Appendix 1 – The Urantia Book
Epochal revelation
Imagine you are an angel in heaven and your supervisor comes to you and says “We have a problem with Satania 606, they call themselves Earth. What would you recommend we do so they will become more spiritually aware and we will be able to bring them back into the system channels of communication?” You might say something like “Well, that would require an extensive study.” The reply would be something such as “think, you know their story. Their planetary prince went into rebellion and their Adam and Eve tried plans of their own. Melchizedek did a great job bringing them the light of truth and our Michael, whom they call Jesus, was perfect in his presentation of truth and righteousness but you know what they did to him. It is high time for us to help them get their awareness of spiritual reality into gear. We have tried everything, what would you suggest we do?”
Indeed, what would you do? How could the higher authorities of creation bring a greater spiritual awareness to this world more interested in texting and impersonal messaging than in meaningful interpersonal interactions and searching for spiritual truth? Anything splashy and dramatic would become the news rather than deliver any meaningful and lasting message. Imagine if Jesus were to perform those miracles today, how would our news media and the people respond? A moment’s reflection might indicate something subtle, under the radar so to speak, might get through. Why not introduce to us a book without human authors describing the nature of all things, telling us what God is like, His creation and how everything fits together? This book could then be gradually introduced to the world. Why not give each of us who is ready to receive advanced information a view of the true nature of reality? Tell us how it is; give us The Urantia Book which today anybody can read and study at their leisure.[1]
This may be an oversimplification but it catches the flavor of the dilemma of our celestial overseers as they attempt to bring us into universal reality; we have been under the effects of rebellion for over two hundred thousand years and have no concept of what a “normal” planet might be like. What we may consider normal, such as unbridled personal liberty, is an aberration not the civilized norm. Would you give a two year old child the unfettered liberty to do whatever he or she may wish? By the same token immature societies need to be closely monitored and guided gently toward a greater awareness of reality. We desperately need a wider glimpse of what is true and good and beautiful. We need to become more aware of higher spiritual reality, eternal goals rather than our day to day existence. We need a broader perspective; The Urantia Book.
Again, try to put yourself into the mind of our unseen friends. They want to tell us how things truly are and they have these marvelous teachings, these sublime thoughts on time, eternity, God, the history of all things and the nature of total creation but the problem is that in order to get it into our awareness they absolutely must use human language. In fact they are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm.[2] Because of this The Urantia Book is a challenging read due to this issue of putting greatly expanded concepts into an evolutionary mortal language and then into our consciousness; our minds are not used to thinking about such subjects. Parts of the Bible may be difficult, for example the book of Revelation, but this is because we have trouble dealing with the symbolism used, not necessarily the underlying concepts. The Urantia Book is difficult because our mortal brains have trouble grasping these advanced concepts. It has a higher level of difficulty. God is with us, within us, helping us to comprehend these vital ideas. Trust Him.
The Urantia Book is the fifth epochal revelation to our planet.[3] What exactly is meant by “epochal” revelation? The dictionary defines epochal as “the beginning of a new and important period in the history of anything.”[4] The publication of this new revelation therefore defines the start of a new period of history. To students of the revelation this is obviously a new era in our history but this realization has not spread outside these believers. It is up to the students of this revelation to facilitate a wider recognition of its value. This publication is the most important revelation of truth since Jesus, emphasizing its importance; for the last two millennia our heavenly supervisors recognize nothing of primary spiritual importance on Earth until The Urantia Book. Placing this revelation next after the teachings of Jesus is an indication of its importance not only for us but for all time.
Earth needs spiritual guidance so that we can make the necessary changes to bring about peace and brotherhood. The previous revelation of truth was the life and teachings of Jesus more than two thousand years ago. While his teachings greatly uplifted the spiritual awareness of our native planet, many of his teachings were not assimilated by those who followed him. One example of this is the truth that every normal minded person on Earth is indwelt by a fragment of God. Our Heavenly Father is literally within everyone, which has astounding implications. Everyone without exception has value, purpose and meaning because of this. If those who claim to follow Jesus realized this truth there would no longer be religious strife between Christians and those of other faiths.
Sending another such teacher today would not work in our near instantaneous mass media environment because such a person would undoubtedly become the news and the teachings would mostly be lost in noise. If there were miracles, the news frenzy would be unbelievable; even in the time of Jesus there were clamoring for miracles, especially after the feeding of the five thousand.[5]
Given our situation, the best solution would be to give us a new revelation of truth in a book form. That way it could be distributed, studied, shared, and integrated into the lives of its students. Recognition of its value would be gradual, allowing time for the message to sink in and become deeply meaningful for its students. This way the teachings would be the driving factor instead of some momentary news event.
The purpose of The Urantia Book is to increase our spiritual awareness, to uplift our lives, our society, our government, and to improve the overall spiritual health of Earth. Our beautiful native planet cries out for peace and harmony, without a major increase in spiritual awareness the future of life on this planet is in peril.
The actual message Jesus taught needs to be restated for our times. Everyone needs to know we are all equally indwelt by a fragment of God; we need to know spiritual reality is vital to our wellbeing. We need to know eternal life is truly ours for the asking and we are all sisters and brothers; there are no exceptions.
Society has been largely secular for way too long, it has ignored our Heavenly Father and this is evident in the state of our society. We need a spiritual uplift; The Urantia Book shows us the way to achieve this.
The Urantia Book is not a book to merely read and put aside, it must be studied and its teachings be allowed to transform our life, our interactions with our sisters and brothers, as well as our society. Its purpose is to begin the process of bringing peace, brotherhood, and joy to Earth. Its purpose is to continue to repair the damage done by our Planetary Prince when he joined the rebellion.
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The Urantia Book can be downloaded from Urantia.org ↑
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All references are to The Urantia Book unless noted otherwise. The number refers to the single column version in the format page.paragraph1.2 ↑
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1007.4-1008.2 ↑
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Webster’s p 366 Third College Edition Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English, Victoria Neufeldt and David B. Guralnik eds., Webster’s New World, Cleveland and New York, 1988, p 458. ↑
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1708.1 and Bible: John Chapter 6 ↑