The Urantia Book
PAPER 77
THE MIDWAY CREATURES
Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
77:0.1 MOST of the inhabited worlds of Nebadon
harbor one or more groups of unique beings existing on a
life-functioning level about midway between those of the mortals
of the realms and of the angelic orders; hence are they called
midway creatures. They appear to be an accident of time, but
they occur so widespreadly and are so valuable as helpers that
we have all long since accepted them as one of the essential
orders of our combined planetary ministry.
77:0.2 On Urantia there function two distinct
orders of midwayers: the primary or senior corps, who came into
being back in the days of Dalamatia, and the secondary or
younger group, whose origin dates from the times of Adam.
1. THE PRIMARY MIDWAYERS
77:1.1 The primary midwayers have their
genesis in a unique interassociation of the material and the
spiritual on Urantia. We know of the existence of similar
creatures on other worlds and in other systems, but they
originated by dissimilar techniques.
77:1.2 It is well always to bear in mind that
the successive bestowals of the Sons of God on an evolving
planet produce marked changes in the spiritual economy of the
realm and sometimes so modify the workings of the
interassociation of spiritual and material agencies on a planet
as to create situations indeed difficult of understanding. The
status of the one hundred corporeal members of Prince
Caligastia's staff illustrates just such a unique
interassociation: As ascendant morontia citizens of Jerusem they
were supermaterial creatures without reproductive prerogatives.
As descendant planetary ministers on Urantia they were material
sex creatures capable of procreating material offspring (as some
of them later did). What we cannot satisfactorily explain is how
these one hundred could function in the parental role on a
supermaterial level, but that is exactly what happened. A
supermaterial (nonsexual) liaison of a male and a female member
of the corporeal staff resulted in the appearance of the
first-born of the primary midwayers.
77:1.3 It was immediately discovered that a
creature of this order, midway between the mortal and angelic
levels, would be of great service in carrying on the affairs of
the Prince's headquarters, and each couple of the corporeal
staff was accordingly granted permission to produce a similar
being. This effort resulted in the first group of fifty midway
creatures.
77:1.4 After a year of observing the work of
this unique group, the Planetary Prince authorized the
reproduction of midwayers without restriction. This plan was
carried out as long as the power to create continued, and the
original corps of 50,000 was accordingly brought into being.
77:1.5 A period of one-half year intervened
between the production of each midwayer, and when one thousand
such beings had been born to each couple, no more were ever
forthcoming. And there is no explanation available as to why
this power was exhausted upon the appearance of the one
thousandth offspring. No amount of further experimentation ever
resulted in anything but failure.
77:1.6 These creatures constituted the
intelligence corps of the Prince's administration. They ranged
far and wide, studying and observing the world races and
rendering other invaluable services to the Prince and his staff
in the work of influencing human society remote from the
planetary headquarters.
77:1.7 This regime continued until the tragic
days of the planetary rebellion, which ensnared a little over
four fifths of the primary midwayers. The loyal corps entered
the service of the Melchizedek receivers, functioning under the
titular leadership of Van until the days of Adam.
2. THE NODITE RACE
77:2.1 While this is the narrative of the
origin, nature, and function of the midway creatures of Urantia,
the kinship between the two orders -- primary and secondary --
makes it necessary to interrupt the story of the primary
midwayers at this point in order to follow out the line of
descent from the rebel members of the corporeal staff of Prince
Caligastia from the days of the planetary rebellion to the times
of Adam. It was this line of inheritance which, in the early
days of the second garden, furnished one half of the ancestry
for the secondary order of midway creatures.
77:2.2 The physical members of the Prince's
staff had been constituted sex creatures for the purpose of
participating in the plan of procreating offspring embodying the
combined qualities of their special order united with those of
the selected stock of the Andon tribes, and all of this was in
anticipation of the subsequent appearance of Adam. The Life
Carriers had planned a new type of mortal embracing the union of
the conjoint offspring of the Prince's staff with the
first-generation offspring of Adam and Eve. They had thus
projected a plan envisioning a new order of planetary creatures
whom they hoped would become the teacher-rulers of human
society. Such beings were designed for social sovereignty, not
civil sovereignty. But since this project almost completely
miscarried, we shall never know what an aristocracy of benign
leadership and matchless culture Urantia was thus deprived of.
For when the corporeal staff later reproduced, it was subsequent
to the rebellion and after they had been deprived of their
connection with the life currents of the system.
77:2.3 The postrebellion era on Urantia
witnessed many unusual happenings. A great civilization -- the
culture of Dalamatia -- was going to pieces. "The Nephilim
(Nodites) were on earth in those days, and when these sons of
the gods went in to the daughters of men and they bore to them,
their children were the `mighty men of old,' the `men of
renown.'" While hardly "sons of the gods," the staff and their
early descendants were so regarded by the evolutionary mortals
of those distant days; even their stature came to be magnified
by tradition. This, then, is the origin of the well-nigh
universal folk tale of the gods who came down to earth and there
with the daughters of men begot an ancient race of heroes. And
all this legend became further confused with the race mixtures
of the later appearing Adamites in the second garden.
77:2.4 Since the one hundred corporeal members
of the Prince's staff carried germ plasm of the Andonic human
strains, it would naturally be expected that, if they engaged in
sexual reproduction, their progeny would altogether resemble the
offspring of other Andonite parents. But when the sixty rebels
of the staff, the followers of Nod, actually engaged in sexual
reproduction, their children proved to be far superior in almost
every way to both the Andonite and the Sangik peoples. This
unexpected excellence characterized not only physical and
intellectual qualities but also spiritual capacities.
77:2.5 These mutant traits appearing in the
first Nodite generation resulted from certain changes which had
been wrought in the configuration and in the chemical
constituents of the inheritance factors of the Andonic germ
plasm. These changes were caused by the presence in the bodies
of the staff members of the powerful life-maintenance circuits
of the Satania system. These life circuits caused the
chromosomes of the specialized Urantia pattern to reorganize
more after the patterns of the standardized Satania
specialization of the ordained Nebadon life manifestation. The
technique of this germ plasm metamorphosis by the action of the
system life currents is not unlike those procedures whereby
Urantia scientists modify the germ plasm of plants and animals
by the use of X rays.
77:2.6 Thus did the Nodite peoples arise out
of certain peculiar and unexpected modifications occurring in
the life plasm which had been transferred from the bodies of the
Andonite contributors to those of the corporeal staff members by
the Avalon surgeons.
77:2.7 It will be recalled that the one
hundred Andonite germ plasm contributors were in turn made
possessors of the organic complement of the tree of life so that
the Satania life currents likewise invested their bodies. The
forty-four modified Andonites who followed the staff into
rebellion also mated among themselves and made a great
contribution to the better strains of the Nodite people.
77:2.8 These two groups, embracing 104
individuals who carried the modified Andonite germ plasm,
constitute the ancestry of the Nodites, the eighth race to
appear on Urantia. And this new feature of human life on Urantia
represents another phase of the outworking of the original plan
of utilizing this planet as a life-modification world, except
that this was one of the unforeseen developments.
77:2.9 The pure-line Nodites were a
magnificent race, but they gradually mingled with the
evolutionary peoples of earth, and before long great
deterioration had occurred. Ten thousand years after the
rebellion they had lost ground to the point where their average
length of life was little more than that of the evolutionary
races.
77:2.10 When archaeologists dig up the
clay-tablet records of the later-day Sumerian descendants of the
Nodites, they discover lists of Sumerian kings running back for
several thousand years; and as these records go further back,
the reigns of the individual kings lengthen from around
twenty-five or thirty years up to one hundred and fifty years
and more. This lengthening of the reigns of these older kings
signifies that some of the early Nodite rulers (immediate
descendants of the Prince's staff) did live longer than their
later-day successors and also indicates an effort to stretch the
dynasties back to Dalamatia.
77:2.11 The records of such long-lived
individuals are also due to the confusion of months and years as
time periods. This may also be observed in the Biblical
genealogy of Abraham and in the early records of the Chinese.
The confusion of the twenty-eight-day month, or season, with the
later introduced year of more than three hundred and fifty days
is responsible for the traditions of such long human lives.
There are records of a man who lived over nine hundred "years."
This period represents not quite seventy years, and such lives
were regarded for ages as very long, "threescore years and ten"
as such a life span was later designated.
77:2.12 The reckoning of time by the
twenty-eight-day month persisted long after the days of Adam.
But when the Egyptians undertook to reform the calendar, about
seven thousand years ago, they did it with great accuracy,
introducing the year of 365 days.
3. THE TOWER OF BABEL
77:3.1 After the submergence of Dalamatia the
Nodites moved north and east, presently founding the new city of
Dilmun as their racial and cultural headquarters. And about
fifty thousand years after the death of Nod, when the offspring
of the Prince's staff had become too numerous to find
subsistence in the lands immediately surrounding their new city
of Dilmun, and after they had reached out to intermarry with the
Andonite and Sangik tribes adjoining their borders, it occurred
to their leaders that something should be done to preserve their
racial unity. Accordingly a council of the tribes was called,
and after much deliberation the plan of Bablot, a descendant of
Nod, was indorsed.
77:3.2 Bablot proposed to erect a pretentious
temple of racial glorification at the center of their then
occupied territory. This temple was to have a tower the like of
which the world had never seen. It was to be a monumental
memorial to their passing greatness. There were many who wished
to have this monument erected in Dilmun, but others contended
that such a great structure should be placed a safe distance
from the dangers of the sea, remembering the traditions of the
engulfment of their first capital, Dalamatia.
77:3.3 Bablot planned that the new buildings
should become the nucleus of the future center of the Nodite
culture and civilization. His counsel finally prevailed, and
construction was started in accordance with his plans. The new
city was to be named Bablot after the architect and
builder of the tower. This location later became known as Bablod
and eventually as Babel.
77:3.4 But the Nodites were still somewhat
divided in sentiment as to the plans and purposes of this
undertaking. Neither were their leaders altogether agreed
concerning either construction plans or usage of the buildings
after they should be completed. After four and one-half years of
work a great dispute arose about the object and motive for the
erection of the tower: The contentions became so bitter that all
work stopped. The food carriers spread the news of the
dissension, and large numbers of the tribes began to forgather
at the building site. Three differing views were propounded as
to the purpose of building the tower:
77:3.5 1. The largest group, almost one half,
desired to see the tower built as a memorial of Nodite history
and racial superiority. They thought it ought to be a great and
imposing structure which would challenge the admiration of all
future generations.
77:3.6 2. The next largest faction wanted the
tower designed to commemorate the Dilmun culture. They foresaw
that Bablot would become a great center of commerce, art, and
manufacture.
77:3.7 3. The smallest and minority contingent
held that the erection of the tower presented an opportunity for
making atonement for the folly of their progenitors in
participating in the Caligastia rebellion. They maintained that
the tower should be devoted to the worship of the Father of all,
that the whole purpose of the new city should be to take the
place of Dalamatia -- to function as the cultural and religious
center for the surrounding barbarians.
77:3.8 The religious group were promptly voted
down. The majority rejected the teaching that their ancestors
had been guilty of rebellion; they resented such a racial
stigma. Having disposed of one of the three angles to the
dispute and failing to settle the other two by debate, they fell
to fighting. The religionists, the noncombatants, fled to their
homes in the south, while their fellows fought until well-nigh
obliterated.
77:3.9 About twelve thousand years ago a
second attempt to erect the tower of Babel was made. The mixed
races of the Andites (Nodites and Adamites) undertook to raise a
new temple on the ruins of the first structure, but there was
not sufficient support for the enterprise; it fell of its own
pretentious weight. This region was long known as the land of
Babel.
4. NODITE CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION
77:4.1 The dispersion of the Nodites was an
immediate result of the internecine conflict over the tower of
Babel. This internal war greatly reduced the numbers of the
purer Nodites and was in many ways responsible for their failure
to establish a great pre-Adamic civilization. From this time on
Nodite culture declined for over one hundred and twenty thousand
years until it was upstepped by Adamic infusion. But even in the
times of Adam the Nodites were still an able people. Many of
their mixed descendants were numbered among the Garden builders,
and several of Van's group captains were Nodites. Some of the
most capable minds serving on Adam's staff were of this race.
77:4.2 Three out of the four great Nodite
centers were established immediately following the Bablot
conflict:
77:4.3 1. The western or Syrian Nodites.
The remnants of the nationalistic or racial memorialists
journeyed northward, uniting with the Andonites to found the
later Nodite centers to the northwest of Mesopotamia. This was
the largest group of the dispersing Nodites, and they
contributed much to the later appearing Assyrian stock.
77:4.4 2. The eastern or Elamite Nodites.
The culture and commerce advocates migrated in large numbers
eastward into Elam and there united with the mixed Sangik
tribes. The Elamites of thirty to forty thousand years ago had
become largely Sangik in nature, although they continued to
maintain a civilization superior to that of the surrounding
barbarians.
77:4.5 After the establishment of the second
garden it was customary to allude to this near-by Nodite
settlement as "the land of Nod"; and during the long period of
relative peace between this Nodite group and the Adamites, the
two races were greatly blended, for it became more and more the
custom for the Sons of God (the Adamites) to intermarry with the
daughters of men (the Nodites).
77:4.6 3. The central or pre-Sumerian
Nodites. A small group at the mouth of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers maintained more of their racial integrity. They
persisted for thousands of years and eventually furnished the
Nodite ancestry which blended with the Adamites to found the
Sumerian peoples of historic times.
77:4.7 And all this explains how the Sumerians
appeared so suddenly and mysteriously on the stage of action in
Mesopotamia. Investigators will never be able to trace out and
follow these tribes back to the beginning of the Sumerians, who
had their origin two hundred thousand years ago after the
submergence of Dalamatia. Without a trace of origin elsewhere in
the world, these ancient tribes suddenly loom upon the horizon
of civilization with a full-grown and superior culture,
embracing temples, metalwork, agriculture, animals, pottery,
weaving, commercial law, civil codes, religious ceremonial, and
an old system of writing. At the beginning of the historical era
they had long since lost the alphabet of Dalamatia, having
adopted the peculiar writing system originating in Dilmun. The
Sumerian language, though virtually lost to the world, was not
Semitic; it had much in common with the so-called Aryan tongues.
77:4.8 The elaborate records left by the
Sumerians describe the site of a remarkable settlement which was
located on the Persian Gulf near the earlier city of Dilmun. The
Egyptians called this city of ancient glory Dilmat, while the
later Adamized Sumerians confused both the first and second
Nodite cities with Dalamatia and called all three Dilmun. And
already have archaeologists found these ancient Sumerian clay
tablets which tell of this earthly paradise "where the Gods
first blessed mankind with the example of civilized and cultured
life." And these tablets, descriptive of Dilmun, the paradise of
men and God, are now silently resting on the dusty shelves of
many museums.
77:4.9 The Sumerians well knew of the first
and second Edens but, despite extensive intermarriage with the
Adamites, continued to regard the garden dwellers to the north
as an alien race. Sumerian pride in the more ancient Nodite
culture led them to ignore these later vistas of glory in favor
of the grandeur and paradisiacal traditions of the city of
Dilmun.
77:4.10 4. The northern Nodites and
Amadonites -- the Vanites. This group arose prior to the
Bablot conflict. These northernmost Nodites were descendants of
those who had forsaken the leadership of Nod and his successors
for that of Van and Amadon.
77:4.11 Some of the early associates of Van
subsequently settled about the shores of the lake which still
bears his name, and their traditions grew up about this
locality. Ararat became their sacred mountain, having much the
same meaning to later-day Vanites that Sinai had to the Hebrews.
Ten thousand years ago the Vanite ancestors of the Assyrians
taught that their moral law of seven commandments had been given
to Van by the Gods upon Mount Ararat. They firmly believed that
Van and his associate Amadon were taken alive from the planet
while they were up on the mountain engaged in worship.
77:4.12 Mount Ararat was the sacred mountain
of northern Mesopotamia, and since much of your tradition of
these ancient times was acquired in connection with the
Babylonian story of the flood, it is not surprising that Mount
Ararat and its region were woven into the later Jewish story of
Noah and the universal flood.
77:4.13 About 35,000 B.C. Adamson visited one
of the easternmost of the old Vanite settlements to found his
center of civilization.
5. ADAMSON AND RATTA
77:5.1 Having delineated the Nodite
antecedents of the ancestry of the secondary midwayers, this
narrative should now give consideration to the Adamic half of
their ancestry, for the secondary midwayers are also the
grandchildren of Adamson, the first-born of the violet race of
Urantia.
77:5.2 Adamson was among that group of the
children of Adam and Eve who elected to remain on earth with
their father and mother. Now this eldest son of Adam had often
heard from Van and Amadon the story of their highland home in
the north, and sometime after the establishment of the second
garden he determined to go in search of this land of his
youthful dreams.
77:5.3 Adamson was 120 years old at this time
and had been the father of thirty-two pure-line children of the
first garden. He wanted to remain with his parents and assist
them in upbuilding the second garden, but he was greatly
disturbed by the loss of his mate and their children, who had
all elected to go to Edentia along with those other Adamic
children who chose to become wards of the Most Highs.
77:5.4 Adamson would not desert his parents on
Urantia, he was disinclined to flee from hardship or danger, but
he found the associations of the second garden far from
satisfying. He did much to forward the early activities of
defense and construction but decided to leave for the north at
the earliest opportunity. And though his departure was wholly
pleasant, Adam and Eve were much grieved to lose their eldest
son, to have him go out into a strange and hostile world, as
they feared, never to return.
77:5.5 A company of twenty-seven followed
Adamson northward in quest of these people of his childhood
fantasies. In a little over three years Adamson's party actually
found the object of their adventure, and among these people he
discovered a wonderful and beautiful woman, twenty years old,
who claimed to be the last pure-line descendant of the Prince's
staff. This woman, Ratta, said that her ancestors were all
descendants of two of the fallen staff of the Prince. She was
the last of her race, having no living brothers or sisters. She
had about decided not to mate, had about made up her mind to die
without issue, but she lost her heart to the majestic Adamson.
And when she heard the story of Eden, how the predictions of Van
and Amadon had really come to pass, and as she listened to the
recital of the Garden default, she was encompassed with but a
single thought -- to marry this son and heir of Adam. And
quickly the idea grew upon Adamson. In a little more than three
months they were married.
77:5.6 Adamson and Ratta had a family of
sixty-seven children. They gave origin to a great line of the
world's leadership, but they did something more. It should be
remembered that both of these beings were really superhuman.
Every fourth child born to them was of a unique order. It was
often invisible. Never in the world's history had such a thing
occurred. Ratta was greatly perturbed -- even superstitious --
but Adamson well knew of the existence of the primary midwayers,
and he concluded that something similar was transpiring before
his eyes. When the second strangely behaving offspring arrived,
he decided to mate them, since one was male and the other
female, and this is the origin of the secondary order of
midwayers. Within one hundred years, before this phenomenon
ceased, almost two thousand were brought into being.
77:5.7 Adamson lived for 396 years. Many times
he returned to visit his father and mother. Every seven years he
and Ratta journeyed south to the second garden, and meanwhile
the midwayers kept him informed regarding the welfare of his
people. During Adamson's life they did great service in
upbuilding a new and independent world center for truth and
righteousness.
77:5.8 Adamson and Ratta thus had at their
command this corps of marvelous helpers, who labored with them
throughout their long lives to assist in the propagation of
advanced truth and in the spread of higher standards of
spiritual, intellectual, and physical living. And the results of
this effort at world betterment never did become fully eclipsed
by subsequent retrogressions.
77:5.9 The Adamsonites maintained a high
culture for almost seven thousand years from the times of
Adamson and Ratta. Later on they became admixed with the
neighboring Nodites and Andonites and were also included among
the "mighty men of old." And some of the advances of that age
persisted to become a latent part of the cultural potential
which later blossomed into European civilization.
77:5.10 This center of civilization was
situated in the region east of the southern end of the Caspian
Sea, near the Kopet Dagh. A short way up in the foothills of
Turkestan are the vestiges of what was onetime the Adamsonite
headquarters of the violet race. In these highland sites,
situated in a narrow and ancient fertile belt lying in the lower
foothills of the Kopet range, there successively arose at
various periods four diverse cultures respectively fostered by
four different groups of Adamson's descendants. It was the
second of these groups which migrated westward to Greece and the
islands of the Mediterranean. The residue of Adamson's
descendants migrated north and west to enter Europe with the
blended stock of the last Andite wave coming out of Mesopotamia,
and they were also numbered among the Andite-Aryan invaders of
India.
6. THE SECONDARY MIDWAYERS
77:6.1 While the primary midwayers had a
well-nigh superhuman origin, the secondary order are the
offspring of the pure Adamic stock united with a humanized
descendant of ancestors common to the parentage of the senior
corps.
77:6.2 Among the children of Adamson there
were just sixteen of the peculiar progenitors of the secondary
midwayers. These unique children were equally divided as regards
sex, and each couple was capable of producing a secondary
midwayer every seventy days by a combined technique of sex and
nonsex liaison. And such a phenomenon was never possible on
earth before that time, nor has it ever occurred since.
77:6.3 These sixteen children lived and died
(except for their peculiarities) as mortals of the realm, but
their electrically energized offspring live on and on, not being
subject to the limitations of mortal flesh.
77:6.4 Each of the eight couples eventually
produced 248 midwayers, and thus did the original secondary
corps -- 1,984 in number -- come into existence. There are eight
subgroups of secondary midwayers. They are designated as A-B-C
the first, second, third, and so on. And then there are D-E-F
the first, second, and so on.
77:6.5 After the default of Adam the primary
midwayers returned to the service of the Melchizedek receivers,
while the secondary group were attached to the Adamson center
until his death. Thirty-three of these secondary midwayers, the
chiefs of their organization at the death of Adamson, endeavored
to swing the whole order over to the service of the
Melchizedeks, thus effecting a liaison with the primary corps.
But failing to accomplish this, they deserted their companions
and went over in a body to the service of the planetary
receivers.
77:6.6 After the death of Adamson the
remainder of the secondary midwayers became a strange,
unorganized, and unattached influence on Urantia. From that time
to the days of Machiventa Melchizedek they led an irregular and
unorganized existence. They were partially brought under control
by this Melchizedek but were still productive of much mischief
up to the days of Christ Michael. And during his sojourn on
earth they all made final decisions as to their future destiny,
the loyal majority then enlisting under the leadership of the
primary midwayers.
7. THE REBEL MIDWAYERS
77:7.1 The majority of the primary midwayers
went into sin at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. When the
devastation of the planetary rebellion was reckoned up, among
other losses it was discovered that of the original 50,000,
40,119 had joined the Caligastia secession.
77:7.2 The original number of secondary
midwayers was 1,984, and of these 873 failed to align themselves
with the rule of Michael and were duly interned in connection
with the planetary adjudication of Urantia on the day of
Pentecost. No one can forecast the future of these fallen
creatures.
77:7.3 Both groups of rebel midwayers are now
held in custody awaiting the final adjudication of the affairs
of the system rebellion. But they did many strange things on
earth prior to the inauguration of the present planetary
dispensation.
77:7.4 These disloyal midwayers were able to
reveal themselves to mortal eyes under certain circumstances,
and especially was this true of the associates of Beelzebub, the
leader of the apostate secondary midwayers. But these unique
creatures must not be confused with certain of the rebel
cherubim and seraphim who also were on earth up to the time of
Christ's death and resurrection. Some of the older writers
designated these rebellious midway creatures as evil spirits and
demons, and the apostate seraphim as evil angels.
77:7.5 On no world can evil spirits possess
any mortal mind subsequent to the life of a Paradise bestowal
Son. But before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia -- before
the universal coming of the Thought Adjusters and the pouring
out of the Master's spirit upon all flesh -- these rebel
midwayers were actually able to influence the minds of certain
inferior mortals and somewhat to control their actions. This was
accomplished in much the same way as the loyal midway creatures
function when they serve as efficient contact guardians of the
human minds of the Urantia reserve corps of destiny at those
times when the Adjuster is, in effect, detached from the
personality during a season of contact with superhuman
intelligences.
77:7.6 It is no mere figure of speech when the
record states: "And they brought to Him all sorts of sick
peoples, those who were possessed by devils and those who were
lunatics." Jesus knew and recognized the difference between
insanity and demoniacal possession, although these states were
greatly confused in the minds of those who lived in his day and
generation.
77:7.7 Even prior to Pentecost no rebel spirit
could dominate a normal human mind, and since that day even the
weak minds of inferior mortals are free from such possibilities.
The supposed casting out of devils since the arrival of the
Spirit of Truth has been a matter of confounding a belief in
demoniacal possession with hysteria, insanity, and
feeble-mindedness. But just because Michael's bestowal has
forever liberated all human minds on Urantia from the
possibility of demoniacal possession, do not imagine that such
was not a reality in former ages.
77:7.8 The entire group of rebel midwayers is
at present held prisoner by order of the Most Highs of Edentia.
No more do they roam this world on mischief bent. Regardless of
the presence of the Thought Adjusters, the pouring out of the
Spirit of Truth upon all flesh forever made it impossible for
disloyal spirits of any sort or description ever again to invade
even the most feeble of human minds. Since the day of Pentecost
there never again can be such a thing as demoniacal possession.
8. THE UNITED MIDWAYERS
77:8.1 At the last adjudication of this world,
when Michael removed the slumbering survivors of time, the
midway creatures were left behind, left to assist in the
spiritual and semispiritual work on the planet. They now
function as a single corps, embracing both orders and numbering
10,992. The United Midwayers of Urantia are at present
governed alternately by the senior member of each order. This
regime has obtained since their amalgamation into one group
shortly after Pentecost.
77:8.2 The members of the older or primary
order are generally known by numerals; they are often given
names such as 1-2-3 the first, 4-5-6 the first, and so on. On
Urantia the Adamic midwayers are designated alphabetically in
order to distinguish them from the numerical designation of the
primary midwayers.
77:8.3 Both orders are nonmaterial beings as
regards nutrition and energy intake, but they partake of many
human traits and are able to enjoy and follow your humor as well
as your worship. When attached to mortals, they enter into the
spirit of human work, rest, and play. But midwayers do not
sleep, neither do they possess powers of procreation. In a
certain sense the secondary group are differentiated along the
lines of maleness and femaleness, often being spoken of as "he"
or "she." They often work together in such pairs.
77:8.4 Midwayers are not men, neither are they
angels, but secondary midwayers are, in nature, nearer man than
angel; they are, in a way, of your races and are, therefore,
very understanding and sympathetic in their contact with human
beings; they are invaluable to the seraphim in their work for
and with the various races of mankind, and both orders are
indispensable to the seraphim who serve as personal guardians to
mortals.
77:8.5 The United Midwayers of Urantia are
organized for service with the planetary seraphim in accordance
with innate endowments and acquired skills, in the following
groups:
77:8.6 1.
Midway messengers. This group
bear names; they are a small corps and are of great assistance
on an evolutionary world in the service of quick and reliable
personal communication.
77:8.7 2.
Planetary sentinels.
Midwayers are the guardians, the sentinels, of the worlds of
space. They perform the important duties of observers for all
the numerous phenomena and types of communication which are of
import to the supernatural beings of the realm. They patrol the
invisible spirit realm of the planet.
77:8.8 3.
Contact personalities.
In the contacts made with the mortal beings of the material
worlds, such as with the
subject through whom these communications were transmitted,
the midway creatures are
always employed. They are an essential factor in such liaisons
of the spiritual and the material levels.
77:8.9 4.
Progress helpers. These are
the more spiritual of the midway creatures, and they are
distributed as assistants to the various orders of seraphim who
function in special groups on the planet.
77:8.10 Midwayers vary greatly in their
abilities to make contact with the seraphim above and with their
human cousins below. It is exceedingly difficult, for instance,
for the primary midwayers to make direct contact with material
agencies. They are considerably nearer the angelic type of being
and are therefore usually assigned to working with, and
ministering to, the spiritual forces resident on the planet.
They act as companions and guides for celestial visitors and
student sojourners, whereas the secondary creatures are almost
exclusively attached to the ministry of the material beings of
the realm.
77:8.11 The 1,111 loyal secondary midwayers
are engaged in important missions on earth. As compared with
their primary associates, they are decidedly material. They
exist just outside the range of mortal vision and possess
sufficient latitude of adaptation to make, at will, physical
contact with what humans call "material things." These unique
creatures have certain definite powers over the things of time
and space, not excepting the beasts of the realm.
77:8.12 Many of the more literal phenomena
ascribed to angels have been performed by the secondary midway
creatures. When the early teachers of the gospel of Jesus were
thrown into prison by the ignorant religious leaders of that
day, an actual "angel of the Lord" "by night opened the prison
doors and brought them forth." But in the case of Peter's
deliverance after the killing of James by Herod's order, it was
a secondary midwayer who performed the work ascribed to an
angel.
77:8.13
Their chief work today is that of
unperceived personal-liaison associates of those men and women
who constitute the planetary reserve corps of destiny. It was
the work of this secondary group, ably seconded by certain of
the primary corps, that brought about the co-ordination of
personalities and circumstances on Urantia which finally induced
the planetary celestial supervisors to initiate those petitions
that resulted in the granting of the mandates making possible
the series of revelations of which this presentation is a part.
But it should be made clear that the midway creatures are not
involved in the sordid performances taking place under the
general designation of "spiritualism." The midwayers at present
on Urantia, all of whom are of honorable standing, are not
connected with the phenomena of so-called "mediumship"; and they
do not, ordinarily, permit humans to witness their sometimes
necessary physical activities or other contacts with the
material world, as they are perceived by human senses.
9. THE PERMANENT CITIZENS OF URANTIA
77:9.1 Midwayers may be regarded as the first
group of the permanent inhabitants to be found on the various
orders of worlds throughout the universes in contrast with
evolutionary ascenders like the mortal creatures and the angelic
hosts. Such permanent citizens are encountered at various points
in the Paradise ascent.
77:9.2 Unlike the various orders of celestial
beings who are assigned to minister on a planet, the
midwayers live on an inhabited world. The seraphim come
and go, but the midway creatures remain and will remain, albeit
they are nonetheless ministers for being natives of the planet,
and they provide the one continuing regime which harmonizes and
connects the changing administrations of the seraphic hosts.
77:9.3 As actual citizens of Urantia, the midwayers have a kinship interest in the destiny of this sphere.
They are a determined association, persistently working for the
progress of their native planet. Their determination is
suggested by the motto of their order: "What the United
Midwayers undertake, the United Midwayers do."
77:9.4 Although their ability to traverse the
energy circuits makes planetary departure feasible to any
midwayer, they have individually pledged themselves not to leave
the planet prior to their sometime release by the universe
authorities. Midwayers are anchored on a planet until the ages
of settled light and life. With the exception of 1-2-3 the
first, no loyal midway creatures have ever departed from
Urantia.
77:9.5 1-2-3 the first, the eldest of the
primary order, was released from immediate planetary duties
shortly after Pentecost. This noble midwayer stood steadfast
with Van and Amadon during the tragic days of the planetary
rebellion, and his fearless leadership was instrumental in
reducing the casualties in his order. He serves at present on
Jerusem as a member of the twenty-four counselors, having
already functioned as governor general of Urantia once since
Pentecost.
77:9.6 Midwayers are planet bound, but much as
mortals talk with travelers from afar and thus learn about
remote places on the planet, so do midwayers converse with
celestial travelers to learn about the far places of the
universe. So do they become conversant with this system and
universe, even with Orvonton and its sister creations, and so do
they prepare themselves for citizenship on the higher levels of
creature existence.
77:9.7 While the midwayers were brought into
existence fully developed -- experiencing no period of growth or
development from immaturity -- they never cease to grow in
wisdom and experience. Like mortals they are evolutionary
creatures, and they have a culture which is a bona fide
evolutionary attainment. There are many great minds and mighty
spirits among the Urantia midway corps.
77:9.8 In the larger aspect the civilization
of Urantia is the joint product of the Urantia mortals and the
Urantia midwayers, and this is true despite the present
differential between the two levels of culture, a differential
which will not be compensated prior to the ages of light and
life.
77:9.9 The midway culture, being the product
of an immortal planetary citizenry, is relatively immune to
those temporal vicissitudes which beset human civilization. The
generations of men forget; the corps of midwayers remembers, and
that memory is the treasure house of the traditions of your
inhabited world. Thus does the culture of a planet remain ever
present on that planet, and in proper circumstances such
treasured memories of past events are made available, even as
the story of the life and teachings of Jesus has been given by
the midwayers of Urantia to their cousins in the flesh.
77:9.10 Midwayers are the skillful ministers
who compensate that gap between the material and spiritual
affairs of Urantia which appeared upon the death of Adam and
Eve. They are likewise your elder brethren, comrades in the long
struggle to attain a settled status of light and life on
Urantia. The United Midwayers are a rebellion-tested corps, and
they will faithfully enact their part in planetary evolution
until this world attains the goal of the ages, until that
distant day when in fact peace does reign on earth and in truth
is there good will in the hearts of men.
77:9.11 Because of the valuable work performed
by these midwayers, we have concluded that they are a truly
essential part of the spirit economy of the realms. And where
rebellion has not marred a planet's affairs, they are of still
greater assistance to the seraphim.
77:9.12 The entire organization of high
spirits, angelic hosts, and midway fellows is enthusiastically
devoted to the furtherance of the Paradise plan for the
progressive ascension and perfection attainment of evolutionary
mortals, one of the supernal businesses of the universe -- the
superb survival plan of bringing God down to man and then, by a
sublime sort of partnership, carrying man up to God and on to
eternity of service and divinity of attainment -- alike for
mortal and midwayer.
77:9.13
Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.
