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Personality
By Berkeley Elliott
July 22, 1973

What is personality? Where is personality? When is personality? For many years I have pondered these questions and attempted to find answers, feeling they were available in the Urantia Book.

Webster says: "Personality - quality or state of being a person - and not a thing or abstraction; that which makes a being a person; personal existence or identity. That which constitutes distinction of person; distinctive personal character; individuality."

Individuality is described in Webster as - "The character or property peculiar to an individual; that quality which distinguishes one person or thing from another; distinctive character."

We find very little difference (between Personality and Individuality) in Webster's - but the Urantia Book makes a drastic distinction. When we speak of someone having a neat, nice, charming, great, wonderful, or terrific personality - we should substitute the word "individuality" - at least during our life in the flesh. A phase, or aspect, of personality could have a parallel to what we should call "individuality," since personality unifies the identity of any living energy system, and our temperament, actions, character traits, morality - whether we are sincere and honest or hypocrites and frauds; kind or cruel, happy or sad (sulky); generous or stingy (frugal); selfish or selfless; helpful or do-gooders; fast or slow; lazy or ambitious; intelligent or dull; boring or entertaining; annoying or soothing; smiling or frowning; pleasant or disagreeable; affectionate or cold; friendly or aloof; positive or negative; mentally healthy or neurotic; Promethian or Epimethian; good, beautiful, and true or bad, ugly and false - many of these attributes (or failures) of our "individuality" go to make up our character, our conduct, the rea1 self.

"In the human organism the summation of its parts constitutes selfhood-individuality - but such a process has nothing whatever to do with personality, which is the unifer of all these factors as related to cosmic realities." (Page 1227)

Personality is characterized by morality, and choosingly discriminates between conduct levels. But our gift of personality encompasses substantially more! Let us list some things the Urantia Book tells us about personality.

Personality is "bestowed upon any living energy system which includes mind or spirit." And "while devoid of identity, it can unify the identity of any living energy system." (Page 1225)

"Personality is a unique endowment of original nature whose existence is independent of, and antecedent to, the bestowal of the Thought Adjuster." (The spark of God in each of us) "Nevertheless, the presence of the Adjuster does augment the qualitative manifestation of personality." (Page 194)

"The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity." (Page 138)

"Urantia human beings are endowed with personality of the finite-mortal type , functioning on the level of the ascending sons of God." (Page 194)

"In the human system it is the personality which unifies all activities and in turn imparts the qualities of identity and creativity." (Page 1227)

"The Urantia type of human personality may be viewed as functioning in a physical mechanism consisting of the planetary modification of the Nebadon type of organism belonging to the electrochemical order of life activation and endowed with the Nebadon order of the Orvonton series of the cosmic mind of parental reproductive pattern." (Page 195)

"Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.

"The bestowal of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living" systems of the associated and coordinated energies of matter, mind and spirit, "which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness and the free will control thereof. ...The fundamental attributes of human selfhood, as well as the absolute nucleus of the human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in his exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry." (Page 70)

"...capacity for human personality is potential in the cosmic-mind endowment of the human being. But the experiential personality of mortal man is not observable as an active and functional reality until after the material life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the liberating divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas of experience as a ...self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly personal.

"The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.

"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." (Divine Counselor)

"The bestowal of creature personality confers relative liberation from slavish response to antecedent causation, and the personalities of all such moral beings, evolutionary or otherwise, are centered in the personality of the Universal Father. They are ever drawn towards his Paradise presence by that kinship of being which constitutes the vast and universal family circle and fraternal circuit of the eternal God. There is a kinship of divine spontaneity in all personality." (Page 71)

"Personality is that feature of any individual which we know, and which enables us to identify such a being at some future time regardless of the nature and extent of changes in form, mind, or spirit status. Personality is that part of any individual which enables us to recognize and positively identify that person as the one we have previously known, no matter how much he may have changed because of the modification of the vehicle of expression and manifestation of his personality.

"Creature personality is distinguished by two self-manifesting and characteristic phenomena of mortal reactive behavior: self-consciousness and associated relative free will. . . .

"Self-consciousness consists in intellectual awareness of personality actuality; ..." (Page 194)

"Human self-consciousness ...further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows." (Page 195)

"In the true meaning of the word, love connotes mutual regard of whole personalities whether human or divine, or human and divine." (Page 1228) "Love is the desire to do good to others." (Page 648)

"The personality circuit of the universe of universes is centered in the person of the Universal Father, and the Paradise Father is personally conscious of, and in personal touch with, all personalities of all levels of self-conscious existence.

"...this circuit unerringly transmits the worship of all personalities to the Original and Eternal Personality

"Concerning those personalities who are not Adjuster indwelt: The attribute of choice-liberty is also bestowed by the Universal Father, and such persons are likewise embraced in the great circuit of divine love, the personality circuit of the Universal Father. God provides for the sovereign choice of all true personalities." (Page 71) "Personality of the finite-creature variety is characterized by:

  • 1. Subjective self-consciousness.
  • 2. Objective response to the Father's personality circuit." First and Third personality circuits are not the same, but First and Third Source personalities "are mutually contactable; all personality is contactable."

    • The Infinite Spirit treats "as personalities numerous groups of beings, such as the Creative Spirits, who are in a class by themselves in their relations to encircuited creatures of the Father." (Page 106)

    "The type of personality bestowed upon Urantia mortals has a potentiality of seven dimensions of self-expression or person-realization. These dimensional phenomena are realizable as three on the finite level, three on the absonite level, and one on the absolute level. ...this seventh ...while not infinite, is ...potential for subinfinite penetration of the absolute.

    "The finite dimensions ...have to do with cosmic length, depth, and breadth ...[which] denotes meaning, ...value, ...[and] insight - the capacity to experience unchallengeable consciousness of cosmic reality." (Page 1226)

    "There exists a great cosmic gulf between matter and thought, and this gulf is immeasurably greater between material mind and spiritual love. Consciousness, much less self-consciousness, cannot be explained by any theory of mechanistic electronic association or materialistic phenomena." (Page 1228)

    "Mindless causation cannot evolve the refined and complex from the crude and simple, neither can spiritless experience evolve the divine characters of eternal survival from the material minds of the mortals of time. The one attribute of the universe which so exclusively characterizes the infinite Deity is this unending creative bestowal of personality which can survive Deity attainment.

    "Personality is that cosmic endowment, that phase of universal reality, which can coexist with unlimited change and at the same time retain its identity in the very presence of all such changes, and forever afterward." (Page 1434)

    "Human life is an endless change of the factors of life unified by the stability of the unchanging personality." (Page 1235)

    Dr. William S. Sadler in The Evolution of The Soul says that personality is the sum total of man's equipment and experience; it is the totality of all that man is and does. He says:

    "I observe personality to function upon six levels - the physical, the intellectual, the emotional, the social, the moral, and the spiritual, but when I put all of the activities with their characteristics of attitude, motivation, and behavior, together - when I add them up, I find in the resultant totality of personality so much that was not observably pre-existent in these component factors, that I am inclined to become a Gestaltist and conclude that parts derive their meaning from the whole - that the whole is something more than the sum of its parts. Personality cannot be defined because it is UNIQUE - not only that each individual is a unique personality, but that selfsame individual is likewise unique at each moment of his mortal existence. Personality is something which is relatively free from the domination of the otherwise universal law of antecedent causation. WILL is a function of total personality." Dr. Sadler also says - "The Spirit Monitor comes to indwell the mind of man at the hour of the completed emergence of his moral nature - that moment in human development when man becomes a MORAL BEING - a free-will creature having the power to choose between right and wrong, between good and evil..."

    And from The Urantia Book:

    "Physical energy is the one reality which is true and steadfast in its obedience to universal law. Only in the realms of creature volition has there been deviation from the divine paths and the original plans." (Page 139)

    "On Paradise the three energies, physical, mindal, and spiritual, are co-ordinate. In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit, through the mediation of mind, is striving for the mastery. Spirit is the fundamental reality of the personality experience of all creatures because God is spirit. Spirit is unchanging, and therefore, in all personality relations, it transcends both mind and matter, which are experiential variables of progressive attainment." (Page 140)

    "Mortal man has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material environment. Such a living relationship of personal mind and spirit constitutes the universe potential of eternal personality. Real trouble, lasting disappointment, serious defeat, or inescapable death can come only after self-concepts presume fully to displace the governing power of the central spirit nucleus, thereby disrupting the cosmic scheme of personality identity." (Page 142)

    "All of man's truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man's first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man's viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. ...As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father." (Page 1129) Jesus told Ganid: "... I have already told you much about the mind of man and the divine spirit that lives therein, but now let me emphasize that self- consciousness is a reality. When any animal becomes self-conscious, it becomes a primitive man. Such an attainment results from a co-ordination of function between impersonal energy and spirit-conceiving mind, and it is this phenomenon which warrants the bestowal of an absolute focal point for the human personality, the spirit of the Father in heaven." (Page 1479)

    "In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about with restraints, with limitations. Material-life evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated, and (after the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit directed." (Page 1301)

    "An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some form, continuing in the cosmos. A personality who knows God and desires to do his will, who has spirit insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man's great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in each of life's situations declaring, 'It is my will that your will be done."' (Page 1303)

    "Sin in time-conditioned space clearly proves the temporal liberty - even license - of the finite will. Sin depicts immaturity dazzled by the freedom of the relatively sovereign will of personality while failing to perceive the supreme obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship. "Iniquity in the finite domains reveals the transient reality of all God- identified selfhood. Only as a creature becomes God identified, does he become truly real in the universes. Finite personality is not self-created, but in the superuniverse arena of choice it does self-determine destiny.

    "The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems capable of self- perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives of self-determination, self- evolution, and self-identification with a fusion spirit of Deity. "Sub-personal living things indicate mind activating energy-matter, first as physical controllers, and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the living system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice ..., then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.

    "Therefore is there increased safety in narrowing limits of personality choice throughout the lower levels of existence. Choice becomes increasingly liberated as the universes are ascended; choice eventually approximates divine freedom when the ascending personality achieves divinity of status, supremacy of consecration to the purposes of the universe, completion of cosmic-wisdom attainment, and finality of creature identification with the will and the way of God." (Page 1301)

    "Mortal man is endowed with free will, the power of choice, and though such choosing is not absolute, nevertheless, it is relatively final on the finite level and concerning the destiny of the choosing personality. "Volition on any level short of the absolute encounters limitations which are constitutive in the very personality exercising the power of choice. Man cannot choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He cannot, for instance, choose to be other than a human being except that he can elect to become more than a man; he can choose to embark upon the voyage of universe ascension, but this is because the human choice and the divine will happen to be coincident upon this point. And what a son desires and the Father wills will certainly come to pass.

    "In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually opening and closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human personality . . is constantly deciding between these many courses of action. Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to find opportunity for expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of God. "Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the universe frame which has actualized in response to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is superfinite; only eternity can disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite." "The Gods have wisely limited the range of the action of immature will, but it is true will, nonetheless, within these defined limits." (Page 1300)

    William S. Sadler, Jr. in A Study of The Master Universe says - "God has invested us with the priceless powers of choice that accompany his gift of personality." In a speech Bill made in Oklahoma City on our Society's first anniversary - November 23, 1958 - he had this to say about God's gifts:

    "God gives us two priceless pieces of equipment. First of all he gives us sense of direction. He incarcerates a part of his love inside of us. He lives in us. This part of God that lives in us is God's love made real to each one of us, and this part of God that lives in us knows the way to God. It points just as unerringly God-ward as the compass needle points northward. It came from God, so it knows the way back to God. It is our unerring pilot.

    "And God gives us a second priceless endowment - he endows us with relative free will, freedom of choice. The pilot is not the captain. We are captain. The pilot can steer only as we choose. I think of all the priceless gifts which God could make to me, and none would transcend the endowment of freedom of choice. Otherwise, I would be a machine. With freedom of choice, I am a person. I can be a son of God. What does freedom of choice mean? It means that I just don't have to respond slavishly to what happens to me. I have something to say about what I become. I have been liberated from marching in lock-step to antecedent causation. This Book teaches me that the more outside of myself I go toward the material level, the less choosing I can do. The more I move inward away from the material level, inward and spiritward, the greater is my liberation of choice, until when I reach the supreme choice, pro or con concerning God, here my choice knows no restriction - as to whether I choose to be His son, to do His will - I am absolutely on my own. Here my choice is absolute. God has given us this perfectly splendid equipment - freedom of choice and an absolute sense of direction."

    We know the Universal Father bestows personality on each of us; he gives us a unique gift which is characterized by morality; personality unifies our identity; personality makes us self-conscious and gives us relative free will (absolute in choosing to be God's son). We know the personality circuit is a direct line to the Father. We know this bestowal gift is changeless in the presence of change (the growing soul - the result of the relationship between the Adjuster and the personal mind); we know the Thought Adjuster our second direct gift from the Father, is the spirit nucleus of the Human personality, and is subject to the personal human will. We should at least have a "feel'' for the what is personality and where is personality?

    When does personality arrive? We know that the Thought Adjuster now comes at the age of first moral choice. (See Page 1186) "The adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. It requires the coordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil - moral choice.

    ' ...where the Spirit of Truth is functioning ...the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost." (Page 1187) (This being the Spirit of Truth came to the planet. Before this time certain requirements had to be met before Adjusters were sent.)

    'Only a personality can know what it is doing before it does it; only personality...can look before it leaps and can therefore learn from looking as well as leaping. A nonpersonal animal ordinarily learns only by leaping." (Page 193)

    The seventh group of worlds encircling Salvation are the Worlds of the Archangels. . All "are occupied by the personality record keepers. This enormous corps of recorders busy themselves with keeping straight the record of each mortal from the moment of birth up through the universe career until such an individual either leaves Salvington for the superuniverse regime or is "blotted out of existence" by the mandate of the Ancients of Days.

    "It is on these worlds that personality records and identification sureties are classified, filed, and preserved during that time which intervenes between mortal death and the hour of repersonalization, the resurrection from death." (Page 409)

    What is the moment of birth? Does this mean mortal - physical - birth? when the personality arrives? or when the Thought Adjuster arrives - which is the time we are recognized in the universe as an individual (or person) separated from parents? (See Page 570) I think our "moment of birth" is when the Thought Adjuster arrives.

    "The Census Directors are a special and completed creation of the Infinite and they are so created as to be able to maintain perfect synchrony with the reflectivity technique of the superuniverse, while at the same time they are personally sensitive and responsive to intelligent will. These Directors, by a not-fully-understood technique, are made immediately aware of the birth of will in any part of the grand universe. They are, therefore, always competent to give the number, nature, and whereabouts of all will creatures in any part of the central creation and the seven superuniverses. They do not function on Paradise; ..on Paradise knowledge is inherent;

    'The Census Directors are concerned with human beings - as with other will creatures only to the extent of recording the fact of will function. The Census Director of Nebadon is at this very moment personally conscious and aware of your living presence here on Urantia; and he will afford the records confirmation of your death the moment you cease to function as a will creature.

    "Census Directors register the existence of a new will creature when the first act of will is performed; they indicate the death of a will creature when the last act of will takes place. The partial emergence of will observed in the reactions of certain of the higher animals does not belong to the domain of the Census Directors. They keep count of nothing but bona fide will creatures, and they are responsive to nothing but will function." (Pages 266-7)

    What is a will creature? We know this has something to do with personality but let us get some definitions.

    "When the Life Carriers operating on a new world have once succeeded in producing a being with will, with the power of moral decision and spiritual choice, then and there their work terminates - they are through; they may manipulate the evolving life no further." (Page 400)

    "The adjutant mind-spirits experientially grow, but they never become personal. They evolve in function, and the function of the first five in the animal orders is to a certain extent essential to the function of all seven as human intellect."

    "...human mind, personal mind, has no survival qualities apart from spirit identification." (Page 403)

    The ministry of the local universe Mother Spirit is functional to "human (moral) intellect in the seven adjutants." (Page 481)

    "The body minus volitional mind is no longer human.. 'Increasingly, on down through the dawn mammals, the mid-mammals, and the primates, we [Life Carriers] had observed the augmented service of the first five adjutants.. But never had the remaining two, the highest mind ministers, been able to function in the Urantia type of evolutionary mind.

    "Imagine our joy one day - (approximately one million years ago) the twins were about ten years old-when the spirit of worship made its first contact with the mind of the female twin and shortly thereafter with the male. We knew...something closely akin to human mind was approaching culmination; and when, about a year later, they finally resolved, as a result of meditative thought and purposeful decision, to flee from home and journey north, then did the spirit of wisdom begin to function on Urantia and in these now recognized human minds.

    "We were alive with expectation; we realized that the long-waited-for hour was approaching; we knew we were upon the threshold of the realization of our protracted efforts to evolve will creatures on Urantia.

    "We (the Life Carriers) did not have to wait long ...but since this world was a life-experiment station, we had not the slightest idea of just how we would be apprised of the recognition of intelligent life on the planet.

    Over a newly established mind circuit by a Nebadon archangel - the "first message, dictated by the chief of the archangel corps said:

    "To the Life Carriers on Urantia - Greetings! We transmit assurance of pleasure on Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem in honor of the registration on the headquarters of Nebadon of the signal of the existence on Urantia of mind of will dignity. The purposeful decision of the twins to flee northward and segregate their offspring from their inferior ancestors has been noted. This is the first decision of mind - the human type of mind - on Urantia.

    "For ages we had been on duty, assisted only by the seven adjutant mind spirits and the Master Physical Controllers. And now, will, the power of choosing to worship and to ascend, having appeared in the evolutionary creatures of the planet, we realized that our work was finished." (Pages 709-10) "Man-mind has appeared on 606 of Satania, and these parents of the new race shall be called Andon and Fonta. And all archangels pray that these creatures may speedily be endowed with the personal indwelling of the gift of the spirit of the Universal Father.'"

    Andon and Fonta's "vague feeling of being something more than mere animals was due to the possession of personality and was augmented by the indwelling presence of the Thought Adjuster." (Page 711)

    The seven adjutant mind spirits "manipulate mind potentials, so do the Life Carriers exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental aspects of evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of human will -- the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him." (Page 730)

    "It was our intention to produce an early manifestation of will in the evolutionary life on Urantia, and we succeeded. Ordinarily, will does not emerge until the colored races have long been in existence, usually first appearing among the superior types of the red man. Your world is the only planet in Satania where the human type of will has appeared in a precolored race." (Page 736)

    "The advent of a Lanonandek Son on an average world signifies that will, the ability to choose the path of eternal survival, has developed in the mind of primitive man. But on Urantia the Planetary Prince arrived almost half a million years after the appearance of human will." (Page 741)

    "Entrance upon the seventh [psychic] circle marks the beginning of true human personality function." "The successful traversal of these circles - from the seventh to the first, demands the harmonious functioning of the entire personality, not merely of some one thereof. The growth of the parts does not equal the true maturation of the whole; the parts really grow in proportion to the expansion of the entire self -- the whole self - material, intellectual, and spiritual." (Page 1209)

    The level of the seventh psychic circle "is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe." 1210)

    During life, the mortal will, the personality power of decision-choice is resident in the material mind circuits; as terrestrial mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless powers of choice, becomes increasingly identified with the emerging morontia-soul entity; after death and following the mansion world resurrection, the human personality is completely identified with the morontia self. The soul is thus the embryo of the future morontia vehicle of personality identity." (Page 1219)

    "...at any time prior to mortal death [the] material and human will is empowered to rescind a choice and to reject survival. Even after survival the ascending mortal still retains this prerogative of choosing to reject eternal life; at any time before fusion with the Adjuster the evolving and ascending creature can chose to forsake the will of the Paradise Father." (Page 1218)

    Personal beings "have been endowed with the actual choice of destiny acceptance or of destiny rejection."

    "Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. ... mortal personality, , through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.

    "And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man's greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution." (Pages 1232-3)

    "... personality values of ... a nonsurvivor persist as a factor in the personality of the actualizing Supreme Being. Such persisting qualities of personality are deprived of identity but not of experiential values accumulated during the mortal life in the flesh. (Page 195)

    "The human personality can truly destroy individuality of creaturehood, and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cosmic suicide will persist, these qualities will not persist as an individual creature. The Supreme will again find expression in the creatures of the universe but never again as that particular person, the unique personality of a nonascender returns to the Supreme as a drop of water returns to the sea." (Page 1283)

    The use of the words "personalize," "Personalization," and "personification" are sometimes used in the papers as an act of "making real." Some illustrations of this are:

    Much as the Creator Sons are personalized by the Father and the Son, so are the

    Magisterial Sons personalized by the Son and the Spirit.": (Page 88)

    "...when the forty-ninth Reflective Spirit has personalized, then a new and far-reaching reaction occurred in the Deity Absolute which imparted new personality prerogatives to the Supreme Being and culminated in the personalization of Majeston, the reflectivity chief and Paradise center of all the work of the forty-nine Reflective Spirits..." (Page 199)

    Our Creator Son is the personification of the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity of simultaneous origin in the Universal Father and the Eternal Son." (Page 366)

    "You mortals are persons; hence we can describe beings who are personalized, but how could an absonitized being ever be explained to you?" (Page 334) "On the inhabited worlds, human personality (indwelt and oriented by the Paradise Father's spirit) is the only physically related reality which can transcend the material sequence of temporal events." (Page 1439)

    "During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to the mansion worlds, ...the record of personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their worlds of special activities. These beings are not the custodians of personality (as the guardian seraphim are of the soul), but it is nonetheless true that every identifiable factor of personality is effectually safeguarded in the custody of these dependable trustees of mortal survival. As to the exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening death and survival, we do not know." (Page 1234)

    The fact of repersonalization" - in addition to a suitable form, the return of the adjuster, and the deposit of the soul by the seraphic custodian - appears to be "the seizure of the encircuited morontia phase of newly segregated cosmic mind by the personality. The phenomenon of personality is dependent on the persistence of the identity of selfhood reaction to universe environment; and this can only be effected through the medium of mind." (Page 1235)

    Jesus was the perfectly unified personality. "Although the average mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character which Jesus of Nazareth acquired while sojourning in the flesh, it is altogether possible for every mortal believer to develop a strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus personality. The unique feature of the Master's personality was not so much its perfection as its symmetry, its exquisite and balanced unification." (Page 1101)

    Christ Michael, while truly a dual-origin being, was not a double personality." (Page 1331) "The fact that he had a single personality rendered it difficult for his consciousness to recognize the double origin of those factors which composed the nature associated with that selfsame personality." (Page 1371)

    When "Jesus arrived at the age of his first personal and wholehearted moral decision (almost 4-1/2 years of age), there came to abide with him a Thought Adjuster, a divine gift of the Paradise Father. Jesus was no more aware of the coming of the divine Monitor than are the millions upon millions of other children who, before and since that day, have likewise received these Thought Adjusters to indwell their minds and work for the ultimate spiritualization of these minds and eternal survival of their evolving souls." (Page 1357) The average age - in 1935 - for the arrival of the Thought Adjuster was just prior to the sixth birthday (page 1187), but today, individually, this could be at a considerably younger age, and I feel that it is.

    "Peace in this life, survival in death, perfection in the next life, service in eternity - all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the creature personality consents - chooses - to subject the creature will to the Father's will. And already has the Father chosen to make a fragment thought Adjuster] of himself subject to the will of the creature personality." (Page 1221)

    "The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will." (Page 1204)

    "Neither angels nor Adjusters are devoted directly to influencing human thought; that is your exclusive personality prerogative." (Page 1205)

    The Urantia Book does not stifle imagination with an over-revelation. It stimulates and encourages creative speculation and conjecture. (See Page 330) So shall we?

    What can personality do for an individual without the Thought Adjuster? We are given every reason to believe if an individual has potential survival qualities -- a normal mind -- the Thought Adjuster has to be present to initiate the birth of the soul -- the morontia entity our moral and spiritual choosing helps to grow. Also, it is the spiritual influence of the Thought Adjuster the personality free will may choose to be directive. So even before the universal outpouring of the Spirit of Truth and the automatic coming of the Adjusters with the first functioning of the spirit of wisdom (7th adjutant mind-spirit), can't we safely conjecture the Adjusters arrived early?

    Would a consistent, loving Father give his gift of personality to a mortal -- the unique free will choice to unify the individual and the ability to choose to make His will their will -- without the Thought Adjuster, the absolute ingredient necessary for the birth of the soul, and for spirit direction? Only with the arrival of the Thought Adjuster is there a soul born (the Thought Adjuster is father - the human mind is the mother) and without a soul there is NO survival. Without a soul is there really a free will choice? Even primitive man had to evolve a soul to achieve spirit fusion. (See Page 450)

    The Urantia Book tells me we are "plugged" into God's personality circuit ("...direct and sustaining contact with the Father ..." (Page 640) ) when the seventh adjutant mind-spirit - the spirit of wisdom - functions, and this is the occasion for the Thought Adjuster's arrival. The Papers tell me that human, personal, free will functioned on this planet when, and only when, all seven adjutant mind spirits functioned. In other words personality was bestowed at the same time.

    Evolution proceeded, Michael came, left, and sent his Spirit of Truth. Since that time, the Thought Adjusters unfailingly come automatically the instant the spirit of wisdom, the same time we become "will creatures" - or personality becomes apparent.

    Although the Papers say the personality is antecedent to the Thought Adjuster, does this mean bestowed "slightly" before? Could this mean '"comparative in force - applies to position?" Perhaps both are correct. We are told many times the Adjuster is the nucleus (and the absolute focal point) of the human personality. We are also told the Adjuster is subject to the human will. If the personality is bestowed before all seven adjutants become active -- it is not functioning, for we are not a "will creature" until we have all seven working. At this point in time, we also have an Adjuster.

    Since this priceless power of choice comes with our gift of personality from the Universal Father; since the Thought Adjuster is subservient to its choosing; and since they start functioning in our minds practically simultaneously; could we have underestimated the importance of the gift of personality?

    We do know - "No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of will sons of the God of free will." (Page 71)

    Berkeley Elliott
    July 22, 1973

    A Service of
    The Urantia Book Fellowship