PAPER 67
THE PLANETARY REBELLION
67:0.1 THE problems associated with human existence
on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a knowledge of certain
great epochs of the past, notably the occurrence and consequences of the
planetary rebellion. Although this upheaval did not seriously interfere with
the progress of organic evolution, it did markedly modify the course of social
evolution and of spiritual development. The entire superphysical history of
the planet was profoundly influenced by this devastating calamity.
1. THE CALIGASTIA BETRAYAL
67:1.1 For three hundred thousand years Caligastia
had been in charge of Urantia when Satan, Lucifer's assistant, made one of his
periodic inspection calls. And when Satan arrived on the planet, his
appearance in no way resembled your caricatures of his nefarious majesty. He
was, and still is, a Lanonandek Son of great brilliance. "And no marvel, for
Satan himself is a brilliant creature of light."
67:1.2 In the course of this inspection Satan
informed Caligastia of Lucifer's then proposed "Declaration of Liberty," and
as we now know, the Prince agreed to betray the planet upon the announcement
of the rebellion. The loyal universe personalities look with peculiar disdain
upon Prince Caligastia because of this premeditated betrayal of trust. The
Creator Son voiced this contempt when he said: "You are like your leader,
Lucifer, and you have sinfully perpetuated his iniquity. He was a falsifier
from the beginning of his self-exaltation because he abode not in the
truth."
67:1.3 In all the administrative work of a local
universe no high trust is deemed more sacred than that reposed in a Planetary
Prince who assumes responsibility for the welfare and guidance of the evolving
mortals on a newly inhabited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more
destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to
one's confiding friends. In committing this deliberate sin, Caligastia so
completely distorted his personality that his mind has never since been able
fully to regain its equilibrium.
67:1.4 There are many ways of looking at sin, but
from the universe philosophic viewpoint sin is the attitude of a personality
who is knowingly resisting cosmic reality. Error might be regarded as a
misconception or distortion of reality. Evil is a partial realization of, or
maladjustment to, universe realities. But sin is a purposeful resistance to
divine reality -- a conscious choosing to oppose spiritual progress -- while
iniquity consists in an open and persistent defiance of recognized reality and
signifies such a degree of personality disintegration as to border on cosmic
insanity.
67:1.5 Error suggests lack of intellectual keenness;
evil, deficiency of wisdom; sin, abject spiritual poverty; but iniquity is
indicative of vanishing personality control.
67:1.6 And when sin has so many times been chosen
and so often been repeated, it may become habitual. Habitual sinners can
easily become iniquitous, become wholehearted rebels against the universe and
all of its divine realities. While all manner of sins may be forgiven, we
doubt whether the established iniquiter would ever sincerely experience sorrow
for his misdeeds or accept forgiveness for his sins.
2. THE OUTBREAK OF REBELLION
67:2.1 Shortly after Satan's inspection and when the
planetary administration was on the eve of the realization of great things on
Urantia, one day, midwinter of the northern continents, Caligastia held a
prolonged conference with his associate, Daligastia, after which the latter
called the ten councils of Urantia in session extraordinary. This assembly was
opened with the statement that Prince Caligastia was about to proclaim himself
absolute sovereign of Urantia and demanded that all administrative groups
abdicate by resigning all of their functions and powers into the hands of
Daligastia as trustee, pending the reorganization of the planetary government
and the subsequent redistribution of these offices of administrative
authority.
67:2.2 The presentation of this astounding demand
was followed by the masterly appeal of Van, chairman of the supreme council of
co-ordination. This distinguished administrator and able jurist branded the
proposed course of Caligastia as an act bordering on planetary rebellion and
appealed to his conferees to abstain from all participation until an appeal
could be taken to Lucifer, the System Sovereign of Satania; and he won the
support of the entire staff. Accordingly, appeal was taken to Jerusem, and
forthwith came back the orders designating Caligastia as supreme sovereign on
Urantia and commanding absolute and unquestioning allegiance to his mandates.
And it was in reply to this amazing message that the noble Van made his
memorable address of seven hours' length in which he formally drew his
indictment of Daligastia, Caligastia, and Lucifer as standing in contempt of
the sovereignty of the universe of Nebadon; and he appealed to the Most Highs
of Edentia for support and confirmation.
67:2.3 Meantime the system circuits had been
severed; Urantia was isolated. Every group of celestial life on the planet
found itself suddenly and without warning isolated, utterly cut off from all
outside counsel and advice.
67:2.4 Daligastia formally proclaimed Caligastia
"God of Urantia and supreme over all." With this proclamation before them, the
issues were clearly drawn; and each group drew off by itself and began
deliberations, discussions destined eventually to determine the fate of every
superhuman personality on the planet.
67:2.5 Seraphim and cherubim and other celestial
beings were involved in the decisions of this bitter struggle, this long and
sinful conflict. Many superhuman groups that chanced to be on Urantia at the
time of its isolation were detained here and, like the seraphim and their
associates, were compelled to choose between sin and righteousness -- between
the ways of Lucifer and the will of the unseen Father.
67:2.6 For more than seven years this struggle
continued. Not until every personality concerned had made a final decision,
would or did the authorities of Edentia interfere or intervene. Not until then
did Van and his loyal associates receive vindication and release from their
prolonged anxiety and intolerable suspense.
3. THE SEVEN CRUCIAL YEARS
67:3.1 The outbreak of rebellion on Jerusem, the
capital of Satania, was broadcast by the Melchizedek council. The emergency
Melchizedeks were immediately dispatched to Jerusem, and Gabriel volunteered
to act as the representative of the Creator Son, whose authority had been
challenged. With this broadcast of the fact of rebellion in Satania the system
was isolated, quarantined, from her sister systems. There was "war in heaven,"
the headquarters of Satania, and it spread to every planet in the local
system.
67:3.2 On Urantia forty members of the corporeal
staff of one hundred (including Van) refused to join the insurrection. Many of
the staff's human assistants (modified and otherwise) were also brave and
noble defenders of Michael and his universe government. There was a terrible
loss of personalities among seraphim and cherubim. Almost one half of the
administrator and transition seraphim assigned to the planet joined their
leader and Daligastia in support of the cause of Lucifer. Forty thousand one
hundred and nineteen of the primary midway creatures joined hands with
Caligastia, but the remainder of these beings remained true to their
trust.
67:3.3 The traitorous Prince marshaled the disloyal
midway creatures and other groups of rebel personalities and organized them to
execute his bidding, while Van assembled the loyal midwayers and other
faithful groups and began the great battle for the salvation of the planetary
staff and other marooned celestial personalities.
67:3.4 During the times of this struggle the
loyalists dwelt in an unwalled and poorly protected settlement a few miles to
the east of Dalamatia, but their dwellings were guarded day and night by the
alert and ever-watchful loyal midway creatures, and they had possession of the
priceless tree of life.
67:3.5 Upon the outbreak of rebellion, loyal
cherubim and seraphim, with the aid of three faithful midwayers, assumed the
custody of the tree of life and permitted only the forty loyalists of the
staff and their associated modified mortals to partake of the fruit and leaves
of this energy plant. There were fifty-six of these modified Andonite
associates of the staff, sixteen of the Andonite attendants of the disloyal
staff refusing to go into rebellion with their masters.
67:3.6 Throughout the seven crucial years of the
Caligastia rebellion, Van was wholly devoted to the work of ministry to his
loyal army of men, midwayers, and angels. The spiritual insight and moral
steadfastness which enabled Van to maintain such an unshakable attitude of
loyalty to the universe government was the product of clear thinking, wise
reasoning, logical judgment, sincere motivation, unselfish purpose,
intelligent loyalty, experiential memory, disciplined character, and the
unquestioning dedication of his personality to the doing of the will of the
Father in Paradise.
67:3.7 This seven years of waiting was a time of
heart searching and soul discipline. Such crises in the affairs of a universe
demonstrate the tremendous influence of mind as a factor in spiritual
choosing. Education, training, and experience are factors in most of the vital
decisions of all evolutionary moral creatures. But it is entirely possible for
the indwelling spirit to make direct contact with the decision-determining
powers of the human personality so as to empower the fully consecrated will of
the creature to perform amazing acts of loyal devotion to the will and the way
of the Father in Paradise. And this is just what occurred in the experience of
Amadon, the modified human associate of Van.
67:3.8 Amadon is the outstanding human hero of the
Lucifer rebellion. This male descendant of Andon and Fonta was one of the one
hundred who contributed life plasm to the Prince's staff, and ever since that
event he had been attached to Van as his associate and human assistant. Amadon
elected to stand with his chief throughout the long and trying struggle. And
it was an inspiring sight to behold this child of the evolutionary races
standing unmoved by the sophistries of Daligastia while throughout the
seven-year struggle he and his loyal associates resisted with unyielding
fortitude all of the deceptive teachings of the brilliant
Caligastia.
67:3.9 Caligastia, with a maximum of intelligence
and a vast experience in universe affairs, went astray -- embraced sin.
Amadon, with a minimum of intelligence and utterly devoid of universe
experience, remained steadfast in the service of the universe and in loyalty
to his associate. Van utilized both mind and spirit in a magnificent and
effective combination of intellectual determination and spiritual insight,
thereby achieving an experiential level of personality realization of the
highest attainable order. Mind and spirit, when fully united, are potential
for the creation of superhuman values, even morontia realities.
67:3.10 There is no end to the recital of the
stirring events of these tragic days. But at last the final decision of the
last personality was made, and then, but only then, did a Most High of Edentia
arrive with the emergency Melchizedeks to seize authority on Urantia. The
Caligastia panoramic reign-records on Jerusem were obliterated, and the
probationary era of planetary rehabilitation was inaugurated.
4. THE CALIGASTIA ONE HUNDRED AFTER REBELLION
67:4.1 When the final roll was called, the corporeal
members of the Prince's staff were found to have aligned themselves as
follows: Van and his entire court of co-ordination had remained loyal. Ang and
three members of the food council had survived. The board of animal husbandry
were all swept into rebellion as were all of the animal-conquest advisers. Fad
and five members of the educational faculty were saved. Nod and all of the
commission on industry and trade joined Caligastia. Hap and the entire college
of revealed religion remained loyal with Van and his noble band. Lut and the
whole board of health were lost. The council of art and science remained loyal
in its entirety, but Tut and the commission on tribal government all went
astray. Thus were forty out of the one hundred saved, later to be transferred
to Jerusem, where they resumed their Paradise journey.
67:4.2 The sixty members of the planetary staff who
went into rebellion chose Nod as their leader. They worked wholeheartedly for
the rebel Prince but soon discovered that they were deprived of the sustenance
of the system life circuits. They awakened to the fact that they had been
degraded to the status of mortal beings. They were indeed superhuman but, at
the same time, material and mortal. In an effort to increase their numbers,
Daligastia ordered immediate resort to sexual reproduction, knowing full well
that the original sixty and their forty-four modified Andonite associates were
doomed to suffer extinction by death, sooner or later. After the fall of
Dalamatia the disloyal staff migrated to the north and the east. Their
descendants were long known as the Nodites, and their dwelling place as "the
land of Nod."
67:4.3 The presence of these extraordinary supermen
and superwomen, stranded by rebellion and presently mating with the sons and
daughters of earth, easily gave origin to those traditional stories of the
gods coming down to mate with mortals. And thus originated the thousand and
one legends of a mythical nature, but founded on the facts of the
postrebellion days, which later found a place in the folk tales and traditions
of the various peoples whose ancestors had participated in these contacts with
the Nodites and their descendants.
67:4.4 The staff rebels, deprived of spiritual
sustenance, eventually died a natural death. And much of the subsequent
idolatry of the human races grew out of the desire to perpetuate the memory of
these highly honored beings of the days of Caligastia.
67:4.5 When the staff of one hundred came to
Urantia, they were temporarily detached from their Thought Adjusters.
Immediately upon the arrival of the Melchizedek receivers the loyal
personalities (except Van) were returned to Jerusem and were reunited with
their waiting Adjusters. We know not the fate of the sixty staff rebels; their
Adjusters still tarry on Jerusem. Matters will undoubtedly rest as they now
are until the entire Lucifer rebellion is finally adjudicated and the fate of
all participants decreed.
67:4.6 It was very difficult for such beings as
angels and midwayers to conceive of brilliant and trusted rulers like
Caligastia and Daligastia going astray -- committing traitorous sin. Those
beings who fell into sin -- they did not deliberately or premeditatedly enter
upon rebellion -- were misled by their superiors, deceived by their trusted
leaders. It was likewise easy to win the support of the primitive-minded
evolutionary mortals.
67:4.7 The vast majority of all human and superhuman
beings who were victims of the Lucifer rebellion on Jerusem and the various
misled planets have long since heartily repented of their folly; and we truly
believe that all such sincere penitents will in some manner be rehabilitated
and restored to some phase of universe service when the Ancients of Days
finally complete the adjudication of the affairs of the Satania rebellion,
which they have so recently begun.
5. IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF REBELLION
67:5.1 Great confusion reigned in Dalamatia and
thereabout for almost fifty years after the instigation of rebellion. The
complete and radical reorganization of the whole world was attempted;
revolution displaced evolution as the policy of cultural advancement and
racial improvement. Among the superior and partially trained sojourners in and
near Dalamatia there appeared a sudden advancement in cultural status, but
when these new and radical methods were attempted on the outlying peoples,
indescribable confusion and racial pandemonium was the immediate result.
Liberty was quickly translated into license by the half-evolved primitive men
of those days.
67:5.2 Very soon after the rebellion the entire
staff of sedition were engaged in energetic defense of the city against the
hordes of semisavages who besieged its walls as a result of the doctrines of
liberty which had been prematurely taught them. And years before the beautiful
headquarters went down beneath the southern waves, the misled and mistaught
tribes of the Dalamatia hinterland had already swept down in semisavage
assault on the splendid city, driving the secession staff and their associates
northward.
67:5.3 The Caligastia scheme for the immediate
reconstruction of human society in accordance with his ideas of individual
freedom and group liberties, proved a swift and more or less complete failure.
Society quickly sank back to its old biologic level, and the forward struggle
began all over, starting not very far in advance of where it was at the
beginning of the Caligastia regime, this upheaval having left the world in
confusion worse confounded.
67:5.4 One hundred and sixty-two years after the
rebellion a tidal wave swept up over Dalamatia, and the planetary headquarters
sank beneath the waters of the sea, and this land did not again emerge until
almost every vestige of the noble culture of those splendid ages had been
obliterated.
67:5.5 When the first capital of the world was
engulfed, it harbored only the lowest types of the Sangik races of Urantia,
renegades who had already converted the Father's temple into a shrine
dedicated to Nog, the false god of light and fire.
6. VAN -- THE STEADFAST
67:6.1 The followers of Van early withdrew to the
highlands west of India, where they were exempt from attacks by the confused
races of the lowlands, and from which place of retirement they planned for the
rehabilitation of the world as their early Badonite predecessors had once all
unwittingly worked for the welfare of mankind just before the days of the
birth of the Sangik tribes.
67:6.2 Before the arrival of the Melchizedek
receivers, Van placed the administration of human affairs in the hands of ten
commissions of four each, groups identical with those of the Prince's regime.
The senior resident Life Carriers assumed temporary leadership of this council
of forty, which functioned throughout the seven years of waiting. Similar
groups of Amadonites assumed these responsibilities when the thirty-nine loyal
staff members returned to Jerusem.
67:6.3 These Amadonites were derived from the
group of 144 loyal Andonites to which Amadon belonged, and who have become
known by his name. This group comprised thirty-nine men and one hundred and
five women. Fifty-six of this number were of immortality status, and all
(except Amadon) were translated along with the loyal members of the staff. The
remainder of this noble band continued on earth to the end of their mortal
days under the leadership of Van and Amadon. They were the biologic leaven
which multiplied and continued to furnish leadership for the world down
through the long dark ages of the postrebellion era.
67:6.4 Van was left on Urantia until the time of
Adam, remaining as titular head of all superhuman personalities functioning on
the planet. He and Amadon were sustained by the technique of the tree of life
in conjunction with the specialized life ministry of the Melchizedeks for over
one hundred and fifty thousand years.
67:6.5 The affairs of Urantia were for a long time
administered by a council of planetary receivers, twelve Melchizedeks,
confirmed by the mandate of the senior constellation ruler, the Most High
Father of Norlatiadek. Associated with the Melchizedek receivers was an
advisory council consisting of: one of the loyal aids of the fallen Prince,
the two resident Life Carriers, a Trinitized Son in apprenticeship training, a
volunteer Teacher Son, a Brilliant Evening Star of Avalon (periodically), the
chiefs of seraphim and cherubim, advisers from two neighboring planets, the
director general of subordinate angelic life, and Van, the commander in chief
of the midway creatures. And thus was Urantia governed and administered until
the arrival of Adam. It is not strange that the courageous and loyal Van was
assigned a place on the council of planetary receivers which for so long
administered the affairs of Urantia.
67:6.6 The twelve Melchizedek receivers of Urantia
did heroic work. They preserved the remnants of civilization, and their
planetary policies were faithfully executed by Van. Within one thousand years
after the rebellion he had more than three hundred and fifty advanced groups
scattered abroad in the world. These outposts of civilization consisted
largely of the descendants of the loyal Andonites slightly admixed with the
Sangik races, particularly the blue men, and with the Nodites.
67:6.7 Notwithstanding the terrible setback of
rebellion there were many good strains of biologic promise on earth. Under the
supervision of the Melchizedek receivers, Van and Amadon continued the work of
fostering the natural evolution of the human race, carrying forward the
physical evolution of man until it reached that culminating attainment which
warranted the dispatch of a Material Son and Daughter to Urantia.
67:6.8 Van and Amadon remained on earth until
shortly after the arrival of Adam and Eve. Some years thereafter they were
translated to Jerusem, where Van was reunited with his waiting Adjuster. Van
now serves in behalf of Urantia while awaiting the order to go forward on the
long, long trail to Paradise perfection and the unrevealed destiny of the
assembling Corps of Mortal Finality.
67:6.9 It should be recorded that, when Van appealed
to the Most Highs of Edentia after Lucifer had sustained Caligastia on
Urantia, the Constellation Fathers dispatched an immediate decision sustaining
Van on every point of his contention. This verdict failed to reach him because
the planetary circuits of communication were severed while it was in transit.
Only recently was this actual ruling discovered lodged in the possession of a
relay energy transmitter where it had been marooned ever since the isolation
of Urantia. Without this discovery, made as the result of the investigations
of the Urantia midwayers, the release of this decision would have awaited the
restoration of Urantia to the constellation circuits. And this apparent
accident of interplanetary communication was possible because energy
transmitters can receive and transmit intelligence, but they cannot initiate
communication.
67:6.10 The technical status of Van on the legal
records of Satania was not actually and finally settled until this ruling of
the Edentia Fathers was recorded on Jerusem.
7. REMOTE REPERCUSSIONS OF SIN
67:7.1 The personal (centripetal) consequences of
the creature's willful and persistent rejection of light are both inevitable
and individual and are of concern only to Deity and to that personal creature.
Such a soul-destroying harvest of iniquity is the inner reaping of the
iniquitous will creature.
67:7.2 But not so with the external repercussions of
sin: The impersonal (centrifugal) consequences of embraced sin are both
inevitable and collective, being of concern to every creature functioning
within the affect-range of such events.
67:7.3 By fifty thousand years after the collapse of
the planetary administration, earthly affairs were so disorganized and
retarded that the human race had gained very little over the general
evolutionary status existing at the time of Caligastia's arrival three hundred
and fifty thousand years previously. In certain respects progress had been
made; in other directions much ground had been lost.
67:7.4 Sin is never purely local in its effects. The
administrative sectors of the universes are organismal; the plight of one
personality must to a certain extent be shared by all. Sin, being an attitude
of the person toward reality, is destined to exhibit its inherent negativistic
harvest upon any and all related levels of universe values. But the full
consequences of erroneous thinking, evil-doing, or sinful planning are
experienced only on the level of actual performance. The transgression of
universe law may be fatal in the physical realm without seriously involving
the mind or impairing the spiritual experience. Sin is fraught with fatal
consequences to personality survival only when it is the attitude of the whole
being, when it stands for the choosing of the mind and the willing of the
soul.
67:7.5 Evil and sin visit their consequences in
material and social realms and may sometimes even retard spiritual progress on
certain levels of universe reality, but never does the sin of any being rob
another of the realization of the divine right of personality survival.
Eternal survival can be jeopardized only by the decisions of the mind and the
choice of the soul of the individual himself.
67:7.6 Sin on Urantia did very little to delay
biologic evolution, but it did operate to deprive the mortal races of the full
benefit of the Adamic inheritance. Sin enormously retards intellectual
development, moral growth, social progress, and mass spiritual attainment. But
it does not prevent the highest spiritual achievement by any individual who
chooses to know God and sincerely do his divine will.
67:7.7 Caligastia rebelled, Adam and Eve did
default, but no mortal subsequently born on Urantia has suffered in his
personal spiritual experience because of these blunders. Every mortal born on
Urantia since Caligastia's rebellion has been in some manner time-penalized,
but the future welfare of such souls has never been in the least
eternity-jeopardized. No person is ever made to suffer vital spiritual
deprivation because of the sin of another. Sin is wholly personal as to moral
guilt or spiritual consequences, notwithstanding its far-flung repercussions
in administrative, intellectual, and social domains.
67:7.8 While we cannot fathom the wisdom that
permits such catastrophes, we can always discern the beneficial outworking of
these local disturbances as they are reflected out upon the universe at
large.
8. THE HUMAN HERO OF THE REBELLION
67:8.1 The Lucifer rebellion was withstood by many
courageous beings on the various worlds of Satania; but the records of
Salvington portray Amadon as the outstanding character of the entire system in
his glorious rejection of the flood tides of sedition and in his unswerving
devotion to Van -- they stood together unmoved in their loyalty to the
supremacy of the invisible Father and his Son Michael.
67:8.2 At the time of these momentous transactions I
was stationed on Edentia, and I am still conscious of the exhilaration I
experienced as I perused the Salvington broadcasts which told from day to day
of the unbelievable steadfastness, the transcendent devotion, and the
exquisite loyalty of this onetime semisavage springing from the experimental
and original stock of the Andonic race.
67:8.3 From Edentia up through Salvington and even
on to Uversa, for seven long years the first inquiry of all subordinate
celestial life regarding the Satania rebellion, ever and always, was: "What of
Amadon of Urantia, does he still stand unmoved?"
67:8.4 If the Lucifer rebellion has handicapped the
local system and its fallen worlds, if the loss of this Son and his misled
associates has temporarily hampered the progress of the constellation of
Norlatiadek, then weigh the effect of the far-flung presentation of the
inspiring performance of this one child of nature and his determined band of
143 comrades in standing steadfast for the higher concepts of universe
management and administration in the face of such tremendous and adverse
pressure exerted by his disloyal superiors. And let me assure you, this has
already done more good in the universe of Nebadon and the superuniverse of
Orvonton than can ever be outweighed by the sum total of all the evil and
sorrow of the Lucifer rebellion.
67:8.5 And all this is a beautifully touching and
superbly magnificent illumination of the wisdom of the Father's universal plan
for mobilizing the Corps of Mortal Finality on Paradise and for recruiting
this vast group of mysterious servants of the future largely from the common
clay of the mortals of ascending progression -- just such mortals as the
impregnable Amadon.
67:8.6 Presented by
a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
