PAPER 9
RELATION OF THE INFINITE SPIRIT TO THE
UNIVERSE
9:0.1 A STRANGE thing occurred when, in the presence
of Paradise, the Universal Father and the Eternal Son unite to personalize
themselves. Nothing in this eternity situation foreshadows that the Conjoint
Actor would personalize as an unlimited spirituality co-ordinated with
absolute mind and endowed with unique prerogatives of energy manipulation. His
coming into being completes the Father's liberation from the bonds of
centralized perfection and from the fetters of personality absolutism. And
this liberation is disclosed in the amazing power of the Conjoint Creator to
create beings well adapted to serve as ministering spirits even to the
material creatures of the subsequently evolving universes.
9:0.2 The Father is infinite in love and volition,
in spiritual thought and purpose; he is the universal upholder. The Son is
infinite in wisdom and truth, in spiritual expression and interpretation; he
is the universal revealer. Paradise is infinite in potential for force
endowment and in capacity for energy dominance; it is the universal
stabilizer. The Conjoint Actor possesses unique prerogatives of synthesis,
infinite capacity to co-ordinate all existing universe energies, all actual
universe spirits, and all real universe intellects; the Third Source and
Center is the universal unifier of the manifold energies and diverse creations
which have appeared in consequence of the divine plan and the eternal purpose
of the Universal Father.
9:0.3 The Infinite Spirit, the Conjoint Creator, is
a universal and divine minister. The Spirit unceasingly ministers the Son's
mercy and the Father's love, even in harmony with the stable, unvarying, and
righteous justice of the Paradise Trinity. His influence and personalities are
ever near you; they really know and truly understand you.
9:0.4 Throughout the universes the agencies of the
Conjoint Actor ceaselessly manipulate the forces and energies of all space.
Like the First Source and Center, the Third is responsive to both the
spiritual and the material. The Conjoint Actor is the revelation of the unity
of God, in whom all things consist -- things, meanings, and values; energies,
minds, and spirits.
9:0.5 The Infinite Spirit pervades all space; he
indwells the circle of eternity; and the Spirit, like the Father and the Son,
is perfect and changeless -- absolute.
1. ATTRIBUTES OF THE THIRD SOURCE AND CENTER
9:1.1 The Third Source and Center is known by many
names, all designative of relationship and in recognition of function: As God
the Spirit, he is the personality co-ordinate and divine equal of God the Son
and God the Father. As the Infinite Spirit, he is an omnipresent spiritual
influence. As the Universal Manipulator, he is the ancestor of the
power-control creatures and the activator of the cosmic forces of space. As
the Conjoint Actor, he is the joint representative and partnership executive
of the Father-Son. As the Absolute Mind, he is the source of the endowment of
intellect throughout the universes. As the God of Action, he is the apparent
ancestor of motion, change, and relationship.
9:1.2 Some of the attributes of the Third Source and
Center are derived from the Father, some from the Son, while still others are
not observed to be actively and personally present in either the Father or the
Son -- attributes that can hardly be explained except by assuming that the
Father-Son partnership which eternalizes the Third Source and Center
consistently functions in consonance with, and in recognition of, the eternal
fact of the absoluteness of Paradise. The Conjoint Creator embodies the
fullness of the combined and infinite concepts of the First and Second Persons
of Deity.
9:1.3 While you envisage the Father as an original
creator and the Son as a spiritual administrator, you should think of the
Third Source and Center as a universal co-ordinator, a minister of unlimited
co-operation. The Conjoint Actor is the correlator of all actual reality; he
is the Deity repository of the Father's thought and the Son's word and in
action is eternally regardful of the material absoluteness of the central
Isle. The Paradise Trinity has ordained the universal order of
progress, and the providence of God is the domain of the Conjoint
Creator and the evolving Supreme Being. No actual or actualizing reality can
escape eventual relationship with the Third Source and Center.
9:1.4 The Universal Father presides over the realms
of pre-energy, prespirit, and personality; the Eternal Son dominates the
spheres of spiritual activities; the presence of the Isle of Paradise unifies
the domain of physical energy and materializing power; the Conjoint Actor
operates not only as an infinite spirit representing the Son but also as a
universal manipulator of the forces and energies of Paradise, thus bringing
into existence the universal and absolute mind. The Conjoint Actor functions
throughout the grand universe as a positive and distinct personality,
especially in the higher spheres of spiritual values, physical-energy
relationships, and true mind meanings. He functions specifically wherever and
whenever energy and spirit associate and interact; he dominates all reactions
with mind, wields great power in the spiritual world, and exerts a mighty
influence over energy and matter. At all times the Third Source is expressive
of the nature of the First Source and Center.
9:1.5 The Third Source and Center perfectly and
without qualification shares the omnipresence of the First Source and Center,
sometimes being called the Omnipresent Spirit. In a peculiar and very personal
manner the God of mind shares the omniscience of the Universal Father and his
Eternal Son; the knowledge of the Spirit is profound and complete. The
Conjoint Creator manifests certain phases of the omnipotence of the Universal
Father but is actually omnipotent only in the domain of mind. The Third Person
of Deity is the intellectual center and the universal administrator of the
mind realms; herein is he absolute -- his sovereignty is
unqualified.
9:1.6 The Conjoint Actor seems to be motivated by
the Father-Son partnership, but all his actions appear to recognize the
Father-Paradise relationship. At times and in certain functions he seems to
compensate for the incompleteness of the development of the experiential
Deities -- God the Supreme and God the Ultimate.
9:1.7 And herein is an infinite mystery: That the
Infinite simultaneously revealed his infinity in the Son and as Paradise, and
then there springs into existence a being equal to God in divinity, reflective
of the Son's spiritual nature, and capable of activating the Paradise pattern,
a being provisionally subordinate in sovereignty but in many ways apparently
the most versatile in action. And such apparent superiority in action
is disclosed in an attribute of the Third Source and Center which is superior
even to physical gravity -- the universal manifestation of the Isle of
Paradise.
9:1.8 In addition to this supercontrol of energy and
things physical, the Infinite Spirit is superbly endowed with those attributes
of patience, mercy, and love which are so exquisitely revealed in his
spiritual ministry. The Spirit is supremely competent to minister love and to
overshadow justice with mercy. God the Spirit possesses all the supernal
kindness and merciful affection of the Original and Eternal Son. The universe
of your origin is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer
of suffering; but those who wield the hammer are the children of mercy, the
spirit offspring of the Infinite Spirit.
2. THE OMNIPRESENT SPIRIT
9:2.1 God is spirit in a threefold sense: He himself
is spirit; in his Son he appears as spirit without qualification; in the
Conjoint Actor, as spirit allied with mind. And in addition to these spiritual
realities, we think we discern levels of experiential spirit phenomena -- the
spirits of the Supreme Being, Ultimate Deity, and Deity Absolute.
9:2.2 The Infinite Spirit is just as much a
complement of the Eternal Son as the Son is a complement of the Universal
Father. The Eternal Son is a spiritualized personalization of the Father; the
Infinite Spirit is a personalized spiritualization of the Eternal Son and the
Universal Father.
9:2.3 There are many untrammeled lines of spiritual
force and sources of supermaterial power linking the people of Urantia
directly with the Deities of Paradise. There exist the connection of the
Thought Adjusters direct with the Universal Father, the widespread influence
of the spiritual-gravity urge of the Eternal Son, and the spiritual presence
of the Conjoint Creator. There is a difference in function between the spirit
of the Son and the spirit of the Spirit. The Third Person in his spiritual
ministry may function as mind plus spirit or as spirit alone.
9:2.4 In addition to these Paradise presences,
Urantians benefit by the spiritual influences and activities of the local and
the superuniverse, with their almost endless array of loving personalities who
ever lead the true of purpose and the honest of heart upward and inward
towards the ideals of divinity and the goal of supreme perfection.
9:2.5 The presence of the universal spirit of the
Eternal Son we know -- we can unmistakably recognize it. The presence
of the Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity, even mortal man may know,
for material creatures can actually experience the beneficence of this divine
influence which functions as the Holy Spirit of local universe bestowal upon
the races of mankind. Human beings can also in some degree become conscious of
the Adjuster, the impersonal presence of the Universal Father. These divine
spirits which work for man's uplifting and spiritualization all act in unison
and in perfect co-operation. They are as one in the spiritual operation of the
plans of mortal ascension and perfection attainment.
3. THE UNIVERSAL MANIPULATOR
9:3.1 The Isle of Paradise is the source and
substance of physical gravity; and that should be sufficient to inform you
that gravity is one of the most real and eternally dependable things in
the whole physical universe of universes. Gravity cannot be modified or
annulled except by the forces and energies conjointly sponsored by the Father
and the Son, which have been intrusted to, and are functionally associated
with, the person of the Third Source and Center.
9:3.2 The Infinite Spirit possesses a unique and
amazing power -- antigravity. This power is not functionally
(observably) present in either the Father or the Son. This ability to
withstand the pull of material gravity, inherent in the Third Source, is
revealed in the personal reactions of the Conjoint Actor to certain phases of
universe relationships. And this unique attribute is transmissible to certain
of the higher personalities of the Infinite Spirit.
9:3.3 Antigravity can annul gravity within a local
frame; it does so by the exercise of equal force presence. It operates only
with reference to material gravity, and it is not the action of mind. The
gravity-resistant phenomenon of a gyroscope is a fair illustration of the
effect of antigravity but of no value to illustrate the cause of
antigravity.
9:3.4 Still further does the Conjoint Actor display
powers which can transcend force and neutralize energy. Such powers operate by
slowing down energy to the point of materialization and by other techniques
unknown to you.
9:3.5 The Conjoint Creator is not energy nor the
source of energy nor the destiny of energy; he is the manipulator of
energy. The Conjoint Creator is action -- motion, change, modification,
co-ordination, stabilization, and equilibrium. The energies subject to the
direct or indirect control of Paradise are by nature responsive to the acts of
the Third Source and Center and his manifold agencies.
9:3.6 The universe of universes is permeated by the
power-control creatures of the Third Source and Center: physical controllers,
power directors, power centers, and other representatives of the God of Action
who have to do with the regulation and stabilization of physical energies.
These unique creatures of physical function all possess varying attributes of
power control, such as antigravity, which they utilize in their efforts to
establish the physical equilibrium of the matter and energies of the grand
universe.
9:3.7 All these material activities of the God of
Action appear to relate his function to the Isle of Paradise, and indeed the
agencies of power are all regardful of, even dependent on, the absoluteness of
the eternal Isle. But the Conjoint Actor does not act for, or in response to,
Paradise. He acts, personally, for the Father and the Son. Paradise is not a
person. The nonpersonal, impersonal, and otherwise not personal doings of the
Third Source and Center are all volitional acts of the Conjoint Actor himself;
they are not reflections, derivations, or repercussions of anything or
anybody.
9:3.8 Paradise is the pattern of infinity; the God
of Action is the activator of that pattern. Paradise is the material fulcrum
of infinity; the agencies of the Third Source and Center are the levers of
intelligence which motivate the material level and inject spontaneity into the
mechanism of the physical creation.
4. THE ABSOLUTE MIND
9:4.1 There is an intellectual nature of the Third
Source and Center that is distinct from his physical and spiritual attributes.
Such a nature is hardly contactable, but it is associable -- intellectually
though not personally. It is distinguishable from the physical attributes and
the spiritual character of the Third Person on mind levels of function, but to
the discernment of personalities this nature never functions independently of
physical or spiritual manifestations.
9:4.2 The absolute mind is the mind of the Third
Person; it is inseparable from the personality of God the Spirit. Mind, in
functioning beings, is not separated from energy or spirit, or both. Mind is
not inherent in energy; energy is receptive and responsive to mind; mind can
be superimposed upon energy, but consciousness is not inherent in the purely
material level. Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit, for spirit is
innately conscious and identifying. Spirit is always intelligent,
minded in some way. It may be this mind or that mind, it may be premind
or supermind, even spirit mind, but it does the equivalent of thinking and
knowing. The insight of spirit transcends, supervenes, and theoretically
antedates the consciousness of mind.
9:4.3 The Conjoint Creator is absolute only in the
domain of mind, in the realms of universal intelligence. The mind of the Third
Source and Center is infinite; it utterly transcends the active and
functioning mind circuits of the universe of universes. The mind endowment of
the seven superuniverses is derived from the Seven Master Spirits, the primary
personalities of the Conjoint Creator. These Master Spirits distribute mind to
the grand universe as the cosmic mind, and your local universe is pervaded by
the Nebadon variant of the Orvonton type of cosmic mind.
9:4.4 Infinite mind ignores time, ultimate mind
transcends time, cosmic mind is conditioned by time. And so with space: The
Infinite Mind is independent of space, but as descent is made from the
infinite to the adjutant levels of mind, intellect must increasingly reckon
with the fact and limitations of space.
9:4.5 Cosmic force responds to mind even as cosmic
mind responds to spirit. Spirit is divine purpose, and spirit mind is divine
purpose in action. Energy is thing, mind is meaning, spirit is value. Even in
time and space, mind establishes those relative relationships between energy
and spirit which are suggestive of mutual kinship in eternity.
9:4.6 Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the
meanings of intellect; volition has power to bring the meanings of mind to
fruit in both the material and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves
a relative and differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The
personality is the unifier of these components of experiential individuality.
5. THE MINISTRY OF MIND
9:5.1 The Third Source and Center is infinite in
mind. If the universe should grow to infinity, still his mind potential would
be adequate to endow limitless numbers of creatures with suitable minds and
other prerequisites of intellect.
9:5.2 In the domain of created mind the Third
Person, with his co-ordinate and subordinate associates, rules supreme. The
realms of creature mind are of exclusive origin in the Third Source and
Center; he is the bestower of mind. Even the Father fragments find it
impossible to indwell the minds of men until the way has been properly
prepared for them by the mind action and spiritual function of the Infinite
Spirit.
9:5.3 The unique feature of mind is that it can be
bestowed upon such a wide range of life. Through his creative and creature
associates the Third Source and Center ministers to all minds on all spheres.
He ministers to human and subhuman intellect through the adjutants of the
local universes and, through the agency of the physical controllers, ministers
even to the lowest nonexperiencing entities of the most primitive types of
living things. And always is the direction of mind a ministry of mind-spirit
or mind-energy personalities.
9:5.4 Since the Third Person of Deity is the source
of mind, it is quite natural that the evolutionary will creatures find it
easier to form comprehensible concepts of the Infinite Spirit than they do of
either the Eternal Son or the Universal Father. The reality of the Conjoint
Creator is disclosed imperfectly in the very existence of human mind. The
Conjoint Creator is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and the mind of man is an
individualized circuit, an impersonal portion, of that cosmic mind as it is
bestowed in a local universe by a Creative Daughter of the Third Source and
Center.
9:5.5 Because the Third Person is the source of
mind, do not presume to reckon that all phenomena of mind are divine. Human
intellect is rooted in the material origin of the animal races. Universe
intelligence is no more a true revelation of God who is mind than is physical
nature a true revelation of the beauty and harmony of Paradise. Perfection is
in nature, but nature is not perfect. The Conjoint Creator is the source of
mind, but mind is not the Conjoint Creator.
9:5.6 Mind, on Urantia, is a compromise between the
essence of thought perfection and the evolving mentality of your immature
human nature. The plan for your intellectual evolution is, indeed, one of
sublime perfection, but you are far short of that divine goal as you function
in the tabernacles of the flesh. Mind is truly of divine origin, and it does
have a divine destiny, but your mortal minds are not yet of divine
dignity.
9:5.7 Too often, all too often, you mar your minds
by insincerity and sear them with unrighteousness; you subject them to animal
fear and distort them by useless anxiety. Therefore, though the source of mind
is divine, mind as you know it on your world of ascension can hardly become
the object of great admiration, much less of adoration or worship. The
contemplation of the immature and inactive human intellect should lead only to
reactions of humility.
6. THE MIND-GRAVITY CIRCUIT
9:6.1 The Third Source and Center, the universal
intelligence, is personally conscious of every mind, every intellect,
in all creation, and he maintains a personal and perfect contact with all
these physical, morontial, and spiritual creatures of mind endowment in the
far-flung universes. All these activities of mind are grasped in the absolute
mind-gravity circuit which focalizes in the Third Source and Center and is a
part of the personal consciousness of the Infinite Spirit.
9:6.2 Much as the Father draws all personality to
himself, and as the Son attracts all spiritual reality, so does the Conjoint
Actor exercise a drawing power on all minds; he unqualifiedly dominates and
controls the universal mind circuit. All true and genuine intellectual values,
all divine thoughts and perfect ideas, are unerringly drawn into this absolute
circuit of mind.
9:6.3 Mind gravity can operate independently of
material and spiritual gravity, but wherever and whenever the latter two
impinge, mind gravity always functions. When all three are associated,
personality gravity may embrace the material creature -- physical or
morontial, finite or absonite. But irrespective of this, the endowment of mind
even in impersonal beings qualifies them to think and endows them with
consciousness despite the total absence of personality.
9:6.4 Selfhood of personality dignity, human or
divine, immortal or potentially immortal, does not however originate in either
spirit, mind, or matter; it is the bestowal of the Universal Father. Neither
is the interaction of spirit, mind, and material gravity a prerequisite to the
appearance of personality gravity. The Father's circuit may embrace a
mind-material being who is unresponsive to spirit gravity, or it may include a
mind-spirit being who is unresponsive to material gravity. The operation of
personality gravity is always a volitional act of the Universal
Father.
9:6.5 While mind is energy associated in purely
material beings and spirit associated in purely spiritual personalities,
innumerable orders of personality, including the human, possess minds that are
associated with both energy and spirit. The spiritual aspects of creature mind
unfailingly respond to the spirit-gravity pull of the Eternal Son; the
material features respond to the gravity urge of the material universe.
9:6.6 Cosmic mind, when not associated with either
energy or spirit, is subject to the gravity demands of neither material nor
spiritual circuits. Pure mind is subject only to the universal gravity grasp
of the Conjoint Actor. Pure mind is close of kin to infinite mind, and
infinite mind (the theoretical co-ordinate of the absolutes of spirit and
energy) is apparently a law in itself.
9:6.7 The greater the spirit-energy divergence, the
greater the observable function of mind; the lesser the diversity of energy
and spirit, the lesser the observable function of mind. Apparently, the
maximum function of the cosmic mind is in the time universes of space. Here
mind seems to function in a mid-zone between energy and spirit, but this is
not true of the higher levels of mind; on Paradise, energy and spirit are
essentially one.
9:6.8 The mind-gravity circuit is dependable; it
emanates from the Third Person of Deity on Paradise, but not all the
observable function of mind is predictable. Throughout all known creation
there parallels this circuit of mind some little-understood presence whose
function is not predictable. We believe that this unpredictability is partly
attributable to the function of the Universal Absolute. What this function is,
we do not know; what actuates it, we can only conjecture; concerning its
relation to creatures, we can only speculate.
9:6.9 Certain phases of the unpredictability of
finite mind may be due to the incompleteness of the Supreme Being, and there
is a vast zone of activities wherein the Conjoint Actor and the Universal
Absolute may possibly be tangent. There is much about mind that is unknown,
but of this we are sure: The Infinite Spirit is the perfect expression of the
mind of the Creator to all creatures; the Supreme Being is the evolving
expression of the minds of all creatures to their Creator.
7. UNIVERSE REFLECTIVITY
9:7.1 The Conjoint Actor is able to co-ordinate all
levels of universe actuality in such manner as to make possible the
simultaneous recognition of the mental, the material, and the spiritual. This
is the phenomenon of universe reflectivity, that unique and
inexplicable power to see, hear, sense, and know all things as they transpire
throughout a superuniverse, and to focalize, by reflectivity, all this
information and knowledge at any desired point. The action of reflectivity is
shown in perfection on each of the headquarters worlds of the seven
superuniverses. It is also operative throughout all sectors of the
superuniverses and within the boundaries of the local universes. Reflectivity
finally focalizes on Paradise.
9:7.2 The phenomenon of reflectivity, as it is
disclosed on the superuniverse headquarters worlds in the amazing performances
of the reflective personalities there stationed, represents the most complex
interassociation of all phases of existence to be found in all creation. Lines
of spirit can be traced back to the Son, physical energy to Paradise, and mind
to the Third Source; but in the extraordinary phenomenon of universe
reflectivity there is a unique and exceptional unification of all three, so
associated as to enable the universe rulers to know about remote conditions
instantaneously, simultaneously with their occurrence.
9:7.3 Much of the technique of reflectivity we
comprehend, but there are many phases which truly baffle us. We know that the
Conjoint Actor is the universe center of the mind circuit, that he is the
ancestor of the cosmic mind, and that cosmic mind operates under the dominance
of the absolute mind gravity of the Third Source and Center. We know further
that the circuits of the cosmic mind influence the intellectual levels of all
known existence; they contain the universal space reports, and just as
certainly they focus in the Seven Master Spirits and converge in the Third
Source and Center.
9:7.4 The relationship between the finite cosmic
mind and the divine absolute mind appears to be evolving in the experiential
mind of the Supreme. We are taught that, in the dawn of time, this
experiential mind was bestowed upon the Supreme by the Infinite Spirit, and we
conjecture that certain features of the phenomenon of reflectivity can be
accounted for only by postulating the activity of the Supreme Mind. If the
Supreme is not concerned in reflectivity, we are at a loss to explain the
intricate transactions and unerring operations of this consciousness of the
cosmos.
9:7.5 Reflectivity appears to be omniscience within
the limits of the experiential finite and may represent the emergence of the
presence-consciousness of the Supreme Being. If this assumption is true, then
the utilization of reflectivity in any of its phases is equivalent to partial
contact with the consciousness of the Supreme.
8. PERSONALITIES OF THE INFINITE SPIRIT
9:8.1 The Infinite Spirit possesses full power to
transmit many of his powers and prerogatives to his co-ordinate and
subordinate personalities and agencies.
9:8.2 The first Deity-creating act of the Infinite
Spirit, functioning apart from the Trinity but in some unrevealed association
with the Father and the Son, personalized in the existence of the Seven Master
Spirits of Paradise, the distributors of the Infinite Spirit to the
universes.
9:8.3 There is no direct representative of the Third
Source and Center on the headquarters of a superuniverse. Each of these seven
creations is dependent on one of the Master Spirits of Paradise, who acts
through the seven Reflective Spirits situated at the capital of the
superuniverse.
9:8.4 The next and continuing creative act of the
Infinite Spirit is disclosed, from time to time, in the production of the
Creative Spirits. Every time the Universal Father and the Eternal Son become
parent to a Creator Son, the Infinite Spirit becomes ancestor to a local
universe Creative Spirit who becomes the close associate of that Creator Son
in all subsequent universe experience.
9:8.5 Just as it is necessary to distinguish between
the Eternal Son and the Creator Sons, so it is necessary to differentiate
between the Infinite Spirit and the Creative Spirits, the local universe
co-ordinates of the Creator Sons. What the Infinite Spirit is to the total
creation, a Creative Spirit is to a local universe.
9:8.6 The Third Source and Center is represented in
the grand universe by a vast array of ministering spirits, messengers,
teachers, adjudicators, helpers, and advisers, together with supervisors of
certain circuits of physical, morontial, and spiritual nature. Not all of
these beings are personalities in the strict meaning of the term. Personality
of the finite-creature variety is characterized by:
1. Subjective self-consciousness.
2. Objective response to the Father's personality
circuit.
9:8.7 There are creator personalities and creature
personalities, and in addition to these two fundamental types there are
personalities of the Third Source and Center, beings who are personal
to the Infinite Spirit, but who are not unqualifiedly personal to creature
beings. These Third Source personalities are not a part of the Father's
personality circuit. First Source personality and Third Source personality are
mutually contactable; all personality is contactable.
9:8.8 The Father bestows personality by his personal
free will. Why he does so we can only conjecture; how he does so we do not
know. Neither do we know why the Third Source bestows non-Father personality,
but this the Infinite Spirit does in his own behalf, in creative conjunction
with the Eternal Son and in numerous ways unknown to you. The Infinite Spirit
can also act for the Father in the bestowal of First Source personality.
9:8.9 There are numerous types of Third Source
personalities. The Infinite Spirit bestows Third Source personality upon
numerous groups who are not included in the Father's personality circuit, such
as certain of the power directors. Likewise does the Infinite Spirit treat as
personalities numerous groups of beings, such as the Creative Spirits, who are
in a class by themselves in their relations to encircuited creatures of the
Father.
9:8.10 Both First Source and Third Source
personalities are endowed with all and more than man associates with the
concept of personality; they have minds embracing memory, reason, judgment,
creative imagination, idea association, decision, choice, and numerous
additional powers of intellect wholly unknown to mortals. With few exceptions
the orders revealed to you possess form and distinct individuality; they are
real beings. A majority of them are visible to all orders of spirit
existence.
9:8.11 Even you will be able to see your spiritual
associates of the lower orders as soon as you are delivered from the limited
vision of your present material eyes and have been endowed with a morontia
form with its enlarged sensitivity to the reality of spiritual
things.
9:8.12 The functional family of the Third Source
and Center, as it is revealed in these narratives, falls into three great
groups:
9:8.13 I. The Supreme Spirits. A group of
composite origin that embraces, among others, the following orders:
1. The Seven Master Spirits of Paradise.
2. The Reflective Spirits of the Superuniverses.
3. The Creative Spirits of the Local
Universes.
9:8.14 II. The Power Directors. A group of
control creatures and agencies that function throughout all organized space.
9:8.15 III. The Personalities of the Infinite
Spirit. This designation does not necessarily imply that these beings are
Third Source personalities though some of them are unique as will creatures.
They are usually grouped in three major classifications:
1. The Higher Personalities of the Infinite
Spirit.
2. The Messenger Hosts of Space.
3. The Ministering Spirits of Time.
9:8.16 These groups serve on Paradise, in the
central or residential universe, in the superuniverses, and they embrace
orders that function in the local universes, even to the constellations,
systems, and planets.
9:8.17 The spirit personalities of the vast family
of the Divine and Infinite Spirit are forever dedicated to the service of the
ministry of the love of God and the mercy of the Son to all the intelligent
creatures of the evolutionary worlds of time and space. These spirit beings
constitute the living ladder whereby mortal man climbs from chaos to glory.
9:8.18 Revealed on
Urantia by a Divine Counselor of Uversa commissioned by the Ancients of Days
to portray the nature and work of the Infinite Spirit.
