A Message of Importance

DURING THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, an activity has surfaced in Urantia Book reading circles that is known as "The Teaching Mission". Participants claim to receive channeled messages from unseen "spiritual beings".

These channelers call themselves "Transmitter-Receivers" and they profess to represent a new, invisible planetary government. They insist that they are given special information and guidance. But the most serious assertion they put forth is that their material is an extension of the Fifth Epochal Revelation -- The Urantia Book. Thus they justify taking over Urantia Book study groups and "updating" The Urantia Book with their channeled "messages" from "celestial" personalities.

The proponents of "The Teaching Mission" and other channeling activities have been most aggressive in promoting themselves, and they have generally been allowed to pursue their agendas at will. In our opinion this is a critical situation that has too long gone unchallenged -- we believe channeling compromises the integrity and credibility of The Urantia Book before the world and affects the entire Urantia community. To avoid taking a stand against what we deem to be error is -- as Martin Luther King once said -- "to be an accomplice to it".

This special report was prepared to answer a long-standing need for a balanced, organized, and replete argument against channeling. Our love is not diminished for our brothers and sisters who choose to believe and support channeling. It is, rather, in the spirit of that love that we offer this information.

We hope that all readers carefully consider what The Urantia Book teaches about channeling activities. We also urge you to take a hard look at what is happening to the Fifth Epochal Revelation.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON CHANNELING IN THE Urantia MOVEMENT
by Larry Mullins

In my twenty-five years or so of reading The Urantia Book I have known of three powerful attempts to control and manipulate the movement and to exploit the Fifth Epochal Revelation.

Each of these has been associated with "channeling", "special messages", and/or "exclusive" information. Each attempt has involved "favored" individuals -- such as self-proclaimed "reserve corps" members -- people who were generally egoistic, strong-willed and charismatic. Very rarely did leaders publicly challenge these usurpers or question their authority. The agendas of these aggressive personalities were sometimes even championed and supported by other leaders in the movement. The cumulative result of this general passiveness and appeasement has been disastrous to the mission of disseminating The Urantia Book and its teachings.

The first two instances were closely related attempts to control from within. In one case, after the death of Dr. William Sadler in 1969, a small nucleus of individuals in the Foundation and Brotherhood held sway over the entire movement for years. Policies of non-advertising and harsh control were justified by unspecified, or partially disclosed "messages" and "mandates". Following the death of one of the key members of the exclusive inner circle in 1982, a single individual sought control of the Revelation based upon his own "secret messages". The final outcome was a "World War III" scare that resulted in years of chaos, disrupted lives, and a fragmented movement.

After the war-fear crisis passed, a cult-like atmosphere existed at the Foundation. The last surviving member of the original control-nucleus maintained a policy of closed and secretive repression, demanding more and more acquiescence from the General Council of the Brotherhood. The years of avoidance and accommodation proved fatal to reconciliation: The Brotherhood (now the Fellowship) and the Foundation severed relations completely -- and as a result Urantia Books have virtually disappeared from bookstores and are difficult to obtain.

The Urantia movement is now faced with a third attempt to control and exploit the Revelation. In this instance, it is not someone in the "inner circle" who is presuming unique authority, the threat is from the outside Dozens of Urantia Book study groups have been taken over and supplanted by "channeling" sessions. Potential new readers are turned away by activities that are less than wholesome and appropriate. Some official representatives of the Fellowship foster channeling and are open advocates of the practice. A mass of material supporting channeling is being passed back and forth between readers. To paraphrase Shakespeare, many of us are being "won over with truthful trifles, to be betrayed in the deepest consequence". Since the early days of the movement, the General Council of the Brotherhood has been reluctant to take official stands on tough issues, fearing to be perceived as a "doctrinaire" body. The new Fellowship has continued this policy. Readers who look to the 36 General Councilors for decisive leadership are advised to "make up their own minds". But too often only one side of the "channeling" story is being presented. A fuller disclosure of what The Urantia Book teaches must be provided before informed decisions can be made. This booklet is designed to furnish this needed, more replete distillation of The Urantia Book's philosophy about "celestial guidance".

The Urantia Papers were not "channeled"

THE Urantia PAPERS were materialized by means that have never been fully explained. Dr. William Sadler was very clear, however, that the manner in which the Papers were materialized in no way paralleled or was related to any form of marginal human consciousness. In other words, they were not channeled. Whatever the "Teaching Mission" and the various other channeling activities may be, they are not a continuation of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. Much of the channeling material is contrary to the broad philosophical fabric of The Urantia Book. The primary purpose of this publication is to establish that proposition by using quotes from The Urantia Book -- the Book speaks best for itself. Appendix One is provided to allow the reader to weigh the ideas of a secular team that investigates the use of channeling as a control tool by would-be gurus. In Appendix Two, you can read the perspective of Dr. Meredith J. Sprunger, an esteemed theologian who is the only living colleague and confidant of Dr. William Sadler. The final appendix was extracted from material that was edited and published by advocates of channeling. Though brief. these excerpts demonstrate that some of their own carefully prepared and showcased material should be repugnant to the common sense of any reader who is familiar with the exquisitely consistent and symmetrical philosophy of The Urantia Book.

The collection of Urantia Book quotes presented herewith was developed to support the premises and contentions on page eight of this special report. We have sought to be objective within the context of these premises. Many people may take exception to the conclusions we endeavor to support; but in doing so they are confronted with a formidable amount of Urantia Book philosophy that they must reconcile to their views; or simply ignore.

The most significant questions every devoted reader must confront is: Are channeling activities truly a continuation of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, or are they not? If they are not, should these activities -- even in the interest of being "brotherly" and avoiding confrontations -- continue to interfere with, and possibly confuse, those who desire to study the original teachings of The Urantia Book?

In the rich mythology surrounding the Urantia Papers, it has been written and stated that when the book was at last published in 1955, a final message was communicated to the original Forum -- and then the contact was severed and fell silent. This last message was said to be: "You are now on your own".

CLYDE BEDELL joined the original Forum in 1924, at the age of 26. In 1981, he wrote about the supposed "secret" information that the Foundation was then using for manipulative control of the readership.

"After being in the Sadler Forum and its successive or subsequent organizations since September of 1924 . . . I do not believe The Urantia Book will ever be superseded until some distant date from now, and then only by another Epochal Revelation, not by some anonymous spirits secretly passing little do's and don'ts to fallible human trustees. If the Revelators ever in the future cancel the 'you are now on your own' [message], it will not be to discredit the book and Jesus' instructions. Of that you may be certain".

I hasten to suggest a qualification to the alleged final message: "You are now on your own". As Meredith Sprunger points out in his commentaries in appendix two of this work, we have a direct line to the highest authority in the universe -- we have our Father Fragment within -- not to mention the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Spirit. But we must make decisions with our human minds, and complete those decisions with appropriate actions.

This is a time for courageous human decisions-and a fresh measure of passionate commitment to the formidable mission at hand. This mission was valiantly set into motion nearly 2000 years ago, in an obscure province of the Roman Empire. Its completion has been touchingly entrusted to us, the ordinary mortals of the realm. This mission is eloquently redefined for the world in the pages of The Urantia Book. In my judgment, and in the judgment of the staff of The Invisible Fellowship Magazine, the time has come for believers in The Urantia Book to wholeheartedly be about the completion of that supreme and noble mission-the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ Michael of Nebadon

The PREMISES and CONTENTIONS of this DOCUMENT

1. God has provided for our spiritual development through our moral decisions and no being in the universe is permitted to interfere or impinge upon that process.
2. "Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it."
3. Jesus, as a human on this planet, did not employ celestial personalities for "advice", he used only his Thought Adjuster, just as do other mortals of the realm. This was true up to his baptism, which is equivalent to the point at which a mortal would fuse.
4. The supreme, authentic "teaching mission" was set into motion by Jesus. The Creator Son was required to use "natural, ordinary and trying methods" to win the hearts of mortals, "as his earth children must subsequently follow".
5. The human being cannot discern "celestial messages" from the products of his or her own mental processes.
6. Contrary to the alleged channeling ", notably "Machiventa", who has been showcased by channelers as one of their higher quality "teachers", our great task in mortal life is to seek better attunement with our Thought Adjusters. ("Machiventa" claims the "teacher" will be even closer to the mortal than the Spirit (Father) Fragment!)
7. Channeling is likely a new form of "alter egoism", similar to that of primitive spiritist religions.
8. Midwayers, although never involved in spiritualism or mediumship, are always employed as guardians when authentic spiritual contacts are made with mortals. Channelers do not employ midwayers as part of their "communications" process.
9. The efforts of the "teaching mission" to bring about a premature world order under the control of "favored" mortals is not consistent with the gospel of the kingdom of heaven as taught by Jesus.

The Sovereignty and Responsibility of Human Will

[71] Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man's inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.

Jesus used only his Thought Adjuster

[2090] Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.

[1398] This year Jesus made great progress in the organization of his mind. Gradually he had brought his divine and human natures together, and he accomplished all this organization of intellect by the force of his own decisions and with only the aid of his indwelling Monitor, just such a Monitor as all normal mortals on all postbestowal-Son worlds have within their minds. So far, nothing supernatural had happened in this young man's career except the visit of a messenger, dispatched by his elder brother Immanuel who once appeared to him during the night at Jerusalem.

[2088] Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. . . The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship -- unbroken communion with God -- and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices.

[1407] He obtained knowledge, gained experience, and combined these into wisdom, just as do other mortals of the realm. Until after his baptism he availed himself of no supernatural power. He employed no agency not a part of his human endowment as a son of Joseph and Mary.

[1521] Jesus chose to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of mankind by natural, ordinary, difficult, and trying methods, just such procedures as his earth children must subsequently follow in their work of enlarging and extending that heavenly kingdom. For well did the Son of Man know that it would be "through much tribulation that many of the children of all ages would enter into the kingdom".

[1808] Between these two celestial visitations, one in his thirteenth year and the other at his baptism, there occurred nothing supernatural or superhuman in the life of this incarnated Creator Son. Notwithstanding this, the babe of Bethlehem, the lad, youth, and man of Nazareth, was in reality the incarnated Creator of a universe; but he never once used aught of this power, nor did he utilize the guidance of celestial personalities, aside from that of his guardian seraphim, in the living of his human life up to the day of his baptism by John. And we who thus testify know whereof we speak.

[229] When a bestowal Son has mastered the experience of living the mortal life, when he has achieved perfection of attunement with his indwelling Adjuster, thereupon he begins that part of his planetary mission designed to illuminate the minds and to inspire the souls of his brethren in the flesh.

[1493] Jesus spent the last three weeks of August and the first three weeks of September on Mount Hermon. During these weeks he finished the mortal task of achieving the circles of mind-understanding and personality-control. Throughout this period of communion with his heavenly Father the indwelling Adjuster also completed the assigned services. The mortal goal of this earth creature was there attained. Only the final phase of mind and Adjuster attunement remained to be consummated.

[2084] Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men . . . And when Jesus becomes thus lifted up, he will draw all men to himself. Jesus' disciples should be more than conquerors, even overflowing sources of inspiration and enhanced living to all men. Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.Additional Thought Adjuster quotes [also see pg. 32] [Compare to "Macheventa"9/23/92: "You will have someone much closer to you than your spirit fragment" and: "attunement to your teacher".] See Appendix Three.

[1207] The Thought Adjuster is engaged in a constant effort so to spiritualize your mind as to evolve your morontia soul; but you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.

[1206] I cannot but observe that so many of you spend so much time and thought on mere trifles of living, while you almost wholly overlook the more essential realities of everlasting import, those very accomplishments which are concerned with the development of a more harmonious working agreement between you and your Adjusters. The great goal of human existence is to attune to the divinity of the indwelling Adjuster; the great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind. [Solitary Messenger]

[1207] Trust all matters of mind beyond the dead level of consciousness to the custody of the Adjusters. You are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind. Even when they do find it possible to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolving mortal soul, this spiritual revelation often so blinds the creature as to precipitate a convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval which results disastrously. Many a new religion and strange "ism" has arisen from the aborted, imperfect, misunderstood, and garbled communications of the Thought Adjusters.

[1208] These are problems which will have to be solved through individual discrimination and personal decision. But a human being would do better to err in rejecting an Adjuster's expression through believing it to be a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity.

[24] The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

[1111] Throughout all religious experience, from its earliest inception on the material level up to the time of the attainment of full spirit status, the Adjuster is the secret of the personal realization of the reality of the existence of the Supreme; and this same Adjuster also holds the secrets of your faith in the transcendental attainment of the Ultimate. The experiential personality of evolving man, united to the Adjuster essence of the existential God, constitutes the potential completion of supreme existence and is inherently the basis for the superfinite eventuation of transcendental personality.

[1119] The indwelling Thought Adjuster unfailingly arouses in man's soul a true and searching hunger for perfection together with a far-reaching curiosity which can be adequately satisfied only by communion with God, the divine source of that Adjuster. The hungry soul of man refuses to be satisfied with anything less than the personal realization of the living God.

[2095] The exquisite and transcendent experience of loving and being loved is not just a psychic illusion because it is so purely subjective. The one truly divine and objective reality that is associated with mortal beings, the Thought Adjuster, functions to human observation apparently as an exclusively subjective phenomenon. Man's contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.

[1217] Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth the exquisite melodies of God identification and consequent eternal survival. The Adjuster bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse and self-seeking human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and good -- actually great -- in accordance with the spirit-illuminated will of a God-knowing human being.

[1207] Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster; but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental level, natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the realms of the superconscious.)

[1096] Actual spiritual status is the measure of Deity attainment, Adjuster attunement. The achievement of finality of spirituality is equivalent to the attainment of the maximum of reality, the maximum of Godlikeness. Eternal life is the endless quest for infinite values.

[1099] In contrast with conversion-seeking, the better approach to the morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer. Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings.

Jesus and personal responsibility

[1570] One by one they embraced Jesus, but no man said aught. A great silence pervaded the place while a host of celestial beings looked down upon this solemn and sacred scene -- the Creator of a universe placing the affairs of the divine brotherhood of man under the direction of human minds.

[1731] "I have called you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of the realization of the possibility of making for yourselves the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make -- the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience". [Jesus]

[1635] "How is it, then, that you would have me turn aside from my work for the gratification of the curious and for the satisfaction of those who seek for signs and wonders? . . . When men are attracted to us because of extraordinary manifestations, many of them come seeking not for truth and salvation but rather in quest of healing for their physical ailments and to secure deliverance from their material difficulties". [Jesus]

[1729] And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fearful, and hesitant individuals who will prefer thus to secure their religious consolations, even though, in so casting their lot with the religions of authority, they compromise the sovereignty of personality, debase the dignity of self-respect, and utterly surrender the right to participate in that most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences: the personal quest for truth, the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal triumph of the actual realization of the victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in the supreme adventure of all human existence -- man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him.

[1705] In less than one month's time the enthusiastic and open followers of Jesus, who numbered more than fifty thousand in Galilee alone, shrank to less than five hundred. Jesus desired to give his apostles such an experience with the fickleness of popular acclaim that they would not be tempted to rely on such manifestations of transient religious hysteria after he should leave them alone in the work of the kingdom, but he was only partially successful in this effort.

Jesus and the "Way"

[1815] Said Jesus: "I have told you about myself and my Father many times, but you will not believe me . . . many of you believe not because you belong not to my fold. The teacher of truth attracts only those who hunger for the truth and who thirst for righteousness. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me".

[2089] Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, "Follow me".

[1818] "The true shepherd gathers his flock into the fold for the night in times of danger. And when the morning has come, he enters into the fold by the door, and when he calls, the sheep know his voice. Every shepherd who gains entrance to the sheepfold by any other means than by the door is a thief and a robber. The true shepherd enters the fold after the porter has opened the door for him, and his sheep, knowing his voice, come out at his word; and when they that are his are thus brought forth, the true shepherd goes before them; he leads the way and the sheep follow him. His sheep follow him because they know his voice; they will not follow a stranger. They will flee from the stranger because they know not his voice. This multitude which is gathered about us here are like sheep without a shepherd, but when we speak to them, they know the shepherd's voice, and they follow after us; at least, those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness do. Some of you are not of my fold; you know not my voice, and you do not follow me. And because you are false shepherds, the sheep know not your voice and will not follow you". [Jesus]

[1819] "And now, lest some of you too easily comprehend this parable, I will declare that I am both the door to the Father's sheepfold and at the same time the true shepherd of my Father's flocks. Every shepherd who seeks to enter the fold without me shall fail, and the sheep will not hear his voice. I, with those who minister with me, am the door". [Jesus]

[1829] "I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life". [Jesus]

[1808] "I have shown you the way; go forth to do your duty and be not weary in well doing. To you and to all who shall follow in your steps down through the ages, let me say: I always stand near, and my invitation-call is, and ever shall be, Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am true and loyal, and you shall find spiritual rest for your souls". [Jesus]

And they found the Master's words to be true when they put his promises to the test. And since that day countless thousands also have tested and proved the surety of these same promises.

The alter-ego

[996] Children, when first learning to make use of language, are prone to think out loud, to express their thoughts in words, even if no one is present to hear them. With the dawn of creative imagination they 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] The early and primitive form of prayer was much like the semimagical recitations of the present-day Toda tribe, prayers that were not addressed to anyone in particular. But such techniques of praying tend to evolve into the dialogue type of communication by the emergence of the idea of an alter ego. In time the alter-ego concept is exalted to a superior status of divine dignity, and prayer as an agency of religion has appeared. Through many phases and during long ages this primitive type of praying is destined to evolve before attaining the level of intelligent and truly ethical prayer.

[997] As it is conceived by successive generations of praying mortals, the alter ego evolves up through ghosts, fetishes, and spirits to polytheistic gods, and eventually to the One God, a divine being embodying the highest ideals and the loftiest aspirations of the praying ego.

[961] The early monospiritism ghost fear was gradually evolving into a dual spiritism, a new concept of the invisible control of earthy affairs.

[962] And now the simple ghost cult is followed by the practices of the more advanced and relatively complex spirit-ghost cult, the service and worship of the higher spirits as they evolved in man's primitive imagination. Religious ceremonial must keep pace with spirit evolution and progress. The expanded cult was but the art of self-maintenance practiced in relation to belief in supernatural beings, self-adjustment to spirit environment.

Midwayer activities

[Note: The "Teaching Mission transmissions" by-pass these guardians of the spirit realm; "transmissions" are not done in liaison with midwayers. Yet the job of midwayers is to patrol the spiritual realm of the planet, and they are always used as liaison in spirit-contacts with mortal beings.]

[864] Midwayers are the guardians, the sentinels, of the worlds of space. They perform the important duties of observers for all the numerous phenomena and types of communication which are of import to the supernatural beings of the realm. They patrol the invisible spirit realm of the planet.

[865] Contact personalities. In the contacts made with the mortal beings of the material worlds, such as with the subject through whom these communications were transmitted, the midway creatures are always employed. They are an essential factor in such liaisons of the spiritual and the material levels.

[865] Their chief work today is that of unperceived personal-liaison associates of those men and women who constitute the planetary reserve corps of destiny. It was the work of this secondary group, ably seconded by certain of the primary corps, that brought about the co-ordination of personalities and circumstances on Urantia which finally induced the planetary celestial supervisors to initiate those petitions that resulted in the granting of the mandates making possible the series of revelations of which this presentation is a part. But it should be made clear that the midway creatures are not involved in the sordid performances taking place under the general designation of "spiritualism". The midwayers at present on Urantia, all of whom are of honorable standing, are not connected with the phenomena of so-called "mediumship"; and they do not, ordinarily, permit humans to witness their sometimes necessary physical activities or other contacts with the material world, as they are perceived by human senses.

The trance-like state

[1099] Under no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be cultivated as a religious experience.

[1099-1100] The great danger in all these psychic speculations is that visions and other so-called mystic experiences, along with extraordinary dreams, may be regarded as divine communications to the human mind. In times past, divine beings have revealed themselves to certain God-knowing persons, not because of their mystic trances or morbid visions, but in spite of all these phenomena.

[1100] The characteristics of the mystical state are diffusion of consciousness with vivid islands of focal attention operating on a comparatively passive intellect. All of this gravitates consciousness toward the subconscious rather than in the direction of the zone of spiritual contact, the superconscious. Many mystics have carried their mental dissociation to the level of abnormal mental manifestations.

[1100] However favorable may have been the conditions for mystic phenomena, it should be clearly understood that Jesus of Nazareth never resorted to such methods for communion with the Paradise Father. Jesus had no subconscious delusions or superconscious illusions.Reincarnation

[Reincarnation is taught by the Sedona group of channelers, and creeps into the "transmissions" of the "Teaching Mission" channelers, notably Solona [1/13/93]. Also see page 24 of this document, excerpts from The Guru Papers. Reincarnation is repudiated in the teachings of The Urantia Book.]

[528] When, with the passing of time, the physical bodies of these unique creatures deteriorate from usage and age, their creators, in collaboration with Life Carriers, fabricate new bodies in which the old spornagia establish their residences. Spornagia are the only creatures in all the universe of Nebadon who experience this or any other sort of reincarnation. [Note: Spornagia are an advanced kind of animal without surviving souls. We encounter spornagia later in our universe careers.]

[1029] And of all the contaminating beliefs which could have been fastened upon what may have been an emerging monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration -- the doctrine of reincarnation of souls . . . This philosophically debilitating teaching was soon followed by the invention of the eternal escape from self by the submergence in the universal rest and peace of absolute union with Brahman . . . Mortal desire and human ambition were effectively ravished and virtually destroyed.

[l646] Jesus further explained to his apostles that the spirits of departed human beings do not come back to the world of their origin to communicate with their living fellows. Only after the passing of a dispensational age would it be possible for the advancing spirit of mortal man to return to earth and then only in exceptional cases as part of the spiritual administration of the planet.

The gospel of the kingdom

(NOTE: This formal discourse on the kingdom of heaven was presented by the Master near the end of his life in the flesh).

[1863] The Master on this occasion placed emphasis on the following five points as representing the cardinal features of the gospel of the kingdom:

1. The pre-eminence of the individual.
2. The will as the determining factor in man's experience.
3. Spiritual Fellowship with God the Father.
4. The supreme satisfactions of the loving service of man.
5. The transcendency of the spiritual over the material in human personality.

This world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals of Jesus' doctrine of the kingdom of heaven. But you should not become discouraged by the apparently slow progress of the kingdom idea on Urantia . . . Neither should you make the fatal mistake, in looking for the age of manifestation of the kingdom, of failing to effect its establishment within your own souls.