The following
is transcribed from a tape recording made in the home of Berkeley
Elliott on February 18, 1962 in Oklahoma City in the U.S.A. On
this occasion, William S. Sadler, Jr., one of the "contact
commissioners," was talking with the study group there assembled.
What follows are comments which he made on this occasion
concerning the origin of The Urantia Book.
"Many years ago my parents, who were physicians, had brought to
their attention a man who had some rather strange things happening
to him. In one of the books my father wrote, "The Mind at
Mischief", he made mention of this case in the last part of the
book -- in the Appendix which was published in the 1920's. My
father had spook-hunting as a hobby. He was an exposer of mediums.
He had two partners in this endeavor -- the head of the psychology
department at Northwestern University and Howard Thurston, a
professional magician. There is a book now out of print which my
father wrote called "The Truth About Spiritualism" in which he
puts so-called spiritualists as falling into one of two
categories. There are practicing frauds -- deliberately working
for gain or for glory -- and there are people who are
self-deceived. I think in that book he says "with one possible
exception."
"My parents, both physicians [Dr. and Mrs. Sadler], became
interested in this case. This man would go to sleep and he'd talk
and what came out was intriguing and different. He was never
interested in the lost watch or the stock market or in talking
with your Uncle George who had passed on -- never anything
practical. This was different; distinctly odd. About this time a
Sunday evening meeting came to be organized at our house. It came
about when Pop was giving a commencement address at a local
university. I was in High School at the time and he wrote me a
letter saying that we were not church people but that Sunday
should be productive as well as a day of rest. He asked what I
would say if they invited in some friends and they had a
discussion group -- kind of a forum -- and talked about health and
history and politics, etc. That group came into existence in, I
think, 1922. This group became interested in spiritualism because
Pop was writing on that subject at the time.
"My dad was mischievous -- there was a mind-reading vaudeville
show in town. Pop attended twice. He took a pair of wire cutters
and clipped the wires that hooked the guy in the audience with the
gal on the stage. At which point she fainted and they asked if
there was a doctor in the audience, and Pop had the gall to go
back and take care of her.
"The question came up whether all such phenomena is fraudulent. My
dad was an honest guy so he said there was one such case that was
a puzzle. So they asked him to tell them about it. So the forum
became intrigued with the shorthand notes that had been taken of
things this man talked about.
"One evening when they were talking to this man, a kind of an
argument came up. They were talking with someone who claimed to be
a "Mighty Messenger." They asked if he could prove he was a Mighty
Messenger. " No," he said, "but you can't prove I'm not either. If
you knew what I know, you wouldn't ask these silly questions. You
would prepare some of the most deep, searching and far-reaching
questions you could possibly imagine."
"My father was half English and half Irish and he got kind of mad
-- he was investigating this phenomena and now he was being
challenged. Pop looked at the others in the group and said, "Lets
pursue this and see what happens."
"So the next Sunday when the Forum met, the whole group came in on
the deal. I was told that approximately five thousand questions
were given. Some were silly -- how old is God, who created him,
and so forth. What happened was this -- one day the questions were
gone and where the questions had been was the first of the Urantia
Papers and was entitled, "The Universal Father."
"I'll tell you how I think this paper was written. And my theory
is not one-hundred percent correct. But its the best I can find.
Visualize several places in space -- points A, B, C and D. I think
the papers were dictated or conceived at point A and had we been
there when any of these papers was written we would have seen
nothing. A Divine Counselor is presenting his concepts in the
language of Uversa*. A translator is there who translates it into
the language of Salvington*. There is another translator there who
translates from the language of Salvington* to the language of
Satania* and another translator who translates from Satania* into
English. You cannot translate from Uversa* into English because
the languages are too far apart.
"I suspect that 99% of the original concept was lost in
translation -- English is too primitive a language. Take Bantu
where they have one, two and then "many" -- the end of their
numbers -- and you want to translate into large number systems,
you simply can't do it. See the problem?
"Point A was linked by some sort of communication circuit to point
B. At point B there would be something to see, but it would be
rather dull. It would be a man asleep -- doing nothing. Remember
the resurrection and the way the stone was moved by the Midwayers?
<Translate "Midwayers" as "los seres intermedios"> At point C you
would see a pencil moving over paper with no visible means of
motion. That's where the physical writing took place. Now point D
would be where we found the papers. This individual was never seen
to write one of these papers -- and don't think we weren't trying
to watch him. If he wrote them he was more clever than we -- he
was never observed to write them.
"We tried everything we could think of to see how this was being
done, but were baffled. The text was entirely written in pencil --
all in the handwriting of this individual.
"Who was this man? I took an oath not to divulge who he was. That
was required of all who know his identity and it was required by
the commissioner who sponsored the last of the papers. We think we
know why it was required. He would have asked us to maintain
secrecy. One of the reasons this man was picked is that he has a
passion for privacy -- a very stable man. He doesn't want to be
known.
"These papers were read to the forum. At the end of each paper was
a note suggesting the next title on which questions should be
asked. This is how they led us through the first time. They were
read to the forum and they generated more questions and over a
period of years this book accumulated. And eventually when we had
money we published it.
"In 1950 we completed the preparation of our plates. As money came
in we forecast inflation, so we took the money we had and spent it
in getting Donnelley (the publisher) to prepare the plates. If you
went to Chicago, you'd see that the Urantia Foundation was
established in 1950 by the anonymous donation of the plates of The
Urantia Book. We got nickel coated plates. If you write to
Donnelley, they'll tell you they negotiated with Mr. Wilfred
Kellogg. The Urantia Foundation owns the copyright. There are five
trustees. In about 1954 these five trustees selected thirty-six
people who organized the Urantia Brotherhood. The book was
published in October of 1955 and has been spreading ever since.
"I was there most of the time. I'm a management man, not the kind
of man you would expect to see mixed up in something like this --
and I was very suspicious of all this. I asked myself, "Who is
making money on this? I found that it was going to cost
money. I realized there was no commercial end. And, as the book
cleared up some personal quarrels I had with religion, I felt it
was a pretty good thing. So I elected to spend my spare time
telling people about it. I don't get paid, but I get a lot of
satisfaction. This is a first hand story except for the years from
1924 to 1928 when I was doing military duty. And this is the first
time this story has ever been recorded."
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