORAL CONCEPTS
95:3.1 Although the culture and religion of Egypt were chiefly derived from
Andite Mesopotamia and largely transmitted to subsequent civilizations through
the Hebrews and Greeks, much, very much, of the social and ethical idealism of
the Egyptians arose in the valley of the Nile as a purely evolutionary
development. Notwithstanding the importation of much truth and culture of
Andite origin, there evolved in Egypt more of moral culture as a purely human
development than appeared by similar natural techniques in any other
circumscribed area prior to the bestowal of Michael.
95:3.2 Moral evolution is not wholly dependent on revelation. High moral
concepts can be derived from man's own experience. Man can even evolve
spiritual values and derive cosmic insight from his personal experiential
living because a divine spirit indwells him. Such natural evolutions of
conscience and character were also augmented by the periodic arrival of
teachers of truth, in ancient times from the second Eden, later on from
Melchizedek's headquarters at Salem.
95:3.3 Thousands of years before the Salem gospel penetrated to Egypt, its
moral leaders taught justice, fairness, and the avoidance of avarice. Three
thousand years before the Hebrew scriptures were written, the motto of the
Egyptians was: "Established is the man whose standard is righteousness; who
walks according to its way." They taught gentleness, moderation, and
discretion. The message of one of the great teachers of this epoch was: "Do
right and deal justly with all." The Egyptian triad of this age was Truth-
Justice-Righteousness. Of all the purely human religions of Urantia none ever
surpassed the social ideals and the moral grandeur of this onetime humanism of
the Nile valley.
95:3.4 In the soil of these evolving ethical ideas and moral ideals the
surviving doctrines of the Salem religion flourished. The concepts of good and
evil found ready response in the hearts of a people who believed that "Life is
given to the peaceful and death to the guilty." "The peaceful is he who does
what is loved; the guilty is he who does what is hated." For centuries the
inhabitants of the Nile valley had lived by these emerging ethical and social
standards before they ever entertained the later concepts of right and wrong
-- good and bad.
95:3.5 Egypt was intellectual and moral but not overly spiritual. In six
thousand years only four great prophets arose among the Egyptians. Amenemope
they followed for a season; Okhban they murdered; Ikhnaton they accepted but
halfheartedly for one short generation; Moses they rejected. Again was it
political rather than religious circumstances that made it easy for Abraham
and, later on, for Joseph to exert great influence throughout Egypt in behalf
of the Salem teachings of one God. But when the Salem missionaries first
entered Egypt, they encountered this highly ethical culture of evolution
blended with the modified moral standards of Mesopotamian immigrants. These
early Nile valley teachers were the first to proclaim conscience as the
mandate of God, the voice of Deity.
4. THE TEACHINGS OF AMENEMOPE
95:4.1 In due time there grew up in Egypt a teacher called by many the "son of
man" and by others Amenemope. This seer exalted conscience to its highest
pinnacle of arbitrament between right and wrong, taught punishment for sin,
and proclaimed salvation through calling upon the solar deity.
95:4.2 Amenemope taught that riches and fortune were the gift of God, and this
concept thoroughly colored the later appearing Hebrew philosophy. This noble
teacher believed that God-consciousness was the determining factor in all
conduct; that every moment should be lived in the realization of the presence
of, and responsibility to, God. The teachings of this sage were subsequently
translated into Hebrew and became the sacred book of that people long before
the Old Testament was reduced to writing. The chief preachment of this good
man had to do with instructing his son in uprightness and honesty in
governmental positions of trust, and these noble sentiments of long ago would
do honor to any modern statesman.
95:4.3 This wise man of the Nile taught that "riches take themselves wings and
fly away" -- that all things earthly are evanescent. His great prayer was to
be "saved from fear." He exhorted all to turn away from "the words of men" to
"the acts of God." In substance he taught: Man proposes but God disposes. His
teachings, translated into Hebrew, determined the philosophy of the Old
Testament Book of Proverbs. Translated into Greek, they gave color to all
subsequent Hellenic religious philosophy. The later Alexandrian philosopher,
Philo, possessed a copy of the Book of Wisdom.
95:4.4 Amenemope functioned to conserve the ethics of evolution and the morals
of revelation and in his writings passed them on both to the Hebrews and to
the Greeks. He was not the greatest of the religious teachers of this age, but
he was the most influential in that he colored the subsequent thought of two
vital links in the growth of Occidental civilization -- the Hebrews, among
whom evolved the acme of Occidental religious faith, and the Greeks, who
developed pure philosophic thought to its greatest European heights.
95:4.5 In the Book of Hebrew Proverbs, chapters fifteen, seventeen, twenty,
and chapter twenty-two, verse seventeen, to chapter twenty-four, verse twenty-
two, are taken almost verbatim from Amenemope's Book of Wisdom. The first
psalm of the Hebrew Book of Psalms was written by Amenemope and is the heart
of the teachings of Ikhnaton.
5. THE REMARKABLE IKHNATON
95:5.1 The teachings of Amenemope were slowly losing their hold on the
Egyptian mind when, through the influence of an Egyptian Salemite physician, a
woman of the royal family espoused the Melchizedek teachings. This woman
prevailed upon her son, Ikhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt, to accept these doctrines
of One God.
95:5.2 Since the disappearance of Melchizedek in the flesh, no human being up
to that time had possessed such an amazingly clear concept of the revealed
religion of Salem as Ikhnaton. In some respects this young Egyptian king is
one of the most remarkable persons in human history. During this time of
increasing spiritual depression in Mesopotamia, he kept alive the doctrine of
El Elyon, the One God, in Egypt, thus maintaining the philosophic monotheistic
channel which was vital to the religious background of the then future
bestowal of Michael. And it was in recognition of this exploit, among other
reasons, that the child Jesus was taken to Egypt, where some of the spiritual
successors of Ikhnaton saw him and to some extent understood certain phases of
his divine mission to Urantia.
95:5.3 Moses, the greatest character between Melchizedek and Jesus, was the
joint gift to the world of the Hebrew race and the Egyptian royal family; and
had Ikhnaton possessed the versatility and ability of Moses, had he manifested
a political genius to match his surprising religious leadership, then would
Egypt have become the great monotheistic nation of that age; and if this had
happened, it is barely possible that Jesus might have lived the greater
portion of his mortal life in Egypt.
95:5.4 Never in all history did any king so methodically proceed to swing a
whole nation from polytheism to monotheism as did this extraordinary Ikhnaton.
With the most amazing determination this young ruler broke with the past,
changed his name, abandoned his capital, built an entirely new city, and
created a new art and literature for a whole people. But he went too fast; he
built too much, more than could stand when he had gone. Again, he failed to
provide for the material stability and prosperity of his people, all of which
reacted unfavorably against his religious teachings when the subsequent floods
of adversity and oppression swept over the Egyptians.
95:5.5 Had this man of amazingly clear vision and extraordinary singleness of
purpose had the political sagacity of Moses, he would have changed the whole
history of the evolution of religion and the revelation of truth in the
Occidental world. During his lifetime he was able to curb the activities of
the priests, whom he generally discredited, but they maintained their cults in
secret and sprang into action as soon as the young king passed from power; and
they were not slow to connect all of Egypt's subsequent troubles with the
establishment of monotheism during his reign.
95:5.6 Very wisely Ikhnaton sought to establish monotheism under the guise of
the sun-god. This decision to approach the worship of the Universal Father by
absorbing all gods into the worship of the sun was due to the counsel of the
Salemite physician. Ikhnaton took the generalized doctrines of the then
existent Aton faith regarding the fatherhood and motherhood of Deity and
created a religion which recognized an intimate worshipful relation between
man and God.
95:5.7 Ikhnaton was wise enough to maintain the outward worship of Aton, the
sun-god, while he led his associates in the disguised worship of the One God,
creator of Aton and supreme Father of all. This young teacher-king was a
prolific writer, being author of the exposition entitled "The One God," a book
of thirty-one chapters, which the priests, when returned to power, utterly
destroyed. Ikhnaton also wrote one hundred and thirty-seven hymns, twelve of
which are now preserved in the Old Testament Book of Psalms, credited to
Hebrew authorship.
95:5.8 The supreme word of Ikhnaton's religion in daily life was
"righteousness," and he rapidly expanded the concept of right doing to embrace
international as well as national ethics. This was a generation of amazing
personal piety and was characterized by a genuine aspiration among the more
intelligent men and women to find God and to know him. In those days social
position or wealth gave no Egyptian any advantage in the eyes of the law. The
family life of Egypt did much to preserve and augment moral culture and was
the inspiration of the later superb family life of the Jews in Palestine.
95:5.9 The fatal weakness of Ikhnaton's gospel was its greatest truth, the
teaching that Aton was not only the creator of Egypt but also of the "whole
world, man and beasts, and all the foreign lands, even Syria and Kush, besides
this land of Egypt. He sets all in their place and provides all with their
needs." These concepts of Deity were high and exalted, but they were not
nationalistic. Such sentiments of internationality in religion failed to
augment the morale of the Egyptian army on the battlefield, while they
provided effective weapons for the priests to use against the young king and
his new religion. He had a Deity concept far above that of the later Hebrews,
but it was too advanced to serve the purposes of a nation builder.
95:5.10 Though the monotheistic ideal suffered with the passing of Ikhnaton,
the idea of one God persisted in the minds of many groups. The son-in-law of
Ikhnaton went along with the priests, back to the worship of the old gods,
changing his name to Tutankhamen. The capital returned to Thebes, and the
priests waxed fat upon the land, eventually gaining possession of one seventh
of all Egypt; and presently one of this same order of priests made bold to
seize the crown.
95:5.11 But the priests could not fully overcome the monotheistic wave.
Increasingly they were compelled to combine and hyphenate their gods; more and
more the family of gods contracted. Ikhnaton had associated the flaming disc
of the heavens with the creator God, and this idea continued to flame up in
the hearts of men, even of the priests, long after the young reformer had
passed on. Never did the concept of monotheism die out of the hearts of men in
Egypt and in the world. It persisted even to the arrival of the Creator Son of
that same divine Father, the one God whom Ikhnaton had so zealously proclaimed
for the worship of all Egypt.
95:5.12 The weakness of Ikhnaton's doctrine lay in the fact that he proposed
such an advanced religion that only the educated Egyptians could fully
comprehend his teachings. The rank and file of the agricultural laborers never
really grasped his gospel and were, therefore, ready to return with the
priests to the old-time worship of Isis and her consort Osiris, who was
supposed to have been miraculously resurrected from a cruel death at the hands
of Set, the god of darkness and evil.
95:5.13 The teaching of immortality for all men was too advanced for the
Egyptians. Only kings and the rich were promised a resurrection; therefore did
they so carefully embalm and preserve their bodies in tombs against the day of
judgment. But the democracy of salvation and resurrection as taught by
Ikhnaton eventually prevailed, even to the extent that the Egyptians later
believed in the survival of dumb animals.
95:5.14 Although the effort of this Egyptian ruler to impose the worship of
one God upon his people appeared to fail, it should be recorded that the
repercussions of his work persisted for centuries both in Palestine and
Greece, and that Egypt thus became the agent for transmitting the combined
evolutionary culture of the Nile and the revelatory religion of the Euphrates
to all of the subsequent peoples of the Occident.
95:5.15 The glory of this great era of moral development and spiritual growth
in the Nile valley was rapidly passing at about the time the national life of
the Hebrews was beginning, and consequent upon their sojourn in Egypt these
Bedouins carried away much of these teachings and perpetuated many of
Ikhnaton's doctrines in their racial religion.
6. THE SALEM DOCTRINES IN IRAN
95:6.1 From Palestine some of the Melchizedek missionaries passed on through
Mesopotamia and to the great Iranian plateau. For more than five hundred years
the Salem teachers made headway in Iran, and the whole nation was swinging to
the Melchizedek religion when a change of rulers precipitated a bitter
persecution which practically ended the monotheistic teachings of the Salem
cult. The doctrine of the Abrahamic covenant was virtually extinct in Persia
when, in that great century of moral renaissance, the sixth before Christ,
Zoroaster appeared to revive the smouldering embers of the Salem gospel.
95:6.2 This founder of a new religion was a virile and adventurous youth, who,
on his first pilgrimage to Ur in Mesopotamia, had learned of the traditions of
the Caligastia and the Lucifer rebellion -- along with many other traditions
-- all of which had made a strong appeal to his religious nature. Accordingly,
as the result of a dream while in Ur, he settled upon a program of returning
to his northern home to undertake the remodeling of the religion of his
people. He had imbibed the Hebraic idea of a God of justice, the Mosaic
concept of divinity. The idea of a supreme God was clear in his mind, and he
set down all other gods as devils, consigned them to the ranks of the demons
of which he had heard in Mesopotamia. He had learned of the story of the Seven
Master Spirits as the tradition lingered in Ur, and, accordingly, he created a
galaxy of seven supreme gods with Ahura-Mazda at its head. These subordinate
gods he associated with the idealization of Right Law, Good Thought, Noble
Government, Holy Character, Health, and Immortality.
95:6.3 And this new religion was one of action -- work -- not prayers and
rituals. Its God was a being of supreme wisdom and the patron of civilization;
it was a militant religious philosophy which dared to battle with evil,
inaction, and backwardness.
95:6.4 Zoroaster did not teach the worship of fire but sought to utilize the
flame as a symbol of the pure and wise Spirit of universal and supreme
dominance. (All too true, his later followers did both reverence and worship
this symbolic fire.) Finally, upon the conversion of an Iranian prince, this
new religion was spread by the sword. And Zoroaster heroically died in battle
for that which he believed was the "truth of the Lord of light."
95:6.5 Zoroastrianism is the only Urantian creed that perpetuates the
Dalamatian and Edenic teachings about the Seven Master Spirits. While failing
to evolve the Trinity concept, it did in a certain way approach that of God
the Sevenfold. Original Zoroastrianism was not a pure dualism; though the
early teachings did picture evil as a time co-ordinate of goodness, it was
definitely eternity-submerged in the ultimate reality of the good. Only in
later times did the belief gain credence that good and evil contended on equal
terms.
95:6.6 The Jewish traditions of heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as
recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, while founded on the lingering traditions
of Lucifer and Caligastia, were principally derived from the Zoroastrians
during the times when the Jews were under the political and cultural dominance
of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the "day of judgment,"
but he connected this event with the end of the world.
95:6.7 Even the religion which succeeded Zoroastrianism in Persia was markedly
influenced by it. When the Iranian priests sought to overthrow the teachings
of Zoroaster, they resurrected the ancient worship of Mithra. And Mithraism
spread throughout the Levant and Mediterranean regions, being for some time a
contemporary of both Judaism and Christianity. The teachings of Zoroaster thus
came successively to impress three great religions: Judaism and Christianity
and, through them, Mohammedanism.
95:6.8 But it is a far cry from the exalted teachings and noble psalms of
Zoroaster to the modern perversions of his gospel by the Parsees with their
great fear of the dead, coupled with the entertainment of beliefs in
sophistries which Zoroaster never stooped to countenance.
95:6.9 This great man was one of that unique group that sprang up in the sixth
century before Christ to keep the light of Salem from being fully and finally
extinguished as it so dimly burned to show man in his darkened world the path
of light leading to everlasting life.
7. THE SALEM TEACHINGS IN ARABIA
95:7.1 The Melchizedek teachings of the one God became established in the
Arabian desert at a comparatively recent date. As in Greece, so in Arabia the
Salem missionaries failed because of their misunderstanding of Machiventa's
instructions regarding overorganization. But they were not thus hindered by
their interpretation of his admonition against all efforts to extend the
gospel through military force or civil compulsion.
95:7.2 Not even in China or Rome did the Melchizedek teachings fail more
completely than in this desert region so very near Salem itself. Long after
the majority of the peoples of the Orient and Occident had become respectively
Buddhist and Christian, the desert of Arabia continued as it had for thousands
of years. Each tribe worshiped its olden fetish, and many individual families
had their own household gods. Long the struggle continued between Babylonian
Ishtar, Hebrew Yahweh, Iranian Ahura, and Christian Father of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Never was one concept able fully to displace the others.
95:7.3 Here and there throughout Arabia were families and clans that held on
to the hazy idea of the one God. Such groups treasured the traditions of
Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, and Zoroaster. There were numerous centers that
might have responded to the Jesusonian gospel, but the Christian missionaries
of the desert lands were an austere and unyielding group in contrast with the
compromisers and innovators who functioned as missionaries in the
Mediterranean countries. Had the followers of Jesus taken more seriously his
injunction to "go into all the world and preach the gospel," and had they been
more gracious in that preaching, less stringent in collateral social
requirements of their own devising, then many lands would gladly have received
the simple gospel of the carpenter's son, Arabia among them.
95:7.4 Despite the fact that the great Levantine monotheisms failed to take
root in Arabia, this desert land was capable of producing a faith which,
though less demanding in its social requirements, was nonetheless
monotheistic.
95:7.5 There was only one factor of a tribal, racial, or national nature about
the primitive and unorganized beliefs of the desert, and that was the peculiar
and general respect which almost all Arabian tribes were willing to pay to a
certain black stone fetish in a certain temple at Mecca. This point of common
contact and reverence subsequently led to the establishment of the Islamic
religion. What Yahweh, the volcano spirit, was to the Jewish Semites, the
Kaaba stone became to their Arabic cousins.
95:7.6 The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined
presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity; its weakness, the association
of military force with its promulgation, together with its degradation of
woman. But it has steadfastly held to its presentation of the One Universal
Deity of all, "who knows the invisible and the visible. He is the merciful and
the compassionate." "Truly God is plenteous in goodness to all men." "And when
I am sick, it is he who heals me." "For whenever as many as three speak
together, God is present as a fourth," for is he not "the first and the last,
also the seen and the hidden"?
95:7.7 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 96
YAHWEH -- GOD OF THE HEBREWS
96:0.1 IN CONCEIVING of Deity, man first includes all gods, then subordinates
all foreign gods to his tribal deity, and finally excludes all but the one God
of final and supreme value. The Jews synthesized all gods into their more
sublime concept of the Lord God of Israel. The Hindus likewise combined their
multifarious deities into the "one spirituality of the gods" portrayed in the
Rig-Veda, while the Mesopotamians reduced their gods to the more centralized
concept of Bel-Marduk. These ideas of monotheism matured all over the world
not long after the appearance of Machiventa Melchizedek at Salem in Palestine.
But the Melchizedek concept of Deity was unlike that of the evolutionary
philosophy of inclusion, subordination, and exclusion; it was based
exclusively on creative power and very soon influenced the highest deity
concepts of Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt.
96:0.2 The Salem religion was revered as a tradition by the Kenites and
several other Canaanite tribes. And this was one of the purposes of
Melchizedek's incarnation: That a religion of one God should be so fostered as
to prepare the way for the earth bestowal of a Son of that one God. Michael
could hardly come to Urantia until there existed a people believing in the
Universal Father among whom he could appear.
96:0.3 The Salem religion persisted among the Kenites in Palestine as their
creed, and this religion as it was later adopted by the Hebrews was
influenced, first, by Egyptian moral teachings; later, by Babylonian theologic
thought; and lastly, by Iranian conceptions of good and evil. Factually the
Hebrew religion is predicated upon the covenant between Abraham and Machiventa
Melchizedek, evolutionally it is the outgrowth of many unique situational
circumstances, but culturally it has borrowed freely from the religion,
morality, and philosophy of the entire Levant. It is through the Hebrew
religion that much of the morality and religious thought of Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Iran was transmitted to the Occidental peoples.
1. DEITY CONCEPTS AMONG THE SEMITES
96:1.1 The early Semites regarded everything as being indwelt by a spirit.
There were spirits of the animal and vegetable worlds; annual spirits, the
lord of progeny; spirits of fire, water, and air; a veritable pantheon of
spirits to be feared and worshiped. And the teaching of Melchizedek regarding
a Universal Creator never fully destroyed the belief in these subordinate
spirits or nature gods.
96:1.2 The progress of the Hebrews from polytheism through henotheism to
monotheism was not an unbroken and continuous conceptual development. They
experienced many retrogressions in the evolution of their Deity concepts,
while during any one epoch there existed varying ideas of God among different
groups of Semite believers. From time to time numerous terms were applied to
their concepts of God, and in order to prevent confusion these various Deity
titles will be defined as they pertain to the evolution of Jewish theology:
96:1.3 1. Yahweh was the god of the southern Palestinian tribes, who
associated this concept of deity with Mount Horeb, the Sinai volcano. Yahweh
was merely one of the hundreds and thousands of nature gods which held the
attention and claimed the worship of the Semitic tribes and peoples.
96:1.4 2. El Elyon. For centuries after Melchizedek's sojourn at Salem his
doctrine of Deity persisted in various versions but was generally connoted by
the term El Elyon, the Most High God of heaven. Many Semites, including the
immediate descendants of Abraham, at various times worshiped both Yahweh and
El Elyon.
96:1.5 3. El Shaddai. It is difficult to explain what El Shaddai stood for.
This idea of God was a composite derived from the teachings of Amenemope's
Book of Wisdom modified by Ikhnaton's doctrine of Aton and further influenced
by Melchizedek's teachings embodied in the concept of El Elyon. But as the
concept of El Shaddai permeated the Hebrew mind, it became thoroughly colored
with the Yahweh beliefs of the desert.
96:1.6 One of the dominant ideas of the religion of this era was the Egyptian
concept of divine Providence, the teaching that material prosperity was a
reward for serving El Shaddai.
96:1.7 4. El. Amid all this confusion of terminology and haziness of concept,
many devout believers sincerely endeavored to worship all of these evolving
ideas of divinity, and there grew up the practice of referring to this
composite Deity as El. And this term included still other of the Bedouin
nature gods.
96:1.8 5. Elohim. In Kish and Ur there long persisted Sumerian-Chaldean groups
who taught a three-in-one God concept founded on the traditions of the days of
Adam and Melchizedek. This doctrine was carried to Egypt, where this Trinity
was worshiped under the name of Elohim, or in the singular as Eloah. The
philosophic circles of Egypt and later Alexandrian teachers of Hebraic
extraction taught this unity of pluralistic Gods, and many of Moses' advisers
at the time of the exodus believed in this Trinity. But the concept of the
trinitarian Elohim never became a real part of Hebrew theology until after
they had come under the political influence of the Babylonians.
96:1.9 6. Sundry names. The Semites disliked to speak the name of their Deity,
and they therefore resorted to numerous appellations from time to time, such
as: The Spirit of God, The Lord, The Angel of the Lord, The Almighty, The Holy
One, The Most High, Adonai, The Ancient of Days, The Lord God of Israel, The
Creator of Heaven and Earth, Kyrios, Jah, The Lord of Hosts, and The Father in
Heaven.
96:1.10 Jehovah is a term which in recent times has been employed to designate
the completed concept of Yahweh which finally evolved in the long Hebrew
experience. But the name Jehovah did not come into use until fifteen hundred
years after the times of Jesus.
96:1.11 Up to about 2000 B.C., Mount Sinai was intermittently active as a
volcano, occasional eruptions occurring as late as the time of the sojourn of
the Israelites in this region. The fire and smoke, together with the
thunderous detonations associated with the eruptions of this volcanic
mountain, all impressed and awed the Bedouins of the surrounding regions and
caused them greatly to fear Yahweh. This spirit of Mount Horeb later became
the god of the Hebrew Semites, and they eventually believed him to be supreme
over all other gods.
96:1.12 The Canaanites had long revered Yahweh, and although many of the
Kenites believed more or less in El Elyon, the supergod of the Salem religion,
a majority of the Canaanites held loosely to the worship of the old tribal
deities. They were hardly willing to abandon their national deities in favor
of an international, not to say an interplanetary, God. They were not
universal-deity minded, and therefore these tribes continued to worship their
tribal deities, including Yahweh and the silver and golden calves which
symbolized the Bedouin herders' concept of the spirit of the Sinai volcano.
96:1.13 The Syrians, while worshiping their gods, also believed in Yahweh of
the Hebrews, for their prophets said to the Syrian king: "Their gods are gods
of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against
them on the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they."
96:1.14 As man advances in culture, the lesser gods are subordinated to a
supreme deity; the great Jove persists only as an exclamation. The monotheists
keep their subordinate gods as spirits, demons, fates, Nereids, fairies,
brownies, dwarfs, banshees, and the evil eye. The Hebrews passed through
henotheism and long believed in the existence of gods other than Yahweh, but
they increasingly held that these foreign deities were subordinate to Yahweh.
They conceded the actuality of Chemosh, god of the Amorites, but maintained
that he was subordinate to Yahweh.
96:1.15 The idea of Yahweh has undergone the most extensive development of all
the mortal theories of God. Its progressive evolution can only be compared
with the metamorphosis of the Buddha concept in Asia, which in the end led to
the concept of the Universal Absolute even as the Yahweh concept finally led
to the idea of the Universal Father. But as a matter of historic fact, it
should be understood that, while the Jews thus changed their views of Deity
from the tribal god of Mount Horeb to the loving and merciful Creator Father
of later times, they did not change his name; they continued all the way along
to call this evolving concept of Deity, Yahweh.
2. THE SEMITIC PEOPLES
96:2.1 The Semites of the East were well-organized and well-led horsemen who
invaded the eastern regions of the fertile crescent and there united with the
Babylonians. The Chaldeans near Ur were among the most advanced of the eastern
Semites. The Phoenicians were a superior and well-organized group of mixed
Semites who held the western section of Palestine, along the Mediterranean
coast. Racially the Semites were among the most blended of Urantia peoples,
containing hereditary factors from almost all of the nine world races.
96:2.2 Again and again the Arabian Semites fought their way into the northern
Promised Land, the land that "flowed with milk and honey," but just as often
were they ejected by the better-organized and more highly civilized northern
Semites and Hittites. Later, during an unusually severe famine, these roving
Bedouins entered Egypt in large numbers as contract laborers on the Egyptian
public works, only to find themselves undergoing the bitter experience of
enslavement at the hard daily toil of the common and downtrodden laborers of
the Nile valley.
96:2.3 It was only after the days of Machiventa Melchizedek and Abraham that
certain tribes of Semites, because of their peculiar religious beliefs, were
called the children of Israel and later on Hebrews, Jews, and the "chosen
people." Abraham was not the racial father of all the Hebrews; he was not even
the progenitor of all the Bedouin Semites who were held captive in Egypt.
True, his offspring, coming up out of Egypt, did form the nucleus of the later
Jewish people, but the vast majority of the men and women who became
incorporated into the clans of Israel had never sojourned in Egypt. They were
merely fellow nomads who chose to follow the leadership of Moses as the
children of Abraham and their Semite associates from Egypt journeyed through
northern Arabia.
96:2.4 The Melchizedek teaching concerning El Elyon, the Most High, and the
covenant of divine favor through faith, had been largely forgotten by the time
of the Egyptian enslavement of the Semite peoples who were shortly to form the
Hebrew nation. But throughout this period of captivity these Arabian nomads
maintained a lingering traditional belief in Yahweh as their racial deity.
96:2.5 Yahweh was worshiped by more than one hundred separate Arabian tribes,
and except for the tinge of the El Elyon concept of Melchizedek which
persisted among the more educated classes of Egypt, including the mixed Hebrew
and Egyptian stocks, the religion of the rank and file of the Hebrew captive
slaves was a modified version of the old Yahweh ritual of magic and sacrifice.
3. THE MATCHLESS MOSES
96:3.1 The beginning of the evolution of the Hebraic concepts and ideals of a
Supreme Creator dates from the departure of the Semites from Egypt under that
great leader, teacher, and organizer, Moses. His mother was of the royal
family of Egypt; his father was a Semitic liaison officer between the
government and the Bedouin captives. Moses thus possessed qualities derived
from superior racial sources; his ancestry was so highly blended that it is
impossible to classify him in any one racial group. Had he not been of this
mixed type, he would never have displayed that unusual versatility and
adaptability which enabled him to manage the diversified horde which
eventually became associated with those Bedouin Semites who fled from Egypt to
the Arabian desert under his leadership.
96:3.2 Despite the enticements of the culture of the Nile kingdom, Moses
elected to cast his lot with the people of his father. At the time this great
organizer was formulating his plans for the eventual freeing of his father's
people, the Bedouin captives hardly had a religion worthy of the name; they
were virtually without a true concept of God and without hope in the world.
96:3.3 No leader ever undertook to reform and uplift a more forlorn, downcast,
dejected, and ignorant group of human beings. But these slaves carried latent
possibilities of development in their hereditary strains, and there were a
sufficient number of educated leaders who had been coached by Moses in
preparation for the day of revolt and the strike for liberty to constitute a
corps of efficient organizers. These superior men had been employed as native
overseers of their people; they had received some education because of Moses'
influence with the Egyptian rulers.
96:3.4 Moses endeavored to negotiate diplomatically for the freedom of his
fellow Semites. He and his brother entered into a compact with the king of
Egypt whereby they were granted permission peaceably to leave the valley of
the Nile for the Arabian Desert. They were to receive a modest payment of
money and goods in token of their long service in Egypt. The Hebrews for their
part entered into an agreement to maintain friendly relations with the
Pharaohs and not to join in any alliance against Egypt. But the king later saw
fit to repudiate this treaty, giving as his reason the excuse that his spies
had discovered disloyalty among the Bedouin slaves. He claimed they sought
freedom for the purpose of going into the desert to organize the nomads
against Egypt.
96:3.5 But Moses was not discouraged; he bided his time, and in less than a
year, when the Egyptian military forces were fully occupied in resisting the
simultaneous onslaughts of a strong Libyan thrust from the south and a Greek
naval invasion from the north, this intrepid organizer led his compatriots out
of Egypt in a spectacular night flight. This dash for liberty was carefully
planned and skillfully executed. And they were successful, notwithstanding
that they were hotly pursued by Pharaoh and a small body of Egyptians, who all
fell before the fugitives' defense, yielding much booty, all of which was
augmented by the loot of the advancing host of escaping slaves as they marched
on toward their ancestral desert home.
4. THE PROCLAMATION OF YAHWEH
96:4.1 The evolution and elevation of the Mosaic teaching has influenced
almost one half of all the world, and still does even in the twentieth
century. While Moses comprehended the more advanced Egyptian religious
philosophy, the Bedouin slaves knew little about such teachings, but they had
never entirely forgotten the god of Mount Horeb, whom their ancestors had
called Yahweh.
96:4.2 Moses had heard of the teachings of Machiventa Melchizedek from both
his father and his mother, their commonness of religious belief being the
explanation for the unusual union between a woman of royal blood and a man
from a captive race. Moses' father-in-law was a Kenite worshiper of El Elyon,
but the emancipator's parents were believers in El Shaddai. Moses thus was
educated an El Shaddaist; through the influence of his father-in-law he became
an El Elyonist; and by the time of the Hebrew encampment about Mount Sinai
after the flight from Egypt, he had formulated a new and enlarged concept of
Deity (derived from all his former beliefs), which he wisely decided to
proclaim to his people as an expanded concept of their olden tribal god,
Yahweh.
96:4.3 Moses had endeavored to teach these Bedouins the idea of El Elyon, but
before leaving Egypt, he had become convinced they would never fully
comprehend this doctrine. Therefore he deliberately determined upon the
compromise adoption of their tribal god of the desert as the one and only god
of his followers. Moses did not specifically teach that other peoples and
nations might not have other gods, but he did resolutely maintain that Yahweh
was over and above all, especially to the Hebrews. But always was he plagued
by the awkward predicament of trying to present his new and higher idea of
Deity to these ignorant slaves under the guise of the ancient term Yahweh,
which had always been symbolized by the golden calf of the Bedouin tribes.
96:4.4 The fact that Yahweh was the god of the fleeing Hebrews explains why
they tarried so long before the holy mountain of Sinai, and why they there
received the ten commandments which Moses promulgated in the name of Yahweh,
the god of Horeb. During this lengthy sojourn before Sinai the religious
ceremonials of the newly evolving Hebrew worship were further perfected.
96:4.5 It does not appear that Moses would ever have succeeded in the
establishment of his somewhat advanced ceremonial worship and in keeping his
followers intact for a quarter of a century had it not been for the violent
eruption of Horeb during the third week of their worshipful sojourn at its
base. "The mountain of Yahweh was consumed in fire, and the smoke ascended
like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly." In view
of this cataclysm it is not surprising that Moses could impress upon his
brethren the teaching that their God was "mighty, terrible, a devouring fire,
fearful, and all-powerful."
96:4.6 Moses proclaimed that Yahweh was the Lord God of Israel, who had
singled out the Hebrews as his chosen people; he was building a new nation,
and he wisely nationalized his religious teachings, telling his followers that
Yahweh was a hard taskmaster, a "jealous God." But none the less he sought to
enlarge their concept of divinity when he taught them that Yahweh was the "God
of the spirits of all flesh," and when he said, "The eternal God is your
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Moses taught that Yahweh was
a covenant-keeping God; that he "will not forsake you, neither destroy you,
nor forget the covenant of your fathers because the Lord loves you and will
not forget the oath by which he swore to your fathers."
96:4.7 Moses made a heroic effort to uplift Yahweh to the dignity of a supreme
Deity when he presented him as the "God of truth and without iniquity, just
and right in all his ways." And yet, despite this exalted teaching, the
limited understanding of his followers made it necessary to speak of God as
being in man's image, as being subject to fits of anger, wrath, and severity,
even that he was vengeful and easily influenced by man's conduct.
96:4.8 Under the teachings of Moses this tribal nature god, Yahweh, became the
Lord God of Israel, who followed them through the wilderness and even into
exile, where he presently was conceived of as the God of all peoples. The
later captivity that enslaved the Jews in Babylon finally liberated the
evolving concept of Yahweh to assume the monotheistic role of the God of all
nations.
96:4.9 The most unique and amazing feature of the religious history of the
Hebrews concerns this continuous evolution of the concept of Deity from the
primitive god of Mount Horeb up through the teachings of their successive
spiritual leaders to the high level of development depicted in the Deity
doctrines of the Isaiahs, who proclaimed that magnificent concept of the
loving and merciful Creator Father.
5. THE TEACHINGS OF MOSES
96:5.1 Moses was an extraordinary combination of military leader, social
organizer, and religious teacher. He was the most important individual world
teacher and leader between the times of Machiventa and Jesus. Moses attempted
to introduce many reforms in Israel of which there is no record. In the space
of one man's life he led the polyglot horde of so-called Hebrews out of
slavery and uncivilized roaming while he laid the foundation for the
subsequent birth of a nation and the perpetuation of a race.
96:5.2 There is so little on record of the great work of Moses because the
Hebrews had no written language at the time of the exodus. The record of the
times and doings of Moses was derived from the traditions extant more than one
thousand years after the death of the great leader.
96:5.3 Many of the advances which Moses made over and above the religion of
the Egyptians and the surrounding Levantine tribes were due to the Kenite
traditions of the time of Melchizedek. Without the teaching of Machiventa to
Abraham and his contemporaries, the Hebrews would have come out of Egypt in
hopeless darkness. Moses and his father-in-law, Jethro, gathered up the
residue of the traditions of the days of Melchizedek, and these teachings,
joined to the learning of the Egyptians, guided Moses in the creation of the
improved religion and ritual of the Israelites. Moses was an organizer; he
selected the best in the religion and mores of Egypt and Palestine and,
associating these practices with the traditions of the Melchizedek teachings,
organized the Hebrew ceremonial system of worship.
96:5.4 Moses was a believer in Providence; he had become thoroughly tainted
with the doctrines of Egypt concerning the supernatural control of the Nile
and the other elements of nature. He had a great vision of God, but he was
thoroughly sincere when he taught the Hebrews that, if they would obey God,
"He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will multiply the fruit of
your womb and the fruit of your land -- the corn, wine, oil, and your flocks.
You shall be prospered above all people, and the Lord your God will take away
from you all sickness and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt upon
you." He even said: "Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you
the power to get wealth." "You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not
borrow. You shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you."
96:5.5 But it was truly pitiful to watch this great mind of Moses trying to
adapt his sublime concept of El Elyon, the Most High, to the comprehension of
the ignorant and illiterate Hebrews. To his assembled leaders he thundered,
"The Lord your God is one God; there is none beside him"; while to the mixed
multitude he declared, "Who is like your God among all the gods?" Moses made a
brave and partly successful stand against fetishes and idolatry, declaring,
"You saw no similitude on the day that your God spoke to you at Horeb out of
the midst of the fire." He also forbade the making of images of any sort.
96:5.6 Moses feared to proclaim the mercy of Yahweh, preferring to awe his
people with the fear of the justice of God, saying: "The Lord your God is God
of Gods, and Lord of Lords, a great God, a mighty and terrible God, who
regards not man." Again he sought to control the turbulent clans when he
declared that "your God kills when you disobey him; he heals and gives life
when you obey him." But Moses taught these tribes that they would become the
chosen people of God only on condition that they "kept all his commandments
and obeyed all his statutes."
96:5.7 Little of the mercy of God was taught the Hebrews during these early
times. They learned of God as "the Almighty; the Lord is a man of war, God of
battles, glorious in power, who dashes in pieces his enemies." "The Lord your
God walks in the midst of the camp to deliver you." The Israelites thought of
their God as one who loved them, but who also "hardened Pharaoh's heart" and
"cursed their enemies."
96:5.8 While Moses presented fleeting glimpses of a universal and beneficent
Deity to the children of Israel, on the whole, their day-by-day concept of
Yahweh was that of a God but little better than the tribal gods of the
surrounding peoples. Their concept of God was primitive, crude, and
anthropomorphic; when Moses passed on, these Bedouin tribes quickly reverted
to the semibarbaric ideas of their olden gods of Horeb and the desert. The
enlarged and more sublime vision of God which Moses every now and then
presented to his leaders was soon lost to view, while most of the people
turned to the worship of their fetish golden calves, the Palestinian
herdsman's symbol of Yahweh.
96:5.9 When Moses turned over the command of the Hebrews to Joshua, he had
already gathered up thousands of the collateral descendants of Abraham, Nahor,
Lot, and other of the related tribes and had whipped them into a self-
sustaining and partially self-regulating nation of pastoral warriors.
6. THE GOD CONCEPT AFTER MOSES' DEATH
96:6.1 Upon the death of Moses his lofty concept of Yahweh rapidly
deteriorated. Joshua and the leaders of Israel continued to harbor the Mosaic
traditions of the all-wise, beneficent, and almighty God, but the common
people rapidly reverted to the older desert idea of Yahweh. And this backward
drift of the concept of Deity continued increasingly under the successive rule
of the various tribal sheiks, the so-called Judges.
96:6.2 The spell of the extraordinary personality of Moses had kept alive in
the hearts of his followers the inspiration of an increasingly enlarged
concept of God; but when they once reached the fertile lands of Palestine,
they quickly evolved from nomadic herders into settled and somewhat sedate
farmers. And this evolution of life practices and change of religious
viewpoint demanded a more or less complete change in the character of their
conception of the nature of their God, Yahweh. During the times of the
beginning of the transmutation of the austere, crude, exacting, and thunderous
desert god of Sinai into the later appearing concept of a God of love,
justice, and mercy, the Hebrews almost lost sight of Moses' lofty teachings.
They came near losing all concept of monotheism; they nearly lost their
opportunity of becoming the people who would serve as a vital link in the
spiritual evolution of Urantia, the group who would conserve the Melchizedek
teaching of one God until the times of the incarnation of a bestowal Son of
that Father of all.
96:6.3 Desperately Joshua sought to hold the concept of a supreme Yahweh in
the minds of the tribesmen, causing it to be proclaimed: "As I was with Moses,
so will I be with you; I will not fail you nor forsake you." Joshua found it
necessary to preach a stern gospel to his disbelieving people, people all too
willing to believe their old and native religion but unwilling to go forward
in the religion of faith and righteousness. The burden of Joshua's teaching
became: "Yahweh is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your
transgressions nor your sins." The highest concept of this age pictured Yahweh
as a "God of power, judgment, and justice."
96:6.4 But even in this dark age, every now and then a solitary teacher would
arise proclaiming the Mosaic concept of divinity: "You children of wickedness
cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God." "Shall mortal man be more just
than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" "Can you by searching find
out God? Can you find out the Almighty to perfection? Behold, God is great and
we know him not. Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out."
7. PSALMS AND THE BOOK OF JOB
96:7.1 Under the leadership of their sheiks and priests the Hebrews became
loosely established in Palestine. But they soon drifted back into the
benighted beliefs of the desert and became contaminated with the less advanced
Canaanite religious practices. They became idolatrous and licentious, and
their idea of Deity fell far below the Egyptian and Mesopotamian concepts of
God that were maintained by certain surviving Salem groups, and which are
recorded in some of the Psalms and in the so-called Book of Job.
96:7.2 The Psalms are the work of a score or more of authors; many were
written by Egyptian and Mesopotamian teachers. During these times when the
Levant worshiped nature gods, there were still a goodly number who believed in
the supremacy of El Elyon, the Most High.
96:7.3 No collection of religious writings gives expression to such a wealth
of devotion and inspirational ideas of God as the Book of Psalms. And it would
be very helpful if, in the perusal of this wonderful collection of worshipful
literature, consideration could be given to the source and chronology of each
separate hymn of praise and adoration, bearing in mind that no other single
collection covers such a great range of time. This Book of Psalms is the
record of the varying concepts of God entertained by the believers of the
Salem religion throughout the Levant and embraces the entire period from
Amenemope to Isaiah. In the Psalms God is depicted in all phases of
conception, from the crude idea of a tribal deity to the vastly expanded ideal
of the later Hebrews, wherein Yahweh is pictured as a loving ruler and
merciful Father.
96:7.4 And when thus regarded, this group of Psalms constitutes the most
valuable and helpful assortment of devotional sentiments ever assembled by man
up to the times of the twentieth century. The worshipful spirit of this
collection of hymns transcends that of all other sacred books of the world.
96:7.5 The variegated picture of Deity presented in the Book of Job was the
product of more than a score of Mesopotamian religious teachers extending over
a period of almost three hundred years. And when you read the lofty concept of
divinity found in this compilation of Mesopotamian beliefs, you will recognize
that it was in the neighborhood of Ur of Chaldea that the idea of a real God
was best preserved during the dark days in Palestine.
96:7.6 In Palestine the wisdom and all-pervasiveness of God was often grasped
but seldom his love and mercy. The Yahweh of these times "sends evil spirits
to dominate the souls of his enemies"; he prospers his own and obedient
children, while he curses and visits dire judgments upon all others. "He
disappoints the devices of the crafty; he takes the wise in their own deceit."
96:7.7 Only at Ur did a voice arise to cry out the mercy of God, saying: "He
shall pray to God and shall find favor with him and shall see his face with
joy, for God will give to man divine righteousness." Thus from Ur there is
preached salvation, divine favor, by faith: "He is gracious to the repentant
and says, `Deliver him from going down in the pit, for I have found a ransom.'
If any say, `I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited
me not,' God will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and he shall see
the light." Not since the times of Melchizedek had the Levantine world heard
such a ringing and cheering message of human salvation as this extraordinary
teaching of Elihu, the prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem believers, that
is, the remnant of the onetime Melchizedek colony in Mesopotamia.
96:7.8 And thus did the remnants of the Salem missionaries in Mesopotamia
maintain the light of truth during the period of the disorganization of the
Hebrew peoples until the appearance of the first of that long line of the
teachers of Israel who never stopped as they built, concept upon concept,
until they had achieved the realization of the ideal of the Universal and
Creator Father of all, the acme of the evolution of the Yahweh concept.
96:7.9 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 97
EVOLUTION OF THE GOD CONCEPT AMONG THE HEBREWS
97:0.1 THE spiritual leaders of the Hebrews did what no others before them had
ever succeeded in doing -- they deanthropomorphized their God concept without
converting it into an abstraction of Deity comprehensible only to
philosophers. Even common people were able to regard the matured concept of
Yahweh as a Father, if not of the individual, at least of the race.
97:0.2 The concept of the personality of God, while clearly taught at Salem in
the days of Melchizedek, was vague and hazy at the time of the flight from
Egypt and only gradually evolved in the Hebraic mind from generation to
generation in response to the teaching of the spiritual leaders. The
perception of Yahweh's personality was much more continuous in its progressive
evolution than was that of many other of the Deity attributes. From Moses to
Malachi there occurred an almost unbroken ideational growth of the personality
of God in the Hebrew mind, and this concept was eventually heightened and
glorified by the teachings of Jesus about the Father in heaven.
1. SAMUEL -- FIRST OF THE HEBREW PROPHETS
97:1.1 Hostile pressure of the surrounding peoples in Palestine soon taught
the Hebrew sheiks they could not hope to survive unless they confederated
their tribal organizations into a centralized government. And this
centralization of administrative authority afforded a better opportunity for
Samuel to function as a teacher and reformer.
97:1.2 Samuel sprang from a long line of the Salem teachers who had persisted
in maintaining the truths of Melchizedek as a part of their worship forms.
This teacher was a virile and resolute man. Only his great devotion, coupled
with his extraordinary determination, enabled him to withstand the almost
universal opposition which he encountered when he started out to turn all
Israel back to the worship of the supreme Yahweh of Mosaic times. And even
then he was only partially successful; he won back to the service of the
higher concept of Yahweh only the more intelligent half of the Hebrews; the
other half continued in the worship of the tribal gods of the country and in
the baser conception of Yahweh.
97:1.3 Samuel was a rough-and-ready type of man, a practical reformer who
could go out in one day with his associates and overthrow a score of Baal
sites. The progress he made was by sheer force of compulsion; he did little
preaching, less teaching, but he did act. One day he was mocking the priest of
Baal; the next, chopping in pieces a captive king. He devotedly believed in
the one God, and he had a clear concept of that one God as creator of heaven
and earth: "The pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he has set the world
upon them."
97:1.4 But the great contribution which Samuel made to the development of the
concept of Deity was his ringing pronouncement that Yahweh was changeless,
forever the same embodiment of unerring perfection and divinity. In these
times Yahweh was conceived to be a fitful God of jealous whims, always
regretting that he had done thus and so; but now, for the first time since the
Hebrews sallied forth from Egypt, they heard these startling words, "The
Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man, that he
should repent." Stability in dealing with Divinity was proclaimed. Samuel
reiterated the Melchizedek covenant with Abraham and declared that the Lord
God of Israel was the source of all truth, stability, and constancy. Always
had the Hebrews looked upon their God as a man, a superman, an exalted spirit
of unknown origin; but now they heard the onetime spirit of Horeb exalted as
an unchanging God of creator perfection. Samuel was aiding the evolving God
concept to ascend to heights above the changing state of men's minds and the
vicissitudes of mortal existence. Under his teaching, the God of the Hebrews
was beginning the ascent from an idea on the order of the tribal gods to the
ideal of an all-powerful and changeless Creator and Supervisor of all
creation.
97:1.5 And he preached anew the story of God's sincerity, his covenant-keeping
reliability. Said Samuel: "The Lord will not forsake his people." "He has made
with us an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." And so,
throughout all Palestine there sounded the call back to the worship of the
supreme Yahweh. Ever this energetic teacher proclaimed, "You are great, O Lord
God, for there is none like you, neither is there any God beside you."
97:1.6 Theretofore the Hebrews had regarded the favor of Yahweh mainly in
terms of material prosperity. It was a great shock to Israel, and almost cost
Samuel his life, when he dared to proclaim: "The Lord enriches and
impoverishes; he debases and exalts. He raises the poor out of the dust and
lifts up the beggars to set them among princes to make them inherit the throne
of glory." Not since Moses had such comforting promises for the humble and the
less fortunate been proclaimed, and thousands of despairing among the poor
began to take hope that they could improve their spiritual status.
97:1.7 But Samuel did not progress very far beyond the concept of a tribal
god. He proclaimed a Yahweh who made all men but was occupied chiefly with the
Hebrews, his chosen people. Even so, as in the days of Moses, once more the
God concept portrayed a Deity who is holy and upright. "There is none as holy
as the Lord. Who can be compared to this holy Lord God?"
97:1.8 As the years passed, the grizzled old leader progressed in the
understanding of God, for he declared: "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and
actions are weighed by him. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, showing
mercy to the merciful, and with the upright man he will also be upright." Even
here is the dawn of mercy, albeit it is limited to those who are merciful.
Later he went one step further when, in their adversity, he exhorted his
people: "Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are
great." "There is no restraint upon the Lord to save many or few."
97:1.9 And this gradual development of the concept of the character of Yahweh
continued under the ministry of Samuel's successors. They attempted to present
Yahweh as a covenant-keeping God but hardly maintained the pace set by Samuel;
they failed to develop the idea of the mercy of God as Samuel had later
conceived it. There was a steady drift back toward the recognition of other
gods, despite the maintenance that Yahweh was above all. "Yours is the
kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all."
97:1.10 The keynote of this era was divine power; the prophets of this age
preached a religion designed to foster the king upon the Hebrew throne.
"Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory
and the majesty. In your hand is power and might, and you are able to make
great and to give strength to all." And this was the status of the God concept
during the time of Samuel and his immediate successors.
2. ELIJAH AND ELISHA
97:2.1 In the tenth century before Christ the Hebrew nation became divided
into two kingdoms. In both of these political divisions many truth teachers
endeavored to stem the reactionary tide of spiritual decadence that had set
in, and which continued disastrously after the war of separation. But these
efforts to advance the Hebraic religion did not prosper until that determined
and fearless warrior for righteousness, Elijah, began his teaching. Elijah
restored to the northern kingdom a concept of God comparable with that held in
the days of Samuel. Elijah had little opportunity to present an advanced
concept of God; he was kept busy, as Samuel had been before him, overthrowing
the altars of Baal and demolishing the idols of false gods. And he carried
forward his reforms in the face of the opposition of an idolatrous monarch;
his task was even more gigantic and difficult than that which Samuel had
faced.
97:2.2 When Elijah was called away, Elisha, his faithful associate, took up
his work and, with the invaluable assistance of the little-known Micaiah, kept
the light of truth alive in Palestine.
97:2.3 But these were not times of progress in the concept of Deity. Not yet
had the Hebrews ascended even to the Mosaic ideal. The era of Elijah and
Elisha closed with the better classes returning to the worship of the supreme
Yahweh and witnessed the restoration of the idea of the Universal Creator to
about that place where Samuel had left it.
3. YAHWEH AND BAAL
97:3.1 The long-drawn-out controversy between the believers in Yahweh and the
followers of Baal was a socioeconomic clash of ideologies rather than a
difference in religious beliefs.
97:3.2 The inhabitants of Palestine differed in their attitude toward private
ownership of land. The southern or wandering Arabian tribes (the Yahwehites)
looked upon land as an inalienable -- as a gift of Deity to the clan. They
held that land could not be sold or mortgaged. "Yahweh spoke, saying, `The
land shall not be sold, for the land is mine.'"
97:3.3 The northern and more settled Canaanites (the Baalites) freely bought,
sold, and mortgaged their lands. The word Baal means owner. The Baal cult was
founded on two major doctrines: First, the validation of property exchange,
contracts, and covenants -- the right to buy and sell land. Second, Baal was
supposed to send rain -- he was a god of fertility of the soil. Good crops
depended on the favor of Baal. The cult was largely concerned with land, its
ownership and fertility.
97:3.4 In general, the Baalites owned houses, lands, and slaves. They were the
aristocratic landlords and lived in the cities. Each Baal had a sacred place,
a priesthood, and the "holy women," the ritual prostitutes.
97:3.5 Out of this basic difference in the regard for land, there evolved the
bitter antagonisms of social, economic, moral, and religious attitudes
exhibited by the Canaanites and the Hebrews. This socioeconomic controversy
did not become a definite religious issue until the times of Elijah. From the
days of this aggressive prophet the issue was fought out on more strictly
religious lines -- Yahweh vs. Baal -- and it ended in the triumph of Yahweh
and the subsequent drive toward monotheism.
97:3.6 Elijah shifted the Yahweh-Baal controversy from the land issue to the
religious aspect of Hebrew and Canaanite ideologies. When Ahab murdered the
Naboths in the intrigue to get possession of their land, Elijah made a moral
issue out of the olden land mores and launched his vigorous campaign against
the Baalites. This was also a fight of the country folk against domination by
the cities. It was chiefly under Elijah that Yahweh became Elohim. The prophet
began as an agrarian reformer and ended up by exalting Deity. Baals were many,
Yahweh was one -- monotheism won over polytheism.
4. AMOS AND HOSEA
97:4.1 A great step in the transition of the tribal god -- the god who had so
long been served with sacrifices and ceremonies, the Yahweh of the earlier
Hebrews -- to a God who would punish crime and immorality among even his own
people, was taken by Amos, who appeared from among the southern hills to
denounce the criminality, drunkenness, oppression, and immorality of the
northern tribes. Not since the times of Moses had such ringing truths been
proclaimed in Palestine.
97:4.2 Amos was not merely a restorer or reformer; he was a discoverer of new
concepts of Deity. He proclaimed much about God that had been announced by his
predecessors and courageously attacked the belief in a Divine Being who would
countenance sin among his so-called chosen people. For the first time since
the days of Melchizedek the ears of man heard the denunciation of the double
standard of national justice and morality. For the first time in their history
Hebrew ears heard that their own God, Yahweh, would no more tolerate crime and
sin in their lives than he would among any other people. Amos envisioned the
stern and just God of Samuel and Elijah, but he also saw a God who thought no
differently of the Hebrews than of any other nation when it came to the
punishment of wrongdoing. This was a direct attack on the egoistic doctrine of
the "chosen people," and many Hebrews of those days bitterly resented it.
97:4.3 Said Amos: "He who formed the mountains and created the wind, seek him
who formed the seven stars and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into the
morning and makes the day dark as night." And in denouncing his half-
religious, timeserving, and sometimes immoral fellows, he sought to portray
the inexorable justice of an unchanging Yahweh when he said of the evildoers:
"Though they dig into hell, thence shall I take them; though they climb up to
heaven, thence will I bring them down." "And though they go into captivity
before their enemies, thence will I direct the sword of justice, and it shall
slay them." Amos further startled his hearers when, pointing a reproving and
accusing finger at them, he declared in the name of Yahweh: "Surely I will
never forget any of your works." "And I will sift the house of Israel among
all nations as wheat is sifted in a sieve."
97:4.4 Amos proclaimed Yahweh the "God of all nations" and warned the
Israelites that ritual must not take the place of righteousness. And before
this courageous teacher was stoned to death, he had spread enough leaven of
truth to save the doctrine of the supreme Yahweh; he had insured the further
evolution of the Melchizedek revelation.
97:4.5 Hosea followed Amos and his doctrine of a universal God of justice by
the resurrection of the Mosaic concept of a God of love. Hosea preached
forgiveness through repentance, not by sacrifice. He proclaimed a gospel of
loving-kindness and divine mercy, saying: "I will betroth you to me forever;
yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and judgment and in loving-
kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness." "I
will love them freely, for my anger is turned away."
97:4.6 Hosea faithfully continued the moral warnings of Amos, saying of God,
"It is my desire that I chastise them." But the Israelites regarded it as
cruelty bordering on treason when he said: "I will say to those who were not
my people, `you are my people'; and they will say, `you are our God.'" He
continued to preach repentance and forgiveness, saying, "I will heal their
backsliding; I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away." Always
Hosea proclaimed hope and forgiveness. The burden of his message ever was: "I
will have mercy upon my people. They shall know no God but me, for there is no
savior beside me."
97:4.7 Amos quickened the national conscience of the Hebrews to the
recognition that Yahweh would not condone crime and sin among them because
they were supposedly the chosen people, while Hosea struck the opening notes
in the later merciful chords of divine compassion and loving-kindness which
were so exquisitely sung by Isaiah and his associates.
5. THE FIRST ISAIAH
97:5.1 These were the times when some were proclaiming threatenings of
punishment against personal sins and national crime among the northern clans
while others predicted calamity in retribution for the transgressions of the
southern kingdom. It was in the wake of this arousal of conscience and
consciousness in the Hebrew nations that the first Isaiah made his appearance.
97:5.2 Isaiah went on to preach the eternal nature of God, his infinite
wisdom, his unchanging perfection of reliability. He represented the God of
Israel as saying: "Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to
the plummet." "The Lord will give you rest from your sorrow and from your fear
and from the hard bondage wherein man has been made to serve." "And your ears
shall hear a word behind you, saying, `this is the way, walk in it.'" "Behold
God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my
strength and my song." "`Come now and let us reason together,' says the Lord,
`though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
be red like the crimson, they shall be as wool.'"
97:5.3 Speaking to the fear-ridden and soul-hungry Hebrews, this prophet said:
"Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen
upon you." "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to
preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who
are bound." "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my
God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and has covered me
with his robe of righteousness." "In all their afflictions he was afflicted,
and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he
redeemed them."
97:5.4 This Isaiah was followed by Micah and Obadiah, who confirmed and
embellished his soul-satisfying gospel. And these two brave messengers boldly
denounced the priest-ridden ritual of the Hebrews and fearlessly attacked the
whole sacrificial system.
97:5.5 Micah denounced "the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who
teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money." He taught of a day of
freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: "But every man shall sit
under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will
live, each one according to his understanding of God."
97:5.6 Ever the burden of Micah's message was: "Shall I come before God with
burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten
thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and
to walk humbly with your God." And it was a great age; these were indeed
stirring times when mortal man heard, and some even believed, such
emancipating messages more than two and a half millenniums ago. And but for
the stubborn resistance of the priests, these teachers would have overthrown
the whole bloody ceremonial of the Hebrew ritual of worship.
6. JEREMIAH THE FEARLESS
97:6.1 While several teachers continued to expound the gospel of Isaiah, it
remained for Jeremiah to take the next bold step in the internationalization
of Yahweh, God of the Hebrews.
97:6.2 Jeremiah fearlessly declared that Yahweh was not on the side of the
Hebrews in their military struggles with other nations. He asserted that
Yahweh was God of all the earth, of all nations and of all peoples. Jeremiah's
teaching was the crescendo of the rising wave of the internationalization of
the God of Israel; finally and forever did this intrepid preacher proclaim
that Yahweh was God of all nations, and that there was no Osiris for the
Egyptians, Bel for the Babylonians, Ashur for the Assyrians, or Dagon for the
Philistines. And thus did the religion of the Hebrews share in that
renaissance of monotheism throughout the world at about and following this
time; at last the concept of Yahweh had ascended to a Deity level of planetary
and even cosmic dignity. But many of Jeremiah's associates found it difficult
to conceive of Yahweh apart from the Hebrew nation.
97:6.3 Jeremiah also preached of the just and loving God described by Isaiah,
declaring: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with
loving-kindness have I drawn you." "For he does not afflict willingly the
children of men."
97:6.4 Said this fearless prophet: "Righteous is our Lord, great in counsel
and mighty in work. His eyes are open upon all the ways of all the sons of
men, to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his
doings." But it was considered blasphemous treason when, during the siege of
Jerusalem, he said: "And now have I given these lands into the hand of
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant." And when Jeremiah counseled
the surrender of the city, the priests and civil rulers cast him into the miry
pit of a dismal dungeon.
7. THE SECOND ISAIAH
97:7.1 The destruction of the Hebrew nation and their captivity in Mesopotamia
would have proved of great benefit to their expanding theology had it not been
for the determined action of their priesthood. Their nation had fallen before
the armies of Babylon, and their nationalistic Yahweh had suffered from the
international preachments of the spiritual leaders. It was resentment of the
loss of their national god that led the Jewish priests to go to such lengths
in the invention of fables and the multiplication of miraculous appearing
events in Hebrew history in an effort to restore the Jews as the chosen people
of even the new and expanded idea of an internationalized God of all nations.
97:7.2 During the captivity the Jews were much influenced by Babylonian
traditions and legends, although it should be noted that they unfailingly
improved the moral tone and spiritual significance of the Chaldean stories
which they adopted, notwithstanding that they invariably distorted these
legends to reflect honor and glory upon the ancestry and history of Israel.
97:7.3 These Hebrew priests and scribes had a single idea in their minds, and
that was the rehabilitation of the Jewish nation, the glorification of Hebrew
traditions, and the exaltation of their racial history. If there is resentment
of the fact that these priests have fastened their erroneous ideas upon such a
large part of the Occidental world, it should be remembered that they did not
intentionally do this; they did not claim to be writing by inspiration; they
made no profession to be writing a sacred book. They were merely preparing a
textbook designed to bolster up the dwindling courage of their fellows in
captivity. They were definitely aiming at improving the national spirit and
morale of their compatriots. It remained for later-day men to assemble these
and other writings into a guide book of supposedly infallible teachings.
97:7.4 The Jewish priesthood made liberal use of these writings subsequent to
the captivity, but they were greatly hindered in their influence over their
fellow captives by the presence of a young and indomitable prophet, Isaiah the
second, who was a full convert to the elder Isaiah's God of justice, love,
righteousness, and mercy. He also believed with Jeremiah that Yahweh had
become the God of all nations. He preached these theories of the nature of God
with such telling effect that he made converts equally among the Jews and
their captors. And this young preacher left on record his teachings, which the
hostile and unforgiving priests sought to divorce from all association with
him, although sheer respect for their beauty and grandeur led to their
incorporation among the writings of the earlier Isaiah. And thus may be found
the writings of this second Isaiah in the book of that name, embracing
chapters forty to fifty-five inclusive.
97:7.5 No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa to the time of Jesus
attained the high concept of God that Isaiah the second proclaimed during
these days of the captivity. It was no small, anthropomorphic, man-made God
that this spiritual leader proclaimed. "Behold he takes up the isles as a very
little thing." "And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
97:7.6 At last Machiventa Melchizedek beheld human teachers proclaiming a real
God to mortal man. Like Isaiah the first, this leader preached a God of
universal creation and upholding. "I have made the earth and put man upon it.
I have created it not in vain; I formed it to be inhabited." "I am the first
and the last; there is no God beside me." Speaking for the Lord God of Israel,
this new prophet said: "The heavens may vanish and the earth wax old, but my
righteousness shall endure forever and my salvation from generation to
generation." "Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your
God." "There is no God beside me -- a just God and a Savior."
97:7.7 And it comforted the Jewish captives, as it has thousands upon
thousands ever since, to hear such words as: "Thus says the Lord, `I have
created you, I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are
mine.'" "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you since you are
precious in my sight." "Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should
not have compassion on her son? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget my
children, for behold I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I have
even covered them with the shadow of my hands." "Let the wicked forsake his
ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and
he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
97:7.8 Listen again to the gospel of this new revelation of the God of Salem:
"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs in his
arms and carry them in his bosom. He gives power to the faint, and to those
who have no might he increases strength. Those who wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run
and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."
97:7.9 This Isaiah conducted a far-flung propaganda of the gospel of the
enlarging concept of a supreme Yahweh. He vied with Moses in the eloquence
with which he portrayed the Lord God of Israel as the Universal Creator. He
was poetic in his portrayal of the infinite attributes of the Universal
Father. No more beautiful pronouncements about the heavenly Father have ever
been made. Like the Psalms, the writings of Isaiah are among the most sublime
and true presentations of the spiritual concept of God ever to greet the ears
of mortal man prior to the arrival of Michael on Urantia. Listen to his
portrayal of Deity: "I am the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity." "I am
the first and the last, and beside me there is no other God." "And the Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it
cannot hear." And it was a new doctrine in Jewry when this benign but
commanding prophet persisted in the preachment of divine constancy, God's
faithfulness. He declared that "God would not forget, would not forsake."
97:7.10 This daring teacher proclaimed that man was very closely related to
God, saying: "Every one who is called by my name I have created for my glory,
and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their
transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember their sins."
97:7.11 Hear this great Hebrew demolish the concept of a national God while in
glory he proclaims the divinity of the Universal Father, of whom he says, "The
heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool." And Isaiah's God was
none the less holy, majestic, just, and unsearchable. The concept of the
angry, vengeful, and jealous Yahweh of the desert Bedouins has almost
vanished. A new concept of the supreme and universal Yahweh has appeared in
the mind of mortal man, never to be lost to human view. The realization of
divine justice has begun the destruction of primitive magic and biologic fear.
At last, man is introduced to a universe of law and order and to a universal
God of dependable and final attributes.
97:7.12 And this preacher of a supernal God never ceased to proclaim this God
of love. "I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a
contrite and humble spirit." And still further words of comfort did this great
teacher speak to his contemporaries: "And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your soul. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring
whose waters fail not. And if the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit
of the Lord will lift up a defense against him." And once again did the fear-
destroying gospel of Melchizedek and the trust-breeding religion of Salem
shine forth for the blessing of mankind.
97:7.13 The farseeing and courageous Isaiah effectively eclipsed the
nationalistic Yahweh by his sublime portraiture of the majesty and universal
omnipotence of the supreme Yahweh, God of love, ruler of the universe, and
affectionate Father of all mankind. Ever since those eventful days the highest
God concept in the Occident has embraced universal justice, divine mercy, and
eternal righteousness. In superb language and with matchless grace this great
teacher portrayed the all-powerful Creator as the all-loving Father.
97:7.14 This prophet of the captivity preached to his people and to those of
many nations as they listened by the river in Babylon. And this second Isaiah
did much to counteract the many wrong and racially egoistic concepts of the
mission of the promised Messiah. But in this effort he was not wholly
successful. Had the priests not dedicated themselves to the work of building
up a misconceived nationalism, the teachings of the two Isaiahs would have
prepared the way for the recognition and reception of the promised Messiah.
8. SACRED AND PROFANE HISTORY
97:8.1 The custom of looking upon the record of the experiences of the Hebrews
as sacred history and upon the transactions of the rest of the world as
profane history is responsible for much of the confusion existing in the human
mind as to the interpretation of history. And this difficulty arises because
there is no secular history of the Jews. After the priests of the Babylonian
exile had prepared their new record of God's supposedly miraculous dealings
with the Hebrews, the sacred history of Israel as portrayed in the Old
Testament, they carefully and completely destroyed the existing records of
Hebrew affairs -- such books as "The Doings of the Kings of Israel" and "The
Doings of the Kings of Judah," together with several other more or less
accurate records of Hebrew history.
97:8.2 In order to understand how the devastating pressure and the inescapable
coercion of secular history so terrorized the captive and alien-ruled Jews
that they attempted the complete rewriting and recasting of their history, we
should briefly survey the record of their perplexing national experience. It
must be remembered that the Jews failed to evolve an adequate nontheologic
philosophy of life. They struggled with their original and Egyptian concept of
divine rewards for righteousness coupled with dire punishments for sin. The
drama of Job was something of a protest against this erroneous philosophy. The
frank pessimism of Ecclesiastes was a worldly wise reaction to these
overoptimistic beliefs in Providence.
97:8.3 But five hundred years of the overlordship of alien rulers was too much
for even the patient and long-suffering Jews. The prophets and priests began
to cry: "How long, O Lord, how long?" As the honest Jew searched the
Scriptures, his confusion became worse confounded. An olden seer promised that
God would protect and deliver his "chosen people." Amos had threatened that
God would abandon Israel unless they re-established their standards of
national righteousness. The scribe of Deuteronomy had portrayed the Great
Choice -- as between the good and the evil, the blessing and the curse. Isaiah
the first had preached a beneficent king-deliverer. Jeremiah had proclaimed an
era of inner righteousness -- the covenant written on the tablets of the
heart. The second Isaiah talked about salvation by sacrifice and redemption.
Ezekiel proclaimed deliverance through the service of devotion, and Ezra
promised prosperity by adherence to the law. But in spite of all this they
lingered on in bondage, and deliverance was deferred. Then Daniel presented
the drama of the impending "crisis" -- the smiting of the great image and the
immediate establishment of the everlasting reign of righteousness, the
Messianic kingdom.
97:8.4 And all of this false hope led to such a degree of racial
disappointment and frustration that the leaders of the Jews were so confused
they failed to recognize and accept the mission and ministry of a divine Son
of Paradise when he presently came to them in the likeness of mortal flesh --
incarnated as the Son of Man.
97:8.5 All modern religions have seriously blundered in the attempt to put a
miraculous interpretation on certain epochs of human history. While it is true
that God has many times thrust a Father's hand of providential intervention
into the stream of human affairs, it is a mistake to regard theologic dogmas
and religious superstition as a supernatural sedimentation appearing by
miraculous action in this stream of human history. The fact that the "Most
Highs rule in the kingdoms of men" does not convert secular history into so-
called sacred history.
97:8.6 New Testament authors and later Christian writers further complicated
the distortion of Hebrew history by their well-meant attempts to
transcendentalize the Jewish prophets. Thus has Hebrew history been
disastrously exploited by both Jewish and Christian writers. Secular Hebrew
history has been thoroughly dogmatized. It has been converted into a fiction
of sacred history and has become inextricably bound up with the moral concepts
and religious teachings of the so-called Christian nations.
97:8.7 A brief recital of the high points in Hebrew history will illustrate
how the facts of the record were so altered in Babylon by the Jewish priests
as to turn the everyday secular history of their people into a fictitious and
sacred history.
9. HEBREW HISTORY
97:9.1 There never were twelve tribes of the Israelites -- only three or four
tribes settled in Palestine. The Hebrew nation came into being as the result
of the union of the so-called Israelites and the Canaanites. "And the children
of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. And they took their daughters to be
their wives and gave their daughters to the sons of the Canaanites." The
Hebrews never drove the Canaanites out of Palestine, notwithstanding that the
priests' record of these things unhesitatingly declared that they did.
97:9.2 The Israelitish consciousness took origin in the hill country of
Ephraim; the later Jewish consciousness originated in the southern clan of
Judah. The Jews (Judahites) always sought to defame and blacken the record of
the northern Israelites (Ephraimites).
97:9.3 Pretentious Hebrew history begins with Saul's rallying the northern
clans to withstand an attack by the Ammonites upon their fellow tribesmen --
the Gileadites -- east of the Jordan. With an army of a little more than three
thousand he defeated the enemy, and it was this exploit that led the hill
tribes to make him king. When the exiled priests rewrote this story, they
raised Saul's army to 330,000 and added "Judah" to the list of tribes
participating in the battle.
97:9.4 Immediately following the defeat of the Ammonites, Saul was made king
by popular election by his troops. No priest or prophet participated in this
affair. But the priests later on put it in the record that Saul was crowned
king by the prophet Samuel in accordance with divine directions. This they did
in order to establish a "divine line of descent" for David's Judahite
kingship.
97:9.5 The greatest of all distortions of Jewish history had to do with David.
After Saul's victory over the Ammonites (which he ascribed to Yahweh) the
Philistines became alarmed and began attacks on the northern clans. David and
Saul never could agree. David with six hundred men entered into a Philistine
alliance and marched up the coast to Esdraelon. At Gath the Philistines
ordered David off the field; they feared he might go over to Saul. David
retired; the Philistines attacked and defeated Saul. They could not have done
this had David been loyal to Israel. David's army was a polyglot assortment of
malcontents, being for the most part made up of social misfits and fugitives
from justice.
97:9.6 Saul's tragic defeat at Gilboa by the Philistines brought Yahweh to a
low point among the gods in the eyes of the surrounding Canaanites.
Ordinarily, Saul's defeat would have been ascribed to apostasy from Yahweh,
but this time the Judahite editors attributed it to ritual errors. They
required the tradition of Saul and Samuel as a background for the kingship of
David.
97:9.7 David with his small army made his headquarters at the non-Hebrew city
of Hebron. Presently his compatriots proclaimed him king of the new kingdom of
Judah. Judah was made up mostly of non-Hebrew elements -- Kenites, Calebites,
Jebusites, and other Canaanites. They were nomads -- herders -- and so were
devoted to the Hebrew idea of land ownership. They held the ideologies of the
desert clans.
97:9.8 The difference between sacred and profane history is well illustrated
by the two differing stories concerning making David king as they are found in
the Old Testament. A part of the secular story of how his immediate followers
(his army) made him king was inadvertently left in the record by the priests
who subsequently prepared the lengthy and prosaic account of the sacred
history wherein is depicted how the prophet Samuel, by divine direction,
selected David from among his brethren and proceeded formally and by elaborate
and solemn ceremonies to anoint him king over the Hebrews and then to proclaim
him Saul's successor.
97:9.9 So many times did the priests, after preparing their fictitious
narratives of God's miraculous dealings with Israel, fail fully to delete the
plain and matter-of-fact statements which already rested in the records.
97:9.10 David sought to build himself up politically by first marrying Saul's
daughter, then the widow of Nabal the rich Edomite, and then the daughter of
Talmai, the king of Geshur. He took six wives from the women of Jebus, not to
mention Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite.
97:9.11 And it was by such methods and out of such people that David built up
the fiction of a divine kingdom of Judah as the successor of the heritage and
traditions of the vanishing northern kingdom of Ephraimite Israel. David's
cosmopolitan tribe of Judah was more gentile than Jewish; nevertheless the
oppressed elders of Ephraim came down and "anointed him king of Israel." After
a military threat, David then made a compact with the Jebusites and
established his capital of the united kingdom at Jebus (Jerusalem), which was
a strong-walled city midway between Judah and Israel. The Philistines were
aroused and soon attacked David. After a fierce battle they were defeated, and
once more Yahweh was established as "The Lord God of Hosts."
97:9.12 But Yahweh must, perforce, share some of this glory with the Canaanite
gods, for the bulk of David's army was non-Hebrew. And so there appears in
your record (overlooked by the Judahite editors) this telltale statement:
"Yahweh has broken my enemies before me. Therefore he called the name of the
place Baal-Perazim." And they did this because eighty per cent of David's
soldiers were Baalites.
97:9.13 David explained Saul's defeat at Gilboa by pointing out that Saul had
attacked a Canaanite city, Gibeon, whose people had a peace treaty with the
Ephraimites. Because of this, Yahweh forsook him. Even in Saul's time David
had defended the Canaanite city of Keilah against the Philistines, and then he
located his capital in a Canaanite city. In keeping with the policy of
compromise with the Canaanites, David turned seven of Saul's descendants over
to the Gibeonites to be hanged.
97:9.14 After the defeat of the Philistines, David gained possession of the
"ark of Yahweh," brought it to Jerusalem, and made the worship of Yahweh
official for his kingdom. He next laid heavy tribute on the neighboring tribes
-- the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians.
97:9.15 David's corrupt political machine began to get personal possession of
land in the north in violation of the Hebrew mores and presently gained
control of the caravan tariffs formerly collected by the Philistines. And then
came a series of atrocities climaxed by the murder of Uriah. All judicial
appeals were adjudicated at Jerusalem; no longer could "the elders" mete out
justice. No wonder rebellion broke out. Today, Absalom might be called a
demagogue; his mother was a Canaanite. There were a half dozen contenders for
the throne besides the son of Bathsheba -- Solomon.
97:9.16 After David's death Solomon purged the political machine of all
northern influences but continued all of the tyranny and taxation of his
father's regime. Solomon bankrupted the nation by his lavish court and by his
elaborate building program: There was the house of Lebanon, the palace of
Pharaoh's daughter, the temple of Yahweh, the king's palace, and the
restoration of the walls of many cities. Solomon created a vast Hebrew navy,
operated by Syrian sailors and trading with all the world. His harem numbered
almost one thousand.
97:9.17 By this time Yahweh's temple at Shiloh was discredited, and all the
worship of the nation was centered at Jebus in the gorgeous royal chapel. The
northern kingdom returned more to the worship of Elohim. They enjoyed the
favor of the Pharaohs, who later enslaved Judah, putting the southern kingdom
under tribute.
97:9.18 There were ups and downs -- wars between Israel and Judah. After four
years of civil war and three dynasties, Israel fell under the rule of city
despots who began to trade in land. Even King Omri attempted to buy Shemer's
estate. But the end drew on apace when Shalmaneser III decided to control the
Mediterranean coast. King Ahab of Ephraim gathered ten other groups and
resisted at Karkar; the battle was a draw. The Assyrian was stopped but the
allies were decimated. This great fight is not even mentioned in the Old
Testament.
97:9.19 New trouble started when King Ahab tried to buy land from Naboth. His
Phoenician wife forged Ahab's name to papers directing that Naboth's land be
confiscated on the charge that he had blasphemed the names of "Elohim and the
king." He and his sons were promptly executed. The vigorous Elijah appeared on
the scene denouncing Ahab for the murder of the Naboths. Thus Elijah, one of
the greatest of the prophets, began his teaching as a defender of the old land
mores as against the land-selling attitude of the Baalim, against the attempt
of the cities to dominate the country. But the reform did not succeed until
the country landlord Jehu joined forces with the gypsy chieftain Jehonadab to
destroy the prophets (real estate agents) of Baal at Samaria.
97:9.20 New life appeared as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam delivered Israel
from its enemies. But by this time there ruled in Samaria a gangster-nobility
whose depredations rivaled those of the Davidic dynasty of olden days. State
and church went along hand in hand. The attempt to suppress freedom of speech
led Elijah, Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writing, and this was the
real beginning of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
97:9.21 But the northern kingdom did not vanish from history until the king of
Israel conspired with the king of Egypt and refused to pay further tribute to
Assyria. Then began the three years' siege followed by the total dispersion of
the northern kingdom. Ephraim (Israel) thus vanished. Judah -- the Jews, the
"remnant of Israel" -- had begun the concentration of land in the hands of the
few, as Isaiah said, "Adding house to house and field to field." Presently
there was in Jerusalem a temple of Baal alongside the temple of Yahweh. This
reign of terror was ended by a monotheistic revolt led by the boy king Joash,
who crusaded for Yahweh for thirty-five years.
97:9.22 The next king, Amaziah, had trouble with the revolting tax-paying
Edomites and their neighbors. After a signal victory he turned to attack his
northern neighbors and was just as signally defeated. Then the rural folk
revolted; they assassinated the king and put his sixteen-year-old son on the
throne. This was Azariah, called Uzziah by Isaiah. After Uzziah, things went
from bad to worse, and Judah existed for a hundred years by paying tribute to
the kings of Assyria. Isaiah the first told them that Jerusalem, being the
city of Yahweh, would never fall. But Jeremiah did not hesitate to proclaim
its downfall.
97:9.23 The real undoing of Judah was effected by a corrupt and rich ring of
politicians operating under the rule of a boy king, Manasseh. The changing
economy favored the return of the worship of Baal, whose private land dealings
were against the ideology of Yahweh. The fall of Assyria and the ascendency of
Egypt brought deliverance to Judah for a time, and the country folk took over.
Under Josiah they destroyed the Jerusalem ring of corrupt politicians.
97:9.24 But this era came to a tragic end when Josiah presumed to go out to
intercept Necho's mighty army as it moved up the coast from Egypt for the aid
of Assyria against Babylon. He was wiped out, and Judah went under tribute to
Egypt. The Baal political party returned to power in Jerusalem, and thus began
the real Egyptian bondage. Then ensued a period in which the Baalim
politicians controlled both the courts and the priesthood. Baal worship was an
economic and social system dealing with property rights as well as having to
do with soil fertility.
97:9.25 With the overthrow of Necho by Nebuchadnezzar, Judah fell under the
rule of Babylon and was given ten years of grace, but soon rebelled. When
Nebuchadnezzar came against them, the Judahites started social reforms, such
as releasing slaves, to influence Yahweh. When the Babylonian army temporarily
withdrew, the Hebrews rejoiced that their magic of reform had delivered them.
It was during this period that Jeremiah told them of the impending doom, and
presently Nebuchadnezzar returned.
97:9.26 And so the end of Judah came suddenly. The city was destroyed, and the
people were carried away into Babylon. The Yahweh-Baal struggle ended with the
captivity. And the captivity shocked the remnant of Israel into monotheism.
97:9.27 In Babylon the Jews arrived at the conclusion that they could not
exist as a small group in Palestine, having their own peculiar social and
economic customs, and that, if their ideologies were to prevail, they must
convert the gentiles. Thus originated their new concept of destiny -- the idea
that the Jews must become the chosen servants of Yahweh. The Jewish religion
of the Old Testament really evolved in Babylon during the captivity.
97:9.28 The doctrine of immortality also took form at Babylon. The Jews had
thought that the idea of the future life detracted from the emphasis of their
gospel of social justice. Now for the first time theology displaced sociology
and economics. Religion was taking shape as a system of human thought and
conduct more and more to be separated from politics, sociology, and economics.
97:9.29 And so does the truth about the Jewish people disclose that much which
has been regarded as sacred history turns out to be little more than the
chronicle of ordinary profane history. Judaism was the soil out of which
Christianity grew, but the Jews were not a miraculous people.
10. THE HEBREW RELIGION
97:10.1 Their leaders had taught the Israelites that they were a chosen
people, not for special indulgence and monopoly of divine favor, but for the
special service of carrying the truth of the one God over all to every nation.
And they had promised the Jews that, if they would fulfill this destiny, they
would become the spiritual leaders of all peoples, and that the coming Messiah
would reign over them and all the world as the Prince of Peace.
97:10.2 When the Jews had been freed by the Persians, they returned to
Palestine only to fall into bondage to their own priest-ridden code of laws,
sacrifices, and rituals. And as the Hebrew clans rejected the wonderful story
of God presented in the farewell oration of Moses for the rituals of sacrifice
and penance, so did these remnants of the Hebrew nation reject the magnificent
concept of the second Isaiah for the rules, regulations, and rituals of their
growing priesthood.
97:10.3 National egotism, false faith in a misconceived promised Messiah, and
the increasing bondage and tyranny of the priesthood forever silenced the
voices of the spiritual leaders (excepting Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, and
Malachi); and from that day to the time of John the Baptist all Israel
experienced an increasing spiritual retrogression. But the Jews never lost the
concept of the Universal Father; even to the twentieth century after Christ
they have continued to follow this Deity conception.
97:10.4 From Moses to John the Baptist there extended an unbroken line of
faithful teachers who passed the monotheistic torch of light from one
generation to another while they unceasingly rebuked unscrupulous rulers,
denounced commercializing priests, and ever exhorted the people to adhere to
the worship of the supreme Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel.
97:10.5 As a nation the Jews eventually lost their political identity, but the
Hebrew religion of sincere belief in the one and universal God continues to
live in the hearts of the scattered exiles. And this religion survives because
it has effectively functioned to conserve the highest values of its followers.
The Jewish religion did preserve the ideals of a people, but it failed to
foster progress and encourage philosophic creative discovery in the realms of
truth. The Jewish religion had many faults -- it was deficient in philosophy
and almost devoid of aesthetic qualities -- but it did conserve moral values;
therefore it persisted. The supreme Yahweh, as compared with other concepts of
Deity, was clear-cut, vivid, personal, and moral.
97:10.6 The Jews loved justice, wisdom, truth, and righteousness as have few
peoples, but they contributed least of all peoples to the intellectual
comprehension and to the spiritual understanding of these divine qualities.
Though Hebrew theology refused to expand, it played an important part in the
development of two other world religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism.
97:10.7 The Jewish religion persisted also because of its institutions. It is
difficult for religion to survive as the private practice of isolated
individuals. This has ever been the error of the religious leaders: Seeing the
evils of institutionalized religion, they seek to destroy the technique of
group functioning. In place of destroying all ritual, they would do better to
reform it. In this respect Ezekiel was wiser than his contemporaries; though
he joined with them in insisting on personal moral responsibility, he also set
about to establish the faithful observance of a superior and purified ritual.
97:10.8 And thus the successive teachers of Israel accomplished the greatest
feat in the evolution of religion ever to be effected on Urantia: the gradual
but continuous transformation of the barbaric concept of the savage demon
Yahweh, the jealous and cruel spirit god of the fulminating Sinai volcano, to
the later exalted and supernal concept of the supreme Yahweh, creator of all
things and the loving and merciful Father of all mankind. And this Hebraic
concept of God was the highest human visualization of the Universal Father up
to that time when it was further enlarged and so exquisitely amplified by the
personal teachings and life example of his Son, Michael of Nebadon.
97:10.9 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 98
THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN THE OCCIDENT
98:0.1 THE Melchizedek teachings entered Europe along many routes, but chiefly
they came by way of Egypt and were embodied in Occidental philosophy after
being thoroughly Hellenized and later Christianized. The ideals of the Western
world were basically Socratic, and its later religious philosophy became that
of Jesus as it was modified and compromised through contact with evolving
Occidental philosophy and religion, all of which culminated in the Christian
church.
98:0.2 For a long time in Europe the Salem missionaries carried on their
activities, becoming gradually absorbed into many of the cults and ritual
groups which periodically arose. Among those who maintained the Salem
teachings in the purest form must be mentioned the Cynics. These preachers of
faith and trust in God were still functioning in Roman Europe in the first
century after Christ, being later incorporated into the newly forming
Christian religion.
98:0.3 Much of the Salem doctrine was spread in Europe by the Jewish mercenary
soldiers who fought in so many of the Occidental military struggles. In
ancient times the Jews were famed as much for military valor as for theologic
peculiarities.
98:0.4 The basic doctrines of Greek philosophy, Jewish theology, and Christian
ethics were fundamentally repercussions of the earlier Melchizedek teachings.
1. THE SALEM RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS
98:1.1 The Salem missionaries might have built up a great religious structure
among the Greeks had it not been for their strict interpretation of their oath
of ordination, a pledge imposed by Machiventa which forbade the organization
of exclusive congregations for worship, and which exacted the promise of each
teacher never to function as a priest, never to receive fees for religious
service, only food, clothing, and shelter. When the Melchizedek teachers
penetrated to pre-Hellenic Greece, they found a people who still fostered the
traditions of Adamson and the days of the Andites, but these teachings had
become greatly adulterated with the notions and beliefs of the hordes of
inferior slaves that had been brought to the Greek shores in increasing
numbers. This adulteration produced a reversion to a crude animism with bloody
rites, the lower classes even making ceremonial out of the execution of
condemned criminals.
98:1.2 The early influence of the Salem teachers was nearly destroyed by the
so-called Aryan invasion from southern Europe and the East. These Hellenic
invaders brought along with them anthropomorphic God concepts similar to those
which their Aryan fellows had carried to India. This importation inaugurated
the evolution of the Greek family of gods and goddesses. This new religion was
partly based on the cults of the incoming Hellenic barbarians, but it also
shared in the myths of the older inhabitants of Greece.
98:1.3 The Hellenic Greeks found the Mediterranean world largely dominated by
the mother cult, and they imposed upon these peoples their man-god, Dyaus-
Zeus, who had already become, like Yahweh among the henotheistic Semites, head
of the whole Greek pantheon of subordinate gods. And the Greeks would have
eventually achieved a true monotheism in the concept of Zeus except for their
retention of the overcontrol of Fate. A God of final value must, himself, be
the arbiter of fate and the creator of destiny.
98:1.4 As a consequence of these factors in religious evolution, there
presently developed the popular belief in the happy-go-lucky gods of Mount
Olympus, gods more human than divine, and gods which the intelligent Greeks
never did regard very seriously. They neither greatly loved nor greatly feared
these divinities of their own creation. They had a patriotic and racial
feeling for Zeus and his family of half men and half gods, but they hardly
reverenced or worshiped them.
98:1.5 The Hellenes became so impregnated with the antipriestcraft doctrines
of the earlier Salem teachers that no priesthood of any importance ever arose
in Greece. Even the making of images to the gods became more of a work in art
than a matter of worship.
98:1.6 The Olympian gods illustrate man's typical anthropomorphism. But the
Greek mythology was more aesthetic than ethic. The Greek religion was helpful
in that it portrayed a universe governed by a deity group. But Greek morals,
ethics, and philosophy presently advanced far beyond the god concept, and this
imbalance between intellectual and spiritual growth was as hazardous to Greece
as it had proved to be in India.
2. GREEK PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT
98:2.1 A lightly regarded and superficial religion cannot endure, especially
when it has no priesthood to foster its forms and to fill the hearts of the
devotees with fear and awe. The Olympian religion did not promise salvation,
nor did it quench the spiritual thirst of its believers; therefore was it
doomed to perish. Within a millennium of its inception it had nearly vanished,
and the Greeks were without a national religion, the gods of Olympus having
lost their hold upon the better minds.
98:2.2 This was the situation when, during the sixth century before Christ,
the Orient and the Levant experienced a revival of spiritual consciousness and
a new awakening to the recognition of monotheism. But the West did not share
in this new development; neither Europe nor northern Africa extensively
participated in this religious renaissance. The Greeks, however, did engage in
a magnificent intellectual advancement. They had begun to master fear and no
longer sought religion as an antidote therefor, but they did not perceive that
true religion is the cure for soul hunger, spiritual disquiet, and moral
despair. They sought for the solace of the soul in deep thinking -- philosophy
and metaphysics. They turned from the contemplation of self-preservation --
salvation -- to self-realization and self-understanding.
98:2.3 By rigorous thought the Greeks attempted to attain that consciousness
of security which would serve as a substitute for the belief in survival, but
they utterly failed. Only the more intelligent among the higher classes of the
Hellenic peoples could grasp this new teaching; the rank and file of the
progeny of the slaves of former generations had no capacity for the reception
of this new substitute for religion.
98:2.4 The philosophers disdained all forms of worship, notwithstanding that
they practically all held loosely to the background of a belief in the Salem
doctrine of "the Intelligence of the universe," "the idea of God," and "the
Great Source." In so far as the Greek philosophers gave recognition to the
divine and the superfinite, they were frankly monotheistic; they gave scant
recognition to the whole galaxy of Olympian gods and goddesses.
98:2.5 The Greek poets of the fifth and sixth centuries, notably Pindar,
attempted the reformation of Greek religion. They elevated its ideals, but
they were more artists than religionists. They failed to develop a technique
for fostering and conserving supreme values.
98:2.6 Xenophanes taught one God, but his deity concept was too pantheistic to
be a personal Father to mortal man. Anaxagoras was a mechanist except that he
did recognize a First Cause, an Initial Mind. Socrates and his successors,
Plato and Aristotle, taught that virtue is knowledge; goodness, health of the
soul; that it is better to suffer injustice than to be guilty of it, that it
is wrong to return evil for evil, and that the gods are wise and good. Their
cardinal virtues were: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
98:2.7 The evolution of religious philosophy among the Hellenic and Hebrew
peoples affords a contrastive illustration of the function of the church as an
institution in the shaping of cultural progress. In Palestine, human thought
was so priest-controlled and scripture-directed that philosophy and aesthetics
were entirely submerged in religion and morality. In Greece, the almost
complete absence of priests and "sacred scriptures" left the human mind free
and unfettered, resulting in a startling development in depth of thought. But
religion as a personal experience failed to keep pace with the intellectual
probings into the nature and reality of the cosmos.
98:2.8 In Greece, believing was subordinated to thinking; in Palestine,
thinking was held subject to believing. Much of the strength of Christianity
is due to its having borrowed heavily from both Hebrew morality and Greek
thought.
98:2.9 In Palestine, religious dogma became so crystallized as to jeopardize
further growth; in Greece, human thought became so abstract that the concept
of God resolved itself into a misty vapor of pantheistic speculation not at
all unlike the impersonal Infinity of the Brahman philosophers.
98:2.10 But the average men of these times could not grasp, nor were they much
interested in, the Greek philosophy of self-realization and an abstract Deity;
they rather craved promises of salvation, coupled with a personal God who
could hear their prayers. They exiled the philosophers, persecuted the
remnants of the Salem cult, both doctrines having become much blended, and
made ready for that terrible orgiastic plunge into the follies of the mystery
cults which were then overspreading the Mediterranean lands. The Eleusinian
mysteries grew up within the Olympian pantheon, a Greek version of the worship
of fertility; Dionysus nature worship flourished; the best of the cults was
the Orphic brotherhood, whose moral preachments and promises of salvation made
a great appeal to many.
98:2.11 All Greece became involved in these new methods of attaining
salvation, these emotional and fiery ceremonials. No nation ever attained such
heights of artistic philosophy in so short a time; none ever created such an
advanced system of ethics practically without Deity and entirely devoid of the
promise of human salvation; no nation ever plunged so quickly, deeply, and
violently into such depths of intellectual stagnation, moral depravity, and
spiritual poverty as these same Greek peoples when they flung themselves into
the mad whirl of the mystery cults.
98:2.12 Religions have long endured without philosophical support, but few
philosophies, as such, have long persisted without some identification with
religion. Philosophy is to religion as conception is to action. But the ideal
human estate is that in which philosophy, religion, and science are welded
into a meaningful unity by the conjoined action of wisdom, faith, and
experience.
3. THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN ROME
98:3.1 Having grown out of the earlier religious forms of worship of the
family gods into the tribal reverence for Mars, the god of war, it was natural
that the later religion of the Latins was more of a political observance than
were the intellectual systems of the Greeks and Brahmans or the more spiritual
religions of several other peoples.
98:3.2 In the great monotheistic renaissance of Melchizedek's gospel during
the sixth century before Christ, too few of the Salem missionaries penetrated
Italy, and those who did were unable to overcome the influence of the rapidly
spreading Etruscan priesthood with its new galaxy of gods and temples, all of
which became organized into the Roman state religion. This religion of the
Latin tribes was not trivial and venal like that of the Greeks, neither was it
austere and tyrannical like that of the Hebrews; it consisted for the most
part in the observance of mere forms, vows, and taboos.
98:3.3 Roman religion was greatly influenced by extensive cultural
importations from Greece. Eventually most of the Olympian gods were
transplanted and incorporated into the Latin pantheon. The Greeks long
worshiped the fire of the family hearth -- Hestia was the virgin goddess of
the hearth; Vesta was the Roman goddess of the home. Zeus became Jupiter;
Aphrodite, Venus; and so on down through the many Olympian deities.
98:3.4 The religious initiation of Roman youths was the occasion of their
solemn consecration to the service of the state. Oaths and admissions to
citizenship were in reality religious ceremonies. The Latin peoples maintained
temples, altars, and shrines and, in a crisis, would consult the oracles. They
preserved the bones of heroes and later on those of the Christian saints.
98:3.5 This formal and unemotional form of pseudoreligious patriotism was
doomed to collapse, even as the highly intellectual and artistic worship of
the Greeks had gone down before the fervid and deeply emotional worship of the
mystery cults. The greatest of these devastating cults was the mystery
religion of the Mother of God sect, which had its headquarters, in those days,
on the exact site of the present church of St. Peter's in Rome.
98:3.6 The emerging Roman state conquered politically but was in turn
conquered by the cults, rituals, mysteries, and god concepts of Egypt, Greece,
and the Levant. These imported cults continued to flourish throughout the
Roman state up to the time of Augustus, who, purely for political and civic
reasons, made a heroic and somewhat successful effort to destroy the mysteries
and revive the older political religion.
98:3.7 One of the priests of the state religion told Augustus of the earlier
attempts of the Salem teachers to spread the doctrine of one God, a final
Deity presiding over all supernatural beings; and this idea took such a firm
hold on the emperor that he built many temples, stocked them well with
beautiful images, reorganized the state priesthood, re-established the state
religion, appointed himself acting high priest of all, and as emperor did not
hesitate to proclaim himself the supreme god.
98:3.8 This new religion of Augustus worship flourished and was observed
throughout the empire during his lifetime except in Palestine, the home of the
Jews. And this era of the human gods continued until the official Roman cult
had a roster of more than twoscore self-elevated human deities, all claiming
miraculous births and other superhuman attributes.
98:3.9 The last stand of the dwindling band of Salem believers was made by an
earnest group of preachers, the Cynics, who exhorted the Romans to abandon
their wild and senseless religious rituals and return to a form of worship
embodying Melchizedek's gospel as it had been modified and contaminated
through contact with the philosophy of the Greeks. But the people at large
rejected the Cynics; they preferred to plunge into the rituals of the
mysteries, which not only offered hopes of personal salvation but also
gratified the desire for diversion, excitement, and entertainment.
4. THE MYSTERY CULTS
98:4.1 The majority of people in the Graeco-Roman world, having lost their
primitive family and state religions and being unable or unwilling to grasp
the meaning of Greek philosophy, turned their attention to the spectacular and
emotional mystery cults from Egypt and the Levant. The common people craved
promises of salvation -- religious consolation for today and assurances of
hope for immortality after death.
98:4.2 The three mystery cults which became most popular were:
1. The Phrygian cult of Cybele and her son Attis.
2. The Egyptian cult of Osiris and his mother Isis.
3. The Iranian cult of the worship of Mithras as the savior and redeemer of
sinful mankind.
98:4.3 The Phrygian and Egyptian mysteries taught that the divine son
(respectively Attis and Osiris) had experienced death and had been resurrected
by divine power, and further that all who were properly initiated into the
mystery, and who reverently celebrated the anniversary of the god's death and
resurrection, would thereby become partakers of his divine nature and his
immortality.
98:4.4 The Phrygian ceremonies were imposing but degrading; their bloody
festivals indicate how degraded and primitive these Levantine mysteries
became. The most holy day was Black Friday, the "day of blood," commemorating
the self-inflicted death of Attis. After three days of the celebration of the
sacrifice and death of Attis the festival was turned to joy in honor of his
resurrection.
98:4.5 The rituals of the worship of Isis and Osiris were more refined and
impressive than were those of the Phrygian cult. This Egyptian ritual was
built around the legend of the Nile god of old, a god who died and was
resurrected, which concept was derived from the observation of the annually
recurring stoppage of vegetation growth followed by the springtime restoration
of all living plants. The frenzy of the observance of these mystery cults and
the orgies of their ceremonials, which were supposed to lead up to the
"enthusiasm" of the realization of divinity, were sometimes most revolting.
5. THE CULT OF MITHRAS
98:5.1 The Phrygian and Egyptian mysteries eventually gave way before the
greatest of all the mystery cults, the worship of Mithras. The Mithraic cult
made its appeal to a wide range of human nature and gradually supplanted both
of its predecessors. Mithraism spread over the Roman Empire through the
propagandizing of Roman legions recruited in the Levant, where this religion
was the vogue, for they carried this belief wherever they went. And this new
religious ritual was a great improvement over the earlier mystery cults.
98:5.2 The cult of Mithras arose in Iran and long persisted in its homeland
despite the militant opposition of the followers of Zoroaster. But by the time
Mithraism reached Rome, it had become greatly improved by the absorption of
many of Zoroaster's teachings. It was chiefly through the Mithraic cult that
Zoroaster's religion exerted an influence upon later appearing Christianity.
98:5.3 The Mithraic cult portrayed a militant god taking origin in a great
rock, engaging in valiant exploits, and causing water to gush forth from a
rock struck with his arrows. There was a flood from which one man escaped in a
specially built boat and a last supper which Mithras celebrated with the sun-
god before he ascended into the heavens. This sun-god, or Sol Invictus, was a
degeneration of the Ahura-Mazda deity concept of Zoroastrianism. Mithras was
conceived as the surviving champion of the sun-god in his struggle with the
god of darkness. And in recognition of his slaying the mythical sacred bull,
Mithras was made immortal, being exalted to the station of intercessor for the
human race among the gods on high.
98:5.4 The adherents of this cult worshiped in caves and other secret places,
chanting hymns, mumbling magic, eating the flesh of the sacrificial animals,
and drinking the blood. Three times a day they worshiped, with special weekly
ceremonials on the day of the sun-god and with the most elaborate observance
of all on the annual festival of Mithras, December twenty-fifth. It was
believed that the partaking of the sacrament ensured eternal life, the
immediate passing, after death, to the bosom of Mithras, there to tarry in
bliss until the judgment day. On the judgment day the Mithraic keys of heaven
would unlock the gates of Paradise for the reception of the faithful;
whereupon all the unbaptized of the living and the dead would be annihilated
upon the return of Mithras to earth. It was taught that, when a man died, he
went before Mithras for judgment, and that at the end of the world Mithras
would summon all the dead from their graves to face the last judgment. The
wicked would be destroyed by fire, and the righteous would reign with Mithras
forever.
98:5.5 At first it was a religion only for men, and there were seven different
orders into which believers could be successively initiated. Later on, the
wives and daughters of believers were admitted to the temples of the Great
Mother, which adjoined the Mithraic temples. The women's cult was a mixture of
Mithraic ritual and the ceremonies of the Phrygian cult of Cybele, the mother
of Attis.
6. MITHRAISM AND CHRISTIANITY
98:6.1 Prior to the coming of the mystery cults and Christianity, personal
religion hardly developed as an independent institution in the civilized lands
of North Africa and Europe; it was more of a family, city-state, political,
and imperial affair. The Hellenic Greeks never evolved a centralized worship
system; the ritual was local; they had no priesthood and no "sacred book."
Much as the Romans, their religious institutions lacked a powerful driving
agency for the preservation of higher moral and spiritual values. While it is
true that the institutionalization of religion has usually detracted from its
spiritual quality, it is also a fact that no religion has thus far succeeded
in surviving without the aid of institutional organization of some degree,
greater or lesser.
98:6.2 Occidental religion thus languished until the days of the Skeptics,
Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics, but most important of all, until the times of
the great contest between Mithraism and Paul's new religion of Christianity.
98:6.3 During the third century after Christ, Mithraic and Christian churches
were very similar both in appearance and in the character of their ritual. A
majority of such places of worship were underground, and both contained altars
whose backgrounds variously depicted the sufferings of the savior who had
brought salvation to a sin-cursed human race.
98:6.4 Always had it been the practice of Mithraic worshipers, on entering the
temple, to dip their fingers in holy water. And since in some districts there
were those who at one time belonged to both religions, they introduced this
custom into the majority of the Christian churches in the vicinity of Rome.
Both religions employed baptism and partook of the sacrament of bread and
wine. The one great difference between Mithraism and Christianity, aside from
the characters of Mithras and Jesus, was that the one encouraged militarism
while the other was ultrapacific. Mithraism's tolerance for other religions
(except later Christianity) led to its final undoing. But the deciding factor
in the struggle between the two was the admission of women into the full
fellowship of the Christian faith.
98:6.5 In the end the nominal Christian faith dominated the Occident. Greek
philosophy supplied the concepts of ethical value; Mithraism, the ritual of
worship observance; and Christianity, as such, the technique for the
conservation of moral and social values.
7. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
98:7.1 A Creator Son did not incarnate in the likeness of mortal flesh and
bestow himself upon the humanity of Urantia to reconcile an angry God but
rather to win all mankind to the recognition of the Father's love and to the
realization of their sonship with God. After all, even the great advocate of
the atonement doctrine realized something of this truth, for he declared that
"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself."
98:7.2 It is not the province of this paper to deal with the origin and
dissemination of the Christian religion. Suffice it to say that it is built
around the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the humanly incarnate Michael Son of
Nebadon, known to Urantia as the Christ, the anointed one. Christianity was
spread throughout the Levant and Occident by the followers of this Galilean,
and their missionary zeal equaled that of their illustrious predecessors, the
Sethites and Salemites, as well as that of their earnest Asiatic
contemporaries, the Buddhist teachers.
98:7.3 The Christian religion, as a Urantian system of belief, arose through
the compounding of the following teachings, influences, beliefs, cults, and
personal individual attitudes:
98:7.4 1. The Melchizedek teachings, which are a basic factor in all the
religions of Occident and Orient that have arisen in the last four thousand
years.
98:7.5 2. The Hebraic system of morality, ethics, theology, and belief in both
Providence and the supreme Yahweh.
98:7.6 3. The Zoroastrian conception of the struggle between cosmic good and
evil, which had already left its imprint on both Judaism and Mithraism.
Through prolonged contact attendant upon the struggles between Mithraism and
Christianity, the doctrines of the Iranian prophet became a potent factor in
determining the theologic and philosophic cast and structure of the dogmas,
tenets, and cosmology of the Hellenized and Latinized versions of the
teachings of Jesus.
98:7.7 4. The mystery cults, especially Mithraism but also the worship of the
Great Mother in the Phrygian cult. Even the legends of the birth of Jesus on
Urantia became tainted with the Roman version of the miraculous birth of the
Iranian savior-hero, Mithras, whose advent on earth was supposed to have been
witnessed by only a handful of gift-bearing shepherds who had been informed of
this impending event by angels.
98:7.8 5. The historic fact of the human life of Joshua ben Joseph, the
reality of Jesus of Nazareth as the glorified Christ, the Son of God.
98:7.9 6. The personal viewpoint of Paul of Tarsus. And it should be recorded
that Mithraism was the dominant religion of Tarsus during his adolescence.
Paul little dreamed that his well-intentioned letters to his converts would
someday be regarded by still later Christians as the "word of God." Such well-
meaning teachers must not be held accountable for the use made of their
writings by later-day successors.
98:7.10 7. The philosophic thought of the Hellenistic peoples, from Alexandria
and Antioch through Greece to Syracuse and Rome. The philosophy of the Greeks
was more in harmony with Paul's version of Christianity than with any other
current religious system and became an important factor in the success of
Christianity in the Occident. Greek philosophy, coupled with Paul's theology,
still forms the basis of European ethics.
98:7.11 As the original teachings of Jesus penetrated the Occident, they
became Occidentalized, and as they became Occidentalized, they began to lose
their potentially universal appeal to all races and kinds of men.
Christianity, today, has become a religion well adapted to the social,
economic, and political mores of the white races. It has long since ceased to
be the religion of Jesus, although it still valiantly portrays a beautiful
religion about Jesus to such individuals as sincerely seek to follow in the
way of its teaching. It has glorified Jesus as the Christ, the Messianic
anointed one from God, but has largely forgotten the Master's personal gospel:
the Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of all men.
98:7.12 And this is the long story of the teachings of Machiventa Melchizedek
on Urantia. It is nearly four thousand years since this emergency Son of
Nebadon bestowed himself on Urantia, and in that time the teachings of the
"priest of El Elyon, the Most High God," have penetrated to all races and
peoples. And Machiventa was successful in achieving the purpose of his unusual
bestowal; when Michael made ready to appear on Urantia, the God concept was
existent in the hearts of men and women, the same God concept that still
flames anew in the living spiritual experience of the manifold children of the
Universal Father as they live their intriguing temporal lives on the whirling
planets of space.
98:7.13 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 99
THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RELIGION
99:0.1 RELIGION achieves its highest social ministry when it has least
connection with the secular institutions of society. In past ages, since
social reforms were largely confined to the moral realms, religion did not
have to adjust its attitude to extensive changes in economic and political
systems. The chief problem of religion was the endeavor to replace evil with
good within the existing social order of political and economic culture.
Religion has thus indirectly tended to perpetuate the established order of
society, to foster the maintenance of the existent type of civilization.
99:0.2 But religion should not be directly concerned either with the creation
of new social orders or with the preservation of old ones. True religion does
oppose violence as a technique of social evolution, but it does not oppose the
intelligent efforts of society to adapt its usages and adjust its institutions
to new economic conditions and cultural requirements.
99:0.3 Religion did approve the occasional social reforms of past centuries,
but in the twentieth century it is of necessity called upon to face adjustment
to extensive and continuing social reconstruction. Conditions of living alter
so rapidly that institutional modifications must be greatly accelerated, and
religion must accordingly quicken its adaptation to this new and ever-changing
social order.
1. RELIGION AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
99:1.1 Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifying
civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative
if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will
not settle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become
reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind
is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.
99:1.2 Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and
spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-
changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments.
99:1.3 Urantia society can never hope to settle down as in past ages. The
social ship has steamed out of the sheltered bays of established tradition and
has begun its cruise upon the high seas of evolutionary destiny; and the soul
of man, as never before in the world's history, needs carefully to scrutinize
its charts of morality and painstakingly to observe the compass of religious
guidance. The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to
stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition
from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to
another.
99:1.4 Religion has no new duties to perform, but it is urgently called upon
to function as a wise guide and experienced counselor in all of these new and
rapidly changing human situations. Society is becoming more mechanical, more
compact, more complex, and more critically interdependent. Religion must
function to prevent these new and intimate interassociations from becoming
mutually retrogressive or even destructive. Religion must act as the cosmic
salt which prevents the ferments of progression from destroying the cultural
savor of civilization. These new social relations and economic upheavals can
result in lasting brotherhood only by the ministry of religion.
99:1.5 A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but
true religion is the only power which can lastingly increase the
responsiveness of one social group to the needs and sufferings of other
groups. In the past, institutional religion could remain passive while the
upper strata of society turned a deaf ear to the sufferings and oppression of
the helpless lower strata, but in modern times these lower social orders are
no longer so abjectly ignorant nor so politically helpless.
99:1.6 Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of
social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep
pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous
restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive
philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion
is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the
dictionary of human language is revised.
2. WEAKNESS OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION
99:2.1 Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership
in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization
because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the
social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo
reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can
function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.
99:2.2 Institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious
circle. It cannot reconstruct society without first reconstructing itself; and
being so much an integral part of the established order, it cannot reconstruct
itself until society has been radically reconstructed.
99:2.3 Religionists must function in society, in industry, and in politics as
individuals, not as groups, parties, or institutions. A religious group which
presumes to function as such, apart from religious activities, immediately
becomes a political party, an economic organization, or a social institution.
Religious collectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of
religious causes.
99:2.4 Religionists are of no more value in the tasks of social reconstruction
than nonreligionists except in so far as their religion has conferred upon
them enhanced cosmic foresight and endowed them with that superior social
wisdom which is born of the sincere desire to love God supremely and to love
every man as a brother in the heavenly kingdom. An ideal social order is that
in which every man loves his neighbor as he loves himself.
99:2.5 The institutionalized church may have appeared to serve society in the
past by glorifying the established political and economic orders, but it must
speedily cease such action if it is to survive. Its only proper attitude
consists in the teaching of nonviolence, the doctrine of peaceful evolution in
the place of violent revolution -- peace on earth and good will among all men.
99:2.6 Modern religion finds it difficult to adjust its attitude toward the
rapidly shifting social changes only because it has permitted itself to become
so thoroughly traditionalized, dogmatized, and institutionalized. The religion
of living experience finds no difficulty in keeping ahead of all these social
developments and economic upheavals, amid which it ever functions as a moral
stabilizer, social guide, and spiritual pilot. True religion carries over from
one age to another the worth-while culture and that wisdom which is born of
the experience of knowing God and striving to be like him.
3. RELIGION AND THE RELIGIONIST
99:3.1 Early Christianity was entirely free from all civil entanglements,
social commitments, and economic alliances. Only did later institutionalized
Christianity become an organic part of the political and social structure of
Occidental civilization.
99:3.2 The kingdom of heaven is neither a social nor economic order; it is an
exclusively spiritual brotherhood of God-knowing individuals. True, such a
brotherhood is in itself a new and amazing social phenomenon attended by
astounding political and economic repercussions.
99:3.3 The religionist is not unsympathetic with social suffering, not
unmindful of civil injustice, not insulated from economic thinking, neither
insensible to political tyranny. Religion influences social reconstruction
directly because it spiritualizes and idealizes the individual citizen.
Indirectly, cultural civilization is influenced by the attitude of these
individual religionists as they become active and influential members of
various social, moral, economic, and political groups.
99:3.4 The attainment of a high cultural civilization demands, first, the
ideal type of citizen and, then, ideal and adequate social mechanisms
wherewith such a citizenry may control the economic and political institutions
of such an advanced human society.
99:3.5 The church, because of overmuch false sentiment, has long ministered to
the underprivileged and the unfortunate, and this has all been well, but this
same sentiment has led to the unwise perpetuation of racially degenerate
stocks which have tremendously retarded the progress of civilization.
99:3.6 Many individual social reconstructionists, while vehemently repudiating
institutionalized religion, are, after all, zealously religious in the
propagation of their social reforms. And so it is that religious motivation,
personal and more or less unrecognized, is playing a great part in the
present-day program of social reconstruction.
99:3.7 The great weakness of all this unrecognized and unconscious type of
religious activity is that it is unable to profit from open religious
criticism and thereby attain to profitable levels of self-correction. It is a
fact that religion does not grow unless it is disciplined by constructive
criticism, amplified by philosophy, purified by science, and nourished by
loyal fellowship.
99:3.8 There is always the great danger that religion will become distorted
and perverted into the pursuit of false goals, as when in times of war each
contending nation prostitutes its religion into military propaganda. Loveless
zeal is always harmful to religion, while persecution diverts the activities
of religion into the achievement of some sociologic or theologic drive.
99:3.9 Religion can be kept free from unholy secular alliances only by:
1. A critically corrective philosophy.
2. Freedom from all social, economic, and political alliances.
3. Creative, comforting, and love-expanding fellowships.
4. Progressive enhancement of spiritual insight and the appreciation of cosmic
values.
5. Prevention of fanaticism by the compensations of the scientific mental
attitude.
99:3.10 Religionists, as a group, must never concern themselves with anything
but religion, albeit any one such religionist, as an individual citizen, may
become the outstanding leader of some social, economic, or political
reconstruction movement.
99:3.11 It is the business of religion to create, sustain, and inspire such a
cosmic loyalty in the individual citizen as will direct him to the achievement
of success in the advancement of all these difficult but desirable social
services.
4. TRANSITION DIFFICULTIES
99:4.1 Genuine religion renders the religionist socially fragrant and creates
insights into human fellowship. But the formalization of religious groups many
times destroys the very values for the promotion of which the group was
organized. Human friendship and divine religion are mutually helpful and
significantly illuminating if the growth in each is equalized and harmonized.
Religion puts new meaning into all group associations -- families, schools,
and clubs. It imparts new values to play and exalts all true humor.
99:4.2 Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion
prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives.
Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided
it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children;
it can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies
the difficulties of this intimate human association. During the early decades
of the twentieth century, family life, next to personal religious experience,
suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old
religious loyalties to the emerging new meanings and values.
99:4.3 True religion is a meaningful way of living dynamically face to face
with the commonplace realities of everyday life. But if religion is to
stimulate individual development of character and augment integration of
personality, it must not be standardized. If it is to stimulate evaluation of
experience and serve as a value-lure, it must not be stereotyped. If religion
is to promote supreme loyalties, it must not be formalized.
99:4.4 No matter what upheavals may attend the social and economic growth of
civilization, religion is genuine and worth while if it fosters in the
individual an experience in which the sovereignty of truth, beauty, and
goodness prevails, for such is the true spiritual concept of supreme reality.
And through love and worship this becomes meaningful as fellowship with man
and sonship with God.
99:4.5 After all, it is what one believes rather than what one knows that
determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual
knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average man unless it becomes
emotionally activated. But the activation of religion is superemotional,
unifying the entire human experience on transcendent levels through contact
with, and release of, spiritual energies in the mortal life.
99:4.6 During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century,
amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip
tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon
thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious,
restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world's
history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion. In the
face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there
is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos.
99:4.7 There is no danger in religion's becoming more and more of a private
matter -- a personal experience -- provided it does not lose its motivation
for unselfish and loving social service. Religion has suffered from many
secondary influences: sudden mixing of cultures, intermingling of creeds,
diminution of ecclesiastical authority, changing of family life, together with
urbanization and mechanization.
99:4.8 Man's greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the
predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of fear
without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of love. Modern science,
particularly psychology, has weakened only those religions which are so
largely dependent upon fear, superstition, and emotion.
99:4.9 Transition is always accompanied by confusion, and there will be little
tranquillity in the religious world until the great struggle between the three
contending philosophies of religion is ended:
1. The spiritistic belief (in a providential Deity) of many religions.
2. The humanistic and idealistic belief of many philosophies.
3. The mechanistic and naturalistic conceptions of many sciences.
99:4.10 And these three partial approaches to the reality of the cosmos must
eventually become harmonized by the revelatory presentation of religion,
philosophy, and cosmology which portrays the triune existence of spirit, mind,
and energy proceeding from the Trinity of Paradise and attaining time-space
unification within the Deity of the Supreme.
5. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF RELIGION
99:5.1 While religion is exclusively a personal spiritual experience --
knowing God as a Father -- the corollary of this experience -- knowing man as
a brother -- entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and that
involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is first an
inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of social service
or group adjustment. The fact of man's gregariousness perforce determines that
religious groups will come into existence. What happens to these religious
groups depends very much on intelligent leadership. In primitive society the
religious group is not always very different from economic or political
groups. Religion has always been a conservator of morals and a stabilizer of
society. And this is still true, notwithstanding the contrary teaching of many
modern socialists and humanists.
99:5.2 Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and
man as your brother. Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment
or magical promises of future mystical rewards.
99:5.3 The religion of Jesus is the most dynamic influence ever to activate
the human race. Jesus shattered tradition, destroyed dogma, and called mankind
to the achievement of its highest ideals in time and eternity -- to be
perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect.
99:5.4 Religion has little chance to function until the religious group
becomes separated from all other groups -- the social association of the
spiritual membership of the kingdom of heaven.
99:5.5 The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the
potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting
nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man's dignity when
he declared that all men are the children of God.
99:5.6 Any religious belief which is effective in spiritualizing the believer
is certain to have powerful repercussions in the social life of such a
religionist. Religious experience unfailingly yields the "fruits of the
spirit" in the daily life of the spirit-led mortal.
99:5.7 Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a
religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday
religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis
of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis
of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds
should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal
spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must
have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual
experience. Let the term "faith" stand for the individual's relation to God
rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have
been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. "Have you faith? Then
have it to yourself."
99:5.8 That faith is concerned only with the grasp of ideal values is shown by
the New Testament definition which declares that faith is the substance of
things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
99:5.9 Primitive man made little effort to put his religious convictions into
words. His religion was danced out rather than thought out. Modern men have
thought out many creeds and created many tests of religious faith. Future
religionists must live out their religion, dedicate themselves to the
wholehearted service of the brotherhood of man. It is high time that man had a
religious experience so personal and so sublime that it could be realized and
expressed only by "feelings that lie too deep for words."
99:5.10 Jesus did not require of his followers that they should periodically
assemble and recite a form of words indicative of their common beliefs. He
only ordained that they should gather together to actually do something --
partake of the communal supper of the remembrance of his bestowal life on
Urantia.
99:5.11 What a mistake for Christians to make when, in presenting Christ as
the supreme ideal of spiritual leadership, they dare to require God-conscious
men and women to reject the historic leadership of the God-knowing men who
have contributed to their particular national or racial illumination during
past ages.
6. INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION
99:6.1 Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion, and dogmatism is
an enslavement of the spiritual nature. It is far better to have a religion
without a church than a church without religion. The religious turmoil of the
twentieth century does not, in and of itself, betoken spiritual decadence.
Confusion goes before growth as well as before destruction.
99:6.2 There is a real purpose in the socialization of religion. It is the
purpose of group religious activities to dramatize the loyalties of religion;
to magnify the lures of truth, beauty, and goodness; to foster the attractions
of supreme values; to enhance the service of unselfish fellowship; to glorify
the potentials of family life; to promote religious education; to provide wise
counsel and spiritual guidance; and to encourage group worship. And all live
religions encourage human friendship, conserve morality, promote neighborhood
welfare, and facilitate the spread of the essential gospel of their respective
messages of eternal salvation.
99:6.3 But as religion becomes institutionalized, its power for good is
curtailed, while the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied. The
dangers of formalized religion are: fixation of beliefs and crystallization of
sentiments; accumulation of vested interests with increase of secularization;
tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the
service of God to the service of the church; inclination of leaders to become
administrators instead of ministers; tendency to form sects and competitive
divisions; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; creation of
the aristocratic "chosen-people" attitude; fostering of false and exaggerated
ideas of sacredness; the routinizing of religion and the petrification of
worship; tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure
to make up-to-date interpretations of religion; entanglement with functions of
secular institutions; it creates the evil discrimination of religious castes;
it becomes an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; it fails to hold the interest of
adventurous youth and gradually loses the saving message of the gospel of
eternal salvation.
99:6.4 Formal religion restrains men in their personal spiritual activities
instead of releasing them for heightened service as kingdom builders.
7. RELIGION'S CONTRIBUTION
99:7.1 Though churches and all other religious groups should stand aloof from
all secular activities, at the same time religion must do nothing to hinder or
retard the social co-ordination of human institutions. Life must continue to
grow in meaningfulness; man must go on with his reformation of philosophy and
his clarification of religion.
99:7.2 Political science must effect the reconstruction of economics and
industry by the techniques it learns from the social sciences and by the
insights and motives supplied by religious living. In all social
reconstruction religion provides a stabilizing loyalty to a transcendent
object, a steadying goal beyond and above the immediate and temporal
objective. In the midst of the confusions of a rapidly changing environment
mortal man needs the sustenance of a far-flung cosmic perspective.
99:7.3 Religion inspires man to live courageously and joyfully on the face of
the earth; it joins patience with passion, insight to zeal, sympathy with
power, and ideals with energy.
99:7.4 Man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend the
selfishness of personal interests unless he meditates in the presence of the
sovereignty of God and reckons with the realities of divine meanings and
spiritual values.
99:7.5 Economic interdependence and social fraternity will ultimately conduce
to brotherhood. Man is naturally a dreamer, but science is sobering him so
that religion can presently activate him with far less danger of precipitating
fanatical reactions. Economic necessities tie man up with reality, and
personal religious experience brings this same man face to face with the
eternal realities of an ever-expanding and progressing cosmic citizenship.
99:7.6 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 100
RELIGION IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
100:0.1 THE experience of dynamic religious living transforms the mediocre
individual into a personality of idealistic power. Religion ministers to the
progress of all through fostering the progress of each individual, and the
progress of each is augmented through the achievement of all.
100:0.2 Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with
other religionists. Love supplies the soil for religious growth -- an
objective lure in the place of subjective gratification -- yet it yields the
supreme subjective satisfaction. And religion ennobles the commonplace
drudgery of daily living.
1. RELIGIOUS GROWTH
100:1.1 While religion produces growth of meanings and enhancement of values,
evil always results when purely personal evaluations are elevated to the
levels of absolutes. A child evaluates experience in accordance with the
content of pleasure; maturity is proportional to the substitution of higher
meanings for personal pleasure, even loyalties to the highest concepts of
diversified life situations and cosmic relations.
100:1.2 Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of
spiritual fixation. Provision must be made for growth of meanings at differing
ages, in successive cultures, and in the passing stages of advancing
civilization. The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.
100:1.3 Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious
experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember,
year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not
necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth.
Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. Growth is
not truly indicated by mere products but rather by progress. Real educational
growth is indicated by enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of
values, new meanings of values, and augmented loyalty to supreme values.
100:1.4 Children are permanently impressed only by the loyalties of their
adult associates; precept or even example is not lastingly influential. Loyal
persons are growing persons, and growth is an impressive and inspiring
reality. Live loyally today -- grow -- and tomorrow will attend to itself. The
quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as
a tadpole.
100:1.5 The soil essential for religious growth presupposes a progressive life
of self-realization, the co-ordination of natural propensities, the exercise
of curiosity and the enjoyment of reasonable adventure, the experiencing of
feelings of satisfaction, the functioning of the fear stimulus of attention
and awareness, the wonder-lure, and a normal consciousness of smallness,
humility. Growth is also predicated on the discovery of selfhood accompanied
by self-criticism -- conscience, for conscience is really the criticism of
oneself by one's own value-habits, personal ideals.
100:1.6 Religious experience is markedly influenced by physical health,
inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions
do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of
the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals
certain innate drives toward growth and self-realization which function if
they are not specifically inhibited. The certain technique of fostering this
constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an
attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values.
100:1.7 Religion cannot be bestowed, received, loaned, learned, or lost. It is
a personal experience which grows proportionally to the growing quest for
final values. Cosmic growth thus attends on the accumulation of meanings and
the ever-expanding elevation of values. But nobility itself is always an
unconscious growth.
100:1.8 Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the
economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward
favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual
reflex. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to
divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective
meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one's
spiritual life with one's fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to
presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The factors of
religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly
unconscious.
100:1.9 The unconscious nature of religious growth does not, however, signify
that it is an activity functioning in the supposed subconscious realms of
human intellect; rather does it signify creative activities in the
superconscious levels of mortal mind. The experience of the realization of the
reality of unconscious religious growth is the one positive proof of the
functional existence of the superconsciousness.
2. SPIRITUAL GROWTH
100:2.1 Spiritual development depends, first, on the maintenance of a living
spiritual connection with true spiritual forces and, second, on the continuous
bearing of spiritual fruit: yielding the ministry to one's fellows of that
which has been received from one's spiritual benefactors. Spiritual progress
is predicated on intellectual recognition of spiritual poverty coupled with
the self-consciousness of perfection-hunger, the desire to know God and be
like him, the wholehearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
100:2.2 Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of
meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual
development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by
love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted
worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience
constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological
beliefs.
100:2.3 Religion can progress to that level of experience whereon it becomes
an enlightened and wise technique of spiritual reaction to the universe. Such
a glorified religion can function on three levels of human personality: the
intellectual, the morontial, and the spiritual; upon the mind, in the evolving
soul, and with the indwelling spirit.
100:2.4 Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one's nearness to God
and the measure of one's usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances
the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and
discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity
therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish
qualities of love.
100:2.5 Actual spiritual status is the measure of Deity attainment, Adjuster
attunement. The achievement of finality of spirituality is equivalent to the
attainment of the maximum of reality, the maximum of Godlikeness. Eternal life
is the endless quest for infinite values.
100:2.6 The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material.
The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual, and eternal.
Mortal man is entitled to the enjoyment of physical pleasures and to the
satisfaction of human affections; he is benefited by loyalty to human
associations and temporal institutions; but these are not the eternal
foundations upon which to build the immortal personality which must transcend
space, vanquish time, and achieve the eternal destiny of divine perfection and
finaliter service.
100:2.7 Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he
said: "To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things
earthly crash?" Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are
impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty,
hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the
assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is
absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has
dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.
100:2.8 After such spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or
specific crisis, there occurs a new orientation of personality as well as the
development of a new standard of values. Such spirit-born individuals are so
remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their fondest
ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such
catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one's temporal
creations preliminary to the rearing of the more noble and enduring realities
of a new and more sublime level of universe attainment.
3. CONCEPTS OF SUPREME VALUE
100:3.1 Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace
of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is
the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God
and serving man. Religion pays any price essential to the attainment of the
supreme goal, the eternal prize. There is a consecrated completeness in
religious loyalty which is superbly sublime. And these loyalties are socially
effective and spiritually progressive.
100:3.2 To the religionist the word God becomes a symbol signifying the
approach to supreme reality and the recognition of divine value. Human likes
and dislikes do not determine good and evil; moral values do not grow out of
wish fulfillment or emotional frustration.
100:3.3 In the contemplation of values you must distinguish between that which
is value and that which has value. You must recognize the relation between
pleasurable activities and their meaningful integration and enhanced
realization on ever progressively higher and higher levels of human
experience.
100:3.4 Meaning is something which experience adds to value; it is the
appreciative consciousness of values. An isolated and purely selfish pleasure
may connote a virtual devaluation of meanings, a meaningless enjoyment
bordering on relative evil. Values are experiential when realities are
meaningful and mentally associated, when such relationships are recognized and
appreciated by mind.
100:3.5 Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change
without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless --
is potential evil. The greater the quality of cosmic adaptation, the more of
meaning any experience possesses. Values are not conceptual illusions; they
are real, but always they depend on the fact of relationships. Values are
always both actual and potential -- not what was, but what is and is to be.
100:3.6 The association of actuals and potentials equals growth, the
experiential realization of values. But growth is not mere progress. Progress
is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The
supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in
meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these
experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness.
Such a mortal, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an
immortal soul is evolving.
100:3.7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions.
Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love
thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow.
Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by
legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may
manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture
and personal appreciation. Man's sole contribution to growth is the
mobilization of the total powers of his personality -- living faith.
4. PROBLEMS OF GROWTH
100:4.1 Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative
living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of
conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the
place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid
conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the
higher values connoted in superior meanings.
100:4.2 Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without
psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic
standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of
the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the
true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification
of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect
protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies
of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required
to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.
100:4.3 But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of
unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE. Health,
mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical
systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man
understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The
highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual
growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
100:4.4 In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind
discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the
individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are
attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you
love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men
so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover
values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If some one
irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek
to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once
you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance
will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
100:4.5 In the mind's eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive
ancestors of cave-dwelling times -- a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk
of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as
he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity
of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human
crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children.
Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of
much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both
pictures. Only in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon.
You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude
becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the
motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you
could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.
100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is
only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor's motives and
sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each
day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you
achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit
of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing
your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent
and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love
is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic
affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental
emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be
encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of
man.
5. CONVERSION AND MYSTICISM
100:5.1 The world is filled with lost souls, not lost in the theologic sense
but lost in the directional meaning, wandering about in confusion among the
isms and cults of a frustrated philosophic era. Too few have learned how to
install a philosophy of living in the place of religious authority. (The
symbols of socialized religion are not to be despised as channels of growth,
albeit the river bed is not the river.)
100:5.2 The progression of religious growth leads from stagnation through
conflict to co-ordination, from insecurity to undoubting faith, from confusion
of cosmic consciousness to unification of personality, from the temporal
objective to the eternal, from the bondage of fear to the liberty of divine
sonship.
100:5.3 It should be made clear that professions of loyalty to the supreme
ideals -- the psychic, emotional, and spiritual awareness of God-consciousness
-- may be a natural and gradual growth or may sometimes be experienced at
certain junctures, as in a crisis. The Apostle Paul experienced just such a
sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road.
Gautama Siddhartha had a similar experience the night he sat alone and sought
to penetrate the mystery of final truth. Many others have had like
experiences, and many true believers have progressed in the spirit without
sudden conversion.
100:5.4 Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so-called religious
conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do
occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin. When the mental
mobilization is absolutely total on any level of the psychic upreach toward
spirit attainment, when there exists perfection of the human motivation of
loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a sudden down-grasp
of the indwelling spirit to synchronize with the concentrated and consecrated
purpose of the superconscious mind of the believing mortal. And it is such
experiences of unified intellectual and spiritual phenomena that constitute
the conversion which consists in factors over and above purely psychologic
involvement.
100:5.5 But emotion alone is a false conversion; one must have faith as well
as feeling. To the extent that such psychic mobilization is partial, and in so
far as such human-loyalty motivation is incomplete, to that extent will the
experience of conversion be a blended intellectual, emotional, and spiritual
reality.
100:5.6 If one is disposed to recognize a theoretical subconscious mind as a
practical working hypothesis in the otherwise unified intellectual life, then,
to be consistent, one should postulate a similar and corresponding realm of
ascending intellectual activity as the superconscious level, the zone of
immediate contact with the indwelling spirit entity, the Thought Adjuster. The
great danger in all these psychic speculations is that visions and other so-
called mystic experiences, along with extraordinary dreams, may be regarded as
divine communications to the human mind. In times past, divine beings have
revealed themselves to certain God-knowing persons, not because of their
mystic trances or morbid visions, but in spite of all these phenomena.
100:5.7 In contrast with conversion-seeking, the better approach to the
morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through
living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer.
Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of
the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings.
100:5.8 There is great danger associated with the habitual practice of
religious daydreaming; mysticism may become a technique of reality avoidance,
albeit it has sometimes been a means of genuine spiritual communion. Short
seasons of retreat from the busy scenes of life may not be seriously
dangerous, but prolonged isolation of personality is most undesirable. Under
no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be
cultivated as a religious experience.
100:5.9 The characteristics of the mystical state are diffusion of
consciousness with vivid islands of focal attention operating on a
comparatively passive intellect. All of this gravitates consciousness toward
the subconscious rather than in the direction of the zone of spiritual
contact, the superconscious. Many mystics have carried their mental
dissociation to the level of abnormal mental manifestations.
100:5.10 The more healthful attitude of spiritual meditation is to be found in
reflective worship and in the prayer of thanksgiving. The direct communion
with one's Thought Adjuster, such as occurred in the later years of Jesus'
life in the flesh, should not be confused with these so-called mystical
experiences. The factors which contribute to the initiation of mystic
communion are indicative of the danger of such psychic states. The mystic
status is favored by such things as: physical fatigue, fasting, psychic
dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid sex impulses, fear,
anxiety, rage, and wild dancing. Much of the material arising as a result of
such preliminary preparation has its origin in the subconscious mind.
100:5.11 However favorable may have been the conditions for mystic phenomena,
it should be clearly understood that Jesus of Nazareth never resorted to such
methods for communion with the Paradise Father. Jesus had no subconscious
delusions or superconscious illusions.
6. MARKS OF RELIGIOUS LIVING
100:6.1 Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in
method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific
function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a
wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of
supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding
characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted
devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown
in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the
fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.
100:6.2 The accepted supreme value of the religionist may be base or even
false, but it is nevertheless religious. A religion is genuine to just the
extent that the value which is held to be supreme is truly a cosmic reality of
genuine spiritual worth.
100:6.3 The marks of human response to the religious impulse embrace the
qualities of nobility and grandeur. The sincere religionist is conscious of
universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman
power. He is thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a
superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of
self-worth has become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest
universe objectives -- supreme goals.
100:6.4 The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-
encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens
emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid
recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of
mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual
aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals. And this
intense striving for the attainment of supermortal ideals is always
characterized by increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance.
100:6.5 But true religion is a living love, a life of service. The
religionist's detachment from much that is purely temporal and trivial never
leads to social isolation, and it should not destroy the sense of humor.
Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new
meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and
courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than
dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the
commonplace social obligations of human loyalties.
100:6.6 One of the most amazing earmarks of religious living is that dynamic
and sublime peace, that peace which passes all human understanding, that
cosmic poise which betokens the absence of all doubt and turmoil. Such levels
of spiritual stability are immune to disappointment. Such religionists are
like the Apostle Paul, who said: "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else shall be able to separate us
from the love of God."
100:6.7 There is a sense of security, associated with the realization of
triumphing glory, resident in the consciousness of the religionist who has
grasped the reality of the Supreme, and who pursues the goal of the Ultimate.
100:6.8 Even evolutionary religion is all of this in loyalty and grandeur
because it is a genuine experience. But revelatory religion is excellent as
well as genuine. The new loyalties of enlarged spiritual vision create new
levels of love and devotion, of service and fellowship; and all this enhanced
social outlook produces an enlarged consciousness of the Fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of man.
100:6.9 The characteristic difference between evolved and revealed religion is
a new quality of divine wisdom which is added to purely experiential human
wisdom. But it is experience in and with the human religions that develops the
capacity for subsequent reception of increased bestowals of divine wisdom and
cosmic insight.
7. THE ACME OF RELIGIOUS LIVING
100:7.1 Although the average mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high
perfection of character which Jesus of Nazareth acquired while sojourning in
the flesh, it is altogether possible for every mortal believer to develop a
strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus
personality. The unique feature of the Master's personality was not so much
its perfection as its symmetry, its exquisite and balanced unification. The
most effective presentation of Jesus consists in following the example of the
one who said, as he gestured toward the Master standing before his accusers,
"Behold the man!"
100:7.2 The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his
stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere;
there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he
was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense, and he never
resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the
truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation, even
though such sincerity sometimes caused pain. He was unquestioningly loyal to
all truth.
100:7.3 But the Master was so reasonable, so approachable. He was so practical
in all his ministry, while all his plans were characterized by such sanctified
common sense. He was so free from all freakish, erratic, and eccentric
tendencies. He was never capricious, whimsical, or hysterical. In all his
teaching and in everything he did there was always an exquisite discrimination
associated with an extraordinary sense of propriety.
100:7.4 The Son of Man was always a well-poised personality. Even his enemies
maintained a wholesome respect for him; they even feared his presence. Jesus
was unafraid. He was surcharged with divine enthusiasm, but he never became
fanatical. He was emotionally active but never flighty. He was imaginative but
always practical. He frankly faced the realities of life, but he was never
dull or prosaic. He was courageous but never reckless; prudent but never
cowardly. He was sympathetic but not sentimental; unique but not eccentric. He
was pious but not sanctimonious. And he was so well-poised because he was so
perfectly unified.
100:7.5 Jesus' originality was unstifled. He was not bound by tradition or
handicapped by enslavement to narrow conventionality. He spoke with undoubted
confidence and taught with absolute authority. But his superb originality did
not cause him to overlook the gems of truth in the teachings of his
predecessors and contemporaries. And the most original of his teachings was
the emphasis of love and mercy in the place of fear and sacrifice.
100:7.6 Jesus was very broad in his outlook. He exhorted his followers to
preach the gospel to all peoples. He was free from all narrow-mindedness. His
sympathetic heart embraced all mankind, even a universe. Always his invitation
was, "Whosoever will, let him come."
100:7.7 Of Jesus it was truly said, "He trusted God." As a man among men he
most sublimely trusted the Father in heaven. He trusted his Father as a little
child trusts his earthly parent. His faith was perfect but never presumptuous.
No matter how cruel nature might appear to be or how indifferent to man's
welfare on earth, Jesus never faltered in his faith. He was immune to
disappointment and impervious to persecution. He was untouched by apparent
failure.
100:7.8 He loved men as brothers, at the same time recognizing how they
differed in innate endowments and acquired qualities. "He went about doing
good."
100:7.9 Jesus was an unusually cheerful person, but he was not a blind and
unreasoning optimist. His constant word of exhortation was, "Be of good
cheer." He could maintain this confident attitude because of his unswerving
trust in God and his unshakable confidence in man. He was always touchingly
considerate of all men because he loved them and believed in them. Still he
was always true to his convictions and magnificently firm in his devotion to
the doing of his Father's will.
100:7.10 The Master was always generous. He never grew weary of saying, "It is
more blessed to give than to receive." Said he, "Freely you have received,
freely give." And yet, with all of his unbounded generosity, he was never
wasteful or extravagant. He taught that you must believe to receive salvation.
"For every one who seeks shall receive."
100:7.11 He was candid, but always kind. Said he, "If it were not so, I would
have told you." He was frank, but always friendly. He was outspoken in his
love for the sinner and in his hatred for sin. But throughout all this amazing
frankness he was unerringly fair.
100:7.12 Jesus was consistently cheerful, notwithstanding he sometimes drank
deeply of the cup of human sorrow. He fearlessly faced the realities of
existence, yet was he filled with enthusiasm for the gospel of the kingdom.
But he controlled his enthusiasm; it never controlled him. He was unreservedly
dedicated to "the Father's business." This divine enthusiasm led his
unspiritual brethren to think he was beside himself, but the onlooking
universe appraised him as the model of sanity and the pattern of supreme
mortal devotion to the high standards of spiritual living. And his controlled
enthusiasm was contagious; his associates were constrained to share his divine
optimism.
100:7.13 This man of Galilee was not a man of sorrows; he was a soul of
gladness. Always was he saying, "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad." But when
duty required, he was willing to walk courageously through the "valley of the
shadow of death." He was gladsome but at the same time humble.
100:7.14 His courage was equaled only by his patience. When pressed to act
prematurely, he would only reply, "My hour has not yet come." He was never in
a hurry; his composure was sublime. But he was often indignant at evil,
intolerant of sin. He was often mightily moved to resist that which was
inimical to the welfare of his children on earth. But his indignation against
sin never led to anger at the sinner.
100:7.15 His courage was magnificent, but he was never foolhardy. His
watchword was, "Fear not." His bravery was lofty and his courage often heroic.
But his courage was linked with discretion and controlled by reason. It was
courage born of faith, not the recklessness of blind presumption. He was truly
brave but never audacious.
100:7.16 The Master was a pattern of reverence. The prayer of even his youth
began, "Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name." He was even
respectful of the faulty worship of his fellows. But this did not deter him
from making attacks on religious traditions or assaulting errors of human
belief. He was reverential of true holiness, and yet he could justly appeal to
his fellows, saying, "Who among you convicts me of sin?"
100:7.17 Jesus was great because he was good, and yet he fraternized with the
little children. He was gentle and unassuming in his personal life, and yet he
was the perfected man of a universe. His associates called him Master
unbidden.
100:7.18 Jesus was the perfectly unified human personality. And today, as in
Galilee, he continues to unify mortal experience and to co-ordinate human
endeavors. He unifies life, ennobles character, and simplifies experience. He
enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. It is
literally true: "If any man has Christ Jesus within him, he is a new creature;
old things are passing away; behold, all things are becoming new."
100:7.19 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 101
THE REAL NATURE OF RELIGION
101:0.1 RELIGION, as a human experience, ranges from the primitive fear
slavery of the evolving savage up to the sublime and magnificent faith liberty
of those civilized mortals who are superbly conscious of sonship with the
eternal God.
101:0.2 Religion is the ancestor of the advanced ethics and morals of
progressive social evolution. But religion, as such, is not merely a moral
movement, albeit the outward and social manifestations of religion are
mightily influenced by the ethical and moral momentum of human society. Always
is religion the inspiration of man's evolving nature, but it is not the secret
of that evolution.
101:0.3 Religion, the conviction-faith of the personality, can always triumph
over the superficially contradictory logic of despair born in the unbelieving
material mind. There really is a true and genuine inner voice, that "true
light which lights every man who comes into the world." And this spirit
leading is distinct from the ethical prompting of human conscience. The
feeling of religious assurance is more than an emotional feeling. The
assurance of religion transcends the reason of the mind, even the logic of
philosophy. Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.
1. TRUE RELIGION
101:1.1 True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be
reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic
and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be
enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the
product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable.
Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal
experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity
in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents
true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual
satisfactions while yet in the flesh.
101:1.2 The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain
self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or
expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through
the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind. And therein lies one
explanation of the Adjuster's difficulty in engaging in direct communication
with the material mind of its constant indwelling.
101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or
emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It
is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature
may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really
discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. "Without
holiness no man may see the Lord." All such inner and spiritual communion is
termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress
made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the
Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights,
and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God.
101:1.4 Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but
rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or
in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and
spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest
religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and
authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely
mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of
spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind,
and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is
simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the
reality of such a purely personal experience.
101:1.5 While religion is not the product of the rationalistic speculations of
a material cosmology, it is, nonetheless, the creation of a wholly rational
insight which originates in man's mind-experience. Religion is born neither of
mystic meditations nor of isolated contemplations, albeit it is ever more or
less mysterious and always indefinable and inexplicable in terms of purely
intellectual reason and philosophic logic. The germs of true religion
originate in the domain of man's moral consciousness, and they are revealed in
the growth of man's spiritual insight, that faculty of human personality which
accrues as a consequence of the presence of the God-revealing Thought Adjuster
in the God-hungry mortal mind.
101:1.6 Faith unites moral insight with conscientious discriminations of
values, and the pre-existent evolutionary sense of duty completes the ancestry
of true religion. The experience of religion eventually results in the certain
consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the
believing personality.
101:1.7 Thus it may be seen that religious longings and spiritual urges are
not of such a nature as would merely lead men to want to believe in God, but
rather are they of such nature and power that men are profoundly impressed
with the conviction that they ought to believe in God. The sense of
evolutionary duty and the obligations consequent upon the illumination of
revelation make such a profound impression upon man's moral nature that he
finally reaches that position of mind and that attitude of soul where he
concludes that he has no right not to believe in God. The higher and
superphilosophic wisdom of such enlightened and disciplined individuals
ultimately instructs them that to doubt God or distrust his goodness would be
to prove untrue to the realest and deepest thing within the human mind and
soul -- the divine Adjuster.
2. THE FACT OF RELIGION
101:2.1 The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of
rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which
religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof
that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact
that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature
and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe
philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and
religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which
answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves
to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds,
and on spirit.
101:2.2 Reason is the method of science; faith is the method of religion;
logic is the attempted technique of philosophy. Revelation compensates for the
absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity
in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by
the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science unnatural,
religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical.
101:2.3 Reason, through the study of science, may lead back through nature to
a First Cause, but it requires religious faith to transform the First Cause of
science into a God of salvation; and revelation is further required for the
validation of such a faith, such spiritual insight.
101:2.4 There are two basic reasons for believing in a God who fosters human
survival:
1. Human experience, personal assurance, the somehow registered hope and trust
initiated by the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
2. The revelation of truth, whether by direct personal ministry of the Spirit of
Truth, by the world bestowal of divine Sons, or through the revelations of the
written word.
101:2.5 Science ends its reason-search in the hypothesis of a First Cause.
Religion does not stop in its flight of faith until it is sure of a God of
salvation. The discriminating study of science logically suggests the reality
and existence of an Absolute. Religion believes unreservedly in the existence
and reality of a God who fosters personality survival. What metaphysics fails
utterly in doing, and what even philosophy fails partially in doing,
revelation does; that is, affirms that this First Cause of science and
religion's God of salvation are one and the same Deity.
101:2.6 Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the
proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience.
Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity;
revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to
universal reality.
101:2.7 The contemplation of nature can only reveal a God of nature, a God of
motion. Nature exhibits only matter, motion, and animation -- life. Matter
plus energy, under certain conditions, is manifested in living forms, but
while natural life is thus relatively continuous as a phenomenon, it is wholly
transient as to individualities. Nature does not afford ground for logical
belief in human-personality survival. The religious man who finds God in
nature has already and first found this same personal God in his own soul.
101:2.8 Faith reveals God in the soul. Revelation, the substitute for morontia
insight on an evolutionary world, enables man to see the same God in nature
that faith exhibits in his soul. Thus does revelation successfully bridge the
gulf between the material and the spiritual, even between the creature and the
Creator, between man and God.
101:2.9 The contemplation of nature does logically point in the direction of
intelligent guidance, even living supervision, but it does not in any
satisfactory manner reveal a personal God. On the other hand, nature discloses
nothing which would preclude the universe from being looked upon as the
handiwork of the God of religion. God cannot be found through nature alone,
but man having otherwise found him, the study of nature becomes wholly
consistent with a higher and more spiritual interpretation of the universe.
101:2.10 Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human
experience it is continuous. Divinity functions in mortal personality as the
Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the
Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit, while these three supermortal endowments
are unified in human experiential evolution as the ministry of the Supreme.
101:2.11 True religion is an insight into reality, the faith-child of the
moral consciousness, and not a mere intellectual assent to any body of
dogmatic doctrines. True religion consists in the experience that "the Spirit
itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God."
Religion consists not in theologic propositions but in spiritual insight and
the sublimity of the soul's trust.
101:2.12 Your deepest nature -- the divine Adjuster -- creates within you a
hunger and thirst for righteousness, a certain craving for divine perfection.
Religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine
attainment; and thus is brought about that soul trust and assurance of which
you become conscious as the way of salvation, the technique of the survival of
personality and all those values which you have come to look upon as being
true and good.
101:2.13 The realization of religion never has been, and never will be,
dependent on great learning or clever logic. It is spiritual insight, and that
is just the reason why some of the world's greatest religious teachers, even
the prophets, have sometimes possessed so little of the wisdom of the world.
Religious faith is available alike to the learned and the unlearned.
101:2.14 Religion must ever be its own critic and judge; it can never be
observed, much less understood, from the outside. Your only assurance of a
personal God consists in your own insight as to your belief in, and experience
with, things spiritual. To all of your fellows who have had a similar
experience, no argument about the personality or reality of God is necessary,
while to all other men who are not thus sure of God no possible argument could
ever be truly convincing.
101:2.15 Psychology may indeed attempt to study the phenomena of religious
reactions to the social environment, but never can it hope to penetrate to the
real and inner motives and workings of religion. Only theology, the province
of faith and the technique of revelation, can afford any sort of intelligent
account of the nature and content of religious experience.
3. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RELIGION
101:3.1 Religion is so vital that it persists in the absence of learning. It
lives in spite of its contamination with erroneous cosmologies and false
philosophies; it survives even the confusion of metaphysics. In and through
all the historic vicissitudes of religion there ever persists that which is
indispensable to human progress and survival: the ethical conscience and the
moral consciousness.
101:3.2 Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic
mind in association with the Thought Adjuster, which is the Father's gift to
man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit,
the Creative Spirit's gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit
realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the
bestowal Sons to the children of men. And the co-ordination and
interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute man a spirit
personality in potential destiny.
101:3.3 It is this same spirit personality, in primitive and embryonic form,
the Adjuster possession of which survives the natural death in the flesh. This
composite entity of spirit origin in association with human experience is
enabled, by means of the living way provided by the divine Sons, to survive
(in Adjuster custody) the dissolution of the material self of mind and matter
when such a transient partnership of the material and the spiritual is
divorced by the cessation of vital motion.
101:3.4 Through religious faith the soul of man reveals itself and
demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature by the
characteristic manner in which it induces the mortal personality to react to
certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. Genuine spiritual
faith (true moral consciousness) is revealed in that it:
1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic
tendencies.
2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter
disappointment and crushing defeat.
3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and
physical calamity.
4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding
baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.
5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of
maltreatment and the rankest injustice.
6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of
seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to
human welfare.
7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations
of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.
8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul's survival regardless of the
deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound
philosophy.
9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and
partial civilizations of modern times.
10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human
selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political
maladjustments.
11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine
guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.
12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to
declare, "Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him."
101:3.5 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or
spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience -- religious faith;
second, by revelation -- personal and racial; and third, by the amazing
exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material
environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike
performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human
existence. And there are still others.
101:3.6 And it is just such a vital and vigorous performance of faith in the
domain of religion that entitles mortal man to affirm the personal possession
and spiritual reality of that crowning endowment of human nature, religious
experience.
4. THE LIMITATIONS OF REVELATION
101:4.1 Because your world is generally ignorant of origins, even of physical
origins, it has appeared to be wise from time to time to provide instruction
in cosmology. And always has this made trouble for the future. The laws of
revelation hamper us greatly by their proscription of the impartation of
unearned or premature knowledge. Any cosmology presented as a part of revealed
religion is destined to be outgrown in a very short time. Accordingly, future
students of such a revelation are tempted to discard any element of genuine
religious truth it may contain because they discover errors on the face of the
associated cosmologies therein presented.
101:4.2 Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of
truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors. We are
not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years.
Revelators must act in accordance with the instructions which form a part of
the revelation mandate. We see no way of overcoming this difficulty, either
now or at any future time. We full well know that, while the historic facts
and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on
the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our
statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in
consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These
new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such
humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear
that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these
revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the co-
ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge. While divine or spiritual
insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve.
101:4.3 Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a
result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is
presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or
personality.
101:4.4 In the last analysis, religion is to be judged by its fruits,
according to the manner and the extent to which it exhibits its own inherent
and divine excellence.
101:4.5 Truth may be but relatively inspired, even though revelation is
invariably a spiritual phenomenon. While statements with reference to
cosmology are never inspired, such revelations are of immense value in that
they at least transiently clarify knowledge by:
1. The reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of error.
2. The co-ordination of known or about-to-be-known facts and observations.
3. The restoration of important bits of lost knowledge concerning epochal
transactions in the distant past.
4. The supplying of information which will fill in vital missing gaps in
otherwise earned knowledge.
5. Presenting cosmic data in such a manner as to illuminate the spiritual
teachings contained in the accompanying revelation.
5. RELIGION EXPANDED BY REVELATION
101:5.1 Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in
the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from the
truths of spirit acquirement.
101:5.2 Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values.
Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of
both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality.
Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of
wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion,
nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation:
101:5.3 1. Evolutionary religion. The experience of primitive worship, the
religion which is a mind derivative.
101:5.4 2. Revealed religion. The universe attitude which is a spirit
derivative; the assurance of, and belief in, the conservation of eternal
realities, the survival of personality, and the eventual attainment of the
cosmic Deity, whose purpose has made all this possible. It is a part of the
plan of the universe that, sooner or later, evolutionary religion is destined
to receive the spiritual expansion of revelation.
101:5.5 Both science and religion start out with the assumption of certain
generally accepted bases for logical deductions. So, also, must philosophy
start its career upon the assumption of the reality of three things:
1. The material body.
2. The supermaterial phase of the human being, the soul or even the indwelling
spirit.
3. The human mind, the mechanism for intercommunication and interassociation
between spirit and matter, between the material and the spiritual.
101:5.6 Scientists assemble facts, philosophers co-ordinate ideas, while
prophets exalt ideals. Feeling and emotion are invariable concomitants of
religion, but they are not religion. Religion may be the feeling of
experience, but it is hardly the experience of feeling. Neither logic
(rationalization) nor emotion (feeling) is essentially a part of religious
experience, although both may variously be associated with the exercise of
faith in the furtherance of spiritual insight into reality, all according to
the status and temperamental tendency of the individual mind.
101:5.7 Evolutionary religion is the outworking of the endowment of the local
universe mind adjutant charged with the creation and fostering of the worship
trait in evolving man. Such primitive religions are directly concerned with
ethics and morals, the sense of human duty. Such religions are predicated on
the assurance of conscience and result in the stabilization of relatively
ethical civilizations.
101:5.8 Personally revealed religions are sponsored by the bestowal spirits
representing the three persons of the Paradise Trinity and are especially
concerned with the expansion of truth. Evolutionary religion drives home to
the individual the idea of personal duty; revealed religion lays increasing
emphasis on loving, the golden rule.
101:5.9 Evolved religion rests wholly on faith. Revelation has the additional
assurance of its expanded presentation of the truths of divinity and reality
and the still more valuable testimony of the actual experience which
accumulates in consequence of the practical working union of the faith of
evolution and the truth of revelation. Such a working union of human faith and
divine truth constitutes the possession of a character well on the road to the
actual acquirement of a morontial personality.
101:5.10 Evolutionary religion provides only the assurance of faith and the
confirmation of conscience; revelatory religion provides the assurance of
faith plus the truth of a living experience in the realities of revelation.
The third step in religion, or the third phase of the experience of religion,
has to do with the morontia state, the firmer grasp of mota. Increasingly in
the morontia progression the truths of revealed religion are expanded; more
and more you will know the truth of supreme values, divine goodnesses,
universal relationships, eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.
101:5.11 Increasingly throughout the morontia progression the assurance of
truth replaces the assurance of faith. When you are finally mustered into the
actual spirit world, then will the assurances of pure spirit insight operate
in the place of faith and truth or, rather, in conjunction with, and
superimposed upon, these former techniques of personality assurance.
6. PROGRESSIVE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
101:6.1 The morontia phase of revealed religion has to do with the experience
of survival, and its great urge is the attainment of spirit perfection. There
also is present the higher urge of worship, associated with an impelling call
to increased ethical service. Morontia insight entails an ever-expanding
consciousness of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and even the Ultimate.
101:6.2 Throughout all religious experience, from its earliest inception on
the material level up to the time of the attainment of full spirit status, the
Adjuster is the secret of the personal realization of the reality of the
existence of the Supreme; and this same Adjuster also holds the secrets of
your faith in the transcendental attainment of the Ultimate. The experiential
personality of evolving man, united to the Adjuster essence of the existential
God, constitutes the potential completion of supreme existence and is
inherently the basis for the superfinite eventuation of transcendental
personality.
101:6.3 Moral will embraces decisions based on reasoned knowledge, augmented
by wisdom, and sanctioned by religious faith. Such choices are acts of moral
nature and evidence the existence of moral personality, the forerunner of
morontia personality and eventually of true spirit status.
101:6.4 The evolutionary type of knowledge is but the accumulation of
protoplasmic memory material; this is the most primitive form of creature
consciousness. Wisdom embraces the ideas formulated from protoplasmic memory
in process of association and recombination, and such phenomena differentiate
human mind from mere animal mind. Animals have knowledge, but only man
possesses wisdom capacity. Truth is made accessible to the wisdom-endowed
individual by the bestowal on such a mind of the spirits of the Father and the
Sons, the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth.
101:6.5 Christ Michael, when bestowed on Urantia, lived under the reign of
evolutionary religion up to the time of his baptism. From that moment up to
and including the event of his crucifixion he carried forward his work by the
combined guidance of evolutionary and revealed religion. From the morning of
his resurrection until his ascension he traversed the manifold phases of the
morontia life of mortal transition from the world of matter to that of spirit.
After his ascension Michael became master of the experience of Supremacy, the
realization of the Supreme; and being the one person in Nebadon possessed of
unlimited capacity to experience the reality of the Supreme, he forthwith
attained to the status of the sovereignty of supremacy in and to his local
universe.
101:6.6 With man, the eventual fusion and resultant oneness with the
indwelling Adjuster -- the personality synthesis of man and the essence of God
-- constitute him, in potential, a living part of the Supreme and insure for
such a onetime mortal being the eternal birthright of the endless pursuit of
finality of universe service for and with the Supreme.
101:6.7 Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and
intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he
should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next,
mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-
possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals,
even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals
that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them
available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the
actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of
the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth -- universal truth.
The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth
constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for
mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of
the morontia worlds.
101:6.8 The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which
so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith,
truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal
tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic
stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance
of personal survival. The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human
salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided
for:
1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with
God, who is spirit.
2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth
shall set him free.
3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity
of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe
creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-
revelation of the goodness of spirit values.
4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit
levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of
Havona and the perfection of Paradise.
5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness
through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-
ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings.
6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending
progression in God-recognition and God-service.
7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through
the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the
Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.
101:6.9 Such a sevenfold salvation is the equivalent of the completeness and
perfection of the realization of the ultimate experience of the Universal
Father. And all this, in potential, is contained within the reality of the
faith of the human experience of religion. And it can be so contained since
the faith of Jesus was nourished by, and was revelatory of, even realities
beyond the ultimate; the faith of Jesus approached the status of a universe
absolute in so far as such is possible of manifestation in the evolving cosmos
of time and space.
101:6.10 Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can
foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in
human experience, of the Final Father, and his brothers in the flesh of mortal
life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can
even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the
Father as did Jesus as he was. New potentials were actualized in the universe
of Nebadon consequent upon the terminal bestowal of Michael, and one of these
was the new illumination of the path of eternity that leads to the Father of
all, and which can be traversed even by the mortals of material flesh and
blood in the initial life on the planets of space. Jesus was and is the new
and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance which the
Father has decreed shall be his for but the asking. In Jesus there is
abundantly demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith
experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.
7. A PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
101:7.1 An idea is only a theoretical plan for action, while a positive
decision is a validated plan of action. A stereotype is a plan of action
accepted without validation. The materials out of which to build a personal
philosophy of religion are derived from both the inner and the environmental
experience of the individual. The social status, economic conditions,
educational opportunities, moral trends, institutional influences, political
developments, racial tendencies, and the religious teachings of one's time and
place all become factors in the formulation of a personal philosophy of
religion. Even the inherent temperament and intellectual bent markedly
determine the pattern of religious philosophy. Vocation, marriage, and kindred
all influence the evolution of one's personal standards of life.
101:7.2 A philosophy of religion evolves out of a basic growth of ideas plus
experimental living as both are modified by the tendency to imitate
associates. The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest,
and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and
accuracy of evaluation. Moral cowards never achieve high planes of philosophic
thinking; it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to
attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual living.
101:7.3 Presently new systems of values come into existence; new formulations
of principles and standards are achieved; habits and ideals are reshaped; some
idea of a personal God is attained, followed by enlarging concepts of
relationship thereto.
101:7.4 The great difference between a religious and a nonreligious philosophy
of living consists in the nature and level of recognized values and in the
object of loyalties. There are four phases in the evolution of religious
philosophy: Such an experience may become merely conformative, resigned to
submission to tradition and authority. Or it may be satisfied with slight
attainments, just enough to stabilize the daily living, and therefore becomes
early arrested on such an adventitious level. Such mortals believe in letting
well enough alone. A third group progress to the level of logical
intellectuality but there stagnate in consequence of cultural slavery. It is
indeed pitiful to behold giant intellects held so securely within the cruel
grasp of cultural bondage. It is equally pathetic to observe those who trade
their cultural bondage for the materialistic fetters of a science, falsely so
called. The fourth level of philosophy attains freedom from all conventional
and traditional handicaps and dares to think, act, and live honestly, loyally,
fearlessly, and truthfully.
101:7.5 The acid test for any religious philosophy consists in whether or not
it distinguishes between the realities of the material and the spiritual
worlds while at the same moment recognizing their unification in intellectual
striving and in social serving. A sound religious philosophy does not confound
the things of God with the things of Caesar. Neither does it recognize the
aesthetic cult of pure wonder as a substitute for religion.
101:7.6 Philosophy transforms that primitive religion which was largely a
fairy tale of conscience into a living experience in the ascending values of
cosmic reality.
8. FAITH AND BELIEF
101:8.1 Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and
shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith;
that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of
mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of
living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience.
One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not
worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who
is all of these personified and infinitely more.
101:8.2 Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and
releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more
than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of
philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings,
divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs
may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs
can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the
individual religionist.
101:8.3 Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and
to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it
fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme
values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal
living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.
101:8.4 Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it
maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific
investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist
heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to
knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.
9. RELIGION AND MORALITY
101:9.1 No professed revelation of religion could be regarded as authentic if
it failed to recognize the duty demands of ethical obligation which had been
created and fostered by preceding evolutionary religion. Revelation
unfailingly enlarges the ethical horizon of evolved religion while it
simultaneously and unfailingly expands the moral obligations of all prior
revelations.
101:9.2 When you presume to sit in critical judgment on the primitive religion
of man (or on the religion of primitive man), you should remember to judge
such savages and to evaluate their religious experience in accordance with
their enlightenment and status of conscience. Do not make the mistake of
judging another's religion by your own standards of knowledge and truth.
101:9.3 True religion is that sublime and profound conviction within the soul
which compellingly admonishes man that it would be wrong for him not to
believe in those morontial realities which constitute his highest ethical and
moral concepts, his highest interpretation of life's greatest values and the
universe's deepest realities. And such a religion is simply the experience of
yielding intellectual loyalty to the highest dictates of spiritual
consciousness.
101:9.4 The search for beauty is a part of religion only in so far as it is
ethical and to the extent that it enriches the concept of the moral. Art is
only religious when it becomes diffused with purpose which has been derived
from high spiritual motivation.
101:9.5 The enlightened spiritual consciousness of civilized man is not
concerned so much with some specific intellectual belief or with any one
particular mode of living as with discovering the truth of living, the good
and right technique of reacting to the ever-recurring situations of mortal
existence. Moral consciousness is just a name applied to the human recognition
and awareness of those ethical and emerging morontial values which duty
demands that man shall abide by in the day-by-day control and guidance of
conduct.
101:9.6 Though recognizing that religion is imperfect, there are at least two
practical manifestations of its nature and function:
101:9.7 1. The spiritual urge and philosophic pressure of religion tend to
cause man to project his estimation of moral values directly outward into the
affairs of his fellows -- the ethical reaction of religion.
101:9.8 2. Religion creates for the human mind a spiritualized consciousness
of divine reality based on, and by faith derived from, antecedent concepts of
moral values and co-ordinated with superimposed concepts of spiritual values.
Religion thereby becomes a censor of mortal affairs, a form of glorified moral
trust and confidence in reality, the enhanced realities of time and the more
enduring realities of eternity.
101:9.9 Faith becomes the connection between moral consciousness and the
spiritual concept of enduring reality. Religion becomes the avenue of man's
escape from the material limitations of the temporal and natural world to the
supernal realities of the eternal and spiritual world by and through the
technique of salvation, the progressive morontia transformation.
10. RELIGION AS MAN'S LIBERATOR
101:10.1 Intelligent man knows that he is a child of nature, a part of the
material universe; he likewise discerns no survival of individual personality
in the motions and tensions of the mathematical level of the energy universe.
Nor can man ever discern spiritual reality through the examination of physical
causes and effects.
101:10.2 A human being is also aware that he is a part of the ideational
cosmos, but though concept may endure beyond a mortal life span, there is
nothing inherent in concept which indicates the personal survival of the
conceiving personality. Nor will the exhaustion of the possibilities of logic
and reason ever reveal to the logician or to the reasoner the eternal truth of
the survival of personality.
101:10.3 The material level of law provides for causality continuity, the
unending response of effect to antecedent action; the mind level suggests the
perpetuation of ideational continuity, the unceasing flow of conceptual
potentiality from pre-existent conceptions. But neither of these levels of the
universe discloses to the inquiring mortal an avenue of escape from partiality
of status and from the intolerable suspense of being a transient reality in
the universe, a temporal personality doomed to be extinguished upon the
exhaustion of the limited life energies.
101:10.4 It is only through the morontial avenue leading to spiritual insight
that man can ever break the fetters inherent in his mortal status in the
universe. Energy and mind do lead back to Paradise and Deity, but neither the
energy endowment nor the mind endowment of man proceeds directly from such
Paradise Deity. Only in the spiritual sense is man a child of God. And this is
true because it is only in the spiritual sense that man is at present endowed
and indwelt by the Paradise Father. Mankind can never discover divinity except
through the avenue of religious experience and by the exercise of true faith.
The faith acceptance of the truth of God enables man to escape from the
circumscribed confines of material limitations and affords him a rational hope
of achieving safe conduct from the material realm, whereon is death, to the
spiritual realm, wherein is life eternal.
101:10.5 The purpose of religion is not to satisfy curiosity about God but
rather to afford intellectual constancy and philosophic security, to stabilize
and enrich human living by blending the mortal with the divine, the partial
with the perfect, man and God. It is through religious experience that man's
concepts of ideality are endowed with reality.
101:10.6 Never can there be either scientific or logical proofs of divinity.
Reason alone can never validate the values and goodnesses of religious
experience. But it will always remain true: Whosoever wills to do the will of
God shall comprehend the validity of spiritual values. This is the nearest
approach that can be made on the mortal level to offering proofs of the
reality of religious experience. Such faith affords the only escape from the
mechanical clutch of the material world and from the error distortion of the
incompleteness of the intellectual world; it is the only discovered solution
to the impasse in mortal thinking regarding the continuing survival of the
individual personality. It is the only passport to completion of reality and
to eternity of life in a universal creation of love, law, unity, and
progressive Deity attainment.
101:10.7 Religion effectually cures man's sense of idealistic isolation or
spiritual loneliness; it enfranchises the believer as a son of God, a citizen
of a new and meaningful universe. Religion assures man that, in following the
gleam of righteousness discernible in his soul, he is thereby identifying
himself with the plan of the Infinite and the purpose of the Eternal. Such a
liberated soul immediately begins to feel at home in this new universe, his
universe.
101:10.8 When you experience such a transformation of faith, you are no longer
a slavish part of the mathematical cosmos but rather a liberated volitional
son of the Universal Father. No longer is such a liberated son fighting alone
against the inexorable doom of the termination of temporal existence; no
longer does he combat all nature, with the odds hopelessly against him; no
longer is he staggered by the paralyzing fear that, perchance, he has put his
trust in a hopeless phantasm or pinned his faith to a fanciful error.
101:10.9 Now, rather, are the sons of God enlisted together in fighting the
battle of reality's triumph over the partial shadows of existence. At last all
creatures become conscious of the fact that God and all the divine hosts of a
well-nigh limitless universe are on their side in the supernal struggle to
attain eternity of life and divinity of status. Such faith-liberated sons have
certainly enlisted in the struggles of time on the side of the supreme forces
and divine personalities of eternity; even the stars in their courses are now
doing battle for them; at last they gaze upon the universe from within, from
God's viewpoint, and all is transformed from the uncertainties of material
isolation to the sureties of eternal spiritual progression. Even time itself
becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving
panoply of space.
101:10.10 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 102
THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH
102:0.1 TO THE unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary
accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination;
his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental
juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor
expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and
inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by
death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction.
Nameless despair is man's only reward for living and toiling under the
temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens
the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter
has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which
is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.
102:0.2 But such is not man's end and eternal destiny; such a vision is but
the cry of despair uttered by some wandering soul who has become lost in
spiritual darkness, and who bravely struggles on in the face of the
mechanistic sophistries of a material philosophy, blinded by the confusion and
distortion of a complex learning. And all this doom of darkness and all this
destiny of despair are forever dispelled by one brave stretch of faith on the
part of the most humble and unlearned of God's children on earth.
102:0.3 This saving faith has its birth in the human heart when the moral
consciousness of man realizes that human values may be translated in mortal
experience from the material to the spiritual, from the human to the divine,
from time to eternity.
1. ASSURANCES OF FAITH
102:1.1 The work of the Thought Adjuster constitutes the explanation of the
translation of man's primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher
and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation. There must be
perfection hunger in man's heart to insure capacity for comprehending the
faith paths to supreme attainment. If any man chooses to do the divine will,
he shall know the way of truth. It is literally true, "Human things must be
known in order to be loved, but divine things must be loved in order to be
known." But honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sin; such attitudes
merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment.
Childlike trust secures man's entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent,
but progress is wholly dependent on the vigorous exercise of the robust and
confident faith of the full-grown man.
102:1.2 The reason of science is based on the observable facts of time; the
faith of religion argues from the spirit program of eternity. What knowledge
and reason cannot do for us, true wisdom admonishes us to allow faith to
accomplish through religious insight and spiritual transformation.
102:1.3 Owing to the isolation of rebellion, the revelation of truth on
Urantia has all too often been mixed up with the statements of partial and
transient cosmologies. Truth remains unchanged from generation to generation,
but the associated teachings about the physical world vary from day to day and
from year to year. Eternal truth should not be slighted because it chances to
be found in company with obsolete ideas regarding the material world. The more
of science you know, the less sure you can be; the more of religion you have,
the more certain you are.
102:1.4 The certainties of science proceed entirely from the intellect; the
certitudes of religion spring from the very foundations of the entire
personality. Science appeals to the understanding of the mind; religion
appeals to the loyalty and devotion of the body, mind, and spirit, even to the
whole personality.
102:1.5 God is so all real and absolute that no material sign of proof or no
demonstration of so-called miracle may be offered in testimony of his reality.
Always will we know him because we trust him, and our belief in him is wholly
based on our personal participation in the divine manifestations of his
infinite reality.
102:1.6 The indwelling Thought Adjuster unfailingly arouses in man's soul a
true and searching hunger for perfection together with a far-reaching
curiosity which can be adequately satisfied only by communion with God, the
divine source of that Adjuster. The hungry soul of man refuses to be satisfied
with anything less than the personal realization of the living God. Whatever
more God may be than a high and perfect moral personality, he cannot, in our
hungry and finite concept, be anything less.
2. RELIGION AND REALITY
102:2.1 Observing minds and discriminating souls know religion when they find
it in the lives of their fellows. Religion requires no definition; we all know
its social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual fruits. And this all grows out
of the fact that religion is the property of the human race; it is not a child
of culture. True, one's perception of religion is still human and therefore
subject to the bondage of ignorance, the slavery of superstition, the
deceptions of sophistication, and the delusions of false philosophy.
102:2.2 One of the characteristic peculiarities of genuine religious assurance
is that, notwithstanding the absoluteness of its affirmations and the
stanchness of its attitude, the spirit of its expression is so poised and
tempered that it never conveys the slightest impression of self-assertion or
egoistic exaltation. The wisdom of religious experience is something of a
paradox in that it is both humanly original and Adjuster derivative. Religious
force is not the product of the individual's personal prerogatives but rather
the outworking of that sublime partnership of man and the everlasting source
of all wisdom. Thus do the words and acts of true and undefiled religion
become compellingly authoritative for all enlightened mortals.
102:2.3 It is difficult to identify and analyze the factors of a religious
experience, but it is not difficult to observe that such religious
practitioners live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal.
Believers react to this temporal life as if immortality already were within
their grasp. In the lives of such mortals there is a valid originality and a
spontaneity of expression that forever segregate them from those of their
fellows who have imbibed only the wisdom of the world. Religionists seem to
live in effective emancipation from harrying haste and the painful stress of
the vicissitudes inherent in the temporal currents of time; they exhibit a
stabilization of personality and a tranquillity of character not explained by
the laws of physiology, psychology, and sociology.
102:2.4 Time is an invariable element in the attainment of knowledge; religion
makes its endowments immediately available, albeit there is the important
factor of growth in grace, definite advancement in all phases of religious
experience. Knowledge is an eternal quest; always are you learning, but never
are you able to arrive at the full knowledge of absolute truth. In knowledge
alone there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing probability of
approximation; but the religious soul of spiritual illumination knows, and
knows now. And yet this profound and positive certitude does not lead such a
sound-minded religionist to take any less interest in the ups and downs of the
progress of human wisdom, which is bound up on its material end with the
developments of slow-moving science.
102:2.5 Even the discoveries of science are not truly real in the
consciousness of human experience until they are unraveled and correlated,
until their relevant facts actually become meaning through encircuitment in
the thought streams of mind. Mortal man views even his physical environment
from the mind level, from the perspective of its psychological registry. It is
not, therefore, strange that man should place a highly unified interpretation
upon the universe and then seek to identify this energy unity of his science
with the spirit unity of his religious experience. Mind is unity; mortal
consciousness lives on the mind level and perceives the universal realities
through the eyes of the mind endowment. The mind perspective will not yield
the existential unity of the source of reality, the First Source and Center,
but it can and sometime will portray to man the experiential synthesis of
energy, mind, and spirit in and as the Supreme Being. But mind can never
succeed in this unification of the diversity of reality unless such mind is
firmly aware of material things, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values;
only in the harmony of the triunity of functional reality is there unity, and
only in unity is there the personality satisfaction of the realization of
cosmic constancy and consistency.
102:2.6 Unity is best found in human experience through philosophy. And while
the body of philosophic thought must ever be founded on material facts, the
soul and energy of true philosophic dynamics is mortal spiritual insight.
102:2.7 Evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work. To keep pace in
his life experience with the impelling demands and the compelling urges of a
growing religious experience means incessant activity in spiritual growth,
intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service. There is no
real religion apart from a highly active personality. Therefore do the more
indolent of men often seek to escape the rigors of truly religious activities
by a species of ingenious self-deception through resorting to a retreat to the
false shelter of stereotyped religious doctrines and dogmas. But true religion
is alive. Intellectual crystallization of religious concepts is the equivalent
of spiritual death. You cannot conceive of religion without ideas, but when
religion once becomes reduced only to an idea, it is no longer religion; it
has become merely a species of human philosophy.
102:2.8 Again, there are other types of unstable and poorly disciplined souls
who would use the sentimental ideas of religion as an avenue of escape from
the irritating demands of living. When certain vacillating and timid mortals
attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary life, religion,
as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest refuge, the best avenue of
escape. But it is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely, even
heroically, facing the vicissitudes of life. Religion is evolutionary man's
supreme endowment, the one thing which enables him to carry on and "endure as
seeing Him who is invisible." Mysticism, however, is often something of a
retreat from life which is embraced by those humans who do not relish the more
robust activities of living a religious life in the open arenas of human
society and commerce. True religion must act. Conduct will be the result of
religion when man actually has it, or rather when religion is permitted truly
to possess the man. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or
unacting feeling.
102:2.9 We are not blind to the fact that religion often acts unwisely, even
irreligiously, but it acts. Aberrations of religious conviction have led to
bloody persecutions, but always and ever religion does something; it is
dynamic!
3. KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, AND INSIGHT
102:3.1 Intellectual deficiency or educational poverty unavoidably handicaps
higher religious attainment because such an impoverished environment of the
spiritual nature robs religion of its chief channel of philosophic contact
with the world of scientific knowledge. The intellectual factors of religion
are important, but their overdevelopment is likewise sometimes very
handicapping and embarrassing. Religion must continually labor under a
paradoxical necessity: the necessity of making effective use of thought while
at the same time discounting the spiritual serviceableness of all thinking.
102:3.2 Religious speculation is inevitable but always detrimental;
speculation invariably falsifies its object. Speculation tends to translate
religion into something material or humanistic, and thus, while directly
interfering with the clarity of logical thought, it indirectly causes religion
to appear as a function of the temporal world, the very world with which it
should everlastingly stand in contrast. Therefore will religion always be
characterized by paradoxes, the paradoxes resulting from the absence of the
experiential connection between the material and the spiritual levels of the
universe -- morontia mota, the superphilosophic sensitivity for truth
discernment and unity perception.
102:3.3 Material feelings, human emotions, lead directly to material actions,
selfish acts. Religious insights, spiritual motivations, lead directly to
religious actions, unselfish acts of social service and altruistic
benevolence.
102:3.4 Religious desire is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious
experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. And
when a human being does find God, there is experienced within the soul of that
being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is
impelled to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows, not
to disclose that he has found God, but rather to allow the overflow of the
welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and ennoble his
fellows. Real religion leads to increased social service.
102:3.5 Science, knowledge, leads to fact consciousness; religion, experience,
leads to value consciousness; philosophy, wisdom, leads to co-ordinate
consciousness; revelation (the substitute for morontia mota) leads to the
consciousness of true reality; while the co-ordination of the consciousness of
fact, value, and true reality constitutes awareness of personality reality,
maximum of being, together with the belief in the possibility of the survival
of that very personality.
102:3.6 Knowledge leads to placing men, to originating social strata and
castes. Religion leads to serving men, thus creating ethics and altruism.
Wisdom leads to the higher and better fellowship of both ideas and one's
fellows. Revelation liberates men and starts them out on the eternal
adventure.
102:3.7 Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does
justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his
capacity for partnership with God.
102:3.8 Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion
brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the
brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the
Paradise Corps of the Finality.
102:3.9 Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the
consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of
cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of
personality survival.
102:3.10 Science seeks to identify, analyze, and classify the segmented parts
of the limitless cosmos. Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire
cosmos. Philosophy attempts the identification of the material segments of
science with the spiritual-insight concept of the whole. Wherein philosophy
fails in this attempt, revelation succeeds, affirming that the cosmic circle
is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. This cosmos of the Infinite I
AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive -- timeless, spaceless,
and unqualified. And we bear testimony that the Infinite I AM is also the
Father of Michael of Nebadon and the God of human salvation.
102:3.11 Science indicates Deity as a fact; philosophy presents the idea of an
Absolute; religion envisions God as a loving spiritual personality. Revelation
affirms the unity of the fact of Deity, the idea of the Absolute, and the
spiritual personality of God and, further, presents this concept as our Father
-- the universal fact of existence, the eternal idea of mind, and the infinite
spirit of life.
102:3.12 The pursuit of knowledge constitutes science; the search for wisdom
is philosophy; the love for God is religion; the hunger for truth is a
revelation. But it is the indwelling Thought Adjuster that attaches the
feeling of reality to man's spiritual insight into the cosmos.
102:3.13 In science, the idea precedes the expression of its realization; in
religion, the experience of realization precedes the expression of the idea.
There is a vast difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the
product of enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation -- the will
that believes.
102:3.14 In evolution, religion often leads to man's creating his concepts of
God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God's evolving man himself, while
in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God's
revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation
tends to make man Godlike.
102:3.15 Science is only satisfied with first causes, religion with supreme
personality, and philosophy with unity. Revelation affirms that these three
are one, and that all are good. The eternal real is the good of the universe
and not the time illusions of space evil. In the spiritual experience of all
personalities, always is it true that the real is the good and the good is the
real.
4. THE FACT OF EXPERIENCE
102:4.1 Because of the presence in your minds of the Thought Adjuster, it is
no more of a mystery for you to know the mind of God than for you to be sure
of the consciousness of knowing any other mind, human or superhuman. Religion
and social consciousness have this in common: They are predicated on the
consciousness of other-mindness. The technique whereby you can accept
another's idea as yours is the same whereby you may "let the mind which was in
Christ be also in you."
102:4.2 What is human experience? It is simply any interplay between an active
and questioning self and any other active and external reality. The mass of
experience is determined by depth of concept plus totality of recognition of
the reality of the external. The motion of experience equals the force of
expectant imagination plus the keenness of the sensory discovery of the
external qualities of contacted reality. The fact of experience is found in
self-consciousness plus other-existences -- other-thingness, other-mindness,
and other-spiritness.
102:4.3 Man very early becomes conscious that he is not alone in the world or
the universe. There develops a natural spontaneous self-consciousness of
other-mindness in the environment of selfhood. Faith translates this natural
experience into religion, the recognition of God as the reality -- source,
nature, and destiny -- of other-mindness. But such a knowledge of God is ever
and always a reality of personal experience. If God were not a personality, he
could not become a living part of the real religious experience of a human
personality.
102:4.4 The element of error present in human religious experience is directly
proportional to the content of materialism which contaminates the spiritual
concept of the Universal Father. Man's prespirit progression in the universe
consists in the experience of divesting himself of these erroneous ideas of
the nature of God and of the reality of pure and true spirit. Deity is more
than spirit, but the spiritual approach is the only one possible to ascending
man.
102:4.5 Prayer is indeed a part of religious experience, but it has been
wrongly emphasized by modern religions, much to the neglect of the more
essential communion of worship. The reflective powers of the mind are deepened
and broadened by worship. Prayer may enrich the life, but worship illuminates
destiny.
102:4.6 Revealed religion is the unifying element of human existence.
Revelation unifies history, co-ordinates geology, astronomy, physics,
chemistry, biology, sociology, and psychology. Spiritual experience is the
real soul of man's cosmos.
5. THE SUPREMACY OF PURPOSIVE POTENTIAL
102:5.1 Although the establishment of the fact of belief is not equivalent to
establishing the fact of that which is believed, nevertheless, the
evolutionary progression of simple life to the status of personality does
demonstrate the fact of the existence of the potential of personality to start
with. And in the time universes, potential is always supreme over the actual.
In the evolving cosmos the potential is what is to be, and what is to be is
the unfolding of the purposive mandates of Deity.
102:5.2 This same purposive supremacy is shown in the evolution of mind
ideation when primitive animal fear is transmuted into the constantly
deepening reverence for God and into increasing awe of the universe. Primitive
man had more religious fear than faith, and the supremacy of spirit potentials
over mind actuals is demonstrated when this craven fear is translated into
living faith in spiritual realities.
102:5.3 You can psychologize evolutionary religion but not the personal-
experience religion of spiritual origin. Human morality may recognize values,
but only religion can conserve, exalt, and spiritualize such values. But
notwithstanding such actions, religion is something more than emotionalized
morality. Religion is to morality as love is to duty, as sonship is to
servitude, as essence is to substance. Morality discloses an almighty
Controller, a Deity to be served; religion discloses an all-loving Father, a
God to be worshiped and loved. And again this is because the spiritual
potentiality of religion is dominant over the duty actuality of the morality
of evolution.
6. THE CERTAINTY OF RELIGIOUS FAITH
102:6.1 The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress
of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these
casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision,
they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured
the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the
Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not
subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is
to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of
worship claims all allegiance or none.
102:6.2 The gods of primitive men may have been no more than shadows of
themselves; the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute
the creation shadows of all space.
102:6.3 The religionist of philosophic attainment has faith in a personal God
of personal salvation, something more than a reality, a value, a level of
achievement, an exalted process, a transmutation, the ultimate of time-space,
an idealization, the personalization of energy, the entity of gravity, a human
projection, the idealization of self, nature's upthrust, the inclination to
goodness, the forward impulse of evolution, or a sublime hypothesis. The
religionist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of religion and
the wellspring of superior civilization.
102:6.4 Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving
God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may
challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of
personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into
faith.
102:6.5 Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but
the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience.
In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when
contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such
meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares
to say, "I know," even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the
unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by
intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, "How do
you know that I do not know?"
102:6.6 Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement
both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can
transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the
first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him,
while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may
know God, but to understand -- to explain -- God, one must explore the fact of
the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth
of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living
faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and
universal fact.
102:6.7 Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith
is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The
positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error,
experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time
and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the
social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result
of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: "If you love your fellows as
I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples."
102:6.8 To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to
philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious
experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of
probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and
does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious
experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the
assumption that man's intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from
increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking
origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.
102:6.9 The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the
reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living
of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like
children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic
which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact.
Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each
recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by
referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower.
Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.
102:6.10 Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a
truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the
ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses
in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic
fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind.
Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and
supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as
consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of
the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving
downreach.
7. THE CERTITUDE OF THE DIVINE
102:7.1 The Universal Father, being self-existent, is also self-explanatory;
he actually lives in every rational mortal. But you cannot be sure about God
unless you know him; sonship is the only experience which makes fatherhood
certain. The universe is everywhere undergoing change. A changing universe is
a dependent universe; such a creation cannot be either final or absolute. A
finite universe is wholly dependent on the Ultimate and the Absolute. The
universe and God are not identical; one is cause, the other effect. The cause
is absolute, infinite, eternal, and changeless; the effect, time-space and
transcendental but ever changing, always growing.
102:7.2 God is the one and only self-caused fact in the universe. He is the
secret of the order, plan, and purpose of the whole creation of things and
beings. The everywhere-changing universe is regulated and stabilized by
absolutely unchanging laws, the habits of an unchanging God. The fact of God,
the divine law, is changeless; the truth of God, his relation to the universe,
is a relative revelation which is ever adaptable to the constantly evolving
universe.
102:7.3 Those who would invent a religion without God are like those who would
gather fruit without trees, have children without parents. You cannot have
effects without causes; only the I AM is causeless. The fact of religious
experience implies God, and such a God of personal experience must be a
personal Deity. You cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a
mathematical equation, worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune
with a process, serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.
102:7.4 True, many apparently religious traits can grow out of nonreligious
roots. Man can, intellectually, deny God and yet be morally good, loyal,
filial, honest, and even idealistic. Man may graft many purely humanistic
branches onto his basic spiritual nature and thus apparently prove his
contentions in behalf of a godless religion, but such an experience is devoid
of survival values, God-knowingness and God-ascension. In such a mortal
experience only social fruits are forthcoming, not spiritual. The graft
determines the nature of the fruit, notwithstanding that the living sustenance
is drawn from the roots of original divine endowment of both mind and spirit.
102:7.5 The intellectual earmark of religion is certainty; the philosophical
characteristic is consistency; the social fruits are love and service.
102:7.6 The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties
or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the
maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times.
He has encountered all these deterrents and triumphed over them, surmounted
them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in
spite of them. But it is true that many who are inwardly sure about God fear
to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and
cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about
believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask
questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to
answer these questions and solve these difficulties; faith certainty is the
greatest technique for dealing with all such superficial contentions.
102:7.7 If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in
contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men
reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the
certainty of personal spiritual experience, "I know what I have experienced
because I am a son of I AM." If the personal experience of a faither is to be
challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may
reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship
with the Universal Father.
102:7.8 Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to
be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or
later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of
truth, and the Infinite of love.
102:7.9 If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge
the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit
experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of
science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise
unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist
or the philosopher.
102:7.10 Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all
facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the
most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all
universe experiences.
8. THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION
102:8.1 The highest evidence of the reality and efficacy of religion consists
in the fact of human experience; namely, that man, naturally fearful and
suspicious, innately endowed with a strong instinct of self-preservation and
craving survival after death, is willing fully to trust the deepest interests
of his present and future to the keeping and direction of that power and
person designated by his faith as God. That is the one central truth of all
religion. As to what that power or person requires of man in return for this
watchcare and final salvation, no two religions agree; in fact, they all more
or less disagree.
102:8.2 Regarding the status of any religion in the evolutionary scale, it may
best be judged by its moral judgments and its ethical standards. The higher
the type of any religion, the more it encourages and is encouraged by a
constantly improving social morality and ethical culture. We cannot judge
religion by the status of its accompanying civilization; we had better
estimate the real nature of a civilization by the purity and nobility of its
religion. Many of the world's most notable religious teachers have been
virtually unlettered. The wisdom of the world is not necessary to an exercise
of saving faith in eternal realities.
102:8.3 The difference in the religions of various ages is wholly dependent on
the difference in man's comprehension of reality and on his differing
recognition of moral values, ethical relationships, and spirit realities.
102:8.4 Ethics is the eternal social or racial mirror which faithfully
reflects the otherwise unobservable progress of internal spiritual and
religious developments. Man has always thought of God in the terms of the best
he knew, his deepest ideas and highest ideals. Even historic religion has
always created its God conceptions out of its highest recognized values. Every
intelligent creature gives the name of God to the best and highest thing he
knows.
102:8.5 Religion, when reduced to terms of reason and intellectual expression,
has always dared to criticize civilization and evolutionary progress as judged
by its own standards of ethical culture and moral progress.
102:8.6 While personal religion precedes the evolution of human morals, it is
regretfully recorded that institutional religion has invariably lagged behind
the slowly changing mores of the human races. Organized religion has proved to
be conservatively tardy. The prophets have usually led the people in religious
development; the theologians have usually held them back. Religion, being a
matter of inner or personal experience, can never develop very far in advance
of the intellectual evolution of the races.
102:8.7 But religion is never enhanced by an appeal to the so-called
miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking back to the primitive
religions of magic. True religion has nothing to do with alleged miracles, and
never does revealed religion point to miracles as proof of authority. Religion
is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your
highest religion, the life of Jesus, was just such a personal experience: man,
mortal man, seeking God and finding him to the fullness during one short life
in the flesh, while in the same human experience there appeared God seeking
man and finding him to the full satisfaction of the perfect soul of infinite
supremacy. And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe
of Nebadon -- the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth.
102:8.8 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 103
THE REALITY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
103:0.1 ALL of man's truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early
ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of
wisdom. Man's first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment
in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the
bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this
influence functions to enlarge man's viewpoint of ethics, religion, and
spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated
Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human
capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited
world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of
the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the
cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the
certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
103:0.2 The religious tendencies of the human races are innate; they are
universally manifested and have an apparently natural origin; primitive
religions are always evolutionary in their genesis. As natural religious
experience continues to progress, periodic revelations of truth punctuate the
otherwise slow-moving course of planetary evolution.
103:0.3 On Urantia, today, there are four kinds of religion:
1. Natural or evolutionary religion.
2. Supernatural or revelatory religion.
3. Practical or current religion, varying degrees of the admixture of natural
and supernatural religions.
4. Philosophic religions, man-made or philosophically thought-out theologic
doctrines and reason-created religions.
1. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
103:1.1 The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group
derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the
individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish
interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique -- no
two mortals being alike -- it inevitably follows that no two human beings can
similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which
lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity,
but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the
interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that
twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five
hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being
defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the
divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore
must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious
philosophy of all other human beings.
103:1.2 When one mortal is in full agreement with the religious philosophy of
a fellow mortal, that phenomenon indicates that these two beings have had a
similar religious experience touching the matters concerned in their
similarity of philosophic religious interpretation.
103:1.3 While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most
important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of
other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse
mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming
egocentric -- circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.
103:1.4 Rationalism is wrong when it assumes that religion is at first a
primitive belief in something which is then followed by the pursuit of values.
Religion is primarily a pursuit of values, and then there formulates a system
of interpretative beliefs. It is much easier for men to agree on religious
values -- goals -- than on beliefs -- interpretations. And this explains how
religion can agree on values and goals while exhibiting the confusing
phenomenon of maintaining a belief in hundreds of conflicting beliefs --
creeds. This also explains why a given person can maintain his religious
experience in the face of giving up or changing many of his religious beliefs.
Religion persists in spite of revolutionary changes in religious beliefs.
Theology does not produce religion; it is religion that produces theologic
philosophy.
103:1.5 That religionists have believed so much that was false does not
invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values
and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion,
then, is based on experience and religious thought; theology, the philosophy
of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such
interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error.
103:1.6 The realization of the recognition of spiritual values is an
experience which is superideational. There is no word in any human language
which can be employed to designate this "sense," "feeling," "intuition," or
"experience" which we have elected to call God-consciousness. The spirit of
God that dwells in man is not personal -- the Adjuster is prepersonal -- but
this Monitor presents a value, exudes a flavor of divinity, which is personal
in the highest and infinite sense. If God were not at least personal, he could
not be conscious, and if not conscious, then would he be infrahuman.
2. RELIGION AND THE INDIVIDUAL
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in
experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in
existence about nine months before it experiences birth. But the "birth" of
religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner
or later there is a "birth day." You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless
you have been "born again" -- born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are
accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations,
as many physical births are characterized by a "stormy labor" and other
abnormalities of "delivery." Other spiritual births are a natural and normal
growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual
experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort
and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive
experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the "birth of religion" is not
directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually
characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental
conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
103:2.2 But those persons who were so reared by their parents that they grew
up in the consciousness of being children of a loving heavenly Father, should
not look askance at their fellow mortals who could only attain such
consciousness of fellowship with God through a psychological crisis, an
emotional upheaval.
103:2.3 The evolutionary soil in the mind of man in which the seed of revealed
religion germinates is the moral nature that so early gives origin to a social
consciousness. The first promptings of a child's moral nature have not to do
with sex, guilt, or personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice,
fairness, and urges to kindness -- helpful ministry to one's fellows. And when
such early moral awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development
of the religious life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals,
and crises.
103:2.4 Every human being very early experiences something of a conflict
between his self-seeking and his altruistic impulses, and many times the first
experience of God-consciousness may be attained as the result of seeking for
superhuman help in the task of resolving such moral conflicts.
103:2.5 The psychology of a child is naturally positive, not negative. So many
mortals are negative because they were so trained. When it is said that the
child is positive, reference is made to his moral impulses, those powers of
mind whose emergence signals the arrival of the Thought Adjuster.
103:2.6 In the absence of wrong teaching, the mind of the normal child moves
positively, in the emergence of religious consciousness, toward moral
righteousness and social ministry, rather than negatively, away from sin and
guilt. There may or may not be conflict in the development of religious
experience, but there are always present the inevitable decisions, effort, and
function of the human will.
103:2.7 Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict.
And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism
and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the
personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight
preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human
happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
103:2.8 When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge
to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience. No animal can make such
a choice; such a decision is both human and religious. It embraces the fact of
God-consciousness and exhibits the impulse of social service, the basis of the
brotherhood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judgment by an act of the
free will, such a decision constitutes a religious experience.
103:2.9 But before a child has developed sufficiently to acquire moral
capacity and therefore to be able to choose altruistic service, he has already
developed a strong and well-unified egoistic nature. And it is this factual
situation that gives rise to the theory of the struggle between the "higher"
and the "lower" natures, between the "old man of sin" and the "new nature" of
grace. Very early in life the normal child begins to learn that it is "more
blessed to give than to receive."
103:2.10 Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego --
himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with
some influence outside himself -- God. And indeed is such a judgment right,
for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of
the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. The
impulse of the spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge
to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and
fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of
personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as
to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can
become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human
unhappiness.
3. RELIGION AND THE HUMAN RACE
103:3.1 While the belief in spirits, dreams, and diverse other superstitions
all played a part in the evolutionary origin of primitive religions, you
should not overlook the influence of the clan or tribal spirit of solidarity.
In the group relationship there was presented the exact social situation which
provided the challenge to the egoistic-altruistic conflict in the moral nature
of the early human mind. In spite of their belief in spirits, primitive
Australians still focus their religion upon the clan. In time, such religious
concepts tend to personalize, first, as animals, and later, as a superman or
as a God. Even such inferior races as the African Bushmen, who are not even
totemic in their beliefs, do have a recognition of the difference between the
self-interest and the group-interest, a primitive distinction between the
values of the secular and the sacred. But the social group is not the source
of religious experience. Regardless of the influence of all these primitive
contributions to man's early religion, the fact remains that the true
religious impulse has its origin in genuine spirit presences activating the
will to be unselfish.
103:3.2 Later religion is foreshadowed in the primitive belief in natural
wonders and mysteries, the impersonal mana. But sooner or later the evolving
religion requires that the individual should make some personal sacrifice for
the good of his social group, should do something to make other people happier
and better. Ultimately, religion is destined to become the service of God and
of man.
103:3.3 Religion is designed to change man's environment, but much of the
religion found among mortals today has become helpless to do this. Environment
has all too often mastered religion.
103:3.4 Remember that in the religion of all ages the experience which is
paramount is the feeling regarding moral values and social meanings, not the
thinking regarding theologic dogmas or philosophic theories. Religion evolves
favorably as the element of magic is replaced by the concept of morals.
103:3.5 Man evolved through the superstitions of mana, magic, nature worship,
spirit fear, and animal worship to the various ceremonials whereby the
religious attitude of the individual became the group reactions of the clan.
And then these ceremonies became focalized and crystallized into tribal
beliefs, and eventually these fears and faiths became personalized into gods.
But in all of this religious evolution the moral element was never wholly
absent. The impulse of the God within man was always potent. And these
powerful influences -- one human and the other divine -- insured the survival
of religion throughout the vicissitudes of the ages and that notwithstanding
it was so often threatened with extinction by a thousand subversive tendencies
and hostile antagonisms.
4. SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
103:4.1 The characteristic difference between a social occasion and a
religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is
pervaded by the atmosphere of communion. In this way human association
generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning
of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social
communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the
ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity
the Lord's Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the
communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict
of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit
Monitor. And this is the prelude to true worship -- the practice of the
presence of God which eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of man.
103:4.2 When primitive man felt that his communion with God had been
interrupted, he resorted to sacrifice of some kind in an effort to make
atonement, to restore friendly relationship. The hunger and thirst for
righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and
this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend
to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is
enhanced only by arithmetical progression.
103:4.3 The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from
interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one's moral ideals.
Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that
one's highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of
God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to
his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him.
103:4.4 Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement. He
destroyed the basis of all this fictitious guilt and sense of isolation in the
universe by declaring that man is a child of God; the creature-Creator
relationship was placed on a child-parent basis. God becomes a loving Father
to his mortal sons and daughters. All ceremonials not a legitimate part of
such an intimate family relationship are forever abrogated.
103:4.5 God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual
virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child's motivation -- the
creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent-child
association and is actuated by divine love.
5. THE ORIGIN OF IDEALS
103:5.1 The early evolutionary mind gives origin to a feeling of social duty
and moral obligation derived chiefly from emotional fear. The more positive
urge of social service and the idealism of altruism are derived from the
direct impulse of the divine spirit indwelling the human mind.
103:5.2 This idea-ideal of doing good to others -- the impulse to deny the ego
something for the benefit of one's neighbor -- is very circumscribed at first.
Primitive man regards as neighbor only those very close to him, those who
treat him neighborly; as religious civilization advances, one's neighbor
expands in concept to embrace the clan, the tribe, the nation. And then Jesus
enlarged the neighbor scope to embrace the whole of humanity, even that we
should love our enemies. And there is something inside of every normal human
being that tells him this teaching is moral -- right. Even those who practice
this ideal least, admit that it is right in theory.
103:5.3 All men recognize the morality of this universal human urge to be
unselfish and altruistic. The humanist ascribes the origin of this urge to the
natural working of the material mind; the religionist more correctly
recognizes that the truly unselfish drive of mortal mind is in response to the
inner spirit leadings of the Thought Adjuster.
103:5.4 But man's interpretation of these early conflicts between the ego-will
and the other-than-self-will is not always dependable. Only a fairly well
unified personality can arbitrate the multiform contentions of the ego
cravings and the budding social consciousness. The self has rights as well as
one's neighbors. Neither has exclusive claims upon the attention and service
of the individual. Failure to resolve this problem gives origin to the
earliest type of human guilt feelings.
103:5.5 Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and
the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and
reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality.
The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of
refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and
the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight -- genuine
religious reflection.
103:5.6 The attempt to secure equal good for the self and for the greatest
number of other selves presents a problem which cannot always be
satisfactorily resolved in a time-space frame. Given an eternal life, such
antagonisms can be worked out, but in one short human life they are incapable
of solution. Jesus referred to such a paradox when he said: "Whosoever shall
save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of
the kingdom, shall find it."
103:5.7 The pursuit of the ideal -- the striving to be Godlike -- is a
continuous effort before death and after. The life after death is no different
in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life
which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real
religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging
the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one
as a result of passing through the portals of natural death. True religion
does not belittle man's efforts to progress during the mortal lease on life.
Every mortal gain is a direct contribution to the enrichment of the first
stages of the immortal survival experience.
103:5.8 It is fatal to man's idealism when he is taught that all of his
altruistic impulses are merely the development of his natural herd instincts.
But he is ennobled and mightily energized when he learns that these higher
urges of his soul emanate from the spiritual forces that indwell his mortal
mind.
103:5.9 It lifts man out of himself and beyond himself when he once fully
realizes that there lives and strives within him something which is eternal
and divine. And so it is that a living faith in the superhuman origin of our
ideals validates our belief that we are the sons of God and makes real our
altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.
103:5.10 Man, in his spiritual domain, does have a free will. Mortal man is
neither a helpless slave of the inflexible sovereignty of an all-powerful God
nor the victim of the hopeless fatality of a mechanistic cosmic determinism.
Man is most truly the architect of his own eternal destiny.
103:5.11 But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs
from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it
never stimulates growth. Even educational pressure is only negatively helpful
in that it may aid in the prevention of disastrous experiences. Spiritual
growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum. "Where the
spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." Man develops best when the pressures
of home, community, church, and state are least. But this must not be
construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home,
social institutions, church, and state.
103:5.12 When a member of a social religious group has complied with the
requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious
liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the
truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security
of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological
uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of
freethinking without having to become "freethinkers." There is great hope for
any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and
dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.
6. PHILOSOPHIC CO-ORDINATION
103:6.1 Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human
spirit; it can never become a science since it must always be combined more or
less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its
systematic portrayal. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study
of another's religion is psychology.
103:6.2 When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the
outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he
approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives
origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an
effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to
appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite
avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings.
103:6.3 Religion has to do with the spiritual viewpoint, the awareness of the
insideness of human experience. Man's spiritual nature affords him the
opportunity of turning the universe outside in. It is therefore true that,
viewed exclusively from the insideness of personality experience, all creation
appears to be spiritual in nature.
103:6.4 When man analytically inspects the universe through the material
endowments of his physical senses and associated mind perception, the cosmos
appears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studying
reality consists in turning the universe inside out.
103:6.5 A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be
built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of
these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the
cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out,
the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then,
can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to
gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without
the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.
103:6.6 Always must man's inner spirit depend for its expression and self-
realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man's
outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness
of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material,
the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind
function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind
activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality
in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The
intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of
the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are
colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness.
103:6.7 Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between
science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain
of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of
three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and
spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the
findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of
religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the
insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level.
Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate
incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its
essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of
divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities;
it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material
life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having
some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains
of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man's unavailing
attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved
more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man's well-meant but
futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.
103:6.8 Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive.
Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the
truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively
clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary
sphere.
103:6.9 Science is man's attempted study of his physical environment, the
world of energy-matter; religion is man's experience with the cosmos of spirit
values; philosophy has been developed by man's mind effort to organize and
correlate the findings of these widely separated concepts into something like
a reasonable and unified attitude toward the cosmos. Philosophy, clarified by
revelation, functions acceptably in the absence of mota and in the presence of
the breakdown and failure of man's reason substitute for mota -- metaphysics.
103:6.10 Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the
spirit level. It was the violet race and their Andite successors who first
attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly has
civilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and the
Sumerians who distinguished between the inanimate and the animate. And as
civilization progresses, philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs
between the spirit concept and the energy concept. But in the time of space
these divergencies are at one in the Supreme.
103:6.11 Science must always be grounded in reason, although imagination and
conjecture are helpful in the extension of its borders. Religion is forever
dependent on faith, albeit reason is a stabilizing influence and a helpful
handmaid. And always there have been, and ever will be, misleading
interpretations of the phenomena of both the natural and the spiritual worlds,
sciences and religions falsely so called.
103:6.12 Out of his incomplete grasp of science, his faint hold upon religion,
and his abortive attempts at metaphysics, man has attempted to construct his
formulations of philosophy. And modern man would indeed build a worthy and
engaging philosophy of himself and his universe were it not for the breakdown
of his all-important and indispensable metaphysical connection between the
worlds of matter and spirit, the failure of metaphysics to bridge the morontia
gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Mortal man lacks the concept of
morontia mind and material; and revelation is the only technique for atoning
for this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in
order to construct a logical philosophy of the universe and to arrive at a
satisfying understanding of his sure and settled place in that universe.
103:6.13 Revelation is evolutionary man's only hope of bridging the morontia
gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota, cannot conceive and construct a
logical universe. Without the insight of mota, mortal man cannot discern
goodness, love, and truth in the phenomena of the material world.
103:6.14 When the philosophy of man leans heavily toward the world of matter,
it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy inclines
particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even
mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to lean upon metaphysics, it
unfailingly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages, most of man's knowledge
and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions
of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in
the linear fashion of logic; it must never fail to reckon with the elliptic
symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts.
103:6.15 The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically
based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight
afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his
failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend
the mota of the morontia.
7. SCIENCE AND RELIGION
103:7.1 Science is sustained by reason, religion by faith. Faith, though not
predicated on reason, is reasonable; though independent of logic, it is
nonetheless encouraged by sound logic. Faith cannot be nourished even by an
ideal philosophy; indeed, it is, with science, the very source of such a
philosophy. Faith, human religious insight, can be surely instructed only by
revelation, can be surely elevated only by personal mortal experience with the
spiritual Adjuster presence of the God who is spirit.
103:7.2 True salvation is the technique of the divine evolution of the mortal
mind from matter identification through the realms of morontia liaison to the
high universe status of spiritual correlation. And as material intuitive
instinct precedes the appearance of reasoned knowledge in terrestrial
evolution, so does the manifestation of spiritual intuitive insight presage
the later appearance of morontia and spirit reason and experience in the
supernal program of celestial evolution, the business of transmuting the
potentials of man the temporal into the actuality and divinity of man the
eternal, a Paradise finaliter.
103:7.3 But as ascending man reaches inward and Paradiseward for the God
experience, he will likewise be reaching outward and spaceward for an energy
understanding of the material cosmos. The progression of science is not
limited to the terrestrial life of man; his universe and superuniverse
ascension experience will to no small degree be the study of energy
transmutation and material metamorphosis. God is spirit, but Deity is unity,
and the unity of Deity not only embraces the spiritual values of the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son but is also cognizant of the energy facts of the
Universal Controller and the Isle of Paradise, while these two phases of
universal reality are perfectly correlated in the mind relationships of the
Conjoint Actor and unified on the finite level in the emerging Deity of the
Supreme Being.
103:7.4 The union of the scientific attitude and the religious insight by the
mediation of experiential philosophy is part of man's long Paradise-ascension
experience. The approximations of mathematics and the certainties of insight
will always require the harmonizing function of mind logic on all levels of
experience short of the maximum attainment of the Supreme.
103:7.5 But logic can never succeed in harmonizing the findings of science and
the insights of religion unless both the scientific and the religious aspects
of a personality are truth dominated, sincerely desirous of following the
truth wherever it may lead regardless of the conclusions which it may reach.
103:7.6 Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within
the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within
the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an
inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from
the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking
within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the
same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material
awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a
philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and
the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and
religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both
science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less
skeptical.
103:7.7 What both developing science and religion need is more searching and
fearless self-criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary
status. The teachers of both science and religion are often altogether too
self-confident and dogmatic. Science and religion can only be self-critical of
their facts. The moment departure is made from the stage of facts, reason
abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a consort of false logic.
103:7.8 The truth -- an understanding of cosmic relationships, universe facts,
and spiritual values -- can best be had through the ministry of the Spirit of
Truth and can best be criticized by revelation. But revelation originates
neither a science nor a religion; its function is to co-ordinate both science
and religion with the truth of reality. Always, in the absence of revelation
or in the failure to accept or grasp it, has mortal man resorted to his futile
gesture of metaphysics, that being the only human substitute for the
revelation of truth or for the mota of morontia personality.
103:7.9 The science of the material world enables man to control, and to some
extent dominate, his physical environment. The religion of the spiritual
experience is the source of the fraternity impulse which enables men to live
together in the complexities of the civilization of a scientific age.
Metaphysics, but more certainly revelation, affords a common meeting ground
for the discoveries of both science and religion and makes possible the human
attempt logically to correlate these separate but interdependent domains of
thought into a well-balanced philosophy of scientific stability and religious
certainty.
103:7.10 In the mortal state, nothing can be absolutely proved; both science
and religion are predicated on assumptions. On the morontia level, the
postulates of both science and religion are capable of partial proof by mota
logic. On the spiritual level of maximum status, the need for finite proof
gradually vanishes before the actual experience of and with reality; but even
then there is much beyond the finite that remains unproved.
103:7.11 All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions
which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity
of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of
reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life.
Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind,
spirit, and the universe -- the Supreme Being.
103:7.12 Science becomes the thought domain of mathematics, of the energy and
material of time in space. Religion assumes to deal not only with finite and
temporal spirit but also with the spirit of eternity and supremacy. Only
through a long experience in mota can these two extremes of universe
perception be made to yield analogous interpretations of origins, functions,
relations, realities, and destinies. The maximum harmonization of the energy-
spirit divergence is in the encircuitment of the Seven Master Spirits; the
first unification thereof, in the Deity of the Supreme; the finality unity
thereof, in the infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM.
103:7.13 Reason is the act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness
with regard to the experience in and with the physical world of energy and
matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual
consciousness -- something which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is
the synthetic truth-seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and
is founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate
recognition of things, meanings, and values.
103:7.14 There is a real proof of spiritual reality in the presence of the
Thought Adjuster, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable to the
external world, only to the one who thus experiences the indwelling of God.
The consciousness of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of
truth, the supermind perception of goodness, and the personality motivation to
love.
103:7.15 Science discovers the material world, religion evaluates it, and
philosophy endeavors to interpret its meanings while co-ordinating the
scientific material viewpoint with the religious spiritual concept. But
history is a realm in which science and religion may never fully agree.
8. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
103:8.1 Although both science and philosophy may assume the probability of God
by their reason and logic, only the personal religious experience of a spirit-
led man can affirm the certainty of such a supreme and personal Deity. By the
technique of such an incarnation of living truth the philosophic hypothesis of
the probability of God becomes a religious reality.
103:8.2 The confusion about the experience of the certainty of God arises out
of the dissimilar interpretations and relations of that experience by separate
individuals and by different races of men. The experiencing of God may be
wholly valid, but the discourse about God, being intellectual and
philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallacious.
103:8.3 A good and noble man may be consummately in love with his wife but
utterly unable to pass a satisfactory written examination on the psychology of
marital love. Another man, having little or no love for his spouse, might pass
such an examination most acceptably. The imperfection of the lover's insight
into the true nature of the beloved does not in the least invalidate either
the reality or sincerity of his love.
103:8.4 If you truly believe in God -- by faith know him and love him -- do
not permit the reality of such an experience to be in any way lessened or
detracted from by the doubting insinuations of science, the caviling of logic,
the postulates of philosophy, or the clever suggestions of well-meaning souls
who would create a religion without God.
103:8.5 The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not be disturbed
by the uncertainty of the doubting materialist; rather should the uncertainty
of the unbeliever be mightily challenged by the profound faith and unshakable
certainty of the experiential believer.
103:8.6 Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both science and
religion, should avoid the extremes of both materialism and pantheism. Only a
philosophy which recognizes the reality of personality -- permanence in the
presence of change -- can be of moral value to man, can serve as a liaison
between the theories of material science and spiritual religion. Revelation is
a compensation for the frailties of evolving philosophy.
9. THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION
103:9.1 Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion, metaphysics
(revelation) with the philosophic aspects. Religious experience is the
spiritual content of religion. Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries and the
psychologic illusions of the intellectual content of religion, the
metaphysical assumptions of error and the techniques of self-deception, the
political distortions and the socioeconomic perversions of the philosophic
content of religion, the spiritual experience of personal religion remains
genuine and valid.
103:9.2 Religion has to do with feeling, acting, and living, not merely with
thinking. Thinking is more closely related to the material life and should be
in the main, but not altogether, dominated by reason and the facts of science
and, in its nonmaterial reaches toward the spirit realms, by truth. No matter
how illusory and erroneous one's theology, one's religion may be wholly
genuine and everlastingly true.
103:9.3 Buddhism in its original form is one of the best religions without a
God which has arisen throughout all the evolutionary history of Urantia,
although, as this faith developed, it did not remain godless. Religion without
faith is a contradiction; without God, a philosophic inconsistency and an
intellectual absurdity.
103:9.4 The magical and mythological parentage of natural religion does not
invalidate the reality and truth of the later revelational religions and the
consummate saving gospel of the religion of Jesus. Jesus' life and teachings
finally divested religion of the superstitions of magic, the illusions of
mythology, and the bondage of traditional dogmatism. But this early magic and
mythology very effectively prepared the way for later and superior religion by
assuming the existence and reality of supermaterial values and beings.
103:9.5 Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective
phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude
toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of
religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to
depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of
universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic
objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted
and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in
Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope
of eternal survival, and love, especially of one's fellows.
103:9.6 When theology masters religion, religion dies; it becomes a doctrine
instead of a life. The mission of theology is merely to facilitate the self-
consciousness of personal spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the
religious effort to define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential
claims of religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by
living faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason,
becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man's highest human
attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom
introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into
a world of divinity, spiritual experience.
103:9.7 Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and
then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to
launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole
company of TRUTH.
103:9.8 Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit)
assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended.
Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of
wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-
ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual
experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that
faith is valid, that God can be known and attained.
103:9.9 The full realization of the reality of mortal life consists in a
progressive willingness to believe these assumptions of reason, wisdom, and
faith. Such a life is one motivated by truth and dominated by love; and these
are the ideals of objective cosmic reality whose existence cannot be
materially demonstrated.
103:9.10 When reason once recognizes right and wrong, it exhibits wisdom; when
wisdom chooses between right and wrong, truth and error, it demonstrates
spirit leading. And thus are the functions of mind, soul, and spirit ever
closely united and functionally interassociated. Reason deals with factual
knowledge; wisdom, with philosophy and revelation; faith, with living
spiritual experience. Through truth man attains beauty and by spiritual love
ascends to goodness.
103:9.11 Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the
divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional
consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well
as a satisfaction of feeling.
103:9.12 There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to
the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science,
philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements. The convictions of such
an experience are unassailable; the logic of religious living is
incontrovertible; the certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the
satisfactions are superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions
unquestioning, the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final -- eternal,
ultimate, and universal.
103:9.13 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 104
GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
104:0.1 THE Trinity concept of revealed religion must not be confused with the
triad beliefs of evolutionary religions. The ideas of triads arose from many
suggestive relationships but chiefly because of the three joints of the
fingers, because three legs were the fewest which could stabilize a stool,
because three support points could keep up a tent; furthermore, primitive man,
for a long time, could not count beyond three.
104:0.2 Aside from certain natural couplets, such as past and present, day and
night, hot and cold, and male and female, man generally tends to think in
triads: yesterday, today, and tomorrow; sunrise, noon, and sunset; father,
mother, and child. Three cheers are given the victor. The dead are buried on
the third day, and the ghost is placated by three ablutions of water.
104:0.3 As a consequence of these natural associations in human experience,
the triad made its appearance in religion, and this long before the Paradise
Trinity of Deities, or even any of their representatives, had been revealed to
mankind. Later on, the Persians, Hindus, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians,
Romans, and Scandinavians all had triad gods, but these were still not true
trinities. Triad deities all had a natural origin and have appeared at one
time or another among most of the intelligent peoples of Urantia. Sometimes
the concept of an evolutionary triad has become mixed with that of a revealed
Trinity; in these instances it is often impossible to distinguish one from the
other.
1. URANTIAN TRINITY CONCEPTS
104:1.1 The first Urantian revelation leading to the comprehension of the
Paradise Trinity was made by the staff of Prince Caligastia about one-half
million years ago. This earliest Trinity concept was lost to the world in the
unsettled times following the planetary rebellion.
104:1.2 The second presentation of the Trinity was made by Adam and Eve in the
first and second gardens. These teachings had not been wholly obliterated even
in the times of Machiventa Melchizedek about thirty-five thousand years later,
for the Trinity concept of the Sethites persisted in both Mesopotamia and
Egypt but more especially in India, where it was long perpetuated in Agni, the
Vedic three-headed fire god.
104:1.3 The third presentation of the Trinity was made by Machiventa
Melchizedek, and this doctrine was symbolized by the three concentric circles
which the sage of Salem wore on his breast plate. But Machiventa found it very
difficult to teach the Palestinian Bedouins about the Universal Father, the
Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit. Most of his disciples thought that the
Trinity consisted of the three Most Highs of Norlatiadek; a few conceived of
the Trinity as the System Sovereign, the Constellation Father, and the local
universe Creator Deity; still fewer even remotely grasped the idea of the
Paradise association of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:1.4 Through the activities of the Salem missionaries the Melchizedek
teachings of the Trinity gradually spread throughout much of Eurasia and
northern Africa. It is often difficult to distinguish between the triads and
the trinities in the later Andite and the post-Melchizedek ages, when both
concepts to a certain extent intermingled and coalesced.
104:1.5 Among the Hindus the trinitarian concept took root as Being,
Intelligence, and Joy. (A later Indian conception was Brahma, Siva, and
Vishnu.) While the earlier Trinity portrayals were brought to India by the
Sethite priests, the later ideas of the Trinity were imported by the Salem
missionaries and were developed by the native intellects of India through a
compounding of these doctrines with the evolutionary triad conceptions.
104:1.6 The Buddhist faith developed two doctrines of a trinitarian nature:
The earlier was Teacher, Law, and Brotherhood; that was the presentation made
by Gautama Siddhartha. The later idea, developing among the northern branch of
the followers of Buddha, embraced Supreme Lord, Holy Spirit, and Incarnate
Savior.
104:1.7 And these ideas of the Hindus and Buddhists were real trinitarian
postulates, that is, the idea of a threefold manifestation of a monotheistic
God. A true trinity conception is not just a grouping together of three
separate gods.
104:1.8 The Hebrews knew about the Trinity from the Kenite traditions of the
days of Melchizedek, but their monotheistic zeal for the one God, Yahweh, so
eclipsed all such teachings that by the time of Jesus' appearance the Elohim
doctrine had been practically eradicated from Jewish theology. The Hebrew mind
could not reconcile the trinitarian concept with the monotheistic belief in
the One Lord, the God of Israel.
104:1.9 The followers of the Islamic faith likewise failed to grasp the idea
of the Trinity. It is always difficult for an emerging monotheism to tolerate
trinitarianism when confronted by polytheism. The trinity idea takes best hold
of those religions which have a firm monotheistic tradition coupled with
doctrinal elasticity. The great monotheists, the Hebrews and Mohammedans,
found it difficult to distinguish between worshiping three gods, polytheism,
and trinitarianism, the worship of one Deity existing in a triune
manifestation of divinity and personality.
104:1.10 Jesus taught his apostles the truth regarding the persons of the
Paradise Trinity, but they thought he spoke figuratively and symbolically.
Having been nurtured in Hebraic monotheism, they found it difficult to
entertain any belief that seemed to conflict with their dominating concept of
Yahweh. And the early Christians inherited the Hebraic prejudice against the
Trinity concept.
104:1.11 The first Trinity of Christianity was proclaimed at Antioch and
consisted of God, his Word, and his Wisdom. Paul knew of the Paradise Trinity
of Father, Son, and Spirit, but he seldom preached about it and made mention
thereof in only a few of his letters to the newly forming churches. Even then,
as did his fellow apostles, Paul confused Jesus, the Creator Son of the local
universe, with the Second Person of Deity, the Eternal Son of Paradise.
104:1.12 The Christian concept of the Trinity, which began to gain recognition
near the close of the first century after Christ, was comprised of the
Universal Father, the Creator Son of Nebadon, and the Divine Minister of
Salvington -- Mother Spirit of the local universe and creative consort of the
Creator Son.
104:1.13 Not since the times of Jesus has the factual identity of the Paradise
Trinity been known on Urantia (except by a few individuals to whom it was
especially revealed) until its presentation in these revelatory disclosures.
But though the Christian concept of the Trinity erred in fact, it was
practically true with respect to spiritual relationships. Only in its
philosophic implications and cosmological consequences did this concept suffer
embarrassment: It has been difficult for many who are cosmic minded to believe
that the Second Person of Deity, the second member of an infinite Trinity,
once dwelt on Urantia; and while in spirit this is true, in actuality it is
not a fact. The Michael Creators fully embody the divinity of the Eternal Son,
but they are not the absolute personality.
2. TRINITY UNITY AND DEITY PLURALITY
104:2.1 Monotheism arose as a philosophic protest against the inconsistency of
polytheism. It developed first through pantheon organizations with the
departmentalization of supernatural activities, then through the henotheistic
exaltation of one god above the many, and finally through the exclusion of all
but the One God of final value.
104:2.2 Trinitarianism grows out of the experiential protest against the
impossibility of conceiving the oneness of a deanthropomorphized solitary
Deity of unrelated universe significance. Given a sufficient time, philosophy
tends to abstract the personal qualities from the Deity concept of pure
monotheism, thus reducing this idea of an unrelated God to the status of a
pantheistic Absolute. It has always been difficult to understand the personal
nature of a God who has no personal relationships in equality with other and
co-ordinate personal beings. Personality in Deity demands that such Deity
exist in relation to other and equal personal Deity.
104:2.3 Through the recognition of the Trinity concept the mind of man can
hope to grasp something of the interrelationship of love and law in the time-
space creations. Through spiritual faith man gains insight into the love of
God but soon discovers that this spiritual faith has no influence on the
ordained laws of the material universe. Irrespective of the firmness of man's
belief in God as his Paradise Father, expanding cosmic horizons demand that he
also give recognition to the reality of Paradise Deity as universal law, that
he recognize the Trinity sovereignty extending outward from Paradise and
overshadowing even the evolving local universes of the Creator Sons and
Creative Daughters of the three eternal persons whose deity union is the fact
and reality and eternal indivisibility of the Paradise Trinity.
104:2.4 And this selfsame Paradise Trinity is a real entity -- not a
personality but nonetheless a true and absolute reality; not a personality but
nonetheless compatible with coexistent personalities -- the personalities of
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Trinity is a supersummative Deity
reality eventuating out of the conjoining of the three Paradise Deities. The
qualities, characteristics, and functions of the Trinity are not the simple
sum of the attributes of the three Paradise Deities; Trinity functions are
something unique, original, and not wholly predictable from an analysis of the
attributes of Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:2.5 For example: The Master, when on earth, admonished his followers that
justice is never a personal act; it is always a group function. Neither do the
Gods, as persons, administer justice. But they perform this very function as a
collective whole, as the Paradise Trinity.
104:2.6 The conceptual grasp of the Trinity association of Father, Son, and
Spirit prepares the human mind for the further presentation of certain other
threefold relationships. Theological reason may be fully satisfied by the
concept of the Paradise Trinity, but philosophical and cosmological reason
demand the recognition of the other triune associations of the First Source
and Center, those triunities in which the Infinite functions in various non-
Father capacities of universal manifestation -- the relationships of the God
of force, energy, power, causation, reaction, potentiality, actuality,
gravity, tension, pattern, principle, and unity.
3. TRINITIES AND TRIUNITIES
104:3.1 While mankind has sometimes grasped at an understanding of the Trinity
of the three persons of Deity, consistency demands that the human intellect
perceive that there are certain relationships between all seven Absolutes. But
all that which is true of the Paradise Trinity is not necessarily true of a
triunity, for a triunity is something other than a trinity. In certain
functional aspects a triunity may be analogous to a trinity, but it is never
homologous in nature with a trinity.
104:3.2 Mortal man is passing through a great age of expanding horizons and
enlarging concepts on Urantia, and his cosmic philosophy must accelerate in
evolution to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human
thought. As the cosmic consciousness of mortal man expands, he perceives the
interrelatedness of all that he finds in his material science, intellectual
philosophy, and spiritual insight. Still, with all this belief in the unity of
the cosmos, man perceives the diversity of all existence. In spite of all
concepts concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that he lives in
a universe of constant change and experiential growth. Regardless of the
realization of the survival of spiritual values, man has ever to reckon with
the mathematics and premathematics of force, energy, and power.
104:3.3 In some manner the eternal repleteness of infinity must be reconciled
with the time-growth of the evolving universes and with the incompleteness of
the experiential inhabitants thereof. In some way the conception of total
infinitude must be so segmented and qualified that the mortal intellect and
the morontia soul can grasp this concept of final value and spiritualizing
significance.
104:3.4 While reason demands a monotheistic unity of cosmic reality, finite
experience requires the postulate of plural Absolutes and of their co-
ordination in cosmic relationships. Without co-ordinate existences there is no
possibility for the appearance of diversity of absolute relationships, no
chance for the operation of differentials, variables, modifiers, attenuators,
qualifiers, or diminishers.
104:3.5 In these papers total reality (infinity) has been presented as it
exists in the seven Absolutes:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
4. The Isle of Paradise.
5. The Deity Absolute.
6. The Universal Absolute.
7. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:3.6 The First Source and Center, who is Father to the Eternal Son, is also
Pattern to the Paradise Isle. He is personality unqualified in the Son but
personality potentialized in the Deity Absolute. The Father is energy revealed
in Paradise-Havona and at the same time energy concealed in the Unqualified
Absolute. The Infinite is ever disclosed in the ceaseless acts of the Conjoint
Actor while he is eternally functioning in the compensating but enshrouded
activities of the Universal Absolute. Thus is the Father related to the six
co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven encompass the circle of infinity
throughout the endless cycles of eternity.
104:3.7 It would seem that triunity of absolute relationships is inevitable.
Personality seeks other personality association on absolute as well as on all
other levels. And the association of the three Paradise personalities
eternalizes the first triunity, the personality union of the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit. For when these three persons, as persons, conjoin for united
function, they thereby constitute a triunity of functional unity, not a
trinity -- an organic entity -- but nonetheless a triunity, a threefold
functional aggregate unanimity.
104:3.8 The Paradise Trinity is not a triunity; it is not a functional
unanimity; rather is it undivided and indivisible Deity. The Father, Son, and
Spirit (as persons) can sustain a relationship to the Paradise Trinity, for
the Trinity is their undivided Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit sustain no
such personal relationship to the first triunity, for that is their functional
union as three persons. Only as the Trinity -- as undivided Deity -- do they
collectively sustain an external relationship to the triunity of their
personal aggregation.
104:3.9 Thus does the Paradise Trinity stand unique among absolute
relationships; there are several existential triunities but only one
existential Trinity. A triunity is not an entity. It is functional rather than
organic. Its members are partners rather than corporative. The components of
the triunities may be entities, but a triunity itself is an association.
104:3.10 There is, however, one point of comparison between trinity and
triunity: Both eventuate in functions that are something other than the
discernible sum of the attributes of the component members. But while they are
thus comparable from a functional standpoint, they otherwise exhibit no
categorical relationship. They are roughly related as the relation of function
to structure. But the function of the triunity association is not the function
of the trinity structure or entity.
104:3.11 The triunities are nonetheless real; they are very real. In them is
total reality functionalized, and through them does the Universal Father
exercise immediate and personal control over the master functions of infinity.
4. THE SEVEN TRIUNITIES
104:4.1 In attempting the description of seven triunities, attention is
directed to the fact that the Universal Father is the primal member of each.
He is, was, and ever will be: the First Universal Father-Source, Absolute
Center, Primal Cause, Universal Controller, Limitless Energizer, Original
Unity, Unqualified Upholder, First Person of Deity, Primal Cosmic Pattern, and
Essence of Infinity. The Universal Father is the personal cause of the
Absolutes; he is the absolute of Absolutes.
104:4.2 The nature and meaning of the seven triunities may be suggested as:
104:4.3 The First Triunity -- the personal-purposive triunity. This is the
grouping of the three Deity personalities:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
104:4.4 This is the threefold union of love, mercy, and ministry -- the
purposive and personal association of the three eternal Paradise
personalities. This is the divinely fraternal, creature-loving, fatherly-
acting, and ascension-promoting association. The divine personalities of this
first triunity are personality-bequeathing, spirit-bestowing, and mind-
endowing Gods.
104:4.5 This is the triunity of infinite volition; it acts throughout the
eternal present and in all of the past-present-future flow of time. This
association yields volitional infinity and provides the mechanisms whereby
personal Deity becomes self-revelatory to the creatures of the evolving
cosmos.
104:4.6 The Second Triunity -- the power-pattern triunity. Whether it be a
tiny ultimaton, a blazing star, or a whirling nebula, even the central or
superuniverses, from the smallest to the largest material organizations,
always is the physical pattern -- the cosmic configuration -- derived from the
function of this triunity. This association consists of:
1. The Father-Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:4.7 Energy is organized by the cosmic agents of the Third Source and
Center; energy is fashioned after the pattern of Paradise, the absolute
materialization; but behind all of this ceaseless manipulation is the presence
of the Father-Son, whose union first activated the Paradise pattern in the
appearance of Havona concomitant with the birth of the Infinite Spirit, the
Conjoint Actor.
104:4.8 In religious experience, creatures make contact with the God who is
love, but such spiritual insight must never eclipse the intelligent
recognition of the universe fact of the pattern which is Paradise. The
Paradise personalities enlist the freewill adoration of all creatures by the
compelling power of divine love and lead all such spirit-born personalities
into the supernal delights of the unending service of the finaliter sons of
God. The second triunity is the architect of the space stage whereon these
transactions unfold; it determines the patterns of cosmic configuration.
104:4.9 Love may characterize the divinity of the first triunity, but pattern
is the galactic manifestation of the second triunity. What the first triunity
is to evolving personalities, the second triunity is to the evolving
universes. Pattern and personality are two of the great manifestations of the
acts of the First Source and Center; and no matter how difficult it may be to
comprehend, it is nonetheless true that the power-pattern and the loving
person are one and the same universal reality; the Paradise Isle and the
Eternal Son are co-ordinate but antipodal revelations of the unfathomable
nature of the Universal Father-Force.
104:4.10 The Third Triunity -- the spirit-evolutional triunity. The entirety
of spiritual manifestation has its beginning and end in this association,
consisting of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Son-Spirit.
3. The Deity Absolute.
104:4.11 From spirit potency to Paradise spirit, all spirit finds reality
expression in this triune association of the pure spirit essence of the
Father, the active spirit values of the Son-Spirit, and the unlimited spirit
potentials of the Deity Absolute. The existential values of spirit have their
primordial genesis, complete manifestation, and final destiny in this
triunity.
104:4.12 The Father exists before spirit; the Son-Spirit functions as active
creative spirit; the Deity Absolute exists as all-encompassing spirit, even
beyond spirit.
104:4.13 The Fourth Triunity -- the triunity of energy infinity. Within this
triunity there eternalizes the beginnings and the endings of all energy
reality, from space potency to monota. This grouping embraces the following:
1. The Father-Spirit.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.14 Paradise is the center of the force-energy activation of the cosmos
-- the universe position of the First Source and Center, the cosmic focal
point of the Unqualified Absolute, and the source of all energy. Existentially
present within this triunity is the energy potential of the cosmos-infinite,
of which the grand universe and the master universe are only partial
manifestations.
104:4.15 The fourth triunity absolutely controls the fundamental units of
cosmic energy and releases them from the grasp of the Unqualified Absolute in
direct proportion to the appearance in the experiential Deities of subabsolute
capacity to control and stabilize the metamorphosing cosmos.
104:4.16 This triunity is force and energy. The endless possibilities of the
Unqualified Absolute are centered around the absolutum of the Isle of
Paradise, whence emanate the unimaginable agitations of the otherwise static
quiescence of the Unqualified. And the endless throbbing of the material
Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in harmony with the unfathomable
pattern and the unsearchable plan of the Infinite Energizer, the First Source
and Center.
104:4.17 The Fifth Triunity -- the triunity of reactive infinity. This
association consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.18 This grouping yields the eternalization of the functional infinity
realization of all that is actualizable within the domains of nondeity
reality. This triunity manifests unlimited reactive capacity to the
volitional, causative, tensional, and patternal actions and presences of the
other triunities.
104:4.19 The Sixth Triunity -- the triunity of cosmic-associated Deity. This
grouping consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Deity Absolute.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.20 This is the association of Deity-in-the-cosmos, the immanence of
Deity in conjunction with the transcendence of Deity. This is the last
outreach of divinity on the levels of infinity toward those realities which
lie outside the domain of deified reality.
104:4.21 The Seventh Triunity -- the triunity of infinite unity. This is the
unity of infinity functionally manifest in time and eternity, the co-ordinate
unification of actuals and potentials. This group consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Conjoint Actor.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.22 The Conjoint Actor universally integrates the varying functional
aspects of all actualized reality on all levels of manifestation, from finites
through transcendentals and on to absolutes. The Universal Absolute perfectly
compensates the differentials inherent in the varying aspects of all
incomplete reality, from the limitless potentialities of active-volitional and
causative Deity reality to the boundless possibilities of static, reactive,
nondeity reality in the incomprehensible domains of the Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.23 As they function in this triunity, the Conjoint Actor and the
Universal Absolute are alike responsive to Deity and to nondeity presences, as
also is the First Source and Center, who in this relationship is to all
intents and purposes conceptually indistinguishable from the I AM.
104:4.24 These approximations are sufficient to elucidate the concept of the
triunities. Not knowing the ultimate level of the triunities, you cannot fully
comprehend the first seven. While we do not deem it wise to attempt any
further elaboration, we may state that there are fifteen triune associations
of the First Source and Center, eight of which are unrevealed in these papers.
These unrevealed associations are concerned with realities, actualities, and
potentialities which are beyond the experiential level of supremacy.
104:4.25 The triunities are the functional balance wheel of infinity, the
unification of the uniqueness of the Seven Infinity Absolutes. It is the
existential presence of the triunities that enables the Father-I AM to
experience functional infinity unity despite the diversification of infinity
into seven Absolutes. The First Source and Center is the unifying member of
all triunities; in him all things have their unqualified beginnings, eternal
existences, and infinite destinies -- "in him all things consist."
104:4.26 Although these associations cannot augment the infinity of the
Father-I AM, they do appear to make possible the subinfinite and subabsolute
manifestations of his reality. The seven triunities multiply versatility,
eternalize new depths, deitize new values, disclose new potentialities, reveal
new meanings; and all these diversified manifestations in time and space and
in the eternal cosmos are existent in the hypothetical stasis of the original
infinity of the I AM.
5. TRIODITIES
104:5.1 There are certain other triune relationships which are non-Father in
constitution, but they are not real triunities, and they are always
distinguished from the Father triunities. They are called variously, associate
triunities, co-ordinate triunities, and triodities. They are consequential to
the existence of the triunities. Two of these associations are constituted as
follows:
104:5.2 The Triodity of Actuality. This triodity consists in the
interrelationship of the three absolute actuals:
1. The Eternal Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:5.3 The Eternal Son is the absolute of spirit reality, the absolute
personality. The Paradise Isle is the absolute of cosmic reality, the absolute
pattern. The Conjoint Actor is the absolute of mind reality, the co-ordinate
of absolute spirit reality, and the existential Deity synthesis of personality
and power. This triune association eventuates the co-ordination of the sum
total of actualized reality -- spirit, cosmic, or mindal. It is unqualified in
actuality.
104:5.4 The Triodity of Potentiality. This triodity consists in the
association of the three Absolutes of potentiality:
1. The Deity Absolute.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:5.5 Thus are interassociated the infinity reservoirs of all latent energy
reality -- spirit, mindal, or cosmic. This association yields the integration
of all latent energy reality. It is infinite in potential.
104:5.6 As the triunities are primarily concerned with the functional
unification of infinity, so are triodities involved in the cosmic appearance
of experiential Deities. The triunities are indirectly concerned, but the
triodities are directly concerned, in the experiential Deities -- Supreme,
Ultimate, and Absolute. They appear in the emerging power-personality
synthesis of the Supreme Being. And to the time creatures of space the Supreme
Being is a revelation of the unity of the I AM.
104:5.7 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 105
DEITY AND REALITY
105:0.1 TO EVEN high orders of universe intelligences infinity is only
partially comprehensible, and the finality of reality is only relatively
understandable. The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity-mystery
of the origin and destiny of all that is called real, may helpfully approach
the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse
which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this
universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and
infinite potential of destiny.
105:0.2 When the mortal intellect attempts to grasp the concept of reality
totality, such a finite mind is face to face with infinity-reality; reality
totality is infinity and therefore can never be fully comprehended by any mind
that is subinfinite in concept capacity.
105:0.3 The human mind can hardly form an adequate concept of eternity
existences, and without such comprehension it is impossible to portray even
our concepts of reality totality. Nevertheless, we may attempt such a
presentation, although we are fully aware that our concepts must be subjected
to profound distortion in the process of translation-modification to the
comprehension level of mortal mind.
1. THE PHILOSOPHIC CONCEPT OF THE I AM
105:1.1 Absolute primal causation in infinity the philosophers of the
universes attribute to the Universal Father functioning as the infinite, the
eternal, and the absolute I AM.
105:1.2 There are many elements of danger attendant upon the presentation to
the mortal intellect of this idea of an infinite I AM since this concept is so
remote from human experiential understanding as to involve serious distortion
of meanings and misconception of values. Nevertheless, the philosophic concept
of the I AM does afford finite beings some basis for an attempted approach to
the partial comprehension of absolute origins and infinite destinies. But in
all our attempts to elucidate the genesis and fruition of reality, let it be
made clear that this concept of the I AM is, in all personality meanings and
values, synonymous with the First Person of Deity, the Universal Father of all
personalities. But this postulate of the I AM is not so clearly identifiable
in undeified realms of universal reality.
105:1.3 The I AM is the Infinite; the I AM is also infinity. From the
sequential, time viewpoint, all reality has its origin in the infinite I AM,
whose solitary existence in past infinite eternity must be a finite creature's
premier philosophic postulate. The concept of the I AM connotes unqualified
infinity, the undifferentiated reality of all that could ever be in all of an
infinite eternity.
105:1.4 As an existential concept the I AM is neither deified nor undeified,
neither actual nor potential, neither personal nor impersonal, neither static
nor dynamic. No qualification can be applied to the Infinite except to state
that the I AM is. The philosophic postulate of the I AM is one universe
concept which is somewhat more difficult of comprehension than that of the
Unqualified Absolute.
105:1.5 To the finite mind there simply must be a beginning, and though there
never was a real beginning to reality, still there are certain source
relationships which reality manifests to infinity. The prereality, primordial,
eternity situation may be thought of something like this: At some infinitely
distant, hypothetical, past-eternity moment, the I AM may be conceived as both
thing and no thing, as both cause and effect, as both volition and response.
At this hypothetical eternity moment there is no differentiation throughout
all infinity. Infinity is filled by the Infinite; the Infinite encompasses
infinity. This is the hypothetical static moment of eternity; actuals are
still contained within their potentials, and potentials have not yet appeared
within the infinity of the I AM. But even in this conjectured situation we
must assume the existence of the possibility of self-will.
105:1.6 Ever remember that man's comprehension of the Universal Father is a
personal experience. God, as your spiritual Father, is comprehensible to you
and to all other mortals; but your experiential worshipful concept of the
Universal Father must always be less than your philosophic postulate of the
infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM. When we speak of the
Father, we mean God as he is understandable by his creatures both high and
low, but there is much more of Deity which is not comprehensible to universe
creatures. God, your Father and my Father, is that phase of the Infinite which
we perceive in our personalities as an actual experiential reality, but the I
AM ever remains as our hypothesis of all that we feel is unknowable of the
First Source and Center. And even that hypothesis probably falls far short of
the unfathomed infinity of original reality.
105:1.7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting
personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center
is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have
become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the
magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this
inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the
Infinite.
105:1.8 Infinity is indeed remote from the experience level of mortal
comprehension, but even in this age on Urantia your concepts of infinity are
growing, and they will continue to grow throughout your endless careers
stretching onward into future eternity. Unqualified infinity is meaningless to
the finite creature, but infinity is capable of self-limitation and is
susceptible of reality expression to all levels of universe existences. And
the face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the
face of a Father, the Universal Father of love.
2. THE I AM AS TRIUNE AND AS SEVENFOLD
105:2.1 In considering the genesis of reality, ever bear in mind that all
absolute reality is from eternity and is without beginning of existence. By
absolute reality we refer to the three existential persons of Deity, the Isle
of Paradise, and the three Absolutes. These seven realities are co-ordinately
eternal, notwithstanding that we resort to time-space language in presenting
their sequential origins to human beings.
105:2.2 In following the chronological portrayal of the origins of reality,
there must be a postulated theoretical moment of "first" volitional expression
and "first" repercussional reaction within the I AM. In our attempts to
portray the genesis and generation of reality, this stage may be conceived as
the self-differentiation of The Infinite One from The Infinitude, but the
postulation of this dual relationship must always be expanded to a triune
conception by the recognition of the eternal continuum of The Infinity, the I
AM.
105:2.3 This self-metamorphosis of the I AM culminates in the multiple
differentiation of deified reality and of undeified reality, of potential and
actual reality, and of certain other realities that can hardly be so
classified. These differentiations of the theoretical monistic I AM are
eternally integrated by simultaneous relationships arising within the same I
AM -- the prepotential, preactual, prepersonal, monothetic prereality which,
though infinite, is revealed as absolute in the presence of the First Source
and Center and as personality in the limitless love of the Universal Father.
105:2.4 By these internal metamorphoses the I AM is establishing the basis for
a sevenfold self-relationship. The philosophic (time) concept of the solitary
I AM and the transitional (time) concept of the I AM as triune can now be
enlarged to encompass the I AM as sevenfold. This sevenfold -- or seven phase
-- nature may be best suggested in relation to the Seven Absolutes of
Infinity:
105:2.5 1. The Universal Father. I AM father of the Eternal Son. This is the
primal personality relationship of actualities. The absolute personality of
the Son makes absolute the fact of God's fatherhood and establishes the
potential sonship of all personalities. This relationship establishes the
personality of the Infinite and consummates its spiritual revelation in the
personality of the Original Son. This phase of the I AM is partially
experiencible on spiritual levels even by mortals who, while yet in the flesh,
may worship our Father.
105:2.6 2. The Universal Controller. I AM cause of eternal Paradise. This is
the primal impersonal relationship of actualities, the original nonspiritual
association. The Universal Father is God-as-love; the Universal Controller is
God-as-pattern. This relationship establishes the potential of form --
configuration -- and determines the master pattern of impersonal and
nonspiritual relationship -- the master pattern from which all copies are
made.
105:2.7 3. The Universal Creator. I AM one with the Eternal Son. This union of
the Father and the Son (in the presence of Paradise) initiates the creative
cycle, which is consummated in the appearance of conjoint personality and the
eternal universe. From the finite mortal's viewpoint, reality has its true
beginnings with the eternity appearance of the Havona creation. This creative
act of Deity is by and through the God of Action, who is in essence the unity
of the Father-Son manifested on and to all levels of the actual. Therefore is
divine creativity unfailingly characterized by unity, and this unity is the
outward reflection of the absolute oneness of the duality of the Father-Son
and of the Trinity of the Father-Son-Spirit.
105:2.8 4. The Infinite Upholder. I AM self-associative. This is the
primordial association of the statics and potentials of reality. In this
relationship, all qualifieds and unqualifieds are compensated. This phase of
the I AM is best understood as the Universal Absolute -- the unifier of the
Deity and the Unqualified Absolutes.
105:2.9 5. The Infinite Potential. I AM self-qualified. This is the infinity
bench mark bearing eternal witness to the volitional self-limitation of the I
AM by virtue of which there was achieved threefold self-expression and self-
revelation. This phase of the I AM is usually understood as the Deity
Absolute.
105:2.10 6. The Infinite Capacity. I AM static-reactive. This is the endless
matrix, the possibility for all future cosmic expansion. This phase of the I
AM is perhaps best conceived as the supergravity presence of the Unqualified
Absolute.
105:2.11 7. The Universal One of Infinity. I AM as I AM. This is the stasis or
self-relationship of Infinity, the eternal fact of infinity-reality and the
universal truth of reality-infinity. In so far as this relationship is
discernible as personality, it is revealed to the universes in the divine
Father of all personality -- even of absolute personality. In so far as this
relationship is impersonally expressible, it is contacted by the universe as
the absolute coherence of pure energy and of pure spirit in the presence of
the Universal Father. In so far as this relationship is conceivable as an
absolute, it is revealed in the primacy of the First Source and Center; in him
we all live and move and have our being, from the creatures of space to the
citizens of Paradise; and this is just as true of the master universe as of
the infinitesimal ultimaton, just as true of what is to be as of that which is
and of what has been.
3. THE SEVEN ABSOLUTES OF INFINITY
105:3.1 The seven prime relationships within the I AM eternalize as the Seven
Absolutes of Infinity. But though we may portray reality origins and infinity
differentiation by a sequential narrative, in fact all seven Absolutes are
unqualifiedly and co-ordinately eternal. It may be necessary for mortal minds
to conceive of their beginnings, but always should this conception be
overshadowed by the realization that the seven Absolutes had no beginning;
they are eternal and as such have always been. The seven Absolutes are the
premise of reality. They have been described in these papers as follows:
105:3.2 1. The First Source and Center. First Person of Deity and primal
nondeity pattern, God, the Universal Father, creator, controller, and
upholder; universal love, eternal spirit, and infinite energy; potential of
all potentials and source of all actuals; stability of all statics and
dynamism of all change; source of pattern and Father of persons. Collectively,
all seven Absolutes equivalate to infinity, but the Universal Father himself
actually is infinite.
105:3.3 2. The Second Source and Center. Second Person of Deity, the Eternal
and Original Son; the absolute personality realities of the I AM and the basis
for the realization-revelation of "I AM personality." No personality can hope
to attain the Universal Father except through his Eternal Son; neither can
personality attain to spirit levels of existence apart from the action and aid
of this absolute pattern for all personalities. In the Second Source and
Center spirit is unqualified while personality is absolute.
105:3.4 3. The Paradise Source and Center. Second nondeity pattern, the
eternal Isle of Paradise; the basis for the realization-revelation of "I AM
force" and the foundation for the establishment of gravity control throughout
the universes. Regarding all actualized, nonspiritual, impersonal, and
nonvolitional reality, Paradise is the absolute of patterns. Just as spirit
energy is related to the Universal Father through the absolute personality of
the Mother-Son, so is all cosmic energy grasped in the gravity control of the
First Source and Center through the absolute pattern of the Paradise Isle.
Paradise is not in space; space exists relative to Paradise, and the
chronicity of motion is determined through Paradise relationship. The eternal
Isle is absolutely at rest; all other organized and organizing energy is in
eternal motion; in all space, only the presence of the Unqualified Absolute is
quiescent, and the Unqualified is co-ordinate with Paradise. Paradise exists
at the focus of space, the Unqualified pervades it, and all relative existence
has its being within this domain.
105:3.5 4. The Third Source and Center. Third Person of Deity, the Conjoint
Actor; infinite integrator of Paradise cosmic energies with the spirit
energies of the Eternal Son; perfect co-ordinator of the motives of will and
the mechanics of force; unifier of all actual and actualizing reality. Through
the ministrations of his manifold children the Infinite Spirit reveals the
mercy of the Eternal Son while at the same time functioning as the infinite
manipulator, forever weaving the pattern of Paradise into the energies of
space. This selfsame Conjoint Actor, this God of Action, is the perfect
expression of the limitless plans and purposes of the Father-Son while
functioning himself as the source of mind and the bestower of intellect upon
the creatures of a far-flung cosmos.
105:3.6 5. The Deity Absolute. The causational, potentially personal
possibilities of universal reality, the totality of all Deity potential. The
Deity Absolute is the purposive qualifier of the unqualified, absolute, and
nondeity realities. The Deity Absolute is the qualifier of the absolute and
the absolutizer of the qualified -- the destiny inceptor.
105:3.7 6. The Unqualified Absolute. Static, reactive, and abeyant; the
unrevealed cosmic infinity of the I AM; totality of nondeified reality and
finality of all nonpersonal potential. Space limits the function of the
Unqualified, but the presence of the Unqualified is without limit, infinite.
There is a concept periphery to the master universe, but the presence of the
Unqualified is limitless; even eternity cannot exhaust the boundless
quiescence of this nondeity Absolute.
105:3.8 7. The Universal Absolute. Unifier of the deified and the undeified;
co-relater of the absolute and the relative. The Universal Absolute (being
static, potential, and associative) compensates the tension between the ever-
existent and the uncompleted.
105:3.9 The Seven Absolutes of Infinity constitute the beginnings of reality.
As mortal minds would regard it, the First Source and Center would appear to
be antecedent to all absolutes. But such a postulate, however helpful, is
invalidated by the eternity co-existence of the Son, the Spirit, the three
Absolutes, and the Paradise Isle.
105:3.10 It is a truth that the Absolutes are manifestations of the I AM-First
Source and Center; it is a fact that these Absolutes never had a beginning but
are co-ordinate eternals with the First Source and Center. The relationships
of absolutes in eternity cannot always be presented without involving
paradoxes in the language of time and in the concept patterns of space. But
regardless of any confusion concerning the origin of the Seven Absolutes of
Infinity, it is both fact and truth that all reality is predicated upon their
eternity existence and infinity relationships.
4. UNITY, DUALITY, AND TRIUNITY
105:4.1 The universe philosophers postulate the eternity existence of the I AM
as the primal source of all reality. And concomitant therewith they postulate
the self-segmentation of the I AM into the primary self-relationships -- the
seven phases of infinity. And simultaneous with this assumption is the third
postulate -- the eternity appearance of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity and
the eternalization of the duality association of the seven phases of the I AM
and these seven Absolutes.
105:4.2 The self-revelation of the I AM thus proceeds from static self through
self-segmentation and self-relationship to absolute relationships,
relationships with self-derived Absolutes. Duality becomes thus existent in
the eternal association of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity with the sevenfold
infinity of the self-segmented phases of the self-revealing I AM. These dual
relationships, eternalizing to the universes as the seven Absolutes,
eternalize the basic foundations for all universe reality.
105:4.3 It has been sometime stated that unity begets duality, that duality
begets triunity, and that triunity is the eternal ancestor of all things.
There are, indeed, three great classes of primordial relationships, and they
are:
105:4.4 1. Unity relationships. Relations existent within the I AM as the
unity thereof is conceived as a threefold and then as a sevenfold self-
differentiation.
105:4.5 2. Duality relationships. Relations existent between the I AM as
sevenfold and the Seven Absolutes of Infinity.
105:4.6 3. Triunity relationships. These are the functional associations of
the Seven Absolutes of Infinity.
105:4.7 Triunity relationships arise upon duality foundations because of the
inevitability of Absolute interassociation. Such triunity associations
eternalize the potential of all reality; they encompass both deified and
undeified reality.
105:4.8 The I AM is unqualified infinity as unity. The dualities eternalize
reality foundations. The triunities eventuate the realization of infinity as
universal function.
105:4.9 Pre-existentials become existential in the seven Absolutes, and
existentials become functional in the triunities, the basic association of
Absolutes. And concomitant with the eternalization of the triunities the
universe stage is set -- the potentials are existent and the actuals are
present -- and the fullness of eternity witnesses the diversification of
cosmic energy, the outspreading of Paradise spirit, and the endowment of mind
together with the bestowal of personality, by virtue of which all of these
Deity and Paradise derivatives are unified in experience on the creature level
and by other techniques on the supercreature level.
5. PROMULGATION OF FINITE REALITY
105:5.1 Just as the original diversification of the I AM must be attributed to
inherent and self-contained volition, so must the promulgation of finite
reality be ascribed to the volitional acts of Paradise Deity and to the
repercussional adjustments of the functional triunities.
105:5.2 Prior to the deitization of the finite, it would appear that all
reality diversification took place on absolute levels; but the volitional act
promulgating finite reality connotes a qualification of absoluteness and
implies the appearance of relativities.
105:5.3 While we present this narrative as a sequence and portray the historic
appearance of the finite as a direct derivative of the absolute, it should be
borne in mind that transcendentals both preceded and succeeded all that is
finite. Transcendental ultimates are, in relation to the finite, both causal
and consummational.
105:5.4 Finite possibility is inherent in the Infinite, but the transmutation
of possibility to probability and inevitability must be attributed to the
self-existent free will of the First Source and Center, activating all
triunity associations. Only the infinity of the Father's will could ever have
so qualified the absolute level of existence as to eventuate an ultimate or to
create a finite.
105:5.5 With the appearance of relative and qualified reality there comes into
being a new cycle of reality -- the growth cycle -- a majestic downsweep from
the heights of infinity to the domain of the finite, forever swinging inward
to Paradise and Deity, always seeking those high destinies commensurate with
an infinity source.
105:5.6 These inconceivable transactions mark the beginning of universe
history, mark the coming into existence of time itself. To a creature, the
beginning of the finite is the genesis of reality; as viewed by creature mind,
there is no actuality conceivable prior to the finite. This newly appearing
finite reality exists in two original phases:
1. Primary maximums, the supremely perfect reality, the Havona type of universe
and creature.
2. Secondary maximums, the supremely perfected reality, the superuniverse type
of creature and creation.
105:5.7 These, then, are the two original manifestations: the constitutively
perfect and the evolutionally perfected. The two are co-ordinate in eternity
relationships, but within the limits of time they are seemingly different. A
time factor means growth to that which grows; secondary finites grow; hence
those that are growing must appear as incomplete in time. But these
differences, which are so important this side of Paradise, are nonexistent in
eternity.
105:5.8 We speak of the perfect and the perfected as primary and secondary
maximums, but there is still another type: Trinitizing and other relationships
between the primaries and the secondaries result in the appearance of tertiary
maximums -- things, meanings, and values that are neither perfect nor
perfected yet are co-ordinate with both ancestral factors.
6. REPERCUSSIONS OF FINITE REALITY
105:6.1 The entire promulgation of finite existences represents a transference
from potentials to actuals within the absolute associations of functional
infinity. Of the many repercussions to creative actualization of the finite,
there may be cited:
105:6.2 1. The deity response, the appearance of the three levels of
experiential supremacy: the actuality of personal-spirit supremacy in Havona,
the potential for personal-power supremacy in the grand universe to be, and
the capacity for some unknown function of experiential mind acting on some
level of supremacy in the future master universe.
105:6.3 2. The universe response involved an activation of the architectural
plans for the superuniverse space level, and this evolution is still
progressing throughout the physical organization of the seven superuniverses.
105:6.4 3. The creature repercussion to finite-reality promulgation resulted
in the appearance of perfect beings on the order of the eternal inhabitants of
Havona and of perfected evolutionary ascenders from the seven superuniverses.
But to attain perfection as an evolutionary (time-creative) experience implies
something other-than-perfection as a point of departure. Thus arises
imperfection in the evolutionary creations. And this is the origin of
potential evil. Misadaptation, disharmony, and conflict, all these things are
inherent in evolutionary growth, from physical universes to personal
creatures.
105:6.5 4. The divinity response to the imperfection inherent in the time lag
of evolution is disclosed in the compensating presence of God the Sevenfold,
by whose activities that which is perfecting is integrated with both the
perfect and the perfected. This time lag is inseparable from evolution, which
is creativity in time. Because of it, as well as for other reasons, the
almighty power of the Supreme is predicated on the divinity successes of God
the Sevenfold. This time lag makes possible creature participation in divine
creation by permitting creature personalities to become partners with Deity in
the attainment of maximum development. Even the material mind of the mortal
creature thus becomes partner with the divine Adjuster in the dualization of
the immortal soul. God the Sevenfold also provides techniques of compensation
for the experiential limitations of inherent perfection as well as
compensating the preascension limitations of imperfection.
7. EVENTUATION OF TRANSCENDENTALS
105:7.1 Transcendentals are subinfinite and subabsolute but superfinite and
supercreatural. Transcendentals eventuate as an integrating level correlating
the supervalues of absolutes with the maximum values of finites. From the
creature standpoint, that which is transcendental would appear to have
eventuated as a consequence of the finite; from the eternity viewpoint, in
anticipation of the finite; and there are those who have considered it as a
"pre-echo" of the finite.
105:7.2 That which is transcendental is not necessarily nondevelopmental, but
it is superevolutional in the finite sense; neither is it nonexperiential, but
it is superexperience as such is meaningful to creatures. Perhaps the best
illustration of such a paradox is the central universe of perfection: It is
hardly absolute -- only the Paradise Isle is truly absolute in the
"materialized" sense. Neither is it a finite evolutionary creation as are the
seven superuniverses. Havona is eternal but not changeless in the sense of
being a universe of nongrowth. It is inhabited by creatures (Havona natives)
who never were actually created, for they are eternally existent. Havona thus
illustrates something which is not exactly finite nor yet absolute. Havona
further acts as a buffer between absolute Paradise and finite creations, still
further illustrating the function of transcendentals. But Havona itself is not
a transcendental -- it is Havona.
105:7.3 As the Supreme is associated with finites, so the Ultimate is
identified with transcendentals. But though we thus compare Supreme and
Ultimate, they differ by something more than degree; the difference is also a
matter of quality. The Ultimate is something more than a super-Supreme
projected on the transcendental level. The Ultimate is all of that, but more:
The Ultimate is an eventuation of new Deity realities, the qualification of
new phases of the theretofore unqualified.
105:7.4 Among those realities which are associated with the transcendental
level are the following:
1. The Deity presence of the Ultimate.
2. The concept of the master universe.
3. The Architects of the Master Universe.
4. The two orders of Paradise force organizers.
5. Certain modifications in space potency.
6. Certain values of spirit.
7. Certain meanings of mind.
8. Absonite qualities and realities.
9. Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.
10. Space.
105:7.5 The universe in which we now live may be thought of as existing on
finite, transcendental, and absolute levels. This is the cosmic stage on which
is enacted the endless drama of personality performance and energy
metamorphosis.
105:7.6 And all of these manifold realities are unified absolutely by the
several triunities, functionally by the Architects of the Master Universe, and
relatively by the Seven Master Spirits, the subsupreme co-ordinators of the
divinity of God the Sevenfold.
105:7.7 God the Sevenfold represents the personality and divinity revelation
of the Universal Father to creatures of both maximum and submaximum status,
but there are other sevenfold relationships of the First Source and Center
which do not pertain to the manifestation of the divine spiritual ministry of
the God who is spirit.
105:7.8 In the eternity of the past the forces of the Absolutes, the spirits
of the Deities, and the personalities of the Gods stirred in response to the
primordial self-will of self-existent self-will. In this universe age we are
all witnessing the stupendous repercussions of the far-flung cosmic panorama
of the subabsolute manifestations of the limitless potentials of all these
realities. And it is altogether possible that the continued diversification of
the original reality of the First Source and Center may proceed onward and
outward throughout age upon age, on and on, into the faraway and inconceivable
stretches of absolute infinity.
105:7.9 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 106
UNIVERSE LEVELS OF REALITY
106:0.1 IT IS not enough that the ascending mortal should know something of
the relations of Deity to the genesis and manifestations of cosmic reality; he
should also comprehend something of the relationships existing between himself
and the numerous levels of existential and experiential realities, of
potential and actual realities. Man's terrestrial orientation, his cosmic
insight, and his spiritual directionization are all enhanced by a better
comprehension of universe realities and their techniques of interassociation,
integration, and unification.
106:0.2 The present grand universe and the emerging master universe are made
up of many forms and phases of reality which, in turn, are existent on several
levels of functional activity. These manifold existents and latents have been
previously suggested in these papers, and they are now grouped for conceptual
convenience in the following categories:
106:0.3 1. Incomplete finites. This is the present status of the ascending
creatures of the grand universe, the present status of Urantia mortals. This
level embraces creature existence from the planetary human up to, but not
including, destiny attainers. It pertains to universes from early physical
beginnings up to, but not including, settlement in light and life. This level
constitutes the present periphery of creative activity in time and space. It
appears to be moving outward from Paradise, for the closing of the present
universe age, which will witness the grand universe attainment of light and
life, will also and surely witness the appearance of some new order of
developmental growth in the first outer space level.
106:0.4 2. Maximum finites. This is the present status of all experiential
creatures who have attained destiny -- destiny as revealed within the scope of
the present universe age. Even universes can attain to the maximum of status,
both spiritually and physically. But the term "maximum" is itself a relative
term -- maximum in relation to what? And that which is maximum, seemingly
final, in the present universe age may be no more than a real beginning in
terms of the ages to come. Some phases of Havona appear to be on the maximum
order.
106:0.5 3. Transcendentals. This superfinite level (antecedently) follows
finite progression. It implies the prefinite genesis of finite beginnings and
the postfinite significance of all apparent finite endings or destinies. Much
of Paradise-Havona appears to be on the transcendental order.
106:0.6 4. Ultimates. This level encompasses that which is of master universe
significance and impinges on the destiny level of the completed master
universe. Paradise-Havona (especially the circuit of the Father's worlds) is
in many respects of ultimate significance.
106:0.7 5. Coabsolutes. This level implies the projection of experientials
upon a supermaster universe field of creative expression.
106:0.8 6. Absolutes. This level connotes the eternity presence of the seven
existential Absolutes. It may also involve some degree of associative
experiential attainment, but if so, we do not understand how, perhaps through
the contact potential of personality.
106:0.9 7. Infinity. This level is pre-existential and postexperiential.
Unqualified unity of infinity is a hypothetical reality before all beginnings
and after all destinies.
106:0.10 These levels of reality are convenient compromise symbolizations of
the present universe age and for the mortal perspective. There are a number of
other ways of looking at reality from other-than-mortal perspective and from
the standpoint of other universe ages. Thus it should be recognized that the
concepts herewith presented are entirely relative, relative in the sense of
being conditioned and limited by:
1. The limitations of mortal language.
2. The limitations of the mortal mind.
3. The limited development of the seven superuniverses.
4. Your ignorance of the six prime purposes of superuniverse development which
do not pertain to the mortal ascent to Paradise.
5. Your inability to grasp even a partial eternity viewpoint.
6. The impossibility of depicting cosmic evolution and destiny in relation to
all universe ages, not just in regard to the present age of the evolutionary
unfolding of the seven superuniverses.
7. The inability of any creature to grasp what is really meant by pre-
existentials or by postexperientials -- that which lies before beginnings and
after destinies.
106:0.11 Reality growth is conditioned by the circumstances of the successive
universe ages. The central universe underwent no evolutionary change in the
Havona age, but in the present epochs of the superuniverse age it is
undergoing certain progressive changes induced by co-ordination with the
evolutionary superuniverses. The seven superuniverses, now evolving, will
sometime attain the settled status of light and life, will attain the growth
limit for the present universe age. But beyond doubt, the next age, the age of
the first outer space level, will release the superuniverses from the destiny
limitations of the present age. Repletion is continually being superimposed
upon completion.
106:0.12 These are some of the limitations which we encounter in attempting to
present a unified concept of the cosmic growth of things, meanings, and values
and of their synthesis on ever-ascending levels of reality.
1. PRIMARY ASSOCIATION OF FINITE FUNCTIONALS
106:1.1 The primary or spirit-origin phases of finite reality find immediate
expression on creature levels as perfect personalities and on universe levels
as the perfect Havona creation. Even experiential Deity is thus expressed in
the spirit person of God the Supreme in Havona. But the secondary,
evolutionary, time-and-matter-conditioned phases of the finite become
cosmically integrated only as a result of growth and attainment. Eventually
all secondary or perfecting finites are to attain a level equal to that of
primary perfection, but such destiny is subject to a time delay, a
constitutive superuniverse qualification which is not genetically found in the
central creation. (We know of the existence of tertiary finites, but the
technique of their integration is as yet unrevealed.)
106:1.2 This superuniverse time lag, this obstacle to perfection attainment,
provides for creature participation in evolutionary growth. It thus makes it
possible for the creature to enter into partnership with the Creator in the
evolution of that selfsame creature. And during these times of expanding
growth the incomplete is correlated with the perfect through the ministry of
God the Sevenfold.
106:1.3 God the Sevenfold signifies the recognition by Paradise Deity of the
barriers of time in the evolutionary universes of space. No matter how remote
from Paradise, how deep in space, a material survival personality may take
origin, God the Sevenfold will be found there present and engaged in the
loving and merciful ministry of truth, beauty, and goodness to such an
incomplete, struggling, and evolutionary creature. The divinity ministry of
the Sevenfold reaches inward through the Eternal Son to the Paradise Father
and outward through the Ancients of Days to the universe Fathers -- the
Creator Sons.
106:1.4 Man, being personal and ascending by spiritual progression, finds the
personal and spiritual divinity of the Sevenfold Deity; but there are other
phases of the Sevenfold which are not concerned with the progression of
personality. The divinity aspects of this Deity grouping are at present
integrated in the liaison between the Seven Master Spirits and the Conjoint
Actor, but they are destined to be eternally unified in the emerging
personality of the Supreme Being. The other phases of the Sevenfold Deity are
variously integrated in the present universe age, but all are likewise
destined to be unified in the Supreme. The Sevenfold, in all phases, is the
source of the relative unity of the functional reality of the present grand
universe.
2. SECONDARY SUPREME FINITE INTEGRATION
106:2.1 As God the Sevenfold functionally co-ordinates finite evolution, so
does the Supreme Being eventually synthesize destiny attainment. The Supreme
Being is the deity culmination of grand universe evolution -- physical
evolution around a spirit nucleus and eventual dominance of the spirit nucleus
over the encircling and whirling domains of physical evolution. And all of
this takes place in accordance with the mandates of personality: Paradise
personality in the highest sense, Creator personality in the universe sense,
mortal personality in the human sense, Supreme personality in the culminating
or experiential totaling sense.
106:2.2 The concept of the Supreme must provide for the differential
recognition of spirit person, evolutionary power, and power-personality
synthesis -- the unification of evolutionary power with, and its dominance by,
spirit personality.
106:2.3 Spirit, in the last analysis, comes from Paradise through Havona.
Energy-matter seemingly evolves in the depths of space and is organized as
power by the children of the Infinite Spirit in conjunction with the Creator
Sons of God. And all of this is experiential; it is a transaction in time and
space involving a wide range of living beings including even Creator
divinities and evolutionary creatures. The power mastery of the Creator
divinities in the grand universe slowly expands to encompass the evolutionary
settling and stabilizing of the time-space creations, and this is the
flowering of the experiential power of God the Sevenfold. It encompasses the
whole gamut of divinity attainment in time and space from the Adjuster
bestowals of the Universal Father to the life bestowals of the Paradise Sons.
This is earned power, demonstrated power, experiential power; it stands in
contrast to the eternity power, the unfathomable power, the existential power
of the Paradise Deities.
106:2.4 This experiential power arising out of the divinity achievements of
God the Sevenfold itself manifests the cohesive qualities of divinity by
synthesizing -- totalizing -- as the almighty power of the attained
experiential mastery of the evolving creations. And this almighty power in
turn finds spirit-personality cohesion on the pilot sphere of the outer belt
of Havona worlds in union with the spirit personality of the Havona presence
of God the Supreme. Thus does experiential Deity culminate the long
evolutionary struggle by investing the power product of time and space with
the spirit presence and divine personality resident in the central creation.
106:2.5 Thus does the Supreme Being eventually attain to the embrace of all of
everything evolving in time and space while investing these qualities with
spirit personality. Since creatures, even mortals, are personality
participants in this majestic transaction, so do they certainly attain the
capacity to know the Supreme and to perceive the Supreme as true children of
such an evolutionary Deity.
106:2.6 Michael of Nebadon is like the Paradise Father because he shares his
Paradise perfection; so will evolutionary mortals sometime attain to kinship
with the experiential Supreme, for they will truly share his evolutionary
perfection.
106:2.7 God the Supreme is experiential; therefore is he completely
experiencible. The existential realities of the seven Absolutes are not
perceivable by the technique of experience; only the personality realities of
the Father, Son, and Spirit can be grasped by the personality of the finite
creature in the prayer-worship attitude.
106:2.8 Within the completed power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being
there will be associated all of the absoluteness of the several triodities
which could be so associated, and this majestic personality of evolution will
be experientially attainable and understandable by all finite personalities.
When ascenders attain the postulated seventh stage of spirit existence, they
will therein experience the realization of a new meaning-value of the
absoluteness and infinity of the triodities as such is revealed on subabsolute
levels in the Supreme Being, who is experiencible. But the attainment of these
stages of maximum development will probably await the co-ordinate settling of
the entire grand universe in light and life.
3. TRANSCENDENTAL TERTIARY REALITY ASSOCIATION
106:3.1 The absonite architects eventuate the plan; the Supreme Creators bring
it into existence; the Supreme Being will consummate its fullness as it was
time created by the Supreme Creators, and as it was space forecast by the
Master Architects.
106:3.2 During the present universe age the administrative co-ordination of
the master universe is the function of the Architects of the Master Universe.
But the appearance of the Almighty Supreme at the termination of the present
universe age will signify that the evolutionary finite has attained the first
stage of experiential destiny. This happening will certainly lead to the
completed function of the first experiential Trinity -- the union of the
Supreme Creators, the Supreme Being, and the Architects of the Master
Universe. This Trinity is destined to effect the further evolutionary
integration of the master creation.
106:3.3 The Paradise Trinity is truly one of infinity, and no Trinity can
possibly be infinite that does not include this original Trinity. But the
original Trinity is an eventuality of the exclusive association of absolute
Deities; subabsolute beings had nothing to do with this primal association.
The subsequently appearing and experiential Trinities embrace the
contributions of even creature personalities. Certainly this is true of the
Trinity Ultimate, wherein the very presence of the Master Creator Sons among
the Supreme Creator members thereof betokens the concomitant presence of
actual and bona fide creature experience within this Trinity association.
106:3.4 The first experiential Trinity provides for group attainment of
ultimate eventualities. Group associations are enabled to anticipate, even to
transcend, individual capacities; and this is true even beyond the finite
level. In the ages to come, after the seven superuniverses have been settled
in light and life, the Corps of the Finality will doubtless be promulgating
the purposes of the Paradise Deities as they are dictated by the Trinity
Ultimate, and as they are power-personality unified in the Supreme Being.
106:3.5 Throughout all the gigantic universe developments of past and future
eternity, we detect the expansion of the comprehensible elements of the
Universal Father. As the I AM, we philosophically postulate his permeation of
total infinity, but no creature is able experientially to encompass such a
postulate. As the universes expand, and as gravity and love reach out into
time-organizing space, we are able to understand more and more of the First
Source and Center. We observe gravity action penetrating the space presence of
the Unqualified Absolute, and we detect spirit creatures evolving and
expanding within the divinity presence of the Deity Absolute while both cosmic
and spirit evolution are by mind and experience unifying on finite deity
levels as the Supreme Being and are co-ordinating on transcendental levels as
the Trinity Ultimate.
4. ULTIMATE QUARTAN INTEGRATION
106:4.1 The Paradise Trinity certainly co-ordinates in the ultimate sense but
functions in this respect as a self-qualified absolute; the experiential
Trinity Ultimate co-ordinates the transcendental as a transcendental. In the
eternal future this experiential Trinity will, through augmenting unity,
further activate the eventuating presence of Ultimate Deity.
106:4.2 While the Trinity Ultimate is destined to co-ordinate the master
creation, God the Ultimate is the transcendental power-personalization of the
directionization of the entire master universe. The completed eventuation of
the Ultimate implies the completion of the master creation and connotes the
full emergence of this transcendental Deity.
106:4.3 What changes will be inaugurated by the full emergence of the Ultimate
we do not know. But as the Supreme is now spiritually and personally present
in Havona, so also is the Ultimate there present but in the absonite and
superpersonal sense. And you have been informed of the existence of the
Qualified Vicegerents of the Ultimate, though you have not been informed of
their present whereabouts or function.
106:4.4 But irrespective of the administrative repercussions attendant upon
the emergence of Ultimate Deity, the personal values of his transcendental
divinity will be experiencible by all personalities who have been participants
in the actualization of this Deity level. Transcendence of the finite can lead
only to ultimate attainment. God the Ultimate exists in transcendence of time
and space but is nonetheless subabsolute notwithstanding inherent capacity for
functional association with absolutes.
5. COABSOLUTE OR FIFTH-PHASE ASSOCIATION
106:5.1 The Ultimate is the apex of transcendental reality even as the Supreme
is the capstone of evolutionary-experiential reality. And the actual emergence
of these two experiential Deities lays the foundation for the second
experiential Trinity. This is the Trinity Absolute, the union of God the
Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the Unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny.
And this Trinity has theoretical capacity to activate the Absolutes of
potentiality -- Deity, Universal, and Unqualified. But the completed formation
of this Trinity Absolute could take place only after the completed evolution
of the entire master universe, from Havona to the fourth and outermost space
level.
106:5.2 It should be made clear that these experiential Trinities are
correlative, not only of the personality qualities of experiential Divinity,
but also of all the other-than-personal qualities which characterize their
attained Deity unity. While this presentation deals primarily with the
personal phases of the unification of the cosmos, it is nonetheless true that
the impersonal aspects of the universe of universes are likewise destined to
undergo unification as is illustrated by the power-personality synthesis now
going on in connection with the evolution of the Supreme Being. The spirit-
personal qualities of the Supreme are inseparable from the power prerogatives
of the Almighty, and both are complemented by the unknown potential of Supreme
mind. Neither can God the Ultimate as a person be considered apart from the
other-than-personal aspects of Ultimate Deity. And on the absolute level the
Deity and the Unqualified Absolutes are inseparable and indistinguishable in
the presence of the Universal Absolute.
106:5.3 Trinities are, in and of themselves, not personal, but neither do they
contravene personality. Rather do they encompass it and correlate it, in a
collective sense, with impersonal functions. Trinities are, then, always deity
reality but never personality reality. The personality aspects of a trinity
are inherent in its individual members, and as individual persons they are not
that trinity. Only as a collective are they trinity; that is trinity. But
always is trinity inclusive of all encompassed deity; trinity is deity unity.
106:5.4 The three Absolutes -- Deity, Universal, and Unqualified -- are not
trinity, for all are not deity. Only the deified can become trinity; all other
associations are triunities or triodities.
6. ABSOLUTE OR SIXTH-PHASE INTEGRATION
106:6.1 The present potential of the master universe is hardly absolute,
though it may well be near-ultimate, and we deem it impossible to achieve the
full revelation of absolute meaning-values within the scope of a subabsolute
cosmos. We therefore encounter considerable difficulty in attempting to
conceive of a total expression of the limitless possibilities of the three
Absolutes or even in attempting to visualize the experiential personalization
of God the Absolute on the now impersonal level of the Deity Absolute.
106:6.2 The space-stage of the master universe seems to be adequate for the
actualization of the Supreme Being, for the formation and full function of the
Trinity Ultimate, for the eventuation of God the Ultimate, and even for the
inception of the Trinity Absolute. But our concepts regarding the full
function of this second experiential Trinity seem to imply something beyond
even the wide-spreading master universe.
106:6.3 If we assume a cosmos-infinite -- some illimitable cosmos on beyond
the master universe -- and if we conceive that the final developments of the
Absolute Trinity will take place out on such a superultimate stage of action,
then it becomes possible to conjecture that the completed function of the
Trinity Absolute will achieve final expression in the creations of infinity
and will consummate the absolute actualization of all potentials. The
integration and association of ever-enlarging segments of reality will
approach absoluteness of status proportional to the inclusion of all reality
within the segments thus associated.
106:6.4 Stated otherwise: The Trinity Absolute, as its name implies, is really
absolute in total function. We do not know how an absolute function can
achieve total expression on a qualified, limited, or otherwise restricted
basis. Hence we must assume that any such totality function will be
unconditioned (in potential). And it would also appear that the unconditioned
would also be unlimited, at least from a qualitative standpoint, though we are
not so sure regarding quantitative relationships.
106:6.5 Of this, however, we are certain: While the existential Paradise
Trinity is infinite, and while the experiential Trinity Ultimate is
subinfinite, the Trinity Absolute is not so easy to classify. Though
experiential in genesis and constitution, it definitely impinges upon the
existential Absolutes of potentiality.
106:6.6 While it is hardly profitable for the human mind to seek to grasp such
faraway and superhuman concepts, we would suggest that the eternity action of
the Trinity Absolute may be thought of as culminating in some kind of
experientialization of the Absolutes of potentiality. This would appear to be
a reasonable conclusion with respect to the Universal Absolute, if not the
Unqualified Absolute; at least we know that the Universal Absolute is not only
static and potential but also associative in the total Deity sense of those
words. But in regard to the conceivable values of divinity and personality,
these conjectured happenings imply the personalization of the Deity Absolute
and the appearance of those superpersonal values and those ultrapersonal
meanings inherent in the personality completion of God the Absolute -- the
third and last of the experiential Deities.
7. FINALITY OF DESTINY
106:7.1 Some of the difficulties in forming concepts of infinite reality
integration are inherent in the fact that all such ideas embrace something of
the finality of universal development, some kind of an experiential
realization of all that could ever be. And it is inconceivable that
quantitative infinity could ever be completely realized in finality. Always
there must remain unexplored possibilities in the three potential Absolutes
which no quantity of experiential development could ever exhaust. Eternity
itself, though absolute, is not more than absolute.
106:7.2 Even a tentative concept of final integration is inseparable from the
fruitions of unqualified eternity and is, therefore, practically nonrealizable
at any conceivable future time.
106:7.3 Destiny is established by the volitional act of the Deities who
constitute the Paradise Trinity; destiny is established in the vastness of the
three great potentials whose absoluteness encompasses the possibilities of all
future development; destiny is probably consummated by the act of the
Consummator of Universe Destiny, and this act is probably involved with the
Supreme and the Ultimate in the Trinity Absolute. Any experiential destiny can
be at least partially comprehended by experiencing creatures; but a destiny
which impinges on infinite existentials is hardly comprehensible. Finality
destiny is an existential-experiential attainment which appears to involve the
Deity Absolute. But the Deity Absolute stands in eternity relationship with
the Unqualified Absolute by virtue of the Universal Absolute. And these three
Absolutes, experiential in possibility, are actually existential and more,
being limitless, timeless, spaceless, boundless, and measureless -- truly
infinite.
106:7.4 The improbability of goal attainment does not, however, prevent
philosophical theorizing about such hypothetical destinies. The actualization
of the Deity Absolute as an attainable absolute God may be practically
impossible of realization; nevertheless, such a finality fruition remains a
theoretical possibility. The involvement of the Unqualified Absolute in some
inconceivable cosmos-infinite may be measurelessly remote in the futurity of
endless eternity, but such a hypothesis is nonetheless valid. Mortals,
morontians, spirits, finaliters, Transcendentalers, and others, together with
the universes themselves and all other phases of reality, certainly do have a
potentially final destiny that is absolute in value; but we doubt that any
being or universe will ever completely attain all of the aspects of such a
destiny.
106:7.5 No matter how much you may grow in Father comprehension, your mind
will always be staggered by the unrevealed infinity of the Father-I AM, the
unexplored vastness of which will always remain unfathomable and
incomprehensible throughout all the cycles of eternity. No matter how much of
God you may attain, there will always remain much more of him, the existence
of which you will not even suspect. And we believe that this is just as true
on transcendental levels as it is in the domains of finite existence. The
quest for God is endless!
106:7.6 Such inability to attain God in a final sense should in no manner
discourage universe creatures; indeed, you can and do attain Deity levels of
the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate, which mean to you what the
infinite realization of God the Father means to the Eternal Son and to the
Conjoint Actor in their absolute status of eternity existence. Far from
harassing the creature, the infinity of God should be the supreme assurance
that throughout all endless futurity an ascending personality will have before
him the possibilities of personality development and Deity association which
even eternity will neither exhaust nor terminate.
106:7.7 To finite creatures of the grand universe the concept of the master
universe seems to be well-nigh infinite, but doubtless the absonite architects
thereof perceive its relatedness to future and unimagined developments within
the unending I AM. Even space itself is but an ultimate condition, a condition
of qualification within the relative absoluteness of the quiet zones of
midspace.
106:7.8 At the inconceivably distant future eternity moment of the final
completion of the entire master universe, no doubt we will all look back upon
its entire history as only the beginning, simply the creation of certain
finite and transcendental foundations for even greater and more enthralling
metamorphoses in uncharted infinity. At such a future eternity moment the
master universe will still seem youthful; indeed, it will be always young in
the face of the limitless possibilities of never-ending eternity.
106:7.9 The improbability of infinite destiny attainment does not in the least
prevent the entertainment of ideas about such destiny, and we do not hesitate
to say that, if the three absolute potentials could ever become completely
actualized, it would be possible to conceive of the final integration of total
reality. This developmental realization is predicated on the completed
actualization of the Unqualified, Universal, and Deity Absolutes, the three
potentialities whose union constitutes the latency of the I AM, the suspended
realities of eternity, the abeyant possibilities of all futurity, and more.
106:7.10 Such eventualities are rather remote to say the least; nevertheless,
in the mechanisms, personalities, and associations of the three Trinities we
believe we detect the theoretical possibility of the reuniting of the seven
absolute phases of the Father-I AM. And this brings us face to face with the
concept of the threefold Trinity encompassing the Paradise Trinity of
existential status and the two subsequently appearing Trinities of
experiential nature and origin.
8. THE TRINITY OF TRINITIES
106:8.1 The nature of the Trinity of Trinities is difficult to portray to the
human mind; it is the actual summation of the entirety of experiential
infinity as such is manifested in a theoretical infinity of eternity
realization. In the Trinity of Trinities the experiential infinite attains to
identity with the existential infinite, and both are as one in the pre-
experiential, pre-existential I AM. The Trinity of Trinities is the final
expression of all that is implied in the fifteen triunities and associated
triodities. Finalities are difficult for relative beings to comprehend, be
they existential or experiential; therefore must they always be presented as
relativities.
106:8.2 The Trinity of Trinities exists in several phases. It contains
possibilities, probabilities, and inevitabilities that stagger the
imaginations of beings far above the human level. It has implications that are
probably unsuspected by the celestial philosophers, for its implications are
in the triunities, and the triunities are, in the last analysis, unfathomable.
106:8.3 There are a number of ways in which the Trinity of Trinities can be
portrayed. We elect to present the three-level concept, which is as follows:
1. The level of the three Trinities.
2. The level of experiential Deity.
3. The level of the I AM.
106:8.4 These are levels of increasing unification. Actually the Trinity of
Trinities is the first level, while the second and third levels are
unification-derivatives of the first.
106:8.5 THE FIRST LEVEL: On this initial level of association it is believed
that the three Trinities function as perfectly synchronized, though distinct,
groupings of Deity personalities.
106:8.6 1. The Paradise Trinity, the association of the three Paradise Deities
-- Father, Son, and Spirit. It should be remembered that the Paradise Trinity
implies a threefold function -- an absolute function, a transcendental
function (Trinity of Ultimacy), and a finite function (Trinity of Supremacy).
The Paradise Trinity is any and all of these at any and all times.
106:8.7 2. The Ultimate Trinity. This is the deity association of the Supreme
Creators, God the Supreme, and the Architects of the Master Universe. While
this is an adequate presentation of the divinity aspects of this Trinity, it
should be recorded that there are other phases of this Trinity, which,
however, appear to be perfectly co-ordinating with the divinity aspects.
106:8.8 3. The Absolute Trinity. This is the grouping of God the Supreme, God
the Ultimate, and the Consummator of Universe Destiny in regard to all
divinity values. Certain other phases of this triune grouping have to do with
other-than-divinity values in the expanding cosmos. But these are unifying
with the divinity phases just as the power and the personality aspects of the
experiential Deities are now in process of experiential synthesis.
106:8.9 The association of these three Trinities in the Trinity of Trinities
provides for a possible unlimited integration of reality. This grouping
contains causes, intermediates, and finals; inceptors, realizers, and
consummators; beginnings, existences, and destinies. The Father-Son
partnership has become Son-Spirit and then Spirit-Supreme and on to Supreme-
Ultimate and Ultimate-Absolute, even to Absolute and Father-Infinite -- the
completion of the cycle of reality. Likewise, in other phases not so
immediately concerned with divinity and personality, does the First Great
Source and Center self-realize the limitlessness of reality around the circle
of eternity, from the absoluteness of self-existence, through the endlessness
of self-revelation, to the finality of self-realization -- from the absolute
of existentials to the finality of experientials.
106:8.10 THE SECOND LEVEL: The co-ordination of the three Trinities inevitably
involves the associative union of the experiential Deities, who are
genetically associated with these Trinities. The nature of this second level
has been sometimes presented as:
106:8.11 1. The Supreme. This is the deity consequence of the unity of the
Paradise Trinity in experiential liaison with the Creator-Creative children of
the Paradise Deities. The Supreme is the deity embodiment of the completion of
the first stage of finite evolution.
106:8.12 2. The Ultimate. This is the deity consequence of the eventuated
unity of the second Trinity, the transcendental and absonite personification
of divinity. The Ultimate consists in a variably regarded unity of many
qualities, and the human conception thereof would do well to include at least
those phases of ultimacy which are control directing, personally
experiencible, and tensionally unifying, but there are many other unrevealed
aspects of the eventuated Deity. While the Ultimate and the Supreme are
comparable, they are not identical, neither is the Ultimate merely an
amplification of the Supreme.
106:8.13 3. The Absolute. There are many theories held as to the character of
the third member of the second level of the Trinity of Trinities. God the
Absolute is undoubtedly involved in this association as the personality
consequence of the final function of the Trinity Absolute, yet the Deity
Absolute is an existential reality of eternity status.
106:8.14 The concept difficulty regarding this third member is inherent in the
fact that the presupposition of such a membership really implies just one
Absolute. Theoretically, if such an event could take place, we should witness
the experiential unification of the three Absolutes as one. And we are taught
that, in infinity and existentially, there is one Absolute. While it is least
clear as to who this third member can be, it is often postulated that such may
consist of the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes in some form of
unimagined liaison and cosmic manifestation. Certainly, the Trinity of
Trinities could hardly attain to complete function short of the full
unification of the three Absolutes, and the three Absolutes can hardly be
unified short of the complete realization of all infinite potentials.
106:8.15 It will probably represent a minimum distortion of truth if the third
member of the Trinity of Trinities is conceived as the Universal Absolute,
provided this conception envisions the Universal not only as static and
potential but also as associative. But we still do not perceive the
relationship to the creative and evolutional aspects of the function of total
Deity.
106:8.16 Though a completed concept of the Trinity of Trinities is difficult
to form, a qualified concept is not so difficult. If the second level of the
Trinity of Trinities is conceived as essentially personal, it becomes quite
possible to postulate the union of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God
the Absolute as the personal repercussion of the union of the personal
Trinities who are ancestral to these experiential Deities. We venture the
opinion that these three experiential Deities will certainly unify on the
second level as the direct consequence of the growing unity of their ancestral
and causative Trinities who constitute the first level.
106:8.17 The first level consists of three Trinities; the second level exists
as the personality association of experiential-evolved, experiential-
eventuated, and experiential-existential Deity personalities. And regardless
of any conceptual difficulty in understanding the complete Trinity of
Trinities, the personal association of these three Deities on the second level
has become manifest to our own universe age in the phenomenon of the
deitization of Majeston, who was actualized on this second level by the Deity
Absolute, acting through the Ultimate and in response to the initial creative
mandate of the Supreme Being.
106:8.18 THE THIRD LEVEL: In an unqualified hypothesis of the second level of
the Trinity of Trinities, there is embraced the correlation of every phase of
every kind of reality that is, or was, or could be in the entirety of
infinity. The Supreme Being is not only spirit but also mind and power and
experience. The Ultimate is all this and much more, while, in the conjoined
concept of the oneness of the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes,
there is included the absolute finality of all reality realization.
106:8.19 In the union of the Supreme, Ultimate, and the complete Absolute,
there could occur the functional reassembly of those aspects of infinity which
were originally segmentalized by the I AM, and which resulted in the
appearance of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity. Though the universe
philosophers deem this to be a most remote probability, still, we often ask
this question: If the second level of the Trinity of Trinities could ever
achieve trinity unity, what then would transpire as a consequence of such
deity unity? We do not know, but we are confident that it would lead directly
to the realization of the I AM as an experiential attainable. From the
standpoint of personal beings it could mean that the unknowable I AM had
become experiencible as the Father-Infinite. What these absolute destinies
might mean from a nonpersonal standpoint is another matter and one which only
eternity could possibly clarify. But as we view these remote eventualities as
personal creatures, we deduce that the final destiny of all personalities is
the final knowing of the Universal Father of these selfsame personalities.
106:8.20 As we philosophically conceive of the I AM in past eternity, he is
alone, there is none beside him. Looking forward into future eternity, we do
not see that the I AM could possibly change as an existential, but we are
inclined to forecast a vast experiential difference. Such a concept of the I
AM implies full self-realization -- it embraces that limitless galaxy of
personalities who have become volitional participants in the self-revelation
of the I AM, and who will remain eternally as absolute volitional parts of the
totality of infinity, final sons of the absolute Father.
9. EXISTENTIAL INFINITE UNIFICATION
106:9.1 In the concept of the Trinity of Trinities we postulate the possible
experiential unification of limitless reality, and we sometimes theorize that
all this may happen in the utter remoteness of far-distant eternity. But there
is nonetheless an actual and present unification of infinity in this very age
as in all past and future universe ages; such unification is existential in
the Paradise Trinity. Infinity unification as an experiential reality is
unthinkably remote, but an unqualified unity of infinity now dominates the
present moment of universe existence and unites the divergencies of all
reality with an existential majesty that is absolute.
106:9.2 When finite creatures attempt to conceive of infinite unification on
the finality levels of consummated eternity, they are face to face with
intellect limitations inherent in their finite existences. Time, space, and
experience constitute barriers to creature concept; and yet, without time,
apart from space, and except for experience, no creature could achieve even a
limited comprehension of universe reality. Without time sensitivity, no
evolutionary creature could possibly perceive the relations of sequence.
Without space perception, no creature could fathom the relations of
simultaneity. Without experience, no evolutionary creature could even exist;
only the Seven Absolutes of Infinity really transcend experience, and even
these may be experiential in certain phases.
106:9.3 Time, space, and experience are man's greatest aids to relative
reality perception and yet his most formidable obstacles to complete reality
perception. Mortals and many other universe creatures find it necessary to
think of potentials as being actualized in space and evolving to fruition in
time, but this entire process is a time-space phenomenon which does not
actually take place on Paradise and in eternity. On the absolute level there
is neither time nor space; all potentials may be there perceived as actuals.
106:9.4 The concept of the unification of all reality, be it in this or any
other universe age, is basically twofold: existential and experiential. Such a
unity is in process of experiential realization in the Trinity of Trinities,
but the degree of the apparent actualization of this threefold Trinity is
directly proportional to the disappearance of the qualifications and
imperfections of reality in the cosmos. But total integration of reality is
unqualifiedly and eternally and existentially present in the Paradise Trinity,
within which, at this very universe moment, infinite reality is absolutely
unified.
106:9.5 The paradox created by the experiential and the existential viewpoints
is inevitable and is predicated in part on the fact that the Paradise Trinity
and the Trinity of Trinities are each an eternity relationship which mortals
can only perceive as a time-space relativity. The human concept of the gradual
experiential actualization of the Trinity of Trinities -- the time viewpoint
-- must be supplemented by the additional postulate that this is already a
factualization -- the eternity viewpoint. But how can these two viewpoints be
reconciled? To finite mortals we suggest the acceptance of the truth that the
Paradise Trinity is the existential unification of infinity, and that the
inability to detect the actual presence and completed manifestation of the
experiential Trinity of Trinities is in part due to reciprocal distortion
because of:
106:9.6 1. The limited human viewpoint, the inability to grasp the concept of
unqualified eternity.
106:9.7 2. The imperfect human status, the remoteness from the absolute level
of experientials.
106:9.8 3. The purpose of human existence, the fact that mankind is designed
to evolve by the technique of experience and, therefore, must be inherently
and constitutively dependent on experience. Only an Absolute can be both
existential and experiential.
106:9.9 The Universal Father in the Paradise Trinity is the I AM of the
Trinity of Trinities, and the failure to experience the Father as infinite is
due to finite limitations. The concept of the existential, solitary, pre-
Trinity nonattainable I AM and the postulate of the experiential post-Trinity
of Trinities and attainable I AM are one and the same hypothesis; no actual
change has taken place in the Infinite; all apparent developments are due to
increased capacities for reality reception and cosmic appreciation.
106:9.10 The I AM, in the final analysis, must exist before all existentials
and after all experientials. While these ideas may not clarify the paradoxes
of eternity and infinity in the human mind, they should at least stimulate
such finite intellects to grapple anew with these never-ending problems,
problems which will continue to intrigue you on Salvington and later as
finaliters and on throughout the unending future of your eternal careers in
the wide-spreading universes.
106:9.11 Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the
final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-
ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and
Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is
proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that
living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of
infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of
the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness,
and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within
the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally
appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and
to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.
106:9.12 To material, evolutionary, finite creatures, a life predicated on the
living of the Father's will leads directly to the attainment of spirit
supremacy in the personality arena and brings such creatures one step nearer
the comprehension of the Father-Infinite. Such a Father life is one predicated
on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness. Such a God-knowing
person is inwardly illuminated by worship and outwardly devoted to the
wholehearted service of the universal brotherhood of all personalities, a
service ministry which is filled with mercy and motivated by love, while all
these life qualities are unified in the evolving personality on ever-ascending
levels of cosmic wisdom, self-realization, God-finding, and Father worship.
106:9.13 Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
PAPER 107
ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
107:0.1 ALTHOUGH the Universal Father is personally resident on Paradise, at
the very center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds of
space in the minds of his countless children of time, for he indwells them as
the Mystery Monitors. The eternal Father is at one and the same time farthest
removed from, and most intimately associated with, his planetary mortal sons.
107:0.2 The Adjusters are the actuality of the Father's love incarnate in the
souls of men; they are the veritable promise of man's eternal career
imprisoned within the mortal mind; they are the essence of man's perfected
finaliter personality, which he can foretaste in time as he progressively
masters the divine technique of achieving the living of the Father's will,
step by step, through the ascension of universe upon universe until he
actually attains the divine presence of his Paradise Father.
107:0.3 God, having commanded man to be perfect, even as he is perfect, has
descended as the Adjuster to become man's experiential partner in the
achievement of the supernal destiny which has been thus ordained. The fragment
of God which indwells the mind of man is the absolute and unqualified
assurance that man can find the Universal Father in association with this
divine Adjuster, which came forth from God to find man and sonship him even in
the days of the flesh.
107:0.4 Any mortal who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Universal Father,
and he who is indwelt by a divine Adjuster is indwelt by the Paradise Father.
Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his
indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God.
Consciousness of Adjuster presence is consciousness of God's presence. Eternal
fusion of the Adjuster with the evolutionary soul of man is the factual
experience of eternal union with God as a universe associate of Deity.
107:0.5 It is the Adjuster who creates within man that unquenchable yearning
and incessant longing to be like God, to attain Paradise, and there before the
actual person of Deity to worship the infinite source of the divine gift. The
Adjuster is the living presence which actually links the mortal son with his
Paradise Father and draws him nearer and nearer to the Father. The Adjuster is
our compensatory equalization of the enormous universe tension which is
created by the distance of man's removal from God and by the degree of his
partiality in contrast with the universality of the eternal Father.
107:0.6 The Adjuster is an absolute essence of an infinite being imprisoned
within the mind of a finite creature which, depending on the choosing of such
a mortal, can eventually consummate this temporary union of God and man and
veritably actualize a new order of being for unending universe service. The
Adjuster is the divine universe reality which factualizes the truth that God
is man's Father. The Adjuster is man's infallible cosmic compass, always and
unerringly pointing the soul Godward.
107:0.7 On the evolutionary worlds, will creatures traverse three general
developmental stages of being: From the arrival of the Adjuster to comparative
full growth, about twenty years of age on Urantia, the Monitors are sometimes
designated Thought Changers. From this time to the attainment of the age of
discretion, about forty years, the Mystery Monitors are called Thought
Adjusters. From the attainment of discretion to deliverance from the flesh,
they are often referred to as Thought Controllers. These three phases of
mortal life have no connection with the three stages of Adjuster progress in
mind duplication and soul evolution.
1. ORIGIN OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
107:1.1 Since Thought Adjusters are of the essence of original Deity, no one
may presume to discourse authoritatively upon their nature and origin; I can
only impart the traditions of Salvington and the beliefs of Uversa; I can only
explain how we regard these Mystery Monitors and their associated entities
throughout the grand universe.
107:1.2 Though there are diverse opinions regarding the mode of the bestowal
of Thought Adjusters, there exist no such differences concerning their origin;
all are agreed that they proceed direct from the Universal Father, the First
Source and Center. They are not created beings; they are fragmentized entities
constituting the factual presence of the infinite God. Together with their
many unrevealed associates, the Adjusters are undiluted and unmixed divinity,
unqualified and unattenuated parts of Deity; they are of God, and as far as we
are able to discern, they are God.
107:1.3 As to the time of their beginning separate existences apart from the
absoluteness of the First Source and Center, we do not know; neither do we
know their number. We know very little concerning their careers until they
arrive on the planets of time to indwell human minds, but from that time on we
are more or less familiar with their cosmic progressions up to and including
the consummation of their triune destinies: attainment of personality by
fusion with some mortal ascender, attainment of personality by fiat of the
Universal Father, or liberation from the known assignments of Thought
Adjusters.
107:1.4 Although we do not know, we presume that Adjusters are being
constantly individualized as the universe enlarges, and as the candidates for
Adjuster fusion increase in numbers. But it may be equally possible that we
are in error in attempting to assign a numerical magnitude to the Adjusters;
like God himself, these fragments of his unfathomable nature may be
existentially infinite.
107:1.5 The technique of the origin of the Thought Adjusters is one of the
unrevealed functions of the Universal Father. We have every reason to believe
that none of the other absolute associates of the First Source and Center have
aught to do with the production of Father fragments. Adjusters are simply and
eternally the divine gifts; they are of God and from God, and they are like
God.
107:1.6 In their relationship to fusion creatures they reveal a supernal love
and spiritual ministry that is profoundly confirmative of the declaration that
God is spirit. But there is much that takes place in addition to this
transcendent ministry that has never been revealed to Urantia mortals. Neither
do we fully understand just what really transpires when the Universal Father
gives of himself to be a part of the personality of a creature of time. Nor
has the ascending progression of the Paradise finaliters as yet disclosed the
full possibilities inherent in this supernal partnership of man and God. In
the last analysis, the Father fragments must be the gift of the absolute God
to those creatures whose destiny encompasses the possibility of the attainment
of God as absolute.
107:1.7 As the Universal Father fragmentizes his prepersonal Deity, so does
the Infinite Spirit individuate portions of his premind spirit to indwell and
actually to fuse with the evolutionary souls of the surviving mortals of the
spirit-fusion series. But the nature of the Eternal Son is not thus
fragmentable; the spirit of the Original Son is either diffuse or discretely
personal. Son-fused creatures are united with individualized bestowals of the
spirit of the Creator Sons of the Eternal Son.
2. CLASSIFICATION OF ADJUSTERS
107:2.1 Adjusters are individuated as virgin entities, and all are destined to
become either liberated, fused, or Personalized Monitors. We understand that
there are seven orders of Thought Adjusters, although we do not altogether
comprehend these divisions. We often refer to the different orders as follows:
107:2.2 1. Virgin Adjusters, those serving on their initial assignment in the
minds of evolutionary candidates for eternal survival. Mystery Monitors are
eternally uniform in divine nature. They are also uniform in experiential
nature as they first go out from Divinington; subsequent experiential
differentiation is the result of actual experience in universe ministry.
107:2.3 2. Advanced Adjusters, those who have served one or more seasons with
will creatures on worlds where the final fusion takes place between the
identity of the creature of time and an individualized portion of the spirit
of the local universe manifestation of the Third Source and Center.
107:2.4 3. Supreme Adjusters, those Monitors that have served in the adventure
of time on the evolutionary worlds, but whose human partners for some reason
declined eternal survival, and those that have been subsequently assigned to
other adventures in other mortals on other evolving worlds. A supreme
Adjuster, though no more divine than a virgin Monitor, has had more
experience, can do things in the human mind which a less experienced Adjuster
could not do.
107:2.5 4. Vanished Adjusters. Here occurs a break in our efforts to follow
the careers of the Mystery Monitors. There is a fourth stage of service about
which we are not sure. The Melchizedeks teach that the fourth-stage Adjusters
are on detached assignments, roaming the universe of universes. The Solitary
Messengers are inclined to believe that they are at one with the First Source
and Center, enjoying a period of refreshing association with the Father
himself. And it is entirely possible that an Adjuster could be roaming the
master universe simultaneously with being at one with the omnipresent Father.
107:2.6 5. Liberated Adjusters, those Mystery Monitors that have been
eternally liberated from the service of time for the mortals of the evolving
spheres. What functions may be theirs, we do not know.
107:2.7 6. Fused Adjusters -- finaliters -- those who have become one with the
ascending creatures of the superuniverses, the eternity partners of the time
ascenders of the Paradise Corps of the Finality. Thought Adjusters ordinarily
become fused with the ascending mortals of time, and with such surviving
mortals they are registered in and out of Ascendington; they follow the course
of ascendant beings. Upon fusion with the ascending evolutionary soul, it
appears that the Adjuster translates from the absolute existential level of
the universe to the finite experiential level of functional association with
an ascending personality. While retaining all of the character of the
existential divine nature, a fused Adjuster becomes indissolubly linked with
the ascending career of a surviving mortal.
107:2.8 7. Personalized Adjusters, those who have served with the incarnated
Paradise Sons, together with many who have achieved unusual distinction during
the mortal indwelling, but whose subjects rejected survival. We have reasons
for believing that such Adjusters are personalized on the recommendations of
the Ancients of Days of the superuniverse of their assignment.
107:2.9 There are many ways in which these mysterious God fragments can be
classified: according to universe assignment, by the measure of success in the
indwelling of an individual mortal, or even by the racial ancestry of the
mortal candidate for fusion.
3. THE DIVININGTON HOME OF ADJUSTERS
107:3.1 All universe activities related to the dispatch, management,
direction, and return of the Mystery Monitors from service in all of the seven
superuniverses seem to be centered on the sacred sphere of Divinington. As far
as I know, none but Adjusters and other entities of the Father have been on
that sphere. It seems likely that numerous unrevealed prepersonal entities
share Divinington as a home sphere with the Adjusters. We conjecture that
these fellow entities may in some manner be associated with the present and
future ministry of the Mystery Monitors. But we really do not know.
107:3.2 When Thought Adjusters return to the Father, they go back to the realm
of supposed origin, Divinington; and probably as a part of this experience,
there is actual contact with the Father's Paradise personality as well as with
the specialized manifestation of the Father's divinity which is reported to be
situated on this secret sphere.
107:3.3 Although we know something of all the seven secret spheres of
Paradise, we know less of Divinington than of the others. Beings of high
spiritual orders receive only three divine injunctions, and they are:
1. Always to show adequate respect for the experience and endowments of their
seniors and superiors.
2. Always to be considerate of the limitations and inexperience of their juniors
and subordinates.
3. Never to attempt a landing on the shores of Divinington.
107:3.4 I have often reflected that it would be quite useless for me to go to
Divinington; I probably should be unable to see any resident beings except
such as the Personalized Adjusters, and I have seen them elsewhere. I am very
sure there is nothing on Divinington of real value or profit to me, nothing
essential to my growth and development, or I should not have been forbidden to
go there.
107:3.5 Since we can learn little or nothing of the nature and origin of
Adjusters from Divinington, we are compelled to gather information from a
thousand and one different sources, and it is necessary to assemble,
associate, and correlate this accumulated data in order that such knowledge
may be informative.
107:3.6 The valor and wisdom exhibited by Thought Adjusters suggest that they
have undergone a training of tremendous scope and range. Since they are not
personalities, this training must be imparted in the educational institutions
of Divinington. The unique Personalized Adjusters no doubt constitute the
personnel of the Adjuster training schools of Divinington. And we do know that
this central and supervising corps is presided over by the now Personalized
Adjuster of the first Paradise Son of the Michael order to complete his
sevenfold bestowal upon the races and peoples of his universe realms.
107:3.7 We really know very little about the nonpersonalized Adjusters; we
only contact and communicate with the personalized orders. These are
christened on Divinington and are always known by name and not by number. The
Personalized Adjusters are permanently domiciled on Divinington; that sacred
sphere is their home. They go out from that abode only by the will of the
Universal Father. Very few are found in the domains of the local universes,
but larger numbers are present in the central universe.
4. NATURE AND PRESENCE OF ADJUSTERS
107:4.1 To say that a Thought Adjuster is divine is merely to recognize the
nature of origin. It is highly probable that such purity of divinity embraces
the essence of the potential of all attributes of Deity which can be contained
within such a fragment of the absolute essence of the universal presence of
the eternal and infinite Paradise Father.
107:4.2 The actual source of the Adjuster must be infinite, and before fusion
with the immortal soul of an evolving mortal, the reality of the Adjuster must
border on absoluteness. Adjusters are not absolutes in the universal sense, in
the Deity sense, but they are probably true absolutes within the
potentialities of their fragmented nature. They are qualified as to
universality but not as to nature; in extensiveness they are limited, but in
intensiveness of meaning, value, and fact they are absolute. For this reason
we sometimes denominate the divine gifts as the qualified absolute fragments
of the Father.
107:4.3 No Adjuster has ever been disloyal to the Paradise Father; the lower
orders of personal creatures may sometimes have to contend with disloyal
fellows, but never the Adjusters; they are supreme and infallible in their
supernal sphere of creature ministry and universe function.
107:4.4 Nonpersonalized Adjusters are visible only to Personalized Adjusters.
My order, the Solitary Messengers, together with Inspired Trinity Spirits, can
detect the presence of Adjusters by means of spiritual reactive phenomena; and
even seraphim can sometimes discern the spirit luminosity of supposed
association with the presence of Monitors in the material minds of men; but
none of us are able actually to discern the real presence of Adjusters, not
unless they have been personalized, albeit their natures are perceivable in
union with the fused personalities of the ascending mortals from the
evolutionary worlds. The universal invisibility of the Adjusters is strongly
suggestive of their high and exclusive divine origin and nature.
107:4.5 There is a characteristic light, a spirit luminosity, which
accompanies this divine presence, and which has become generally associated
with Thought Adjusters. In the universe of Nebadon this Paradise luminosity is
widespreadly known as the "pilot light"; on Uversa it is called the "light of
life." On Urantia this phenomenon has sometimes been referred to as that "true
light which lights every man who comes into the world."
107:4.6 To all beings who have attained the Universal Father, the Personalized
Thought Adjusters are visible. Adjusters of all stages, together with all
other beings, entities, spirits, personalities, and spirit manifestations, are
always discernible by those Supreme Creator Personalities who originate in the
Paradise Deities, and who preside over the major governments of the grand
universe.
107:4.7 Can you really realize the true significance of the Adjuster's
indwelling? Do you really fathom what it means to have an absolute fragment of
the absolute and infinite Deity, the Universal Father, indwelling and fusing
with your finite mortal natures? When mortal man fuses with an actual fragment
of the existential Cause of the total cosmos, no limit can ever be placed upon
the destiny of such an unprecedented and unimaginable partnership. In
eternity, man will be discovering not only the infinity of the objective Deity
but also the unending potentiality of the subjective fragment of this same
God. Always will the Adjuster be revealing to the mortal personality the
wonder of God, and never can this supernal revelation come to an end, for the
Adjuster is of God and as God to mortal man.
5. ADJUSTER MINDEDNESS
107:5.1 Evolutionary mortals are prone to look upon mind as a cosmic mediation
between spirit and matter, for that is indeed the principal ministry of mind
as discernible by you. Hence it is quite difficult for humans to perceive that
Thought Adjusters have minds, for Adjusters are fragmentations of God on an
absolute level of reality which is not only prepersonal but also prior to all
energy and spirit divergence. On a monistic level antecedent to energy and
spirit differentiation there could be no mediating function of mind, for there
are no divergencies to be mediated.
107:5.2 Since Adjusters can plan, work, and love, they must have powers of
selfhood which are commensurate with mind. They are possessed of unlimited
ability to communicate with each other, that is, all forms of Monitors above
the first or virgin groups. As to the nature and purport of their
intercommunications, we can reveal very little, for we do not know. And we
further know that they must be minded in some manner else they could never be
personalized.
107:5.3 The mindedness of the Thought Adjuster is like the mindedness of the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son -- that which is ancestral to the minds
of the Conjoint Actor.
107:5.4 The type of mind postulated in an Adjuster must be similar to the mind
endowment of numerous other orders of prepersonal entities which presumably
likewise originate in the First Source and Center. Though many of these orders
have not been revealed on Urantia, they all disclose minded qualities. It is
also possible for these individuations of original Deity to become unified
with numerous evolving types of nonmortal beings and even with a limited
number of nonevolutionary beings who have developed capacity for fusion with
such Deity fragments.
107:5.5 When a Thought Adjuster is fused with the evolving immortal morontia
soul of the surviving human, the mind of the Adjuster can only be identified
as persisting apart from the creature's mind until the ascending mortal
attains spirit levels of universe progression.
107:5.6 Upon the attainment of the finaliter levels of ascendant experience,
these spirits of the sixth stage appear to transmute some mind factor
representing a union of certain phases of the mortal and Adjuster minds which
had previously functioned as liaison between the divine and human phases of
such ascending personalities. This experiential mind quality probably
"supremacizes" and subsequently augments the experiential endowment of
evolutionary Deity -- the Supreme Being.
6. ADJUSTERS AS PURE SPIRITS
107:6.1 As Thought Adjusters are encountered in creature experience, they
disclose the presence and leading of a spirit influence. The Adjuster is
indeed a spirit, pure spirit, but spirit plus. We have never been able
satisfactorily to classify Mystery Monitors; all that can certainly be said of
them is that they are truly Godlike.
107:6.2 The Adjuster is man's eternity possibility; man is the Adjuster's
personality possibility. Your individual Adjusters work to spiritize you in
the hope of eternalizing your temporal identity. The Adjusters are saturated
with the beautiful and self-bestowing love of the Father of spirits. They
truly and divinely love you; they are the prisoners of spirit hope confined
within the minds of men. They long for the divinity attainment of your mortal
minds that their loneliness may end, that they may be delivered with you from
the limitations of material investiture and the habiliments of time.
107:6.3 Your path to Paradise is the path of spirit attainment, and the
Adjuster nature will faithfully unfold the revelation of the spiritual nature
of the Universal Father. Beyond the Paradise ascent and in the postfinaliter
stages of the eternity career, the Adjuster may possibly contact with the
onetime human partner in other than spirit ministry; but the Paradise ascent
and the finaliter career are the partnership between the God-knowing
spiritualizing mortal and the spiritual ministry of the God-revealing
Adjuster.
107:6.4 We know that Thought Adjusters are spirits, pure spirits, presumably
absolute spirits. But the Adjuster must also be something more than exclusive
spirit reality. In addition to conjectured mindedness, factors of pure energy
are also present. If you will remember that God is the source of pure energy
and of pure spirit, it will not be so difficult to perceive that his fragments
would be both. It is a fact that the Adjusters traverse space over the
instantaneous and universal gravity circuits of the Paradise Isle.
107:6.5 That the Mystery Monitors are thus associated with the material
circuits of the universe of universes is indeed puzzling. But it remains a
fact that they flash throughout the entire grand universe over the material-
gravity circuits. It is entirely possible that they may even penetrate the
outer space levels; they certainly could follow the gravity presence of
Paradise into these regions, and though my order of personality can traverse
the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor also beyond the confines of the grand
universe, we have never been sure of detecting the presence of Adjusters in
the uncharted regions of outer space.
107:6.6 And yet, while the Adjusters utilize the material-gravity circuits,
they are not subject thereto as is material creation. The Adjusters are
fragments of the ancestor of gravity, not the consequentials of gravity; they
have segmentized on a universe level of existence which is hypothetically
antecedent to gravity appearance.
107:6.7 Thought Adjusters have no relaxation from the time of their bestowal
until the day of their release to start for Divinington upon the natural death
of their mortal subjects. And those whose subjects do not pass through the
portals of natural death do not even experience this temporary respite.
Thought Adjusters do not require energy intake; they are energy, energy of the
highest and most divine order.
7. ADJUSTERS AND PERSONALITY
107:7.1 Thought Adjusters are not personalities, but they are real entities;
they are truly and perfectly individualized, although they are never, while
indwelling mortals, actually personalized. Thought Adjusters are not true
personalities; they are true realities, realities of the purest order known in
the universe of universes -- they are the divine presence. Though not
personal, these marvelous fragments of the Father are commonly referred to as
beings and sometimes, in view of the spiritual phases of their present
ministry to mortals, as spirit entities.
107:7.2 If Thought Adjusters are not personalities having prerogatives of will
and powers of choice, how then can they select mortal subjects and volunteer
to indwell these creatures of the evolutionary worlds? This is a question easy
to ask, but probably no being in the universe of universes has ever found the
exact answer. Even my order of personality, the Solitary Messengers, does not
fully understand the endowment of will, choice, and love in entities that are
not personal.
107:7.3 We have often speculated that Thought Adjusters must have volition on
all prepersonal levels of choice. They volunteer to indwell human beings, they
lay plans for man's eternal career, they adapt, modify, and substitute in
accordance with circumstances, and these activities connote genuine volition.
They have affection for mortals, they function in universe crises, they are
always waiting to act decisively in accordance with human choice, and all
these are highly volitional reactions. In all situations not concerned with
the domain of the human will, they unquestionably exhibit conduct which
betokens the exercise of powers in every sense the equivalent of will,
maximated decision.
107:7.4 Why then, if Thought Adjusters possess volition, are they subservient
to the mortal will? We believe it is because Adjuster volition, though
absolute in nature, is prepersonal in manifestation. Human will functions on
the personality level of universe reality, and throughout the cosmos the
impersonal -- the nonpersonal, the subpersonal, and the prepersonal -- is ever
responsive to the will and acts of existent personality.
107:7.5 Throughout a universe of created beings and nonpersonal energies we do
not observe will, volition, choice, and love manifested apart from
personality. Except in the Adjusters and other similar entities we do not
witness these attributes of personality functioning in association with
impersonal realities. It would not be correct to designate an Adjuster as
subpersonal, neither would it be proper to allude to such an entity as
superpersonal, but it would be entirely permissible to term such a being
prepersonal.
107:7.6 To our orders of being these fragments of Deity are known as the
divine gifts. We recognize that the Adjusters are divine in origin, and that
they constitute the probable proof and demonstration of a reservation by the
Universal Father of the possibility of direct and unlimited communication with
any and all material creatures throughout his virtually infinite realms, and
all of this quite apart from his presence in the personalities of his Paradise
Sons or through his indirect ministrations in the personalities of the
Infinite Spirit.
107:7.7 There are no created beings that would not delight to be hosts to the
Mystery Monitors, but no orders of beings are thus indwelt excepting
evolutionary will creatures of finaliter destiny.
107:7.8 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 108
MISSION AND MINISTRY OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
108:0.1 THE mission of the Thought Adjusters to the human races is to
represent, to be, the Universal Father to the mortal creatures of time and
space; that is the fundamental work of the divine gifts. Their mission is also
that of elevating the mortal minds and of translating the immortal souls of
men up to the divine heights and spiritual levels of Paradise perfection. And
in the experience of thus transforming the human nature of the temporal
creature into the divine nature of the eternal finaliter, the Adjusters bring
into existence a unique type of being, a being consisting in the eternal union
of the perfect Adjuster and the perfected creature which it would be
impossible to duplicate by any other universe technique.
108:0.2 Nothing in the entire universe can substitute for the fact of
experience on nonexistential levels. The infinite God is, as always, replete
and complete, infinitely inclusive of all things except evil and creature
experience. God cannot do wrong; he is infallible. God cannot experientially
know what he has never personally experienced; God's preknowledge is
existential. Therefore does the spirit of the Father descend from Paradise to
participate with finite mortals in every bona fide experience of the ascending
career; it is only by such a method that the existential God could become in
truth and in fact man's experiential Father. The infinity of the eternal God
encompasses the potential for finite experience, which indeed becomes actual
in the ministry of the Adjuster fragments that actually share the life
vicissitude experiences of human beings.
1. SELECTION AND ASSIGNMENT
108:1.1 When Adjusters are dispatched for mortal service from Divinington,
they are identical in the endowment of existential divinity, but they vary in
experiential qualities proportional to previous contact in and with
evolutionary creatures. We cannot explain the basis of Adjuster assignment,
but we conjecture that these divine gifts are bestowed in accordance with some
wise and efficient policy of eternal fitness of adaptation to the indwelt
personality. We do observe that the more experienced Adjuster is often the
indweller of the higher type of human mind; human inheritance must therefore
be a considerable factor in determining selection and assignment.
108:1.2 Although we do not definitely know, we firmly believe that all Thought
Adjusters are volunteers. But before ever they volunteer, they are in
possession of full data respecting the candidate for indwelling. The seraphic
drafts of ancestry and projected patterns of life conduct are transmitted via
Paradise to the reserve corps of Adjusters on Divinington by the reflectivity
technique extending inward from the capitals of the local universes to the
headquarters of the superuniverses. This forecast covers not only the
hereditary antecedents of the mortal candidate but also the estimate of
probable intellectual endowment and spiritual capacity. The Adjusters thus
volunteer to indwell minds of whose intimate natures they have been fully
apprised.
108:1.3 The volunteering Adjuster is particularly interested in three
qualifications of the human candidate:
108:1.4 1. Intellectual capacity. Is the mind normal? What is the intellectual
potential, the intelligence capacity? Can the individual develop into a bona
fide will creature? Will wisdom have an opportunity to function?
108:1.5 2. Spiritual perception. The prospects of reverential development, the
birth and growth of the religious nature. What is the potential of soul, the
probable spiritual capacity of receptivity?
108:1.6 3. Combined intellectual and spiritual powers. The degree to which
these two endowments may possibly be associated, combined, so as to produce
strength of human character and contribute to the certain evolution of an
immortal soul of survival value.
108:1.7 With these facts before them, it is our belief that the Monitors
freely volunteer for assignment. Probably more than one Adjuster volunteers;
perhaps the supervising personalized orders select from this group of
volunteering Adjusters the one best suited to the task of spiritualizing and
eternalizing the personality of the mortal candidate. (In the assignment and
service of the Adjusters the sex of the creature is of no consideration.)
108:1.8 The short time intervening between the volunteering and the actual
dispatch of the Adjuster is presumably spent in the Divinington schools of the
Personalized Monitors where a working pattern of the waiting mortal mind is
utilized in instructing the assigned Adjuster as to the most effective plans
for personality approach and mind spiritization. This mind model is formulated
through a combination of data supplied by the superuniverse reflectivity
service. At least this is our understanding, a belief which we hold as the
result of putting together information secured by contact with many
Personalized Adjusters throughout the long universe careers of the Solitary
Messengers.
108:1.9 When once the Adjusters are actually dispatched from Divinington,
practically no time intervenes between that moment and the hour of their
appearance in the minds of their chosen subjects. The average transit time of
an Adjuster from Divinington to Urantia is 117 hours, 42 minutes, and 7
seconds. Virtually all of this time is occupied with registration on Uversa.
2. PREREQUISITES OF ADJUSTER INDWELLING
108:2.1 Though the Adjusters volunteer for service as soon as the personality
forecasts have been relayed to Divinington, they are not actually assigned
until the human subjects make their first moral personality decision. The
first moral choice of the human child is automatically indicated in the
seventh mind-adjutant and registers instantly, by way of the local universe
Creative Spirit, over the universal mind-gravity circuit of the Conjoint Actor
in the presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, who
forthwith dispatches this intelligence to Divinington. Adjusters reach their
human subjects on Urantia, on the average, just prior to the sixth birthday.
In the present generation it is running five years, ten months, and four days;
that is, on the 2,134th day of terrestrial life.
108:2.2 The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly
prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and
encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of
all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an
Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom
function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of
good and evil -- moral choice.
108:2.3 Thus is the stage of the human mind set for the reception of
Adjusters, but as a general rule they do not immediately appear to indwell
such minds except on those worlds where the Spirit of Truth is functioning as
a spiritual co-ordinator of these different spirit ministries. If this spirit
of the bestowal Sons is present, the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant
the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the
Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of
the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect.
Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal
minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost.
108:2.4 Even with a Spirit of Truth endowed mind, the Adjusters cannot
arbitrarily invade the mortal intellect prior to the appearance of moral
decision. But when such a moral decision has been made, this spirit helper
assumes jurisdiction direct from Divinington. There are no intermediaries or
other intervening authorities or powers functioning between the divine
Adjusters and their human subjects; God and man are directly related.
108:2.5 Before the times of the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon the
inhabitants of an evolutionary world, the Adjusters' bestowal appears to be
determined by many spirit influences and personality attitudes. We do not
fully comprehend the laws governing such bestowals; we do not understand just
what determines the release of the Adjusters who have volunteered to indwell
such evolving minds. But we do observe numerous influences and conditions
which appear to be associated with the arrival of the Adjusters in such minds
prior to the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, and they are:
108:2.6 1. The assignment of personal seraphic guardians. If a mortal has not
been previously indwelt by an Adjuster, the assignment of a personal guardian
brings the Adjuster forthwith. There exists some very definite but unknown
relation between the ministry of Adjusters and the ministry of personal
seraphic guardians.
108:2.7 2. The attainment of the third circle of intellectual achievement and
spiritual attainment. I have observed Adjusters arrive in mortal minds upon
the conquest of the third circle even before such an accomplishment could be
signalized to the local universe personalities concerned with such matters.
108:2.8 3. Upon the making of a supreme decision of unusual spiritual import.
Such human behavior in a personal planetary crisis usually is attended by the
immediate arrival of the waiting Adjuster.
108:2.9 4. The spirit of brotherhood. Regardless of the attainment of the
psychic circles and the assignment of personal guardians -- in the absence of
anything resembling a crisis decision -- when an evolving mortal becomes
dominated by the love of his fellows and consecrated to unselfish ministry to
his brethren in the flesh, the waiting Adjuster unvaryingly descends to
indwell the mind of such a mortal minister.
108:2.10 5. Declaration of intention to do the will of God. We observe that
many mortals on the worlds of space may be apparently in readiness to receive
Adjusters, and yet the Monitors do not appear. We go on watching such
creatures as they live from day to day, and presently they quietly, almost
unconsciously, arrive at the decision to begin the pursuit of the doing of the
will of the Father in heaven. And then we observe the immediate dispatch of
the Thought Adjusters.
108:2.11 6. Influence of the Supreme Being. On worlds where the Adjusters do
not fuse with the evolving souls of the mortal inhabitants, we observe
Adjusters sometimes bestowed in response to influences which are wholly beyond
our comprehension. We conjecture that such bestowals are determined by some
cosmic reflex action originating in the Supreme Being. As to why these
Adjusters can not or do not fuse with these certain types of evolving mortal
minds we do not know. Such transactions have never been revealed to us.
3. ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION
108:3.1 As far as we know, Adjusters are organized as an independent working
unit in the universe of universes and are apparently administered directly
from Divinington. They are uniform throughout the seven superuniverses, all
local universes being served by identical types of Mystery Monitors. We do
know from observation that there are numerous series of Adjusters involving a
serial organization that extends through races, over dispensations, and to
worlds, systems, and universes. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to keep
track of these divine gifts since they function interchangeably throughout the
grand universe.
108:3.2 Adjusters are of complete record (outside of Divinington) only on the
headquarters of the seven superuniverses. The number and order of each
Adjuster indwelling each ascending creature are reported out by the Paradise
authorities to the headquarters of the superuniverse, and from there are
communicated to the headquarters of the local universe concerned and relayed
to the particular planet involved. But the local universe records do not
disclose the full number of the Thought Adjusters; the Nebadon records contain
only the local universe assignment number as designated by the representatives
of the Ancients of Days. The real significance of the Adjuster's complete
number is known only on Divinington.
108:3.3 Human subjects are often known by the numbers of their Adjusters;
mortals do not receive real universe names until after Adjuster fusion, which
union is signalized by the bestowal of the new name upon the new creature by
the destiny guardian.
108:3.4 Though we have the records of Thought Adjusters in Orvonton, and
though we have absolutely no authority over them or administrative connection
with them, we firmly believe that there is a very close administrative
connection between the individual worlds of the local universes and the
central lodgment of the divine gifts on Divinington. We do know that,
following the appearance of a Paradise bestowal Son, an evolutionary world has
a Personalized Adjuster assigned to it as the planetary supervisor of
Adjusters.
108:3.5 It is interesting to note that local universe inspectors always
address themselves, when carrying out a planetary examination, to the
planetary chief of Thought Adjusters, just as they deliver charges to the
chiefs of seraphim and to the leaders of other orders of beings attached to
the administration of an evolving world. Not long since, Urantia underwent
such a periodic inspection by Tabamantia, the sovereign supervisor of all
life-experiment planets in the universe of Nebadon. And the records reveal
that, in addition to his admonitions and indictments delivered to the various
chiefs of superhuman personalities, he also delivered the following
acknowledgment to the chief of Adjusters, whether located on the planet, on
Salvington, Uversa, or Divinington, we do not definitely know, but he said:
108:3.6 "Now to you, superiors far above me, I come as one placed in temporary
authority over the experimental planetary series; and I come to express
admiration and profound respect for this magnificent group of celestial
ministers, the Mystery Monitors, who have volunteered to serve on this
irregular sphere. No matter how trying the crises, you never falter. Not on
the records of Nebadon nor before the commissions of Orvonton has there ever
been offered an indictment of a divine Adjuster. You have been true to your
trusts; you have been divinely faithful. You have helped to adjust the
mistakes and to compensate for the shortcomings of all who labor on this
confused planet. You are marvelous beings, guardians of the good in the souls
of this backward realm. I pay you respect even while you are apparently under
my jurisdiction as volunteer ministers. I bow before you in humble recognition
of your exquisite unselfishness, your understanding ministry, and your
impartial devotion. You deserve the name of the Godlike servers of the mortal
inhabitants of this strife-torn, grief-stricken, and disease-afflicted world.
I honor you! I all but worship you!"
108:3.7 As a result of many suggestive lines of evidence, we believe that the
Adjusters are thoroughly organized, that there exists a profoundly intelligent
and efficient directive administration of these divine gifts from some far-
distant and central source, probably Divinington. We know that they come from
Divinington to the worlds, and undoubtedly they return thereto upon the deaths
of their subjects.
108:3.8 Among the higher spirit orders it is exceedingly difficult to discover
the mechanisms of administration. My order of personalities, while engaged in
the prosecution of our specific duties, is undoubtedly unconsciously
participating with numerous other personal and impersonal sub-Deity groups who
unitedly are functioning as far-flung universe correlators. We suspect that we
are thus serving because we are the only group of personalized creatures
(aside from Personalized Adjusters) who are uniformly conscious of the
presence of numerous orders of the prepersonal entities.
108:3.9 We are aware of the presence of the Adjusters, who are fragments of
the prepersonal Deity of the First Source and Center. We sense the presence of
the Inspired Trinity Spirits, who are superpersonal expressions of the
Paradise Trinity. We likewise unfailingly detect the spirit presence of
certain unrevealed orders springing from the Eternal Son and the Infinite
Spirit. And we are not wholly unresponsive to still other entities unrevealed
to you.
108:3.10 The Melchizedeks of Nebadon teach that the Solitary Messengers are
the personality co-ordinators of these various influences as they register in
the expanding Deity of the evolutionary Supreme Being. It is very possible
that we may be participants in the experiential unification of many of the
unexplained phenomena of time, but we are not consciously certain of thus
functioning.
4. RELATION TO OTHER SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES
108:4.1 Apart from possible co-ordination with other Deity fragments, the
Adjusters are quite alone in their sphere of activity in the mortal mind. The
Mystery Monitors eloquently bespeak the fact that, though the Father may have
apparently resigned the exercise of all direct personal power and authority
throughout the grand universe, notwithstanding this act of abnegation in
behalf of the Supreme Creator children of the Paradise Deities, the Father has
certainly reserved to himself the unchallengeable right to be present in the
minds and souls of his evolving creatures to the end that he may so act as to
draw all creature creation to himself, co-ordinately with the spiritual
gravity of the Paradise Sons. Said your Paradise bestowal Son when yet on
Urantia, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men." This spiritual drawing
power of the Paradise Sons and their creative associates we recognize and
understand, but we do not so fully comprehend the methods of the all-wise
Father's functioning in and through these Mystery Monitors that live and work
so valiantly within the human mind.
108:4.2 While not subordinate to, co-ordinate with, or apparently related to,
the work of the universe of universes, though acting independently in the
minds of the children of men, unceasingly do these mysterious presences urge
the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring them
upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life. These Mystery
Monitors are continually assisting in the establishment of the spiritual
dominion of Michael throughout the universe of Nebadon while mysteriously
contributing to the stabilization of the sovereignty of the Ancients of Days
in Orvonton. The Adjusters are the will of God, and since the Supreme Creator
children of God also personally embody that same will, it is inevitable that
the actions of Adjusters and the sovereignty of the universe rulers should be
mutually interdependent. Though apparently unconnected, the Father presence of
the Adjusters and the Father sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon must be diverse
manifestations of the same divinity.
108:4.3 Thought Adjusters appear to come and go quite independent of any and
all other spiritual presences; they seem to function in accordance with
universe laws quite apart from those which govern and control the performances
of all other spirit influences. But regardless of such apparent independence,
long-range observation unquestionably discloses that they function in the
human mind in perfect synchrony and co-ordination with all other spirit
ministries, including adjutant mind-spirits, Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, and
other influences.
108:4.4 When a world is isolated by rebellion, when a planet is cut off from
all outside encircuited communication, as was Urantia after the Caligastia
upheaval, aside from personal messengers there remains but one possibility of
direct interplanetary or universe communication, and that is through the
liaison of the Adjusters of the spheres. No matter what happens on a world or
in a universe, the Adjusters are never directly concerned. The isolation of a
planet in no way affects the Adjusters and their ability to communicate with
any part of the local universe, superuniverse, or the central universe. And
this is the reason why contacts with the supreme and the self-acting Adjusters
of the reserve corps of destiny are so frequently made on quarantined worlds.
Recourse is had to such a technique as a means of circumventing the handicaps
of planetary isolation. In recent years the archangels' circuit has functioned
on Urantia, but that means of communication is largely limited to the
transactions of the archangel corps itself.
108:4.5 We are cognizant of many spirit phenomena in the far-flung universe
which we are at a loss fully to understand. We are not yet masters of all that
is transpiring about us; and I believe that much of this inscrutable work is
wrought by the Gravity Messengers and certain types of Mystery Monitors. I do
not believe that Adjusters are devoted solely to the remaking of mortal minds.
I am persuaded that the Personalized Monitors and other orders of unrevealed
prepersonal spirits are representative of the Universal Father's direct and
unexplained contact with the creatures of the realms.
5. THE ADJUSTER'S MISSION
108:5.1 The Adjusters accept a difficult assignment when they volunteer to
indwell such composite beings as live on Urantia. But they have assumed the
task of existing in your minds, there to receive the admonitions of the
spiritual intelligences of the realms and then to undertake to redictate or
translate these spiritual messages to the material mind; they are
indispensable to the Paradise ascension.
108:5.2 What the Thought Adjuster cannot utilize in your present life, those
truths which he cannot successfully transmit to the man of his betrothal, he
will faithfully preserve for use in the next stage of existence, just as he
now carries over from circle to circle those items which he fails to register
in the experience of the human subject, owing to the creature's inability, or
failure, to give a sufficient degree of co-operation.
108:5.3 One thing you can depend upon: The Adjusters will never lose anything
committed to their care; never have we known these spirit helpers to default.
Angels and other high types of spirit beings, not excepting the local universe
type of Sons, may occasionally embrace evil, may sometimes depart from the
divine way, but Adjusters never falter. They are absolutely dependable, and
this is equally true of all seven groups.
108:5.4 Your Adjuster is the potential of your new and next order of
existence, the advance bestowal of your eternal sonship with God. By and with
the consent of your will, the Adjuster has the power to subject the creature
trends of the material mind to the transforming actions of the motivations and
purposes of the emerging morontial soul.
108:5.5 The Mystery Monitors are not thought helpers; they are thought
adjusters. They labor with the material mind for the purpose of constructing,
by adjustment and spiritualization, a new mind for the new worlds and the new
name of your future career. Their mission chiefly concerns the future life,
not this life. They are called heavenly helpers, not earthly helpers. They are
not interested in making the mortal career easy; rather are they concerned in
making your life reasonably difficult and rugged, so that decisions will be
stimulated and multiplied. The presence of a great Thought Adjuster does not
bestow ease of living and freedom from strenuous thinking, but such a divine
gift should confer a sublime peace of mind and a superb tranquillity of
spirit.
108:5.6 Your transient and ever-changing emotions of joy and sorrow are in the
main purely human and material reactions to your internal psychic climate and
to your external material environment. Do not, therefore, look to the Adjuster
for selfish consolation and mortal comfort. It is the business of the Adjuster
to prepare you for the eternal adventure, to assure your survival. It is not
the mission of the Mystery Monitor to smooth your ruffled feelings or to
minister to your injured pride; it is the preparation of your soul for the
long ascending career that engages the attention and occupies the time of the
Adjuster.
108:5.7 I doubt that I am able to explain to you just what the Adjusters do in
your minds and for your souls. I do not know that I am fully cognizant of what
is really going on in the cosmic association of a divine Monitor and a human
mind. It is all somewhat of a mystery to us, not as to the plan and purpose
but as to the actual mode of accomplishment. And this is just why we are
confronted with such difficulty in finding an appropriate name for these
supernal gifts to mortal men.
108:5.8 The Thought Adjusters would like to change your feelings of fear to
convictions of love and confidence; but they cannot mechanically and
arbitrarily do such things; that is your task. In executing those decisions
which deliver you from the fetters of fear, you literally supply the psychic
fulcrum on which the Adjuster may subsequently apply a spiritual lever of
uplifting and advancing illumination.
108:5.9 When it comes to the sharp and well-defined conflicts between the
higher and lower tendencies of the races, between what really is right or
wrong (not merely what you may call right and wrong), you can depend upon it
that the Adjuster will always participate in some definite and active manner
in such experiences. The fact that such Adjuster activity may be unconscious
to the human partner does not in the least detract from its value and reality.
108:5.10 If you have a personal guardian of destiny and should fail of
survival, that guardian angel must be adjudicated in order to receive
vindication as to the faithful execution of her trust. But Thought Adjusters
are not thus subjected to examination when their subjects fail to survive. We
all know that, while an angel might possibly fall short of the perfection of
ministry, Thought Adjusters work in the manner of Paradise perfection; their
ministry is characterized by a flawless technique which is beyond the
possibility of criticism by any being outside of Divinington. You have perfect
guides; therefore is the goal of perfection certainly attainable.
6. GOD IN MAN
108:6.1 It is indeed a marvel of divine condescension for the exalted and
perfect Adjusters to offer themselves for actual existence in the minds of
material creatures, such as the mortals of Urantia, really to consummate a
probationary union with the animal-origin beings of earth.
108:6.2 No matter what the previous status of the inhabitants of a world,
subsequent to the bestowal of a divine Son and after the bestowal of the
Spirit of Truth upon all humans, the Adjusters flock to such a world to
indwell the minds of all normal will creatures. Following the completion of
the mission of a Paradise bestowal Son, these Monitors truly become the
"kingdom of heaven within you." Through the bestowal of the divine gifts the
Father makes the closest possible approach to sin and evil, for it is
literally true that the Adjuster must coexist in the mortal mind even in the
very midst of human unrighteousness. The indwelling Adjusters are particularly
tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are
distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are
virtually thwarted in their work by many of man's foolish animal fears and
childish anxieties.
108:6.3 The Mystery Monitors are undoubtedly the bestowal of the Universal
Father, the reflection of the image of God abroad in the universe. A great
teacher once admonished men that they should be renewed in the spirit of their
minds; that they become new men who, like God, are created in righteousness
and in the completion of truth. The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the
presence of God. The "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness nor to
the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the
gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal
of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes.
108:6.4 The Adjuster is the wellspring of spiritual attainment and the hope of
divine character within you. He is the power, privilege, and the possibility
of survival, which so fully and forever distinguishes you from mere animal
creatures. He is the higher and truly internal spiritual stimulus of thought
in contrast with the external and physical stimulus, which reaches the mind
over the nerve-energy mechanism of the material body.
108:6.5 These faithful custodians of the future career unfailingly duplicate
every mental creation with a spiritual counterpart; they are thus slowly and
surely re-creating you as you really are (only spiritually) for resurrection
on the survival worlds. And all of these exquisite spirit re-creations are
being preserved in the emerging reality of your evolving and immortal soul,
your morontia self. These realities are actually there, notwithstanding that
the Adjuster is seldom able to exalt these duplicate creations sufficiently to
exhibit them to the light of consciousness.
108:6.6 And as you are the human parent, so is the Adjuster the divine parent
of the real you, your higher and advancing self, your better morontial and
future spiritual self. And it is this evolving morontial soul that the judges
and censors discern when they decree your survival and pass you upward to new
worlds and never-ending existence in eternal liaison with your faithful
partner -- God, the Adjuster.
108:6.7 The Adjusters are the eternal ancestors, the divine originals, of your
evolving immortal souls; they are the unceasing urge that leads man to attempt
the mastery of the material and present existence in the light of the
spiritual and future career. The Monitors are the prisoners of undying hope,
the founts of everlasting progression. And how they do enjoy communicating
with their subjects in more or less direct channels! How they rejoice when
they can dispense with symbols and other methods of indirection and flash
their messages straight to the intellects of their human partners!
108:6.8 You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite
panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of
opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime
uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your
faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and
thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into
the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights
of the mansion worlds of Satania.
108:6.9 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 109
RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO UNIVERSE CREATURES
109:0.1 THE Thought Adjusters are the children of the universe career, and
indeed the virgin Adjusters must gain experience while mortal creatures grow
and develop. As the personality of the human child expands for the struggles
of evolutionary existence, so does the Adjuster wax great in the rehearsals of
the next stage of ascending life. As the child acquires adaptative versatility
for his adult activities through the social and play life of early childhood,
so does the indwelling Adjuster achieve skill for the next stage of cosmic
life by virtue of the preliminary mortal planning and rehearsing of those
activities which have to do with the morontia career. Human existence
constitutes a period of practice which is effectively utilized by the Adjuster
in preparing for the increased responsibilities and the greater opportunities
of a future life. But the Adjuster's efforts, while living within you, are not
so much concerned with the affairs of temporal life and planetary existence.
Today, the Thought Adjusters are, as it were, rehearsing the realities of the
universe career in the evolving minds of human beings.
1. DEVELOPMENT OF ADJUSTERS
109:1.1 There must be a comprehensive and elaborate plan for the training and
development of virgin Adjusters before they are sent forth from Divinington,
but we really do not know very much about it. There undoubtedly also exists an
extensive system for retraining Adjusters of indwelling experience before they
embark upon new missions of mortal association, but, again, we do not actually
know.
109:1.2 I have been told by Personalized Adjusters that every time a Monitor-
indwelt mortal fails of survival, when the Adjuster returns to Divinington, an
extended course of training is engaged in. This additional training is made
possible by the experience of having indwelt a human being, and it is always
imparted before the Adjuster is remanded to the evolutionary worlds of time.
109:1.3 Actual living experience has no cosmic substitute. The perfection of
the divinity of a newly formed Thought Adjuster does not in any manner endow
this Mystery Monitor with experienced ministrative ability. Experience is
inseparable from a living existence; it is the one thing which no amount of
divine endowment can absolve you from the necessity of securing by actual
living. Therefore, in common with all beings living and functioning within the
present sphere of the Supreme, Thought Adjusters must acquire experience; they
must evolve from the lower, inexperienced, to the higher, more experienced,
groups.
109:1.4 Adjusters pass through a definite developmental career in the mortal
mind; they achieve a reality of attainment which is eternally theirs. They
progressively acquire Adjuster skill and ability as a result of any and all
contacts with the material races, regardless of the survival or nonsurvival of
their particular mortal subjects. They are also equal partners of the human
mind in fostering the evolution of the immortal soul of survival capacity.
109:1.5 The first stage of Adjuster evolution is attained in fusion with the
surviving soul of a mortal being. Thus, while you are in nature evolving
inward and upward from man to God, the Adjusters are in nature evolving
outward and downward from God to man; and so will the final product of this
union of divinity and humanity eternally be the son of man and the son of God.
2. SELF-ACTING ADJUSTERS
109:2.1 You have been informed of the classification of Adjusters in relation
to experience -- virgin, advanced, and supreme. You should also recognize a
certain functional classification -- the self-acting Adjusters. A self-acting
Adjuster is one who:
109:2.2 1. Has had certain requisite experience in the evolving life of a will
creature, either as a temporary indweller on a type of world where Adjusters
are only loaned to mortal subjects or on an actual fusion planet where the
human failed of survival. Such a Monitor is either an advanced or a supreme
Adjuster.
109:2.3 2. Has acquired the balance of spiritual power in a human who has made
the third psychic circle and has had assigned to him a personal seraphic
guardian.
109:2.4 3. Has a subject who has made the supreme decision, has entered into a
solemn and sincere betrothal with the Adjuster. The Adjuster looks beforehand
to the time of actual fusion and reckons the union as an event of fact.
109:2.5 4. Has a subject who has been mustered into one of the reserve corps
of destiny on an evolutionary world of mortal ascension.
109:2.6 5. At some time, during human sleep, has been temporarily detached
from the mind of mortal incarceration to perform some exploit of liaison,
contact, reregistration, or other extrahuman service associated with the
spiritual administration of the world of assignment.
109:2.7 6. Has served in a time of crisis in the experience of some human
being who was the material complement of a spirit personality intrusted with
the enactment of some cosmic achievement essential to the spiritual economy of
the planet.
109:2.8 Self-acting Adjusters seem to possess a marked degree of will in all
matters not involving the human personalities of their immediate indwelling,
as is indicated by their numerous exploits both within and without the mortal
subjects of attachment. Such Adjusters participate in numerous activities of
the realm, but more frequently they function as undetected indwellers of the
earthly tabernacles of their own choosing.
109:2.9 Undoubtedly these higher and more experienced types of Adjusters can
communicate with those in other realms. But while self-acting Adjusters do
thus intercommunicate, they do so only on the levels of their mutual work and
for the purpose of preserving custodial data essential to the Adjuster
ministry of the realms of their sojourn, though on occasions they have been
known to function in interplanetary matters during times of crisis.
109:2.10 Supreme and self-acting Adjusters can leave the human body at will.
The indwellers are not an organic or biologic part of mortal life; they are
divine superimpositions thereon. In the original life plans they were provided
for, but they are not indispensable to material existence. Nevertheless it
should be recorded that they very rarely, even temporarily, leave their mortal
tabernacles after they once take up their indwelling.
109:2.11 The superacting Adjusters are those who have achieved the conquest of
their intrusted tasks and only await the dissolution of the material-life
vehicle or the translation of the immortal soul.
3. RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO MORTAL TYPES
109:3.1 The character of the detailed work of Mystery Monitors varies in
accordance with the nature of their assignments, as to whether or not they are
liaison or fusion Adjusters. Some Adjusters are merely loaned for the temporal
lifetimes of their subjects; others are bestowed as personality candidates
with permission for everlasting fusion if their subjects survive. There is
also a slight variation in their work among the different planetary types as
well as in different systems and universes. But, on the whole, their labors
are remarkably uniform, more so than are the duties of any of the created
orders of celestial beings.
109:3.2 On certain primitive worlds (the series one group) the Adjuster
indwells the mind of the creature as an experiential training, chiefly for
self-culture and progressive development. Virgin Adjusters are usually sent to
such worlds during the earlier times when primitive men are arriving in the
valley of decision, but when comparatively few will elect to ascend the moral
heights beyond the hills of self-mastery and character acquirement to attain
the higher levels of emerging spirituality. (Many, however, who fail of
Adjuster fusion do survive as Spirit-fused ascenders.) The Adjusters receive
valuable training and acquire wonderful experience in transient association
with primitive minds, and they are able subsequently to utilize this
experience for the benefit of superior beings on other worlds. Nothing of
survival value is ever lost in all the wide universe.
109:3.3 On another type of world (the series two group) the Adjusters are
merely loaned to mortal beings. Here the Monitors can never attain fusion
personality through such indwelling, but they do afford great help to their
human subjects during the mortal lifetime, far more than they are able to give
to Urantia mortals. The Adjusters are here loaned to the mortal creatures for
a single life span as patterns for their higher spiritual attainment,
temporary helpers in the intriguing task of perfecting a survival character.
The Adjusters do not return after natural death; these surviving mortals
attain eternal life through Spirit fusion.
109:3.4 On worlds such as Urantia (the series three group) there is a real
betrothal with the divine gifts, a life and death engagement. If you survive,
there is to be an eternal union, an everlasting fusion, the making of man and
Adjuster one being.
109:3.5 In the three-brained mortals of this series of worlds, the Adjusters
are able to gain far more actual contact with their subjects during the
temporal life than in the one- and two-brained types. But in the career after
death, the three-brained type proceed just as do the one-brained type and the
two-brained peoples -- the Urantia races.
109:3.6 On the two-brain worlds, subsequent to the sojourn of a Paradise
bestowal Son, virgin Adjusters are seldom assigned to persons who have
unquestioned capacity for survival. It is our belief that on such worlds
practically all Adjusters indwelling intelligent men and women of survival
capacity belong to the advanced or to the supreme type.
109:3.7 In many of the early evolutionary races of Urantia, three groups of
beings existed. There were those who were so animalistic that they were
utterly lacking in Adjuster capacity. There were those who exhibited undoubted
capacity for Adjusters and promptly received them when the age of moral
responsibility was attained. There was a third class who occupied a borderline
position; they had capacity for Adjuster reception, but the Monitors could
only indwell the mind on the personal petition of the individual.
109:3.8 But with those beings who are virtually disqualified for survival by
disinheritance through the agency of unfit and inferior ancestors, many a
virgin Adjuster has served a valuable preliminary experience in contacting
evolutionary mind and thus has become better qualified for a subsequent
assignment to a higher type of mind on some other world.
4. ADJUSTERS AND HUMAN PERSONALITY
109:4.1 The higher forms of intelligent intercommunication between human
beings are greatly helped by the indwelling Adjusters. Animals do have fellow
feelings, but they do not communicate concepts to each other; they can express
emotions but not ideas and ideals. Neither do men of animal origin experience
a high type of intellectual intercourse or spiritual communion with their
fellows until the Thought Adjusters have been bestowed, albeit, when such
evolutionary creatures develop speech, they are on the highroad to receiving
Adjusters.
109:4.2 Animals do, in a crude way, communicate with each other, but there is
little or no personality in such primitive contact. Adjusters are not
personality; they are prepersonal beings. But they do hail from the source of
personality, and their presence does augment the qualitative manifestations of
human personality; especially is this true if the Adjuster has had previous
experience.
109:4.3 The type of Adjuster has much to do with the potential for expression
of the human personality. On down through the ages, many of the great
intellectual and spiritual leaders of Urantia have exerted their influence
chiefly because of the superiority and previous experience of their indwelling
Adjusters.
109:4.4 The indwelling Adjusters have in no small measure co-operated with
other spiritual influences in transforming and humanizing the descendants of
the primitive men of olden ages. If the Adjusters indwelling the minds of the
inhabitants of Urantia were to be withdrawn, the world would slowly return to
many of the scenes and practices of the men of primitive times; the divine
Monitors are one of the real potentials of advancing civilization.
109:4.5 I have observed a Thought Adjuster indwelling a mind on Urantia who
has, according to the records on Uversa, indwelt fifteen minds previously in
Orvonton. We do not know whether this Monitor has had similar experiences in
other superuniverses, but I suspect so. This is a marvelous Adjuster and one
of the most useful and potent forces on Urantia during this present age. What
others have lost, in that they refused to survive, this human being (and your
whole world) now gains. From him who has not survival qualities, shall be
taken away even that experienced Adjuster which he now has, while to him who
has survival prospects, shall be given even the pre-experienced Adjuster of a
slothful deserter.
109:4.6 In a sense the Adjusters may be fostering a certain degree of
planetary cross-fertilization in the domains of truth, beauty, and goodness.
But they are seldom given two indwelling experiences on the same planet; there
is no Adjuster now serving on Urantia who has been on this world previously. I
know whereof I speak since we have their numbers and records in the archives
of Uversa.
5. MATERIAL HANDICAPS TO ADJUSTER INDWELLING
109:5.1 Supreme and self-acting Adjusters are often able to contribute factors
of spiritual import to the human mind when it flows freely in the liberated
but controlled channels of creative imagination. At such times, and sometimes
during sleep, the Adjuster is able to arrest the mental currents, to stay the
flow, and then to divert the idea procession; and all this is done in order to
effect deep spiritual transformations in the higher recesses of the
superconsciousness. Thus are the forces and energies of mind more fully
adjusted to the key of the contactual tones of the spiritual level of the
present and the future.
109:5.2 It is sometimes possible to have the mind illuminated, to hear the
divine voice that continually speaks within you, so that you may become
partially conscious of the wisdom, truth, goodness, and beauty of the
potential personality constantly indwelling you.
109:5.3 But your unsteady and rapidly shifting mental attitudes often result
in thwarting the plans and interrupting the work of the Adjusters. Their work
is not only interfered with by the innate natures of the mortal races, but
this ministry is also greatly retarded by your own preconceived opinions,
settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices. Because of these handicaps, many
times only their unfinished creations emerge into consciousness, and confusion
of concept is inevitable. Therefore, in scrutinizing mental situations, safety
lies only in the prompt recognition of each and every thought and experience
for just what it actually and fundamentally is, disregarding entirely what it
might have been.
109:5.4 The great problem of life is the adjustment of the ancestral
tendencies of living to the demands of the spiritual urges initiated by the
divine presence of the Mystery Monitor. While in the universe and
superuniverse careers no man can serve two masters, in the life you now live
on Urantia every man must perforce serve two masters. He must become adept in
the art of a continuous human temporal compromise while he yields spiritual
allegiance to but one master; and this is why so many falter and fail, grow
weary and succumb to the stress of the evolutionary struggle.
109:5.5 While the hereditary legacy of cerebral endowment and that of
electrochemical overcontrol both operate to delimit the sphere of efficient
Adjuster activity, no hereditary handicap (in normal minds) ever prevents
eventual spiritual achievement. Heredity may interfere with the rate of
personality conquest, but it does not prevent eventual consummation of the
ascendant adventure. If you will co-operate with your Adjuster, the divine
gift will, sooner or later, evolve the immortal morontia soul and, subsequent
to fusion therewith, will present the new creature to the sovereign Master Son
of the local universe and eventually to the Father of Adjusters on Paradise.
6. THE PERSISTENCE OF TRUE VALUES
109:6.1 Adjusters never fail; nothing worth surviving is ever lost; every
meaningful value in every will creature is certain of survival, irrespective
of the survival or nonsurvival of the meaning-discovering or evaluating
personality. And so it is, a mortal creature may reject survival; still the
life experience is not wasted; the eternal Adjuster carries the worth-while
features of such an apparent life of failure over into some other world and
there bestows these surviving meanings and values upon some higher type of
mortal mind, one of survival capacity. No worth-while experience ever happens
in vain; no true meaning or real value ever perishes.
109:6.2 As related to fusion candidates, if a Mystery Monitor is deserted by
the mortal associate, if the human partner declines to pursue the ascending
career, when released by natural death (or prior thereto), the Adjuster
carries away everything of survival value which has evolved in the mind of
that nonsurviving creature. If an Adjuster should repeatedly fail to attain
fusion personality because of the nonsurvival of successive human subjects,
and if this Monitor should subsequently be personalized, all the acquired
experience of having indwelt and mastered all these mortal minds would become
the actual possession of such a newly Personalized Adjuster, an endowment to
be enjoyed and utilized throughout all future ages. A Personalized Adjuster of
this order is a composite assembly of all the survival traits of all his
former creature hosts.
109:6.3 When Adjusters of long universe experience volunteer to indwell divine
Sons on bestowal missions, they full well know that personality attainment can
never be achieved through this service. But often does the Father of spirits
grant personality to these volunteers and establish them as directors of their
kind. These are the personalities honored with authority on Divinington. And
their unique natures embody the mosaic humanity of their multiple experiences
of mortal indwelling and also the spirit transcript of the human divinity of
the Paradise bestowal Son of the terminal indwelling experience.
109:6.4 The activities of Adjusters in your local universe are directed by the
Personalized Adjuster of Michael of Nebadon, that very Monitor who guided him
step by step when he lived his human life in the flesh of Joshua ben Joseph.
Faithful to his trust was this extraordinary Adjuster, and wisely did this
valiant Monitor direct the human nature, ever guiding the mortal mind of the
Paradise Son in the choosing of the path of the Father's perfect will. This
Adjuster had previously served with Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of
Abraham and had engaged in tremendous exploits both previous to this
indwelling and between these bestowal experiences.
109:6.5 This Adjuster did indeed triumph in Jesus' human mind -- that mind
which in each of life's recurring situations maintained a consecrated
dedication to the Father's will, saying, "Not my will, but yours, be done."
Such decisive consecration constitutes the true passport from the limitations
of human nature to the finality of divine attainment.
109:6.6 This same Adjuster now reflects in the inscrutable nature of his
mighty personality the prebaptismal humanity of Joshua ben Joseph, the eternal
and living transcript of the eternal and living values which the greatest of
all Urantians created out of the humble circumstances of a commonplace life as
it was lived to the complete exhaustion of the spiritual values attainable in
mortal experience.
109:6.7 Everything of permanent value which is intrusted to an Adjuster is
assured eternal survival. In certain instances the Monitor holds these
possessions for bestowal on a mortal mind of future indwelling; in others, and
upon personalization, these surviving and conserved realities are held in
trust for future utilization in the service of the Architects of the Master
Universe.
7. DESTINY OF PERSONALIZED ADJUSTERS
109:7.1 We cannot state whether or not non-Adjuster Father fragments are
personalizable, but you have been informed that personality is the sovereign
freewill bestowal of the Universal Father. As far as we know, the Adjuster
type of Father fragment attains personality only by the acquirement of
personal attributes through service-ministry to a personal being. These
Personalized Adjusters are at home on Divinington, where they instruct and
direct their prepersonal associates.
109:7.2 Personalized Thought Adjusters are the untrammelled, unassigned, and
sovereign stabilizers and compensators of the far-flung universe of universes.
They combine the Creator and creature experience -- existential and
experiential. They are conjoint time and eternity beings. They associate the
prepersonal and the personal in universe administration.
109:7.3 Personalized Adjusters are the all-wise and powerful executives of the
Architects of the Master Universe. They are the personal agents of the full
ministry of the Universal Father -- personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal.
They are the personal ministers of the extraordinary, the unusual, and the
unexpected throughout all the realms of the transcendental absonite spheres of
the domain of God the Ultimate, even to the levels of God the Absolute.
109:7.4 They are the exclusive beings of the universes who embrace within
their being all the known relationships of personality; they are omnipersonal
-- they are before personality, they are personality, and they are after
personality. They minister the personality of the Universal Father as in the
eternal past, the eternal present, and the eternal future.
109:7.5 Existential personality on the order of the infinite and absolute, the
Father bestowed upon the Eternal Son, but he chose to reserve for his own
ministry the experiential personality of the type of the Personalized Adjuster
bestowed upon the existential prepersonal Adjuster; and they are thus both
destined to the future eternal superpersonality of the transcendental ministry
of the absonite realms of the Ultimate, the Supreme-Ultimate, even to the
levels of the Ultimate-Absolute.
109:7.6 Seldom are the Personalized Adjusters seen at large in the universes.
Occasionally they consult with the Ancients of Days, and sometimes the
Personalized Adjusters of the sevenfold Creator Sons come to the headquarters
worlds of the constellations to confer with the Vorondadek rulers.
109:7.7 When the planetary Vorondadek observer of Urantia -- the Most High
custodian who not long since assumed an emergency regency of your world --
asserted his authority in the presence of the resident governor general, he
began his emergency administration of Urantia with a full staff of his own
choosing. He immediately assigned to all his associates and assistants their
planetary duties. But he did not choose the three Personalized Adjusters who
appeared in his presence the instant he assumed the regency. He did not even
know they would thus appear, for they did not so manifest their divine
presence at the time of a previous regency. And the Most High regent did not
assign service or designate duties for these volunteer Personalized Adjusters.
Nevertheless, these three omnipersonal beings were among the most active of
the numerous orders of celestial beings then serving on Urantia.
109:7.8 Personalized Adjusters perform a wide range of services for numerous
orders of universe personalities, but we are not permitted to discuss these
ministries with Adjuster-indwelt evolutionary creatures. These extraordinary
human divinities are among the most remarkable personalities of the entire
grand universe, and no one dares to predict what their future missions may be.
109:7.9 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 110
RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO INDIVIDUAL MORTALS
110:0.1 THE endowment of imperfect beings with freedom entails inevitable
tragedy, and it is the nature of the perfect ancestral Deity to universally
and affectionately share these sufferings in loving companionship.
110:0.2 As far as I am conversant with the affairs of a universe, I regard the
love and devotion of a Thought Adjuster as the most truly divine affection in
all creation. The love of the Sons in their ministry to the races is superb,
but the devotion of an Adjuster to the individual is touchingly sublime,
divinely Fatherlike. The Paradise Father has apparently reserved this form of
personal contact with his individual creatures as an exclusive Creator
prerogative. And there is nothing in all the universe of universes exactly
comparable to the marvelous ministry of these impersonal entities that so
fascinatingly indwell the children of the evolutionary planets.
1. INDWELLING THE MORTAL MIND
110:1.1 Adjusters should not be thought of as living in the material brains of
human beings. They are not organic parts of the physical creatures of the
realms. The Thought Adjuster may more properly be envisaged as indwelling the
mortal mind of man rather than as existing within the confines of a single
physical organ. And indirectly and unrecognized the Adjuster is constantly
communicating with the human subject, especially during those sublime
experiences of the worshipful contact of mind with spirit in the
superconsciousness.
110:1.2 I wish it were possible for me to help evolving mortals to achieve a
better understanding and attain a fuller appreciation of the unselfish and
superb work of the Adjusters living within them, who are so devoutly faithful
to the task of fostering man's spiritual welfare. These Monitors are efficient
ministers to the higher phases of men's minds; they are wise and experienced
manipulators of the spiritual potential of the human intellect. These heavenly
helpers are dedicated to the stupendous task of guiding you safely inward and
upward to the celestial haven of happiness. These tireless toilers are
consecrated to the future personification of the triumph of divine truth in
your life everlasting. They are the watchful workers who pilot the God-
conscious human mind away from the shoals of evil while expertly guiding the
evolving soul of man toward the divine harbors of perfection on far-distant
and eternal shores. The Adjusters are loving leaders, your safe and sure
guides through the dark and uncertain mazes of your short earthly career; they
are the patient teachers who so constantly urge their subjects forward in the
paths of progressive perfection. They are the careful custodians of the
sublime values of creature character. I wish you could love them more, co-
operate with them more fully, and cherish them more affectionately.
110:1.3 Although the divine indwellers are chiefly concerned with your
spiritual preparation for the next stage of the never-ending existence, they
are also deeply interested in your temporal welfare and in your real
achievements on earth. They are delighted to contribute to your health,
happiness, and true prosperity. They are not indifferent to your success in
all matters of planetary advancement which are not inimical to your future
life of eternal progress.
110:1.4 Adjusters are interested in, and concerned with, your daily doings and
the manifold details of your life just to the extent that these are
influential in the determination of your significant temporal choices and
vital spiritual decisions and, hence, are factors in the solution of your
problem of soul survival and eternal progress. The Adjuster, while passive
regarding purely temporal welfare, is divinely active concerning all the
affairs of your eternal future.
110:1.5 The Adjuster remains with you in all disaster and through every
sickness which does not wholly destroy the mentality. But how unkind knowingly
to defile or otherwise deliberately to pollute the physical body, which must
serve as the earthly tabernacle of this marvelous gift from God. All physical
poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind,
while the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and
intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the
evolving soul.
110:1.6 Today you are passing through the period of the courtship of your
Adjuster; and if you only prove faithful to the trust reposed in you by the
divine spirit who seeks your mind and soul in eternal union, there will
eventually ensue that morontia oneness, that supernal harmony, that cosmic co-
ordination, that divine attunement, that celestial fusion, that never-ending
blending of identity, that oneness of being which is so perfect and final that
even the most experienced personalities can never segregate or recognize as
separate identities the fusion partners -- mortal man and divine Adjuster.
2. ADJUSTERS AND HUMAN WILL
110:2.1 When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the
model careers, the ideal lives, as determined and foreordained by themselves
and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, which have been certified by
the Personalized Adjuster of Urantia. Thus they begin work with a definite and
predetermined plan for the intellectual and spiritual development of their
human subjects, but it is not incumbent upon any human being to accept this
plan. You are all subjects of predestination, but it is not foreordained that
you must accept this divine predestination; you are at full liberty to reject
any part or all of the Thought Adjusters' program. It is their mission to
effect such mind changes and to make such spiritual adjustments as you may
willingly and intelligently authorize, to the end that they may gain more
influence over the personality directionization; but under no circumstances do
these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily
influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your
sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will.
110:2.2 They are persistent, ingenious, and perfect in their methods of work,
but they never do violence to the volitional selfhood of their hosts. No human
being will ever be spiritualized by a divine Monitor against his will;
survival is a gift of the Gods which must be desired by the creatures of time.
In the final analysis, whatever the Adjuster has succeeded in doing for you,
the records will show that the transformation has been accomplished with your
co-operative consent; you will have been a willing partner with the Adjuster
in the attainment of every step of the tremendous transformation of the
ascension career.
110:2.3 The Adjuster is not trying to control your thinking, as such, but
rather to spiritualize it, to eternalize it. Neither angels nor Adjusters are
devoted directly to influencing human thought; that is your exclusive
personality prerogative. The Adjusters are dedicated to improving, modifying,
adjusting, and co-ordinating your thinking processes; but more especially and
specifically they are devoted to the work of building up spiritual
counterparts of your careers, morontia transcripts of your true advancing
selves, for survival purposes.
110:2.4 Adjusters work in the spheres of the higher levels of the human mind,
unceasingly seeking to produce morontia duplicates of every concept of the
mortal intellect. There are, therefore, two realities which impinge upon, and
are centered in, the human mind circuits: one, a mortal self evolved from the
original plans of the Life Carriers, the other, an immortal entity from the
high spheres of Divinington, an indwelling gift from God. But the mortal self
is also a personal self; it has personality.
110:2.5 You as a personal creature have mind and will. The Adjuster as a
prepersonal creature has premind and prewill. If you so fully conform to the
Adjuster's mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you
receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster's mind. Subsequently, if your will
orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined
mind, the Adjuster's prepersonal will attains to personality expression
through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you
and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and
the Adjuster's will has achieved personality expression.
110:2.6 To the extent that this identity is realized, you are mentally
approaching the morontia order of existence. Morontia mind is a term
signifying the substance and sum total of the co-operating minds of diversely
material and spiritual natures. Morontia intellect, therefore, connotes a dual
mind in the local universe dominated by one will. And with mortals this is a
will, human in origin, which is becoming divine through man's identification
of the human mind with the mindedness of God.
3. CO-OPERATION WITH THE ADJUSTER
110:3.1 Adjusters are playing the sacred and superb game of the ages; they are
engaged in one of the supreme adventures of time in space. And how happy they
are when your co-operation permits them to lend assistance in your short
struggles of time as they continue to prosecute their larger tasks of
eternity. But usually, when your Adjuster attempts to communicate with you,
the message is lost in the material currents of the energy streams of human
mind; only occasionally do you catch an echo, a faint and distant echo, of the
divine voice.
110:3.2 The success of your Adjuster in the enterprise of piloting you through
the mortal life and bringing about your survival depends not so much on the
theories of your beliefs as upon your decisions, determinations, and steadfast
faith. All these movements of personality growth become powerful influences
aiding in your advancement because they help you to co-operate with the
Adjuster; they assist you in ceasing to resist. Thought Adjusters succeed or
apparently fail in their terrestrial undertakings just in so far as mortals
succeed or fail to co-operate with the scheme whereby they are to be advanced
along the ascending path of perfection attainment. The secret of survival is
wrapped up in the supreme human desire to be Godlike and in the associated
willingness to do and be any and all things which are essential to the final
attainment of that overmastering desire.
110:3.3 When we speak of an Adjuster's success or failure, we are speaking in
terms of human survival. Adjusters never fail; they are of the divine essence,
and they always emerge triumphant in each of their undertakings.
110:3.4 I cannot but observe that so many of you spend so much time and
thought on mere trifles of living, while you almost wholly overlook the more
essential realities of everlasting import, those very accomplishments which
are concerned with the development of a more harmonious working agreement
between you and your Adjusters. The great goal of human existence is to attune
to the divinity of the indwelling Adjuster; the great achievement of mortal
life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal
aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind. But a devoted
and determined effort to realize eternal destiny is wholly compatible with a
light-hearted and joyous life and with a successful and honorable career on
earth. Co-operation with the Thought Adjuster does not entail self-torture,
mock piety, or hypocritical and ostentatious self-abasement; the ideal life is
one of loving service rather than an existence of fearful apprehension.
110:3.5 Confusion, being puzzled, even sometimes discouraged and distracted,
does not necessarily signify resistance to the leadings of the indwelling
Adjuster. Such attitudes may sometimes connote lack of active co-operation
with the divine Monitor and may, therefore, somewhat delay spiritual progress,
but such intellectual emotional difficulties do not in the least interfere
with the certain survival of the God-knowing soul. Ignorance alone can never
prevent survival; neither can confusional doubts nor fearful uncertainty. Only
conscious resistance to the Adjuster's leading can prevent the survival of the
evolving immortal soul.
110:3.6 You must not regard co-operation with your Adjuster as a particularly
conscious process, for it is not; but your motives and your decisions, your
faithful determinations and your supreme desires, do constitute real and
effective co-operation. You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by:
110:3.7 1. Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human
life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then co-
ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and
love.
110:3.8 2. Loving God and desiring to be like him -- genuine recognition of
the divine fatherhood and loving worship of the heavenly Parent.
110:3.9 3. Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him -- wholehearted
recognition of the brotherhood of man coupled with an intelligent and wise
affection for each of your fellow mortals.
110:3.10 4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship -- honest recognition of
your progressive obligations to the Supreme Being, awareness of the
interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity. This is the birth of
cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.
4. THE ADJUSTER'S WORK IN THE MIND
110:4.1 Adjusters are able to receive the continuous stream of cosmic
intelligence coming in over the master circuits of time and space; they are in
full touch with the spirit intelligence and energy of the universes. But these
mighty indwellers are unable to transmit very much of this wealth of wisdom
and truth to the minds of their mortal subjects because of the lack of
commonness of nature and the absence of responsive recognition.
110:4.2 The Thought Adjuster is engaged in a constant effort so to
spiritualize your mind as to evolve your morontia soul; but you yourself are
mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of
distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the
conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.
110:4.3 Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other
pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster;
but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas
which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental levels,
natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function
inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these
subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the
realms of the superconscious.)
110:4.4 Trust all matters of mind beyond the dead level of consciousness to
the custody of the Adjusters. In due time, if not in this world then on the
mansion worlds, they will give good account of their stewardship, and
eventually will they bring forth those meanings and values intrusted to their
care and keeping. They will resurrect every worthy treasure of the mortal mind
if you survive.
110:4.5 There exists a vast gulf between the human and the divine, between man
and God. The Urantia races are so largely electrically and chemically
controlled, so highly animallike in their common behavior, so emotional in
their ordinary reactions, that it becomes exceedingly difficult for the
Monitors to guide and direct them. You are so devoid of courageous decisions
and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to
impossible to communicate directly with the human mind. Even when they do find
it possible to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolving mortal soul, this
spiritual revelation often so blinds the creature as to precipitate a
convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval which
results disastrously. Many a new religion and strange "ism" has arisen from
the aborted, imperfect, misunderstood, and garbled communications of the
Thought Adjusters.
110:4.6 For many thousands of years, so the records of Jerusem show, in each
generation there have lived fewer and fewer beings who could function safely
with self-acting Adjusters. This is an alarming picture, and the supervising
personalities of Satania look with favor upon the proposals of some of your
more immediate planetary supervisors who advocate the inauguration of measures
designed to foster and conserve the higher spiritual types of the Urantia
races.
5. ERRONEOUS CONCEPTS OF ADJUSTER GUIDANCE
110:5.1 Do not confuse and confound the mission and influence of the Adjuster
with what is commonly called conscience; they are not directly related.
Conscience is a human and purely psychic reaction. It is not to be despised,
but it is hardly the voice of God to the soul, which indeed the Adjuster's
would be if such a voice could be heard. Conscience, rightly, admonishes you
to do right; but the Adjuster, in addition, endeavors to tell you what truly
is right; that is, when and as you are able to perceive the Monitor's leading.
110:5.2 Man's dream experiences, that disordered and disconnected parade of
the un-co-ordinated sleeping mind, present adequate proof of the failure of
the Adjusters to harmonize and associate the divergent factors of the mind of
man. The Adjusters simply cannot, in a single lifetime, arbitrarily co-
ordinate and synchronize two such unlike and diverse types of thinking as the
human and the divine. When they do, as they sometimes have, such souls are
translated directly to the mansion worlds without the necessity of passing
through the experience of death.
110:5.3 During the slumber season the Adjuster attempts to achieve only that
which the will of the indwelt personality has previously fully approved by the
decisions and choosings which were made during times of fully wakeful
consciousness, and which have thereby become lodged in the realms of the
supermind, the liaison domain of human and divine interrelationship.
110:5.4 While their mortal hosts are asleep, the Adjusters try to register
their creations in the higher levels of the material mind, and some of your
grotesque dreams indicate their failure to make efficient contact. The
absurdities of dream life not only testify to pressure of unexpressed emotions
but also bear witness to the horrible distortion of the representations of the
spiritual concepts presented by the Adjusters. Your own passions, urges, and
other innate tendencies translate themselves into the picture and substitute
their unexpressed desires for the divine messages which the indwellers are
endeavoring to put into the psychic records during unconscious sleep.
110:5.5 It is extremely dangerous to postulate as to the Adjuster content of
the dream life. The Adjusters do work during sleep, but your ordinary dream
experiences are purely physiologic and psychologic phenomena. Likewise, it is
hazardous to attempt the differentiation of the Adjusters' concept registry
from the more or less continuous and conscious reception of the dictations of
mortal conscience. These are problems which will have to be solved through
individual discrimination and personal decision. But a human being would do
better to err in rejecting an Adjuster's expression through believing it to be
a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the
mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity. Remember, the influence of a
Thought Adjuster is for the most part, though not wholly, a superconscious
experience.
110:5.6 In varying degrees and increasingly as you ascend the psychic circles,
sometimes directly, but more often indirectly, you do communicate with your
Adjusters. But it is dangerous to entertain the idea that every new concept
originating in the human mind is the dictation of the Adjuster. More often, in
beings of your order, that which you accept as the Adjuster's voice is in
reality the emanation of your own intellect. This is dangerous ground, and
every human being must settle these problems for himself in accordance with
his natural human wisdom and superhuman insight.
110:5.7 The Adjuster of the human being through whom this communication is
being made enjoys such a wide scope of activity chiefly because of this
human's almost complete indifference to any outward manifestations of the
Adjuster's inner presence; it is indeed fortunate that he remains consciously
quite unconcerned about the entire procedure. He holds one of the highly
experienced Adjusters of his day and generation, and yet his passive reaction
to, and inactive concern toward, the phenomena associated with the presence in
his mind of this versatile Adjuster is pronounced by the guardian of destiny
to be a rare and fortuitous reaction. And all this constitutes a favorable co-
ordination of influences, favorable both to the Adjuster in the higher sphere
of action and to the human partner from the standpoints of health, efficiency,
and tranquillity.
6. THE SEVEN PSYCHIC CIRCLES
110:6.1 The sum total of personality realization on a material world is
contained within the successive conquest of the seven psychic circles of
mortal potentiality. Entrance upon the seventh circle marks the beginning of
true human personality function. Completion of the first circle denotes the
relative maturity of the mortal being. Though the traversal of the seven
circles of cosmic growth does not equal fusion with the Adjuster, the mastery
of these circles marks the attainment of those steps which are preliminary to
Adjuster fusion.
110:6.2 The Adjuster is your equal partner in the attainment of the seven
circles -- the achievement of comparative mortal maturity. The Adjuster
ascends the circles with you from the seventh to the first but progresses to
the status of supremacy and self-activity quite independent of the active co-
operation of the mortal mind.
110:6.3 The psychic circles are not exclusively intellectual, neither are they
wholly morontial; they have to do with personality status, mind attainment,
soul growth, and Adjuster attunement. The successful traversal of these levels
demands the harmonious functioning of the entire personality, not merely of
some one phase thereof. The growth of the parts does not equal the true
maturation of the whole; the parts really grow in proportion to the expansion
of the entire self -- the whole self -- material, intellectual, and spiritual.
110:6.4 When the development of the intellectual nature proceeds faster than
that of the spiritual, such a situation renders communication with the Thought
Adjuster both difficult and dangerous. Likewise, overspiritual development
tends to produce a fanatical and perverted interpretation of the spirit
leadings of the divine indweller. Lack of spiritual capacity makes it very
difficult to transmit to such a material intellect the spiritual truths
resident in the higher superconsciousness. It is to the mind of perfect poise,
housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced
chemical function -- when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in
triune harmony of development -- that a maximum of light and truth can be
imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such
a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary
progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.
110:6.5 The Adjusters are always near you and of you, but rarely can they
speak directly, as another being, to you. Circle by circle your intellectual
decisions, moral choosings, and spiritual development add to the ability of
the Adjuster to function in your mind; circle by circle you thereby ascend
from the lower stages of Adjuster association and mind attunement, so that the
Adjuster is increasingly enabled to register his picturizations of destiny
with augmenting vividness and conviction upon the evolving consciousness of
this God-seeking mind-soul.
110:6.6 Every decision you make either impedes or facilitates the function of
the Adjuster; likewise do these very decisions determine your advancement in
the circles of human achievement. It is true that the supremacy of a decision,
its crisis relationship, has a great deal to do with its circle-making
influence; nevertheless, numbers of decisions, frequent repetitions,
persistent repetitions, are also essential to the habit-forming certainty of
such reactions.
110:6.7 It is difficult precisely to define the seven levels of human
progression, for the reason that these levels are personal; they are variable
for each individual and are apparently determined by the growth capacity of
each human being. The conquest of these levels of cosmic evolution is
reflected in three ways:
110:6.8 1. Adjuster attunement. The spiritizing mind nears the Adjuster
presence proportional to circle attainment.
110:6.9 2. Soul evolution. The emergence of the morontia soul indicates the
extent and depth of circle mastery.
110:6.10 3. Personality reality. The degree of selfhood reality is directly
determined by circle conquest. Persons become more real as they ascend from
the seventh to the first level of mortal existence.
110:6.11 As the circles are traversed, the child of material evolution is
growing into the mature human of immortal potentiality. The shadowy reality of
the embryonic nature of a seventh circler is giving way to the clearer
manifestation of the emerging morontia nature of a local universe citizen.
110:6.12 While it is impossible precisely to define the seven levels, or
psychic circles, of human growth, it is permissible to suggest the minimum and
maximum limits of these stages of maturity realization:
110:6.13 The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop
the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and
the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the
united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the
spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of
the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of
Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind.
Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly
potential citizen of the local universe.
110:6.14 The third circle. The Adjuster's work is much more effective after
the human ascender attains the third circle and receives a personal seraphic
guardian of destiny. While there is no apparent concert of effort between the
Adjuster and the seraphic guardian, nonetheless there is to be observed an
unmistakable improvement in all phases of cosmic achievement and spiritual
development subsequent to the assignment of the personal seraphic attendant.
When the third circle is attained, the Adjuster endeavors to morontiaize the
mind of man during the remainder of the mortal life span, to make the
remaining circles, and achieve the final stage of the divine-human association
before natural death dissolves the unique partnership.
110:6.15 The first circle. The Adjuster cannot, ordinarily, speak directly and
immediately with you until you attain the first and final circle of
progressive mortal achievement. This level represents the highest possible
realization of mind-Adjuster relationship in the human experience prior to the
liberation of the evolving morontia soul from the habiliments of the material
body. Concerning mind, emotions, and cosmic insight, this achievement of the
first psychic circle is the nearest possible approach of material mind and
spirit Adjuster in human experience.
110:6.16 Perhaps these psychic circles of mortal progression would be better
denominated cosmic levels -- actual meaning grasps and value realizations of
progressive approach to the morontia consciousness of initial relationship of
the evolutionary soul with the emerging Supreme Being. And it is this very
relationship that makes it forever impossible fully to explain the
significance of the cosmic circles to the material mind. These circle
attainments are only relatively related to God-consciousness. A seventh or
sixth circler can be almost as truly God-knowing -- sonship conscious -- as a
second or first circler, but such lower circle beings are far less conscious
of experiential relation to the Supreme Being, universe citizenship. The
attainment of these cosmic circles will become a part of the ascenders'
experience on the mansion worlds if they fail of such achievement before
natural death.
110:6.17 The motivation of faith makes experiential the full realization of
man's sonship with God, but action, completion of decisions, is essential to
the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the
cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being. Faith transmutes potentials to actuals
in the spiritual world, but potentials become actuals in the finite realms of
the Supreme only by and through the realization of choice-experience. But
choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in
personality action and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the
more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger.
Such a wise co-ordination of material and spiritual forces greatly augments
both cosmic realization of the Supreme and morontia comprehension of the
Paradise Deities.
110:6.18 The mastery of the cosmic circles is related to the quantitative
growth of the morontia soul, the comprehension of supreme meanings. But the
qualitative status of this immortal soul is wholly dependent on the grasp of
living faith upon the Paradise-potential fact-value that mortal man is a son
of the eternal God. Therefore does a seventh circler go on to the mansion
worlds to attain further quantitative realization of cosmic growth just as
does a second or even a first circler.
110:6.19 There is only an indirect relation between cosmic-circle attainment
and actual spiritual religious experience; such attainments are reciprocal and
therefore mutually beneficial. Purely spiritual development may have little to
do with planetary material prosperity, but circle attainment always augments
the potential of human success and mortal achievement.
110:6.20 From the seventh to the third circle there occurs increased and
unified action of the seven adjutant mind-spirits in the task of weaning the
mortal mind from its dependence on the realities of the material life
mechanisms preparatory to increased introduction to morontia levels of
experience. From the third circle onward the adjutant influence progressively
diminishes.
110:6.21 The seven circles embrace mortal experience extending from the
highest purely animal level to the lowest actual contactual morontia level of
self-consciousness as a personality experience. The mastery of the first
cosmic circle signalizes the attainment of premorontia mortal maturity and
marks the termination of the conjoint ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits as
an exclusive influence of mind action in the human personality. Beyond the
first circle, mind becomes increasingly akin to the intelligence of the
morontia stage of evolution, the conjoined ministry of the cosmic mind and the
superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit of a local universe.
110:6.22 The great days in the individual careers of Adjusters are: first,
when the human subject breaks through into the third psychic circle, thus
insuring the Monitor's self-activity and increased range of function (provided
the indweller was not already self-acting); then, when the human partner
attains the first psychic circle, and they are thereby enabled to
intercommunicate, at least to some degree; and last, when they are finally and
eternally fused.
7. THE ATTAINMENT OF IMMORTALITY
110:7.1 The achievement of the seven cosmic circles does not equal Adjuster
fusion. There are many mortals living on Urantia who have attained their
circles; but fusion depends on yet other greater and more sublime spiritual
achievements, upon the attainment of a final and complete attunement of the
mortal will with the will of God as it is resident in the Thought Adjuster.
110:7.2 When a human being has completed the circles of cosmic achievement,
and further, when the final choosing of the mortal will permits the Adjuster
to complete the association of human identity with the morontial soul during
evolutionary and physical life, then do such consummated liaisons of soul and
Adjuster go on independently to the mansion worlds, and there is issued the
mandate from Uversa which provides for the immediate fusion of the Adjuster
and the morontial soul. This fusion during physical life instantly consumes
the material body; the human beings who might witness such a spectacle would
only observe the translating mortal disappear "in chariots of fire."
110:7.3 Most Adjusters who have translated their subjects from Urantia were
highly experienced and of record as previous indwellers of numerous mortals on
other spheres. Remember, Adjusters gain valuable indwelling experience on
planets of the loan order; it does not follow that Adjusters only gain
experience for advanced work in those mortal subjects who fail to survive.
110:7.4 Subsequent to mortal fusion the Adjusters share your destiny and
experience; they are you. After the fusion of the immortal morontia soul and
the associated Adjuster, all of the experience and all of the values of the
one eventually become the possession of the other, so that the two are
actually one entity. In a certain sense, this new being is of the eternal past
as well as for the eternal future. All that was once human in the surviving
soul and all that is experientially divine in the Adjuster now become the
actual possession of the new and ever-ascending universe personality. But on
each universe level the Adjuster can endow the new creature only with those
attributes which are meaningful and of value on that level. An absolute
oneness with the divine Monitor, a complete exhaustion of the endowment of an
Adjuster, can only be achieved in eternity subsequent to the final attainment
of the Universal Father, the Father of spirits, ever the source of these
divine gifts.
110:7.5 When the evolving soul and the divine Adjuster are finally and
eternally fused, each gains all of the experiencible qualities of the other.
This co-ordinate personality possesses all of the experiential memory of
survival once held by the ancestral mortal mind and then resident in the
morontia soul, and in addition thereto this potential finaliter embraces all
the experiential memory of the Adjuster throughout the mortal indwellings of
all time. But it will require an eternity of the future for an Adjuster ever
completely to endow the personality partnership with the meanings and values
which the divine Monitor carries forward from the eternity of the past.
110:7.6 But with the vast majority of Urantians the Adjuster must patiently
await the arrival of death deliverance; must await the liberation of the
emerging soul from the well-nigh complete domination of the energy patterns
and chemical forces inherent in your material order of existence. The chief
difficulty you experience in contacting with your Adjusters consists in this
very inherent material nature. So few mortals are real thinkers; you do not
spiritually develop and discipline your minds to the point of favorable
liaison with the divine Adjusters. The ear of the human mind is almost deaf to
the spiritual pleas which the Adjuster translates from the manifold messages
of the universal broadcasts of love proceeding from the Father of mercies. The
Adjuster finds it almost impossible to register these inspiring spirit
leadings in an animal mind so completely dominated by the chemical and
electrical forces inherent in your physical natures.
110:7.7 Adjusters rejoice to make contact with the mortal mind; but they must
be patient through the long years of silent sojourn during which they are
unable to break through animal resistance and directly communicate with you.
The higher the Thought Adjusters ascend in the scale of service, the more
efficient they become. But never can they greet you, in the flesh, with the
same full, sympathetic, and expressionful affection as they will when you
discern them mind to mind on the mansion worlds.
110:7.8 During mortal life the material body and mind separate you from your
Adjuster and prevent free communication; subsequent to death, after the
eternal fusion, you and the Adjuster are one -- you are not distinguishable as
separate beings -- and thus there exists no need for communication as you
would understand it.
110:7.9 While the voice of the Adjuster is ever within you, most of you will
hear it seldom during a lifetime. Human beings below the third and second
circles of attainment rarely hear the Adjuster's direct voice except in
moments of supreme desire, in a supreme situation, and consequent upon a
supreme decision.
110:7.10 During the making and breaking of a contact between the mortal mind
of a destiny reservist and the planetary supervisors, sometimes the indwelling
Adjuster is so situated that it becomes possible to transmit a message to the
mortal partner. Not long since, on Urantia, such a message was transmitted by
a self-acting Adjuster to the human associate, a member of the reserve corps
of destiny. This message was introduced by these words: "And now, without
injury or jeopardy to the subject of my solicitous devotion and without intent
to overchastise or discourage, for me, make record of this my plea to him."
Then followed a beautifully touching and appealing admonition. Among other
things, the Adjuster pleaded "that he more faithfully give me his sincere co-
operation, more cheerfully endure the tasks of my emplacement, more faithfully
carry out the program of my arrangement, more patiently go through the trials
of my selection, more persistently and cheerfully tread the path of my
choosing, more humbly receive credit that may accrue as a result of my
ceaseless endeavors -- thus transmit my admonition to the man of my
indwelling. Upon him I bestow the supreme devotion and affection of a divine
spirit. And say further to my beloved subject that I will function with wisdom
and power until the very end, until the last earth struggle is over; I will be
true to my personality trust. And I exhort him to survival, not to disappoint
me, not to deprive me of the reward of my patient and intense struggle. On the
human will our achievement of personality depends. Circle by circle I have
patiently ascended this human mind, and I have testimony that I am meeting the
approval of the chief of my kind. Circle by circle I am passing on to
judgment. I await with pleasure and without apprehension the roll call of
destiny; I am prepared to submit all to the tribunals of the Ancients of
Days."
110:7.11 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 111
THE ADJUSTER AND THE SOUL
111:0.1 THE presence of the divine Adjuster in the human mind makes it forever
impossible for either science or philosophy to attain a satisfactory
comprehension of the evolving soul of the human personality. The morontia soul
is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic
insight and spiritual discovery.
111:0.2 The concept of a soul and of an indwelling spirit is not new to
Urantia; it has frequently appeared in the various systems of planetary
beliefs. Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have
perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The
feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of
Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions. Men have long
believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something
vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life.
111:0.3 Before man realized that his evolving soul was fathered by a divine
spirit, it was thought to reside in different physical organs -- the eye,
liver, kidney, heart, and later, the brain. The savage associated the soul
with blood, breath, shadows and with reflections of the self in water.
111:0.4 In the conception of the atman the Hindu teachers really approximated
an appreciation of the nature and presence of the Adjuster, but they failed to
distinguish the copresence of the evolving and potentially immortal soul. The
Chinese, however, recognized two aspects of a human being, the yang and the
yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes also
believed in two factors, the ka and the ba; the soul was not usually believed
to be pre-existent, only the spirit.
111:0.5 The inhabitants of the Nile valley believed that each favored
individual had bestowed upon him at birth, or soon thereafter, a protecting
spirit which they called the ka. They taught that this guardian spirit
remained with the mortal subject throughout life and passed before him into
the future estate. On the walls of a temple at Luxor, where is depicted the
birth of Amenhotep III, the little prince is pictured on the arm of the Nile
god, and near him is another child, in appearance identical with the prince,
which is a symbol of that entity which the Egyptians called the ka. This
sculpture was completed in the fifteenth century before Christ.
111:0.6 The ka was thought to be a superior spirit genius which desired to
guide the associated mortal soul into the better paths of temporal living but
more especially to influence the fortunes of the human subject in the
hereafter. When an Egyptian of this period died, it was expected that his ka
would be waiting for him on the other side of the Great River. At first, only
kings were supposed to have kas, but presently all righteous men were believed
to possess them. One Egyptian ruler, speaking of the ka within his heart,
said: "I did not disregard its speech; I feared to transgress its guidance. I
prospered thereby greatly; I was thus successful by reason of that which it
caused me to do; I was distinguished by its guidance." Many believed that the
ka was "an oracle from God in everybody." Many believed that they were to
"spend eternity in gladness of heart in the favor of the God that is in you."
111:0.7 Every race of evolving Urantia mortals has a word equivalent to the
concept of soul. Many primitive peoples believed the soul looked out upon the
world through human eyes; therefore did they so cravenly fear the malevolence
of the evil eye. They have long believed that "the spirit of man is the lamp
of the Lord." The Rig-Veda says: "My mind speaks to my heart."
1. THE MIND ARENA OF CHOICE
111:1.1 Though the work of Adjusters is spiritual in nature, they must,
perforce, do all their work upon an intellectual foundation. Mind is the human
soil from which the spirit Monitor must evolve the morontia soul with the co-
operation of the indwelt personality.
111:1.2 There is a cosmic unity in the several mind levels of the universe of
universes. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as
nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space. On the human
(hence personal) level of intellectual selves the potential of spirit
evolution becomes dominant, with the assent of the mortal mind, because of the
spiritual endowments of the human personality together with the creative
presence of an entity-point of absolute value in such human selves. But such a
spirit dominance of the material mind is conditioned upon two experiences:
This mind must have evolved up through the ministry of the seven adjutant
mind-spirits, and the material (personal) self must choose to co-operate with
the indwelling Adjuster in creating and fostering the morontia self, the
evolutionary and potentially immortal soul.
111:1.3 Material mind is the arena in which human personalities live, are
self-conscious, make decisions, choose God or forsake him, eternalize or
destroy themselves.
111:1.4 Material evolution has provided you a life machine, your body; the
Father himself has endowed you with the purest spirit reality known in the
universe, your Thought Adjuster. But into your hands, subject to your own
decisions, has been given mind, and it is by mind that you live or die. It is
within this mind and with this mind that you make those moral decisions which
enable you to achieve Adjusterlikeness, and that is Godlikeness.
111:1.5 Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for
use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either
accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all
you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul -- the
morontia self -- will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions
which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the
electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia
energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever
completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of
which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what
mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind
is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit
identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man
yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not
so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity.
111:1.6 Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the
discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth
the exquisite melodies of God identification and consequent eternal survival.
The Adjuster bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil
and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and
rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse and self-
seeking human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and
good -- actually great -- in accordance with the spirit-illuminated will of a
God-knowing human being.
111:1.7 Evolutionary mind is only fully stable and dependable when manifesting
itself upon the two extremes of cosmic intellectuality -- the wholly
mechanized and the entirely spiritualized. Between the intellectual extremes
of pure mechanical control and true spirit nature there intervenes that
enormous group of evolving and ascending minds whose stability and
tranquillity are dependent upon personality choice and spirit identification.
111:1.8 But man does not passively, slavishly, surrender his will to the
Adjuster. Rather does he actively, positively, and co-operatively choose to
follow the Adjuster's leading when and as such leading consciously differs
from the desires and impulses of the natural mortal mind. The Adjusters
manipulate but never dominate man's mind against his will; to the Adjusters
the human will is supreme. And they so regard and respect it while they strive
to achieve the spiritual goals of thought adjustment and character
transformation in the almost limitless arena of the evolving human intellect.
111:1.9 Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is
captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the
divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal
survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of
man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal
career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced
sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the
barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine
mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters.
2. NATURE OF THE SOUL
111:2.1 Throughout the mind functions of cosmic intelligence, the totality of
mind is dominant over the parts of intellectual function. Mind, in its
essence, is functional unity; therefore does mind never fail to manifest this
constitutive unity, even when hampered and hindered by the unwise actions and
choices of a misguided self. And this unity of mind invariably seeks for
spirit co-ordination on all levels of its association with selves of will
dignity and ascension prerogatives.
111:2.2 The material mind of mortal man is the cosmic loom that carries the
morontia fabrics on which the indwelling Thought Adjuster threads the spirit
patterns of a universe character of enduring values and divine meanings -- a
surviving soul of ultimate destiny and unending career, a potential finaliter.
111:2.3 The human personality is identified with mind and spirit held together
in functional relationship by life in a material body. This functioning
relationship of such mind and spirit does not result in some combination of
the qualities or attributes of mind and spirit but rather in an entirely new,
original, and unique universe value of potentially eternal endurance, the
soul.
111:2.4 There are three and not two factors in the evolutionary creation of
such an immortal soul. These three antecedents of the morontia human soul are:
111:2.5 1. The human mind and all cosmic influences antecedent thereto and
impinging thereon.
111:2.6 2. The divine spirit indwelling this human mind and all potentials
inherent in such a fragment of absolute spirituality together with all
associated spiritual influences and factors in human life.
111:2.7 3. The relationship between material mind and divine spirit, which
connotes a value and carries a meaning not found in either of the contributing
factors to such an association. The reality of this unique relationship is
neither material nor spiritual but morontial. It is the soul.
111:2.8 The midway creatures have long denominated this evolving soul of man
the mid-mind in contradistinction to the lower or material mind and the higher
or cosmic mind. This mid-mind is really a morontia phenomenon since it exists
in the realm between the material and the spiritual. The potential of such a
morontia evolution is inherent in the two universal urges of mind: the impulse
of the finite mind of the creature to know God and attain the divinity of the
Creator, and the impulse of the infinite mind of the Creator to know man and
attain the experience of the creature.
111:2.9 This supernal transaction of evolving the immortal soul is made
possible because the mortal mind is first personal and second is in contact
with superanimal realities; it possesses a supermaterial endowment of cosmic
ministry which insures the evolution of a moral nature capable of making moral
decisions, thereby effecting a bona fide creative contact with the associated
spiritual ministries and with the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
111:2.10 The inevitable result of such a contactual spiritualization of the
human mind is the gradual birth of a soul, the joint offspring of an adjutant
mind dominated by a human will that craves to know God, working in liaison
with the spiritual forces of the universe which are under the overcontrol of
an actual fragment of the very God of all creation -- the Mystery Monitor. And
thus does the material and mortal reality of the self transcend the temporal
limitations of the physical-life machine and attain a new expression and a new
identification in the evolving vehicle for selfhood continuity, the morontia
and immortal soul.
3. THE EVOLVING SOUL
111:3.1 The mistakes of mortal mind and the errors of human conduct may
markedly delay the evolution of the soul, although they cannot inhibit such a
morontia phenomenon when once it has been initiated by the indwelling Adjuster
with the consent of the creature will. But at any time prior to mortal death
this same material and human will is empowered to rescind such a choice and to
reject survival. Even after survival the ascending mortal still retains this
prerogative of choosing to reject eternal life; at any time before fusion with
the Adjuster the evolving and ascending creature can choose to forsake the
will of the Paradise Father. Fusion with the Adjuster signalizes the fact that
the ascending mortal has eternally and unreservedly chosen to do the Father's
will.
111:3.2 During the life in the flesh the evolving soul is enabled to reinforce
the supermaterial decisions of the mortal mind. The soul, being supermaterial,
does not of itself function on the material level of human experience. Neither
can this subspiritual soul, without the collaboration of some spirit of Deity,
such as the Adjuster, function above the morontia level. Neither does the soul
make final decisions until death or translation divorces it from material
association with the mortal mind except when and as this material mind
delegates such authority freely and willingly to such a morontia soul of
associated function. During life the mortal will, the personality power of
decision-choice, is resident in the material mind circuits; as terrestrial
mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless powers of choice,
becomes increasingly identified with the emerging morontia-soul entity; after
death and following the mansion world resurrection, the human personality is
completely identified with the morontia self. The soul is thus the embryo of
the future morontia vehicle of personality identity.
111:3.3 This immortal soul is at first wholly morontia in nature, but it
possesses such a capacity for development that it invariably ascends to the
true spirit levels of fusion value with the spirits of Deity, usually with the
same spirit of the Universal Father that initiated such a creative phenomenon
in the creature mind.
111:3.4 Both the human mind and the divine Adjuster are conscious of the
presence and differential nature of the evolving soul -- the Adjuster fully,
the mind partially. The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the mind
and the Adjuster as associated identities, proportional to its own
evolutionary growth. The soul partakes of the qualities of both the human mind
and the divine spirit but persistently evolves toward augmentation of spirit
control and divine dominance through the fostering of a mind function whose
meanings seek to co-ordinate with true spirit value.
111:3.5 The mortal career, the soul's evolution, is not so much a probation as
an education. Faith in the survival of supreme values is the core of religion;
genuine religious experience consists in the union of supreme values and
cosmic meanings as a realization of universal reality.
111:3.6 Mind knows quantity, reality, meanings. But quality -- values -- is
felt. That which feels is the mutual creation of mind, which knows, and the
associated spirit, which reality-izes.
111:3.7 In so far as man's evolving morontia soul becomes permeated by truth,
beauty, and goodness as the value-realization of God-consciousness, such a
resultant being becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal
values in the evolving soul of man, then mortal existence is without meaning,
and life itself is a tragic illusion. But it is forever true: What you begin
in time you will assuredly finish in eternity -- if it is worth finishing.
4. THE INNER LIFE
111:4.1 Recognition is the intellectual process of fitting the sensory
impressions received from the external world into the memory patterns of the
individual. Understanding connotes that these recognized sensory impressions
and their associated memory patterns have become integrated or organized into
a dynamic network of principles.
111:4.2 Meanings are derived from a combination of recognition and
understanding. Meanings are nonexistent in a wholly sensory or material world.
Meanings and values are only perceived in the inner or supermaterial spheres
of human experience.
111:4.3 The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of
mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can
hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their
interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer
world.
111:4.4 The inner and the outer worlds have a different set of values. Any
civilization is in jeopardy when three quarters of its youth enter
materialistic professions and devote themselves to the pursuit of the sensory
activities of the outer world. Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to
interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics, philosophy, the fine arts,
religion, and cosmology.
111:4.5 Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind as it impinges
upon the spirit realm of human experience can you find those higher concepts
in association with effective master patterns which will contribute to the
building of a better and more enduring civilization. Personality is inherently
creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual.
111:4.6 Snow crystals are always hexagonal in form, but no two are ever alike.
Children conform to types, but no two are exactly alike, even in the case of
twins. Personality follows types but is always unique.
111:4.7 Happiness and joy take origin in the inner life. You cannot experience
real joy all by yourself. A solitary life is fatal to happiness. Even families
and nations will enjoy life more if they share it with others.
111:4.8 You cannot completely control the external world -- environment. It is
the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction
because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the
laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited
sovereignty of will.
111:4.9 Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each
person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be
spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive.
How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon
it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments,
revenge, and bigotries?
111:4.10 Ideas may take origin in the stimuli of the outer world, but ideals
are born only in the creative realms of the inner world. Today the nations of
the world are directed by men who have a superabundance of ideas, but they are
poverty-stricken in ideals. That is the explanation of poverty, divorce, war,
and racial hatreds.
111:4.11 This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of
creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity
embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is
turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and
sin -- oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity
which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is
evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life -- it is a
species of civil war in the personality.
111:4.12 Inner creativity contributes to ennoblement of character through
personality integration and selfhood unification. It is forever true: The past
is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present
creativity of the inner self.
5. THE CONSECRATION OF CHOICE
111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an
exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God -- with
the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value
possible. Sharing is Godlike -- divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son
and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine
Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes.
111:5.2 The imitation of God is the key to perfection; the doing of his will
is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival.
111:5.3 Mortals live in God, and so God has willed to live in mortals. As men
trust themselves to him, so has he -- and first -- trusted a part of himself
to be with men; has consented to live in men and to indwell men subject to the
human will.
111:5.4 Peace in this life, survival in death, perfection in the next life,
service in eternity -- all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the
creature personality consents -- chooses -- to subject the creature will to
the Father's will. And already has the Father chosen to make a fragment of
himself subject to the will of the creature personality.
111:5.5 Such a creature choice is not a surrender of will. It is a
consecration of will, an expansion of will, a glorification of will, a
perfecting of will; and such choosing raises the creature will from the level
of temporal significance to that higher estate wherein the personality of the
creature son communes with the personality of the spirit Father.
111:5.6 This choosing of the Father's will is the spiritual finding of the
spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature
son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This
choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will -- "Not my
will but yours be done" -- as it consists in the creature's positive
affirmation: "It is my will that your will be done." And if this choice is
made, sooner or later will the God-choosing son find inner union (fusion) with
the indwelling God fragment, while this same perfecting son will find supreme
personality satisfaction in the worship communion of the personality of man
and the personality of his Maker, two personalities whose creative attributes
have eternally joined in self-willed mutuality of expression -- the birth of
another eternal partnership of the will of man and the will of God.
6. THE HUMAN PARADOX
111:6.1 Many of the temporal troubles of mortal man grow out of his twofold
relation to the cosmos. Man is a part of nature -- he exists in nature -- and
yet he is able to transcend nature. Man is finite, but he is indwelt by a
spark of infinity. Such a dual situation not only provides the potential for
evil but also engenders many social and moral situations fraught with much
uncertainty and not a little anxiety.
111:6.2 The courage required to effect the conquest of nature and to transcend
one's self is a courage that might succumb to the temptations of self-pride.
The mortal who can transcend self might yield to the temptation to deify his
own self-consciousness. The mortal dilemma consists in the double fact that
man is in bondage to nature while at the same time he possesses a unique
liberty -- freedom of spiritual choice and action. On material levels man
finds himself subservient to nature, while on spiritual levels he is
triumphant over nature and over all things temporal and finite. Such a paradox
is inseparable from temptation, potential evil, decisional errors, and when
self becomes proud and arrogant, sin may evolve.
111:6.3 The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact
of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite
Creator -- it is the handiwork of his divine Sons -- and therefore it must be
good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives
origin to evil and sin.
111:6.4 The spirit can dominate mind; so mind can control energy. But mind can
control energy only through its own intelligent manipulation of the
metamorphic potentials inherent in the mathematical level of the causes and
effects of the physical domains. Creature mind does not inherently control
energy; that is a Deity prerogative. But creature mind can and does manipulate
energy just in so far as it has become master of the energy secrets of the
physical universe.
111:6.5 When man wishes to modify physical reality, be it himself or his
environment, he succeeds to the extent that he has discovered the ways and
means of controlling matter and directing energy. Unaided mind is impotent to
influence anything material save its own physical mechanism, with which it is
inescapably linked. But through the intelligent use of the body mechanism,
mind can create other mechanisms, even energy relationships and living
relationships, by the utilization of which this mind can increasingly control
and even dominate its physical level in the universe.
111:6.6 Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts.
They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented
together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and
man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to
appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite
repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until
he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these
in his own evolving cosmic philosophy.
111:6.7 The expansion of material knowledge permits a greater intellectual
appreciation of the meanings of ideas and the values of ideals. A human being
can find truth in his inner experience, but he needs a clear knowledge of
facts to apply his personal discovery of truth to the ruthlessly practical
demands of everyday life.
111:6.8 It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of
insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses
spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only
religious confidence -- living faith -- can sustain man amid such difficult
and perplexing problems.
111:6.9 Of all the dangers which beset man's mortal nature and jeopardize his
spiritual integrity, pride is the greatest. Courage is valorous, but egotism
is vainglorious and suicidal. Reasonable self-confidence is not to be
deplored. Man's ability to transcend himself is the one thing which
distinguishes him from the animal kingdom.
111:6.10 Pride is deceitful, intoxicating, and sin-breeding whether found in
an individual, a group, a race, or a nation. It is literally true, "Pride goes
before a fall."
7. THE ADJUSTER'S PROBLEM
111:7.1 Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure --
uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding
Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the
unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite
love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the
universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-
powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father.
111:7.2 May I admonish you to heed the distant echo of the Adjuster's faithful
call to your soul? The indwelling Adjuster cannot stop or even materially
alter your career struggle of time; the Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships
of life as you journey on through this world of toil. The divine indweller can
only patiently forbear while you fight the battle of life as it is lived on
your planet; but you could, if you only would -- as you work and worry, as you
fight and toil -- permit the valiant Adjuster to fight with you and for you.
You could be so comforted and inspired, so enthralled and intrigued, if you
would only allow the Adjuster constantly to bring forth the pictures of the
real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of all this difficult,
uphill struggle with the commonplace problems of your present material world.
111:7.3 Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the
spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? Why do you not
allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power
while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do
you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of
the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the
problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired
by the universe viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and
flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey?
Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your
feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor?
111:7.4 The higher human races of Urantia are complexly admixed; they are a
blend of many races and stocks of different origin. This composite nature
renders it exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to work efficiently during
life and adds definitely to the problems of both the Adjuster and the guardian
seraphim after death. Not long since I was present on Salvington and heard a
guardian of destiny present a formal statement in extenuation of the
difficulties of ministering to her mortal subject. This seraphim said:
111:7.5 "Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the
two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence;
the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race;
the high purposes of a great mind antagonized by the urge of a primitive
inheritance; the long-distance view of a far-seeing Monitor counteracted by
the nearsightedness of a creature of time; the progressive plans of an
ascending being modified by the desires and longings of a material nature; the
flashes of universe intelligence cancelled by the chemical-energy mandates of
the evolving race; the urge of angels opposed by the emotions of an animal;
the training of an intellect annulled by the tendencies of instinct; the
experience of the individual opposed by the accumulated propensities of the
race; the aims of the best overshadowed by the drift of the worst; the flight
of genius neutralized by the gravity of mediocrity; the progress of the good
retarded by the inertia of the bad; the art of the beautiful besmirched by the
presence of evil; the buoyancy of health neutralized by the debility of
disease; the fountain of faith polluted by the poisons of fear; the spring of
joy embittered by the waters of sorrow; the gladness of anticipation
disillusioned by the bitterness of realization; the joys of living ever
threatened by the sorrows of death. Such a life on such a planet! And yet,
because of the ever-present help and urge of the Thought Adjuster, this soul
did achieve a fair degree of happiness and success and has even now ascended
to the judgment halls of mansonia."
111:7.6 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 112
PERSONALITY SURVIVAL
112:0.1 THE evolutionary planets are the spheres of human origin, the initial
worlds of the ascending mortal career. Urantia is your starting point; here
you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. You have
been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the
race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be
yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster. Then will
begin your real life, the ascending life, to which your present mortal state
is but the vestibule. Then will begin your exalted and progressive mission as
finaliters in the eternity which stretches out before you. And throughout all
of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part
of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality --
permanence in the presence of change.
112:0.2 While it would be presumptuous to attempt the definition of
personality, it may prove helpful to recount some of the things which are
known about personality:
112:0.3 1. Personality is that quality in reality which is bestowed by the
Universal Father himself or by the Conjoint Actor, acting for the Father.
112:0.4 2. It may be bestowed upon any living energy system which includes
mind or spirit.
112:0.5 3. It is not wholly subject to the fetters of antecedent causation. It
is relatively creative or cocreative.
112:0.6 4. When bestowed upon evolutionary material creatures, it causes
spirit to strive for the mastery of energy-matter through the mediation of
mind.
112:0.7 5. Personality, while devoid of identity, can unify the identity of
any living energy system.
112:0.8 6. It discloses only qualitative response to the personality circuit
in contradistinction to the three energies which show both qualitative and
quantitative response to gravity.
112:0.9 7. Personality is changeless in the presence of change.
112:0.10 8. It can make a gift to God -- dedication of the free will to the
doing of the will of God.
112:0.11 9. It is characterized by morality -- awareness of relativity of
relationship with other persons. It discerns conduct levels and choosingly
discriminates between them.
112:0.12 10. Personality is unique, absolutely unique: It is unique in time
and space; it is unique in eternity and on Paradise; it is unique when
bestowed -- there are no duplicates; it is unique during every moment of
existence; it is unique in relation to God -- he is no respecter of persons,
but neither does he add them together, for they are nonaddable -- they are
associable but nontotalable.
112:0.13 11. Personality responds directly to other-personality presence.
112:0.14 12. It is one thing which can be added to spirit, thus illustrating
the primacy of the Father in relation to the Son. (Mind does not have to be
added to spirit.)
112:0.15 13. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the
surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality are changeless; the
relationship between them (in the soul) is nothing but change, continuing
evolution; and if this change (growth) ceased, the soul would cease.
112:0.16 14. Personality is uniquely conscious of time, and this is something
other than the time perception of mind or spirit.
1. PERSONALITY AND REALITY
112:1.1 Personality is bestowed by the Universal Father upon his creatures as
a potentially eternal endowment. Such a divine gift is designed to function on
numerous levels and in successive universe situations ranging from the lowly
finite to the highest absonite, even to the borders of the absolute.
Personality thus performs on three cosmic planes or in three universe phases:
112:1.2 1. Position status. Personality functions equally efficiently in the
local universe, in the superuniverse, and in the central universe.
112:1.3 2. Meaning status. Personality performs effectively on the levels of
the finite, the absonite, and even as impinging upon the absolute.
112:1.4 3. Value status. Personality can be experientially realized in the
progressive realms of the material, the morontial, and the spiritual.
112:1.5 Personality has a perfected range of cosmic dimensional performance.
The dimensions of finite personality are three, and they are roughly
functional as follows:
112:1.6 1. Length represents direction and nature of progression -- movement
through space and according to time -- evolution.
112:1.7 2. Vertical depth embraces the organismal drives and attitudes, the
varying levels of self-realization and the general phenomenon of reaction to
environment.
112:1.8 3. Breadth embraces the domain of co-ordination, association, and
selfhood organization.
112:1.9 The type of personality bestowed upon Urantia mortals has a
potentiality of seven dimensions of self-expression or person-realization.
These dimensional phenomena are realizable as three on the finite level, three
on the absonite level, and one on the absolute level. On subabsolute levels
this seventh or totality dimension is experiencible as the fact of
personality. This supreme dimension is an associable absolute and, while not
infinite, is dimensionally potential for subinfinite penetration of the
absolute.
112:1.10 The finite dimensions of personality have to do with cosmic length,
depth, and breadth. Length denotes meaning; depth signifies value; breadth
embraces insight -- the capacity to experience unchallengeable consciousness
of cosmic reality.
112:1.11 On the morontia level all of these finite dimensions of the material
level are greatly enhanced, and certain new dimensional values are realizable.
All these enlarged dimensional experiences of the morontia level are
marvelously articulated with the supreme or personality dimension through the
influence of mota and also because of the contribution of morontia
mathematics.
112:1.12 Much trouble experienced by mortals in their study of human
personality could be avoided if the finite creature would remember that
dimensional levels and spiritual levels are not co-ordinated in experiential
personality realization.
112:1.13 Life is really a process which takes place between the organism
(selfhood) and its environment. The personality imparts value of identity and
meanings of continuity to this organismal-environmental association. Thus it
will be recognized that the phenomenon of stimulus-response is not a mere
mechanical process since the personality functions as a factor in the total
situation. It is ever true that mechanisms are innately passive; organisms,
inherently active.
112:1.14 Physical life is a process taking place not so much within the
organism as between the organism and the environment. And every such process
tends to create and establish organismal patterns of reaction to such an
environment. And all such directive patterns are highly influential in goal
choosing.
112:1.15 It is through the mediation of mind that the self and the environment
establish meaningful contact. The ability and willingness of the organism to
make such significant contacts with environment (response to a drive)
represents the attitude of the whole personality.
112:1.16 Personality cannot very well perform in isolation. Man is innately a
social creature; he is dominated by the craving of belongingness. It is
literally true, "No man lives unto himself."
112:1.17 But the concept of the personality as the meaning of the whole of the
living and functioning creature means much more than the integration of
relationships; it signifies the unification of all factors of reality as well
as co-ordination of relationships. Relationships exist between two objects,
but three or more objects eventuate a system, and such a system is much more
than just an enlarged or complex relationship. This distinction is vital, for
in a cosmic system the individual members are not connected with each other
except in relation to the whole and through the individuality of the whole.
112:1.18 In the human organism the summation of its parts constitutes selfhood
-- individuality -- but such a process has nothing whatever to do with
personality, which is the unifier of all these factors as related to cosmic
realities.
112:1.19 In aggregations parts are added; in systems parts are arranged.
Systems are significant because of organization -- positional values. In a
good system all factors are in cosmic position. In a bad system something is
either missing or displaced -- deranged. In the human system it is the
personality which unifies all activities and in turn imparts the qualities of
identity and creativity.
2. THE SELF
112:2.1 It would be helpful in the study of selfhood to remember:
1. That physical systems are subordinate.
2. That intellectual systems are co-ordinate.
3. That personality is superordinate.
4. That the indwelling spiritual force is potentially directive.
112:2.2 In all concepts of selfhood it should be recognized that the fact of
life comes first, its evaluation or interpretation later. The human child
first lives and subsequently thinks about his living. In the cosmic economy
insight precedes foresight.
112:2.3 The universe fact of God's becoming man has forever changed all
meanings and altered all values of human personality. In the true meaning of
the word, love connotes mutual regard of whole personalities, whether human or
divine or human and divine. Parts of the self may function in numerous ways --
thinking, feeling, wishing -- but only the co-ordinated attributes of the
whole personality are focused in intelligent action; and all of these powers
are associated with the spiritual endowment of the mortal mind when a human
being sincerely and unselfishly loves another being, human or divine.
112:2.4 All mortal concepts of reality are based on the assumption of the
actuality of human personality; all concepts of superhuman realities are based
on the experience of the human personality with and in the cosmic realities of
certain associated spiritual entities and divine personalities. Everything
nonspiritual in human experience, excepting personality, is a means to an end.
Every true relationship of mortal man with other persons -- human or divine --
is an end in itself. And such fellowship with the personality of Deity is the
eternal goal of universe ascension.
112:2.5 The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being
since the unity of selfhood and the self-consciousness of personality are
endowments of the supermaterial world. The very fact that a mortal materialist
can deny the existence of supermaterial realities in and of itself
demonstrates the presence, and indicates the working, of spirit synthesis and
cosmic consciousness in his human mind.
112:2.6 There exists a great cosmic gulf between matter and thought, and this
gulf is immeasurably greater between material mind and spiritual love.
Consciousness, much less self-consciousness, cannot be explained by any theory
of mechanistic electronic association or materialistic energy phenomena.
112:2.7 As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to
the material senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight
pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and
pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of
spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual
nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must
surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience.
Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and
reflective worship.
112:2.8 In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is
the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true
spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of
the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the
energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on
an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are
initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The
observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of
transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.
112:2.9 In time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to worship; in
eternity, worship leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of
thought.
112:2.10 The possibility of the unification of the evolving self is inherent
in the qualities of its constitutive factors: the basic energies, the master
tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol, the supreme ideas, the supreme
motives, the supreme goals, and the divine spirit of Paradise bestowal -- the
secret of the self-consciousness of man's spiritual nature.
112:2.11 The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality
through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and
leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is
characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called "the evolution
of dominance," the expansion of the control of both itself and its
environment.
112:2.12 An ascending onetime human personality passes through two great
phases of increasing volitional dominance over the self and in the universe:
112:2.13 1. The prefinaliter or God-seeking experience of augmenting the self-
realization through a technique of identity expansion and actualization
together with cosmic problem solving and consequent universe mastery.
112:2.14 2. The postfinaliter or God-revealing experience of the creative
expansion of self-realization through revealing the Supreme Being of
experience to the God-seeking intelligences who have not yet attained the
divine levels of Godlikeness.
112:2.15 Descending personalities attain analogous experiences through their
various universe adventures as they seek for enlarged capacity for
ascertaining and executing the divine wills of the Supreme, Ultimate, and
Absolute Deities.
112:2.16 The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent
during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life
vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies
and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of
survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only
evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of
the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle -- the material body
-- to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond
to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains
the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association
to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and
steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.
3. THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH
112:3.1 Urantians generally recognize only one kind of death, the physical
cessation of life energies; but concerning personality survival there are
really three kinds:
112:3.2 1. Spiritual (soul) death. If and when mortal man has finally rejected
survival, when he has been pronounced spiritually insolvent, morontially
bankrupt, in the conjoint opinion of the Adjuster and the surviving seraphim,
when such co-ordinate advice has been recorded on Uversa, and after the
Censors and their reflective associates have verified these findings,
thereupon do the rulers of Orvonton order the immediate release of the
indwelling Monitor. But this release of the Adjuster in no way affects the
duties of the personal or group seraphim concerned with that Adjuster-
abandoned individual. This kind of death is final in its significance
irrespective of the temporary continuation of the living energies of the
physical and mind mechanisms. From the cosmic standpoint the mortal is already
dead; the continuing life merely indicates the persistence of the material
momentum of cosmic energies.
112:3.3 2. Intellectual (mind) death. When the vital circuits of higher
adjutant ministry are disrupted through the aberrations of intellect or
because of the partial destruction of the mechanism of the brain, and if these
conditions pass a certain critical point of irreparability, the indwelling
Adjuster is immediately released to depart for Divinington. On the universe
records a mortal personality is considered to have met with death whenever the
essential mind circuits of human will-action have been destroyed. And again,
this is death, irrespective of the continuing function of the living mechanism
of the physical body. The body minus the volitional mind is no longer human,
but according to the prior choosing of the human will, the soul of such an
individual may survive.
112:3.4 3. Physical (body and mind) death. When death overtakes a human being,
the Adjuster remains in the citadel of the mind until it ceases to function as
an intelligent mechanism, about the time that the measurable brain energies
cease their rhythmic vital pulsations. Following this dissolution the Adjuster
takes leave of the vanishing mind, just as unceremoniously as entry was made
years before, and proceeds to Divinington by way of Uversa.
112:3.5 After death the material body returns to the elemental world from
which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality
persist: The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of
the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; and there also remains, in the
custody of the destiny guardian, the immortal morontia soul of the deceased
human. These phases and forms of soul, these once kinetic but now static
formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the morontia
worlds; and it is the reunion of the Adjuster and the soul that reassembles
the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of the
morontia awakening.
112:3.6 For those who do not have personal seraphic guardians, the group
custodians faithfully and efficiently perform the same service of identity
safekeeping and personality resurrection. The seraphim are indispensable to
the reassembly of personality.
112:3.7 Upon death the Thought Adjuster temporarily loses personality, but not
identity; the human subject temporarily loses identity, but not personality;
on the mansion worlds both reunite in eternal manifestation. Never does a
departed Thought Adjuster return to earth as the being of former indwelling;
never is personality manifested without the human will; and never does a dis-
Adjustered human being after death manifest active identity or in any manner
establish communication with the living beings of earth. Such dis-Adjustered
souls are wholly and absolutely unconscious during the long or short sleep of
death. There can be no exhibition of any sort of personality or ability to
engage in communications with other personalities until after completion of
survival. Those who go to the mansion worlds are not permitted to send
messages back to their loved ones. It is the policy throughout the universes
to forbid such communication during the period of a current dispensation.
4. ADJUSTERS AFTER DEATH
112:4.1 When death of a material, intellectual, or spiritual nature occurs,
the Adjuster bids farewell to the mortal host and departs for Divinington.
From the headquarters of the local universe and the superuniverse a reflective
contact is made with the supervisors of both governments, and the Monitor is
registered out by the same number that recorded entry into the domains of
time.
112:4.2 In some way not fully understood, the Universal Censors are able to
gain possession of an epitome of the human life as it is embodied in the
Adjuster's duplicate transcription of the spiritual values and morontia
meanings of the indwelt mind. The Censors are able to appropriate the
Adjuster's version of the deceased human's survival character and spiritual
qualities, and all this data, together with the seraphic records, is available
for presentation at the time of the adjudication of the individual concerned.
This information is also used to confirm those superuniverse mandates which
make it possible for certain ascenders immediately to begin their morontia
careers, upon mortal dissolution to proceed to the mansion worlds ahead of the
formal termination of a planetary dispensation.
112:4.3 Subsequent to physical death, except in individuals translated from
among the living, the released Adjuster goes immediately to the home sphere of
Divinington. The details of what transpires on that world during the time of
awaiting the factual reappearance of the surviving mortal depend chiefly on
whether the human being ascends to the mansion worlds in his own individual
right or awaits a dispensational summoning of the sleeping survivors of a
planetary age.
112:4.4 If the mortal associate belongs to a group that will be repersonalized
at the end of a dispensation, the Adjuster will not immediately return to the
mansion world of the former system of service but will, according to choice,
enter upon one of the following temporary assignments:
1. Be mustered into the ranks of vanished Monitors for undisclosed service.
2. Be assigned for a period to the observation of the Paradise regime.
3. Be enrolled in one of the many training schools of Divinington.
4. Be stationed for a time as a student observer on one of the other six sacred
spheres which constitute the Father's circuit of Paradise worlds.
5. Be assigned to the messenger service of the Personalized Adjusters.
6. Become an associate instructor in the Divinington schools devoted to the
training of Monitors belonging to the virgin group.
7. Be assigned to select a group of possible worlds on which to serve in the
event that there is reasonable cause for believing that the human partner may
have rejected survival.
112:4.5 If, when death overtakes you, you have attained the third circle or a
higher realm and therefore have had assigned to you a personal guardian of
destiny, and if the final transcript of the summary of survival character
submitted by the Adjuster is unconditionally certified by the destiny guardian
-- if both seraphim and Adjuster essentially agree in every item of their life
records and recommendations -- if the Universal Censors and their reflective
associates on Uversa confirm this data and do so without equivocation or
reservation, in that event the Ancients of Days flash forth the mandate of
advanced standing over the communication circuits to Salvington, and, thus
released, the tribunals of the Sovereign of Nebadon will decree the immediate
passage of the surviving soul to the resurrection halls of the mansion worlds.
112:4.6 If the human individual survives without delay, the Adjuster, so I am
instructed, registers at Divinington, proceeds to the Paradise presence of the
Universal Father, returns immediately and is embraced by the Personalized
Adjusters of the superuniverse and local universe of assignment, receives the
recognition of the chief Personalized Monitor of Divinington, and then, at
once, passes into the "realization of identity transition," being summoned
therefrom on the third period and on the mansion world in the actual
personality form made ready for the reception of the surviving soul of the
earth mortal as that form has been projected by the guardian of destiny.
5. SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN SELF
112:5.1 Selfhood is a cosmic reality whether material, morontial, or
spiritual. The actuality of the personal is the bestowal of the Universal
Father acting in and of himself or through his manifold universe agencies. To
say that a being is personal is to recognize the relative individuation of
such a being within the cosmic organism. The living cosmos is an all but
infinitely integrated aggregation of real units, all of which are relatively
subject to the destiny of the whole. But those that are personal have been
endowed with the actual choice of destiny acceptance or of destiny rejection.
112:5.2 That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this
is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as
it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man's
personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal
reality. Having appeared in response to the Father's will, personality will
attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at
the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains
experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle
is foreordained, but man's participation therein is optional, personal, and
experiential.
112:5.3 Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it
is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing
universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an
energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has
everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the
path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding,
his freewill choosing.
112:5.4 Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such
qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in
the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it
is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed
in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human
personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just
as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human
beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative
instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its
own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from
the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system
which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle
for personality manifestation.
112:5.5 And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill
creaturehood, that constitutes man's greatest opportunity and his supreme
cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the
eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free
will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the
faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization
of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions
the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.
112:5.6 Though the cosmic circles of personality growth must eventually be
attained, if, through no fault of your own, the accidents of time and the
handicaps of material existence prevent your mastering these levels on your
native planet, if your intentions and desires are of survival value, there are
issued the decrees of probation extension. You will be afforded additional
time in which to prove yourself.
112:5.7 If ever there is doubt as to the advisability of advancing a human
identity to the mansion worlds, the universe governments invariably rule in
the personal interests of that individual; they unhesitatingly advance such a
soul to the status of a transitional being, while they continue their
observations of the emerging morontia intent and spiritual purpose. Thus
divine justice is certain of achievement, and divine mercy is accorded further
opportunity for extending its ministry.
112:5.8 The governments of Orvonton and Nebadon do not claim absolute
perfection for the detail working of the universal plan of mortal
repersonalization, but they do claim to, and actually do, manifest patience,
tolerance, understanding, and merciful sympathy. We had rather assume the risk
of a system rebellion than to court the hazard of depriving one struggling
mortal from any evolutionary world of the eternal joy of pursuing the
ascending career.
112:5.9 This does not mean that human beings are to enjoy a second opportunity
in the face of the rejection of a first, not at all. But it does signify that
all will creatures are to experience one true opportunity to make one
undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice. The sovereign Judges of the
universes will not deprive any being of personality status who has not finally
and fully made the eternal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full
and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.
112:5.10 When the more spiritually and cosmically advanced mortals die, they
proceed immediately to the mansion worlds; in general, this provision operates
with those who have had assigned to them personal seraphic guardians. Other
mortals may be detained until such time as the adjudication of their affairs
has been completed, after which they may proceed to the mansion worlds, or
they may be assigned to the ranks of the sleeping survivors who will be
repersonalized en masse at the end of the current planetary dispensation.
112:5.11 There are two difficulties that hamper my efforts to explain just
what happens to you in death, the surviving you which is distinct from the
departing Adjuster. One of these consists in the impossibility of conveying to
your level of comprehension an adequate description of a transaction on the
borderland of the physical and morontia realms. The other is brought about by
the restrictions placed upon my commission as a revelator of truth by the
celestial governing authorities of Urantia. There are many interesting details
which might be presented, but I withhold them upon the advice of your
immediate planetary supervisors. But within the limits of my permission I can
say this much:
112:5.12 There is something real, something of human evolution, something
additional to the Mystery Monitor, which survives death. This newly appearing
entity is the soul, and it survives the death of both your physical body and
your material mind. This entity is the conjoint child of the combined life and
efforts of the human you in liaison with the divine you, the Adjuster. This
child of human and divine parentage constitutes the surviving element of
terrestrial origin; it is the morontia self, the immortal soul.
112:5.13 This child of persisting meaning and surviving value is wholly
unconscious during the period from death to repersonalization and is in the
keeping of the seraphic destiny guardian throughout this season of waiting.
You will not function as a conscious being, following death, until you attain
the new consciousness of morontia on the mansion worlds of Satania.
112:5.14 At death the functional identity associated with the human
personality is disrupted through the cessation of vital motion. Human
personality, while transcending its constituent parts, is dependent on them
for functional identity. The stoppage of life destroys the physical brain
patterns for mind endowment, and the disruption of mind terminates mortal
consciousness. The consciousness of that creature cannot subsequently reappear
until a cosmic situation has been arranged which will permit the same human
personality again to function in relationship with living energy.
112:5.15 During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to
the mansion worlds, whether they experience personality reassembly on the
third period or ascend at the time of a group resurrection, the record of
personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their
worlds of special activities. These beings are not the custodians of
personality (as the guardian seraphim are of the soul), but it is nonetheless
true that every identifiable factor of personality is effectually safeguarded
in the custody of these dependable trustees of mortal survival. As to the
exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening between
death and survival, we do not know.
112:5.16 The situation which makes repersonalization possible is brought about
in the resurrection halls of the morontia receiving planets of a local
universe. Here in these life-assembly chambers the supervising authorities
provide that relationship of universe energy -- morontial, mindal, and
spiritual -- which makes possible the reconsciousizing of the sleeping
survivor. The reassembly of the constituent parts of a onetime material
personality involves:
112:5.17 1. The fabrication of a suitable form, a morontia energy pattern, in
which the new survivor can make contact with nonspiritual reality, and within
which the morontia variant of the cosmic mind can be encircuited.
112:5.18 2. The return of the Adjuster to the waiting morontia creature. The
Adjuster is the eternal custodian of your ascending identity; your Monitor is
the absolute assurance that you yourself and not another will occupy the
morontia form created for your personality awakening. And the Adjuster will be
present at your personality reassembly to take up once more the role of
Paradise guide to your surviving self.
112:5.19 3. When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled,
the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul,
with the assistance of numerous cosmic personalities, bestows this morontia
entity upon and in the awaiting morontia mind-body form while committing this
evolutionary child of the Supreme to eternal association with the waiting
Adjuster. And this completes the repersonalization, reassembly of memory,
insight, and consciousness -- identity.
112:5.20 The fact of repersonalization consists in the seizure of the
encircuited morontia phase of the newly segregated cosmic mind by the
awakening human self. The phenomenon of personality is dependent on the
persistence of the identity of selfhood reaction to universe environment; and
this can only be effected through the medium of mind. Selfhood persists in
spite of a continuous change in all the factor components of self; in the
physical life the change is gradual; at death and upon repersonalization the
change is sudden. The true reality of all selfhood (personality) is able to
function responsively to universe conditions by virtue of the unceasing
changing of its constituent parts; stagnation terminates in inevitable death.
Human life is an endless change of the factors of life unified by the
stability of the unchanging personality.
112:5.21 And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will
be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not
for your Thought Adjuster and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up
your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you
would at first have difficulty in connecting the new morontia consciousness
with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the
continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem
to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.
112:5.22 The Thought Adjuster will recall and rehearse for you only those
memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe
career. If the Adjuster has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the
human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal
consciousness of the Adjuster. But much of your past life and its memories,
having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia value, will perish with the
material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime
scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the morontia level, no longer
serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships
between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality
relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you
will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by,
your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.
6. THE MORONTIA SELF
112:6.1 Just as a butterfly emerges from the caterpillar stage, so will the
true personalities of human beings emerge on the mansion worlds, for the first
time revealed apart from their onetime enshroudment in the material flesh. The
morontia career in the local universe has to do with the continued elevation
of the personality mechanism from the beginning morontia level of soul
existence up to the final morontia level of progressive spirituality.
112:6.2 It is difficult to instruct you regarding your morontia personality
forms for the local universe career. You will be endowed with morontia
patterns of personality manifestability, and these are investments which, in
the last analysis, are beyond your comprehension. Such forms, while entirely
real, are not energy patterns of the material order which you now understand.
They do, however, serve the same purpose on the local universe worlds as do
your material bodies on the planets of human nativity.
112:6.3 To a certain extent, the appearance of the material body-form is
responsive to the character of the personality identity; the physical body
does, to a limited degree, reflect something of the inherent nature of the
personality. Still more so does the morontia form. In the physical life,
mortals may be outwardly beautiful though inwardly unlovely; in the morontia
life, and increasingly on its higher levels, the personality form will vary
directly in accordance with the nature of the inner person. On the spiritual
level, outward form and inner nature begin to approximate complete
identification, which grows more and more perfect on higher and higher spirit
levels.
112:6.4 In the morontia estate the ascending mortal is endowed with the
Nebadon modification of the cosmic-mind endowment of the Master Spirit of
Orvonton. The mortal intellect, as such, has perished, has ceased to exist as
a focalized universe entity apart from the undifferentiated mind circuits of
the Creative Spirit. But the meanings and values of the mortal mind have not
perished. Certain phases of mind are continued in the surviving soul; certain
experiential values of the former human mind are held by the Adjuster; and
there persist in the local universe the records of the human life as it was
lived in the flesh, together with certain living registrations in the numerous
beings who are concerned with the final evaluation of the ascending mortal,
beings extending in range from seraphim to Universal Censors and probably on
beyond to the Supreme.
112:6.5 Creature volition cannot exist without mind, but it does persist in
spite of the loss of the material intellect. During the times immediately
following survival, the ascending personality is in great measure guided by
the character patterns inherited from the human life and by the newly
appearing action of morontia mota. And these guides to mansonia conduct
function acceptably in the early stages of the morontia life and prior to the
emergence of morontia will as a full-fledged volitional expression of the
ascending personality.
112:6.6 There are no influences in the local universe career comparable to the
seven adjutant mind-spirits of human existence. The morontia mind must evolve
by direct contact with cosmic mind, as this cosmic mind has been modified and
translated by the creative source of local universe intellect -- the Divine
Minister.
112:6.7 Mortal mind, prior to death, is self-consciously independent of the
Adjuster presence; adjutant mind needs only the associated material-energy
pattern to enable it to operate. But the morontia soul, being superadjutant,
does not retain self-consciousness without the Adjuster when deprived of the
material-mind mechanism. This evolving soul does, however, possess a
continuing character derived from the decisions of its former associated
adjutant mind, and this character becomes active memory when the patterns
thereof are energized by the returning Adjuster.
112:6.8 The persistence of memory is proof of the retention of the identity of
original selfhood; it is essential to complete self-consciousness of
personality continuity and expansion. Those mortals who ascend without
Adjusters are dependent on the instruction of seraphic associates for the
reconstruction of human memory; otherwise the morontia souls of the Spirit-
fused mortals are not limited. The pattern of memory persists in the soul, but
this pattern requires the presence of the former Adjuster to become
immediately self-realizable as continuing memory. Without the Adjuster, it
requires considerable time for the mortal survivor to re-explore and relearn,
to recapture, the memory consciousness of the meanings and values of a former
existence.
112:6.9 The soul of survival value faithfully reflects both the qualitative
and the quantitative actions and motivations of the material intellect, the
former seat of the identity of selfhood. In the choosing of truth, beauty, and
goodness, the mortal mind enters upon its premorontia universe career under
the tutelage of the seven adjutant mind-spirits unified under the direction of
the spirit of wisdom. Subsequently, upon the completion of the seven circles
of premorontia attainment, the superimposition of the endowment of morontia
mind upon adjutant mind initiates the prespiritual or morontia career of local
universe progression.
112:6.10 When a creature leaves his native planet, he leaves the adjutant
ministry behind and becomes solely dependent on morontia intellect. When an
ascender leaves the local universe, he has attained the spiritual level of
existence, having passed beyond the morontia level. This newly appearing
spirit entity then becomes attuned to the direct ministry of the cosmic mind
of Orvonton.
7. ADJUSTER FUSION
112:7.1 Thought Adjuster fusion imparts eternal actualities to personality
which were previously only potential. Among these new endowments may be
mentioned: fixation of divinity quality, past-eternity experience and memory,
immortality, and a phase of qualified potential absoluteness.
112:7.2 When your earthly course in temporary form has been run, you are to
awaken on the shores of a better world, and eventually you will be united with
your faithful Adjuster in an eternal embrace. And this fusion constitutes the
mystery of making God and man one, the mystery of finite creature evolution,
but it is eternally true. Fusion is the secret of the sacred sphere of
Ascendington, and no creature, save those who have experienced fusion with the
spirit of Deity, can comprehend the true meaning of the actual values which
are conjoined when the identity of a creature of time becomes eternally one
with the spirit of Paradise Deity.
112:7.3 Fusion with the Adjuster is usually effected while the ascender is
resident within his local system. It may occur on the planet of nativity as a
transcendence of natural death; it may take place on any one of the mansion
worlds or on the headquarters of the system; it may even be delayed until the
time of the constellation sojourn; or, in special instances, it may not be
consummated until the ascender is on the local universe capital.
112:7.4 When fusion with the Adjuster has been effected, there can be no
future danger to the eternal career of such a personality. Celestial beings
are tested throughout a long experience, but mortals pass through a relatively
short and intensive testing on the evolutionary and morontia worlds.
112:7.5 Fusion with the Adjuster never occurs until the mandates of the
superuniverse have pronounced that the human nature has made a final and
irrevocable choice for the eternal career. This is the at-onement
authorization, which, when issued, constitutes the clearance authority for the
fused personality eventually to leave the confines of the local universe to
proceed sometime to the headquarters of the superuniverse, from which point
the pilgrim of time will, in the distant future, enseconaphim for the long
flight to the central universe of Havona and the Deity adventure.
112:7.6 On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material; it is a thing in the
universe and as such is subject to the laws of material existence. It is a
fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes thereof. Survival decisions
must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and
more enduring universe reality, and its continuing growth is predicated on its
increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes.
Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the
spiritual level, it has become a secure value in the universe, and this new
value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made,
which fact has been witnessed by eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster. And
having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes
liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value -- God.
112:7.7 Such fused beings are twofold in their universe reactions: They are
discrete morontia individuals not altogether unlike seraphim, and they are
also beings in potential on the order of the Paradise finaliters.
112:7.8 But the fused individual is really one personality, one being, whose
unity defies all attempts at analysis by any intelligence of the universes.
And so, having passed the tribunals of the local universe from the lowest to
the highest, none of which have been able to identify man or Adjuster, the one
apart from the other, you shall finally be taken before the Sovereign of
Nebadon, your local universe Father. And there, at the hand of the very being
whose creative fatherhood in this universe of time has made possible the fact
of your life, you will be granted those credentials which entitle you
eventually to proceed upon your superuniverse career in quest of the Universal
Father.
112:7.9 Has the triumphant Adjuster won personality by the magnificent service
to humanity, or has the valiant human acquired immortality through sincere
efforts to achieve Adjusterlikeness? It is neither; but they together have
achieved the evolution of a member of one of the unique orders of the
ascending personalities of the Supreme, one who will ever be found
serviceable, faithful, and efficient, a candidate for further growth and
development, ever ranging upward and never ceasing the supernal ascent until
the seven circuits of Havona have been traversed and the onetime soul of
earthly origin stands in worshipful recognition of the actual personality of
the Father on Paradise.
112:7.10 Throughout all this magnificent ascent the Thought Adjuster is the
divine pledge of the future and full spiritual stabilization of the ascending
mortal. Meanwhile the presence of the mortal free will affords the Adjuster an
eternal channel for the liberation of the divine and infinite nature. Now have
these two identities become one; no event of time or of eternity can ever
separate man and Adjuster; they are inseparable, eternally fused.
112:7.11 On the Adjuster-fusion worlds the destiny of the Mystery Monitor is
identical with that of the ascending mortal -- the Paradise Corps of the
Finality. And neither Adjuster nor mortal can attain that unique goal without
the full co-operation and faithful help of the other. This extraordinary
partnership is one of the most engrossing and amazing of all the cosmic
phenomena of this universe age.
112:7.12 From the time of Adjuster fusion the status of the ascender is that
of the evolutionary creature. The human member was the first to enjoy
personality and, therefore, outranks the Adjuster in all matters concerned
with the recognition of personality. The Paradise headquarters of this fused
being is Ascendington, not Divinington, and this unique combination of God and
man ranks as an ascending mortal all the way up to the Corps of the Finality.
112:7.13 When once an Adjuster fuses with an ascending mortal, the number of
that Adjuster is stricken from the records of the superuniverse. What happens
on the records of Divinington, I do not know, but I surmise that the registry
of that Adjuster is removed to the secret circles of the inner courts of
Grandfanda, the acting head of the Corps of the Finality.
112:7.14 With Adjuster fusion the Universal Father has completed his promise
of the gift of himself to his material creatures; he has fulfilled the
promise, and consummated the plan, of the eternal bestowal of divinity upon
humanity. Now begins the human attempt to realize and to actualize the
limitless possibilities that are inherent in the supernal partnership with God
which has thus factualized.
112:7.15 The present known destiny of surviving mortals is the Paradise Corps
of the Finality; this is also the goal of destiny for all Thought Adjusters
who become joined in eternal union with their mortal companions. At present
the Paradise finaliters are working throughout the grand universe in many
undertakings, but we all conjecture that they will have other and even more
supernal tasks to perform in the distant future after the seven superuniverses
have become settled in light and life, and when the finite God has finally
emerged from the mystery which now surrounds this Supreme Deity.
112:7.16 You have been instructed to a certain extent about the organization
and personnel of the central universe, the superuniverses, and the local
universes; you have been told something about the character and origin of some
of the various personalities who now rule these far-flung creations. You have
also been informed that there are in process of organization vast galaxies of
universes far out beyond the periphery of the grand universe, in the first
outer space level. It has also been intimated in the course of these
narratives that the Supreme Being is to disclose his unrevealed tertiary
function in these now uncharted regions of outer space; and you have also been
told that the finaliters of the Paradise corps are the experiential children
of the Supreme.
112:7.17 We believe that the mortals of Adjuster fusion, together with their
finaliter associates, are destined to function in some manner in the
administration of the universes of the first outer space level. We have not
the slightest doubt that in due time these enormous galaxies will become
inhabited universes. And we are equally convinced that among the
administrators thereof will be found the Paradise finaliters whose natures are
the cosmic consequence of the blending of creature and Creator.
112:7.18 What an adventure! What a romance! A gigantic creation to be
administered by the children of the Supreme, these personalized and humanized
Adjusters, these Adjusterized and eternalized mortals, these mysterious
combinations and eternal associations of the highest known manifestation of
the essence of the First Source and Center and the lowest form of intelligent
life capable of comprehending and attaining the Universal Father. We conceive
that such amalgamated beings, such partnerships of Creator and creature, will
become superb rulers, matchless administrators, and understanding and
sympathetic directors of any and all forms of intelligent life which may come
into existence throughout these future universes of the first outer space
level.
112:7.19 True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is
indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the
heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the
universes in your true characters -- children of the Supreme God of experience
and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities.
112:7.20 Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.
PAPER 113
SERAPHIC GUARDIANS OF DESTINY
113:0.1 HAVING presented the narratives of the Ministering Spirits of Time and
the Messenger Hosts of Space, we come to the consideration of the guardian
angels, seraphim devoted to the ministry to individual mortals, for whose
elevation and perfection all of the vast survival scheme of spiritual
progression has been provided. In past ages on Urantia, these destiny
guardians were about the only group of angels that had recognition. The
planetary seraphim are indeed ministering spirits sent forth to do service for
those who shall survive. These attending seraphim have functioned as the
spiritual helpers of mortal man in all the great events of the past and the
present. In many a revelation "the word was spoken by angels"; many of the
mandates of heaven have been "received by the ministry of angels."
113:0.2 Seraphim are the traditional angels of heaven; they are the
ministering spirits who live so near you and do so much for you. They have
ministered on Urantia since the earliest times of human intelligence.
1. THE GUARDIAN ANGELS
113:1.1 The teaching about guardian angels is not a myth; certain groups of
human beings do actually have personal angels. It was in recognition of this
that Jesus, in speaking of the children of the heavenly kingdom, said: "Take
heed that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say to you, their
angels do always behold the presence of the spirit of my Father."
113:1.2 Originally, the seraphim were definitely assigned to the separate
Urantia races. But since the bestowal of Michael, they are assigned in
accordance with human intelligence, spirituality, and destiny. Intellectually,
mankind is divided into three classes:
113:1.3 1. The subnormal minded -- those who do not exercise normal will
power; those who do not make average decisions. This class embraces those who
cannot comprehend God; they lack capacity for the intelligent worship of
Deity. The subnormal beings of Urantia have a corps of seraphim, one company,
with one battalion of cherubim, assigned to minister to them and to witness
that justice and mercy are extended to them in the life struggles of the
sphere.
113:1.4 2. The average, normal type of human mind. From the standpoint of
seraphic ministry, most men and women are grouped in seven classes in
accordance with their status in making the circles of human progress and
spiritual development.
113:1.5 3. The supernormal minded -- those of great decision and undoubted
potential of spiritual achievement; men and women who enjoy more or less
contact with their indwelling Adjusters; members of the various reserve corps
of destiny. No matter in what circle a human happens to be, if such an
individual becomes enrolled in any of the several reserve corps of destiny,
right then and there, personal seraphim are assigned, and from that time until
the earthly career is finished, that mortal will enjoy the continuous ministry
and unceasing watchcare of a guardian angel. Also, when any human being makes
the supreme decision, when there is a real betrothal with the Adjuster, a
personal guardian is immediately assigned to that soul.
113:1.6 In the ministry to so-called normal beings, seraphic assignments are
made in accordance with the human attainment of the circles of intellectuality
and spirituality. You start out in your mind of mortal investment in the
seventh circle and journey inward in the task of self-understanding, self-
conquest, and self-mastery; and circle by circle you advance until (if natural
death does not terminate your career and transfer your struggles to the
mansion worlds) you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and
communion with the indwelling Adjuster.
113:1.7 Human beings in the initial or seventh circle have one guardian angel
with one company of assisting cherubim assigned to the watchcare and custody
of one thousand mortals. In the sixth circle, a seraphic pair with one company
of cherubim is assigned to guide these ascending mortals in groups of five
hundred. When the fifth circle is attained, human beings are grouped in
companies of approximately one hundred, and a pair of guardian seraphim with a
group of cherubim is placed in charge. Upon attainment of the fourth circle,
mortal beings are assembled in groups of ten, and again charge is given to a
pair of seraphim, assisted by one company of cherubim.
113:1.8 When a mortal mind breaks through the inertia of animal legacy and
attains the third circle of human intellectuality and acquired spirituality, a
personal angel (in reality two) will henceforth be wholly and exclusively
devoted to this ascending mortal. And thus these human souls, in addition to
the ever-present and increasingly efficient indwelling Thought Adjusters,
receive the undivided assistance of these personal guardians of destiny in all
their efforts to finish the third circle, traverse the second, and attain the
first.
2. THE DESTINY GUARDIANS
113:2.1 Seraphim are not known as guardians of destiny until such time as they
are assigned to the association of a human soul who has realized one or more
of three achievements: has made a supreme decision to become Godlike, has
entered the third circle, or has been mustered into one of the reserve corps
of destiny.
113:2.2 In the evolution of races a guardian of destiny is assigned to the
very first being who attains the requisite circle of conquest. On Urantia the
first mortal to secure a personal guardian was Rantowoc, a wise man of the red
race of long ago.
113:2.3 All angelic assignments are made from a group of volunteering
seraphim, and these appointments are always in accordance with human needs and
with regard to the status of the angelic pair -- in the light of seraphic
experience, skill, and wisdom. Only seraphim of long service, the more
experienced and tested types, are assigned as destiny guards. Many guardians
have gained much valuable experience on those worlds which are of the non-
Adjuster fusion series. Like the Adjusters, the seraphim attend these beings
for a single lifetime and then are liberated for new assignment. Many
guardians on Urantia have had this previous practical experience on other
worlds.
113:2.4 When human beings fail to survive, their personal or group guardians
may repeatedly serve in similar capacities on the same planet. The seraphim
develop a sentimental regard for individual worlds and entertain a special
affection for certain races and types of mortal creatures with whom they have
been so closely and intimately associated.
113:2.5 The angels develop an abiding affection for their human associates;
and you would, if you could only visualize the seraphim, develop a warm
affection for them. Divested of material bodies, given spirit forms, you would
be very near the angels in many attributes of personality. They share most of
your emotions and experience some additional ones. The only emotion actuating
you which is somewhat difficult for them to comprehend is the legacy of animal
fear that bulks so large in the mental life of the average inhabitant of
Urantia. The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so
persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith,
to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic
of dread and anxiety.
113:2.6 All seraphim have individual names, but in the records of assignment
to world service they are frequently designated by their planetary numbers. At
the universe headquarters they are registered by name and number. The destiny
guardian of the human subject used in this contactual communication is number
3 of group 17, of company 126, of battalion 4, of unit 384, of legion 6, of
host 37, of the 182,314th seraphic army of Nebadon. The current planetary
assignment number of this seraphim on Urantia and to this human subject is
3,641,852.
113:2.7 In the ministry of personal guardianship, the assignment of angels as
destiny guardians, seraphim always volunteer their services. In the city of
this visitation a certain mortal was recently admitted to the reserve corps of
destiny, and since all such humans are personally attended by guardian angels,
more than one hundred qualified seraphim sought the assignment. The planetary
director selected twelve of the more experienced individuals and subsequently
appointed the seraphim whom they selected as best adapted to guide this human
being through his life journey. That is, they selected a certain pair of
equally qualified seraphim; one of this seraphic pair will always be on duty.
113:2.8 Seraphic tasks may be unremitting, but either of the angelic pair can
discharge all ministering responsibilities. Like cherubim, seraphim usually
serve in pairs, but unlike their less advanced associates, the seraphim
sometimes work singly. In practically all their contacts with human beings
they can function as individuals. Both angels are required only for
communication and service on the higher circuits of the universes.
113:2.9 When a seraphic pair accept guardian assignment, they serve for the
remainder of the life of that human being. The complement of being (one of the
two angels) becomes the recorder of the undertaking. These complemental
seraphim are the recording angels of the mortals of the evolutionary worlds.
The records are kept by the pair of cherubim (a cherubim and a sanobim) who
are always associated with the seraphic guardians, but these records are
always sponsored by one of the seraphim.
113:2.10 For purposes of rest and recharging with the life energy of the
universe circuits, the guardian is periodically relieved by her complement,
and during her absence the associated cherubim functions as the recorder, as
is also the case when the complemental seraphim is similarly absent.
3. RELATION TO OTHER SPIRIT INFLUENCES
113:3.1 One of the most important things a destiny guardian does for her
mortal subject is to effect a personal co-ordination of the numerous
impersonal spirit influences which indwell, surround, and impinge upon the
mind and soul of the evolving material creature. Human beings are
personalities, and it is exceedingly difficult for nonpersonal spirits and
prepersonal entities to make direct contact with such highly material and
discretely personal minds. In the ministry of the guarding angel all of these
influences are more or less unified and made more nearly appreciable by the
expanding moral nature of the evolving human personality.
113:3.2 More especially can and does this seraphic guardian correlate the
manifold agencies and influences of the Infinite Spirit, ranging from the
domains of the physical controllers and the adjutant mind-spirits up to the
Holy Spirit of the Divine Minister and to the Omnipresent Spirit presence of
the Paradise Third Source and Center. Having thus unified and made more
personal these vast ministries of the Infinite Spirit, the seraphim then
undertakes to correlate this integrated influence of the Conjoint Actor with
the spirit presences of the Father and the Son.
113:3.3 The Adjuster is the presence of the Father; the Spirit of Truth, the
presence of the Sons. These divine endowments are unified and co-ordinated on
the lower levels of human spiritual experience by the ministry of the guardian
seraphim. The angelic servers are gifted in combining the love of the Father
and the mercy of the Son in their ministry to mortal creatures.
113:3.4 And herein is revealed the reason why the seraphic guardian eventually
becomes the personal custodian of the mind patterns, memory formulas, and soul
realities of the mortal survivor during that interval between physical death
and morontia resurrection. None but the ministering children of the Infinite
Spirit could thus function in behalf of the human creature during this phase
of transition from one level of the universe to another and higher level. Even
when you engage in your terminal transition slumber, when you pass from time
to eternity, a high supernaphim likewise shares the transit with you as the
custodian of creature identity and the surety of personal integrity.
113:3.5 On the spiritual level, seraphim make personal many otherwise
impersonal and prepersonal ministries of the universe; they are co-ordinators.
On the intellectual level they are the correlators of mind and morontia; they
are interpreters. And on the physical level they manipulate terrestrial
environment through their liaison with the Master Physical Controllers and
through the co-operative ministry of the midway creatures.
113:3.6 This is a recital of the manifold and intricate function of an
attending seraphim; but how does such a subordinate angelic personality,
created but a little above the universe level of humanity, do such difficult
and complex things? We do not really know, but we conjecture that this
phenomenal ministry is in some undisclosed manner facilitated by the
unrecognized and unrevealed working of the Supreme Being, the actualizing
Deity of the evolving universes of time and space. Throughout the entire realm
of progressive survival in and through the Supreme Being, seraphim are an
essential part of continuing mortal progression.
4. SERAPHIC DOMAINS OF ACTION
113:4.1 The guardian seraphim are not mind, though they do spring from the
same source that also gives origin to mortal mind, the Creative Spirit.
Seraphim are mind stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making
decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster, operating
from within and through the soul, but rather from the outside inward, working
through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings. Seraphim
are not the divine Adjuster lure of the Universal Father, but they do function
as the personal agency of the ministry of the Infinite Spirit.
113:4.2 Mortal man, subject to Adjuster leading, is also amenable to seraphic
guidance. The Adjuster is the essence of man's eternal nature; the seraphim is
the teacher of man's evolving nature -- in this life the mortal mind, in the
next the morontia soul. On the mansion worlds you will be conscious and aware
of seraphic instructors, but in the first life men are usually unaware of
them.
113:4.3 Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the
human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the
guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following
this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to
traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.
113:4.4 The impulse of worship largely originates in the spirit promptings of
the higher mind adjutants, reinforced by the leadings of the Adjuster. But the
urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very often arises
as the result of seraphic influence. The guarding seraphim is constantly
manipulating the mortal environment for the purpose of augmenting the cosmic
insight of the human ascender to the end that such a survival candidate may
acquire enhanced realization of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster and
thus be enabled to yield increased co-operation with the spiritual mission of
the divine presence.
113:4.5 While there is apparently no communication between the indwelling
Adjusters and the encompassing seraphim, they always seem to work in perfect
harmony and exquisite accord. The guardians are most active at those times
when the Adjusters are least active, but their ministry is in some manner
strangely correlated. Such superb co-operation could hardly be either
accidental or incidental.
113:4.6 The ministering personality of the guardian seraphim, the God presence
of the indwelling Adjuster, the encircuited action of the Holy Spirit, and the
Son-consciousness of the Spirit of Truth are all divinely correlated into a
meaningful unity of spiritual ministry in and to a mortal personality. Though
hailing from different sources and different levels, these celestial
influences are all integrated in the enveloping and evolving presence of the
Supreme Being.
5. SERAPHIC MINISTRY TO MORTALS
113:5.1 Angels do not invade the sanctity of the human mind; they do not
manipulate the will of mortals; neither do they directly contact with the
indwelling Adjusters. The guardian of destiny influences you in every possible
manner consistent with the dignity of your personality; under no circumstances
do these angels interfere with the free action of the human will. Neither
angels nor any other order of universe personality have power or authority to
curtail or abridge the prerogatives of human choosing.
113:5.2 Angels are so near you and care so feelingly for you that they
figuratively "weep because of your willful intolerance and stubbornness."
Seraphim do not shed physical tears; they do not have physical bodies; neither
do they possess wings. But they do have spiritual emotions, and they do
experience feelings and sentiments of a spiritual nature which are in certain
ways comparable to human emotions.
113:5.3 The seraphim act in your behalf quite independent of your direct
appeals; they are executing the mandates of their superiors, and thus they
function regardless of your passing whims or changing moods. This does not
imply that you may not make their tasks either easier or more difficult, but
rather that angels are not directly concerned with your appeals or with your
prayers.
113:5.4 In the life of the flesh the intelligence of angels is not directly
available to mortal men. They are not overlords or directors; they are simply
guardians. The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to influence you;
you must chart your own course, but these angels then act to make the best
possible use of the course you have chosen. They do not (ordinarily)
arbitrarily intervene in the routine affairs of human life. But when they
receive instructions from their superiors to perform some unusual exploit, you
may rest assured that these guardians will find some means of carrying out
these mandates. They do not, therefore, intrude into the picture of human
drama except in emergencies and then usually on the direct orders of their
superiors. They are the beings who are going to follow you for many an age,
and they are thus receiving an introduction to their future work and
personality association.
113:5.5 Seraphim are able to function as material ministers to human beings
under certain circumstances, but their action in this capacity is very rare.
They are able, with the assistance of the midway creatures and the physical
controllers, to function in a wide range of activities in behalf of human
beings, even to make actual contact with mankind, but such occurrences are
very unusual. In most instances the circumstances of the material realm
proceed unaltered by seraphic action, although occasions have arisen,
involving jeopardy to vital links in the chain of human evolution, in which
seraphic guardians have acted, and properly, on their own initiative.
6. GUARDIAN ANGELS AFTER DEATH
113:6.1 Having told you something of the ministry of seraphim during natural
life, I will endeavor to inform you about the conduct of the guardians of
destiny at the time of the mortal dissolution of their human associates. Upon
your death, your records, identity specifications, and the morontia entity of
the human soul -- conjointly evolved by the ministry of mortal mind and the
divine Adjuster -- are faithfully conserved by the destiny guardian together
with all other values related to your future existence, everything that
constitutes you, the real you, except the identity of continuing existence
represented by the departing Adjuster and the actuality of personality.
113:6.2 The instant the pilot light in the human mind disappears, the spirit
luminosity which seraphim associate with the presence of the Adjuster, the
attending angel reports in person to the commanding angels, successively, of
the group, company, battalion, unit, legion, and host; and after being duly
registered for the final adventure of time and space, such an angel receives
certification by the planetary chief of seraphim for reporting to the Evening
Star (or other lieutenant of Gabriel) in command of the seraphic army of this
candidate for universe ascension. And upon being granted permission from the
commander of this highest organizational unit, such a guardian of destiny
proceeds to the first mansion world and there awaits the consciousizing of her
former ward in the flesh.
113:6.3 In case the human soul fails of survival after having received the
assignment of a personal angel, the attending seraphim must proceed to the
headquarters of the local universe, there to witness to the complete records
of her complement as previously reported. Next she goes before the tribunals
of the archangels, to be absolved from blame in the matter of the survival
failure of her subject; and then she goes back to the worlds, again to be
assigned to another mortal of ascending potentiality or to some other division
of seraphic ministry.
113:6.4 But angels minister to evolutionary creatures in many ways aside from
the services of personal and group guardianship. Personal guardians whose
subjects do not go immediately to the mansion worlds do not tarry there in
idleness awaiting the dispensational roll calls of judgment; they are
reassigned to numerous ministering missions throughout the universe.
113:6.5 The guardian seraphim is the custodial trustee of the survival values
of mortal man's slumbering soul as the absent Adjuster is the identity of such
an immortal universe being. When these two collaborate in the resurrection
halls of mansonia in conjunction with the newly fabricated morontia form,
there occurs the reassembly of the constituent factors of the personality of
the mortal ascender.
113:6.6 The Adjuster will identify you; the guardian seraphim will
repersonalize you and then re-present you to the faithful Monitor of your
earth days.
113:6.7 And even so, when a planetary age ends, when those in the lower
circles of mortal achievement are forgathered, it is their group guardians who
reassemble them in the resurrection halls of the mansion spheres, even as your
record tells: "And he shall send his angels with a great voice and shall
gather together his elect from one end of the realm to another."
113:6.8 The technique of justice demands that personal or group guardians
shall respond to the dispensational roll call in behalf of all nonsurviving
personalities. The Adjusters of such nonsurvivors do not return, and when the
rolls are called, the seraphim respond, but the Adjusters make no answer. This
constitutes the "resurrection of the unjust," in reality the formal
recognition of the cessation of creature existence. This roll call of justice
always immediately follows the roll call of mercy, the resurrection of the
sleeping survivors. But these are matters which are of concern to none but the
supreme and all-knowing Judges of survival values. Such problems of
adjudication do not really concern us.
113:6.9 Group guardians may serve on a planet age after age and eventually
become custodians of the slumbering souls of thousands upon thousands of
sleeping survivors. They can so serve on many different worlds in a given
system since the resurrection response occurs on the mansion worlds.
113:6.10 All personal and group guardians in the system of Satania who went
astray in the Lucifer rebellion, notwithstanding that many sincerely repented
of their folly, are to be detained on Jerusem until the final adjudication of
the rebellion. Already have the Universal Censors arbitrarily taken from these
disobedient and unfaithful guardians all aspects of their soul trusts and
lodged these morontia realities for safekeeping in the custody of volunteer
seconaphim.
7. SERAPHIM AND THE ASCENDANT CAREER
113:7.1 It is indeed an epoch in the career of an ascending mortal, this first
awakening on the shores of the mansion world; there, for the first time,
actually to see your long-loved and ever-present angelic companions of earth
days; there also to become truly conscious of the identity and presence of the
divine Monitor who so long indwelt your mind on earth. Such an experience
constitutes a glorious awakening, a real resurrection.
113:7.2 On the morontia spheres the attending seraphim (there are two of them)
are your open companions. These angels not only consort with you as you
progress through the career of the transition worlds, in every way possible
assisting you in the acquirement of morontia and spirit status, but they also
avail themselves of the opportunity to advance by study in the extension
schools for evolutionary seraphim maintained on the mansion worlds.
113:7.3 The human race was created just a little lower than the more simple
types of the angelic orders. Therefore will your first assignment of the
morontia life be as assistants to the seraphim in the immediate work awaiting
at the time you attain personality consciousness subsequent to your liberation
from the bonds of the flesh.
113:7.4 Before leaving the mansion worlds, all mortals will have permanent
seraphic associates or guardians. And as you ascend the morontia spheres,
eventually it is the seraphic guardians who witness and certify the decrees of
your eternal union with the Thought Adjusters. Together they have established
your personality identities as children of the flesh from the worlds of time.
Then, with your attainment of the mature morontia estate, they accompany you
through Jerusem and the associated worlds of system progress and culture.
After that they go with you to Edentia and its seventy spheres of advanced
socialization, and subsequently will they pilot you to the Melchizedeks and
follow you through the superb career of the universe headquarters worlds. And
when you have learned the wisdom and culture of the Melchizedeks, they will
take you on to Salvington, where you will stand face to face with the
Sovereign of all Nebadon. And still will these seraphic guides follow you
through the minor and major sectors of the superuniverse and on to the
receiving worlds of Uversa, remaining with you until you finally enseconaphim
for the long Havona flight.
113:7.5 Some of the destiny guardians of attachment during the mortal career
follow the course of the ascending pilgrims through Havona. The others bid
their long-time mortal associates a temporary farewell, and then, while these
mortals traverse the circles of the central universe, these guardians of
destiny achieve the circles of Seraphington. And they will be in waiting on
the shores of Paradise when their mortal associates awaken from the last
transit sleep of time into the new experiences of eternity. Such ascending
seraphim subsequently enter upon divergent services in the finaliter corps and
in the Seraphic Corps of Completion.
113:7.6 Man and angel may or may not be reunited in eternal service, but
wherever seraphic assignment may take them, the seraphim are always in
communication with their former wards of the evolutionary worlds, the
ascendant mortals of time. The intimate associations and the affectionate
attachments of the realms of human origin are never forgotten nor ever
completely severed. In the eternal ages men and angels will co-operate in the
divine service as they did in the career of time.
113:7.7 For seraphim, the surest way of achieving the Paradise Deities is by
successfully guiding a soul of evolutionary origin to the portals of Paradise.
Therefore is the assignment of guardian of destiny the most highly prized
seraphic duty.
113:7.8 Only destiny guardians are mustered into the primary or mortal Corps
of the Finality, and such pairs have engaged in the supreme adventure of
identity at-oneness; the two beings have achieved spiritual bi-unification on
Seraphington prior to their reception into the finaliter corps. In this
experience the two angelic natures, so complemental in all universe functions,
achieve ultimate spirit two-in-oneness, repercussing in a new capacity for the
reception of, and fusion with, a non-Adjuster fragment of the Paradise Father.
And so do some of your loving seraphic associates in time also become your
finaliter associates in eternity, children of the Supreme and perfected sons
of the Paradise Father.
113:7.9 Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 114
SERAPHIC PLANETARY GOVERNMENT
114:0.1 THE Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men through many celestial
forces and agencies but chiefly through the ministry of seraphim.
114:0.2 At noon today the roll call of planetary angels, guardians, and others
on Urantia was 501,234,619 pairs of seraphim. There were assigned to my
command two hundred seraphic hosts -- 597,196,800 pairs of seraphim, or
1,194,393,600 individual angels. The registry, however, shows 1,002,469,238
individuals; it follows therefore that 191,924,362 angels were absent from
this world on transport, messenger, and death duty. (On Urantia there are
about the same number of cherubim as seraphim, and they are similarly
organized.)
114:0.3 Seraphim and their associated cherubim have much to do with the
details of the superhuman government of a planet, especially of worlds which
have been isolated by rebellion. The angels, ably assisted by the midwayers,
function on Urantia as the actual supermaterial ministers who execute the
mandates of the resident governor general and all his associates and
subordinates. Seraphim as a class are occupied with many assignments other
than those of personal and group guardianship.
114:0.4 Urantia is not without proper and effective supervision from the
system, constellation, and universe rulers. But the planetary government is
unlike that of any other world in the Satania system, even in all Nebadon.
This uniqueness in your plan of supervision is due to a number of unusual
circumstances:
114:0.5 1. The life modification status of Urantia.
114:0.6 2. The exigencies of the Lucifer rebellion.
114:0.7 3. The disruptions of the Adamic default.
114:0.8 4. The irregularities growing out of the fact that Urantia was one of
the bestowal worlds of the Universe Sovereign. Michael of Nebadon is the
Planetary Prince of Urantia.
114:0.9 5. The special function of the twenty-four planetary directors.
114:0.10 6. The location on the planet of an archangels' circuit.
114:0.11 7. The more recent designation of the onetime incarnated Machiventa
Melchizedek as vicegerent Planetary Prince.
1. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF URANTIA
114:1.1 The original sovereignty of Urantia was held in trust by the sovereign
of the Satania system. It was first delegated by him to a joint commission of
Melchizedeks and Life Carriers, and this group functioned on Urantia until the
arrival of a regularly constituted Planetary Prince. Subsequent to the
downfall of Prince Caligastia, at the time of the Lucifer rebellion, Urantia
had no sure and settled relationship with the local universe and its
administrative divisions until the completion of Michael's bestowal in the
flesh, when he was proclaimed, by the Union of Days, Planetary Prince of
Urantia. Such a proclamation in surety and in principle forever settled the
status of your world, but in practice the Sovereign Creator Son made no
gesture of personal administration of the planet aside from the establishment
of the Jerusem commission of twenty-four former Urantians with authority to
represent him in the government of Urantia and all other quarantined planets
in the system. One of this council is now always resident on Urantia as
resident governor general.
114:1.2 Vicegerent authority to act for Michael as Planetary Prince has been
recently vested in Machiventa Melchizedek, but this Son of the local universe
has made not the slightest move toward modifying the present planetary regime
of the successive administrations of the resident governors general.
114:1.3 There is little likelihood that any marked change will be made in the
government of Urantia during the present dispensation unless the vicegerent
Planetary Prince should arrive to assume his titular responsibilities. It
appears to certain of our associates that at some time in the near future the
plan of sending one of the twenty-four counselors to Urantia to act as
governor general will be superseded by the formal arrival of Machiventa
Melchizedek with the vicegerent mandate of the sovereignty of Urantia. As
acting Planetary Prince he would undoubtedly continue in charge of the planet
until the final adjudication of the Lucifer rebellion and probably on into the
distant future of planetary settlement in light and life.
114:1.4 Some believe that Machiventa will not come to take personal direction
of Urantian affairs until the end of the current dispensation. Others hold
that the vicegerent Prince may not come, as such, until Michael sometime
returns to Urantia as he promised when still in the flesh. Still others,
including this narrator, look for Melchizedek's appearance any day or hour.
2. THE BOARD OF PLANETARY SUPERVISORS
114:2.1 Since the times of Michael's bestowal on your world the general
management of Urantia has been intrusted to a special group on Jerusem of
twenty-four onetime Urantians. Qualification for membership on this commission
is unknown to us, but we have observed that those who have been thus
commissioned have all been contributors to the enlarging sovereignty of the
Supreme in the system of Satania. By nature they were all real leaders when
they functioned on Urantia, and (excepting Machiventa Melchizedek) these
qualities of leadership have been further augmented by mansion world
experience and supplemented by the training of Jerusem citizenship. Members
are nominated to the twenty-four by the cabinet of Lanaforge, seconded by the
Most Highs of Edentia, approved by the Assigned Sentinel of Jerusem, and
appointed by Gabriel of Salvington in accordance with the mandate of Michael.
The temporary appointees function just as fully as do the permanent members of
this commission of special supervisors.
114:2.2 This board of planetary directors is especially concerned with the
supervision of those activities on this world which result from the fact that
Michael here experienced his terminal bestowal. They are kept in close and
immediate touch with Michael by the liaison activities of a certain Brilliant
Evening Star, the identical being who attended upon Jesus throughout the
mortal bestowal.
114:2.3 At the present time one John, known to you as "the Baptist," is
chairman of this council when it is in session on Jerusem. But the ex officio
head of this council is the Assigned Sentinel of Satania, the direct and
personal representative of the Associate Inspector on Salvington and of the
Supreme Executive of Orvonton.
114:2.4 The members of this same commission of former Urantians also act as
advisory supervisors of the thirty-six other rebellion-isolated worlds of the
system; they perform a very valuable service in keeping Lanaforge, the System
Sovereign, in close and sympathetic touch with the affairs of these planets,
which still remain more or less under the overcontrol of the Constellation
Fathers of Norlatiadek. These twenty-four counselors make frequent trips as
individuals to each of the quarantined planets, especially to Urantia.
114:2.5 Each of the other isolated worlds is advised by similar and varying
sized commissions of its onetime inhabitants, but these other commissions are
subordinate to the Urantian group of twenty-four. While the members of the
latter commission are thus actively interested in every phase of human
progress on each quarantined world in Satania, they are especially and
particularly concerned with the welfare and advancement of the mortal races of
Urantia, for they immediately and directly supervise the affairs of none of
the planets except Urantia, and even here their authority is not complete
excepting in certain domains concerned with mortal survival.
114:2.6 No one knows how long these twenty-four Urantia counselors will
continue in their present status, detached from the regular program of
universe activities. They will no doubt continue to serve in their present
capacities until some change in planetary status ensues, such as the end of a
dispensation, the assumption of full authority by Machiventa Melchizedek, the
final adjudication of the Lucifer rebellion, or the reappearance of Michael on
the world of his final bestowal. The present resident governor general of
Urantia seems inclined to the opinion that all but Machiventa may be released
for Paradise ascension the moment the system of Satania is restored to the
constellation circuits. But other opinions are also current.
3. THE RESIDENT GOVERNOR GENERAL
114:3.1 Every one hundred years of Urantia time, the Jerusem corps of twenty-
four planetary supervisors designate one of their number to sojourn on your
world to act as their executive representative, as resident governor general.
During the times of the preparation of these narratives this executive officer
was changed, the nineteenth so to serve being succeeded by the twentieth. The
name of the current planetary supervisor is withheld from you only because
mortal man is so prone to venerate, even to deify, his extraordinary
compatriots and superhuman superiors.
114:3.2 The resident governor general has no actual personal authority in the
management of world affairs except as the representative of the twenty-four
Jerusem counselors. He acts as the co-ordinator of superhuman administration
and is the respected head and universally recognized leader of the celestial
beings functioning on Urantia. All orders of angelic hosts regard him as their
co-ordinating director, while the united midwayers, since the departure of
1-2-3 the first to become one of the twenty-four counselors, really look upon
the successive governors general as their planetary fathers.
114:3.3 Although the governor general does not possess actual and personal
authority on the planet, he hands down scores of rulings and decisions each
day which are accepted as final by all personalities concerned. He is much
more of a fatherly adviser than a technical ruler. In certain ways he
functions as would a Planetary Prince, but his administration much more
closely resembles that of the Material Sons.
114:3.4 The Urantia government is represented in the councils of Jerusem in
accordance with an arrangement whereby the returning governor general sits as
a temporary member of the System Sovereign's cabinet of Planetary Princes. It
was expected, when Machiventa was designated vicegerent Prince, that he would
immediately assume his place in the council of the Planetary Princes of
Satania, but thus far he has made no gesture in this direction.
114:3.5 The supermaterial government of Urantia does not maintain a very close
organic relationship with the higher units of the local universe. In a way,
the resident governor general represents Salvington as well as Jerusem since
he acts on behalf of the twenty-four counselors, who are directly
representative of Michael and Gabriel. And being a Jerusem citizen, the
planetary governor can function as a spokesman for the System Sovereign. The
constellation authorities are represented directly by a Vorondadek Son, the
Edentia observer.
4. THE MOST HIGH OBSERVER
114:4.1 The sovereignty of Urantia is further complicated by the onetime
arbitrary seizure of planetary authority by the government of Norlatiadek
shortly after the planetary rebellion. There is still resident on Urantia a
Vorondadek Son, an observer for the Most Highs of Edentia and, in the absence
of direct action by Michael, trustee of planetary sovereignty. The present
Most High observer (and sometime regent) is the twenty-third thus to serve on
Urantia.
114:4.2 There are certain groups of planetary problems which are still under
the control of the Most Highs of Edentia, jurisdiction over them having been
seized at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. Authority in these matters is
exercised by a Vorondadek Son, the Norlatiadek observer, who maintains very
close advisory relations with the planetary supervisors. The race
commissioners are very active on Urantia, and their various group chiefs are
informally attached to the resident Vorondadek observer, who acts as their
advisory director.
114:4.3 In a crisis the actual and sovereign head of the government, excepting
in certain purely spiritual matters, would be this Vorondadek Son of Edentia
now on observation duty. (In these exclusively spiritual problems and in
certain purely personal matters, the supreme authority seems to be vested in
the commanding archangel attached to the divisional headquarters of that order
which was recently established on Urantia.)
114:4.4 A Most High observer is empowered, at his discretion, to seize the
planetary government in times of grave planetary crises, and it is of record
that this has happened thirty-three times in the history of Urantia. At such
times the Most High observer functions as the Most High regent, exercising
unquestioned authority over all ministers and administrators resident on the
planet excepting only the divisional organization of the archangels.
114:4.5 Vorondadek regencies are not peculiar to rebellion-isolated planets,
for the Most Highs may intervene at any time in the affairs of the inhabited
worlds, interposing the superior wisdom of the constellation rulers in the
affairs of the kingdoms of men.
5. THE PLANETARY GOVERNMENT
114:5.1 The actual administration of Urantia is indeed difficult to describe.
There exists no formal government along the lines of universe organization,
such as separate legislative, executive, and judicial departments. The twenty-
four counselors come the nearest to being the legislative branch of the
planetary government. The governor general is a provisional and advisory chief
executive with the veto power resident in the Most High observer. And there
are no absolutely authoritative judicial powers operative on the planet --
only the conciliating commissions.
114:5.2 A majority of the problems involving seraphim and midwayers are, by
mutual consent, decided by the governor general. But except when voicing the
mandates of the twenty-four counselors, his rulings are all subject to appeal
to conciliating commissions, to local authorities constituted for planetary
function, or even to the System Sovereign of Satania.
114:5.3 The absence of the corporeal staff of a Planetary Prince and the
material regime of an Adamic Son and Daughter is partially compensated by the
special ministry of seraphim and by the unusual services of the midway
creatures. The absence of the Planetary Prince is effectively compensated by
the triune presence of the archangels, the Most High observer, and the
governor general.
114:5.4 This rather loosely organized and somewhat personally administered
planetary government is more than expectedly effective because of the
timesaving assistance of the archangels and their ever-ready circuit, which is
so frequently utilized in planetary emergencies and administrative
difficulties. Technically, the planet is still spiritually isolated in the
Norlatiadek circuits, but in an emergency this handicap can now be
circumvented through utilization of the archangels' circuit. Planetary
isolation is, of course, of little concern to individual mortals since the
pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh nineteen hundred years ago.
114:5.5 Each administrative day on Urantia begins with a consultative
conference, which is attended by the governor general, the planetary chief of
archangels, the Most High observer, the supervising supernaphim, the chief of
resident Life Carriers, and invited guests from among the high Sons of the
universe or from among certain of the student visitors who may chance to be
sojourning on the planet.
114:5.6 The direct administrative cabinet of the governor general consists of
twelve seraphim, the acting chiefs of the twelve groups of special angels
functioning as the immediate superhuman directors of planetary progress and
stability.
6. THE MASTER SERAPHIM OF PLANETARY SUPERVISION
114:6.1 When the first governor general arrived on Urantia, concurrent with
the outpouring of the Spirit of Truth, he was accompanied by twelve corps of
special seraphim, Seraphington graduates, who were immediately assigned to
certain special planetary services. These exalted angels are known as the
master seraphim of planetary supervision and are, aside from the overcontrol
of the planetary Most High observer, under the immediate direction of the
resident governor general.
114:6.2 These twelve groups of angels, while functioning under the general
supervision of the resident governor general, are immediately directed by the
seraphic council of twelve, the acting chiefs of each group. This council also
serves as the volunteer cabinet of the resident governor general.
114:6.3 As planetary chief of seraphim, I preside over this council of
seraphic chiefs, and I am a volunteer supernaphim of the primary order serving
on Urantia as the successor of the onetime chief of the angelic hosts of the
planet who defaulted at the time of the Caligastia secession.
114:6.4 The twelve corps of the master seraphim of planetary supervision are
functional on Urantia as follows:
114:6.5 1. The epochal angels. These are the angels of the current age, the
dispensational group. These celestial ministers are intrusted with the
oversight and direction of the affairs of each generation as they are designed
to fit into the mosaic of the age in which they occur. The present corps of
epochal angels serving on Urantia is the third group assigned to the planet
during the current dispensation.
114:6.6 2. The progress angels. These seraphim are intrusted with the task of
initiating the evolutionary progress of the successive social ages. They
foster the development of the inherent progressive trend of evolutionary
creatures; they labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be. The
group now on duty is the second to be assigned to the planet.
114:6.7 3. The religious guardians. These are the "angels of the churches,"
the earnest contenders for that which is and has been. They endeavor to
maintain the ideals of that which has survived for the sake of the safe
transit of moral values from one epoch to another. They are the checkmates of
the angels of progress, all the while seeking to translate from one generation
to another the imperishable values of the old and passing forms into the new
and therefore less stabilized patterns of thought and conduct. These angels do
contend for spiritual forms, but they are not the source of ultrasectarianism
and meaningless controversial divisions of professed religionists. The corps
now functioning on Urantia is the fifth thus to serve.
114:6.8 4. The angels of nation life. These are the "angels of the trumpets,"
directors of the political performances of Urantia national life. The group
now functioning in the overcontrol of international relations is the fourth
corps to serve on the planet. It is particularly through the ministry of this
seraphic division that "the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men."
114:6.9 5. The angels of the races. Those who work for the conservation of the
evolutionary races of time, regardless of their political entanglements and
religious groupings. On Urantia there are remnants of nine human races which
have commingled and combined into the people of modern times. These seraphim
are closely associated with the ministry of the race commissioners, and the
group now on Urantia is the original corps assigned to the planet soon after
the day of Pentecost.
114:6.10 6. The angels of the future. These are the projection angels, who
forecast a future age and plan for the realization of the better things of a
new and advancing dispensation; they are the architects of the successive
eras. The group now on the planet has thus functioned since the beginning of
the current dispensation.
114:6.11 7. The angels of enlightenment. Urantia is now receiving the help of
the third corps of seraphim dedicated to the fostering of planetary education.
These angels are occupied with mental and moral training as it concerns
individuals, families, groups, schools, communities, nations, and whole races.
114:6.12 8. The angels of health. These are the seraphic ministers assigned to
the assistance of those mortal agencies dedicated to the promotion of health
and the prevention of disease. The present corps is the sixth group to serve
during this dispensation.
114:6.13 9. The home seraphim. Urantia now enjoys the services of the fifth
group of angelic ministers dedicated to the preservation and advancement of
the home, the basic institution of human civilization.
114:6.14 10. The angels of industry. This seraphic group is concerned with
fostering industrial development and improving economic conditions among the
Urantia peoples. This corps has been seven times changed since the bestowal of
Michael.
114:6.15 11. The angels of diversion. These are the seraphim who foster the
values of play, humor, and rest. They ever seek to uplift man's recreational
diversions and thus to promote the more profitable utilization of human
leisure. The present corps is the third of that order to minister on Urantia.
114:6.16 12. The angels of superhuman ministry. These are the angels of the
angels, those seraphim who are assigned to the ministry of all other
superhuman life on the planet, temporary or permanent. This corps has served
since the beginning of the current dispensation.
114:6.17 When these groups of master seraphim disagree in matters of planetary
policy or procedure, their differences are usually composed by the governor
general, but all his rulings are subject to appeal in accordance with the
nature and gravity of the issues involved in the disagreement.
114:6.18 None of these angelic groups exercise direct or arbitrary control
over the domains of their assignment. They cannot fully control the affairs of
their respective realms of action, but they can and do so manipulate planetary
conditions and so associate circumstances as favorably to influence the
spheres of human activity to which they are attached.
114:6.19 The master seraphim of planetary supervision utilize many agencies
for the prosecution of their missions. They function as ideational
clearinghouses, mind focalizers, and project promoters. While unable to inject
new and higher conceptions into human minds, they often act to intensify some
higher ideal which has already appeared within a human intellect.
114:6.20 But aside from these many means of positive action, the master
seraphim insure planetary progress against vital jeopardy through the
mobilization, training, and maintenance of the reserve corps of destiny. The
chief function of these reservists is to insure against breakdown of
evolutionary progress; they are the provisions which the celestial forces have
made against surprise; they are the guarantees against disaster.
7. THE RESERVE CORPS OF DESTINY
114:7.1 The reserve corps of destiny consists of living men and women who have
been admitted to the special service of the superhuman administration of world
affairs. This corps is made up of the men and women of each generation who are
chosen by the spirit directors of the realm to assist in the conduct of the
ministry of mercy and wisdom to the children of time on the evolutionary
worlds. It is the general practice in the conduct of the affairs of the
ascension plans to begin this liaison utilization of mortal will creatures
immediately they are competent and trustworthy to assume such
responsibilities. Accordingly, as soon as men and women appear on the stage of
temporal action with sufficient mental capacity, adequate moral status, and
requisite spirituality, they are quickly assigned to the appropriate celestial
group of planetary personalities as human liaisons, mortal assistants.
114:7.2 When human beings are chosen as protectors of planetary destiny, when
they become pivotal individuals in the plans which the world administrators
are prosecuting, at that time the planetary chief of seraphim confirms their
temporal attachment to the seraphic corps and appoints personal destiny
guardians to serve with these mortal reservists. All reservists have self-
conscious Adjusters, and most of them function in the higher cosmic circles of
intellectual achievement and spiritual attainment.
114:7.3 Mortals of the realm are chosen for service in the reserve corps of
destiny on the inhabited worlds because of:
1. Special capacity for being secretly rehearsed for numerous possible emergency
missions in the conduct of various activities of world affairs.
2. Wholehearted dedication to some special social, economic, political,
spiritual, or other cause, coupled with willingness to serve without human
recognition and rewards.
3. The possession of a Thought Adjuster of extraordinary versatility and
probable pre-Urantia experience in coping with planetary difficulties and
contending with impending world emergency situations.
114:7.4 Each division of planetary celestial service is entitled to a liaison
corps of these mortals of destiny standing. The average inhabited world
employs seventy separate corps of destiny, which are intimately connected with
the superhuman current conduct of world affairs. On Urantia there are twelve
reserve corps of destiny, one for each of the planetary groups of seraphic
supervision.
114:7.5 The twelve groups of Urantia destiny reservists are composed of mortal
inhabitants of the sphere who have been rehearsed for numerous crucial
positions on earth and are held in readiness to act in possible planetary
emergencies. This combined corps now consists of 962 persons. The smallest
corps numbers 41 and the largest 172. With the exception of less than a score
of contact personalities, the members of this unique group are wholly
unconscious of their preparation for possible function in certain planetary
crises. These mortal reservists are chosen by the corps to which they are
respectively attached and are likewise trained and rehearsed in the deep mind
by the combined technique of Thought Adjuster and seraphic guardian ministry.
Many times numerous other celestial personalities participate in this
unconscious training, and in all this special preparation the midwayers
perform valuable and indispensable services.
114:7.6 On many worlds the better adapted secondary midway creatures are able
to attain varying degrees of contact with the Thought Adjusters of certain
favorably constituted mortals through the skillful penetration of the minds of
the latters' indwelling. (And it was by just such a fortuitous combination of
cosmic adjustments that these revelations were materialized in the English
language on Urantia.) Such potential contact mortals of the evolutionary
worlds are mobilized in the numerous reserve corps, and it is, to a certain
extent, through these small groups of forward-looking personalities that
spiritual civilization is advanced and the Most Highs are able to rule in the
kingdoms of men. The men and women of these reserve corps of destiny thus have
various degrees of contact with their Adjusters through the intervening
ministry of the midway creatures; but these same mortals are little known to
their fellows except in those rare social emergencies and spiritual exigencies
wherein these reserve personalities function for the prevention of the
breakdown of evolutionary culture or the extinction of the light of living
truth. On Urantia these reservists of destiny have seldom been emblazoned on
the pages of human history.
114:7.7 The reservists unconsciously act as conservators of essential
planetary information. Many times, upon the death of a reservist, a transfer
of certain vital data from the mind of the dying reservist to a younger
successor is made by a liaison of the two Thought Adjusters. The Adjusters
undoubtedly function in many other ways unknown to us, in connection with
these reserve corps.
114:7.8 On Urantia the reserve corps of destiny, though having no permanent
head, does have its own permanent councils which constitute its governing
organization. These embrace the judiciary council, the historicity council,
the council on political sovereignty, and many others. From time to time, in
accordance with the corps organization, titular (mortal) heads of the whole
reserve corps have been commissioned by these permanent councils for specific
function. The tenure of such reservist chiefs is usually a matter of a few
hours' duration, being limited to the accomplishment of some specific task at
hand.
114:7.9 The Urantia reserve corps had its largest membership in the days of
the Adamites and Andites, steadily declining with the dilution of the violet
blood and reaching its low point around the time of Pentecost, since which
time reserve corps membership has steadily increased.
114:7.10 (The cosmic reserve corps of universe-conscious citizens on Urantia
now numbers over one thousand mortals whose insight of cosmic citizenship far
transcends the sphere of their terrestrial abode, but I am forbidden to reveal
the real nature of the function of this unique group of living human beings.)
114:7.11 Urantia mortals should not allow the comparative spiritual isolation
of their world from certain of the local universe circuits to produce a
feeling of cosmic desertion or planetary orphanage. There is operative on the
planet a very definite and effective superhuman supervision of world affairs
and human destinies.
114:7.12 But it is true that you can have, at best, only a meager idea of an
ideal planetary government. Since the early times of the Planetary Prince,
Urantia has suffered from the miscarriage of the divine plan of world growth
and racial development. The loyal inhabited worlds of Satania are not governed
as is Urantia. Nevertheless, compared with the other isolated worlds, your
planetary governments have not been so inferior; only one or two worlds may be
said to be worse, and a few may be slightly better, but the majority are on a
plane of equality with you.
114:7.13 No one in the local universe seems to know when the unsettled status
of the planetary administration will terminate. The Nebadon Melchizedeks are
inclined to the opinion that little change will occur in the planetary
government and administration until Michael's second personal arrival on
Urantia. Undoubtedly at this time, if not before, sweeping changes will be
effected in planetary management. But as to the nature of such modifications
of world administration, no one seems to be able even to conjecture. There is
no precedent for such an episode in all the history of the inhabited worlds of
the universe of Nebadon. Among the many things difficult to understand
concerning the future government of Urantia, a prominent one is the location
on the planet of a circuit and divisional headquarters of the archangels.
114:7.14 Your isolated world is not forgotten in the counsels of the universe.
Urantia is not a cosmic orphan stigmatized by sin and shut away from divine
watchcare by rebellion. From Uversa to Salvington and on down to Jerusem, even
in Havona and on Paradise, they all know we are here; and you mortals now
dwelling on Urantia are just as lovingly cherished and just as faithfully
watched over as if the sphere had never been betrayed by a faithless Planetary
Prince, even more so. It is eternally true, "the Father himself loves you."
114:7.15 Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
PAPER 115
THE SUPREME BEING
115:0.1 WITH God the Father, sonship is the great relationship. With God the
Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status -- one must do something as
well as be something.
1. RELATIVITY OF CONCEPT FRAMES
115:1.1 Partial, incomplete, and evolving intellects would be helpless in the
master universe, would be unable to form the first rational thought pattern,
were it not for the innate ability of all mind, high or low, to form a
universe frame in which to think. If mind cannot fathom conclusions, if it
cannot penetrate to true origins, then will such mind unfailingly postulate
conclusions and invent origins that it may have a means of logical thought
within the frame of these mind-created postulates. And while such universe
frames for creature thought are indispensable to rational intellectual
operations, they are, without exception, erroneous to a greater or lesser
degree.
115:1.2 Conceptual frames of the universe are only relatively true; they are
serviceable scaffolding which must eventually give way before the expansions
of enlarging cosmic comprehension. The understandings of truth, beauty, and
goodness, morality, ethics, duty, love, divinity, origin, existence, purpose,
destiny, time, space, even Deity, are only relatively true. God is much, much
more than a Father, but the Father is man's highest concept of God;
nonetheless, the Father-Son portrayal of Creator-creature relationship will be
augmented by those supermortal conceptions of Deity which will be attained in
Orvonton, in Havona, and on Paradise. Man must think in a mortal universe
frame, but that does not mean that he cannot envision other and higher frames
within which thought can take place.
115:1.3 In order to facilitate mortal comprehension of the universe of
universes, the diverse levels of cosmic reality have been designated as
finite, absonite, and absolute. Of these only the absolute is unqualifiedly
eternal, truly existential. Absonites and finites are derivatives,
modifications, qualifications, and attenuations of the original and primordial
absolute reality of infinity.
115:1.4 The realms of the finite exist by virtue of the eternal purpose of
God. Finite creatures, high and low, may propound theories, and have done so,
as to the necessity of the finite in the cosmic economy, but in the last
analysis it exists because God so willed. The universe cannot be explained,
neither can a finite creature offer a rational reason for his own individual
existence without appealing to the prior acts and pre-existent volition of
ancestral beings, Creators or procreators.
2. THE ABSOLUTE BASIS FOR SUPREMACY
115:2.1 From the existential standpoint, nothing new can happen throughout the
galaxies, for the completion of infinity inherent in the I AM is eternally
present in the seven Absolutes, is functionally associated in the triunities,
and is transmitively associated in the triodities. But the fact that infinity
is thus existentially present in these absolute associations in no way makes
it impossible to realize new cosmic experientials. From a finite creature's
viewpoint, infinity contains much that is potential, much that is on the order
of a future possibility rather than a present actuality.
115:2.2 Value is a unique element in universe reality. We do not comprehend
how the value of anything infinite and divine could possibly be increased. But
we discover that meanings can be modified if not augmented even in the
relations of infinite Deity. To the experiential universes even divine values
are increased as actualities by enlarged comprehension of reality meanings.
115:2.3 The entire scheme of universal creation and evolution on all
experiencing levels is apparently a matter of the conversion of potentialities
into actualities; and this transmutation has to do equally with the realms of
space potency, mind potency, and spirit potency.
115:2.4 The apparent method whereby the possibilities of the cosmos are
brought into actual existence varies from level to level, being experiential
evolution in the finite and experiential eventuation in the absonite.
Existential infinity is indeed unqualified in all-inclusiveness, and this very
all-inclusiveness must, perforce, encompass even the possibility for
evolutionary finite experiencing. And the possibility for such experiential
growth becomes a universe actuality through triodity relationships impinging
upon and in the Supreme.
3. ORIGINAL, ACTUAL, AND POTENTIAL
115:3.1 The absolute cosmos is conceptually without limit; to define the
extent and nature of this primal reality is to place qualifications upon
infinity and to attenuate the pure concept of eternity. The idea of the
infinite-eternal, the eternal-infinite, is unqualified in extent and absolute
in fact. There is no language in the past, present, or future of Urantia
adequate to express the reality of infinity or the infinity of reality. Man, a
finite creature in an infinite cosmos, must content himself with distorted
reflections and attenuated conceptions of that limitless, boundless, never-
beginning, never-ending existence the comprehension of which is really beyond
his ability.
115:3.2 Mind can never hope to grasp the concept of an Absolute without
attempting first to break the unity of such a reality. Mind is unifying of all
divergencies, but in the very absence of such divergencies, mind finds no
basis upon which to attempt to formulate understanding concepts.
115:3.3 The primordial stasis of infinity requires segmentation prior to human
attempts at comprehension. There is a unity in infinity which has been
expressed in these papers as the I AM -- the premier postulate of the creature
mind. But never can a creature understand how it is that this unity becomes
duality, triunity, and diversity while yet remaining an unqualified unity. Man
encounters a similar problem when he pauses to contemplate the undivided Deity
of Trinity alongside the plural personalization of God.
115:3.4 It is only man's distance from infinity that causes this concept to be
expressed as one word. While infinity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other
it is DIVERSITY without end or limit. Infinity, as it is observed by finite
intelligences, is the maximum paradox of creature philosophy and finite
metaphysics. Though man's spiritual nature reaches up in the worship
experience to the Father who is infinite, man's intellectual comprehension
capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being. Beyond
the Supreme, concepts are increasingly names; less and less are they true
designations of reality; more and more do they become the creature's
projection of finite understanding toward the superfinite.
115:3.5 One basic conception of the absolute level involves a postulate of
three phases:
115:3.6 1. The Original. The unqualified concept of the First Source and
Center, that source manifestation of the I AM from which all reality takes
origin.
115:3.7 2. The Actual. The union of the three Absolutes of actuality, the
Second, Third, and Paradise Sources and Centers. This triodity of the Eternal
Son, the Infinite Spirit, and the Paradise Isle constitutes the actual
revelation of the originality of the First Source and Center.
115:3.8 3. The Potential. The union of the three Absolutes of potentiality,
the Deity, Unqualified, and Universal Absolutes. This triodity of existential
potentiality constitutes the potential revelation of the originality of the
First Source and Center.
115:3.9 The interassociation of the Original, the Actual, and the Potential
yields the tensions within infinity which result in the possibility for all
universe growth; and growth is the nature of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and
the Ultimate.
115:3.10 In the association of the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified
Absolutes, potentiality is absolute while actuality is emergent; in the
association of the Second, Third, and Paradise Sources and Centers, actuality
is absolute while potentiality is emergent; in the originality of the First
Source and Center, we cannot say that either actuality or potentiality is
either existent or emergent -- the Father is.
115:3.11 From the time viewpoint, the Actual is that which was and is; the
Potential is that which is becoming and will be; the Original is that which
is. From the eternity viewpoint, the differences between the Original, the
Actual, and the Potential are not thus apparent. These triune qualities are
not so distinguished on Paradise-eternity levels. In eternity all is -- only
has all not yet been revealed in time and space.
115:3.12 From a creature's viewpoint, actuality is substance, potentiality is
capacity. Actuality exists centermost and expands therefrom into peripheral
infinity; potentiality comes inward from the infinity periphery and converges
at the center of all things. Originality is that which first causes and then
balances the dual motions of the cycle of reality metamorphosis from
potentials to actuals and the potentializing of existing actuals.
115:3.13 The three Absolutes of potentiality are operative on the purely
eternal level of the cosmos, hence never function as such on subabsolute
levels. On the descending levels of reality the triodity of potentiality is
manifest with the Ultimate and upon the Supreme. The potential may fail to
time-actualize with respect to a part on some subabsolute level, but never in
the aggregate. The will of God does ultimately prevail, not always concerning
the individual but invariably concerning the total.
115:3.14 It is in the triodity of actuality that the existents of the cosmos
have their center; be it spirit, mind, or energy, all center in this
association of the Son, the Spirit, and Paradise. The personality of the
spirit Son is the master pattern for all personality throughout all universes.
The substance of the Paradise Isle is the master pattern of which Havona is a
perfect, and the superuniverses are a perfecting, revelation. The Conjoint
Actor is at one and the same time the mind activation of cosmic energy, the
conceptualization of spirit purpose, and the integration of the mathematical
causes and effects of the material levels with the volitional purposes and
motives of the spiritual level. In and to a finite universe the Son, Spirit,
and Paradise function in and upon the Ultimate as he is conditioned and
qualified in the Supreme.
115:3.15 Actuality (of Deity) is what man seeks in the Paradise ascent.
Potentiality (of human divinity) is what man evolves in that search. The
Original is what makes possible the coexistence and integration of man the
actual, man the potential, and man the eternal.
115:3.16 The final dynamics of the cosmos have to do with the continual
transfer of reality from potentiality to actuality. In theory, there may be an
end to this metamorphosis, but in fact, such is impossible since the Potential
and the Actual are both encircuited in the Original (the I AM), and this
identification makes it forever impossible to place a limit on the
developmental progression of the universe. Whatsoever is identified with the I
AM can never find an end to progression since the actuality of the potentials
of the I AM is absolute, and the potentiality of the actuals of the I AM is
also absolute. Always will actuals be opening up new avenues of the
realization of hitherto impossible potentials -- every human decision not only
actualizes a new reality in human experience but also opens up a new capacity
for human growth. The man lives in every child, and the morontia progressor is
resident in the mature God-knowing man.
115:3.17 Statics in growth can never appear in the total cosmos since the
basis for growth -- the absolute actuals -- is unqualified, and since the
possibilities for growth -- the absolute potentials -- are unlimited. From a
practical viewpoint the philosophers of the universe have come to the
conclusion that there is no such thing as an end.
115:3.18 From a circumscribed view there are, indeed, many ends, many
terminations of activities, but from a larger viewpoint on a higher universe
level, there are no endings, merely transitions from one phase of development
to another. The major chronicity of the master universe is concerned with the
several universe ages, the Havona, the superuniverse, and the outer universe
ages. But even these basic divisions of sequence relationships cannot be more
than relative landmarks on the unending highway of eternity.
115:3.19 The final penetration of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the
Supreme Being could only open up to the progressing creature those absonite
qualities of ultimate divinity which lie beyond the concept levels of truth,
beauty, and goodness.
4. SOURCES OF SUPREME REALITY
115:4.1 Any consideration of the origins of God the Supreme must begin with
the Paradise Trinity, for the Trinity is original Deity while the Supreme is
derived Deity. Any consideration of the growth of the Supreme must give
consideration to the existential triodities, for they encompass all absolute
actuality and all infinite potentiality (in conjunction with the First Source
and Center). And the evolutionary Supreme is the culminating and personally
volitional focus of the transmutation -- the transformation -- of potentials
to actuals in and on the finite level of existence. The two triodities, actual
and potential, encompass the totality of the interrelationships of growth in
the universes.
115:4.2 The source of the Supreme is in the Paradise Trinity -- eternal,
actual, and undivided Deity. The Supreme is first of all a spirit person, and
this spirit person stems from the Trinity. But the Supreme is secondly a Deity
of growth -- evolutionary growth -- and this growth derives from the two
triodities, actual and potential.
115:4.3 If it is difficult to comprehend that the infinite triodities can
function on the finite level, pause to consider that their very infinity must
in itself contain the potentiality of the finite; infinity encompasses all
things ranging from the lowest and most qualified finite existence to the
highest and unqualifiedly absolute realities.
115:4.4 It is not so difficult to comprehend that the infinite does contain
the finite as it is to understand just how this infinite actually is manifest
to the finite. But the Thought Adjusters indwelling mortal man are one of the
eternal proofs that even the absolute God (as absolute) can and does actually
make direct contact with even the lowest and least of all universe will
creatures.
115:4.5 The triodities which collectively encompass the actual and the
potential are manifest on the finite level in conjunction with the Supreme
Being. The technique of such manifestation is both direct and indirect: direct
in so far as triodity relations repercuss directly in the Supreme and indirect
in so far as they are derived through the eventuated level of the absonite.
115:4.6 Supreme reality, which is total finite reality, is in process of
dynamic growth between the unqualified potentials of outer space and the
unqualified actuals at the center of all things. The finite domain thus
factualizes through the co-operation of the absonite agencies of Paradise and
the Supreme Creator Personalities of time. The act of maturing the qualified
possibilities of the three great potential Absolutes is the absonite function
of the Architects of the Master Universe and their transcendental associates.
And when these eventualities have attained to a certain point of maturation,
the Supreme Creator Personalities emerge from Paradise to engage in the
agelong task of bringing the evolving universes into factual being.
115:4.7 The growth of Supremacy derives from the triodities; the spirit person
of the Supreme, from the Trinity; but the power prerogatives of the Almighty
are predicated on the divinity successes of God the Sevenfold, while the
conjoining of the power prerogatives of the Almighty Supreme with the spirit
person of God the Supreme takes place by virtue of the ministry of the
Conjoint Actor, who bestowed the mind of the Supreme as the conjoining factor
in this evolutionary Deity.
5. RELATION OF THE SUPREME TO THE PARADISE TRINITY
115:5.1 The Supreme Being is absolutely dependent on the existence and action
of the Paradise Trinity for the reality of his personal and spirit nature.
While the growth of the Supreme is a matter of triodity relationship, the
spirit personality of God the Supreme is dependent upon, and is derived from,
the Paradise Trinity, which ever remains as the absolute center-source of
perfect and infinite stability around which the evolutionary growth of the
Supreme progressively unfolds.
115:5.2 The function of the Trinity is related to the function of the Supreme,
for the Trinity is functional on all (total) levels, including the level of
the function of Supremacy. But as the age of Havona gives way to the age of
the superuniverses, so does the discernible action of the Trinity as immediate
creator give way to the creative acts of the children of the Paradise Deities.
6. RELATION OF THE SUPREME TO THE TRIODITIES
115:6.1 The triodity of actuality continues to function directly in the post-
Havona epochs; Paradise gravity grasps the basic units of material existence,
the spirit gravity of the Eternal Son operates directly upon the fundamental
values of spirit existence, and the mind gravity of the Conjoint Actor
unerringly clutches all vital meanings of intellectual existence.
115:6.2 But as each stage of creative activity proceeds out through uncharted
space, it functions and exists farther and farther removed from direct action
by the creative forces and divine personalities of central emplacement -- the
absolute Isle of Paradise and the infinite Deities resident thereon. These
successive levels of cosmic existence become, therefore, increasingly
dependent upon developments within the three Absolute potentialities of
infinity.
115:6.3 The Supreme Being embraces possibilities for cosmic ministry that are
not apparently manifested in the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, or the
nonpersonal realities of the Isle of Paradise. This statement is made with due
regard for the absoluteness of these three basic actualities, but the growth
of the Supreme is not only predicated on these actualities of Deity and
Paradise but is also involved in developments within the Deity, Universal, and
Unqualified Absolutes.
115:6.4 The Supreme not only grows as the Creators and creatures of the
evolving universes attain to Godlikeness, but this finite Deity also
experiences growth as a result of the creature and Creator mastery of the
finite possibilities of the grand universe. The motion of the Supreme is
twofold: intensively toward Paradise and Deity and extensively toward the
limitlessness of the Absolutes of potential.
115:6.5 In the present universe age this dual motion is revealed in the
descending and ascending personalities of the grand universe. The Supreme
Creator Personalities and all their divine associates are reflective of the
outward, diverging motion of the Supreme, while the ascending pilgrims from
the seven superuniverses are indicative of the inward, converging trend of
Supremacy.
115:6.6 Always is the finite Deity seeking for dual correlation, inward toward
Paradise and the Deities thereof and outward toward infinity and the Absolutes
therein. The mighty eruption of the Paradise-creative divinity personalizing
in the Creator Sons and powerizing in the power controllers, signifies the
vast outsurge of Supremacy into the domains of potentiality, while the endless
procession of the ascending creatures of the grand universe witnesses the
mighty insurge of Supremacy toward unity with Paradise Deity.
115:6.7 Human beings have learned that the motion of the invisible may
sometimes be discerned by observing its effects on the visible; and we in the
universes have long since learned to detect the movements and trends of
Supremacy by observing the repercussions of such evolutions in the
personalities and patterns of the grand universe.
115:6.8 Though we are not sure, we believe that, as a finite reflection of
Paradise Deity, the Supreme is engaged in an eternal progression into outer
space; but as a qualification of the three Absolute potentials of outer space,
this Supreme Being is forever see king for Paradise coherence. And these dual
motions seem to account for most of the basic activities in the presently
organized universes.
7. THE NATURE OF THE SUPREME
115:7.1 In the Deity of the Supreme the Father-I AM has achieved relatively
complete liberation from the limitations inherent in infinity of status,
eternity of being, and absoluteness of nature. But God the Supreme has been
freed from all existential limitations only by having become subject to
experiential qualifications of universal function. In attaining capacity for
experience, the finite God also becomes subject to the necessity therefor; in
achieving liberation from eternity, the Almighty encounters the barriers of
time; and the Supreme could only know growth and development as a consequence
of partiality of existence and incompleteness of nature, nonabsoluteness of
being.
115:7.2 All this must be according to the Father's plan, which has predicated
finite progress upon effort, creature achievement upon perseverance, and
personality development upon faith. By thus ordaining the experience-evolution
of the Supreme, the Father has made it possible for finite creatures to exist
in the universes and, by experiential progression, sometime to attain the
divinity of Supremacy.
115:7.3 Including the Supreme and even the Ultimate, all reality, excepting
the unqualified values of the seven Absolutes, is relative. The fact of
Supremacy is predicated on Paradise power, Son personality, and Conjoint
action, but the growth of the Supreme is involved in the Deity Absolute, the
Unqualified Absolute, and the Universal Absolute. And this synthesizing and
unifying Deity -- God the Supreme -- is the personification of the finite
shadow cast athwart the grand universe by the infinite unity of the
unsearchable nature of the Paradise Father, the First Source and Center.
115:7.4 To the extent that the triodities are directly operative on the finite
level, they impinge upon the Supreme, who is the Deity focalization and cosmic
summation of the finite qualifications of the natures of the Absolute Actual
and the Absolute Potential.
115:7.5 The Paradise Trinity is considered to be the absolute inevitability;
the Seven Master Spirits are apparently Trinity inevitabilities; the power-
mind-spirit-personality actualization of the Supreme must be the evolutionary
inevitability.
115:7.6 God the Supreme does not appear to have been inevitable in unqualified
infinity, but he seems to be on all relativity levels. He is the indispensable
focalizer, summarizer, and encompasser of evolutionary experience, effectively
unifying the results of this mode of reality perception in his Deity nature.
And all this he appears to do for the purpose of contributing to the
appearance of the inevitable eventuation, the superexperience and superfinite
manifestation of God the Ultimate.
115:7.7 The Supreme Being cannot be fully appreciated without taking into
consideration source, function, and destiny: relationship to the originating
Trinity, the universe of activity, and the Trinity Ultimate of immediate
destiny.
115:7.8 By the process of summating evolutionary experience the Supreme
connects the finite with the absonite, even as the mind of the Conjoint Actor
integrates the divine spirituality of the personal Son with the immutable
energies of the Paradise pattern, and as the presence of the Universal
Absolute unifies Deity activation with the Unqualified reactivity. And this
unity must be a revelation of the undetected working of the original unity of
the First Father-Cause and Source-Pattern of all things and all beings.
115:7.9 Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.
PAPER 116
THE ALMIGHTY SUPREME
116:0.1 IF MAN recognized that his Creators -- his immediate supervisors --
while being divine were also finite, and that the God of time and space was an
evolving and nonabsolute Deity, then would the inconsistencies of temporal
inequalities cease to be profound religious paradoxes. No longer would
religious faith be prostituted to the promotion of social smugness in the
fortunate while serving only to encourage stoical resignation in the
unfortunate victims of social deprivation.
116:0.2 When viewing the exquisitely perfect spheres of Havona, it is both
reasonable and logical to believe they were made by a perfect, infinite, and
absolute Creator. But that same reason and logic would compel any honest
being, when viewing the turmoil, imperfections, and inequities of Urantia, to
conclude that your world had been made by, and was being managed by, Creators
who were subabsolute, preinfinite, and other than perfect.
116:0.3 Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership -- God and
man in association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity: Havona did
not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is existential like the
everlasting Gods who are its source. But growth characterizes the grand
universe.
116:0.4 The Almighty Supreme is a living and evolving Deity of power and
personality. His present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm
of power and personality. His destiny is perfection, but his present
experience encompasses the elements of growth and incomplete status.
116:0.5 The Supreme Being functions primarily in the central universe as a
spirit personality; secondarily in the grand universe as God the Almighty, a
personality of power. The tertiary function of the Supreme in the master
universe is now latent, existing only as an unknown mind potential. No one
knows just what this third development of the Supreme Being will disclose.
Some believe that, when the superuniverses are settled in light and life, the
Supreme will become functional from Uversa as the almighty and experiential
sovereign of the grand universe while expanding in power as the superalmighty
of the outer universes. Others speculate that the third stage of Supremacy
will involve the third level of Deity manifestation. But none of us really
know.
1. THE SUPREME MIND
116:1.1 The experience of every evolving creature personality is a phase of
the experience of the Almighty Supreme. The intelligent subjugation of every
physical segment of the superuniverses is a part of the growing control of the
Almighty Supreme. The creative synthesis of power and personality is a part of
the creative urge of the Supreme Mind and is the very essence of the
evolutionary growth of unity in the Supreme Being.
116:1.2 The union of the power and personality attributes of Supremacy is the
function of Supreme Mind; and the completed evolution of the Almighty Supreme
will result in one unified and personal Deity -- not in any loosely co-
ordinated association of divine attributes. From the broader perspective,
there will be no Almighty apart from the Supreme, no Supreme apart from the
Almighty.
116:1.3 Throughout the evolutionary ages the physical power potential of the
Supreme is vested in the Seven Supreme Power Directors, and the mind potential
reposes in the Seven Master Spirits. The Infinite Mind is the function of the
Infinite Spirit; the cosmic mind, the ministry of the Seven Master Spirits;
the Supreme Mind is in process of actualizing in the co-ordination of the
grand universe and in functional association with the revelation and
attainment of God the Sevenfold.
116:1.4 The time-space mind, the cosmic mind, is differently functioning in
the seven superuniverses, but it is co-ordinated by some unknown associative
technique in the Supreme Being. The Almighty overcontrol of the grand universe
is not exclusively physical and spiritual. In the seven superuniverses it is
primarily material and spiritual, but there are also present phenomena of the
Supreme which are both intellectual and spiritual.
116:1.5 We really know less about the mind of Supremacy than about any other
aspect of this evolving Deity. It is unquestionably active throughout the
grand universe and is believed to have a potential destiny of master universe
function which is of vast extent. But this we do know: Whereas physique may
attain completed growth, and whereas spirit may achieve perfection of
development, mind never ceases to progress -- it is the experiential technique
of endless progress. The Supreme is an experiential Deity and therefore never
achieves completion of mind attainment.
2. THE ALMIGHTY AND GOD THE SEVENFOLD
116:2.1 The appearance of the universe power presence of the Almighty is
concomitant with the appearance on the stage of cosmic action of the high
creators and controllers of the evolutionary superuniverses.
116:2.2 God the Supreme derives his spirit and personality attributes from the
Paradise Trinity, but he is power-actualizing in the doings of the Creator
Sons, the Ancients of Days, and the Master Spirits, whose collective acts are
the source of his growing power as almighty sovereign to and in the seven
superuniverses.
116:2.3 Unqualified Paradise Deity is incomprehensible to the evolving
creatures of time and space. Eternity and infinity connote a level of deity
reality which time-space creatures cannot comprehend. Infinity of deity and
absoluteness of sovereignty are inherent in the Paradise Trinity, and the
Trinity is a reality which lies somewhat beyond the understanding of mortal
man. Time-space creatures must have origins, relativities, and destinies in
order to grasp universe relationships and to understand the meaning values of
divinity. Therefore does Paradise Deity attenuate and otherwise qualify the
extra-Paradise personalizations of divinity, thus bringing into existence the
Supreme Creators and their associates, who ever carry the light of life
farther and farther from its Paradise source until it finds its most distant
and beautiful expression in the earth lives of the bestowal Sons on the
evolutionary worlds.
116:2.4 And this is the origin of God the Sevenfold, whose successive levels
are encountered by mortal man in the following order:
1. The Creator Sons (and Creative Spirits).
2. The Ancients of Days.
3. The Seven Master Spirits.
4. The Supreme Being.
5. The Conjoint Actor.
6. The Eternal Son.
7. The Universal Father.
116:2.5 The first three levels are the Supreme Creators; the last three levels
are the Paradise Deities. The Supreme ever intervenes as the experiential
spirit personalization of the Paradise Trinity and as the experiential focus
of the evolutionary almighty power of the creator children of the Paradise
Deities. The Supreme Being is the maximum revelation of Deity to the seven
superuniverses and for the present universe age.
116:2.6 By the technique of mortal logic it might be inferred that the
experiential reunification of the collective acts of the first three levels of
God the Sevenfold would equivalate to the level of Paradise Deity, but such is
not the case. Paradise Deity is existential Deity. The Supreme Creators, in
their divine unity of power and personality, are constitutive and expressive
of a new power potential of experiential Deity. And this power potential of
experiential origin finds inevitable and inescapable union with the
experiential Deity of Trinity origin -- the Supreme Being.
116:2.7 God the Supreme is not the Paradise Trinity, neither is he any one or
all of those superuniverse Creators whose functional activities actually
synthesize his evolving almighty power. God the Supreme, while of origin in
the Trinity, becomes manifest to evolutionary creatures as a personality of
power only through the co-ordinated functions of the first three levels of God
the Sevenfold. The Almighty Supreme is now factualizing in time and space
through the activities of the Supreme Creator Personalities, even as in
eternity the Conjoint Actor flashed into being by the will of the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son. These beings of the first three levels of God the
Sevenfold are the very nature and source of the power of the Almighty Supreme;
therefore must they ever accompany and sustain his administrative acts.
3. THE ALMIGHTY AND PARADISE DEITY
116:3.1 The Paradise Deities not only act directly in their gravity circuits
throughout the grand universe, but they also function through their various
agencies and other manifestations, such as:
116:3.2 1. The mind focalizations of the Third Source and Center. The finite
domains of energy and spirit are literally held together by the mind presences
of the Conjoint Actor. This is true from the Creative Spirit in a local
universe through the Reflective Spirits of a superuniverse to the Master
Spirits in the grand universe. The mind circuits emanating from these varied
intelligence focuses represent the cosmic arena of creature choice. Mind is
the flexible reality which creatures and Creators can so readily manipulate;
it is the vital link connecting matter and spirit. The mind bestowal of the
Third Source and Center unifies the spirit person of God the Supreme with the
experiential power of the evolutionary Almighty.
116:3.3 2. The personality revelations of the Second Source and Center. The
mind presences of the Conjoint Actor unify the spirit of divinity with the
pattern of energy. The bestowal incarnations of the Eternal Son and his
Paradise Sons unify, actually fuse, the divine nature of a Creator with the
evolving nature of a creature. The Supreme is both creature and creator; the
possibility of his being such is revealed in the bestowal actions of the
Eternal Son and his co-ordinate and subordinate Sons. The bestowal orders of
sonship, the Michaels and the Avonals, actually augment their divine natures
with bona fide creature natures which have become theirs by the living of the
actual creature life on the evolutionary worlds. When divinity becomes like
humanity, inherent in this relationship is the possibility that humanity can
become divine.
116:3.4 3. The indwelling presences of the First Source and Center. Mind
unifies spirit causations with energy reactions; bestowal ministry unifies
divinity descensions with creature ascensions; and the indwelling fragments of
the Universal Father actually unify the evolving creatures with God on
Paradise. There are many such presences of the Father which indwell numerous
orders of personalities, and in mortal man these divine fragments of God are
the Thought Adjusters. The Mystery Monitors are to human beings what the
Paradise Trinity is to the Supreme Being. The Adjusters are absolute
foundations, and upon absolute foundations freewill choice can cause to be
evolved the divine reality of an eternaliter nature, finaliter nature in the
case of man, Deity nature in God the Supreme.
116:3.5 The creature bestowals of the Paradise orders of sonship enable these
divine Sons to enrich their personalities by the acquisition of the actual
nature of universe creatures, while such bestowals unfailingly reveal to the
creatures themselves the Paradise path of divinity attainment. The Adjuster
bestowals of the Universal Father enable him to draw the personalities of the
volitional will creatures to himself. And throughout all these relationships
in the finite universes the Conjoint Actor is the ever-present source of the
mind ministry by virtue of which these activities take place.
116:3.6 In these and many other ways do the Paradise Deities participate in
the evolutions of time as they unfold on the circling planets of space, and as
they culminate in the emergence of the Supreme personality consequence of all
evolution.
4. THE ALMIGHTY AND THE SUPREME CREATORS
116:4.1 The unity of the Supreme Whole is dependent on the progressive
unification of the finite parts; the actualization of the Supreme is resultant
from, and productive of, these very unifications of the factors of supremacy
-- the creators, creatures, intelligences, and energies of the universes.
116:4.2 During those ages in which the sovereignty of Supremacy is undergoing
its time development, the almighty power of the Supreme is dependent on the
divinity acts of God the Sevenfold, while there seems to be a particularly
close relationship between the Supreme Being and the Conjoint Actor together
with his primary personalities, the Seven Master Spirits. The Infinite Spirit
as the Conjoint Actor functions in many ways which compensate the incompletion
of evolutionary Deity and sustains very close relations to the Supreme. This
closeness of relationship is shared in measure by all of the Master Spirits
but especially by Master Spirit Number Seven, who speaks for the Supreme. This
Master Spirit knows -- is in personal contact with -- the Supreme.
116:4.3 Early in the projection of the superuniverse scheme of creation, the
Master Spirits joined with the ancestral Trinity in the cocreation of the
forty-nine Reflective Spirits, and concomitantly the Supreme Being functioned
creatively as the culminator of the conjoined acts of the Paradise Trinity and
the creative children of Paradise Deity. Majeston appeared and ever since has
focalized the cosmic presence of the Supreme Mind, while the Master Spirits
continue as source-centers for the far-flung ministry of the cosmic mind.
116:4.4 But the Master Spirits continue in supervision of the Reflective
Spirits. The Seventh Master Spirit is (in his overall supervision of Orvonton
from the central universe) in personal contact with (and has overcontrol of)
the seven Reflective Spirits located on Uversa. In his inter- and
intrasuperuniverse controls and administrations he is in reflective contact
with the Reflective Spirits of his own type located on each superuniverse
capital.
116:4.5 These Master Spirits are not only the supporters and augmenters of the
sovereignty of Supremacy, but they are in turn affected by the creative
purposes of the Supreme. Ordinarily, the collective creations of the Master
Spirits are of the quasi-material order (power directors, etc.), while their
individual creations are of the spiritual order (supernaphim, etc.). But when
the Master Spirits collectively produced the Seven Circuit Spirits in response
to the will and purpose of the Supreme Being, it is to be noted that the
offspring of this creative act are spiritual, not material or quasi-material.
116:4.6 And as it is with the Master Spirits of the superuniverses, so is it
with the triune rulers of these supercreations -- the Ancients of Days. These
personifications of Trinity justice-judgment in time and space are the field
fulcrums for the mobilizing almighty power of the Supreme, serving as the
sevenfold focal points for the evolution of trinitarian sovereignty in the
domains of time and space. From their vantage point midway between Paradise
and the evolving worlds, these Trinity-origin sovereigns see both ways, know
both ways, and co-ordinate both ways.
116:4.7 But the local universes are the real laboratories in which are worked
out the mind experiments, galactic adventures, divinity unfoldings, and
personality progressions which, when cosmically totaled, constitute the actual
foundation upon which the Supreme is achieving deity evolution in and by
experience.
116:4.8 In the local universes even the Creators evolve: The presence of the
Conjoint Actor evolves from a living power focus to the status of the divine
personality of a Universe Mother Spirit; the Creator Son evolves from the
nature of existential Paradise divinity to the experiential nature of supreme
sovereignty. The local universes are the starting points of true evolution,
the spawning grounds of bona fide imperfect personalities endowed with the
freewill choice of becoming cocreators of themselves as they are to be.
116:4.9 The Magisterial Sons in their bestowals upon the evolutionary worlds
eventually acquire natures expressive of Paradise divinity in experiential
unification with the highest spiritual values of material human nature. And
through these and other bestowals the Michael Creators likewise acquire the
natures and cosmic viewpoints of their actual local universe children. Such
Master Creator Sons approximate the completion of subsupreme experience; and
when their local universe sovereignty is enlarged to embrace the associated
Creative Spirits, it may be said to approximate the limits of supremacy within
the present potentials of the evolutionary grand universe.
116:4.10 When the bestowal Sons reveal new ways for man to find God, they are
not creating these paths of divinity attainment; rather are they illuminating
the everlasting highways of progression which lead through the presence of the
Supreme to the person of the Paradise Father.
116:4.11 The local universe is the starting place for those personalities who
are farthest from God, and who can therefore experience the greatest degree of
spiritual ascent in the universe, can achieve the maximum of experiential
participation in the cocreation of themselves. These same local universes
likewise provide the greatest possible depth of experience for the descending
personalities, who thereby achieve something which is to them just as
meaningful as the Paradise ascent is to an evolving creature.
116:4.12 Mortal man appears to be necessary to the full function of God the
Sevenfold as this divinity grouping culminates in the actualizing Supreme.
There are many other orders of universe personalities who are equally
necessary to the evolution of the almighty power of the Supreme, but this
portrayal is presented for the edification of human beings, hence is largely
limited to those factors operating in the evolution of God the Sevenfold which
are related to mortal man.
5. THE ALMIGHTY AND THE SEVENFOLD CONTROLLERS
116:5.1 You have been instructed in the relationship of God the Sevenfold to
the Supreme Being, and you should now recognize that the Sevenfold encompasses
the controllers as well as the creators of the grand universe. These sevenfold
controllers of the grand universe embrace the following:
1. The Master Physical Controllers.
2. The Supreme Power Centers.
3. The Supreme Power Directors.
4. The Almighty Supreme.
5. The God of Action -- the Infinite Spirit.
6. The Isle of Paradise.
7. The Source of Paradise -- the Universal Father.
116:5.2 These seven groups are functionally inseparable from God the Sevenfold
and constitute the physical-control level of this Deity association.
116:5.3 The bifurcation of energy and spirit (stemming from the conjoint
presence of the Eternal Son and the Paradise Isle) was symbolized in the
superuniverse sense when the Seven Master Spirits unitedly engaged in their
first act of collective creation. This episode witnessed the appearance of the
Seven Supreme Power Directors. Concomitant therewith the spiritual circuits of
the Master Spirits contrastively differentiated from the physical activities
of power director supervision, and immediately did the cosmic mind appear as a
new factor co-ordinating matter and spirit.
116:5.4 The Almighty Supreme is evolving as the overcontroller of the physical
power of the grand universe. In the present universe age this potential of
physical power appears to be centered in the Seven Supreme Power Directors,
who operate through the fixed locations of the power centers and through the
mobile presences of the physical controllers.
116:5.5 The time universes are not perfect; that is their destiny. The
struggle for perfection pertains not only to the intellectual and the
spiritual levels but also to the physical level of energy and mass. The
settlement of the seven superuniverses in light and life presupposes their
attainment of physical stability. And it is conjectured that the final
attainment of material equilibrium will signify the completed evolution of the
physical control of the Almighty.
116:5.6 In the early days of universe building even the Paradise Creators are
primarily concerned with material equilibrium. The pattern of a local universe
takes shape not only as a result of the activities of the power centers but
also because of the space presence of the Creative Spirit. And throughout
these early epochs of local universe building the Creator Son exhibits a
little-understood attribute of material control, and he does not leave his
capital planet until the gross equilibrium of the local universe has been
established.
116:5.7 In the final analysis, all energy responds to mind, and the physical
controllers are the children of the mind God, who is the activator of Paradise
pattern. The intelligence of the power directors is unremittingly devoted to
the task of bringing about material control. Their struggle for physical
dominance over the relationships of energy and the motions of mass never
ceases until they achieve finite victory over the energies and masses which
constitute their perpetual domains of activity.
116:5.8 The spirit struggles of time and space have to do with the evolution
of spirit dominance over matter by the mediation of (personal) mind; the
physical (nonpersonal) evolution of the universes has to do with bringing
cosmic energy into harmony with the equilibrium concepts of mind subject to
the overcontrol of spirit. The total evolution of the entire grand universe is
a matter of the personality unification of the energy-controlling mind with
the spirit-co-ordinated intellect and will be revealed in the full appearance
of the almighty power of the Supreme.
116:5.9 The difficulty in arriving at a state of dynamic equilibrium is
inherent in the fact of the growing cosmos. The established circuits of
physical creation are being continually jeopardized by the appearance of new
energy and new mass. A growing universe is an unsettled universe; hence no
part of the cosmic whole can find real stability until the fullness of time
witnesses the material completion of the seven superuniverses.
116:5.10 In the settled universes of light and life there are no unexpected
physical events of major importance. Relatively complete control over the
material creation has been achieved; still the problems of the relationship of
the settled universes to the evolving universes continue to challenge the
skill of the Universe Power Directors. But these problems will gradually
vanish with the diminution of new creative activity as the grand universe
approaches culmination of evolutionary expression.
6. SPIRIT DOMINANCE
116:6.1 In the evolutionary superuniverses energy-matter is dominant except in
personality, where spirit through the mediation of mind is struggling for the
mastery. The goal of the evolutionary universes is the subjugation of energy-
matter by mind, the co-ordination of mind with spirit, and all of this by
virtue of the creative and unifying presence of personality. Thus, in relation
to personality, do physical systems become subordinate; mind systems, co-
ordinate; and spirit systems, directive.
116:6.2 This union of power and personality is expressive on deity levels in
and as the Supreme. But the actual evolution of spirit dominance is a growth
which is predicated on the freewill acts of the Creators and creatures of the
grand universe.
116:6.3 On absolute levels, energy and spirit are one. But the moment
departure is made from such absolute levels, difference appears, and as energy
and spirit move spaceward from Paradise, the gulf between them widens until in
the local universes they have become quite divergent. They are no longer
identical, neither are they alike, and mind must intervene to interrelate
them.
116:6.4 That energy can be directionized by the action of controller
personalities discloses the responsiveness of energy to mind action. That mass
can be stabilized through the action of these same controlling entities
indicates the responsiveness of mass to the order-producing presence of mind.
And that spirit itself in volitional personality can strive through mind for
the mastery of energy-matter discloses the potential unity of all finite
creation.
116:6.5 There is an interdependence of all forces and personalities throughout
the universe of universes. Creator Sons and Creative Spirits depend on the co-
operative function of the power centers and physical controllers in the
organization of universes; the Supreme Power Directors are incomplete without
the overcontrol of the Master Spirits. In a human being the mechanism of
physical life is responsive, in part, to the dictates of (personal) mind. This
very mind may, in turn, become dominated by the leadings of purposive spirit,
and the result of such evolutionary development is the production of a new
child of the Supreme, a new personal unification of the several kinds of
cosmic reality.
116:6.6 And as it is with the parts, so it is with the whole; the spirit
person of Supremacy requires the evolutionary power of the Almighty to achieve
completion of Deity and to attain destiny of Trinity association. The effort
is made by the personalities of time and space, but the culmination and
consummation of this effort is the act of the Almighty Supreme. And while the
growth of the whole is thus a totalizing of the collective growth of the
parts, it equally follows that the evolution of the parts is a segmented
reflection of the purposive growth of the whole.
116:6.7 On Paradise, monota and spirit are as one -- indistinguishable except
by name. In Havona, matter and spirit, while distinguishably different, are at
the same time innately harmonious. In the seven superuniverses, however, there
is great divergence; there is a wide gulf between cosmic energy and divine
spirit; therefore is there a greater experiential potential for mind action in
harmonizing and eventually unifying physical pattern with spiritual purposes.
In the time-evolving universes of space there is greater divinity attenuation,
more difficult problems to be solved, and larger opportunity to acquire
experience in their solution. And this entire superuniverse situation brings
into being a larger arena of evolutionary existence in which the possibility
of cosmic experience is made available alike to creature and Creator -- even
to Supreme Deity.
116:6.8 The dominance of spirit, which is existential on absolute levels,
becomes an evolutionary experience on finite levels and in the seven
superuniverses. And this experience is shared alike by all, from mortal man to
the Supreme Being. All strive, personally strive, in the achievement; all
participate, personally participate, in the destiny.
7. THE LIVING ORGANISM OF THE GRAND UNIVERSE
116:7.1 The grand universe is not only a material creation of physical
grandeur, spirit sublimity, and intellectual magnitude, it is also a
magnificent and responsive living organism. There is actual life pulsating
throughout the mechanism of the vast creation of the vibrant cosmos. The
physical reality of the universes is symbolic of the perceivable reality of
the Almighty Supreme; and this material and living organism is penetrated by
intelligence circuits, even as the human body is traversed by a network of
neural sensation paths. This physical universe is permeated by energy lanes
which effectively activate material creation, even as the human body is
nourished and energized by the circulatory distribution of the assimilable
energy products of nourishment. The vast universe is not without those co-
ordinating centers of magnificent overcontrol which might be compared to the
delicate chemical-control system of the human mechanism. But if you only knew
something about the physique of a power center, we could, by analogy, tell you
so much more about the physical universe.
116:7.2 Much as mortals look to solar energy for life maintenance, so does the
grand universe depend upon the unfailing energies emanating from nether
Paradise to sustain the material activities and cosmic motions of space.
116:7.3 Mind has been given to mortals wherewith they may become self-
conscious of identity and personality; and mind -- even a Supreme Mind -- has
been bestowed upon the totality of the finite whereby the spirit of this
emerging personality of the cosmos ever strives for the mastery of energy-
matter.
116:7.4 Mortal man is responsive to spirit guidance, even as the grand
universe responds to the far-flung spirit-gravity grasp of the Eternal Son,
the universal supermaterial cohesion of the eternal spiritual values of all
the creations of the finite cosmos of time and space.
116:7.5 Human beings are capable of making an everlasting self-identification
with total and indestructible universe reality -- fusion with the indwelling
Thought Adjuster. Likewise does the Supreme everlastingly depend on the
absolute stability of Original Deity, the Paradise Trinity.
116:7.6 Man's urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment,
creates a genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only be
resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is what happens in the
experience of a single mortal creature. But when all creatures and all
Creators in the grand universe likewise strive for God-attainment and divine
perfection, there is built up a profound cosmic tension which can only find
resolution in the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person
of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being.
116:7.7 Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.
PAPER 117
GOD THE SUPREME
117:0.1 TO THE extent that we do the will of God in whatever universe station
we may have our existence, in that measure the almighty potential of the
Supreme becomes one step more actual. The will of God is the purpose of the
First Source and Center as it is potentialized in the three Absolutes,
personalized in the Eternal Son, conjoined for universe action in the Infinite
Spirit, and eternalized in the everlasting patterns of Paradise. And God the
Supreme is becoming the highest finite manifestation of the total will of God.
117:0.2 If all grand universers should ever relatively achieve the full living
of the will of God, then would the time-space creations be settled in light
and life, and then would the Almighty, the deity potential of Supremacy,
become factual in the emergence of the divine personality of God the Supreme.
117:0.3 When an evolving mind becomes attuned to the circuits of cosmic mind,
when an evolving universe becomes stabilized after the pattern of the central
universe, when an advancing spirit contacts the united ministry of the Master
Spirits, when an ascending mortal personality finally attunes to the divine
leading of the indwelling Adjuster, then has the actuality of the Supreme
become real by one more degree in the universes; then has the divinity of
Supremacy advanced one more step toward cosmic realization.
117:0.4 The parts and individuals of the grand universe evolve as a reflection
of the total evolution of the Supreme, while in turn the Supreme is the
synthetic cumulative total of all grand universe evolution. From the mortal
viewpoint both are evolutionary and experiential reciprocals.
1. NATURE OF THE SUPREME BEING
117:1.1 The Supreme is the beauty of physical harmony, the truth of
intellectual meaning, and the goodness of spiritual value. He is the sweetness
of true success and the joy of everlasting achievement. He is the oversoul of
the grand universe, the consciousness of the finite cosmos, the completion of
finite reality, and the personification of Creator-creature experience.
Throughout all future eternity God the Supreme will voice the reality of
volitional experience in the trinity relationships of Deity.
117:1.2 In the persons of the Supreme Creators the Gods have descended from
Paradise to the domains of time and space, there to create and to evolve
creatures with Paradise-attainment capacity who can ascend thereto in quest of
the Father. This universe procession of descending God-revealing Creators and
ascending God-seeking creatures is revelatory of the Deity evolution of the
Supreme, in whom both descenders and ascenders achieve mutuality of
understanding, the discovery of eternal and universal brotherhood. The Supreme
Being thus becomes the finite synthesis of the experience of the perfect-
Creator cause and the perfecting-creature response.
117:1.3 The grand universe contains the possibility of, and ever seeks for,
complete unification, and this grows out of the fact that this cosmic
existence is a consequence of the creative acts and the power mandates of the
Paradise Trinity, which is unqualified unity. This very trinitarian unity is
expressed in the finite cosmos in the Supreme, whose reality becomes
increasingly apparent as the universes attain to the maximum level of Trinity
identification.
117:1.4 The will of the Creator and the will of the creature are qualitatively
different, but they are also experientially akin, for creature and Creator can
collaborate in the achievement of universe perfection. Man can work in liaison
with God and thereby cocreate an eternal finaliter. God can work even as
humanity in the incarnations of his Sons, who thereby achieve the supremacy of
creature experience.
117:1.5 In the Supreme Being, Creator and creature are united in one Deity
whose will is expressive of one divine personality. And this will of the
Supreme is something more than the will of either creature or Creator, even as
the sovereign will of the Master Son of Nebadon is now something more than a
combination of the will of divinity and humanity. The union of Paradise
perfection and time-space experience yields a new meaning value on deity
levels of reality.
117:1.6 The evolving divine nature of the Supreme is becoming a faithful
portrayal of the matchless experience of all creatures and of all Creators in
the grand universe. In the Supreme, creatorship and creaturehood are at one;
they are forever united by that experience which was born of the vicissitudes
attendant upon the solution of the manifold problems which beset all finite
creation as it pursues the eternal path in quest of perfection and liberation
from the fetters of incompleteness.
117:1.7 Truth, beauty, and goodness are correlated in the ministry of the
Spirit, the grandeur of Paradise, the mercy of the Son, and the experience of
the Supreme. God the Supreme is truth, beauty, and goodness, for these
concepts of divinity represent finite maximums of ideational experience. The
eternal sources of these triune qualities of divinity are on superfinite
levels, but a creature could only conceive of such sources as supertruth,
superbeauty, and supergoodness.
117:1.8 Michael, a creator, revealed the divine love of the Creator Father for
his terrestrial children. And having discovered and received this divine
affection, men can aspire to reveal this love to their brethren in the flesh.
Such creature affection is a true reflection of the love of the Supreme.
117:1.9 The Supreme is symmetrically inclusive. The First Source and Center is
potential in the three great Absolutes, is actual in Paradise, in the Son, and
in the Spirit; but the Supreme is both actual and potential, a being of
personal supremacy and of almighty power, responsive alike to creature effort
and Creator purpose; self-acting upon the universe and self-reactive to the
sum total of the universe; and at one and the same time the supreme creator
and the supreme creature. The Deity of Supremacy is thus expressive of the sum
total of the entire finite.
2. THE SOURCE OF EVOLUTIONARY GROWTH
117:2.1 The Supreme is God-in-time; his is the secret of creature growth in
time; his also is the conquest of the incomplete present and the consummation
of the perfecting future. And the final fruits of all finite growth are: power
controlled through mind by spirit by virtue of the unifying and creative
presence of personality. The culminating consequence of all this growth is the
Supreme Being.
117:2.2 To mortal man, existence is equivalent to growth. And so indeed it
would seem to be, even in the larger universe sense, for spirit-led existence
does seem to result in experiential growth -- augmentation of status. We have
long held, however, that the present growth which characterizes creature
existence in the present universe age is a function of the Supreme. We equally
hold that this kind of growth is peculiar to the age of the growth of the
Supreme, and that it will terminate with the completion of the growth of the
Supreme.
117:2.3 Consider the status of the creature-trinitized sons: They are born and
live in the present universe age; they have personalities, together with mind
and spirit endowments. They have experiences and the memory thereof, but they
do not grow as do ascenders. It is our belief and understanding that these
creature-trinitized sons, while they are in the present universe age, are
really of the next universe age -- the age which will follow the completion of
the growth of the Supreme. Hence they are not in the Supreme as of his present
status of incompleteness and consequent growth. Thus they are nonparticipating
in the experiential growth of the present universe age, being held in reserve
for the next universe age.
117:2.4 My own order, the Mighty Messengers, being Trinity embraced, are
nonparticipating in the growth of the present universe age. In a sense we are
in status as of the preceding universe age as in fact are the Stationary Sons
of the Trinity. One thing is certain: Our status is fixed by the Trinity
embrace, and experience no longer eventuates in growth.
117:2.5 This is not true of the finaliters nor of any other of the
evolutionary and experiential orders which are participants in the growth
process of the Supreme. You mortals now living on Urantia who may aspire to
Paradise attainment and finaliter status should understand that such a destiny
is only realizable because you are in and of the Supreme, hence are
participants in the cycle of the growth of the Supreme.
117:2.6 There will come an end sometime to the growth of the Supreme; his
status will achieve completion (in the energy-spirit sense). This termination
of the evolution of the Supreme will also witness the ending of creature
evolution as a part of Supremacy. What kind of growth may characterize the
universes of outer space, we do not know. But we are very sure that it will be
something very different from anything that has been seen in the present age
of the evolution of the seven superuniverses. It will undoubtedly be the
function of the evolutionary citizens of the grand universe to compensate the
outer-spacers for this deprivation of the growth of Supremacy.
117:2.7 As existent upon the consummation of the present universe age, the
Supreme Being will function as an experiential sovereign in the grand
universe. Outer-spacers -- citizens of the next universe age -- will have a
postsuperuniverse growth potential, a capacity for evolutionary attainment
presupposing the sovereignty of the Almighty Supreme, hence excluding creature
participation in the power-personality synthesis of the present universe age.
117:2.8 Thus may the incompleteness of the Supreme be regarded as a virtue
since it makes possible the evolutionary growth of the creature-creation of
the present universes. Emptiness does have its virtue, for it may become
experientially filled.
117:2.9 One of the most intriguing questions in finite philosophy is this:
Does the Supreme Being actualize in response to the evolution of the grand
universe, or does this finite cosmos progressively evolve in response to the
gradual actualization of the Supreme? Or is it possible that they are mutually
interdependent for their development? that they are evolutionary reciprocals,
each initiating the growth of the other? Of this we are certain: Creatures and
universes, high and low, are evolving within the Supreme, and as they evolve,
there is appearing the unified summation of the entire finite activity of this
universe age. And this is the appearance of the Supreme Being, to all
personalities the evolution of the almighty power of God the Supreme.
3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUPREME TO UNIVERSE CREATURES
117:3.1 The cosmic reality variously designated as the Supreme Being, God the
Supreme, and the Almighty Supreme, is the complex and universal synthesis of
the emerging phases of all finite realities. The far-flung diversification of
eternal energy, divine spirit, and universal mind attains finite culmination
in the evolution of the Supreme, who is the sum total of all finite growth,
self-realized on deity levels of finite maximum completion.
117:3.2 The Supreme is the divine channel through which flows the creative
infinity of the triodities that crystallizes into the galactic panorama of
space, against which takes place the magnificent personality drama of time:
the spirit conquest of energy-matter through the mediation of mind.
117:3.3 Said Jesus: "I am the living way," and so he is the living way from
the material level of self-consciousness to the spiritual level of God-
consciousness. And even as he is this living way of ascension from the self to
God, so is the Supreme the living way from finite consciousness to
transcendence of consciousness, even to the insight of absonity.
117:3.4 Your Creator Son can actually be such a living channel from humanity
to divinity since he has personally experienced the fullness of the traversal
of this universe path of progression, from the true humanity of Joshua ben
Joseph, the Son of Man, to the Paradise divinity of Michael of Nebadon, the
Son of the infinite God. Similarly can the Supreme Being function as the
universe approach to the transcendence of finite limitations, for he is the
actual embodiment and personal epitome of all creature evolution, progression,
and spiritualization. Even the grand universe experiences of the descending
personalities from Paradise are that part of his experience which is
complemental to his summation of the ascending experiences of the pilgrims of
time.
117:3.5 Mortal man is more than figuratively made in the image of God. From a
physical standpoint this statement is hardly true, but with reference to
certain universe potentialities it is an actual fact. In the human race,
something of the same drama of evolutionary attainment is being unfolded as
takes place, on a vastly larger scale, in the universe of universes. Man, a
volitional personality, becomes creative in liaison with an Adjuster, an
impersonal entity, in the presence of the finite potentialities of the
Supreme, and the result is the flowering of an immortal soul. In the universes
the Creator personalities of time and space function in liaison with the
impersonal spirit of the Paradise Trinity and become thereby creative of a new
power potential of Deity reality.
117:3.6 Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being,
who is deity, but man's evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the
Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the
strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his
Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual
to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to
grow in and of itself.
117:3.7 This is somewhat like the way in which the Supreme Being expands. His
sovereignty grows in and out of the acts and achievements of the Supreme
Creator Personalities; that is the evolution of the majesty of his power as
the ruler of the grand universe. His deity nature is likewise dependent on the
pre-existent unity of the Paradise Trinity. But there is still another aspect
to the evolution of God the Supreme: He is not only Creator-evolved and
Trinity-derived; he is also self-evolved and self-derived. God the Supreme is
himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. The
human morontial soul is likewise a volitional, cocreative partner in its own
immortalization.
117:3.8 The Father collaborates with the Conjoint Actor in manipulating the
energies of Paradise and in rendering these responsive to the Supreme. The
Father collaborates with the Eternal Son in the production of Creator
personalities whose acts will sometime culminate in the sovereignty of the
Supreme. The Father collaborates with both Son and Spirit in the creation of
Trinity personalities to function as rulers of the grand universe until such
time as the completed evolution of the Supreme qualifies him to assume that
sovereignty. The Father co-operates with his Deity and non-Deity co-ordinates
in these and many other ways in the furtherance of the evolution of Supremacy,
but he also functions alone in these matters. And his solitary function is
probably best revealed in the ministry of the Thought Adjusters and their
associated entities.
117:3.9 Deity is unity, existential in the Trinity, experiential in the
Supreme, and, in mortals, creature-realized in Adjuster fusion. The presence
of the Thought Adjusters in mortal man reveals the essential unity of the
universe, for man, the lowest possible type of universe personality, contains
within himself an actual fragment of the highest and eternal reality, even the
original Father of all personalities.
117:3.10 The Supreme Being evolves by virtue of his liaison with the Paradise
Trinity and in consequence of the divinity successes of the creator and
administrator children of that Trinity. Man's immortal soul evolves its own
eternal destiny by association with the divine presence of the Paradise Father
and in accordance with the personality decisions of the human mind. What the
Trinity is to God the Supreme, the Adjuster is to evolving man.
117:3.11 During the present universe age the Supreme Being is apparently
unable to function directly as a creator except in those instances where the
finite possibilities of action have been exhausted by the creative agencies of
time and space. Thus far in universe history this has transpired but once;
when the possibilities of finite action in the matter of universe reflectivity
had been exhausted, then did the Supreme function as the creative culminator
of all antecedent creator actions. And we believe he will again function as a
culminator in future ages whenever antecedent creatorship has completed an
appropriate cycle of creative activity.
117:3.12 The Supreme Being did not create man, but man was literally created
out of, his very life was derived from, the potentiality of the Supreme. Nor
does he evolve man; yet is the Supreme himself the very essence of evolution.
From the finite standpoint, we actually live, move, and have our being within
the immanence of the Supreme.
117:3.13 The Supreme apparently cannot initiate original causation but appears
to be the catalyzer of all universe growth and is seemingly destined to
provide totality culmination as regards the destiny of all experiential-
evolutionary beings. The Father originates the concept of a finite cosmos; the
Creator Sons factualize this idea in time and space with the consent and co-
operation of the Creative Spirits; the Supreme culminates the total finite and
establishes its relationship with the destiny of the absonite.
4. THE FINITE GOD
117:4.1 As we view the ceaseless struggles of the creature creation for
perfection of status and divinity of being, we cannot but believe that these
unending efforts bespeak the unceasing struggle of the Supreme for divine
self-realization. God the Supreme is the finite Deity, and he must cope with
the problems of the finite in the total sense of that word. Our struggles with
the vicissitudes of time in the evolutions of space are reflections of his
efforts to achieve reality of self and completion of sovereignty within the
sphere of action which his evolving nature is expanding to the outermost
limits of possibility.
117:4.2 Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression.
His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom-action of every
personality in existence. When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is
cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God
finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement
of experiential sovereignty. But if a creature rejects the eternal career,
that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature's choice
experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by
substitutional or collateral experience; as for the personality of the
nonsurvivor, it is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of
the Deity of the Supreme.
117:4.3 God is so trusting, so loving, that he gives a portion of his divine
nature into the hands of even human beings for safekeeping and self-
realization. The Father nature, the Adjuster presence, is indestructible
regardless of the choice of the mortal being. The child of the Supreme, the
evolving self, can be destroyed notwithstanding that the potentially unifying
personality of such a misguided self will persist as a factor of the Deity of
Supremacy.
117:4.4 The human personality can truly destroy individuality of creaturehood,
and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cosmic suicide will
persist, these qualities will not persist as an individual creature. The
Supreme will again find expression in the creatures of the universes but never
again as that particular person; the unique personality of a nonascender
returns to the Supreme as a drop of water returns to the sea.
117:4.5 Any isolated action of the personal parts of the finite is
comparatively irrelevant to the eventual appearance of the Supreme Whole, but
the whole is nonetheless dependent on the total acts of the manifold parts.
The personality of the individual mortal is insignificant in the face of the
total of Supremacy, but the personality of each human being represents an
irreplaceable meaning-value in the finite; personality, having once been
expressed, never again finds identical expression except in the continuing
existence of that living personality.
117:4.6 And so, as we strive for self-expression, the Supreme is striving in
us, and with us, for deity expression. As we find the Father, so has the
Supreme again found the Paradise Creator of all things. As we master the
problems of self-realization, so is the God of experience achieving almighty
supremacy in the universes of time and space.
117:4.7 Mankind does not ascend effortlessly in the universe, neither does the
Supreme evolve without purposeful and intelligent action. Creatures do not
attain perfection by mere passivity, nor can the spirit of Supremacy
factualize the power of the Almighty without unceasing service ministry to the
finite creation.
117:4.8 The temporal relation of man to the Supreme is the foundation for
cosmic morality, the universal sensitivity to, and acceptance of, duty. This
is a morality which transcends the temporal sense of relative right and wrong;
it is a morality directly predicated on the self-conscious creature's
appreciation of experiential obligation to experiential Deity. Mortal man and
all other finite creatures are created out of the living potential of energy,
mind, and spirit existent in the Supreme. It is upon the Supreme that the
Adjuster-mortal ascender draws for the creation of the immortal and divine
character of a finaliter. It is out of the very reality of the Supreme that
the Adjuster, with the consent of the human will, weaves the patterns of the
eternal nature of an ascending son of God.
117:4.9 The evolution of Adjuster progress in the spiritualizing and
eternalizing of a human personality is directly productive of an enlargement
of the sovereignty of the Supreme. Such achievements in human evolution are at
the same time achievements in the evolutionary actualization of the Supreme.
While it is true that creatures could not evolve without the Supreme, it is
probably also true that the evolution of the Supreme can never be fully
attained independent of the completed evolution of all creatures. Herein lies
the great cosmic responsibility of self-conscious personalities: That Supreme
Deity is in a certain sense dependent on the choosing of the mortal will. And
the mutual progression of creature evolution and of Supreme evolution is
faithfully and fully indicated to the Ancients of Days over the inscrutable
mechanisms of universe reflectivity.
117:4.10 The great challenge that has been given to mortal man is this: Will
you decide to personalize the experiencible value meanings of the cosmos into
your own evolving selfhood? or by rejecting survival, will you allow these
secrets of Supremacy to lie dormant, awaiting the action of another creature
at some other time who will in his way attempt a creature contribution to the
evolution of the finite God? But that will be his contribution to the Supreme,
not yours.
117:4.11 The great struggle of this universe age is between the potential and
the actual -- the seeking for actualization by all that is as yet unexpressed.
If mortal man proceeds upon the Paradise adventure, he is following the
motions of time, which flow as currents within the stream of eternity; if
mortal man rejects the eternal career, he is moving counter to the stream of
events in the finite universes. The mechanical creation moves on inexorably in
accordance with the unfolding purpose of the Paradise Father , but the
volitional creation has the choice of accepting or of rejecting the role of
personality participation in the adventure of eternity. Mortal man cannot
destroy the supreme values of human existence, but he can very definitely
prevent the evolution of these values in his own personal experience. To the
extent that the human self thus refuses to take part in the Paradise ascent,
to just that extent is the Supreme delayed in achieving divinity expression in
the grand universe.
117:4.12 Into the keeping of mortal man has been given not only the Adjuster
presence of the Paradise Father but also control over the destiny of an
infinitesimal fraction of the future of the Supreme. For as man attains human
destiny, so does the Supreme achieve destiny on deity levels.
117:4.13 And so the decision awaits each of you as it once awaited each of us:
Will you fail the God of time, who is so dependent upon the decisions of the
finite mind? will you fail the Supreme personality of the universes by the
slothfulness of animalistic retrogression? will you fail the great brother of
all creatures, who is so dependent on each creature? can you allow yourself to
pass into the realm of the unrealized when before you lies the enchanting
vista of the universe career -- the divine discovery of the Paradise Father
and the divine participation in the search for, and the evolution of, the God
of Supremacy?
117:4.14 God's gifts -- his bestowal of reality -- are not divorcements from
himself; he does not alienate creation from himself, but he has set up
tensions in the creations circling Paradise. God first loves man and confers
upon him the potential of immortality -- eternal reality. And as man loves
God, so does man become eternal in actuality. And here is mystery: The more
closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality
-- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches
nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the
doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God
make that man more than he is.
5. THE OVERSOUL OF CREATION
117:5.1 The great Supreme is the cosmic oversoul of the grand universe. In him
the qualities and quantities of the cosmos do find their deity reflection; his
deity nature is the mosaic composite of the total vastness of all creature-
Creator nature throughout the evolving universes. And the Supreme is also an
actualizing Deity embodying a creative will which embraces an evolving
universe purpose.
117:5.2 The intellectual, potentially personal selves of the finite emerge
from the Third Source and Center and achieve finite time-space Deity synthesis
in the Supreme. When the creature submits to the will of the Creator, he does
not submerge or surrender his personality; the individual personality
participants in the actualization of the finite God do not lose their
volitional selfhood by so functioning. Rather are such personalities
progressively augmented by participation in this great Deity adventure; by
such union with divinity man exalts, enriches, spiritualizes, and unifies his
evolving self to the very threshold of supremacy.
117:5.3 The evolving immortal soul of man, the joint creation of the material
mind and the Adjuster, ascends as such to Paradise and subsequently, when
mustered into the Corps of the Finality, becomes allied in some new way with
the spirit-gravity circuit of the Eternal Son by a technique of experience
known as finaliter transcendation. Such finaliters thus become acceptable
candidates for experiential recognition as personalities of God the Supreme.
And when these mortal intellects in the unrevealed future assignments of the
Corps of the Finality attain the seventh stage of spirit existence, such dual
minds will become triune. These two attuned minds, the human and the divine,
will become glorified in union with the experiential mind of the then
actualized Supreme Being.
117:5.4 In the eternal future, God the Supreme will be actualized --
creatively expressed and spiritually portrayed -- in the spiritualized mind,
the immortal soul, of ascendant man, even as the Universal Father was so
revealed in the earth life of Jesus.
117:5.5 Man does not unite with the Supreme and submerge his personal
identity, but the universe repercussions of the experience of all men do thus
form a part of the divine experiencing of the Supreme. "The act is ours, the
consequences God's."
117:5.6 The progressing personality leaves a trail of actualized reality as it
passes through the ascending levels of the universes. Be they mind, spirit, or
energy, the growing creations of time and space are modified by the
progression of personality through their domains. When man acts, the Supreme
reacts, and this transaction constitutes the fact of progression.
117:5.7 The great circuits of energy, mind, and spirit are never the permanent
possessions of ascending personality; these ministries remain forever a part
of Supremacy. In the mortal experience the human intellect resides in the
rhythmic pulsations of the adjutant mind-spirits and effects its decisions
within the arena produced by encircuitment within this ministry. Upon mortal
death the human self is everlastingly divorced from the adjutant circuit.
While these adjutants never seem to transmit experience from one personality
to another, they can and do transmit the impersonal repercussions of decision-
action through God the Sevenfold to God the Supreme. (At least this is true of
the adjutants of worship and wisdom.)
117:5.8 And so it is with the spiritual circuits: Man utilizes these in his
ascent through the universes, but he never possesses them as a part of his
eternal personality. But these circuits of spiritual ministry, whether Spirit
of Truth, Holy Spirit, or superuniverse spirit presences, are receptive and
reactive to the emerging values in ascending personality, and these values are
faithfully transmitted through the Sevenfold to the Supreme.
117:5.9 While such spiritual influences as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of
Truth are local universe ministrations, their guidance is not wholly confined
to the geographic limitations of a given local creation. As the ascending
mortal passes beyond the boundaries of his local universe of origin, he is not
entirely deprived of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth which has so
constantly taught and guided him through the philosophic mazes of the material
and morontial worlds, in every crisis of ascension unfailingly directing the
Paradise pilgrim, ever saying: "This is the way." When you leave the domains
of the local universe, through the ministry of the spirit of the emerging
Supreme Being and through the provisions of superuniverse reflectivity, you
will still be guided in your Paradise ascent by the comforting directive
spirit of the Paradise bestowal Sons of God.
117:5.10 How do these manifold circuits of cosmic ministry register the
meanings, values, and facts of evolutionary experience in the Supreme? We are
not exactly certain, but we believe that this registry takes place through the
persons of the Supreme Creators of Paradise origin who are the immediate
bestowers of these circuits of time and space. The mind-experience
accumulations of the seven adjutant mind-spirits, in their ministry to the
physical level of intellect, are a part of the local universe experience of
the Divine Minister, and through this Creative Spirit they probably find
registry in the mind of Supremacy. Likewise are mortal experiences with the
Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit probably registered by similar techniques
in the person of Supremacy.
117:5.11 Even the experience of man and Adjuster must find echo in the
divinity of God the Supreme, for, as the Adjusters experience, they are like
the Supreme, and the evolving soul of mortal man is created out of the pre-
existent possibility for such experience within the Supreme.
117:5.12 In this manner do the manifold experiences of all creation become a
part of the evolution of Supremacy. Creatures merely utilize the qualities and
quantities of the finite as they ascend to the Father; the impersonal
consequences of such utilization remain forever a part of the living cosmos,
the Supreme person.
117:5.13 What man himself takes with him as a personality possession are the
character consequences of the experience of having used the mind and spirit
circuits of the grand universe in his Paradise ascent. When man decides, and
when he consummates this decision in action, man experiences, and the meanings
and the values of this experience are forever a part of his eternal character
on all levels, from the finite to the final. Cosmically moral and divinely
spiritual character represents the creature's capital accumulation of personal
decisions which have been illuminated by sincere worship, glorified by
intelligent love, and consummated in brotherly service.
117:5.14 The evolving Supreme will eventually compensate finite creatures for
their inability ever to achieve more than limited experience contact with the
universe of universes. Creatures can attain the Paradise Father, but their
evolutionary minds, being finite, are incapable of really understanding the
infinite and absolute Father. But since all creature experiencing registers
in, and is a part of, the Supreme, when all creatures attain the final level
of finite existence, and after total universe development makes possible their
attainment of God the Supreme as an actual divinity presence, then, inherent
in the fact of such contact, is contact with total experience. The finite of
time contains within itself the seeds of eternity; and we are taught that,
when the fullness of evolution witnesses the exhaustion of the capacity for
cosmic growth, the total finite will embark upon the absonite phases of the
eternal career in quest of the Father as Ultimate.
6. THE QUEST FOR THE SUPREME
117:6.1 We seek the Supreme in the universes, but we find him not. "He is the
within and the without of all things and beings, moving and quiescent.
Unrecognizable in his mystery, though distant, yet is he near." The Almighty
Supreme is "the form of the yet unformed, the pattern of the yet uncreated."
The Supreme is your universe home, and when you find him, it will be like
returning home. He is your experiential parent, and even as in the experience
of human beings, so has he grown in the experience of divine parenthood. He
knows you because he is creaturelike as well as creatorlike.
117:6.2 If you truly desire to find God, you cannot help having born in your
minds the consciousness of the Supreme. As God is your divine Father, so is
the Supreme your divine Mother, in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives
as universe creatures. "How universal is the Supreme -- he is on all sides!
The limitless things of creation depend on his presence for life, and none are
refused."
117:6.3 What Michael is to Nebadon, the Supreme is to the finite cosmos; his
Deity is the great avenue through which the love of the Father flows outward
to all creation, and he is the great avenue through which finite creatures
pass inward in their quest of the Father, who is love. Even Thought Adjusters
are related to him; in original nature and divinity they are like the Father,
but when they experience the transactions of time in the universes of space,
they become like the Supreme.
117:6.4 The act of the creature's choosing to do the will of the Creator is a
cosmic value and has a universe meaning which is immediately reacted to by
some unrevealed but ubiquitous force of co-ordination, probably the
functioning of the ever-enlarging action of the Supreme Being.
117:6.5 The morontia soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the
Adjuster action of the Universal Father and the child of the cosmic reaction
of the Supreme Being, the Universal Mother. The mother influence dominates the
human personality throughout the local universe childhood of the growing soul.
The influence of the Deity parents becomes more equal after the Adjuster
fusion and during the superuniverse career, but when the creatures of time
begin the traversal of the central universe of eternity, the Father nature
becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation
upon the recognition of the Universal Father and the admission into the Corps
of the Finality.
117:6.6 In and through the experience of finaliter attainment the experiential
mother qualities of the ascending self become tremendously affected by contact
and infusion with the spirit presence of the Eternal Son and the mind presence
of the Infinite Spirit. Then, throughout the realms of finaliter activity in
the grand universe, there appears a new awakening of the latent mother
potential of the Supreme, a new realization of experiential meanings, and a
new synthesis of experiential values of the entire ascension career. It
appears that this realization of self will continue in the universe careers of
the sixth-stage finaliters until the mother inheritance of the Supreme attains
to finite synchrony with the Adjuster inheritance of the Father. This
intriguing period of grand universe function represents the continuing adult
career of the ascendant and perfected mortal.
117:6.7 Upon the completion of the sixth stage of existence and the entrance
upon the seventh and final stage of spirit status, there will probably ensue
the advancing ages of enriching experience, ripening wisdom, and divinity
realization. In the nature of the finaliter this will probably equal the
completed attainment of the mind struggle for spirit self-realization, the
completion of the co-ordination of the ascendant man-nature with the divine
Adjuster-nature within the limits of finite possibilities. Such a magnificent
universe self thus becomes the eternal finaliter son of the Paradise Father as
well as the eternal universe child of the Mother Supreme, a universe self
qualified to represent both the Father and Mother of universes and
personalities in any activity or undertaking pertaining to the finite
administration of created, creating, or evolving things and beings.
117:6.8 All soul-evolving humans are literally the evolutionary sons of God
the Father and God the Mother, the Supreme Being. But until such time as
mortal man becomes soul-conscious of his divine heritage, this assurance of
Deity kinship must be faith realized. Human life experience is the cosmic
cocoon in which the universe endowments of the Supreme Being and the universe
presence of the Universal Father (none of which are personalities) are
evolving the morontia soul of time and the human-divine finaliter character of
universe destiny and eternal service.
117:6.9 Men all too often forget that God is the greatest experience in human
existence. Other experiences are limited in their nature and content, but the
experience of God has no limits save those of the creature's comprehension
capacity, and this very experience is in itself capacity enlarging. When men
search for God, they are searching for everything. When they find God, they
have found everything. The search for God is the unstinted bestowal of love
attended by amazing discoveries of new and greater love to be bestowed.
117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as
he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never
be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never
take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father's
love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man's
personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great
circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the
Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the
ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love
to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the
love of the Supreme.
117:6.11 There is no approach to the Supreme except through experience, and in
the current epochs of creation there are only three avenues of creature
approach to Supremacy:
117:6.12 1. The Paradise Citizens descend from the eternal Isle through
Havona, where they acquire capacity for Supremacy comprehension through
observation of the Paradise-Havona reality differential and by exploratory
discovery of the manifold activities of the Supreme Creator Personalities,
ranging from the Master Spirits to the Creator Sons.
117:6.13 2. The time-space ascenders coming up from the evolutionary universes
of the Supreme Creators make close approach to the Supreme in the traversal of
Havona as a preliminary to the augmenting appreciation of the unity of the
Paradise Trinity.
117:6.14 3. The Havona natives acquire a comprehension of the Supreme through
contacts with descending pilgrims from Paradise and ascending pilgrims from
the seven superuniverses. Havona natives are inherently in position to
harmonize the essentially different viewpoints of the citizens of the eternal
Isle and the citizens of the evolutionary universes.
117:6.15 To evolutionary creatures there are seven great approaches to the
Universal Father, and each of these Paradise ascensions passes through the
divinity of one of the Seven Master Spirits; and each such approach is made
possible by an enlargement of experience receptivity consequent upon the
creature's having served in the superuniverse reflective of the nature of that
Master Spirit. The sum total of these seven experiences constitutes the
present-known limits of a creature's consciousness of the reality and
actuality of God the Supreme.
117:6.16 It is not only man's own limitations which prevent him from finding
the finite God; it is also the incompletion of the universe; even the
incompletion of all creatures -- past, present, and future -- makes the
Supreme inaccessible. God the Father can be found by any individual who has
attained the divine level of Godlikeness, but God the Supreme will never be
personally discovered by any one creature until that far-distant time when,
through the universal attainment of perfection, all creatures will
simultaneously find him.
117:6.17 Despite the fact that you cannot, in this universe age, personally
find him as you can and will find the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,
nevertheless, the Paradise ascent and subsequent universe career will
gradually create in your consciousness the recognition of the universe
presence and the cosmic action of the God of all experience. The fruits of the
spirit are the substance of the Supreme as he is realizable in human
experience.
117:6.18 Man's sometime attainment of the Supreme is consequent upon his
fusion with the spirit of Paradise Deity. With Urantians this spirit is the
Adjuster presence of the Universal Father; and though the Mystery Monitor is
from the Father and like the Father, we doubt that even such a divine gift can
achieve the impossible task of revealing the nature of the infinite God to a
finite creature. We suspect that what the Adjusters will reveal to future
seventh-stage finaliters will be the divinity and nature of God the Supreme.
And this revelation will be to a finite creature what the revelation of the
Infinite would be to an absolute being.
117:6.19 The Supreme is not infinite, but he probably embraces all of infinity
that a finite creature can ever really comprehend. To understand more than the
Supreme is to be more than finite!
117:6.20 All experiential creations are interdependent in their realization of
destiny. Only existential reality is self-contained and self-existent. Havona
and the seven superuniverses require each other to achieve the maximum of
finite attainment; likewise will they be sometime dependent on the future
universes of outer space for finite transcendence.
117:6.21 A human ascender can find the Father; God is existential and
therefore real, irrespective of the status of experience in the total
universe. But no single ascender will ever find the Supreme until all
ascenders have reached that maximum universe maturity which qualifies them
simultaneously to participate in this discovery.
117:6.22 The Father is no respecter of persons; he treats each of his
ascending sons as cosmic individuals. The Supreme likewise is no respecter of
persons; he treats his experiential children as a single cosmic total.
117:6.23 Man can discover the Father in his heart, but he will have to search
for the Supreme in the hearts of all other men; and when all creatures
perfectly reveal the love of the Supreme, then will he become a universe
actuality to all creatures. And that is just another way of saying that the
universes will be settled in light and life.
117:6.24 The attainment of perfected self-realization by all personalities
plus the attainment of perfected equilibrium throughout the universes equals
the attainment of the Supreme and witnesses the liberation of all finite
reality from the limitations of incomplete existence. Such an exhaustion of
all finite potentials yields the completed attainment of the Supreme and may
be otherwise defined as the completed evolutionary actualization of the
Supreme Being himself.
117:6.25 Men do not find the Supreme suddenly and spectacularly as an
earthquake tears chasms into the rocks, but they find him slowly and patiently
as a river quietly wears away the soil beneath.
117:6.26 When you find the Father, you will find the great cause of your
spiritual ascent in the universes; when you find the Supreme, you will
discover the great result of your career of Paradise progression.
117:6.27 But no God-knowing mortal can ever be lonely in his journey through
the cosmos, for he knows that the Father walks beside him each step of the
way, while the very way that he is traversing is the presence of the Supreme.
7. THE FUTURE OF THE SUPREME
117:7.1 The completed realization of all finite potentials equals the
completion of the realization of all evolutionary experience. This suggests
the final emergence of the Supreme as an almighty Deity presence in the
universes. We believe that the Supreme, in this stage of development, will be
as discretely personalized as is the Eternal Son, as concretely powerized as
is the Isle of Paradise, as completely unified as is the Conjoint Actor, and
all of this within the limitations of the finite possibilities of Supremacy at
the culmination of the present universe age.
117:7.2 While this is an entirely proper concept of the future of the Supreme,
we would call attention to certain problems inherent in this concept:
117:7.3 1. The Unqualified Supervisors of the Supreme could hardly be deitized
at any stage prior to his completed evolution, and yet these same supervisors
even now qualifiedly exercise the sovereignty of supremacy concerning the
universes settled in light and life.
117:7.4 2. The Supreme could hardly function in the Trinity Ultimate until he
had attained complete actuality of universe status, and yet the Trinity
Ultimate is even now a qualified reality, and you have been informed of the
existence of the Qualified Vicegerents of the Ultimate
117:7.5 3. The Supreme is not completely real to universe creatures, but there
are many reasons for deducing that he is quite real to the Sevenfold Deity,
extending from the Universal Father on Paradise to the Creator Sons and the
Creative Spirits of the local universes.
117:7.6 It may be that on the upper limits of the finite, where time conjoins
transcended time, there is some sort of blurring and blending of sequence. It
may be that the Supreme is able to forecast his universe presence onto these
supertime levels and then to a limited degree anticipate future evolution by
reflecting this future forecast back to the created levels as the Immanence of
the Projected Incomplete. Such phenomena may be observed wherever finite makes
contact with superfinite, as in the experiences of human beings who are
indwelt by Thought Adjusters that are veritable predictions of man's future
universe attainments throughout all eternity.
117:7.7 When mortal ascenders are admitted to the finaliter corps of Paradise,
they take an oath to the Paradise Trinity, and in taking this oath of
allegiance, they are thereby pledging eternal fidelity to God the Supreme, who
is the Trinity as comprehended by all finite creature personalities.
Subsequently, as the finaliter companies function throughout the evolving
universes, they are solely amenable to the mandates of Paradise origin until
the eventful times of the settling of local universes in light and life. As
the new governmental organizations of these perfected creations begin to be
reflective of the emerging sovereignty of the Supreme, we observe that the
outlying finaliter companies then acknowledge the jurisdictional authority of
such new governments. It appears that God the Supreme is evolving as the
unifier of the evolutionary Corps of the Finality, but it is highly probable
that the eternal destiny of these seven corps will be directed by the Supreme
as a member of the Ultimate Trinity.
117:7.8 The Supreme Being contains three superfinite possibilities for
universe manifestation:
1. Absonite collaboration in the first experiential Trinity.
2. Coabsolute relationship in the second experiential Trinity.
3. Coinfinite participation in the Trinity of Trinities, but we have no
satisfactory concept as to what this really means.
117:7.9 This is one of the generally accepted hypotheses of the future of the
Supreme, but there are also many speculations concerning his relations to the
present grand universe subsequent to its attainment of the status of light and
life.
117:7.10 The present goal of the superuniverses is to become, as they are and
within their potentials, perfect, even as is Havona. This perfection pertains
to physical and spiritual attainment, even to administrative, governmental,
and fraternal development. It is believed that, in the ages to come, the
possibilities for disharmony, maladjustment, and misadaptation will be
eventually exhausted in the superuniverses. The energy circuits will be in
perfect balance and in complete subjugation to mind, while spirit, in the
presence of personality, will have achieved the dominance of mind.
117:7.11 It is conjectured that at this far-distant time the spirit person of
the Supreme and attained power of the Almighty will have achieved co-ordinate
development, and that both, as unified in and by the Supreme Mind, will
factualize as the Supreme Being, a completed actuality in the universes -- an
actuality which will be observable by all creature intelligences, reacted to
by all created energies, co-ordinated in all spiritual entities, and
experienced by all universe personalities.
117:7.12 This concept implies the actual sovereignty of the Supreme in the
grand universe. It is altogether likely that the present Trinity
administrators will continue as his vicegerents, but we believe that the
present demarcations between the seven superuniverses will gradually
disappear, and that the entire grand universe will function as a perfected
whole.
117:7.13 It is possible that the Supreme may then be personally resident on
Uversa, the headquarters of Orvonton, from which he will direct the
administration of the time creations, but this is really only a conjecture.
Certainly, though, the personality of the Supreme Being will be definitely
contactable at some specific locality, although the ubiquity of his Deity
presence will probably continue to permeate the universe of universes. What
the relation of the superuniverse citizens of that age will be to the Supreme
we do not know, but it may be something like the present relationship between
the Havona natives and the Paradise Trinity.
117:7.14 The perfected grand universe of those future days will be vastly
different from what it is at present. Gone will be the thrilling adventures of
the organization of the galaxies of space, the planting of life on the
uncertain worlds of time, and the evolving of harmony out of chaos, beauty out
of potentials, truth out of meanings, and goodness out of values. The time
universes will have achieved the fulfillment of finite destiny! And perhaps
for a space there will be rest, relaxation from the agelong struggle for
evolutionary perfection. But not for long! Certainly, surely, and inexorably
the enigma of the emerging Deity of God the Ultimate will challenge these
perfected citizens of the settled universes just as their struggling
evolutionary forebears were once challenged by the quest for God the Supreme.
The curtain of cosmic destiny will draw back to reveal the transcendent
grandeur of the alluring absonite quest for the attainment of the Universal
Father on those new and higher levels revealed in the ultimate of creature
experience.
117:7.15 Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.
PAPER 118
SUPREME AND ULTIMATE -- TIME AND SPACE
118:0.1 CONCERNING the several natures of Deity, it may be said:
118:0.2 1. The Father is self-existent self.
118:0.3 2. The Son is coexistent self.
118:0.4 3. The Spirit is conjoint-existent self.
118:0.5 4. The Supreme is evolutionary-experiential self.
118:0.6 5. The Sevenfold is self-distributive divinity.
118:0.7 6. The Ultimate is transcendental-experiential self.
118:0.8 7. The Absolute is existential-experiential self.
118:0.9 While God the Sevenfold is indispensable to the evolutionary
attainment of the Supreme, the Supreme is also indispensable to the eventual
emergence of the Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the
Ultimate constitutes the basic association of subabsolute and derived Deity,
for they are interdependently complemental in the attainment of destiny.
Together they constitute the experiential bridge linking the beginnings and
the completions of all creative growth in the master universe.
118:0.10 Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent
but always punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient
goal attainment which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new
adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.
118:0.11 While the domain of mathematics is beset with qualitative
limitations, it does provide the finite mind with a conceptual basis of
contemplating infinity. There is no quantitative limitation to numbers, even
in the comprehension of the finite mind. No matter how large the number
conceived, you can always envisage one more being added. And also, you can
comprehend that that is short of infinity, for no matter how many times you
repeat this addition to number, still always one more can be added.
118:0.12 At the same time, the infinite series can be totaled at any given
point, and this total (more properly, a subtotal) provides the fullness of the
sweetness of goal attainment for a given person at a given time and status.
But sooner or later, this same person begins to hunger and yearn for new and
greater goals, and such adventures in growth will be forever forthcoming in
the fullness of time and the cycles of eternity.
118:0.13 Each successive universe age is the antechamber of the following era
of cosmic growth, and each universe epoch provides immediate destiny for all
preceding stages. Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but perfection-
limited, creation; Havona perfection, expanding out into the evolutionary
superuniverses, finds not only cosmic destiny but also liberation from the
limitations of pre-evolutionary existence.
1. TIME AND ETERNITY
118:1.1 It is helpful to man's cosmic orientation to attain all possible
comprehension of Deity's relation to the cosmos. While absolute Deity is
eternal in nature, the Gods are related to time as an experience in eternity.
In the evolutionary universes eternity is temporal everlastingness -- the
everlasting now.
118:1.2 The personality of the mortal creature may eternalize by self-
identification with the indwelling spirit through the technique of choosing to
do the will of the Father. Such a consecration of will is tantamount to the
realization of eternity-reality of purpose. This means that the purpose of the
creature has become fixed with regard to the succession of moments; stated
otherwise, that the succession of moments will witness no change in creature
purpose. A million or a billion moments makes no difference. Number has ceased
to have meaning with regard to the creature's purpose. Thus does creature
choice plus God's choice eventuate in the eternal realities of the never-
ending union of the spirit of God and the nature of man in the everlasting
service of the children of God and of their Paradise Father.
118:1.3 There is a direct relationship between maturity and the unit of time
consciousness in any given intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a
longer period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious self
evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which the conceiving intellect
measures and evaluates the facts of temporal existence.
118:1.4 Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the
lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons
backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of
bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the
future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible
action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human
will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus
born of the past and the future becomes existent.
118:1.5 In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are
brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self
matures, it reaches further and further back into the past for experience,
while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the
unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach ever further
into both past and future, so does judgment become less and less dependent on
the momentary present. In this way does decision-action begin to escape from
the fetters of the moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of
past-future significance.
118:1.6 Patience is exercised by those mortals whose time units are short;
true maturity transcends patience by a forbearance born of real understanding.
118:1.7 To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same
time escaping from the limitations of the present. The plans of maturity,
founded on past experience, are coming into being in the present in such
manner as to enhance the values of the future.
118:1.8 The time unit of immaturity concentrates meaning-value into the
present moment in such a way as to divorce the present of its true
relationship to the not-present -- the past-future. The time unit of maturity
is proportioned so to reveal the co-ordinate relationship of past-present-
future that the self begins to gain insight into the wholeness of events,
begins to view the landscape of time from the panoramic perspective of
broadened horizons, begins perhaps to suspect the nonbeginning, nonending
eternal continuum, the fragments of which are called time.
118:1.9 On the levels of the infinite and the absolute the moment of the
present contains all of the past as well as all of the future. I AM signifies
also I WAS and I WILL BE. And this represents our best concept of eternity and
the eternal.
118:1.10 On the absolute and eternal level, potential reality is just as
meaningful as actual reality. Only on the finite level and to time-bound
creatures does there appear to be such a vast difference. To God, as absolute,
an ascending mortal who has made the eternal decision is already a Paradise
finaliter. But the Universal Father, through the indwelling Thought Adjuster,
is not thus limited in awareness but can also know of, and participate in,
every temporal struggle with the problems of the creature ascent from
animallike to Godlike levels of existence.
2. OMNIPRESENCE AND UBIQUITY
118:2.1 The ubiquity of Deity must not be confused with the ultimacy of the
divine omnipresence. It is volitional with the Universal Father that the
Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Absolute should compensate, co-ordinate, and
unify his time-space ubiquity and his time-space-transcended omnipresence with
his timeless and spaceless universal and absolute presence. And you should
remember that, while Deity ubiquity may be so often space associated, it is
not necessarily time conditioned.
118:2.2 As mortal and morontia ascenders you progressively discern God through
the ministry of God the Sevenfold. Through Havona you discover God the
Supreme. On Paradise you find him as a person, and then as finaliters you will
presently attempt to know him as Ultimate. Being finaliters, there would seem
to be but one course to pursue after having attained the Ultimate, and that
would be to begin the quest of the Absolute. No finaliter will be disturbed by
the uncertainties of the attainment of the Deity Absolute since at the end of
the supreme and ultimate ascensions he encountered God the Father. Such
finaliters will no doubt believe that, even if they should be successful in
finding God the Absolute, they would only be discovering the same God, the
Paradise Father manifesting himself on more nearly infinite and universal
levels. Undoubtedly the attainment of God in absolute would reveal the Primal
Ancestor of universes as well as the Final Father of personalities.
118:2.3 God the Supreme may not be a demonstration of the time-space
omnipresence of Deity, but he is literally a manifestation of divine ubiquity.
Between the spiritual presence of the Creator and the material manifestations
of creation there exists a vast domain of the ubiquitous becoming -- the
universe emergence of evolutionary Deity.
118:2.4 If God the Supreme ever assumes direct control of the universes of
time and space, we are confident such a Deity administration will function
under the overcontrol of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would
begin to become manifest to the universes of time as the transcendental
Almighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the overcontrol of supertime and
transcended space concerning the administrative functions of the Almighty
Supreme.
118:2.5 The mortal mind may ask, even as we do: If the evolution of God the
Supreme to administrative authority in the grand universe is attended by
augmented manifestations of God the Ultimate, will a corresponding emergence
of God the Ultimate in the postulated universes of outer space be attended by
similar and enhanced revelations of God the Absolute? But we really do not
know.
3. TIME-SPACE RELATIONSHIPS
118:3.1 Only by ubiquity could Deity unify time-space manifestations to the
finite conception, for time is a succession of instants while space is a
system of associated points. You do, after all, perceive time by analysis and
space by synthesis. You co-ordinate and associate these two dissimilar
conceptions by the integrating insight of personality. Of all the animal world
only man possesses this time-space perceptibility. To an animal, motion has a
meaning, but motion exhibits value only to a creature of personality status.
118:3.2 Things are time conditioned, but truth is timeless. The more truth you
know, the more truth you are, the more of the past you can understand and of
the future you can comprehend.
118:3.3 Truth is inconcussible -- forever exempt from all transient
vicissitudes, albeit never dead and formal, always vibrant and adaptable --
radiantly alive. But when truth becomes linked with fact, then both time and
space condition its meanings and correlate its values. Such realities of truth
wedded to fact become concepts and are accordingly relegated to the domain of
relative cosmic realities.
118:3.4 The linking of the absolute and eternal truth of the Creator with the
factual experience of the finite and temporal creature eventuates a new and
emerging value of the Supreme. The concept of the Supreme is essential to the
co-ordination of the divine and unchanging overworld with the finite and ever-
changing underworld.
118:3.5 Space comes the nearest of all nonabsolute things to being absolute.
Space is apparently absolutely ultimate. The real difficulty we have in
understanding space on the material level is due to the fact that, while
material bodies exist in space, space also exists in these same material
bodies. While there is much about space that is absolute, that does not mean
that space is absolute.
118:3.6 It may help to an understanding of space relationships if you would
conjecture that, relatively speaking, space is after all a property of all
material bodies. Hence, when a body moves through space, it also takes all its
properties with it, even the space which is in and of such a moving body.
118:3.7 All patterns of reality occupy space on the material levels, but
spirit patterns only exist in relation to space; they do not occupy or
displace space, neither do they contain it. But to us the master riddle of
space pertains to the pattern of an idea. When we enter the mind domain, we
encounter many a puzzle. Does the pattern -- the reality -- of an idea occupy
space? We really do not know, albeit we are sure that an idea pattern does not
contain space. But it would hardly be safe to postulate that the immaterial is
always nonspatial.
4. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSATION
118:4.1 Many of the theologic difficulties and the metaphysical dilemmas of
mortal man are due to man's mislocation of Deity personality and consequent
assignment of infinite and absolute attributes to subordinate Divinity and to
evolutionary Deity. You must not forget that, while there is indeed a true
First Cause, there are also a host of co-ordinate and subordinate causes, both
associate and secondary causes.
118:4.2 The vital distinction between first causes and second causes is that
first causes produce original effects which are free from inheritance of any
factor derived from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield effects
which invariably exhibit inheritance from other and preceding causation.
118:4.3 The purely static potentials inherent in the Unqualified Absolute are
reactive to those causations of the Deity Absolute which are produced by the
actions of the Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal Absolute
these causative-impregnated static potentials forthwith become active and
responsive to the influence of certain transcendental agencies whose actions
result in the transmutation of these activated potentials to the status of
true universe possibilities for development, actualized capacities for growth.
It is upon such matured potentials that the creators and controllers of the
grand universe enact the never-ending drama of cosmic evolution.
118:4.4 Causation, disregarding existentials, is threefold in its basic
constitution. As it operates in this universe age and concerning the finite
level of the seven superuniverses, it may be conceived as follows:
118:4.5 1. Activation of static potentials. The establishment of destiny in
the Universal Absolute by the actions of the Deity Absolute, operating in and
upon the Unqualified Absolute and in consequence of the volitional mandates of
the Paradise Trinity.
118:4.6 2. Eventuation of universe capacities. This involves the
transformation of undifferentiated potentials into segregated and defined
plans. This is the act of the Ultimacy of Deity and of the manifold agencies
of the transcendental level. Such acts are in perfect anticipation of the
future needs of the entire master universe. It is in connection with the
segregation of potentials that the Architects of the Master Universe exist as
the veritable embodiments of the Deity concept of the universes. Their plans
appear to be ultimately space limited in extent by the concept periphery of
the master universe, but as plans they are not otherwise conditioned by time
or space.
118:4.7 3. Creation and evolution of universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos
impregnated by the capacity-producing presence of the Ultimacy of Deity that
the Supreme Creators operate to effect the time transmutations of matured
potentials into experiential actuals. Within the master universe all
actualization of potential reality is limited by ultimate capacity for
development and is time-space conditioned in the final stages of emergence.
The Creator Sons going out from Paradise are, in actuality, transformative
creators in the cosmic sense. But this in no manner invalidates man's concept
of them as creators; from the finite viewpoint they certainly can and do
create.
5. OMNIPOTENCE AND COMPOSSIBILITY
118:5.1 The omnipotence of Deity does not imply the power to do the nondoable.
Within the time-space frame and from the intellectual reference point of
mortal comprehension, even the infinite God cannot create square circles or
produce evil that is inherently good. God cannot do the ungodlike thing. Such
a contradiction of philosophic terms is the equivalent of nonentity and
implies that nothing is thus created. A personality trait cannot at the same
time be Godlike and ungodlike. Compossibility is innate in divine power. And
all of this is derived from the fact that omnipotence not only creates things
with a nature but also gives origin to the nature of all things and beings.
118:5.2 In the beginning the Father does all, but as the panorama of eternity
unfolds in response to the will and mandates of the Infinite, it becomes
increasingly apparent that creatures, even men, are to become God's partners
in the realization of finality of destiny. And this is true even in the life
in the flesh; when man and God enter into partnership, no limitation can be
placed upon the future possibilities of such a partnership. When man realizes
that the Universal Father is his partner in eternal progression, when he fuses
with the indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken the fetters of
time and has already entered upon the progressions of eternity in the quest
for the Universal Father.
118:5.3 Mortal consciousness proceeds from the fact, to the meaning, and then
to the value. Creator consciousness proceeds from the thought-value, through
the word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act to break the
deadlock of the unqualified unity inherent in existential infinity. Always
must Deity provide the pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the
original truth, beauty, and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive.
Always must God first find man that man may later find God. Always must there
be a Universal Father before there can ever be universal sonship and
consequent universal brotherhood.
6. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIFICENCE
118:6.1 God is truly omnipotent, but he is not omnificent -- he does not
personally do all that is done. Omnipotence embraces the power-potential of
the Almighty Supreme and the Supreme Being, but the volitional acts of God the
Supreme are not the personal doings of God the Infinite.
118:6.2 To advocate the omnificence of primal Deity would be equal to
disenfranchising well-nigh a million Creator Sons of Paradise, not to mention
the innumerable hosts of various other orders of concurring creative
assistants. There is but one uncaused Cause in the whole universe. All other
causes are derivatives of this one First Great Source and Center. And none of
this philosophy does any violence to the freewillness of the myriads of the
children of Deity scattered through a vast universe.
118:6.3 Within a local frame, volition may appear to function as an uncaused
cause, but it unfailingly exhibits inheritance factors which establish
relationship with the unique, original, and absolute First Causes.
118:6.4 All volition is relative. In the originating sense, only the Father-I
AM possesses finality of volition; in the absolute sense, only the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit exhibit the prerogatives of volition unconditioned by time
and unlimited by space. Mortal man is endowed with free will, the power of
choice, and though such choosing is not absolute, nevertheless, it is
relatively final on the finite level and concerning the destiny of the
choosing personality.
118:6.5 Volition on any level short of the absolute encounters limitations
which are constitutive in the very personality exercising the power of choice.
Man cannot choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He cannot, for
instance, choose to be other than a human being except that he can elect to
become more than a man; he can choose to embark upon the voyage of universe
ascension, but this is because the human choice and the divine will happen to
be coincident upon this point. And what a son desires and the Father wills
will certainly come to pass.
118:6.6 In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually
opening and closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human
personality is constantly deciding between these many courses of action.
Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to
find opportunity for expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste
liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved partial escape from time
sequence, and that is because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the
will of God.
118:6.7 Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the universe frame
which has actualized in response to higher and prior choosing. The entire
range of human will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When
man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is superfinite; only
eternity can disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite.
118:6.8 To recognize Deity omnipotence is to enjoy security in your experience
of cosmic citizenship, to possess assurance of safety in the long journey to
Paradise. But to accept the fallacy of omnificence is to embrace the colossal
error of Pantheism.
7. OMNISCIENCE AND PREDESTINATION
118:7.1 The function of Creator will and creature will, in the grand universe,
operates within the limits, and in accordance with the possibilities,
established by the Master Architects. This foreordination of these maximum
limits does not, however, in the least abridge the sovereignty of creature
will within these boundaries. Neither does ultimate foreknowledge -- full
allowance for all finite choice -- constitute an abrogation of finite
volition. A mature and farseeing human being might be able to forecast the
decision of some younger associate most accurately, but this foreknowledge
takes nothing away from the freedom and genuineness of the decision itself.
The Gods have wisely limited the range of the action of immature will, but it
is true will, nonetheless, within these defined limits.
118:7.2 Even the supreme correlation of all past, present, and future choice
does not invalidate the authenticity of such choosings. It rather indicates
the foreordained trend of the cosmos and suggests foreknowledge of those
volitional beings who may, or may not, elect to become contributory parts of
the experiential actualization of all reality.
118:7.3 Error in finite choosing is time bound and time limited. It can exist
only in time and within the evolving presence of the Supreme Being. Such
mistaken choosing is time possible and indicates (besides the incompleteness
of the Supreme) that certain range of choice with which immature creatures
must be endowed in order to enjoy universe progression by making freewill
contact with reality.
118:7.4 Sin in time-conditioned space clearly proves the temporal liberty --
even license -- of the finite will. Sin depicts immaturity dazzled by the
freedom of the relatively sovereign will of personality while failing to
perceive the supreme obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship.
118:7.5 Iniquity in the finite domains reveals the transient reality of all
God-unidentified selfhood. Only as a creature becomes God identified, does he
become truly real in the universes. Finite personality is not self-created,
but in the superuniverse arena of choice it does self-determine destiny.
118:7.6 The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems capable of self-
perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of
personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives of self-
determination, self-evolution, and self-identification with a fusion spirit of
Deity.
118:7.7 Subpersonal living things indicate mind activating energy-matter,
first as physical controllers, and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality
endowment comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to
the living system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising
volitional choice of reality identification, and if this is a true and free
choice, then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of
becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility
of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to
be truly free in the exercise of finite will.
118:7.8 Therefore is there increased safety in narrowing the limits of
personality choice throughout the lower levels of existence. Choice becomes
increasingly liberated as the universes are ascended; choice eventually
approximates divine freedom when the ascending personality achieves divinity
of status, supremacy of consecration to the purposes of the universe,
completion of cosmic-wisdom attainment, and finality of creature
identification with the will and the way of God.
8. CONTROL AND OVERCONTROL
118:8.1 In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about with
restraints, with limitations. Material-life evolution is first mechanical,
then mind activated, and (after the bestowal of personality) it may become
spirit directed. Organic evolution on the inhabited worlds is physically
limited by the potentials of the original physical-life implantations of the
Life Carriers.
118:8.2 Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots are truly in
the physical world of energy. Many human reactions are mechanical in nature;
much of life is machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a
machine; he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never
throughout his material life escape the chemical and electrical mechanics of
his existence, he can increasingly learn how to subordinate this physical-life
machine to the directive wisdom of experience by the process of consecrating
the human mind to the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling
Thought Adjuster.
118:8.3 The spirit liberates, and the mechanism limits, the function of will.
Imperfect choice, uncontrolled by mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is
dangerous and unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability at the expense
of progress; spirit alliance liberates choice from the physical level and at
the same time assures the divine stability produced by augmented universe
insight and increased cosmic comprehension.
118:8.4 The great danger that besets the creature is that, in achieving
liberation from the fetters of the life mechanism, he will fail to compensate
this loss of stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with spirit.
Creature choice, when relatively liberated from mechanical stability, may
attempt further self-liberation independent of greater spirit identification.
118:8.5 The whole principle of biologic evolution makes it impossible for
primitive man to appear on the inhabited worlds with any large endowment of
self-restraint. Therefore does the same creative design which purposed
evolution likewise provide those external restraints of time and space, hunger
and fear, which effectively circumscribe the subspiritual choice range of such
uncultured creatures. As man's mind successfully overstrides increasingly
difficult barriers, this same creative design has also provided for the slow
accumulation of the racial heritage of painfully garnered experiential wisdom
-- in other words, for the maintenance of a balance between the diminishing
external restraints and the augmenting internal restraints.
118:8.6 The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to
the effectiveness of that brake -- material inertia -- which so efficiently
operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself
cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from
the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances
overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom,
then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and
unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human
societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the
"dark ages" of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable
restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
118:8.7 The iniquity of Caligastia was the by-passing of the time governor of
progressive human liberation -- the gratuitous destruction of restraining
barriers, barriers which the mortal minds of those times had not
experientially overridden.
118:8.8 That mind which can effect a partial abridgment of time and space, by
this very act proves itself possessed of the seeds of wisdom which can
effectively serve in lieu of the transcended barrier of restraint.
118:8.9 Lucifer similarly sought to disrupt the time governor operating in
restraint of the premature attainment of certain liberties in the local
system. A local system settled in light and life has experientially achieved
those viewpoints and insights which make feasible the operation of many
techniques that would be disruptive and destructive in the presettled eras of
that very realm.
118:8.10 As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and
oceans with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must
substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed
restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom.
These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most
tenuous of all the factors of human civilization -- concepts of justice and
ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments
of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the
beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that
treatment which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he
conceives that God would accord them.
118:8.11 An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some form,
continuing in the cosmos. A personality who knows God and desires to do his
will, who has spirit insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man's
great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the
stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he
achieves this transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality
decisions, in each of life's situations declaring, "It is my will that your
will be done."
9. UNIVERSE MECHANISMS
118:9.1 Time and space are a conjoined mechanism of the master universe. They
are the devices whereby finite creatures are enabled to coexist in the cosmos
with the Infinite. Finite creatures are effectively insulated from the
absolute levels by time and space. But these insulating media, without which
no mortal could exist, operate directly to limit the range of finite action.
Without them no creature could act, but by them the acts of every creature are
definitely limited.
118:9.2 Mechanisms produced by higher minds function to liberate their
creative sources but to some degree unvaryingly limit the action of all
subordinate intelligences. To the creatures of the universes this limitation
becomes apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not have
unfettered free will; there are limits to his range of choice, but within the
radius of this choice his will is relatively sovereign.
118:9.3 The life mechanism of the mortal personality, the human body, is the
product of supermortal creative design; therefore it can never be perfectly
controlled by man himself. Only when ascending man, in liaison with the fused
Adjuster, self-creates the mechanism for personality expression, will he
achieve perfected control thereof.
118:9.4 The grand universe is mechanism as well as organism, mechanical and
living -- a living mechanism activated by a Supreme Mind, co-ordinating with a
Supreme Spirit, and finding expression on maximum levels of power and
personality unification as the Supreme Being. But to deny the mechanism of the
finite creation is to deny fact and to disregard reality.
118:9.5 Mechanisms are the products of mind, creative mind acting on and in
cosmic potentials. Mechanisms are the fixed crystallizations of Creator
thought, and they ever function true to the volitional concept that gave them
origin. But the purposiveness of any mechanism is in its origin, not in its
function.
118:9.6 These mechanisms should not be thought of as limiting the action of
Deity; rather is it true that in these very mechanics Deity has achieved one
phase of eternal expression. The basic universe mechanisms have come into
existence in response to the absolute will of the First Source and Center, and
they will therefore eternally function in perfect harmony with the plan of the
Infinite; they are, indeed, the nonvolitional patterns of that very plan.
118:9.7 We understand something of how the mechanism of Paradise is correlated
with the personality of the Eternal Son; this is the function of the Conjoint
Actor. And we have theories regarding the operations of the Universal Absolute
with respect to the theoretical mechanisms of the Unqualified and the
potential person of the Deity Absolute. But in the evolving Deities of Supreme
and Ultimate we observe that certain impersonal phases are being actually
united with their volitional counterparts, and thus there is evolving a new
relationship between pattern and person.
118:9.8 In the eternity of the past the Father and the Son found union in the
unity of the expression of the Infinite Spirit. If, in the eternity of the
future, the Creator Sons and the Creative Spirits of the local universes of
time and space should attain creative union in the realms of outer space, what
would their unity create as the combined expression of their divine natures?
It may well be that we are to witness a hitherto unrevealed manifestation of
Ultimate Deity, a new type of superadministrator. Such beings would embrace
unique prerogatives of personality, being the union of personal Creator,
impersonal Creative Spirit, mortal-creature experience, and progressive
personalization of the Divine Minister. Such beings could be ultimate in that
they would embrace personal and impersonal reality, while they would combine
the experiences of Creator and creature. Whatever the attributes of such third
persons of these postulated functioning trinities of the creations of outer
space, they will sustain something of the same relation to their Creator
Fathers and their Creative Mothers that the Infinite Spirit does to the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son.
118:9.9 God the Supreme is the personalization of all universe experience, the
focalization of all finite evolution, the maximation of all creature reality,
the consummation of cosmic wisdom, the embodiment of the harmonious beauties
of the galaxies of time, the truth of cosmic mind meanings, and the goodness
of supreme spirit values. And God the Supreme will, in the eternal future,
synthesize these manifold finite diversities into one experientially
meaningful whole, even as they are now existentially united on absolute levels
in the Paradise Trinity.
10. FUNCTIONS OF PROVIDENCE
118:10.1 Providence does not mean that God has decided all things for us and
in advance. God loves us too much to do that, for that would be nothing short
of cosmic tyranny. Man does have relative powers of choice. Neither is the
divine love that shortsighted affection which would pamper and spoil the
children of men.
118:10.2 The Father, Son, and Spirit -- as the Trinity -- are not the Almighty
Supreme, but the supremacy of the Almighty can never be manifest without them.
The growth of the Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and
predicated on the Absolutes of potentiality. But the functions of the Almighty
Supreme are related to the functions of the Paradise Trinity.
118:10.3 It would appear that, in the Supreme Being, all phases of universe
activity are being partially reunited by the personality of this experiential
Deity. When, therefore, we desire to view the Trinity as one God, and if we
limit this concept to the present known and organized grand universe, we
discover that the evolving Supreme Being is the partial portraiture of the
Paradise Trinity. And we further find that this Supreme Deity is evolving as
the personality synthesis of finite matter, mind, and spirit in the grand
universe.
118:10.4 The Gods have attributes but the Trinity has functions, and like the
Trinity, providence is a function, the composite of the other-than-personal
overcontrol of the universe of universes, extending from the evolutionary
levels of the Sevenfold synthesizing in the power of the Almighty on up
through the transcendental realms of the Ultimacy of Deity.
118:10.5 God loves each creature as a child, and that love overshadows each
creature throughout all time and eternity. Providence functions with regard to
the total and deals with the function of any creature as such function is
related to the total. Providential intervention with regard to any being is
indicative of the importance of the function of that being as concerns the
evolutionary growth of some total; such total may be the total race, the total
nation, the total planet, or even a higher total. It is the importance of the
function of the creature that occasions providential intervention, not the
importance of the creature as a person.
118:10.6 Nevertheless, the Father as a person may at any time interpose a
fatherly hand in the stream of cosmic events all in accordance with the will
of God and in consonance with the wisdom of God and as motivated by the love
of God.
118:10.7 But what man calls providence is all too often the product of his own
imagination, the fortuitous juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance.
There is, however, a real and emerging providence in the finite realm of
universe existence, a true and actualizing correlation of the energies of
space, the motions of time, the thoughts of intellect, the ideals of
character, the desires of spiritual natures, and the purposive volitional acts
of evolving personalities. The circumstances of the material realms find final
finite integration in the interlocking presences of the Supreme and the
Ultimate.
118:10.8 As the mechanisms of the grand universe are perfected to a point of
final precision through the overcontrol of mind, and as creature mind ascends
to the perfection of divinity attainment through perfected integration with
spirit, and as the Supreme consequently emerges as an actual unifier of all
these universe phenomena, so does providence become increasingly discernible.
118:10.9 Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally prevailing
on the evolutionary worlds may be due to the gradually emerging presence of
the Supreme, the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what a
mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such matters is very
handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into the true meanings of the
circumstances of life. Much of what a mortal would call good luck might really
be bad luck; the smile of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved
wealth may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty of a
perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality
be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature
personality into the tempered steel of real character.
118:10.10 There is a providence in the evolving universes, and it can be
discovered by creatures to just the extent that they have attained capacity to
perceive the purpose of the evolving universes. Complete capacity to discern
universe purposes equals the evolutionary completion of the creature and may
otherwise be expressed as the attainment of the Supreme within the limits of
the present state of the incomplete universes.
118:10.11 The love of the Father operates directly in the heart of the
individual, independent of the actions or reactions of all other individuals;
the relationship is personal -- man and God. The impersonal presence of Deity
(Almighty Supreme and Paradise Trinity) manifests regard for the whole, not
for the part. The providence of the overcontrol of Supremacy becomes
increasingly apparent as the successive parts of the universe progress in the
attainment of finite destinies. As the systems, constellations, universes, and
superuniverses become settled in light and life, the Supreme increasingly
emerges as the meaningful correlator of all that is transpiring, while the
Ultimate gradually emerges as the transcendental unifier of all things.
118:10.12 In the beginnings on an evolutionary world the natural occurrences
of the material order and the personal desires of human beings often appear to
be antagonistic. Much that takes place on an evolving world is rather hard for
mortal man to understand -- natural law is so often apparently cruel,
heartless, and indifferent to all that is true, beautiful, and good in human
comprehension. But as humanity progresses in planetary development, we observe
that this viewpoint is modified by the following factors:
118:10.13 1. Man's augmenting vision -- his increased understanding of the
world in which he lives; his enlarging capacity for the comprehension of the
material facts of time, the meaningful ideas of thought, and the valuable
ideals of spiritual insight. As long as men measure only by the yardstick of
the things of a physical nature, they can never hope to find unity in time and
space.
118:10.14 2. Man's increasing control -- the gradual accumulation of the
knowledge of the laws of the material world, the purposes of spiritual
existence, and the possibilities of the philosophic co-ordination of these two
realities. Man, the savage, was helpless before the onslaughts of natural
forces, was slavish before the cruel mastery of his own inner fears.
Semicivilized man is beginning to unlock the storehouse of the secrets of the
natural realms, and his science is slowly but effectively destroying his
superstitions while at the same time providing a new and enlarged factual
basis for the comprehension of the meanings of philosophy and the values of
true spiritual experience. Man, the civilized, will someday achieve relative
mastery of the physical forces of his planet; the love of God in his heart
will be effectively outpoured as love for his fellow men, while the values of
human existence will be nearing the limits of mortal capacity.
118:10.15 3. Man's universe integration -- the increase of human insight plus
the increase of human experiential achievement brings him into closer harmony
with the unifying presences of Supremacy -- Paradise Trinity and Supreme
Being. And this is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme on the
worlds long settled in light and life. Such advanced planets are indeed poems
of harmony, pictures of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the
pursuit of cosmic truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then even
greater things can happen to a system and the larger units of the grand
universe as they too achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion of the
potentials for finite growth.
118:10.16 On a planet of this advanced order, providence has become an
actuality, the circumstances of life are correlated, but this is not only
because man has come to dominate the material problems of his world; it is
also because he has begun to live according to the trend of the universes; he
is following the pathway of Supremacy to the attainment of the Universal
Father.
118:10.17 The kingdom of God is in the hearts of men, and when this kingdom
becomes actual in the heart of every individual on a world, then God's rule
has become actual on that planet; and this is the attained sovereignty of the
Supreme Being.
118:10.18 To realize providence in time, man must accomplish the task of
achieving perfection. But man can even now foretaste this providence in its
eternity meanings as he ponders the universe fact that all things, be they
good or evil, work together for the advancement of God-knowing mortals in
their quest for the Father of all.
118:10.19 Providence becomes increasingly discernible as men reach upward from
the material to the spiritual. The attainment of completed spiritual insight
enables the ascending personality to detect harmony in what was theretofore
chaos. Even morontia mota represents a real advance in this direction.
118:10.20 Providence is in part the overcontrol of the incomplete Supreme
manifested in the incomplete universes, and it must therefore ever be:
1. Partial -- due to the incompleteness of the actualization of the Supreme
Being, and
2. Unpredictable -- due to the fluctuations in creature attitude, which ever
varies from level to level, thus causing apparently variable reciprocal response
in the Supreme.
118:10.21 When men pray for providential intervention in the circumstances of
life, many times the answer to their prayer is their own changed attitudes
toward life. But providence is not whimsical, neither is it fantastic nor
magical. It is the slow and sure emergence of the mighty sovereign of the
finite universes, whose majestic presence the evolving creatures occasionally
detect in their universe progressions. Providence is the sure and certain
march of the galaxies of space and the personalities of time toward the goals
of eternity, first in the Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and perhaps in the
Absolute. And in infinity we believe there is the same providence, and this is
the will, the actions, the purpose of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the
cosmic panorama of universes upon universes.
118:10.22 Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.
PAPER 119
THE BESTOWALS OF CHRIST MICHAEL
119:0.1 CHIEF of the Evening Stars of Nebadon, I am assigned to Urantia by
Gabriel on the mission of revealing the story of the seven bestowals of the
Universe Sovereign, Michael of Nebadon, and my name is Gavalia. In making this
presentation, I will adhere strictly to the limitations imposed by my
commission.
119:0.2 The attribute of bestowal is inherent in the Paradise Sons of the
Universal Father. In their desire to come close to the life experiences of
their subordinate living creatures, the various orders of the Paradise Sons
are reflecting the divine nature of their Paradise parents. The Eternal Son of
the Paradise Trinity led the way in this practice, having seven times bestowed
himself upon the seven circuits of Havona during the times of the ascension of
Grandfanda and the first of the pilgrims from time and space. And the Eternal
Son continues to bestow himself upon the local universes of space in the
persons of his representatives, the Michael and Avonal Sons.
119:0.3 When the Eternal Son bestows a Creator Son upon a projected local
universe, that Creator Son assumes full responsibility for the completion,
control, and composure of that new universe, including the solemn oath to the
eternal Trinity not to assume full sovereignty of the new creation until his
seven creature bestowals shall have been successfully completed and certified
by the Ancients of Days of the superuniverse of jurisdiction. This obligation
is assumed by every Michael Son who volunteers to go out from Paradise to
engage in universe organization and creation.
119:0.4 The purpose of these creature incarnations is to enable such Creators
to become wise, sympathetic, just, and understanding sovereigns. These divine
Sons are innately just, but they become understandingly merciful as a result
of these successive bestowal experiences; they are naturally merciful, but
these experiences make them merciful in new and additional ways. These
bestowals are the last steps in their education and training for the sublime
tasks of ruling the local universes in divine righteousness and by just
judgment.
119:0.5 Though numerous incidental benefits accrue to the various worlds,
systems, and constellations, as well as to the different orders of universe
intelligences affected and benefited by these bestowals, still they are
primarily designed to complete the personal training and universe education of
a Creator Son himself. These bestowals are not essential to the wise, just,
and efficient management of a local universe, but they are absolutely
necessary to a fair, merciful, and understanding administration of such a
creation, teeming with its varied forms of life and its myriads of intelligent
but imperfect creatures.
119:0.6 The Michael Sons begin their work of universe organization with a full
and just sympathy for the various orders of beings whom they have created.
They have vast stores of mercy for all these differing creatures, even pity
for those who err and flounder in the selfish mire of their own production.
But such endowments of justice and righteousness will not suffice in the
estimate of the Ancients of Days. These triune rulers of the superuniverses
will never certify a Creator Son as Universe Sovereign until he has really
acquired the viewpoint of his own creatures by actual experience in the
environment of their existence and as these very creatures themselves. In this
way such Sons become intelligent and understanding rulers; they come to know
the various groups over which they rule and exercise universe authority. By
living experience they possess themselves of practical mercy, fair judgment,
and the patience born of experiential creature existence.
119:0.7 The local universe of Nebadon is now ruled by a Creator Son who has
completed his service of bestowal; he reigns in just and merciful supremacy
over all the vast realms of his evolving and perfecting universe. Michael of
Nebadon is the 611,121st bestowal of the Eternal Son upon the universes of
time and space, and he began the organization of your local universe about
four hundred billion years ago. Michael made ready for his first bestowal
adventure about the time Urantia was taking on its present form, one billion
years ago. His bestowals have occurred about one hundred and fifty million
years apart, the last taking place on Urantia nineteen hundred years ago. I
will now proceed to unfold the nature and character of these bestowals as
fully as my commission permits.
1. THE FIRST BESTOWAL
119:1.1 It was a solemn occasion on Salvington almost one billion years ago
when the assembled directors and chiefs of the universe of Nebadon heard
Michael announce that his elder brother, Immanuel, would presently assume
authority in Nebadon while he (Michael) would be absent on an unexplained
mission. No other announcement was made about this transaction except that the
farewell broadcast to the Constellation Fathers, among other instructions,
said: "And for this period I place you under the care and keeping of Immanuel
while I go to do the bidding of my Paradise Father."
119:1.2 After sending this farewell broadcast, Michael appeared on the
dispatching field of Salvington, just as on many previous occasions when
preparing for departure to Uversa or Paradise except that he came alone. He
concluded his statement of departure with these words: "I leave you but for a
short season. Many of you, I know, would go with me, but whither I go you
cannot come. That which I am about to do, you cannot do. I go to do the will
of the Paradise Deities, and when I have finished my mission and have acquired
this experience, I will return to my place among you." And having thus spoken,
Michael of Nebadon vanished from the sight of all those assembled and did not
reappear for twenty years of standard time. In all Salvington, only the Divine
Minister and Immanuel knew what was taking place, and the Union of Days shared
his secret only with the chief executive of the universe, Gabriel, the Bright
and Morning Star.
119:1.3 All the inhabitants of Salvington and those dwelling on the
constellation and system headquarters worlds assembled about their respective
receiving stations for universe intelligence, hoping to get some word of the
mission and whereabouts of the Creator Son. Not until the third day after
Michael's departure was any message of possible significance received. On this
day a communication was registered on Salvington from the Melchizedek sphere,
the headquarters of that order in Nebadon, which simply recorded this
extraordinary and never-before-heard-of transaction: "At noon today there
appeared on the receiving field of this world a strange Melchizedek Son, not
of our number but wholly like our order. He was accompanied by a solitary
omniaphim who bore credentials from Uversa and presented orders addressed to
our chief, derived from the Ancients of Days and concurred in by Immanuel of
Salvington, directing that this new Melchizedek Son be received into our order
and assigned to the emergency service of the Melchizedeks of Nebadon. And it
has been so ordered; it has been done."
119:1.4 And this is about all that appears on the records of Salvington
regarding the first Michael bestowal. Nothing more appears until after one
hundred years of Urantia time, when there was recorded the fact of Michael's
return and unannounced resumption of the direction of universe affairs. But a
strange record is to be found on the Melchizedek world, a recital of the
service of this unique Melchizedek Son of the emergency corps of that age.
This record is preserved in a simple temple which now occupies the foreground
of the home of the Father Melchizedek, and it comprises the narration of the
service of this transitory Melchizedek Son in connection with his assignment
to twenty-four missions of universe emergency. And this record, which I have
so recently reviewed, ends thus:
119:1.5 "And at noon on this day, without previous announcement and witnessed
by only three of our brotherhood, this visiting Son of our order disappeared
from our world as he came, accompanied only by a solitary omniaphim; and this
record is now closed with the certification that this visitor lived as a
Melchizedek, in the likeness of a Melchizedek he worked as a Melchizedek, and
he faithfully performed all of his assignments as an emergency Son of our
order. By universal consent he has become chief of Melchizedeks, having earned
our love and adoration by his matchless wisdom, supreme love, and superb
devotion to duty. He loved us, understood us, and served with us, and forever
we are his loyal and devoted fellow Melchizedeks, for this stranger on our
world has now eternally become a universe minister of Melchizedek nature."
119:1.6 And that is all I am permitted to tell you of the first bestowal of
Michael. We, of course, fully understand that this strange Melchizedek who so
mysteriously served with the Melchizedeks a billion years ago was none other
than the incarnated Michael on the mission of his first bestowal. The records
do not specifically state that this unique and efficient Melchizedek was
Michael, but it is universally believed that he was. Probably the actual
statement of that fact cannot be found outside of the records of Sonarington,
and the records of that secret world are not open to us. Only on this sacred
world of the divine Sons are the mysteries of incarnation and bestowal fully
known. We all know of the facts of the Michael bestowals, but we do not
understand how they are effected. We do not know how the ruler of a universe,
the creator of the Melchizedeks, can so suddenly and mysteriously become one
of their number and, as one of them, live among them and work as a Melchizedek
Son for one hundred years. But it so happened.
2. THE SECOND BESTOWAL
119:2.1 For almost one hundred and fifty million years after the Melchizedek
bestowal of Michael, all went well in the universe of Nebadon, when trouble
began to brew in system 11 of constellation 37. This trouble involved a
misunderstanding by a Lanonandek Son, a System Sovereign, which had been
adjudicated by the Constellation Fathers and approved by the Faithful of Days,
the Paradise counselor to that constellation, but the protesting System
Sovereign was not fully reconciled to the verdict. After more than one hundred
years of dissatisfaction he led his associates in one of the most widespread
and disastrous rebellions against the sovereignty of the Creator Son ever
instigated in the universe of Nebadon, a rebellion long since adjudicated and
ended by the action of the Ancients of Days on Uversa.
119:2.2 This rebel System Sovereign, Lutentia, reigned supreme on his
headquarters planet for more than twenty years of standard Nebadon time;
whereupon, the Most Highs, with approval from Uversa, ordered his segregation
and requisitioned the Salvington rulers for the designation of a new System
Sovereign to assume direction of that strife-torn and confused system of
inhabited worlds.
119:2.3 Simultaneously with the reception of this request on Salvington,
Michael initiated the second of those extraordinary proclamations of intention
to be absent from the universe headquarters for the purpose of "doing the
bidding of my Paradise Father," promising to "return in due season" and
concentrating all authority in the hands of his Paradise brother, Immanuel,
the Union of Days.
119:2.4 And then, by the same technique observed at the time of his departure
in connection with the Melchizedek bestowal, Michael again took leave of his
headquarters sphere. Three days after this unexplained leave-taking there
appeared among the reserve corps of the primary Lanonandek Sons of Nebadon, a
new and unknown member. This new Son appeared at noon, unannounced and
accompanied by a lone tertiaphim who bore credentials from the Uversa Ancients
of Days, certified by Immanuel of Salvington, directing that this new Son be
assigned to system 11 of constellation 37 as the successor of the deposed
Lutentia and with full authority as acting System Sovereign pending the
appointment of a new sovereign.
119:2.5 For more than seventeen years of universe time this strange and
unknown temporary ruler administered the affairs and wisely adjudicated the
difficulties of this confused and demoralized local system. No System
Sovereign was ever more ardently loved or more widespreadly honored and
respected. In justice and mercy this new ruler set the turbulent system in
order while he painstakingly ministered to all his subjects, even offering his
rebellious predecessor the privilege of sharing the system throne of authority
if he would only apologize to Immanuel for his indiscretions. But Lutentia
spurned these overtures of mercy, well knowing that this new and strange
System Sovereign was none other than Michael, the very universe ruler whom he
had so recently defied. But millions of his misguided and deluded followers
accepted the forgiveness of this new ruler, known in that age as the Savior
Sovereign of the system of Palonia.
119:2.6 And then came that eventful day on which there arrived the newly
appointed System Sovereign, designated by the universe authorities as the
permanent successor of the deposed Lutentia, and all Palonia mourned the
departure of the most noble and the most benign system ruler that Nebadon had
ever known. He was beloved by all the system and adored by his fellows of all
groups of the Lanonandek Sons. His departure was not unceremonious; a great
celebration was arranged when he left the system headquarters. Even his erring
predecessor sent this message: "Just and righteous are you in all your ways.
While I continue in rejection of the Paradise rule, I am compelled to confess
that you are a just and merciful administrator."
119:2.7 And then did this transient ruler of a rebellious system take leave of
the planet of his short administrative sojourn, while on the third day
thereafter Michael appeared on Salvington and resumed the direction of the
universe of Nebadon. There soon followed the third Uversa proclamation of the
advancing jurisdiction of the sovereignty and authority of Michael. The first
proclamation was made at the time of his arrival in Nebadon, the second was
issued soon after the completion of the Melchizedek bestowal, and now the
third follows upon the termination of the second or Lanonandek mission.
3. THE THIRD BESTOWAL
119:3.1 The supreme council on Salvington had just finished the consideration
of the call of the Life Carriers on planet 217 in system 87 in constellation
61 for the dispatch to their assistance of a Material Son. Now this planet was
situated in a system of inhabited worlds where another System Sovereign had
gone astray, the second such rebellion in all Nebadon up to that time.
119:3.2 Upon the request of Michael, action on the petition of the Life
Carriers of this planet was deferred pending its consideration by Immanuel and
his report thereon. This was an irregular procedure, and I well remember how
we all anticipated something unusual, and we were not long held in suspense.
Michael proceeded to place universe direction in the hands of Immanuel, while
he intrusted command of the celestial forces to Gabriel, and having thus
disposed of his administrative responsibilities, he took leave of the Universe
Mother Spirit and vanished from the dispatching field of Salvington precisely
as he had done on two previous occasions.
119:3.3 And, as might have been expected, on the third day thereafter there
appeared, unannounced, on the headquarters world of system 87 in constellation
61, a strange Material Son, accompanied by a lone seconaphim, accredited by
the Uversa Ancients of Days, and certified by Immanuel of Salvington.
Immediately the acting System Sovereign appointed this new and mysterious
Material Son acting Planetary Prince of world 217, and this designation was at
once confirmed by the Most Highs of constellation 61.
119:3.4 Thus did this unique Material Son begin his difficult career on a
quarantined world of secession and rebellion, located in a beleaguered system
without any direct communication with the outside universe, working alone for
one whole generation of planetary time. This emergency Material Son effected
the repentance and reclamation of the defaulting Planetary Prince and his
entire staff and witnessed the restoration of the planet to the loyal service
of the Paradise rule as established in the local universes. In due time a
Material Son and Daughter arrived on this rejuvenated and redeemed world, and
when they had been duly installed as visible planetary rulers, the transitory
or emergency Planetary Prince took formal leave, disappearing at noon one day.
On the third day thereafter, Michael appeared in his accustomed place on
Salvington, and very soon the superuniverse broadcasts carried the fourth
proclamation of the Ancients of Days announcing the further advancement of the
sovereignty of Michael in Nebadon.
119:3.5 I regret that I do not have permission to narrate the patience,
fortitude, and skill with which this Material Son met the trying situations on
this confused planet. The reclamation of this isolated world is one of the
most beautifully touching chapters in the annals of salvation throughout
Nebadon. By the end of this mission it had become evident to all Nebadon as to
why their beloved ruler chose to engage in these repeated bestowals in the
likeness of some subordinate order of intelligent being.
119:3.6 The bestowals of Michael as a Melchizedek Son, then as a Lanonandek
Son, and next as a Material Son are all equally mysterious and beyond
explanation. In each instance he appeared suddenly and as a fully developed
individual of the bestowal group. The mystery of such incarnations will never
be known except to those who have access to the inner circle of the records on
the sacred sphere of Sonarington.
119:3.7 Never, since this marvelous bestowal as the Planetary Prince of a
world in isolation and rebellion, have any of the Material Sons or Daughters
in Nebadon been tempted to complain of their assignments or to find fault with
the difficulties of their planetary missions. For all time the Material Sons
know that in the Creator Son of the universe they have an understanding
sovereign and a sympathetic friend, one who has in "all points been tried and
tested," even as they must also be tried and tested.
119:3.8 Each of these missions was followed by an age of increasing service
and loyalty among all celestial intelligences of universe origin, while each
succeeding bestowal age was characterized by advancement and improvement in
all methods of universe administration and in all techniques of government.
Since this bestowal no Material Son or Daughter has ever knowingly joined in
rebellion against Michael; they love and honor him too devotedly ever
consciously to reject him. Only through deception and sophistry have the Adams
of recent times been led astray by higher types of rebel personalities.
4. THE FOURTH BESTOWAL
119:4.1 It was at the end of one of the periodic millennial roll calls of
Uversa that Michael proceeded to place the government of Nebadon in the hands
of Immanuel and Gabriel; and, of course, recalling what had happened in times
past following such action, we all prepared to witness Michael's disappearance
on his fourth mission of bestowal, and we were not long kept waiting, for he
shortly went out upon the Salvington dispatching field and was lost to our
view.
119:4.2 On the third day after this bestowal disappearance we observed, in the
universe broadcasts to Uversa, this significant news item from the seraphic
headquarters of Nebadon: "Reporting the unannounced arrival of an unknown
seraphim, accompanied by a solitary supernaphim and Gabriel of Salvington.
This unregistered seraphim qualifies as of the Nebadon order and bears
credentials from the Uversa Ancients of Days, certified by Immanuel of
Salvington. This seraphim tests out as belonging to the supreme order of the
angels of a local universe and has already been assigned to the corps of the
teaching counselors."
119:4.3 Michael was absent from Salvington during this, the seraphic bestowal,
for a period of over forty standard universe years. During this time he was
attached as a seraphic teaching counselor, what you might denominate a private
secretary, to twenty-six different master teachers, functioning on twenty-two
different worlds. His last or terminal assignment was as counselor and helper
attached to a bestowal mission of a Trinity Teacher Son on world 462 in system
84 of constellation 3 in the universe of Nebadon.
119:4.4 Never, throughout the seven years of this assignment, was this Trinity
Teacher Son wholly persuaded as to the identity of his seraphic associate.
True, all seraphim during that age were regarded with peculiar interest and
scrutiny. Full well we all knew that our beloved Sovereign was abroad in the
universe, disguised as a seraphim, but never could we be certain of his
identity. Never was he positively identified until the time of his attachment
to the bestowal mission of this Trinity Teacher Son. But always throughout
this era were the supreme seraphim regarded with special solicitude, lest any
of us should find that we had unawares been host to the Sovereign of the
universe on a mission of creature bestowal. And so it has become forever true,
concerning angels, that their Creator and Ruler has been "in all points tried
and tested in the likeness of seraphic personality."
119:4.5 As these successive bestowals partook increasingly of the nature of
the lower forms of universe life, Gabriel became more and more an associate of
these incarnation adventures, functioning as the universe liaison between the
bestowed Michael and the acting universe ruler, Immanuel.
119:4.6 Now has Michael passed through the bestowal experience of three orders
of his created universe Sons: the Melchizedeks, the Lanonandeks, and the
Material Sons. Next he condescends to personalize in the likeness of angelic
life as a supreme seraphim before turning his attention to the various phases
of the ascending careers of his lowest form of will creatures, the
evolutionary mortals of time and space.
5. THE FIFTH BESTOWAL
119:5.1 A little over three hundred million years ago, as time is reckoned on
Urantia, we witnessed another of those transfers of universe authority to
Immanuel and observed the preparations of Michael for departure. This occasion
was different from the previous ones in that he announced that his destination
was Uversa, headquarters of the superuniverse of Orvonton. In due time our
Sovereign departed, but the broadcasts of the superuniverse never made mention
of Michael's arrival at the courts of the Ancients of Days. Shortly after his
departure from Salvington there did appear in the Uversa broadcasts this
significant statement: "There arrived today an unannounced and unnumbered
ascendant pilgrim of mortal origin from the universe of Nebadon, certified by
Immanuel of Salvington and accompanied by Gabriel of Nebadon. This
unidentified being presents the status of a true spirit and has been received
into our fellowship."
119:5.2 If you should visit Uversa today, you would hear the recounting of the
days when Eventod sojourned there, this particular and unknown pilgrim of time
and space being known on Uversa by that name. And this ascending mortal, at
least a superb personality in the exact likeness of the spirit stage of the
ascending mortals, lived and functioned on Uversa for a period of eleven years
of Orvonton standard time. This being received the assignments and performed
the duties of a spirit mortal in common with his fellows from the various
local universes of Orvonton. In "all points he was tested and tried, even as
his fellows," and on all occasions he proved worthy of the confidence and
trust of his superiors, while he unfailingly commanded the respect and loyal
admiration of his fellow spirits.
119:5.3 On Salvington we followed the career of this spirit pilgrim with
consummate interest, knowing full well, by the presence of Gabriel, that this
unassuming and unnumbered pilgrim spirit was none other than the bestowed
ruler of our local universe. This first appearance of Michael incarnated in
the role of one stage of mortal evolution was an event which thrilled and
enthralled all Nebadon. We had heard of such things but now we beheld them. He
appeared on Uversa as a fully developed and perfectly trained spirit mortal
and, as such, continued his career up to the occasion of the advancement of a
group of ascending mortals to Havona; whereupon he held converse with the
Ancients of Days and immediately, in the company of Gabriel, took sudden and
unceremonious leave of Uversa, appearing shortly thereafter in his accustomed
place on Salvington.
119:5.4 Not until the completion of this bestowal did it finally dawn upon us
that Michael was probably going to incarnate in the likeness of his various
orders of universe personalities, from the highest Melchizedeks right on down
to the mortals of flesh and blood on the evolutionary worlds of time and
space. About this time the Melchizedek colleges began to teach the probability
of Michael's sometime incarnating as a mortal of the flesh, and there occurred
much speculation as to the possible technique of such an inexplicable
bestowal. That Michael had in person performed in the role of an ascending
mortal lent new and added interest to the whole scheme of creature progression
all the way up through both the local universe and the superuniverse.
119:5.5 Still, the technique of these successive bestowals remained a mystery.
Even Gabriel confesses that he does not comprehend the method whereby this
Paradise Son and universe Creator could, at will, assume the personality and
live the life of one of his own subordinate creatures.
6. THE SIXTH BESTOWAL
119:6.1 Now that all Salvington was familiar with the preliminaries of an
impending bestowal, Michael called the sojourners on the headquarters planet
together and, for the first time, unfolded the remainder of the incarnation
plan, announcing that he was soon to leave Salvington for the purpose of
assuming the career of a morontia mortal at the courts of the Most High
Fathers on the headquarters planet of the fifth constellation. And then we
heard for the first time the announcement that his seventh and final bestowal
would be made on some evolutionary world in the likeness of mortal flesh.
119:6.2 Before leaving Salvington for the sixth bestowal, Michael addressed
the assembled inhabitants of the sphere and departed in full view of everyone,
accompanied by a lone seraphim and the Bright and Morning Star of Nebadon.
While the direction of the universe had again been intrusted to Immanuel,
there was a wider distribution of administrative responsibilities.
119:6.3 Michael appeared on the headquarters of constellation five as a full-
fledged morontia mortal of ascending status. I regret that I am forbidden to
reveal the details of this unnumbered morontia mortal's career, for it was one
of the most extraordinary and amazing epochs in Michael's bestowal experience,
not even excepting his dramatic and tragic sojourn on Urantia. But among the
many restrictions imposed upon me in accepting this commission is one which
forbids my undertaking to unfold the details of this wonderful career of
Michael as the morontia mortal of Endantum.
119:6.4 When Michael returned from this morontia bestowal, it was apparent to
all of us that our Creator had become a fellow creature, that the Universe
Sovereign was also the friend and sympathetic helper of even the lowest form
of created intelligence in his realms. We had noted this progressive
acquirement of the creature's viewpoint in universe administration before
this, for it had been gradually appearing, but it became more apparent after
the completion of the morontia mortal bestowal, even still more so after his
return from the career of the carpenter's son on Urantia.
119:6.5 We were informed in advance by Gabriel of the time of Michael's
release from the morontia bestowal, and accordingly we arranged a suitable
reception on Salvington. Millions upon millions of beings were assembled from
the constellation headquarters worlds of Nebadon, and a majority of the
sojourners on the worlds adjacent to Salvington were gathered together to
welcome him back to the rulership of his universe. In response to our many
addresses of welcome and expressions of appreciation of a Sovereign so vitally
interested in his creatures, he only replied: "I have simply been about my
Father's business. I am only doing the pleasure of the Paradise Sons who love
and crave to understand their creatures."
119:6.6 But from that day down to the hour when Michael embarked upon his
Urantia adventure as the Son of Man, all Nebadon continued to discuss the many
exploits of their Sovereign Ruler as he functioned on Endantum as the bestowal
incarnation of a morontia mortal of evolutionary ascension, being in all
points tested like his fellows assembled from the material worlds of the
entire constellation of his sojourn.
7. THE SEVENTH AND FINAL BESTOWAL
119:7.1 For tens of thousands of years we all looked forward to the seventh
and final bestowal of Michael. Gabriel had taught us that this terminal
bestowal would be made in the likeness of mortal flesh, but we were wholly
ignorant of the time, place, and manner of this culminating adventure.
119:7.2 The public announcement that Michael had selected Urantia as the
theater for his final bestowal was made shortly after we learned about the
default of Adam and Eve. And thus, for more than thirty-five thousand years,
your world occupied a very conspicuous place in the councils of the entire
universe. There was no secrecy (aside from the incarnation mystery) connected
with any step in the Urantia bestowal. From first to last, up to the final and
triumphant return of Michael to Salvington as supreme Universe Sovereign,
there was the fullest universe publicity of all that transpired on your small
but highly honored world.
119:7.3 While we believed that this would be the method, we never knew, until
the time of the event itself, that Michael would appear on earth as a helpless
infant of the realm. Theretofore had he always appeared as a fully developed
individual of the personality group of the bestowal selection, and it was a
thrilling announcement which was broadcast from Salvington telling that the
babe of Bethlehem had been born on Urantia.
119:7.4 We then not only realized that our Creator and friend was taking the
most precarious step in all his career, apparently risking his position and
authority on this bestowal as a helpless infant, but we also understood that
his experience in this final and mortal bestowal would eternally enthrone him
as the undisputed and supreme sovereign of the universe of Nebadon. For a
third of a century of earth time all eyes in all parts of this local universe
were focused on Urantia. All intelligences realized that the last bestowal was
in progress, and as we had long known of the Lucifer rebellion in Satania and
of the Caligastia disaffection on Urantia, we well understood the intensity of
the struggle which would ensue when our ruler condescended to incarnate on
Urantia in the humble form and likeness of mortal flesh.
119:7.5 Joshua ben Joseph, the Jewish baby, was conceived and was born into
the world just as all other babies before and since except that this
particular baby was the incarnation of Michael of Nebadon, a divine Son of
Paradise and the creator of all this local universe of things and beings. And
this mystery of the incarnation of Deity within the human form of Jesus,
otherwise of natural origin on the world, will forever remain unsolved. Even
in eternity you will never know the technique and method of the incarnation of
the Creator in the form and likeness of his creatures. That is the secret of
Sonarington, and such mysteries are the exclusive possession of those divine
Sons who have passed through the bestowal experience.
119:7.6 Certain wise men of earth knew of Michael's impending arrival. Through
the contacts of one world with another, these wise men of spiritual insight
learned of the forthcoming bestowal of Michael on Urantia. And the seraphim
did, through the midway creatures, make announcement to a group of Chaldean
priests whose leader was Ardnon. These men of God visited the newborn child in
the manger. The only supernatural event associated with the birth of Jesus was
this announcement to Ardnon and his associates by the seraphim of former
attachment to Adam and Eve in the first garden.
119:7.7 Jesus' human parents were average people of their day and generation,
and this incarnated Son of God was thus born of woman and was reared in the
ordinary manner of the children of that race and age.
119:7.8 The story of Michael's sojourn on Urantia, the narrative of the mortal
bestowal of the Creator Son on your world, is a matter beyond the scope and
purpose of this narrative.
8. MICHAEL'S POSTBESTOWAL STATUS
119:8.1 After Michael's final and successful bestowal on Urantia he was not
only accepted by the Ancients of Days as sovereign ruler of Nebadon, but he
was also recognized by the Universal Father as the established director of the
local universe of his own creation. Upon his return to Salvington this
Michael, the Son of Man and the Son of God, was proclaimed the settled ruler
of Nebadon. From Uversa came the eighth proclamation of Michael's sovereignty,
while from Paradise came the joint pronouncement of the Universal Father and
the Eternal Son constituting this union of God and man sole head of the
universe and directing the Union of Days stationed on Salvington to signify
his intention of withdrawing to Paradise. The Faithfuls of Days on the
constellation headquarters were also instructed to retire from the councils of
the Most Highs. But Michael would not consent to the withdrawal of the Trinity
Sons of counsel and co-operation. He assembled them on Salvington and
personally requested them forever to remain on duty in Nebadon. They signified
their desire to comply with this request to their directors on Paradise, and
shortly thereafter there were issued those mandates of Paradise divorcement
which forever attached these Sons of the central universe to the court of
Michael of Nebadon.
119:8.2 It required almost one billion years of Urantia time to complete the
bestowal career of Michael and to effect the final establishment of his
supreme authority in the universe of his own creation. Michael was born a
creator, educated an administrator, trained an executive, but he was required
to earn his sovereignty by experience. And thus has your little world become
known throughout all Nebadon as the arena wherein Michael completed the
experience which is required of every Paradise Creator Son before he is given
unlimited control and direction of the universe of his own making. As you
ascend the local universe, you will learn more about the ideals of the
personalities concerned in Michael's previous bestowals.
119:8.3 In completing his creature bestowals, Michael was not only
establishing his own sovereignty but also was augmenting the evolving
sovereignty of God the Supreme. In the course of these bestowals the Creator
Son not only engaged in a descending exploration of the various natures of
creature personality, but he also achieved the revelation of the variously
diversified wills of the Paradise Deities, whose synthetic unity, as revealed
by the Supreme Creators, is revelatory of the will of the Supreme Being.
119:8.4 These various will aspects of the Deities are eternally personalized
in the differing natures of the Seven Master Spirits, and each of Michael's
bestowals was peculiarly revelatory of one of these divinity manifestations.
On his Melchizedek bestowal he manifested the united will of the Father, Son,
and Spirit, on his Lanonandek bestowal the will of the Father and the Son; on
the Adamic bestowal he revealed the will of the Father and the Spirit, on the
seraphic bestowal the will of the Son and the Spirit; on the Uversa mortal
bestowal he portrayed the will of the Conjoint Actor, on the morontia mortal
bestowal the will of the Eternal Son; and on the Urantia material bestowal he
lived the will of the Universal Father, even as a mortal of flesh and blood.
119:8.5 The completion of these seven bestowals resulted in the liberation of
Michael's supreme sovereignty and also in the creation of the possibility for
the sovereignty of the Supreme in Nebadon. On none of Michael's bestowals did
he reveal God the Supreme, but the sum total of all seven bestowals is a new
Nebadon revelation of the Supreme Being.
119:8.6 In the experience of descending from God to man, Michael was
concomitantly experiencing the ascent from partiality of manifestability to
supremacy of finite action and finality of the liberation of his potential for
absonite function. Michael, a Creator Son, is a time-space creator, but
Michael, a sevenfold Master Son, is a member of one of the divine corps
constituting the Trinity Ultimate.
119:8.7 In passing through the experience of revealing the Seven Master Spirit
wills of the Trinity, the Creator Son has passed through the experience of
revealing the will of the Supreme. In functioning as a revelator of the will
of Supremacy, Michael, together with all other Master Sons, has identified
himself eternally with the Supreme. In this universe age he reveals the
Supreme and participates in the actualization of the sovereignty of Supremacy.
But in the next universe age we believe he will be collaborating with the
Supreme Being in the first experiential Trinity for and in the universes of
outer space.
119:8.8 Urantia is the sentimental shrine of all Nebadon, the chief of ten
million inhabited worlds, the mortal home of Christ Michael, sovereign of all
Nebadon, a Melchizedek minister to the realms, a system savior, an Adamic
redeemer, a seraphic fellow, an associate of ascending spirits, a morontia
progressor, a Son of Man in the likeness of mortal flesh, and the Planetary
Prince of Urantia. And your record tells the truth when it says that this same
Jesus has promised sometime to return to the world of his terminal bestowal,
the World of the Cross.
119:8.9 This paper, depicting the seven bestowals of Christ Michael, is the
sixty-third of a series of presentations, sponsored by numerous personalities,
narrating the history of Urantia down to the time of Michael's appearance on
earth in the likeness of mortal flesh. These papers were authorized by a
Nebadon commission of twelve acting under the direction of Mantutia
Melchizedek. We indited these narratives and put them in the English language,
by a technique authorized by our superiors, in the year A.D. 1935 of Urantia
time.
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