Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 77
THE MIDWAY CREATURES
1. Most of the inhabited worlds of Nebadon harbor one or more groups of unique beings existing on a life‑functioning level about midway between those of the mortals of the realms and of the angelic orders; hence they are called midway creatures.
2. The primary midwayers have their genesis in a unique interassociation of the material and the spiritual on Urantia... A supermaterial (nonsexual) liaison of a male and a female member of the corporeal staff resulted in the appearance of the first‑born of the primary midwayers... A period of one‑half year intervened between the production of each midwayer, and when one thousand such beings had been born to each couple, no more were ever forthcoming.
3. The Life Carriers had planned a new type of mortal embracing the union of the conjoint offspring of the Prince's staff with the first‑generation offspring of Adam and Eve. They had thus projected a plan envisioning a new order of planetary creatures whom they hoped would become the teacher‑rulers of human society...But since this project almost completely miscarried, we shall never know what an aristocracy of benign leadership and matchless culture Urantia was thus deprived of.
4. These mutant traits appearing in the first Nodite generation resulted from certain changes which had been wrought in the configuration and in the chemical constituents of the inheritance factors of the Andonic germ plasm... The pure‑line Nodites were a magnificent race…Ten thousand years after the rebellion they had lost ground to the point where their average length of life was little more than that of the evolutionary races.
5. The records of such long‑lived individuals are also due to the confusion of months and years as time periods...There are records of a man who lived over nine hundred "years.” This period represents not quite seventy years ...The reckoning of time by the twenty-eight‑day month persisted long after the days of Adam.
6. About fifty thousand years after the death of Nod...it occurred to their leaders that something should be done to preserve their racial unity.. Bablot proposed to erect a pretentious temple of racial glorification at the center of their then occupied territory... The new city was to be named Bablot after the architect and builder of the tower. This location later became known as Bablod and eventually as Babel.
7. After four and one‑half years of work a great dispute arose about the object and motive for the erection of the tower...Three differing views were propounded as to the purpose of building the tower.
1. The largest group, almost one half, desired to see the tower built as a memorial of Nodite history and racial superiority...
2. The next largest faction wanted the tower designed to commemorate the Dilmun culture.. .
3. The smallest and minority contingent held.. .that the tower should be devoted to the worship of the Father of all, that the whole purpose of the new city should be to take the place of Dalamatia... The religious group were promptly voted down... The religionists, the noncombatants, fled to their homes in the south, while their fellows fought until well‑nigh obliterated.
8. Three out of the four great Nodite centers were established immediately following the Bablot conflict;
1. The western or Syrian Nodites...
2. The eastern or Elamite Nodites...
3. The central or pre‑Sumerian Nodites. ..The elaborate records left by the Sumerians describe the site of a remarkable settlement which was located on the Persian Gulf near the earlier city of Dilmun...And these tablets, descriptive of Dilmun, the paradise of men and God, are now silently resting on the dusty shelves of many museums...
4. The northern Nodites and Amadonites—the Vanites. This group arose prior to the Bablot conflict...Ten thousand years ago the Vanite ancestors of the Assyrians taught that their moral law of seven commandments had been given to Van by the Gods upon Mount Ararat.
9. Adamson was 120 years old at this time and had been the father of thirty‑two pure-line children of the first garden. He wanted to remain with his parents and assist them in upbuilding the second garden, but he was greatly disturbed by the loss of his mate and their children, who had all elected to go to Edentia along with those other Adamic children who chose to become wards of the Most Highs.
10. A company of twenty‑seven followed Adamson northward in quest of these people of his childhood fantasies. In a little over three years Adamson's party actually found the object of their adventure, and among these people he discovered a wonderful and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who claimed to be the last pure‑line descendant of the Princess staff. This woman, Ratta... had about decided not to mate ...but she lost her heart to the majestic Adamson. . .In a little more than three months they were married.
11. Adamson and Ratta had a family of sixty‑seven ch1dren. They gave origin to a great line of the world’s leadership, but they did something more… Every fourth child born to them was of a unique order. It was often invisible...When the second strangely behaving offspring arrived, he decided to mate them, since one was male and the other female, and this is the origin of the secondary order of midwayers. Within one hundred years, before this phenomenon ceased, almost two thousand were brought into being.
12. The Adamsonites maintained a high culture for almost seven thousand years from the time of Adamson and Ratta. . .there successively arose at various periods four diverse cultures respectively fostered by four different groups of Adamson’s descendants. It was the second of these groups which migrated westward to Greece and the islands of the Mediterranean. The residue of Adamson' s descendants migrated north and west to enter Europe with the blended stock of the last Andite wave coming out of Mesopotamia, and they were also numbered among the Andite‑Aryan invaders of India.
13. Among the children of Adamson there were just sixteen of the peculiar progenitors of the secondary midwayers. These unique children were equally divided as regards sex, and each couple was capable of producing a secondary midwayer every seventy days by a combined technique of sex and nonsex liaison. And such a phenomenon was never possible on earth before that time, nor has it ever occurred since.
14. These sixteen children lived and died (except for their peculiarities) as mortals of the realm, but their electrically energized offspring live on and on, not being subject to the limitations of mortal flesh. Each of the eight couples eventually produced 248 midwayers, and thus did the original secondary corps—1,904 in number—come into existence.
15. The original number of secondary midwayers was 1,904 and of theses 873 failed to align themselves with the rule of Michael and were duly interned in connection with the planetary adjudication of Urantia on the day of Pentecost ...Both groups of rebel midwayers are now held in custody awaiting the final adjudication of the affairs of the system rebellion. But they did many strange things on earth prior to the inauguration of the present planetary dispensation.
16. Jesus knew and recognized the difference between insanity and demoniacal possession, although these states wee greatly confused in the minds of those who lived in his day and generation...Since the day of Pentecost there never again can be such a thing as demoniacal possession.
17. The midway creatures... now function as a single corps, embracing both orders and numbering 10,992. The United Midwayers of Urantia are at present governed alternately by the senior member of each order. This regime has obtained since their amalgamation into one group shortly after Pentecost.
18. Both orders are nonmaterial beings as regards nutrition and energy intake, but they partake of many human traits and are able to enjoy and follow your humor as well as your worship.
19. The United Midwayers of Urantia are organized for service with the planetary seraphim in accordance with innate endowments and acquired skills, in the following groups:
1. Midway messengers...
2. Planetary sentinels ...
3. Contact persona1ities..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...
4. Progress helpers.
20. The 1,111 loyal secondary midwayers are engaged in important missions on earth. As compared with their primary associates, they are decidedly material. They exist just outside the range of mortal vision and possess sufficient latitude of adaptation to make, at will, physical contact with what humans call "material things." These unique creatures have certain definite powers over the things of time and space, not excepting the beasts of the realm.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. Unlike the various orders of celestial beings who are assigned to minister on a planet, the midwayers live on an inhabited world ...As actual citizens of Urantia, the midwayers have a kinship interest in the destiny of this sphere. They are a determined association, persistently working for the progress of their native planet. Their determination is suggested by the motto of their order: "What the United Midwayers undertake, the United Midwayers do."
24. Whi1e the midwayers were brought into existence fully developed—experiencing no period of growth or development from immaturity—they never cease to grow in wisdom and experience. Like mortals they are evolutionary creatures, and they have a culture which is a bona fide evolutionary attainment. There are many great minds and mighty spirits among the Urantia midway corps.
25. The generations of men forget; the corps of midwayers remembers, and that memory is the treasure house of the traditions of your inhabited world... in proper circumstances such treasured memories of past events are made available, even as the story of the life and teachings of Jesus has been given by the midwayers of Urantia to their cousins in the flesh.
26. The United Midwayers are a rebellion‑tested corps, and they will faithfully enact their part in planetary evolution until this world attains the goal of the ages, until that distant day when in fact peace does reign on earth and in truth is there good will in the hearts of men.
Discussion Questions
1. If the archangel author of this Synopsis of Paper cannot explain the origin of the primary midwayers, how does one regard this mystery?
2. What values can be learned from the futile tower of Babel?
3. Was the appearance of the secondary midwayers a natural phenomena or was there supernatural involvement?
4. What might have been the nonsexual liaison of these unique children of Adamson and Ratta that produced secondary midwayers?
5. Why did so many of the midwayers join the Lucifer rebellion?
6. How did the secondary midwayers help in the materialization of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers?
7. What are the midwayers doing now on our world?
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