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WHILE BELONGING TO the order of Lanonandek Sons, the Planetary Princes are so specialized in service that they are commonly regarded as a distinct group. After their Melchizedek certification as secondary Lanonandeks, these local universe Sons are assigned to the reserves of their order on the constellation headquarters. From here they are assigned to various duties by the System Sovereign and eventually commissioned as Planetary Princes and sent forth to rule the evolving inhabited worlds.

50:0.2 The signal for a System Sovereign to act in the matter of assigning a ruler to a given planet is the reception of a request from the Life Carriers for the dispatch of an administrative head to function on this planet whereon they have established life and developed intelligent evolutionary beings. All planets which are inhabited by evolutionary mortal creatures have assigned to them a planetary ruler of this order of sonship.

1. MISSION OF THE PRINCES

50:1.1 The Planetary Prince and his assistant brethren represent the nearest personalized approach (aside from incarnation) that the Eternal Son of Paradise can make to the lowly creatures of time and space. True, the Creator Son touches the creatures of the realms through his spirit, but the Planetary Prince is the last of the orders of personal Sons extending out from Paradise to the children of men. The Infinite Spirit comes very near in the persons of the guardians of destiny and other angelic beings; the Universal Father lives in man by the prepersonal presence of the Mystery Monitors; but the Planetary Prince represents the last effort of the Eternal Son and his Sons to draw near you. On a newly inhabited world the Planetary Prince is the sole representative of complete divinity, springing from the Creator Son (the offspring of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son) and the Divine Minister (the universe Daughter of the Infinite Spirit).

50:1.2 The prince of a newly inhabited world is surrounded by a loyal corps of helpers and assistants and by large numbers of the ministering spirits. But the directing corps of such new worlds must be of the lower orders of the administrators of a system in order to be innately sympathetic with, and understanding of, the planetary problems and difficulties. And all of this effort to provide sympathetic rulership for the evolutionary worlds entails the increased liability that these near-human personalities may be led astray by the exaltation of their own minds over and above the will of the Supreme Rulers.

50:1.3 Being quite alone as representatives of divinity on the individual planets, these Sons are tested severely, and Nebadon has suffered the misfortune of several rebellions. In the creation of the System Sovereigns and the Planetary Princes there occurs the personalization of a concept that has been getting farther and farther away from the Universal Father and the Eternal Son, and there is an increasing danger of losing the sense of proportion as to one’s self-importance and a greater likelihood of failure to keep a proper grasp of the values and relationships of the numerous orders of divine beings and their gradations of authority. That the Father is not personally present in the local universe also imposes a certain test of faith and loyalty on all these Sons.

50:1.4 But not often do these world princes fail in their missions of organizing and administering the inhabited spheres, and their success greatly facilitates the subsequent missions of the Material Sons, who come to engraft the higher forms of creature life on the primitive men of the worlds. Their rule also does much to prepare the planets for the Paradise Sons of God, who subsequently come to judge the worlds and to inaugurate successive dispensations.

2. PLANETARY ADMINISTRATION

50:2.1 All Planetary Princes are under the universe administrative jurisdiction of Gabriel, the chief executive of Michael, while in immediate authority they are subject to the executive mandates of the System Sovereigns.

50:2.2 The Planetary Princes may at any time seek the counsel of the Melchizedeks, their former instructors and sponsors, but they are not arbitrarily required to ask for such assistance, and if such aid is not voluntarily requested, the Melchizedeks do not interfere with the planetary administration. These world rulers may also avail themselves of the advice of the four and twenty counselors, assembled from the bestowal worlds of the system. In Satania these counselors are at present all natives of Urantia. And there is an analogous council of seventy at the constellation headquarters also selected from the evolutionary beings of the realms.

50:2.3 The rule of the evolutionary planets in their early and unsettled careers is largely autocratic. The Planetary Princes organize their specialized groups of assistants from among their corps of planetary aids. They usually surround themselves with a supreme council of twelve, but this is variously chosen and diversely constituted on the different worlds. A Planetary Prince may also have as assistants one or more of the third order of his own group of sonship and sometimes, on certain worlds, one of his own order, a secondary Lanonandek associate.

50:2.4 The entire staff of a world ruler consists of personalities of the Infinite Spirit and certain types of higher evolved beings and ascending mortals from other worlds. Such a staff averages about one thousand, and as the planet progresses, this corps of helpers may be increased up to one hundred thousand or more. At any time need is felt for more helpers, the Planetary Princes have only to make request of their brothers, the System Sovereigns, and the petition is granted forthwith.

50:2.5 Planets vary greatly in nature and organization and in administration, but all provide for tribunals of justice. The judicial system of the local universe has its beginnings in the tribunals of a Planetary Prince, which are presided over by a member of his personal staff; the decrees of such courts reflect a highly fatherly and discretionary attitude. All problems involving more than the regulation of the planetary inhabitants are subject to appeal to the higher tribunals, but the affairs of his world domain are largely adjusted in accordance with the personal discretion of the prince.

50:2.6 The roving commissions of conciliators serve and supplement the planetary tribunals, and both spirit and physical controllers are subject to the findings of these conciliators. But no arbitrary execution is ever carried out without the consent of the Constellation Father, for the “Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.”

50:2.7 The controllers and transformers of planetary assignment are also able to collaborate with angels and other orders of celestial beings in rendering these latter personalities visible to mortal creatures. On special occasions the seraphic helpers and even the Melchizedeks can and do make themselves visible to the inhabitants of the evolutionary worlds. The principal reason for bringing mortal ascenders from the system capital as a part of the staff of the Planetary Prince is to facilitate communication with the inhabitants of the realm.

3. THE PRINCE’S CORPOREAL STAFF

50:3.1 On going to a young world, a Planetary Prince usually takes with him a group of volunteer ascending beings from the local system headquarters. These ascenders accompany the prince as advisers and helpers in the work of early race improvement. This corps of material helpers constitutes the connecting link between the prince and the world races. The Urantia Prince, Caligastia, had a corps of one hundred such helpers.

50:3.2 Such volunteer assistants are citizens of a system capital, and none of them have fused with their indwelling Adjusters. The status of the Adjusters of such volunteer servers remains as of the residential standing on the system headquarters while these morontia progressors temporarily revert to a former material state.

50:3.3 The Life Carriers, the architects of form, provide such volunteers with new physical bodies, which they occupy for the periods of their planetary sojourn. These personality forms, while exempt from the ordinary diseases of the realms, are, like the early morontia bodies, subject to certain accidents of a mechanical nature.

50:3.4 The prince’s corporeal staff are usually removed from the planet in connection with the next adjudication at the time of the second Son’s arrival on the sphere. Before leaving, they customarily assign their various duties to their mutual offspring and to certain superior native volunteers. On those worlds where these helpers of the prince have been permitted to mate with the superior groups of the native races, such offspring usually succeed them.

50:3.5 These assistants to the Planetary Prince seldom mate with the world races, but they do always mate among themselves. Two classes of beings result from these unions: the primary type of midway creatures and certain high types of material beings who remain attached to the prince’s staff after their parents have been removed from the planet at the time of the arrival of Adam and Eve. These children do not mate with the mortal races except in certain emergencies and then only by direction of the Planetary Prince. In such an event, their children—the grandchildren of the corporeal staff—are in status as of the superior races of their day and generation. All the offspring of these semimaterial assistants of the Planetary Prince are Adjuster indwelt.

50:3.6 At the end of the prince’s dispensation, when the time comes for this “reversion staff” to be returned to the system headquarters for the resumption of the Paradise career, these ascenders present themselves to the Life Carriers for the purpose of yielding up their material bodies. They enter the transition slumber and awaken delivered from their mortal investment and clothed with morontia forms, ready for seraphic transportation back to the system capital, where their detached Adjusters await them. They are a whole dispensation behind their Jerusem class, but they have gained a unique and extraordinary experience, a rare chapter in the career of an ascending mortal.

4. THE PLANETARY HEADQUARTERS AND SCHOOLS

50:4.1 The prince’s corporeal staff early organize the planetary schools of training and culture, wherein the cream of the evolutionary races are instructed and then sent forth to teach these better ways to their people. These schools of the prince are located at the material headquarters of the planet.

50:4.2 Much of the physical work connected with the establishment of this headquarters city is performed by the corporeal staff. Such headquarters cities, or settlements, of the early times of the Planetary Prince are very different from what a Urantia mortal might imagine. They are, in comparison with later ages, simple, being characterized by mineral embellishment and by relatively advanced material construction. And all of this stands in contrast with the Adamic regime centering around a garden headquarters, from which their work in behalf of the races is prosecuted during the second dispensation of the universe Sons.

50:4.3 In the headquarters settlement on your world every human habitation was provided with abundance of land. Although the remote tribes continued in hunting and food foraging, the students and teachers in the Prince’s schools were all agriculturists and horticulturists. The time was about equally divided between the following pursuits:

1. Physical labor. Cultivation of the soil, associated with home building and embellishment.

2. Social activities. Play performances and cultural social groupings.

3. Educational application. Individual instruction in connection with family-group teaching, supplemented by specialized class training.

4. Vocational training. Schools of marriage and homemaking, the schools of art and craft training, and the classes for the training of teachers—secular, cultural, and religious.

5. Spiritual culture. The teacher brotherhood, the enlightenment of childhood and youth groups, and the training of adopted native children as missionaries to their people.

50:4.4 A Planetary Prince is not visible to mortal beings; it is a test of faith to believe the representations of the semimaterial beings of his staff. But these schools of culture and training are well adapted to the needs of each planet, and there soon develops a keen and laudatory rivalry among the races of men in their efforts to gain entrance to these various institutions of learning.

50:4.5 From such a world center of culture and achievement there gradually radiates to all peoples an uplifting and civilizing influence which slowly and certainly transforms the evolutionary races. Meantime the educated and spiritualized children of the surrounding peoples who have been adopted and trained in the prince’s schools are returning to their native groups and, to the best of their ability, are there establishing new and potent centers of learning and culture which they carry on according to the plan of the prince’s schools.

50:4.6 On Urantia these plans for planetary progress and cultural advancement were well under way, proceeding most satisfactorily, when the whole enterprise was brought to a rather sudden and most inglorious end by Caligastia’s adherence to the Lucifer rebellion.

50:4.7 It was one of the most profoundly shocking episodes of this rebellion for me to learn of the callous perfidy of one of my own order of sonship, Caligastia, who, in deliberation and with malice aforethought, systematically perverted the instruction and poisoned the teaching provided in all the Urantia planetary schools in operation at that time. The wreck of these schools was speedy and complete.

50:4.8 Many of the offspring of the ascenders of the Prince’s materialized staff remained loyal, deserting the ranks of Caligastia. These loyalists were encouraged by the Melchizedek receivers of Urantia, and in later times their descendants did much to uphold the planetary concepts of truth and righteousness. The work of these loyal evangels helped to prevent the total obliteration of spiritual truth on Urantia. These courageous souls and their descendants kept alive some knowledge of the Father’s rule and preserved for the world races the concept of the successive planetary dispensations of the various orders of divine Sons.

5. PROGRESSIVE CIVILIZATION

50:5.1 The loyal princes of the inhabited worlds are permanently attached to the planets of their original assignment. Paradise Sons and their dispensations may come and go, but a successful Planetary Prince continues on as the ruler of his realm. His work is quite independent of the missions of the higher Sons, being designed to foster the development of planetary civilization.

50:5.2 The progress of civilization is hardly alike on any two planets. The details of the unfoldment of mortal evolution are very different on numerous dissimilar worlds. Notwithstanding these many diversifications of planetary development along physical, intellectual, and social lines, all evolutionary spheres progress in certain well-defined directions.

50:5.3 Under the benign rule of a Planetary Prince, augmented by the Material Sons and punctuated by the periodic missions of the Paradise Sons, the mortal races on an average world of time and space will successively pass through the following seven developmental epochs:

50:5.4 1. The nutrition epoch. The prehuman creatures and the dawn races of primitive man are chiefly concerned with food problems. These evolving beings spend their waking hours either in seeking food or in fighting, offensively or defensively. The food quest is paramount in the minds of these early ancestors of subsequent civilization.

50:5.5 2. The security age. Just as soon as the primitive hunter can spare any time from the search for food, he turns this leisure to augmenting his security. More and more attention is devoted to the technique of war. Homes are fortified, and the clans are solidified by mutual fear and by the inculcation of hate for foreign groups. Self-preservation is a pursuit which always follows self-maintenance.

50:5.6 3. The material-comfort era. After food problems have been partially solved and some degree of security has been attained, the additional leisure is utilized to promote personal comfort. Luxury vies with necessity in occupying the center of the stage of human activities. Such an age is all too often characterized by tyranny, intolerance, gluttony, and drunkenness. The weaker elements of the races incline towards excesses and brutality. Gradually these pleasure-seeking weaklings are subjugated by the more strong and truth-loving elements of the advancing civilization.

50:5.7 4. The quest for knowledge and wisdom. Food, security, pleasure, and leisure provide the foundation for the development of culture and the spread of knowledge. The effort to execute knowledge results in wisdom, and when a culture has learned how to profit and improve by experience, civilization has really arrived. Food, security, and material comfort still dominate society, but many forward-looking individuals are hungering for knowledge and thirsting for wisdom. Every child is provided an opportunity to learn by doing; education is the watchword of these ages.

50:5.8 5. The epoch of philosophy and brotherhood. When mortals learn to think and begin to profit by experience, they become philosophical—they start out to reason within themselves and to exercise discriminative judgment. The society of this age becomes ethical, and the mortals of such an era are truly becoming moral beings. Wise moral beings are capable of establishing human brotherhood on such a progressing world. Ethical and moral beings can learn how to live in accordance with the golden rule.

50:5.9 6. The age of spiritual striving. When evolving mortals have passed through the physical, intellectual, and social stages of development, sooner or later they attain those levels of personal insight which impel them to seek for spiritual satisfactions and cosmic understandings. Religion is completing the ascent from the emotional domains of fear and superstition to the high levels of cosmic wisdom and personal spiritual experience. Education aspires to the attainment of meanings, and culture grasps at cosmic relationships and true values. Such evolving mortals are genuinely cultured, truly educated, and exquisitely God-knowing.

50:5.10 7. The era of light and life. This is the flowering of the successive ages of physical security, intellectual expansion, social culture, and spiritual achievement. These human accomplishments are now blended, associated, and co-ordinated in cosmic unity and unselfish service. Within the limitations of finite nature and material endowments there are no bounds set upon the possibilities of evolutionary attainment by the advancing generations who successively live upon these supernal and settled worlds of time and space.

50:5.11 After serving their spheres through successive dispensations of world history and the progressing epochs of planetary progress, the Planetary Princes are elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereigns upon the inauguration of the era of light and life.

6. PLANETARY CULTURE

50:6.1 The isolation of Urantia renders it impossible to undertake the presentation of many details of the life and environment of your Satania neighbors. In these presentations we are limited by the planetary quarantine and by the system isolation. We must be guided by these restrictions in all our efforts to enlighten Urantia mortals, but in so far as is permissible, you have been instructed in the progress of an average evolutionary world, and you are able to compare such a world’s career with the present state of Urantia.

50:6.2 The development of civilization on Urantia has not differed so greatly from that of other worlds which have sustained the misfortune of spiritual isolation. But when compared with the loyal worlds of the universe, your planet seems most confused and greatly retarded in all phases of intellectual progress and spiritual attainment.

50:6.3 Because of your planetary misfortunes, Urantians are prevented from understanding very much about the culture of normal worlds. But you should not envisage the evolutionary worlds, even the most ideal, as spheres whereon life is a flowery bed of ease. The initial life of the mortal races is always attended by struggle. Effort and decision are an essential part of the acquirement of survival values.

50:6.4 Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made. Much depends, also, upon the successive missions of the divine Sons and upon the extent to which enlightenment is received by the ages of their respective dispensations.

50:6.5 You should not forget that for two hundred thousand years all the worlds of Satania have rested under the spiritual ban of Norlatiadek in consequence of the Lucifer rebellion. And it will require age upon age to retrieve the resultant handicaps of sin and secession. Your world still continues to pursue an irregular and checkered career as a result of the double tragedy of a rebellious Planetary Prince and a defaulting Material Son. Even the bestowal of Christ Michael on Urantia did not immediately set aside the temporal consequences of these serious blunders in the earlier administration of the world.

7. THE REWARDS OF ISOLATION

50:7.1 On first thought it might appear that Urantia and its associated isolated worlds are most unfortunate in being deprived of the beneficent presence and influence of such superhuman personalities as a Planetary Prince and a Material Son and Daughter. But isolation of these spheres affords their races a unique opportunity for the exercise of faith and for the development of a peculiar quality of confidence in cosmic reliability which is not dependent on sight or any other material consideration. It may turn out, eventually, that mortal creatures hailing from the worlds quarantined in consequence of rebellion are extremely fortunate. We have discovered that such ascenders are very early intrusted with numerous special assignments to cosmic undertakings where unquestioned faith and sublime confidence are essential to achievement.

50:7.2 On Jerusem the ascenders from these isolated worlds occupy a residential sector by themselves and are known as the agondonters, meaning evolutionary will creatures who can believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties even when alone. This functional grouping of the agondonters persists throughout the ascension of the local universe and the traversal of the superuniverse; it disappears during the sojourn in Havona but promptly reappears upon the attainment of Paradise and definitely persists in the Corps of the Mortal Finality. Tabamantia is an agondonter of finaliter status, having survived from one of the quarantined spheres involved in the first rebellion ever to take place in the universes of time and space.

50:7.3 All through the Paradise career, reward follows effort as the result of causes. Such rewards set off the individual from the average, provide a differential of creature experience, and contribute to the versatility of ultimate performances in the collective body of the finaliters.

50:7.4 [Presented by a Secondary Lanonandek Son of the Reserve Corps.]

DURING THE DISPENSATION of a Planetary Prince, primitive man reaches the limit of natural evolutionary development, and this biologic attainment signals the System Sovereign to dispatch to such a world the second order of sonship, the biologic uplifters. These Sons, for there are two of them—the Material Son and Daughter—are usually known on a planet as Adam and Eve. The original Material Son of Satania is Adam, and those who go to the system worlds as biologic uplifters always carry the name of this first and original Son of their unique order.

51:0.2 These Sons are the material gift of the Creator Son to the inhabited worlds. Together with the Planetary Prince, they remain on their planet of assignment throughout the evolutionary course of such a sphere. Such an adventure on a world having a Planetary Prince is not much of a hazard, but on an apostate planet, a realm without a spiritual ruler and deprived of interplanetary communication, such a mission is fraught with grave danger.

51:0.3 Although you cannot hope to know all about the work of these Sons on all the worlds of Satania and other systems, other papers depict more fully the life and experiences of the interesting pair, Adam and Eve, who came from the corps of the biologic uplifters of Jerusem to upstep the Urantia races. While there was a miscarriage of the ideal plans for improving your native races, still, Adam’s mission was not in vain; Urantia has profited immeasurably from the gift of Adam and Eve, and among their fellows and in the councils on high their work is not reckoned as a total loss.

1. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MATERIAL SONS OF GOD

51:1.1 The material or sex Sons and Daughters are the offspring of the Creator Son; the Universe Mother Spirit does not participate in the production of these beings who are destined to function as physical uplifters on the evolutionary worlds.

51:1.2 The material order of sonship is not uniform throughout the local universe. The Creator Son produces only one pair of these beings in each local system; these original pairs are diverse in nature, being attuned to the life pattern of their respective systems. This is a necessary provision since otherwise the reproductive potential of the Adams would be nonfunctional with that of the evolving mortal beings of the worlds of any one particular system. The Adam and Eve who came to Urantia were descended from the original Satania pair of Material Sons.

51:1.3 Material Sons vary in height from eight to ten feet, and their bodies glow with the brilliance of radiant light of a violet hue. While material blood circulates through their material bodies, they are also surcharged with divine energy and saturated with celestial light. These Material Sons (the Adams) and Material Daughters (the Eves) are equal to each other, differing only in reproductive nature and in certain chemical endowments. They are equal but differential, male and female—hence complemental—and are designed to serve on almost all assignments in pairs.

51:1.4 The Material Sons enjoy a dual nutrition; they are really dual in nature and constitution, partaking of materialized energy much as do the physical beings of the realm, while their immortal existence is fully maintained by the direct and automatic intake of certain sustaining cosmic energies. Should they fail on some mission of assignment or even consciously and deliberately rebel, this order of Sons becomes isolated, cut off from connection with the universe source of light and life. Thereupon they become practically material beings, destined to take the course of material life on the world of their assignment and compelled to look to the universe magistrates for adjudication. Material death will eventually terminate the planetary career of such an unfortunate and unwise Material Son or Daughter.

51:1.5 An original or directly created Adam and Eve are immortal by inherent endowment just as are all other orders of local universe sonship, but a diminution of immortality potential characterizes their sons and daughters. This original couple cannot transmit unconditioned immortality to their procreated sons and daughters. Their progeny are dependent for continuing life on unbroken intellectual synchrony with the mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit. Since the inception of the system of Satania, thirteen Planetary Adams have been lost in rebellion and default and 681,204 in the subordinate positions of trust. Most of these defections occurred at the time of the Lucifer rebellion.

51:1.6 While living as permanent citizens on the system capitals, even when functioning on descending missions to the evolutionary planets, the Material Sons do not possess Thought Adjusters, but it is through these very services that they acquire experiential capacity for Adjuster indwellment and the Paradise ascension career. These unique and wonderfully useful beings are the connecting links between the spiritual and physical worlds. They are concentrated on the system headquarters, where they reproduce and carry on as material citizens of the realm, and whence they are dispatched to the evolutionary worlds.

51:1.7 Unlike the other created Sons of planetary service, the material order of sonship is not, by nature, invisible to material creatures like the inhabitants of Urantia. These Sons of God can be seen, understood, and can, in turn, actually mingle with the creatures of time, could even procreate with them, though this role of biologic upliftment usually falls to the progeny of the Planetary Adams.

51:1.8 On Jerusem the loyal children of any Adam and Eve are immortal, but the offspring of a Material Son and Daughter procreated subsequent to their arrival on an evolutionary planet are not thus immune to natural death. There occurs a change in the life-transmitting mechanism when these Sons are rematerialized for reproductive function on an evolutionary world. The Life Carriers designedly deprive the Planetary Adams and Eves of the power of begetting undying sons and daughters. If they do not default, an Adam and Eve on a planetary mission can live on indefinitely, but within certain limits their children experience decreasing longevity with each succeeding generation.

2. TRANSIT OF THE PLANETARY ADAMS

51:2.1 Upon receipt of the news that another inhabited world has attained the height of physical evolution, the System Sovereign convenes the corps of Material Sons and Daughters on the system capital; and following the discussion of the needs of such an evolutionary world, two of the volunteering group—an Adam and an Eve of the senior corps of Material Sons—are selected to undertake the adventure, to submit to the deep sleep preparatory to being enseraphimed and transported from their home of associated service to the new realm of new opportunities and new dangers.

51:2.2 Adams and Eves are semimaterial creatures and, as such, are not transportable by seraphim. They must undergo dematerialization on the system capital before they can be enseraphimed for transport to the world of assignment. The transport seraphim are able to effect such changes in the Material Sons and in other semimaterial beings as enable them to be enseraphimed and thus to be transported through space from one world or system to another. About three days of standard time are consumed in this transport preparation, and it requires the co-operation of a Life Carrier to restore such a dematerialized creature to normal existence upon arrival at the end of the seraphic-transport journey.

51:2.3 While there is this dematerializing technique for preparing the Adams for transit from Jerusem to the evolutionary worlds, there is no equivalent method for taking them away from such worlds unless the entire planet is to be emptied, in which event emergency installation of the dematerialization technique is made for the entire salvable population. If some physical catastrophe should doom the planetary residence of an evolving race, the Melchizedeks and the Life Carriers would install the technique of dematerialization for all survivors, and by seraphic transport these beings would be carried away to the new world prepared for their continuing existence. The evolution of a human race, once initiated on a world of space, must proceed quite independently of the physical survival of that planet, but during the evolutionary ages it is not otherwise intended that a Planetary Adam or Eve shall leave their chosen world.

51:2.4 Upon arrival at their planetary destination the Material Son and Daughter are rematerialized under the direction of the Life Carriers. This entire process takes ten to twenty-eight days of Urantia time. The unconsciousness of the seraphic slumber continues throughout this entire period of reconstruction. When the reassembly of the physical organism is completed, these Material Sons and Daughters stand in their new homes and on their new worlds to all intents and purposes just as they were before submitting to the dematerializing process on Jerusem.

3. THE ADAMIC MISSIONS

51:3.1 On the inhabited worlds the Material Sons and Daughters construct their own garden homes, soon being assisted by their own children. Usually the site of the garden has been selected by the Planetary Prince, and his corporeal staff do much of the preliminary work of preparation with the help of many of the higher types of native races.

51:3.2 These Gardens of Eden are so named in honor of Edentia, the constellation capital, and because they are patterned after the botanic grandeur of the headquarters world of the Most High Fathers. Such garden homes are usually located in a secluded section and in a near-tropic zone. They are wonderful creations on an average world. You can judge nothing of these beautiful centers of culture by the fragmentary account of the aborted development of such an undertaking on Urantia.

51:3.3 A Planetary Adam and Eve are, in potential, the full gift of physical grace to the mortal races. The chief business of such an imported pair is to multiply and to uplift the children of time. But there is no immediate interbreeding between the people of the garden and those of the world; for many generations Adam and Eve remain biologically segregated from the evolutionary mortals while they build up a strong race of their order. This is the origin of the violet race on the inhabited worlds.

51:3.4 The plans for race upstepping are prepared by the Planetary Prince and his staff and are executed by Adam and Eve. And this was where your Material Son and his companion were placed at great disadvantage when they arrived on Urantia. Caligastia offered crafty and effective opposition to the Adamic mission; and notwithstanding that the Melchizedek receivers of Urantia had duly warned both Adam and Eve concerning the planetary dangers inherent in the presence of the rebellious Planetary Prince, this archrebel, by a wily stratagem, outmaneuvered the Edenic pair and entrapped them into a violation of the covenant of their trusteeship as the visible rulers of your world. The traitorous Planetary Prince did succeed in compromising your Adam and Eve, but he failed in his effort to involve them in the Lucifer rebellion.

51:3.5 The fifth order of angels the planetary helpers, are attached to the Adamic mission, always accompanying the Planetary Adams on their world adventures. The corps of initial assignment is usually about one hundred thousand. When the work of the Urantia Adam and Eve was prematurely launched, when they departed from the ordained plan, it was one of the seraphic Voices of the Garden who remonstrated with them concerning their reprehensible conduct. And your narrative of this occurrence well illustrates the manner in which your planetary traditions have tended to ascribe everything supernatural to the Lord God. Because of this, Urantians have often become confused concerning the nature of the Universal Father since the words and acts of all his associates and subordinates have been so generally attributed to him. In the case of Adam and Eve, the angel of the Garden was none other than the chief of the planetary helpers then on duty. This seraphim, Solonia, proclaimed the miscarriage of the divine plan and requisitioned the return of the Melchizedek receivers to Urantia.

51:3.6 The secondary midway creatures are indigenous to the Adamic missions. As with the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince, the descendants of the Material Sons and Daughters are of two orders: their physical children and the secondary order of midway creatures. These material but ordinarily invisible planetary ministers contribute much to the advancement of civilization and even to the subjection of insubordinate minorities who may seek to subvert social development and spiritual progress.

51:3.7 The secondary midwayers should not be confused with the primary order, who date from the near times of the arrival of the Planetary Prince. On Urantia a majority of these earlier midway creatures went into rebellion with Caligastia and have, since Pentecost, been interned. Many of the Adamic group who did not remain loyal to the planetary administration are likewise interned.

51:3.8 On the day of Pentecost the loyal primary and the secondary midwayers effected a voluntary union and have functioned as one unit in world affairs ever since. They serve under the leadership of loyal midwayers alternately chosen from the two groups.

51:3.9 Your world has been visited by four orders of sonship: Caligastia, the Planetary Prince; Adam and Eve of the Material Sons of God; Machiventa Melchizedek, the “sage of Salem” in the days of Abraham; and Christ Michael, who came as the Paradise bestowal Son. How much more effective and beautiful it would have been had Michael, the supreme ruler of the universe of Nebadon, been welcomed to your world by a loyal and efficient Planetary Prince and a devoted and successful Material Son, both of whom could have done so much to enhance the lifework and mission of the bestowal Son! But not all worlds have been so unfortunate as Urantia, neither has the mission of the Planetary Adams always been so difficult or so hazardous. When they are successful, they contribute to the development of a great people, continuing as the visible heads of planetary affairs even far into the age when such a world is settled in light and life.

4. THE SIX EVOLUTIONARY RACES

51:4.1 The race of dominance during the early ages of the inhabited worlds is the red man, who ordinarily is the first to attain human levels of development. But while the red man is the senior race of the planets, the succeeding colored peoples begin to make their appearances very early in the age of mortal emergence.

51:4.2 The earlier races are somewhat superior to the later; the red man stands far above the indigo—black—race. The Life Carriers impart the full bestowal of the living energies to the initial or red race, and each succeeding evolutionary manifestation of a distinct group of mortals represents variation at the expense of the original endowment. Even mortal stature tends to decrease from the red man down to the indigo race, although on Urantia unexpected strains of giantism appeared among the green and orange peoples.

51:4.3 On those worlds having all six evolutionary races the superior peoples are the first, third, and fifth races—the red, the yellow, and the blue. The evolutionary races thus alternate in capacity for intellectual growth and spiritual development, the second, fourth, and sixth being somewhat less endowed. These secondary races are the peoples that are missing on certain worlds; they are the ones that have been exterminated on many others. It is a misfortune on Urantia that you so largely lost your superior blue men, except as they persist in your amalgamated “white race.” The loss of your orange and green stocks is not of such serious concern.

51:4.4 The evolution of six—or of three—colored races, while seeming to deteriorate the original endowment of the red man, provides certain very desirable variations in mortal types and affords an otherwise unattainable expression of diverse human potentials. These modifications are beneficial to the progress of mankind as a whole provided they are subsequently upstepped by the imported Adamic or violet race. On Urantia this usual plan of amalgamation was not extensively carried out, and this failure to execute the plan of race evolution makes it impossible for you to understand very much about the status of these peoples on an average inhabited planet by observing the remnants of these early races on your world.

51:4.5 In the early days of racial development there is a slight tendency for the red, the yellow, and the blue men to interbreed; there is a similar tendency for the orange, green, and indigo races to intermingle.

51:4.6 The more backward humans are usually employed as laborers by the more progressive races. This accounts for the origin of slavery on the planets during the early ages. The orange men are usually subdued by the red and reduced to the status of servants—sometimes exterminated. The yellow and red men often fraternize, but not always. The yellow race usually enslaves the green, while the blue man subdues the indigo. These races of primitive men think no more of utilizing the services of their backward fellows in compulsory labor than Urantians would of buying and selling horses and cattle.

51:4.7 On most normal worlds involuntary servitude does not survive the dispensation of the Planetary Prince, although mental defectives and social delinquents are often still compelled to perform involuntary labor. But on all normal spheres this sort of primitive slavery is abolished soon after the arrival of the imported violet or Adamic race.

51:4.8 These six evolutionary races are destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks.

5. RACIAL AMALGAMATION—BESTOWAL OF THE ADAMIC BLOOD

51:5.1 When a Planetary Adam and Eve arrive on an inhabited world, they have been fully instructed by their superiors as to the best way to effect the improvement of the existing races of intelligent beings. The plan of procedure is not uniform; much is left to the judgment of the ministering pair, and mistakes are not infrequent, especially on disordered, insurrectionary worlds, such as Urantia.

51:5.2 Usually the violet peoples do not begin to amalgamate with the planetary natives until their own group numbers over one million. But in the meantime the staff of the Planetary Prince proclaims that the children of the Gods have come down, as it were, to be one with the races of men; and the people eagerly look forward to the day when announcement will be made that those who have qualified as belonging to the superior racial strains may proceed to the Garden of Eden and be there chosen by the sons and daughters of Adam as the evolutionary fathers and mothers of the new and blended order of mankind.

51:5.3 On normal worlds the Planetary Adam and Eve never mate with the evolutionary races. This work of biologic betterment is a function of the Adamic progeny. But these Adamites do not go out among the races; the prince’s staff bring to the Garden of Eden the superior men and women for voluntary mating with the Adamic offspring. And on most worlds it is considered the highest honor to be selected as a candidate for mating with the sons and daughters of the garden.

51:5.4 For the first time the racial wars and other tribal struggles are diminished, while the world races increasingly strive to qualify for recognition and admission to the garden. You can at best have but a very meager idea of how this competitive struggle comes to occupy the center of all activities on a normal planet. This whole scheme of race improvement was early wrecked on Urantia.

51:5.5 The violet race is a monogamous people, and every evolutionary man or woman uniting with the Adamic sons and daughters pledges not to take other mates and to instruct his or her children in single-matedness. The children of each of these unions are educated and trained in the schools of the Planetary Prince and then are permitted to go forth to the race of their evolutionary parent, there to marry among the selected groups of superior mortals.

51:5.6 When this strain of the Material Sons is added to the evolving races of the worlds, a new and greater era of evolutionary progress is initiated. Following this procreative outpouring of imported ability and superevolutionary traits there ensues a succession of rapid strides in civilization and racial development; in one hundred thousand years more progress is made than in a million years of former struggle. In your world, even in the face of the miscarriage of the ordained plans, great progress has been made since the gift to your peoples of Adam’s life plasm.

51:5.7 But while the pure-line children of a planetary Garden of Eden can bestow themselves upon the superior members of the evolutionary races and thereby upstep the biologic level of mankind, it would not prove beneficial for the higher strains of Urantia mortals to mate with the lower races; such an unwise procedure would jeopardize all civilization on your world. Having failed to achieve race harmonization by the Adamic technique, you must now work out your planetary problem of race improvement by other and largely human methods of adaptation and control.

6. THE EDENIC REGIME

51:6.1 On most of the inhabited worlds the Gardens of Eden remain as superb cultural centers and continue to function as the social patterns of planetary conduct and usage age after age. Even in early times when the violet peoples are relatively segregated, their schools receive suitable candidates from among the world races, while the industrial developments of the garden open up new channels of commercial intercourse. Thus do the Adams and Eves and their progeny contribute to the sudden expansion of culture and to the rapid improvement of the evolutionary races of their worlds. And all of these relationships are augmented and sealed by the amalgamation of the evolutionary races and the sons of Adam, resulting in the immediate upstepping of biologic status, the quickening of intellectual potential, and the enhancement of spiritual receptivity.

51:6.2 On normal worlds the garden headquarters of the violet race becomes the second center of world culture and, jointly with the headquarters city of the Planetary Prince, sets the pace for the development of civilization. For centuries the city headquarters schools of the Planetary Prince and the garden schools of Adam and Eve are contemporary. They are usually not very far apart, and they work together in harmonious co-operation.

51:6.3 Think what it would mean on your world if somewhere in the Levant there were a world center of civilization, a great planetary university of culture, which had functioned uninterruptedly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to consider how the moral authority of even such an ancient center would be reinforced were there situated not far distant still another and older headquarters of celestial ministry whose traditions would exert a cumulative force of 500,000 years of integrated evolutionary influence. It is custom which eventually spreads the ideals of Eden to a whole world.

51:6.4 The schools of the Planetary Prince are primarily concerned with philosophy, religion, morals, and the higher intellectual and artistic achievements. The garden schools of Adam and Eve are usually devoted to practical arts, fundamental intellectual training, social culture, economic development, trade relations, physical efficiency, and civil government. Eventually these world centers amalgamate, but this actual affiliation sometimes does not occur until the times of the first Magisterial Son.

51:6.5 The continuing existence of the Planetary Adam and Eve, together with the pure-line nucleus of the violet race, imparts that stability of growth to Edenic culture by virtue of which it comes to act upon the civilization of a world with the compelling force of tradition. In these immortal Material Sons and Daughters we encounter the last and the indispensable link connecting God with man, bridging the almost infinite gulf between the eternal Creator and the lowest finite personalities of time. Here is a being of high origin who is physical, material, even a sex creature like Urantia mortals, one who can see and comprehend the invisible Planetary Prince and interpret him to the mortal creatures of the realm, for the Material Sons and Daughters are able to see all of the lower orders of spirit beings; they visualize the Planetary Prince and his entire staff, visible and invisible.

51:6.6 With the passing of centuries, through the amalgamation of their progeny with the races of men, this same Material Son and Daughter become accepted as the common ancestors of mankind, the common parents of the now blended descendants of the evolutionary races. It is intended that mortals who start out from an inhabited world have the experience of recognizing seven fathers:

1. The biologic father—the father in the flesh.

2. The father of the realm—the Planetary Adam.

3. The father of the spheres—the System Sovereign.

4. The Most High Father—the Constellation Father.

5. The universe Father—the Creator Son and supreme ruler of the local creations.

6. The super-Fathers—the Ancients of Days who govern the superuniverse.

7. The spirit or Havona Father—the Universal Father, who dwells on Paradise and bestows his spirit to live and work in the minds of the lowly creatures who inhabit the universe of universes.

7. UNITED ADMINISTRATION

51:7.1 From time to time the Avonal Sons of Paradise come to the inhabited worlds for judicial actions, but the first Avonal to arrive on a magisterial mission inaugurates the fourth dispensation of an evolutionary world of time and space. On some planets where this Magisterial Son is universally accepted, he remains for one age; and thus the planet prospers under the joint rulership of three Sons: the Planetary Prince, the Material Son, and the Magisterial Son, the latter two being visible to all the inhabitants of the realm.

51:7.2 Before the first Magisterial Son concludes his mission on a normal evolutionary world, there has been effected the union of the educational and administrative work of the Planetary Prince and the Material Son. This amalgamation of the dual supervision of a planet brings into existence a new and effective order of world administration. Upon the retirement of the Magisterial Son the Planetary Adam assumes the outward direction of the sphere. The Material Son and Daughter thus act jointly as planetary administrators until the settling of the world in the era of light and life; whereupon the Planetary Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereign. During this age of advanced evolution, Adam and Eve become what might be called joint prime ministers of the glorified realm.

51:7.3 As soon as the new and consolidated capital of the evolving world has become well established, and just as fast as competent subordinate administrators can be properly trained, subcapitals are founded on remote land bodies and among the different peoples. Before the arrival of another dispensational Son, from fifty to one hundred of these subcenters will have been organized.

51:7.4 The Planetary Prince and his staff still foster the spiritual and philosophic domains of activity. Adam and Eve pay particular attention to the physical, scientific, and economic status of the realm. Both groups equally devote their energies to the promotion of the arts, social relations, and intellectual achievements.

51:7.5 By the time of the inauguration of the fifth dispensation of world affairs, a magnificent administration of planetary activities has been achieved. Mortal existence on such a well-managed sphere is indeed stimulating and profitable. And if Urantians could only observe life on such a planet, they would immediately appreciate the value of those things which their world has lost through embracing evil and participating in rebellion.

51:7.6 [Presented by a Secondary Lanonandek Son of the Reserve Corps.]

FROM THE INCEPTION of life on an evolutionary planet to the time of its final flowering in the era of light and life, there appear upon the stage of world action at least seven epochs of human life. These successive ages are determined by the planetary missions of the divine Sons, and on an average inhabited world these epochs appear in the following order:

1. Pre-Planetary Prince Man.

2. Post-Planetary Prince Man.

3. Post-Adamic Man.

4. Post-Magisterial Son Man.

5. Postbestowal Son Man.

6. Post-Teacher Son Man.

7. The Era of Light and Life.

52:0.2 The worlds of space, as soon as they are physically suitable for life, are placed on the registry of the Life Carriers, and in due time these Sons are dispatched to such planets for the purpose of initiating life. The entire period from life initiation to the appearance of man is designated the prehuman era and precedes the successive mortal epochs considered in this narrative.

1. PRIMITIVE MAN

52:1.1 From the time of man’s emergence from the animal level—when he can choose to worship the Creator—to the arrival of the Planetary Prince, mortal will creatures are called primitive men. There are six basic types or races of primitive men, and these early peoples successively appear in the order of the spectrum colors, beginning with the red. The length of time consumed in this early life evolution varies greatly on the different worlds, ranging from one hundred and fifty thousand years to over one million years of Urantia time.

52:1.2 The evolutionary races of color—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo—begin to appear about the time that primitive man is developing a simple language and is beginning to exercise the creative imagination. By this time man is well accustomed to standing erect.

52:1.3 Primitive men are mighty hunters and fierce fighters. The law of this age is the physical survival of the fittest; the government of these times is wholly tribal. During the early racial struggles on many worlds some of the evolutionary races are obliterated, as occurred on Urantia. Those who survive are usually subsequently blended with the later imported violet race, the Adamic peoples.

52:1.4 In the light of subsequent civilization, this era of primitive man is a long, dark, and bloody chapter. The ethics of the jungle and the morals of the primeval forests are not in keeping with the standards of later dispensations of revealed religion and higher spiritual development. On normal and nonexperimental worlds this epoch is very different from the prolonged and extraordinarily brutal struggles which characterized this age on Urantia. When you have emerged from your first world experience, you will begin to see why this long and painful struggle on the evolutionary worlds occurs, and as you go forward in the Paradise path, you will increasingly understand the wisdom of these apparently strange doings. But notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of the early ages of human emergence, the performances of primitive man represent a splendid, even a heroic, chapter in the annals of an evolutionary world of time and space.

52:1.5 Early evolutionary man is not a colorful creature. In general, these primitive mortals are cave dwellers or cliff residents. They also build crude huts in the large trees. Before they acquire a high order of intelligence, the planets are sometimes overrun with the larger types of animals. But early in this era mortals learn to kindle and maintain fire, and with the increase of inventive imagination and the improvement in tools, evolving man soon vanquishes the larger and more unwieldy animals. The early races also make extensive use of the larger flying animals. These enormous birds are able to carry one or two average-sized men for a nonstop flight of over five hundred miles. On some planets these birds are of great service since they possess a high order of intelligence, often being able to speak many words of the languages of the realm. These birds are most intelligent, very obedient, and unbelievably affectionate. Such passenger birds have been long extinct on Urantia, but your early ancestors enjoyed their services.

52:1.6 Man’s acquirement of ethical judgment, moral will, is usually coincident with the appearance of early language. Upon attaining the human level, after this emergence of mortal will, these beings become receptive to the temporary indwelling of the divine Adjusters, and upon death many are duly elected as survivors and sealed by the archangels for subsequent resurrection and Spirit fusion. The archangels always accompany the Planetary Princes, and a dispensational adjudication of the realm is simultaneous with the prince’s arrival.

52:1.7 All mortals who are indwelt by Thought Adjusters are potential worshipers; they have been “lighted by the true light,” and they possess capacity for seeking reciprocal contact with divinity. Nevertheless, the early or biologic religion of primitive man is largely a persistence of animal fear coupled with ignorant awe and tribal superstition. The survival of superstition in the Urantia races is hardly complimentary to your evolutionary development nor compatible with your otherwise splendid achievements in material progress. But this early fear religion serves a very valuable purpose in subduing the fiery tempers of these primitive creatures. It is the forerunner of civilization and the soil for the subsequent planting of the seeds of revealed religion by the Planetary Prince and his ministers.

52:1.8 Within one hundred thousand years from the time man acquires erect posture, the Planetary Prince usually arrives, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign upon the report of the Life Carriers that will is functioning, even though comparatively few individuals have thus developed. Primitive mortals usually welcome the Planetary Prince and his visible staff; in fact, they often look upon them with awe and reverence, almost with worshipfulness, if they are not restrained.

2. POST-PLANETARY PRINCE MAN

52:2.1 With the arrival of the Planetary Prince a new dispensation begins. Government appears on earth, and the advanced tribal epoch is attained. Great social strides are made during a few thousand years of this regime. Under normal conditions mortals attain a high state of civilization during this age. They do not struggle so long in barbarism as did the Urantia races. But life on an inhabited world is so changed by rebellion that you can have little or no idea of such a regime on a normal planet.

52:2.2 The average length of this dispensation is around five hundred thousand years, some longer, some shorter. During this era the planet is established in the circuits of the system, and a full quota of seraphic and other celestial helpers is assigned to its administration. The Thought Adjusters come in increasing numbers, and the seraphic guardians amplify their regime of mortal supervision.

52:2.3 When the Planetary Prince arrives on a primitive world, the evolved religion of fear and ignorance prevails. The prince and his staff make the first revelations of higher truth and universe organization. These initial presentations of revealed religion are very simple, and they usually pertain to the affairs of the local system. Religion is wholly an evolutionary process prior to the arrival of the Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion progresses by graduated revelation as well as by evolutionary growth. Each dispensation, each mortal epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of spiritual truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the extent of religious revelation.

52:2.4 This dispensation witnesses a spiritual dawn, and the different races and their various tribes tend to develop specialized systems of religious and philosophic thought. There uniformly run through all of these racial religions two strains: the early fears of primitive men and the later revelations of the Planetary Prince. In some respects Urantians do not seem to have wholly emerged from this stage of planetary evolution. As you pursue this study, you will the more clearly discern how far your world departs from the average course of evolutionary progress and development.

52:2.5 But the Planetary Prince is not “the Prince of Peace.” Racial struggles and tribal wars continue over into this dispensation but with diminishing frequency and severity. This is the great age of racial dispersion, and it culminates in a period of intense nationalism. Color is the basis of tribal and national groupings, and the different races often develop separate languages. Each expanding group of mortals tends to seek isolation. This segregation is favored by the existence of many languages. Before the unification of the several races their relentless warfare sometimes results in the obliteration of whole peoples; the orange and green men are particularly subject to such extinction.

52:2.6 On average worlds, during the latter part of the prince’s rule, national life begins to replace tribal organization or rather to be superimposed upon the existing tribal groupings. But the great social achievement of the prince’s epoch is the emergence of family life. Heretofore, human relationships have been chiefly tribal; now, the home begins to materialize.

52:2.7 This is the dispensation of the realization of sex equality. On some planets the male may rule the female; on others the reverse prevails. During this age normal worlds establish full equality of the sexes, this being preliminary to the fuller realization of the ideals of home life. This is the dawn of the golden age of the home. The idea of tribal rule gradually gives way to the dual concept of national life and family life.

52:2.8 During this age agriculture makes its appearance. The growth of the family idea is incompatible with the roving and unsettled life of the hunter. Gradually the practices of settled habitations and the cultivation of the soil become established. The domestication of animals and the development of home arts proceed apace. Upon reaching the apex of biologic evolution, a high level of civilization has been attained, but there is little development of a mechanical order; invention is the characteristic of the succeeding age.

52:2.9 The races are purified and brought up to a high state of physical perfection and intellectual strength before the end of this era. The early development of a normal world is greatly helped by the plan of promoting the increase of the higher types of mortals with proportionate curtailment of the lower. And it is the failure of your early peoples to thus discriminate between these types that accounts for the presence of so many defective and degenerate individuals among the present-day Urantia races.

52:2.10 One of the great achievements of the age of the prince is this restriction of the multiplication of mentally defective and socially unfit individuals. Long before the times of the arrival of the second Sons, the Adams, most worlds seriously address themselves to the tasks of race purification, something which the Urantia peoples have not even yet seriously undertaken.

52:2.11 This problem of race improvement is not such an extensive undertaking when it is attacked at this early date in human evolution. The preceding period of tribal struggles and rugged competition in race survival has weeded out most of the abnormal and defective strains. An idiot does not have much chance of survival in a primitive and warring tribal social organization. It is the false sentiment of your partially perfected civilizations that fosters, protects, and perpetuates the hopelessly defective strains of evolutionary human stocks.

52:2.12 It is neither tenderness nor altruism to bestow futile sympathy upon degenerated human beings, unsalvable abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even the most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient differences between individuals and between numerous social groups to provide for the full exercise of all those noble traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish mortal ministry without perpetuating the socially unfit and the morally degenerate strains of evolving humanity. There is abundant opportunity for the exercise of tolerance and the function of altruism in behalf of those unfortunate and needy individuals who have not irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever destroyed their spiritual birthright.

3. POST-ADAMIC MAN

52:3.1 When the original impetus of evolutionary life has run its biologic course, when man has reached the apex of animal development, there arrives the second order of sonship, and the second dispensation of grace and ministry is inaugurated. This is true on all evolutionary worlds. When the highest possible level of evolutionary life has been attained, when primitive man has ascended as far as possible in the biologic scale, a Material Son and Daughter always appear on the planet, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign.

52:3.2 Thought Adjusters are increasingly bestowed upon the post-Adamic men, and in constantly augmented numbers these mortals attain capacity for subsequent Adjuster fusion. While functioning as descending Sons, the Adams do not possess Adjusters, but their planetary offspring—direct and mixed—become legitimate candidates for the reception, in due time, of the Mystery Monitors. By the termination of the post-Adamic age the planet is in possession of its full quota of celestial ministers; only the fusion Adjusters are not yet universally bestowed.

52:3.3 It is the prime purpose of the Adamic regime to influence evolving man to complete the transit from the hunter and herder stage of civilization to that of the agriculturist and horticulturist, to be later supplemented by the appearance of the urban and industrial adjuncts to civilization. Ten thousand years of this dispensation of the biologic uplifters is sufficient to effect a marvelous transformation. Twenty-five thousand years of such an administration of the conjoint wisdom of the Planetary Prince and the Material Sons usually ripens the sphere for the advent of a Magisterial Son.

52:3.4 This age usually witnesses the completion of the elimination of the unfit and the still further purification of the racial strains; on normal worlds the defective bestial tendencies are very nearly eliminated from the reproducing stocks of the realm.

52:3.5 The Adamic progeny never amalgamate with the inferior strains of the evolutionary races. Neither is it the divine plan for the Planetary Adam or Eve to mate, personally, with the evolutionary peoples. This race-improvement project is the task of their progeny. But the offspring of the Material Son and Daughter are mobilized for generations before the racial-amalgamation ministry is inaugurated.

52:3.6 The result of the gift of the Adamic life plasm to the mortal races is an immediate upstepping of intellectual capacity and an acceleration of spiritual progress. There is usually some physical improvement also. On an average world the post-Adamic dispensation is an age of great invention, energy control, and mechanical development. This is the era of the appearance of multiform manufacture and the control of natural forces; it is the golden age of exploration and the final subduing of the planet. Much of the material progress of a world occurs during this time of the inauguration of the development of the physical sciences, just such an epoch as Urantia is now experiencing. Your world is a full dispensation and more behind the average planetary schedule.

52:3.7 By the end of the Adamic dispensation on a normal planet the races are practically blended, so that it can be truly proclaimed that “God has made of one blood all the nations,” and that his Son “has made of one color all peoples.” The color of such an amalgamated race is somewhat of an olive shade of the violet hue, the racial “white” of the spheres.

52:3.8 Primitive man is for the most part carnivorous; the Material Sons and Daughters do not eat meat, but their offspring within a few generations usually gravitate to the omnivorous level, although whole groups of their descendants sometimes remain nonflesh eaters. This double origin of the post-Adamic races explains how such blended human stocks exhibit anatomic vestiges belonging to both the herbivorous and carnivorous animal groups.

52:3.9 Within ten thousand years of racial amalgamation the resultant stocks show varying degrees of anatomic blend, some strains carrying more of the marks of the nonflesh-eating ancestry, others exhibiting more of the distinguishing traits and physical characteristics of their carnivorous evolutionary progenitors. The majority of these world races soon become omnivorous, subsisting upon a wide range of viands from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

52:3.10 The post-Adamic epoch is the dispensation of internationalism. With the near completion of the task of race blending, nationalism wanes, and the brotherhood of man really begins to materialize. Representative government begins to take the place of the monarchial or paternal form of rulership. The educational system becomes world-wide, and gradually the languages of the races give way to the tongue of the violet people. Universal peace and co-operation are seldom attained until the races are fairly well blended, and until they speak a common language.

52:3.11 During the closing centuries of the post-Adamic age there develops new interest in art, music, and literature, and this world-wide awakening is the signal for the appearance of a Magisterial Son. The crowning development of this era is the universal interest in intellectual realities, true philosophy. Religion becomes less nationalistic, becomes more and more a planetary affair. New revelations of truth characterize these ages, and the Most Highs of the constellations begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is revealed up to the administration of the constellations.

52:3.12 Great ethical advancement characterizes this era; the brotherhood of man is the goal of its society. World-wide peace—the cessation of race conflict and national animosity—is the indicator of planetary ripeness for the advent of the third order of sonship, the Magisterial Son.

4. POST-MAGISTERIAL SON MAN

52:4.1 On normal and loyal planets this age opens with the mortal races blended and biologically fit. There are no race or color problems; literally all nations and races are of one blood. The brotherhood of man flourishes, and the nations are learning to live on earth, in peace and tranquillity. Such a world stands on the eve of a great and culminating intellectual development.

52:4.2 When an evolutionary world becomes thus ripe for the magisterial age, one of the high order of Avonal Sons makes his appearance on a magisterial mission. The Planetary Prince and the Material Sons are of local universe origin; the Magisterial Son hails from Paradise.

52:4.3 When the Paradise Avonals come to the mortal spheres on judicial actions, solely as dispensation adjudicators, they are never incarnated. But when they come on magisterial missions, at least the initial one, they are always incarnated, though they do not experience birth, neither do they die the death of the realm. They may live on for generations in those cases where they remain as rulers on certain planets. When their missions are concluded, they yield up their planetary lives and return to their former status of divine sonship.

52:4.4 Each new dispensation extends the horizon of revealed religion, and the Magisterial Sons extend the revelation of truth to portray the affairs of the local universe and all its tributaries.

52:4.5 After the initial visitation of a Magisterial Son the races soon effect their economic liberation. The daily work required to sustain one’s independence would be represented by two and one-half hours of your time. It is perfectly safe to liberate such ethical and intelligent mortals. Such refined peoples well know how to utilize leisure for self-improvement and planetary advancement. This age witnesses the further purification of the racial stocks by the restriction of reproduction among the less fit and poorly endowed individuals.

52:4.6 The political government and social administration of the races continue to improve, self-government being fairly well established by the end of this age. By self-government we refer to the highest type of representative government. Such worlds advance and honor only those leaders and rulers who are most fit to bear social and political responsibilities.

52:4.7 During this epoch the majority of the world mortals are Adjuster indwelt. But even yet the bestowal of divine Monitors is not always universal. The Adjusters of fusion destiny are not yet bestowed upon all planetary mortals; it is still necessary for the will creatures to choose the Mystery Monitors.

52:4.8 During the closing ages of this dispensation, society begins to return to more simplified forms of living. The complex nature of an advancing civilization is running its course, and mortals are learning to live more naturally and effectively. And this trend increases with each succeeding epoch. This is the age of the flowering of art, music, and higher learning. The physical sciences have already reached their height of development. The termination of this age, on an ideal world, witnesses the fullness of a great religious awakening, a world-wide spiritual enlightenment. And this extensive arousal of the spiritual natures of the races is the signal for the arrival of the bestowal Son and for the inauguration of the fifth mortal epoch.

52:4.9 On many worlds it develops that the planet is not made ready for a bestowal Son by one magisterial mission; in that event there will be a second, even a succession of Magisterial Sons, each of whom will advance the races from one dispensation to another until the planet is made ready for the gift of the bestowal Son. On the second and subsequent missions the Magisterial Sons may or may not be incarnated. But no matter how many Magisterial Sons may appear—and they may also come as such after the bestowal Son—the advent of each one marks the end of one dispensation and the beginning of another.

52:4.10 These dispensations of the Magisterial Sons cover anywhere from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand years of Urantia time. Sometimes such an epoch is much shorter and in rare instances even longer. But in the fullness of time one of these same Magisterial Sons will be born as the Paradise bestowal Son.

5. POSTBESTOWAL SON MAN

52:5.1 When a certain standard of intellectual and spiritual development is attained on an inhabited world, a Paradise bestowal Son always arrives. On normal worlds he does not appear in the flesh until the races have ascended to the highest levels of intellectual development and ethical attainment. But on Urantia the bestowal Son, even your own Creator Son, appeared at the close of the Adamic dispensation, but that is not the usual order of events on the worlds of space.

52:5.2 When the worlds have become ripe for spiritualization, the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always belong to the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case, once in each local universe, when the Creator Son prepares for his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary world, as occurred when Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order.

52:5.3 The bestowal Son arrives on a world of high educational culture and encounters a race spiritually trained and prepared to assimilate advanced teachings and to appreciate the bestowal mission. This is an age characterized by the world-wide pursuit of moral culture and spiritual truth. The mortal passion of this dispensation is the penetration of cosmic reality and communion with spiritual reality. The revelations of truth are extended to include the superuniverse. Entirely new systems of education and government grow up to supplant the crude regimes of former times. The joy of living takes on new color, and the reactions of life are exalted to heavenly heights of tone and timbre.

52:5.4 The bestowal Son lives and dies for the spiritual uplift of the mortal races of a world. He establishes the “new and living way”; his life is an incarnation of Paradise truth in mortal flesh, that very truth—even the Spirit of Truth—in the knowledge of which men shall be free.

52:5.5 On Urantia the establishment of this “new and living way” was a matter of fact as well as of truth. The isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had suspended the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon death, directly to the shores of the mansion worlds. Before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia all souls slept on until the dispensational or special millennial resurrections. Even Moses was not permitted to go over to the other side until the occasion of a special resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia, contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to the morontia spheres.

52:5.6 Upon the resurrection of a bestowal Son, on the third day after yielding up his incarnated life, he ascends to the right hand of the Universal Father, receives the assurance of the acceptance of the bestowal mission, and returns to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the local universe. Thereupon the bestowal Avonal and the Creator Michael send their joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the bestowal world. This is the occasion when the “spirit of the triumphant Son is poured out upon all flesh.” The Universe Mother Spirit also participates in this bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, and concomitant therewith there issues the bestowal edict of the Thought Adjusters. Thereafter all normal-minded will creatures of that world will receive Adjusters as soon as they attain the age of moral responsibility, of spiritual choice.

52:5.7 If such a bestowal Avonal should return to a world after the bestowal mission, he would not incarnate but would come “in glory with the seraphic hosts.”

52:5.8 The postbestowal Son age may extend from ten thousand to a hundred thousand years. There is no arbitrary time allotted to any of these dispensational eras. This is a time of great ethical and spiritual progress. Under the spiritual influence of these ages, human character undergoes tremendous transformations and experiences phenomenal development. It becomes possible to put the golden rule into practical operation. The teachings of Jesus are really applicable to a mortal world which has had the preliminary training of the prebestowal Sons with their dispensations of character ennoblement and culture augmentation.

52:5.9 During this era the problems of disease and delinquency are virtually solved. Degeneracy has already been largely eliminated by selective reproduction. Disease has been practically mastered through the high resistant qualities of the Adamic strains and by the intelligent and world-wide application of the discoveries of the physical sciences of preceding ages. The average length of life, during this period, climbs well above the equivalent of three hundred years of Urantia time.

52:5.10 Throughout this epoch there is a gradual lessening of governmental supervision. True self-government is beginning to function; fewer and fewer restrictive laws are necessary. The military branches of national resistance are passing away; the era of international harmony is really arriving. There are many nations, mostly determined by land distribution, but only one race, one language, and one religion. Mortal affairs are almost, but not quite, utopian. This truly is a great and glorious age!

6. URANTIA’S POSTBESTOWAL AGE

52:6.1 The bestowal Son is the Prince of Peace He arrives with the message, “Peace on earth and good will among men.” On normal worlds this is a dispensation of world-wide peace; the nations no more learn war. But such salutary influences did not attend the coming of your bestowal Son, Christ Michael. Urantia is not proceeding in the normal order. Your world is out of step in the planetary procession. Your Master, when on earth, warned his disciples that his advent would not bring the usual reign of peace on Urantia. He distinctly told them that there would be “wars and rumors of wars,” and that nation would rise against nation. At another time he said, “Think not that I have come to bring peace upon earth.”

52:6.2 Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:

52:6.3 1. Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers.

52:6.4 2. Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.

52:6.5 3. Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule.

52:6.6 4. Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival.

52:6.7 5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.

52:6.8 If you could be transplanted from your backward and confused world to some normal planet now in the postbestowal Son age, you would think you had been translated to the heaven of your traditions. You would hardly believe that you were observing the normal evolutionary workings of a mortal sphere of human habitation. These worlds are in the spiritual circuits of their realm, and they enjoy all the advantages of the universe broadcasts and the reflectivity services of the superuniverse.

7. POST-TEACHER SON MAN

52:7.1 The Sons of the next order to arrive on the average evolutionary world are the Trinity Teacher Sons, the divine Sons of the Paradise Trinity. Again we find Urantia out of step with its sister spheres in that your Jesus has promised to return. That promise he will certainly fulfill, but no one knows whether his second coming will precede or follow the appearances of Magisterial or Teacher Sons on Urantia.

52:7.2 The Teacher Sons come in groups to the spiritualizing worlds. A planetary Teacher Son is assisted and supported by seventy primary Sons, twelve secondary Sons, and three of the highest and most experienced of the supreme order of Daynals. This corps will remain for some time on the world, long enough to effect the transition from the evolutionary ages to the era of light and life—not less than one thousand years of planetary time and often considerably longer. This mission is a Trinity contribution to the antecedent efforts of all the divine personalities who have ministered to an inhabited world.

52:7.3 The revelation of truth is now extended to the central universe and to Paradise. The races are becoming highly spiritual. A great people has evolved and a great age is approaching. The educational, economic, and administrative systems of the planet are undergoing radical transformations. New values and relationships are being established. The kingdom of heaven is appearing on earth, and the glory of God is being shed abroad in the world.

52:7.4 This is the dispensation when many mortals are translated from among the living. As the era of Trinity Teacher Sons progresses, the spiritual allegiance of the mortals of time becomes more and more universal. Natural death becomes less frequent as the Adjusters increasingly fuse with their subjects during the lifetime in the flesh. The planet eventually is classed as of the primary modified order of mortal ascension.

52:7.5 Life during this era is pleasant and profitable. Degeneracy and the antisocial end products of the long evolutionary struggle have been virtually obliterated. The length of life approaches five hundred Urantia years, and the reproductive rate of racial increase is intelligently controlled. An entirely new order of society has arrived. There are still great differences among mortals, but the state of society more nearly approaches the ideals of social brotherhood and spiritual equality. Representative government is vanishing, and the world is passing under the rule of individual self-control. The function of government is chiefly directed to collective tasks of social administration and economic co-ordination. The golden age is coming on apace; the temporal goal of the long and intense planetary evolutionary struggle is in sight. The reward of the ages is soon to be realized; the wisdom of the Gods is about to be manifested.

52:7.6 The physical administration of a world during this age requires about one hour each day on the part of every adult individual; that is, the equivalent of one Urantia hour. The planet is in close touch with universe affairs, and its people scan the latest broadcasts with the same keen interest you now manifest in the latest editions of your daily newspapers. These races are occupied with a thousand things of interest unknown on your world.

52:7.7 Increasingly, true planetary allegiance to the Supreme Being grows. Generation after generation, more and more of the race step into line with those who practice justice and live mercy. Slowly but surely the world is being won to the joyous service of the Sons of God. The physical difficulties and material problems have been largely solved; the planet is ripening for advanced life and a more settled existence.

52:7.8 From time to time throughout their dispensation, Teacher Sons continue to come to these peaceful worlds. They do not leave a world until they observe that the evolutionary plan, as it concerns that planet, is working smoothly. A Magisterial Son of judgment usually accompanies the Teacher Sons on their successive missions, while another such Son functions at the time of their departure, and these judicial actions continue from age to age throughout the duration of the mortal regime of time and space.

52:7.9 Each recurring mission of the Trinity Teacher Sons successively exalts such a supernal world to ever-ascending heights of wisdom, spirituality, and cosmic illumination. But the noble natives of such a sphere are still finite and mortal. Nothing is perfect; nevertheless, there is evolving a quality of near perfection in the operation of an imperfect world and in the lives of its human inhabitants.

52:7.10 The Trinity Teacher Sons may return many times to the same world. But sooner or later, in connection with the termination of one of their missions, the Planetary Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereign, and the System Sovereign appears to proclaim the entrance of such a world upon the era of light and life.

52:7.11 It was of the conclusion of the terminal mission of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronology on a normal world) that John wrote: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the prince.”

52:7.12 This is the same renovated earth, the advanced planetary stage, that the olden seer envisioned when he wrote: “`For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall you and your children survive; and it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to worship before me,’ says the Lord.”

52:7.13 It is the mortals of such an age who are described as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, an exalted people; and you shall show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into this marvelous light.”

52:7.14 No matter what the special natural history of an individual planet may be, no difference whether a realm has been wholly loyal, tainted with evil, or cursed by sin—no matter what the antecedents may be—sooner or later the grace of God and the ministry of angels will usher in the day of the advent of the Trinity Teacher Sons; and their departure, following their final mission, will inaugurate this superb era of light and life.

52:7.15 All the worlds of Satania can join in the hope of the one who wrote: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found by him in peace, without spot and blameless.”

52:7.16 The departure of the Teacher Son corps, at the end of their first or some subsequent reign, ushers in the dawn of the era of light and life—the threshold of the transition from time to the vestibule of eternity. The planetary realization of this era of light and life far more than equals the fondest expectations of Urantia mortals who have entertained no more farseeing concepts of the future life than those embraced within religious beliefs which depict heaven as the immediate destiny and final dwelling place of surviving mortals.

52:7.17 [Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the staff of Gabriel.]

LUCIFER WAS A BRILLIANT primary Lanonandek Son of Nebadon. He had experienced service in many systems, had been a high counselor of his group, and was distinguished for wisdom, sagacity, and efficiency. Lucifer was number 37 of his order, and when commissioned by the Melchizedeks, he was designated as one of the one hundred most able and brilliant personalities in more than seven hundred thousand of his kind. From such a magnificent beginning, through evil and error, he embraced sin and now is numbered as one of three System Sovereigns in Nebadon who have succumbed to the urge of self and surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty—rejection of universe allegiance and disregard of fraternal obligations, blindness to cosmic relationships.

53:0.2 In the universe of Nebadon, the domain of Christ Michael, there are ten thousand systems of inhabited worlds. In all the history of Lanonandek Sons, in all their work throughout these thousands of systems and at the universe headquarters, only three System Sovereigns have ever been found in contempt of the government of the Creator Son.

1. THE LEADERS OF REBELLION

53:1.1 Lucifer was not an ascendant being; he was a created Son of the local universe, and of him it was said: “You were perfect in all your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you.” Many times had he been in counsel with the Most Highs of Edentia. And Lucifer reigned “upon the holy mountain of God,” the administrative mount of Jerusem, for he was the chief executive of a great system of 607 inhabited worlds.

53:1.2 Lucifer was a magnificent being, a brilliant personality; he stood next to the Most High Fathers of the constellations in the direct line of universe authority. Notwithstanding Lucifer’s transgression, subordinate intelligences refrained from showing him disrespect and disdain prior to Michael’s bestowal on Urantia. Even the archangel of Michael, at the time of Moses’ resurrection, “did not bring against him an accusing judgment but simply said, `the Judge rebuke you.’” Judgment in such matters belongs to the Ancients of Days, the rulers of the superuniverse.

53:1.3 Lucifer is now the fallen and deposed Sovereign of Satania. Self-contemplation is most disastrous, even to the exalted personalities of the celestial world. Of Lucifer it was said: “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom because of your brightness.” Your olden prophet saw his sad estate when he wrote: “How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cast down, you who dared to confuse the worlds!”

53:1.4 Very little was heard of Lucifer on Urantia owing to the fact that he assigned his first lieutenant, Satan, to advocate his cause on your planet. Satan was a member of the same primary group of Lanonandeks but had never functioned as a System Sovereign; he entered fully into the Lucifer insurrection. The “devil” is none other than Caligastia the deposed Planetary Prince of Urantia and a Son of the secondary order of Lanonandeks. At the time Michael was on Urantia in the flesh, Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia were leagued together to effect the miscarriage of his bestowal mission. But they signally failed.

53:1.5 Abaddon was the chief of the staff of Caligastia. He followed his master into rebellion and has ever since acted as chief executive of the Urantia rebels. Beelzebub was the leader of the disloyal midway creatures who allied themselves with the forces of the traitorous Caligastia.

53:1.6 The dragon eventually became the symbolic representation of all these evil personages. Upon the triumph of Michael, “Gabriel came down from Salvington and bound the dragon (all the rebel leaders) for an age.” Of the Jerusem seraphic rebels it is written: “And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he has reserved in sure chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day.”

2. THE CAUSES OF REBELLION

53:2.1 Lucifer and his first assistant, Satan had reigned on Jerusem for more than five hundred thousand years when in their hearts they began to array themselves against the Universal Father and his then vicegerent Son, Michael.

53:2.2 There were no peculiar or special conditions in the system of Satania which suggested or favored rebellion. It is our belief that the idea took origin and form in Lucifer’s mind, and that he might have instigated such a rebellion no matter where he might have been stationed. Lucifer first announced his plans to Satan but it required several months to corrupt the mind of his able and brilliant associate. However, when once converted to the rebel theories, he became a bold and earnest advocate of “self-assertion and liberty.”

53:2.3 No one ever suggested rebellion to Lucifer. The idea of self-assertion in opposition to the will of Michael and to the plans of the Universal Father, as they are represented in Michael, had its origin in his own mind. His relations with the Creator Son had been intimate and always cordial. At no time prior to the exaltation of his own mind did Lucifer openly express dissatisfaction about the universe administration. Notwithstanding his silence, for more than one hundred years of standard time the Union of Days on Salvington had been reflectivating to Uversa that all was not at peace in Lucifer’s mind. This information was also communicated to the Creator Son and the Constellation Fathers of Norlatiadek.

53:2.4 Throughout this period Lucifer became increasingly critical of the entire plan of universe administration but always professed wholehearted loyalty to the Supreme Rulers. His first outspoken disloyalty was manifested on the occasion of a visit of Gabriel to Jerusem just a few days before the open proclamation of the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty. Gabriel was so profoundly impressed with the certainty of the impending outbreak that he went direct to Edentia to confer with the Constellation Fathers regarding the measures to be employed in case of open rebellion.

53:2.5 It is very difficult to point out the exact cause or causes which finally culminated in the Lucifer rebellion. We are certain of only one thing, and that is: Whatever these first beginnings were, they had their origin in Lucifer’s mind. There must have been a pride of self that nourished itself to the point of self-deception, so that Lucifer for a time really persuaded himself that his contemplation of rebellion was actually for the good of the system, if not of the universe. By the time his plans had developed to the point of disillusionment, no doubt he had gone too far for his original and mischief-making pride to permit him to stop. At some point in this experience he became insincere, and evil evolved into deliberate and willful sin. That this happened is proved by the subsequent conduct of this brilliant executive. He was long offered opportunity for repentance, but only some of his subordinates ever accepted the proffered mercy. The Faithful of Days of Edentia, on the request of the Constellation Fathers, in person presented the plan of Michael for the saving of these flagrant rebels, but always was the mercy of the Creator Son rejected and rejected with increasing contempt and disdain.

3. THE LUCIFER MANIFESTO

53:3.1 Whatever the early origins of trouble in the hearts of Lucifer and Satan the final outbreak took form as the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty. The cause of the rebels was stated under three heads:

53:3.2 1. The reality of the Universal Father. Lucifer charged that the Universal Father did not really exist, that physical gravity and space-energy were inherent in the universe, and that the Father was a myth invented by the Paradise Sons to enable them to maintain the rule of the universes in the Father’s name. He denied that personality was a gift of the Universal Father. He even intimated that the finaliters were in collusion with the Paradise Sons to foist fraud upon all creation since they never brought back a very clear-cut idea of the Father’s actual personality as it is discernible on Paradise. He traded on reverence as ignorance. The charge was sweeping, terrible, and blasphemous. It was this veiled attack upon the finaliters that no doubt influenced the ascendant citizens then on Jerusem to stand firm and remain steadfast in resistance to all the rebel’s proposals.

 

53:3.3 2. The universe government of the Creator Son—Michael. Lucifer contended that the local systems should be autonomous. He protested against the right of Michael, the Creator Son, to assume sovereignty of Nebadon in the name of a hypothetical Paradise Father and require all personalities to acknowledge allegiance to this unseen Father. He asserted that the whole plan of worship was a clever scheme to aggrandize the Paradise Sons. He was willing to acknowledge Michael as his Creator-father but not as his God and rightful ruler.

53:3.4 Most bitterly did he attack the right of the Ancients of Days—”foreign potentates”—to interfere in the affairs of the local systems and universes. These rulers he denounced as tyrants and usurpers. He exhorted his followers to believe that none of these rulers could do aught to interfere with the operation of complete home rule if men and angels only had the courage to assert themselves and boldly claim their rights.

53:3.5 He contended that the executioners of the Ancients of Days could be debarred from functioning in the local systems if the native beings would only assert their independence. He maintained that immortality was inherent in the system personalities, that resurrection was natural and automatic, and that all beings would live eternally except for the arbitrary and unjust acts of the executioners of the Ancients of Days.

 

53:3.6 3. The attack upon the universal plan of ascendant mortal training. Lucifer maintained that far too much time and energy were expended upon the scheme of so thoroughly training ascending mortals in the principles of universe administration, principles which he alleged were unethical and unsound. He protested against the agelong program for preparing the mortals of space for some unknown destiny and pointed to the presence of the finaliter corps on Jerusem as proof that these mortals had spent ages of preparation for some destiny of pure fiction. With derision he pointed out that the finaliters had encountered a destiny no more glorious than to be returned to humble spheres similar to those of their origin. He intimated that they had been debauched by overmuch discipline and prolonged training, and that they were in reality traitors to their mortal fellows since they were now co-operating with the scheme of enslaving all creation to the fictions of a mythical eternal destiny for ascending mortals. He advocated that ascenders should enjoy the liberty of individual self-determination. He challenged and condemned the entire plan of mortal ascension as sponsored by the Paradise Sons of God and supported by the Infinite Spirit.

53:3.7 And it was with such a Declaration of Liberty that Lucifer launched his orgy of darkness and death.

4. OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION

53:4.1 The Lucifer manifesto was issued at the annual conclave of Satania on the sea of glass, in the presence of the assembled hosts of Jerusem, on the last day of the year, about two hundred thousand years ago, Urantia time. Satan proclaimed that worship could be accorded the universal forces—physical, intellectual, and spiritual—but that allegiance could be acknowledged only to the actual and present ruler, Lucifer, the “friend of men and angels” and the “God of liberty.”

53:4.2 Self-assertion was the battle cry of the Lucifer rebellion. One of his chief arguments was that, if self-government was good and right for the Melchizedeks and other groups, it was equally good for all orders of intelligence. He was bold and persistent in the advocacy of the “equality of mind” and “the brotherhood of intelligence.” He maintained that all government should be limited to the local planets and their voluntary confederation into the local systems. All other supervision he disallowed. He promised the Planetary Princes that they should rule the worlds as supreme executives. He denounced the location of legislative activities on the constellation headquarters and the conduct of judicial affairs on the universe capital. He contended that all these functions of government should be concentrated on the system capitals and proceeded to set up his own legislative assembly and organized his own tribunals under the jurisdiction of Satan And he directed that the princes on the apostate worlds do the same.

53:4.3 The entire administrative cabinet of Lucifer went over in a body and were sworn in publicly as the officers of the administration of the new head of “the liberated worlds and systems.”

53:4.4 While there had been two previous rebellions in Nebadon, they were in distant constellations. Lucifer held that these insurrections were unsuccessful because the majority of the intelligences failed to follow their leaders. He contended that “majorities rule,” that “mind is infallible.” The freedom allowed him by the universe rulers apparently sustained many of his nefarious contentions. He defied all his superiors; yet they apparently took no note of his doings. He was given a free hand to prosecute his seductive plan without let or hindrance.

53:4.5 All the merciful delays of justice Lucifer pointed to as evidence of the inability of the government of the Paradise Sons to stop the rebellion. He would openly defy and arrogantly challenge Michael, Immanuel, and the Ancients of Days and then point to the fact that no action ensued as positive evidence of the impotency of the universe and the superuniverse governments.

53:4.6 Gabriel was personally present throughout all these disloyal proceedings and only announced that he would, in due time, speak for Michael, and that all beings would be left free and unmolested in their choice; that the “government of the Sons for the Father desired only that loyalty and devotion which was voluntary, wholehearted, and sophistry-proof.”

53:4.7 Lucifer was permitted fully to establish and thoroughly to organize his rebel government before Gabriel made any effort to contest the right of secession or to counterwork the rebel propaganda. But the Constellation Fathers immediately confined the action of these disloyal personalities to the system of Satania. Nevertheless, this period of delay was a time of great trial and testing to the loyal beings of all Satania. All was chaotic for a few years, and there was great confusion on the mansion worlds.

5. NATURE OF THE CONFLICT

53:5.1 Upon the outbreak of the Satania rebellion, Michael took counsel of his Paradise brother, Immanuel. Following this momentous conference, Michael announced that he would pursue the same policy which had characterized his dealings with similar upheavals in the past, an attitude of noninterference.

53:5.2 At the time of this rebellion and the two which preceded it, there was no absolute and personal sovereign authority in the universe of Nebadon. Michael ruled by divine right, as vicegerent of the Universal Father, but not yet in his own personal right. He had not completed his bestowal career; he had not yet been vested with “all power in heaven and on earth.”

53:5.3 From the outbreak of rebellion to the day of his enthronement as sovereign ruler of Nebadon, Michael never interfered with the rebel forces of Lucifer; they were allowed to run a free course for almost two hundred thousand years of Urantia time. Christ Michael now has ample power and authority to deal promptly, even summarily, with such outbreaks of disloyalty, but we doubt that this sovereign authority would lead him to act differently if another such upheaval should occur.

53:5.4 Since Michael elected to remain aloof from the actual warfare of the Lucifer rebellion, Gabriel called his personal staff together on Edentia and, in counsel with the Most Highs, elected to assume command of the loyal hosts of Satania. Michael remained on Salvington while Gabriel proceeded to Jerusem, and establishing himself on the sphere dedicated to the Father—the same Universal Father whose personality Lucifer and Satan had questioned—in the presence of the forgathered hosts of loyal personalities, he displayed the banner of Michael, the material emblem of the Trinity government of all creation, the three azure blue concentric circles on a white background.

53:5.5 The Lucifer emblem was a banner of white with one red circle, in the center of which a black solid circle appeared.

53:5.6 “There was war in heaven; Michael’s commander and his angels fought against the dragon (Lucifer, Satan, and the apostate princes); and the dragon and his rebellious angels fought but prevailed not.” This “war in heaven” was not a physical battle as such a conflict might be conceived on Urantia. In the early days of the struggle Lucifer held forth continuously in the planetary amphitheater. Gabriel conducted an unceasing exposure of the rebel sophistries from his headquarters taken up near at hand. The various personalities present on the sphere who were in doubt as to their attitude would journey back and forth between these discussions until they arrived at a final decision.

53:5.7 But this war in heaven was very terrible and very real. While displaying none of the barbarities so characteristic of physical warfare on the immature worlds, this conflict was far more deadly; material life is in jeopardy in material combat, but the war in heaven was fought in terms of life eternal.

6. A LOYAL SERAPHIC COMMANDER

53:6.1 There were many noble and inspiring acts of devotion and loyalty which were performed by numerous personalities during the interim between the outbreak of hostilities and the arrival of the new system ruler and his staff. But the most thrilling of all these daring feats of devotion was the courageous conduct of Manotia, the second in command of the Satania headquarters’ seraphim.

53:6.2 At the outbreak of rebellion on Jerusem the head of the seraphic hosts joined the Lucifer cause. This no doubt explains why such a large number of the fourth order, the system administrator seraphim, went astray. The seraphic leader was spiritually blinded by the brilliant personality of Lucifer; his charming ways fascinated the lower orders of celestial beings. They simply could not comprehend that it was possible for such a dazzling personality to go wrong.

53:6.3 Not long since, in describing the experiences associated with the onset of the Lucifer rebellion, Manotia said: “But my most exhilarating moment was the thrilling adventure connected with the Lucifer rebellion when, as second seraphic commander, I refused to participate in the projected insult to Michael; and the powerful rebels sought my destruction by means of the liaison forces they had arranged. There was a tremendous upheaval on Jerusem, but not a single loyal seraphim was harmed.

53:6.4 “Upon the default of my immediate superior it devolved upon me to assume command of the angelic hosts of Jerusem as the titular director of the confused seraphic affairs of the system. I was morally upheld by the Melchizedeks, ably assisted by a majority of the Material Sons, deserted by a tremendous group of my own order, but magnificently supported by the ascendant mortals on Jerusem.

53:6.5 “Having been automatically thrown out of the constellation circuits by the secession of Lucifer, we were dependent on the loyalty of our intelligence corps, who forwarded calls for help to Edentia from the near-by system of Rantulia; and we found that the kingdom of order, the intellect of loyalty, and the spirit of truth were inherently triumphant over rebellion, self-assertion, and so-called personal liberty; we were able to carry on until the arrival of the new System Sovereign, the worthy successor of Lucifer. And immediately thereafter I was assigned to the corps of the Melchizedek receivership of Urantia, assuming jurisdiction over the loyal seraphic orders on the world of the traitorous Caligastia, who had proclaimed his sphere a member of the newly projected system of `liberated worlds and emancipated personalities’ proposed in the infamous Declaration of Liberty issued by Lucifer in his call to the `liberty-loving, free-thinking, and forward-looking intelligences of the misruled and maladministered worlds of Satania.’”

53:6.6 This angel is still in service on Urantia, functioning as associate chief of seraphim.

7. HISTORY OF THE REBELLION

53:7.1 The Lucifer rebellion was system wide. Thirty-seven seceding Planetary Princes swung their world administrations largely to the side of the archrebel. Only on Panoptia did the Planetary Prince fail to carry his people with him. On this world, under the guidance of the Melchizedeks, the people rallied to the support of Michael. Ellanora, a young woman of that mortal realm, grasped the leadership of the human races, and not a single soul on that strife-torn world enlisted under the Lucifer banner. And ever since have these loyal Panoptians served on the seventh Jerusem transition world as the caretakers and builders on the Father’s sphere and its surrounding seven detention worlds. The Panoptians not only act as the literal custodians of these worlds, but they also execute the personal orders of Michael for the embellishment of these spheres for some future and unknown use. They do this work as they tarry en route to Edentia.

53:7.2 Throughout this period Caligastia was advocating the cause of Lucifer on Urantia. The Melchizedeks ably opposed the apostate Planetary Prince, but the sophistries of unbridled liberty and the delusions of self-assertion had every opportunity for deceiving the primitive peoples of a young and undeveloped world.

53:7.3 All secession propaganda had to be carried on by personal effort because the broadcast service and all other avenues of interplanetary communication were suspended by the action of the system circuit supervisors. Upon the actual outbreak of the insurrection the entire system of Satania was isolated in both the constellation and the universe circuits. During this time all incoming and outgoing messages were dispatched by seraphic agents and Solitary Messengers. The circuits to the fallen worlds were also cut off, so that Lucifer could not utilize this avenue for the furtherance of his nefarious scheme. And these circuits will not be restored so long as the archrebel lives within the confines of Satania.

53:7.4 This was a Lanonandek rebellion. The higher orders of local universe sonship did not join the Lucifer secession, although a few of the Life Carriers stationed on the rebel planets were somewhat influenced by the rebellion of the disloyal princes. None of the Trinitized Sons went astray. The Melchizedeks, archangels, and the Brilliant Evening Stars were all loyal to Michael and, with Gabriel, valiantly contended for the Father’s will and the Son’s rule.

53:7.5 No beings of Paradise origin were involved in disloyalty. Together with the Solitary Messengers they took up headquarters on the world of the Spirit and remained under the leadership of the Faithful of Days of Edentia. None of the conciliators apostatized, nor did a single one of the Celestial Recorders go astray. But a heavy toll was taken of the Morontia Companions and the Mansion World Teachers.

53:7.6 Of the supreme order of seraphim, not an angel was lost, but a considerable group of the next order, the superior, were deceived and ensnared. Likewise a few of the third or supervisor order of angels were misled. But the terrible breakdown came in the fourth group, the administrator angels, those seraphim who are normally assigned to the duties of the system capitals. Manotia saved almost two thirds of them, but slightly over one third followed their chief into the rebel ranks. One third of all the Jerusem cherubim attached to the administrator angels were lost with their disloyal seraphim.

53:7.7 Of the planetary angelic helpers, those assigned to the Material Sons, about one third were deceived, and almost ten per cent of the transition ministers were ensnared. In symbol John saw this when he wrote of the great red dragon, saying: “And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in darkness.”

53:7.8 The greatest loss occurred in the angelic ranks, but most of the lower orders of intelligence were involved in disloyalty. Of the 681,217 Material Sons lost in Satania, ninety-five per cent were casualties of the Lucifer rebellion. Large numbers of midway creatures were lost on those individual planets whose Planetary Princes joined the Lucifer cause.

53:7.9 In many respects this rebellion was the most widespread and disastrous of all such occurrences in Nebadon. More personalities were involved in this insurrection than in both of the others. And it is to their everlasting dishonor that the emissaries of Lucifer and Satan spared not the infant-training schools on the finaliter cultural planet but rather sought to corrupt these developing minds in mercy salvaged from the evolutionary worlds.

53:7.10 The ascending mortals were vulnerable, but they withstood the sophistries of rebellion better than the lower spirits. While many on the lower mansion worlds, those who had not attained final fusion with their Adjusters, fell, it is recorded to the glory of the wisdom of the ascension scheme that not a single member of the Satania ascendant citizenship resident on Jerusem participated in the Lucifer rebellion.

53:7.11 Hour by hour and day by day the broadcast stations of all Nebadon were thronged by the anxious watchers of every imaginable class of celestial intelligence, who intently perused the bulletins of the Satania rebellion and rejoiced as the reports continuously narrated the unswerving loyalty of the ascending mortals who, under their Melchizedek leadership, successfully withstood the combined and protracted efforts of all the subtle evil forces which so swiftly gathered around the banners of secession and sin.

53:7.12 It was over two years of system time from the beginning of the “war in heaven” until the installation of Lucifer’s successor. But at last the new Sovereign came, landing on the sea of glass with his staff. I was among the reserves mobilized on Edentia by Gabriel, and I well remember the first message of Lanaforge to the Constellation Father of Norlatiadek. It read: “Not a single Jerusem citizen was lost. Every ascendant mortal survived the fiery trial and emerged from the crucial test triumphant and altogether victorious.” And on to Salvington, Uversa, and Paradise went this message of assurance that the survival experience of mortal ascension is the greatest security against rebellion and the surest safeguard against sin. This noble Jerusem band of faithful mortals numbered just 187,432,811.

53:7.13 With the arrival of Lanaforge the archrebels were dethroned and shorn of all governing powers, though they were permitted freely to go about Jerusem, the morontia spheres, and even to the individual inhabited worlds. They continued their deceptive and seductive efforts to confuse and mislead the minds of men and angels. But as concerned their work on the administrative mount of Jerusem, “their place was found no more.”

53:7.14 While Lucifer was deprived of all administrative authority in Satania, there then existed no local universe power nor tribunal which could detain or destroy this wicked rebel; at that time Michael was not a sovereign ruler. The Ancients of Days sustained the Constellation Fathers in their seizure of the system government, but they have never handed down any subsequent decisions in the many appeals still pending with regard to the present status and future disposition of Lucifer, Satan, and their associates.

53:7.15 Thus were these archrebels allowed to roam the entire system to seek further penetration for their doctrines of discontent and self-assertion. But in almost two hundred thousand Urantia years they have been unable to deceive another world. No Satania worlds have been lost since the fall of the thirty-seven, not even those younger worlds peopled since that day of rebellion.

8. THE SON OF MAN ON URANTIA

53:8.1 Lucifer and Satan freely roamed the Satania system until the completion of the bestowal mission of Michael on Urantia. They were last on your world together during the time of their combined assault upon the Son of Man.

53:8.2 Formerly, when the Planetary Princes, the “Sons of God,” were periodically assembled, “Satan came also,” claiming that he represented all of the isolated worlds of the fallen Planetary Princes. But he has not been accorded such liberty on Jerusem since Michael’s terminal bestowal. Subsequent to their effort to corrupt Michael when in the bestowal flesh, all sympathy for Lucifer and Satan has perished throughout all Satania, that is, outside the isolated worlds of sin.

53:8.3 The bestowal of Michael terminated the Lucifer rebellion in all Satania aside from the planets of the apostate Planetary Princes. And this was the significance of Jesus’ personal experience, just before his death in the flesh, when he one day exclaimed to his disciples, “And I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven.” He had come with Lucifer to Urantia for the last crucial struggle.

53:8.4 The Son of Man was confident of success, and he knew that his triumph on your world would forever settle the status of his agelong enemies, not only in Satania but also in the other two systems where sin had entered. There was survival for mortals and security for angels when your Master, in reply to the Lucifer proposals, calmly and with divine assurance replied, “Get you behind me, Satan.” That was, in principle, the real end of the Lucifer rebellion. True, the Uversa tribunals have not yet rendered the executive decision regarding the appeal of Gabriel praying for the destruction of the rebels, but such a decree will, no doubt, be forthcoming in the fullness of time since the first step in the hearing of this case has already been taken.

53:8.5 Caligastia was recognized by the Son of Man as the technical Prince of Urantia up to near the time of his death. Said Jesus: “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast down.” And then still nearer the completion of his lifework he announced, “The prince of this world is judged.” And it is this same dethroned and discredited Prince who was once termed “God of Urantia.”

53:8.6 The last act of Michael before leaving Urantia was to offer mercy to Caligastia and Daligastia, but they spurned his tender proffer. Caligastia, your apostate Planetary Prince, is still free on Urantia to prosecute his nefarious designs, but he has absolutely no power to enter the minds of men, neither can he draw near to their souls to tempt or corrupt them unless they really desire to be cursed with his wicked presence.

53:8.7 Before the bestowal of Michael these rulers of darkness sought to maintain their authority on Urantia, and they persistently withstood the minor and subordinate celestial personalities. But since the day of Pentecost this traitorous Caligastia and his equally contemptible associate, Daligastia, are servile before the divine majesty of the Paradise Thought Adjusters and the protective Spirit of Truth, the spirit of Michael, which has been poured out upon all flesh.

53:8.8 But even so, no fallen spirit ever did have the power to invade the minds or to harass the souls of the children of God. Neither Satan nor Caligastia could ever touch or approach the faith sons of God; faith is an effective armor against sin and iniquity. It is true: “He who is born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one touches him not.”

53:8.9 In general, when weak and dissolute mortals are supposed to be under the influence of devils and demons, they are merely being dominated by their own inherent and debased tendencies, being led away by their own natural propensities. The devil has been given a great deal of credit for evil which does not belong to him. Caligastia has been comparatively impotent since the cross of Christ.

9. PRESENT STATUS OF THE REBELLION

53:9.1 Early in the days of the Lucifer rebellion, salvation was offered all rebels by Michael. To all who would show proof of sincere repentance, he offered, upon his attainment of complete universe sovereignty, forgiveness and reinstatement in some form of universe service. None of the leaders accepted this merciful proffer. But thousands of the angels and the lower orders of celestial beings, including hundreds of the Material Sons and Daughters, accepted the mercy proclaimed by the Panoptians and were given rehabilitation at the time of Jesus’ resurrection nineteen hundred years ago. These beings have since been transferred to the Father’s world of Jerusem, where they must be held, technically, until the Uversa courts hand down a decision in the matter of Gabriel vs. Lucifer. But no one doubts that, when the annihilation verdict is issued, these repentant and salvaged personalities will be exempted from the decree of extinction. These probationary souls now labor with the Panoptians in the work of caring for the Father’s world.

53:9.2 The archdeceiver has never been on Urantia since the days when he sought to turn back Michael from the purpose to complete the bestowal and to establish himself finally and securely as the unqualified ruler of Nebadon. Upon Michael’s becoming the settled head of the universe of Nebadon, Lucifer was taken into custody by the agents of the Uversa Ancients of Days and has since been a prisoner on satellite number one of the Father’s group of the transition spheres of Jerusem. And here the rulers of other worlds and systems behold the end of the unfaithful Sovereign of Satania. Paul knew of the status of these rebellious leaders following Michael’s bestowal, for he wrote of Caligastia’s chiefs as “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

53:9.3 Michael, upon assuming the supreme sovereignty of Nebadon, petitioned the Ancients of Days for authority to intern all personalities concerned in the Lucifer rebellion pending the rulings of the superuniverse tribunals in the case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer, placed on the records of the Uversa supreme court almost two hundred thousand years ago, as you reckon time. Concerning the system capital group, the Ancients of Days granted the Michael petition with but a single exception: Satan was allowed to make periodic visits to the apostate princes on the fallen worlds until another Son of God should be accepted by such apostate worlds, or until such time as the courts of Uversa should begin the adjudication of the case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer.

53:9.4 Satan could come to Urantia because you had no Son of standing in residence—neither Planetary Prince nor Material Son. Machiventa Melchizedek has since been proclaimed vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia, and the opening of the case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer has signalized the inauguration of temporary planetary regimes on all the isolated worlds. It is true that Satan did periodically visit Caligastia and others of the fallen princes right up to the time of the presentation of these revelations. when there occurred the first hearing of Gabriel’s plea for the annihilation of the archrebels. Satan is now unqualifiedly detained on the Jerusem prison worlds.

53:9.5 Since Michael’s final bestowal no one in all Satania has desired to go to the prison worlds to minister to the interned rebels. And no more beings have been won to the deceiver’s cause. For nineteen hundred years the status has been unchanged.

53:9.6 We do not look for a removal of the present Satania restrictions until the Ancients of Days make final disposition of the archrebels. The system circuits will not be reinstated so long as Lucifer lives. Meantime, he is wholly inactive.

53:9.7 The rebellion has ended on Jerusem. It ends on the fallen worlds as fast as divine Sons arrive. We believe that all rebels who will ever accept mercy have done so. We await the flashing broadcast that will deprive these traitors of personality existence. We anticipate the verdict of Uversa will be announced by the executionary broadcast which will effect the annihilation of these interned rebels. Then will you look for their places, but they shall not be found. “And they who know you among the worlds will be astonished at you; you have been a terror, but never shall you be any more.” And thus shall all of these unworthy traitors “become as though they had not been.” All await the Uversa decree.

53:9.8 But for ages the seven prison worlds of spiritual darkness in Satania have constituted a solemn warning to all Nebadon, eloquently and effectively proclaiming the great truth “that the way of the transgressor is hard”; “that within every sin is concealed the seed of its own destruction”; that “the wages of sin is death.”

53:9.9 [Presented by Manovandet Melchizedek, onetime attached to the receivership of Urantia.]

EVOLUTIONARY MAN FINDS it difficult fully to comprehend the significance and to grasp the meanings of evil, error, sin, and iniquity. Man is slow to perceive that contrastive perfection and imperfection produce potential evil; that conflicting truth and falsehood create confusing error; that the divine endowment of freewill choice eventuates in the divergent realms of sin and righteousness; that the persistent pursuit of divinity leads to the kingdom of God as contrasted with its continuous rejection, which leads to the domains of iniquity.

54:0.2 The Gods neither create evil nor permit sin and rebellion. Potential evil is time-existent in a universe embracing differential levels of perfection meanings and values. Sin is potential in all realms where imperfect beings are endowed with the ability to choose between good and evil. The very conflicting presence of truth and untruth, fact and falsehood, constitutes the potentiality of error. The deliberate choice of evil constitutes sin; the willful rejection of truth is error; the persistent pursuit of sin and error is iniquity.

1. TRUE AND FALSE LIBERTY

54:1.1 Of all the perplexing problems growing out of the Lucifer rebellion, none has occasioned more difficulty than the failure of immature evolutionary mortals to distinguish between true and false liberty.

54:1.2 True liberty is the quest of the ages and the reward of evolutionary progress. False liberty is the subtle deception of the error of time and the evil of space. Enduring liberty is predicated on the reality of justice—intelligence, maturity, fraternity, and equity.

54:1.3 Liberty is a self-destroying technique of cosmic existence when its motivation is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. True liberty is progressively related to reality and is ever regardful of social equity, cosmic fairness, universe fraternity, and divine obligations.

54:1.4 Liberty is suicidal when divorced from material justice, intellectual fairness, social forbearance, moral duty, and spiritual values. Liberty is nonexistent apart from cosmic reality, and all personality reality is proportional to its divinity relationships.

54:1.5 Unbridled self-will and unregulated self-expression equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness. Liberty without the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal imagination. Self-motivated liberty is a conceptual illusion, a cruel deception. License masquerading in the garments of liberty is the forerunner of abject bondage.

54:1.6 True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.

54:1.7 Even wisdom is divine and safe only when it is cosmic in scope and spiritual in motivation.

54:1.8 There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness. Only true and genuine liberty is compatible with the reign of love and the ministry of mercy.

54:1.9 How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.

54:1.10 Evolutionary man may have to contend for his material liberties with tyrants and oppressors on a world of sin and iniquity or during the early times of a primitive evolving sphere, but not so on the morontia worlds or on the spirit spheres. War is the heritage of early evolutionary man, but on worlds of normal advancing civilization physical combat as a technique of adjusting racial misunderstandings has long since fallen into disrepute.

2. THE THEFT OF LIBERTY

54:2.1 With the Son and in the Spirit did God project eternal Havona, and ever since has there obtained the eternal pattern of co-ordinate participation in creation—sharing. This pattern of sharing is the master design for every one of the Sons and Daughters of God who go out into space to engage in the attempt to duplicate in time the central universe of eternal perfection.

54:2.2 Every creature of every evolving universe who aspires to do the Father’s will is destined to become the partner of the time-space Creators in this magnificent adventure of experiential perfection attainment. Were this not true, the Father would have hardly endowed such creatures with creative free will, neither would he indwell them, actually go into partnership with them by means of his own spirit.

54:2.3 Lucifer’s folly was the attempt to do the nondoable, to short-circuit time in an experiential universe. Lucifer’s crime was the attempted creative disenfranchisement of every personality in Satania, the unrecognized abridgment of the creature’s personal participation—freewill participation—in the long evolutionary struggle to attain the status of light and life both individually and collectively. In so doing, this onetime Sovereign of your system set the temporal purpose of his own will directly athwart the eternal purpose of God’s will as it is revealed in the bestowal of free will upon all personal creatures. The Lucifer rebellion thus threatened the maximum possible infringement of the freewill choice of the ascenders and servers of the system of Satania—a threat forevermore to deprive every one of these beings of the thrilling experience of contributing something personal and unique to the slowly erecting monument to experiential wisdom which will sometime exist as the perfected system of Satania. Thus does the Lucifer manifesto, masquerading in the habiliments of liberty, stand forth in the clear light of reason as a monumental threat to consummate the theft of personal liberty and to do it on a scale that has been approached only twice in all the history of Nebadon.

54:2.4 In short, what God had given men and angels Lucifer would have taken away from them, that is, the divine privilege of participating in the creation of their own destinies and of the destiny of this local system of inhabited worlds.

54:2.5 No being in all the universe has the rightful liberty to deprive any other being of true liberty, the right to love and be loved, the privilege of worshiping God and of serving his fellows.

3. THE TIME LAG OF JUSTICE

54:3.1 The moral will creatures of the evolutionary worlds are always bothered with the unthinking question as to why the all-wise Creators permit evil and sin. They fail to comprehend that both are inevitable if the creature is to be truly free. The free will of evolving man or exquisite angel is not a mere philosophic concept, a symbolic ideal. Man’s ability to choose good or evil is a universe reality. This liberty to choose for oneself is an endowment of the Supreme Rulers, and they will not permit any being or group of beings to deprive a single personality in the wide universe of this divinely bestowed liberty—not even to satisfy such misguided and ignorant beings in the enjoyment of this misnamed personal liberty.

54:3.2 Although conscious and wholehearted identification with evil (sin) is the equivalent of nonexistence (annihilation), there must always intervene between the time of such personal identification with sin and the execution of the penalty—the automatic result of such a willful embrace of evil—a period of time of sufficient length to allow for such an adjudication of such an individual’s universe status as will prove entirely satisfactory to all related universe personalities, and which will be so fair and just as to win the approval of the sinner himself.

54:3.3 But if this universe rebel against the reality of truth and goodness refuses to approve the verdict, and if the guilty one knows in his heart the justice of his condemnation but refuses to make such confession, then must the execution of sentence be delayed in accordance with the discretion of the Ancients of Days. And the Ancients of Days refuse to annihilate any being until all moral values and all spiritual realities are extinct, both in the evildoer and in all related supporters and possible sympathizers.

4. THE MERCY TIME LAG

54:4.1 Another problem somewhat difficult of explanation in the constellation of Norlatiadek pertains to the reasons for permitting Lucifer, Satan, and the fallen princes to work mischief so long before being apprehended, interned, and adjudicated.

54:4.2 Parents, those who have borne and reared children, are better able to understand why Michael, a Creator-father, might be slow to condemn and destroy his own Sons. Jesus’ story of the prodigal son well illustrates how a loving father can long wait for the repentance of an erring child.

54:4.3 The very fact that an evil-doing creature can actually choose to do wrong—commit sin—establishes the fact of free-willness and fully justifies any length delay in the execution of justice provided the extended mercy might conduce to repentance and rehabilitation.

54:4.4 Most of the liberties which Lucifer sought he already had; others he was to receive in the future. All these precious endowments were lost by giving way to impatience and yielding to a desire to possess what one craves now and to possess it in defiance of all obligation to respect the rights and liberties of all other beings composing the universe of universes. Ethical obligations are innate, divine, and universal.

54:4.5 There are many reasons known to us why the Supreme Rulers did not immediately destroy or intern the leaders of the Lucifer rebellion. There are no doubt still other and possibly better reasons unknown to us. The mercy features of this delay in the execution of justice were extended personally by Michael of Nebadon. Except for the affection of this Creator-father for his erring Sons, the supreme justice of the superuniverse would have acted. If such an episode as the Lucifer rebellion had occurred in Nebadon while Michael was incarnated on Urantia, the instigators of such evil might have been instantly and absolutely annihilated.

54:4.6 Supreme justice can act instantly when not restrained by divine mercy. But the ministry of mercy to the children of time and space always provides for this time lag, this saving interval between seedtime and harvest. If the seed sowing is good, this interval provides for the testing and upbuilding of character; if the seed sowing is evil, this merciful delay provides time for repentance and rectification. This time delay in the adjudication and execution of evildoers is inherent in the mercy ministry of the seven superuniverses. This restraint of justice by mercy proves that God is love, and that such a God of love dominates the universes and in mercy controls the fate and judgment of all his creatures.

54:4.7 The mercy delays of time are by the mandate of the free will of the Creators. There is good to be derived in the universe from this technique of patience in dealing with sinful rebels. While it is all too true that good cannot come of evil to the one who contemplates and performs evil, it is equally true that all things (including evil, potential and manifest) work together for good to all beings who know God, love to do his will, and are ascending Paradiseward according to his eternal plan and divine purpose.

54:4.8 But these mercy delays are not interminable. Notwithstanding the long delay (as time is reckoned on Urantia) in adjudicating the Lucifer rebellion, we may record that, during the time of effecting this revelation, the first hearing in the pending case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer was held on Uversa, and soon thereafter there issued the mandate of the Ancients of Days directing that Satan be henceforth confined to the prison world with Lucifer. This ends the ability of Satan to pay further visits to any of the fallen worlds of Satania. Justice in a mercy-dominated universe may be slow, but it is certain.

5. THE WISDOM OF DELAY

54:5.1 Of the many reasons known to me as to why Lucifer and his confederates were not sooner interned or adjudicated, I am permitted to recite the following:

54:5.2 1. Mercy requires that every wrongdoer have sufficient time in which to formulate a deliberate and fully chosen attitude regarding his evil thoughts and sinful acts.

54:5.3 2. Supreme justice is dominated by a Father’s love; therefore will justice never destroy that which mercy can save. Time to accept salvation is vouchsafed every evildoer.

54:5.4 3. No affectionate father is ever precipitate in visiting punishment upon an erring member of his family. Patience cannot function independently of time.

54:5.5 4. While wrongdoing is always deleterious to a family, wisdom and love admonish the upright children to bear with an erring brother during the time granted by the affectionate father in which the sinner may see the error of his way and embrace salvation.

54:5.6 5. Regardless of Michael’s attitude toward Lucifer, notwithstanding his being Lucifer’s Creator-father, it was not in the province of the Creator Son to exercise summary jurisdiction over the apostate System Sovereign because he had not then completed his bestowal career, thereby attaining unqualified sovereignty of Nebadon.

54:5.7 6. The Ancients of Days could have immediately annihilated these rebels, but they seldom execute wrongdoers without a full hearing. In this instance they refused to overrule the Michael decisions.

54:5.8 7. It is evident that Immanuel counseled Michael to remain aloof from the rebels and allow rebellion to pursue a natural course of self-obliteration. And the wisdom of the Union of Days is the time reflection of the united wisdom of the Paradise Trinity.

54:5.9 8. The Faithful of Days on Edentia advised the Constellation Fathers to allow the rebels free course to the end that all sympathy for these evildoers should be the sooner uprooted in the hearts of every present and future citizen of Norlatiadek—every mortal, morontia, or spirit creature.

54:5.10 9. On Jerusem the personal representative of the Supreme Executive of Orvonton counseled Gabriel to foster full opportunity for every living creature to mature a deliberate choice in those matters involved in the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty. The issues of rebellion having been raised, the Paradise emergency adviser of Gabriel portrayed that, if such full and free opportunity were not given all Norlatiadek creatures, then would the Paradise quarantine against all such possible halfhearted or doubt-stricken creatures be extended in self-protection against the entire constellation. To keep open the Paradise doors of ascension to the beings of Norlatiadek, it was necessary to provide for the full development of rebellion and to insure the complete determination of attitude on the part of all beings in any way concerned therewith.

54:5.11 10. The Divine Minister of Salvington issued as her third independent proclamation a mandate directing that nothing be done to half cure, cowardly suppress, or otherwise hide the hideous visage of rebels and rebellion. The angelic hosts were directed to work for full disclosure and unlimited opportunity for sin-expression as the quickest technique of achieving the perfect and final cure of the plague of evil and sin.

54:5.12 11. An emergency council of ex-mortals consisting of Mighty Messengers, glorified mortals who had had personal experience with like situations, together with their colleagues, was organized on Jerusem. They advised Gabriel that at least three times the number of beings would be led astray if arbitrary or summary methods of suppression were attempted. The entire Uversa corps of counselors concurred in advising Gabriel to permit the rebellion to take its full and natural course, even if it should require a million years to wind up the consequences.

54:5.13 12. Time, even in a universe of time, is relative: If a Urantia mortal of average length of life should commit a crime which precipitated world-wide pandemonium, and if he were apprehended, tried, and executed within two or three days of the commission of the crime, would it seem a long time to you? And yet that would be nearer a comparison with the length of Lucifer’s life even if his adjudication, now begun, should not be completed for a hundred thousand Urantia years. The relative lapse of time from the viewpoint of Uversa, where the litigation is pending, could be indicated by saying that the crime of Lucifer was being brought to trial within two and a half seconds of its commission. From the Paradise viewpoint the adjudication is simultaneous with the enactment.

54:5.14 There are an equal number of reasons for not arbitrarily stopping the Lucifer rebellion which would be partially comprehensible to you, but which I am not permitted to narrate. I may inform you that on Uversa we teach forty-eight reasons for permitting evil to run the full course of its own moral bankruptcy and spiritual extinction. I doubt not that there are just as many additional reasons not known to me.

6. THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

54:6.1 Whatever the difficulties evolutionary mortals may encounter in their efforts to understand the Lucifer rebellion, it should be clear to all reflective thinkers that the technique of dealing with the rebels is a vindication of divine love. The loving mercy extended to the rebels does seem to have involved many innocent beings in trials and tribulations, but all these distraught personalities may securely depend upon the all-wise Judges to adjudicate their destinies in mercy as well as justice.

54:6.2 In all their dealings with intelligent beings, both the Creator Son and his Paradise Father are love dominated. It is impossible to comprehend many phases of the attitude of the universe rulers toward rebels and rebellion—sin and sinners—unless it be remembered that God as a Father takes precedence over all other phases of Deity manifestation in all the dealings of divinity with humanity. It should also be recalled that the Paradise Creator Sons are all mercy motivated.

54:6.3 If an affectionate father of a large family chooses to show mercy to one of his children guilty of grievous wrongdoing, it may well be that the extension of mercy to this misbehaving child will work a temporary hardship upon all the other and well-behaved children. Such eventualities are inevitable; such a risk is inseparable from the reality situation of having a loving parent and of being a member of a family group. Each member of a family profits by the righteous conduct of every other member; likewise must each member suffer the immediate time-consequences of the misconduct of every other member. Families, groups, nations, races, worlds, systems, constellations, and universes are relationships of association which possess individuality; and therefore does every member of any such group, large or small, reap the benefits and suffer the consequences of the rightdoing and the wrongdoing of all other members of the group concerned.

54:6.4 But one thing should be made clear: If you are made to suffer the evil consequences of the sin of some member of your family, some fellow citizen or fellow mortal, even rebellion in the system or elsewhere—no matter what you may have to endure because of the wrongdoing of your associates, fellows, or superiors—you may rest secure in the eternal assurance that such tribulations are transient afflictions. None of these fraternal consequences of misbehavior in the group can ever jeopardize your eternal prospects or in the least degree deprive you of your divine right of Paradise ascension and God attainment.

54:6.5 And there is compensation for these trials, delays, and disappointments which invariably accompany the sin of rebellion. Of the many valuable repercussions of the Lucifer rebellion which might be named, I will only call attention to the enhanced careers of those mortal ascenders, the Jerusem citizens, who, by withstanding the sophistries of sin, placed themselves in line for becoming future Mighty Messengers, fellows of my own order. Every being who stood the test of that evil episode thereby immediately advanced his administrative status and enhanced his spiritual worth.

54:6.6 At first the Lucifer upheaval appeared to be an unmitigated calamity to the system and to the universe. Gradually benefits began to accrue. With the passing of twenty-five thousand years of system time (twenty thousand years of Urantia time), the Melchizedeks began to teach that the good resulting from Lucifer’s folly had come to equal the evil incurred. The sum of evil had by that time become almost stationary, continuing to increase only on certain isolated worlds, while the beneficial repercussions continued to multiply and extend out through the universe and superuniverse, even to Havona. The Melchizedeks now teach that the good resulting from the Satania rebellion is more than a thousand times the sum of all the evil.

54:6.7 But such an extraordinary and beneficent harvest of wrongdoing could only be brought about by the wise, divine, and merciful attitude of all of Lucifer’s superiors, extending from the Constellation Fathers on Edentia to the Universal Father on Paradise. The passing of time has enhanced the consequential good to be derived from the Lucifer folly; and since the evil to be penalized was quite fully developed within a comparatively short time, it is apparent that the all-wise and farseeing universe rulers would be certain to extend the time in which to reap increasingly beneficial results. Regardless of the many additional reasons for delaying the apprehension and adjudication of the Satania rebels, this one gain would have been enough to explain why these sinners were not sooner interned, and why they have not been adjudicated and destroyed.

54:6.8 Shortsighted and time-bound mortal minds should be slow to criticize the time delays of the farseeing and all-wise administrators of universe affairs.

54:6.9 One error of human thinking respecting these problems consists in the idea that all evolutionary mortals on an evolving planet would choose to enter upon the Paradise career if sin had not cursed their world. The ability to decline survival does not date from the times of the Lucifer rebellion. Mortal man has always possessed the endowment of freewill choice regarding the Paradise career.

54:6.10 As you ascend in the survival experience, you will broaden your universe concepts and extend your horizon of meanings and values; and thus will you be able the better to understand why such beings as Lucifer and Satan are permitted to continue in rebellion. You will also better comprehend how ultimate (if not immediate) good can be derived from time-limited evil. After you attain Paradise, you will really be enlightened and comforted when you listen to the superaphic philosophers discuss and explain these profound problems of universe adjustment. But even then, I doubt that you will be fully satisfied in your own minds. At least I was not, even when I had thus attained the acme of universe philosophy. I did not achieve a full comprehension of these complexities until after I had been assigned to administrative duties in the superuniverse, where by actual experience I have acquired conceptual capacity adequate for the comprehension of such many-sided problems in cosmic equity and spiritual philosophy. As you ascend Paradiseward, you will increasingly learn that many problematic features of universe administration can only be comprehended subsequent to the acquirement of increased experiential capacity and to the achievement of enhanced spiritual insight. Cosmic wisdom is essential to the understanding of cosmic situations.

54:6.11 [Presented by a Mighty Messenger of experiential survival in the first system rebellion in the universe of time now attached to the superuniverse government of Orvonton and acting in this matter by request of Gabriel of Salvington.]

THE AGE OF light and life is the final evolutionary attainment of a world of time and space. From the early times of primitive man, such an inhabited world has passed through the successive planetary ages—the pre- and the post-Planetary Prince ages, the post-Adamic age, the post-Magisterial Son age, and the postbestowal Son age. And then is such a world made ready for the culminating evolutionary attainment, the settled status of light and life, by the ministry of the successive planetary missions of the Trinity Teacher Sons with their ever-advancing revelations of divine truth and cosmic wisdom. In these endeavors the Teacher Sons enjoy the assistance of the Brilliant Evening Stars always, and the Melchizedeks sometimes, in establishing the final planetary age.

55:0.2 This era of light and life, inaugurated by the Teacher Sons at the conclusion of their final planetary mission, continues indefinitely on the inhabited worlds. Each advancing stage of settled status may be segregated by the judicial actions of the Magisterial Sons into a succession of dispensations; but all such judicial actions are purely technical, in no way modifying the course of planetary events.

55:0.3 Only those planets which attain existence in the main circuits of the superuniverse are assured of continuous survival, but as far as we know, these worlds settled in light and life are destined to go on throughout the eternal ages of all future time.

55:0.4 There are seven stages in the unfoldment of the era of light and life on an evolutionary world, and in this connection it should be noted that the worlds of the Spirit-fused mortals evolve along lines identical with those of the Adjuster-fusion series. These seven stages of light and life are:

1. The first or planetary stage.

2. The second or system stage.

3. The third or constellation stage.

4. The fourth or local universe stage.

5. The fifth or minor sector stage.

6. The sixth or major sector stage.

7. The seventh or superuniverse stage.

55:0.5 At the conclusion of this narrative these stages of advancing development are described as they relate to the universe organization, but the planetary values of any stage may be attained by any world quite independent of the development of other worlds or of the superplanetary levels of universe administration.

1. THE MORONTIA TEMPLE

55:1.1 The presence of a morontia temple at the capital of an inhabited world is the certificate of the admission of such a sphere to the settled ages of light and life. Before the Teacher Sons leave a world at the conclusion of their terminal mission, they inaugurate this final epoch of evolutionary attainment; they preside on that day when the “holy temple comes down upon earth.” This event, signalizing the dawn of the era of light and life, is always honored by the personal presence of the Paradise bestowal Son of that planet, who comes to witness this great day. There in this temple of unparalleled beauty, this bestowal Son of Paradise proclaims the long-time Planetary Prince as the new Planetary Sovereign and invests such a faithful Lanonandek Son with new powers and extended authority over planetary affairs. The System Sovereign is also present and speaks in confirmation of these pronouncements.

55:1.2 A morontia temple has three parts: Centermost is the sanctuary of the Paradise bestowal Son. On the right is the seat of the former Planetary Prince, now Planetary Sovereign; and when present in the temple, this Lanonandek Son is visible to the more spiritual individuals of the realm. On the left is the seat of the acting chief of finaliters attached to the planet.

55:1.3 Although the planetary temples have been spoken of as “coming down from heaven,” in reality no actual material is transported from the system headquarters. The architecture of each is worked out in miniature on the system capital, and the Morontia Power Supervisors subsequently bring these approved plans to the planet. Here, in association with the Master Physical Controllers, they proceed to build the morontia temple according to specifications.

55:1.4 The average morontia temple seats about three hundred thousand spectators. These edifices are not used for worship, play, or for receiving broadcasts; they are devoted to the special ceremonies of the planet, such as: communications with the System Sovereign or with the Most Highs, special visualization ceremonies designed to reveal the personality presence of spirit beings, and silent cosmic contemplation. The schools of cosmic philosophy here conduct their graduation exercises, and here also do the mortals of the realm receive planetary recognition for achievements of high social service and for other outstanding attainments.

55:1.5 Such a morontia temple also serves as the place of assembly for witnessing the translation of living mortals to the morontia existence. It is because the translation temple is composed of morontia material that it is not destroyed by the blazing glory of the consuming fire which so completely obliterates the physical bodies of those mortals who therein experience final fusion with their divine Adjusters. On a large world these departure flares are almost continuous, and as the number of translations increases, subsidiary morontia life shrines are provided in different areas of the planet. Not long since I sojourned on a world in the far north whereon twenty-five morontia shrines were functioning.

55:1.6 On presettled worlds, planets without morontia temples, these fusion flashes many times occur in the planetary atmosphere, where the material body of a translation candidate is elevated by the midway creatures and the physical controllers.

2. DEATH AND TRANSLATION

55:2.1 Natural, physical death is not a mortal inevitability. The majority of advanced evolutionary beings, citizens on worlds existing in the final era of light and life, do not die; they are translated directly from the life in the flesh to the morontia existence.

55:2.2 This experience of translation from the material life to the morontia state—fusion of the immortal soul with the indwelling Adjuster—increases in frequency commensurate with the evolutionary progress of the planet. At first only a few mortals in each age attain translation levels of spiritual progress, but with the onset of the successive ages of the Teacher Sons, more and more Adjuster fusions occur before the termination of the lengthening lives of these progressing mortals; and by the time of the terminal mission of the Teacher Sons, approximately one quarter of these superb mortals are exempt from natural death.

55:2.3 Farther along in the era of light and life the midway creatures or their associates sense the approaching status of probable soul-Adjuster union and signify this to the destiny guardians, who in turn communicate these matters to the finaliter group under whose jurisdiction this mortal may be functioning; then there is issued the summons of the Planetary Sovereign for such a mortal to resign all planetary duties, bid farewell to the world of his origin, and repair to the inner temple of the Planetary Sovereign, there to await morontia transit, the translation flash, from the material domain of evolution to the morontia level of prespirit progression.

55:2.4 When the family, friends, and working group of such a fusion candidate have forgathered in the morontia temple, they are distributed around the central stage whereon the fusion candidates are resting, meantime freely conversing with their assembled friends. A circle of intervening celestial personalities is arranged to protect the material mortals from the action of the energies manifest at the instant of the “life flash” which delivers the ascension candidate from the bonds of material flesh, thereby doing for such an evolutionary mortal everything that natural death does for those who are thereby delivered from the flesh.

55:2.5 Many fusion candidates may be assembled in the spacious temple at the same time. And what a beautiful occasion when mortals thus forgather to witness the ascension of their loved ones in spiritual flames, and what a contrast to those earlier ages when mortals must commit their dead to the embrace of the terrestrial elements! The scenes of weeping and wailing characteristic of earlier epochs of human evolution are now replaced by ecstatic joy and the sublimest enthusiasm as these God-knowing mortals bid their loved ones a transient farewell as they are removed from their material associations by the spiritual fires of consuming grandeur and ascending glory. On worlds settled in light and life, “funerals” are occasions of supreme joy, profound satisfaction, and inexpressible hope.

55:2.6The soul of these progressing mortals are increasingly filled with faith, hope, and assurance. The spirit permeating those gathered around the translation shrine resembles that of the joyful friends and relatives who might assemble at a graduating exercise for one of their group, or who might come together to witness the conferring of some great honor upon one of their number. And it would be decidedly helpful if less advanced mortals could only learn to view natural death with something of this same cheerfulness and lightheartedness.

55:2.7 Mortal observers can see nothing of their translated associates subsequent to the fusion flash. Such translated soul proceed by Adjuster transit direct to the resurrection hall of the appropriate morontia-training world. These transactions concerned with the translation of living human beings to the morontia world are supervised by an archangel who was assigned to such a world on the day when it was first settled in light and life.

55:2.8 By the time a world attains the fourth stage of light and life, more than half the mortals leave the planet by translation from among the living. Such diminishment of death continues on and on, but I know of no system whose inhabited worlds, even though long settled in life, are entirely free from natural death as the technique of escape from the bonds of flesh. And until such a high state of planetary evolution is uniformly attained, the morontia-training worlds of the local universe must continue in service as educational and cultural spheres for the evolving morontia progressors. The elimination of death is theoretically possible, but it has not yet occurred according to my observation. Perhaps such a status may be attained during the faraway stretches of the succeeding epochs of the seventh stage of settled planetary life.

55:2.9 The translated souls of the flowering ages of the settled spheres do not pass through the mansion worlds. Neither do they sojourn, as students, on the morontia worlds of the system or constellation. They do not pass through any of the earlier phases of morontia life. They are the only ascending mortals who so nearly escape the morontia transition from material existence to semispirit status. The initial experience of such Son-seized mortals in the ascension career is in the services of the progression worlds of the universe headquarters. And from these study worlds of Salvington they go back as teachers to the very worlds they passed by, subsequently going on inward to Paradise by the established route of mortal ascension.

55:2.10 Could you but visit a planet in an advanced stage of development, you would quickly grasp the reasons for providing for the differential reception of ascending mortals on the mansion and higher morontia worlds. You would readily understand that beings passing on from such highly evolved spheres are prepared to resume their Paradise ascent far in advance of the average mortal arriving from a disordered and backward world like Urantia.

55:2.11 No matter from what level of planetary attainment human beings may ascend to the morontia worlds, the seven mansion spheres afford them ample opportunity to gain in experience as teacher-students all of everything which they failed to pass through because of the advanced status of their native planets.

55:2.12 The universe is unfailing in the application of these equalizing techniques designed to insure that no ascender shall be deprived of aught which is essential to his ascension experience.

3. THE GOLDEN AGES

55:3.1 During this age of light and life the world increasingly prospers under the fatherly rule of the Planetary Sovereign. By this time the worlds are progressing under the momentum of one language, one religion, and, on normal spheres, one race. But this age is not perfect. These worlds still have well-appointed hospitals, homes for the care of the sick. There still remain the problems of caring for accidental injuries and the inescapable infirmities attendant upon the decrepitude of old age and the disorders of senility. Disease has not been entirely vanquished, neither have the earth animals been subdued in perfection; but such worlds are like Paradise in comparison with the early times of primitive man during the pre-Planetary Prince age. You would instinctively describe such a realm—could you be suddenly transported to a planet in this stage of development—as heaven on earth.

55:3.2 Human government in the conduct of material affairs continues to function throughout this age of relative progress and perfection. The public activities of a world in the first stage of light and life which I recently visited were financed by the tithing technique. Every adult worker—and all able-bodied citizens worked at something—paid ten per cent of his income or increase to the public treasury, and it was disbursed as follows:

55:3.3 1. Three per cent was expended in the promotion of truth—science, education, and philosophy.

55:3.4 2. Three per cent was devoted to beauty—play, social leisure, and art.

55:3.5 3. Three per cent was dedicated to goodness—social service, altruism, and religion.

55:3.6 4. One per cent was assigned to the insurance reserves against the risk of incapacity for labor resultant from accident, disease, old age, or unpreventable disasters.

55:3.7 The natural resources of this planet were administered as social possessions, community property.

55:3.8 On this world the highest honor conferred upon a citizen was the order of “supreme service,” being the only degree of recognition ever to be granted in the morontia temple. This recognition was bestowed upon those who had long distinguished themselves in some phase of supermaterial discovery or planetary social service.

55:3.9 The majority of social and administrative posts were held jointly by men and women. Most of the teaching was also done jointly; likewise all judicial trusts were discharged by similar associated couples.

55:3.10 On these superb worlds the childbearing period is not greatly prolonged. It is not best for too many years to intervene between the ages of a family of children. When close together in age, children are able to contribute much more to their mutual training. And on these worlds they are magnificently trained by the competitive systems of keen striving in the advanced domains and divisions of diverse achievement in the mastery of truth, beauty, and goodness. Never fear but that even such glorified spheres present plenty of evil, real and potential, which is stimulative of the choosing between truth and error, good and evil, sin and righteousness.

55:3.11 Nevertheless, there is a certain, inevitable penalty attaching to mortal existence on such advanced evolutionary planets. When a settled world progresses beyond the third stage of light and life, all ascenders are destined, before attaining the minor sector, to receive some sort of transient assignment on a planet passing through the earlier stages of evolution.

55:3.12 Each of these successive ages represents advancing achievements in all phases of planetary attainment. In the initial age of light the revelation of truth was enlarged to embrace the workings of the universe of universes, while the Deity study of the second age is the attempt to master the protean concept of the nature, mission, ministry, associations, origin, and destiny of the Creator Sons, the first level of God the Sevenfold.

55:3.13 A planet the size of Urantia, when fairly well settled, would have about one hundred subadministrative centers. These subordinate centers would be presided over by one of the following groups of qualified administrators:

1. Young Material Sons and Daughters brought from the system headquarters to act as assistants to the ruling Adam and Eve.

2. The progeny of the semimortal staff of the Planetary Prince who were procreated on certain worlds for this and other similar responsibilities.

3. The direct planetary progeny of Adam and Eve.

4. Materialized and humanized midway creatures.

5. Mortals of Adjuster-fusion status who, upon their own petition, are temporarily exempted from translation by the order of the Personalized Adjuster of universe chieftainship in order that they may continue on the planet in certain important administrative posts.

6. Specially trained mortals of the planetary schools of administration who have also received the order of supreme service of the morontia temple.

7. Certain elective commissions of three properly qualified citizens who are sometimes chosen by the citizenry by direction of the Planetary Sovereign in accordance with their special ability to accomplish some definite task which is needful in that particular planetary sector.

55:3.14 The great handicap confronting Urantia in the matter of attaining the high planetary destiny of light and life is embraced in the problems of disease, degeneracy, war, multicolored races, and multilingualism.

55:3.15 No evolutionary world can hope to progress beyond the first stage of settledness in light until it has achieved one language, one religion, and one philosophy. Being of one race greatly facilitates such achievement, but the many peoples of Urantia do not preclude the attainment of higher stages.

4. ADMINISTRATIVE READJUSTMENTS

55:4.1 In the successive stages of settled existence the inhabited worlds make marvelous progress under the wise and sympathetic administration of the volunteer Corps of the Finality, ascenders of Paradise attainment who have come back to minister to their brethren in the flesh. These finaliters are active in co-operation with the Trinity Teacher Sons, but they do not begin their real participation in world affairs until the morontia temple appears on earth.

55:4.2 Upon the formal inauguration of the planetary ministry of the Corps of the Finality, the majority of the celestial hosts withdraw. But the seraphic guardians of destiny continue their personal ministry to the progressing mortals in light; indeed such angels come in ever-increasing numbers throughout the settled ages since larger and larger groups of human beings reach the third cosmic circle of co-ordinate mortal attainment during the planetary life span.

55:4.3 This is merely the first of the successive administrative adjustments which attend the unfolding of the successive ages of increasingly brilliant attainment on the inhabited worlds as they pass from the first to the seventh stage of settled existence.

55:4.4 1. The first stage of light and life. A world in this initial settled stage is being administered by three rulers:

a. The Planetary Sovereign, presently to be advised by a counseling Trinity Teacher Son, in all probability the chief of the terminal corps of such Sons to function on the planet.

b. The chief of the planetary corps of finaliters.

c. Adam and Eve, who function jointly as the unifiers of the dual leadership of the Prince-Sovereign and the chief of finaliters.

55:4.5 Acting as interpreters for the seraphic guardians and the finaliters are the exalted and liberated midway creatures. One of the last acts of the Trinity Teacher Sons on their terminal mission is to liberate the midwayers of the realm and to promote (or restore) them to advanced planetary status, assigning them to responsible places in the new administration of the settled sphere. Such changes have already been made in the range of human vision as enable mortals to recognize these heretofore invisible cousins of the early Adamic regime. This is made possible by the final discoveries of physical science in liaison with the enlarged planetary functions of the Master Physical Controllers.

55:4.6 The System Sovereign has authority to release midway creatures any time after the first settled stage so that they may humanize in the morontia by the aid of the Life Carriers and the physical controllers and, after receiving Thought Adjusters, start out on their Paradise ascension.

55:4.7 In the third and subsequent stages, some of the midwayers are still functioning, chiefly as contact personalities for the finaliters, but as each stage of light and life is entered, new orders of liaison ministers largely replace the midwayers; very few of them ever remain beyond the fourth stage of light. The seventh stage will witness the coming of the first absonite ministers from Paradise to serve in the places of certain universe creatures.

 

55:4.8 2. The second stage of light and life. This epoch is signalized on the worlds by the arrival of a Life Carrier who becomes the volunteer adviser of the planetary rulers regarding the further efforts to purify and stabilize the mortal race. Thus do the Life Carriers actively participate in the further evolution of the human race—physically, socially, and economically. And then they extend their supervision to the further purification of the mortal stock by the drastic elimination of the retarded and persisting remnants of inferior potential of an intellectual, philosophic, cosmic, and spiritual nature. Those who design and plant life on an inhabited world are fully competent to advise the Material Sons and Daughters, who have full and unquestioned authority to purge the evolving race of all detrimental influences.

55:4.9 From the second stage on throughout the career of a settled planet the Teacher Sons serve as counselors to the finaliters. During such missions they serve as volunteers and not by assignment; and they serve exclusively with the finaliter corps except that, upon the consent of the System Sovereign, they may be had as advisers to the Planetary Adam and Eve.

 

55:4.10 3. The third stage of light and life. During this epoch the inhabited worlds arrive at a new appreciation of the Ancients of Days, the second phase of God the Sevenfold, and the representatives of these superuniverse rulers enter into new relationships with the planetary administration.

55:4.11 In each succeeding age of settled existence the finaliters function in ever-increasing capacities. There exists a close working connection between the finaliters, the Evening Stars (the superangels), and the Trinity Teacher Sons.

55:4.12 During this or the following age a Teacher Son, assisted by the ministering-spirit quartette, becomes attached to the elective mortal chief executive, who now becomes associated with the Planetary Sovereign as joint administrator of world affairs. These mortal chief executives serve for twenty-five years of planetary time, and it is this new development that makes it easy for the Planetary Adam and Eve to secure release from their world of long-time assignment during the following ages.

55:4.13 The ministering-spirit quartettes consist of: the seraphic chief of the sphere, the superuniverse secoraphic counselor, the archangel of translations, and the omniaphim who functions as the personal representative of the Assigned Sentinel stationed on the system headquarters. But these advisers never proffer counsel unless it is asked for.

 

55:4.14 4. The fourth stage of light and life. On the worlds the Trinity Teacher Sons appear in new roles. Assisted by the creature-trinitized sons so long associated with their order, they now come to the worlds as volunteer counselors and advisers to the Planetary Sovereign and his associates. Such couples—Paradise-Havona-trinitized sons and ascender-trinitized sons—represent differing universe viewpoints and diverse personal experiences which are highly serviceable to the planetary rulers.

55:4.15 At any time after this age the Planetary Adam and Eve can petition the Sovereign Creator Son for release from planetary duties in order to begin their Paradise ascent; or they can remain on the planet as directors of the newly appearing order of increasingly spiritual society composed of advanced mortals striving to comprehend the philosophic teachings of the finaliters portrayed by the Brilliant Evening Stars, who are now assigned to these worlds to collaborate in pairs with the seconaphim from the headquarters of the superuniverse.

55:4.16 The finaliters are chiefly engaged in initiating the new and supermaterial activities of society—social, cultural, philosophic, cosmic, and spiritual. As far as we can discern, they will continue this ministry far into the seventh epoch of evolutionary stability, when, possibly, they may go forth to minister in outer space; whereupon we conjecture their places may be taken by absonite beings from Paradise.

 

55:4.17 5. The fifth stage of light and life. The readjustments of this stage of settled existence pertain almost entirely to the physical domains and are of primary concern to the Master Physical Controllers.

 

55:4.18 6. The sixth stage of light and life witnesses the development of new functions of the mind circuits of the realm. Cosmic wisdom seems to become constitutive in the universe ministry of mind.

 

55:4.19 7. The seventh stage of light and life. Early in the seventh epoch the Trinity Teacher counselor of the Planetary Sovereign is joined by a volunteer adviser sent by the Ancients of Days, and later on they will be augmented by a third counselor coming from the superuniverse Supreme Executive.

55:4.20 During this epoch, if not before, Adam and Eve are always relieved of planetary duties. If there is a Material Son in the finaliter corps, he may become associated with the mortal chief executive, and sometimes it is a Melchizedek who volunteers to function in this capacity. If a midwayer is among the finaliters, all of that order remaining on the planet are immediately released.

55:4.21 Upon obtaining release from their agelong assignment, a Planetary Adam and Eve may select careers as follows:

55:4.22 1. They can secure planetary release and from the universe headquarters start out immediately on the Paradise career, receiving Thought Adjusters at the conclusion of the morontia experience.

55:4.23 2. Very often a Planetary Adam and Eve will receive Adjusters while yet serving on a world settled in light concomitant with the receiving of Adjusters by some of their imported pure-line children who have volunteered for a term of planetary service. Subsequently they may all go to universe headquarters and there begin the Paradise career.

55:4.24 3. A Planetary Adam and Eve may elect—as do Material Sons and Daughters from the system capital—to go direct to the midsonite world for a brief sojourn, there to receive their Adjusters.

55:4.25 4. They may decide to return to the system headquarters, there for a time to occupy seats on the supreme court, after which service they will receive Adjusters and begin the Paradise ascent.

55:4.26 5. They may choose to go from their administrative duties back to their native world to serve as teachers for a season and to become Adjuster indwelt at the time of transfer to the universe headquarters.

55:4.27 Throughout all of these epochs the imported assisting Material Sons and Daughters exert a tremendous influence on the progressing social and economic orders. They are potentially immortal, at least until such time as they elect to humanize, receive Adjusters, and start for Paradise.

55:4.28 On the evolutionary worlds a being must humanize to receive a Thought Adjuster. All ascendant members of the Mortal Corps of Finaliters have been Adjuster indwelt and fused except seraphim, and they are Father indwelt by another type of spirit at the time of being mustered into this corps.

5. THE ACME OF MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

55:5.1 Mortal creatures living on a sin-stricken, evil-dominated, self-seeking, isolated world, such as Urantia, can hardly conceive of the physical perfection, the intellectual attainment, and the spiritual development which characterize these advanced epochs of evolution on a sinless sphere.

55:5.2 The advanced stages of a world settled in light and life represent the acme of evolutionary material development. On these cultured worlds, gone are the idleness and friction of the earlier primitive ages. Poverty and social inequality have all but vanished, degeneracy has disappeared, and delinquency is rarely observed. Insanity has practically ceased to exist, and feeble-mindedness is a rarity.

55:5.3 The economic, social, and administrative status of these worlds is of a high and perfected order. Science art, and industry flourish, and society is a smoothly working mechanism of high material, intellectual, and cultural achievement. Industry has been largely diverted to serving the higher aims of such a superb civilization. The economic life of such a world has become ethical.

55:5.4 War has become a matter of history, and there are no more armies or police forces. Government is gradually disappearing. Self-control is slowly rendering laws of human enactment obsolete. The extent of civil government and statutory regulation, in an intermediate state of advancing civilization, is in inverse proportion to the morality and spirituality of the citizenship.

55:5.5 Schools are vastly improved and are devoted to the training of mind and the expansion of soul. The art centers are exquisite and the musical organizations superb. The temples of worship with their associated schools of philosophy and experiential religion are creations of beauty and grandeur. The open-air arenas of worship assembly are equally sublime in the simplicity of their artistic appointment.

55:5.6 The provisions for competitive play, humor, and other phases of personal and group achievement are ample and appropriate. A special feature of the competitive activities on such a highly cultured world concerns the efforts of individuals and groups to excel in the sciences and philosophies of cosmology. Literature and oratory flourish, and language is so improved as to be symbolic of concepts as well as to be expressive of ideas. Life is refreshingly simple; man has at last co-ordinated a high state of mechanical development with an inspiring intellectual attainment and has overshadowed both with an exquisite spiritual achievement. The pursuit of happiness is an experience of joy and satisfaction.

6. THE INDIVIDUAL MORTAL

55:6.1 As worlds advance in the settled status of light and life, society becomes increasingly peaceful. The individual, while no less independent and devoted to his family, has become more altruistic and fraternal.

55:6.2 On Urantia, and as you are, you can have little appreciation of the advanced status and progressive nature of the enlightened races of these perfected worlds. These people are the flowering of the evolutionary races. But such beings are still mortal; they continue to breathe, eat, sleep, and drink. This great evolution is not heaven, but it is a sublime foreshadowing of the divine worlds of the Paradise ascent.

55:6.3 On a normal world the biologic fitness of the mortal race was long since brought up to a high level during the post-Adamic epochs; and now, from age to age throughout the settled eras the physical evolution of man continues. Both vision and hearing are extended. By now the population has become stationary in numbers. Reproduction is regulated in accordance with planetary requirements and innate hereditary endowments: The mortals on a planet during this age are divided into from five to ten groups, and the lower groups are permitted to produce only one half as many children as the higher. The continued improvement of such a magnificent race throughout the era of light and life is largely a matter of the selective reproduction of those racial strains which exhibit superior qualities of a social, philosophic, cosmic, and spiritual nature.

55:6.4 The Adjusters continue to come as in former evolutionary eras, and as the epochs pass, these mortals are increasingly able to commune with the indwelling Father fragment. During the embryonic and prespiritual stages of development the adjutant mind-spirits are still functioning. The Holy Spirit and the ministry of angels are even more effective as the successive epochs of settled life are experienced. In the fourth stage of light and life the advanced mortals seem to experience considerable conscious contact with the spirit presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, while the philosophy of such a world is focused upon the attempt to comprehend the new revelations of God the Supreme. More than one half of the human inhabitants on planets of this advanced status experience translation to the morontia state from among the living. Even so, “old things are passing away; behold, all things are becoming new.”

55:6.5 We conceive that physical evolution will have attained its full development by the end of the fifth epoch of the light-and-life era. We observe that the upper limits of spiritual development associated with evolving human mind are determined by the Adjuster-fusion level of conjoint morontia values and cosmic meanings. But concerning wisdom: While we do not really know, we conjecture that there can never be a limit to intellectual evolution and the attainment of wisdom. On a seventh-stage world, wisdom can exhaust the material potentials, enter upon mota insight, and eventually even taste of absonite grandeur.

55:6.6 We observe that on these highly evolved and long seventh-stage worlds human beings fully learn the local universe language before they are translated; and I have visited a few very old planets where abandonters were teaching the older mortals the tongue of the superuniverse. And on these worlds I have observed the technique whereby the absonite personalities reveal the presence of the finaliters in the morontia temple.

55:6.7 This is the story of the magnificent goal of mortal striving on the evolutionary worlds; and it all takes place even before human beings enter upon their morontia careers; all of this splendid development is attainable by material mortals on the inhabited worlds, the very first stage of that endless and incomprehensible career of Paradise ascension and divinity attainment.

55:6.8 But can you possibly imagine what sort of evolutionary mortals are now coming up from worlds long existing in the seventh epoch of settled light and life? It is such as these who go on to the morontia worlds of the local universe capital to begin their ascension careers.

55:6.9 If the mortals of distraught Urantia could only view one of these more advanced worlds long settled in light and life, they would nevermore question the wisdom of the evolutionary scheme of creation. Were there no future of eternal creature progression, still the superb evolutionary attainments of the mortal races on such settled worlds of perfected achievement would amply justify man’s creation on the worlds of time and space.

55:6.10 We often ponder: If the grand universe should be settled in light and life, would the ascending exquisite mortals still be destined to the Corps of the Finality? But we do not know.

7. THE FIRST OR PLANETARY STAGE

55:7.1 This epoch extends from the appearance of the morontia temple at the new planetary headquarters to the time of the settling of the entire system in light and life. This age is inaugurated by the Trinity Teacher Sons at the close of their successive world missions when the Planetary Prince is elevated to the status of Planetary Sovereign by the mandate and personal presence of the Paradise bestowal Son of that sphere. Concomitant therewith the finaliters inaugurate their active participation in planetary affairs.

55:7.2 To outward and visible appearances the actual rulers, or directors, of such a world settled in light and life are the Material Son and Daughter, the Planetary Adam and Eve. The finaliters are invisible, as also is the Prince-Sovereign except when in the morontia temple. The actual and literal heads of the planetary regime are therefore the Material Son and Daughter. It is the knowledge of these arrangements that has given prestige to the idea of kings and queens throughout the universe realms. And kings and queens are a great success under these ideal circumstances, when a world can command such high personalities to act in behalf of still higher but invisible rulers.

55:7.3 When such an era is attained on your world, no doubt Machiventa Melchizedek, now the vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia, will occupy the seat of the Planetary Sovereign; and it has long been conjectured on Jerusem that he will be accompanied by a son and daughter of the Urantia Adam and Eve who are now held on Edentia as wards of the Most Highs of Norlatiadek. These children of Adam might so serve on Urantia in association with the Melchizedek-Sovereign since they were deprived of procreative powers almost 37,000 years ago at the time they gave up their material bodies on Urantia in preparation for transit to Edentia.

55:7.4 This settled age continues on and on until every inhabited planet in the system attains the era of stabilization; and then, when the youngest world—the last to achieve light and life—has experienced such settledness for one millennium of system time, the entire system enters the stabilized status, and the individual worlds are ushered into the system epoch of the era of light and life.

8. THE SECOND OR SYSTEM STAGE

55:8.1 When an entire system becomes settled in life, a new order of government is inaugurated. The Planetary Sovereigns become members of the system conclave, and this new administrative body, subject to the veto of the Constellation Fathers, is supreme in authority. Such a system of inhabited worlds becomes virtually self-governing. The system legislative assembly is constituted on the headquarters world, and each planet sends its ten representatives thereto. Courts are now established on the system capitals, and only appeals are taken to the universe headquarters.

55:8.2 With the settling of the system the Assigned Sentinel, representative of the superuniverse Supreme Executive, becomes the volunteer adviser to the system supreme court and actual presiding officer of the new legislative assembly.

55:8.3 After the settling of an entire system in light and life the System Sovereigns will no more come and go. Such a sovereign remains perpetually at the head of his system. The assistant sovereigns continue to change as in former ages.

55:8.4 During this epoch of stabilization, for the first time midsoniters come from the universe headquarters worlds of their sojourn to act as counselors to the legislative assemblies and advisers to the adjudicational tribunals. These midsoniters also carry on certain efforts to inculcate new mota meanings of supreme value into the teaching enterprises which they sponsor jointly with the finaliters. What the Material Sons did for the mortal races biologically, the midsonite creatures now do for these unified and glorified humans in the ever-advancing realms of philosophy and spiritualized thinking.

55:8.5 On the inhabited worlds the Teacher Sons become voluntary collaborators with the finaliters, and these same Teacher Sons also accompany the finaliters to the mansion worlds when those spheres are no longer to be utilized as differential receiving worlds after an entire system is settled in light and life; at least this is true by the time the entire constellation has thus evolved. But there are no groups that far advanced in Nebadon.

55:8.6 We are not permitted to reveal the nature of the work of the finaliters who will supervise such rededicated mansion worlds. You have, however, been informed that there are throughout the universes various types of intelligent creatures who have not been portrayed in these narratives.

55:8.7 And now, as the systems one by one become settled in light by virtue of the progress of their component worlds, the time comes when the last system in a given constellation attains stabilization, and the universe administrators—the Master Son, the Union of Days, and the Bright and Morning Star—arrive on the capital of the constellation to proclaim the Most Highs the unqualified rulers of the newly perfected family of one hundred settled systems of inhabited worlds.

9. THE THIRD OR CONSTELLATION STAGE

55:9.1 The unification of a whole constellation of settled systems is attended by new distributions of executive authority and additional readjustments of universe administration. This epoch witnesses advanced attainment on every inhabited world but is particularly characterized by readjustments on the constellation headquarters, with marked modification of relationships with both the system supervision and the local universe government. During this age many constellation and universe activities are transferred to the system capitals, and the representatives of the superuniverse assume new and more intimate relations with the planetary, system, and universe rulers. Concomitant with these new associations, certain superuniverse administrators establish themselves on the constellation capitals as volunteer advisers to the Most High Fathers.

55:9.2 When a constellation is thus settled in light, the legislative function ceases, and the house of System Sovereigns, presided over by the Most Highs, functions instead. Now, for the first time, such administrative groups deal directly with the superuniverse government in matters pertaining to Havona and Paradise relationships. Otherwise the constellation remains related to the local universe as before. From stage to stage in the settled life the univitatia continue to administer the constellation morontia worlds.

55:9.3 As the ages pass, the Constellation Fathers take over more and more of the detailed administrative or supervising functions which were formerly centered on the universe headquarters. By the attainment of the sixth stage of stabilization these unified constellations will have reached the position of well-nigh complete autonomy. Entrance upon the seventh stage of settledness will no doubt witness the exaltation of these rulers to the true dignity signified by their names, the Most Highs. To all intents and purposes the constellations will then deal directly with the superuniverse rulers, while the local universe government will expand to grasp the responsibilities of new grand universe obligations.

10. THE FOURTH OR LOCAL UNIVERSE STAGE

55:10.1 When a universe becomes settled in light and life, it soon swings into the established superuniverse circuits, and the Ancients of Days proclaim the establishment of the supreme council of unlimited authority. This new governing body consists of the one hundred Faithfuls of Days, presided over by the Union of Days, and the first act of this supreme council is to acknowledge the continued sovereignty of the Master Creator Son.

55:10.2 The universe administration, as far as concerns Gabriel and the Father Melchizedek, is quite unchanged. This council of unlimited authority is chiefly concerned with the new problems and the new conditions arising out of the advanced status of light and life.

55:10.3 The Associate Inspector now mobilizes all Assigned Sentinels to constitute the stabilization corps of the local universe and asks the Father Melchizedek to share its supervision with him. And now, for the first time, a corps of the Inspired Trinity Spirits are assigned to the service of the Union of Days.

55:10.4 The settling of an entire local universe in light and life inaugurates profound readjustments in the entire scheme of administration, from the individual inhabited worlds to the universe headquarters. New relationships extend down to the constellations and systems. The local universe Mother Spirit experiences new liaison relations with the Master Spirit of the superuniverse, and Gabriel establishes direct contact with the Ancients of Days to be effective when and as the Master Son may be absent from the headquarters world.

55:10.5 During this and subsequent ages the Magisterial Sons continue to function as dispensational adjudicators, while one hundred of these Avonal Sons of Paradise constitute the new high council of the Bright and Morning Star on the universe capital. Later on, and as requested by the System Sovereigns, one of these Magisterial Sons will become the supreme counselor stationed on the headquarters world of each local system until the seventh stage of unity is attained.

55:10.6 During this epoch the Trinity Teacher Sons are volunteer advisers, not only to the Planetary Sovereigns, but in groups of three they similarly serve the Constellation Fathers. And at last these Sons find their place in the local universe, for at this time they are removed from the jurisdiction of the local creation and are assigned to the service of the supreme council of unlimited authority.

55:10.7 The finaliter corps now, for the first time, acknowledges the jurisdiction of an extra-Paradise authority, the supreme council. Heretofore the finaliters have recognized no supervision this side of Paradise.

55:10.8 The Creator Sons of such settled universes spend much of their time on Paradise and its associated worlds and in counseling the numerous finaliter groups serving throughout the local creation. In this way the man of Michael will find a fuller fraternity of association with the glorified finaliter mortals.

55:10.9 Speculation concerning the function of these Creator Sons in connection with the outer universes now in process of preliminary assembly is wholly futile. But we all engage in such postulations from time to time. On attaining this fourth stage of development the Creator Son becomes administratively free; the Divine Minister is progressively blending her ministry with that of the superuniverse Master Spirit and the Infinite Spirit. There seems to be evolving a new and sublime relationship between the Creator Son, the Creative Spirit, the Evening Stars, the Teacher Sons, and the ever-increasing finaliter corps.

55:10.10 If Michael should ever leave Nebadon, Gabriel would undoubtedly become chief administrator with the Father Melchizedek as his associate. At the same time new status would be imparted to all orders of permanent citizenship, such as Material Sons, univitatia, midsoniters, susatia, and Spirit-fused mortals. But as long as evolution continues, the seraphim and the archangels will be required in universe administration.

55:10.11 We are, however, satisfied regarding two features of our speculations: If the Creator Sons are destined to the outer universes, the Divine Ministers will undoubtedly accompany them. We are equally sure that the Melchizedeks are to remain with the universes of their origin. We hold that the Melchizedeks are destined to play ever-increasingly responsible parts in local universe government and administration.

11. THE MINOR AND MAJOR SECTOR STAGES

55:11.1 Minor and major sectors of the superuniverse do not figure directly in the plan of being settled in light and life. Such an evolutionary progression pertains primarily to the local universe as a unit and concerns only the components of a local universe. A superuniverse is settled in light and life when all of its component local universes are thus perfected. But not one of the seven superuniverses has attained a level of progression even approaching this.

55:11.2 The minor sector age. As far as observations can penetrate, the fifth or minor sector stage of stabilization has exclusively to do with physical status and with the co-ordinate settling of the one hundred associated local universes in the established circuits of the superuniverse. Apparently none but the power centers and their associates are concerned in these realignments of the material creation.

55:11.3 The major sector age. Concerning the sixth stage, or major sector stabilization, we can only conjecture since none of us have witnessed such an event. Nevertheless, we can postulate much concerning the administrative and other readjustments which would probably accompany such an advanced status of inhabited worlds and their universe groupings.

55:11.4 Since the minor sector status has to do with co-ordinate physical equilibrium, we infer that major sector unification will be concerned with certain new intellectual levels of attainment, possibly some advanced achievements in the supreme realization of cosmic wisdom.

55:11.5 We arrive at conclusions regarding the readjustments which would probably attend the realization of hitherto unattained levels of evolutionary progress by observing the results of such achievements on the individual worlds and in the experiences of individual mortals living on these older and highly developed spheres.

55:11.6 Let it be made clear that the administrative mechanisms and governmental techniques of a universe or a superuniverse cannot in any manner limit or retard the evolutionary development or spiritual progress of an individual inhabited planet or of any individual mortal on such a sphere.

55:11.7 In some of the older universes we find worlds settled in the fifth and the sixth stages of light and life—even far extended into the seventh epoch—whose local systems are not yet settled in light. Younger planets may delay system unification, but this does not in the least handicap the progress of an older and advanced world. Neither can environmental limitations, even on an isolated world, thwart the personal attainment of the individual mortal; Jesus of Nazareth, as a man among men, personally achieved the status of light and life over nineteen hundred years ago on Urantia.

55:11.8 It is by observing what takes place on long-settled worlds that we arrive at fairly reliable conclusions as to what will happen when a whole superuniverse is settled in light, even if we cannot safely postulate the event of the stabilization of the seven superuniverses.

12. THE SEVENTH OR SUPERUNIVERSE STAGE

55:12.1 We cannot positively forecast what would occur when a superuniverse became settled in light because such an event has never factualized. From the teachings of the Melchizedeks, which have never been contradicted, we infer that sweeping changes would be made in the entire organization and administration of every unit of the creations of time and space extending from the inhabited worlds to the superuniverse headquarters.

55:12.2 It is generally believed that large numbers of the otherwise unattached creature-trinitized sons are to be assembled on the headquarters and divisional capitals of the settled superuniverses. This may be in anticipation of the sometime arrival of outer-spacers on their way in to Havona and Paradise, but we really do not know.

55:12.3 If and when a superuniverse should be settled in light and life, we believe that the now advisory Unqualified Supervisors of the Supreme would become the high administrative body on the headquarters world of the superuniverse. These are the personalities who are able to contact directly with the absonite administrators, who will forthwith become active in the settled superuniverse. Although these Unqualified Supervisors have long functioned as advisers and counselors in advanced evolutionary units of creation, they do not assume administrative responsibilities until the authority of the Supreme Being becomes sovereign.

55:12.4 The Unqualified Supervisors of the Supreme, who function more extensively during this epoch, are not finite, absonite, ultimate, or infinite; they are supremacy and only represent God the Supreme. They are the personalization of time-space supremacy and therefore do not function in Havona. They function only as supreme unifiers. They may possibly be involved in the technique of universe reflectivity, but we are not certain.

55:12.5 None of us entertains a satisfactory concept of what will happen when the grand universe (the seven superuniverses as dependent on Havona) becomes entirely settled in light and life. That event will undoubtedly be the most profound occurrence in the annals of eternity since the appearance of the central universe. There are those who hold that the Supreme Being himself will emerge from the Havona mystery enshrouding his spirit person and will become residential on the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse as the almighty and experiential sovereign of the perfected creations of time and space. But we really do not know.

55:12.6 [Presented by a Mighty Messenger temporarily assigned to the Archangel Council on Urantia.]

GOD IS UNITY. Deity is universally co-ordinated. The universe of universes is one vast integrated mechanism which is absolutely controlled by one infinite mind. The physical, intellectual, and spiritual domains of universal creation are divinely correlated. The perfect and imperfect are truly interrelated, and therefore may the finite evolutionary creature ascend to Paradise in obedience to the Universal Father’s mandate: “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.”

56:0.2 The diverse levels of creation are all unified in the plans and administration of the Architects of the Master Universe. To the circumscribed minds of time-space mortals the universe may present many problems and situations which apparently portray disharmony and indicate absence of effective co-ordination; but those of us who are able to observe wider stretches of universal phenomena, and who are more experienced in this art of detecting the basic unity which underlies creative diversity and of discovering the divine oneness which overspreads all this functioning of plurality, better perceive the divine and single purpose exhibited in all these manifold manifestations of universal creative energy.

1. PHYSICAL CO-ORDINATION

56:1.1 The physical or material creation is not infinite, but it is perfectly co-ordinated. There are force, energy, and power, but they are all one in origin. The seven superuniverses are seemingly dual; the central universe, triune; but Paradise is of single constitution. And Paradise is the actual source of all material universes—past, present, and future. But this cosmic derivation is an eternity event; at no time—past, present, or future—does either space or the material cosmos come forth from the nuclear Isle of Light. As the cosmic source, Paradise functions prior to space and before time; hence would its derivations seem to be orphaned in time and space did they not emerge through the Unqualified Absolute, their ultimate repository in space and their revealer and regulator in time.

56:1.2 The Unqualified Absolute upholds the physical universe, while the Deity Absolute motivates the exquisite overcontrol of all material reality; and both Absolutes are functionally unified by the Universal Absolute. This cohesive correlation of the material universe is best understood by all personalities—material, morontia, absonite, or spiritual—by the observation of the gravity response of all bona fide material reality to the gravity centering on nether Paradise.

56:1.3 Gravity unification is universal and unvarying; pure-energy response is likewise universal and inescapable. Pure energy (primordial force) and pure spirit are wholly preresponsive to gravity. These primal forces, inhering in the Absolutes, are personally controlled by the Universal Father; hence does all gravity center in the personal presence of the Paradise Father of pure energy and pure spirit and in his supermaterial abode.

56:1.4 Pure energy is the ancestor of all relative, nonspirit functional realities, while pure spirit is the potential of the divine and directive overcontrol of all basic energy systems. And these realities, so diverse as manifested throughout space and as observed in the motions of time, are both centered in the person of the Paradise Father. In him they are one—must be unified—because God is one. The Father’s personality is absolutely unified.

56:1.5 In the infinite nature of God the Father there could not possibly exist duality of reality, such as physical and spiritual; but the instant we look aside from the infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal values of the Paradise Father, we observe the existence of these two realities and recognize that they are fully responsive to his personal presence; in him all things consist.

56:1.6 The moment you depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite personality of the Paradise Father, you must postulate MIND as the inevitable technique of unifying the ever-widening divergence of these dual universe manifestations of the original monothetic Creator personality, the First Source and Center—the I AM.

2. INTELLECTUAL UNITY

56:2.1 The Thought-Father realizes spirit expression in the Word-Son and attains reality expansion through Paradise in the far-flung material universes. The spiritual expressions of the Eternal Son are correlated with the material levels of creation by the functions of the Infinite Spirit, by whose spirit-responsive ministry of mind, and in whose physical-directive acts of mind, the spiritual realities of Deity and the material repercussions of Deity are correlated the one with the other.

56:2.2 Mind is the functional endowment of the Infinite Spirit, therefore infinite in potential and universal in bestowal. The primal thought of the Universal Father eternalizes in dual expression: the Isle of Paradise and his Deity equal, the spiritual and Eternal Son. Such duality of eternal reality renders the mind God, the Infinite Spirit, inevitable. Mind is the indispensable channel of communication between spiritual and material realities. The material evolutionary creature can conceive and comprehend the indwelling spirit only by the ministry of mind.

56:2.3 This infinite and universal mind is ministered in the universes of time and space as the cosmic mind; and though extending from the primitive ministry of the adjutant spirits up to the magnificent mind of the chief executive of a universe, even this cosmic mind is adequately unified in the supervision of the Seven Master Spirits, who are in turn co-ordinated with the Supreme Mind of time and space and perfectly correlated with the all-embracing mind of the Infinite Spirit.

3. SPIRITUAL UNIFICATION

56:3.1 As the universal mind gravity is centered in the Paradise personal presence of the Infinite Spirit, so does the universal spirit gravity center in the Paradise personal presence of the Eternal Son. The Universal Father is one, but to time-space he is revealed in the dual phenomena of pure energy and pure spirit.

56:3.2 Paradise spirit realities are likewise one, but in all time-space situations and relations this single spirit is revealed in the dual phenomena of the spirit personalities and emanations of the Eternal Son and the spirit personalities and influences of the Infinite Spirit and associated creations; and there is yet a third—pure-spirit fragmentations—the Father’s bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and other spirit entities which are prepersonal.

56:3.3 No matter on what level of universe activities you may encounter spiritual phenomena or contact with spirit beings, you may know that they are all derived from the God who is spirit by the ministry of the Spirit Son and the Infinite Mind Spirit. And this far-flung spirit functions as a phenomenon on the evolutionary worlds of time as it is directed from the headquarters of the local universes. From these capitals of the Creator Sons come the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth, together with the ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits, to the lower and evolving levels of material minds.

56:3.4 While mind is more unified on the level of the Master Spirits in association with the Supreme Being and as the cosmic mind in subordination to the Absolute Mind, the spirit ministry to the evolving worlds is more directly unified in the personalities resident on the headquarters of the local universes and in the persons of the presiding Divine Ministers, who are in turn well-nigh perfectly correlated with the Paradise gravity circuit of the Eternal Son, wherein occurs final unification of all time-space spirit manifestations.

56:3.5 Perfected creature existence can be attained, sustained, and eternalized by the fusion of self-conscious mind with a fragment of the pre-Trinity spirit endowment of some one of the persons of the Paradise Trinity. The mortal mind is the creation of the Sons and Daughters of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit and, when fused with the Thought Adjuster from the Father, partakes of the threefold spirit endowment of the evolutionary realms. But these three spirit expressions become perfectly unified in the finaliters, even as they were in eternity so unified in the Universal I AM ere he ever became the Universal Father of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit.

56:3.6 Spirit must always and ultimately become threefold in expression and Trinity-unified in final realization. Spirit originates from one source through a threefold expression; and in finality it must and does attain its full realization in that divine unification which is experienced in finding God—oneness with divinity—in eternity, and by means of the ministry of the cosmic mind of the infinite expression of the eternal word of the Father’s universal thought.

4. PERSONALITY UNIFICATION

56:4.1 The Universal Father is a divinely unified personality; hence will all his ascendant children who are carried to Paradise by the rebound momentum of the Thought Adjusters, who went forth from Paradise to indwell material mortals in obedience to the Father’s mandate, likewise be fully unified personalities ere they reach Havona.

56:4.2 Personality inherently reaches out to unify all constituent realities. The infinite personality of the First Source and Center, the Universal Father, unifies all seven constituent Absolutes of Infinity; and the personality of mortal man, being an exclusive and direct bestowal of the Universal Father, likewise possesses the potential of unifying the constituent factors of the mortal creature. Such unifying creativity of all creature personality is a birthmark of its high and exclusive source and is further evidential of its unbroken contact with this same source through the personality circuit, by means of which the personality of the creature maintains direct and sustaining contact with the Father of all personality on Paradise.

56:4.3 Notwithstanding that God is manifest from the domains of the Sevenfold up through supremacy and ultimacy to God the Absolute, the personality circuit, centering on Paradise and in the person of God the Father, provides for the complete and perfect unification of all these diverse expressions of divine personality so far as concerns all creature personalities on all levels of intelligent existence and in all the realms of the perfect, perfected, and perfecting universes.

56:4.4 While God is to and in the universes all that we have portrayed, nevertheless, to you and to all other God-knowing creatures he is one, your Father and their Father. To personality God cannot be plural. God is Father to each of his creatures, and it is literally impossible for any child to have more than one father.

56:4.5 Philosophically, cosmically, and with reference to differential levels and locations of manifestation, you may and perforce must conceive of the functioning of plural Deities and postulate the existence of plural Trinities; but in the worshipful experience of the personal contact of every worshiping personality throughout the master universe, God is one; and that unified and personal Deity is our Paradise parent, God the Father, the bestower, conservator, and Father of all personalities from mortal man on the inhabited worlds to the Eternal Son on the central Isle of Light.

5. DEITY UNITY

56:5.1 The oneness, the indivisibility, of Paradise Deity is existential and absolute. There are three eternal personalizations of Deity—the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit—but in the Paradise Trinity they are actually one Deity, undivided and indivisible.

56:5.2 From the original Paradise-Havona level of existential reality, two subabsolute levels have differentiated, and thereon have the Father, Son, and Spirit engaged in the creation of numerous personal associates and subordinates. And while it is inappropriate in this connection to undertake the consideration of absonite deity unification on transcendental levels of ultimacy, it is feasible to look at some features of the unifying function of the various Deity personalizations in whom divinity is functionally manifest to the diverse sectors of creation and to the different orders of intelligent beings.

56:5.3 The present functioning of divinity in the superuniverses is actively manifest in the operations of the Supreme Creators—the local universe Creator Sons and Spirits, the superuniverse Ancients of Days, and the Seven Master Spirits of Paradise. These beings constitute the first three levels of God the Sevenfold leading inward to the Universal Father, and this entire domain of God the Sevenfold is co-ordinating on the first level of experiential deity in the evolving Supreme Being.

56:5.4On Paradise and in the central universe, Deity unity is a fact of existence. Throughout the evolving universes of time and space, Deity unity is an achievement.

6. UNIFICATION OF EVOLUTIONARY DEITY

56:6.1 When the three eternal persons of Deity function as undivided Deity in the Paradise Trinity, they achieve perfect unity; likewise, when they create, either associatively or severally, their Paradise progeny exhibit the characteristic unity of divinity. And this divinity of purpose manifested by the Supreme Creators and Rulers of the time-space domains eventuates in the unifying power potential of the sovereignty of experiential supremacy which, in the presence of the impersonal energy unity of the universe, constitutes a reality tension that can be resolved only through adequate unification with the experiential personality realities of experiential Deity.

56:6.2 The personality realities of the Supreme Being come forth from the Paradise Deities and on the pilot world of the outer Havona circuit unify with the power prerogatives of the Almighty Supreme coming up from the Creator divinities of the grand universe. God the Supreme as a person existed in Havona before the creation of the seven superuniverses, but he functioned only on spiritual levels. The evolution of the Almighty power of Supremacy by diverse divinity synthesis in the evolving universes eventuated in a new power presence of Deity which co-ordinated with the spiritual person of the Supreme in Havona by means of the Supreme Mind, which concomitantly translated from the potential resident in the infinite mind of the Infinite Spirit to the active functional mind of the Supreme Being.

56:6.3 The material-minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds of the seven superuniverses can comprehend Deity unity only as it is evolving in this power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On any level of existence God cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme. Deity, having been thus grasped as unified in power, can then be personalized in spirit to creature understanding and attainment.

56:6.4 While ascending mortals achieve power comprehension of the Almighty on the capitals of the superuniverses and personality comprehension of the Supreme on the outer circuits of Havona, they do not actually find the Supreme Being as they are destined to find the Paradise Deities. Even the finaliters, sixth-stage spirits, have not found the Supreme Being, nor are they likely to until they have achieved seventh-stage-spirit status, and until the Supreme has become actually functional in the activities of the future outer universes.

56:6.5 But when ascenders find the Universal Father as the seventh level of God the Sevenfold, they have attained the personality of the First Person of all deity levels of personal relationships with universe creatures.

7. UNIVERSAL EVOLUTIONARY REPERCUSSIONS

56:7.1 The steady progress of evolution in the time-space universes is accompanied by ever-enlarging revelations of Deity to all intelligent creatures. The attainment of the height of evolutionary progress on a world, in a system, constellation, universe, superuniverse, or in the grand universe signalizes corresponding enlargements of deity function to and in these progressive units of creation. And every such local enhancement of divinity realization is accompanied by certain well-defined repercussions of enlarged deity manifestation to all other sectors of creation. Extending outward from Paradise, each new domain of realized and attained evolution constitutes a new and enlarged revelation of experiential Deity to the universe of universes.

56:7.2 As the components of a local universe are progressively settled in light and life, God the Sevenfold is increasingly made manifest. Time-space evolution begins on a planet with the first expression of God the Sevenfold—the Creator Son-Creative Spirit association—in control. With the settling of a system in light, this Son-Spirit liaison attains the fullness of function; and when an entire constellation is thus settled, the second phase of God the Sevenfold becomes more active throughout such a realm. The completed administrative evolution of a local universe is attended by new and more direct ministrations of the superuniverse Master Spirits; and at this point there also begins that ever-expanding revelation and realization of God the Supreme which culminates in the ascender’s comprehension of the Supreme Being while passing through the worlds of the sixth Havona circuit.

56:7.3 The Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit are existential deity manifestations to intelligent creatures and are not, therefore, similarly expanded in personality relations with the mind and spirit creatures of all creation.

56:7.4 It should be noted that ascending mortals may experience the impersonal presence of successive levels of Deity long before they become sufficiently spiritual and adequately educated to attain experiential personal recognition of, and contact with, these Deities as personal beings.

56:7.5 Each new evolutionary attainment within a sector of creation, as well as every new invasion of space by divinity manifestations, is attended by simultaneous expansions of Deity functional-revelation within the then existing and previously organized units of all creation. This new invasion of the administrative work of the universes and their component units may not always appear to be executed exactly in accordance with the technique herewith outlined because it is the practice to send forth advance groups of administrators to prepare the way for the subsequent and successive eras of new administrative overcontrol. Even God the Ultimate foreshadows his transcendental overcontrol of the universes during the later stages of a local universe settled in light and life.

56:7.6 It is a fact that, as the creations of time and space are progressively settled in evolutionary status, there is observed a new and fuller functioning of God the Supreme concomitant with a corresponding withdrawing of the first three manifestations of God the Sevenfold. If and when the grand universe becomes settled in light and life, what then will be the future function of the Creator-Creative manifestations of God the Sevenfold if God the Supreme assumes direct control of these creations of time and space? Are these organizers and pioneers of the time-space universes to be liberated for similar activities in outer space? We do not know, but we speculate much concerning these and related matters.

56:7.7 As the frontiers of experiential Deity are extended out into the domains of the Unqualified Absolute, we envision the activity of God the Sevenfold during the earlier evolutionary epochs of these creations of the future. We are not all in agreement respecting the future status of the Ancients of Days and the superuniverse Master Spirits. Neither do we know whether or not the Supreme Being will therein function as in the seven superuniverses. But we all conjecture that the Michaels, the Creator Sons, are destined to function in these outer universes. Some hold that the future ages will witness some closer form of union between the associated Creator Sons and Divine Ministers; it is even possible that such a creator union might eventuate in some new expression of associate-creator identity of an ultimate nature. But we really know nothing about these possibilities of the unrevealed future.

56:7.8 We do know, however, that in the universes of time and space, God the Sevenfold provides a progressive approach to the Universal Father, and that this evolutionary approach is experientially unified in God the Supreme. We might conjecture that such a plan must prevail in the outer universes; on the other hand, the new orders of beings that may sometime inhabit these universes may be able to approach Deity on ultimate levels and by absonite techniques. In short, we have not the slightest concept of what technique of deity approach may become operative in the future universes of outer space.

56:7.9 Nevertheless, we deem that the perfected superuniverses will in some way become a part of the Paradise-ascension careers of those beings who may inhabit these outer creations. It is quite possible that in that future age we may witness outer-spacers approaching Havona through the seven superuniverses, administered by God the Supreme with or without the collaboration of the Seven Master Spirits.

8. THE SUPREME UNIFIER

56:8.1 The Supreme Being has a threefold function in the experience of mortal man: First, he is the unifier of time-space divinity, God the Sevenfold; second, he is the maximum of Deity which finite creatures can actually comprehend; third, he is mortal man’s only avenue of approach to the transcendental experience of consorting with absonite mind, eternal spirit, and Paradise personality.

56:8.2 Ascendant finaliters, having been born in the local universes, nurtured in the superuniverses, and trained in the central universe, embrace in their personal experiences the full potential of the comprehension of the time-space divinity of God the Sevenfold unifying in the Supreme. Finaliters serve successively in superuniverses other than those of nativity, thereby superimposing experience upon experience until the fullness of the sevenfold diversity of possible creature experience has been encompassed. Through the ministry of the indwelling Adjusters the finaliters are enabled to find the Universal Father, but it is by these techniques of experience that such finaliters come really to know the Supreme Being, and they are destined to the service and the revelation of this Supreme Deity in and to the future universes of outer space.

56:8.3 Bear in mind, all that God the Father and his Paradise Sons do for us, we in turn and in spirit have the opportunity to do for and in the emerging Supreme Being. The experience of love, joy, and service in the universe is mutual. God the Father does not need that his sons should return to him all that he bestows upon them, but they do (or may) in turn bestow all of this upon their fellows and upon the evolving Supreme Being.

56:8.4 All creational phenomena are reflective of antecedent creator-spirit activities. Said Jesus, and it is literally true, “The Son does only those things which he sees the Father do.” In time you mortals may begin the revelation of the Supreme to your fellows, and increasingly may you augment this revelation as you ascend Paradiseward. In eternity you may be permitted to make increasing revelations of this God of evolutionary creatures on supreme levels—even ultimate—as seventh-stage finaliters.

9. UNIVERSAL ABSOLUTE UNITY

56:9.1 The Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute are unified in the Universal Absolute. The Absolutes are co-ordinated in the Ultimate, conditioned in the Supreme, and time-space modified in God the Sevenfold. On subinfinite levels there are three Absolutes, but in infinity they appear to be one. On Paradise there are three personalizations of Deity, but in the Trinity they are one.

56:9.2 The major philosophic proposition of the master universe is this: Did the Absolute (the three Absolutes as one in infinity) exist before the Trinity? and is the Absolute ancestral to the Trinity? or is the Trinity antecedent to the Absolute?

56:9.3 Is the Unqualified Absolute a force presence independent of the Trinity? Does the presence of the Deity Absolute connote the unlimited function of the Trinity? and is the Universal Absolute the final function of the Trinity, even a Trinity of Trinities?

56:9.4 On first thought, a concept of the Absolute as ancestor to all things—even the Trinity—seems to afford transitory satisfaction of consistency gratification and philosophic unification, but any such conclusion is invalidated by the actuality of the eternity of the Paradise Trinity. We are taught, and we believe, that the Universal Father and his Trinity associates are eternal in nature and existence. There is, then, but one consistent philosophic conclusion, and that is: The Absolute is, to all universe intelligences, the impersonal and co-ordinate reaction of the Trinity (of Trinities) to all basic and primary space situations, intrauniversal and extrauniversal. To all personality intelligences of the grand universe the Paradise Trinity forever stands in finality, eternity, supremacy, and ultimacy and, for all practical purposes of personal comprehension and creature realization, as absolute.

56:9.5 As creature minds may view this problem, they are led to the final postulate of the Universal I AM as the primal cause and the unqualified source of both the Trinity and the Absolute. When, therefore, we crave to entertain a personal concept of the Absolute, we revert to our ideas and ideals of the Paradise Father. When we desire to facilitate comprehension or to augment consciousness of this otherwise impersonal Absolute, we revert to the fact that the Universal Father is the existential Father of absolute personality; the Eternal Son is the Absolute Person, though not, in the experiential sense, the personalization of the Absolute. And then we go on to envisage the experiential Trinities as culminating in the experiential personalization of the Deity Absolute, while conceiving the Universal Absolute as constituting the universe and the extrauniverse phenomena of the manifest presence of the impersonal activities of the unified and co-ordinated Deity associations of supremacy, ultimacy, and infinity—the Trinity of Trinities.

56:9.6 God the Father is discernible on all levels from the finite to the infinite, and though his creatures from Paradise to the evolutionary worlds have variously perceived him, only the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit know him as an infinity.

56:9.7Spiritual personality is absolute only on Paradise, and the concept of the Absolute is unqualified only in infinity. Deity presence is absolute only on Paradise, and the revelation of God must always be partial, relative, and progressive until his power becomes experientially infinite in the space potency of the Unqualified Absolute, while his personality manifestation becomes experientially infinite in the manifest presence of the Deity Absolute, and while these two potentials of infinity become reality-unified in the Universal Absolute.

56:9.8 But beyond subinfinite levels the three Absolutes are one, and thereby is infinity Deity-realized regardless of whether any other order of existence ever self-realizes consciousness of infinity.

56:9.9 Existential status in eternity implies existential self-consciousness of infinity, even though another eternity may be required to experience self-realization of the experiential potentialities inherent in an infinity eternity—an eternal infinity.

56:9.10 And God the Father is the personal source of all manifestations of Deity and reality to all intelligent creatures and spirit beings throughout all the universe of universes. As personalities, now or in the successive universe experiences of the eternal future, no matter if you achieve the attainment of God the Sevenfold, comprehend God the Supreme, find God the Ultimate, or attempt to grasp the concept of God the Absolute, you will discover to your eternal satisfaction that in the consummation of each adventure you have, on new experiential levels, rediscovered the eternal God—the Paradise Father of all universe personalities.

56:9.11 The Universal Father is the explanation of universal unity as it must be supremely, even ultimately, realized in the postultimate unity of absolute values and meanings—unqualified Reality.

56:9.12 The Master Force Organizers go out into space and mobilize its energies to become gravity responsive to the Paradise pull of the Universal Father; and subsequently there come the Creator Sons, who organize these gravity-responding forces into inhabited universes and therein evolve intelligent creatures who receive unto themselves the spirit of the Paradise Father and subsequently ascend to the Father to become like him in all possible divinity attributes.

56:9.13 The ceaseless and expanding march of the Paradise creative forces through space seems to presage the ever-extending domain of the gravity grasp of the Universal Father and the never-ending multiplication of varied types of intelligent creatures who are able to love God and be loved by him, and who, by thus becoming God-knowing, may choose to be like him, may elect to attain Paradise and find God.

56:9.14 The universe of universes is altogether unified. God is one in power and personality. There is co-ordination of all levels of energy and all phases of personality. Philosophically and experientially, in concept and in reality, all things and beings center in the Paradise Father. God is all and in all, and no things or beings exist without him.

10. TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOODNESS

56:10.1 As the worlds settled in life and light progress from the initial stage to the seventh epoch, they successively grasp for the realization of the reality of God the Sevenfold, ranging from the adoration of the Creator Son to the worship of his Paradise Father. Throughout the continuing seventh stage of such a world’s history the ever-progressing mortals grow in the knowledge of God the Supreme, while they vaguely discern the reality of the overshadowing ministry of God the Ultimate.

56:10.2 Throughout this glorious age the chief pursuit of the ever-advancing mortals is the quest for a better understanding and a fuller realization of the comprehensible elements of Deity—truth, beauty, and goodness. This represents man’s effort to discern God in mind, matter, and spirit. And as the mortal pursues this quest, he finds himself increasingly absorbed in the experiential study of philosophy, cosmology, and divinity.

56:10.3 Philosophy you somewhat grasp, and divinity you comprehend in worship, social service, and personal spiritual experience, but the pursuit of beauty—cosmology—you all too often limit to the study of man’s crude artistic endeavors. Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man—the creature becoming perfect as is the Creator—that is the supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art.

56:10.4 Hence materialism, atheism, is the maximation of ugliness, the climax of the finite antithesis of the beautiful. Highest beauty consists in the panorama of the unification of the variations which have been born of pre-existent harmonious reality.

56:10.5 The attainment of cosmologic levels of thought includes:

56:10.6 1. Curiosity. Hunger for harmony and thirst for beauty. Persistent attempts to discover new levels of harmonious cosmic relationships.

56:10.7 2. Aesthetic appreciation. Love of the beautiful and ever-advancing appreciation of the artistic touch of all creative manifestations on all levels of reality.

56:10.8 3. Ethic sensitivity. Through the realization of truth the appreciation of beauty leads to the sense of the eternal fitness of those things which impinge upon the recognition of divine goodness in Deity relations with all beings; and thus even cosmology leads to the pursuit of divine reality values—to God-consciousness.

56:10.9 The worlds settled in light and life are so fully concerned with the comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because these quality values embrace the revelation of Deity to the realms of time and space. The meanings of eternal truth make a combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual natures of mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe. Divine goodness represents the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind, therein to be perceived and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual level of human comprehension.

56:10.10 Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, presenting the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion—experiential perfection-hunger.

56:10.11 The existence of beauty implies the presence of appreciative creature mind just as certainly as the fact of progressive evolution indicates the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the harmonious time-space synthesis of the far-flung diversification of phenomenal reality, all of which stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness.

56:10.12 Goodness is the mental recognition of the relative values of the diverse levels of divine perfection. The recognition of goodness implies a mind of moral status, a personal mind with ability to discriminate between good and evil. But the possession of goodness, greatness, is the measure of real divinity attainment.

56:10.13 The recognition of true relations implies a mind competent to discriminate between truth and error. The bestowal Spirit of Truth which invests the human minds of Urantia is unerringly responsive to truth—the living spirit relationship of all things and all beings as they are co-ordinated in the eternal ascent Godward.

56:10.14 Every impulse of every electron, thought, or spirit is an acting unit in the whole universe. Only sin is isolated and evil gravity resisting on the mental and spiritual levels. The universe is a whole; no thing or being exists or lives in isolation. Self-realization is potentially evil if it is antisocial. It is literally true: “No man lives by himself.” Cosmic socialization constitutes the highest form of personality unification. Said Jesus: He who would be greatest among you, let him become server of all.”

56:10.15 Even truth, beauty, and goodness—man’s intellectual approach to the universe of mind, matter, and spirit—must be combined into one unified concept of a divine and supreme ideal. As mortal personality unifies the human experience with matter, mind, and spirit, so does this divine and supreme ideal become power-unified in Supremacy and then personalized as a God of fatherly love.

56:10.16 All insight into the relations of the parts to any given whole requires an understanding grasp of the relation of all parts to that whole; and in the universe this means the relation of created parts to the Creative Whole. Deity thus becomes the transcendental, even the infinite, goal of universal and eternal attainment.

56:10.17 Universal beauty is the recognition of the reflection of the Isle of Paradise in the material creation, while eternal truth is the special ministry of the Paradise Sons who not only bestow themselves upon the mortal races but even pour out their Spirit of Truth upon all peoples. Divine goodness is more fully shown forth in the loving ministry of the manifold personalities of the Infinite Spirit. But love, the sum total of these three qualities, is man’s perception of God as his spirit Father.

56:10.18 Physical matter is the time-space shadow of the Paradise energy-shining of the absolute Deities. Truth meanings are the mortal-intellect repercussions of the eternal word of Deity—the time-space comprehension of supreme concepts. The goodness values of divinity are the merciful ministries of the spirit personalities of the Universal, the Eternal, and the Infinite to the time-space finite creatures of the evolutionary spheres.

56:10.19 These meaningful reality values of divinity are blended in the Father’s relation with each personal creature as divine love. They are co-ordinated in the Son and his Sons as divine mercy. They manifest their qualities through the Spirit and his spirit children as divine ministry, the portrayal of loving mercy to the children of time. These three divinities are primarily manifested by the Supreme Being as power-personality synthesis. They are variously shown forth by God the Sevenfold in seven differing associations of divine meanings and values on seven ascending levels.

56:10.20 To finite man truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. The advanced mortals on a world in the seventh stage of light and life have learned that love is the greatest thing in the universe—and they know that God is love.

56:10.21 Love is the desire to do good to others.

56:10.22 [Presented by a Mighty Messenger visiting on Urantia, by request of the Nebadon Revelatory Corps and in collaboration with a certain Melchizedek, the vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia.]

56:10.23 This paper on Universal Unity is the twenty-fifth of a series of presentations by various authors, having been sponsored as a group by a commission of Nebadon personalities numbering twelve and 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 1934 of Urantia time.

These papers were sponsored by a Corps of Local Universe Personalities
acting by authority of Gabriel of Salvington.

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 365 1/4 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 gasses 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.

57:5.12The 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.

57:6.2The 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.]

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-billionth 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 in 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.]