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John Hyde--a Tribute
Ken Glasziou
Many readers who knew John Hyde personally or through correspondence and e-mail will have been bewildered and dismayed at the news of his death. But those who were aware of the many 'demons' that haunted John during his earlier life will perhaps presume that those demons got the better of him in a moment when he was caught off guard.
I knew John only through correspondence and through his contribution to Innerface International. But because of this, I had developed a profound respect for both his keenness of perception and the spirituality that shone through in his writing. The article that follows is composed from correspondence in our records. Regretfully, it is not possible to get John's approval but I can hope that his Thought Adjuster had some indirect input in helping to get it right. Farewell for the moment, John, until we meet again in the Mansion Worlds. In expressing his concerns about organizations involved in dissemination of the message of Urantia Papers, John wrote:
"My involvement with the Coopers and The Circles have led me to a conclusion that we, as a movement, need to try to get away from the fierce aversion to "religion" that has so characterized the outlook of many of our leaders as well as that of disaffected former "Christians" which form a large block of readers.
"Unwillingness to explore true spirituality is increasingly becoming an impedance to further growth of the movement, and the deadlock that we are approaching will, sooner or later, need to be broken somehow.
"I am a great admirer of the social support elements of the Jewish faith and the Mormon Church, and feel that, without some analogous development in the Urantia movement, we will never grow beyond a size roughly twice that of the present number of active readers.
"If we are to believe that the book is to have a major impact upon society, and a movement of some type is to be an element of that impact, then we need to pull our collective heads out of the sand and to stop pretending that our movement is significantly different from other spiritual or religious movements of the past. In doing so we may be able to learn something by observing the history of the early Christian Church, as well as the Reformation, and the early history of the Ba'hais, the Mormons, and the Christian Scientists.
"To bring those thoughts to fruition, an organization would be necessary, in effect an organized religion. And, in reality, no matter what it wanted to call itself, it would simply be another Christian sect! I have nothing against that.
"There is a lot of confusion in the Urantia movement about the concept of true religion--which is an individual thing--and organized religion which is a group activity.
"There is no way forward if Urantia Book readers cannot recognize that these two activities are not mutually exclusive, that both are essential.
"In The Urantia Book there is a quote that states: 'True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man's attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists...' (1616)
"The alternative to an organized religion is selfish retention of the messages of The Urantia Book by the individual for the individual--perhaps accompanied by the forlorn and almost inevitably misplaced hope that someone else will notice one's sainthood and benefit thereby.
"The bottom line is this: "The book alone, by itself, cannot and will not transform society. It will take transformed individuals, acting together.
"Persons who are marginally interested in religious affairs, if presented with The Urantia Book as possibly being a more fulfilling outlet for both their spiritual and group religious activities, will look FIRST at the effect the book has had upon its present readership. Only then will they decide whether or not to look more deeply into the book and what it represents.
"At the present stage of affairs, an approach of this kind will scare off the majority of potential new readers.
"No observant outsider is likely to be impressed by either the individual or collective performance of most of the current crop of Urantia Book readers. At present we have the 'go fasters' and the 'go slowers,' (the original two factions), the 'pro-UFers,' the 'pro-Fellowshipers,' the 'channelers,' the 'Course in Miraclers,' the 'pot-smokers,' and the 'let's promote inner spiritual growthers.'
"Probably the two most divisive are the 'pro-UFers' and the 'Teaching Mission' channelers--but for different reasons. The former are intolerant of the vast majority of readers and the opinions they hold while it is the intolerance of the majority of readers that causes the divisiveness created by the dogmatic and vocal 'Teaching Mission' channelers.
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