PAPER 52
PLANETARY MORTAL EPOCHS
52:0.1 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. Post-Bestowal 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. POST-BESTOWAL 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 POST-BESTOWAL 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.
