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The Dawn of Creative Imagination. The Alter Ego.
Ann Bendall, Nambour, Australia
One of the most wonderful times of childhood is the "imaginary friend" period, which seems to develop at about the age of three or four. If honored by the child in being allowed to view its world, the imaginary friend or friends are discovered to have names and personalities, and are well known to the child. The role of these friends appears to fluctuate between being a wise counsel, or being the object of a developing moral conscience. Consequently the friend is a wise sage or a naughty child, with the persona either taking advice from or berating the "friend" for transgressions.
And it is, "With the dawn of creative imagination (that) they (the children) evince a tendency to converse with imaginary companions. In this way a budding ego seeks to hold communion with a fictitious alter ego. By this technique the child early learns to convert his monologue conversations into pseudo dialogues in which this alter ego makes replies to his verbal thinking and wish expression. Very much of an adult's thinking is mentally carried on in conversational form." (996)
As I read The Urantia Book, it appears that this ability to form an "alter ego" is critical to the development of all that distinguishes human from animal, i.e., the ability to utilize the mind adjutants of worship and wisdom. Further, in accord with my current interpretation of pp. 996-999, the evolution of civilization and religion is actually gauged by the evolution of this alter ego.
And we are encouraged to use our alter ego, with the revelators affirming that although: "It is altogether fitting that man, when he prays, should strive to grasp the concept of the Universal Father on Paradise; but the more effective technique for most practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of this near-by alter ego, just as the primitive mind was wont to do, and then to recognize that the idea of the alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God's indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can talk face to face, as it were, with a real genuine divine alter ego that indwells him and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father." (997)
Jesus was a perfectly unified and well balanced personality, and he had unbroken communication with his Thought Adjuster. To my mind, he only achieved this through his developing, in early childhood, a preference for talking to his Father as his method of praying, and by sophisticating this technique throughout the rest of his life. I base this belief on the benefits elaborated as being ours in praying in this manner, i.e., "the result of all such praying is the enhancement of human character and the profound unification of human personality." (998) "Prayer, even as a purely human practice, a dialogue with one's alter ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored in the unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychological practice, aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance. It is a fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will pray in some way to some source of help." (999)
The ability to live as if in the presence of God is through the "alter ego." And it is by utilizing creative imagination and faith in my convictions, that I am enabled to come in contact with my reality in the universe, my Thought Adjuster.
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