People may ask why I bother with these podcasts and articles. The Urantia Book is one of a million books out there that claim some kind of revelatory expose; why spend the time and energy discussing such unorthodox subject matter?
I don’t happen to think The Urantia Book is just one of those atypical books, for one thing. Of the hundreds of books I have read on the topic of spirituality, none of them appear as this one appears, none go as deep into metaphysics, philosophy or science-related subject matter as much as this 2,097 page collection of writings do, which is comprise of 196 separate, but contextually-related subject matter.
Even the style of writing found throughout is consistently pushing the English language to its farthest reaches; one sentence can leave the reader pondering more than several different concepts simultaneously.
In paragraph three of the Forward, we get a tasteof its prose:
“In the hope of facilitating comprehension and of preventing confusion on the part of every mortal who may peruse these papers, we deem it wise to present in this initial statement an outline of the meanings to be attached to numerous English words which are to be employed in designation of Deity and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of universal reality.”
If the Urantia Book is what it says it is, then we have a groundbreaking document that screams the caption “New Revelation Unveils Missing Truths About Mankind,” or perhaps, “The God of Moses Speaks Again,” or even, “New Book from Angels Shares New Vision of Heaven.”
It’s big news to me, and the fact that its here, now, being discovered, and inspiring people all over the world to do great projects in its name is altogether wonderful. The Urantia Book was published in 1955. There was no fanfare, it fell gently into the fabric society as has been growing ever since. Readership today, according to its publsiher The Urantia Foundation, exceeds a million people, and there are close to a thousand study groups all over the world. Today the Urantia Book has been translated into over a dozen langauages and in 2022 over one hundred thousand copies of the book were either sold or downloaded. As a grass-roots phenomena, the Urantia “movement” moves steadily forward.
But all of this is equal only to the information itself, much of it we are are learning about for the first time in history. We are told information was never be meant to be kept a secret, but due to past events, were witheld from us and have resulted in our isolated from the expanded truth of our origins and our destiny. Consider this statement from Paper 52 on our world being “out of step”:
“If you could be transplanted from your backward and confused world to some normal planet now in the postbestowal Son age, you would think you had been translated to the heaven of your traditions. You would hardly believe that you were observing the normal evolutionary workings of a mortal sphere of human habitation. These worlds are in the spiritual circuits of their realm, and they enjoy all the advantages of the universe broadcasts and the reflectivity services of the superuniverse.”
In this example paragraph the following informaton is revealed:
a. There is such a thing as a ’normal planet.’
b. We are in what is called in a “post-bestowal age’ which gives implied credence to Jesus as a Bestowal Son of great significance.
c. There is such a thing as spiritual circuits that allow us to tap into ‘universe broadcasts,’ which implies there is a real economy of worlds surrounding us who are tied to the same organizational structure. I consider this tantamount to being like people from small isolated island in the Pacific Ocean being informed by members of a passing ship they come from place where there are many countries and indeed, a thriving society.
d. The notion of reflectivity is defined as visual information sent from a great distance away, no different than if you or I were to recieve a satellite signal from deep space, but now we possess the ability to interpret and even see the message. It is stated in the Urantia Book John the revelator received reflectivity and was “shown” heaven.
WHO WROTE IT
I mentioned this in the last podcast, but the Encyclopedia Brittanica, long considered the touchstone of preserved human knowledge, was first published in 1768, it consists today of 32 volumes. It is also the oldest English encyclopedia.
According to its history, Encyclopedia Brittanica was thus intended to satisfy two kinds of readers simultaneously: those wishing to study a subject seriously, who would work their way through the treatises; and those in search of quick reference material, who could instantly turn to what they wanted in its alphabetical order.
Over the decades new volumes were as new knowledge is acquired, and the composite contributions of experts who amended EB were in the thousands, smart and learned people from all walks of life and science contributed to the EB in much the same way the Urantia Book was written. Each paper is duly signed by its contributing author. The first five papers, for example, were authored by a Divine Counselor, a person of high spiritual experience and wisdom. St the end of the first paper in the UB, he wrotes his acknowledgement:
Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member of a group of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak.
There are two postulates. This is fake, or it is true. One can only come to the conslusion by examining the merits of its proposition.
So, now imagine a book which also contains voluminous information of our unknown history, the birth of religion, how religion has evolved, how man has evolved and under what circumstances, and even how life forms on other worlds, now all included in one book and claims to be the combined work of supra-personal beings who, like Encyclopedia Brittanica, are experts on of how creation came to be, what it consists of, and who is behind it.
We must also take into consideration these personalities have, in many cases, existed beyond time as we know it, even in terms of millions, even billions of years.
Our local region of space (what they say emerged from a one-time Andronover Nebula is the mother star cloud that gave birth to more than one-hundred thousands suns (of which ours is a younger star), and is approximately 980 billions years of age.
These are numbers we have never considered before. Current science pegs the Universe at 14 billion years old. The Urantia Book doesn’t say how oold the present universe is, but our local region is just under a 20 billion years shy of one trillion.
The James Webb Telescope (JWTS), privately, has already proven our current estimate of the age of the universe is not consistent with what we new data. New galaxies we are just seeing today for the first time contradict current Big Bang projections. The universe is much more expansive than we realized. Such an enormous creation would have required much more time to develop. We’re seeing energy that is at least ten times (140 billion light years) farther out than initially believed. It is a fact that many astronomical physicist are now quietly admitting JWTS shows we have grossly underestimated the size and age of the known universe.
In my book A New Revelation, Exploring the Urantia Book, I provide additonal details on other recent discoveries foretold in the Urantia Book writings. For example, continental drift was foretold thirty years prior to be confirmed by sonar; plate tectonic activity was foretold by a dozens years before confirmation by satellite imagery; the migratory behavior and culture of the Neanderthal race was foretold sixty years before we found evidence; while anthropologists and archaeologists believe early migration of the red man into America occurred 12,000 years ago, The Urantia Book puts it at 80,000 years. Most recently, new evidence moves the migration back to 30,000 years or more, more alligned to the Urantia Book account.
Most recently, I noted how the Urantia Book authors foretold of the benefits of immunotherapy as way to fight diseases. When detailing how life plasm was introduced on our world, the authors also disclose hints to improved techniques we may explore in healthcare, from paper 62:
“Many features of human life afford abundant evidence that the phenomenon of mortal existence was intelligently planned, that organic evolution is not a mere cosmic accident. When a living cell is injured, it possesses the ability to elaborate certain chemical substances which are empowered so to stimulate and activate the neighboring normal cells that they immediately begin the secretion of certain substances which facilitate healing processes in the wound; and at the same time these normal and uninjured cells begin to proliferate—they actually start to work creating new cells to replace any fellow cells which may have been destroyed by the accident.
“(This) chemical action and reaction concerned in wound healing and cell reproduction represents the choice of the Life Carriers of a formula embracing over one hundred thousand phases and features of possible chemical reactions and biologic repercussions. More than half a million specific experiments were made by the Life Carriers in their laboratories before they finally settled upon this formula for the Urantia life experiment…When Urantia scientists know more of these healing chemicals, they will become more efficient in the treatment of injuries, and indirectly they will know more about controlling certain serious diseases.
I’d like to offer one final example of the Urantia Books relevance as a historical document. Its its account of the first true humans, a boy and girl named Andon and Fonta, we read from paper 62, section 6 under the heading of:
Evolution of the Human Mind
“We, the Life Carriers on Urantia, had passed through the long vigil of watchful waiting since the day we first planted the life plasm in the planetary waters, and naturally the appearance of the first really intelligent and volitional beings brought to us great joy and supreme satisfaction.
We had been watching the twins develop mentally through our observation of the functioning of the seven adjutant mind-spirits assigned to Urantia at the time of our arrival on the planet. Throughout the long evolutionary development of planetary life, these tireless mind ministers had ever registered their increasing ability to contact with the successively expanding brain capacities of the progressively superior animal creatures.
Imagine our joy one day—the twins were about ten years old—when the spirit of worship made its first contact with the mind of the female twin and shortly thereafter with the male. We knew that something closely akin to human mind was approaching culmination; and when, about a year later, they finally resolved, as a result of meditative thought and purposeful decision, to flee from home and journey north, then did the spirit of wisdom begin to function on Urantia and in these two now recognized human minds.
We were alive with expectation; we realized that the long-waited-for hour was approaching; we knew we were upon the threshold of the realization of our protracted effort to evolve will creatures on Urantia.”
Philosophically and literally, the Urantia Book challenges our current perceptions of life because it expands upon that which we presently believe and makes it more than just a religious impulse of ideology.
God is complex, but he is, as Jesus described, “our father in heaven,” and our view of him should be one of trust, as well as growth, just as one would experience in the human family.
Perspective is everything. Without it one can never arrive at an accurate and intelligent assessment of reality without first assessing as many of the facts as possible. To this end the Urantia Book is a continuing revelation, one that simply prepares us for the next. Looking back, each previous revelation prepared humanity for the next, just as a child learns to crawl, walk and eventually run.
Without this knowledge mankind is likley to stagmate spiritually, as is evidenced today by the seemingly regressive social order on display due to idealogical confusion. Byron Beltisos, Urantia Book lecturer recently stated he believes the Urantia Book is an answer from God arriving at a time when its message is most needed.
I suspect he may not be that far from the truth.
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