PAPER 66
THE PLANETARY PRINCE OF URANTIA
66:0.1 THE advent of a Lanonandek Son on an average
world signifies that will, the ability to choose the path of eternal survival,
has developed in the mind of primitive man. But on Urantia the Planetary
Prince arrived almost half a million years after the appearance of human
will.
66:0.2 About five hundred thousand years ago and
concurrent with the appearance of the six colored or Sangik races, Caligastia,
the Planetary Prince, arrived on Urantia. There were almost one-half billion
primitive human beings on earth at the time of the Prince's arrival, and they
were well scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Prince's headquarters,
established in Mesopotamia, was at about the center of world population.
1. PRINCE CALIGASTIA
66:1.1 Caligastia was a Lanonandek Son, number 9,344
of the secondary order. He was experienced in the administration of the
affairs of the local universe in general and, during later ages, with the
management of the local system of Satania in particular.
66:1.2 Prior to the reign of Lucifer in Satania,
Caligastia had been attached to the council of the Life Carrier advisers on
Jerusem. Lucifer elevated Caligastia to a position on his personal staff, and
he acceptably filled five successive assignments of honor and trust.
66:1.3 Caligastia very early sought a commission as
Planetary Prince, but repeatedly, when his request came up for approval in the
constellation councils, it would fail to receive the assent of the
Constellation Fathers. Caligastia seemed especially desirous of being sent as
planetary ruler to a decimal or life-modification world. His petition had
several times been disapproved before he was finally assigned to
Urantia.
66:1.4 Caligastia went forth from Jerusem to his
trust of world dominion with an enviable record of loyalty and devotion to the
welfare of the universe of his origin and sojourn, notwithstanding a certain
characteristic restlessness coupled with a tendency to disagree with the
established order in certain minor matters.
66:1.5 I was present on Jerusem when the brilliant
Caligastia departed from the system capital. No prince of the planets ever
embarked upon a career of world rulership with a richer preparatory experience
or with better prospects than did Caligastia on that eventful day one-half
million years ago. One thing is certain: As I executed my assignment of
putting the narrative of that event on the broadcasts of the local universe, I
never for one moment entertained even in the slightest degree any idea that
this noble Lanonandek would so shortly betray his sacred trust of planetary
custody and so horribly stain the fair name of his exalted order of universe
sonship. I really regarded Urantia as being among the five or six most
fortunate planets in all Satania in that it was to have such an experienced,
brilliant, and original mind at the helm of world affairs. I did not then
comprehend that Caligastia was insidiously falling in love with himself; I did
not then so fully understand the subtleties of personality pride.
2. THE PRINCE'S STAFF
66:2.1 The Planetary Prince of Urantia was not sent
out on his mission alone but was accompanied by the usual corps of assistants
and administrative helpers.
66:2.2 At the head of this group was Daligastia, the
associate-assistant of the Planetary Prince. Daligastia was also a secondary
Lanonandek Son, being number 319,407 of that order. He ranked as an assistant
at the time of his assignment as Caligastia's associate.
66:2.3 The planetary staff included a large number
of angelic co-operators and a host of other celestial beings assigned to
advance the interests and promote the welfare of the human races. But from
your standpoint the most interesting group of all were the corporeal members
of the Prince's staff -- sometimes referred to as the Caligastia one
hundred.
66:2.4 These one hundred rematerialized members of
the Prince's staff were chosen by Caligastia from over 785,000 ascendant
citizens of Jerusem who volunteered for embarkation on the Urantia adventure.
Each one of the chosen one hundred was from a different planet, and none of
them were from Urantia.
66:2.5 These Jerusemite volunteers were brought by
seraphic transport direct from the system capital to Urantia, and upon arrival
they were held enseraphimed until they could be provided with personality
forms of the dual nature of special planetary service, literal bodies
consisting of flesh and blood but also attuned to the life circuits of the
system.
66:2.6 Sometime before the arrival of these one
hundred Jerusem citizens, the two supervising Life Carriers resident on
Urantia, having previously perfected their plans, petitioned Jerusem and
Edentia for permission to transplant the life plasm of one hundred selected
survivors of the Andon and Fonta stock into the material bodies to be
projected for the corporeal members of the Prince's staff. The request was
granted on Jerusem and approved on Edentia.
66:2.7 Accordingly, fifty males and fifty females of
the Andon and Fonta posterity, representing the survival of the best strains
of that unique race, were chosen by the Life Carriers. With one or two
exceptions these Andonite contributors to the advancement of the race were
strangers to one another. They were assembled from widely separated places by
co-ordinated Thought Adjuster direction and seraphic guidance at the threshold
of the planetary headquarters of the Prince. Here the one hundred human
subjects were given into the hands of the highly skilled volunteer commission
from Avalon, who directed the material extraction of a portion of the life
plasm of these Andon descendants. This living material was then transferred to
the material bodies constructed for the use of the one hundred Jerusemite
members of the Prince's staff. Meantime, these newly arrived citizens of the
system capital were held in the sleep of seraphic transport.
66:2.8 These transactions, together with the literal
creation of special bodies for the Caligastia one hundred, gave origin to
numerous legends, many of which subsequently became confused with the later
traditions concerning the planetary installation of Adam and Eve.
66:2.9 The entire transaction of repersonalization,
from the time of the arrival of the seraphic transports bearing the one
hundred Jerusem volunteers until they became conscious, threefold beings of
the realm, consumed exactly ten days.
3. DALAMATIA -- THE CITY OF THE PRINCE
66:3.1 The headquarters of the Planetary Prince was
situated in the Persian Gulf region of those days, in the district
corresponding to later Mesopotamia.
66:3.2 The climate and landscape in the Mesopotamia
of those times were in every way favorable to the undertakings of the Prince's
staff and their assistants, very different from conditions which have
sometimes since prevailed. It was necessary to have such a favoring climate as
a part of the natural environment designed to induce primitive Urantians to
make certain initial advances in culture and civilization. The one great task
of those ages was to transform man from a hunter to a herder, with the hope
that later on he would evolve into a peace-loving, home-abiding farmer.
66:3.3 The headquarters of the Planetary Prince on
Urantia was typical of such stations on a young and developing sphere. The
nucleus of the Prince's settlement was a very simple but beautiful city,
enclosed within a wall forty feet high. This world center of culture was named
Dalamatia in honor of Daligastia.
66:3.4 The city was laid out in ten subdivisions
with the headquarters mansions of the ten councils of the corporeal staff
situated at the centers of these subdivisions. Centermost in the city was the
temple of the unseen Father. The administrative headquarters of the Prince and
his associates was arranged in twelve chambers immediately grouped about the
temple itself.
66:3.5 The buildings of Dalamatia were all one story
except the council headquarters, which were two stories, and the central
temple of the Father of all, which was small but three stories in
height.
66:3.6 The city represented the best practices of
those early days in building material -- brick. Very little stone or wood was
used. Home building and village architecture among the surrounding peoples
were greatly improved by the Dalamatian example.
66:3.7 Near the Prince's headquarters there dwelt
all colors and strata of human beings. And it was from these near-by tribes
that the first students of the Prince's schools were recruited. Although these
early schools of Dalamatia were crude, they provided all that could be done
for the men and women of that primitive age.
66:3.8 The Prince's corporeal staff continuously
gathered about them the superior individuals of the surrounding tribes and,
after training and inspiring these students, sent them back as teachers and
leaders of their respective peoples.
4. EARLY DAYS OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:4.1 The arrival of the Prince's staff created a
profound impression. While it required almost a thousand years for the news to
spread abroad, those tribes near the Mesopotamian headquarters were
tremendously influenced by the teachings and conduct of the one hundred new
sojourners on Urantia. And much of your subsequent mythology grew out of the
garbled legends of these early days when these members of the Prince's staff
were repersonalized on Urantia as supermen.
66:4.2 The serious obstacle to the good influence of
such extraplanetary teachers is the tendency of mortals to regard them as
gods, but aside from the technique of their appearance on earth the Caligastia
one hundred -- fifty men and fifty women -- did not resort to supernatural
methods nor superhuman manipulations.
66:4.3 But the corporeal staff were nonetheless
superhuman. They began their mission on Urantia as extraordinary threefold
beings:
66:4.4 1. They were corporeal and relatively human,
for they embodied the actual life plasm of one of the human races, the Andonic
life plasm of Urantia.
66:4.5 These one hundred members of the Prince's
staff were divided equally as to sex and in accordance with their previous
mortal status. Each person of this group was capable of becoming coparental to
some new order of physical being, but they had been carefully instructed to
resort to parenthood only under certain conditions. It is customary for the
corporeal staff of a Planetary Prince to procreate their successors sometime
prior to retiring from special planetary service. Usually this is at, or
shortly after, the time of the arrival of the Planetary Adam and
Eve.
66:4.6 These special beings therefore had little or
no idea as to what type of material creature would be produced by their sexual
union. And they never did know; before the time for such a step in the
prosecution of their world work the entire regime was upset by rebellion, and
those who later functioned in the parental role had been isolated from the
life currents of the system.
66:4.7 In skin color and language these materialized
members of Caligastia's staff followed the Andonic race. They partook of food
as did the mortals of the realm with this difference: The re-created bodies of
this group were fully satisfied by a nonflesh diet. This was one of the
considerations which determined their residence in a warm region abounding in
fruits and nuts. The practice of subsisting on a nonflesh diet dates from the
times of the Caligastia one hundred, for this custom spread near and far to
affect the eating habits of many surrounding tribes, groups of origin in the
once exclusively meat-eating evolutionary races.
66:4.8 2. The one hundred were material but
superhuman beings, having been reconstituted on Urantia as unique men and
women of a high and special order.
66:4.9 This group, while enjoying provisional
citizenship on Jerusem, were as yet unfused with their Thought Adjusters; and
when they volunteered and were accepted for planetary service in liaison with
the descending orders of sonship, their Adjusters were detached. But these
Jerusemites were superhuman beings -- they possessed souls of ascendant
growth. During the mortal life in the flesh the soul is of embryonic estate;
it is born (resurrected) in the morontia life and experiences growth through
the successive morontia worlds. And the souls of the Caligastia one hundred
had thus expanded through the progressive experiences of the seven mansion
worlds to citizenship status on Jerusem.
66:4.10 In conformity to their instructions the
staff did not engage in sexual reproduction, but they did painstakingly study
their personal constitutions, and they carefully explored every imaginable
phase of intellectual (mind) and morontia (soul) liaison. And it was during
the thirty-third year of their sojourn in Dalamatia, long before the wall was
completed, that number two and number seven of the Danite group accidentally
discovered a phenomenon attendant upon the liaison of their morontia selves
(supposedly nonsexual and nonmaterial); and the result of this adventure
proved to be the first of the primary midway creatures. This new being was
wholly visible to the planetary staff and to their celestial associates but
was not visible to the men and women of the various human tribes. Upon
authority of the Planetary Prince the entire corporeal staff undertook the
production of similar beings, and all were successful, following the
instructions of the pioneer Danite pair. Thus did the Prince's staff
eventually bring into being the original corps of 50,000 primary
midwayers.
66:4.11 These mid-type creatures were of great
service in carrying on the affairs of the world's headquarters. They were
invisible to human beings, but the primitive sojourners at Dalamatia were
taught about these unseen semispirits, and for ages they constituted the sum
total of the spirit world to these evolving mortals.
66:4.12 3. The Caligastia one hundred were
personally immortal, or undying. There circulated through their material forms
the antidotal complements of the life currents of the system; and had they not
lost contact with the life circuits through rebellion, they would have lived
on indefinitely until the arrival of a subsequent Son of God, or until their
sometime later release to resume the interrupted journey to Havona and
Paradise.
66:4.13 These antidotal complements of the Satania
life currents were derived from the fruit of the tree of life, a shrub of
Edentia which was sent to Urantia by the Most Highs of Norlatiadek at the time
of Caligastia's arrival. In the days of Dalamatia this tree grew in the
central courtyard of the temple of the unseen Father, and it was the fruit of
the tree of life that enabled the material and otherwise mortal beings of the
Prince's staff to live on indefinitely as long as they had access to
it.
66:4.14 While of no value to the evolutionary races,
this supersustenance was quite sufficient to confer continuous life upon the
Caligastia one hundred and also upon the one hundred modified Andonites who
were associated with them.
66:4.15 It should be explained in this connection
that, at the time the one hundred Andonites contributed their human germ plasm
to the members of the Prince's staff, the Life Carriers introduced into their
mortal bodies the complement of the system circuits; and thus were they
enabled to live on concurrently with the staff, century after century, in
defiance of physical death.
66:4.16 Eventually the one hundred Andonites were
made aware of their contribution to the new forms of their superiors, and
these same one hundred children of the Andon tribes were kept at headquarters
as the personal attendants of the Prince's corporeal staff.
5. ORGANIZATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:5.1 The one hundred were organized for service in
ten autonomous councils of ten members each. When two or more of these ten
councils met in joint session, such liaison gatherings were presided over by
Daligastia. These ten groups were constituted as follows:
66:5.2 1. The council on food and material
welfare. This group was presided over by Ang. Food, water, clothes, and
the material advancement of the human species were fostered by this able
corps. They taught well digging, spring control, and irrigation. They taught
those from the higher altitudes and from the north improved methods of
treating skins for use as clothing, and weaving was later introduced by the
teachers of art and science.
66:5.3 Great advances were made in methods of food
storage. Food was preserved by cooking, drying, and smoking; it thus became
the earliest property. Man was taught to provide for the hazards of famine,
which periodically decimated the world.
66:5.4 2. The board of animal domestication and
utilization. This council was dedicated to the task of selecting and
breeding those animals best adapted to help human beings in bearing burdens
and transporting themselves, to supply food, and later on to be of service in
the cultivation of the soil. This able corps was directed by Bon.
66:5.5 Several types of useful animals, now extinct,
were tamed, together with some that have continued as domesticated animals to
the present day. Man had long lived with the dog, and the blue man had already
been successful in taming the elephant. The cow was so improved by careful
breeding as to become a valuable source of food; butter and cheese became
common articles of human diet. Men were taught to use oxen for burden bearing,
but the horse was not domesticated until a later date. The members of this
corps first taught men to use the wheel for the facilitation of
traction.
66:5.6 It was in these days that carrier pigeons
were first used, being taken on long journeys for the purpose of sending
messages or calls for help. Bon's group were successful in training the great
fandors as passenger birds, but they became extinct more than thirty thousand
years ago.
66:5.7 3. The advisers regarding the conquest of
predatory animals. It was not enough that early man should try to
domesticate certain animals, but he must also learn how to protect himself
from destruction by the remainder of the hostile animal world. This group was
captained by Dan.
66:5.8 The purpose of an ancient city wall was to
protect against ferocious beasts as well as to prevent surprise attacks by
hostile humans. Those living without the walls and in the forest were
dependent on tree dwellings, stone huts, and the maintenance of night fires.
It was therefore very natural that these teachers should devote much time to
instructing their pupils in the improvement of human dwellings. By employing
improved techniques and by the use of traps, great progress was made in animal
subjugation.
66:5.9 4. The faculty on dissemination and
conservation of knowledge. This group organized and directed the purely
educational endeavors of those early ages. It was presided over by Fad. The
educational methods of Fad consisted in supervision of employment accompanied
by instruction in improved methods of labor. Fad formulated the first alphabet
and introduced a writing system. This alphabet contained twenty-five
characters. For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks, clay
tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment made of hammered hides, and a crude
form of paperlike material made from wasps' nests. The Dalamatia library,
destroyed soon after the Caligastia disaffection, comprised more than two
million separate records and was known as the "house of Fad."
66:5.10 The blue man was partial to alphabet writing
and made the greatest progress along such lines. The red man preferred
pictorial writing, while the yellow races drifted into the use of symbols for
words and ideas, much like those they now employ. But the alphabet and much
more was subsequently lost to the world during the confusion attendant upon
rebellion. The Caligastia defection destroyed the hope of the world for a
universal language, at least for untold ages.
66:5.11 5. The commission on industry and
trade. This council was employed in fostering industry within the tribes
and in promoting trade between the various peace groups. Its leader was Nod.
Every form of primitive manufacture was encouraged by this corps. They
contributed directly to the elevation of standards of living by providing many
new commodities to attract the fancy of primitive men. They greatly expanded
the trade in the improved salt produced by the council on science and
art.
66:5.12 It was among these enlightened groups
educated in the Dalamatia schools that the first commercial credit was
practiced. From a central exchange of credits they secured tokens which were
accepted in lieu of the actual objects of barter. The world did not improve
upon these business methods for hundreds of thousands of years.
66:5.13 6. The college of revealed religion.
This body was slow in functioning. Urantia civilization was literally forged
out between the anvil of necessity and the hammers of fear. But this group had
made considerable progress in their attempt to substitute Creator fear for
creature fear (ghost worship) before their labors were interrupted by the
later confusion attendant upon the secession upheaval. The head of this
council was Hap.
66:5.14 None of the Prince's staff would present
revelation to complicate evolution; they presented revelation only as the
climax of their exhaustion of the forces of evolution. But Hap did yield to
the desire of the inhabitants of the city for the establishment of a form of
religious service. His group provided the Dalamatians with the seven chants of
worship and also gave them the daily praise-phrase and eventually taught them
"the Father's prayer," which was:
66:5.15 "Father of all, whose Son we honor, look
down upon us with favor. Deliver us from the fear of all save you. Make us a
pleasure to our divine teachers and forever put truth on our lips. Deliver us
from violence and anger; give us respect for our elders and that which belongs
to our neighbors. Give us this season green pastures and fruitful flocks to
gladden our hearts. We pray for the hastening of the coming of the promised
uplifter, and we would do your will on this world as others do on worlds
beyond."
66:5.16 Although the Prince's staff were limited to
natural means and ordinary methods of race improvement, they held out the
promise of the Adamic gift of a new race as the goal of subsequent
evolutionary growth upon the attainment of the height of biologic
development.
66:5.17 7. The guardians of health and life.
This council was concerned with the introduction of sanitation and the
promotion of primitive hygiene and was led by Lut.
66:5.18 Its members taught much that was lost during
the confusion of subsequent ages, never to be rediscovered until the twentieth
century. They taught mankind that cooking, boiling and roasting, was a means
of avoiding sickness; also that such cooking greatly reduced infant mortality
and facilitated early weaning.
66:5.19 Many of the early teachings of Lut's
guardians of health persisted among the tribes of earth on down to the days of
Moses, even though they became much garbled and were greatly
changed.
66:5.20 The great obstacle in the way of promoting
hygiene among these ignorant peoples consisted in the fact that the real
causes of many diseases were too small to be seen by the naked eye, and also
because they all held fire in superstitious regard. It required thousands of
years to persuade them to burn refuse. In the meantime they were urged to bury
their decaying rubbish. The great sanitary advance of this epoch came from the
dissemination of knowledge regarding the health-giving and disease-destroying
properties of sunlight.
66:5.21 Before the Prince's arrival, bathing had
been an exclusively religious ceremonial. It was indeed difficult to persuade
primitive men to wash their bodies as a health practice. Lut finally induced
the religious teachers to include cleansing with water as a part of the
purification ceremonies to be practiced in connection with the noontime
devotions, once a week, in the worship of the Father of all.
66:5.22 These guardians of health also sought to
introduce handshaking in substitution for saliva exchange or blood drinking as
a seal of personal friendship and as a token of group loyalty. But when out
from under the compelling pressure of the teachings of their superior leaders,
these primitive peoples were not slow in reverting to their former
health-destroying and disease-breeding practices of ignorance and
superstition.
66:5.23 8. The planetary council on art and
science. This corps did much to improve the industrial technique of early
man and to elevate his concepts of beauty. Their leader was Mek.
66:5.24 Art and science were at a low ebb throughout
the world, but the rudiments of physics and chemistry were taught the
Dalamatians. Pottery was advanced, decorative arts were all improved, and the
ideals of human beauty were greatly enhanced. But music made little progress
until after the arrival of the violet race.
66:5.25 These primitive men would not consent to
experiment with steam power, notwithstanding the repeated urgings of their
teachers; never could they overcome their great fear of the explosive power of
confined steam. They were, however, finally persuaded to work with metals and
fire, although a piece of red-hot metal was a terrorizing object to early
man.
66:5.26 Mek did a great deal to advance the culture
of the Andonites and to improve the art of the blue man. A blend of the blue
man with the Andon stock produced an artistically gifted type, and many of
them became master sculptors. They did not work in stone or marble, but their
works of clay, hardened by baking, adorned the gardens of
Dalamatia.
66:5.27 Great progress was made in the home arts,
most of which were lost in the long and dark ages of rebellion, never to be
rediscovered until modern times.
66:5.28 9. The governors of advanced tribal
relations. This was the group intrusted with the work of bringing human
society up to the level of statehood. Their chief was Tut.
66:5.29 These leaders contributed much to bringing
about intertribal marriages. They fostered courtship and marriage after due
deliberation and full opportunity to become acquainted. The purely military
war dances were refined and made to serve valuable social ends. Many
competitive games were introduced, but these ancient folk were a serious
people; little humor graced these early tribes. Few of these practices
survived the subsequent disintegration of planetary insurrection.
66:5.30 Tut and his associates labored to promote
group associations of a peaceful nature, to regulate and humanize warfare, to
co-ordinate intertribal relations, and to improve tribal governments. In the
vicinity of Dalamatia there developed a more advanced culture, and these
improved social relations were very helpful in influencing more remote tribes.
But the pattern of civilization prevailing at the Prince's headquarters was
quite different from the barbaric society evolving elsewhere, just as the
twentieth-century society of Capetown, South Africa, is totally unlike the
crude culture of the diminutive Bushmen to the north.
66:5.31 10. The supreme court of tribal
co-ordination and racial co-operation. This supreme council was directed
by Van and was the court of appeals for all of the other nine special
commissions charged with the supervision of human affairs. This council was
one of wide function, being intrusted with all matters of earthly concern
which were not specifically assigned to the other groups. This selected corps
had been approved by the Constellation Fathers of Edentia before they were
authorized to assume the functions of the supreme court of Urantia.
6. THE PRINCE'S REIGN
66:6.1 The degree of a world's culture is measured
by the social heritage of its native beings, and the rate of cultural
expansion is wholly determined by the ability of its inhabitants to comprehend
new and advanced ideas.
66:6.2 Slavery to tradition produces stability and
co-operation by sentimentally linking the past with the present, but it
likewise stifles initiative and enslaves the creative powers of the
personality. The whole world was caught in the stalemate of tradition-bound
mores when the Caligastia one hundred arrived and began the proclamation of
the new gospel of individual initiative within the social groups of that day.
But this beneficent rule was so soon interrupted that the races never have
been wholly liberated from the slavery of custom; fashion still unduly
dominates Urantia.
66:6.3 The Caligastia one hundred -- graduates of
the Satania mansion worlds -- well knew the arts and culture of Jerusem, but
such knowledge is nearly valueless on a barbaric planet populated by primitive
humans. These wise beings knew better than to undertake the sudden
transformation, or the en masse uplifting, of the primitive races of that day.
They well understood the slow evolution of the human species, and they wisely
refrained from any radical attempts at modifying man's mode of life on
earth.
66:6.4 Each of the ten planetary commissions set
about slowly and naturally to advance the interests intrusted to them. Their
plan consisted in attracting the best minds of the surrounding tribes and,
after training them, sending them back to their people as emissaries of social
uplift.
66:6.5 Foreign emissaries were never sent to a race
except upon the specific request of that people. Those who labored for the
uplift and advancement of a given tribe or race were always natives of that
tribe or race. The one hundred would not attempt to impose the habits and
mores of even a superior race upon another tribe. Always they patiently worked
to uplift and advance the time-tried mores of each race. The simple folk of
Urantia brought their social customs to Dalamatia, not to exchange them for
new and better practices, but to have them uplifted by contact with a higher
culture and by association with superior minds. The process was slow but very
effectual.
66:6.6 The Dalamatia teachers sought to add
conscious social selection to the purely natural selection of biologic
evolution. They did not derange human society, but they did markedly
accelerate its normal and natural evolution. Their motive was progression by
evolution and not revolution by revelation. The human race had spent ages in
acquiring the little religion and morals it had, and these supermen knew
better than to rob mankind of these few advances by the confusion and dismay
which always result when enlightened and superior beings undertake to uplift
the backward races by overteaching and overenlightenment.
66:6.7 When Christian missionaries go into the heart
of Africa, where sons and daughters are supposed to remain under the control
and direction of their parents throughout the lifetime of the parents, they
only bring about confusion and the breakdown of all authority when they seek,
in a single generation, to supplant this practice by teaching that these
children should be free from all parental restraint after they have attained
the age of twenty-one.
7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA
66:7.1 The Prince's headquarters, though exquisitely
beautiful and designed to awe the primitive men of that age, was altogether
modest. The buildings were not especially large as it was the motive of these
imported teachers to encourage the eventual development of agriculture through
the introduction of animal husbandry. The land provision within the city walls
was sufficient to provide for pasturage and gardening for the support of a
population of about twenty thousand.
66:7.2 The interiors of the central temple of
worship and the ten council mansions of the supervising groups of supermen
were indeed beautiful works of art. And while the residential buildings were
models of neatness and cleanliness, everything was very simple and altogether
primitive in comparison with later-day developments. At this headquarters of
culture no methods were employed which did not naturally belong on
Urantia.
66:7.3 The Prince's corporeal staff presided over
simple and exemplary abodes which they maintained as homes designed to inspire
and favorably impress the student observers sojourning at the world's social
center and educational headquarters.
66:7.4 The definite order of family life and the
living of one family together in one residence of comparatively settled
location date from these times of Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the
example and teachings of the one hundred and their pupils. The home as a
social unit never became a success until the supermen and superwomen of
Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for their grandchildren and their
grandchildren's children. Savage man loves his child, but civilized man loves
also his grandchild.
66:7.5 The Prince's staff lived together as fathers
and mothers. True, they had no children of their own, but the fifty pattern
homes of Dalamatia never sheltered less than five hundred adopted little ones
assembled from the superior families of the Andonic and Sangik races; many of
these children were orphans. They were favored with the discipline and
training of these superparents; and then, after three years in the schools of
the Prince (they entered from thirteen to fifteen), they were eligible for
marriage and ready to receive their commissions as emissaries of the Prince to
the needy tribes of their respective races.
66:7.6 Fad sponsored the Dalamatia plan of teaching
that was carried out as an industrial school in which the pupils learned by
doing, and through which they worked their way by the daily performance of
useful tasks. This plan of education did not ignore thinking and feeling in
the development of character; but it gave first place to manual training. The
instruction was individual and collective. The pupils were taught by both men
and women and by the two acting conjointly. One half of this group instruction
was by sexes; the other half was coeducational. Students were taught manual
dexterity as individuals and were socialized in groups or classes. They were
trained to fraternize with younger groups, older groups, and adults, as well
as to do teamwork with those of their own ages. They were also familiarized
with such associations as family groups, play squads, and school
classes.
66:7.7 Among the later students trained in
Mesopotamia for work with their respective races were Andonites from the
highlands of western India together with representatives of the red men and
the blue men; still later a small number of the yellow race were also
received.
66:7.8 Hap presented the early races with a moral
law. This code was known as "The Father's Way" and consisted of the following
seven commands:
66:7.9 1. You shall not fear nor serve any God but
the Father of all.
66:7.10 2. You shall not disobey the Father's Son,
the world's ruler, nor show disrespect to his superhuman
associates.
66:7.11 3. You shall not speak a lie when called
before the judges of the people.
66:7.12 4. You shall not kill men, women, or
children.
66:7.13 5. You shall not steal your neighbor's goods
or cattle.
66:7.14 6. You shall not touch your friend's
wife.
66:7.15 7. You shall not show disrespect to your
parents or to the elders of the tribe.
66:7.16 This was the law of Dalamatia for almost
three hundred thousand years. And many of the stones on which this law was
inscribed now lie beneath the waters off the shores of Mesopotamia and Persia.
It became the custom to hold one of these commands in mind for each day of the
week, using it for salutations and mealtime thanksgiving.
66:7.17 The time measurement of these days was the
lunar month, this period being reckoned as twenty-eight days. That, with the
exception of day and night, was the only time reckoning known to the early
peoples. The seven-day week was introduced by the Dalamatia teachers and grew
out of the fact that seven was one fourth of twenty-eight. The significance of
the number seven in the superuniverse undoubtedly afforded them opportunity to
introduce a spiritual reminder into the common reckoning of time. But there is
no natural origin for the weekly period.
66:7.18 The country around the city was quite well
settled within a radius of one hundred miles. Immediately surrounding the
city, hundreds of graduates of the Prince's schools engaged in animal
husbandry and otherwise carried out the instruction they had received from his
staff and their numerous human helpers. A few engaged in agriculture and
horticulture.
66:7.19 Mankind was not consigned to agricultural
toil as the penalty of supposed sin. "In the sweat of your face shall you eat
the fruit of the fields" was not a sentence of punishment pronounced because
of man's participation in the follies of the Lucifer rebellion under the
leadership of the traitorous Caligastia. The cultivation of the soil is
inherent in the establishment of an advancing civilization on the evolutionary
worlds, and this injunction was the center of all teaching of the Planetary
Prince and his staff throughout the three hundred thousand years which
intervened between their arrival on Urantia and those tragic days when
Caligastia threw in his lot with the rebel Lucifer. Work with the soil is not
a curse; rather is it the highest blessing to all who are thus permitted to
enjoy the most human of all human activities.
66:7.20 At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dalamatia
had a resident population of almost six thousand. This number includes the
regular students but does not embrace the visitors and observers, who always
numbered more than one thousand. But you can have little or no concept of the
marvelous progress of those faraway times; practically all of the wonderful
human gains of those days were wiped out by the horrible confusion and abject
spiritual darkness which followed the Caligastia catastrophe of deception and
sedition.
8. MISFORTUNES OF CALIGASTIA
66:8.1 In looking back over the long career of
Caligastia, we find only one outstanding feature of his conduct that might
have challenged attention; he was ultraindividualistic. He was inclined to
take sides with almost every party of protest, and he was usually sympathetic
with those who gave mild expression to implied criticism. We detect the early
appearance of this tendency to be restless under authority, to mildly resent
all forms of supervision. While slightly resentful of senior counsel and
somewhat restive under superior authority, nonetheless, whenever a test had
come, he had always proved loyal to the universe rulers and obedient to the
mandates of the Constellation Fathers. No real fault was ever found in him up
to the time of his shameful betrayal of Urantia.
66:8.2 It should be noted that both Lucifer and
Caligastia had been patiently instructed and lovingly warned respecting their
critical tendencies and the subtle development of their pride of self and its
associated exaggeration of the feeling of self-importance. But all of these
attempts to help had been misconstrued as unwarranted criticism and as
unjustified interference with personal liberties. Both Caligastia and Lucifer
judged their friendly advisers as being actuated by the very reprehensible
motives which were beginning to dominate their own distorted thinking and
misguided planning. They judged their unselfish advisers by their own evolving
selfishness.
66:8.3 From the arrival of Prince Caligastia,
planetary civilization progressed in a fairly normal manner for almost three
hundred thousand years. Aside from being a life-modification sphere and
therefore subject to numerous irregularities and unusual episodes of
evolutionary fluctuation, Urantia progressed very satisfactorily in its
planetary career up to the times of the Lucifer rebellion and the concurrent
Caligastia betrayal. All subsequent history has been definitely modified by
this catastrophic blunder as well as by the later failure of Adam and Eve to
fulfill their planetary mission.
66:8.4 The Prince of Urantia went into darkness at
the time of the Lucifer rebellion, thus precipitating the long confusion of
the planet. He was subsequently deprived of sovereign authority by the
co-ordinate action of the constellation rulers and other universe authorities.
He shared the inevitable vicissitudes of isolated Urantia down to the time of
Adam's sojourn on the planet and contributed something to the miscarriage of
the plan to uplift the mortal races through the infusion of the lifeblood of
the new violet race -- the descendants of Adam and Eve.
66:8.5 The power of the fallen Prince to disturb
human affairs was enormously curtailed by the mortal incarnation of Machiventa
Melchizedek in the days of Abraham; and subsequently, during the life of
Michael in the flesh, this traitorous Prince was finally shorn of all
authority on Urantia.
66:8.6 The doctrine of a personal devil on Urantia,
though it had some foundation in the planetary presence of the traitorous and
iniquitous Caligastia, was nevertheless wholly fictitious in its teachings
that such a "devil" could influence the normal human mind against its free and
natural choosing. Even before Michael's bestowal on Urantia, neither
Caligastia nor Daligastia was ever able to oppress mortals or to coerce any
normal individual into doing anything against the human will. The free will of
man is supreme in moral affairs; even the indwelling Thought Adjuster refuses
to compel man to think a single thought or to perform a single act against the
choosing of man's own will.
66:8.7 And now this rebel of the realm, shorn of all
power to harm his former subjects, awaits the final adjudication, by the
Uversa Ancients of Days, of all who participated in the Lucifer
rebellion.
66:8.8 Presented by
a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
