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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 36
THE LIFE CARRIERS
36:0.1
LIFE does not originate spontaneously. Life is
constructed according to plans formulated by the
(unrevealed) Architects of Being and appears on the
inhabited planets either by direct importation or as a
result of the operations of the Life Carriers of the
local universes. These carriers of life are among the
most interesting and versatile of the diverse family of
universe Sons. They are intrusted with designing and
carrying creature life to the planetary spheres. And
after planting this life on such new worlds, they remain
there for long periods to foster its development.
1. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE CARRIERS
36:1.1
Though the Life Carriers belong to the family of divine
sonship, they are a peculiar and distinct type of
universe Sons, being the only group of intelligent life
in a local universe in whose creation the rulers of a
superuniverse participate. The Life Carriers are the
offspring of three pre-existent personalities: the
Creator Son, the Universe Mother Spirit, and, by
designation, one of the three Ancients of Days presiding
over the destinies of the superuniverse concerned. These
Ancients of Days, who alone can decree the extinction of
intelligent life, participate in the creation of the
Life Carriers, who are intrusted with establishing
physical life on the evolving worlds.
36:1.2
In the universe of Nebadon we have on record the
creation of one hundred million Life Carriers. This
efficient corps of life disseminators is not a truly
self-governing group. They are directed by the
life-determining trio, consisting of Gabriel, the Father
Melchizedek, and Nambia, the original and first-born
Life Carrier of Nebadon. But in all phases of their
divisional administration they are self-governing.
36:1.3
Life Carriers are graded into three grand divisions: The
first division is the senior Life Carriers, the second,
assistants, and the third, custodians. The primary
division is subdivided into twelve groups of specialists
in the various forms of life manifestation. The
segregation of these three divisions was effected by the
Melchizedeks, who conducted tests for such purposes on
the Life Carriers' headquarters sphere. The Melchizedeks
have ever since been closely associated with the Life
Carriers and always accompany them when they go forth to
establish life on a new planet.
36:1.4
When an evolutionary planet is finally settled in light
and life, the Life Carriers are organized into the
higher deliberative bodies of advisory capacity to
assist in the further administration and development of
the world and its glorified beings. In the later and
settled ages of an evolving universe these Life Carriers
are intrusted with many new duties.
2. THE LIFE CARRIER WORLDS
36:2.1
The Melchizedeks have the general oversight of the
fourth group of seven primary spheres in the Salvington
circuit. These worlds of the Life Carriers are
designated as follows:
1. The Life Carrier headquarters.
2. The life-planning sphere.
3. The life-conservation sphere.
4. The sphere of life evolution.
5. The sphere of life associated with mind.
6. The sphere of mind and spirit in living beings.
7. The sphere of unrevealed life.
36:2.2
Each of these primary spheres is surrounded by six
satellites, on which the special phases of all the Life
Carrier activities in the universe are centered.
36:2.3
World Number One,
the headquarters sphere, together with its six tributary
satellites, is devoted to the study of universal life,
life in all of its known phases of manifestation. Here
is located the college of life planning, wherein
function teachers and advisers from Uversa and Havona,
even from Paradise. And I am permitted to reveal that
the seven central emplacements of the adjutant
mind-spirits are situated on this world of the Life
Carriers.
36:2.4
The number ten -- the decimal system -- is inherent in
the physical universe but not in the spiritual. The
domain of life is characterized by three, seven, and
twelve or by multiples and combinations of these basic
numbers. There are three primal and essentially
different life plans, after the order of the three
Paradise Sources and Centers, and in the universe of
Nebadon these three basic forms of life are segregated
on three different types of planets. There were,
originally, twelve distinct and divine concepts of
transmissible life. This number twelve, with its
subdivisions and multiples, runs throughout all basic
life patterns of all seven superuniverses. There are
also seven architectural types of life design,
fundamental arrangements of the reproducing
configurations of living matter. The Orvonton life
patterns are configured as twelve inheritance carriers.
The differing orders of will creatures are configured as
12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and 768. On Urantia there are
forty-eight units of pattern control -- trait
determiners -- in the sex cells of human reproduction.
36:2.5
The Second World
is the life-designing sphere; here all new modes of life
organization are worked out. While the original life
designs are provided by the Creator Son, the actual
outworking of these plans is intrusted to the Life
Carriers and their associates. When the general life
plans for a new world have been formulated, they are
transmitted to the headquarters sphere, where they are
minutely scrutinized by the supreme council of the
senior Life Carriers in collaboration with a corps of
consulting Melchizedeks. If the plans are a departure
from previously accepted formulas, they must be passed
upon, and endorsed by, the Creator Son. The chief of
Melchizedeks often represents the Creator Son in these
deliberations.
36:2.6
Planetary life, therefore, while similar in some
respects, differs in many ways on each evolutionary
world. Even in a uniform life series in a single family
of worlds, life is not exactly the same on any two
planets; there is always a planetary type, for the Life
Carriers work constantly in an effort to improve the
vital formulas committed to their keeping.
36:2.7
There are over one million fundamental or cosmic
chemical formulas which constitute the parent patterns
and the numerous basic functional variations of life
manifestations. Satellite number one of the
life-planning sphere is the realm of the universe
physicists and electrochemists who serve as technical
assistants to the Life Carriers in the work of
capturing, organizing, and manipulating the essential
units of energy which are employed in building up the
material vehicles of life transmission, the so-called
germ plasm.
36:2.8
The planetary life-planning laboratories are situated on
the second satellite of this world number two. In these
laboratories the Life Carriers and all their associates
collaborate with the Melchizedeks in the effort to
modify and possibly improve the life designed for
implantation on the
decimal planets
of Nebadon. The life now evolving on Urantia was planned
and partially worked out on this very world, for Urantia
is a decimal planet, a life-experiment world. On one
world in each ten a greater variance in the standard
life designs is permitted than on the other
(nonexperimental) worlds.
36:2.9
World Number
Three is devoted to the conservation of life. Here
various modes of life protection and preservation are
studied and developed by the assistants and custodians
of the Life Carrier corps. The life plans for every new
world always provide for the early establishment of the
life-conservation commission, consisting of custodian
specialists in the expert manipulation of the basic life
patterns. On Urantia there were twenty-four such
custodian commissioners, two for each fundamental or
parent pattern of the architectural organization of the
life material. On planets such as yours the highest form
of life is reproduced by a life-carrying bundle which
possesses twenty-four pattern units. (And since the
intellectual life grows out of, and upon the foundation
of, the physical, there come into existence the four and
twenty basic orders of psychic organization.)
36:2.10
Sphere Number
Four and its tributary satellites are devoted to the
study of the evolution of creature life in general and
to the evolutionary antecedents of any one life level in
particular. The original life plasm of an evolutionary
world must contain the full potential for all future
developmental variations and for all subsequent
evolutionary changes and modifications. The provision
for such far-reaching projects of life metamorphosis may
require the appearance of many apparently useless forms
of animal and vegetable life. Such by-products of
planetary evolution, foreseen or unforeseen, appear upon
the stage of action only to disappear, but in and
through all this long process there runs the thread of
the wise and intelligent formulations of the original
designers of the planetary life plan and species scheme.
The manifold by-products of biologic evolution are all
essential to the final and full function of the higher
intelligent forms of life, notwithstanding that great
outward disharmony may prevail from time to time in the
long upward struggle of the higher creatures to effect
the mastery of the lower forms of life, many of which
are sometimes so antagonistic to the peace and comfort
of the evolving will creatures.
36:2.11
Number Five World
is concerned wholly with life associated with mind. Each
of its satellites is devoted to the study of a single
phase of creature mind correlated with creature life.
Mind such as man comprehends is an endowment of the
seven adjutant mind-spirits superimposed on the
nonteachable or mechanical levels of mind by the
agencies of the Infinite Spirit. The life patterns are
variously responsive to these adjutants and to the
different spirit ministries operating throughout the
universes of time and space. The capacity of material
creatures to effect spirit response is entirely
dependent on the associated mind endowment, which, in
turn, has directionized the course of the biologic
evolution of these same mortal creatures.
36:2.12
World Number Six
is dedicated to the correlation of mind with spirit as
they are associated with living forms and organisms.
This world and its six tributaries embrace the schools
of creature co-ordination, wherein teachers from both
the central universe and the superuniverse collaborate
with the Nebadon instructors in presenting the highest
levels of creature attainment in time and space.
36:2.13
The Seventh
Sphere of the Life Carriers is dedicated to the
unrevealed domains of evolutionary creature life as it
is related to the cosmic philosophy of the expanding
factualization of the Supreme Being.
3. LIFE TRANSPLANTATION
36:3.1
Life does not spontaneously appear in the universes; the
Life Carriers must initiate it on the barren planets.
They are the carriers, disseminators, and guardians of
life as it appears on the evolutionary worlds of space.
All life of the order and forms known on Urantia arises
with these Sons, though not all forms of planetary life
are existent on Urantia.
36:3.2
The corps of Life Carriers commissioned to plant life
upon a new world usually consists of one hundred senior
carriers, one hundred assistants, and one thousand
custodians. The Life Carriers often carry actual life
plasm to a new world, but not always. They sometimes
organize the life patterns after arriving on the planet
of assignment in accordance with formulas previously
approved for a new adventure in life establishment. Such
was the origin of the planetary life of Urantia.
36:3.3
When, in accordance with approved formulas, the physical
patterns have been provided, then do the Life Carriers
catalyze this lifeless material, imparting through their
persons the vital spirit spark; and forthwith do the
inert patterns become living matter.
36:3.4
The vital spark -- the mystery of life -- is bestowed
through the Life Carriers, not by them. They do indeed
supervise such transactions, they formulate the life
plasm itself, but it is the Universe Mother Spirit who
supplies the essential factor of the living plasm. From
the Creative Daughter of the Infinite Spirit comes that
energy spark which enlivens the body and presages the
mind.
36:3.5
In the bestowal of life the Life Carriers transmit
nothing of their personal natures, not even on those
spheres where new orders of life are projected. At such
times they simply initiate and transmit the spark of
life, start the required revolutions of matter in
accordance with the physical, chemical, and electrical
specifications of the ordained plans and patterns. Life
Carriers are living catalytic presences which agitate,
organize, and vitalize the otherwise inert elements of
the material order of existence.
36:3.6
The Life Carriers of a planetary corps are given a
certain period in which to establish life on a new
world, approximately one-half million years of the time
of that planet. At the termination of this period,
indicated by certain developmental attainments of the
planetary life, they cease implantation efforts, and
they may not subsequently add any thing new or
supplemental to the life of that planet.
36:3.7
During the ages intervening between life establishment
and the emergence of human creatures of moral status,
the Life Carriers are permitted to manipulate the life
environment and otherwise favorably directionize the
course of biologic evolution. And this they do for long
periods of time.
36:3.8
When the Life Carriers operating on a new world have
once succeeded in producing a being with will, with the
power of moral decision and spiritual choice, then and
there their work terminates -- they are through; they
may manipulate the evolving life no further. From this
point forward the evolution of living things must
proceed in accordance with the endowment of the inherent
nature and tendencies which have already been imparted
to, and established in, the planetary life formulas and
patterns. The Life Carriers are not permitted to
experiment or to interfere with will; they are not
allowed to dominate or arbitrarily influence moral
creatures.
36:3.9
Upon the arrival of a Planetary Prince they prepare to
leave, though two of the senior carriers and twelve
custodians may volunteer, by taking temporary
renunciation vows, to remain indefinitely on the planet
as advisers in the matter of the further development and
conservation of the life plasm. Two such Sons and their
twelve associates are now serving on Urantia.
4. MELCHIZEDEK LIFE CARRIERS
36:4.1
In every local system of inhabited worlds throughout
Nebadon there is a single sphere whereon the
Melchizedeks have functioned as life carriers. These
abodes are known as the system
midsonite
worlds, and on each of them a materially modified
Melchizedek Son has mated with a selected Daughter of
the material order of sonship. The Mother Eves of such
midsonite worlds are dispatched from the system
headquarters of jurisdiction, having been chosen by the
designated Melchizedek life carrier from among the
numerous volunteers who respond to the call of the
System Sovereign addressed to the Material Daughters of
his sphere.
36:4.2
The progeny of a Melchizedek life carrier and a Material
Daughter are known as
midsoniters.
The Melchizedek father of such a race of supernal
creatures eventually leaves the planet of his unique
life function, and the Mother Eve of this special order
of universe beings also departs upon the appearance of
the seventh generation of planetary offspring. The
direction of such a world then devolves upon her eldest
son.
36:4.3
The midsonite creatures live and function as reproducing
beings on their magnificent worlds until they are one
thousand standard years of age; whereupon they are
translated by seraphic transport. Midsoniters are
nonreproducing beings thereafter because the technique
of dematerialization which they pass through in
preparation for enseraphiming forever deprives them of
reproductive prerogatives.
36:4.4
The present status of these beings can hardly be
reckoned as either mortal or immortal, neither can they
be definitely classified as human or divine. These
creatures are not Adjuster indwelt, hence hardly
immortal. But neither do they seem to be mortal; no
midsoniter has experienced death. All midsoniters ever
born in Nebadon are alive today, functioning on their
native worlds, on some intervening sphere, or on the
Salvington midsonite sphere in the finaliters' group of
worlds.
36:4.5
The Salvington
Worlds of the Finaliters. The Melchizedek life
carriers, as well as the associated Mother Eves, go from
the system midsonite spheres to the finaliters' worlds
of the Salvington circuit, where their offspring are
also destined to forgather.
36:4.6
It should be explained in this connection that the fifth
group of seven primary worlds in the Salvington circuit
are the Nebadon worlds of the finaliters. The children
of the Melchizedek life carriers and the Material
Daughters are domiciled on the seventh world of the
finaliters, the Salvington midsonite sphere.
36:4.7
The satellites of the seven primary worlds of the
finaliters are the rendezvous of the personalities of
the super- and central universes who may be executing
assignments in Nebadon. While the ascending mortals go
about freely on all of the cultural worlds and training
spheres of the 490 worlds comprising the Melchizedek
University, there are certain special schools and
numerous restricted zones which they are not permitted
to enter. This is especially true of the forty-nine
spheres under the jurisdiction of the finaliters.
36:4.8
The purpose of the midsonite creatures is not at present
known, but it would appear that these personalities are
forgathering on the seventh finaliter world in
preparation for some future eventuality in universe
evolution. Our inquiries concerning the midsonite races
are always referred to the finaliters, and always do the
finaliters decline to discuss the destiny of their
wards. Regardless of our uncertainty as to the future of
the midsoniters, we do know that every local universe in
Orvonton harbors such an accumulating corps of these
mysterious beings. It is the belief of the Melchizedek
life carriers that their midsonite children will some
day be endowed with the transcendental and eternal
spirit of absonity by God the Ultimate.
5. THE SEVEN ADJUTANT MIND-SPIRITS
36:5.1
It is the presence of the seven adjutant mind-spirits on
the primitive worlds that conditions the course of
organic evolution; that explains why evolution is
purposeful and not accidental. These adjutants represent
that function of the mind ministry of the Infinite
Spirit which is extended to the lower orders of
intelligent life through the operations of a local
universe Mother Spirit. The adjutants are the children
of the Universe Mother Spirit and constitute her
personal ministry to the material minds of the realms.
Wherever and whenever such mind is manifest, these
spirits are variously functioning.
36:5.2
The seven adjutant mind-spirits are called by names
which are the equivalents of the following designations:
intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge, counsel,
worship, and wisdom. These mind-spirits send forth their
influence into all the inhabited worlds as a
differential urge, each seeking receptivity capacity for
manifestation quite apart from the degree to which its
fellows may find reception and opportunity for function.
36:5.3
The central lodgments of the adjutant spirits on the
Life Carrier headquarters world indicate to the Life
Carrier supervisors the extent and quality of the mind
function of the adjutants on any world and in any given
living organism of intellect status. These life-mind
emplacements are perfect indicators of living mind
function for the first five adjutants. But with regard
to the sixth and seventh adjutant spirits -- worship and
wisdom -- these central lodgments record only a
qualitative function. The quantitative activity of the
adjutant of worship and the adjutant of wisdom is
registered in the immediate presence of the Divine
Minister on Salvington, being a personal experience of
the Universe Mother Spirit.
36:5.4
The seven adjutant mind-spirits always accompany the
Life Carriers to a new planet, but they should not be
regarded as entities; they are more like circuits. The
spirits of the seven universe adjutants do not function
as personalities apart from the universe presence of the
Divine Minister; they are in fact a level of
consciousness of the Divine Minister and are always
subordinate to the action and presence of their creative
mother.
36:5.5
We are handicapped for words adequately to designate
these seven adjutant mind-spirits. They are ministers of
the lower levels of experiential mind, and they may be
described, in the order of evolutionary attainment, as
follows:
36:5.6
1. The spirit of
intuition -- quick perception, the primitive
physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional
and other self-preservative endowments of all mind
creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so
largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only
one to make extensive functional contact with the
nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.
36:5.7
2. The spirit of
understanding -- the impulse of co-ordination, the
spontaneous and apparently automatic association of
ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired
knowledge, the phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid
judgment, and prompt decision.
36:5.8
3. The spirit of
courage -- the fidelity endowment -- in personal
beings, the basis of character acquirement and the
intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual
bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by
truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of
evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent
and conscientious self-direction.
36:5.9
4. The spirit of
knowledge -- the curiosity-mother of adventure and
discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful
associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the
urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and
progressive paths of growth.
36:5.10
5. The spirit of
counsel -- the social urge, the endowment of species
co-operation; the ability of will creatures to harmonize
with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious
instinct among the more lowly creatures.
36:5.11
6. The spirit of
worship -- the religious impulse, the first
differential urge separating mind creatures into the two
basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship
forever distinguishes the animal of its association from
the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the
badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.
36:5.12
7. The spirit of
wisdom -- the inherent tendency of all moral
creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary
advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the
spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all
the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn
urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the
practical and effective program of the ascending scale
of existence; that gift of living things which accounts
for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in
survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past
experience and present opportunities for the acquisition
of all of everything that all of the other six mental
ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism
concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual
performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and
moral existence.
36:5.13
The adjutant mind-spirits experientially grow, but they
never become personal. They evolve in function, and the
function of the first five in the animal orders is to a
certain extent essential to the function of all seven as
human intellect. This animal relationship makes the
adjutants more practically effective as human mind;
hence animals are to a certain extent indispensable to
man's intellectual as well as to his physical evolution.
36:5.14
These mind-adjutants of a local universe Mother Spirit
are related to creature life of intelligence status much
as the power centers and physical controllers are
related to the nonliving forces of the universe. They
perform invaluable service in the mind circuits on the
inhabited worlds and are effective collaborators with
the Master Physical Controllers, who also serve as
controllers and directors of the preadjutant mind
levels, the levels of nonteachable or mechanical mind.
36:5.15
Living mind, prior to the appearance of capacity to
learn from experience, is the ministry domain of the
Master Physical Controllers. Creature mind, before
acquiring the ability to recognize divinity and worship
Deity, is the exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits.
With the appearance of the spiritual response of the
creature intellect, such created minds at once become
superminded, being instantly encircuited in the spirit
cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit.
36:5.16
The adjutant mind-spirits are in no manner directly
related to the diverse and highly spiritual function of
the spirit of the personal presence of the Divine
Minister, the Holy Spirit of the inhabited worlds; but
they are functionally antecedent to, and preparatory
for, the appearance of this very spirit in evolutionary
man. The adjutants afford the Universe Mother Spirit a
varied contact with, and control over, the material
living creatures of a local universe, but they do not
repercuss in the Supreme Being when acting on
prepersonality levels.
36:5.17
Nonspiritual mind is either a spirit-energy
manifestation or a physical-energy phenomenon. Even
human mind, personal mind, has no survival qualities
apart from spirit identification. Mind is a divinity
bestowal, but it is not immortal when it functions
without spirit insight, and when it is devoid of the
ability to worship and crave survival.
6. LIVING FORCES
36:6.1
Life is both mechanistic and vitalistic -- material and
spiritual. Ever will Urantia physicists and chemists
progress in their understanding of the protoplasmic
forms of vegetable and animal life, but never will they
be able to produce living organisms. Life is something
different from all energy manifestations; even the
material life of physical creatures is not inherent in
matter.
36:6.2
Things material may enjoy an independent existence, but
life springs only from life. Mind can be derived only
from pre-existent mind. Spirit takes origin only from
spirit ancestors. The creature may produce the forms of
life, but only a creator personality or a creative force
can supply the activating living spark.
36:6.3
Life Carriers can organize the material forms, or
physical patterns, of living beings, but the Spirit
provides the initial spark of life and bestows the
endowment of mind. Even the living forms of experimental
life which the Life Carriers organize on their
Salvington worlds are always devoid of reproductive
powers. When the life formulas and the vital patterns
are correctly assembled and properly organized, the
presence of a Life Carrier is sufficient to initiate
life, but all such living organisms are lacking in two
essential attributes -- mind endowment and reproductive
powers. Animal mind and human mind are gifts of the
local universe Mother Spirit, functioning through the
seven adjutant mind-spirits, while creature ability to
reproduce is the specific and personal impartation of
the Universe Spirit to the ancestral life plasm
inaugurated by the Life Carriers.
36:6.4
When the Life Carriers have designed the patterns of
life, after they have organized the energy systems,
there must occur an additional phenomenon; the "breath
of life" must be imparted to these lifeless forms. The
Sons of God can construct the forms of life, but it is
the Spirit of God who really contributes the vital
spark. And when the life thus imparted is spent, then
again the remaining material body becomes dead matter.
When the bestowed life is exhausted, the body returns to
the bosom of the material universe from which it was
borrowed by the Life Carriers to serve as a transient
vehicle for that life endowment which they conveyed to
such a visible association of energy-matter.
36:6.5
The life bestowed upon plants and animals by the Life
Carriers does not return to the Life Carriers upon the
death of plant or animal. The departing life of such a
living thing possesses neither identity nor personality;
it does not individually survive death. During its
existence and the time of its sojourn in the body of
matter, it has undergone a change; it has undergone
energy evolution and survives only as a part of the
cosmic forces of the universe; it does not survive as
individual life. The survival of mortal creatures is
wholly predicated on the evolvement of an immortal soul
within the mortal mind.
36:6.6
We speak of life as "energy" and as "force," but it is
really neither. Force-energy is variously gravity
responsive; life is not. Pattern is also nonresponsive
to gravity, being a configuration of energies that have
already fulfilled all gravity-responsive obligations.
Life, as such, constitutes the animation of some
pattern-configured or otherwise segregated system of
energy -- material, mindal, or spiritual.
36:6.7
There are some things connected with the elaboration of
life on the evolutionary planets which are not
altogether clear to us. We fully comprehend the physical
organization of the electrochemical formulas of the Life
Carriers, but we do not wholly understand the nature and
source of the
life-activation spark. We know that life flows from
the Father through the Son and
by the
Spirit. It is more than possible that the Master Spirits
are the sevenfold channel of the river of life which is
poured out upon all creation. But we do not comprehend
the technique whereby the supervising Master Spirit
participates in the initial episode of life bestowal on
a new planet. The Ancients of Days, we are confident,
also have some part in this inauguration of life on a
new world, but we are wholly ignorant of the nature
thereof. We do know that the Universe Mother Spirit
actually vitalizes the lifeless patterns and imparts to
such activated plasm the prerogatives of organismal
reproduction. We observe that these three are the levels
of God the Sevenfold, sometimes designated as the
Supreme Creators of time and space; but otherwise we
know little more than Urantia mortals -- simply that
concept is inherent in the Father, expression in the
Son, and life realization in the Spirit.
36:6.8
Indited by a Vorondadek Son stationed on Urantia as an
observer and acting in this capacity by request of the
Melchizedek Chief of the Supervising Revelatory Corps.
*
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