The Urantia Book
PAPER 36
THE LIFE CARRIERS
Indited by a Vorondadek Son stationed on Urantia as an observer
and acting in this capacity by request of the Melchizedek Chief
of the Supervising Revelatory Corps.
36:0.1 LIFE does not originate spontaneously.
Life is constructed according to plans formulated by the
(unrevealed) Architects of Being and appears on the inhabited
planets either by direct importation or as a result of the
operations of the Life Carriers of the local universes. These
carriers of life are among the most interesting and versatile of
the diverse family of universe Sons. They are intrusted with
designing and carrying creature life to the planetary spheres.
And after planting this life on such new worlds, they remain
there for long periods to foster its development.
1. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE CARRIERS
36:1.1 Though the Life Carriers belong to the
family of divine sonship, they are a peculiar and distinct type
of universe Sons, being the only group of intelligent life in a
local universe in whose creation the rulers of a superuniverse
participate. The Life Carriers are the offspring of three
pre-existent personalities: the Creator Son, the Universe Mother
Spirit, and, by designation, one of the three Ancients of Days
presiding over the destinies of the superuniverse concerned.
These Ancients of Days, who alone can decree the extinction of
intelligent life, participate in the creation of the Life
Carriers, who are intrusted with establishing physical life on
the evolving worlds.
36:1.2 In the universe of Nebadon we have on
record the creation of one hundred million Life Carriers. This
efficient corps of life disseminators is not a truly
self-governing group. They are directed by the life-determining
trio, consisting of Gabriel, the Father Melchizedek, and Nambia,
the original and first-born Life Carrier of Nebadon. But in all
phases of their divisional administration they are
self-governing.
36:1.3 Life Carriers are graded into three
grand divisions: The first division is the senior Life Carriers,
the second, assistants, and the third, custodians. The primary
division is subdivided into twelve groups of specialists in the
various forms of life manifestation. The segregation of these
three divisions was effected by the Melchizedeks, who conducted
tests for such purposes on the Life Carriers' headquarters
sphere. The Melchizedeks have ever since been closely associated
with the Life Carriers and always accompany them when they go
forth to establish life on a new planet.
36:1.4 When an evolutionary planet is finally
settled in light and life, the Life Carriers are organized into
the higher deliberative bodies of advisory capacity to assist in
the further administration and development of the world and its
glorified beings. In the later and settled ages of an evolving
universe these Life Carriers are intrusted with many new duties.
2. THE LIFE CARRIER WORLDS
36:2.1 The Melchizedeks have the general
oversight of the fourth group of seven primary spheres in the
Salvington circuit. These worlds of the Life Carriers are
designated as follows:
1. The Life Carrier headquarters.
2. The life-planning sphere.
3. The life-conservation sphere.
4. The sphere of life evolution.
5. The sphere of life associated
with mind.
6. The sphere of mind and spirit in
living beings.
7. The sphere of unrevealed life.
36:2.2 Each of these primary spheres is
surrounded by six satellites, on which the special phases of all
the Life Carrier activities in the universe are centered.
36:2.3 World Number One, the
headquarters sphere, together with its six tributary satellites,
is devoted to the study of universal life, life in all of its
known phases of manifestation. Here is located the college of
life planning, wherein function teachers and advisers from
Uversa and Havona, even from Paradise. And I am permitted to
reveal that the seven central emplacements of the adjutant
mind-spirits are situated on this world of the Life Carriers.
36:2.4 The number ten -- the decimal system --
is inherent in the physical universe but not in the spiritual.
The domain of life is characterized by three, seven, and twelve
or by multiples and combinations of these basic numbers. There
are three primal and essentially different life plans, after the
order of the three Paradise Sources and Centers, and in the
universe of Nebadon these three basic forms of life are
segregated on three different types of planets. There were,
originally, twelve distinct and divine concepts of transmissible
life. This number twelve, with its subdivisions and multiples,
runs throughout all basic life patterns of all seven
superuniverses. There are also seven architectural types of life
design, fundamental arrangements of the reproducing
configurations of living matter. The Orvonton life patterns are
configured as twelve inheritance carriers. The differing orders
of will creatures are configured as 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384,
and 768. On Urantia there are forty-eight units of pattern
control -- trait determiners -- in the sex cells of human
reproduction.
36:2.5 The Second World is the
life-designing sphere; here all new modes of life organization
are worked out. While the original life designs are provided by
the Creator Son, the actual outworking of these plans is
intrusted to the Life Carriers and their associates. When the
general life plans for a new world have been formulated, they
are transmitted to the headquarters sphere, where they are
minutely scrutinized by the supreme council of the senior Life
Carriers in collaboration with a corps of consulting
Melchizedeks. If the plans are a departure from previously
accepted formulas, they must be passed upon, and endorsed by,
the Creator Son. The chief of Melchizedeks often represents the
Creator Son in these deliberations.
36:2.6 Planetary life, therefore, while
similar in some respects, differs in many ways on each
evolutionary world. Even in a uniform life series in a single
family of worlds, life is not exactly the same on any two
planets; there is always a planetary type, for the Life Carriers
work constantly in an effort to improve the vital formulas
committed to their keeping.
36:2.7 There are over one million fundamental
or cosmic chemical formulas which constitute the parent patterns
and the numerous basic functional variations of life
manifestations. Satellite number one of the life-planning sphere
is the realm of the universe physicists and electrochemists who
serve as technical assistants to the Life Carriers in the work
of capturing, organizing, and manipulating the essential units
of energy which are employed in building up the material
vehicles of life transmission, the so-called germ plasm.
36:2.8 The planetary life-planning
laboratories are situated on the second satellite of this world
number two. In these laboratories the Life Carriers and all
their associates collaborate with the Melchizedeks in the effort
to modify and possibly improve the life designed for
implantation on the decimal planets of Nebadon. The life
now evolving on Urantia was planned and partially worked out on
this very world, for Urantia is a decimal planet, a
life-experiment world. On one world in each ten a greater
variance in the standard life designs is permitted than on the
other (nonexperimental) worlds.
36:2.9 World Number Three is devoted to
the conservation of life. Here various modes of life protection
and preservation are studied and developed by the assistants and
custodians of the Life Carrier corps. The life plans for every
new world always provide for the early establishment of the
life-conservation commission, consisting of custodian
specialists in the expert manipulation of the basic life
patterns. On Urantia there were twenty-four such custodian
commissioners, two for each fundamental or parent pattern of the
architectural organization of the life material. On planets such
as yours the highest form of life is reproduced by a
life-carrying bundle which possesses twenty-four pattern units.
(And since the intellectual life grows out of, and upon the
foundation of, the physical, there come into existence the four
and twenty basic orders of psychic organization.)
36:2.10 Sphere Number Four and its
tributary satellites are devoted to the study of the evolution
of creature life in general and to the evolutionary antecedents
of any one life level in particular. The original life plasm of
an evolutionary world must contain the full potential for all
future developmental variations and for all subsequent
evolutionary changes and modifications. The provision for such
far-reaching projects of life metamorphosis may require the
appearance of many apparently useless forms of animal and
vegetable life. Such by-products of planetary evolution,
foreseen or unforeseen, appear upon the stage of action only to
disappear, but in and through all this long process there runs
the thread of the wise and intelligent formulations of the
original designers of the planetary life plan and species
scheme. The manifold by-products of biologic evolution are all
essential to the final and full function of the higher
intelligent forms of life, notwithstanding that great outward
disharmony may prevail from time to time in the long upward
struggle of the higher creatures to effect the mastery of the
lower forms of life, many of which are sometimes so antagonistic
to the peace and comfort of the evolving will creatures.
36:2.11 Number Five World is concerned
wholly with life associated with mind. Each of its satellites is
devoted to the study of a single phase of creature mind
correlated with creature life. Mind such as man comprehends is
an endowment of the seven adjutant mind-spirits superimposed on
the nonteachable or mechanical levels of mind by the agencies of
the Infinite Spirit. The life patterns are variously responsive
to these adjutants and to the different spirit ministries
operating throughout the universes of time and space. The
capacity of material creatures to effect spirit response is
entirely dependent on the associated mind endowment, which, in
turn, has directionized the course of the biologic evolution of
these same mortal creatures.
36:2.12 World Number Six is dedicated
to the correlation of mind with spirit as they are associated
with living forms and organisms. This world and its six
tributaries embrace the schools of creature co-ordination,
wherein teachers from both the central universe and the
superuniverse collaborate with the Nebadon instructors in
presenting the highest levels of creature attainment in time and
space.
36:2.13 The Seventh Sphere of the Life
Carriers is dedicated to the unrevealed domains of evolutionary
creature life as it is related to the cosmic philosophy of the
expanding factualization of the Supreme Being.
3. LIFE TRANSPLANTATION
36:3.1 Life does not spontaneously appear in
the universes; the Life Carriers must initiate it on the barren
planets. They are the carriers, disseminators, and guardians of
life as it appears on the evolutionary worlds of space. All life
of the order and forms known on Urantia arises with these Sons,
though not all forms of planetary life are existent on Urantia.
36:3.2 The corps of Life Carriers commissioned
to plant life upon a new world usually consists of one hundred
senior carriers, one hundred assistants, and one thousand
custodians. The Life Carriers often carry actual life plasm to a
new world, but not always. They sometimes organize the life
patterns after arriving on the planet of assignment in
accordance with formulas previously approved for a new adventure
in life establishment. Such was the origin of the planetary life
of Urantia.
36:3.3 When, in accordance with approved
formulas, the physical patterns have been provided, then do the
Life Carriers catalyze this lifeless material, imparting through
their persons the vital spirit spark; and forthwith do the inert
patterns become living matter.
36:3.4 The vital spark -- the mystery of life
-- is bestowed through the Life Carriers, not by them. They do
indeed supervise such transactions, they formulate the life
plasm itself, but it is the Universe Mother Spirit who supplies
the essential factor of the living plasm. From the Creative
Daughter of the Infinite Spirit comes that energy spark which
enlivens the body and presages the mind.
36:3.5 In the bestowal of life the Life
Carriers transmit nothing of their personal natures, not even on
those spheres where new orders of life are projected. At such
times they simply initiate and transmit the spark of life, start
the required revolutions of matter in accordance with the
physical, chemical, and electrical specifications of the
ordained plans and patterns. Life Carriers are living catalytic
presences which agitate, organize, and vitalize the otherwise
inert elements of the material order of existence.
36:3.6 The Life Carriers of a planetary corps
are given a certain period in which to establish life on a new
world, approximately one-half million years of the time of that
planet. At the termination of this period, indicated by certain
developmental attainments of the planetary life, they cease
implantation efforts, and they may not subsequently add any
thing new or supplemental to the life of that planet.
36:3.7 During the ages intervening between
life establishment and the emergence of human creatures of moral
status, the Life Carriers are permitted to manipulate the life
environment and otherwise favorably directionize the course of
biologic evolution. And this they do for long periods of time.
36:3.8 When the Life Carriers operating on a
new world have once succeeded in producing a being with will,
with the power of moral decision and spiritual choice, then and
there their work terminates -- they are through; they may
manipulate the evolving life no further. From this point forward
the evolution of living things must proceed in accordance with
the endowment of the inherent nature and tendencies which have
already been imparted to, and established in, the planetary life
formulas and patterns. The Life Carriers are not permitted to
experiment or to interfere with will; they are not allowed to
dominate or arbitrarily influence moral creatures.
36:3.9 Upon the arrival of a Planetary Prince
they prepare to leave, though two of the senior carriers and
twelve custodians may volunteer, by taking temporary
renunciation vows, to remain indefinitely on the planet as
advisers in the matter of the further development and
conservation of the life plasm. Two such Sons and their twelve
associates are now serving on Urantia.
4. MELCHIZEDEK LIFE CARRIERS
36:4.1 In every local system of inhabited
worlds throughout Nebadon there is a single sphere whereon the
Melchizedeks have functioned as life carriers. These abodes are
known as the system midsonite worlds, and on each of them
a materially modified Melchizedek Son has mated with a selected
Daughter of the material order of sonship. The Mother Eves of
such midsonite worlds are dispatched from the system
headquarters of jurisdiction, having been chosen by the
designated Melchizedek life carrier from among the numerous
volunteers who respond to the call of the System Sovereign
addressed to the Material Daughters of his sphere.
36:4.2 The progeny of a Melchizedek life
carrier and a Material Daughter are known as midsoniters.
The Melchizedek father of such a race of supernal creatures
eventually leaves the planet of his unique life function, and
the Mother Eve of this special order of universe beings also
departs upon the appearance of the seventh generation of
planetary offspring. The direction of such a world then devolves
upon her eldest son.
36:4.3 The midsonite creatures live and
function as reproducing beings on their magnificent worlds until
they are one thousand standard years of age; whereupon they are
translated by seraphic transport. Midsoniters are nonreproducing
beings thereafter because the technique of dematerialization
which they pass through in preparation for enseraphiming forever
deprives them of reproductive prerogatives.
36:4.4 The present status of these beings can
hardly be reckoned as either mortal or immortal, neither can
they be definitely classified as human or divine. These
creatures are not Adjuster indwelt, hence hardly immortal. But
neither do they seem to be mortal; no midsoniter has experienced
death. All midsoniters ever born in Nebadon are alive today,
functioning on their native worlds, on some intervening sphere,
or on the Salvington midsonite sphere in the finaliters' group
of worlds.
36:4.5 The Salvington Worlds of the
Finaliters. The Melchizedek life carriers, as well as the
associated Mother Eves, go from the system midsonite spheres to
the finaliters' worlds of the Salvington circuit, where their
offspring are also destined to forgather.
36:4.6 It should be explained in this
connection that the fifth group of seven primary worlds in the
Salvington circuit are the Nebadon worlds of the finaliters. The
children of the Melchizedek life carriers and the Material
Daughters are domiciled on the seventh world of the finaliters,
the Salvington midsonite sphere.
36:4.7 The satellites of the seven primary
worlds of the finaliters are the rendezvous of the personalities
of the super- and central universes who may be executing
assignments in Nebadon. While the ascending mortals go about
freely on all of the cultural worlds and training spheres of the
490 worlds comprising the Melchizedek University, there are
certain special schools and numerous restricted zones which they
are not permitted to enter. This is especially true of the
forty-nine spheres under the jurisdiction of the finaliters.
36:4.8 The purpose of the midsonite creatures
is not at present known, but it would appear that these
personalities are forgathering on the seventh finaliter world in
preparation for some future eventuality in universe evolution.
Our inquiries concerning the midsonite races are always referred
to the finaliters, and always do the finaliters decline to
discuss the destiny of their wards. Regardless of our
uncertainty as to the future of the midsoniters, we do know that
every local universe in Orvonton harbors such an accumulating
corps of these mysterious beings. It is the belief of the
Melchizedek life carriers that their midsonite children will
some day be endowed with the transcendental and eternal spirit
of absonity by God the Ultimate.
5. THE SEVEN ADJUTANT MIND-SPIRITS
36:5.1 It is the presence of the seven
adjutant mind-spirits on the primitive worlds that conditions
the course of organic evolution; that explains why evolution is
purposeful and not accidental. These adjutants represent that
function of the mind ministry of the Infinite Spirit which is
extended to the lower orders of intelligent life through the
operations of a local universe Mother Spirit. The adjutants are
the children of the Universe Mother Spirit and constitute her
personal ministry to the material minds of the realms. Wherever
and whenever such mind is manifest, these spirits are variously
functioning.
36:5.2 The seven adjutant mind-spirits are
called by names which are the equivalents of the following
designations: intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge,
counsel, worship, and wisdom. These mind-spirits send forth
their influence into all the inhabited worlds as a differential
urge, each seeking receptivity capacity for manifestation quite
apart from the degree to which its fellows may find reception
and opportunity for function.
36:5.3 The central lodgments of the adjutant
spirits on the Life Carrier headquarters world indicate to the
Life Carrier supervisors the extent and quality of the mind
function of the adjutants on any world and in any given living
organism of intellect status. These life-mind emplacements are
perfect indicators of living mind function for the first five
adjutants. But with regard to the sixth and seventh adjutant
spirits -- worship and wisdom -- these central lodgments record
only a qualitative function. The quantitative activity of the
adjutant of worship and the adjutant of wisdom is registered in
the immediate presence of the Divine Minister on Salvington,
being a personal experience of the Universe Mother Spirit.
36:5.4 The seven adjutant mind-spirits always
accompany the Life Carriers to a new planet, but they should not
be regarded as entities; they are more like circuits. The
spirits of the seven universe adjutants do not function as
personalities apart from the universe presence of the Divine
Minister; they are in fact a level of consciousness of the
Divine Minister and are always subordinate to the action and
presence of their creative mother.
36:5.5 We are handicapped for words adequately
to designate these seven adjutant mind-spirits. They are
ministers of the lower levels of experiential mind, and they may
be described, in the order of evolutionary attainment, as
follows:
36:5.6 1. The spirit of intuition --
quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex
instincts, the directional and other self-preservative
endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants
to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and
the only one to make extensive functional contact with the
nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.
36:5.7 2. The spirit of understanding
-- the impulse of co-ordination, the spontaneous and apparently
automatic association of ideas. This is the gift of the
co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the phenomenon of quick
reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.
36:5.8 3. The spirit of courage -- the
fidelity endowment -- in personal beings, the basis of character
acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and
spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by
truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary
ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious
self-direction.
36:5.9 4. The spirit of knowledge --
the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific
spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of
courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of
courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.
36:5.10 5. The spirit of counsel -- the
social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability
of will creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of
the gregarious instinct among the more lowly creatures.
36:5.11 6. The spirit of worship -- the
religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind
creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The
spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its
association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment.
Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.
36:5.12 7. The spirit of wisdom -- the
inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and
progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the
adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work
of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge
of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical
and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that
gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable
ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the
co-ordination of all their past experience and present
opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all
of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of
the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual
performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral
existence.
36:5.13 The adjutant mind-spirits
experientially grow, but they never become personal. They evolve
in function, and the function of the first five in the animal
orders is to a certain extent essential to the function of all
seven as human intellect. This animal relationship makes the
adjutants more practically effective as human mind; hence
animals are to a certain extent indispensable to man's
intellectual as well as to his physical evolution.
36:5.14 These mind-adjutants of a local
universe Mother Spirit are related to creature life of
intelligence status much as the power centers and physical
controllers are related to the nonliving forces of the universe.
They perform invaluable service in the mind circuits on the
inhabited worlds and are effective collaborators with the Master
Physical Controllers, who also serve as controllers and
directors of the preadjutant mind levels, the levels of
nonteachable or mechanical mind.
36:5.15 Living mind, prior to the appearance
of capacity to learn from experience, is the ministry domain of
the Master Physical Controllers. Creature mind, before acquiring
the ability to recognize divinity and worship Deity, is the
exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits. With the appearance of
the spiritual response of the creature intellect, such created
minds at once become superminded, being instantly encircuited in
the spirit cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit.
36:5.16 The adjutant mind-spirits are in no
manner directly related to the diverse and highly spiritual
function of the spirit of the personal presence of the Divine
Minister, the Holy Spirit of the inhabited worlds; but they are
functionally antecedent to, and preparatory for, the appearance
of this very spirit in evolutionary man. The adjutants afford
the Universe Mother Spirit a varied contact with, and control
over, the material living creatures of a local universe, but
they do not repercuss in the Supreme Being when acting on
prepersonality levels.
36:5.17 Nonspiritual mind is either a
spirit-energy manifestation or a physical-energy phenomenon.
Even human mind, personal mind, has no survival qualities apart
from spirit identification. Mind is a divinity bestowal, but it
is not immortal when it functions without spirit insight, and
when it is devoid of the ability to worship and crave survival.
6. LIVING FORCES
36:6.1 Life is both mechanistic and vitalistic
-- material and spiritual. Ever will Urantia physicists and
chemists progress in their understanding of the protoplasmic
forms of vegetable and animal life, but never will they be able
to produce living organisms. Life is something different from
all energy manifestations; even the material life of physical
creatures is not inherent in matter.
36:6.2 Things material may enjoy an
independent existence, but life springs only from life. Mind can
be derived only from pre-existent mind. Spirit takes origin only
from spirit ancestors. The creature may produce the forms of
life, but only a creator personality or a creative force can
supply the activating living spark.
36:6.3 Life Carriers can organize the material
forms, or physical patterns, of living beings, but the Spirit
provides the initial spark of life and bestows the endowment of
mind. Even the living forms of experimental life which the Life
Carriers organize on their Salvington worlds are always devoid
of reproductive powers. When the life formulas and the vital
patterns are correctly assembled and properly organized, the
presence of a Life Carrier is sufficient to initiate life, but
all such living organisms are lacking in two essential
attributes -- mind endowment and reproductive powers. Animal
mind and human mind are gifts of the local universe Mother
Spirit, functioning through the seven adjutant mind-spirits,
while creature ability to reproduce is the specific and personal
impartation of the Universe Spirit to the ancestral life plasm
inaugurated by the Life Carriers.
36:6.4 When the Life Carriers have designed
the patterns of life, after they have organized the energy
systems, there must occur an additional phenomenon; the "breath
of life" must be imparted to these lifeless forms. The Sons of
God can construct the forms of life, but it is the Spirit of God
who really contributes the vital spark. And when the life thus
imparted is spent, then again the remaining material body
becomes dead matter. When the bestowed life is exhausted, the
body returns to the bosom of the material universe from which it
was borrowed by the Life Carriers to serve as a transient
vehicle for that life endowment which they conveyed to such a
visible association of energy-matter.
36:6.5 The life bestowed upon plants and
animals by the Life Carriers does not return to the Life
Carriers upon the death of plant or animal. The departing life
of such a living thing possesses neither identity nor
personality; it does not individually survive death. During its
existence and the time of its sojourn in the body of matter, it
has undergone a change; it has undergone energy evolution and
survives only as a part of the cosmic forces of the universe; it
does not survive as individual life. The survival of mortal
creatures is wholly predicated on the evolvement of an immortal
soul within the mortal mind.
36:6.6 We speak of life as "energy" and as
"force," but it is really neither. Force-energy is variously
gravity responsive; life is not. Pattern is also nonresponsive
to gravity, being a configuration of energies that have already
fulfilled all gravity-responsive obligations. Life, as such,
constitutes the animation of some pattern-configured or
otherwise segregated system of energy -- material, mindal, or
spiritual.
36:6.7 There are some things connected with
the elaboration of life on the evolutionary planets which are
not altogether clear to us. We fully comprehend the physical
organization of the electrochemical formulas of the Life
Carriers, but we do not wholly understand the nature and source
of the life-activation spark. We know that life flows
from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit. It is
more than possible that the Master Spirits are the sevenfold
channel of the river of life which is poured out upon all
creation. But we do not comprehend the technique whereby the
supervising Master Spirit participates in the initial episode of
life bestowal on a new planet. The Ancients of Days, we are
confident, also have some part in this inauguration of life on a
new world, but we are wholly ignorant of the nature thereof. We
do know that the Universe Mother Spirit actually vitalizes the
lifeless patterns and imparts to such activated plasm the
prerogatives of organismal reproduction. We observe that these
three are the levels of God the Sevenfold, sometimes designated
as the Supreme Creators of time and space; but otherwise we know
little more than Urantia mortals -- simply that concept is
inherent in the Father, expression in the Son, and life
realization in the Spirit.
36:6.8
Indited by a Vorondadek Son stationed on Urantia as an observer
and acting in this capacity by request of the Melchizedek Chief
of the Supervising Revelatory Corps.
