© 1991 Mark Kulieke
© 1991 The Fellowship for readers of The Urantia Book
By Mark Kulieke, Greenbay, Wisconsin
Ed. Note: Mark Kulieke has recently published a sixteen page booklet entitled, BIRTH OF A REVELATION - THE STORY OF THE URANTIA PAPERS, Mark grew up in a family that has been associated with the Urantia revelation since 1936 and remembers people and events from his childhood and youth that are of the Forum. The Forum is the group that studied the Urantia papers from 1924 to 1956, having been involved in a sort of interaction with the revelators through the agency of the contact commission. He is a history major and trained in library science. In addition to his dedication to the study of The Urantia Book, Mark was an administrative assistant at the Urantia Foundation for five years in the 1970s and participated in the group wolich created the slide-tape history of the Urantia movement in 1980. BIRTH OF A REVELLATION is a roork of great interest and of considerable importance to those of us who hunger to understand and to know the details of this epochal transaction. We have asked Mark to introduce his work for readers of the STUDY GROUP HERALD and here it is:
BIRTH OF A REVELATION provides a concise but complete recital of the contact process which culminated in the publication of The Urantia Book in 1955. Most people have had a vague picture at best of the process and events now detailed in this booklet. Hundreds of facts are coherently presented, at last.
One of the purposes of this history is to portray the complexity and evolutionary nature of the revelatory process. From its beginnings at the turn of the century up to the release for publication by the Personal Regent to the Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia and the subsequent printing and distribution in 1955, the exact end result was probably unknown to superhuman and human alike. After all, human will was involved and is always respected. This was truly an event of man in partnership with God. And the revelation will continue to unfold among the hearts and minds of people as a joint creative endeavor.
It would be well to take cognizance of the fact that all who participated in this birth drama were very human. The revelation is great. It is epochal. But the people who helped bestow it on this planet were essentially ordinary people with an important commitment. It was no more of a commitment than you or I can make.
Contact with superhumans should not be viewed as a precise science. It was a dialogue that unfolded day by day, week by week, year by year. It often caused confusion and turmoil and variance of in- terpretation. It was a matter of faith as are all such endeavors. The superhumans employed at least seven separately identifiable methods of communication.
Enshrouding the history of this revelation in mystery has probably already created a sacred mythology about these events. This is most unfortunate. It is time these events saw the light of day so that all students of the Urantia papers can recognize both the sublimity and the ordinariness of this process, its revelatory flavor and its evolutionary nature, the input from both superhuman and human. Further, they can recognize that the same qualities are ongoing today and into the future. The revelation is not the dead pages of a book. The revelation consists of the synapse between divine watchcare and human faith and aspiration — the downreach of the gods and the upreach of man. The revelation is transpiring every moment.
BIRTH OF A REVELATION can be ordered from Mark Kulieke, P.O. Box 9343, Green Bay, WI 54308-9343. The cost is $ 5.00 plus $ 1.25 for postage and handling. Net proceeds from sale of this edition will go toward further editions, a videotape presentation of this history, and to the development of a library of materials relating to the Urantia movement.