© 2009 Nancy Johnson
© 2009 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| In Search of the Historical Onamonalonton | Volume 10, Number 1, 2009 (Summer) — Index | Joy in the Worm Bin |
I’ve often pondered why it is that there’s never been a conference that dealt specifically with the role of emotions and feelings in evolution. It could be that I just wasn’t aware of one taking place in some other region.
I’d been a serious student of psychology and was deep into transactional analysis when I came across The Urantia Book. It was so rich in details regarding psychology. It was especially interesting to me that this information was presented in the mid-thirties. How many of today’s students realize that back then psychology was scoffed at—ridiculed as a pseudoscience. No wonder Dr. Sadler, a pioneer psychiatrist, was impressed.
As I see it, the best I can do at this time is to offer the basics on primitive emotions and feelings and hope it inspires others to enhance their own evolutionary growth by examining the remaining references, which I’m happy to make available.
Humans are more than mind and spirit. They are also physical-emotional creatures. Looking through the eyes of a Life Carrier, it’s easy to see that they paid close attention to the emotional development of the most promising animal species. And we can easily recognize these same traits in modern-day animals and humans.
The members of this new species had the largest brains for their size of any animal that had theretofore existed on earth. They experienced many of the emotions and shared numerous instincts which later characterized primitive man, being highly curious and exhibiting considerable elation when successful at any undertaking. Food hunger and sex craving were well developed, and a definite sex selection was manifested in a crude form of courtship and choice of mates. They would fight fiercely in defense of their kindred and were quite tender in family associations, possessing a sense of self-abasement bordering on shame and remorse. They were very affectionate and touchingly loyal to their mates, but if circumstances separated them, they would choose new partners. [UB 62:2.3]
What you just read was about quite an array of emotions and feelings exhibited by animals. Amazing, isn’t it, that a million years ago some animals exhibited a higher form of these emotions than some humans of today. But more was yet to come, and before long a pair of very promising twins—known to us as Andon and Fonta—was born. They seem to have possessed the full range of emotions.
Many new emotions early appeared in these human twins. They experienced admiration for both objects and other beings and exhibited considerable vanity. But the most remarkable advance in emotional development was the sudden appearance of a new group of really human feelings, the worshipful group, embracing awe, reverence, humility, and even a primitive form of gratitude. Fear, joined with ignorance of natural phenomena, is about to give birth to primitive religion.
Not only were such human feelings manifested in these primitive humans, but many more highly evolved sentiments were also present in rudimentary form. They were mildly cognizant of pity, shame, and reproach and were acutely conscious of love, hate, and revenge, being also susceptible to marked feelings of jealousy.
These first two humans—the twins—were a great trial to their Primates parents. They were so curious and adventurous that they nearly lost their lives on numerous occasions before they were eight years old. As it was, they were rather well scarred up by the time they were twelve.
Very early they learned to engage in verbal communication; by the age of ten they had worked out an improved sign and word language of almost half a hundred ideas and had greatly improved and expanded the crude communicative technique of their ancestors. But try as hard as they might, they were able to teach only a few of their new signs and symbols to their parents.
When about nine years of age, they journeyed off down the river one bright day and held a momentous conference. Every celestial intelligence stationed on Urantia, including myself, was present as an observer of the transactions of this noontide tryst. On this eventful day they arrived at an understanding to live with and for each other, and this was the first of a series of such agreements which finally culminated in the decision to flee from their inferior animal associates and to journey northward, little knowing that they were thus to found the human race. [UB 62:5.4-8]
Apparently all the emotions and feelings we experience today were experienced by the earliest humans—at least in rudimentary form. All of these, including the baser ones, had an important role to play in the evolution of man. Remember that there was no Planetary Prince with a hundred superhuman staff during the first half million years. It took a lot of courage just to survive. Andon and Fonta received Thought Adjusters as did some, but not all, of their children. As humans they had access to all seven of the adjutant mind spirits. Life was harsh, and they mostly reacted to their environment through their emotions. Here’s what our early ancestors managed to achieve.
The tribal life of the animal ancestors of these early men had foreshadowed the beginnings of numerous social conventions, and with the expanding emotions and augmented brain powers of these beings, there was an immediate development in social organization and a new division of clan labor. They were exceedingly imitative, but the play instinct was only slightly developed, and the sense of humor was almost entirely absent. Primitive man smiled occasionally, but he never indulged in hearty laughter. Humor was the legacy of the later Adamic race. These early human beings were not so sensitive to pain nor so reactive to unpleasant situations as were many of the later evolving mortals. Childbirth was not a painful or distressing ordeal to Fonta and her immediate progeny. [UB 63:4.2]
They were a wonderful tribe. The males would fight heroically for the safety of their mates and their offspring; the females were affectionately devoted to their children. But their patriotism was wholly limited to the immediate clan. They were very loyal to their families; they would die without question in defense of their children, but they were not able to grasp the idea of trying to make the world a better place for their grandchildren. Altruism was as yet unborn in the human heart, notwithstanding that all of the emotions essential to the birth of religion were already present in these Urantia aborigines.
These early men possessed a touching affection for their comrades and certainly had a real, although crude, idea of friendship. It was a common sight in later times, during their constantly recurring battles with the inferior tribes, to see one of these primitive men valiantly fighting with one hand while he struggled on, trying to protect and save an injured fellow warrior. Many of the most noble and highly human traits of subsequent evolutionary development were touchingly foreshadowed in these primitive peoples. [UB 63:4.3-4]
The mating instinct is one of the dominant physical driving forces of human beings; it is the one emotion which, in the guise of individual gratification, effectively tricks selfish man into putting race welfare and perpetuation high above individual ease and personal freedom from responsibility. [UB 82:1.7]
As an institution, marriage, from its early beginnings down to modern times, pictures the social evolution of the biologic propensity for self-perpetuation. The perpetuation of the evolving human species is made certain by the presence of this racial mating impulse, an urge which is loosely called sex attraction. This great biologic urge becomes the impulse hub for all sorts of associated instincts, emotions, and usages—physical, intellectual, moral, and social. [UB 82:1.8]
If vanity be enlarged to cover pride, ambition, and honor, then we may discern not only how these propensities contribute to the formation of human associations, but how they also hold men together, since such emotions are futile without an audience to parade before. Soon vanity associated with itself other emotions and impulses which required a social arena wherein they might exhibit and gratify themselves. This group of emotions gave origin to the early beginnings of all art, ceremonial, and all forms of sportive games and contests. [UB 68:2.10]
With the emergence of social groupings, individual irritations began to be submerged in the group feelings, and this promoted intratribal tranquility but at the expense of intertribal peace. Peace was thus first enjoyed by the in-group, or tribe, who always disliked and hated the out-group, foreigners. Early man regarded it a virtue to shed alien blood. [UB 70:1.5]
Man will never accept peace as a normal mode of living until he has been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced that peace is best for his material welfare, and until society has wisely provided peaceful substitutes for the gratification of that inherent tendency periodically to let loose a collective drive designed to liberate those ever-accumulating emotions and energies belonging to the self-preservation reactions of the human species. [UB 70:2.20]
You must remember that feeling, not thinking, was the guiding and controlling influence in all evolutionary development. To the primitive mind there is little difference between fearing, shunning, honoring, and worshiping. [UB 85:7.2]
The fascination of early superstition was the mother of the later scientific curiosity. There was progressive dynamic emotion— fear plus curiosity—in these primitive superstitions; there was progressive driving power in the olden magic. These superstitions represented the emergence of the human desire to know and to control planetary environment. [UB 88:4.6]
All through the olden times men sought in these ways for extra credits on the self-denial ledgers of their gods. It was once customary, when under some emotional stress, to make vows of self-denial and self-torture. In time these vows assumed the form of contracts with the gods and, in that sense, represented true evolutionary progress in that the gods were supposed to do something definite in return for this self-torture and mortification of the flesh. Vows were both negative and positive. Pledges of this harmful and extreme nature are best observed today among certain groups in India. [UB 89:3.5]
Some cannibalism resulted from the degeneration of once superior stocks, but it was mostly prevalent among the evolutionary races. Man-eating came on at a time when men experienced intense and bitter emotions regarding their enemies. [UB 89:5.5]
Religion and its agencies, the chief of which is prayer, are allied only with those values which have general social recognition, group approval. Therefore, when primitive man attempted to gratify his baser emotions or to achieve unmitigated selfish ambitions, he was deprived of the consolation of religion and the assistance of prayer. If the individual sought to accomplish anything antisocial, he was obliged to seek the aid of nonreligious magic, resort to sorcerers, and thus be deprived of the assistance of prayer. Prayer, therefore, very early became a mighty promoter of social evolution, moral progress, and spiritual attainment. [UB 91:1.2]
Mystery and power have always stimulated religious feelings and fears, while emotion has ever functioned as a powerful conditioning factor in their development. Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus. Fear fashions the gods of evolutionary religion and motivates the religious ritual of the primitive believers. As civilization advances, fear becomes modified by reverence, admiration, respect, and sympathy and is then further conditioned by remorse and repentance. [UB 92:1.4]
The early evolutionary mind gives origin to a feeling of social duty and moral obligation derived chiefly from emotional fear. The more positive urge of social service and the idealism of altruism are derived from the direct impulse of the divine spirit indwelling the human mind.
This idea-ideal of doing good to others—the impulse to deny the ego something for the benefit of one’s neighbor—is very circumscribed at first. Primitive man regards as neighbor only those very close to him, those who treat him neighborly; as religious civilization advances, one’s neighbor expands in concept to embrace the clan, the tribe, the nation. And then Jesus enlarged the neighbor scope to embrace the whole of humanity, even that we should love our enemies. There is something inside of every normal human being that tells him this teaching is right. Even those who practice this ideal least, admit that it is right in theory. [UB 103:5.1-2]
Half a million years after the first humans evolved, after the appearance of the six colored races, the Planetary Prince and his corporeal staff of 100 men and women arrived on Urantia. It was a new dispensation of revealed religion and practical training in improved methods of living and learning. Emotional control was not a major focus at that time. We’ve learned that about 300,000 years later there was an outbreak of rebellion and virtually all the progress made during that time was lost, although physical development continued.
Education during the Adamic dispensation was much more advanced. It was first employed, after all, to teach their own superior offspring. Much attention was paid to social development.
The entire purpose of the western school system of the Garden was socialization. The forenoon periods of recess were devoted to practical horticulture and agriculture, the afternoon periods to competitive play. The evenings were employed in social intercourse and the cultivation of personal friendships. Religious and sexual training were regarded as the province of the home, the duty of parents.
The teaching in these schools included instruction regarding:
Health and the care of the body.
The golden rule, the standard of social intercourse.
The relation of individual rights to group rights and community obligations.
History and culture of the various earth races.
Methods of advancing and improving world trade.
Co-ordination of conflicting duties and emotions.
The cultivation of play, humor, and competitive substitutes for physical fighting. [UB 74:7.2-10]
Melchizedek’s main purpose was to rekindle the belief in the one God concept, and we know half of Jesus’ purpose here was to reveal the nature and will of the Father in heaven. Neither seemed to address emotional development.
Then came The Urantia Book. It’s not only a greatly enlarged spiritual revelation, but it also goes back to the beginning of our world to tell us about all aspects of man’s evolution. A major obstacle to expanding cosmic consciousness and enhancing spiritual perception is our emotional maturity level, the chief inhibitors of growth being ignorance and prejudice. How mature are we if we can still observe all these primitive traits in modern man? The animal-origin traits will always be with us, but as the world advances these traits must be socialized.
Jesus said we must learn to love one another even as he loves us, and then will all men know that we are the sons of God. There’s quite a bit of information in the papers about Jesus’ human emotions and the things he taught about our feelings and emotions.
Many of our emotions are still acted out in a primitive way as evidenced by our ongoing wars between nations and religions. We also engage in a less destructive form of fighting, such as hitting below the belt during heated debates. Sex emotions can be destructive, as evidenced by the high divorce rate. The pleasure lure gets out of hand. We’re all too familiar with the destructive force of greed and power hunger.
We must each become independent in order to sincerely pledge to our Father that it is our will that his will be done. But what about ultra-independence? That was the folly of Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia. Is that part of the legacy they passed on to us? I think so. Just look around.
The timing of the Urantia revelation may have had much to do with the fact that Dr. Sadler was a pioneer psychiatrist and the revelators could foresee that we would make great advances in the field of psychology in a few years. Without an understanding of genetic inheritance and environmental conditioning, it would be difficult to recognize why we do some of the things we do or behave in certain ways: it would be difficult to recognize how much power we have over our own selves to temper our unthinking behavior.
Feelings and emotions empower the human experience to such a degree that without them, we would neither qualify as human nor animal. Feelings and emotions are not problematic, but it sometimes requires years of experience to learn how to use these tools to create those momentary dimensions which best reflect our constantly evolving human experience. Feelings and emotions are the flavor and color enhancers of our earthly experiences. They not only reflect our inner responses to our environment in great detail (that additional dimension), but they also give us an array of options to choose from in acting out (if we choose) those responses mentally, verbally, and physically … then, perhaps, creating unexpected “refinements” of our current palette of feelings and emotions.
If feelings and emotions are words, instead of a child’s response of yelling `No!’ and pouting, we may choose any of the words in the greatest dictionary to expound upon our deepest concerns and fears. Also, when you’ve mastered the art of knowing your feelings and emotions in their greatest depth, you can then finesse your response.
This brings up an extremely important aspect of feelings and emotions: they embellish our memories, allowing us to recall past events in greater detail. Therein lies this problem: if those memories were stored with inappropriate (or inaccurate, exaggerated, etc.) feelings and emotions, our bank of memories becomes less reliable as a resource for patterns in responding to our current human experiences.
We’re fortunate to have been given a revelation with so much instruction in the lures of maturity and what it takes to acquire it. What freedom there is in self-mastery! What joy there is in living truly in the kingdom!
Nancy Johnson has been a student and avid researcher of The Urantia Book for 33 years. She has been a member of the Publications Committee for over 20 years, serves on the Standard Text Committee, is a General Councilor, and is a member of the Urantia Society of North Texas.
| In Search of the Historical Onamonalonton | Volume 10, Number 1, 2009 (Summer) — Index | Joy in the Worm Bin |