© 2003 Joseph Le Dain and Séverin Desbuisson
© 2003 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
A few weeks ago, we received bad news - Jacques was very ill. Often, as we approach the final departure of a loved one, we feel remorse for not having visited them, for not having fraternized with them enough, for not having done everything we should have done, in short, for not having done what Jesus would have done…
Personally, faced with this news, I didn’t know what to do, but Séverin had the idea of visiting him to be able to write an article after his departure. An appointment was made and on February 24, 2001, we went to Recloses. No doubt he had something to say, a last message for his brothers who continue their work on earth.
About a year ago, aware of his health which was at risk of deteriorating rapidly, we decided to meet Jacques Dupont. We did not know it yet at the time, but this was to be the last time on this earth. Here is the story of this unique experience of life and fraternity:
This afternoon in February 2001, Jacques received us for a little over three hours, we left him at nightfall, not without having emptied, between the three of us, a good bottle of artisanal cider. We were seated in the dining room, a friendly fire was lit. The entire interview took place under the gaze of the finches, sparrows, tits and other passerines who fluttered around and then took turns landing on the edge of the window to peck at a few seeds, while others took advantage of the fat balls ideally placed on the low wall in front of us. Thanks to a large bay window, we had a magnificent view of the south-east of Recloses: nature was just asking to be contemplated… The day was rather cold and it was no surprise that on several occasions we saw a few snowflakes.
“Hello Joseph, no! It’s Séverin, Joseph, it’s him. By the way, which one of you comes from Grenoble?”
This is how the conversation led Jacques to tell us about his origins and then his life.
For my part, I know very little about Jacques but I hear about him from other readers of the book, many, who were impressed by the man. The French Urantia movement owes him a lot. It is therefore with great respect that we came to visit him.
Jacques was born in 1914 in Paris. He was therefore 87 years old. Although his family, of Alsatian origin, was not very rich, Jacques’ parents had decided to give their three offspring the highest possible education. This is how Jacques finished his studies at the Sorbonne with a degree in physics. Very early on, the boy was interested in religion but the difficult situation of his parents and his mother in particular revolted him, the economic recession of the 1920s was raging.
A tragic event occurred in the small family around 1935. Jacques’ mother used to look after her brother’s young son. While boiling water had just been poured into the little child’s bathtub, the latter escaped the grandmother’s supervision and burned himself fatally by diving into the bathtub. Jacques did not understand how God could allow such a good, generous and intelligent person to suffer such injustice. He rebelled: he who wanted to become a priest, decided to put God in the second plan! It was also during his last years of study that he was offered, like many students of that time, to pilot planes; France was short of pilots. He greatly appreciated these moments and built, in his mind, the hope of one day making it his profession.
Later, he did his military service as a cavalry officer. Overall, he enjoyed this year which allowed him, among other things, to learn to ride a horse.
Back in working life, he had to quickly earn a living, so he gave lessons in a Parisian school.
Three years later, the Second World War broke out. Jacques found himself assigned as an officer in an artillery regiment. But he refused to obey the attack orders that were given to him. The young man did not agree to kill his brothers, even if they were German. He was transferred to communications. During these few months of war, one evening he suffered a particularly difficult bombardment. Everyone was trying to save their lives and Jacques, like many of his comrades, was running around in the hope of escaping the shells. A deep reflection suddenly arose in his mind: “Why am I afraid? I’m a coward! In any case, I can’t predict where the bombs will hit!” He controlled himself, stopped running, and heard himself say “My God, protect me”. It was then that his reason began to react: “How can you, who put God in the background a few years ago, at the first skirmish pray to God to save your life? No, you have to be logical to the end, there is no God!..” and reason, once again, had won over his heart.
A few months later, back in Paris, he resumed his duties as a teacher. In 1942, France was occupied: German soldiers landed in the family home. They were looking for his brother, whom they suspected of belonging to the resistance and of preparing ambushes that were sometimes fatal for the Germans. His brother was not at home, so the Nazis gave him a deadline to go to the police station. If he did not show up, the entire family would be deported. The brother returned home and a discussion began between him and Jacques. The decision to be made was serious: by going to the police station, his brother would undoubtedly be killed, but worse, he would endure a hellish interrogation during which he risked revealing the names of all his fellow resistance fighters. The two brothers agreed: Jacques would present himself to the Germans.
After long hours of waiting, Jacques was sent to Fresnes prison, where he was placed in a dungeon to stay for 3 months. The first few days were difficult but Jacques told us he adapted to it. However, the prison zone in which he found himself was in a way the death zone. Indeed, for any German killed in Paris or nearby, one of the prisoners was shot. Often, very early in the morning, he heard the sound of boots coming down towards his zone, heading towards one of the nearby cells, taking the prisoner, then leading him with cries of despair to the execution post. The boots never stopped at his cell.
The days passed, Jacques received the prisoners’ book: a bible with masses in Latin. He told us he had learned it by heart, to pass the time. And then, he had a revelation: before, he did not believe, then, he recovered the faith, it brought him peace and joy. So, he did not care about dying, he believed. He nevertheless made a vow: if he got out of it he would take communion for a week.
Three months later, he left and returned to his parents’ home. The next day he went to a church and tried to confess. After a few words the priest asked him for details about his love affairs. Jacques was offended, he promptly left the church, not without telling the priest what he thought of this stupid interrogation and the little interest that God could have in him.
For the safety of his family, he then went to the free zone, to Vichy. It was in 1942, he headed to Vichy where he found a job as a civil servant. There, he supervised a team that took care of the Alsace region.
In response to the call of his heart, he found a new church and offered his services as an altar boy. He knew the Mass book by heart following his stay in prison and wished to honor the promise he had made to God to receive communion for a week. The priest consented and an appointment was made for 6:00 a.m. the next morning.
The mass took place normally and as the two men were about to separate, Jacques told the priest of his wish to respond to the mass the next day. The priest refused, he reproached Jacques for not having rung the bell correctly! Jacques felt once again deeply disappointed by this church, yet the only known link with God.
This was the trigger for a new starting point: the knowledge of other religions. There were surely, on this planet, groups of truly sincere believers, capable of sharing a worthy spiritual experience and not clinging to childish traditions. He searched assiduously and discovered the beautiful philosophies of the world’s religions and in particular the Hindu philosophy of Krishnamurti. But, none really satisfied this soul thirsting for truth.
During the war, his brother, a doctor and resistance fighter, was finally captured by the Germans and deported to a death camp before being released. He had great difficulty in getting news of his brother.
The war ended and Jacques quickly returned to Paris and found his family and his brother. He worked there as a teacher. And, to make ends meet, he traveled around Paris, between classes, to sell all sorts of objects, starting with knives. Business was going so well that he earned several times his salary between class hours. He quickly decided to stop classes and devote his career to sales. The end of the month was honorable, his work honest. Jacques was not one of those who took advantage of others. He generally even set his prices below the average. In fact, France lacked everything and trade flourished.
But his big goal was to become a pilot engineer in industry - his passion for flying airplanes was returning. To do this, he resumed his studies and obtained his degree in fluid mechanics. Then he applied to various employers in aeronautics. He was then disappointed to learn that because of his poor eyesight, piloting would be forbidden to him, that he was forced to work on the ground. So he returned to his commercial activities. Life became materially easier and he decided to buy a traction to travel around France. For a time, he was responsible for a French region for the sale of a product.
One day the idea came to him to carry out certain operations himself that he subcontracted, such as polishing. He bought a machine and installed it in a friend’s cellar. The new activity was such that he quickly hired one, then two, then three employees. After polishing, he became interested in metal protection. It became his main activity, his profession, on the material level.
His spiritual quest continued after the war. He made a habit of frequenting a bookstore at the Odéon to seek the nourishment his soul was craving. In 1962, when he was about to stop all research, resigning himself to living with an unsatisfactory personal concept of spiritual reality, his bookseller friend informed him of a very upcoming publication of which he had only the summary. Jacques read it, then addressed the bookseller: “this book is like the others, it will never bring me what I am looking for.” In fact, it was the opposite: this summary satisfied his thirst for truth, but Jacques did not believe it and was wary of so many hopes so often disappointed. Jacques was now working in the field of metal protection, he returned to the workshop. Then, the next day, while he was polishing and mulling over his hours of reflection on the events of the previous day, he decided to return to the bookstore. Coincidentally, once there, the translator, Jacques Weiss, was also present. The latter was looking for a source of funding for the first edition thanks to the interest generated by reading copies of the summary in different bookstores. Arriving at the latter’s home, he told him of his wish to meet the translator. As luck would have it, the translator was there, and Jacques met Jacques Weiss for the first time. The Urantia Book was nearing the end of its translation and the translator was looking, by dropping off the summary at the bookseller, to find some funding for his first edition. Jacques, confident in the translator’s words and eager to read the book, contributed to this edition which he discovered completed a few months later. Still in 1962, the book was in Jacques’ hands. The long reading began.
There is no doubt that this work was a masterful response to what he had been looking for for so many years, but, anxious to get as close as possible to the original text, he obtained the American version and, at the same time, undertook the study of the language of Shakespeare.
Inconsistencies appeared in the depths of his heart - surely translation errors, Jacques thought. So he bought the original English version and read up on the language of Shakespeare. He noticed a number of errors. At the same time, he participated in all the study groups organized by the translator and they became friends for a time.
His passion for books led him to the United States where he met, accompanied by Jacques Weiss, the American community and in particular Doctor Sadler. JW’s relations with the Foundation became strained. The latter wanted to have control over the distribution of the book in France, and in particular a limitation of the first edition to 500 books. However, JW made around 2000, which did not take long to reach the ears of the Foundation.
The more time passed, the more the Foundation was, according to the translator, the author of all evils - he even came to accuse them of thieves, liars… during study groups. A dark chapter began for the brand new French Urantian community. The attempt to falsify the copyright by JW put an end to the relationship between the two men.
According to Marlène, around 1982, Jacques financed a machine to print the UB in French. The machine was installed at Mr. Hiess’s, who was responsible for reproduction. The foundation granted 5,000 copies. A few months later, it discovered that double that number had been printed. This was followed by an investigation by the Foundation’s lawyers who recovered the plates.
During the 1980s, Jacques actively participated in correcting the translation and in new editions of the book. At the same time, he was involved in the CERDH and in the French-language magazine “La lettre”. The Urantian movement in France owes him a lot.
Jacques then got back in touch with the Americans and undertook a new edition by correcting the initial translation. The first books of this official version came out towards the end of the 1980s. After this separation, around 1982-83, Jacques also created the association CERDH, center for study and research on human destiny – and the magazine “La lettre” whose contents are accessible on the French-language site of the Foundation.
A painful event occurred around 1987, J’s brother died. His body was used by science in accordance with his last wishes. His last visit, at the hospital, to his doctor brother particularly shocked him - the still living body was already the object of experimentation. This memory was so painful that Jacques chose to forget his brother by erasing him from his memory.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the AFLUB replaced the CERDH, Jacques took the opportunity to withdraw from his study group activities in order to be more available to God. He told us: “The older we get, the more an individual’s material activities diminish in favor of his spiritual activities.” He still remained active, however, and continued to contribute to studies and works on the themes of the booklets.
The study group and local review activities were taken over by his son Georges. Then in 1996, they were transferred to FlR so that Georges could devote himself fully to his new responsibilities as trustee.
Since the end of the CERDH, Jacques has devoted himself to several activities: answering readers’ questions, writing a memoir for younger generations. Thus “The Veil Rises” was born. Currently Jacques is devoting himself to reflections and a complete reading of the book in order to try to specify the new cult that the revelation asks us to build.
Around 5:30 p.m., a three-hour discussion ended. Then Jacques invited us to toast with him before we parted ways. And we talked for a few more moments, addressing the problems of transmitting the teachings of the book, then we parted ways around 5:45 p.m.
From this exchange we have only retained the experiences and anecdotes specific to the spiritual subject. Jacques’ life is obviously much richer and includes personal, family and professional areas. As a final word we would like to wish him “bon voyage” in the adventure that awaits him and quote the Urantia book, specifying that it perfectly illustrates in our eyes, by its courage and perseverance, the following remarks:
““This day, my son, you are to be reborn, re-established as a man of faith, courage, and devoted service to man, for God’s sake. And when you become so readjusted to life within yourself, you become likewise readjusted to the universe; you have been born again—born of the spirit—and henceforth will your whole life become one of victorious accomplishment. Trouble will invigorate you; disappointment will spur you on; difficulties will challenge you; and obstacles will stimulate you. Arise, young man! Say farewell to the life of cringing fear and fleeing cowardice. Hasten back to duty and live your life in the flesh as a son of God, a mortal dedicated to the ennobling service of man on earth and destined to the superb and eternal service of God in eternity.”” (UB 130:6.4)
Joseph Le Dain and Severin Desbuisson