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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 52
PLANETARY MORTAL EPOCHS
52:0.1
FROM the inception of life on an evolutionary planet to
the time of its final flowering in the era of light and
life, there appear upon the stage of world action at
least seven epochs of human life. These successive ages
are determined by the planetary missions of the divine
Sons, and on an average inhabited world these epochs
appear in the following order:
1. Pre-Planetary Prince Man.
2. Post-Planetary Prince Man.
3. Post-Adamic Man.
4. Post-Magisterial Son Man.
5. Post-Bestowal Son Man.
6. Post-Teacher Son Man.
7. The Era of Light and Life.
52:0.2
The worlds of space, as soon as they are physically
suitable for life, are placed on the registry of the
Life Carriers, and in due time these Sons are dispatched
to such planets for the purpose of initiating life. The
entire period from life initiation to the appearance of
man is designated the prehuman era and precedes the
successive mortal epochs considered in this narrative.
1. PRIMITIVE MAN
52:1.1
From the time of man's emergence from the animal level
-- when he can choose to worship the Creator -- to the
arrival of the Planetary Prince, mortal will creatures
are called
primitive men. There are six basic types or races of
primitive men, and these early peoples successively
appear in the order of the spectrum colors, beginning
with the red. The length of time consumed in this early
life evolution varies greatly on the different worlds,
ranging from one hundred and fifty thousand years to
over one million years of Urantia time.
52:1.2
The evolutionary races of color -- red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, and indigo -- begin to appear about the
time that primitive man is developing a simple language
and is beginning to exercise the creative imagination.
By this time man is well accustomed to standing erect.
52:1.3
Primitive men are mighty hunters and fierce fighters.
The law of this age is the physical survival of the
fittest; the government of these times is wholly tribal.
During the early racial struggles on many worlds some of
the evolutionary races are obliterated, as occurred on
Urantia. Those who survive are usually subsequently
blended with the later imported violet race, the Adamic
peoples.
52:1.4
In the light of subsequent civilization, this era of
primitive man is a long, dark, and bloody chapter. The
ethics of the jungle and the morals of the primeval
forests are not in keeping with the standards of later
dispensations of revealed religion and higher spiritual
development. On normal and nonexperimental worlds this
epoch is very different from the prolonged and
extraordinarily brutal struggles which characterized
this age on Urantia. When you have emerged from your
first world experience, you will begin to see why this
long and painful struggle on the evolutionary worlds
occurs, and as you go forward in the Paradise path, you
will increasingly understand the wisdom of these
apparently strange doings. But notwithstanding all the
vicissitudes of the early ages of human emergence, the
performances of primitive man represent a splendid, even
a heroic, chapter in the annals of an evolutionary world
of time and space.
52:1.5
Early evolutionary man is not a colorful creature. In
general, these primitive mortals are cave dwellers or
cliff residents. They also build crude huts in the large
trees. Before they acquire a high order of intelligence,
the planets are sometimes overrun with the larger types
of animals. But early in this era mortals learn to
kindle and maintain fire, and with the increase of
inventive imagination and the improvement in tools,
evolving man soon vanquishes the larger and more
unwieldy animals. The early races also make extensive
use of the larger flying animals. These enormous birds
are able to carry one or two average-sized men for a
nonstop flight of over five hundred miles. On some
planets these birds are of great service since they
possess a high order of intelligence, often being able
to speak many words of the languages of the realm. These
birds are most intelligent, very obedient, and
unbelievably affectionate. Such passenger birds have
been long extinct on Urantia, but your early ancestors
enjoyed their services.
52:1.6
Man's acquirement of ethical judgment, moral will, is
usually coincident with the appearance of early
language. Upon attaining the human level, after this
emergence of mortal will, these beings become receptive
to the temporary indwelling of the divine Adjusters, and
upon death many are duly elected as survivors and sealed
by the archangels for subsequent resurrection and Spirit
fusion. The archangels always accompany the Planetary
Princes, and a dispensational adjudication of the realm
is simultaneous with the prince's arrival.
52:1.7
All mortals who are indwelt by Thought Adjusters are
potential worshipers; they have been "lighted by the
true light," and they possess capacity for seeking
reciprocal contact with divinity. Nevertheless, the
early or biologic religion of primitive man is largely a
persistence of animal fear coupled with ignorant awe and
tribal superstition. The survival of superstition in the
Urantia races is hardly complimentary to your
evolutionary development nor compatible with your
otherwise splendid achievements in material progress.
But this early fear religion serves a very valuable
purpose in subduing the fiery tempers of these primitive
creatures. It is the forerunner of civilization and the
soil for the subsequent planting of the seeds of
revealed religion by the Planetary Prince and his
ministers.
52:1.8
Within one hundred thousand years from the time man
acquires erect posture, the Planetary Prince usually
arrives, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign
upon the report of the Life Carriers that will is
functioning, even though comparatively few individuals
have thus developed. Primitive mortals usually welcome
the Planetary Prince and his visible staff; in fact,
they often look upon them with awe and reverence, almost
with worshipfulness, if they are not restrained.
2. POST-PLANETARY PRINCE MAN
52:2.1
With the arrival of the Planetary Prince a new
dispensation begins. Government appears on earth, and
the advanced tribal epoch is attained. Great social
strides are made during a few thousand years of this
regime. Under normal conditions mortals attain a high
state of civilization during this age. They do not
struggle so long in barbarism as did the Urantia races.
But life on an inhabited world is so changed by
rebellion that you can have little or no idea of such a
regime on a normal planet.
52:2.2
The average length of this dispensation is around five
hundred thousand years, some longer, some shorter.
During this era the planet is established in the
circuits of the system, and a full quota of seraphic and
other celestial helpers is assigned to its
administration. The Thought Adjusters come in increasing
numbers, and the seraphic guardians amplify their regime
of mortal supervision.
52:2.3
When the Planetary Prince arrives on a primitive world,
the evolved religion of fear and ignorance prevails. The
prince and his staff make the first revelations of
higher truth and universe organization. These initial
presentations of revealed religion are very simple, and
they usually pertain to the affairs of the local system.
Religion is wholly an evolutionary process prior to the
arrival of the Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion
progresses by graduated revelation as well as by
evolutionary growth. Each dispensation, each mortal
epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of spiritual
truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the
religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of
a world largely determines their rate of spiritual
advancement and the extent of religious revelation.
52:2.4
This dispensation witnesses a spiritual dawn, and the
different races and their various tribes tend to develop
specialized systems of religious and philosophic
thought. There uniformly run through all of these racial
religions two strains: the early fears of primitive men
and the later revelations of the Planetary Prince. In
some respects Urantians do not seem to have wholly
emerged from this stage of planetary evolution. As you
pursue this study, you will the more clearly discern how
far your world departs from the average course of
evolutionary progress and development.
52:2.5
But the Planetary Prince is not "the Prince of Peace."
Racial struggles and tribal wars continue over into this
dispensation but with diminishing frequency and
severity. This is the great age of racial dispersion,
and it culminates in a period of intense nationalism.
Color is the basis of tribal and national groupings, and
the different races often develop separate languages.
Each expanding group of mortals tends to seek isolation.
This segregation is favored by the existence of many
languages. Before the unification of the several races
their relentless warfare sometimes results in the
obliteration of whole peoples; the orange and green men
are particularly subject to such extinction.
52:2.6
On average worlds, during the latter part of the
prince's rule, national life begins to replace tribal
organization or rather to be superimposed upon the
existing tribal groupings. But the great social
achievement of the prince's epoch is the emergence of
family life. Heretofore, human relationships have been
chiefly tribal; now, the home begins to materialize.
52:2.7
This is the dispensation of the realization of sex
equality. On some planets the male may rule the female;
on others the reverse prevails. During this age normal
worlds establish full equality of the sexes, this being
preliminary to the fuller realization of the ideals of
home life. This is the dawn of the golden age of the
home. The idea of tribal rule gradually gives way to the
dual concept of national life and family life.
52:2.8
During this age agriculture makes its appearance. The
growth of the family idea is incompatible with the
roving and unsettled life of the hunter. Gradually the
practices of settled habitations and the cultivation of
the soil become established. The domestication of
animals and the development of home arts proceed apace.
Upon reaching the apex of biologic evolution, a high
level of civilization has been attained, but there is
little development of a mechanical order; invention is
the characteristic of the succeeding age.
52:2.9
The races are purified and brought up to a high state of
physical perfection and intellectual strength before the
end of this era. The early development of a normal world
is greatly helped by the plan of promoting the increase
of the higher types of mortals with proportionate
curtailment of the lower. And it is the failure of your
early peoples to thus discriminate between these types
that accounts for the presence of so many defective and
degenerate individuals among the present-day Urantia
races.
52:2.10
One of the great achievements of the age of the prince
is this restriction of the multiplication of mentally
defective and socially unfit individuals. Long before
the times of the arrival of the second Sons, the Adams,
most worlds seriously address themselves to the tasks of
race purification, something which the Urantia peoples
have not even yet seriously undertaken.
52:2.11
This problem of race improvement is not such an
extensive undertaking when it is attacked at this early
date in human evolution. The preceding period of tribal
struggles and rugged competition in race survival has
weeded out most of the abnormal and defective strains.
An idiot does not have much chance of survival in a
primitive and warring tribal social organization. It is
the false sentiment of your partially perfected
civilizations that fosters, protects, and perpetuates
the hopelessly defective strains of evolutionary human
stocks.
52:2.12
It is neither tenderness nor altruism to bestow futile
sympathy upon degenerated human beings, unsalvable
abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even the
most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient
differences between individuals and between numerous
social groups to provide for the full exercise of all
those noble traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish
mortal ministry without perpetuating the socially unfit
and the morally degenerate strains of evolving humanity.
There is abundant opportunity for the exercise of
tolerance and the function of altruism in behalf of
those unfortunate and needy individuals who have not
irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever
destroyed their spiritual birthright.
3. POST-ADAMIC MAN
52:3.1
When the original impetus of evolutionary life has run
its biologic course, when man has reached the apex of
animal development, there arrives the second order of
sonship, and the second dispensation of grace and
ministry is inaugurated. This is true on all
evolutionary worlds. When the highest possible level of
evolutionary life has been attained, when primitive man
has ascended as far as possible in the biologic scale, a
Material Son and Daughter always appear on the planet,
having been dispatched by the System Sovereign.
52:3.2
Thought Adjusters are increasingly bestowed upon the
post-Adamic men, and in constantly augmented numbers
these mortals attain capacity for subsequent Adjuster
fusion. While functioning as descending Sons, the Adams
do not possess Adjusters, but their planetary offspring
-- direct and mixed -- become legitimate candidates for
the reception, in due time, of the Mystery Monitors. By
the termination of the post-Adamic age the planet is in
possession of its full quota of celestial ministers;
only the fusion Adjusters are not yet universally
bestowed.
52:3.3
It is the prime purpose of the Adamic regime to
influence evolving man to complete the transit from the
hunter and herder stage of civilization to that of the
agriculturist and horticulturist, to be later
supplemented by the appearance of the urban and
industrial adjuncts to civilization. Ten thousand years
of this dispensation of the biologic uplifters is
sufficient to effect a marvelous transformation.
Twenty-five thousand years of such an administration of
the conjoint wisdom of the Planetary Prince and the
Material Sons usually ripens the sphere for the advent
of a Magisterial Son.
52:3.4
This age usually witnesses the completion of the
elimination of the unfit and the still further
purification of the racial strains; on normal worlds the
defective bestial tendencies are very nearly eliminated
from the reproducing stocks of the realm.
52:3.5
The Adamic progeny never amalgamate with the inferior
strains of the evolutionary races. Neither is it the
divine plan for the Planetary Adam or Eve to mate,
personally, with the evolutionary peoples. This
race-improvement project is the task of their progeny.
But the offspring of the Material Son and Daughter are
mobilized for generations before the racial-amalgamation
ministry is inaugurated.
52:3.6
The result of the gift of the Adamic life plasm to the
mortal races is an immediate upstepping of intellectual
capacity and an acceleration of spiritual progress.
There is usually some physical improvement also. On an
average world the post-Adamic dispensation is an age of
great invention, energy control, and mechanical
development. This is the era of the appearance of
multiform manufacture and the control of natural forces;
it is the golden age of exploration and the final
subduing of the planet. Much of the material progress of
a world occurs during this time of the inauguration of
the development of the physical sciences, just such an
epoch as Urantia is now experiencing. Your world is a
full dispensation and more behind the average planetary
schedule.
52:3.7
By the end of the Adamic dispensation on a normal planet
the races are practically blended, so that it can be
truly proclaimed that "God has made of one blood all the
nations," and that his Son "has made of one color all
peoples." The color of such an amalgamated race is
somewhat of an olive shade of the violet hue, the racial
"white" of the spheres.
52:3.8
Primitive man is for the most part carnivorous; the
Material Sons and Daughters do not eat meat, but their
offspring within a few generations usually gravitate to
the omnivorous level, although whole groups of their
descendants sometimes remain nonflesh eaters. This
double origin of the post-Adamic races explains how such
blended human stocks exhibit anatomic vestiges belonging
to both the herbivorous and carnivorous animal groups.
52:3.9
Within ten thousand years of racial amalgamation the
resultant stocks show varying degrees of anatomic blend,
some strains carrying more of the marks of the
nonflesh-eating ancestry, others exhibiting more of the
distinguishing traits and physical characteristics of
their carnivorous evolutionary progenitors. The majority
of these world races soon become omnivorous, subsisting
upon a wide range of viands from both the animal and
vegetable kingdoms.
52:3.10
The post-Adamic epoch is the dispensation of
internationalism. With the near completion of the task
of race blending, nationalism wanes, and the brotherhood
of man really begins to materialize. Representative
government begins to take the place of the monarchial or
paternal form of rulership. The educational system
becomes world-wide, and gradually the languages of the
races give way to the tongue of the violet people.
Universal peace and co-operation are seldom attained
until the races are fairly well blended, and until they
speak a common language.
52:3.11
During the closing centuries of the post-Adamic age
there develops new interest in art, music, and
literature, and this world-wide awakening is the signal
for the appearance of a Magisterial Son. The crowning
development of this era is the universal interest in
intellectual realities, true philosophy. Religion
becomes less nationalistic, becomes more and more a
planetary affair. New revelations of truth characterize
these ages, and the Most Highs of the constellations
begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is revealed
up to the administration of the constellations.
52:3.12
Great ethical advancement characterizes this era; the
brotherhood of man is the goal of its society.
World-wide peace -- the cessation of race conflict and
national animosity -- is the indicator of planetary
ripeness for the advent of the third order of sonship,
the Magisterial Son.
4. POST-MAGISTERIAL SON MAN
52:4.1
On normal and loyal planets this age opens with the
mortal races blended and biologically fit. There are no
race or color problems; literally all nations and races
are of one blood. The brotherhood of man flourishes, and
the nations are learning to live on earth in peace and
tranquillity. Such a world stands on the eve of a great
and culminating intellectual development.
52:4.2
When an evolutionary world becomes thus ripe for the
magisterial age, one of the high order of Avonal Sons
makes his appearance on a magisterial mission. The
Planetary Prince and the Material Sons are of local
universe origin; the Magisterial Son hails from
Paradise.
52:4.3
When the Paradise Avonals come to the mortal spheres on
judicial actions, solely as dispensation adjudicators,
they are never incarnated. But when they come on
magisterial missions, at least the initial one, they are
always incarnated, though they do not experience birth,
neither do they die the death of the realm. They may
live on for generations in those cases where they remain
as rulers on certain planets. When their missions are
concluded, they yield up their planetary lives and
return to their former status of divine sonship.
52:4.4
Each new dispensation extends the horizon of revealed
religion, and the Magisterial Sons extend the revelation
of truth to portray the affairs of the local universe
and all its tributaries.
52:4.5
After the initial visitation of a Magisterial Son the
races soon effect their economic liberation. The daily
work required to sustain one's independence would be
represented by two and one-half hours of your time. It
is perfectly safe to liberate such ethical and
intelligent mortals. Such refined peoples well know how
to utilize leisure for self-improvement and planetary
advancement. This age witnesses the further purification
of the racial stocks by the restriction of reproduction
among the less fit and poorly endowed individuals.
52:4.6
The political government and social administration of
the races continue to improve, self-government being
fairly well established by the end of this age. By
self-government we refer to the highest type of
representative government. Such worlds advance and honor
only those leaders and rulers who are most fit to bear
social and political responsibilities.
52:4.7
During this epoch the majority of the world mortals are
Adjuster indwelt. But even yet the bestowal of divine
Monitors is not always universal. The Adjusters of
fusion destiny are not yet bestowed upon all planetary
mortals; it is still necessary for the will creatures to
choose the Mystery Monitors.
52:4.8
During the closing ages of this dispensation, society
begins to return to more simplified forms of living. The
complex nature of an advancing civilization is running
its course, and mortals are learning to live more
naturally and effectively. And this trend increases with
each succeeding epoch. This is the age of the flowering
of art, music, and higher learning. The physical
sciences have already reached their height of
development. The termination of this age, on an ideal
world, witnesses the fullness of a great religious
awakening, a world-wide spiritual enlightenment. And
this extensive arousal of the spiritual natures of the
races is the signal for the arrival of the bestowal Son
and for the inauguration of the fifth mortal epoch.
52:4.9
On many worlds it develops that the planet is not made
ready for a bestowal Son by one magisterial mission; in
that event there will be a second, even a succession of
Magisterial Sons, each of whom will advance the races
from one dispensation to another until the planet is
made ready for the gift of the bestowal Son. On the
second and subsequent missions the Magisterial Sons may
or may not be incarnated. But no matter how many
Magisterial Sons may appear -- and they may also come as
such after the bestowal Son -- the advent of each one
marks the end of one dispensation and the beginning of
another.
52:4.10
These dispensations of the Magisterial Sons cover
anywhere from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand
years of Urantia time. Sometimes such an epoch is much
shorter and in rare instances even longer. But in the
fullness of time one of these same Magisterial Sons will
be born as the Paradise bestowal Son.
5. POST-BESTOWAL SON MAN
52:5.1
When a certain standard of intellectual and spiritual
development is attained on an inhabited world, a
Paradise bestowal Son always arrives. On normal worlds
he does not appear in the flesh until the races have
ascended to the highest levels of intellectual
development and ethical attainment. But on Urantia the
bestowal Son, even your own Creator Son, appeared at the
close of the Adamic dispensation, but that is not the
usual order of events on the worlds of space.
52:5.2
When the worlds have become ripe for spiritualization,
the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always belong to
the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case,
once in each local universe, when the Creator Son
prepares for his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary
world, as occurred when Michael of Nebadon appeared on
Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only
one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all
other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of
a Paradise Son of the Avonal order.
52:5.3
The bestowal Son arrives on a world of high educational
culture and encounters a race spiritually trained and
prepared to assimilate advanced teachings and to
appreciate the bestowal mission. This is an age
characterized by the world-wide pursuit of moral culture
and spiritual truth. The mortal passion of this
dispensation is the penetration of cosmic reality and
communion with spiritual reality. The revelations of
truth are extended to include the superuniverse.
Entirely new systems of education and government grow up
to supplant the crude regimes of former times. The joy
of living takes on new color, and the reactions of life
are exalted to heavenly heights of tone and timbre.
52:5.4
The bestowal Son lives and dies for the spiritual uplift
of the mortal races of a world. He establishes the "new
and living way"; his life is an incarnation of Paradise
truth in mortal flesh, that very truth -- even the
Spirit of Truth -- in the knowledge of which men shall
be free.
52:5.5
On Urantia the establishment of this "new and living
way" was a matter of fact as well as of truth. The
isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had
suspended the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon
death, directly to the shores of the mansion worlds.
Before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia all souls
slept on until the dispensational or special millennial
resurrections. Even Moses was not permitted to go over
to the other side until the occasion of a special
resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia,
contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of
Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to
the morontia spheres.
52:5.6
Upon the resurrection of a bestowal Son, on the third
day after yielding up his incarnated life, he ascends to
the right hand of the Universal Father, receives the
assurance of the acceptance of the bestowal mission, and
returns to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the
local universe. Thereupon the bestowal Avonal and the
Creator Michael send their joint spirit, the Spirit of
Truth, into the bestowal world. This is the occasion
when the "spirit of the triumphant Son is poured out
upon all flesh." The Universe Mother Spirit also
participates in this bestowal of the Spirit of Truth,
and concomitant therewith there issues the bestowal
edict of the Thought Adjusters. Thereafter all
normal-minded will creatures of that world will receive
Adjusters as soon as they attain the age of moral
responsibility, of spiritual choice.
52:5.7
If such a bestowal Avonal should return to a world after
the bestowal mission, he would not incarnate but would
come "in glory with the seraphic hosts."
52:5.8
The postbestowal Son age may extend from ten thousand to
a hundred thousand years. There is no arbitrary time
allotted to any of these dispensational eras. This is a
time of great ethical and spiritual progress. Under the
spiritual influence of these ages, human character
undergoes tremendous transformations and experiences
phenomenal development. It becomes possible to put the
golden rule into practical operation. The teachings of
Jesus are really applicable to a mortal world which has
had the preliminary training of the prebestowal Sons
with their dispensations of character ennoblement and
culture augmentation.
52:5.9
During this era the problems of disease and delinquency
are virtually solved. Degeneracy has already been
largely eliminated by selective reproduction. Disease
has been practically mastered through the high resistant
qualities of the Adamic strains and by the intelligent
and world-wide application of the discoveries of the
physical sciences of preceding ages. The average length
of life, during this period, climbs well above the
equivalent of three hundred years of Urantia time.
52:5.10
Throughout this epoch there is a gradual lessening of
governmental supervision. True self-government is
beginning to function; fewer and fewer restrictive laws
are necessary. The military branches of national
resistance are passing away; the era of international
harmony is really arriving. There are many nations,
mostly determined by land distribution, but only one
race, one language, and one religion. Mortal affairs are
almost, but not quite, utopian. This truly is a great
and glorious age!
6. URANTIA'S POST-BESTOWAL AGE
52:6.1
The bestowal Son is the Prince of Peace. He arrives with
the message, "Peace on earth and good will among men."
On normal worlds this is a dispensation of world-wide
peace; the nations no more learn war. But such salutary
influences did not attend the coming of your bestowal
Son, Christ Michael. Urantia is not proceeding in the
normal order. Your world is out of step in the planetary
procession. Your Master, when on earth, warned his
disciples that his advent would not bring the usual
reign of peace on Urantia. He distinctly told them that
there would be "wars and rumors of wars," and that
nation would rise against nation. At another time he
said, "Think not that I have come to bring peace upon
earth."
52:6.2
Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of
the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy
accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like
Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time
and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social
evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a
spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is
essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia.
While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate
attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of
social brotherhood on your world depends much on the
achievement of the following personal transformations
and planetary adjustments:
52:6.3
1. Social
fraternity. Multiplication of international and
interracial social contacts and fraternal associations
through travel, commerce, and competitive play.
Development of a common language and the multiplication
of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange
of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious
philosophers.
52:6.4
2. Intellectual
cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a
world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail
to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There
must occur an exchange of national and racial
literature. Each race must become familiar with the
thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings
of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and
suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of
sympathy and love.
52:6.5
3. Ethical
awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the
immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of
fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn
the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only
moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight
which is essential to living the golden rule.
52:6.6
4. Political
wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to
self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the
substitution of international techniques of civilized
adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise
statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity
even while they strive to promote the interest of their
national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is
ultimately suicidal -- destructive of all those enduring
qualities which insure planetary group survival.
52:6.7
5. Spiritual
insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all,
predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God.
The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on
Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of
present-day humanity. The only technique for
accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is
that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus
augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul
capacity of every mortal to understand and love every
other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love
are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the
world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.
52:6.8
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.
7. POST-TEACHER SON MAN
52:7.1
The Sons of the next order to arrive on the average
evolutionary world are the Trinity Teacher Sons, the
divine Sons of the Paradise Trinity. Again we find
Urantia out of step with its sister spheres in that your
Jesus has promised to return. That promise he will
certainly fulfill, but no one knows whether his second
coming will precede or follow the appearances of
Magisterial or Teacher Sons on Urantia.
52:7.2
The Teacher Sons come in groups to the spiritualizing
worlds. A planetary Teacher Son is assisted and
supported by seventy primary Sons, twelve secondary
Sons, and three of the highest and most experienced of
the supreme order of Daynals. This corps will remain for
some time on the world, long enough to effect the
transition from the evolutionary ages to the era of
light and life -- not less than one thousand years of
planetary time and often considerably longer. This
mission is a Trinity contribution to the antecedent
efforts of all the divine personalities who have
ministered to an inhabited world.
52:7.3
The revelation of truth is now extended to the central
universe and to Paradise. The races are becoming highly
spiritual. A great people has evolved and a great age is
approaching. The educational, economic, and
administrative systems of the planet are undergoing
radical transformations. New values and relationships
are being established. The kingdom of heaven is
appearing on earth, and the glory of God is being shed
abroad in the world.
52:7.4
This is the dispensation when many mortals are
translated from among the living. As the era of Trinity
Teacher Sons progresses, the spiritual allegiance of the
mortals of time becomes more and more universal. Natural
death becomes less frequent as the Adjusters
increasingly fuse with their subjects during the
lifetime in the flesh. The planet eventually is classed
as of the primary modified order of mortal ascension.
52:7.5
Life during this era is pleasant and profitable.
Degeneracy and the antisocial end products of the long
evolutionary struggle have been virtually obliterated.
The length of life approaches five hundred Urantia
years, and the reproductive rate of racial increase is
intelligently controlled. An entirely new order of
society has arrived. There are still great differences
among mortals, but the state of society more nearly
approaches the ideals of social brotherhood and
spiritual equality. Representative government is
vanishing, and the world is passing under the rule of
individual self-control. The function of government is
chiefly directed to collective tasks of social
administration and economic co-ordination. The golden
age is coming on apace; the temporal goal of the long
and intense planetary evolutionary struggle is in sight.
The reward of the ages is soon to be realized; the
wisdom of the Gods is about to be manifested.
52:7.6
The physical administration of a world during this age
requires about one hour each day on the part of every
adult individual; that is, the equivalent of one Urantia
hour. The planet is in close touch with universe
affairs, and its people scan the latest broadcasts with
the same keen interest you now manifest in the latest
editions of your daily newspapers. These races are
occupied with a thousand things of interest unknown on
your world.
52:7.7
Increasingly, true planetary allegiance to the Supreme
Being grows. Generation after generation, more and more
of the race step into line with those who practice
justice and live mercy. Slowly but surely the world is
being won to the joyous service of the Sons of God. The
physical difficulties and material problems have been
largely solved; the planet is ripening for advanced life
and a more settled existence.
52:7.8
From time to time throughout their dispensation, Teacher
Sons continue to come to these peaceful worlds. They do
not leave a world until they observe that the
evolutionary plan, as it concerns that planet, is
working smoothly. A Magisterial Son of judgment usually
accompanies the Teacher Sons on their successive
missions, while another such Son functions at the time
of their departure, and these judicial actions continue
from age to age throughout the duration of the mortal
regime of time and space.
52:7.9
Each recurring mission of the Trinity Teacher Sons
successively exalts such a supernal world to
ever-ascending heights of wisdom, spirituality, and
cosmic illumination. But the noble natives of such a
sphere are still finite and mortal. Nothing is perfect;
nevertheless, there is evolving a quality of near
perfection in the operation of an imperfect world and in
the lives of its human inhabitants.
52:7.10
The Trinity Teacher Sons may return many times to the
same world. But sooner or later, in connection with the
termination of one of their missions, the Planetary
Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary
Sovereign, and the System Sovereign appears to proclaim
the entrance of such a world upon the era of light and
life.
52:7.11
It was of the conclusion of the terminal mission of the
Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronology on a
normal world) that John wrote: "I saw a new heaven and a
new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from God out
of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the
prince."
52:7.12
This is the same renovated earth, the advanced planetary
stage, that the olden seer envisioned when he wrote:
"`For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I
will make, shall remain before me, so shall you and your
children survive; and it shall come to pass that from
one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another
all flesh shall come to worship before me,' says the
Lord."
52:7.13
It is the mortals of such an age who are described as "a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, an
exalted people; and you shall show forth the praises of
Him who has called you out of darkness into this
marvelous light."
52:7.14
No matter what the special natural history of an
individual planet may be, no difference whether a realm
has been wholly loyal, tainted with evil, or cursed by
sin -- no matter what the antecedents may be -- sooner
or later the grace of God and the ministry of angels
will usher in the day of the advent of the Trinity
Teacher Sons; and their departure, following their final
mission, will inaugurate this superb era of light and
life.
52:7.15
All the worlds of Satania can join in the hope of the
one who wrote: "Nevertheless we, according to His
promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein
dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
you look for such things, be diligent that you may be
found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless."
52:7.16
The departure of the Teacher Son corps, at the end of
their first or some subsequent reign, ushers in the dawn
of the era of light and life -- the threshold of the
transition from time to the vestibule of eternity. The
planetary realization of this era of light and life far
more than equals the fondest expectations of Urantia
mortals who have entertained no more farseeing concepts
of the future life than those embraced within religious
beliefs which depict heaven as the immediate destiny and
final dwelling place of surviving mortals.
52:7.17
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to
the staff of Gabriel.
*
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