© 2016 Kermit Anderson
© 2016 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Early Persecutions of Jesus’ Followers and Dispersion of the Apostles | Volume 16, Number 1, 2016 (Summer) — Index | Mindedness and Spirituality, Comments on the Absolutes |
This article is intended to address certain misconceptions and misunderstandings among students of the Urantia revelation concerning specific aspects of the nature of personality and the Thought Adjuster, and the transactions and events whereby these profound universe facts come to be bestowed by God the Father on His universe creatures.
This article is not intended to be a comprehensive or exhaustive treatise on what authors of The Urantia Book have to say about personality or Thought Adjusters. Nor is it intended to be a big picture overview of the nature and role of these phenomena in the Paradise ascent. Rather, it is a collection of my reflections on the questions of how and when the bestowals of these universe facts are accomplished. My two main objectives in this piece are to disabuse readers of the revelation from thinking of the human personality as a thing or object, and to examine and understand the bestowal of the Thought Adjuster in the context of God’s grace consequent upon Michael’s gift of his Spirit of Truth to our world following the completion of his Urantian bestowal.
In the minds of the students of the fifth epochal revelation of truth to our world, there exists diversity of opinion and no small amount of uncertainty concerning the nature and bestowals of human personality and the indwelling Thought Adjuster. Over my years of studying and living with The Urantia Book the questions about the particulars of how and when we as individuals come by these wondrous gifts continue to stimulate my interest and lead to discussion, debate, and argumentation among serious students of the revelation. Attempts to answer these basic questions are fraught with complexity due to the transcendent nature of the entities in question and the mysteries surrounding these transactions. Yet, I will attempt to share my insights and deductions on these topics.
Early in our introduction to The Universal Father we are presented with His “…policy of profound self-distribution.” We are told that He reserves “…to himself the exercise of only those powers and that authority which he apparently finds it impossible to delegate or to bestow.” UB 10:1.1 Chief among these powers and authority which the Father has reserved for himself are the bestowal of personality on universe creatures, and the gifts of the Thought Adjusters, to live and labor in the minds of his evolutionary will creatures. We are informed that God is discernably present only on Paradise and in the central universe. His manifestation in the universes of time and space is observable in and through the persons of the co-ordinate creators and rulers of these creations. However, concerning the bestowal of personality and the Thought Adjusters, God the Father acts uniquely, directly, and exclusively.
Among long-time students of the book, common responses to the question of when these bestowals take place are: personality is bestowed (as a thing or object) at conception or birth, and The Thought Adjuster arrives to take up residence in the mortal mind upon a child’s first moral decision, i.e. just prior to age six. Yet, careful reading and reflection of the text suggests that perhaps these questions and answers are too simplistic. Somehow a more meaningful inquiry must reckon with the nature of the interface of the eternal (God the Father) with the temporal (creature).
Before looking more deeply at personality and trying to determine the particulars of its bestowal we must first recognize the more tangible actuality (from the standpoint of our consciousness), the material self. It is our failure to distinguish the differences between personality and the material mindal self that engenders confusion and misunderstanding surrounding their nature. The material self is a product of the interplay between our adjutant mind endowment and our physical mechanism (body), neither of which endures beyond the grave. Our genetic biologic foundation determines many of the qualities of our individuality and identity. Our material hereditary make-up establishes the boundary conditions of our physical mechanism. These boundary conditions affect the manner and expressions of the physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual qualities of an individual. It is these associated qualities that are frequently but incorrectly called personality. Thanks to the revelation we have authoritative information to enable us to begin to make the necessary distinctions between the material self and personality. References to the material self are to be found throughout the book.
Prior to the arrival of the fifth epochal revelation humans have never had a genuine understanding of the transcendent reality that is personality. It is not strange that as we encounter the term in the book our ability to comprehend what it says about personality is seriously conflated with our accumulated preconceived opinions and settled ideas attached to the word symbol. The revelators’ reference to personality as “a deified level of reality” UB 0:5.1 should cause us to stop and reflect that they mean something different from what contemporary psychologists and philosophers suggest as the characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that make a person unique. Common definitions of personality do include the ideas of uniqueness and constancy over time, both of which appear to touch on qualities of personality described in the revelation. Frequently the word personality is used to describe what might more accurately be called temperament—those aspects of an individual’s “personality” such as introversion or extroversion, that are often regarded as innate. From The Urantia Book perspective we might recognize these innate aspects of an individual as expressions of his or her material genetic biological foundation plus adjutant mind. It should be obvious however, that mankind’s evolutionary understanding of the nature of personality must be supplemented by revelation in order to begin to approach a true comprehension of personality as a reality in the cosmos. The profound and abstruse nature of personality will ever be a frontier of discovery in our ascension career.
Personality is one of the unsolved mysteries of the universes. We are able to form adequate concepts of the factors entering into the make-up of various orders and levels of personality, but we do not fully comprehend the real nature of the personality itself. We clearly perceive the numerous factors which, when put together, constitute the vehicle for human personality, but we do not fully comprehend the nature and significance of such a finite personality. UB 5:6.2
The revelators use the term personality in two fundamental ways. In describing re-personalization on the mansion worlds, they speak of “personality reassembly” where they are referring to the coming together of the constituent factors of form (body), mind, soul, and spirit in a moment of creature re-consciousizing or awakening following the sleep of death. Personality in this sense is a more global term and less precise. The authors also use the word when they are being very specific about the universe reality that is “…a level of deified reality…” UB 0:5.1 or “…the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience [that] unifies all other associated factors of individuality.” UB 0:5.11 While the revelators decline to define personality, they list fourteen things which are known about personality in the preface to Paper 112. This list is actually a collection of bullet points summarizing the signal features of personality that have been elaborated upon elsewhere in the revelation. In addition to these, the terms “individuated will,” “spirit pattern,” “Paradise pattern,” and “influence from eternity” are qualities and designations of personality that can be inferred in the revelation and can help to elucidate its function in the cosmic scheme of things, meanings and values. Therefore, interpreting the word “personality” in consonance with the revelators’ intent depends on the context of their usage. It is in the more precise aspect of an existential influence from eternity that I use the term personality.
That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. UB 112:5.2
Herein is the singular clue as to why the question, “When is personality bestowed?” is the wrong question. Existential human personality has no relationship to time. The Father, who inhabits eternity, bestows human personality in eternity, not in time. The question that should be asked is rather, “When does human personality become observable and functional in time?” That is, when does the existential influence called personality begin to manifest experientially? The existential human personality, devoid of identity is not observable as experiential until it identifies with a self. The conditions for that are given below.”
Capacity for divine personality is inherent in the prepersonal Adjuster; capacity for human personality is potential in the cosmic-mind endowment of the human being. But the experiential personality of mortal man is not observable as an active and functional reality until after the material life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the liberating divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas of experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly personal. UB 5:6.6
Note another way of referring to the cosmic-mind endowment of the human being is the Holy Spirit. Also, in reflecting on this passage and interpreting it correctly it is crucial to understand what is meant by the “liberating divinity of the Universal Father” and how it “touches” the material life vehicle of the mortal creature. This “liberating divinity” is the personality encircuitment in the Father’s personality circuit. The touching of the material life vehicle is the act of this personality, identifying with the material self (combined association of the material life vehicle and adjutant mind). This then represents the Father’s initiation of the finite creature as a cosmic citizen, in fact! Some readers suggest that the phrase, “touched by the liberating divinity of the Universal Father” refers to the Adjuster. However the subsequent clause, “…being thus launched upon the seas of experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and self-creative personality” UB 5:6.6 depicts the function of personality, not the Adjuster. As indicated in the passage UB 103:0.1 “… long before the bestowals of the Spirit of Truth or the Thought Adjusters, man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality is enlarged by the influence of the supermind endowment of the Holy Spirit. All of these qualities are indicative of a functional and observable human personality.”
While humans have long believed in the existence of the indwelling spirit as well as the soul, it is only with the fifth epochal revelation that mankind has been given such authoritative and extensive information about these mysterious cosmic facts. Along with God the Father’s supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” UB 1:0.6 This same Universal Father has provided the ways and means for even such lowly animal-origin creatures as we humans to fulfill this command. The secret of such an achievement is to be found in the perfect spirit guide, the Thought Adjuster, the Mystery Monitor given to every normal-minded mortal of our world. Thought Adjusters are referenced in all parts of the book, but Papers 107–112 of The Urantia Book give us a treasure trove treatment of encyclopedic proportions of these divine gifts.
While no less mysterious than personality, the Thought Adjuster is easier of description, initially being a thing apart, an individuated fact that can be conceptualized as localized in the human mind. Like personality, Mystery Monitors are of the Father, hence eternal, however their relation to finite creatures takes place in a temporal context. In the six papers referenced above we are given manifold details of Thought Adjusters such as their inscrutable nature, various classifications, differential career paths, role in soul making, and so on. As mentioned, my objective in this article is to examine the events and transactions surrounding the Father’s bestowal of these spirit gifts specific to our post-Pentecost status. Therefore, I will forego the enumeration and description of the qualities, characteristics, and functions of Mystery Monitors, except in the context of explaining how it is all normal-minded humans by grace automatically receive them.
Here again, our question is somewhat misleading. We are told that Urantians today receive Thought Adjusters around six years of age on average. The prevailing opinion among fellow students of the revelation according to my unscientific sampling is that the Monitor arrives very shortly after an individual’s first moral choice. Many testify with relative certainty as to the event of their child’s receipt of their Adjuster, based upon some overt act of altruism or exhibition of moral discrimination. Who is to say? However, I suggest that the process more often depends on the mystery of grace, acting unconsciously in a child rather than being linked to some overt outwardly observable behavior.
Prior to the arrival of the Spirit of Truth on an evolutionary world, numerous influences and conditions appear to be associated with the arrival of Adjusters, many of which are not fully understood even by such high beings as the Solitary Messengers. The prerequisites to Thought Adjuster indwelling on pre-Paradise Son bestowal worlds are listed in the book. UB 108:2.6-11
On our world, because of Michael’s bestowal, Thought Adjusters automatically come to indwell all normal minded mortals. Why do I say this occurs by grace and unconsciously?
A stated prerequisite to Adjuster indwelling is a mortal mind that “…has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit.” UB 108:2.2 Couple this passage with what we are told by a Mighty Messenger in Paper 34 that, “When mind is thus endowed with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it possesses the capacity for (consciously or unconsciously) choosing the spiritual presence of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjuster. But it is not until a bestowal Son has liberated the Spirit of Truth for planetary ministry to all mortals that all normal minds are automatically prepared for the reception of the Thought Adjusters.” UB 34:5.4 It is apparent that a superconscious (unconscious) choice of the Father’s presence is sufficient to enable Adjuster arrival. On worlds without a Spirit of Truth, arrival of the Monitor is not automatic and requires conscious choice. I suggest that the presence and action of the Spirit of Truth is the agent of grace enabling a young, almost six year old child on our world to choose (superconsciously) the spiritual presence of the Father. Remember that the superconscious realms of mind are “above consciousness,” higher, i.e., closer to spiritual input from above, yet effectively unconscious. The remainder of the above cited passage goes on to reinforce the positional (higher) relationship of both the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth to us mortals.
To put even a finer point on the timing of the Adjuster arrival, we are told that, “Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost.” UB 108:2.3
I further suggest that this “unconscious moral choice” be seen as a tiny measure of grace we are given in being established in conformity with the cosmos. That is not to say this initial connection we are given by grace is sufficient unto itself to ensure our arrival on Paradise. The revelation is full of exhortations and challenges along with the assurance of success for us to use our sincerity and daily decisions to advance in spirit status, and that we must do this consciously and persistently to succeed.
Who doesn’t find some measure of humor in the characteristic precision of the revelators when they tell us of the transit time of an Adjuster from Divinington to their appearance in the minds of their chosen subjects being 117 hours, 42 minutes, and 7 seconds, and that “Virtually all of this time is occupied with registration on Uversa.” UB 108:1.9 What! There’s red tape on high?
So it is that these bestowals of the Father on our world are beautifully coincident. The appearance of functional human personality and the actual arrival of the Thought Adjuster are almost simultaneous save for that 117+ hours that the Mystery monitor is detained by the bureaucracy of the superuniverse.
Thus we are initiated in the Father (personality and Thought Adjuster) by the grace of the Creator Son and Universe Mother to ascend through level upon level, realm upon realm to stand face to face with our Heavenly Father, and in perfection complete our universe initiation to be mobilized and pursue the next challenge of penetrating to completion our destiny as finaliters.
The universal and virtually automatic bestowal of Thought Adjusters, and consequent birth of souls on our world, lead me to conclude that mansion world resurrection is likewise well-nigh universal for Urantian mortals. I am well aware that fellow students of the revelation do not universally hold this opinion. It is the unfortunate planetary history and unorthodox administration (the irregular order of dispensations), coupled with the abundance of mercy that so persuades me. “The sovereign Judges of the universes will not deprive any being of personality status who has not finally and fully made the eternal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.” UB 112:5.9
Kermit Anderson has been a student of the revelation since 1969. He and his wife Jackie hosted a study group in Huntington Beach, and Westminster, California from 1975 until 2015, until they moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2016. Kermit has served in various leadership positions in the Southern California societies of the former Urantia Brotherhood and current Fellowship. He is currently a co-host for the virtual study group Symmetry of Soul since 2010. http://www.symmetryofsoul.org
| Early Persecutions of Jesus’ Followers and Dispersion of the Apostles | Volume 16, Number 1, 2016 (Summer) — Index | Mindedness and Spirituality, Comments on the Absolutes |