© 1996 Ken Glasziou
© 1996 The Brotherhood of Man Library
It appears that each came into being as a result of some strange spiritual-psychological interaction between pairs of the extraordinary children of Adamson and Ratta, who “were often invisible.” Read in context, the “invisible” clause can be taken in two ways, one being that each individual was sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. Or it can be taken to mean that some of these extraordinary children were visible, while others were invisible. The book states, “Every fourth child born to them was of a unique order. It was often invisible.” (UB 77:5.6)
Adamson and Ratta were both superhuman. Adamson was a first generation descendant of Adam and Eve. When other descendants were permitted to evacuate this planet, among them were Adamson’s first wife and their thirty two children. But Adamson wanted to stay with his parents in order to assist in the building up of the second garden. After helping with the construction of adequate defenses for this new home he set out to the north, accompanied by twenty seven others, in quest of the land of the Nodites that he had heard about from the two long term survivors from the Caligastia rebellion, Van and Amadon.
In a little over three years Adamson found the object of his search, and among them, a beautiful and wonderful young woman named Ratta who claimed to be the last pure line descendant of two of the fallen staff of the Prince. On listening to Adamson’s story about the default at the Garden of Eden, and being much attracted by this majestic son of Adam and Eve, Ratta had but a single thought—to marry Adamson. She succeeded.
Together Adamson and Ratta had a family of sixty seven children, sixteen being of this unique order that were often invisible. After the arrival of the second “unique” child, since one was male and the second, female, Adamson decided to mate them. The result of the union was the “eventuation” of the secondary midwayers.
“I readily believe that there are more invisible beings in the universe than visible. But who shall explain to us the nature, the rank and kinship, the distinguished marks and graces of each? What do they do? Where do they dwell? The human mind has circled around this knowledge, but never attained to it.”
T. Burnet, Archaeologica Philosophica, 1692
It subsequently transpired that each pair of these unique children of Adamson and Ratta were capable of producing a secondary midwayer every seventy days. Like the primary midwayers, the newly arriving secondary midwayers were “eventuated” fully developed, subsequently experiencing no period of growth or development from immaturity—though they never cease to grow in wisdom and experience. (UB 77:8.3) The secondary midwayers have some degree of maleness or femaleness about them, often work in pairs, but are incapable of procreation. They have no need for sleep or earthly material food. They are somehow energized from “space emanations” that are a mystery to we humans.
For want of a better word I’ve incorrectly used the word “eventuated,” the same word as is used to describe the origin of the Absoniters. “Absoniters are not created; they are eventuated—they simply are.” (UB 0:1.12) It appears to be unlikely that a secondary midwayer could have been conceived and carried in the womb of its mother or could experience some kind of physical birth. The process by which they came into being is described as a combined technique of sex and non-sex liaison. In some ways it is reminiscent of the description of a process by which two finaliters bring a new being into existence—a trinitized son. But that is a one-off event, whereas each pair of Adamson and Ratta’s unique sixteen children managed to eventuate 248 midwayers before the ability to do so expired.
Of interest because of its uniqueness, is the birth of the sixteen invisible children to Adamson and Ratta. Primary midwayers were visible to the Prince’s planetary staff. (UB 66:4.10) Adam and Eve could see the midwayers and so could their children, though this ability declined with subsequent generations. (UB 76:4.5) One possibility is that the unique sixteen were conceived normally, nurtured in the womb normally, and were born and grew normally. They may have been quite visible to one or both of their parents but were sometimes visible and sometimes invisible to ordinary mortals. Alternatively, they may never have been visible to ordinary mortals and, because of the diminished ability of their parents to see midwayer-like beings, were only sometimes visible but often invisible to them. This may have been more of a problem for Ratta who was many more generations removed from her original superhuman ancestry than Adamson. Whatever the truth, from our point of view, they were a strange group.
Now just as an exercise and perhaps for enlightenment, imagine that you were granted the opportunity to present your views about The Urantia Book on some kind of TV host show that looked at significant happenings around the world. Your TV interviewer gives you an uninterrupted 5 to 10 minutes during which you describe your views on the principal teachings of the book. The questions that follow from the audience are mainly about how Urantia Book readers differ in their views from mainline Christians and you feel elated about how you have handled the questions. Then some gook from the audience gets up and asks, “Do you believe in fairies, hobgoblins, leprechauns, evil spirits, poltergeists, magic, all that kind of thing.” Your answer is almost straight from the book, “The Urantia Book has a modern outlook on science,” you say, “It accepts the evolution of mankind, has sections on the origins of our universe and solar system, the geology of the Earth, and so on, some of which were quite new when received in the mid-1930’s. It says that “science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and trains our minds along lines of exacting precision thus stabilizing philosophy through the elimination of error. In doing so it purifies religion, in particular through its effects on destroying primitive superstition.” (UB 81:6.10)
Feeling self-satisfied your turn the stage back to your questioner. “Then how come,” this gook asks, “that this Urantia Book not only includes a story about Adam and Eve rebelling against God just as Christian fundamentalists would have us believe, but also tells about a superman son of theirs who marries a superwoman and between them they have invisible children who create invisible spirits called midwayers. Then it says that some of these invisible midwayers also rebelled against God and became the evil spirits that possess people and cause them to throw fits and all that kind of thing.” You stutter that possession by evil spirits only happened prior to Jesus resurrection and the coming of the Spirit of Truth…“ That is as far as you get before the laughter and jeers from the floor causes the host to signal for a commercial break, during which you try to offer a quick explanation to your host. ”But this book of yours really does talk of Adam and Eve and invisible children that became evil spirits?“ he asks. You start to protest, he says answer yes or no, and you are forced to answer, “Well yes but…” Sensing chaos for his show, your host tells you that your time is up and they must go on with the next interview.
The midwayer story is, of course, by no means the only one that could cause disaster in any TV host show interview. A question I often ask myself is why are they there. I believe the story is basically true though it may (or may not) be told in some symbolic way because so much of what it says is way beyond the normal gamut of human experience or understanding. But it could quite easily have been told differently without stretching the truth beyond reasonable limits and in a way that would not jeopardize a public exposition of the content of the book. I do not believe that this kind of material is in the book because of some lack of understanding of we humans on the part of the revelators. It is there because they do understand us and because, for some reason, it is necessary. The question I ask is why is it necessary? If the origins of the secondary midwayers, and some other material, had been omitted or glossed over instead of being discussed in detail, the content of the book would not appear to have had a diminished spiritual value. And perhaps it would have been a lot easier to present the book to the scientifically-minded and the academic community.
In asking such questions we must retain our humility. The Revelators did what they did for a good reason. It is in trying to garner what the reasons for its peculiarities might be that we may get a better concept of how this book is to fulfill its purpose.
Ancient magic was the cocoon of modem science, indispensible in its time but now no longer useful. And so the phantasms of ignorant superstition agitated the primitive minds of men until the concepts of science could be born. Today, Urantia is in the twilight zone of the intellectual evolution. One half the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient superstition and thinly disguised magic. (UB 88:6.8)