The Urantia Book
PAPER 67
THE PLANETARY REBELLION
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
67:0.1 THE problems associated with human
existence on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a
knowledge of certain great epochs of the past, notably the
occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion. Although
this upheaval did not seriously interfere with the progress of
organic evolution, it did markedly modify the course of social
evolution and of spiritual development. The entire superphysical
history of the planet was profoundly influenced by this
devastating calamity.
1. THE CALIGASTIA BETRAYAL
67:1.1 For three hundred thousand years
Caligastia had been in charge of Urantia when Satan, Lucifer's
assistant, made one of his periodic inspection calls. And when
Satan arrived on the planet, his appearance in no way resembled
your caricatures of his nefarious majesty. He was, and still is,
a Lanonandek Son of great brilliance. "And no marvel, for Satan
himself is a brilliant creature of light."
67:1.2 In the course of this inspection Satan
informed Caligastia of Lucifer's then proposed "Declaration of
Liberty," and as we now know, the Prince agreed to betray the
planet upon the announcement of the rebellion. The loyal
universe personalities look with peculiar disdain upon Prince
Caligastia because of this premeditated betrayal of trust. The
Creator Son voiced this contempt when he said: "You are like
your leader, Lucifer, and you have sinfully perpetuated his
iniquity. He was a falsifier from the beginning of his
self-exaltation because he abode not in the truth."
67:1.3 In all the administrative work of a
local universe no high trust is deemed more sacred than that
reposed in a Planetary Prince who assumes responsibility for the
welfare and guidance of the evolving mortals on a newly
inhabited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more
destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and
disloyalty to one's confiding friends. In committing this
deliberate sin, Caligastia so completely distorted his
personality that his mind has never since been able fully to
regain its equilibrium.
67:1.4 There are many ways of looking at sin,
but from the universe philosophic viewpoint sin is the attitude
of a personality who is knowingly resisting cosmic reality.
Error might be regarded as a misconception or distortion of
reality. Evil is a partial realization of, or maladjustment to,
universe realities. But sin is a purposeful resistance to divine
reality -- a conscious choosing to oppose spiritual progress --
while iniquity consists in an open and persistent defiance of
recognized reality and signifies such a degree of personality
disintegration as to border on cosmic insanity.
67:1.5 Error suggests lack of intellectual
keenness; evil, deficiency of wisdom; sin, abject spiritual
poverty; but iniquity is indicative of vanishing personality
control.
67:1.6 And when sin has so many times been
chosen and so often been repeated, it may become habitual.
Habitual sinners can easily become iniquitous, become
wholehearted rebels against the universe and all of its divine
realities. While all manner of sins may be forgiven, we doubt
whether the established iniquiter would ever sincerely
experience sorrow for his misdeeds or accept forgiveness for his
sins.
2. THE OUTBREAK OF REBELLION
67:2.1 Shortly after Satan's inspection and
when the planetary administration was on the eve of the
realization of great things on Urantia, one day, midwinter of
the northern continents, Caligastia held a prolonged conference
with his associate, Daligastia, after which the latter called
the ten councils of Urantia in session extraordinary. This
assembly was opened with the statement that Prince Caligastia
was about to proclaim himself absolute sovereign of Urantia and
demanded that all administrative groups abdicate by resigning
all of their functions and powers into the hands of Daligastia
as trustee, pending the reorganization of the planetary
government and the subsequent redistribution of these offices of
administrative authority.
67:2.2 The presentation of this astounding
demand was followed by the masterly appeal of Van, chairman of
the supreme council of co-ordination. This distinguished
administrator and able jurist branded the proposed course of
Caligastia as an act bordering on planetary rebellion and
appealed to his conferees to abstain from all participation
until an appeal could be taken to Lucifer, the System Sovereign
of Satania; and he won the support of the entire staff.
Accordingly, appeal was taken to Jerusem, and forthwith came
back the orders designating Caligastia as supreme sovereign on
Urantia and commanding absolute and unquestioning allegiance to
his mandates. And it was in reply to this amazing message that
the noble Van made his memorable address of seven hours' length
in which he formally drew his indictment of Daligastia,
Caligastia, and Lucifer as standing in contempt of the
sovereignty of the universe of Nebadon; and he appealed to the
Most Highs of Edentia for support and confirmation.
67:2.3 Meantime the system circuits had been
severed; Urantia was isolated. Every group of celestial life on
the planet found itself suddenly and without warning isolated,
utterly cut off from all outside counsel and advice.
67:2.4 Daligastia formally proclaimed
Caligastia "God of Urantia and supreme over all." With this
proclamation before them, the issues were clearly drawn; and
each group drew off by itself and began deliberations,
discussions destined eventually to determine the fate of every
superhuman personality on the planet.
67:2.5 Seraphim and cherubim and other
celestial beings were involved in the decisions of this bitter
struggle, this long and sinful conflict. Many superhuman groups
that chanced to be on Urantia at the time of its isolation were
detained here and, like the seraphim and their associates, were
compelled to choose between sin and righteousness -- between the
ways of Lucifer and the will of the unseen Father.
67:2.6 For more than seven years this struggle
continued. Not until every personality concerned had made a
final decision, would or did the authorities of Edentia
interfere or intervene. Not until then did Van and his loyal
associates receive vindication and release from their prolonged
anxiety and intolerable suspense.
3. THE SEVEN CRUCIAL YEARS
67:3.1 The outbreak of rebellion on Jerusem,
the capital of Satania, was broadcast by the Melchizedek
council. The emergency Melchizedeks were immediately dispatched
to Jerusem, and Gabriel volunteered to act as the representative
of the Creator Son, whose authority had been challenged. With
this broadcast of the fact of rebellion in Satania the system
was isolated, quarantined, from her sister systems. There was
"war in heaven," the headquarters of Satania, and it spread to
every planet in the local system.
67:3.2 On Urantia forty members of the
corporeal staff of one hundred (including Van) refused to join
the insurrection. Many of the staff's human assistants (modified
and otherwise) were also brave and noble defenders of Michael
and his universe government. There was a terrible loss of
personalities among seraphim and cherubim. Almost one half of
the administrator and transition seraphim assigned to the planet
joined their leader and Daligastia in support of the cause of
Lucifer. Forty thousand one hundred and nineteen of the primary
midway creatures joined hands with Caligastia, but the remainder
of these beings remained true to their trust.
67:3.3 The traitorous Prince marshaled the
disloyal midway creatures and other groups of rebel
personalities and organized them to execute his bidding, while
Van assembled the loyal midwayers and other faithful groups and
began the great battle for the salvation of the planetary staff
and other marooned celestial personalities.
67:3.4 During the times of this struggle the
loyalists dwelt in an unwalled and poorly protected settlement a
few miles to the east of Dalamatia, but their dwellings were
guarded day and night by the alert and ever-watchful loyal
midway creatures, and they had possession of the priceless tree
of life.
67:3.5 Upon the outbreak of rebellion, loyal
cherubim and seraphim, with the aid of three faithful midwayers,
assumed the custody of the tree of life and permitted only the
forty loyalists of the staff and their associated modified
mortals to partake of the fruit and leaves of this energy plant.
There were fifty-six of these modified Andonite associates of
the staff, sixteen of the Andonite attendants of the disloyal
staff refusing to go into rebellion with their masters.
67:3.6 Throughout the seven crucial years of
the Caligastia rebellion, Van was wholly devoted to the work of
ministry to his loyal army of men, midwayers, and angels. The
spiritual insight and moral steadfastness which enabled Van to
maintain such an unshakable attitude of loyalty to the universe
government was the product of clear thinking, wise reasoning,
logical judgment, sincere motivation, unselfish purpose,
intelligent loyalty, experiential memory, disciplined character,
and the unquestioning dedication of his personality to the doing
of the will of the Father in Paradise.
67:3.7 This seven years of waiting was a time
of heart searching and soul discipline. Such crises in the
affairs of a universe demonstrate the tremendous influence of
mind as a factor in spiritual choosing. Education, training, and
experience are factors in most of the vital decisions of all
evolutionary moral creatures. But it is entirely possible for
the indwelling spirit to make direct contact with the
decision-determining powers of the human personality so as to
empower the fully consecrated will of the creature to perform
amazing acts of loyal devotion to the will and the way of the
Father in Paradise. And this is just what occurred in the
experience of Amadon, the modified human associate of Van.
67:3.8 Amadon is the outstanding human hero of
the Lucifer rebellion. This male descendant of Andon and Fonta
was one of the one hundred who contributed life plasm to the
Prince's staff, and ever since that event he had been attached
to Van as his associate and human assistant. Amadon elected to
stand with his chief throughout the long and trying struggle.
And it was an inspiring sight to behold this child of the
evolutionary races standing unmoved by the sophistries of
Daligastia while throughout the seven-year struggle he and his
loyal associates resisted with unyielding fortitude all of the
deceptive teachings of the brilliant Caligastia.
67:3.9 Caligastia, with a maximum of
intelligence and a vast experience in universe affairs, went
astray -- embraced sin. Amadon, with a minimum of intelligence
and utterly devoid of universe experience, remained steadfast in
the service of the universe and in loyalty to his associate. Van
utilized both mind and spirit in a magnificent and effective
combination of intellectual determination and spiritual insight,
thereby achieving an experiential level of personality
realization of the highest attainable order. Mind and spirit,
when fully united, are potential for the creation of superhuman
values, even morontia realities.
67:3.10 There is no end to the recital of the
stirring events of these tragic days. But at last the final
decision of the last personality was made, and then, but only
then, did a Most High of Edentia arrive with the emergency
Melchizedeks to seize authority on Urantia. The Caligastia
panoramic reign-records on Jerusem were obliterated, and the
probationary era of planetary rehabilitation was inaugurated.
4. THE CALIGASTIA ONE HUNDRED AFTER
REBELLION
67:4.1 When the final roll was called, the
corporeal members of the Prince's staff were found to have
aligned themselves as follows: Van and his entire court of
co-ordination had remained loyal. Ang and three members of the
food council had survived. The board of animal husbandry were
all swept into rebellion as were all of the animal-conquest
advisers. Fad and five members of the educational faculty were
saved. Nod and all of the commission on industry and trade
joined Caligastia. Hap and the entire college of revealed
religion remained loyal with Van and his noble band. Lut and the
whole board of health were lost. The council of art and science
remained loyal in its entirety, but Tut and the commission on
tribal government all went astray. Thus were forty out of the
one hundred saved, later to be transferred to Jerusem, where
they resumed their Paradise journey.
67:4.2 The sixty members of the planetary
staff who went into rebellion chose Nod as their leader. They
worked wholeheartedly for the rebel Prince but soon discovered
that they were deprived of the sustenance of the system life
circuits. They awakened to the fact that they had been degraded
to the status of mortal beings. They were indeed superhuman but,
at the same time, material and mortal. In an effort to increase
their numbers, Daligastia ordered immediate resort to sexual
reproduction, knowing full well that the original sixty and
their forty-four modified Andonite associates were doomed to
suffer extinction by death, sooner or later. After the fall of
Dalamatia the disloyal staff migrated to the north and the east.
Their descendants were long known as the Nodites, and their
dwelling place as "the land of Nod."
67:4.3 The presence of these extraordinary
supermen and superwomen, stranded by rebellion and presently
mating with the sons and daughters of earth, easily gave origin
to those traditional stories of the gods coming down to mate
with mortals. And thus originated the thousand and one legends
of a mythical nature, but founded on the facts of the
postrebellion days, which later found a place in the folk tales
and traditions of the various peoples whose ancestors had
participated in these contacts with the Nodites and their
descendants.
67:4.4 The staff rebels, deprived of spiritual
sustenance, eventually died a natural death. And much of the
subsequent idolatry of the human races grew out of the desire to
perpetuate the memory of these highly honored beings of the days
of Caligastia.
67:4.5 When the staff of one hundred came to
Urantia, they were temporarily detached from their Thought
Adjusters. Immediately upon the arrival of the Melchizedek
receivers the loyal personalities (except Van) were returned to
Jerusem and were reunited with their waiting Adjusters. We know
not the fate of the sixty staff rebels; their Adjusters still
tarry on Jerusem. Matters will undoubtedly rest as they now are
until the entire Lucifer rebellion is finally adjudicated and
the fate of all participants decreed.
67:4.6 It was very difficult for such beings
as angels and midwayers to conceive of brilliant and trusted
rulers like Caligastia and Daligastia going astray -- committing
traitorous sin. Those beings who fell into sin -- they did not
deliberately or premeditatedly enter upon rebellion -- were
misled by their superiors, deceived by their trusted leaders. It
was likewise easy to win the support of the primitive-minded
evolutionary mortals.
67:4.7 The vast majority of all human and
superhuman beings who were victims of the Lucifer rebellion on
Jerusem and the various misled planets have long since heartily
repented of their folly; and we truly believe that all such
sincere penitents will in some manner be rehabilitated and
restored to some phase of universe service when the Ancients of
Days finally complete the adjudication of the affairs of the
Satania rebellion, which they have so recently begun.
5. IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF REBELLION
67:5.1 Great confusion reigned in Dalamatia
and thereabout for almost fifty years after the instigation of
rebellion. The complete and radical reorganization of the whole
world was attempted; revolution displaced evolution as the
policy of cultural advancement and racial improvement. Among the
superior and partially trained sojourners in and near Dalamatia
there appeared a sudden advancement in cultural status, but when
these new and radical methods were attempted on the outlying
peoples, indescribable confusion and racial pandemonium was the
immediate result. Liberty was quickly translated into license by
the half-evolved primitive men of those days.
67:5.2 Very soon after the rebellion the
entire staff of sedition were engaged in energetic defense of
the city against the hordes of semisavages who besieged its
walls as a result of the doctrines of liberty which had been
prematurely taught them. And years before the beautiful
headquarters went down beneath the southern waves, the misled
and mistaught tribes of the Dalamatia hinterland had already
swept down in semisavage assault on the splendid city, driving
the secession staff and their associates northward.
67:5.3 The Caligastia scheme for the immediate
reconstruction of human society in accordance with his ideas of
individual freedom and group liberties, proved a swift and more
or less complete failure. Society quickly sank back to its old
biologic level, and the forward struggle began all over,
starting not very far in advance of where it was at the
beginning of the Caligastia regime, this upheaval having left
the world in confusion worse confounded.
67:5.4 One hundred and sixty-two years after
the rebellion a tidal wave swept up over Dalamatia, and the
planetary headquarters sank beneath the waters of the sea, and
this land did not again emerge until almost every vestige of the
noble culture of those splendid ages had been obliterated.
67:5.5 When the first capital of the world was
engulfed, it harbored only the lowest types of the Sangik races
of Urantia, renegades who had already converted the Father's
temple into a shrine dedicated to Nog, the false god of light
and fire.
6. VAN -- THE STEADFAST
67:6.1 The followers of Van early withdrew to
the highlands west of India, where they were exempt from attacks
by the confused races of the lowlands, and from which place of
retirement they planned for the rehabilitation of the world as
their early Badonite predecessors had once all unwittingly
worked for the welfare of mankind just before the days of the
birth of the Sangik tribes.
67:6.2 Before the arrival of the Melchizedek
receivers, Van placed the administration of human affairs in the
hands of ten commissions of four each, groups identical with
those of the Prince's regime. The senior resident Life Carriers
assumed temporary leadership of this council of forty, which
functioned throughout the seven years of waiting. Similar groups
of Amadonites assumed these responsibilities when the
thirty-nine loyal staff members returned to Jerusem.
67:6.3 These Amadonites were derived
from the group of 144 loyal Andonites to which Amadon belonged,
and who have become known by his name. This group comprised
thirty-nine men and one hundred and five women. Fifty-six of
this number were of immortality status, and all (except Amadon)
were translated along with the loyal members of the staff. The
remainder of this noble band continued on earth to the end of
their mortal days under the leadership of Van and Amadon. They
were the biologic leaven which multiplied and continued to
furnish leadership for the world down through the long dark ages
of the postrebellion era.
67:6.4 Van was left on Urantia until the time
of Adam, remaining as titular head of all superhuman
personalities functioning on the planet. He and Amadon were
sustained by the technique of the tree of life in conjunction
with the specialized life ministry of the Melchizedeks for over
one hundred and fifty thousand years.
67:6.5 The affairs of Urantia were for a long
time administered by a council of planetary receivers, twelve
Melchizedeks, confirmed by the mandate of the senior
constellation ruler, the Most High Father of Norlatiadek.
Associated with the Melchizedek receivers was an advisory
council consisting of: one of the loyal aids of the fallen
Prince, the two resident Life Carriers, a Trinitized Son in
apprenticeship training, a volunteer Teacher Son, a Brilliant
Evening Star of Avalon (periodically), the chiefs of seraphim
and cherubim, advisers from two neighboring planets, the
director general of subordinate angelic life, and Van, the
commander in chief of the midway creatures. And thus was Urantia
governed and administered until the arrival of Adam. It is not
strange that the courageous and loyal Van was assigned a place
on the council of planetary receivers which for so long
administered the affairs of Urantia.
67:6.6 The twelve Melchizedek receivers of
Urantia did heroic work. They preserved the remnants of
civilization, and their planetary policies were faithfully
executed by Van. Within one thousand years after the rebellion
he had more than three hundred and fifty advanced groups
scattered abroad in the world. These outposts of civilization
consisted largely of the descendants of the loyal Andonites
slightly admixed with the Sangik races, particularly the blue
men, and with the Nodites.
67:6.7 Notwithstanding the terrible setback of
rebellion there were many good strains of biologic promise on
earth. Under the supervision of the Melchizedek receivers, Van
and Amadon continued the work of fostering the natural evolution
of the human race, carrying forward the physical evolution of
man until it reached that culminating attainment which warranted
the dispatch of a Material Son and Daughter to Urantia.
67:6.8 Van and Amadon remained on earth until
shortly after the arrival of Adam and Eve. Some years thereafter
they were translated to Jerusem, where Van was reunited with his
waiting Adjuster. Van now serves in behalf of Urantia while
awaiting the order to go forward on the long, long trail to
Paradise perfection and the unrevealed destiny of the assembling
Corps of Mortal Finality.
67:6.9 It should be recorded that, when Van
appealed to the Most Highs of Edentia after Lucifer had
sustained Caligastia on Urantia, the Constellation Fathers
dispatched an immediate decision sustaining Van on every point
of his contention. This verdict failed to reach him because the
planetary circuits of communication were severed while it was in
transit. Only recently was this actual ruling discovered lodged
in the possession of a relay energy transmitter where it had
been marooned ever since the isolation of Urantia. Without this
discovery, made as the result of the investigations of the
Urantia midwayers, the release of this decision would have
awaited the restoration of Urantia to the constellation
circuits. And this apparent accident of interplanetary
communication was possible because energy transmitters can
receive and transmit intelligence, but they cannot initiate
communication.
67:6.10 The technical status of Van on the
legal records of Satania was not actually and finally settled
until this ruling of the Edentia Fathers was recorded on
Jerusem.
7. REMOTE REPERCUSSIONS OF SIN
67:7.1 The personal (centripetal) consequences
of the creature's willful and persistent rejection of light are
both inevitable and individual and are of concern only to Deity
and to that personal creature. Such a soul-destroying harvest of
iniquity is the inner reaping of the iniquitous will creature.
67:7.2 But not so with the external
repercussions of sin: The impersonal (centrifugal) consequences
of embraced sin are both inevitable and collective, being of
concern to every creature functioning within the affect-range of
such events.
67:7.3 By fifty thousand years after the
collapse of the planetary administration, earthly affairs were
so disorganized and retarded that the human race had gained very
little over the general evolutionary status existing at the time
of Caligastia's arrival three hundred and fifty thousand years
previously. In certain respects progress had been made; in other
directions much ground had been lost.
67:7.4 Sin is never purely local in its
effects. The administrative sectors of the universes are
organismal; the plight of one personality must to a certain
extent be shared by all. Sin, being an attitude of the person
toward reality, is destined to exhibit its inherent negativistic
harvest upon any and all related levels of universe values. But
the full consequences of erroneous thinking, evil-doing, or
sinful planning are experienced only on the level of actual
performance. The transgression of universe law may be fatal in
the physical realm without seriously involving the mind or
impairing the spiritual experience. Sin is fraught with fatal
consequences to personality survival only when it is the
attitude of the whole being, when it stands for the choosing of
the mind and the willing of the soul.
67:7.5 Evil and sin visit their consequences
in material and social realms and may sometimes even retard
spiritual progress on certain levels of universe reality, but
never does the sin of any being rob another of the realization
of the divine right of personality survival. Eternal survival
can be jeopardized only by the decisions of the mind and the
choice of the soul of the individual himself.
67:7.6 Sin on Urantia did very little to delay
biologic evolution, but it did operate to deprive the mortal
races of the full benefit of the Adamic inheritance. Sin
enormously retards intellectual development, moral growth,
social progress, and mass spiritual attainment. But it does not
prevent the highest spiritual achievement by any individual who
chooses to know God and sincerely do his divine will.
67:7.7 Caligastia rebelled, Adam and Eve did
default, but no mortal subsequently born on Urantia has suffered
in his personal spiritual experience because of these blunders.
Every mortal born on Urantia since Caligastia's rebellion has
been in some manner time-penalized, but the future welfare of
such souls has never been in the least eternity-jeopardized. No
person is ever made to suffer vital spiritual deprivation
because of the sin of another. Sin is wholly personal as to
moral guilt or spiritual consequences, notwithstanding its
far-flung repercussions in administrative, intellectual, and
social domains.
67:7.8 While we cannot fathom the wisdom that
permits such catastrophes, we can always discern the beneficial
outworking of these local disturbances as they are reflected out
upon the universe at large.
8. THE HUMAN HERO OF THE REBELLION
67:8.1 The Lucifer rebellion was withstood by
many courageous beings on the various worlds of Satania; but the
records of Salvington portray Amadon as the outstanding
character of the entire system in his glorious rejection of the
flood tides of sedition and in his unswerving devotion to Van --
they stood together unmoved in their loyalty to the supremacy of
the invisible Father and his Son Michael.
67:8.2 At the time of these momentous
transactions I was stationed on Edentia, and I am still
conscious of the exhilaration I experienced as I perused the
Salvington broadcasts which told from day to day of the
unbelievable steadfastness, the transcendent devotion, and the
exquisite loyalty of this onetime semisavage springing from the
experimental and original stock of the Andonic race.
67:8.3 From Edentia up through Salvington and
even on to Uversa, for seven long years the first inquiry of all
subordinate celestial life regarding the Satania rebellion, ever
and always, was: "What of Amadon of Urantia, does he still stand
unmoved?"
67:8.4 If the Lucifer rebellion has
handicapped the local system and its fallen worlds, if the loss
of this Son and his misled associates has temporarily hampered
the progress of the constellation of Norlatiadek, then weigh the
effect of the far-flung presentation of the inspiring
performance of this one child of nature and his determined band
of 143 comrades in standing steadfast for the higher concepts of
universe management and administration in the face of such
tremendous and adverse pressure exerted by his disloyal
superiors. And let me assure you, this has already done more
good in the universe of Nebadon and the superuniverse of
Orvonton than can ever be outweighed by the sum total of all the
evil and sorrow of the Lucifer rebellion.
67:8.5 And all this is a beautifully touching
and superbly magnificent illumination of the wisdom of the
Father's universal plan for mobilizing the Corps of Mortal
Finality on Paradise and for recruiting this vast group of
mysterious servants of the future largely from the common clay
of the mortals of ascending progression -- just such mortals as
the impregnable Amadon.
67:8.6
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
