© 1998 François Le Rohellec, Patrice and Héléna Dessoubret, Jeanmarie Chaise, Dominique Ronfet, Patrice Dessoubret, Claude Castel, Jean-Claude Romeuf, Chris Ragetly
© 1998 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Journal of the association L'A.F.L.L.U. French-speaking Association of Readers of the URANTIA Book
Member of the I.U.A.
Head office:
8, Passage of the Good Seed
75011 PARIS—France
¶ A Word from the President
Our meetings are always a generous moment of exchange (the last one took place at the end of November). As such, I can only encourage you to participate. The fact remains that, regardless of the somewhat short announcement period for our last meeting, France remains large and it is not always easy to cross it for a weekend. So why don’t you look for and offer us a host site in your province that could host an A.F.L.L.U meeting? The south-east was already a drop-off point last March, there are still many other regions!
…And then, the pleasure of welcoming is certain. It is in this spirit, no doubt, that we took the decision in principle, at our last meeting, to host the international meeting of the I.U.A. (International Urantia Association) in the summer of 2002. A great opportunity for us, the French readership, to mobilize around a common project and to share our know-how.
Francois Le Rohellec
President of the A.F.L.L.U.
¶ Summary
- The President’s Word
- The Inevitability of the 5th Revelation by Patrice and Héléna Dessoubret
- The intelligence of the heart, the only way leading to the Father by Jeanmarie Chaise
- Improvisation on the theme of freedom by Dominique Ronfet.
- Adjusters are the will of God by Patrice Dessoubret.
- What happens after Death? Information from The Urantia Book by Claude Castel.
- Absolutes and realities by Jean-Claude Romeuf.
- On the Lower Planes of Mota and the Higher Levels of Human Philosophy by Chris Ragetly
- Questions-Answers.
❧ 1955 URANTIA Foundation. All rights reserved. These materials from The URANTIA Book are used with permission. Any artistic representation(s), interpretation(s), opinion(s) or conclusion(s) implied or stated are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of URANTIA Foundation or its affiliates.
Legal deposit: December 1997 — ISSN 1285-1116
Subscription in 1998: 100 FF per year (approximately 4 issues)
¶ The inevitability of the 5th^ Revelation
Science and technology have, over the last century or so, advanced to such a level that a significant gap has been created with traditional religious teaching.
Indeed, how can we continue to believe that the universe is 6000 years old and that the earth was created in seven days. Don’t laugh, I know so-called intelligent people who believe it hard as iron.
It is obvious that this poses a problem for the new generation who cannot believe it, and who, having been educated, reject the idea of God, because among other things, they cannot accept the beautiful fable of creation in seven days, Adam and Eve 6000 years ago… etc.
If we carefully reread Control and Supercontrol in The URANTIA Book, then we understand the necessity, the inevitability of the 5th Revelation:
“The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to the effectiveness of that brake—material inertia—which so efficiently operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the “dark ages” of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.” (UB 118:8.6)
So we need the intellectual and spiritual bases to move towards more wisdom: without which, the descent risks being very hard. Indeed, the URANTIA Book tells us:
“Unless the moral insight and the spiritual attainment of mankind are proportionately augmented, the unlimited advancement of a purely materialistic culture may eventually become a menace to civilization. A purely materialistic science harbors within itself the potential seed of the destruction of all scientific striving, for this very attitude presages the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has abandoned its sense of moral values and has repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment.” (UB 132:1.3)
Despite all this, the revelations are part of God’s plans, this is specified in the URANTIA Book:
“2. Revealed religion. The universe attitude which is a spirit derivative; the assurance of, and belief in, the conservation of eternal realities, the survival of personality, and the eventual attainment of the cosmic Deity, whose purpose has made all this possible. It is a part of the plan of the universe that, sooner or later, evolutionary religion is destined to receive the spiritual expansion of revelation.” (UB 101:5.4)
“Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from the truths of spirit acquirement.” (UB 101:5.1)
Patrice and Helena Dessoubret
¶ The intelligence of the heart the only way leading to the Father
The wonderful thing about the life we are given is that we are free to unite and to disunite, and to always realize that, ultimately, because God’s cosmic organization is pyramidal, all that is union tends toward the Creator, toward the Father, toward the summit, while all that is disunion implies the need for new future efforts to unite us again or to definitively resign ourselves from the divine project. It seems, in fact, that we can never succeed in progressing spiritually if we leave behind us fundamental enmities from which we cannot return. Jesus invited us to love even our enemies, having, in truth, no merit in loving only those who love us. The masterful example of this is given to us in The Urantia Book.
Jeanmarie Chair
¶ Improvisation on the theme of freedom
P. 1135 - “§1 Compulsion can neither save nor ennoble men. Spiritual growth comes from within the evolving soul. Compulsion may distort the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even the compulsion of education is of only negative help, in that it may help to prevent disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest when all external constraints are reduced to a minimum. ”Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.“ Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are less, but it should not be inferred that in a progressive society there is no place for home, social institutions, church, and state…” UB 103:5.11
When ?
When will we aspire to freedom?
We who build our prison daily.
When will we dance our lives?
This prison made of the bricks of our habits
Sealed by the cement of our fears.
When will we dare to love freedom?
When will we leave weight for feathers?
Speech against silence?
But we prefer death to desire
Sleep at the sigh
When will we dare to love the truth?
As if we had a choice.
As if we had a choice.
Dominique Ronfet
¶ Adjusters are the will of God
We sometimes hear: Doing the will of GOD, yes, but what is that?
The Urantia Book informs us on this point.
Every mortal who consciously or unconsciously follows the leadings of his Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God.
The Adjuster is the possibility for man to become eternal. Man is the possibility for the Adjuster to personalize himself. Your individual Adjuster works to spiritualize you in the hope of eternalizing your temporal identity. His business is to prepare you for the eternal adventure. To be perfect as God is perfect (in our sphere) the only solution is to merge with our Adjuster.
To do the will of God is to accept survival and also the plans our Adjuster has outlined for us. Remember the message of an Adjuster to his mortal companion: “I exhort him to survive and not to disappoint me, not to deprive me of the reward of my persistent and intense struggle.” UB 110:7.10. For personality attainment we depend upon the human will.
Patrice Dessoubret
¶ What happens after death?
Information from The Urantia Book
This text is composed in a way that is easily understandable for anyone who asks this question, even if they do not know The Urantia Book (and especially if they do not know it!) It is intended to calm fears about this uncertain future that is beyond death, and to make the Book known at the same time.
After death, the material body returns to the elemental world from which it came, but two immaterial factors of the surviving personality persist:
- The divine Spirit (the Thought Adjuster) which indwells the human mind. It remains in the human mind until the measurable brain energies cease their rhythmic vital pulsations.
- The Soul of the deceased, which is preserved by the guardian angel of the deceased person.
Claude Castel
¶ Absolutes and Reality
One of the great intellectual tragedies of the human adventure is not knowing which came first, the chicken or the egg. This is the question we will try to answer. To do this, several paths of thought are possible and although they may seem to be in opposition, they are not contradictory.
The friend who will read this text will be a little more enlightened on the subject; but I warn him, however, that according to my unfortunate habit, I will try to influence his opinion.
In order not to lose the thread of the demonstration, it will always be necessary to keep in mind the fact that the egg is the prereality of the hen although it is the hen that lays the egg.
Jean-Claude Romeuf
¶ On the lower planes of mota and the higher levels of human philosophy.
Among the 28 quotes on pages 556 and 557, some strike me more than others, here they are:
“2. Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.” (UB 48:7.4)
Note: This is true for everyone, we have a practically inexhaustible credit, not to mention the aids of all kinds (Adjuster, Spirit of Truth, Spirit of the Divine Minister etc…). The author, an Archangel, is really right to say that our souls are in truth rich, but there you go, we do not want to realize it, we refuse to believe it, what a mistake!
“8. Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.” (UB 48:7.10)
Note: Who has not felt, or sensed, this extraordinary stimulus of inner joy after having participated in an action of righteousness? And it is true that vibrations may be perceived, at a level impossible to determine, but the perception of these vibrations makes them seem to actually be transmitted to unknown distances.
“14. Whet the appetites of your associates for truth; give advice only when it is asked for.” (UB 48:7.16)
Note: If there was one area where Jesus excelled, it was in stimulating the appetite of his interlocutors for the search for truth. We can only take Jesus as our model once again. But, “give advice only when asked” is of great importance, because how many times have we seen people turn away after hearing unsolicited advice, and thus perhaps lose a good opportunity to be silent (for the one giving the advice). It is better to know how to listen (as Jesus did) and thus seize the right moment to stimulate the spiritual appetite of the interlocutor.
“19. Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come.” (UB 48:7.21)
Note: Oh, how true this quote is. How many times have we not had the opportunity to worry ourselves “very much” about imaginary failures or disappointments that were ultimately only reflections of our panicked mind? And it is time to call upon this credit that each of us possesses.
“22. The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.” (UB 48:7.24)
Note: This is one of the statements of the Fifth Revelation that warms our hearts the most. Who, when reading this sentence for the first time, has not said to himself in the secret of his heart: “I have a chance, because I know what I would like to do, and I am not succeeding at the moment, but perhaps one day I will. And the teachings of the Fifth Revelation confirm what I feel deep inside me, and affirm that it is this will that is important to me.”
All these quotations (the 28) from pages 556 and 557 are interrelated. Their study is of tremendous profit, and gives us a “finger touch”, perhaps, on the lower planes of the morontia mota, if we will first try to access the higher levels of human philosophy.
Chris Ragetly
¶ Response to Jean Royer’s article Is it possible from link no. 6
1st example:
If the text of the Book itself does not give a direct answer to the problems posed by Jean Royer, an explanation can be found indirectly.
If the transport seraphim had left Jerusem on the day of Eve’s fault (which is not indicated), considering that between the arrival of the Melchizedeks 70 days later and the actual departure from the Garden, a few more weeks certainly passed, and that the seraphim arrived say 4 months after Eve’s fault (leaving 5 months to give birth to Cain and Sansa on a journey of less than a year), the speed of 885,000 km/sec. (23.2 No. 6), 22 times around the Earth per second, would place Jerusem only about 1 light year from Urantia.
That is, between Pluto (5 ½ hours/l.) and Proxima Centauri (4.3 years/l.), the closest star to our solar system. So there is an error because Jerusem, according to my research, must be between 10 and 25 light years from Urantia.
On the other hand, we can make the following reasoning: the seraphim had to leave Jerusem well before Eve’s fault, for a normal mission and an unspecified destination, and were urgently diverted during their journey by instructions received from their directors. This is possible according to UB 39:3.8 No5 since Adam and Eve’s fault should not normally have been committed.
The Melchizedeks as well as Gabriel, as administrators, must be able to move much faster from one world to another to have sufficient efficiency. They probably do not use the seraphim for their travels (too slow) but other beings “there are many types of beings, similar to the seraphim, who are also able to cross space and transport other beings suitably prepared” (UB 39:3.9), or other personal means.
2nd^ example:
As for the inhabitants of the continent under threat of imminent overpopulation, the Book does not say how many people remain single. The marriage laws are perhaps more restrictive than here, and relatively few couples are allowed or have the financial means to marry. The mentally retarded cannot have descendants either (UB 72:4.2). Which is perhaps enough for the population to increase only slowly. On the other hand, the notion of overpopulation is very relative because it depends on the resources available. Europe is not considered overpopulated, and yet it is comparatively much more populated per km2 than the Third World. While Yemen was considered overpopulated before the discovery of oil which brought it certain prosperity, and which is now looking for immigrants.
So I don’t worry too much about these “Australians” because my primitive mind is perhaps neither logical nor consistent!
Consistency 2:
The day of the Transfiguration was probably an exceptional circumstance to the rule cited at UB 35:1.2.
Emmanuel certainly supervised everything during this very short period of absence in agreement with Gabriel, Father Melchizedek and Michael. And this agreement had to remain secret for security reasons.
¶ Response from Guy Bourhis to Anne-Marie Ronfet
Anne-Marie is absolutely right. Our children are like those of others, and we must guard against any fundamentalism, even if this word may seem strong. Everything is in fact a matter of circumstance and this is what I wanted to say by specifying (cf. Link No. 7, page 5, §3) (what) today’s children must know, to the extent that they are
It is not a question of imposing, but of informing. And how can we not inform when the Book teaches us, UB 108:2.1, and UB 108:2.2, that “on Urantia, the Adjusters join their human subject on average just before he is six years old.” Should we not, as parents, point out to our receptive children this possible arrival?
And explain why using the privileged tool that is the Book? Did the Celestial Hierarchy choose this slot for arrival at random?
That said, not all children are able (or are no longer able) to receive this information, followed or not by explanations and reflections. I have raised five children who are now 37, 34, 27, 26 and 25 years old. Of these, only three were receptive to the information given in the Book. But as luck would have it, it was the two eldest, aged 17 and 13 in 1978, who did not “get it”, considering this fifth Revelation as another catechism with sectarian tendencies. It is in this sense that Laurent, Virginie and Tanguy concluded (see Link No. 7 page 6 last §) “that at 11 or 12 years old, it is already too late”… without referring to any divide.
My elders are like my younger ones, Anne-Marie, and the first ones will perhaps one day, after a long journey, discover The Urantia Book, as I myself discovered it, the year I turned 40, with immense joy and gratitude. There are so many possible paths on the Path…but please, if we see on this Path a sign indicating a 33-year shortcut, let us not hide it from our fears or our scruples. If our children take it, so much the better; if they ignore it, so much the worse.
I sincerely believe that if I had not been “lucky” enough to have children in 1978 who were within the “age range” for the Adjuster to come, I would not have given the information. Furthermore, if I had subsequently come across the text in question (mine), it seems to me that I would have reacted like Anne-Marie.
¶ Questions Answers
¶ Answers to questions asked in Link 6
“Revelation is given to us for 1000 years”
At the rate of development of the Book among the truly interested population, it does not surprise me that 1000 years will be necessary for the full outcome of this revelation. Planned therefore for at least a millennium, we must not fear a possible mass destruction of the planet, nor a hypothetical Armageddon. This is encouraging.
C. Castel
¶ Reading rhythm
Personally, I consider that there is no recommended reading pace. Everyone can read when they feel the need, at their own pace and according to their available time. In my opinion, this revelation was given for personal rather than collective edification, and progress comes automatically with time if we seek to understand and integrate into our lives everything that has been given to us.
C. Castel
¶ Gazette section
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