© 2000 Jeanmarie Chaise
© 2000 International Urantia Association (IUA)
Jeanmarie Chair
Buzançais, France
It may be that, in our efforts to simplify our lives and to make the revelations of the Urantia Book more accessible to us, we use sweeping formulas, which do not necessarily correspond to the idea that we have. let’s read them.
Thus the formula “Fifth Epoch Revelation” may be surprising in certain respects, notwithstanding the fact that it is indeed the fifth Revelation which occurred on Urantia. Indeed, as we formulate it, it could easily make us believe that our unfortunate planet has made up for all its delay thanks to the pitiful reception it gave to the sovereign of our universe more than two thousand years ago now. Unfortunately this is not the case!
Let us only consider the parallel that Revelation offers us, between what our earth has experienced and what it should have experienced. Only the first planetary epoch, the epoch prior to the coming of the Planetary Prince, resembles what all the other inhabited and normal planets experience, the epoch of primitive man.
But from the second epoch, the epoch of man after the Planetary Prince, the fate of Urantia deviates. Indeed, usually at such an epoch There uniformly run through all of these racial religions two strains: the early fears of primitive men and the later revelations of the Planetary Prince. In some respects Urantians do not seem to have wholly emerged from this stage of planetary evolution. [UB 52:2.4] This is why we are taught from this stage that if we continue this study, we will discern more clearly how our world deviates from the average course of progress and evolutionary development. So let’s continue:
Indeed, in some respects our time is still in this pre-Adamic stage. We are told: During this age normal worlds establish full equality of the sexes, this being preliminary to the fuller realization of the ideals of home life. [UB 52:2.7] Are we already aware of our delay here? So, let’s continue:
Before the end of this era, (We are still before Adam) races are purified and brought up to a high state of physical perfection and intellectual strength. The early development of a normal world is greatly helped by the plan of promoting the increase of the higher types of mortals with proportionate curtailment of the lower. And it is the failure of your early peoples to thus discriminate between these types that accounts for the presence of so many defective and degenerate individuals among the present-day Urantia races. [UB 52:2.9]
And we have not yet decided to rectify the situation. What would there be to do? We are told:
One of the great achievements of the age of the prince is this restriction of the multiplication of mentally defective and socially unfit individuals. Long before the times of the arrival of the second Sons, the Adams, most worlds seriously address themselves to the tasks of race purification, something which the Urantia peoples have not even yet seriously undertaken. (UB 52:2.10)
But here we are attacking taboo areas of our seemingly unhealthy sentimentality. There are many in The Urantia Book, and this is why its diffusion should perhaps not be too hasty on a universal level. Many reserved areas are denounced and responsibilities highlighted that many organizations, at the individual and collective level, are not at all ready to support or even simply admit. I will not list them, because it would immediately take us too far; but let us remain only on this problem of the improvement of the human race. We are therefore told on this theme:
This problem of race improvement is not such an extensive undertaking when it is attacked at this early date in human evolution. The preceding period of tribal struggles and rugged competition in race survival has weeded out most of the abnormal and defective strains. An idiot does not have much chance of survival in a primitive and warring tribal social organization. It is the false sentiment of your partially perfected civilizations that fosters, protects, and perpetuates the hopelessly defective strains of evolutionary human stocks. (UB 52:2.11)
We therefore have drastic decisions to make that our responsible authorities seem far from willing to make; and yet the discourse of revelation is clear on this point; he tells us to conclude on this theme:
It is neither tenderness nor altruism to bestow futile sympathy upon degenerated human beings, unsalvable abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even the most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient differences between individuals and between numerous social groups to provide for the full exercise of all those noble traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish mortal ministry without perpetuating the socially unfit and the morally degenerate strains of evolving humanity. There is abundant opportunity for the exercise of tolerance and the function of altruism in behalf of those unfortunate and needy individuals who have not irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever destroyed their spiritual birthright. (UB 52:2.12)
Despite this obvious delay, an Adam and an Eve were sent to us, because when primitive man has ascended as high as he can on the biological scale, a Material Son and a Daughter always appear on the planet, sent by the Sovereign of the System._ [UB 52:3.1]
This is therefore only a measure relating to the physical level of the race and not a promotion likely in itself to raise the level of the planet.
On an average world the post-Adamic dispensation is an age of great invention, energy control, and mechanical development. This is the era of the appearance of multiform manufacture and the control of natural forces; it is the golden age of exploration and the final subduing of the planet. Much of the material progress of a world occurs during this time of the inauguration of the development of the physical sciences, just such an epoch as Urantia is now experiencing. Your world is a full dispensation and more behind the average planetary schedule. (UB 52:3.6)
It therefore seems that even on this level of technological advances of which we are so proud, we are hardly in unison with the average planet. We hardly dominate our planet, we are almost powerless in the face of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, oil spills and other calamities of our technology which still only knows how to use the quantitative data of science and technology. trade, and again, with frequent hiccups which sometimes make us fear the worst. Thus, the third planetary epoch of Urantia:
The post-Adamic epoch is the dispensation of internationalism. With the near completion of the task of race blending, nationalism wanes, and the brotherhood of man really begins to materialize. Representative government begins to take the place of the monarchial or paternal form of rulership. The educational system becomes world-wide, and gradually the languages of the races give way to the tongue of the violet people. Universal peace and co-operation are seldom attained until the races are fairly well blended, and until they speak a common language. (UB 52:3.10)
However, we are still far from true internationalism with the erasure of races for the benefit of a single one and with a common language spoken universally… Great ethical advancement characterizes this era; the brotherhood of man is the goal of its society. World-wide peace—the cessation of race conflict and national animosity—is the indicator of planetary ripeness for the advent of the third order of sonship, the Magisterial Son. [UB 52:3.12]
So no matter how much we read further, we no longer find anything that somewhat recalls certain progress that our planet could have made in relation to the four following epochs. After the third epoch, that of the Adamic clan, no Magistral Son will venture onto our planet for a long time. Because to do this, all of these achievements that are part of the first three ages of the planet would have to be effective on our soil. We are far from it!
Instead of a programmed Avonal Son, Machiventa Melchizedek was sent to us, not because humanity deserved it, but because on the contrary it was in the process of disintegration, and this visit somewhat restarted the machine. while waiting for Michael to come. We therefore had neither a Magistral Son nor a traditional bestowal Son. On the other hand, Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order. [UB 52:5.2]
We have thus benefited from ample compensation for our initial misfortunes. But the fact remains that if, especially for this reason, on an individual level certain men of Urantia have the chance to be able and to know how to progress spiritually despite the avatars suffered by the tormented history of our planet and its inhabitants , on the other hand, on the planetary level, we are still at an unfinished accomplishment of the first two epochal Revelations, that of the Planetary Prince and that of the Adamic couple. This is what makes our Revelators say that our world is behind by more than one dispensation.
Indeed, the coming of Machiventa Melchizedek was not counted as determining a planetary epoch, but only as an emergency intervention.
Machiventa terminated his bestowal as a creature of flesh and blood just as suddenly and unceremoniously as he had begun it. Neither his appearance nor departure were accompanied by any unusual announcement or demonstration; neither resurrection roll call nor ending of planetary dispensation marked his appearance on Urantia; his was an emergency bestowal. [UB 93:10.2]
There remains the outpouring of Michael on our world, which indeed counts as the Third Revelation of the time. Therefore, two thousand years after this extraordinary coming, can we think that we are on the verge of leaving this era for the next, that of the Teacher Sons of Paradise? Let’s not dream! What are we told on this subject? We are told The postbestowal Son age may extend from ten thousand to a hundred thousand years. There is no arbitrary time allotted to any of these dispensational eras. [UB 52:5.8] These estimates are hardly capable of allowing us to dream of a very near end of the dispensation.
It is therefore only through the appearance of an Avonal Son or the arrival of Paradise Instructor Sons in a completely exceptional context of evolution that we can hope to see the normal cycle of Revelations reestablished in the distant future. period on Urantia. It is true that the fate of our planet is completely uncertain; and it is only on the individual level that for a long time we have been able to act most effectively. In disorganized societies the individual can only evolve effectively alone. This is why we have such a long way to go to unite and learn to act collectively. And these individual actions will ultimately act in the long time to come to gently restore a greatly disrupted planetary evolution. To do this, Michael-Jesus came to play the role of the bestowal Son of Paradise who should have followed the era of the deprogrammed Avonal Son. In its place :
The bestowal Son lives and dies for the spiritual uplift of the mortal races of a world. He establishes the “new and living way”; his life is an incarnation of Paradise truth in mortal flesh, that very truth—even the Spirit of Truth—in the knowledge of which men shall be free. (UB 52:5.4)
On Urantia the establishment of this “new and living way” was a matter of fact as well as of truth. The isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had suspended the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon death, directly to the shores of the mansion worlds. Before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia all souls slept on until the dispensational or special millennial resurrections. Even Moses was not permitted to go over to the other side until the occasion of a special resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia, contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to the morontia spheres. (UB 52:5.5)
Thus, it is now on the individual level that transfers are made towards the worlds of the morontia houses. And our world is collectively subject to the slow progress of peoples for its evolution and its entry into the following eras of Revelations by the different orders of the Sons of Paradise. There is no longer any truly discernible order in the great delay that the evolution of our planet has taken, and The Urantia Book, in turn, acts as a lifeline, like the Machiventa’s intervention. This is why calling this Book “The Fifth Epochal Revelation” is tendentious, for it could easily lead us, its readers, to believe that we have truly arrived at the dawn of a coming in number of Teacher Sons. of Paradise to prepare the entry of our planet into the era of Light and Life.
It is only necessary to read very carefully this booklet 52 of the Urantia Book to disillusion ourselves and constantly remind ourselves that this formulation “The Fifth Revelation of the time”, which, moreover, is not mentioned anywhere under this form cannot really correspond to what it claims to designate. Let us only remember that we have entered an era of understanding of universal realities which have been generously brought to us by the Revelators and which they ultimately affirm to us:
No matter what the special natural history of an individual planet may be, no difference whether a realm has been wholly loyal, tainted with evil, or cursed by sin—no matter what the antecedents may be—sooner or later the grace of God and the ministry of angels will usher in the day of the advent of the Trinity Teacher Sons; and their departure, following their final mission, will inaugurate this superb era of light and life. (UB 52:7.14)
We can therefore nourish all hopes, but without haste, because All the worlds of Satania can share the hope of him who wrote: “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless. » [UB 52:7.15]