Appendix 2 – Bringers of Truth
Adam and Eve
The second Epochal Revelation was Adam and Eve. When the evolutionary process on an inhabited planet has reached a certain level of stability, a Material Son and Daughter, who are of the violet race and are called Adam and Eve, are sent to biologically uplift the mortal races.[1] These material sons and daughters reside in a special region set apart from the evolutionary races; it is artistically arranged with many gardens and places of beauty and in our system of inhabited worlds these are called the Garden of Eden. Normally Adam and Eve remain in the Garden while their family grows in size; they instruct the surrounding evolutionary peoples, uplifting their culture; only after there is a large number of the violet race are they allowed to intermarry with the evolutionary races, they are improved genetically by the contribution of the violet races. On these worlds the original pair, Adam and Eve, does not mate with the evolutionary mortals of their world.
However our planet is not normal. Our planetary prince had betrayed the trust placed in him and was openly working against them, which created problems for our Adam and Eve. Even though Caligastia was in rebellion, he was not removed from our planet, Urantia, and he is still free on this planet to carry out his plans. Since he is invisible we have no awareness of his work amongst us. Adam and Eve were cut off from the system lines of communication and were opposed at every turn by Caligastia and his followers. Their task on Urantia was exceedingly difficult.
Our Adam and Eve had been cautioned about the dangers ahead of them and even warned about what eventually brought about their downfall, namely that Eve was not to stray from the side of her mate and attempt secret plans of her own.[2] They were faced with an extremely difficult mission on our native sphere but if they had exercised more patience they could have been successful.[3] As we today seek to spread the good news of our Fifth Epochal Revelation we must exercise patience and seek the divine way of spreading this message; we must learn from the downfall of Adam and Eve.
The Garden of Eden had been prepared for them by Van, a loyal member of Caligastia’s staff who had remained on Urantia until the time of Adam and Eve. The Garden was well laid out and prepared for their arrival which took place more than 37,800 years ago. Just for fun, let’s compare the Garden in its day with our state of Maine today. The Garden had space and facilities for a population of one million.[4] Our state of Maine has a population of 1.3 million.[5] The Garden had more than twelve thousand miles of paved paths and roads[6] while Maine today has 22,830 miles of roads.[7] Imagine what archaeologists would say if they found an area roughly the size of Maine (30,800 square miles) which nearly forty thousand years ago had half as many miles of paved roads and paths Maine has highways today. One final observation on this subject, there is ample area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea for a peninsula the size of Maine. Perhaps there are remnants of the Garden there.
Adam and Eve struggled mightily to bring civilization to Urantia but there was very little to build these advanced teachings upon. The major problem was the establishment of law and order in a world of savages, barbarians, and semi-civilized human beings. Aside from the cream of the earth’s population, assembled in the Garden, only a few groups, here and there, were at all ready for the reception of the Adamic culture.[8] Even some of those dwelling in the garden believed in Caligastia’s teaching of unbridled personal liberty[9] and this sophistry continues down to our very own times.
Even though Caligastia was in rebellion, he was not removed from Urantia and he is still free on this planet to carry out his plans. He was set on disrupting the efforts of Adan and Eve. The plot Caligastia used to entrap Eve in the Garden of Eden was both subtle and gradual; we would do well to examine it in order to obtain some idea of how he operates. Since our lives encompass only a few decades, rarely even approaching a century, we have no concept of true long term planning. How different is this for a being like Caligastia who has had ongoing existence for hundreds of thousands of years; he has been on Urantia for about five hundred thousand years and he held other offices previous to this one![10] For Caligastia it would be natural to develop a plot taking a hundred years or more to develop.
Caligastia offered crafty and effective opposition to the Adamic mission; … this archrebel, by a wily stratagem, outmaneuvered the Edenic pair and entrapped them into a violation of the covenant of their trusteeship as the visible rulers of your world. The traitorous Planetary Prince did succeed in compromising your Adam and Eve, but he failed in his effort to involve them in the Lucifer rebellion.[11]
This quotation clearly states Caligastia’s “wily” plan compromised their regime; he somehow influenced the situation in such a way as to thwart the newly established Garden of Eden. He was not an idle bystander but exactly what did he do? Following is a brief summary of those plans.
His first tactic was to try the direct approach, he had conferences with Adam and Eve in an attempt to convince them directly but they resisted his proposals to take shortcuts. His assistant Daligastia approached their offspring but he also met with failure. It is important to remember that neither Caligastia nor Daligastia could influence anybody against their will and that is still the case.[12]
If he could not convince them and could not influence anybody against their will, how could Caligastia bring about the downfall of Adam and Eve? As we shall see, all he had to do was to encourage and possibly change the focus of actions that were according to the individual’s will. It is entirely possible he could make subtle suggestions to the mortals in order to direct them in the way he wanted. Remember none of the Urantians could see him (nor can we see him) while members of the pure line Violet race could.[13] Mortals might have thought these ideas appearing in their minds were their own. Another item to consider is both of the Urantians involved in the plot, Serapatatia and Cano, were enthusiastic supporters of the plans of Adam and Eve and this might make them susceptible to suggestions whispered in their minds aimed at “improving things.”
The above quotation states “Caligastia offered a crafty and effective opposition” to Adam’s plans; therefore Serapatatia and Cano were acting under some kind of influence from the archrebel and not entirely acting of their own accord. It is possible they were unfairly influenced to take the actions they took. To bring this briefly into our own time have we not heard whisperings of ways to improve things, ways of spreading the message just a bit faster and making the process just a little bit better? Returning to the time of Adam and Eve, not everyone then had Thought Adjusters, which were universally bestowed only after Pentecost.[14] Before this day Caligastia would have selected individuals who did not have adjusters because he was submissive before the Mystery Monitors.[15] Chapter 1 has a further discussion of the ways Caligastia influences humans.
The following discussion fleshing out details of the plot to entrap Eve is naturally based on conjecture, but it is consistent with the information we currently have.
The most advanced group of humans at that time was the Nodites who were descended from the corporeal staff;[16] perhaps their previous leader had more than one probable successor. Caligastia could have manipulated the various contenders so the new leader would be susceptible to his plans, would accept the whisperings in his ear. He would also want somebody who could become interested in the work of Adam and Eve but might be susceptible to suggestions for “improvements.” As a result of these manipulations, when Adam had been on Urantia for one hundred years Serapatatia became the chief of a confederation of Nodite tribes.[17] It may have taken a hundred years to set up this plot, but another consideration on the timing was Caligastia would want to wait for the right time before springing the trap; he would want Adam and Eve to become thoroughly frustrated with their lack of apparent progress and he wanted to be certain Adam would be kept busy running the Garden leaving Eve time for the solitary talks between Serapatatia and Eve crucial to his plan. After several visits to the Garden the Nodite leader announced he would form an affiliation with Adam and Eve; the majority of his people joined him in this, cheering Adam and Eve so much they entertained Serapatatia and his staff in their own home.[18] Serapatatia became an important part of the garden work and he was totally sincere in his activities, thinking he was working for the good of the Garden when in fact he was doing the opposite.[19]
Adam had set up the Garden so it was functioning reasonably well, but when he went outside the Garden he met with resistance instigated by Caligastia and Daligastia.[20] This constant struggle kept Adam fully occupied. While Adam was thus busy with affairs of the garden, Eve would meet with Serapatatia; these private meetings gradually increased in nature and the confidentiality of the subjects discussed; this entire process proceeded so gradually that Eve was caught off guard.[21] Over history how many times has someone taken a series of innocent little steps and at the end of this process become the antithesis of who he or she really desired to become?
Serapatatia worked diligently for the affairs of the Garden, even becoming the associate chairman of the Edenic commission on tribal relations.[22] He also had many meetings with Adam and Eve discussing ways to improve their methods; during one of these talks, which more frequently involved only Eve, Serapatatia got the idea of doing something to immediately help the needy tribes without waiting for large numbers of the violet race to be ready.[23] He wanted to make a shortcut in the plans, to seek the easy way out and mix the violet race with the evolutionary races before they were ready. He fully supported the long-term goal but he was impatient and wanted to see something in his lifetime.[24] The process was quite gradual; these plans were secretly discussed for five years before Eve agreed to meet Cano who was a handsome and sincere spiritual leader of the friendly neighboring Nodites.[25]
Without laboring the point any further, the deed was done.
Adam chose to share the fate of his mate, Eve, and therefore as a consequence of their actions, both were declared in default of their mission to our planet, meaning they lost their immortal status and became as mortals of the realm.
The immediate result of these actions was a complete collapse of the Garden regime; Adam and Eve were both declared in default; Serapatatia drowned himself in despair; Cano was killed when the angry inhabitants stormed out of the Garden and this was the beginning of a long period of warfare between the descendants of Adam and the Nodites.[26]
The focus of Adam and Eve was on doing God’s will and even after realizing they had done wrong they continued to strive toward doing His will; they were not overwhelmed by apparent defeat.
Whatever their intentions, this was not the divine way to achieve the goal of planetary progress.
Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will you gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the established and divine plan by short cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection.[27]
We would do well to remember that indeed there are no short cuts, no way to improve on the divine plan. Even though we may not have been as explicitly warned as Adam and Eve were, nonetheless we know which book contains truth, which book needs to be given to all those who are ready for its supernal teachings, given to all those who are seeking for “the way of perfection.”
It may have seemed such a small thing, a way to improve on the Devine plan for our world. Eve thought there was a way to find a short cut, a way to make faster progress. God whispers into our soul the true way and if we faithfully follow His guidance, we will prevail and leave this world a better place. There are no shortcuts, no easy path toward the doing of God’s will; if we dedicate ourselves to doing His will in all things, we will prevail and leave this world better for our being here.
Table of Contents Next section.
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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.paragraph, 821.1, 828.1 ↑
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840.6 ↑
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840.2 ↑
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824.5 ↑
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http://www.maine.gov ↑
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824.6 ↑
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http://www.maine.gov ↑
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833.4 ↑
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833.6 ↑
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741.3-741.5 ↑
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583.3 ↑
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753.2 and 840.3 ↑
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587.3 and 833.5 ↑
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1187.2 ↑
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610.3 ↑
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Cain went to the land of Nod to live, Bible, Genesis 4:16 ↑
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841.1 ↑
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841.2 ↑
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841.3 ↑
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833.5 ↑
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840.6 ↑
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841.4 ↑
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841.5 ↑
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841.6 ↑
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841.7 and 843.1 ↑
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843.5-844.2 ↑
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846.4 ↑