Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 47
THE SEVEN MANSION WORLDS
1. The Creator Son, when on Urantia, spoke of the "many mansions in the Father's universe." In a certain sense, all fifty‑six of the encircling worlds of Jerusem are devoted to the transitional culture of ascending mortals, but the seven satellites of world number one are more specifically known as the mansion worlds.
2. Parents who have growing children in the probation nursery are given every opportunity to collaborate with the morontia custodians of such children regarding their instruction and. training ...And it is one of the most touchingly beautiful scenes of all the ascending career to observe the mansion world parents embrace their material offspring on the occasion of their periodic pilgrimages to the finaliter world.
3. No ascending mortal can escape the experience of rearing children—their own or others— either on the material worlds or subsequently on the finaliter world or on Jerusem. Fathers must pass through this essential experience just as certainly as mothers. It is an unfortunate and mistaken notion of modern peoples on Urantia that child culture is largely the task of mothers. Children need fathers as well as mothers, and fathers need this parental experience as much as do mothers.
4. These wards of the finaliters, these infants of ascending mortals, are always personalized as of their exact physical status at the time of death except for reproductive potential. This awakening occurs at the exact time of the parental arrival on the first mansion world. And then are these children given every opportunity, as they are, to choose the heavenly way just as they would have made such a choice on the worlds where death so untimely terminated their careers.
5. The Adjuster‑indwelt children and youths on the finaliter world are also reared in families of five, ranging in ages from .six to fourteen; approximately, these families consist of children whose ages are six, eight, ten, twelve, and fourteen. Any time after sixteen, if final choice has been made, they translate to the first mansion world and begin their Paradise ascent. Some make a choice before this age and go on to the ascension spheres, but very few children under sixteen years of age, as reckoned by Urantia standards, will be found on the mansion worlds.
6. After passing through Havona and attaining the Deities, these salvaged souls of mortal origin constitute the permanent ascendant citizenship of Paradise. These children who have been deprived of the valuable and. essential evolutionary experience on the worlds of mortal nativity are not mustered into the Corps of the Finality.
7. On the mansion worlds the resurrected mortal survivors resume their lives just where they left off when overtaken by death. When you go from Urantia to the first mansion world, you will notice considerable change, but if you had come from a more normal and progressive sphere of time, you would hardly notice the difference except for the fact that you were in possession of a different body.
8. It is the reuniting of the morontia‑soul trust of the seraphim and the spirit‑mind trust of the Adjuster that reassembles creature personality and constitutes resurrection of a sleeping survivor ...Throughout all eternity you will recall the profound memory impressions of your first witnessing of these resurrection mornings.
9. From the resurrection halls you proceed to the Melchizedek sector, where you are assigned permanent residence. Then you enter upon ten days of personal liberty. You are free to explore the immediate vicinity of your new home and to familiarize yourself with the program which lies immediately ahead. You also have time to gratify your desire to consult the registry and call upon your loved ones and other earth friends who may have preceded you to these worlds.
10. On mansion world number one (or another in case of advanced status) you will resume your intellectual training and spiritual development at the exact level where on they were interrupted by death.
11. Almost the entire experience of mansion world number one pertains to deficiency ministry. The sojourn on mansion world number one is designed to develop mortal survivors at least up to the status of the post‑Adamic dispensation on the normal evolutionary worlds ...If you are not to be detained on mansion world number one, at the end of ten days you will enter the translation sleep and proceed to world number two, and every ten days thereafter you will thus advance until you arrive on the world of your assignment.
12. While the various orders of celestial life differ, they are all friendly and fraternal. In all the worlds of ascension you will find nothing comparable to human intolerance and the discriminations of inconsiderate caste systems.
13. A newly developed and suitably adjusted morontia body is acquired at the time of each advance from one mansion world to another ...Your personality remains intact after you once pass from the evolutionary worlds to the initial mansion world. Your Adjuster memory remains fully intact as you ascend the morontia life.
14. Though you have morontia bodies, you continue, through all seven of these worlds, to eat, drink, and rest. You partake of the morontia order of food, a kingdom of living energy unknown on the material worlds. Both food and water are fully utilized in the morontia body; there is no residual waste.
15. Mansonia number two more specifically provides for the removal of all phases of intellectual conflict and for the cure of all varieties of mental disharmony ...The development on mansonia number two compares with the intellectual status of the post-Magisterial Son culture of the ideal evolutionary worlds.
16. Mansonia the third is a world of great personal and social achievement for all who have not made the equivalent of these circles of culture prior to release from the flesh on the mortal nativity worlds. On this sphere more positive educational work is begun... mortals now gain practical insight into true metaphysics. This is the real introduction to the intelligent comprehension of cosmic meanings and. universe interrelationships. The culture of the third mansion world partakes of the nature of the postbestowal Son age of a normal inhabited planet.
17. On the fourth mansonia the individual ascender more fittingly finds his place in the group working and class functions of the morontia life ...A new social order is being introduced, one based on the understanding sympathy of mutual appreciation, the unselfish love of mutual service ...Ascenders are all becoming self‑conscious of God‑knowing, God-revealing, God‑seeking, and God‑finding. The intellectual and social culture of this fourth mansion world is comparable to the mental and social life of the post‑Teacher Son age on the planets of normal evolution.
18. Transport to the firth mansion world. represents a tremendous forward step in the life of a morontia progressor...The culture of this mansion world corresponds in general to that of the early era of light and life on the planets of normal evolutionary progress. And from this you can understand why it is so arranged that the highly cultured and progressive types of beings who sometimes inhabit these advanced evolutionary worlds are exempt from passing through one or more or even all, of the mansion spheres.
19. Having mastered the local universe language before leaving the fourth mansion world, you now devote more time to the perfection of the tongue of Uversa...All ascending mortals are bilingual from the system headquarters up to Havana.
20. A real birth of cosmic consciousness takes place on mansonia number five. You are becoming universe minded ...At about this point the average mortal ascender begins to manifest bona fide experiential enthusiasm for the Havana ascent. Study is becoming voluntary, unselfish service natural, and worship spontaneous.
21. The sixth mansion world ...This is a brilliant age for ascending mortals and usually witnesses the perfect fusion of the human mind and the divine Adjuster. In potential, this fusion may have occurred previously, but the actual working identity many times is not achieved until the time of the sojourn on the fifth mansion world or even the sixth.
22. Immediately upon the confirmation of Adjuster fusion the new morontia being is introduced to his fellows for the first time by his new name and is granted the forty days of spiritual retirement from all routine activities wherein to commune with himself and to choose some one of the optional routes to Havona and to select from the differential techniques of Paradise attainment.
23. During the sojourn on world number six the mansion world students achieve a status which is comparable with the exalted development characterizing those evolutionary worlds which have normally progressed beyond the initial stage of light and life.
24. Any discernible differences between those mortals hailing from the isolated and retarded worlds and those survivors from the more advanced and enlightened spheres are virtually obliterated during the sojourn on the seventh mansion world. Here you. will be purged of all the remnants of unfortunate heredity, unwholesome environment, and unspiritual planetary tendencies. The last remnants of the "mark of the beast" are here eradicated.
25. You have gone from world to world as individuals, but now you prepare to depart for Jerusem in groups, although, within certain limits, an ascender may elect to tarry on the seventh mansion world for the purpose of enabling a tardy member of his earthly or mansonia working group to catch up with him ...You will greatly enjoy your progress through the seven dematerializing worlds; they are really demortalizing spheres.
26. The reception of a new class of mansion world graduates is the signal for all Jerusem to assemble as a committee of welcome. Even the spornagia enjoy the arrival of these triumphant ascenders of evolutionary origin.
27. After mortals have attained residence on the system headquarters, no more literal resurrections will be experienced. The morontia form granted you on departure from the mansion world career is such as will see you through to the end of the local universe experience. Changes will be made from time to time, but you will retain this same form until you bid it farewell when you emerge as first‑stage spirits preparatory for transit to the superuniverse worlds of ascending culture and spirit training.
28. Mortal death is a technique of escape from the material life in the flesh; and the mansonia experience of progressive life through seven worlds of corrective training and cultural education represents the introduction of mortal survivors to the morontia career, the transition life which intervenes between the evolutionary material existence and the higher spirit attainment of the ascenders of time who are destined to achieve the portals of eternity.
Discussion Questions
1. Why are the infant-receiving schools of Satania located on the Finaliter World?
2. Is it surprising that children who have not acquired individual status on the evolutionary worlds become the permanent citizens of Paradise rather than joining the Corps of the Finality?
3. After awakening on the Mansion Worlds, do you think we will remember the description of the Mansion Worlds given us in the Urantia Synopsis of Papers?
4. Where do you think we will meet most of our relatives and friends who have preceded us to the Mansion Worlds?
5. Since we are living in the postbestowal Son age, do you think many from Urantia will be advanced to the third Mansion World?
6. How do you think Christ Michael’s bestowal on Urantia and the exceptional nature of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers will help Urantia mortals in advancing on the Mansion Worlds?
7. How do you think the celestial beings responsible for our resurrection determine the nature and appearance of our new morontia bodies?
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