PAPER 36
THE LIFE CARRIERS
36:0.1 LIFE does not originate spontaneously. Life
is constructed according to plans formulated by the (unrevealed) Architects of
Being and appears on the inhabited planets either by direct importation or as
a result of the operations of the Life Carriers of the local universes. These
carriers of life are among the most interesting and versatile of the diverse
family of universe Sons. They are intrusted with designing and carrying
creature life to the planetary spheres. And after planting this life on such
new worlds, they remain there for long periods to foster its development.
1. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE CARRIERS
36:1.1 Though the Life Carriers belong to the family
of divine sonship, they are a peculiar and distinct type of universe Sons,
being the only group of intelligent life in a local universe in whose creation
the rulers of a superuniverse participate. The Life Carriers are the offspring
of three pre-existent personalities: the Creator Son, the Universe Mother
Spirit, and, by designation, one of the three Ancients of Days presiding over
the destinies of the superuniverse concerned. These Ancients of Days, who
alone can decree the extinction of intelligent life, participate in the
creation of the Life Carriers, who are intrusted with establishing physical
life on the evolving worlds.
36:1.2 In the universe of Nebadon we have on record
the creation of one hundred million Life Carriers. This efficient corps of
life disseminators is not a truly self-governing group. They are directed by
the life-determining trio, consisting of Gabriel, the Father Melchizedek, and
Nambia, the original and first-born Life Carrier of Nebadon. But in all phases
of their divisional administration they are self-governing.
36:1.3 Life Carriers are graded into three grand
divisions: The first division is the senior Life Carriers, the second,
assistants, and the third, custodians. The primary division is subdivided into
twelve groups of specialists in the various forms of life manifestation. The
segregation of these three divisions was effected by the Melchizedeks, who
conducted tests for such purposes on the Life Carriers' headquarters sphere.
The Melchizedeks have ever since been closely associated with the Life
Carriers and always accompany them when they go forth to establish life on a
new planet.
36:1.4 When an evolutionary planet is finally
settled in light and life, the Life Carriers are organized into the higher
deliberative bodies of advisory capacity to assist in the further
administration and development of the world and its glorified beings. In the
later and settled ages of an evolving universe these Life Carriers are
intrusted with many new duties.
2. THE LIFE CARRIER WORLDS
36:2.1 The Melchizedeks have the general oversight
of the fourth group of seven primary spheres in the Salvington circuit. These
worlds of the Life Carriers are designated as follows:
1. The Life Carrier headquarters.
2. The life-planning sphere.
3. The life-conservation sphere.
4. The sphere of life evolution.
5. The sphere of life associated with mind.
6. The sphere of mind and spirit in living beings.
7. The sphere of unrevealed life.
36:2.2 Each of these primary spheres is surrounded
by six satellites, on which the special phases of all the Life Carrier
activities in the universe are centered.
36:2.3 World Number One, the headquarters
sphere, together with its six tributary satellites, is devoted to the study of
universal life, life in all of its known phases of manifestation. Here is
located the college of life planning, wherein function teachers and advisers
from Uversa and Havona, even from Paradise. And I am permitted to reveal that
the seven central emplacements of the adjutant mind-spirits are situated on
this world of the Life Carriers.
36:2.4 The number ten -- the decimal system -- is
inherent in the physical universe but not in the spiritual. The domain of life
is characterized by three, seven, and twelve or by multiples and combinations
of these basic numbers. There are three primal and essentially different life
plans, after the order of the three Paradise Sources and Centers, and in the
universe of Nebadon these three basic forms of life are segregated on three
different types of planets. There were, originally, twelve distinct and divine
concepts of transmissible life. This number twelve, with its subdivisions and
multiples, runs throughout all basic life patterns of all seven
superuniverses. There are also seven architectural types of life design,
fundamental arrangements of the reproducing configurations of living matter.
The Orvonton life patterns are configured as twelve inheritance carriers. The
differing orders of will creatures are configured as 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384,
and 768. On Urantia there are forty-eight units of pattern control -- trait
determiners -- in the sex cells of human reproduction.
36:2.5 The Second World is the life-designing
sphere; here all new modes of life organization are worked out. While the
original life designs are provided by the Creator Son, the actual outworking
of these plans is intrusted to the Life Carriers and their associates. When
the general life plans for a new world have been formulated, they are
transmitted to the headquarters sphere, where they are minutely scrutinized by
the supreme council of the senior Life Carriers in collaboration with a corps
of consulting Melchizedeks. If the plans are a departure from previously
accepted formulas, they must be passed upon, and endorsed by, the Creator Son.
The chief of Melchizedeks often represents the Creator Son in these
deliberations.
36:2.6 Planetary life, therefore, while similar in
some respects, differs in many ways on each evolutionary world. Even in a
uniform life series in a single family of worlds, life is not exactly the same
on any two planets; there is always a planetary type, for the Life Carriers
work constantly in an effort to improve the vital formulas committed to their
keeping.
36:2.7 There are over one million fundamental or
cosmic chemical formulas which constitute the parent patterns and the numerous
basic functional variations of life manifestations. Satellite number one of
the life-planning sphere is the realm of the universe physicists and
electrochemists who serve as technical assistants to the Life Carriers in the
work of capturing, organizing, and manipulating the essential units of energy
which are employed in building up the material vehicles of life transmission,
the so-called germ plasm.
36:2.8 The planetary life-planning laboratories are
situated on the second satellite of this world number two. In these
laboratories the Life Carriers and all their associates collaborate with the
Melchizedeks in the effort to modify and possibly improve the life designed
for implantation on the decimal planets of Nebadon. The life now
evolving on Urantia was planned and partially worked out on this very world,
for Urantia is a decimal planet, a life-experiment world. On one world in each
ten a greater variance in the standard life designs is permitted than on the
other (nonexperimental) worlds.
36:2.9 World Number Three is devoted to the
conservation of life. Here various modes of life protection and preservation
are studied and developed by the assistants and custodians of the Life Carrier
corps. The life plans for every new world always provide for the early
establishment of the life-conservation commission, consisting of custodian
specialists in the expert manipulation of the basic life patterns. On Urantia
there were twenty-four such custodian commissioners, two for each fundamental
or parent pattern of the architectural organization of the life material. On
planets such as yours the highest form of life is reproduced by a
life-carrying bundle which possesses twenty-four pattern units. (And since the
intellectual life grows out of, and upon the foundation of, the physical,
there come into existence the four and twenty basic orders of psychic
organization.)
36:2.10 Sphere Number Four and its tributary
satellites are devoted to the study of the evolution of creature life in
general and to the evolutionary antecedents of any one life level in
particular. The original life plasm of an evolutionary world must contain the
full potential for all future developmental variations and for all subsequent
evolutionary changes and modifications. The provision for such far-reaching
projects of life metamorphosis may require the appearance of many apparently
useless forms of animal and vegetable life. Such by-products of planetary
evolution, foreseen or unforeseen, appear upon the stage of action only to
disappear, but in and through all this long process there runs the thread of
the wise and intelligent formulations of the original designers of the
planetary life plan and species scheme. The manifold by-products of biologic
evolution are all essential to the final and full function of the higher
intelligent forms of life, notwithstanding that great outward disharmony may
prevail from time to time in the long upward struggle of the higher creatures
to effect the mastery of the lower forms of life, many of which are sometimes
so antagonistic to the peace and comfort of the evolving will creatures.
36:2.11 Number Five World is concerned wholly
with life associated with mind. Each of its satellites is devoted to the study
of a single phase of creature mind correlated with creature life. Mind such as
man comprehends is an endowment of the seven adjutant mind-spirits
superimposed on the nonteachable or mechanical levels of mind by the agencies
of the Infinite Spirit. The life patterns are variously responsive to these
adjutants and to the different spirit ministries operating throughout the
universes of time and space. The capacity of material creatures to effect
spirit response is entirely dependent on the associated mind endowment, which,
in turn, has directionized the course of the biologic evolution of these same
mortal creatures.
36:2.12 World Number Six is dedicated to the
correlation of mind with spirit as they are associated with living forms and
organisms. This world and its six tributaries embrace the schools of creature
co-ordination, wherein teachers from both the central universe and the
superuniverse collaborate with the Nebadon instructors in presenting the
highest levels of creature attainment in time and space.
36:2.13 The Seventh Sphere of the Life
Carriers is dedicated to the unrevealed domains of evolutionary creature life
as it is related to the cosmic philosophy of the expanding factualization of
the Supreme Being.
3. LIFE TRANSPLANTATION
36:3.1 Life does not spontaneously appear in the
universes; the Life Carriers must initiate it on the barren planets. They are
the carriers, disseminators, and guardians of life as it appears on the
evolutionary worlds of space. All life of the order and forms known on Urantia
arises with these Sons, though not all forms of planetary life are existent on
Urantia.
36:3.2 The corps of Life Carriers commissioned to
plant life upon a new world usually consists of one hundred senior carriers,
one hundred assistants, and one thousand custodians. The Life Carriers often
carry actual life plasm to a new world, but not always. They sometimes
organize the life patterns after arriving on the planet of assignment in
accordance with formulas previously approved for a new adventure in life
establishment. Such was the origin of the planetary life of
Urantia.
36:3.3 When, in accordance with approved formulas,
the physical patterns have been provided, then do the Life Carriers catalyze
this lifeless material, imparting through their persons the vital spirit
spark; and forthwith do the inert patterns become living matter.
36:3.4 The vital spark -- the mystery of life -- is
bestowed through the Life Carriers, not by them. They do indeed supervise such
transactions, they formulate the life plasm itself, but it is the Universe
Mother Spirit who supplies the essential factor of the living plasm. From the
Creative Daughter of the Infinite Spirit comes that energy spark which
enlivens the body and presages the mind.
36:3.5 In the bestowal of life the Life Carriers
transmit nothing of their personal natures, not even on those spheres where
new orders of life are projected. At such times they simply initiate and
transmit the spark of life, start the required revolutions of matter in
accordance with the physical, chemical, and electrical specifications of the
ordained plans and patterns. Life Carriers are living catalytic presences
which agitate, organize, and vitalize the otherwise inert elements of the
material order of existence.
36:3.6 The Life Carriers of a planetary corps are
given a certain period in which to establish life on a new world,
approximately one-half million years of the time of that planet. At the
termination of this period, indicated by certain developmental attainments of
the planetary life, they cease implantation efforts, and they may not
subsequently add any thing new or supplemental to the life of that
planet.
36:3.7 During the ages intervening between life
establishment and the emergence of human creatures of moral status, the Life
Carriers are permitted to manipulate the life environment and otherwise
favorably directionize the course of biologic evolution. And this they do for
long periods of time.
36:3.8 When the Life Carriers operating on a new
world have once succeeded in producing a being with will, with the power of
moral decision and spiritual choice, then and there their work terminates --
they are through; they may manipulate the evolving life no further. From this
point forward the evolution of living things must proceed in accordance with
the endowment of the inherent nature and tendencies which have already been
imparted to, and established in, the planetary life formulas and patterns. The
Life Carriers are not permitted to experiment or to interfere with will; they
are not allowed to dominate or arbitrarily influence moral
creatures.
36:3.9 Upon the arrival of a Planetary Prince they
prepare to leave, though two of the senior carriers and twelve custodians may
volunteer, by taking temporary renunciation vows, to remain indefinitely on
the planet as advisers in the matter of the further development and
conservation of the life plasm. Two such Sons and their twelve associates are
now serving on Urantia.
4. MELCHIZEDEK LIFE CARRIERS
36:4.1 In every local system of inhabited worlds
throughout Nebadon there is a single sphere whereon the Melchizedeks have
functioned as life carriers. These abodes are known as the system
midsonite worlds, and on each of them a materially modified Melchizedek
Son has mated with a selected Daughter of the material order of sonship. The
Mother Eves of such midsonite worlds are dispatched from the system
headquarters of jurisdiction, having been chosen by the designated Melchizedek
life carrier from among the numerous volunteers who respond to the call of the
System Sovereign addressed to the Material Daughters of his sphere.
36:4.2 The progeny of a Melchizedek life carrier and
a Material Daughter are known as midsoniters. The Melchizedek father of
such a race of supernal creatures eventually leaves the planet of his unique
life function, and the Mother Eve of this special order of universe beings
also departs upon the appearance of the seventh generation of planetary
offspring. The direction of such a world then devolves upon her eldest
son.
36:4.3 The midsonite creatures live and function as
reproducing beings on their magnificent worlds until they are one thousand
standard years of age; whereupon they are translated by seraphic transport.
Midsoniters are nonreproducing beings thereafter because the technique of
dematerialization which they pass through in preparation for enseraphiming
forever deprives them of reproductive prerogatives.
36:4.4 The present status of these beings can hardly
be reckoned as either mortal or immortal, neither can they be definitely
classified as human or divine. These creatures are not Adjuster indwelt, hence
hardly immortal. But neither do they seem to be mortal; no midsoniter has
experienced death. All midsoniters ever born in Nebadon are alive today,
functioning on their native worlds, on some intervening sphere, or on the
Salvington midsonite sphere in the finaliters' group of worlds.
36:4.5 The Salvington Worlds of the
Finaliters. The Melchizedek life carriers, as well as the associated
Mother Eves, go from the system midsonite spheres to the finaliters' worlds of
the Salvington circuit, where their offspring are also destined to
forgather.
36:4.6 It should be explained in this connection
that the fifth group of seven primary worlds in the Salvington circuit are the
Nebadon worlds of the finaliters. The children of the Melchizedek life
carriers and the Material Daughters are domiciled on the seventh world of the
finaliters, the Salvington midsonite sphere.
36:4.7 The satellites of the seven primary worlds of
the finaliters are the rendezvous of the personalities of the super- and
central universes who may be executing assignments in Nebadon. While the
ascending mortals go about freely on all of the cultural worlds and training
spheres of the 490 worlds comprising the Melchizedek University, there are
certain special schools and numerous restricted zones which they are not
permitted to enter. This is especially true of the forty-nine spheres under
the jurisdiction of the finaliters.
36:4.8 The purpose of the midsonite creatures is not
at present known, but it would appear that these personalities are
forgathering on the seventh finaliter world in preparation for some future
eventuality in universe evolution. Our inquiries concerning the midsonite
races are always referred to the finaliters, and always do the finaliters
decline to discuss the destiny of their wards. Regardless of our uncertainty
as to the future of the midsoniters, we do know that every local universe in
Orvonton harbors such an accumulating corps of these mysterious beings. It is
the belief of the Melchizedek life carriers that their midsonite children will
some day be endowed with the transcendental and eternal spirit of absonity by
God the Ultimate.
5. THE SEVEN ADJUTANT MIND-SPIRITS
36:5.1 It is the presence of the seven adjutant
mind-spirits on the primitive worlds that conditions the course of organic
evolution; that explains why evolution is purposeful and not accidental. These
adjutants represent that function of the mind ministry of the Infinite Spirit
which is extended to the lower orders of intelligent life through the
operations of a local universe Mother Spirit. The adjutants are the children
of the Universe Mother Spirit and constitute her personal ministry to the
material minds of the realms. Wherever and whenever such mind is manifest,
these spirits are variously functioning.
36:5.2 The seven adjutant mind-spirits are called by
names which are the equivalents of the following designations: intuition,
understanding, courage, knowledge, counsel, worship, and wisdom. These
mind-spirits send forth their influence into all the inhabited worlds as a
differential urge, each seeking receptivity capacity for manifestation quite
apart from the degree to which its fellows may find reception and opportunity
for function.
36:5.3 The central lodgments of the adjutant spirits
on the Life Carrier headquarters world indicate to the Life Carrier
supervisors the extent and quality of the mind function of the adjutants on
any world and in any given living organism of intellect status. These
life-mind emplacements are perfect indicators of living mind function for the
first five adjutants. But with regard to the sixth and seventh adjutant
spirits -- worship and wisdom -- these central lodgments record only a
qualitative function. The quantitative activity of the adjutant of worship and
the adjutant of wisdom is registered in the immediate presence of the Divine
Minister on Salvington, being a personal experience of the Universe Mother
Spirit.
36:5.4 The seven adjutant mind-spirits always
accompany the Life Carriers to a new planet, but they should not be regarded
as entities; they are more like circuits. The spirits of the seven universe
adjutants do not function as personalities apart from the universe presence of
the Divine Minister; they are in fact a level of consciousness of the Divine
Minister and are always subordinate to the action and presence of their
creative mother.
36:5.5 We are handicapped for words adequately to
designate these seven adjutant mind-spirits. They are ministers of the lower
levels of experiential mind, and they may be described, in the order of
evolutionary attainment, as follows:
36:5.6 1. The spirit of intuition -- quick
perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the
directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the
only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal
life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the
nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.
36:5.7 2. The spirit of understanding -- the
impulse of co-ordination, the spontaneous and apparently automatic association
of ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the
phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.
36:5.8 3. The spirit of courage -- the
fidelity endowment -- in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement
and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When
enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the
urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and
conscientious self-direction.
36:5.9 4. The spirit of knowledge -- the
curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide
and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to
direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of
growth.
36:5.10 5. The spirit of counsel -- the
social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability of will
creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious
instinct among the more lowly creatures.
36:5.11 6. The spirit of worship -- the
religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into
the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever
distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of
mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.
36:5.12 7. The spirit of wisdom -- the
inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive
evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit
co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the
secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the
practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift
of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and,
in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and
present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the
other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned.
Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely
mental and moral existence.
36:5.13 The adjutant mind-spirits experientially
grow, but they never become personal. They evolve in function, and the
function of the first five in the animal orders is to a certain extent
essential to the function of all seven as human intellect. This animal
relationship makes the adjutants more practically effective as human mind;
hence animals are to a certain extent indispensable to man's intellectual as
well as to his physical evolution.
36:5.14 These mind-adjutants of a local universe
Mother Spirit are related to creature life of intelligence status much as the
power centers and physical controllers are related to the nonliving forces of
the universe. They perform invaluable service in the mind circuits on the
inhabited worlds and are effective collaborators with the Master Physical
Controllers, who also serve as controllers and directors of the preadjutant
mind levels, the levels of nonteachable or mechanical mind.
36:5.15 Living mind, prior to the appearance of
capacity to learn from experience, is the ministry domain of the Master
Physical Controllers. Creature mind, before acquiring the ability to recognize
divinity and worship Deity, is the exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits.
With the appearance of the spiritual response of the creature intellect, such
created minds at once become superminded, being instantly encircuited in the
spirit cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit.
36:5.16 The adjutant mind-spirits are in no manner
directly related to the diverse and highly spiritual function of the spirit of
the personal presence of the Divine Minister, the Holy Spirit of the inhabited
worlds; but they are functionally antecedent to, and preparatory for, the
appearance of this very spirit in evolutionary man. The adjutants afford the
Universe Mother Spirit a varied contact with, and control over, the material
living creatures of a local universe, but they do not repercuss in the Supreme
Being when acting on prepersonality levels.
36:5.17 Nonspiritual mind is either a spirit-energy
manifestation or a physical-energy phenomenon. Even human mind, personal mind,
has no survival qualities apart from spirit identification. Mind is a divinity
bestowal, but it is not immortal when it functions without spirit insight, and
when it is devoid of the ability to worship and crave survival.
6. LIVING FORCES
36:6.1 Life is both mechanistic and vitalistic --
material and spiritual. Ever will Urantia physicists and chemists progress in
their understanding of the protoplasmic forms of vegetable and animal life,
but never will they be able to produce living organisms. Life is something
different from all energy manifestations; even the material life of physical
creatures is not inherent in matter.
36:6.2 Things material may enjoy an independent
existence, but life springs only from life. Mind can be derived only from
pre-existent mind. Spirit takes origin only from spirit ancestors. The
creature may produce the forms of life, but only a creator personality or a
creative force can supply the activating living spark.
36:6.3 Life Carriers can organize the material
forms, or physical patterns, of living beings, but the Spirit provides the
initial spark of life and bestows the endowment of mind. Even the living forms
of experimental life which the Life Carriers organize on their Salvington
worlds are always devoid of reproductive powers. When the life formulas and
the vital patterns are correctly assembled and properly organized, the
presence of a Life Carrier is sufficient to initiate life, but all such living
organisms are lacking in two essential attributes -- mind endowment and
reproductive powers. Animal mind and human mind are gifts of the local
universe Mother Spirit, functioning through the seven adjutant mind-spirits,
while creature ability to reproduce is the specific and personal impartation
of the Universe Spirit to the ancestral life plasm inaugurated by the Life
Carriers.
36:6.4 When the Life Carriers have designed the
patterns of life, after they have organized the energy systems, there must
occur an additional phenomenon; the "breath of life" must be imparted to these
lifeless forms. The Sons of God can construct the forms of life, but it is the
Spirit of God who really contributes the vital spark. And when the life thus
imparted is spent, then again the remaining material body becomes dead matter.
When the bestowed life is exhausted, the body returns to the bosom of the
material universe from which it was borrowed by the Life Carriers to serve as
a transient vehicle for that life endowment which they conveyed to such a
visible association of energy-matter.
36:6.5 The life bestowed upon plants and animals by
the Life Carriers does not return to the Life Carriers upon the death of plant
or animal. The departing life of such a living thing possesses neither
identity nor personality; it does not individually survive death. During its
existence and the time of its sojourn in the body of matter, it has undergone
a change; it has undergone energy evolution and survives only as a part of the
cosmic forces of the universe; it does not survive as individual life. The
survival of mortal creatures is wholly predicated on the evolvement of an
immortal soul within the mortal mind.
36:6.6 We speak of life as "energy" and as "force,"
but it is really neither. Force-energy is variously gravity responsive; life
is not. Pattern is also nonresponsive to gravity, being a configuration of
energies that have already fulfilled all gravity-responsive obligations. Life,
as such, constitutes the animation of some pattern-configured or otherwise
segregated system of energy -- material, mindal, or spiritual.
36:6.7 There are some things connected with the
elaboration of life on the evolutionary planets which are not altogether clear
to us. We fully comprehend the physical organization of the electrochemical
formulas of the Life Carriers, but we do not wholly understand the nature and
source of the life-activation spark. We know that life flows from the
Father through the Son and by the Spirit. It is more than possible that
the Master Spirits are the sevenfold channel of the river of life which is
poured out upon all creation. But we do not comprehend the technique whereby
the supervising Master Spirit participates in the initial episode of life
bestowal on a new planet. The Ancients of Days, we are confident, also have
some part in this inauguration of life on a new world, but we are wholly
ignorant of the nature thereof. We do know that the Universe Mother Spirit
actually vitalizes the lifeless patterns and imparts to such activated plasm
the prerogatives of organismal reproduction. We observe that these three are
the levels of God the Sevenfold, sometimes designated as the Supreme Creators
of time and space; but otherwise we know little more than Urantia mortals --
simply that concept is inherent in the Father, expression in the Son, and life
realization in the Spirit.
36:6.8 Indited by a
Vorondadek Son stationed on Urantia as an observer and acting in this capacity
by request of the Melchizedek Chief of the Supervising Revelatory
Corps.
