The Urantia Book
PAPER 51
THE PLANETARY ADAMS
Presented by a Secondary Lanonandek Son of the Reserve Corps.
51:0.1 DURING the dispensation of a Planetary
Prince, primitive man reaches the limit of natural evolutionary
development, and this biologic attainment signals the System
Sovereign to dispatch to such a world the second order of
sonship, the biologic uplifters. These Sons, for there are two
of them -- the Material Son and Daughter -- are usually known on
a planet as Adam and Eve. The original Material Son of Satania
is Adam, and those who go to the system worlds as biologic
uplifters always carry the name of this first and original Son
of their unique order.
51:0.2 These Sons are the material gift of the
Creator Son to the inhabited worlds. Together with the Planetary
Prince, they remain on their planet of assignment throughout the
evolutionary course of such a sphere. Such an adventure on a
world having a Planetary Prince is not much of a hazard, but on
an apostate planet, a realm without a spiritual ruler and
deprived of interplanetary communication, such a mission is
fraught with grave danger.
51:0.3 Although you cannot hope to know all
about the work of these Sons on all the worlds of Satania and
other systems, other papers depict more fully the life and
experiences of the interesting pair, Adam and Eve, who came from
the corps of the biologic uplifters of Jerusem to upstep the
Urantia races. While there was a miscarriage of the ideal plans
for improving your native races, still, Adam's mission was not
in vain; Urantia has profited immeasurably from the gift of Adam
and Eve, and among their fellows and in the councils on high
their work is not reckoned as a total loss.
1. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MATERIAL SONS
OF GOD
51:1.1 The material or sex Sons and Daughters
are the offspring of the Creator Son; the Universe Mother Spirit
does not participate in the production of these beings who are
destined to function as physical uplifters on the evolutionary
worlds.
51:1.2 The material order of sonship is not
uniform throughout the local universe. The Creator Son produces
only one pair of these beings in each local system; these
original pairs are diverse in nature, being attuned to the life
pattern of their respective systems. This is a necessary
provision since otherwise the reproductive potential of the
Adams would be nonfunctional with that of the evolving mortal
beings of the worlds of any one particular system. The Adam and
Eve who came to Urantia were descended from the original Satania
pair of Material Sons.
51:1.3 Material Sons vary in height from eight
to ten feet, and their bodies glow with the brilliance of
radiant light of a violet hue. While material blood circulates
through their material bodies, they are also surcharged with
divine energy and saturated with celestial light. These Material
Sons (the Adams) and Material Daughters (the Eves) are equal to
each other, differing only in reproductive nature and in certain
chemical endowments. They are equal but differential, male and
female -- hence complemental -- and are designed to serve on
almost all assignments in pairs.
51:1.4 The Material Sons enjoy a dual
nutrition; they are really dual in nature and constitution,
partaking of materialized energy much as do the physical beings
of the realm, while their immortal existence is fully maintained
by the direct and automatic intake of certain sustaining cosmic
energies. Should they fail on some mission of assignment or even
consciously and deliberately rebel, this order of Sons becomes
isolated, cut off from connection with the universe source of
light and life. Thereupon they become practically material
beings, destined to take the course of material life on the
world of their assignment and compelled to look to the universe
magistrates for adjudication. Material death will eventually
terminate the planetary career of such an unfortunate and unwise
Material Son or Daughter.
51:1.5 An original or directly created Adam
and Eve are immortal by inherent endowment just as are all other
orders of local universe sonship, but a diminution of
immortality potential characterizes their sons and daughters.
This original couple cannot transmit unconditioned immortality
to their procreated sons and daughters. Their progeny are
dependent for continuing life on unbroken intellectual synchrony
with the mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit. Since the inception
of the system of Satania, thirteen Planetary Adams have been
lost in rebellion and default and 681,204 in the subordinate
positions of trust. Most of these defections occurred at the
time of the Lucifer rebellion.
51:1.6 While living as permanent citizens on
the system capitals, even when functioning on descending
missions to the evolutionary planets, the Material Sons do not
possess Thought Adjusters, but it is through these very services
that they acquire experiential capacity for Adjuster indwellment
and the Paradise ascension career. These unique and wonderfully
useful beings are the connecting links between the spiritual and
physical worlds. They are concentrated on the system
headquarters, where they reproduce and carry on as material
citizens of the realm, and whence they are dispatched to the
evolutionary worlds.
51:1.7 Unlike the other created Sons of
planetary service, the material order of sonship is not, by
nature, invisible to material creatures like the inhabitants of
Urantia. These Sons of God can be seen, understood, and can, in
turn, actually mingle with the creatures of time, could even
procreate with them, though this role of biologic upliftment
usually falls to the progeny of the Planetary Adams.
51:1.8 On Jerusem the loyal children of any
Adam and Eve are immortal, but the offspring of a Material Son
and Daughter procreated subsequent to their arrival on an
evolutionary planet are not thus immune to natural death. There
occurs a change in the life-transmitting mechanism when these
Sons are rematerialized for reproductive function on an
evolutionary world. The Life Carriers designedly deprive the
Planetary Adams and Eves of the power of begetting undying sons
and daughters. If they do not default, an Adam and Eve on a
planetary mission can live on indefinitely, but within certain
limits their children experience decreasing longevity with each
succeeding generation.
2. TRANSIT OF THE PLANETARY ADAMS
51:2.1 Upon receipt of the news that another
inhabited world has attained the height of physical evolution,
the System Sovereign convenes the corps of Material Sons and
Daughters on the system capital; and following the discussion of
the needs of such an evolutionary world, two of the volunteering
group -- an Adam and an Eve of the senior corps of Material Sons
-- are selected to undertake the adventure, to submit to the
deep sleep preparatory to being enseraphimed and transported
from their home of associated service to the new realm of new
opportunities and new dangers.
51:2.2 Adams and Eves are semimaterial
creatures and, as such, are not transportable by seraphim. They
must undergo dematerialization on the system capital before they
can be enseraphimed for transport to the world of assignment.
The transport seraphim are able to effect such changes in the
Material Sons and in other semimaterial beings as enable them to
be enseraphimed and thus to be transported through space from
one world or system to another. About three days of standard
time are consumed in this transport preparation, and it requires
the co-operation of a Life Carrier to restore such a
dematerialized creature to normal existence upon arrival at the
end of the seraphic-transport journey.
51:2.3 While there is this dematerializing
technique for preparing the Adams for transit from Jerusem to
the evolutionary worlds, there is no equivalent method for
taking them away from such worlds unless the entire planet is to
be emptied, in which event emergency installation of the
dematerialization technique is made for the entire salvable
population. If some physical catastrophe should doom the
planetary residence of an evolving race, the Melchizedeks and
the Life Carriers would install the technique of
dematerialization for all survivors, and by seraphic transport
these beings would be carried away to the new world prepared for
their continuing existence. The evolution of a human race, once
initiated on a world of space, must proceed quite independently
of the physical survival of that planet, but during the
evolutionary ages it is not otherwise intended that a Planetary
Adam or Eve shall leave their chosen world.
51:2.4 Upon arrival at their planetary
destination the Material Son and Daughter are rematerialized
under the direction of the Life Carriers. This entire process
takes ten to twenty-eight days of Urantia time. The
unconsciousness of the seraphic slumber continues throughout
this entire period of reconstruction. When the reassembly of the
physical organism is completed, these Material Sons and
Daughters stand in their new homes and on their new worlds to
all intents and purposes just as they were before submitting to
the dematerializing process on Jerusem.
3. THE ADAMIC MISSIONS
51:3.1 On the inhabited worlds the Material
Sons and Daughters construct their own garden homes, soon being
assisted by their own children. Usually the site of the garden
has been selected by the Planetary Prince, and his corporeal
staff do much of the preliminary work of preparation with the
help of many of the higher types of native races.
51:3.2 These Gardens of Eden are so named in
honor of Edentia, the constellation capital, and because they
are patterned after the botanic grandeur of the headquarters
world of the Most High Fathers. Such garden homes are usually
located in a secluded section and in a near-tropic zone. They
are wonderful creations on an average world. You can judge
nothing of these beautiful centers of culture by the fragmentary
account of the aborted development of such an undertaking on
Urantia.
51:3.3 A Planetary Adam and Eve are, in
potential, the full gift of physical grace to the mortal races.
The chief business of such an imported pair is to multiply and
to uplift the children of time. But there is no immediate
interbreeding between the people of the garden and those of the
world; for many generations Adam and Eve remain biologically
segregated from the evolutionary mortals while they build up a
strong race of their order. This is the origin of the violet
race on the inhabited worlds.
51:3.4 The plans for race upstepping are
prepared by the Planetary Prince and his staff and are executed
by Adam and Eve. And this was where your Material Son and his
companion were placed at great disadvantage when they arrived on
Urantia. Caligastia offered crafty and effective opposition to
the Adamic mission; and notwithstanding that the Melchizedek
receivers of Urantia had duly warned both Adam and Eve
concerning the planetary dangers inherent in the presence of the
rebellious Planetary Prince, this archrebel, by a wily
stratagem, outmaneuvered the Edenic pair and entrapped them into
a violation of the covenant of their trusteeship as the visible
rulers of your world. The traitorous Planetary Prince did
succeed in compromising your Adam and Eve, but he failed in his
effort to involve them in the Lucifer rebellion.
51:3.5 The fifth order of angels, the
planetary helpers, are attached to the Adamic mission, always
accompanying the Planetary Adams on their world adventures. The
corps of initial assignment is usually about one hundred
thousand. When the work of the Urantia Adam and Eve was
prematurely launched, when they departed from the ordained plan,
it was one of the seraphic Voices of the Garden who remonstrated
with them concerning their reprehensible conduct. And your
narrative of this occurrence well illustrates the manner in
which your planetary traditions have tended to ascribe
everything supernatural to the Lord God. Because of this,
Urantians have often become confused concerning the nature of
the Universal Father since the words and acts of all his
associates and subordinates have been so generally attributed to
him. In the case of Adam and Eve, the angel of the Garden was
none other than the chief of the planetary helpers then on duty.
This seraphim, Solonia, proclaimed the miscarriage of the divine
plan and requisitioned the return of the Melchizedek receivers
to Urantia.
51:3.6 The secondary midway creatures are
indigenous to the Adamic missions. As with the corporeal staff
of the Planetary Prince, the descendants of the Material Sons
and Daughters are of two orders: their physical children and the
secondary order of midway creatures. These material but
ordinarily invisible planetary ministers contribute much to the
advancement of civilization and even to the subjection of
insubordinate minorities who may seek to subvert social
development and spiritual progress.
51:3.7 The secondary midwayers should not be
confused with the primary order, who date from the near times of
the arrival of the Planetary Prince. On Urantia a majority of
these earlier midway creatures went into rebellion with
Caligastia and have, since Pentecost, been interned. Many of the
Adamic group who did not remain loyal to the planetary
administration are likewise interned.
51:3.8 On the day of Pentecost the loyal
primary and the secondary midwayers effected a voluntary union
and have functioned as one unit in world affairs ever since.
They serve under the leadership of loyal midwayers alternately
chosen from the two groups.
51:3.9 Your world has been visited by four
orders of sonship: Caligastia, the Planetary Prince; Adam and
Eve of the Material Sons of God; Machiventa Melchizedek, the
"sage of Salem" in the days of Abraham; and Christ Michael, who
came as the Paradise bestowal Son. How much more effective and
beautiful it would have been had Michael, the supreme ruler of
the universe of Nebadon, been welcomed to your world by a loyal
and efficient Planetary Prince and a devoted and successful
Material Son, both of whom could have done so much to enhance
the lifework and mission of the bestowal Son! But not all worlds
have been so unfortunate as Urantia, neither has the mission of
the Planetary Adams always been so difficult or so hazardous.
When they are successful, they contribute to the development of
a great people, continuing as the visible heads of planetary
affairs even far into the age when such a world is settled in
light and life.
4. THE SIX EVOLUTIONARY RACES
51:4.1 The race of dominance during the early
ages of the inhabited worlds is the red man, who ordinarily is
the first to attain human levels of development. But while the
red man is the senior race of the planets, the succeeding
colored peoples begin to make their appearances very early in
the age of mortal emergence.
51:4.2 The earlier races are somewhat superior
to the later; the red man stands far above the indigo -- black
-- race. The Life Carriers impart the full bestowal of the
living energies to the initial or red race, and each succeeding
evolutionary manifestation of a distinct group of mortals
represents variation at the expense of the original endowment.
Even mortal stature tends to decrease from the red man down to
the indigo race, although on Urantia unexpected strains of
giantism appeared among the green and orange peoples.
51:4.3 On those worlds having all six
evolutionary races the superior peoples are the first, third,
and fifth races -- the red, the yellow, and the blue. The
evolutionary races thus alternate in capacity for intellectual
growth and spiritual development, the second, fourth, and sixth
being somewhat less endowed. These secondary races are the
peoples that are missing on certain worlds; they are the ones
that have been exterminated on many others. It is a misfortune
on Urantia that you so largely lost your superior blue men,
except as they persist in your amalgamated "white race." The
loss of your orange and green stocks is not of such serious
concern.
51:4.4 The evolution of six -- or of three --
colored races, while seeming to deteriorate the original
endowment of the red man, provides certain very desirable
variations in mortal types and affords an otherwise unattainable
expression of diverse human potentials. These modifications are
beneficial to the progress of mankind as a whole provided they
are subsequently upstepped by the imported Adamic or violet
race. On Urantia this usual plan of amalgamation was not
extensively carried out, and this failure to execute the plan of
race evolution makes it impossible for you to understand very
much about the status of these peoples on an average inhabited
planet by observing the remnants of these early races on your
world.
51:4.5 In the early days of racial development
there is a slight tendency for the red, the yellow, and the blue
men to interbreed; there is a similar tendency for the orange,
green, and indigo races to intermingle.
51:4.6 The more backward humans are usually
employed as laborers by the more progressive races. This
accounts for the origin of slavery on the planets during the
early ages. The orange men are usually subdued by the red and
reduced to the status of servants -- sometimes exterminated. The
yellow and red men often fraternize, but not always. The yellow
race usually enslaves the green, while the blue man subdues the
indigo. These races of primitive men think no more of utilizing
the services of their backward fellows in compulsory labor than
Urantians would of buying and selling horses and cattle.
51:4.7 On most normal worlds involuntary
servitude does not survive the dispensation of the Planetary
Prince, although mental defectives and social delinquents are
often still compelled to perform involuntary labor. But on all
normal spheres this sort of primitive slavery is abolished soon
after the arrival of the imported violet or Adamic race.
51:4.8 These six evolutionary races are
destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the
progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are
blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The
Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable
planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing
strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on
Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon
the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your
world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you
ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of
your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial
stocks.
5. RACIAL AMALGAMATION -- BESTOWAL OF THE
ADAMIC BLOOD
51:5.1 When a Planetary Adam and Eve arrive on
an inhabited world, they have been fully instructed by their
superiors as to the best way to effect the improvement of the
existing races of intelligent beings. The plan of procedure is
not uniform; much is left to the judgment of the ministering
pair, and mistakes are not infrequent, especially on disordered,
insurrectionary worlds, such as Urantia.
51:5.2 Usually the violet peoples do not begin
to amalgamate with the planetary natives until their own group
numbers over one million. But in the meantime the staff of the
Planetary Prince proclaims that the children of the Gods have
come down, as it were, to be one with the races of men; and the
people eagerly look forward to the day when announcement will be
made that those who have qualified as belonging to the superior
racial strains may proceed to the Garden of Eden and be there
chosen by the sons and daughters of Adam as the evolutionary
fathers and mothers of the new and blended order of mankind.
51:5.3 On normal worlds the Planetary Adam and
Eve never mate with the evolutionary races. This work of
biologic betterment is a function of the Adamic progeny. But
these Adamites do not go out among the races; the prince's staff
bring to the Garden of Eden the superior men and women for
voluntary mating with the Adamic offspring. And on most worlds
it is considered the highest honor to be selected as a candidate
for mating with the sons and daughters of the garden.
51:5.4 For the first time the racial wars and
other tribal struggles are diminished, while the world races
increasingly strive to qualify for recognition and admission to
the garden. You can at best have but a very meager idea of how
this competitive struggle comes to occupy the center of all
activities on a normal planet. This whole scheme of race
improvement was early wrecked on Urantia.
51:5.5 The violet race is a monogamous people,
and every evolutionary man or woman uniting with the Adamic sons
and daughters pledges not to take other mates and to instruct
his or her children in single-matedness. The children of each of
these unions are educated and trained in the schools of the
Planetary Prince and then are permitted to go forth to the race
of their evolutionary parent, there to marry among the selected
groups of superior mortals.
51:5.6 When this strain of the Material Sons
is added to the evolving races of the worlds, a new and greater
era of evolutionary progress is initiated. Following this
procreative outpouring of imported ability and superevolutionary
traits there ensues a succession of rapid strides in
civilization and racial development; in one hundred thousand
years more progress is made than in a million years of former
struggle. In your world, even in the face of the miscarriage of
the ordained plans, great progress has been made since the gift
to your peoples of Adam's life plasm.
51:5.7 But while the pure-line children of a
planetary Garden of Eden can bestow themselves upon the superior
members of the evolutionary races and thereby upstep the
biologic level of mankind, it would not prove beneficial for the
higher strains of Urantia mortals to mate with the lower races;
such an unwise procedure would jeopardize all civilization on
your world. Having failed to achieve race harmonization by the
Adamic technique, you must now work out your planetary problem
of race improvement by other and largely human methods of
adaptation and control.
6. THE EDENIC REGIME
51:6.1 On most of the inhabited worlds the
Gardens of Eden remain as superb cultural centers and continue
to function as the social patterns of planetary conduct and
usage age after age. Even in early times when the violet peoples
are relatively segregated, their schools receive suitable
candidates from among the world races, while the industrial
developments of the garden open up new channels of commercial
intercourse. Thus do the Adams and Eves and their progeny
contribute to the sudden expansion of culture and to the rapid
improvement of the evolutionary races of their worlds. And all
of these relationships are augmented and sealed by the
amalgamation of the evolutionary races and the sons of Adam,
resulting in the immediate upstepping of biologic status, the
quickening of intellectual potential, and the enhancement of
spiritual receptivity.
51:6.2 On normal worlds the garden
headquarters of the violet race becomes the second center of
world culture and, jointly with the headquarters city of the
Planetary Prince, sets the pace for the development of
civilization. For centuries the city headquarters schools of the
Planetary Prince and the garden schools of Adam and Eve are
contemporary. They are usually not very far apart, and they work
together in harmonious co-operation.
51:6.3 Think what it would mean on your world
if somewhere in the Levant there were a world center of
civilization, a great planetary university of culture, which had
functioned uninterruptedly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to
consider how the moral authority of even such an ancient center
would be reinforced were there situated not far-distant still
another and older headquarters of celestial ministry whose
traditions would exert a cumulative force of 500,000 years of
integrated evolutionary influence. It is custom which eventually
spreads the ideals of Eden to a whole world.
51:6.4 The schools of the Planetary Prince are
primarily concerned with philosophy, religion, morals, and the
higher intellectual and artistic achievements. The garden
schools of Adam and Eve are usually devoted to practical arts,
fundamental intellectual training, social culture, economic
development, trade relations, physical efficiency, and civil
government. Eventually these world centers amalgamate, but this
actual affiliation sometimes does not occur until the times of
the first Magisterial Son.
51:6.5 The continuing existence of the
Planetary Adam and Eve, together with the pure-line nucleus of
the violet race, imparts that stability of growth to Edenic
culture by virtue of which it comes to act upon the civilization
of a world with the compelling force of tradition. In these
immortal Material Sons and Daughters we encounter the last and
the indispensable link connecting God with man, bridging the
almost infinite gulf between the eternal Creator and the lowest
finite personalities of time. Here is a being of high origin who
is physical, material, even a sex creature like Urantia mortals,
one who can see and comprehend the invisible Planetary Prince
and interpret him to the mortal creatures of the realm, for the
Material Sons and Daughters are able to see all of the lower
orders of spirit beings; they visualize the Planetary Prince and
his entire staff, visible and invisible.
51:6.6 With the passing of centuries, through
the amalgamation of their progeny with the races of men, this
same Material Son and Daughter become accepted as the common
ancestors of mankind, the common parents of the now blended
descendants of the evolutionary races. It is intended that
mortals who start out from an inhabited world have the
experience of recognizing seven fathers:
1. The biologic father -- the father
in the flesh.
2. The father of the realm -- the
Planetary Adam.
3. The father of the spheres -- the
System Sovereign.
4. The Most High Father -- the
Constellation Father.
5. The universe Father -- the
Creator Son and supreme ruler of the local creations.
6. The super-Fathers -- the Ancients
of Days who govern the superuniverse.
7. The spirit or Havona Father --
the Universal Father, who dwells on Paradise and bestows his
spirit to live and work in the minds of the lowly creatures who
inhabit the universe of universes.
7. UNITED ADMINISTRATION
51:7.1 From time to time the Avonal Sons of
Paradise come to the inhabited worlds for judicial actions, but
the first Avonal to arrive on a magisterial mission inaugurates
the fourth dispensation of an evolutionary world of time and
space. On some planets where this Magisterial Son is universally
accepted, he remains for one age; and thus the planet prospers
under the joint rulership of three Sons: the Planetary Prince,
the Material Son, and the Magisterial Son, the latter two being
visible to all the inhabitants of the realm.
51:7.2 Before the first Magisterial Son
concludes his mission on a normal evolutionary world, there has
been effected the union of the educational and administrative
work of the Planetary Prince and the Material Son. This
amalgamation of the dual supervision of a planet brings into
existence a new and effective order of world administration.
Upon the retirement of the Magisterial Son the Planetary Adam
assumes the outward direction of the sphere. The Material Son
and Daughter thus act jointly as planetary administrators until
the settling of the world in the era of light and life;
whereupon the Planetary Prince is elevated to the position of
Planetary Sovereign. During this age of advanced evolution, Adam
and Eve become what might be called joint prime ministers of the
glorified realm.
51:7.3 As soon as the new and consolidated
capital of the evolving world has become well established, and
just as fast as competent subordinate administrators can be
properly trained, subcapitals are founded on remote land bodies
and among the different peoples. Before the arrival of another
dispensational Son, from fifty to one hundred of these
subcenters will have been organized.
51:7.4 The Planetary Prince and his staff
still foster the spiritual and philosophic domains of activity.
Adam and Eve pay particular attention to the physical,
scientific, and economic status of the realm. Both groups
equally devote their energies to the promotion of the arts,
social relations, and intellectual achievements.
51:7.5 By the time of the inauguration of the
fifth dispensation of world affairs, a magnificent
administration of planetary activities has been achieved. Mortal
existence on such a well-managed sphere is indeed stimulating
and profitable. And if Urantians could only observe life on such
a planet, they would immediately appreciate the value of those
things which their world has lost through embracing evil and
participating in rebellion.
51:7.6
Presented by a Secondary Lanonandek Son of the Reserve Corps.
