Contents of this Study

 

 

A Note on Conceptual Patterning and Illustration

 

When I first began exploring the often imposing and sometimes unfamiliar concepts contained within the revelations of The Urantia Book, I found myself scribbling down rough-hewn notes and diagrams representative of the many crisscrossing conceptual byways that presented themselves to my mind. These resulting notations and charted illustrations became memory-inducing milestones for my later study and referral. In particular, the graphic treatments gave me a reassuring sense of direction. The many illustrations contained within the body of this book have evolved as a result of my attempts to hold onto those inspirational developments of thought as they presented themselves during my excursions through The Urantia Book. Even today, they continue to help me add real substance to the formational concepts that run throughout the pages of these revelations.

 

When I read The Urantia Book, initial insights allow me to briefly understand perfectly, but this intellectual grasp quickly gets fuzzy unless I take the effort to reconstruct these insights by working them out on paper. I always attempt to visualize the elevated concepts of The Urantia Book as these become receptive to my grasp. That is really the purpose of what I am doing, particularly with my illustrations - I am trying to capture, as one would do with a photograph, moments of personal comprehension. I believe the text itself is structured throughout the book in such a way as to psychologically spur these intended activities in our minds. Much that is presented in The Urantia Book reveals only the tip of this iceberg we all perceive as reality. Repeated study of The Urantia Book literally begs further inspection for uncovering new and hidden interrelationships.

 

Effective illustration is always difficult, because, in many ways, each construct of an attempted conceptual relationship is usually shortsighted in some intellectual facet. Sometimes I must make symbolic concessions that have the unfortunate effect of diluting the truth of the concept I am trying to convey. The Urantia Book revelators readily admit to these same shortcomings. They often share with us the admission that their attempts to present high concepts to the mortal mind using human words are wholly inadequate for conveying the full "truth". I am continually finding myself in awe as I discover time and again the many original and effective techniques that the revelators employed in organizing the various subject matters covered in the Book. Visual images readily come into play when I am reading The Urantia Book. I am sure this is not accidental.

 

The revelators are quite brilliant in the way they use our English language to convey to us their many concepts. I would suppose that, as readers and scholars, we naturally become more and more attuned to the scope and depth of their intended meanings. I truly believe that our progressively spiritualizing minds achieve an almost transcendent sense of their conceptual imagery. I sometimes wonder if they do not actually plant "seed" concepts into their applied words and phrases that eventually become implanted and nurtured in our minds to such an extent that, possibly, they might help to enrich our mortal thoughts. Certainly, our Guardian Seraphim must help in this conceptualizing of these borderline spiritual thoughts.

The Urantia Book uses words and concepts as one would use vanilla extract in preparing a cake - a few drops carry a potent influence. Even more importantly, I am gaining insight into the wisdom of the revelatory mandates for carefully balancing pure revelation with conceptual patterns having had origin in mortal adjutant mind. This creativity is exercised by the revelators in the maintaining of a healthy respect for the very spirit of these restrictive mandates while still allowing for the delivery of a fullness of revelatory breath and scope in their narratives. They provide for a perfect coordination of these two modes of exposition. They forge bravely ahead with a bounty of new and revelatory ideas while at the same time they provide for the stabilizing anchor that acknowledges the very best that evolved human tradition and ideational practice has secured for our present-day civilization. This delicate handiwork is very much in harmony with the measured balance provided by the equipoised activities of the Angels of the Churches and the Angels of Progress.

---