January 28, 2000
Mr. Floyd Perkins
Department of Charitable Trusts
Office of the Attorney General, State of Illinois
100 West Randolph
Chicago, IL 60601Dear Mr. Perkins:
This relates to a complaint which I understand has been filed with your office concerning Urantia Foundation, an Illinois Charitable Trust, by a Mr. Martin Myers. While I have no knowledge of the content or nature of Mr. Myer's complaint and have not communicated with Mr. Myers for more than fifteen years, I nevertheless am gratified, as a former contributor and participant in the affairs of Urantia Foundation, to know that someone with his organizational experience and legal knowledge is apparently speaking out against the failure of the Trustees of Urantia Foundation to responsibly carry out the requirements of the public trust which was conferred upon them by the State of Illinois in 1950.
Please consider the degree to which the Trustees of Urantia Foundation are fulfilling the objects for which their trust was created. (Relevant sections of the trust document are attached as Attachment I).
1. Urantia Foundation has failed to maintain and publish an "inviolate" text; Article 2.2:
One of the Concordant Objects for which the Trust was created ‑‑ indeed the most significant ‑‑ is "to perpetually preserve inviolate the text of The Urantia Book ..." Yet astute students of The Urantia Book have discovered well over 100 changes which have been made to the text between various printings. While many of these consist only of spelling and punctuation changes, there are others which are of enough significance to have stimulated debates about the doctrinal implications of making such changes.
In addition, there is concern that once the Trustees have institutionalized a pattern of making random changes in accordance with their personal evaluations of what the original authors might have meant, a significant drift in meaning of key portions of the text could occur over time. In fact, subtle changes are already altering the quality of the text. For example, in the current Spanish edition, what was, in the original "inviolate" text, a collection of "Papers," has been recast into a book of "Chapters". This unexplained change from the English original and the earlier Spanish edition substantially changes the nature and character of the text which the Trustees are responsible for preserving as "inviolate".
The point here is that their Declaration of Trust requires them to "perpetually preserve inviolate the text of The Urantia Book" ‑‑ not to redefine what constitutes the "inviolate" text with each printing or even to make "corrections." Having destroyed the plates whose anonymous contribution formed the Substantive Estate of the original trust, the Trustees no longer have an objective referent which might be used to confirm whether or not any proposed "corrections" lead to greater conformance with the material as it existed on the original plates. The original metal plates could have easily been preserved for centuries. Regardless of storage conditions, even archival copies of the first printing will have a limited life span.
Recent research by readers and computer generated comparisons of various printings show the following numbers of changes in the first eleven printings of The Urantia Book:
Second printing (1967): 52 changes
Third printing (1971): 12 changes
Fourth printing (1973): 1 change
Sixth printing (1978): 6 changes
Seventh printing (1981): 11 changes
Ninth printing (1986): 1 change
Tenth printing (1990): 32 changes
Eleventh printing (1993): 9 changes
Although Urantia Foundation will provide a list of changes upon request, there is no annotation within the text itself in any of their printings identifying the location of changes or even indicating that any changes have been made. It is impossible for the reader to know the degree to which any particular portion of the text might deviate from the original.
In the current printing of The Urantia Book (1999), the Trustees have added promotional materials for their organization, advertisements for other publications they sell, a list of their "international offices" (which, in most cases, consist of an address and phone number of a reader who has agreed to be a local representative for Urantia Foundation), along with the presentation of certain ideological statements which many readers find to be overtly misleading, offensive, and not in keeping with the philosophical integrity of the text itself.
The commercial and organizational promotion currently being featured in the front of the book certainly is not in keeping with the expressed desires of the founding Trustees who did not even want a trademark registration to appear on the title page. (A copy of founding Trustee Bill Sadler's memo is attached as Attachment III).
One of the primary purposes for which Urantia Foundation was formed, was to assure that future generations would have an inviolate text, that each printing of the book would faithfully reproduce the original. The Trustees of Urantia Foundation have failed to meet this basic objective for which their trust was originally created and endowed.
2. Article 3.1, Preservation of the Text of The Urantia Book:
More than one of the current Trustees has assured me that the requisite copies of The Urantia Book are indeed in appropriate storage per the requirements of this Article (and Article 5.3, namely, that three copies of each printing of the book be thus preserved). If this is true, then to my observation this is the only object of the Declaration of Trust which has been fulfilled.
In this regard it should also be noted that, since the Trustees ordered the destruction of the original plates which formed the basis for the Trust (in 1971), all that can now be considered as comprising the Substantive Estate of the trust are these three archival copies of each printing.
3. Recent technological changes make it impossible for Urantia Foundation to meet the requirements of Article 3.3, Preservation and Control of Reproduction of The Urantia Book:
This provision was written in the early 1950s, before the widespread use of photocopying processes, scanners, personal computers and printers. Technology has rendered this article obsolete; the Trustees have failed to maintain their trust document in such a manner that the objects of their trust might remain viable and relevant in a world of changing legal, social and technological conditions. These same changing technological factors have also rendered much of the trust document's description of the remaining Substantive Estate obsolete; with free Internet downloads of their text available from their website, it is obviously impossible for Urantia Foundation to any longer control all media for printing and reproducing The Urantia Book.
4. Urantia Foundation has failed to disseminate the teachings of The Urantia Book and to foster a religion; Article 3.4
Even a superficial study of the history of the readership would show that Urantia Foundation has spent far more of its resources repressing reader efforts to disseminate the teachings of The Urantia Book than on implementing programs which would facilitate the meeting of this object of their trust. While a distinction should be made here between dissemination of the teachings and the commercial distribution of books, it should also be noted that, in the past, Trustees of Urantia Foundation have even refused to sell books to specific individuals and independent reader organizations, and in at least one instance cut off supplies to a bookstore whose customers were suspected of undertaking their own "unauthorized" efforts to disseminate the book and its teachings. (Examples of rejection letters are attached as Attachment IV).
One of the Principal Objects for which the trust was formed is the "fostering of a religion". Yet, in spite of the fact that the Trustees acknowledge the existence of the clause in their Declaration of Trust related to fostering a religion, in the most recent printing of The Urantia Book as well as in its Spanish edition, El libro de Urantia, the Urantia Foundation includes a note about fraternal organizations of readers through which it seeks to develop financial and social support. This note includes the following comments: "Fraternal group associations are composed of worldwide readership groups of national and local associations of committed men and women who . . . support the mission of Urantia Foundation. ...They are not religious organizations, are not associated with any religion ..." Not only has Urantia Foundation failed to foster a religion, as set forth in their Declaration of Trust, they repeatedly make public denials of having any connection with religion. (A copy of Urantia Foundation's note about fraternal readership groups is attached as Attachment II).
The early founders of Urantia Foundation published study aids which related certain passages in The Urantia Book to similar passages in the Bible. In fact, the first two printings of the French translation contained many such references as footnotes in the text itself. Upon the deaths of some of these early founders, Urantia Foundation began to eliminate such materials. These study references were completely removed from the French translation following the death of Dr. William S. Sadler, an influential early leader whose organizational ideals were embodied in Urantia Foundation's Declaration of Trust. These materials were clearly intended to facilitate the realization of additional objectives of the trust ‑‑"the promotion, improvement, and expansion among the peoples of the world of the comprehension and understanding of Cosmology . . ."
While these study references could easily have been provided in a supplemental book, thereby keeping the French text of The Urantia Book consistent with the English, such a service was not provided. In fact, the head translator of the French edition spent many years creating a Concordex ‑‑ a comprehensive study index for The Urantia Book. Shortly before this Concordex was scheduled for publication, the Trustees of Urantia Foundation changed the pagination of the next printing of the French translation, thereby rendering this Concordex useless and effectively preventing this important study aid from appearing on the market.
Also, following the death of Dr. Sadler, the Trustees stopped distributing the Bible study materials which he had created as well as many other similar supplementary educational materials. In the ensuing years, they have done nothing to replace them, in spite of reader requests that they do so. Urantia Foundation currently informs inquirers that these materials are out of print. As recently as December of 1999 the Trustees of Urantia Foundation used threats of legal reprisals to prevent serious students of The Urantia Book from publishing copies of these out‑of‑print religious study guides on the Internet. A review of Urantia Foundation's website will show that they have done virtually nothing to create meaningful study materials which might lead to the fulfillment of this object of their trust. Yet millions of dollars continue to be spent preventing readers from creating such study aids and supplementary materials. As of January, 2000, Urantia Foundation is involved in two significant lawsuits related to such matters, each of which was instigated by the Trustees. (A list of lawsuits initiated by Urantia Foundation against reader‑believers is provided as Attachment VI).
In addition to their failure to meet the obligations of their Declaration of Trust, the Trustees of Urantia Foundation have spent an amount of money estimated to be between four and six million dollars over the past few decades in legal actions taken against readers of The Urantia Book who have attempted to create their own study aids and supplementary materials. The Trustees have attempted to use copyright laws to maintain a monopoly on their product while failing to develop that same product in a responsible manner which keeps pace with reader needs.
5. Urantia Foundation has failed to publish books of reasonable technical quality.
In the most recent printings and translations of The Urantia Book, production quality and accuracy has significantly deteriorated. Their most recent Spanish edition appears to contain fragments of three separate translations. These are not minor matters. The name of a key figure in the text, Christ Michael, appears in three different translated forms within this one edition. The Foreword, whose stated purpose is to set forth definitions and contexts for certain words used elsewhere in the text, is a completely different translation than the portions of the text which it is intended to illuminate, rendering it useless, if not seriously misleading, in the current Spanish edition.
Neither are formatting errors in this edition insignificant. For example, in the front of the new Spanish edition is a list of the titles of the individual papers which comprise the text. This list shows Paper 119 titled as, "Las Donaciones de Cristo Miguel." The actual table of contents, however, shows the title of Paper 119 as "Los Autootorgamientos de Cristo Michael" while the actual title of the Paper as it appears on page 1308 in the text itself is "Los Autootorgamientos de Cristo Miguel." Different translations for the terms "bestowal" and "Christ Michael" ‑‑ two of the most significant concepts in the text ‑‑ appear in different translated forms in different parts of the book, compromising its conceptual integrity and creating the possibility for significant confusion on the part of new readers.
The original Spanish edition was so poorly proofed that it was printed with a complete paragraph in English. Spanish readers reported hundreds of errors. Recently Urantia Foundation printed an English edition which was so full of errors that the Trustees withdrew it from the market in embarrassment.
Such careless mismanagement of the publication process is inexcusable for an organization whose trust document charges it with publishing an "inviolate" text. The negative repercussions of this incompetence on the public good have been compounded by the fact that the personal wealth of the Trustees has been used forcefully to repress grass‑roots efforts by readers who desire to see that the purposes originally set forth in the Declaration of Trust are achieved and that high quality texts and study aids are available to the public.
The Trustee's attempts to repress the creation of "unauthorized" translations and study materials extends to the international arena wherein the Trustees make contact with bi‑lingual readers who might be capable of creating a translation and convince them to sign a contract which forbids them to publish anything related to The Urantia Book without written permission from the Trustees. These contracts contain no provision guaranteeing individual translators that any of their work will ever be published; all publishing rights of any works produced become vested in Urantia Foundation in perpetuity.
In addition, these contracts require the signee to sign any further documents which the Trustees might ask them to sign at any time in the future. These contracts also include a clause which forbids the signee from making public the fact that such a contract even exists. It is not clear to me how the public benefits from a trust which enters into contractual agreements with individuals who are then forbidden to reveal even the existence of those contracts to contributors. (A copy of Urantia Foundation's translator's contract is attached as Attachment V).
I trust that as you conduct your investigation you will consider the financial resources which have been consumed by Urantia Foundation over the course of its existence and ask what percentage of those resources would appear to an outside observer actually to have been used productively in pursuit of the objects of their trust. You will also find that public financial support for Urantia Foundation has steadily dwindled over the past decade and today is almost nonexistent.
It is my sincere hope that you will abolish this trust and take the following measures:
1. Place the copyright to The Urantia Book as well as all other copyrights owned by Urantia Foundation into the public domain so that independent reader groups would be free to contract with printers and book distributors to assure on‑going publication and availability of The Urantia Book and associated educational materials. (It is interesting to note in this regard that the highest publication quality of The Urantia Book ever achieved was an edition published by an independent reader group in 1996 during a brief period of time when the copyright was in the public domain. This edition was produced in accordance with a degree of independent market research never even attempted by Urantia Foundation.)
2. Require the liquidation of all Urantia Foundation assets and inventories, and the transference of derived monies along with all present endowment funds and account balances into an endowment fund for a public educational institution such as the library of the State University of Illinois which would, in return for this modest endowment, be asked to agree to preserve in perpetuity the archival reference copies of The Urantia Book.
These two simple steps would assure the perpetuation of the purposes of the individuals who originated the trust while eliminating an obsolete trust document and its related organization which has become highly litigious and contentious, and whose trustees have clearly exploited the provisions of Illinois charitable trust laws for their own purposes, having failed to manage their trust in such a manner that the objectives of its founders might be realized.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
(signed) David Kantor
Attachments:
Attachment I: Key sections of Urantia Foundation's Declaration of Trust.
Attachment II: Copies of inserts from The Urantia Book in which Urantia Foundation refutes any religious nature of its related fraternal associations.
Attachment III: Copy of Bill Sadler's memo regarding the placement of organizational information on title page
Attachment IV: Book sales rejection letters
Attachment V: Copy of Urantia Foundation's translator's contract.
Attachment VI: Catalog of lawsuits initiated by Urantia Foundation against reader‑believers