Note to other perversions at 533:

Although I have no documentation for these actions, tradition carries through the Urantia community concerning these “personalities” and the giant Sherman Sequoia. In my note to Gardner I did not mention the name “Sherman.”

According to that tradition, coming out of Christy’s channeling, the belief was spread that the giant Sherman sequoia tree is the “spiritual pole of the planet.” This is based on statements in the Papers:

P.439 - p1 While planetary space reports are received at noon at the meridian of the designated spiritual headquarters, the transporters are dispatched from this same place at midnight. That is the most favorable time for departure and is the standard hour when not otherwise specified.

P.710 - p1 It was an eventful day on Urantia when our small group gathered about the planetary pole of space communication and received the first message from Salvington over the newly established mind circuit of the planet. And this first message, dictated by the chief of the archangel corps, said:

P.439 - p1 While planetary space reports are received at noon at the meridian of the designated spiritual headquarters, the transporters are dispatched from this same place at midnight. That is the most favorable time for departure and is the standard hour when not otherwise specified.

Standing 272-feet high, measuring more than 35-feet across its base, and weighing about four-and-a-half million pounds, General Sherman is one of a number of giant sequoias that make up the Giant Forest within the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. The lowest branch on the Sherman sequoia is larger than the majority of trees east of the Mississippi.

Clearly, the giant Sherman sequoia could not have been the “spiritual pole of the planet” in the times of Andon and Fonta, a million years ago. The unthinking minds of the Urantians who inhabited 533, and their equally duped followers, did not recognize that:

First, no “spiritual pole” will be centered around a tree. That is pure fantasy.

Second, the time frames were wildly in disagreement.

But they could not see through such childish deception. We saw in Chapter 18 how Harold Sherman accepted allegiance to Sonsovocton. He did so because Sadler, Christy, Bill Sadler, Jr., and all the key personalities did also. What a truly sad commentary. This group of intelligent people fell head-over-heals into devotion to a fictional character invented by Caligastia. And how that Devil must have laughed, that he could so easily turn devotion back upon himself.

The same comments apply to the fictional Norson. He now shows up in the current channeling groups as another “spiritual teacher.”

Another appended note:

Meredith Sprunger reacted to my publication of corruptions in the Revelation. He addressed materials I had posted to Urantia Internet discussion groups.

I offered the following response:

Date of Email to Meredith: Thursday, December 16, 1999

Dear Meredith:

You suggest that “fundamentalist” views expect Revelations from God to be literally perfect. Thus the title of your editorial.

Unfortunately, you failed to state that corruptions have nothing to do with fundamentalism, liberalism, new-ageism, inspirationalism, or any other kind of ism. The discovery of corruptions is based on facts, and not on particular views of reality. Whether those corruptions spoil the “inspiration” of the Urantia Papers, or otherwise interfere in our proper understanding of God’s word to us, should be a matter for us to weigh, and not so casually reject.

I shall briefly review.

Through the work of Merritt Horn and Kristen Maaherra we now know that Sadler made changes to the text of the Revelation between the first and second printing. These were more than correction of spelling errors, punctuation, or capitalization. Changes were made because of obvious errors in Revelation “facts,” or equally obvious logical contradictions.

Some of the changes were the result of a letter from Benjamin Adams, Pastor of the Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, to Sadler in 1959 in which he pointed out contradictions and errors — which Sadler thereupon corrected. Adams felt the corruptions deserved attention.

Sadler corrected other errors and contradictions he personally discovered, or were pointed out to him by other people.

The question then before us is why, if the Revelation was not compromised in its inspirational value, Sadler felt a need to correct those errors and contradictions. By doing so he exposed himself to the charge that he made arbitrary changes in a work which many of us, both inspirationalists and fundamentalists, believe should have been better left alone. We naturally ask if Sadler knew better than the celestial revelators. This observation, of course, is founded on the fact that the Revelation had origins from celestial personalities, with far better understanding of universe processes than what we human mortal possess, and that they should have known the consequent impact of those corruptions on our understanding.

As an author who has written extensively, I understand the care which must be taken in publishing the written word, for fear it will be misunderstood, and with concern that I have my facts correct. I am sure that no human being would assign to immortal beings less care, and that if factual errors or contradictions exist within the Revelation, the celestial authors certainly should have known about them. This conclusion is especially true in light of the fact that revelations from celestial sources could have such a profound impact on the thinking and decisions of human mortals. Immortal beings would be even more careful.

Since Adams, Sadler, and myself were all concerned about the errors and contradictions there is the further question of why the celestial authors did not have that concern. Was Sadler correcting immortal beings? Or did some other process, not under his control or their control, introduce the corruptions?

It seems highly unlikely Sadler would have consciously created those corruptions, since he went to the trouble of correcting them between printings. It seems further unlikely that he would have unconsciously created them during the

transcription phase of the Revelation, since he remarks that his contribution was limited to spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

When faced with the need to explain the corruptions, Sadler resorted to midwayer fallibility. He did so because he felt the corruptions were due to midwayer influence upon the Revelation. From the record he left in the History document we know a “third presentation” was made after the Revelation was completed and certified in 1935. Ostensibly, this was done under a continuing concern by the celestial authors for “Clarification of Concepts” and the “Removal of Ambiguities.” Sadler’s statements suggest he believed the third series derived from the midwayers, and that the corruptions took place during that period. Hence, his assignment to midwayer fallibility.

Why he believed the corruptions took place during the “third series” is not exactly clear. His anecdotal remarks imply that he recognized they did not occur during the precursor Papers, (first series), nor in the Revelation Papers which were “completed and certified” in 1935, (second series).

Carolyn Kendall verified the three “series” from facts recorded in her father’s diary.

As you can see from my previous remark, it is highly unlikely that immortal midwayers would be caught in such childishly simple errors and contradictions. If we made that assignment we would reduce them to a status inferior to human authors.

The question then becomes one of why Sadler made such an assignment. Available evidence suggests that the third series began after Lena died in 1939, and probably ended at the time of the Harold Sherman episode in 1942.

People with common sense naturally ask: What other undiscovered factual errors or logical contradictions might exist within the Revelation? How might those errors impact on our understanding of Revelation facts, and how might they compromise the instructional value of the Revelation?

I am sure you will notice that when I use the words “understanding” and “instructional value” I am assigning a status to the Revelation which exceeds its “inspirational value.” Benjamin Adams gave it such importance. Sadler did also.

From study of the logic behind the errors and contradictions I realized they were not due to mere accident in passing the Revelation from celestial beings to the printing press. The corruptions had to be created by an intelligent hand with malicious intent.

This conclusion is warranted by sizing up the relative intelligence and memory power of various orders of sentient beings. As I explained above, we would not expect immortal midwayers to be more in fault than human beings, nor any of their supervisors of even greater celestial status, who certainly must have been observing and approving midwayer activities. Hence, if errors and contradictions crept into the Revelation, and if they were not due to the hand of Sadler, we are left with only one other cause.

From your remarks it appears that you avoided following this train of thought, and that you preferred to slough off causes by assigning such concerns to “fundamentalist” thinking. The “inspiration” of the Revelation was good enough for you.

Your subterfuge was to credit my analysis to a desire for revelation infallibility, regardless of the merits of the study. In other words, you engaged in an age-old common intellectual escape by faulting the messenger, instead of dealing with the facts.

If my assessment was correct we were then left with the task of locating the cause of the corruptions. If they were due to an intelligent hand it was natural to ask the source of that intelligence, and what goal that intelligence had in mind. And why did Sadler not notice those errors and contradictions before he sent the Revelation to press? (He acknowledged awareness of at least one corruption before the first printing, but he justified it through logical maneuvering.)

I personally believe Sadler and the Forum members did not question the third series of changes because all accepted that they came from midwayers. Thus no one paid serious attention to the details of changes in text during that period, or, if they did, the corruptions were effectively buried in other changes. Sadler followed the instruction, without question, that the changes were intended to clarify concepts and remove ambiguities. From evaluation we know that some of the errors and contradictions could slip by Sadler and Forum members because they were based on familiarity in the human mind. For example, the statement of twelve apostles present at the last supper after Judas departed could easily have slipped notice. The migration of the Red man from east to west also might have slipped by unnoticed. One of the outstanding contradictions was scientific, and occurred in two immediately adjacent paragraphs on page 477. Since Sadler and the Forum members were not scientifically trained in nuclear physics they probably would not have detected this contradiction. Other errors and contradictions occurred in such a way that they were not immediately visible. Hence, it seems that the corruptions were introduced in a way that no one noticed.

In other words, the source of the errors and contradictions did not inform Sadler or the Forum members about them, although immortal beings should have been in a position to recognize their hazard to human understanding. In fact, the corruptions were of such form that they distracted from the logical integrity of the Revelation, and any fresh reader might be put off by those corruptions. The scientific errors have had just such impact upon many people. (Because we are a materialistic society, the scientific content received first and most intense attention.)

Hence, it seems safe to conclude that the corruptions were intentional, and designed to denigrate the Revelation. This raises the further prospect that the science of the Urantia Papers was not necessarily limited to the knowledge of the early part of this century, but may also have been affected by the intelligent hand causing the corruptions.

Clearly, celestial beings with awesome intellectual and memory abilities would not engage in such activities if they were loyal to the Revelation. Since Sadler was uninformed about the corruptions, and was unaware of them through his own cognizance, we again are left with one conclusion.

Caligastia was the source of the corruptions.

Then our task devolves to searching for the mechanism by which the corruptions

were introduced.

We now know from the evidence provided by Carolyn Kendall, and from examination of the Forum “messages” given during the period from 1942 to 1955, that a channeling source was present in 533 during that period. As you well know from your co-presentation with Carolyn and Tom Kendall, and Mark Kulieke in Montreal in 1993, Christy continued to receive “messages” well into the 1970’s.

Since we also know that channeling comes only from Caligastia, Christy became the human vehicle by which the corruptions were implanted into the Revelation.

Sadler accepted the channeling because he was told they were midwayer communications. In spite of his extensive background in psychic investigations, he was completely hoodwinked. (I will not discuss the psychology which led to this astonishing deception.) Since he believed the alterations of the third series came from midwayers, when he discovered the corruptions he naturally assigned them to midwayer fallibility.

Hence Sadler defaulted twice: first, when he accepted Christy’s psychic communications as another form of midwayer activity, and second, when he later assigned the corruptions to the midwayers without thinking through the ramifications of such a theory.

You should note that Sadler became subject to the very fundamentalist type thinking you so disparagingly reject. The heroic status you assigned to Sadler in many of your writings is betrayed by his attitudes. He became unthinking in following the pattern of the Revelation process, and accepting “midwayer communications” without a critical eye.

I emphasize that fundamentalist thinking causes persons to blindly accept religious theories which do not accord with reality. This is the implication of your use of the word. However, it is abundantly evident from my work that I have employed considerable thought and research in my attempt to understand the corruptions which took place in the Revelation, and on those grounds cannot be classified as fundamentalist. Since I joined the ranks of Adams, Sadler, and many others, I cannot be classified as a fundamentalist on the further grounds of my desire for Revelation perfection; I merely desire to understand what could have caused errors and contradictions which appear entirely human. My labors do not preclude my acceptance of Revelations limitations conditioned by the realities of time and space. But you chose to throw all those considerations into the “fundamentalist” basket.

I believe you did so because of your own personal fears. It is my estimate that you were greatly disturbed to learn of the corruptions, and sought a way to justify the fact of their existence in a way that would preserve the value of the Revelation.

I could engage in a lengthy dissertation of Christian theological developments over the past century, and how mainline Church theologians fell into the deadly trap of disbelief — simple because they were awed by their own intellectual powers. They went from rejection of biblical infallibility, to a logical disbelief in the

primary Christian tenet that Jesus died and resurrected for the salvation of mankind. The Bible then became merely “inspirational” and lost its literal significance. You came out of the era, with your extensive training in modern theological developments. Thus you have a tendency to classify all matters religious from inspirationalist or fundamentalist perspectives. But you do a great disservice to yourself and to others when you resort to such simplistic mechanisms in order to cling to your fond desires.

Isn’t it time to put aside such simplistic views, and engage the world of reality, with all of its intense spiritual struggles, and its mighty challenge to the spiritual integrity of us all?

Ernest