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The Urantia Papers are self-authenticating!
Ken Glasziou, Australia
Is it possible that the Urantia Papers were written by human beings? This is a natural and important question that should be asked. Certainly there is much in the Papers that could have been so written. But that is hardly surprising since the ostensibly celestial revelators acknowledge that they used human sources wherever they could find adequate expression by a human being concerning a concept they wished to present. (17, 1343) But there are also Papers, such as many of those in Part 1 of the book, that express ideas and concepts that are quite unlike existing human presentations. There is some unique quality, something esoteric and supernal about these Papers that, from a critical and discerning reader, can invoke the response, "No man ever spoke thus."
For example there is this comment from a paper on the second person of Deity, the Eternal Son:
"Long, long ago the Eternal Son bestowed himself upon each of the circuits of the central creation for the enlightenment and advancement of all the inhabitants and pilgrims of Havona, including the ascending pilgrims of time. On none of these seven bestowals did he function as either an ascender or a Havoner. He existed as himself. His experience was unique; it was not with or as a human or other pilgrim but in some way associative in the superpersonal sense.
"Neither did he pass through the rest that intervenes between the inner Havona circuit and the shores of Paradise. It is not possible for him, an absolute being, to suspend consciousness of personality, for in him center all lines of spiritual gravity. And during the times of these bestowals the central Paradise lodgment of spiritual luminosity was undimmed, and the Son's grasp of universal spirit gravity was undiminished." (86)
These bestowals of the eternal Son can be thought of as pattern for the subsequent bestowals of Creator Sons such as when Jesus of Nazareth came to this planet. A strange comment in the second paragraph refers to a "rest"--apparently a period that intervenes between the inner Havona circuit and the shores of Paradise. Occurring on page 86 of The Urantia Book, this comment appears to receive no further explanation until about 200 pages later when it becomes clear that this "rest" is a transition period experienced by ascending mortals. It is variously designated the "terminal slumber, sleep, or rest, of time," also "the sleep of the eternity transit," and the "divine rest."
This is the "rest" that marks the graduation of a creature of space from the finite worlds of time and space into residential status in the realm of the timeless and spaceless abode of Paradise. It does not occur on the first visit of the pilgrim of time to Paradise, but requires that on some previous visit, the pilgrim was able to "attain" the Universal Father, that being a qualification for entering into the "terminal rest of time." (293) The ascender must also have completed a preparatory period on each of seven circuits of the Havona worlds under the watchful care of a "Graduate Guide"--a celestial being who is appropriately equipped for the task and who accompanies the ascending mortal from the time of their first welcome to Havona until their departure commencing with the transit sleep.
This next step of the ascender's journey in which residential status on Paradise is granted, is quite remarkable as it is also the transition from a finite state of being to a transcendent state of eternal existence eventuating on a timeless and spaceless Paradise.
Human authors do not normally write, or even speculate, about such occurrences, and certainly not in fine detail and a "matter of fact" style that implies an intimate knowledge of such processes.
But what I found to be extraordinary is the recognition given in the quotation from page 86 that when an absolute being such as the Eternal Son makes the transition between Paradise and Havona (which are markedly different zones of reality), there are special consequences. One of them is because this particular absolute personality, the Eternal Son, is also the center of what is referred to as spirit "gravity." This terminology appears to be by analogy with the attractive and cohesive pulling force of gravity as it was understood by the vast majority of Earthlings at the time the Papers were received.
Apparently if the Eternal Son were to enter the same kind of terminal sleep of time as we ascending mortals do, his accompanying suspension of consciousness would have dire consequences for all the other personalities of the creation.
Would a human author think thus? Would a human author write thus? Has a human author ever written thus? Is it likely that a human author would even give a thought to the possibility that such a transition might create a problem for the Eternal Son--the one who scarcely differs from the Universal Father in his attributes, the one who, together with the Eternal Spirit planned and fashioned every post-Havona universe?
This is just one example among a multitude of examples, that, for the observant and thoughtful reader, illuminate the truly remarkable nature of these unique Urantia Papers.
However absolute proof of their celestial authorship is not even a possibility. The only acid
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