The Urantia Book
PAPER 52
PLANETARY MORTAL EPOCHS
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the
staff of Gabriel.
52:0.1 FROM the inception of life on an
evolutionary planet to the time of its final flowering in the
era of light and life, there appear upon the stage of world
action at least seven epochs of human life. These successive
ages are determined by the planetary missions of the divine
Sons, and on an average inhabited world these epochs appear in
the following order:
1. Pre-Planetary Prince Man.
2. Post-Planetary Prince Man.
3. Post-Adamic Man.
4. Post-Magisterial Son Man.
5. Post-Bestowal Son Man.
6. Post-Teacher Son Man.
7. The Era of Light and Life.
52:0.2 The worlds of space, as soon as they
are physically suitable for life, are placed on the registry of
the Life Carriers, and in due time these Sons are dispatched to
such planets for the purpose of initiating life. The entire
period from life initiation to the appearance of man is
designated the prehuman era and precedes the successive mortal
epochs considered in this narrative.
1. PRIMITIVE MAN
52:1.1 From the time of man's emergence from
the animal level -- when he can choose to worship the Creator --
to the arrival of the Planetary Prince, mortal will creatures
are called primitive men. There are six basic types or
races of primitive men, and these early peoples successively
appear in the order of the spectrum colors, beginning with the
red. The length of time consumed in this early life evolution
varies greatly on the different worlds, ranging from one hundred
and fifty thousand years to over one million years of Urantia
time.
52:1.2 The evolutionary races of color -- red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo -- begin to appear about
the time that primitive man is developing a simple language and
is beginning to exercise the creative imagination. By this time
man is well accustomed to standing erect.
52:1.3 Primitive men are mighty hunters and
fierce fighters. The law of this age is the physical survival of
the fittest; the government of these times is wholly tribal.
During the early racial struggles on many worlds some of the
evolutionary races are obliterated, as occurred on Urantia.
Those who survive are usually subsequently blended with the
later imported violet race, the Adamic peoples.
52:1.4 In the light of subsequent
civilization, this era of primitive man is a long, dark, and
bloody chapter. The ethics of the jungle and the morals of the
primeval forests are not in keeping with the standards of later
dispensations of revealed religion and higher spiritual
development. On normal and nonexperimental worlds this epoch is
very different from the prolonged and extraordinarily brutal
struggles which characterized this age on Urantia. When you have
emerged from your first world experience, you will begin to see
why this long and painful struggle on the evolutionary worlds
occurs, and as you go forward in the Paradise path, you will
increasingly understand the wisdom of these apparently strange
doings. But notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of the early
ages of human emergence, the performances of primitive man
represent a splendid, even a heroic, chapter in the annals of an
evolutionary world of time and space.
52:1.5 Early evolutionary man is not a
colorful creature. In general, these primitive mortals are cave
dwellers or cliff residents. They also build crude huts in the
large trees. Before they acquire a high order of intelligence,
the planets are sometimes overrun with the larger types of
animals. But early in this era mortals learn to kindle and
maintain fire, and with the increase of inventive imagination
and the improvement in tools, evolving man soon vanquishes the
larger and more unwieldy animals. The early races also make
extensive use of the larger flying animals. These enormous birds
are able to carry one or two average-sized men for a nonstop
flight of over five hundred miles. On some planets these birds
are of great service since they possess a high order of
intelligence, often being able to speak many words of the
languages of the realm. These birds are most intelligent, very
obedient, and unbelievably affectionate. Such passenger birds
have been long extinct on Urantia, but your early ancestors
enjoyed their services.
52:1.6 Man's acquirement of ethical judgment,
moral will, is usually coincident with the appearance of early
language. Upon attaining the human level, after this emergence
of mortal will, these beings become receptive to the temporary
indwelling of the divine Adjusters, and upon death many are duly
elected as survivors and sealed by the archangels for subsequent
resurrection and Spirit fusion. The archangels always accompany
the Planetary Princes, and a dispensational adjudication of the
realm is simultaneous with the prince's arrival.
52:1.7 All mortals who are indwelt by Thought
Adjusters are potential worshipers; they have been "lighted by
the true light," and they possess capacity for seeking
reciprocal contact with divinity. Nevertheless, the early or
biologic religion of primitive man is largely a persistence of
animal fear coupled with ignorant awe and tribal superstition.
The survival of superstition in the Urantia races is hardly
complimentary to your evolutionary development nor compatible
with your otherwise splendid achievements in material progress.
But this early fear religion serves a very valuable purpose in
subduing the fiery tempers of these primitive creatures. It is
the forerunner of civilization and the soil for the subsequent
planting of the seeds of revealed religion by the Planetary
Prince and his ministers.
52:1.8 Within one hundred thousand years from
the time man acquires erect posture, the Planetary Prince
usually arrives, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign
upon the report of the Life Carriers that will is functioning,
even though comparatively few individuals have thus developed.
Primitive mortals usually welcome the Planetary Prince and his
visible staff; in fact, they often look upon them with awe and
reverence, almost with worshipfulness, if they are not
restrained.
2. POST-PLANETARY PRINCE MAN
52:2.1 With the arrival of the Planetary
Prince a new dispensation begins. Government appears on earth,
and the advanced tribal epoch is attained. Great social strides
are made during a few thousand years of this regime. Under
normal conditions mortals attain a high state of civilization
during this age. They do not struggle so long in barbarism as
did the Urantia races. But life on an inhabited world is so
changed by rebellion that you can have little or no idea of such
a regime on a normal planet.
52:2.2 The average length of this dispensation
is around five hundred thousand years, some longer, some
shorter. During this era the planet is established in the
circuits of the system, and a full quota of seraphic and other
celestial helpers is assigned to its administration. The Thought
Adjusters come in increasing numbers, and the seraphic guardians
amplify their regime of mortal supervision.
52:2.3 When the Planetary Prince arrives on a
primitive world, the evolved religion of fear and ignorance
prevails. The prince and his staff make the first revelations of
higher truth and universe organization. These initial
presentations of revealed religion are very simple, and they
usually pertain to the affairs of the local system. Religion is
wholly an evolutionary process prior to the arrival of the
Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion progresses by graduated
revelation as well as by evolutionary growth. Each dispensation,
each mortal epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of
spiritual truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the
religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world
largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the
extent of religious revelation.
52:2.4 This dispensation witnesses a spiritual
dawn, and the different races and their various tribes tend to
develop specialized systems of religious and philosophic
thought. There uniformly run through all of these racial
religions two strains: the early fears of primitive men and the
later revelations of the Planetary Prince. In some respects
Urantians do not seem to have wholly emerged from this stage of
planetary evolution. As you pursue this study, you will the more
clearly discern how far your world departs from the average
course of evolutionary progress and development.
52:2.5 But the Planetary Prince is not "the
Prince of Peace." Racial struggles and tribal wars continue over
into this dispensation but with diminishing frequency and
severity. This is the great age of racial dispersion, and it
culminates in a period of intense nationalism. Color is the
basis of tribal and national groupings, and the different races
often develop separate languages. Each expanding group of
mortals tends to seek isolation. This segregation is favored by
the existence of many languages. Before the unification of the
several races their relentless warfare sometimes results in the
obliteration of whole peoples; the orange and green men are
particularly subject to such extinction.
52:2.6 On average worlds, during the latter
part of the prince's rule, national life begins to replace
tribal organization or rather to be superimposed upon the
existing tribal groupings. But the great social achievement of
the prince's epoch is the emergence of family life. Heretofore,
human relationships have been chiefly tribal; now, the home
begins to materialize.
52:2.7 This is the dispensation of the
realization of sex equality. On some planets the male may rule
the female; on others the reverse prevails. During this age
normal worlds establish full equality of the sexes, this being
preliminary to the fuller realization of the ideals of home
life. This is the dawn of the golden age of the home. The idea
of tribal rule gradually gives way to the dual concept of
national life and family life.
52:2.8 During this age agriculture makes its
appearance. The growth of the family idea is incompatible with
the roving and unsettled life of the hunter. Gradually the
practices of settled habitations and the cultivation of the soil
become established. The domestication of animals and the
development of home arts proceed apace. Upon reaching the apex
of biologic evolution, a high level of civilization has been
attained, but there is little development of a mechanical order;
invention is the characteristic of the succeeding age.
52:2.9 The races are purified and brought up
to a high state of physical perfection and intellectual strength
before the end of this era. The early development of a normal
world is greatly helped by the plan of promoting the increase of
the higher types of mortals with proportionate curtailment of
the lower. And it is the failure of your early peoples to thus
discriminate between these types that accounts for the presence
of so many defective and degenerate individuals among the
present-day Urantia races.
52:2.10 One of the great achievements of the
age of the prince is this restriction of the multiplication of
mentally defective and socially unfit individuals. Long before
the times of the arrival of the second Sons, the Adams, most
worlds seriously address themselves to the tasks of race
purification, something which the Urantia peoples have not even
yet seriously undertaken.
52:2.11 This problem of race improvement is
not such an extensive undertaking when it is attacked at this
early date in human evolution. The preceding period of tribal
struggles and rugged competition in race survival has weeded out
most of the abnormal and defective strains. An idiot does not
have much chance of survival in a primitive and warring tribal
social organization. It is the false sentiment of your partially
perfected civilizations that fosters, protects, and perpetuates
the hopelessly defective strains of evolutionary human stocks.
52:2.12 It is neither tenderness nor altruism
to bestow futile sympathy upon degenerated human beings,
unsalvable abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even
the most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient
differences between individuals and between numerous social
groups to provide for the full exercise of all those noble
traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish mortal ministry
without perpetuating the socially unfit and the morally
degenerate strains of evolving humanity. There is abundant
opportunity for the exercise of tolerance and the function of
altruism in behalf of those unfortunate and needy individuals
who have not irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever
destroyed their spiritual birthright.
3. POST-ADAMIC MAN
52:3.1 When the original impetus of
evolutionary life has run its biologic course, when man has
reached the apex of animal development, there arrives the second
order of sonship, and the second dispensation of grace and
ministry is inaugurated. This is true on all evolutionary
worlds. When the highest possible level of evolutionary life has
been attained, when primitive man has ascended as far as
possible in the biologic scale, a Material Son and Daughter
always appear on the planet, having been dispatched by the
System Sovereign.
52:3.2 Thought Adjusters are increasingly
bestowed upon the post-Adamic men, and in constantly augmented
numbers these mortals attain capacity for subsequent Adjuster
fusion. While functioning as descending Sons, the Adams do not
possess Adjusters, but their planetary offspring -- direct and
mixed -- become legitimate candidates for the reception, in due
time, of the Mystery Monitors. By the termination of the
post-Adamic age the planet is in possession of its full quota of
celestial ministers; only the fusion Adjusters are not yet
universally bestowed.
52:3.3 It is the prime purpose of the Adamic
regime to influence evolving man to complete the transit from
the hunter and herder stage of civilization to that of the
agriculturist and horticulturist, to be later supplemented by
the appearance of the urban and industrial adjuncts to
civilization. Ten thousand years of this dispensation of the
biologic uplifters is sufficient to effect a marvelous
transformation. Twenty-five thousand years of such an
administration of the conjoint wisdom of the Planetary Prince
and the Material Sons usually ripens the sphere for the advent
of a Magisterial Son.
52:3.4 This age usually witnesses the
completion of the elimination of the unfit and the still further
purification of the racial strains; on normal worlds the
defective bestial tendencies are very nearly eliminated from the
reproducing stocks of the realm.
52:3.5 The Adamic progeny never amalgamate
with the inferior strains of the evolutionary races. Neither is
it the divine plan for the Planetary Adam or Eve to mate,
personally, with the evolutionary peoples. This race-improvement
project is the task of their progeny. But the offspring of the
Material Son and Daughter are mobilized for generations before
the racial-amalgamation ministry is inaugurated.
52:3.6 The result of the gift of the Adamic
life plasm to the mortal races is an immediate upstepping of
intellectual capacity and an acceleration of spiritual progress.
There is usually some physical improvement also. On an average
world the post-Adamic dispensation is an age of great invention,
energy control, and mechanical development. This is the era of
the appearance of multiform manufacture and the control of
natural forces; it is the golden age of exploration and the
final subduing of the planet. Much of the material progress of a
world occurs during this time of the inauguration of the
development of the physical sciences, just such an epoch as
Urantia is now experiencing. Your world is a full dispensation
and more behind the average planetary schedule.
52:3.7 By the end of the Adamic dispensation
on a normal planet the races are practically blended, so that it
can be truly proclaimed that "God has made of one blood all the
nations," and that his Son "has made of one color all peoples."
The color of such an amalgamated race is somewhat of an olive
shade of the violet hue, the racial "white" of the spheres.
52:3.8 Primitive man is for the most part
carnivorous; the Material Sons and Daughters do not eat meat,
but their offspring within a few generations usually gravitate
to the omnivorous level, although whole groups of their
descendants sometimes remain nonflesh eaters. This double origin
of the post-Adamic races explains how such blended human stocks
exhibit anatomic vestiges belonging to both the herbivorous and
carnivorous animal groups.
52:3.9 Within ten thousand years of racial
amalgamation the resultant stocks show varying degrees of
anatomic blend, some strains carrying more of the marks of the
nonflesh-eating ancestry, others exhibiting more of the
distinguishing traits and physical characteristics of their
carnivorous evolutionary progenitors. The majority of these
world races soon become omnivorous, subsisting upon a wide range
of viands from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
52:3.10 The post-Adamic epoch is the
dispensation of internationalism. With the near completion of
the task of race blending, nationalism wanes, and the
brotherhood of man really begins to materialize. Representative
government begins to take the place of the monarchial or
paternal form of rulership. The educational system becomes
world-wide, and gradually the languages of the races give way to
the tongue of the violet people. Universal peace and
co-operation are seldom attained until the races are fairly well
blended, and until they speak a common language.
52:3.11 During the closing centuries of the
post-Adamic age there develops new interest in art, music, and
literature, and this world-wide awakening is the signal for the
appearance of a Magisterial Son. The crowning development of
this era is the universal interest in intellectual realities,
true philosophy. Religion becomes less nationalistic, becomes
more and more a planetary affair. New revelations of truth
characterize these ages, and the Most Highs of the
constellations begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is
revealed up to the administration of the constellations.
52:3.12 Great ethical advancement
characterizes this era; the brotherhood of man is the goal of
its society. World-wide peace -- the cessation of race conflict
and national animosity -- is the indicator of planetary ripeness
for the advent of the third order of sonship, the Magisterial
Son.
4. POST-MAGISTERIAL SON MAN
52:4.1 On normal and loyal planets this age
opens with the mortal races blended and biologically fit. There
are no race or color problems; literally all nations and races
are of one blood. The brotherhood of man flourishes, and the
nations are learning to live on earth in peace and tranquillity.
Such a world stands on the eve of a great and culminating
intellectual development.
52:4.2 When an evolutionary world becomes thus
ripe for the magisterial age, one of the high order of Avonal
Sons makes his appearance on a magisterial mission. The
Planetary Prince and the Material Sons are of local universe
origin; the Magisterial Son hails from Paradise.
52:4.3 When the Paradise Avonals come to the
mortal spheres on judicial actions, solely as dispensation
adjudicators, they are never incarnated. But when they come on
magisterial missions, at least the initial one, they are always
incarnated, though they do not experience birth, neither do they
die the death of the realm. They may live on for generations in
those cases where they remain as rulers on certain planets. When
their missions are concluded, they yield up their planetary
lives and return to their former status of divine sonship.
52:4.4 Each new dispensation extends the
horizon of revealed religion, and the Magisterial Sons extend
the revelation of truth to portray the affairs of the local
universe and all its tributaries.
52:4.5 After the initial visitation of a
Magisterial Son the races soon effect their economic liberation.
The daily work required to sustain one's independence would be
represented by two and one-half hours of your time. It is
perfectly safe to liberate such ethical and intelligent mortals.
Such refined peoples well know how to utilize leisure for
self-improvement and planetary advancement. This age witnesses
the further purification of the racial stocks by the restriction
of reproduction among the less fit and poorly endowed
individuals.
52:4.6 The political government and social
administration of the races continue to improve, self-government
being fairly well established by the end of this age. By
self-government we refer to the highest type of representative
government. Such worlds advance and honor only those leaders and
rulers who are most fit to bear social and political
responsibilities.
52:4.7 During this epoch the majority of the
world mortals are Adjuster indwelt. But even yet the bestowal of
divine Monitors is not always universal. The Adjusters of fusion
destiny are not yet bestowed upon all planetary mortals; it is
still necessary for the will creatures to choose the Mystery
Monitors.
52:4.8 During the closing ages of this
dispensation, society begins to return to more simplified forms
of living. The complex nature of an advancing civilization is
running its course, and mortals are learning to live more
naturally and effectively. And this trend increases with each
succeeding epoch. This is the age of the flowering of art,
music, and higher learning. The physical sciences have already
reached their height of development. The termination of this
age, on an ideal world, witnesses the fullness of a great
religious awakening, a world-wide spiritual enlightenment. And
this extensive arousal of the spiritual natures of the races is
the signal for the arrival of the bestowal Son and for the
inauguration of the fifth mortal epoch.
52:4.9 On many worlds it develops that the
planet is not made ready for a bestowal Son by one magisterial
mission; in that event there will be a second, even a succession
of Magisterial Sons, each of whom will advance the races from
one dispensation to another until the planet is made ready for
the gift of the bestowal Son. On the second and subsequent
missions the Magisterial Sons may or may not be incarnated. But
no matter how many Magisterial Sons may appear -- and they may
also come as such after the bestowal Son -- the advent of each
one marks the end of one dispensation and the beginning of
another.
52:4.10 These dispensations of the Magisterial
Sons cover anywhere from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand
years of Urantia time. Sometimes such an epoch is much shorter
and in rare instances even longer. But in the fullness of time
one of these same Magisterial Sons will be born as the Paradise
bestowal Son.
5. POST-BESTOWAL SON MAN
52:5.1 When a certain standard of intellectual
and spiritual development is attained on an inhabited world, a
Paradise bestowal Son always arrives. On normal worlds he does
not appear in the flesh until the races have ascended to the
highest levels of intellectual development and ethical
attainment. But on Urantia the bestowal Son, even your own
Creator Son, appeared at the close of the Adamic dispensation,
but that is not the usual order of events on the worlds of
space.
52:5.2 When the worlds have become ripe for
spiritualization, the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always
belong to the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case,
once in each local universe, when the Creator Son prepares for
his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary world, as occurred
when Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself
upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can
enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by
the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order.
52:5.3 The bestowal Son arrives on a world of
high educational culture and encounters a race spiritually
trained and prepared to assimilate advanced teachings and to
appreciate the bestowal mission. This is an age characterized by
the world-wide pursuit of moral culture and spiritual truth. The
mortal passion of this dispensation is the penetration of cosmic
reality and communion with spiritual reality. The revelations of
truth are extended to include the superuniverse. Entirely new
systems of education and government grow up to supplant the
crude regimes of former times. The joy of living takes on new
color, and the reactions of life are exalted to heavenly heights
of tone and timbre.
52:5.4 The bestowal Son lives and dies for the
spiritual uplift of the mortal races of a world. He establishes
the "new and living way"; his life is an incarnation of Paradise
truth in mortal flesh, that very truth -- even the Spirit of
Truth -- in the knowledge of which men shall be free.
52:5.5 On Urantia the establishment of this
"new and living way" was a matter of fact as well as of truth.
The isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had suspended
the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon death, directly to
the shores of the mansion worlds. Before the days of Christ
Michael on Urantia all souls slept on until the dispensational
or special millennial resurrections. Even Moses was not
permitted to go over to the other side until the occasion of a
special resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia,
contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of
Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to the
morontia spheres.
52:5.6 Upon the resurrection of a bestowal
Son, on the third day after yielding up his incarnated life, he
ascends to the right hand of the Universal Father, receives the
assurance of the acceptance of the bestowal mission, and returns
to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the local universe.
Thereupon the bestowal Avonal and the Creator Michael send their
joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the bestowal world. This
is the occasion when the "spirit of the triumphant Son is poured
out upon all flesh." The Universe Mother Spirit also
participates in this bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, and
concomitant therewith there issues the bestowal edict of the
Thought Adjusters. Thereafter all normal-minded will creatures
of that world will receive Adjusters as soon as they attain the
age of moral responsibility, of spiritual choice.
52:5.7 If such a bestowal Avonal should return
to a world after the bestowal mission, he would not incarnate
but would come "in glory with the seraphic hosts."
52:5.8 The postbestowal Son age may extend
from ten thousand to a hundred thousand years. There is no
arbitrary time allotted to any of these dispensational eras.
This is a time of great ethical and spiritual progress. Under
the spiritual influence of these ages, human character undergoes
tremendous transformations and experiences phenomenal
development. It becomes possible to put the golden rule into
practical operation. The teachings of Jesus are really
applicable to a mortal world which has had the preliminary
training of the prebestowal Sons with their dispensations of
character ennoblement and culture augmentation.
52:5.9 During this era the problems of disease
and delinquency are virtually solved. Degeneracy has already
been largely eliminated by selective reproduction. Disease has
been practically mastered through the high resistant qualities
of the Adamic strains and by the intelligent and world-wide
application of the discoveries of the physical sciences of
preceding ages. The average length of life, during this period,
climbs well above the equivalent of three hundred years of
Urantia time.
52:5.10 Throughout this epoch there is a
gradual lessening of governmental supervision. True
self-government is beginning to function; fewer and fewer
restrictive laws are necessary. The military branches of
national resistance are passing away; the era of international
harmony is really arriving. There are many nations, mostly
determined by land distribution, but only one race, one
language, and one religion. Mortal affairs are almost, but not
quite, utopian. This truly is a great and glorious age!
6. URANTIA'S POST-BESTOWAL AGE
52:6.1 The bestowal Son is the Prince of
Peace. He arrives with the message, "Peace on earth and good
will among men." On normal worlds this is a dispensation of
world-wide peace; the nations no more learn war. But such
salutary influences did not attend the coming of your bestowal
Son, Christ Michael. Urantia is not proceeding in the normal
order. Your world is out of step in the planetary procession.
Your Master, when on earth, warned his disciples that his advent
would not bring the usual reign of peace on Urantia. He
distinctly told them that there would be "wars and rumors of
wars," and that nation would rise against nation. At another
time he said, "Think not that I have come to bring peace upon
earth."
52:6.2 Even on normal evolutionary worlds the
realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy
accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia
such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates
far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve
such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious
revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on
Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate
attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social
brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the
following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:
52:6.3 1. Social fraternity.
Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts
and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and
competitive play. Development of a common language and the
multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national
interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious
philosophers.
52:6.4 2. Intellectual cross-fertilization.
Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so
primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated
selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial
literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of
all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations.
Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with
the essential attitude of sympathy and love.
52:6.5 3. Ethical awakening. Only
ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human
intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a
moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and
racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that
spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule.
52:6.6
4. Political wisdom. Emotional
maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity
will insure the substitution of international techniques of
civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war.
Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity
even while they strive to promote the interest of their national
or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately
suicidal -- destructive of all those enduring qualities which
insure planetary group survival.
52:6.7 5. Spiritual insight. The
brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition
of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the
brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual
transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for
accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of
applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral
insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to
understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and
fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in
the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.
52:6.8 If you could be transplanted from your
backward and confused world to some normal planet now in the
postbestowal Son age, you would think you had been translated to
the heaven of your traditions. You would hardly believe that you
were observing the normal evolutionary workings of a mortal
sphere of human habitation. These worlds are in the spiritual
circuits of their realm, and they enjoy all the advantages of
the universe broadcasts and the reflectivity services of the
superuniverse.
7. POST-TEACHER SON MAN
52:7.1 The Sons of the next order to arrive on
the average evolutionary world are the Trinity Teacher Sons, the
divine Sons of the Paradise Trinity. Again we find Urantia out
of step with its sister spheres in that your Jesus has promised
to return. That promise he will certainly fulfill, but no one
knows whether his second coming will precede or follow the
appearances of Magisterial or Teacher Sons on Urantia.
52:7.2 The Teacher Sons come in groups to the
spiritualizing worlds. A planetary Teacher Son is assisted and
supported by seventy primary Sons, twelve secondary Sons, and
three of the highest and most experienced of the supreme order
of Daynals. This corps will remain for some time on the world,
long enough to effect the transition from the evolutionary ages
to the era of light and life -- not less than one thousand years
of planetary time and often considerably longer. This mission is
a Trinity contribution to the antecedent efforts of all the
divine personalities who have ministered to an inhabited world.
52:7.3 The revelation of truth is now extended
to the central universe and to Paradise. The races are becoming
highly spiritual. A great people has evolved and a great age is
approaching. The educational, economic, and administrative
systems of the planet are undergoing radical transformations.
New values and relationships are being established. The kingdom
of heaven is appearing on earth, and the glory of God is being
shed abroad in the world.
52:7.4 This is the dispensation when many
mortals are translated from among the living. As the era of
Trinity Teacher Sons progresses, the spiritual allegiance of the
mortals of time becomes more and more universal. Natural death
becomes less frequent as the Adjusters increasingly fuse with
their subjects during the lifetime in the flesh. The planet
eventually is classed as of the primary modified order of mortal
ascension.
52:7.5 Life during this era is pleasant and
profitable. Degeneracy and the antisocial end products of the
long evolutionary struggle have been virtually obliterated. The
length of life approaches five hundred Urantia years, and the
reproductive rate of racial increase is intelligently
controlled. An entirely new order of society has arrived. There
are still great differences among mortals, but the state of
society more nearly approaches the ideals of social brotherhood
and spiritual equality. Representative government is vanishing,
and the world is passing under the rule of individual
self-control. The function of government is chiefly directed to
collective tasks of social administration and economic
co-ordination. The golden age is coming on apace; the temporal
goal of the long and intense planetary evolutionary struggle is
in sight. The reward of the ages is soon to be realized; the
wisdom of the Gods is about to be manifested.
52:7.6 The physical administration of a world
during this age requires about one hour each day on the part of
every adult individual; that is, the equivalent of one Urantia
hour. The planet is in close touch with universe affairs, and
its people scan the latest broadcasts with the same keen
interest you now manifest in the latest editions of your daily
newspapers. These races are occupied with a thousand things of
interest unknown on your world.
52:7.7 Increasingly, true planetary allegiance
to the Supreme Being grows. Generation after generation, more
and more of the race step into line with those who practice
justice and live mercy. Slowly but surely the world is being won
to the joyous service of the Sons of God. The physical
difficulties and material problems have been largely solved; the
planet is ripening for advanced life and a more settled
existence.
52:7.8 From time to time throughout their
dispensation, Teacher Sons continue to come to these peaceful
worlds. They do not leave a world until they observe that the
evolutionary plan, as it concerns that planet, is working
smoothly. A Magisterial Son of judgment usually accompanies the
Teacher Sons on their successive missions, while another such
Son functions at the time of their departure, and these judicial
actions continue from age to age throughout the duration of the
mortal regime of time and space.
52:7.9 Each recurring mission of the Trinity
Teacher Sons successively exalts such a supernal world to
ever-ascending heights of wisdom, spirituality, and cosmic
illumination. But the noble natives of such a sphere are still
finite and mortal. Nothing is perfect; nevertheless, there is
evolving a quality of near perfection in the operation of an
imperfect world and in the lives of its human inhabitants.
52:7.10 The Trinity Teacher Sons may return
many times to the same world. But sooner or later, in connection
with the termination of one of their missions, the Planetary
Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereign, and
the System Sovereign appears to proclaim the entrance of such a
world upon the era of light and life.
52:7.11 It was of the conclusion of the
terminal mission of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the
chronology on a normal world) that John wrote: "I saw a new
heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the
prince."
52:7.12 This is the same renovated earth, the
advanced planetary stage, that the olden seer envisioned when he
wrote: "`For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will
make, shall remain before me, so shall you and your children
survive; and it shall come to pass that from one new moon to
another and from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to
worship before me,' says the Lord."
52:7.13 It is the mortals of such an age who
are described as "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, an exalted people; and you shall show forth the
praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into this
marvelous light."
52:7.14 No matter what the special natural
history of an individual planet may be, no difference whether a
realm has been wholly loyal, tainted with evil, or cursed by sin
-- no matter what the antecedents may be -- sooner or later the
grace of God and the ministry of angels will usher in the day of
the advent of the Trinity Teacher Sons; and their departure,
following their final mission, will inaugurate this superb era
of light and life.
52:7.15 All the worlds of Satania can join in
the hope of the one who wrote: "Nevertheless we, according to
His promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein
dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look
for such things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in
peace, without spot and blameless."
52:7.16 The departure of the Teacher Son
corps, at the end of their first or some subsequent reign,
ushers in the dawn of the era of light and life -- the threshold
of the transition from time to the vestibule of eternity. The
planetary realization of this era of light and life far more
than equals the fondest expectations of Urantia mortals who have
entertained no more farseeing concepts of the future life than
those embraced within religious beliefs which depict heaven as
the immediate destiny and final dwelling place of surviving
mortals.
52:7.17
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the
staff of Gabriel.
