The Urantia Book
PAPER 24
HIGHER PERSONALITIES OF THE
INFINITE SPIRIT
Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.
24:0.1 ON UVERSA we divide all personalities
and entities of the Conjoint Creator into three grand divisions:
the Higher Personalities of the Infinite Spirit, the Messenger
Hosts of Space, and the Ministering Spirits of Time, those
spirit beings who are concerned with teaching and ministering to
the will creatures of the ascendant scheme of mortal
progression.
24:0.2 Those Higher Personalities of the
Infinite Spirit that find mention in these narratives function
throughout the grand universe in seven divisions:
1. Solitary Messengers.
2. Universe Circuit Supervisors.
3. Census Directors.
4. Personal Aids of the Infinite
Spirit.
5. Associate Inspectors.
6. Assigned Sentinels.
7. Graduate Guides.
24:0.3 Solitary Messengers, Circuit
Supervisors, Census Directors, and the Personal Aids are
characterized by the possession of tremendous endowments of
antigravity. The Solitary Messengers are without known general
headquarters; they roam the universe of universes. The Universe
Circuit Supervisors and the Census Directors maintain
headquarters on the capitals of the superuniverses. The Personal
Aids of the Infinite Spirit are stationed on the central Isle of
Light. The Associate Inspectors and the Assigned Sentinels are
respectively stationed on the capitals of the local universes
and on the capitals of their component systems. The Graduate
Guides are resident in the Havona universe and function on all
its billion worlds. Most of these higher personalities have
stations in the local universes, but they are not organically
attached to the administrations of the evolutionary realms.
24:0.4 Of the seven classes composing this
group, only the Solitary Messengers and perhaps the Personal
Aids range the universe of universes. Solitary Messengers are
encountered from Paradise outward: through the Havona circuits
to the superuniverse capitals and thence out through the sectors
and local universes, with their subdivisions, and even to the
inhabited worlds. Although Solitary Messengers belong to the
Higher Personalities of the Infinite Spirit, their origin,
nature, and service have been discussed in the preceding paper.
1. THE UNIVERSE CIRCUIT SUPERVISORS
24:1.1 The vast power currents of space and
the circuits of spirit energy may seem to operate automatically;
they may appear to function without let or hindrance, but such
is not the case. All these stupendous systems of energy are
under control; they are subject to intelligent supervision.
Universe Circuit Supervisors are concerned, not with the realms
of purely physical or material energy -- the domain of the
Universe Power Directors -- but with the circuits of relative
spiritual energy and with those modified circuits which are
essential to the maintenance of both the highly developed
spiritual beings and the morontia or transition type of
intelligent creatures. The supervisors do not give origin to
circuits of energy and superessence of divinity, but in general
they have to do with all higher spirit circuits of time and
eternity and with all relative spirit circuits concerned in the
administration of the component parts of the grand universe.
They direct and manipulate all such spirit-energy circuits
outside the Isle of Paradise.
24:1.2 Universe Circuit Supervisors are the
exclusive creation of the Infinite Spirit, and they function
solely as the agents of the Conjoint Actor. They are
personalized for service in the following four orders:
1. Supreme Circuit Supervisors.
2. Associate Circuit Supervisors.
3. Secondary Circuit Supervisors.
4. Tertiary Circuit Supervisors.
24:1.3 The supreme supervisors of Havona and
the associate supervisors of the seven superuniverses are of
completed numbers; no more of these orders are being created.
The supreme supervisors are seven in number and are stationed on
the pilot worlds of the seven Havona circuits. The circuits of
the seven superuniverses are in the charge of a marvelous group
of seven associate supervisors, who maintain headquarters on the
seven Paradise spheres of the Infinite Spirit, the worlds of the
Seven Supreme Executives. From here they supervise and direct
the circuits of the superuniverses of space.
24:1.4 On these Paradise spheres of the Spirit
the seven associate circuit supervisors and the first order of
the Supreme Power Centers effect a liaison which, under the
direction of the Supreme Executives, results in the sub-Paradise
co-ordination of all material and spiritual circuits passing out
to the seven superuniverses.
24:1.5 On the headquarters worlds of each
superuniverse are stationed the secondary supervisors for the
local universes of time and space. The major and minor sectors
are administrative divisions of the supergovernments but are not
concerned in these matters of spirit-energy supervision. I do
not know how many secondary circuit supervisors there are in the
grand universe, but on Uversa there are 84,691 of these beings.
Secondary supervisors are being created right along; from time
to time they appear in groups of seventy on the worlds of the
Supreme Executives. We obtain them on requisition as we arrange
for the establishment of separate circuits of spirit energy and
liaison power to the newly evolving universes of our
jurisdiction.
24:1.6 A tertiary circuit supervisor functions
on the headquarters world of every local universe. This order,
like the secondary supervisors, is of continuous creation, being
created in groups of seven hundred. They are assigned to the
local universes by the Ancients of Days.
24:1.7 Circuit supervisors are created for
their specific tasks, and they eternally serve in the groups of
their original assignment. They are not rotated in service and
hence make an agelong study of the problems found in the realms
of their original assignment. For example: Tertiary circuit
supervisor No. 572,842 has functioned on Salvington since the
early concept of your local universe, and he is a member of the
personal staff of Michael of Nebadon.
24:1.8 Whether acting in the local or higher
universes, circuit supervisors direct all concerned as to the
proper circuits to employ for the transmission of all spirit
messages and for the transit of all personalities. In their work
of circuit supervision these efficient beings utilize all
agencies, forces, and personalities in the universe of
universes. They employ the unrevealed "high spirit personalities
of circuit control" and are ably assisted by numerous staffs
composed of personalities of the Infinite Spirit. It is they who
would isolate an evolutionary world if its Planetary Prince
should rebel against the Universal Father and his vicegerent
Son. They are able to throw any world out of certain universe
circuits of the higher spiritual order, but they cannot annul
the material currents of the power directors.
24:1.9 The Universe Circuit Supervisors have
something of the same relationship to spirit circuits that the
Universe Power Directors have to material circuits. The two
orders are complemental, together having the oversight of all
spirit and all material circuits that are controllable and
manipulatable by creatures.
24:1.10 The circuit supervisors exercise
certain oversight of those mind circuits which are spirit
associated much as the power directors have certain jurisdiction
over those phases of mind which are physical-energy associated
-- mechanical mind. In general the functions of each order are
expanded by liaison with the other, but the circuits of pure
mind are subject to the supervision of neither. Neither are the
two orders co-ordinate; in all their manifold labors the
Universe Circuit Supervisors are subject to the Seven Supreme
Power Directors and their subordinates.
24:1.11 While the circuit supervisors are
entirely alike within their respective orders, they are all
distinct individuals. They are truly personal beings, but they
possess a type of other-than-Father-endowed personality not
encountered in any other type of creature in all universal
existence.
24:1.12 Although you will recognize and know
them as you journey inward towards Paradise, you will have no
personal relations with them. They are circuit supervisors, and
they attend strictly and efficiently to their business. They
deal solely with those personalities and entities having the
oversight of those activities which are concerned with the
circuits subject to their supervision.
2. THE CENSUS DIRECTORS
24:2.1 Notwithstanding that the cosmic mind of
the Universal Intelligence is cognizant of the presence and
whereabouts of all thinking creatures, there is operative
in the universe of universes an independent method of keeping
count of all will creatures.
24:2.2 The Census Directors are a special and
completed creation of the Infinite Spirit, and they exist in
numbers unknown to us. They are so created as to be able to
maintain perfect synchrony with the reflectivity technique of
the superuniverses, while at the same time they are personally
sensitive and responsive to intelligent will. These
directors, by a not-fully-understood technique, are made
immediately aware of the birth of will in any part of the grand
universe. They are, therefore, always competent to give us the
number, nature, and whereabouts of all will creatures in any
part of the central creation and the seven superuniverses. But
they do not function on Paradise; there is no need for them
there. On Paradise knowledge is inherent; the Deities know all
things.
24:2.3 Seven Census Directors operate in
Havona, one being stationed on the pilot world of each Havona
circuit. Excepting these seven and the reserves of the order on
the Paradise worlds of the Spirit, all Census Directors function
under the jurisdiction of the Ancients of Days.
24:2.4 One Census Director presides at the
headquarters of each superuniverse, while subject to such a
chief director are thousands upon thousands, one on the capital
of every local universe. All personalities of this order are
equal excepting those on the Havona pilot worlds and the seven
superuniverse chiefs.
24:2.5 In the seventh superuniverse there are
one hundred thousand Census Directors. And this number consists
entirely of those assignable to local universes; it does not
include the personal staff of Usatia, the superuniverse chief of
all Orvonton directors. Usatia, like the other superuniverse
chiefs, is not directly attuned to the registration of
intelligent will. He is solely attuned to his subordinates
stationed in the Orvonton universes; thus he acts as a
magnificent totaling personality for their reports coming in
from the capitals of the local creations.
24:2.6 From time to time the official
recorders of Uversa place on their records the status of the
superuniverse as it is indicated by the registrations in and
upon the personality of Usatia. Such census data is indigenous
to the superuniverses; these reports are transmitted neither to
Havona nor to Paradise.
24:2.7 The Census Directors are concerned with
human beings -- as with other will creatures -- only to the
extent of recording the fact of will function. They are not
concerned with the records of your life and its doings; they are
not in any sense recording personalities. The Census Director of
Nebadon, number 81,412 of Orvonton, now stationed on Salvington,
is at this very moment personally conscious and aware of your
living presence here on Urantia; and he will afford the records
confirmation of your death the moment you cease to function as a
will creature.
24:2.8 Census Directors register the existence
of a new will creature when the first act of will is performed;
they indicate the death of a will creature when the last act of
will takes place. The partial emergence of will observed in the
reactions of certain of the higher animals does not belong to
the domain of the Census Directors. They keep count of nothing
but bona fide will creatures, and they are responsive to nothing
but will function. Exactly how they register the function
of will, we do not know.
24:2.9 These beings always have been, and
always will be, Census Directors. They would be comparatively
useless in any other division of universe labor. But they are
infallible in function; they never default, neither do they
falsify. And notwithstanding their marvelous powers and
unbelievable prerogatives, they are persons; they have
recognizable spirit presence and form.
3. PERSONAL AIDS OF THE INFINITE SPIRIT
24:3.1 We have no authentic knowledge as to
the time or manner of the creation of the Personal Aids. Their
number must be legion, but it is not of record on Uversa. From
conservative deductions based on our knowledge of their work, I
venture to estimate that their number extends high into the
trillions. We hold the opinion that the Infinite Spirit is not
limited as to numbers in the creation of these Personal Aids.
24:3.2 The Personal Aids of the Infinite
Spirit exist for the exclusive assistance of the Paradise
presence of the Third Person of Deity. Although attached
directly to the Infinite Spirit and located on Paradise, they
flash to and fro to the uttermost parts of creation. Wherever
the circuits of the Conjoint Creator extend, there these
Personal Aids may appear for the purpose of executing the
bidding of the Infinite Spirit. They traverse space much as do
the Solitary Messengers but are not persons in the sense that
the messengers are.
24:3.3 The Personal Aids are all equal and
identical; they disclose no differentiation of individuality.
Though the Conjoint Actor looks upon them as true personalities,
it is difficult for others to regard them as real persons; they
do not manifest a spirit presence to other spirit beings.
Paradise-origin beings are always aware of the proximity of
these Aids; but we do not recognize a personality presence. The
lack of such a presence-form undoubtedly renders them all the
more serviceable to the Third Person of Deity.
24:3.4 Of all the revealed orders of spirit
beings taking origin in the Infinite Spirit, the Personal Aids
are about the only ones you will not encounter on your inward
ascent to Paradise.
4. THE ASSOCIATE INSPECTORS
24:4.1 The Seven Supreme Executives, on the
seven Paradise spheres of the Infinite Spirit, collectively
function as the administrative board of supermanagers for the
seven superuniverses. The Associate Inspectors are the personal
embodiment of the authority of the Supreme Executives to the
local universes of time and space. These high observers of the
affairs of the local creations are the joint offspring of the
Infinite Spirit and the Seven Master Spirits of Paradise. In the
near times of eternity seven hundred thousand were personalized,
and their reserve corps abides on Paradise.
24:4.2 Associate Inspectors work under the
direct supervision of the Seven Supreme Executives, being their
personal and powerful representatives to the local universes of
time and space. An inspector is stationed on the headquarters
sphere of each local creation and is a close associate of the
resident Union of Days.
24:4.3 The Associate Inspectors receive
reports and recommendations only from their subordinates, the
Assigned Sentinels, stationed on the capitals of the local
systems of inhabited worlds, while they make reports only to
their immediate superior, the Supreme Executive of the
superuniverse concerned.
5. THE ASSIGNED SENTINELS
24:5.1 The Assigned Sentinels are
co-ordinating personalities and liaison representatives of the
Seven Supreme Executives. They were personalized on Paradise by
the Infinite Spirit and were created for the specific purposes
of their assignment. They are of stationary numbers, and there
are exactly seven billion in existence.
24:5.2 Much as an Associate Inspector
represents the Seven Supreme Executives to a whole local
universe, so in each of the ten thousand systems of that local
creation there is an Assigned Sentinel, who acts as the direct
representative of the far-distant and supreme board of
supercontrol for the affairs of all seven superuniverses. The
sentinels on duty in the local system governments of Orvonton
are acting under the direct authority of Supreme Executive
Number Seven, the co-ordinator of the seventh superuniverse. But
in their administrative organization all sentinels commissioned
in a local universe are subordinate to the Associate Inspector
stationed at universe headquarters.
24:5.3 Within a local creation the Assigned
Sentinels serve in rotation, being transferred from system to
system. They are usually changed every millennium of local
universe time. They are among the highest ranking personalities
stationed on a system capital, but they never participate in
deliberations concerned with system affairs. In the local
systems they serve as the ex officio heads of the four and
twenty administrators hailing from the evolutionary worlds, but
otherwise, ascending mortals have little contact with them. The
sentinels are almost exclusively concerned in keeping the
Associate Inspector of their universe fully informed on all
matters relating to the welfare and state of the systems of
their assignment.
24:5.4 Assigned Sentinels and Associate
Inspectors do not report to the Supreme Executives through a
superuniverse headquarters. They are responsible solely to the
Supreme Executive of the superuniverse concerned; their
activities are distinct from the administration of the Ancients
of Days.
24:5.5 The Supreme Executives, Associate
Inspectors, and Assigned Sentinels, together with the omniaphim
and a host of unrevealed personalities, constitute an efficient,
direct, centralized, but far-flung system of advisory and
administrative co-ordination of all the grand universe of things
and beings.
6. THE GRADUATE GUIDES
24:6.1 The Graduate Guides, as a group,
sponsor and conduct the high university of technical instruction
and spiritual training which is so essential to mortal
attainment of the goal of the ages: God, rest, and then eternity
of perfected service. These highly personal beings take their
name from the nature and purpose of their work. They are
exclusively devoted to the tasks of guiding the mortal graduates
from the superuniverses of time through the Havona course of
instruction and training which serves to prepare the ascending
pilgrims for admission to Paradise and the Corps of the
Finality.
24:6.2 I am not forbidden to undertake to tell
you of the work of these Graduate Guides, but it is so
ultraspiritual that I despair of being able to adequately
portray to the material mind a concept of their manifold
activities. On the mansion worlds, after your vision range is
extended and you are freed from the fetters of material
comparisons, you can begin to comprehend the meaning of those
realities which "eye cannot see nor ear hear, and which have
never entered the concept of human minds," even those things
which "God has prepared for those who love such eternal
verities." You are not always to be so limited in the range of
your vision and spiritual comprehension.
24:6.3 The Graduate Guides are engaged in
piloting the pilgrims of time through the seven circuits of
Havona worlds. The guide who greets you upon your arrival on the
receiving world of the outer Havona circuit will remain with you
throughout your entire career on the heavenly circuits. Though
you will associate with countless other personalities during
your sojourn on a billion worlds, your Graduate Guide will
follow you to the end of your Havona progression and will
witness your entrance into the terminal slumber of time, the
sleep of eternity transit to the Paradise goal, where, upon
awakening, you will be greeted by the Paradise Companion
assigned to welcome you and perhaps to remain with you until you
are initiated as a member of the Mortal Corps of the Finality.
24:6.4 The number of Graduate Guides is beyond
the power of human minds to grasp, and they continue to appear.
Their origin is something of a mystery. They have not existed
from eternity; they mysteriously appear as they are needed.
There is no record of a Graduate Guide in all the realms of the
central universe until that far-distant day when the first
mortal pilgrim of all time made his way to the outer belt of the
central creation. The instant he arrived on the pilot world of
the outer circuit, he was met with friendly greetings by
Malvorian, the first of the Graduate Guides and now the chief of
their supreme council and the director of their vast educational
organization.
24:6.5 On the Paradise records of Havona, in
the section denominated "Graduate Guides," there appears this
initial entry:
24:6.6 "And Malvorian, the first of this
order, did greet and instruct the pilgrim discoverer of Havona
and did conduct him from the outer circuits of initial
experience, step by step and circuit by circuit, until he stood
in the very presence of the Source and Destiny of all
personality, subsequently crossing the threshold of eternity to
Paradise."
24:6.7 At that far-distant time I was attached
to the service of the Ancients of Days on Uversa, and we all
rejoiced in the assurance that, eventually, pilgrims from our
superuniverse would reach Havona. For ages we had been taught
that the evolutionary creatures of space would attain Paradise,
and the thrill of all time swept through the heavenly courts
when the first pilgrim actually arrived.
24:6.8 The name of this pilgrim discoverer of
Havona is Grandfanda, and he hailed from planet 341 of
system 84 in constellation 62 of local universe 1,131 situated
in superuniverse number one. His arrival was the signal for the
establishment of the broadcast service of the universe of
universes. Theretofore only the broadcasts of the superuniverses
and the local universes had been in operation, but the
announcement of the arrival of Grandfanda at the portals of
Havona signalized the inauguration of the "space reports of
glory," so named because the initial universe broadcast reported
the Havona arrival of the first of the evolutionary beings to
attain entrance upon the goal of ascendant existence.
24:6.9 Graduate Guides never leave the Havona
worlds; they are dedicated to the service of the graduate
pilgrims of time and space. And you will sometime meet these
noble beings face to face if you do not reject the certain and
all-perfected plan designed to effect your survival and
ascension.
7. ORIGIN OF THE GRADUATE GUIDES
24:7.1 Though evolution is not the order of
the central universe, we believe that the Graduate Guides are
the perfected or more experienced members of another order of
central universe creatures, the Havona Servitals. Graduate
Guides show such a breadth of sympathy and such a capacity for
understanding the ascendant creatures that we are convinced they
have gained this culture by actual service in the superuniverse
realms as the Havona Servitals of universal ministry. If this
view is not correct, how then can we account for the continuous
disappearance of the senior or more experienced servitals?
24:7.2 A servital will be long absent from
Havona on superuniverse assignment, having been on many such
missions previously, will return home, be granted the privilege
of "personal contact" with the Paradise Central Shining, will be
embraced by the Luminous Persons, and disappear from the
recognition of his spirit fellows, never more to reappear among
those of his kind.
24:7.3 On returning from superuniverse
service, a Havona Servital may enjoy numerous divine embraces
and emerge therefrom merely an exalted servital. Experiencing
the luminous embrace does not necessarily signify that the
servital must translate into a Graduate Guide, but almost one
quarter of those who achieve the divine embrace never return to
the service of the realms.
24:7.4 There appears on the high records a
succession of such entries as this:
24:7.5 "And servital number
842,842,682,846,782 of Havona, named Sudna, came over from the
superuniverse service, was received on Paradise, knew the
Father, entered the divine embrace, and is not."
24:7.6 When such an entry appears on the
records, the career of such a servital is closed. But in just
three moments (a little less than three days of your time) a
newborn Graduate Guide "spontaneously" appears on the outer
circuit of the Havona universe. And the number of Graduate
Guides, allowing for a slight difference, due no doubt to those
in transition, exactly equals the number of vanished servitals.
24:7.7 There is an additional reason for
supposing the Graduate Guides to be evolved Havona Servitals,
and that is the unfailing tendency of these guides and their
associated servitals to form such extraordinary attachments. The
manner in which these supposedly separate orders of beings
understand and sympathize with one another is wholly
inexplicable. It is refreshing and inspiring to witness their
mutual devotion.
24:7.8 The Seven Master Spirits and the
associated Seven Supreme Power Directors, respectively, are the
personal repositories of the mind potential and of the power
potential of the Supreme Being which he does not, as yet,
operate personally. And when these Paradise associates
collaborate to create the Havona Servitals, the latter are
inherently involved in certain phases of Supremacy. Havona
Servitals are thus, in actuality, a reflection in the perfect
central universe of certain evolutionary potentialities of the
time-space domains, all of which is disclosed when a servital
undergoes transformation and re-creation. We believe that this
transformation takes place in response to the will of the
Infinite Spirit, undoubtedly acting in behalf of the Supreme.
Graduate Guides are not created by the Supreme Being, but we all
conjecture that experiential Deity is in some way concerned in
those transactions which bring these beings into existence.
24:7.9 The Havona now traversed by ascending
mortals differs in many respects from the central universe as it
was before the times of Grandfanda. The arrival of mortal
ascenders on the Havona circuits inaugurated sweeping
modifications in the organization of the central and divine
creation, modifications undoubtedly initiated by the Supreme
Being -- the God of evolutionary creatures -- in response to the
arrival of the first of his experiential children from the seven
superuniverses. The appearance of the Graduate Guides, together
with the creation of the tertiary supernaphim, is indicative of
these performances of God the Supreme.
24:7.10
Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.
