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 Rh Of all the dangers which beset man's mortal nature and jeopardize his spiritual integrity, pride is the greatest. Courage is valorous, but egotism is vainglorious and suicidal. Reasonable self-confidence is not to be deplored. Man's ability to transcend himself is the one thing which distinguishes him from the animal kingdom.

Pride is deceitful, intoxicating, and sin-breeding whether found in an individual, a group, a race, or a nation. It is literally true, "Pride goes before a fall."

Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure—uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father.

May I admonish you to heed the distant echo of the Adjuster's faithful call to your soul? The indwelling Adjuster cannot stop or even materially alter your career struggle of time; the Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships of life as you journey on through this world of toil. The divine indweller can only patiently forbear while you fight the battle of life as it is lived on your planet; but you could, if you only would—as you work and worry, as you fight and toil—permit the valiant Adjuster to fight with you and for you. You could be so comforted and inspired, so enthralled and intrigued, if you would only allow the Adjuster constantly to bring forth the pictures of the real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of all this difficult, uphill struggle with the commonplace problems of your present material world.

Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? Why do you not allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired by the universe viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey? Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor?

The higher human races of Urantia are complexly admixed; they are a blend of many races and stocks of different origin. This composite nature renders it exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to work efficiently during life and adds definitely to the problems of both the Adjuster and the guardian seraphim after death. Not long since I was present on Salvington and heard a guardian of destiny present a formal statement in extenuation of the difficulties of ministering to her mortal subject. This seraphim said:

"Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence;


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 1224 the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race; the high purposes of a great mind antagonized by the urge of a primitive inheritance; the long-distance view of a far-seeing Monitor counteracted by the nearsightedness of a creature of time; the progressive plans of an ascending being modified by the desires and longings of a material nature; the flashes of universe intelligence cancelled by the chemical-energy mandates of the evolving race; the urge of angels opposed by the emotions of an animal; the training of an intellect annulled by the tendencies of instinct; the experience of the individual opposed by the accumulated propensities of the race; the aims of the best overshadowed by the drift of the worst; the flight of genius neutralized by the gravity of mediocrity; the progress of the good retarded by the inertia of the bad; the art of the beautiful besmirched by the presence of evil; the buoyancy of health neutralized by the debility of disease; the fountain of faith polluted by the poisons of fear; the spring of joy embittered by the waters of sorrow; the gladness of anticipation disillusioned by the bitterness of realization; the joys of living ever threatened by the sorrows of death. Such a life on such a planet! And yet, because of the ever-present help and urge of the Thought Adjuster, this soul did achieve a fair degree of happiness and success and has even now ascended to the judgment halls of mansonia."

[Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.]

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 1226 no duplicates; it is unique during every moment of existence; it is unique in relation to God—he is no respecter of persons, but neither does he add them together, for they are nonaddable—they are associable but nontotalable.

11. Personality responds directly to other-personality presence.

12. It is one thing which can be added to spirit, thus illustrating the primacy of the Father in relation to the Son. (Mind does not have to be added to spirit.)

13. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality are changeless; the relationship between them (in the soul) is nothing but change, continuing evolution; and if this change (growth) ceased, the soul would cease.

14. Personality is uniquely conscious of time, and this is something other than the time perception of mind or spirit.

Personality is bestowed by the Universal Father upon his creatures as a potentially eternal endowment. Such a divine gift is designed to function on numerous levels and in successive universe situations ranging from the lowly finite to the highest absonite, even to the borders of the absolute. Personality thus performs on three cosmic planes or in three universe phases:

1. Position status. Personality functions equally efficiently in the local universe, in the superuniverse, and in the central universe.

2. Meaning status. Personality performs effectively on the levels of the finite, the absonite, and even as impinging upon the absolute.

3. Value status. Personality can be experientially realized in the progressive realms of the material, the morontial, and the spiritual.

Personality has a perfected range of cosmic dimensional performance. The dimensions of finite personality are three, and they are roughly functional as follows:

1. Length represents direction and nature of progression—movement through space and according to time—evolution.

2. Vertical depth embraces the organismal drives and attitudes, the varying levels of self-realization and the general phenomenon of reaction to environment.

3. Breadth embraces the domain of co-ordination, association, and selfhood organization.

The type of personality bestowed upon Urantia mortals has a potentiality of seven dimensions of self-expression or person-realization. These dimensional phenomena are realizable as three on the finite level, three on the absonite level, and one on the absolute level. On subabsolute levels this seventh or totality dimension is experiencible as the fact of personality. This supreme dimension is an associable absolute and, while not infinite, is dimensionally potential for subinfinite penetration of the absolute.

The finite dimensions of personality have to do with cosmic length, depth, and breadth. Length denotes meaning; depth signifies value; breadth embraces insight—the capacity to experience unchallengeable consciousness of cosmic reality.


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 Rh On the morontia level all of these finite dimensions of the material level are greatly enhanced, and certain new dimensional values are realizable. All these enlarged dimensional experiences of the morontia level are marvelously articulated with the supreme or personality dimension through the influence of mota and also because of the contribution of morontia mathematics.

Much trouble experienced by mortals in their study of human personality could be avoided if the finite creature would remember that dimensional levels and spiritual levels are not co-ordinated in experiential personality realization.

Life is really a process which takes place between the organism (selfhood) and its environment. The personality imparts value of identity and meanings of continuity to this organismal-environmental association. Thus it will be recognized that the phenomenon of stimulus-response is not a mere mechanical process since the personality functions as a factor in the total situation. It is ever true that mechanisms are innately passive; organisms, inherently active.

Physical life is a process taking place not so much within the organism as between the organism and the environment. And every such process tends to create and establish organismal patterns of reaction to such an environment. And all such directive patterns are highly influential in goal choosing.

It is through the mediation of mind that the self and the environment establish meaningful contact. The ability and willingness of the organism to make such significant contacts with environment (response to a drive) represents the attitude of the whole personality.

Personality cannot very well perform in isolation. Man is innately a social creature; he is dominated by the craving of belongingness. It is literally true, "No man lives unto himself."

But the concept of the personality as the meaning of the whole of the living and functioning creature means much more than the integration of relationships; it signifies the unification of all factors of reality as well as co-ordination of relationships. Relationships exist between two objects, but three or more objects eventuate a system, and such a system is much more than just an enlarged or complex relationship. This distinction is vital, for in a cosmic system the individual members are not connected with each other except in relation to the whole and through the individuality of the whole.

In the human organism the summation of its parts constitutes selfhood—individuality—but such a process has nothing whatever to do with personality, which is the unifier of all these factors as related to cosmic realities.

In aggregations parts are added; in systems parts are arranged. Systems are significant because of organization—positional values. In a good system all factors are in cosmic position. In a bad system something is either missing or displaced—deranged. In the human system it is the personality which unifies all activities and in turn imparts the qualities of identity and creativity.

It would be helpful in the study of selfhood to remember:

1. That physical systems are subordinate.

2. That intellectual systems are co-ordinate.

3. That personality is superordinate.

4. That the indwelling spiritual force is potentially directive.


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 1228 In all concepts of selfhood it should be recognized that the fact of life comes first, its evaluation or interpretation later. The human child first lives and subsequently thinks about his living. In the cosmic economy insight precedes foresight.

The universe fact of God's becoming man has forever changed all meanings and altered all values of human personality. In the true meaning of the word, love connotes mutual regard of whole personalities, whether human or divine or human and divine. Parts of the self may function in numerous ways—thinking, feeling, wishing—but only the co-ordinated attributes of the whole personality are focused in intelligent action; and all of these powers are associated with the spiritual endowment of the mortal mind when a human being sincerely and unselfishly loves another being, human or divine.

All mortal concepts of reality are based on the assumption of the actuality of human personality; all concepts of superhuman realities are based on the experience of the human personality with and in the cosmic realities of certain associated spiritual entities and divine personalities. Everything nonspiritual in human experience, excepting personality, is a means to an end. Every true relationship of mortal man with other persons—human or divine—is an end in itself. And such fellowship with the personality of Deity is the eternal goal of universe ascension.

The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being since the unity of selfhood and the self-consciousness of personality are endowments of the supermaterial world. The very fact that a mortal materialist can deny the existence of supermaterial realities in and of itself demonstrates the presence, and indicates the working, of spirit synthesis and cosmic consciousness in his human mind.

There exists a great cosmic gulf between matter and thought, and this gulf is immeasurably greater between material mind and spiritual love. Consciousness, much less self-consciousness, cannot be explained by any theory of mechanistic electronic association or materialistic energy phenomena.

As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the materal senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.

In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.

In time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to worship; in eternity, worship leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of thought.


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 Rh The possibility of the unification of the evolving self is inherent in the qualities of its constitutive factors: the basic energies, the master tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol, the supreme ideas, the supreme motives, the supreme goals, and the divine spirit of Paradise bestowal—the secret of the self-consciousness of man's spiritual nature.

The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called "the evolution of dominance," the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.

An ascending onetime human personality passes through two great phases of increasing volitional dominance over the self and in the universe:

1. The prefinaliter or God-seeking experience of augmenting the self-realization through a technique of identity expansion and actualization together with cosmic problem solving and consequent universe mastery.

2. The postfinaliter or God-revealing experience of the creative expansion of self-realization through revealing the Supreme Being of experience to the God-seeking intelligences who have not yet attained the divine levels of God-likeness.

Descending personalities attain analogous experiences through their various universe adventures as they seek for enlarged capacity for ascertaining and executing the divine wills of the Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute Deities.

The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.

Urantians generally recognize only one kind of death, the physical cessation of life energies; but concerning personality survival there are really three kinds:

1. Spiritual (soul) death. If and when mortal man has finally rejected survival, when he has been pronounced spiritually insolvent, morontially bankrupt, in the conjoint opinion of the Adjuster and the surviving seraphim, when such co-ordinate advice has been recorded on Uversa, and after the Censors and their reflective associates have verified these findings, thereupon do the rulers of Orvonton order the immediate release of the indwelling Monitor. But this release of the Adjuster in no way affects the duties of the personal or group


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 1230 seraphim concerned with that Adjuster-abandoned individual. This kind of death is final in its significance irrespective of the temporary continuation of the living energies of the physical and mind mechanisms. From the cosmic standpoint the mortal is already dead; the continuing life merely indicates the persistence of the material momentum of cosmic energies.

2. Intellectual (mind) death. When the vital circuits of higher adjutant ministry are disrupted through the aberrations of intellect or because of the partial destruction of the mechanism of the brain, and if these conditions pass a certain critical point of irreparability, the indwelling Adjuster is immediately released to depart for Divinington. On the universe records a mortal personality is considered to have met with death whenever the essential mind circuits of human will-action have been destroyed. And again, this is death, irrespective of the continuing function of the living mechanism of the physical body. The body minus the volitional mind is no longer human, but according to the prior choosing of the human will, the soul of such an individual may survive.

3. Physical (body and mind) death. When death overtakes a human being, the Adjuster remains in the citadel of the mind until it ceases to function as an intelligent mechanism, about the time that the measurable brain energies cease their rhythmic vital pulsations. Following this dissolution the Adjuster takes leave of the vanishing mind, just as unceremoniously as entry was made years before, and proceeds to Divinington by way of Uversa.

After death the material body returns to the elemental world from which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality persist: The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; and there also remains, in the custody of the destiny guardian, the immortal morontia soul of the deceased human. These phases and forms of soul, these once kinetic but now static formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the morontia worlds; and it is the reunion of the Adjuster and the soul that reassembles the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of the morontia awakening.

For those who do not have personal seraphic guardians, the group custodians faithfully and efficiently perform the same service of identity safekeeping and personality resurrection. The seraphim are indispensable to the reassembly of personality.

Upon death the Thought Adjuster temporarily loses personality, but not identity; the human subject temporarily loses identity, but not personality; on the mansion worlds both reunite in eternal manifestation. Never does a departed Thought Adjuster return to earth as the being of former indwelling; never is personality manifested without the human will; and never does a dis-Adjustered human being after death manifest active identity or in any manner establish communication with the living beings of earth. Such dis-Adjustered souls are wholly and absolutely unconscious during the long or short sleep of death. There can be no exhibition of any sort of personality or ability to engage in communications with other personalities until after completion of survival. Those who go to the mansion worlds are not permitted to send messages back to their loved ones. It is the policy throughout the universes to forbid such communication during the period of a current dispensation.


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 Rh

When death of a material, intellectual, or spiritual nature occurs, the Adjuster bids farewell to the mortal host and departs for Divinington. From the headquarters of the local universe and the superuniverse a reflective contact is made with the supervisors of both governments, and the Monitor is registered out by the same number that recorded entry into the domains of time.

In some way not fully understood, the Universal Censors are able to gain possession of an epitome of the human life as it is embodied in the Adjuster's duplicate transcription of the spiritual values and morontia meanings of the indwelt mind. The Censors are able to appropriate the Adjuster's version of the deceased human's survival character and spiritual qualities, and all this data, together with the seraphic records, is available for presentation at the time of the adjudication of the individual concerned. This information is also used to confirm those superuniverse mandates which make it possible for certain ascenders immediately to begin their morontia careers, upon mortal dissolution to proceed to the mansion worlds ahead of the formal termination of a planetary dispensation.

Subsequent to physical death, except in individuals translated from among the living, the released Adjuster goes immediately to the home sphere of Divinington. The details of what transpires on that world during the time of awaiting the factual reappearance of the surviving mortal depend chiefly on whether the human being ascends to the mansion worlds in his own individual right or awaits a dispensational summoning of the sleeping survivors of a planetary age.

If the mortal associate belongs to a group that will be repersonalized at the end of a dispensation, the Adjuster will not immediately return to the mansion world of the former system of service but will, according to choice, enter upon one of the following temporary assignments:

1. Be mustered into the ranks of vanished Monitors for undisclosed service.

2. Be assigned for a period to the observation of the Paradise regime.

3. Be enrolled in one of the many training schools of Divinington.

4. Be stationed for a time as a student observer on one of the other six sacred spheres which constitute the Father's circuit of Paradise worlds.

5. Be assigned to the messenger service of the Personalized Adjusters.

6. Become an associate instructor in the Divinington schools devoted to the training of Monitors belonging to the virgin group.

7. Be assigned to select a group of possible worlds on which to serve in the event that there is reasonable cause for believing that the human partner may have rejected survival.

If, when death overtakes you, you have attained the third circle or a higher realm and therefore have had assigned to you a personal guardian of destiny, and if the final transcript of the summary of survival character submitted by the Adjuster is unconditionally certified by the destiny guardian—if both seraphim and Adjuster essentially agree in every item of their life records and recommendations—if the Universal Censors and their reflective associates


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 1232 on Uversa confirm this data and do so without equivocation or reservation, in that event the Ancients of Days flash forth the mandate of advanced standing over the communication circuits to Salvington, and, thus released, the tribunals of the Sovereign of Nebadon will decree the immediate passage of the surviving soul to the resurrection halls of the mansion worlds.

If the human individual survives without delay, the Adjuster, so I am instructed, registers at Divinington, proceeds to the Paradise presence of the Universal Father, returns immediately and is embraced by the Personalized Adjusters of the superuniverse and local universe of assignment, receives the recognition of the chief Personalized Monitor of Divinington, and then, at once, passes into the "realization of identity transition," being summoned therefrom on the third period and on the mansion world in the actual personality form made ready for the reception of the surviving soul of the earth mortal as that form has been projected by the guardian of destiny.

Selfhood is a cosmic reality whether material, morontial, or spiritual. The actuality of the personal is the bestowal of the Universal Father acting in and of himself or through his manifold universe agencies. To say that a being is personal is to recognize the relative individuation of such a being within the cosmic organism. The living cosmos is an all but infinitely integrated aggregation of real units, all of which are relatively subject to the destiny of the whole. But those that are personal have been endowed with the actual choice of destiny acceptance or of destiny rejection.

That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man's personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. Having appeared in response to the Father's will, personality will attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle is foreordained, but man's participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential.

Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding, his freewill choosing.

Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the


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 Rh power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.

And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man's greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.

Though the cosmic circles of personality growth must eventually be attained, if, through no fault of your own, the accidents of time and the handicaps of material existence prevent your mastering these levels on your native planet, if your intentions and desires are of survival value, there are issued the decrees of probation extension. You will be afforded additional time in which to prove yourself.

If ever there is doubt as to the advisability of advancing a human identity to the mansion worlds, the universe governments invariably rule in the personal interests of that individual; they unhesitatingly advance such a soul to the status of a transitional being, while they continue their observations of the emerging morontia intent and spiritual purpose. Thus divine justice is certain of achievement, and divine mercy is accorded further opportunity for extending its ministry.

The governments of Orvonton and Nebadon do not claim absolute perfection for the detail working of the universal plan of mortal repersonalization, but they do claim to, and actually do, manifest patience, tolerance, understanding, and merciful sympathy. We had rather assume the risk of a system rebellion than to court the hazard of depriving one struggling mortal from any evolutionary world of the eternal joy of pursuing the ascending career.

This does not mean that human beings are to enjoy a second opportunity in the face of the rejection of a first, not at all. But it does signify that all will creatures are to experience one true opportunity to make one undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice. The sovereign Judges of the universes will not deprive any being of personality status who has not finally and fully made the eternal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.

When the more spiritually and cosmically advanced mortals die, they proceed immediately to the mansion worlds; in general, this provision operates with those who have had assigned to them personal seraphic guardians. Other mortals may be detained until such time as the adjudication of their affairs has been completed, after which they may proceed to the mansion worlds, or they may be assigned to the ranks of the sleeping survivors who will be repersonalized en masse at the end of the current planetary dispensation.

There are two difficulties that hamper my efforts to explain just what happens to you in death, the surviving you which is distinct from the departing Adjuster. One of these consists in the impossibility of conveying to your level of comprehension an adequate description of a transaction on the borderland of the physical and morontia realms. The other is brought about by the restric-


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 1234 tions placed upon my commission as a revelator of truth by the celestial governing authorities of Urantia. There are many interesting details which might be presented, but I withhold them upon the advice of your immediate planetary supervisors. But within the limits of my permission I can say this much:

There is something real, something of human evolution, something additional to the Mystery Monitor, which survives death. This newly appearing entity is the soul, and it survives the death of both your physical body and your material mind. This entity is the conjoint child of the combined life and efforts of the human you in liaison with the divine you, the Adjuster. This child of human and divine parentage constitutes the surviving element of terrestrial origin; it is the morontia self, the immortal soul.

This child of persisting meaning and surviving value is wholly unconscious during the period from death to repersonalization and is in the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardian throughout this season of waiting. You will not function as a conscious being, following death, until you attain the new consciousness of morontia on the mansion worlds of Satania.

At death the functional identity associated with the human personality is disrupted through the cessation of vital motion. Human personality, while transcending its constituent parts, is dependent on them for functional identity. The stoppage of life destroys the physical brain patterns for mind endowment, and the disruption of mind terminates mortal consciousness. The consciousness of that creature cannot subsequently reappear until a cosmic situation has been arranged which will permit the same human personality again to function in relationship with living energy.

During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to the mansion worlds, whether they experience personality reassembly on the third period or ascend at the time of a group resurrection, the record. of personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their worlds of special activities. These beings are not the custodians of personality (as the guardian seraphim are of the soul), but it is nonetheless true that every identifiable factor of personality is effectually safeguarded in the custody of these dependable trustees of mortal survival. As to the exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening between death and survival, we do not know.

The situation which makes repersonaIization possible is brought about in the resurrection halls of the morontia receiving planets of a local universe. Here in these life-assembly chambers the supervising authorities provide that relationship of universe energy—morontial, mindal, and spiritual—which makes possible the reconsciousizing of the sleeping survivor. The reassembly of the constituent parts of a onetime material personality involves:

1. The fabrication of a suitable form, a morontia energy pattern, in which the new survivor can make contact with nonspiritual reality, and within which the morontia variant of the cosmic mind can be encircuited.

2. The return of the Adjuster to the waiting morontia creature. The Adjuster is the eternal custodian of your ascending identity; your Monitor is the absolute assurance that you yourself and not another will occupy the morontia form created for your personality awakening. And the Adjuster will be present at your personality reassembly to take up once more the role of Paradise guide to your surviving self.


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 Rh 3. When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled, the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul, with the assistance of numerous cosmic personalities, bestows this morontia entity upon and in the awaiting morontia mind-body form while committing this evolutionary child of the Supreme to eternal association with the waiting Adjuster. And this completes the repersonalization, reassembly of memory, insight, and consciousness—identity.

The fact of repersonalization consists in the seizure of the encircuited morontia phase of the newly segregated cosmic mind by the awakening human self. The phenomenon of personality is dependent on the persistence of the identity of selfhood reaction to universe environment; and this can only be effected through the medium of mind. Selfhood persists in spite of a continuous change in all the factor components of self; in the physical life the change is gradual; at death and upon repersonalization the change is sudden. The true reality of all selfhood (personality) is able to function responsively to universe conditions by virtue of the unceasing changing of its constituent parts; stagnation terminates in inevitable death. Human life is an endless change of the factors of life unified by the stability of the unchanging personality.

And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Adjuster and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting the new morontia consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.

The Thought Adjuster will recall and rehearse for you only those memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe career. If the Adjuster has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal consciousness of the Adjuster. But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia value, will perish with the material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the morontia level, no longer serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.

Just as a butterfly emerges from the caterpillar stage, so will the true personalities of human beings emerge on the mansion worlds, for the first time revealed apart from their onetime enshroudment in the material flesh. The morontia career in the local universe has to do with the continued elevation of the personality mechanism from the beginning morontia level of soul existence up to the final morontia level of progressive spirituality.

It is difficult to instruct you regarding your morontia personality forms for the local universe career. You will be endowed with morontia patterns of per-


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 1236 sonality manifestability, and these are investments which, in the last analysis, are beyond your comprehension. Such forms, while entirely real, are not energy patterns of the material order which you now understand. They do, however, serve the same purpose on the local universe worlds as do your material bodies on the planets of human nativity.

To a certain extent, the appearance of the material body-form is responsive to the character of the personality identity; the physical body does, to a limited degree, reflect something of the inherent nature of the personality. Still more so does the morontia form. In the physical life, mortals may be outwardly beautiful though inwardly unlovely; in the morontia life, and increasingly on its higher levels, the personality form will vary directly in accordance with the nature of the inner person. On the spiritual level, outward form and inner nature begin to approximate complete identification, which grows more and more perfect on higher and higher spirit levels.

In the morontia estate the ascending mortal is endowed with the Nebadon modification of the cosmic-mind endowment of the Master Spirit of Orvonton. The mortal intellect, as such, has perished, has ceased to exist as a focalized universe entity apart from the undifferentiated mind circuits of the Creative Spirit. But the meanings and values of the mortal mind have not perished. Certain phases of mind are continued in the surviving soul; certain experiential values of the former human mind are held by the Adjuster; and there persist in the local universe the records of the human life as it was lived in the flesh, together with certain living registrations in the numerous beings who are concerned with the final evaluation of the ascending mortal, beings extending in range from seraphim to Universal Censors and probably on beyond to the Supreme.

Creature volition cannot exist without mind, but it does persist in spite of the loss of the material intellect. During the times immediately following survival, the ascending personality is in great measure guided by the character patterns inherited from the human life and by the newly appearing action of morontia mota. And these guides to mansonia conduct function acceptably in the early stages of the morontia life and prior to the emergence of morontia will as a full-fledged volitional expression of the ascending personality.

There are no influences in the local universe career comparable to the seven adjutant mind-spirits of human existence. The morontia mind must evolve by direct contact with cosmic mind, as this cosmic mind has been modified and translated by the creative source of local universe intellect—the Divine Minister.

Mortal mind, prior to death, is self-consciously independent of the Adjuster presence; adjutant mind needs only the associated material-energy pattern to enable it to operate. But the morontia soul, being superadjutant, does not retain self-consciousness without the Adjuster when deprived of the material-mind mechanism. This evolving soul does, however, possess a continuing character derived from the decisions of its former associated adjutant mind, and this character becomes active memory when the patterns thereof are energized by the returning Adjuster.

The persistence of memory is proof of the retention of the identity of original selfhood; it is essential to complete self-consciousness of personality continuity and expansion. Those mortals who ascend without Adjusters are dependent on the instruction of seraphic associates for the reconstruction of human memory; otherwise the morontia souls of the Spirit-fused mortals are not limited. The


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 Rh pattern of memory persists in the soul, but this pattern requires the presence of the former Adjuster to become immediately self-realizable as continuing memory. Without the Adjuster, it requires considerable time for the mortal survivor to re-explore and relearn, to recapture, the memory consciousness of the meanings and values of a former existence.

The soul of survival value faithfully reflects both the qualitative and the quantitative actions and motivations of the material intellect, the former seat of the identity of selfhood. In the choosing of truth, beauty, and goodness, the mortal mind enters upon its premorontia universe career under the tutelage of the seven adjutant mind-spirits unified under the direction of the spirit of wisdom. Subsequently, upon the completion of the seven circles of premorontia attainment, the superimposition of the endowment of morontia mind upon adjutant mind initiates the presplritual or morontia career of local universe progression.

When a creature leaves his native planet, he leaves the adjutant ministry behind and becomes solely dependent on morontia intellect. When an ascender leaves the local universe, he has attained the spiritual level of existence, having passed beyond the morontia level. This newly appearing spirit entity then becomes attuned to the direct ministry of the cosmic mind of Orvonton.

Thought Adjuster fusion imparts eternal actualities to personality which were previously only potential. Among these new endowments may be mentioned: fixation of divinity quality, past-eternity experience and memory, immortality, and a phase of qualified potential absoluteness.

When your earthly course in temporary form has been run, you are to awaken on the shores of a better world, and eventually you will be united with your faithful Adjuster in an eternal embrace. And this fusion constitutes the mystery of making God and man one, the mystery of finite creature evolution, but it is eternally true. Fusion is the secret of the sacred sphere of Ascendington, and no creature, save those who have experienced fusion with the spirit of Deity, can comprehend the true meaning of the actual values which are conjoined when the identity of a creature of time becomes eternally one with the spirit of Paradise Deity.

Fusion with the Adjuster is usually effected while the ascender is resident within his local system. It may occur on the planet of nativity as a transcendence of natural death; it may take place on any one of the mansion worlds or on the headquarters of the system; it may even be delayed until the time of the constellation sojourn; or, in special instances, it may not be consummated until the ascender is on the local universe capital.

When fusion with the Adjuster has been effected, there can be no future danger to the eternal career of such a personality. Celestial beings are tested throughout a long experience, but mortals pass through a relatively short and intensive testing on the evolutionary and morontia worlds.

Fusion with the Adjuster never occurs until the mandates of the superuniverse have pronounced that the human nature has made a final and irrevocable choice for the eternal career. This is the at-onement authorization, which, when issued, constitutes the clearance authority for the fused personality eventually to leave the confines of the local universe to proceed sometime to the headquarters


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 1238 of the superuniverse, from which point the pilgrim of time will, in the distant future, enseconaphim for the long flight to the central universe of Havona and the Deity adventure.

On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material; it is a thing in the universe and as such is subject to the laws of material existence. It is a fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes thereof. Survival decisions must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and more enduring universe reality, and its continuing growth is predicated on its increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes. Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the spiritual level, it has become a secure value in the universe, and this new value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made, which fact has been witnessed by eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster. And having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value—God.

Such fused beings are twofold in their universe reactions: They are discrete morontia individuals not altogether unlike seraphim, and they are also beings in potential on the order of the Paradise finaliters.

But the fused individual is really one personality, one being, whose unity defies all attempts at analysis by any intelligence of the universes. And so, having passed the tribunals of the local universe from the lowest to the highest, none of which have been able to identify man or Adjuster, the one apart from the other, you shall finally be taken before the Sovereign of Nebadon, your local universe Father. And there, at the hand of the very being whose creative fatherhood in this universe of time has made possible the fact of your life, you will be granted those credentials which entitle you eventually to proceed upon your superuniverse career in quest of the Universal Father.

Has the triumphant Adjuster won personality by the magnificent service to humanity, or has the valiant human acquired immortality through sincere efforts to achieve Adjusterlikeness? It is neither; but they together have achieved the evolution of a member of one of the unique orders of the ascending personalities of the Supreme, one who will ever be found serviceable, faithful, and efficient, a candidate for further growth and development, ever ranging upward and never ceasing the supernal ascent until the seven circuits of Havona have been traversed and the onetime soul of earthly origin stands in worshipful recognition of the actual personality of the Father on Paradise.

Throughout all this magnificent ascent the Thought Adjuster is the divine pledge of the future and full spiritual stabilization of the ascending mortal. Meanwhile the presence of the mortal free will affords the Adjuster an eternal channel for the liberation of the divine and infinite nature. Now have these two identities become one; no event of time or of eternity can ever separate man and Adjuster; they are inseparable, eternally fused.

On the Adjuster-fusion worlds the destiny of the Mystery Monitor is identical with that of the ascending mortal—the Paradise Corps of the Finality. And neither Adjuster nor mortal can attain that unique goal without the full co-operation and faithful help of the other. This extraordinary partnership is one of the most engrossing and amazing of all the cosmic phenomena of this universe age.


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 Rh From the time of Adjuster fusion the status of the ascender is that of the evolutionary creature. The human member was the first to enjoy personality and, therefore, outranks the Adjuster in all matters concerned with the recognition of personality. The Paradise headquarters of this fused being is Ascendington, not Divinington, and this unique combination of God and man ranks as an ascending mortal all the way up to the Corps of the Finality.

When once an Adjuster fuses with an ascending mortal, the number of that Adjuster is stricken from the records of the superuniverse. What happens on the records of Divinington, I do not know, but I surmise that the registry of that Adjuster is removed to the secret circles of the inner courts of Grandfanda, the acting head of the Corps of the Finality.

With Adjuster fusion the Universal Father has completed his promise of the gift of himself to his material creatures; he has fulfilled the promise, and consummated the plan, of the eternal bestowal of divinity upon humanity. Now begins the human attempt to realize and to actualize the limitless possibilities that are inherent in the supernal partnership with God which has thus factualized.

The present known destiny of surviving mortals is the Paradise Corps of the Finality; this is also the goal of destiny for all Thought Adjusters who become joined in eternal union with their mortal companions. At present the Paradise finaliters are working throughout the grand universe in many undertakings, but we all conjecture that they will have other and even more supernal tasks to perform in the distant future after the seven superuniverses have become settled in light and life, and when the finite God has finally emerged from the mystery which now surrounds this Supreme Deity.

You have been instructed to a certain extent about the organization and personnel of the central universe, the superuniverses, and the local universes; you have been told something about the character and origin of some of the various personalities who now rule these far-flung creations. You have also been informed that there are in process of organization vast galaxies of universes far out beyond the periphery of the grand universe, in the first outer space level. It has also been intimated in the course of these narratives that the Supreme Being is to disclose his unrevealed tertiary function in these now uncharted regions of outer space; and you have also been told that the finaliters of the Paradise corps are the experiential children of the Supreme.

We believe that the mortals of Adjuster fusion, together with their finaliter associates, are destined to function in some manner in the administration of the universes of the first outer space level. We have not the slightest doubt that in due time these enormous galaxies will become inhabited universes. And we are equally convinced that among the administrators thereof will be found the Paradise finaliters whose natures are the cosmic consequence of the blending of creature and Creator.

What an adventure! What a romance! A gigantic creation to be administered by the children of the Supreme, these personalized and humanized Adjusters, these Adjusterized and eternalized mortals, these mysterious combinations and eternal associations of the highest known manifestation of the essence of the First Source and Center and the lowest form of intelligent life capable of comprehending and attaining the Universal Father. We conceive that such amalgamated beings, such partnerships of Creator and creature, will become superb rulers, matchless administrators, and understanding and sympathetic


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 1240 directors of any and all forms of intelligent life which may come into existence throughout these future universes of the first outer space level.

True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the universes in your true characters—children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities.

[Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.]


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 1242 tact with their indwelling Adjusters; members of the various reserve corps of destiny. No matter in what circle a human happens to be, if such an individual becomes enrolled in any of the several reserve corps of destiny, right then and there, personal seraphim are assigned, and from that time until the earthly career is finished, that mortal will enjoy the continuous ministry and unceasing watchcare of a guardian angel. Also, when any human being makes the supreme decision, when there is a real betrothal with the Adjuster, a personal guardian is immediately assigned to that soul.

In the ministry to so-called normal beings, seraphic assignments are made in accordance with the human attainment of the circles of intellectuality and spirituality. You start out in your mind of mortal investment in the seventh circle and journey inward in the task of self-understanding, self-conquest, and self-mastery; and circle by circle you advance until (if natural death does not terminate your career and transfer your struggles to the mansion worlds) you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and communion with the indwelling Adjuster.

Human beings in the initial or seventh circle have one guardian angel with one company of assisting cherubim assigned to the watchcare and custody of one thousand mortals. In the sixth circle, a seraphic pair with one company of cherubim is assigned to guide these ascending mortals in groups of five hundred. When the fifth circle is attained, human beings are grouped in companies of approximately one hundred, and a pair of guardian seraphim with a group of cherubim is placed in charge. Upon attainment of the fourth circle, mortal beings are assembled in groups of ten, and again charge is given to a pair of seraphim, assisted by one company of cherubim.

When a mortal mind breaks through the inertia of animal legacy and attains the third circle of human intellectuality and acquired spirituality, a personal angel (in reality two) will henceforth be wholly and exclusively devoted to this ascending mortal. And thus these human souls, in addition to the ever-present and increasingly efficient indwelling Thought Adjusters, receive the undivided assistance of these personal guardians of destiny in all their efforts to finish the third circle, traverse the second, and attain the first.

Seraphim are not known as guardians of destiny until such time as they are assigned to the association of a human soul who has realized one or more of three achievements: has made a supreme decision to become Godlike, has entered the third circle, or has been mustered into one of the reserve corps of destiny.

In the evolution of races a guardian of destiny is assigned to the very first being who attains the requisite circle of conquest. On Urantia the first mortal to secure a personal guardian was Rantowoc, a wise man of the red race of long ago.

All angelic assignments are made from a group of volunteering seraphim, and these appointments are always in accordance with human needs and with regard to the status of the angelic pair—in the light of seraphic experience, skill, and wisdom. Only seraphim of long service, the more experienced and tested types, are assigned as destiny guards. Many guardians have gained much valuable


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 Rh experience on those worlds which are of the non-Adjuster fusion series. Like the Adjusters, the seraphim attend these beings for a single lifetime and then are liberated for new assignment. Many guardians on Urantia have had this previous practical experience on other worlds.

When human beings fail to survive, their personal or group guardians may repeatedly serve in similar capacities on the same planet. The seraphim develop a sentimental regard for individual worlds and entertain a special affection for certain races and types of mortal creatures with whom they have been so closely and intimately associated.

The angels develop an abiding affection for their human associates; and you would, if you could only visualize the seraphim, develop a warm affection for them. Divested of material bodies, given spirit forms, you would be very near the angels in many attributes of personality. They share most of your emotions and experience some additional ones. The only emotion actuating you which is somewhat difficult for them to comprehend is the legacy of animal fear that bulks so large in the mental life of the average inhabitant of Urantia. The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety.

All seraphim have individual names, but in the records of assignment to world service they are frequently designated by their planetary numbers. At the universe headquarters they are registered by name and number. The destiny guardian of the human subject used in this contactual communication is number 3 of group 17, of company 126, of battalion 4, of unit 384, of legion 6, of host 37, of the 182,314th seraphic army of Nebadon. The current planetary assignment number of this seraphim on Urantia and to this human subject is 3,641,852.

In the ministry of personal guardianship, the assignment of angels as destiny guardians, seraphim always volunteer their services. In the city of this visitation a certain mortal was recently admitted to the reserve corps of destiny, and since all such humans are personally attended by guardian angels, more than one hundred qualified seraphim sought the assignment. The planetary director selected twelve of the more experienced individuals and subsequently appointed the seraphim whom they selected as best adapted to guide this human being through his life journey. That is, they selected a certain pair of equally qualified seraphim; one of this seraphic pair will always be on duty.

Seraphic tasks may be unremitting, but either of the angelic pair can discharge all ministering responsibilities. Like cherubim, seraphim usually serve in pairs, but unlike their less advanced associates, the seraphim sometimes work singly. In practically all their contacts with human beings they can function as individuals. Both angels are required only for communication and service on the higher circuits of the universes.

When a seraphic pair accept guardian assignment, they serve for the remainder of the life of that human being. The complement of being (one of the two angels) becomes the recorder of the undertaking. These complemental seraphim are the recording angels of the mortals of the evolutionary worlds. The records are kept by the pair of cherubim (a cherubim and a sanobim) who are always associated with the seraphic guardians, but these records are always sponsored by one of the seraphim.


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 1244 For purposes of rest and recharging with the life energy of the universe circuits, the guardian is periodically relieved by her complement, and during her absence the associated cherubim functions as the recorder, as is also the case when the complemental seraphim is similarly absent.

One of the most important things a destiny guardian does for her mortal subject is to effect a personal co-ordination of the numerous impersonal spirit influences which indwell, surround, and impinge upon the mind and soul of the evolving material creature. Human beings are personalities, and it is exceedingly difficult for nonpersonal spirits and prepersonal entities to make direct contact with such highly material and discretely personal minds. In the ministry of the guarding angel all of these influences are more or less unified and made more nearly appreciable by the expanding moral nature of the evolving human personality.

More especially can and does this seraphic guardian correlate the manifold agencies and influences of the Infinite Spirit, ranging from the domains of the physical controllers and the adjutant mind-spirits up to the Holy Spirit of the Divine Minister and to the Omnipresent Spirit presence of the Paradise Third Source and Center. Having thus unified and made more personal these vast ministries of the Infinite Spirit, the seraphim then undertakes to correlate this integrated influence of the Conjoint Actor with the spirit presences of the Father and the Son.

The Adjuster is the presence of the Father; the Spirit of Truth, the presence of the Sons. These divine endowments are unified and co-ordinated on the lower levels of human spiritual experience by the ministry of the guardian seraphim. The angelic servers are gifted in combining the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son in their ministry to mortal creatures.

And herein is revealed the reason why the seraphic guardian eventually becomes the personal custodian of the mind patterns, memory formulas, and soul realities of the mortal survivor during that interval between physical death and morontia resurrection. None but the ministering children of the Infinite Spirit could thus function in behalf of the human creature during this phase of transition from one level of the universe to another and higher level. Even when you engage in your terminal transition slumber, when you pass from time to eternity, a high supernaphim likewise shares the transit with you as the custodian of creature identity and the surety of personal integrity.

On the spiritual level, seraphim make personal many otherwise impersonal and prepersonal ministries of the universe; they are co-ordinators. On the intellectual level they are the correlators of mind and morontia; they are interpreters. And on the physical level they manipulate terrestrial environment through their liaison with the Master Physical Controllers and through the co-operative ministry of the midway creatures.

This is a recital of the manifold and intricate function of an attending seraphim; but how does such a subordinate angelic personality, created but a little above the universe level of humanity, do such difficult and complex things? We do not really know, but we conjecture that this phenomenal ministry is in some undisclosed manner facilitated by the unrecognized and unrevealed working of the Supreme Being, the actualizing Deity of the evolving universes of time and


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 Rh space. Throughout the entire realm of progressive survival in and through the Supreme Being, seraphim are an essential part of continuing mortal progression.

The guardian seraphim are not mind, though they do spring from the same source that also gives origin to mortal mind, the Creative Spirit. Seraphim are mind stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster, operating from within and through the soul, but rather from the outside inward, working through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings. Seraphim are not the divine Adjuster lure of the Universal Father, but they do function as the personal agency of the ministry of the Infinite Spirit.

Mortal man, subject to Adjuster leading, is also amenable to seraphic guidance. The Adjuster is the essence of man's eternal nature; the seraphim is the teacher of man's evolving nature—in this life the mortal mind, in the next the morontia soul. On the mansion worlds you will be conscious and aware of seraphic instructors, but in the first life men are usually unaware of them.

Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.

The impulse of worship largely originates in the spirit promptings of the higher mind adjutants, reinforced by the leadings of the Adjuster. But the urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very often arises as the result of seraphic influence. The guarding seraphim is constantly manipulating the mortal environment for the purpose of augmenting the cosmic insight of the human ascender to the end that such a survival candidate may acquire enhanced realization of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster and thus be enabled to yield increased co-operation with the spiritual mission of the divine presence.

While there is apparently no communication between the indwelling Adjusters and the encompassing seraphim, they always seem to work in perfect harmony and exquisite accord. The guardians are most active at those times when the Adjusters are least active, but their ministry is in some manner strangely correlated. Such superb co-operation could hardly be either accidental or incidental.

The ministering personality of the guardian seraphim, the God presence of the indwelling Adjuster, the encircuited action of the Holy Spirit, and the Son-consciousness of the Spirit of Truth are all divinely correlated into a meaningful unity of spiritual ministry in and to a mortal personality. Though hailing from different sources and different levels, these celestial influences are all integrated in the enveloping and evolving presence of the Supreme Being.

Angels do not invade the sanctity of the human mind; they do not manipulate the will of mortals; neither do they directly contact with the indwelling Adjusters. The guardian of destiny influences you in every possible manner consistent with the dignity of your personality; under no circumstances do these


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 1246 angels interfere with the free action of the human will. Neither angels nor any other order of universe personality have power or authority to curtail or abridge the prerogatives of human choosing.

Angels are so near you and care so feelingly for you that they figuratively "weep because of your willful intolerance and stubbornness." Seraphim do not shed physical tears; they do not have physical bodies; neither do they possess wings. But they do have spiritual emotions, and they do experience feelings and sentiments of a spiritual nature which are in certain ways comparable to human emotions.

The seraphim act in your behalf quite independent of your direct appeals; they are executing the mandates of their superiors, and thus they function regardless of your passing whims or changing moods. This does not imply that you may not make their tasks either easier or more difficult, but rather that angels are not directly concerned with your appeals or with your prayers.

In the life of the flesh the intelligence of angels is not directly available to mortal men. They are not overlords or directors; they are simply guardians. The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to influence you; you must chart your own course, but these angels then act to make the best possible use of the course you have chosen. They do not (ordinarily) arbitrarily intervene in the routine affairs of human life. But when they receive instructions from their superiors to perform some unusual exploit, you may rest assured that these guardians will find some means of carrying out these mandates. They do not, therefore, intrude into the picture of human drama except in emergencies and then usually on the direct orders of. their superiors. They are the beings who are going to follow you for many an age, and they are thus receiving an introduction to their future work and personality association.

Seraphim are able to function as material ministers to human beings under certain circumstances, but their action in this capacity is very rare. They are able, with the assistance of the midway creatures and the physical controllers, to function in a wide range of activities in behalf of human beings, even to make actual contact with mankind, but such occurrences are very unusual. In most instances the circumstances of the material realm proceed unaltered by seraphic action, although occasions have arisen, involving jeopardy to vital links in the chain of human evolution, in which seraphic guardians have acted, and properly, on their own initiative.

Having told you something of the ministry of seraphim during natural life, I will endeavor to inform you about the conduct of the guardians of destiny at the time of the mortal dissolution of their human associates. Upon your death, your records, identity specifications, and the morontia entity of the human soul—conjointly evolved by the ministry of mortal mind and the divine Adjuster—are faithfully conserved by the destiny guardian together with all other values related to your future existence, everything that constitutes you, the real you, except the identity of continuing existence represented by the departing Adjuster and the actuality of personality.

The instant the pilot light in the human mind disappears, the spirit luminosity which seraphim associate with the presence of the Adjuster, the attending angel


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 Rh reports in person to the commanding angels, successively, of the group, company, battalion, unit, legion, and host; and after being duly registered for the final adventure of time and space, such an angel receives certification by the planetary chief of seraphim for reporting to the Evening Star (or other lieutenant of Gabriel) in command of the seraphic army of this candidate for universe ascension. And upon being granted permission from the commander of this highest organizational unit, such a guardian of destiny proceeds to the first mansion world and there awaits the consciousizing of her former ward in the flesh.

In case the human soul fails of survival after having received the assignment of a personal angel, the attending seraphim must proceed to the headquarters of the local universe, there to witness to the complete records of her complement as previously reported. Next she goes before the tribunals of the archangels., to be absolved from blame in the matter of the survival failure of her subject; and then she goes back to the worlds, again to be assigned to another mortal of ascending potentiality or to some other division of seraphic ministry.

But angels minister to evolutionary creatures in many ways aside from the services of personal and group guardianship. Personal guardians whose subjects do not go immediately to the mansion worlds do not tarry there in idleness awaiting the dispensational roll calls of judgment; they are reassigned to numerous ministering missions throughout the universe.

The guardian seraphim is the custodial trustee of the survival values of mortal man's slumbering soul as the absent Adjuster is the identity of such an immortal universe being. When these two collaborate in the resurrection halls of mansonia in conjunction with the newly fabricated morontia form, there occurs the reassembly of the constituent factors of the personality of the mortal ascender.

The Adjuster will identify you; the guardian seraphim will repersonalize you and then re-present you to the faithful Monitor of your earth days.

And even so, when a planetary age ends, when those in the lower circles of mortal achievement are forgathered, it is their group guardians who reassemble them in the resurrection halls of the mansion spheres, even as your record tells: "And he shall send his angels with a great voice and shall gather together his elect from one end of the realm to another."

The technique of justice demands that personal or group guardians shall respond to the dispensational roll call in behalf of all nonsurviving personalities. The Adjusters of such nonsurvivors do not return, and when the rolls are called, the seraphim respond, but the Adjusters make no answer. This constitutes the "resurrection of the unjust," in reality the formal recognition of the cessation of creature existence. This roll call of justice always immediately follows the roll call of mercy, the resurrection of the sleeping survivors. But these are matters which are of concern to none but the supreme and all-knowing Judges of survival values. Such problems of adjudication do not really concern us.

Group guardians may serve on a planet age after age and eventually become custodians of the slumbering souls of thousands upon thousands of sleeping survivors. They can so serve on many different worlds in a given system since the resurrection response occurs on the mansion worlds.

All personal and group guardians in the system of Satania who went astray in the Lucifer rebellion, notwithstanding that many sincerely repented of their


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 1248 folly, are to be detained on Jerusem until the final adjudication of the rebellion. Already have the Universal Censors arbitrarily taken from these disobedient and unfaithful guardians all aspects of their soul trusts and lodged these morontia realities for safekeeping in the custody of volunteer seconaphim.

It is indeed an epoch in the career of an ascending mortal, this first awakening on the shores of the mansion world; there, for the first time, actually to see your long-loved and ever-present angelic companions of earth days; there also to become truly conscious of the identity and presence of the divine Monitor who so long indwelt your mind on earth. Such an experience constitutes a glorious awakening, a real resurrection.

On the morontia spheres the attending seraphim (there are two of them) are your open companions. These angels not only consort with you as you progress through the career of the transition worlds, in every way possible assisting you in the acquirement of morontia and spirit status, but they also avail themselves of the opportunity to advance by study in the extension schools for evolutionary seraphim maintained on the mansion worlds.

The human race was created just a little lower than the more simple types of the angelic orders. Therefore will your first assignment of the morontia life be as assistants to the seraphim in the immediate work awaiting at the time you attain personality consciousness subsequent to your liberation from the bonds of the flesh.

Before leaving the mansion worlds, all mortals will have permanent seraphic associates or guardians. And as you ascend the morontia spheres, eventually it is the seraphic guardians who witness and certify the decrees of your eternal union with the Thought Adjusters. Together they have established your personality identities as children of the flesh from the worlds of time. Then, with your attainment of the mature morontia estate, they accompany you through Jerusem and the associated worlds of system progress and culture. After that they go with you to Edentia and its seventy spheres of advanced socialization, and subsequently will they pilot you to the Melchizedeks and follow you through the superb career of the universe headquarters worlds. And when you have learned the wisdom and culture of the Melchizedeks, they will take you on to Salvington, where you will stand face to face with the Sovereign of all Nebadon. And still will these seraphic guides follow you through the minor and major sectors of the superuniverse and on to the receiving worlds of Uversa, remaining with you until you finally enseconaphim for the long Havona flight.

Some of the destiny guardians of attachment during the mortal career follow the course of the ascending pilgrims through Havona. The others bid their longtime mortal associates a temporary farewell, and then, while these mortals traverse the circles of the central universe, these guardians of destiny achieve the circles of Seraphington. And they will be in waiting on the shores of Paradise when their mortal associates awaken from the last transit sleep of time into the new experiences of eternity. Such ascending seraphim subsequently enter upon divergent services in the finaliter corps and in the Seraphic Corps of Completion.

Man and angel may or may not be reunited in eternal service, but wherever seraphic assignment may take them, the seraphim are always in communication with their former wards of the evolutionary worlds, the ascendant mortals of


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 Rh time. The intimate associations and the affectionate attachments of the realms of human origin are never forgotten nor ever completely severed. In the eternal ages men and angels will co-operate in the divine service as they did in the career of time.

For seraphim, the surest way of achieving the Paradise Deities is by successfully guiding a soul of evolutionary origin to the portals of Paradise. Therefore is the assignment of guardian of destiny the most highly prized seraphic duty.

Only destiny guardians are mustered into the primary or mortal Corps of the Finality, and such pairs have engaged in the supreme adventure of identity at-oneness; the two beings have achieved spiritual bi-unification on Seraphington prior to their reception into the finaliter corps. In this experience the two angelic natures, so complemental in all universe functions, achieve ultimate spirit two-in-oneness, repercussing in a new capacity for the reception of, and fusion with, a non-Adjuster fragment of the Paradise Father. And so do some of your loving seraphic associates in time also become your finaliter associates in eternity, children of the Supreme and perfected sons of the Paradise Father.

[Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.]


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 Rh of Prince Caligastia, at the time of the Lucifer rebellion, Urantia had no sure and settled relationship with the local universe and its administrative divisions until the completion of Michael's bestowal in the flesh, when he was proclaimed, by the Union of Days, Planetary Prince of Urantia. Such a proclamation in surety and in principle forever settled the status of your world, but in practice the Sovereign Creator Son made no gesture of personal administration of the planet aside from the establishment of the Jerusem commission of twenty-four former Urantians with authority to represent him in the government of Urantia and all other quarantined planets in the system. One of this council is now always resident on Urantia as resident governor general.

Vicegerent authority to act for Michael as Planetary Prince has been recently vested in Machiventa Melchizedek, but this Son of the local universe has made not the slightest move toward modifying the present planetary regime of the successive administrations of the resident governors general.

There is little likelihood that any marked change will be made in the government of Urantia during the present dispensation unless the vicegerent Planetary Prince should arrive to assume his titular responsibilities. It appears to certain of our associates that at some time in the near future the plan of sending one of the twenty-four counselors to Urantia to act as governor general will be superseded by the formal arrival of Machiventa Melchizedek with the vicegerent mandate of the sovereignty of Urantia. As acting Planetary Prince he would undoubtedly continue in charge of the planet until the final adjudication of the Lucifer rebellion and probably on into the distant future of planetary settlement in light and life.

Some believe that Machiventa will not come to take personal direction of Urantian affairs until the end of the current dispensation. Others hold that the vicegerent Prince may not come, as such, until Michael sometime returns to Urantia as he promised when still in the flesh. Still others, including this narrator, look for Melchizedek's appearance any day or hour.

Since the times of Michael's bestowal on your world the general management of Urantia has been intrusted to a special group on Jerusem of twenty-four onetime Urantians. Qualification for membership on this commission is unknown to us, but we have observed that those who have been thus commissioned have all been contributors to the enlarging sovereignty of the Supreme in the system of Satania. By nature they were all real leaders when they functioned on Urantia, and (excepting Machiventa Melchizedek) these qualities of leadership have been further augmented by mansion world experience and supplemented by the training of Jerusem citizenship. Members are nominated to the twenty-four by the cabinet of Lanaforge, seconded by the Most Highs of Edentia, approved by the Assigned Sentinel of Jerusem, and appointed by Gabriel of Salvington in accordance with the mandate of Michael. The temporary appointees function just as fully as do the permanent members of this commission of special supervisors.

This board of planetary directors is especially concerned with the supervision of those activities on this world which result from the fact that Michael here experienced his terminal bestowal. They are kept in close and immediate touch with Michael by the liaison activities of a certain Brilliant Evening Star, the identical being who attended upon Jesus throughout the mortal bestowal.


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 1252 At the present time one John, known to you as "the Baptist," is chairman of this council when it is in session on Jerusem. But the ex officio head of this council is the Assigned Sentinel of Satania, the direct and personal representative of the Associate Inspector on Salvington and of the Supreme Executive of Orvonton.

The members of this same commission of former Urantians also act as advisory supervisors of the thirty-six other rebellion-isolated worlds of the system; they perform a very valuable service in keeping Lanaforge, the System Sovereign, in close and sympathetic touch with the affairs of these planets, which still remain more or less under the overcontrol of the Constellation Fathers of Norlatiadek. These twenty-four counselors make frequent trips as individuals to each of the quarantined planets, especially to Urantia.

Each of the other isolated worlds is advised by similar and varying sized commissions of its onetime inhabitants, but these other commissions are subordinate to the Urantian group of twenty-four. While the members of the latter commission are thus actively interested in every phase of human progress on each quarantined world in Satania, they are especially and particularly concerned with the welfare and advancement of the mortal races of Urantia, for they immediately and directly supervise the affairs of none of the planets except Urantia, and even here their authority is not complete excepting in certain domains concerned with mortal survival.

No one knows how long these twenty-four Urantia counselors will continue in their present status, detached from the regular program of universe activities. They will no doubt continue to serve in their present capacities until some change in planetary status ensues, such as the end of a dispensation, the assumption of full authority by Machiventa Melchizedek, the final adjudication of the Lucifer rebellion, or the reappearance of Michael on the world of his final bestowal. The present resident governor general of Urantia seems inclined to the opinion that all but Machiventa may be released for Paradise ascension the moment the system of Satania is restored to the constellation circuits. But other opinions are also current.

Every one hundred years of Urantia time, the Jerusem corps of twenty-four planetary supervisors designate one of their number to sojourn on your world to act as their executive representative, as resident governor general. During the times of the preparation of these narratives this executive officer was changed, the nineteenth so to serve being succeeded by the twentieth. The name of the current planetary supervisor is withheld from you only because mortal man is so prone to venerate, even to deify, his extraordinary compatriots and superhuman superiors.

The resident governor general has no actual personal authority in the management of world affairs except as the representative of the twenty-four Jerusem counselors. He acts as the co-ordinator of superhuman administration and is the respected head and universally recognized leader of the celestial beings functioning on Urantia. All orders of angelic hosts regard him as their co-ordinating director, while the united midwayers, since the departure of 1-2-3 the first to become one of the twenty-four counselors, really look upon the successive governors general as their planetary fathers.


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 Rh Although the governor general does not possess actual and personal authority on the planet, he hands down scores of rulings and decisions each day which are accepted as final by all personalities concerned. He is much more of a fatherly adviser than a technical ruler. In certain ways he functions as would a Planetary Prince, but his administration much more closely resembles that of the Material Sons.

The Urantia government is represented in the councils of Jerusem in accordance with an arrangement whereby the returning governor general sits as a temporary member of the System Sovereign's cabinet of Planetary Princes. It was expected, when Machiventa was designated vicegerent Prince, that he would immediately assume his place in the council of the Planetary Princes of Satania, but thus far he has made no gesture in this direction.

The supermaterial government of Urantia does not maintain a very close organic relationship with the higher units of the local universe. In a way, the resident governor general represents Salvington as well as Jerusem since he acts on behalf of the twenty-four counselors, who are directly representative of Michael and Gabriel. And being a Jerusem citizen, the planetary governor can function as a spokesman for the System Sovereign. The constellation authorities are represented directly by a Vorondadek Son, the Edentia observer.

The sovereignty of Urantia is further complicated by the onetime arbitrary seizure of planetary authority by the government of Norlatiadek shortly after the planetary rebellion. There is still resident on Urantia a Vorondadek Son, an observer for the Most Highs of Edentia and, in the absence of direct action by Michael, trustee of planetary sovereignty. The present Most High observer (and sometime regent) is the twenty-third thus to serve on Urantia.

There are certain groups of planetary problems which are still under the control of the Most Highs of Edentia, jurisdiction over them having been seized at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. Authority in these matters is exercised by a Vorondadek Son, the Norlatiadek observer, who maintains very close advisory relations with the planetary supervisors. The race commissioners are very active on Urantia, and their various group chiefs are informally attached to the resident Vorondadek observer, who acts as their advisory director.

In a crisis the actual and sovereign head of the government, excepting in certain purely spiritual matters, would be this Vorondadek Son of Edentia now on observation duty. (In these exclusively spiritual problems and in certain purely personal matters, the supreme authority seems to be vested in the commanding archangel attached to the divisional headquarters of that order which was recently established on Urantia.)

A Most High observer is empowered, at his discretion, to seize the planetary government in times of grave planetary crises, and it is of record that this has happened thirty-three times in the history of Urantia. At such times the Most High observer functions as the Most High regent, exercising unquestioned authority over all ministers and administrators resident on the planet excepting only the divisional organization of the archangels.

Vorondadek regencies are not peculiar to rebellion-isolated planets, for the Most Highs may intervene at any time in the affairs of the inhabited worlds,


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 1254 interposing the superior wisdom of the constellation rulers in the affairs of the kingdoms of men.

The actual administration of Urantia is indeed difficult to describe. There exists no formal government along the lines of universe organization, such as separate legislative, executive, and judicial departments. The twenty-four counselors come the nearest to being the legislative branch of the planetary government. The governor general is a provisional and advisory chief executive with the veto power resident in the Most High observer. And there are no absolutely authoritative judicial powers operative on the planet—only the conciliating commissions.

A majority of the problems involving seraphim and midwayers are, by mutual consent, decided by the governor general. But except when voicing the mandates of the twenty-four counselors, his rulings are all subject to appeal to conciliating commissions, to local authorities constituted for planetary function, or even to the System Sovereign of Satania.

The absence of the corporeal staff of a Planetary Prince and the material regime of an Adamic Son and Daughter is partially compensated by the special ministry of seraphim and by the unusual services of the midway creatures. The absence of the Planetary Prince is effectively compensated by the triune presence of the archangels, the Most High observer, and the governor general.

This rather loosely organized and somewhat personally administered planetary government is more than expectedly effective because of the time-saving assistance of the archangels and their ever-ready circuit, which is so frequently utilized in planetary emergencies and administrative difficulties. Technically, the planet is still spiritually isolated in the Norlatiadek circuits, but in an emergency this handicap can now be circumvented through utilization of the archangels' circuit. Planetary isolation is, of course, of little concern to individual mortals since the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh nineteen hundred years ago.

Each administrative day on Urantia begins with a consultative conference, which is attended by the governor general, the planetary chief of archangels, the Most High observer, the supervising supernaphim, the chief of resident Life Carriers, and invited guests from among the high Sons of the universe or from among certain of the student visitors who may chance to be sojourning on the planet.

The direct administrative cabinet of the governor general consists of twelve seraphim, the acting chiefs of the twelve groups of special angels functioning as the immediate superhuman directors of planetary progress and stability.

When the first governor general arrived on Urantia, concurrent with the outpouring of the Spirit of Truth, he was accompanied by twelve corps of special seraphim, Seraphington graduates, who were immediately assigned to certain special planetary services. These exalted angels are known as the master seraphim of planetary supervision and are, aside from the overcontrol of the planetary


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 Rh Most High observer, under the immediate direction of the resident governor general.

These twelve groups of angels, while functioning under the general supervision of the resident governor general, are immediately directed by the seraphic council of twelve, the acting chiefs of each group. This council also serves as the volunteer cabinet of the resident governor general.

As planetary chief of seraphim, I preside over this council of seraphic chiefs, and I am a volunteer supernaphim of the primary order serving on Urantia as the successor of the onetime chief of the angelic hosts of the planet who defaulted at the time of the Caligastia secession.

The twelve corps of the master seraphim of planetary supervision are functional on Urantia as follows:

1. The epochal angels. These are the angels of the current age, the dispensational group. These celestial ministers are intrusted with the oversight and direction of the affairs of each generation as they are designed to fit into the mosaic of the age in which they occur. The present corps of epochal angels serving on Urantia is the third group assigned to the planet during the current dispensation.

2. The progress angels. These seraphim are intrusted with the task of initiating the evolutionary progress of the successive social ages. They foster the development of the inherent progressive trend of evolutionary creatures; they labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be. The group now on duty is the second to be assigned to the planet.

3. The religious guardians. These are the "angels of the churches," the earnest contenders for that which is and has been. They endeavor to maintain the ideals of that which has survived for the sake of the safe transit of moral values from one epoch to another. They are the checkmates of the angels of progress, all the while seeking to translate from one generation to another the imperishable values of the old and passing forms into the new and therefore less stabilized patterns of thought and conduct. These angels do contend for spiritual forms, but they are not the source of ultrasectarianism and meaningless controversial divisions of professed religionists. The corps now functioning on Urantia is the fifth thus to serve.

4. The angels of nation life. These are the "angels of the trumpets," directors of the political performances of Urantia national life. The group now functioning in the overcontrol of international relations is the fourth corps to serve on the planet. It is particularly through the ministry of this seraphic division that "the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men."

5. The angels of the races. Those who work for the conservation of the evolutionary races of time, regardless of their political entanglements and religious groupings. On Urantia there are remnants of nine human races which have commingled and combined into the people of modern times. These seraphim are closely associated with the ministry of the race commissioners, and the group now on Urantia is the original corps assigned to the planet soon after the day of Pentecost.

6. The angels of the future. These are the projection angels, who forecast a future age and plan for the realization of the better things of a new and ad-