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October 23, 1983

Dear Martin:

Over the past few days I have been appraised by some concerned individuals of some recent events taking place in Chicago and elsewhere which are obviously of singular concern to anyone who has served the Urantia Brotherhood and Foundation as I have. More particularly I voice my concern as a former member of the Forum and I take this method of publicly expressing my firm position on these events and attitudes which they may have engendered in the minds of various individuals. You may show this communication to anyone or any group who has any part in these events.

If Dr. William S. Sadler who opened the gates of "The Forum" to Eunice and me, were alive today his indignation over this entire affair would be boundless. In January of 1959, he wrote a paper titled SOME CRITICISMS OF THE Urantia BOOK in which in section 10 on page 13, he discussed "Some Unusual Activities of the Marginal Consciousness." These included the numerous activities found under the head "Automatic." These Automatic activities included writing, talking, hearing, which he called "Clairaudience", seeing, thinking, remembering, acting, personalization and combined and associated psychic states. I quote his statement immediately following the above:

NOTE: The technique of the reception of The Urantia Book in English in no way parallels or impinges upon any of the above phenomena of the marginal consciousness."

Part of my research activities at F.S.U. have been in this area of investigation. After voluminous search I am convinced of the correctness of Doctor Sadler’s conclusions. So was William James who conducted the most thorough of all investigations into this phenomenon. It is a product of the subconscious, often known as the marginal – or unconscious areas of the human mind. The phenomena under consideration in this letter falls apparently in the area of Clairaudience. This removes it from claims for consideration in any events related to the Urantia Revelation.

It is not surprising that so-called "messages" are appearing and in various locations and levels of intelligence. The early days of the Christian era were rife with this activity. We should expect to see it repeated now, especially since the last of the "revelators" has proceeded Mansionward. In fact, the delay in its appearance at least in public, until now was to be expected, as long as a single revelator remained to challenge the authenticity of a "message". Now with the sudden plethora of this kind of activity one is duty-bound to question the motivations behind it.

I have concluded that a fair test of the so-called messages is to evaluate them in accordance with the intelligence and enculturization of the one receiving them. Both of these factors condition the subconscious of the subject in a manner unknown to it. In all cases that I have reviewed, the content of the message is always well within the parameters of the two factors named above. Another key is to ask an otherwise honest subject to identify the sender. Here the reply is usually vague or identification is withheld at the request of the alleged sender. In the case of The Urantia Revelation the sender was always identified; the papers carry the name of the author unless it was a commission or combined operation.

I must add that while I would regard all messages received by any of the above techniques as products of the subconscious mind, if, the content were consistent with the intellectual morality of the recipient and appeared to solve a problem personal to them, then I do not think they should be challenged. However, once anyone else is involved I would treat them as objectively as above.

In this connection, what bothers me a great deal is that we have people in official and responsible positions who are failing their responsibilities by accepting the current phenomena without test of question. It is apparent to me, that in good faith, we have elected people who need training in the application of the bare essentials of reason. Again, if this involved only their own personal decisions I would not challenge it. However, the people I am referring to are the ones who are telephoning around the country in apparently a systematic manner, telling so-called key people, whose identity has been decided by the caller, that they should do all sorts of ridiculous things such as buying guns, laying in supplies, transferring records to safe places and in general acting as though afflicted with severe hysteria. In a word, they need diagnosis rather than responsibility. I would be very fearful of placing my future in the hands of such people. I would strongly recommend that they be impeached for conduct unbecoming their offices.

Now, this is the kind of conduct common to esoteric cults and the occult-oriented groups. If word gets out, where is the dignity of the Urantia Brotherhood and Foundation? It is lost for at least a generation. It would be better for us to close shop right now and reopen in about 25 years. If we don’t stop this nonsense immediately, we better join the rest and rent a mountain top where we can establish a colony to await the end of the world or "the second coming". This will be the image these people are sponsoring and once established we may never be able to get rid of it. I cannot criticize and deplore enough the conduct of people who are fostering this image whether acting in good faith or not. The same people who are writing with so much dubious erudition on "advertising" are the very ones whose activities question whether they can be trusted with anything more intellectually demanding that using an electric pencil sharpener.

This appraisal seems very sharp, but I don’t see how it can be otherwise. At the moment, I can see no future for these people in the Urantia movement. I think they should resign immediately. They certainly have shown gross incompetence and inability to perform in responsible positions. Let’s forget about all this "love" for a moment and take a look at the second paragraph from the bottom of page 1222 in The Urantia Book. This is the way we have to react in a real world. We have been overly sentimental in the conduct of our business for far too long. Now it’s a deeply-ingrained habit, difficult to eliminate.

Very truly yours,

 

James C. Mills

PS: Another very important point. Experience has taught me that it is one thing to read the U.B., and another quite different phenomenon to understand what it says. I have observed over 28 years that we have many more readers than understanders. In fact, the disproportion is shocking. People still see the "Book" in the light of what they want to believe; to support their pre-convictions. This is no way to run a business.