The Urantia Book
PAPER 44
THE CELESTIAL ARTISANS
Indited by an Archangel of Nebadon.
44:0.1 AMONG the courtesy colonies of the
various divisional and universe headquarters worlds, may be
found the unique order of composite personalities denominated
the celestial artisans. These beings are the master artists and
artisans of the morontia and lower spirit realms. They are the
spirits and semispirits who are engaged in morontia
embellishment and in spiritual beautification. Such artisans are
distributed throughout the grand universe -- on the headquarters
worlds of the superuniverses, the local universes, the
constellations, and systems, as well as on all spheres settled
in light and life; but their chief realm of activity is in the
constellations and especially on the seven hundred seventy
worlds surrounding each headquarters sphere.
44:0.2 Though their work may be almost
incomprehensible to the material mind, it should be understood
that the morontia and spirit worlds are not without their high
arts and supernal cultures.
44:0.3 The celestial artisans are not created
as such; they are a selected and recruited corps of beings
composed of certain teacher personalities native to the central
universe and their volunteer pupils drawn from the ascending
mortals and numerous other celestial groups. The original
teaching corps of these artisans was sometime assigned by the
Infinite Spirit in collaboration with the Seven Master Spirits
and consisted of seven thousand Havona instructors, one thousand
to each of the seven divisions of artisans. With such a nucleus
to start with, there has developed through the ages this
brilliant body of skillful workers in spirit and morontia
affairs.
44:0.4 Any morontia personality or spirit
entity is eligible for admission to the corps of the celestial
artisans; that is, any being below the rank of inherent divine
sonship. Ascending sons of God from the evolutionary spheres
may, after their arrival on the morontia worlds, apply for
admission to the artisan corps and, if sufficiently gifted, may
choose such a career for a longer or shorter period. But no one
may enlist with the celestial artisans for less than one
millennium, one thousand years of superuniverse time.
44:0.5 All celestial artisans are registered
on the superuniverse headquarters but are directed by morontia
supervisors on the local universe capitals. They are
commissioned in the following seven major divisions of activity
by the central corps of morontia supervisors functioning on the
headquarters world of each local universe:
1. Celestial Musicians.
2. Heavenly Reproducers.
3. Divine Builders.
4. Thought Recorders.
5. Energy Manipulators.
6. Designers and Embellishers.
7. Harmony Workers.
44:0.6 The original teachers of these seven
groups all hailed from the perfect worlds of Havona, and Havona
contains the patterns, the pattern studies, for all phases and
forms of spirit artistry. While it is a gigantic task to
undertake to transfer these arts of Havona to the worlds of
space, the celestial artisans have improved in technique and
execution from age to age. As in all other phases of the
ascending career those who are most advanced in any line of
endeavor are required constantly to impart their superior
knowledge and skill to their less favored fellows.
44:0.7 You will first begin to glimpse these
transplanted arts of Havona on the mansion worlds, and their
beauty and your appreciation of their beauty will heighten and
brighten until you stand in the spirit halls of Salvington and
behold the inspiring masterpieces of the supernal artists of the
spirit realms.
44:0.8 All these activities of the morontia
and spirit worlds are real. To spirit beings the spirit world is
a reality. To us the material world is the more unreal. The
higher forms of spirits freely pass through ordinary matter.
High spirits are reactive to nothing material excepting certain
of the basic energies. To material beings the spirit world is
more or less unreal; to spirit beings the material world is
almost entirely unreal, being merely a shadow of the substance
of spirit realities.
44:0.9 I cannot, with exclusive spirit vision,
perceive the building in which this narrative is being
translated and recorded. A Divine Counselor from Uversa who
chances to stand by my side perceives still less of these purely
material creations. We discern how these material structures
appear to you by viewing a spirit counterpart presented to our
minds by one of our attending energy transformers. This material
building is not exactly real to me, a spirit being, but it is,
of course, very real and very serviceable to material mortals.
44:0.10 There are certain types of beings who
are capable of discerning the reality of the creatures of both
the spirit and the material worlds. Belonging to this class are
the so-called fourth creatures of the Havona Servitals and the
fourth creatures of the conciliators. The angels of time and
space are endowed with the ability to discern both spirit and
material beings as also are the ascending mortals subsequent to
deliverance from the life in the flesh. After attainment of the
higher spirit levels the ascenders are able to recognize
material, morontia, and spirit realities.
44:0.11 There is also here with me a Mighty
Messenger from Uversa, an ascendant Adjuster-fused, onetime
mortal being, and he perceives you as you are, and at the same
time he visualizes the Solitary Messenger, the supernaphim, and
other celestial beings present. Never in your long ascendancy
will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former
existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life,
will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the
fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience.
Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of
spirit beings to your vision range without in the least
depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and
fellows of former estates.
44:0.12 All this is made possible in the
experience of ascending mortals by the action of the indwelling
Thought Adjusters. Through their retention of the duplicates of
your entire life's experiences, you are assured of never losing
any true attribute you once had; and these Adjusters are going
through with you, as a part of you, in reality, as you.
44:0.13 But I almost despair of being able to
convey to the material mind the nature of the work of the
celestial artisans. I am under the necessity of constantly
perverting thought and distorting language in an effort to
unfold to the mortal mind the reality of these morontia
transactions and near-spirit phenomena. Your comprehension is
incapable of grasping, and your language is inadequate for
conveying, the meaning, value, and relationship of these
semispirit activities. And I proceed with this effort to
enlighten the human mind concerning these realities with the
full understanding of the utter impossibility of my being very
successful in such an undertaking.
44:0.14 I can do no more than attempt to
sketch a crude parallelism between mortal material activities
and the manifold functions of the celestial artisans. If the
Urantia races were more advanced in art and other cultural
accomplishments, then could I go that much farther in an effort
to project the human mind from the things of matter to those of
morontia. About all I can hope to accomplish is to make emphatic
the fact of the reality of these transactions of the morontia
and the spirit worlds.
1. THE CELESTIAL MUSICIANS
44:1.1 With the limited range of mortal
hearing, you can hardly conceive of morontia melodies. There is
even a material range of beautiful sound unrecognized by the
human sense of hearing, not to mention the inconceivable scope
of morontia and spirit harmony. Spirit melodies are not material
sound waves but spirit pulsations received by the spirits of
celestial personalities. There is a vastness of range and a soul
of expression, as well as a grandeur of execution, associated
with the melody of the spheres, that are wholly beyond human
comprehension. I have seen millions of enraptured beings held in
sublime ecstasy while the melody of the realm rolled in upon the
spirit energy of the celestial circuits. These marvelous
melodies can be broadcast to the uttermost parts of a universe.
44:1.2 The celestial musicians are occupied
with the production of celestial harmony by the manipulation of
the following spirit forces:
1. Spiritual sound -- spirit
current interruptions.
2. Spiritual light -- the
control and intensification of the light of the morontia and
spiritual realms.
3. Energy impingements --
melody produced by the skillful management of the morontia and
spirit energies.
4. Color symphonies -- melody
of morontia color tones; this ranks among the highest
accomplishments of the celestial musicians.
5. Harmony of associated spirits
-- the very arrangement and association of different orders of
morontia and spirit beings produce majestic melodies.
6. Melody of thought -- the
thinking of spiritual thoughts can be so perfected as to burst
forth in the melodies of Havona.
7. The music of space -- by
proper attunement the melodies of other spheres can be picked up
on the universe broadcast circuits.
44:1.3 There are over one hundred thousand
different modes of sound, color, and energy manipulation,
techniques analogous to the human employment of musical
instruments. Your ensembles of dancing undoubtedly represent a
crude and grotesque attempt of material creatures to approach
the celestial harmony of being placement and personality
arrangement. The other five forms of morontia melody are
unrecognized by the sensory mechanism of material bodies.
44:1.4 Harmony, the music of the seven levels
of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit
communication. Music, such as Urantia mortals understand,
attains its highest expression in the schools of Jerusem, the
system headquarters, where semimaterial beings are taught the
harmonies of sound. Mortals do not react to the other forms of
morontia melody and celestial harmony.
44:1.5 Appreciation of music on Urantia is
both physical and spiritual; and your human musicians have done
much to elevate musical taste from the barbarous monotony of
your early ancestors to the higher levels of sound appreciation.
The majority of Urantia mortals react to music so largely with
the material muscles and so slightly with the mind and spirit;
but there has been a steady improvement in musical appreciation
for more than thirty-five thousand years.
44:1.6 Tuneful syncopation represents a
transition from the musical monotony of primitive man to the
expressionful harmony and meaningful melodies of your later-day
musicians. These earlier types of rhythm stimulate the reaction
of the music-loving sense without entailing the exertion of the
higher intellectual powers of harmony appreciation and thus more
generally appeal to immature or spiritually indolent
individuals.
44:1.7 The best music of Urantia is just a
fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial
associates of your musicians, who left but snatches of these
harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies
of sound harmonics. Spirit-morontia music not infrequently
employs all seven modes of expression and reproduction, so that
the human mind is tremendously handicapped in any attempt to
reduce these melodies of the higher spheres to mere notes of
musical sound. Such an effort would be something like
endeavoring to reproduce the strains of a great orchestra by
means of a single musical instrument.
44:1.8 While you have assembled some beautiful
melodies on Urantia, you have not progressed musically nearly so
far as many of your neighboring planets in Satania. If Adam and
Eve had only survived, then would you have had music in reality;
but the gift of harmony, so large in their natures, has been so
diluted by strains of unmusical tendencies that only once in a
thousand mortal lives is there any great appreciation of
harmonics. But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may
appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the
magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could
forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire
civilized world. It is literally true, "melody has power a whole
world to transform." Forever, music will remain the universal
language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.
2. THE HEAVENLY REPRODUCERS
44:2.1 Mortal man can hardly hope for more
than a meager and distorted concept of the functions of the
heavenly reproducers, which I must attempt to illustrate through
the gross and limited symbolism of your material language. The
spirit-morontia world has a thousand and one things of supreme
value, things worthy of reproduction but unknown on Urantia,
experiences that belong in the category of the activities which
have hardly "entered into the mind of man," those realities
which God has in waiting for those who survive the life in the
flesh.
44:2.2 There are seven groups of the heavenly
reproducers, and I will attempt to illustrate their work by the
following classification:
44:2.3 1. The singers -- harmonists who
reiterate the specific harmonies of the past and interpret the
melodies of the present. But all of this is effected on the
morontia level.
44:2.4 2. The color workers -- those
artists of light and shade you might call sketchers and
painters, artists who preserve passing scenes and transient
episodes for future morontia enjoyment.
44:2.5 3. The light picturizers -- the
makers of the real semispirit-phenomena preservations of which
motion pictures would be a very crude illustration.
44:2.6 4. The historic pageanteers --
those who dramatically reproduce the crucial events of universe
records and history.
44:2.7 5. The prophetic artists --
those who project the meanings of history into the future.
44:2.8 6. The life-story tellers --
those who perpetuate the meaning and significance of life
experience. The projection of present personal experiences into
future attainment values.
44:2.9 7. The administrative enactors
-- those who depict the significance of governmental philosophy
and administrative technique, the celestial dramatists of
sovereignty.
44:2.10 Very often and effectively the
heavenly reproducers collaborate with the reversion directors in
combining memory recapitulation with certain forms of mind rest
and personality diversion. Before the morontia conclaves and
spirit assemblies these reproducers sometimes associate
themselves in tremendous dramatic spectacles representative of
the purpose of such gatherings. I recently witnessed such a
stupendous presentation in which more than one million actors
produced a succession of one thousand scenes.
44:2.11 The higher intellectual teachers and
the transition ministers freely and effectively utilize these
various groups of reproducers in their morontia educational
activities. But not all of their efforts are devoted to
transient illustration; much, very much, of their work is of a
permanent nature and will forever remain as a legacy to all
future time. So versatile are these artisans that, when they
function en masse, they are able to re-enact an age, and in
collaboration with the seraphic ministers they can actually
portray the eternal values of the spirit world to the mortal
seers of time.
3. THE DIVINE BUILDERS
44:3.1 There are cities "whose builder and
maker is God." In spirit counterpart we have all that you
mortals are familiar with and inexpressibly more. We have homes,
spirit comforts, and morontia necessities. For every material
satisfaction which humans are capable of enjoying, we have
thousands of spiritual realities that serve to enrich and
enlarge our existence. The divine builders function in seven
groups:
44:3.2 1. The home designers and builders
-- those who construct and remodel the abodes assigned to
individuals and working groups. These morontia and spirit
domiciles are real. They would be invisible to your short-range
vision, but they are very real and beautiful to us. To a certain
extent, all spirit beings may share with the builders certain
details of the planning and creation of their morontia or spirit
abodes. These homes are fitted up and embellished in accordance
with the needs of the morontia or of the spirit creatures who
are to inhabit them. There is abundant variety and ample
opportunity for individual expression in all these
constructions.
44:3.3 2. The vocation builders --
those who function in designing and assembling the abodes of the
regular and routine workers of the spirit and morontia realms.
These builders are comparable to those who construct the Urantia
workshops and other industrial plants. The transition worlds
have a necessary economy of mutual ministry and specialized
division of labor. We do not all do everything; there is
diversity of function among morontia beings and evolving
spirits, and these vocation builders not only build better
workshops but also contribute to the vocational enhancement of
the worker.
44:3.4 3. The play builders. Enormous
edifices are utilized during the seasons of rest, what mortals
would call recreation and, in a certain sense, play. Provision
is made for a suitable setting for the reversion directors, the
humorists of the morontia worlds, those transition spheres
whereon takes place the training of ascendant beings but
recently removed from the evolutionary planets. Even the higher
spirits engage in a certain form of reminiscent humor during
their periods of spiritual recharging.
44:3.5 4. The worship builders -- the
experienced architects of the spirit and the morontia temples.
All the worlds of mortal ascent have temples of worship, and
they are the most exquisite creations of the morontia realms and
the spirit spheres.
44:3.6 5. The education builders --
those who build the headquarters of morontia training and
advanced spirit learning. Always is the way open to acquire more
knowledge, to gain additional information respecting one's
present and future work as well as universal cultural knowledge,
information designed to make ascending mortals more intelligent
and effective citizens of the morontia and spirit worlds.
44:3.7 6. Morontia planners -- those
who build for the co-ordinate association of all the
personalities of all realms as they are at any one time present
on any one sphere. These planners collaborate with the Morontia
Power Supervisors to enrich the co-ordination of the progressive
morontia life.
44:3.8 7. The public builders -- the
artisans who plan and construct the designated places of
assembly other than those of worship. Great and magnificent are
the places of common assembly.
44:3.9 While neither these structures nor
their embellishment would be exactly real to the sensory
comprehension of material mortals, they are very real to us. You
would be unable to see these temples could you be there in the
flesh; nevertheless, all of these supermaterial creations are
actually there, and we clearly discern them and just as fully
enjoy them.
4. THE THOUGHT RECORDERS
44:4.1 These artisans are devoted to the
preservation and reproduction of the superior thought of the
realms, and they function in seven groups:
44:4.2 1. Thought preservers. These are
the artisans dedicated to the preservation of the higher thought
of the realms. On the morontia worlds they truly treasure the
gems of mentation. Before first coming to Urantia, I saw records
and heard broadcasts of the ideation of some of the great minds
of this planet. Thought recorders preserve such noble ideas in
the tongue of Uversa.
44:4.3 Each superuniverse has its own
language, a tongue spoken by its personalities and prevailing
throughout its sectors. This is known as the tongue of Uversa in
our superuniverse. Each local universe also has its own
language. All of the higher orders of Nebadon are bilingual,
speaking both the language of Nebadon and the tongue of Uversa.
When two individuals from different local universes meet, they
communicate in the tongue of Uversa; if, however, one of them
hails from another superuniverse, they must have recourse to a
translator. In the central universe there is little need of a
language; there exists perfect and well-nigh complete
understanding; there, only the Gods are not fully comprehended.
We are taught that a chance meeting on Paradise reveals more of
mutual understanding than could be communicated by a mortal
language in a thousand years. Even on Salvington we "know as we
are known."
44:4.4 The ability to translate thought into
language in the morontia and spirit spheres is beyond mortal
comprehension. Our rate of reducing thought to a permanent
record can be so speeded up by the expert recorders that the
equivalent of over half a million words, or thought symbols, can
be registered in one minute of Urantia time. These universe
languages are far more replete than the speech of the evolving
worlds. The concept symbols of Uversa embrace more than a
billion characters, although the basic alphabet contains only
seventy symbols. The language of Nebadon is not quite so
elaborate, the basic symbols, or alphabet, being forty-eight in
number.
44:4.5 2. Concept recorders. This
second group of recorders are concerned with the preservation of
concept pictures, idea patterns. This is a form of permanent
recording unknown on the material realms, and by this method I
could gain more knowledge in one hour of your time than you
could gain in one hundred years of perusing ordinary written
language.
44:4.6 3. Ideograph recorders. We have
the equivalent of both your written and spoken word, but in
preserving thought, we usually employ concept picturization and
ideograph techniques. Those who preserve ideographs are able to
improve one thousandfold upon the work of the concept recorders.
44:4.7 4. Promoters of oratory. This
group of recorders are occupied with the task of preserving
thought for reproduction by oratory. But in the language of
Nebadon we could, in a half hour's address, cover the subject
matter of the entire lifetime of a Urantia mortal. Your only
hope of comprehending these transactions is to pause and
consider the technique of your disordered and garbled dream life
-- how you can in a few seconds traverse years of experience in
these fantasies of the night season.
44:4.8 The oratory of the spirit world is one
of the rare treats which await you who have heard only the crude
and stumbling orations of Urantia. There is harmony of music and
euphony of expression in the orations of Salvington and Edentia
which are inspiring beyond description. These burning concepts
are like gems of beauty in diadems of glory. But I cannot do it!
I cannot convey to the human mind the breadth and depth of these
realities of another world!
44:4.9 5. The broadcast directors. The
broadcasts of Paradise, the superuniverses, and the local
universes are under the general supervision of this group of
thought conservers. They serve as censors and editors as well as
co-ordinators of the broadcast material, making a superuniverse
adaptation of all Paradise broadcasts and adapting and
translating the broadcasts of the Ancients of Days into the
individual tongues of the local universes.
44:4.10 The local universe broadcasts must
also be modified for reception by the systems and the individual
planets. The transmittal of these space reports is carefully
supervised, and there is always a back registry to insure the
proper reception of every report on every world in a given
circuit. These broadcast directors are technically expert in the
utilization of the currents of space for all purposes of
intelligence communication.
44:4.11 6. The rhythm recorders.
Urantians would undoubtedly denominate these artisans poets,
although their work is very different from, and almost
infinitely transcends, your poetic productions. Rhythm is less
exhausting to both morontia and spirit beings, and so an effort
is frequently made to increase efficiency, as well as to augment
pleasure, by executing numerous functions in rhythmic form. I
only wish you might be privileged to hear some of the poetic
broadcasts of the Edentia assemblies and to enjoy the richness
of the color and tone of the constellation geniuses who are
masters of this exquisite form of self-expression and social
harmonization.
44:4.12 7. The morontia recorders. I am
at a loss to know how to depict to the material mind the
function of this important group of thought recorders assigned
to the work of preserving the ensemble pictures of the various
groupings of morontia affairs and spirit transactions; crudely
illustrated, they are the group photographers of the transition
worlds. They save for the future the vital scenes and
associations of these progressive epochs, preserving them in the
archives of the morontia halls of records.
5. THE ENERGY MANIPULATORS
44:5.1 These interesting and effective
artisans are concerned with every kind of energy: physical,
mindal, and spiritual.
44:5.2 1. Physical-energy manipulators.
The physical-energy manipulators serve for long periods with the
power directors and are experts in the manipulation and control
of many phases of physical energy. They are conversant with the
three basic currents and the thirty subsidiary energy
segregations of the superuniverses. These beings are of
inestimable assistance to the Morontia Power Supervisors of the
transition worlds. They are the persistent students of the
cosmic projections of Paradise.
44:5.3 2. Mind-energy manipulators.
These are the experts of intercommunication between morontia and
other types of intelligent beings. This form of communication
between mortals is practically nonexistent on Urantia. These are
the specialists who promote the ability of the ascending
morontia beings to communicate with one another, and their work
embraces numerous unique adventures in intellect liaison which
are far beyond my power to portray to the material mind. These
artisans are the keen students of the mind circuits of the
Infinite Spirit.
44:5.4 3. Spiritual-energy manipulators.
The manipulators of spiritual energy are an intriguing group.
Spiritual energy acts in accordance with established laws, just
as does physical energy. That is, spirit force, when studied,
yields dependable deductions and can be precisely dealt with,
even as can the physical energies. There are just as certain and
reliable laws in the spirit world as obtain in the material
realms. During the last few millions of years many improved
techniques for the intake of spiritual energy have been effected
by these students of the fundamental laws of the Eternal Son
governing spirit energy as applied to the morontia and other
orders of celestial beings throughout the universes.
44:5.5 4. The compound manipulators.
This is the adventurous group of well-trained beings who are
dedicated to the functional association of the three original
phases of divine energy manifested throughout the universes as
physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. These are the keen
personalities who are in reality seeking to discover the
universe presence of God the Supreme, for in this Deity
personality there must occur the experiential unification of all
grand universe divinity. And to a certain extent, these artisans
have in recent times met with some success.
44:5.6 5. The transport advisers. This
corps of technical advisers to the transport seraphim are most
proficient in collaborating with the star students in working
out routings and in otherwise assisting the chiefs of transport
on the worlds of space. They are the traffic supervisors of the
spheres and are present on all inhabited planets. Urantia is
served by a corps of seventy transport advisers.
44:5.7 6. The experts of communication.
Urantia, likewise, is served by twelve technicians of
interplanetary and interuniverse communication. These
long-experienced beings are expert in the knowledge of the laws
of transmittal and interference as applied to the communications
of the realms. This corps is concerned with all forms of space
messages except those of Gravity and Solitary Messengers. On
Urantia much of their work must be accomplished over the
archangels' circuit.
44:5.8 7. The teachers of rest. Divine
rest is associated with the technique of spiritual-energy
intake. Morontia and spirit energy must be replenished just as
certainly as physical energy, but not for the same reasons. I
am, perforce, compelled to employ crude illustrations in my
attempts to enlighten you; nevertheless, we of the spirit world
must stop our regular activities periodically and betake
ourselves to suitable places of rendezvous where we enter the
divine rest and thus recuperate our depleting energies.
44:5.9 You will receive your first lessons in
these matters when you reach the mansion worlds after you have
become morontia beings and have begun to experience the
technique of spirit affairs. You know of the innermost circle of
Havona and that, after the pilgrims of space have traversed the
preceding circles, they must be inducted into the long and
revivifying rest of Paradise. This is not only a technical
requirement of transit from the career of time to the service of
eternity, but it is also a necessity, a form of rest required to
replenish the energy losses incident to the final steps of the
ascendant experience and to store reserves of spirit power for
the next stage of the endless career.
44:5.10 These energy manipulators also
function in hundreds of other ways too numerous to catalogue,
such as counseling with the seraphim, cherubim, and sanobim
regarding the most efficient modes of energy intake and as to
the maintenance of the most helpful balances of divergent forces
between active cherubim and passive sanobim. In many other ways
do these experts lend assistance to morontia and spirit
creatures in their efforts to understand the divine rest, which
is so essential to the effective utilization of the basic
energies of space.
6. THE DESIGNERS AND EMBELLISHERS
44:6.1 How I wish I knew how to portray the
exquisite work of these unique artisans! Every attempt on my
part to explain the work of spirit embellishment would only
recall to material minds your own pitiful but worthy efforts to
do these things on your world of mind and matter.
44:6.2 This corps, while embracing over one
thousand subdivisions of activity, is grouped under the
following seven major heads:
44:6.3 1. The craftworkers of color.
These are they who make the ten thousand color tones of spirit
reflection peal forth their exquisite messages of harmonious
beauty. Aside from color perception there is nothing in human
experience to which these activities may be compared.
44:6.4 2. The sound designers. Spirit
waves of diverse identity and morontia appreciation are depicted
by these designers of what you would call sound. These impulses
are in reality the superb reflections of the naked and glorious
spirit-souls of the celestial hosts.
44:6.5 3. The emotion designers. These
enhancers and conservators of feeling are those who preserve the
sentiments of morontia and the emotions of divinity for the
study and edification of the children of time and for the
inspiration and beautification of morontia progressors and
advancing spirits.
44:6.6 4. The artists of odor. This
comparison of supernal spirit activities to the physical
recognition of chemical odors is, indeed, unfortunate, but
Urantia mortals could hardly recognize this ministry by any
other name. These artisans create their varied symphonies for
the edification and delight of the advancing children of light.
You have nothing on earth to which this type of spiritual
grandeur can be even remotely compared.
44:6.7 5. The presence embellishers.
These artisans are not occupied with the arts of self-adornment
or the technique of creature beautification. They are devoted to
the production of multitudinous and joyous reactions in
individual morontia and spirit creatures by dramatizing the
significance of relationship through the positional values
assigned to different morontia and spirit orders in the
composite ensembles of these diversified beings. These artists
arrange supermaterial beings as you would living musical notes,
odors, sights, and then blend them into the anthems of glory.
44:6.8 6. The taste designers. And how
can you be told of these artists! Faintly I might suggest that
they are improvers of morontia taste, and they also endeavor to
increase the appreciation of beauty through the sharpening of
the evolving spirit senses.
44:6.9 7. The morontia synthesizers.
These are the master craftsmen who, when all others have made
their respective contributions, then add the culminating and
finishing touches to the morontia ensemble, thus achieving an
inspiring portrayal of the divinely beautiful, an enduring
inspiration to spirit beings and their morontia associates. But
you must await your deliverance from the animal body before you
can begin to conceive of the artistic glories and aesthetic
beauties of the morontia and spirit worlds.
7. THE HARMONY WORKERS
44:7.1 These artists are not concerned with
music, painting, or anything similar, as you might be led to
surmise. They are occupied with the manipulation and
organization of specialized forces and energies which are
present in the spirit world, but which are not recognized by
mortals. If I had the least possible basis for comparison, I
would attempt to portray this unique field of spirit
achievement, but I despair -- there is no hope of conveying to
mortal minds this sphere of celestial artistry. Nevertheless,
that which cannot be described may still be implied:
44:7.2 Beauty, rhythm, and harmony are
intellectually associated and spiritually akin. Truth, fact, and
relationship are intellectually inseparable and associated with
the philosophic concepts of beauty. Goodness, righteousness, and
justice are philosophically interrelated and spiritually bound
up together with living truth and divine beauty.
44:7.3 Cosmic concepts of true philosophy, the
portrayal of celestial artistry, or the mortal attempt to depict
the human recognition of divine beauty can never be truly
satisfying if such attempted creature progression is ununified.
These expressions of the divine urge within the evolving
creature may be intellectually true, emotionally beautiful, and
spiritually good; but the real soul of expression is absent
unless these realities of truth, meanings of beauty, and values
of goodness are unified in the life experience of the artisan,
the scientist, or the philosopher.
44:7.4 These divine qualities are perfectly
and absolutely unified in God. And every God-knowing man or
angel possesses the potential of unlimited self-expression on
ever-progressive levels of unified self-realization by the
technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness -- the
experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal
truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness.
8. MORTAL ASPIRATIONS AND MORONTIA
ACHIEVEMENTS
44:8.1 Although celestial artisans do not
personally work on material planets, such as Urantia, they do
come, from time to time, from the headquarters of the system to
proffer help to the naturally gifted individuals of the mortal
races. When thus assigned, these artisans temporarily work under
the supervision of the planetary angels of progress. The
seraphic hosts co-operate with these artisans in attempting to
assist those mortal artists who possess inherent endowments, and
who also possess Adjusters of special and previous experience.
44:8.2 There are three possible sources of
special human ability: At the bottom always there exists the
natural or inherent aptitude. Special ability is never an
arbitrary gift of the Gods; there is always an ancestral
foundation for every outstanding talent. In addition to this
natural ability, or rather supplemental thereto, there may be
contributed the leadings of the Thought Adjuster in those
individuals whose indwelling Adjusters may have had actual and
bona fide experiences along such lines on other worlds and in
other mortal creatures. In those cases where both the human mind
and the indwelling Adjuster are unusually skillful, the spirit
artisans may be delegated to act as harmonizers of these talents
and otherwise to assist and inspire these mortals to seek for
ever-perfecting ideals and to attempt their enhanced portrayal
for the edification of the realm.
44:8.3 There is no caste in the ranks of
spirit artisans. No matter how lowly your origin, if you have
ability and the gift of expression, you will gain adequate
recognition and receive due appreciation as you ascend upward in
the scale of morontia experience and spiritual attainment. There
can be no handicap of human heredity or deprivation of mortal
environment which the morontia career will not fully compensate
and wholly remove. And all such satisfactions of artistic
achievement and expressionful self-realization will be effected
by your own personal efforts in progressive advancement. At last
the aspirations of evolutionary mediocrity may be realized.
While the Gods do not arbitrarily bestow talents and ability
upon the children of time, they do provide for the attainment of
the satisfaction of all their noble longings and for the
gratification of all human hunger for supernal self-expression.
44:8.4 But every human being should remember:
Many ambitions to excel which tantalize mortals in the flesh
will not persist with these same mortals in the morontia and
spirit careers. The ascending morontians learn to socialize
their former purely selfish longings and egoistic ambitions.
Nevertheless, those things which you so earnestly longed to do
on earth and which circumstances so persistently denied you, if,
after acquiring true mota insight in the morontia career, you
still desire to do, then will you most certainly be granted
every opportunity fully to satisfy your long-cherished desires.
44:8.5 Before ascending mortals leave the
local universe to embark upon their spirit careers, they will be
satiated respecting every intellectual, artistic, and social
longing or true ambition which ever characterized their mortal
or morontia planes of existence. This is the achievement of
equality of the satisfaction of self-expression and
self-realization but not the attainment of identical
experiential status nor the complete obliteration of
characteristic individuality in skill, technique, and
expression. But the new spirit differential of personal
experiential attainment will not become thus leveled off and
equalized until after you have finished the last circle of the
Havona career. And then will the Paradise residents be
confronted with the necessity of adjusting to that absonite
differential of personal experience which can be leveled off
only by the group attainment of the ultimate of creature status
-- the seventh-stage-spirit destiny of the mortal finaliters.
44:8.6 And this is the story of the celestial
artisans, that cosmopolitan body of exquisite workers who do so
much to glorify the architectural spheres with the artistic
portrayals of the divine beauty of the Paradise Creators.
44:8.7
Indited by an Archangel of Nebadon.
