© 2010 Jean Royer
© 2010 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The question of reincarnation in the UB, with the exception of the spornagias (cfr UB 46:7.5): the word appears 8 times in the singular and 1 time in the plural (cfr UB 46:7.4; UB 86:4.6; UB 88:1.4; UB 94:2.3; UB 164:3.4 and UB 94:2.6), the notion is described as absurd and debilitating. If the Hundred of Caligastia are indeed in some way reincarnated, none of them come from Urantia and are moreover supermen who abandoned their Adjuster on Jerusem. We could also say that Adam and Eve, Material Son and Daughter are reincarnated, but they too came from Jerusem and they did not have an Adjuster, at least until after the failure. (cfr UB 76:5.2)
What do we find in man? A body, a mind, a soul, a spirit (the Thought Adjuster), a personality.
The mind: first of all we still know almost nothing about mental phenomena. For example a Powerful Messenger tells us: All models of reality occupy space on material levels… For us, the master enigma of space concerns the model of an idea. When we approach the mental domain we encounter many embarrassing problems. Does the model of an idea - its reality - occupy space? In truth we know nothing about it… [UB 118:3.7] If this were the case, that is to say if the reality of an idea occupied space, would it not be possible for the thought of an individual to be “captured” by someone else? Transmission of thought between two living beings and “delayed” transmission in the event of the death of the transmitter. Would it not also be possible that the thought has affected, locally, the circuit of the Mother Spirit and that a particular human mind could have access to this part of the circuit?
The soul is in the care of the seraphic guardians of destiny for its passive identity potentials (UB 47:3.3) while the active models are an integral part of the Adjusters (UB 47:3.3). How, under these conditions, could a soul supposed to be born with the first moral decision come to implant itself in another body (metempsychosis) or create a body adapted to its level (reincarnation)?
The Thought Adjuster has knowledge of all the characteristics of the individual he is going to inhabit. (UB 108:1.3) While it is known that an Adjuster can inhabit several individuals in succession, this is not the case on our planet. In a sense, Adjusters may maintain a certain degree of cross-fertilization on the planetary level in the areas of truth, beauty, and goodness, but it is rare that they are given the opportunity to inhabit the same planet a second time. No Adjuster currently serving on Urantia has previously sojourned on this world. The Adjuster inhabits a particular individual for whom he has volunteered, he knows the intellectual capacity, the spiritual perception, and the combined intellectual and spiritual powers. (UB 108:1.3) On Urantia, he will not normally come to inhabit another individual.
The only exception we have is that of the Adjuster of Machiventa Melchizedek who returned to inhabit Jesus, but it will be noted that in both cases they are exceptional “divine” personages and not ordinary men. At death, the constitutive data of the personality which are faithfully preserved by the archangels allow the identification of this personality, even if no one knows where this personality is between the time of death and that of the resurrection. The Adjuster, himself, goes to Divinington and, in the event of survival, returns to inhabit the morontia body (never the mortal body); in the event of non-survival, he does not present himself on the first mansion world, thus blocking the resurrection process. Furthermore, the Adjuster is the preserver of the spiritual transcription of the mind of the sleeping survivor. [UB 30:4.15] In his absence, the mortal cannot recover his mind. We therefore see that: “A departed Adjuster never returns to earth with the identity of the being he had previously inhabited.” [UB 112:3.7] In other words: it is strictly impossible, because of the operations cited, for an individual, on our planet, to take on the personality he would have had previously.
Personality is unique. We do not know how God chooses the personality that he will give to each of his children, we only know that it is unique and that it will survive with the individual or, if the individual does not survive, integrate the Supreme Being. Each personality being unique, it cannot logically be conferred on another individual. Let us think that an individual is the fruit of the meeting of specific genes of two other individuals.
Jean Royer