© 2021 Claude Flibotte
© 2021 Urantia Association of Quebec
Claude Flibotte
Sainte-Julie
We learn in The Urantia Book that the Life Carriers have implanted life on an evolutionary planet. The expression vital plasma is constantly used to explain the characteristics of life. This expression often leaves the reader perplexed.
¶ What is vital plasma?
The dictionary is of little use since it relates it to blood plasma. I doubt that it is blood plasma that carries the genotype of an individual or a race. Is it not the genes contained in the chromosomes of the egg and sperm that transmit genetic information? That said, what have the Life Carriers implanted or manufactured on our planet?
550,000,000 years ago the Life Carrier corps returned to Urantia. In co-operation with spiritual powers and superphysical forces we organized and initiated the original life patterns of this world and planted them in the hospitable waters of the realm. (UB 58:4.2)
This implantation of the original models of life (3 implantations) was based on the existence of salt in sea water. This is why the blood which circulates in our body is salty.
The Satania Life Carriers had projected a sodium chloride pattern of life; (UB 58:1.3)
So the Life Carriers, through their specific characteristics of their existence, used their gifts to manipulate the atoms of matter present in the shallow waters of the inland seas to develop a model of life, an original cell, carrying in its genes the potential for evolutionary development leading to the final appearance of the human being. The matter of the silt then served either as the original material for making the cell, or as a fertile nutritional substrate, or both options.
When the Life Carriers make ready to engage in life implantation, and after they have selected the sites for such an undertaking, they summon the archangel commission of Life Carrier transmutation. This group consists of ten orders of diverse personalities, including the physical controllers and their associates, and is presided over by the chief of archangels, who acts in this capacity by the mandate of Gabriel and with the permission of the Ancients of Days. When these beings are properly encircuited, they can effect such modifications in the Life Carriers as will enable them immediately to function on the physical levels of electrochemistry. (UB 65:1.6)
The story of man’s ascent from seaweed to the lordship of earthly creation is indeed a romance of biologic struggle and mind survival. Man’s primordial ancestors were literally the slime and ooze of the ocean bed in the sluggish and warm-water bays and lagoons of the vast shore lines of the ancient inland seas, those very waters in which the Life Carriers established the three independent life implantations on Urantia. (UB 65:2.1)
By referring to the vital plasma implanted at the beginning of Urantian life, the revelators are referring to the hereditary power of transmission of life contained in these original cells. This is a step forward in understanding the beginning of the evolution of life!
We also learn from the revelators that this vital plasma must be enhanced by the Material Son and Daughter.
¶ What was the role of Adam and Eve?
The mixing of the human races with the violet race provided the indigenous vital plasma with a superior genetic contribution in all aspects, physical, intellectual in addition to ensuring increased spiritual receptivity.
- The Voices of the Garden. When the planetary course of human evolution is attaining its highest biologic level, there always appear the Material Sons and Daughters, the Adams and Eves, to augment the further evolution of the races by an actual contribution of their superior life plasm. (UB 39:5.3)
The result of the gift of the Adamic life plasm to the mortal races is an immediate upstepping of intellectual capacity and an acceleration of spiritual progress. There is usually some physical improvement also. (UB 52:3.6)
This improvement of the human races, as we know, almost failed on Urantia through Adamic fault if it had not been for the emergency plan!
After becoming established in the second garden on the Euphrates, Adam elected to leave behind as much of his life plasm as possible to benefit the world after his death. Accordingly, Eve was made the head of a commission of twelve on race improvement, and before Adam died this commission had selected 1,682 of the highest type of women on Urantia, and these women were impregnated with the Adamic life plasm. (UB 76:4.8)
¶ How is vital plasma brought to other evolutionary planets?
The corps of Life Carriers commissioned to plant life upon a new world usually consists of one hundred senior carriers, one hundred assistants, and one thousand custodians. The Life Carriers often carry actual life plasm to a new world, but not always. They sometimes organize the life patterns after arriving on the planet of assignment in accordance with formulas previously approved for a new adventure in life establishment. Such was the origin of the planetary life of Urantia. (UB 36:3.2)
This last excerpt raises an important question in my mind. I assume that this vital plasma was physical matter brought from their world by the Life Carriers to start life on an evolutionary world. How can they transport this living matter? The revelators tell us that the aerial machines of the Material Sons reach a speed of 800 kilometers per hour (UB 46:2.4). Did they use this kind of machine for transport? I doubt it! If the archangels can dematerialize matter (UB 189:2.1), is it possible to reconstitute it as is done for the Material Sons (UB 51:2.2-4) which would allow this famous vital plasma to be transported? Unless the materials transported are not yet life, but that it is incorporated into the plasma after their arrival on the planet. What do you think?
¶ How do Life Carriers transmit life?
When, in accordance with approved formulas, the physical patterns have been provided, then do the Life Carriers catalyze this lifeless material, imparting through their persons the vital spirit spark; and forthwith do the inert patterns become living matter. (UB 36:3.3)
The magic word in this quote is “catalyze”. The function of a catalyst is to make a reaction or process possible without that catalyst being affected or included in the result, only its presence is necessary. But then, where does life come from?
The vital spark—the mystery of life—is bestowed through the Life Carriers, not by them. They do indeed supervise such transactions, they formulate the life plasm itself, but it is the Universe Mother Spirit who supplies the essential factor of the living plasm. From the Creative Daughter of the Infinite Spirit comes that energy spark which enlivens the body and presages the mind. (UB 36:3.4)
¶ What method do Life Carriers use for life implantation?
Fantastic, the Life Carriers are catalysts in the process of creating life on a sphere of space, but how exactly do they do it?
In the bestowal of life the Life Carriers transmit nothing of their personal natures, not even on those spheres where new orders of life are projected. At such times they simply initiate and transmit the spark of life, start the required revolutions of matter in accordance with the physical, chemical, and electrical specifications of the ordained plans and patterns. Life Carriers are living catalytic presences which agitate, organize, and vitalize the otherwise inert elements of the material order of existence. (UB 36:3.5)
¶ Why do the Life Carriers develop a different vital plasma for each planet?
For each system, a standard life model is projected, but for each planet this model must be adapted to the conditions prevailing there. For decimal planets like ours, these modifications are more important. We must not only adapt the living conditions to the planet, but seek to improve them!
…The original life plasm of an evolutionary world must contain the full potential for all future developmental variations and for all subsequent evolutionary changes and modifications. (UB 36:2.17)
¶ What Life Carriers can and cannot do!
Once they have projected the ideal model for a planet, what can they do and how much time do they have to do it? What means do they use to direct evolution in a way favorable to the appearance of man?
The Life Carriers of a planetary corps are given a certain period in which to establish life on a new world, approximately one-half million years of the time of that planet. At the termination of this period, indicated by certain developmental attainments of the planetary life, they cease implantation efforts, and they may not subsequently add anything new or supplemental to the life of that planet. (UB 36:3.6)
During the ages intervening between life establishment and the emergence of human creatures of moral status, the Life Carriers are permitted to manipulate the life environment and otherwise favorably directionize the course of biologic evolution. And this they do for long periods of time. (UB 36:3.7)
¶ What is life really?
Since the Life Carriers do not create life and only promote its emergence, what exactly is life?
Life is both mechanistic and vitalistic—material and spiritual. Ever will Urantia physicists and chemists progress in their understanding of the protoplasmic forms of vegetable and animal life, but never will they be able to produce living organisms. Life is something different from all energy manifestations; even the material life of physical creatures is not inherent in matter. (UB 36:6.1)
But still, what is it really?
We speak of life as “energy” and as “force,” but it is really neither. Force-energy is variously gravity responsive; life is not. Pattern is also nonresponsive to gravity, being a configuration of energies that have already fulfilled all gravity-responsive obligations. Life, as such, constitutes the animation of some pattern-configured or otherwise segregated system of energy—material, mindal, or spiritual. (UB 36:6.6)
Finally, do we have a clear answer on what life is? It seems that even celestial beings don’t know either!
There are some things connected with the elaboration of life on the evolutionary planets which are not altogether clear to us. We fully comprehend the physical organization of the electrochemical formulas of the Life Carriers, but we do not wholly understand the nature and source of the life-activation spark. We know that life flows from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit. It is more than possible that the Master Spirits are the sevenfold channel of the river of life which is poured out upon all creation. But we do not comprehend the technique whereby the supervising Master Spirit participates in the initial episode of life bestowal on a new planet. The Ancients of Days, we are confident, also have some part in this inauguration of life on a new world, but we are wholly ignorant of the nature thereof. We do know that the Universe Mother Spirit actually vitalizes the lifeless patterns and imparts to such activated plasm the prerogatives of organismal reproduction. We observe that these three are the levels of God the Sevenfold, sometimes designated as the Supreme Creators of time and space; but otherwise we know little more than Urantia mortals—simply that concept is inherent in the Father, expression in the Son, and life realization in the Spirit. (UB 36:6.7)
What we know is that we can reproduce, but ultimately we do not create life.
The creature can produce the forms of life, but only a creative personality or creative force can provide the animating living spark. UB 36:6.2
What is clear is that it is the Divine Minister of the universe who provides the mind to the creatures as well as the ability to be alive and to reproduce.
… Animal mind and human mind are gifts of the local universe Mother Spirit, functioning through the seven adjutant mind-spirits, while creature ability to reproduce is the specific and personal impartation of the Universe Spirit to the ancestral life plasm inaugurated by the Life Carriers. (UB 36:6.3)
¶ In conclusion
Although we cannot define life, we know what it represents and allows since we are living beings. We know where it comes from. We have learned thanks to the revelators who makes it possible and how the process is carried out. So, is it not natural for humans to seek to know and meet the author of this marvelous reality that is life!