PAPER 52
- PLANETARY MORTAL EPOCHS
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Page 590
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Page 591
2.
POST-PLANETARY PRINCE MAN
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Page 592
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Page 593
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Within ten
thousand years of racial amalgamation the
resultant stocks show varying degrees of
anatomic blend, some strains carrying more of
the marks
Page 594
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Page 595
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Page 596
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
Page 597
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.
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 POSTBESTOWAL AGE
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."
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:
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.
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.
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.
Page 598
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Page 599
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
Page 600
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."
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."
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.
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."
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.
[Sponsored by
a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the
staff of Gabriel.] |