The Urantia Book
PAPER 66
THE PLANETARY PRINCE OF URANTIA
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
66:0.1 THE
advent of a Lanonandek Son on an average world signifies that
will, the ability to choose the path of eternal survival, has
developed in the mind of primitive man. But on Urantia the
Planetary Prince arrived almost half a million years after the
appearance of human will.
66:0.2 About
five hundred thousand years ago and concurrent with the
appearance of the six colored or Sangik races, Caligastia, the
Planetary Prince, arrived on Urantia. There were almost one-half
billion primitive human beings on earth at the time of the
Prince's arrival, and they were well scattered over Europe,
Asia, and Africa. The Prince's headquarters, established in
Mesopotamia, was at about the center of world population.
1. PRINCE
CALIGASTIA
66:1.1
Caligastia was a Lanonandek Son, number 9,344 of the secondary
order. He was experienced in the administration of the affairs
of the local universe in general and, during later ages, with
the management of the local system of Satania in particular.
66:1.2 Prior
to the reign of Lucifer in Satania, Caligastia had been attached
to the council of the Life Carrier advisers on Jerusem. Lucifer
elevated Caligastia to a position on his personal staff, and he
acceptably filled five successive assignments of honor and
trust.
66:1.3
Caligastia very early sought a commission as Planetary Prince,
but repeatedly, when his request came up for approval in the
constellation councils, it would fail to receive the assent of
the Constellation Fathers. Caligastia seemed especially desirous
of being sent as planetary ruler to a decimal or
life-modification world. His petition had several times been
disapproved before he was finally assigned to Urantia.
66:1.4
Caligastia went forth from Jerusem to his trust of world
dominion with an enviable record of loyalty and devotion to the
welfare of the universe of his origin and sojourn,
notwithstanding a certain characteristic restlessness coupled
with a tendency to disagree with the established order in
certain minor matters.
66:1.5 I was
present on Jerusem when the brilliant Caligastia departed from
the system capital. No prince of the planets ever embarked upon
a career of world rulership with a richer preparatory experience
or with better prospects than did Caligastia on that eventful
day one-half million years ago. One thing is certain: As I
executed my assignment of putting the narrative of that event on
the broadcasts of the local universe, I never for one moment
entertained even in the slightest degree any idea that this
noble Lanonandek would so shortly betray his sacred trust of
planetary custody and so horribly stain the fair name of his
exalted order of universe sonship. I really regarded Urantia as
being among the five or six most fortunate planets in all
Satania in that it was to have such an experienced, brilliant,
and original mind at the helm of world affairs. I did not then
comprehend that Caligastia was insidiously falling in love with
himself; I did not then so fully understand the subtleties of
personality pride.
2. THE PRINCE'S STAFF
66:2.1 The
Planetary Prince of Urantia was not sent out on his mission
alone but was accompanied by the usual corps of assistants and
administrative helpers.
66:2.2 At the
head of this group was Daligastia, the associate-assistant of
the Planetary Prince. Daligastia was also a secondary Lanonandek
Son, being number 319,407 of that order. He ranked as an
assistant at the time of his assignment as Caligastia's
associate.
66:2.3 The
planetary staff included a large number of angelic co-operators
and a host of other celestial beings assigned to advance the
interests and promote the welfare of the human races. But from
your standpoint the most interesting group of all were the
corporeal members of the Prince's staff -- sometimes referred to
as the Caligastia one hundred.
66:2.4 These
one hundred rematerialized members of the Prince's staff were
chosen by Caligastia from over 785,000 ascendant citizens of
Jerusem who volunteered for embarkation on the Urantia
adventure. Each one of the chosen one hundred was from a
different planet, and none of them were from Urantia.
66:2.5 These
Jerusemite volunteers were brought by seraphic transport direct
from the system capital to Urantia, and upon arrival they were
held enseraphimed until they could be provided with personality
forms of the dual nature of special planetary service, literal
bodies consisting of flesh and blood but also attuned to the
life circuits of the system.
66:2.6
Sometime before the arrival of these one hundred Jerusem
citizens, the two supervising Life Carriers resident on Urantia,
having previously perfected their plans, petitioned Jerusem and
Edentia for permission to transplant the life plasm of one
hundred selected survivors of the Andon and Fonta stock into the
material bodies to be projected for the corporeal members of the
Prince's staff. The request was granted on Jerusem and approved
on Edentia.
66:2.7
Accordingly, fifty males and fifty females of the Andon and
Fonta posterity, representing the survival of the best strains
of that unique race, were chosen by the Life Carriers. With one
or two exceptions these Andonite contributors to the advancement
of the race were strangers to one another. They were assembled
from widely separated places by co-ordinated Thought Adjuster
direction and seraphic guidance at the threshold of the
planetary headquarters of the Prince. Here the one hundred human
subjects were given into the hands of the highly skilled
volunteer commission from Avalon, who directed the material
extraction of a portion of the life plasm of these Andon
descendants. This living material was then transferred to the
material bodies constructed for the use of the one hundred
Jerusemite members of the Prince's staff. Meantime, these newly
arrived citizens of the system capital were held in the sleep of
seraphic transport.
66:2.8 These
transactions, together with the literal creation of special
bodies for the Caligastia one hundred, gave origin to numerous
legends, many of which subsequently became confused with the
later traditions concerning the planetary installation of Adam
and Eve.
66:2.9 The
entire transaction of repersonalization, from the time of the
arrival of the seraphic transports bearing the one hundred
Jerusem volunteers until they became conscious, threefold beings
of the realm, consumed exactly ten days.
3. DALAMATIA -- THE CITY OF THE PRINCE
66:3.1 The
headquarters of the Planetary Prince was situated in the Persian
Gulf region of those days, in the district corresponding to
later Mesopotamia.
66:3.2 The
climate and landscape in the Mesopotamia of those times were in
every way favorable to the undertakings of the Prince's staff
and their assistants, very different from conditions which have
sometimes since prevailed. It was necessary to have such a
favoring climate as a part of the natural environment designed
to induce primitive Urantians to make certain initial advances
in culture and civilization. The one great task of those ages
was to transform man from a hunter to a herder, with the hope
that later on he would evolve into a peace-loving, home-abiding
farmer.
66:3.3 The
headquarters of the Planetary Prince on Urantia was typical of
such stations on a young and developing sphere. The nucleus of
the Prince's settlement was a very simple but beautiful city,
enclosed within a wall forty feet high. This world center of
culture was named Dalamatia in honor of Daligastia.
66:3.4 The
city was laid out in ten subdivisions with the headquarters
mansions of the ten councils of the corporeal staff situated at
the centers of these subdivisions. Centermost in the city was
the temple of the unseen Father. The administrative headquarters
of the Prince and his associates was arranged in twelve chambers
immediately grouped about the temple itself.
66:3.5 The
buildings of Dalamatia were all one story except the council
headquarters, which were two stories, and the central temple of
the Father of all, which was small but three stories in height.
66:3.6 The
city represented the best practices of those early days in
building material -- brick. Very little stone or wood was used.
Home building and village architecture among the surrounding
peoples were greatly improved by the Dalamatian example.
66:3.7 Near
the Prince's headquarters there dwelt all colors and strata of
human beings. And it was from these near-by tribes that the
first students of the Prince's schools were recruited. Although
these early schools of Dalamatia were crude, they provided all
that could be done for the men and women of that primitive age.
66:3.8 The
Prince's corporeal staff continuously gathered about them the
superior individuals of the surrounding tribes and, after
training and inspiring these students, sent them back as
teachers and leaders of their respective peoples.
4. EARLY DAYS OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:4.1 The
arrival of the Prince's staff created a profound impression.
While it required almost a thousand years for the news to spread
abroad, those tribes near the Mesopotamian headquarters were
tremendously influenced by the teachings and conduct of the one
hundred new sojourners on Urantia. And much of your subsequent
mythology grew out of the garbled legends of these early days
when these members of the Prince's staff were repersonalized on
Urantia as supermen.
66:4.2 The
serious obstacle to the good influence of such extraplanetary
teachers is the tendency of mortals to regard them as gods, but
aside from the technique of their appearance on earth the
Caligastia one hundred -- fifty men and fifty women -- did not
resort to supernatural methods nor superhuman manipulations.
66:4.3 But the
corporeal staff were nonetheless superhuman. They began their
mission on Urantia as extraordinary threefold beings:
66:4.4 1. They
were corporeal and relatively human, for they embodied the
actual life plasm of one of the human races, the Andonic life
plasm of Urantia.
66:4.5 These
one hundred members of the Prince's staff were divided equally
as to sex and in accordance with their previous mortal status.
Each person of this group was capable of becoming coparental to
some new order of physical being, but they had been carefully
instructed to resort to parenthood only under certain
conditions. It is customary for the corporeal staff of a
Planetary Prince to procreate their successors sometime prior to
retiring from special planetary service. Usually this is at, or
shortly after, the time of the arrival of the Planetary Adam and
Eve.
66:4.6 These
special beings therefore had little or no idea as to what type
of material creature would be produced by their sexual union.
And they never did know; before the time for such a step in the
prosecution of their world work the entire regime was upset by
rebellion, and those who later functioned in the parental role
had been isolated from the life currents of the system.
66:4.7 In skin
color and language these materialized members of Caligastia's
staff followed the Andonic race. They partook of food as did the
mortals of the realm with this difference: The re-created bodies
of this group were fully satisfied by a nonflesh diet. This was
one of the considerations which determined their residence in a
warm region abounding in fruits and nuts. The practice of
subsisting on a nonflesh diet dates from the times of the
Caligastia one hundred, for this custom spread near and far to
affect the eating habits of many surrounding tribes, groups of
origin in the once exclusively meat-eating evolutionary races.
66:4.8 2. The
one hundred were material but superhuman beings, having been
reconstituted on Urantia as unique men and women of a high and
special order.
66:4.9 This
group, while enjoying provisional citizenship on Jerusem, were
as yet unfused with their Thought Adjusters; and when they
volunteered and were accepted for planetary service in liaison
with the descending orders of sonship, their Adjusters were
detached. But these Jerusemites were superhuman beings -- they
possessed souls of ascendant growth. During the mortal life in
the flesh the soul is of embryonic estate; it is born
(resurrected) in the morontia life and experiences growth
through the successive morontia worlds. And the souls of the
Caligastia one hundred had thus expanded through the progressive
experiences of the seven mansion worlds to citizenship status on
Jerusem.
66:4.10 In
conformity to their instructions the staff did not engage in
sexual reproduction, but they did painstakingly study their
personal constitutions, and they carefully explored every
imaginable phase of intellectual (mind) and morontia (soul)
liaison. And it was during the thirty-third year of their
sojourn in Dalamatia, long before the wall was completed, that
number two and number seven of the Danite group accidentally
discovered a phenomenon attendant upon the liaison of their
morontia selves (supposedly nonsexual and nonmaterial); and the
result of this adventure proved to be the first of the primary
midway creatures. This new being was wholly visible to the
planetary staff and to their celestial associates but was not
visible to the men and women of the various human tribes. Upon
authority of the Planetary Prince the entire corporeal staff
undertook the production of similar beings, and all were
successful, following the instructions of the pioneer Danite
pair. Thus did the Prince's staff eventually bring into being
the original corps of 50,000 primary midwayers.
66:4.11 These
mid-type creatures were of great service in carrying on the
affairs of the world's headquarters. They were invisible to
human beings, but the primitive sojourners at Dalamatia were
taught about these unseen semispirits, and for ages they
constituted the sum total of the spirit world to these evolving
mortals.
66:4.12 3. The
Caligastia one hundred were personally immortal, or undying.
There circulated through their material forms the antidotal
complements of the life currents of the system; and had they not
lost contact with the life circuits through rebellion, they
would have lived on indefinitely until the arrival of a
subsequent Son of God, or until their sometime later release to
resume the interrupted journey to Havona and Paradise.
66:4.13 These
antidotal complements of the Satania life currents were derived
from the fruit of the tree of life, a shrub of Edentia which was
sent to Urantia by the Most Highs of Norlatiadek at the time of
Caligastia's arrival. In the days of Dalamatia this tree grew in
the central courtyard of the temple of the unseen Father, and it
was the fruit of the tree of life that enabled the material and
otherwise mortal beings of the Prince's staff to live on
indefinitely as long as they had access to it.
66:4.14 While
of no value to the evolutionary races, this supersustenance was
quite sufficient to confer continuous life upon the Caligastia
one hundred and also upon the one hundred modified Andonites who
were associated with them.
66:4.15 It
should be explained in this connection that, at the time the one
hundred Andonites contributed their human germ plasm to the
members of the Prince's staff, the Life Carriers introduced into
their mortal bodies the complement of the system circuits; and
thus were they enabled to live on concurrently with the staff,
century after century, in defiance of physical death.
66:4.16
Eventually the one hundred Andonites were made aware of their
contribution to the new forms of their superiors, and these same
one hundred children of the Andon tribes were kept at
headquarters as the personal attendants of the Prince's
corporeal staff.
5. ORGANIZATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED
66:5.1 The one
hundred were organized for service in ten autonomous councils of
ten members each. When two or more of these ten councils met in
joint session, such liaison gatherings were presided over by
Daligastia. These ten groups were constituted as follows:
66:5.2 1.
The council on food and material welfare. This group was
presided over by Ang. Food, water, clothes, and the material
advancement of the human species were fostered by this able
corps. They taught well digging, spring control, and irrigation.
They taught those from the higher altitudes and from the north
improved methods of treating skins for use as clothing, and
weaving was later introduced by the teachers of art and science.
66:5.3 Great
advances were made in methods of food storage. Food was
preserved by cooking, drying, and smoking; it thus became the
earliest property. Man was taught to provide for the hazards of
famine, which periodically decimated the world.
66:5.4 2.
The board of animal domestication and utilization. This
council was dedicated to the task of selecting and breeding
those animals best adapted to help human beings in bearing
burdens and transporting themselves, to supply food, and later
on to be of service in the cultivation of the soil. This able
corps was directed by Bon.
66:5.5 Several
types of useful animals, now extinct, were tamed, together with
some that have continued as domesticated animals to the present
day. Man had long lived with the dog, and the blue man had
already been successful in taming the elephant. The cow was so
improved by careful breeding as to become a valuable source of
food; butter and cheese became common articles of human diet.
Men were taught to use oxen for burden bearing, but the horse
was not domesticated until a later date. The members of this
corps first taught men to use the wheel for the facilitation of
traction.
66:5.6 It was
in these days that carrier pigeons were first used, being taken
on long journeys for the purpose of sending messages or calls
for help. Bon's group were successful in training the great
fandors as passenger birds, but they became extinct more than
thirty thousand years ago.
66:5.7 3.
The advisers regarding the conquest of predatory animals. It
was not enough that early man should try to domesticate certain
animals, but he must also learn how to protect himself from
destruction by the remainder of the hostile animal world. This
group was captained by Dan.
66:5.8 The
purpose of an ancient city wall was to protect against ferocious
beasts as well as to prevent surprise attacks by hostile humans.
Those living without the walls and in the forest were dependent
on tree dwellings, stone huts, and the maintenance of night
fires. It was therefore very natural that these teachers should
devote much time to instructing their pupils in the improvement
of human dwellings. By employing improved techniques and by the
use of traps, great progress was made in animal subjugation.
66:5.9 4.
The faculty on dissemination and conservation of knowledge.
This group organized and directed the purely educational
endeavors of those early ages. It was presided over by Fad. The
educational methods of Fad consisted in supervision of
employment accompanied by instruction in improved methods of
labor. Fad formulated the first alphabet and introduced a
writing system. This alphabet contained twenty-five characters.
For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks,
clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment made of hammered
hides, and a crude form of paperlike material made from wasps'
nests. The Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the
Caligastia disaffection, comprised more than two million
separate records and was known as the "house of Fad."
66:5.10 The
blue man was partial to alphabet writing and made the greatest
progress along such lines. The red man preferred pictorial
writing, while the yellow races drifted into the use of symbols
for words and ideas, much like those they now employ. But the
alphabet and much more was subsequently lost to the world during
the confusion attendant upon rebellion. The Caligastia defection
destroyed the hope of the world for a universal language, at
least for untold ages.
66:5.11 5.
The commission on industry and trade. This council was
employed in fostering industry within the tribes and in
promoting trade between the various peace groups. Its leader was
Nod. Every form of primitive manufacture was encouraged by this
corps. They contributed directly to the elevation of standards
of living by providing many new commodities to attract the fancy
of primitive men. They greatly expanded the trade in the
improved salt produced by the council on science and art.
66:5.12 It was
among these enlightened groups educated in the Dalamatia schools
that the first commercial credit was practiced. From a central
exchange of credits they secured tokens which were accepted in
lieu of the actual objects of barter. The world did not improve
upon these business methods for hundreds of thousands of years.
66:5.13 6.
The college of revealed religion. This body was slow in
functioning. Urantia civilization was literally forged out
between the anvil of necessity and the hammers of fear. But this
group had made considerable progress in their attempt to
substitute Creator fear for creature fear (ghost worship) before
their labors were interrupted by the later confusion attendant
upon the secession upheaval. The head of this council was Hap.
66:5.14 None
of the Prince's staff would present revelation to complicate
evolution; they presented revelation only as the climax of their
exhaustion of the forces of evolution. But Hap did yield to the
desire of the inhabitants of the city for the establishment of a
form of religious service. His group provided the Dalamatians
with the seven chants of worship and also gave them the daily
praise-phrase and eventually taught them "the Father's prayer,"
which was:
66:5.15
"Father of all, whose Son we honor, look down upon us with
favor. Deliver us from the fear of all save you. Make us a
pleasure to our divine teachers and forever put truth on our
lips. Deliver us from violence and anger; give us respect for
our elders and that which belongs to our neighbors. Give us this
season green pastures and fruitful flocks to gladden our hearts.
We pray for the hastening of the coming of the promised uplifter,
and we would do your will on this world as others do on worlds
beyond."
66:5.16
Although the Prince's staff were limited to natural means and
ordinary methods of race improvement, they held out the promise
of the Adamic gift of a new race as the goal of subsequent
evolutionary growth upon the attainment of the height of
biologic development.
66:5.17 7.
The guardians of health and life. This council was concerned
with the introduction of sanitation and the promotion of
primitive hygiene and was led by Lut.
66:5.18 Its
members taught much that was lost during the confusion of
subsequent ages, never to be rediscovered until the twentieth
century. They taught mankind that cooking, boiling and roasting,
was a means of avoiding sickness; also that such cooking greatly
reduced infant mortality and facilitated early weaning.
66:5.19 Many
of the early teachings of Lut's guardians of health persisted
among the tribes of earth on down to the days of Moses, even
though they became much garbled and were greatly changed.
66:5.20 The
great obstacle in the way of promoting hygiene among these
ignorant peoples consisted in the fact that the real causes of
many diseases were too small to be seen by the naked eye, and
also because they all held fire in superstitious regard. It
required thousands of years to persuade them to burn refuse. In
the meantime they were urged to bury their decaying rubbish. The
great sanitary advance of this epoch came from the dissemination
of knowledge regarding the health-giving and disease-destroying
properties of sunlight.
66:5.21 Before
the Prince's arrival, bathing had been an exclusively religious
ceremonial. It was indeed difficult to persuade primitive men to
wash their bodies as a health practice. Lut finally induced the
religious teachers to include cleansing with water as a part of
the purification ceremonies to be practiced in connection with
the noontime devotions, once a week, in the worship of the
Father of all.
66:5.22 These
guardians of health also sought to introduce handshaking in
substitution for saliva exchange or blood drinking as a seal of
personal friendship and as a token of group loyalty. But when
out from under the compelling pressure of the teachings of their
superior leaders, these primitive peoples were not slow in
reverting to their former health-destroying and disease-breeding
practices of ignorance and superstition.
66:5.23 8.
The planetary council on art and science. This corps did
much to improve the industrial technique of early man and to
elevate his concepts of beauty. Their leader was Mek.
66:5.24 Art
and science were at a low ebb throughout the world, but the
rudiments of physics and chemistry were taught the Dalamatians.
Pottery was advanced, decorative arts were all improved, and the
ideals of human beauty were greatly enhanced. But music made
little progress until after the arrival of the violet race.
66:5.25 These
primitive men would not consent to experiment with steam power,
notwithstanding the repeated urgings of their teachers; never
could they overcome their great fear of the explosive power of
confined steam. They were, however, finally persuaded to work
with metals and fire, although a piece of red-hot metal was a
terrorizing object to early man.
66:5.26 Mek
did a great deal to advance the culture of the Andonites and to
improve the art of the blue man. A blend of the blue man with
the Andon stock produced an artistically gifted type, and many
of them became master sculptors. They did not work in stone or
marble, but their works of clay, hardened by baking, adorned the
gardens of Dalamatia.
66:5.27 Great
progress was made in the home arts, most of which were lost in
the long and dark ages of rebellion, never to be rediscovered
until modern times.
66:5.28 9.
The governors of advanced tribal relations. This was the
group intrusted with the work of bringing human society up to
the level of statehood. Their chief was Tut.
66:5.29 These
leaders contributed much to bringing about intertribal
marriages. They fostered courtship and marriage after due
deliberation and full opportunity to become acquainted. The
purely military war dances were refined and made to serve
valuable social ends. Many competitive games were introduced,
but these ancient folk were a serious people; little humor
graced these early tribes. Few of these practices survived the
subsequent disintegration of planetary insurrection.
66:5.30 Tut
and his associates labored to promote group associations of a
peaceful nature, to regulate and humanize warfare, to
co-ordinate intertribal relations, and to improve tribal
governments. In the vicinity of Dalamatia there developed a more
advanced culture, and these improved social relations were very
helpful in influencing more remote tribes. But the pattern of
civilization prevailing at the Prince's headquarters was quite
different from the barbaric society evolving elsewhere, just as
the twentieth-century society of Capetown, South Africa, is
totally unlike the crude culture of the diminutive Bushmen to
the north.
66:5.31 10.
The supreme court of tribal co-ordination and racial
co-operation. This supreme council was directed by Van and
was the court of appeals for all of the other nine special
commissions charged with the supervision of human affairs. This
council was one of wide function, being intrusted with all
matters of earthly concern which were not specifically assigned
to the other groups. This selected corps had been approved by
the Constellation Fathers of Edentia before they were authorized
to assume the functions of the supreme court of Urantia.
6. THE PRINCE'S REIGN
66:6.1 The
degree of a world's culture is measured by the social heritage
of its native beings, and the rate of cultural expansion is
wholly determined by the ability of its inhabitants to
comprehend new and advanced ideas.
66:6.2 Slavery
to tradition produces stability and co-operation by
sentimentally linking the past with the present, but it likewise
stifles initiative and enslaves the creative powers of the
personality. The whole world was caught in the stalemate of
tradition-bound mores when the Caligastia one hundred arrived
and began the proclamation of the new gospel of individual
initiative within the social groups of that day. But this
beneficent rule was so soon interrupted that the races never
have been wholly liberated from the slavery of custom; fashion
still unduly dominates Urantia.
66:6.3 The
Caligastia one hundred -- graduates of the Satania mansion
worlds -- well knew the arts and culture of Jerusem, but such
knowledge is nearly valueless on a barbaric planet populated by
primitive humans. These wise beings knew better than to
undertake the sudden transformation, or the en masse
uplifting, of the primitive races of that day. They well
understood the slow evolution of the human species, and they
wisely refrained from any radical attempts at modifying man's
mode of life on earth.
66:6.4 Each of
the ten planetary commissions set about slowly and naturally to
advance the interests intrusted to them. Their plan consisted in
attracting the best minds of the surrounding tribes and, after
training them, sending them back to their people as emissaries
of social uplift.
66:6.5 Foreign
emissaries were never sent to a race except upon the specific
request of that people. Those who labored for the uplift and
advancement of a given tribe or race were always natives of that
tribe or race. The one hundred would not attempt to impose the
habits and mores of even a superior race upon another tribe.
Always they patiently worked to uplift and advance the
time-tried mores of each race. The simple folk of Urantia
brought their social customs to Dalamatia, not to exchange them
for new and better practices, but to have them uplifted by
contact with a higher culture and by association with superior
minds. The process was slow but very effectual.
66:6.6 The
Dalamatia teachers sought to add conscious social selection to
the purely natural selection of biologic evolution. They did not
derange human society, but they did markedly accelerate its
normal and natural evolution. Their motive was progression by
evolution and not revolution by revelation. The human race had
spent ages in acquiring the little religion and morals it had,
and these supermen knew better than to rob mankind of these few
advances by the confusion and dismay which always result when
enlightened and superior beings undertake to uplift the backward
races by overteaching and overenlightenment.
66:6.7 When
Christian missionaries go into the heart of Africa, where sons
and daughters are supposed to remain under the control and
direction of their parents throughout the lifetime of the
parents, they only bring about confusion and the breakdown of
all authority when they seek, in a single generation, to
supplant this practice by teaching that these children should be
free from all parental restraint after they have attained the
age of twenty-one.
7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA
66:7.1 The
Prince's headquarters, though exquisitely beautiful and designed
to awe the primitive men of that age, was altogether modest. The
buildings were not especially large as it was the motive of
these imported teachers to encourage the eventual development of
agriculture through the introduction of animal husbandry. The
land provision within the city walls was sufficient to provide
for pasturage and gardening for the support of a population of
about twenty thousand.
66:7.2 The
interiors of the central temple of worship and the ten council
mansions of the supervising groups of supermen were indeed
beautiful works of art. And while the residential buildings were
models of neatness and cleanliness, everything was very simple
and altogether primitive in comparison with later-day
developments. At this headquarters of culture no methods were
employed which did not naturally belong on Urantia.
66:7.3 The
Prince's corporeal staff presided over simple and exemplary
abodes which they maintained as homes designed to inspire and
favorably impress the student observers sojourning at the
world's social center and educational headquarters.
66:7.4 The
definite order of family life and the living of one family
together in one residence of comparatively settled location date
from these times of Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the
example and teachings of the one hundred and their pupils. The
home as a social unit never became a success until the supermen
and superwomen of Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for
their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children. Savage
man loves his child, but civilized man loves also his
grandchild.
66:7.5 The
Prince's staff lived together as fathers and mothers. True, they
had no children of their own, but the fifty pattern homes of
Dalamatia never sheltered less than five hundred adopted little
ones assembled from the superior families of the Andonic and
Sangik races; many of these children were orphans. They were
favored with the discipline and training of these superparents;
and then, after three years in the schools of the Prince (they
entered from thirteen to fifteen), they were eligible for
marriage and ready to receive their commissions as emissaries of
the Prince to the needy tribes of their respective races.
66:7.6 Fad
sponsored the Dalamatia plan of teaching that was carried out as
an industrial school in which the pupils learned by doing, and
through which they worked their way by the daily performance of
useful tasks. This plan of education did not ignore thinking and
feeling in the development of character; but it gave first place
to manual training. The instruction was individual and
collective. The pupils were taught by both men and women and by
the two acting conjointly. One half of this group instruction
was by sexes; the other half was coeducational. Students were
taught manual dexterity as individuals and were socialized in
groups or classes. They were trained to fraternize with younger
groups, older groups, and adults, as well as to do teamwork with
those of their own ages. They were also familiarized with such
associations as family groups, play squads, and school classes.
66:7.7 Among
the later students trained in Mesopotamia for work with their
respective races were Andonites from the highlands of western
India together with representatives of the red men and the blue
men; still later a small number of the yellow race were also
received.
66:7.8 Hap
presented the early races with a moral law. This code was known
as "The Father's Way" and consisted of the following seven
commands:
66:7.9 1. You
shall not fear nor serve any God but the Father of all.
66:7.10 2. You
shall not disobey the Father's Son, the world's ruler, nor show
disrespect to his superhuman associates.
66:7.11 3. You
shall not speak a lie when called before the judges of the
people.
66:7.12 4. You
shall not kill men, women, or children.
66:7.13 5. You
shall not steal your neighbor's goods or cattle.
66:7.14 6. You
shall not touch your friend's wife.
66:7.15 7. You
shall not show disrespect to your parents or to the elders of
the tribe.
66:7.16 This
was the law of Dalamatia for almost three hundred thousand
years. And many of the stones on which this law was inscribed
now lie beneath the waters off the shores of Mesopotamia and
Persia. It became the custom to hold one of these commands in
mind for each day of the week, using it for salutations and
mealtime thanksgiving.
66:7.17 The
time measurement of these days was the lunar month, this period
being reckoned as twenty-eight days. That, with the exception of
day and night, was the only time reckoning known to the early
peoples. The seven-day week was introduced by the Dalamatia
teachers and grew out of the fact that seven was one fourth of
twenty-eight. The significance of the number seven in the
superuniverse undoubtedly afforded them opportunity to introduce
a spiritual reminder into the common reckoning of time. But
there is no natural origin for the weekly period.
66:7.18 The
country around the city was quite well settled within a radius
of one hundred miles. Immediately surrounding the city, hundreds
of graduates of the Prince's schools engaged in animal husbandry
and otherwise carried out the instruction they had received from
his staff and their numerous human helpers. A few engaged in
agriculture and horticulture.
66:7.19
Mankind was not consigned to agricultural toil as the penalty of
supposed sin. "In the sweat of your face shall you eat the fruit
of the fields" was not a sentence of punishment pronounced
because of man's participation in the follies of the Lucifer
rebellion under the leadership of the traitorous Caligastia. The
cultivation of the soil is inherent in the establishment of an
advancing civilization on the evolutionary worlds, and this
injunction was the center of all teaching of the Planetary
Prince and his staff throughout the three hundred thousand years
which intervened between their arrival on Urantia and those
tragic days when Caligastia threw in his lot with the rebel
Lucifer. Work with the soil is not a curse; rather is it the
highest blessing to all who are thus permitted to enjoy the most
human of all human activities.
66:7.20 At the
outbreak of the rebellion, Dalamatia had a resident population
of almost six thousand. This number includes the regular
students but does not embrace the visitors and observers, who
always numbered more than one thousand. But you can have little
or no concept of the marvelous progress of those faraway times;
practically all of the wonderful human gains of those days were
wiped out by the horrible confusion and abject spiritual
darkness which followed the Caligastia catastrophe of deception
and sedition.
8. MISFORTUNES OF CALIGASTIA
66:8.1 In
looking back over the long career of Caligastia, we find only
one outstanding feature of his conduct that might have
challenged attention; he was ultraindividualistic. He was
inclined to take sides with almost every party of protest, and
he was usually sympathetic with those who gave mild expression
to implied criticism. We detect the early appearance of this
tendency to be restless under authority, to mildly resent all
forms of supervision. While slightly resentful of senior counsel
and somewhat restive under superior authority, nonetheless,
whenever a test had come, he had always proved loyal to the
universe rulers and obedient to the mandates of the
Constellation Fathers. No real fault was ever found in him up to
the time of his shameful betrayal of Urantia.
66:8.2 It
should be noted that both Lucifer and Caligastia had been
patiently instructed and lovingly warned respecting their
critical tendencies and the subtle development of their pride of
self and its associated exaggeration of the feeling of
self-importance. But all of these attempts to help had been
misconstrued as unwarranted criticism and as unjustified
interference with personal liberties. Both Caligastia and
Lucifer judged their friendly advisers as being actuated by the
very reprehensible motives which were beginning to dominate
their own distorted thinking and misguided planning. They judged
their unselfish advisers by their own evolving selfishness.
66:8.3 From
the arrival of Prince Caligastia, planetary civilization
progressed in a fairly normal manner for almost three hundred
thousand years. Aside from being a life-modification sphere and
therefore subject to numerous irregularities and unusual
episodes of evolutionary fluctuation, Urantia progressed very
satisfactorily in its planetary career up to the times of the
Lucifer rebellion and the concurrent Caligastia betrayal. All
subsequent history has been definitely modified by this
catastrophic blunder as well as by the later failure of Adam and
Eve to fulfill their planetary mission.
66:8.4 The
Prince of Urantia went into darkness at the time of the Lucifer
rebellion, thus precipitating the long confusion of the planet.
He was subsequently deprived of sovereign authority by the
co-ordinate action of the constellation rulers and other
universe authorities. He shared the inevitable vicissitudes of
isolated Urantia down to the time of Adam's sojourn on the
planet and contributed something to the miscarriage of the plan
to uplift the mortal races through the infusion of the lifeblood
of the new violet race -- the descendants of Adam and Eve.
66:8.5 The
power of the fallen Prince to disturb human affairs was
enormously curtailed by the mortal incarnation of Machiventa
Melchizedek in the days of Abraham; and subsequently, during the
life of Michael in the flesh, this traitorous Prince was finally
shorn of all authority on Urantia.
66:8.6 The
doctrine of a personal devil on Urantia, though it had some
foundation in the planetary presence of the traitorous and
iniquitous Caligastia, was nevertheless wholly fictitious in its
teachings that such a "devil" could influence the normal human
mind against its free and natural choosing. Even before
Michael's bestowal on Urantia, neither Caligastia nor Daligastia
was ever able to oppress mortals or to coerce any normal
individual into doing anything against the human will. The free
will of man is supreme in moral affairs; even the indwelling
Thought Adjuster refuses to compel man to think a single thought
or to perform a single act against the choosing of man's own
will.
66:8.7 And now
this rebel of the realm, shorn of all power to harm his former
subjects, awaits the final adjudication, by the Uversa Ancients
of Days, of all who participated in the Lucifer rebellion.
66:8.8
Presented by a Melchizedek
of Nebadon.
