© 2020 Claude Flibotte
© 2020 International Urantia Association (IUA)
What exactly is life plasm? To my knowledge, blood plasma does not carry the genotype of an individual or a race. So, what else transmits genetic information if not the genes in the chromosomes of the ovule and sperm? Having said that, what did the Life Carriers implant on our planet when we read that they developed the model of life right here 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 life patterns (3 implantations) was based on the existence of salt in the sea water. For this reason, the blood that circulates in our body is salty.
The Satania Life Carriers had projected a sodium chloride pattern of life… [UB 58:1.3]
We can deduce from these quotations that the Life Carriers, by means of their specific peculiarities of existence, used their gifts to manipulate the atoms of matter present in the shallow waters of the inland seas to elaborate a life model, an original cell carrying in its genes the potential of evolutionary development leading to the final appearance of the human being. The silt was used either as the original material to make the cell, or as a fertile nutritional substrate, or both.
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, emphasis added]
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… [UB 65:2.1, emphasis added]
When the revelators refer to the vital plasm implanted at the beginning of Urantian life, they are referring to the hereditary power of life transmission contained in these original cells. Well, I have the impression that we are making some progress in our understanding of the beginning and evolution of life! We also learn from the revelators that this life plasm will eventually be enhanced by the Material Son and Daughter.
¶ What is the Role of Adam and Eve?
Through the blending of the human races with the violet race, they bring to the native life plasm a superior genetic contribution, thus qualifying the biology of the human races in all aspects, physical, intellectual, and 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]
When the Adamic life plasm is imparted to the mortal races, there results an immediate enhancement of their intellectual capacity and an acceleration of their spiritual progress. Physical improvement usually also occurs. [UB 52:3.6]
This improvement of the human races, as we know, almost failed with the Adamic default if it had not been for the contingency 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, emphasis added ]
¶ How is Life Plasm Brought to the Evolutionary Planets?
The following quote raised this question in my mind. On planets where the Life Carriers carry the life plasm to that planet (which they didn’t do on Urantia) I wonder if that life plasm is physical matter. How would they transport it? The revelators tell us that the aerial machines of the Material Sons attain a speed of up to five hundred miles an hour (UB 46:2.4). If the archangels can dematerialize matter (UB 189:2.1), I wonder if it is possible to reconstitute it as is done for the Material Sons (UB 51:2.2 and 4), thus allowing transportation of this famous life plasm? What do you think?
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, emphasis added]
¶ How Do the 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, emphasis added]
The magic word in this quote is “catalyze.” The function of a catalyst is to induce a reaction or a possible process without the catalyst being affected or included in the result, only its presence is necessary. But then again, 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, emphasis added]
¶ What Method Do the Life Carriers Use to Implant Life?
Fantastic, the Life Carriers are catalysts in the process of elaborating life on a sphere of space, but how, in fact, do they go about doing 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, emphasis added]
¶ Why Do the Life Carriers Elaborate a Different Vital Plasm for Each Planet?
For each system, a standard model of life is projected, but for each planet this model must be adapted to the prevailing conditions. For decimal planets like ours, these modifications are more important. They must not only adapt the living conditions to the planet, but also 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 the 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 manner 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 36:3.7 emphasis added]
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, emphasis added]
¶ What Is Life Really All About?
Since 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, emphasis added]
But then again, 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, emphasis added]
Finally, have we a clear answer as to what life is? It seems that even celestial beings do not 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 do know is that we can reproduce ourselves, but ultimately, we do not create life.
… The creature may produce the forms of life, but only a creator personality or a creative force can supply the activating living spark. [UB 36:6.2, emphasis added]
What is clear is that it is the Divine Minister of the universe who provides creature mind 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, emphasis added ]
¶ 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. Thanks to the revelators, we have learned how this is made possible and how the process occurs. So, isn’t it natural for humans to seek to know and meet the author of this wonderful reality that is life!