© 1991 Kathleen Swadling
© 1991 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
| What Do You Think? | Vol 12 No 5 Sept 1991 — Index | What Does The Urantia Book Say About Communication With The Spirit World? |
summarised by Kathleen Swadling, Sydney
Six-O-Six has received a reply from The URANTIA Foundation in answer to the allegations made by Mo Siegel, of which a summary was provided in the May/June issue of Six-O-Six. The letter received from Mo Siegel was a copy of a letter sent to Lyn Davis Lear in Los Angeles, which has since been sent to many readers. The letter received from the Foundation was a copy of a letter sent to Jeff Keys, the president of The First URANTIA Society of Los Angeles, who was concerned by the allegations made by Mo Siegel in his letter to Lyn. The entire letter will not be reproduced here, but anyone interested in receiving a full copy may do so upon request. The following is a summary of the reply, with portions signified by inverted commas being direct extracts.
“Mr. Morris J. Siegel’s letter of March 27, 1991 to Ms. Lyn Davis Lear implies that he is a dispassionate, disinterested observer objectively sorting through the facts to reach his conclusions — rather than an ardent opponent of many of the policies of URANTIA Foundation.” (Mo Siegel is the founder of a separate organization, Jesusonian Foundation, which has sought to use active public relations and high-visibility advertising in merchandising The URANTIA Book.)
“If Mr Siegel were more forthcoming about his adversarial relationship with URANTIA Foundation, that would give readers of his letter fair warning that he may be inclined to combine assorted facts with a predetermined purpose: attempting to portray the Trustees as insufficiently devoted to our trust.”
1. Ending Sales to Distributors
“When Mr Siegel wishes to discuss the Trustees’ decision to end sales of The URANTIA Book to commercial distributors, he uses the heading ‘Shutting Down Sales to Bookstores’. This is a good example of Mr Siegel’s predetermined outlook. Mr Siegel knows that URANTIA Foundation ended sales to commercial distributors but by no means ended sales to bookstores. In fact, URANTIA Foundation has an active strategy for increasing sales through bookstores over the next several years.”
In deciding to end sales of The URANTIA Book to commercial distributors, the Trustees considered various factors some of which are stated here:
The Trustees must maintain the textual integrity of The URANTIA Book, supervise its distribution, and preserve an appropriate atmosphere for presentation to the public of the teachings it contains."
2. Financial And Administrative Considerations
Mo expressed concern over the amount of money URANTIA Foundation spends on legal expenses. The Trustees replied:
“On a practical level, the Trustees’ primary responsibility is to preserve inviolate the text of The URANTIA Book, which is the physical embodiment of URANTIA Foundation’s purpose. The Trustees must maintain the textual integrity of The URANTIA Book, supervise its distribution, and preserve an appropriate atmosphere for presentation to the public of the teachings it contains.”
The Trustees went on to explain that when any difficulty arises, every alternative is considered and the cost factor is always taken into account. However, an important element to be considered is the seriousness of each challenge and the danger it represents to the Foundation’s purpose. When this is threatened the cost element is deemed to pale into relative insignificance.
The Trustees’ Personal Belief In The Authenticity Of The Urantia Book Was never in question.
Mo presented graphs in his letter to show how expenditure on legal and accounting expenses have grown rapidly in the past few years. The Trustees reply:
“In effect, this is a clear demonstration of a point that Mr Siegel entirely neglects: within the last few years, a number of individuals and groups have mounted major efforts which have challenged URANTIA Foundation in fundamental ways, and URANTIA Foundation has been compelled to meet these challenges directly and resolutely. We certainly would like to reduce these expenses, because that would mean that challenges to URANTIA Foundation’s authority would have ceased or abated. Further, it would mean that we would have more time, energy, and resources to move ahead with other projects we have in mind.”
“Mr Siegel states that a review of legal expenditures reveals that virtually all legal action was against readers… a substantial portion of URANTIA Foundation’s legal expenditures were advisory and not adversarial…The Trustees must uphold URANTIA Foundation’s role in its areas of responsibility, regardless of whether a threat to that role comes from a complete outsider, from a reader of The URANTIA Book, or even from an organization that is controlled and operated by readers of The URANTIA Book. We find it deplorable that the latter two possibilities exist, but our experience proves that they do.”
(It was explained to some readers, who were visited recently by a Trustee for URANTIA Foundation, that the current Maaherra litigation is being funded by one individual only, and not from the donated funds to the Foundation.)
3. Protecting The Copyright
Mo expressed concern that there needs to be 1-3 million books sold by the time the copyright runs out in 40 years. He claims the Foundation’s current methods run counter to this intention. The Trustees reply:
“This idea of Mr Siegel’s happens to coincide with his theory of the mass-marketing of The URANTIA Book, and that is contrary to the policies of URANTIA Foundation… Mr Siegel clearly disagrees with URANTIA Foundation’s policies and is looking for reasons to argue that these policies ought to be changed.”
“The Trustees doubt Mr Siegel’s thesis that a substantial increase in sales of The URANTIA Book would make it easier to defend the integrity of the text. And even if that were to be the case, we do not agree that such a potential advantage would override the wisdom of pursuing a calm, quiet, person-to-person approach which seeks to foster personal understanding of the commitment to the principles and teachings contained in The URANTIA Book, rather than attract large numbers of curiosity seekers and faddists who would quickly lose interest.”
4. Questions on Authorship of The URANTIA Book
Mo claims that the Foundation have allegedly assigned human authorship to parts of The URANTIA Book and have denied divine authorship. The allegation accusing the Foundation of denying divine authorship was first made public in a publication put out by C.U.B.S. in 1989, when it came into conflict with the Foundation over copyright. The Trustees explain the context in which these statements were made.
“When URANTIA Foundation responded to statements made by C.U.B.S., we were limited by law to (1) affirming that URANTIA Foundation knew, rather than believed, that statements made by C.U.B.S. were facts supported by evidence that could be put forward in court; (2) denying that the statements were true, as a matter of fact; or (3) stating that URANTIA Foundation did not have such knowledge or information — in which case statements were treated for evidentiary purposes in the lawsuit, and for no other purpose and in no other context, as having been denied. The Trustees’ personal belief in the authenticity of The URANTIA Book was never in question. The Trustees personally believe that The URANTIA Book is what it says it is, and will stand on its own merits. We likewise believe that our personal convictions about The URANTIA Book’s authenticity are not legally conclusive proof.”
“During a hearing associated with the Maaherra case, Mr Craig Fochler (one of URANTIA Foundation’s copyright and trademark lawyers) recently stated in federal court in Phoenix, Arizona, that William S. Sadler Jr. had written certain portions of The URANTIA Book. This referred to the fact that Mr Sadler, on behalf of URANTIA Foundation (as work for hire), wrote certain of the introductory portions of The URANTIA Book identified as The Titles of the Papers and Contents of The URANTIA Book. Mr Fochler did not say that Mr Sadler wrote any of the Foreword or any of the papers contained in The URANTIA Book.”
“Mr Siegel’s general comments about federal copyright law appear to be based on his misinterpretation of the facts of law in relation to the three topics discussed above.”
| What Do You Think? | Vol 12 No 5 Sept 1991 — Index | What Does The Urantia Book Say About Communication With The Spirit World? |