Paper 39
The Seraphic Hosts
39:0.1 (426.1) AS FAR as we are cognizant, the Infinite Spirit, as personalized on the local universe headquarters, intends to produce uniformly perfect seraphim, but for some unknown reason these seraphic offspring are very diverse. This diversity may be a result of the unknown interposition of evolving experiential Deity; if so, we cannot prove it. But we do observe that, when seraphim have been subjected to educational tests and training discipline, they unfailingly and distinctly classify into the following seven groups:
39:0.9 (426.9) To say that any one seraphim is inferior to an angel of any other group would hardly be true. Nevertheless every angel is at first service-limited to the group of original and inherent classification. My seraphic associate in the preparation of this statement, Manotia, is a supreme seraphim and onetime functioned only as a supreme seraphim. By application and devoted service she has, one by one, achieved all seven of the seraphic services, having functioned in well-nigh every avenue of activity open to a seraphim, and now holds the commission of associate chief of seraphim on Urantia.
39:0.10 (426.10) Human beings sometimes find it hard to understand that a created capacity for higher-level ministry does not necessarily imply ability to function on relatively lower service levels. Man begins life as a helpless infant; hence every mortal attainment must embrace all experiential prerequisites; seraphim have no such preadult life — no childhood. They are, however, experiential creatures, and by experience and through additional education they can augment their divine and inherent endowment of ability by the experiential acquirement of functional skill in one or more of the seraphic services.
39:0.11 (426.11) After being commissioned, seraphim are assigned to the reserves of their inherent group. Those of planetary and administrator status often serve for long periods as originally classified, but the higher the inherent function level, the more persistently do the angelic ministers seek assignment to the lower orders of universe service. Especially do they desire assignment to the reserves of the planetary helpers, and if successful they enroll in the celestial schools attached to the headquarters of the Planetary Prince of some evolutionary world. Here they begin the study of the languages, history, and local habits of the races of mankind. Seraphim must acquire knowledge and gain experience much as do human beings. They are not far removed from you in certain personality attributes. And they all crave to start at the bottom, on the lowest possible level of ministry; thus may they hope to achieve the highest possible level of experiential destiny.
39:1.1 (427.1) These seraphim are the highest of the seven revealed orders of local universe angels. They function in seven groups, each of which is closely associated with the angelic ministers of the Seraphic Corps of Completion.
39:1.2 (427.2) 1. Son-Spirit Ministers. The first group of the supreme seraphim are assigned to the service of the high Sons and Spirit-origin beings resident and functioning in the local universe. This group of angelic ministers also serve the Universe Son and the Universe Spirit and are closely affiliated with the intelligence corps of the Bright and Morning Star, the universe chief executive of the united wills of the Creator Son and the Creative Spirit.
39:1.3 (427.3) Being of assignment to the high Sons and Spirits, these seraphim are naturally associated with the far-flung services of the Paradise Avonals, the divine offspring of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit. The Paradise Avonals are always attended on all magisterial and bestowal missions by this high and experienced order of seraphim, who are at such times devoted to organizing and administering the special work connected with the termination of one planetary dispensation and the inauguration of a new age. But they are not concerned in the work of adjudication which might be incidental to such a change in dispensations.
39:1.4 (427.4) Bestowal Attendants. Paradise Avonals, but not Creator Sons, when on a bestowal mission are always accompanied by a corps of 144 bestowal attendants. These 144 angels are the chiefs of all other Son-Spirit ministers who may be associated with a bestowal mission. There might possibly be legions of angels subject to the command of an incarnated Son of God on a planetary bestowal, but all these seraphim would be organized and directed by the 144 bestowal attendants. Higher orders of angels, supernaphim and seconaphim, might also form a part of the attending host, and though their missions are distinct from those of the seraphim, all these activities would be co-ordinated by the bestowal attendants.
39:1.5 (427.5) These bestowal attendants are completion seraphim; they have all traversed the circles of Seraphington and have attained the Seraphic Corps of Completion. And they have been further especially trained to meet the difficulties and to cope with the emergencies associated with the bestowals of the Sons of God for the advancement of the children of time. Such seraphim have all achieved Paradise and the personal embrace of the Second Source and Center, the Eternal Son.
39:1.6 (427.6) Seraphim equally crave assignment to the missions of the incarnated Sons and attachment as destiny guardians to the mortals of the realms; the latter is the surest seraphic passport to Paradise, while the bestowal attendants have achieved the highest local universe service of the completion seraphim of Paradise attainment.
39:1.7 (428.1) 2. Court Advisers. These are the seraphic advisers and helpers attached to all orders of adjudication, from the conciliators up to the highest tribunals of the realm. It is not the purpose of such tribunals to determine punitive sentences but rather to adjudicate honest differences of opinion and to decree the everlasting survival of ascending mortals. Herein lies the duty of the court advisers: to see that all charges against mortal creatures are stated in justice and adjudicated in mercy. In this work they are closely associated with the High Commissioners, Spirit-fused ascendant mortals serving in the local universe.
39:1.8 (428.2) The seraphic court advisers serve extensively as defenders of mortals. Not that there ever exists any disposition to be unfair to the lowly creatures of the realms, but while justice demands the adjudication of every default in the climb towards divine perfection, mercy requires that every such misstep be fairly adjudged in accordance with the creature nature and the divine purpose. These angels are the exponents and exemplification of the element of mercy inherent in divine justice — of fairness based on the knowledge of the underlying facts of personal motives and racial tendencies.
39:1.9 (428.3) This order of angels serves from the councils of the Planetary Princes to the highest tribunals of the local universe, while their associates of the Seraphic Corps of Completion function in the higher realms of Orvonton, even to the courts of the Ancients of Days on Uversa.
39:1.10 (428.4) 3. Universe Orientators. These are the true friends and postgraduate counselors of all those ascending creatures who are pausing for the last time on Salvington, in their universe of origin, as they stand on the brink of the spirit adventure stretching out before them in the vast superuniverse of Orvonton. And at such a time many an ascender has a feeling which mortals could understand only by comparison with the human emotion of nostalgia. Behind lie the realms of achievement, realms grown familiar by long service and morontia attainment; ahead lies the challenging mystery of a greater and vaster universe.
39:1.11 (428.5) It is the task of the universe orientators to facilitate the passage of the ascending pilgrims from the attained to the unattained level of universe service, to help these pilgrims in making those kaleidoscopic adjustments in the comprehension of meanings and values inherent in the realization that a first-stage spirit being stands, not at the end and climax of the local universe morontia ascent, but rather at the very bottom of the long ladder of spiritual ascent to the Universal Father on Paradise.
39:1.12 (428.6) Many of the Seraphington graduates, members of the Seraphic Corps of Completion who are associated with these seraphim, engage in extensive teaching in certain Salvington schools concerned with the preparation of the creatures of Nebadon for the relationships of the next universe age.
39:1.13 (428.7) 4. The Teaching Counselors. These angels are the invaluable assistants of the spiritual teaching corps of the local universe. Teaching counselors are secretaries to all orders of teachers, from the Melchizedek's and the Trinity Teacher Sons down to the morontia mortals who are assigned as helpers to those of their kind who are just behind them in the scale of ascendant life. You will first see these associate teaching seraphim on some one of the seven mansion worlds surrounding Jerusem.
39:1.14 (428.8) These seraphim become associates of the division chiefs of the numerous educational and training institutions of the local universes, and they are attached in large numbers to the faculties of the seven training worlds of the local systems and of the seventy educational spheres of the constellations. These ministrations extend on down to the individual worlds. Even the true and consecrated teachers of time are assisted, and often attended, by these counselors of the supreme seraphim.
39:1.15 (429.1) The fourth creature bestowal of the Creator Son was in the likeness of a teaching counselor of the supreme seraphim of Nebadon.
39:1.16 (429.2) 5. Directors of Assignment. A body of 144 supreme seraphim is elected from time to time by the angels serving on the evolutionary and on the architectural spheres of creature habitation. This is the highest angelic council on any sphere, and it co-ordinates the self-directed phases of seraphic service and assignment. These angels preside over all seraphic assemblies pertaining to the line of duty or the call to worship.
39:1.17 (429.3) 6. The Recorders. These are the official recorders for the supreme seraphim. Many of these high angels were born with their gifts fully developed; others have qualified for their positions of trust and responsibility by diligent application to study and faithful performance of similar duties while attached to lower or less responsible orders.
39:1.18 (429.4) 7. Unattached Ministers. Large numbers of unattached seraphim of the supreme order are self-directed servers on the architectural spheres and on the inhabited planets. Such ministers voluntarily meet the differential of demand for the service of the supreme seraphim, thus constituting the general reserve of this order.
39:2.1 (429.5) Superior seraphim receive their name, not because they are in any sense qualitatively superior to other orders of angels, but because they are in charge of the higher activities of a local universe. Very many of the first two groups of this seraphic corps are attainment seraphim, angels who have served in all phases of training and have returned to a glorified assignment as directors of their kind in the spheres of their earlier activities. Being a young universe, Nebadon does not have many of this order.
39:2.3 (429.7) 1. The Intelligence Corps. These seraphim belong to the personal staff of Gabriel, the Bright and Morning Star. They range the local universe gathering the information of the realms for his guidance in the councils of Nebadon. They are the intelligence corps of the mighty hosts over which Gabriel presides as vicegerent of the Master Son. These seraphim are not directly affiliated with either the systems or the constellations, and their information pours in direct to Salvington upon a continuous, direct, and independent circuit.39:2.4 (429.8) The intelligence corps of the various local universes can and do intercommunicate but only within a given superuniverse. There is a differential of energy which effectively segregates the business and transactions of the various supergovernments. One superuniverse can ordinarily communicate with another superuniverse only through the provisions and facilities of the Paradise clearinghouse.39:2.5 (430.1) 2. The Voice of Mercy. Mercy is the keynote of seraphic service and angelic ministry. It is therefore fitting that there should be a corps of angels who, in a special manner, portray mercy. These seraphim are the real mercy ministers of the local universes. They are the inspired leaders who foster the higher impulses and holier emotions of men and angels. The directors of these legions are now always completion seraphim who are also graduate guardians of mortal destiny; that is, each angelic pair has guided at least one soul of animal origin during the life in the flesh and has subsequently traversed the circles of Seraphington and has been mustered into the Seraphic Corps of Completion.39:2.6 (430.2) 3. Spirit Co-ordinators. The third group of superior seraphim are based on Salvington but function in the local universe anywhere they can be of fruitful service. While their tasks are essentially spiritual and therefore beyond the real understanding of human minds, you will perhaps grasp something of their ministry to mortals if it is explained that these angels are entrusted with the task of preparing the ascendant sojourners on Salvington for their last transition in the local universe — from the highest morontia level to the status of newborn spirit beings. As the mind planners on the mansion worlds help the surviving creature to adjust to, and make effective use of, the potentials of morontia mind, so do these seraphim instruct the morontia graduates on Salvington regarding the newly attained capacities of the mind of the spirit. And they serve the ascendant mortals in many other ways.39:2.7 (430.3) 4. Assistant Teachers. The assistant teachers are the helpers and associates of their fellow seraphim, the teaching counselors. They are also individually connected with the extensive educational enterprises of the local universe, especially with the sevenfold scheme of training operative on the mansion worlds of the local systems. A marvelous corps of this order of seraphim functions on Urantia for the purpose of fostering and furthering the cause of truth and righteousness.39:2.8 (430.4) 5. The Transporters. All groups of ministering spirits have their transport corps, angelic orders dedicated to the ministry of transporting those personalities who are unable, of themselves, to journey from one sphere to another. The fifth group of the superior seraphim are headquartered on Salvington and serve as space traversers to and from the headquarters of the local universe. Like other subdivisions of the superior seraphim, some were created as such while others have risen from the lower or less endowed groups.39:2.9 (430.5) The “energy range” of seraphim is wholly adequate for local universe and even for superuniverse requirements, but they could never withstand the energy demands entailed by such a long journey as that from Uversa to Havona. Such an exhaustive journey requires the special powers of a primary seconaphim of transport endowments. Transporters take on energy for flight while in transit and recuperate personal power at the end of the journey.39:2.10 (430.6) Even on Salvington ascending mortals do not possess personal transit forms. Ascenders must depend upon seraphic transport in advancing from world to world until after the last rest of sleep on the inner circle of Havona and the eternal awakening on Paradise. Subsequently you will not be dependent on angels for transport from universe to universe.39:2.11 (430.7) The process of being enseraphimed is not unlike the experience of death or sleep except that there is an automatic time element in the transit slumber. You are consciously unconscious during seraphic rest. But the Thought Adjuster is wholly and fully conscious, in fact, exceptionally efficient since you are unable to oppose, resist, or otherwise hinder creative and transforming work.39:2.12 (431.1) When enseraphimed, you go to sleep for a specified time, and you will awake at the designated moment. The length of a journey when in transit sleep is immaterial. You are not directly aware of the passing of time. It is as if you went to sleep on a transport vehicle in one city and, after resting in peaceful slumber all night, awakened in another and distant metropolis. You journeyed while you slumbered. And so you take flight through space, enseraphimed, while you rest — sleep. The transit sleep is induced by the liaison between the Adjusters and the seraphic transporters.39:2.13 (431.2) The angels cannot transport combustion bodies — flesh and blood — such as you now have, but they can transport all others, from the lowest morontia to the higher spirit forms. They do not function in the event of natural death. When you finish your earthly career, your body remains on this planet. Your Thought Adjuster proceeds to the bosom of the Father, and these angels are not directly concerned in your subsequent personality reassembly on the identification mansion world. There your new body is a morontia form, one that can enseraphim. You “sow a mortal body” in the grave; you “reap a morontia form” on the mansion worlds.39:2.14 (431.3) 6. The Recorders. These personalities are especially concerned with the reception, filing, and re-dispatch of the records of Salvington and its associated worlds. They also serve as special recorders for resident groups of super-universe and higher personalities and as clerks of the courts of Salvington and secretaries to the rulers thereof.39:2.15 (431.4) Broadcasters — receivers and dispatchers — are a specialized subdivision of the seraphic recorders, being concerned with the dispatch of records and with the dissemination of essential information. Their work is of a high order, being so multi-circuited that 144,000 messages can simultaneously traverse the same lines of energy. They adapt the higher ideographic techniques of the superaphic chief recorders and with these common symbols maintain reciprocal contact with both the intelligence coordinators of the tertiary supernaphim and the glorified intelligence coordinators of the Seraphic Corps of Completion.39:2.16 (431.5) Seraphic recorders of the superior order thus effect a close liaison with the intelligence corps of their own order and with all subordinate recorders, while the broadcasts enable them to maintain constant communication with the higher recorders of the superuniverse and, through this channel, with the recorders of Havona and the custodians of knowledge on Paradise. Many of the superior order of recorders are seraphim ascended from similar duties in lower sections of the universe.39:2.17 (431.6) 7. The Reserves. Large reserves of all types of the superior seraphim are held on Salvington, instantly available for dispatch to the farthermost worlds of Nebadon as they are requisitioned by the directors of assignment or upon the request of the universe administrators. The reserves of superior seraphim also furnish messenger aids upon requisition by the chief of the Brilliant Evening Stars, who is entrusted with the custody and dispatch of all personal communications. A local universe is fully provided with adequate means of intercommunication, but there is always a residue of messages which requires dispatch by personal messengers.
39:3.1 (432.2) This versatile order of universe angels is assigned to the exclusive service of the constellations. These able ministers make their headquarters on the constellation capitals but function throughout all Nebadon in the interests of their assigned realms.
39:3.2 (432.3) 1. Supervising Assistants. The first order of the supervising seraphim are assigned to the collective work of the Constellation Fathers, and they are the ever-efficient helpers of the Most Highs. These seraphim are primarily concerned with the unification and stabilization of a whole constellation.
39:3.3 (432.4) 2. Law Forecasters. The intellectual foundation of justice is law, and in a local universe law originates in the legislative assemblies of the constellations. These deliberative bodies codify and formally promulgate the basic laws of Nebadon, laws designed to afford the greatest possible co-ordination of a whole constellation consistent with the fixed policy of non-infringement of the moral free will of personal creatures. It is the duty of the second order of supervisor seraphim to place before the constellation lawmakers a forecast of how any proposed enactment would affect the lives of freewill creatures. This service they are well qualified to perform by virtue of long experience in the local systems and on the inhabited worlds. These seraphim seek no special favors for one group or another, but they do appear before the celestial lawmakers to speak for those who cannot be present to speak for themselves. Even mortal man may contribute to the evolution of universe law, for these very seraphim do faithfully and fully portray, not necessarily man’s transient and conscious desires, but rather the true longings of the inner man, the evolving morontia soul of the material mortal on the worlds of space.
39:3.4 (432.5) 3. Social Architects. From the individual planets up through the morontia training worlds, these seraphim labor to enhance all sincere social contacts and to further the social evolution of universe creatures. These are the angels who seek to divest the associations of intelligent beings of all artificiality while endeavoring to facilitate the inter-association of will creatures on a basis of real self-understanding and genuine mutual appreciation.
39:3.5 (432.6) Social architects do everything within their province and power to bring together suitable individuals that they may constitute efficient and agreeable working groups on earth; and sometimes such groups have found themselves reassociated on the mansion worlds for continued fruitful service. But not always do these seraphim attain their ends; not always are they able to bring together those who would form the most ideal group to achieve a given purpose or to accomplish a certain task; under these conditions they must utilize the best of the material available.
39:3.6 (432.7) These angels continue their ministry on the mansion and higher morontia worlds. They are concerned with any undertaking having to do with progress on the morontia worlds and which concerns three or more persons. Two beings are regarded as operating on the mating, complemental, or partnership basis, but when three or more are grouped for service, they constitute a social problem and therefore fall within the jurisdiction of the social architects. These efficient seraphim are organized in seventy divisions on Edentia, and these divisions minister on the seventy morontia progress worlds encircling the headquarters sphere.
39:3.7 (433.1) 4. Ethical Sensitizers. It is the mission of these seraphim to foster and to promote the growth of creature appreciation of the morality of interpersonal relationships, for such is the seed and secret of the continued and purposeful growth of society and government, human or superhuman. These enhancers of ethical appreciation function anywhere and everywhere they may be of service, as volunteer counselors to the planetary rulers and as exchange teachers on the system training worlds. You will not, however, come under their full guidance until you reach the brotherhood schools on Edentia, where they will quicken your appreciation of those very truths of fraternity which you will even then be so earnestly exploring by the actual experience of living with the univitatia in the social laboratories of Edentia, the seventy satellites of the Norlatiadek capital.
39:3.8 (433.2) 5. The Transporters. The fifth group of supervisor seraphim operate as personality transporters, carrying beings to and from the headquarters of the constellations. Such transport seraphim, while in flight from one sphere to another, are fully conscious of their velocity, direction, and astronomic whereabouts. They are not traversing space as would an inanimate projectile. They may pass near one another during space flight without the least danger of collision. They are fully able to vary speed of progression and to alter direction of flight, even to change destinations if their directors should so instruct them at any space junction of the universe intelligence circuits.
39:3.9 (433.3) These transit personalities are so organized that they can simultaneously utilize all three of the universally distributed lines of energy, each having a clear space velocity of 186,280 miles per second. These transporters are thus able to superimpose velocity of energy upon velocity of power until they attain an average speed on their long journeys varying anywhere from 555,000 to almost 559,000 of your miles per second of your time. The velocity is affected by the mass and proximity of neighboring matter and by the strength and direction of the near-by main circuits of universe power. There are numerous types of beings, similar to the seraphim, who are able to traverse space, and who also are able to transport other beings who have been properly prepared.
39:3.10 (433.4) 6. The Recorders. The sixth order of supervising seraphim act as the special recorders of constellation affairs. A large and efficient corps functions on Edentia, the headquarters of the constellation of Norlatiadek, to which your system and planet belong.
39:3.11 (433.5) 7. The Reserves. General reserves of the supervisor seraphim are held on the headquarters of the constellations. Such angelic reservists are in no sense inactive; many serve as messenger aids to the constellation rulers; others are attached to the Salvington reserves of unassigned Vorondadeks; still others may be attached to Vorondadek Sons on special assignment, such as the Vorondadek observer, and sometimes Most High regent, of Urantia.
39:4.1 (434.1) The fourth order of seraphim are assigned to the administrative duties of the local systems. They are indigenous to the system capitals but are stationed in large numbers on the mansion and morontia spheres and on the inhabited worlds. Fourth-order seraphim are by nature endowed with unusual administrative ability. They are the able assistants of the directors of the lower divisions of the universe government of a Creator Son and are mainly occupied with the affairs of the local systems and their component worlds. They are organized for service as follows:
39:4.2 (434.2) 1. Administrative Assistants. These able seraphim are the immediate assistants of a System Sovereign, a primary Lanonandek Son. They are invaluable aids in the execution of the intricate details of the executive work of the system headquarters. They also serve as the personal agents of the system rulers, journeying back and forth in large numbers to the various transition worlds and to the inhabited planets, executing many commissions for the welfare of the system and in the physical and biologic interests of its inhabited worlds.39:4.3 (434.3) These same seraphic administrators are also attached to the governments of the world rulers, the Planetary Princes. The majority of planets in a given universe are under the jurisdiction of a secondary Lanonandek Son, but on certain worlds, such as Urantia, there has been a miscarriage of the divine plan. In the event of the defection of a Planetary Prince, these seraphim become attached to the Melchizedek receivers and their successors in planetary authority. The present acting ruler of Urantia is assisted by a corps of one thousand of this versatile order of seraphim.39:4.4 (434.4) 2. Justice Guides. These are the angels who present the summary of evidence concerning the eternal welfare of men and angels when such matters come up for adjudication in the tribunals of a system or a planet. They prepare the statements for all preliminary hearings involving mortal survival, statements which are subsequently carried with the records of such cases to the higher tribunals of the universe and the super-universe. The defense of all cases of doubtful survival is prepared by these seraphim, who have a perfect understanding of all the details of every feature of every count in the indictments drawn by the administrators of universe justice.39:4.5 (434.5) It is not the mission of these angels to defeat or to delay justice but rather to insure that unerring justice is dealt out with generous mercy in fairness to all creatures. These seraphim often function on the local worlds, commonly appearing before the referee trios of the conciliating commissions — the courts for minor misunderstandings. Many who at one time served as justice guides in the lower realms later appear as Voices of Mercy in the higher spheres and on Salvington.39:4.6 (434.6) In the Lucifer rebellion in Satania very few of the justice guides were lost, but more than one quarter of the other administrator seraphim and of the lower orders of seraphic ministers were misled and deluded by the sophistries of unbridled personal liberty.39:4.7 (434.7) 3. Interpreters of Cosmic Citizenship. When ascending mortals have completed the mansion world training, the first student apprenticeship in the universe career, they are permitted to enjoy the transient satisfactions of relative maturity — citizenship on the system capital. While the attainment of each ascendant goal is a factual achievement, in the larger sense such goals are simply milestones on the long ascending path to Paradise. But however relative such successes may be, no evolutionary creature is ever denied the full though transient satisfaction of goal attainment. Ever and anon there is a pause in the Paradise ascent, a short breathing spell, during which universe horizons stand still, creature status is stationary, and the personality tastes the sweetness of goal fulfillment.39:4.8 (435.1) The first of such periods in the career of a mortal ascender occurs on the capital of a local system. During this pause you will, as a citizen of Jerusem, attempt to express in creature life those things which you have acquired during the eight preceding life experiences — embracing Urantia and the seven mansion worlds.39:4.9 (435.2) The seraphic interpreters of cosmic citizenship guide the new citizens of the system capitals and quicken their appreciation of the responsibilities of universe government. These seraphim are also closely associated with the Material Sons in the system administration, while they portray the responsibility and morality of cosmic citizenship to the material mortals on the inhabited worlds.39:4.10 (435.3) 4. Quickeners of Morality. On the mansion worlds you begin to learn self-government for the benefit of all concerned. Your mind learns co-operation, learns how to plan with other and wiser beings. On the system headquarters the seraphic teachers will further quicken your appreciation of cosmic morality — of the interactions of liberty and loyalty.39:4.11 (435.4) What is loyalty? It is the fruit of an intelligent appreciation of universe brotherhood; one could not take so much and give nothing. As you ascend the personality scale, first you learn to be loyal, then to love, then to be filial, and then may you be free; but not until you are a finaliter, not until you have attained perfection of loyalty, can you self-realize finality of liberty.39:4.12 (435.5) These seraphim teach the fruitfulness of patience: That stagnation is certain death, but that overrapid growth is equally suicidal; that as a drop of water from a higher level falls to a lower and, flowing onward, passes ever downward through a succession of short falls, so ever upward is progress in the morontia and spirit worlds — and just as slowly and by just such gradual stages.39:4.13 (435.6) To the inhabited worlds the quickeners of morality portray mortal life as an unbroken chain of many links. Your short sojourn on Urantia, on this sphere of mortal infancy, is only a single link, the very first in the long chain that is to stretch across universes and through the eternal ages. It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the experience of living this life that is important. Even the work of this world, paramount though it is, is not nearly so important as the way in which you do this work. There is no material reward for righteous living, but there is profound satisfaction — consciousness of achievement — and this transcends any conceivable material reward.39:4.14 (435.7) The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them — advance in spirit status — by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and always — in any sphere, in all of them — this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia.39:4.15 (436.1) 5. The Transporters. These are the transport seraphim who function in the local systems. In Satania, your system, they carry passengers back and forth from Jerusem and otherwise serve as interplanetary transporters. Seldom does a day pass in which a transport seraphim of Satania does not deposit some student visitor or some other traveler of spirit or semi-spirit nature on the shores of Urantia. These very space traversers will sometime carry you to and from the various worlds of the system headquarters group, and when you have finished the Jerusem assignment, they will carry you forward to Edentia. But under no circumstances will they carry you backward to the world of human origin. A mortal never returns to his native planet during the dispensation of his temporal existence, and if he should return during a subsequent dispensation, he would be escorted by a transport seraphim of the universe headquarters group.39:4.16 (436.2) 6. The Recorders. These seraphim are the keepers of the threefold records of the local systems. The temple of records on a system capital is a unique structure, one third material, constructed of luminous metals and crystals; one third morontial, fabricated of the liaison of spiritual and material energy but beyond the range of mortal vision; and one third spiritual. The recorders of this order preside over and maintain this threefold system of records. Ascending mortals will at first consult the material archives, Material Sons and the higher transition beings consult those of the morontia halls, while seraphim and the higher spirit personalities of the realm peruse the records of the spirit section.39:4.17 (436.3) 7. The Reserves. The reserve corps of administrator seraphim on Jerusem spend much of their waiting time in visiting, as spirit companions, with the newly arrived ascending mortals from the various worlds of the system — the accredited graduates of the mansion worlds. One of the delights of your sojourn on Jerusem will be to talk and visit, during recess periods, with these much-traveled and many-experienced seraphim of the waiting reserve corps.
39:4.18 (436.4) It is just such friendly relationships as these that so endear a system capital to the ascending mortals. On Jerusem you will find the first intermingling of Material Sons, angels, and ascending pilgrims. Here fraternize beings who are wholly spiritual and semi-spiritual and individuals just emerging from material existence. Mortal forms are there so modified and human ranges of light reaction so extended that all are able to enjoy mutual recognition and sympathetic personality understanding.
39:5.1 (436.5) These seraphim maintain headquarters on the system capitals and, though closely associated with the resident Adamic citizens, are primarily assigned to the service of the Planetary Adams, the biologic or physical up-lifters of the material races on the evolutionary worlds. The ministering work of angels becomes of increasing interest as it nears the inhabited worlds, as it nears the actual problems faced by the men and women of time who are preparing themselves for the attempt to attain the goal of eternity.
39:5.2 (437.1) On Urantia the majority of the planetary helpers were removed upon the collapse of the Adamic regime, and the seraphic supervision of your world devolved to a greater extent upon the administrators, the transition ministers, and the guardians of destiny. But these seraphic aids of your defaulting Material Sons still serve Urantia in the following groups:
39:5.3 (437.2) 1. The Voices of the Garden. When the planetary course of human evolution is attaining its highest biologic level, there always appear the Material Sons and Daughters, the Adams and Eves, to augment the further evolution of the races by an actual contribution of their superior life plasm. The planetary headquarters of such an Adam and Eve is usually denominated the Garden of Eden, and their personal seraphim are often known as the “voices of the Garden.” These seraphim are of invaluable service to the Planetary Adams in all their projects for the physical and intellectual up-stepping of the evolutionary races. After the Adamic default on Urantia, some of these seraphim were left on the planet and were assigned to Adam’s successors in authority.39:5.4 (437.3) 2. The Spirits of Brotherhood. It should be apparent that, when an Adam and Eve arrive on an evolutionary world, the task of achieving racial harmony and social co-operation among its diverse races is one of considerable proportions. Seldom do these races of different colors and varied natures take kindly to the plan of human brotherhood. These primitive men only come to realize the wisdom of peaceful inter-association as a result of ripened human experience and through the faithful ministry of the seraphic spirits of brotherhood. Without the work of these seraphim the efforts of the Material Sons to harmonize and advance the races of an evolving world would be greatly delayed. And had your Adam adhered to the original plan for the advancement of Urantia, by this time these spirits of brotherhood would have worked unbelievable transformations in the human race. In view of the Adamic default, it is indeed remarkable that these seraphic orders have been able to foster and bring to realization even as much of brotherhood as you now have on Urantia.39:5.5 (437.4) 3. The Souls of Peace. The early millenniums of the upward striving of evolutionary men are marked by many a struggle. Peace is not the natural state of the material realms. The worlds first realize “peace on earth and good will among men” through the ministry of the seraphic souls of peace. Although these angels were largely thwarted in their early efforts on Urantia, Vevona, chief of the souls of peace in Adam’s day, was left on Urantia and is now attached to the staff of the resident governor general. And it was this same Vevona who, when Michael was born, heralded to the worlds, as the leader of the angelic host, “Glory to God in Havona and on earth peace and good will among men.”39:5.6 (437.5) In the more advanced epochs of planetary evolution these seraphim are instrumental in supplanting the atonement idea by the concept of divine attunement as a philosophy of mortal survival.39:5.7 (437.6) 4. The Spirits of Trust. Suspicion is the inherent reaction of primitive men; the survival struggles of the early ages do not naturally breed trust. Trust is a new human acquisition brought about by the ministry of these planetary seraphim of the Adamic regime. It is their mission to inculcate trust into the minds of evolving men. The Gods are very trustful; the Universal Father is willing freely to trust himself — the Adjuster — to man’s association.39:5.8 (438.1) This entire group of seraphim was transferred to the new regime after the Adamic miscarriage, and they have ever since continued their labors on Urantia. And they have not been wholly unsuccessful since a civilization is now evolving which embodies much of their ideals of confidence and trust.39:5.9 (438.2) In the more advanced planetary ages these seraphim enhance man’s appreciation of the truth that uncertainty is the secret of contented continuity. They help the mortal philosophers to realize that, when ignorance is essential to success, it would be a colossal blunder for the creature to know the future. They heighten man’s taste for the sweetness of uncertainty, for the romance and charm of the indefinite and unknown future.39:5.10 (438.3) 5. The Transporters. The planetary transporters serve the individual worlds. The majority of enseraphimed beings brought to this planet are in transit; they merely stop over; they are in custody of their own special seraphic transporters; but there are a large number of such seraphim stationed on Urantia. These are the transport personalities operating from the local planets, as from Urantia to Jerusem.39:5.11 (438.4) Your conventional idea of angels has been derived in the following way: During moments just prior to physical death a reflective phenomenon sometimes occurs in the human mind, and this dimming consciousness seems to visualize something of the form of the attending angel, and this is immediately translated into terms of the habitual concept of angels held in that individual’s mind.39:5.12 (438.5) The erroneous idea that angels possess wings is not wholly due to olden notions that they must have wings to fly through the air. Human beings have sometimes been permitted to observe seraphim that were being prepared for transport service, and the traditions of these experiences have largely determined the Urantian concept of angels. In observing a transport seraphim being made ready to receive a passenger for interplanetary transit, there may be seen what are apparently double sets of wings extending from the head to the foot of the angel. In reality these wings are energy insulators — friction shields.39:5.13 (438.6) When celestial beings are to be enseraphimed for transfer from one world to another, they are brought to the headquarters of the sphere and, after due registry, are inducted into the transit sleep. Meantime, the transport seraphim moves into a horizontal position immediately above the universe energy pole of the planet. While the energy shields are wide open, the sleeping personality is skillfully deposited, by the officiating seraphic assistants, directly on top of the transport angel. Then both the upper and lower pairs of shields are carefully closed and adjusted.39:5.14 (438.7) And now, under the influence of the transformers and the transmitters, a strange metamorphosis begins as the seraphim is made ready to swing into the energy currents of the universe circuits. To outward appearance the seraphim grows pointed at both extremities and becomes so enshrouded in a queer light of amber hue that very soon it is impossible to distinguish the enseraphimed personality. When all is in readiness for departure, the chief of transport makes the proper inspection of the carriage of life, carries out the routine tests to ascertain whether or not the angel is properly encircuited, and then announces that the traveler is properly enseraphimed, that the energies are adjusted, that the angel is insulated, and that everything is in readiness for the departing flash. The mechanical controllers, two of them, next take their positions. By this time the transport seraphim has become an almost transparent, vibrating, torpedo-shaped outline of glistening luminosity. Now the transport dispatcher of the realm summons the auxiliary batteries of the living energy transmitters, usually one thousand in number; as he announces the destination of the transport, he reaches out and touches the near point of the seraphic carriage, which shoots forward with lightninglike speed, leaving a trail of celestial luminosity as far as the planetary atmospheric investment extends. In less than ten minutes the marvelous spectacle will be lost even to reinforced seraphic vision.39:5.15 (439.1) While planetary space reports are received at noon at the meridian of the designated spiritual headquarters, the transporters are dispatched from this same place at midnight. That is the most favorable time for departure and is the standard hour when not otherwise specified.39:5.16 (439.2) 6. The Recorders. These are the custodians of the major affairs of the planet as it functions as a part of the system, and as it is related to, and concerned in, the universe government. They function in the recording of planetary affairs but are not concerned with matters of individual life and existence.39:5.17 (439.3) 7. The Reserves. The Satania reserve corps of the planetary seraphim is maintained on Jerusem in close association with the reserves of the Material Sons. These abundant reserves repletely provide for every phase of the manifold activities of this seraphic order. These angels are also the personal message bearers of the local systems. They serve transition mortals, angels, and the Material Sons as well as others domiciled on the system headquarters. While Urantia is, at present, outside the spiritual circuits of Satania and Norlatiadek, you are otherwise in intimate touch with interplanetary affairs, for these messengers from Jerusem frequently come to this world as to all the other spheres of the system.
39:6.1 (439.4) As their name might suggest, seraphim of transitional ministry serve wherever they can contribute to creature transition from the material to the spiritual estate. These angels serve from the inhabited worlds to the system capitals, but those in Satania at present direct their greatest efforts toward the education of the surviving mortals on the seven mansion worlds. This ministry is diversified in accordance with the following seven orders of assignment:
39:6.9 (439.12) More about these seraphic ministers to transitional ascenders you will learn in connection with the narratives dealing with the mansion worlds and the morontia life.
39:7.1 (440.1) These angels do not minister extensively except in older realms and on the more advanced planets of Nebadon. Large numbers of them are held in reserve on the seraphic worlds near Salvington, where they are engaged in pursuits relevant to the sometime dawning of the age of light and life in Nebadon. These seraphim do function in connection with the ascendant-mortal career but minister almost exclusively to those mortals who survive by some one of the modified orders of ascension.
39:7.2 (440.2) Inasmuch as these angels are not now directly concerned with either Urantia or Urantians, it is deemed best to withhold the description of their fascinating activities.
39:8.1 (440.3) Seraphim are of origin in the local universes, and in these very realms of their nativity some achieve service destiny. With the help and counsel of the senior archangels some seraphim may be elevated to the exalted duties of Brilliant Evening Stars, while others attain the status and service of the unrevealed co-ordinates of the Evening Stars. Still other adventures in local universe destiny may be attempted, but Seraphington ever remains the eternal goal of all angels. Seraphington is the angelic threshold to Paradise and Deity attainment, the transition sphere from the ministry of time to the exalted service of eternity.
39:8.2 (440.4) Seraphim may attain Paradise in scores — hundreds — of ways, but the most important as elaborated in these narratives are the following:
39:8.3 (440.5) 1. To gain admission to the Paradise seraphic abode in a personal capacity by achieving perfection of specialized service as a celestial artisan, a Technical Adviser, or a Celestial Recorder. To become a Paradise Companion and, having thus attained the center of all things, perhaps then to become an eternal minister and adviser to the seraphic orders and others.39:8.4 (440.6) 2. To be summoned to Seraphington. Under certain conditions seraphim are commanded on high; in other circumstances angels sometimes achieve Paradise in a much shorter time than mortals. But no matter how fitted any seraphic pair may be, they cannot initiate departure for Seraphington or elsewhere. None but successful destiny guardians can be sure of proceeding to Paradise by a progressive path of evolutionary ascent. All others must patiently await the arrival of the Paradise messengers of the tertiary supernaphim who come with the summons commanding them to appear on high.39:8.5 (440.7) 3. To attain Paradise by the evolutionary mortal technique. The supreme choice of seraphim in the career of time is the post of guardian angel in order that they may attain the career of finality and be qualified for assignment to the eternal spheres of seraphic service. Such personal guides of the children of time are called guardians of destiny, signifying that they guard mortal creatures in the path of divine destiny, and that in so doing they are determining their own high destiny.39:8.6 (440.8) Guardians of destiny are drawn from the ranks of the more experienced angelic personalities of all orders of seraphim who have qualified for this service. All surviving mortals of Adjuster-fusion destiny have temporary guardians assigned, and these associates may become permanently attached when mortal survivors attain the requisite intellectual and spiritual development. Before mortal ascenders leave the mansion worlds, they all have permanent seraphic associates. This group of ministering spirits is discussed in connection with the Urantia narratives.
39:8.7 (441.1) It is not possible for angels to attain God from the human level of origin, for they are created a “little higher than you”; but it has been wisely arranged that, while they cannot possibly start up from the very bottom, the spiritual lowlands of mortal existence, they may go down to those who do start from the bottom and pilot such creatures, step by step, world by world, to the portals of Havona. When mortal ascenders leave Uversa to begin the circles of Havona, those guardians of attachment subsequent to the life in the flesh will bid their pilgrim associates a temporary farewell while they journey to Seraphington, the angelic destination of the grand universe. Here will these guardians attempt, and undoubtedly achieve, the seven circles of seraphic light.
39:8.8 (441.2) Many, but not all, of those seraphim assigned as destiny guardians during the material life accompany their mortal associates through the Havona circles, and certain other seraphim pass through the circuits of the central universe in a way that is wholly different from the mortal ascent. But irrespective of the route of ascent, all evolutionary seraphim traverse Seraphington, and the majority pass through this experience instead of the Havona circuits.
39:8.9 (441.3) Seraphington is the destiny sphere for angels, and their attainment of this world is quite different from the experiences of the mortal pilgrims on Ascendington. Angels are not absolutely sure of their eternal future until they have attained Seraphington. No angel attaining Seraphington has ever been known to go astray; sin will never find response in the heart of a seraphim of completion.
39:8.10 (441.4) The graduates of Seraphington are variously assigned: Destiny guardians of Havona-circle experience usually enter the Mortal Finaliter Corps. Other guardians, having passed their Havona separation tests, frequently rejoin their mortal associates on Paradise, and some become the everlasting associates of the mortal finaliters, while others enter the various nonmortal finaliter corps, and many are mustered into the Corps of Seraphic Completion.
39:9.1 (441.5) After attainment of the Father of spirits and admission to the seraphic service of completion, angels are sometimes assigned to the ministry of worlds settled in light and life. They gain attachment to the high trinitized beings of the universes and to the exalted services of Paradise and Havona. These seraphim of the local universes have experientially compensated the differential in divinity potential formerly setting them apart from the ministering spirits of the central and super-universes. Angels of the Seraphic Corps of Completion serve as associates of the super-universe seconaphim and as assistants to the high Paradise-Havona orders of supernaphim. For such angels the career of time is finished; henceforth and forever they are the servants of God, the consorts of divine personalities, and the peers of the Paradise finaliters.
39:9.2 (441.6) Large numbers of the completion seraphim return to their native universes, there to complement the ministry of divine endowment by the ministry of experiential perfection. Nebadon is, comparatively speaking, one of the younger universes and therefore does not have so many of these returned Seraphington graduates as would be found in an older realm; nonetheless our local universe is adequately supplied with the completion seraphim, for it is significant that the evolutionary realms disclose increasing need for their services as they near the status of light and life. Completion seraphim now serve more extensively with the supreme orders of seraphim, but some serve with each of the other angelic orders. Even your world enjoys the extensive ministry of twelve specialized groups of the Seraphic Corps of Completion; these master seraphim of planetary supervision accompany each newly commissioned Planetary Prince to the inhabited worlds.
39:9.3 (442.1) Many fascinating avenues of ministry are open to the completion seraphim, but just as they all craved assignment as destiny guardians in the pre-Paradise days, so in the post-Paradise experience they most desire to serve as bestowal attendants of the incarnated Paradise Sons. They are still supremely devoted to that universal plan of starting the mortal creatures of the evolutionary worlds out upon the long and enticing journey towards the Paradise goal of divinity and eternity. Throughout the whole mortal adventure of finding God and of achieving divine perfection, these spirit ministers of seraphic completion, together with the faithful ministering spirits of time, are always and forever your true friends and unfailing helpers.
39:9.4 (442.2) [Presented by a Melchizedek acting by request of the Chief of the Seraphic Hosts of Nebadon.]
Paper 40
The Ascending Sons of God
40:0.1 (443.1) AS IN many of the major groups of universe beings, seven general classes of the Ascending Sons of God have been revealed:
40:0.9 (443.9) The story of these beings, from the lowly animal-origin mortals of the evolutionary worlds to the Personalized Adjusters of the Universal Father, presents a glorious recital of the un-stinted bestowal of divine love and gracious condescension throughout all time and in all universes of the far-flung creation of the Paradise Deities.
40:0.10 (443.10) These presentations began with a description of the Deities, and group by group, the narrative has descended the universal scale of living beings until it has reached the lowest order of life endowed with the potential of immortality; and now am I dispatched from Salvington — onetime a mortal of origin on an evolutionary world of space — to elaborate and continue the recital of the eternal purpose of the Gods respecting the ascending orders of sonship, more particularly with regard to the mortal creatures of time and space.
40:0.11 (443.11) Since the greater part of this narrative will be devoted to a discussion of the three basic orders of ascending mortals, consideration will first be given to the nonmortal ascending orders of sonship — seraphic, Adamic, midwayer, and Adjuster.
40:1.1 (443.12) Mortal creatures of animal origin are not the only beings privileged to enjoy sonship; the angelic hosts also share the supernal opportunity to attain Paradise. Guardian seraphim, through experience and service with the ascending mortals of time, also achieve the status of ascendant sonship. Such angels attain Paradise through Seraphington, and many are even mustered into the Corps of Mortal Finality.
40:1.2 (443.13) To climb to the supernal heights of finaliter sonship with God is a masterly achievement for an angel, an accomplishment far transcending your attainment of eternal survival through the plan of the Eternal Son and the ever-present help of the indwelling Adjuster; but the guardian seraphim, and occasionally others, do actually effect such ascensions.
40:2.1 (444.1) The Material Sons of God are created in the local universe along with the Melchizedek's and their associates, who are all classified as descending Sons. And indeed, the Planetary Adams — the Material Sons and Daughters of the evolutionary worlds — are descending Sons, coming down to the inhabited worlds from their spheres of origin, the capitals of the local systems.
40:2.2 (444.2) When such an Adam and Eve are wholly successful in their joint planetary mission as biologic uplifters, they share the destiny of the inhabitants of their world. When such a world is settled in the advanced stages of light and life, this faithful Material Son and Daughter are permitted to resign all planetary administrative duties, and after being thus liberated from the descending adventure, they are permitted to register themselves as perfected Material Sons on the records of the local universe. Likewise, when planetary assignment is long delayed, may the Material Sons of stationary status — the citizens of the local systems — withdraw from the activities of their status spheres and similarly register as perfected Material Sons. After these formalities such liberated Adams and Eves are accredited as ascending Sons of God and may immediately begin the long journey to Havona and Paradise, starting at the exact point of their then present status and spiritual attainment. And they make this journey in company with the mortal and other ascending Sons, continuing until they have found God and have achieved the Corps of Mortal Finality in the eternal service of the Paradise Deities.
40:3.1 (444.3) Although deprived of the immediate benefits of the planetary bestowals of the descending Sons of God, though the Paradise ascent is long deferred, nevertheless, soon after an evolutionary planet has attained the intermediate epochs of light and life (if not before), both groups of midway creatures are released from planetary duty. Sometimes the majority of them are translated, along with their human cousins, on the day of the descent of the temple of light and the elevation of the Planetary Prince to the dignity of Planetary Sovereign. Upon being relieved of planetary service, both orders are registered in the local universe as ascending Sons of God and immediately begin the long Paradise ascent by the very routes ordained for the progression of the mortal races of the material worlds. The primary group are destined to various finaliter corps, but the secondary or Adamic midwayers are all routed for enrollment in the Mortal Corps of Finality.
40:4.1 (444.4) When the mortals of time fail to achieve the eternal survival of their souls in planetary association with the spirit gifts of the Universal Father, such failure is never in any way due to neglect of duty, ministry, service, or devotion on the part of the Adjuster. At mortal death, such deserted Monitors return to Divinington, and subsequently, following the adjudication of the non-survivor, they may be reassigned to the worlds of time and space. Sometimes, after repeated services of this sort or following some unusual experience, such as functioning as the indwelling Adjuster of an incarnated bestowal Son, these efficient Adjusters are personalized by the Universal Father.
40:4.2 (445.1) Personalized Adjusters are beings of a unique and unfathomable order. Originally of existential prepersonal status, they have experientialized by participation in the lives and careers of the lowly mortals of the material worlds. And since the personality bestowed upon these experienced Thought Adjusters takes origin, and has its wellspring, in the Universal Father’s personal and continuing ministry of the bestowals of experiential personality upon his creature creation, these Personalized Adjusters are classified as ascending Sons of God, the highest of all such orders of sonship.
40:5.1 (445.2) Mortals represent the last link in the chain of those beings who are called sons of God. The personal touch of the Original and Eternal Son passes on down through a series of decreasingly divine and increasingly human personalizations until there arrives a being much like yourselves, one you can see, hear, and touch. And then you are made spiritually aware of the great truth which your faith may grasp — sonship with the eternal God!
40:5.2 (445.3) Likewise does the Original and Infinite Spirit, by a long series of decreasingly divine and increasingly human orders, draw nearer and nearer to the struggling creatures of the realms, reaching the limit of expression in the angels — than whom you were created but a little lower — who personally guard and guide you in the life journey of the mortal career of time.
40:5.3 (445.4) God the Father does not, cannot, thus downstep himself to make such near personal contact with the almost limitless number of ascending creatures throughout the universe of universes. But the Father is not deprived of personal contact with his lowly creatures; you are not without the divine presence. Although God the Father cannot be with you by direct personality manifestation, he is in you and of you in the identity of the indwelling Thought Adjusters, the divine Monitors. Thus does the Father, who is the farthest from you in personality and in spirit, draw the nearest to you in the personality circuit and in the spirit touch of inner communion with the very souls of his mortal sons and daughters.
40:5.4 (445.5) Spirit identification constitutes the secret of personal survival and determines the destiny of spiritual ascension. And since the Thought Adjusters are the only spirits of fusion potential to be identified with man during the life in the flesh, the mortals of time and space are primarily classified in accordance with their relation to these divine gifts, the indwelling Mystery Monitors. This classification is as follows:
40:5.8 (445.9) Series one — mortals of the transient or experiential Adjuster sojourn. This series designation is temporary for any evolving planet, being used during the early stages of all inhabited worlds except those of the second series.
40:5.9 (445.10) Mortals of series one inhabit the worlds of space during the earlier epochs of the evolution of mankind and embrace the most primitive types of human minds. On many worlds like pre-Adamic Urantia great numbers of the higher and more advanced types of primitive men acquire survival capacity but fail to attain Adjuster fusion. For ages upon ages, before man’s ascent to the level of higher spiritual volition, the Adjusters occupy the minds of these struggling creatures during their short lives in the flesh, and the moment such will creatures are indwelt by Adjusters, the group guardian angels begin to function. While these mortals of the first series do not have personal guardians, they do have group custodians.
40:5.10 (446.1) An experiential Adjuster remains with a primitive human being throughout his entire lifetime in the flesh. The Adjusters contribute much to the advancement of primitive men but are unable to form eternal unions with such mortals. This transient ministry of the Adjusters accomplishes two things: First, they gain valuable and actual experience in the nature and working of the evolutionary intellect, an experience which will be invaluable in connection with later contacts on other worlds with beings of higher development. Second, the transient sojourn of the Adjusters contributes much towards preparing their mortal subjects for possible subsequent Spirit fusion. All God-seeking souls of this type achieve eternal life through the spiritual embrace of the Mother Spirit of the local universe, thus becoming ascending mortals of the local universe regime. Many persons from pre-Adamic Urantia were thus advanced to the mansion worlds of Satania.
40:5.11 (446.2) The Gods who ordained that mortal man should climb to higher levels of spiritual intelligence through long ages of evolutionary trials and tribulations, take note of his status and needs at every stage of the ascent; and always are they divinely fair and just, even charmingly merciful, in the final judgments of these struggling mortals of the early days of the evolving races.
40:5.12 (446.3) Series two — mortals of the non-Adjuster-fusion types. These are specialized types of human beings who are not able to effect eternal union with their indwelling Adjusters. Type classification among the one-, two-, and three-brained races is not a factor in Adjuster fusion; all such mortals are akin, but these non-Adjuster-fusion types are a wholly different and markedly modified order of will creatures. Many of the nonbreathers belong to this series, and there are numerous other groups who do not ordinarily fuse with Adjusters.
40:5.13 (446.4) Like series number one, each member of this group enjoys the ministry of a single Adjuster during lifetime in the flesh. During temporal life these Adjusters do everything for their subjects of temporary indwelling that is done on other worlds where the mortals are of fusion potential. The mortals of this second series are often indwelt by virgin Adjusters, but the higher human types are often in liaison with masterful and experienced Monitors.
40:5.14 (446.5) In the ascendant plan for upstepping the animal-origin creatures, these beings enjoy the same devoted service of the Sons of God as is extended to the Urantia type of mortals. Seraphic co-operation with Adjusters on the nonfusion planets is just as fully provided as on the worlds of fusion potential; the guardians of destiny minister on such spheres just as on Urantia and similarly function at the time of mortal survival, at which time the surviving soul becomes Spirit fused.
40:5.15 (446.6) When you encounter these modified mortal types on the mansion worlds, you will find no difficulty in communicating with them. There they speak the same system language but by a modified technique. These beings are identical with your order of creature life in spirit and personality manifestations, differing only in certain physical features and in the fact that they are nonfusible with Thought Adjusters.
40:5.16 (447.1) As to just why this type of creature is never able to fuse with the Adjusters of the Universal Father, I am unable to say. Some of us incline to the belief that the Life Carriers, in their efforts to formulate beings capable of maintaining existence in an unusual planetary environment, are confronted with the necessity of making such radical modifications in the universe plan of intelligent will creatures that it becomes inherently impossible to bring about permanent union with the Adjusters. Often have we asked: Is this an intended or an unintended part of the ascension plan? but we have not found the answer.
40:5.17 (447.2) Series three — mortals of Adjuster-fusion potential. All Father-fused mortals are of animal origin, just like the Urantia races. They embrace mortals of the one-brained, two-brained, and three-brained types of Adjuster-fusion potential. Urantians are of the intermediate or two-brained type, being in many ways humanly superior to the one-brained groups but definitely limited in comparison with the three-brained orders. These three types of physical-brain endowment are not factors in Adjuster bestowal, in seraphic service, or in any other phase of spirit ministry. The intellectual and spiritual differential between the three brain types characterizes individuals who are otherwise quite alike in mind endowment and spiritual potential, being greatest in the temporal life and tending to diminish as the mansion worlds are traversed one by one. From the system headquarters on, the progression of these three types is the same, and their eventual Paradise destiny is identical.
40:5.18 (447.3) The unnumbered series. These narratives cannot possibly embrace all of the fascinating variations in the evolutionary worlds. You know that every tenth world is a decimal or experimental planet, but you know nothing of the other variables that punctuate the processional of the evolutionary spheres. There are differences too numerous to narrate even between the revealed orders of living creatures as between planets of the same group, but this presentation makes clear the essential differences in relation to the ascension career. And the ascension career is the most important factor in any consideration of the mortals of time and space.
40:5.19 (447.4) As to the chances of mortal survival, let it be made forever clear: All souls of every possible phase of mortal existence will survive provided they manifest willingness to co-operate with their indwelling Adjusters and exhibit a desire to find God and to attain divine perfection, even though these desires be but the first faint flickers of the primitive comprehension of that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.”
40:6.1 (447.5) The mortal races stand as the representatives of the lowest order of intelligent and personal creation. You mortals are divinely beloved, and every one of you may choose to accept the certain destiny of a glorious experience, but you are not yet by nature of the divine order; you are wholly mortal. You will be reckoned as ascending sons the instant fusion takes place, but the status of the mortals of time and space is that of faith sons prior to the event of the final amalgamation of the surviving mortal soul with some type of eternal and immortal spirit.
40:6.2 (448.1) It is a solemn and supernal fact that such lowly and material creatures as Urantia human beings are the sons of God, faith children of the Highest. “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.” “As many as received him, to them gave he the power to recognize that they are the sons of God.” While “it does not yet appear what you shall be,” even now “you are the faith sons of God”; “for you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship, whereby you cry, ‘our Father.’” Spoke the prophet of old in the name of the eternal God: “Even to them will I give in my house a place and a name better than sons; I will give them an everlasting name, one that shall not be cut off.” “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts.”
40:6.3 (448.2) All evolutionary worlds of mortal habitation harbor these faith sons of God, sons of grace and mercy, mortal beings belonging to the divine family and accordingly called the sons of God. Urantia mortals are entitled to regard themselves as being the sons of God because:
40:6.4 (448.3) 1. You are sons of spiritual promise, faith sons; you have accepted the status of sonship. You believe in the reality of your sonship, and thus does your sonship with God become eternally real.40:6.5 (448.4) 2. A Creator Son of God became one of you; he is your elder brother in fact; and if in spirit you become truly related brothers of Christ, the victorious Michael, then in spirit must you also be sons of that Father which you have in common — even the Universal Father of all.40:6.6 (448.5) 3. You are sons because the spirit of a Son has been poured out upon you, has been freely and certainly bestowed upon all Urantia races. This spirit ever draws you toward the divine Son, who is its source, and toward the Paradise Father, who is the source of that divine Son.
40:7.1 (448.8) The sending of Adjusters, their indwelling, is indeed one of the unfathomable mysteries of God the Father. These fragments of the divine nature of the Universal Father carry with them the potential of creature immortality. Adjusters are immortal spirits, and union with them confers eternal life upon the soul of the fused mortal.
40:7.2 (448.9) Your own races of surviving mortals belong to this group of the ascending Sons of God. You are now planetary sons, evolutionary creatures derived from the Life Carrier implantations and modified by the Adamic-life infusion, hardly yet ascending sons; but you are indeed sons of ascension potential — even to the highest heights of glory and divinity attainment — and this spiritual status of ascending sonship you may attain by faith and by freewill co-operation with the spiritualizing activities of the indwelling Adjuster. When you and your Adjusters are finally and forever fused, when you two are made one, even as in Christ Michael the Son of God and the Son of Man are one, then in fact have you become the ascending sons of God.
40:7.3 (449.1) The details of the Adjuster career of indwelling ministry on a probationary and evolutionary planet are not a part of my assignment; the elaboration of this great truth embraces your whole career. I include the mention of certain Adjuster functions in order to make a replete statement regarding Adjuster-fused mortals. These indwelling fragments of God are with your order of being from the early days of physical existence through all of the ascending career in Nebadon and Orvonton and on through Havona to Paradise itself. Thereafter, in the eternal adventure, this same Adjuster is one with you and of you.
40:7.4 (449.2) These are the mortals who have been commanded by the Universal Father, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” The Father has bestowed himself upon you, placed his own spirit within you; therefore does he demand ultimate perfection of you. The narrative of human ascent from the mortal spheres of time to the divine realms of eternity constitutes an intriguing recital not included in my assignment, but this supernal adventure should be the supreme study of mortal man.
40:7.5 (449.3) Fusion with a fragment of the Universal Father is equivalent to a divine validation of eventual Paradise attainment, and such Adjuster-fused mortals are the only class of human beings who all traverse the Havona circuits and find God on Paradise. To the Adjuster-fused mortal the career of universal service is wide open. What dignity of destiny and glory of attainment await every one of you! Do you fully appreciate what has been done for you? Do you comprehend the grandeur of the heights of eternal achievement which are spread out before you? — even you who now trudge on in the lowly path of life through your so-called “vale of tears”?
40:8.1 (449.4) While practically all surviving mortals are fused with their Adjusters on one of the mansion worlds or immediately upon their arrival on the higher morontia spheres, there are certain cases of delayed fusion, some not experiencing this final surety of survival until they reach the last educational worlds of the universe headquarters; and a few of these mortal candidates for never-ending life utterly fail to attain identity fusion with their faithful Adjusters.
40:8.2 (449.5) Such mortals have been deemed worthy of survival by the adjudicational authorities, and even their Adjusters, by returning from Divinington, have concurred in their ascension to the mansion worlds. Such beings have ascended through a system, a constellation, and through the educational worlds of the Salvington circuit; they have enjoyed the “seventy times seven” opportunities for fusion and still have been unable to attain oneness with their Adjusters.
40:8.3 (449.6) When it becomes apparent that some synchronizing difficulty is inhibiting Father fusion, the survival referees of the Creator Son are convened. And when this court of inquiry, sanctioned by a personal representative of the Ancients of Days, finally determines that the ascending mortal is not guilty of any discoverable cause for failure to attain fusion, they so certify on the records of the local universe and duly transmit this finding to the Ancients of Days. Thereupon does the indwelling Adjuster return forthwith to Divinington for confirmation by the Personalized Monitors, and upon this leave-taking the morontia mortal is immediately fused with an individualized gift of the spirit of the Creator Son.
40:8.4 (450.1) Much as the morontia spheres of Nebadon are shared with the Spirit-fused mortals, so do these Son-fused creatures share the services of Orvonton with their Adjuster-fused brethren who are journeying inward towards the far-distant Isle of Paradise. They are truly your brethren, and you will greatly enjoy their association as you pass through the training worlds of the superuniverse.
40:8.5 (450.2) Son-fused mortals are not a numerous group, there being less than one million of them in the super-universe of Orvonton. Aside from residential destiny on Paradise they are in every way the equals of their Adjuster-fused associates. They frequently journey to Paradise on super-universe assignment but seldom permanently reside there, being, as a class, confined to the super-universe of their nativity.
40:9.1 (450.3) Ascending Spirit-fused mortals are not Third Source personalities; they are included in the Father’s personality circuit, but they have fused with individualization's of the pre-mind spirit of the Third Source and Center. Such Spirit fusion never occurs during the span of natural life; it takes place only at the time of mortal reawakening in the morontia existence on the mansion worlds. In the fusion experience there is no overlapping; the will creature is either Spirit fused, Son fused, or Father fused. Those who are Adjuster or Father fused are never Spirit or Son fused.
40:9.2 (450.4) The fact that these types of mortal creatures are not Adjuster-fusion candidates does not prevent the Adjusters from indwelling them during the life in the flesh. Adjusters do work in the minds of such beings during the span of material life but never become everlastingly one with their pupil souls. During this temporary sojourn the Adjusters effectively build up the same spirit counterpart of mortal nature — the soul — that they do in the candidates for Adjuster fusion. Up to the time of mortal death the work of the Adjusters is wholly akin to their function in your own races, but upon mortal dissolution the Adjusters take eternal leave of these Spirit-fusion candidates and, proceeding directly to Divinington, the headquarters of all divine Monitors, there await the new assignments of their order.
40:9.3 (450.5) When such sleeping survivors are repersonalized on the mansion worlds, the place of the departed Adjuster is filled by an individualization of the spirit of the Divine Minister, the representative of the Infinite Spirit in the local universe concerned. This spirit infusion constitutes these surviving creatures Spirit-fused mortals. Such beings are in every way your equals in mind and spirit; and they are indeed your contemporaries, sharing the mansion and morontia spheres in common with your order of fusion candidates and with those who are to be Son fused.
40:9.4 (450.6) There is, however, one particular in which Spirit-fused mortals differ from their ascendant brethren: Mortal memory of human experience on the material worlds of origin survives death in the flesh because the indwelling Adjuster has acquired a spirit counterpart, or transcript, of those events of human life which were of spiritual significance. But with Spirit-fused mortals there exists no such mechanism whereby human memory may persist. The Adjuster transcripts of memory are full and intact, but these acquisitions are experiential possessions of the departed Adjusters and are not available to the creatures of their former indwelling, who therefore awaken in the resurrection halls of the morontia spheres of Nebadon as if they were newly created beings, creatures without consciousness of former existence.
40:9.5 (451.1) Such children of the local universe are enabled to repossess themselves of much of their former human memory experience through having it retold by the associated seraphim and cherubim and by consulting the records of the mortal career filed by the recording angels. This they can do with undoubted assurance because the surviving soul, of experiential origin in the material and mortal life, while having no memory of mortal events, does have a residual experiential-recognition-response to these unremembered events of past experience.
40:9.6 (451.2) When a Spirit-fused mortal is told about the events of the unremembered past experience, there is an immediate response of experiential recognition within the soul (identity) of such a survivor which instantly invests the narrated event with the emotional tinge of reality and with the intellectual quality of fact; and this dual response constitutes the reconstruction, recognition, and validation of an unremembered facet of mortal experience.
40:9.7 (451.3) Even with Adjuster-fusion candidates, only those human experiences which were of spiritual value are common possessions of the surviving mortal and the returning Adjuster and hence are immediately remembered subsequent to mortal survival. Concerning those happenings which were not of spiritual significance, even these Adjuster-fusers must depend upon the attribute of recognition-response in the surviving soul. And since any one event may have a spiritual connotation to one mortal but not to another, it becomes possible for a group of contemporary ascenders from the same planet to pool their store of Adjuster-remembered events and thus to reconstruct any experience which they had in common, and which was of spiritual value in the life of any one of them.
40:9.8 (451.4) While we understand such techniques of memory reconstruction fairly well, we do not grasp the technique of personality recognition. Personalities of onetime association mutually respond quite independently of the operation of memory, albeit, memory itself and the techniques of its reconstruction are necessary to invest such mutual personality response with the fullness of recognition.
40:9.9 (451.5) A Spirit-fused survivor is also able to learn much about the life he lived in the flesh by revisiting his nativity world subsequent to the planetary dispensation in which he lived. Such children of Spirit fusion are enabled to enjoy these opportunities for investigating their human careers since they are in general confined to the service of the local universe. They do not share your high and exalted destiny in the Paradise Corps of the Finality; only Adjuster-fused mortals or other especially embraced ascendant beings are mustered into the ranks of those who await the eternal Deity adventure. Spirit-fused mortals are the permanent citizens of the local universes; they may aspire to Paradise destiny, but they cannot be sure of it. In Nebadon their universe home is the eighth group of worlds encircling Salvington, a destiny-heaven of nature and location much like the one envisioned by the planetary traditions of Urantia.
40:10.1 (452.1) Spirit-fused mortals are, generally speaking, confined to a local universe; Son-fused survivors are restricted to a super-universe; Adjuster-fused mortals are destined to penetrate the universe of universes. The spirits of mortal fusion always ascend to the level of origin; such spirit entities unfailingly return to the sphere of primal source.
40:10.2 (452.2) Spirit-fused mortals are of the local universe; they do not, ordinarily, ascend beyond the confines of their native realm, beyond the boundaries of the space range of the spirit that pervades them. Son-fused ascenders likewise rise to the source of spirit endowment, for much as the Truth Spirit of a Creator Son focalizes in the associated Divine Minister, so is his “fusion spirit” implemented in the Reflective Spirits of the higher universes. Such spirit relationship between the local and the superuniverse levels of God the Sevenfold may be difficult of explanation but not of discernment, being unmistakably revealed in those children of the Reflective Spirits — the secoraphic Voices of the Creator Sons. The Thought Adjuster, hailing from the Father on Paradise, never stops until the mortal son stands face to face with the eternal God.
40:10.3 (452.3) The mysterious variable in associative technique whereby a mortal being does not or cannot become eternally fused with the indwelling Thought Adjuster may seem to disclose a flaw in the ascension scheme; Son and Spirit fusion do, superficially, resemble compensations of unexplained failures in some detail of the Paradise-attainment plan; but all such conclusions stand in error; we are taught that all these happenings unfold in obedience to the established laws of the Supreme Universe Rulers.
40:10.4 (452.4) We have analyzed this problem and have reached the undoubted conclusion that the consignment of all mortals to an ultimate Paradise destiny would be unfair to the time-space universes inasmuch as the courts of the Creator Sons and of the Ancients of Days would then be wholly dependent on the services of those who were in transit to higher realms. And it does seem to be no more than fitting that the local and the superuniverse governments should each be provided with a permanent group of ascendant citizenship; that the functions of these administrations should be enriched by the efforts of certain groups of glorified mortals who are of permanent status, evolutionary complements of the abandonters and of the susatia. Now it is quite obvious that the present ascension scheme effectively provides the time-space administrations with just such groups of ascendant creatures; and we have many times wondered: Does all this represent an intended part of the all-wise plans of the Architects of the Master Universe designed to provide the Creator Sons and the Ancients of Days with a permanent ascendant population? with evolved orders of citizenship that will become increasingly competent to carry forward the affairs of these realms in the universe ages to come?
40:10.5 (452.5) That mortal destinies do thus vary in no wise proves that one is necessarily greater or lesser than another, merely that they differ. Adjuster-fused ascenders do indeed have a grand and glorious career as finaliters spread out before them in the eternal future, but this does not mean that they are preferred above their ascendant brethren. There is no favoritism, nothing arbitrary, in the selective operation of the divine plan of mortal survival.
40:10.6 (453.1) While the Adjuster-fused finaliters obviously enjoy the widest service opportunity of all, the attainment of this goal automatically shuts them off from the chance to participate in the agelong struggle of some one universe or superuniverse, from the earlier and less settled epochs to the later and established eras of relative perfection attainment. Finaliters acquire a marvelous and far-flung experience of transient service in all seven segments of the grand universe, but they do not ordinarily acquire that intimate knowledge of any one universe which even now characterizes the Spirit-fused veterans of the Nebadon Corps of Completion. These individuals enjoy an opportunity to witness the ascending processional of the planetary ages as they unfold one by one on ten million inhabited worlds. And in the faithful service of such local universe citizens, experience superimposes upon experience until the fullness of time ripens that high quality of wisdom which is engendered by focalized experience — authoritative wisdom — and this in itself is a vital factor in the settling of any local universe.
40:10.7 (453.2) As it is with the Spirit fusers, so is it with those Son-fused mortals who have achieved residential status on Uversa. Some of these beings hail from the earliest epochs of Orvonton, and they represent a slowly accumulating body of insight-deepening wisdom which is making ever-augmenting service contributions to the welfare and eventual settlement of the seventh superuniverse.
40:10.8 (453.3) What the ultimate destiny of these stationary orders of local and of superuniverse citizenship will be we do not know, but it is quite possible that, when the Paradise finaliters are pioneering the expanding frontiers of divinity in the planetary systems of the first outer space level, their Son- and Spirit-fused brethren of the ascendant evolutionary struggle will be acceptably contributing to the maintenance of the experiential equilibrium of the perfected superuniverses while they stand ready to welcome the incoming stream of Paradise pilgrims who may, at that distant day, pour in through Orvonton and its sister creations as a vast spirit-questing torrent from these now uncharted and uninhabited galaxies of outer space.
40:10.9 (453.4) While the majority of Spirit fusers serve permanently as citizens of the local universes, all do not. If some phase of their universe ministry should require their personal presence in the superuniverse, then would such transformations of being be wrought in these citizens as would enable them to ascend to the higher universe; and upon the arrival of the Celestial Guardians with orders to present such Spirit-fused mortals at the courts of the Ancients of Days, they would so ascend, never to return. They become wards of the superuniverse, serving as assistants to the Celestial Guardians and permanently, save for those few who are in turn summoned to the service of Paradise and Havona.
40:10.10 (453.5) Like their Spirit-fused brethren, the Son fusers neither traverse Havona nor attain Paradise unless they have undergone certain modifying transformations. For good and sufficient reasons, such changes have been wrought in certain Son-fused survivors, and these beings are to be encountered ever and anon on the seven circuits of the central universe. Thus it is that certain numbers of both the Son- and the Spirit-fused mortals do actually ascend to Paradise, do attain a goal in many ways equal to that which awaits the Father-fused mortals.
40:10.11 (453.6) Father-fused mortals are potential finaliters; their destination is the Universal Father, and him they do attain, but within the purview of the present universe age, finaliters, as such, are not destiny attainers. They remain unfinished creatures — sixth-stage spirits — and hence nonactive in the evolutionary domains of prelight-and-life status.
40:10.12 (454.1) When a mortal finaliter is Trinity embraced — becomes a Trinitized Son, such as a Mighty Messenger — then has that finaliter attained destiny, at least for the present universe age. Mighty Messengers and their fellows may not in the exact sense be seventh-stage spirits, but in addition to other things the Trinity embrace endows them with everything which a finaliter will sometime achieve as a seventh-stage spirit. After Spirit-fused or Son-fused mortals are trinitized, they pass through the Paradise experience with the Adjuster-fused ascenders, with whom they are then identical in all matters pertaining to superuniverse administration. These Trinitized Sons of Selection or of Attainment at least for now are finished creatures, in contrast to the finaliters, who are at present unfinished creatures.
40:10.13 (454.2) Thus, in the final analysis, it would be hardly proper to use the words “greater” or “lesser” in contrasting the destinies of the ascending orders of sonship. Every such son of God shares the fatherhood of God, and God loves each of his creature sons alike; he is no more a respecter of ascendant destinies than is he of the creatures who may attain such destinies. The Father loves each of his sons, and that affection is not less than true, holy, divine, unlimited, eternal, and unique — a love bestowed upon this son and upon that son, individually, personally, and exclusively. And such a love utterly eclipses all other facts. Sonship is the supreme relationship of the creature to the Creator.
40:10.14 (454.3) As mortals you can now recognize your place in the family of divine sonship and begin to sense the obligation to avail yourselves of the advantages so freely provided in and by the Paradise plan for mortal survival, which plan has been so enhanced and illuminated by the life experience of a bestowal Son. Every facility and all power have been provided for insuring your ultimate attainment of the Paradise goal of divine perfection.
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