© 1988 Robert Crickett
© 1988 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
| The Second Remarkable Prediction | Vol 9 No 4 July 1988 — Index | Computer Analysis Of Dates In The Urantia Book |
It’s May 2019 and the phone rings. The caller pleads for an immediate consultation. Presently I have before me a young woman who is steeped in the beliefs of magic and the occult. She is suffering throat constriction and severe chest pains. Her opening comments are of her chronic fear once again being projected onto her new-found lover, a fear that he will leave her … the very same fear which led her to behave in such a way as to prompt the rapid departure of her last lover.
During the course of our counselling session she tells me of an overwhelming hatred for her European and presumably migrant parents. This hatred extends with equal vehemence toward herself. She abuses her body, her emotions and her thinking by lustingly despising their very existence. She knows no satisfaction in any quarter of her life save the faint hope that one day she will master her sorcery and somehow be with God. She hates her job, a menial factory position. She has few friends outside of the odd occultist. She tried reading the Bible but couldn’t make any sense out of it. She likewise tried reading The URANTIA Book and made even less sense out of it. The fruit of many years of devoted self-tutored research into magic as her quest for God and the benefits of spiritual salvation have little to show for all of her effort. She has a fascination and an obsession with trance states, communicating with non-humans and the dead, conjuring up energies and powers who will be allies to her in her quest for the superhuman, the sexually satisfying, and the powerful. She is racked by a heart-breaking loneliness and separation from God and from people, even from like-minded people who equally research life’s value in sorcery and magic. Here before me is a woman not unlike many people these days, desperate for help with her physical condition but also her spiritual condition.
My therapeutic approach to helping her condition is grounded in the reality Jesus speaks of:
“He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition.” (UB 180:2.1)
What this means to me in experiential terms is that whenever I am acting in a helping role I draw on being one with the Father and one with the Son. Out of this joint will emerges the necessary therapeutic approach, both the questioning process and the change-making process. Such a position seems always to be the most expedient and most ecological means by which an appropriate measure of assistance can be rendered: ecological that is, to both the person in need as well as myself and then to both of us in the light of the ecology of God the Supreme — the will of God as it is expressed on that particular occasion.
Seeing as she is so good at summoning allies I have her create two people, both finalized in their quest for God. One has travelled the sorcerer’s path such as she is doing, the other has no traceable path and is wholly pure in so much as no other resource is called on in life except the presence of God and the joint fused will of God/Man. I get her to derive help from each of these two imagined personalities as they answer in her mind those questions which I pose audibly. Accordingly she receives responses from them suggesting that she should trust more, love more, drop her magic practice and seek God directly. As a result of this dialogue with, to her, real beings who have attained those goals she quests after, she is brought to the realization that her approach to spirituality needs revamping. No one is able to receive help unless they can recognize that their present approach is lacking in some way. Her whole understanding is now prepared to receive whatever changes can satisfactorily be built upon that which is of real and spiritual value in her: “Every branch which comes out of me which bears no fruit, the Father will take away. Every branch which bears fruit, the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit.” (UB 180:2.1)
As I begin to intervene so as to bring about harmonizing solutions in her life I am reminded that, “Prayer is designed to make man less thinking but more realizing; it is not designed to increase knowledge but rather to expand insight.” (UB 143:7.4) Her perspective on her family, herself, her job etc. is in such a way as to create in her a soul-consuming hatred. If her perspective on these matters can be enlarged, and be enlarged by God, then perhaps she won’t have the hatred and so be better equipped to derive nourishment from them than be contaminated and crushed by them. I ask her to call upon THAT which is most spiritual for her, and to ask IT to give her a prayer that she could speak INTO the uncomfortable situation she has in her mind concerning her parents.
She waits a while and then replies: “There’s something coming but it’s in a language I don’t understand.” This is common to her. In her trances she meets with beings who speak in incomprehensible languages … and to date this has been to her an indication of spiritual success and progress. I ask her to call upon a translator to interpret for her. Shortly she says: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit … with Jesus … have mercy on me.” I ask her to now direct that prayer into an imagined scene from her relationship with her parents … a scene which portrays all of the discomfort and hatred she feels at its most intense. She does this and after a while she opens her eyes. I ask her: “How is the situation with your parents now?” She looks more relaxed physically and in a mildly bewildered state says: “It’s quite calm … there’s a settledness about it.” I then get her to repeat the prayer with her job situation, but the prayer doesn’t change anything. I ask her to call on THAT which is most spiritual for her and again ask it for a suitable prayer. She does this and after a while says: “Mother Mary … full of grace … have mercy on me.” And upon reopening her eyes she tells me that the job situation has developed the same calm and easiness about it.
Then she closes her eyes and enters into a deep trance state which has her head wildly flailing around. Her arms move irratically and her body twitches involuntarily. She has entered what for her is her deepest and most hope-filled state … the state which she hopes will deliver into her life those spiritual gifts she has heard about, and that spiritual union with God she craves in her deepest recesses. I watch and I am reminded of the words of the Chief of Urantia Midwayers: “Mysticism, as the technique of the cultivation of the consciousness of the presence of God, is altogether praiseworthy, but when such practices lead to social isolation and culminate in religious fanaticism, they are all but reprehensible. Altogether too frequently that which the overwrought mystic evaluates as divine inspiration is the uprisings of his own deep mind.” (UB 91:7.1)
I am also reminded of the words of a Melchizedek of Nebadon who says timelessly: “The characteristics of the mystical state are diffusion of consciousness with vivid islands of focal attention operating on a comparatively passive intelect. All of this gravitates consciousness toward the subconscious rather than in the direction of the zone of spiritual contact, the superconscious. Many mystics have carried their mental dissociation to the level of abnormal manifestations … The direct communion with one’s Thought Adjuster, such as occurred in the later years of Jesus’ life in the flesh, should not be confused with these so-called mystical experiences.” (UB 100:5.9-10)
It is in the light of the above concepts that I understand this woman’s extraordinary behaviour, how she has come to have so very much spiritual value invested in the manifestation of this kind of trance state, evidence of her belonging to God and of God’s hand in her life. Within this frustrated display I perceive the call of her Adjuster, the whisper of the Spirit of Truth, and I see their efforts being perverted and stifled by the giving of herself over to passivity in the understanding that if she subjugates herself sufficiently into this meditative trance state, God will be able to act in her… as a puppeteer has total will over the puppet. She needs the powerful knowledge: “…the creature personality consents chooses — to subject the creature will to the Father’s will.” “Such a creature choice is not surrender of will. It is a consecration of will, an expansion of will, a glorification of will, a perfecting of will … the personality of the creature son communes with the personality of the spirit Father.” (UB 111:5.4-5)
By endorsing such passivism in herself she is in fact defeating her own purpose and efforts as she seeks union with God. In the words of the Solitary Messenger of Orvonton: “If you so fully conform to the adjuster’s mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster’s mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster’s pre-personal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one.” (UB 110:2.5)
I recognize something in her behaviour which she could well do without in her approach to both God and her daily life; a passive will when she approaches spiritual matters… despite the same will being dynamically hate-inspired whenever she approaches other and less escape-proof daily life matters. There comes with this recognition the inspiration to act in faith as Jesus acted in faith. I ‘knew’ I needed to ‘cast out’ this mannerism of hers. It is hardly an exorcism, hardly a matter of possession by evil spirits who need casting out of this young woman’s body. It is appropriate to exercise in faith the command that this behaviour will cease, nothing more complex or intriguing than that. Suddenly I find myself saying to her: “This state of mind is false … it will not lead you to God … it is not of God … I command it to cease now … nevermore to be found in you.” About five or ten seconds later she is coming around. She is stable in her senses. She is relaxed and poised. Something has changed in her… in the way we see a fever has left someone.
I am just as surprised as she is that this has come about! How delicious it is to experience first hand the truth our Midwayer neighbours write about: “It is entirely true that, when your will has been truly aligned with his, you can ask anything conceived by that will-union, and it will be granted. And such a will-union is effected by and through Jesus even as the life of the vine flows into and through the living branches.” (UB 180:2.4)
To all intents and purposes now she is a woman who, when she approaches God in worshipful union and when she is led by the Spirit of Truth, will be more receptive to the direct impressions of her indwelling divinity, and less susceptible to translate them in terms that cause her disaster.
I now see in this woman a certain stability of mind; yet clearly there is lack of spiritual integrity and sound knowledge she can call on after she walks out of my door. It is as if she needs to be spiritualized in some way, so that she is equipped with a dynamic and living goodness as her life’s foundation rather than having undirected desire — which in the past has led to her intense hatred — as her foundation. Suddenly, as soon as I think like this, she bursts out the words: “I’ve never been baptized!”
And I have never baptized anyone before. I know how the priests do it in the Anglican church. I have seen John the Baptist look-alikes do it in the movies. I flip through a dozen questions in my mind in a split second: shall I be the one to baptize her? Those people who baptize people into the Kingdom of Heaven, after Jesus, act for the Father and the Son … am I responsible enough to so act, on their behalf? What shall I baptize her into? Jesus the Saviour, as conceived over the past 1988 years, is not real enough for me … Jesus of The URANTIA Book may not even deem the physical act of baptism to play much of a role in one’s entry into the Kingdom … with what words shall I anoint her on behalf of the Father and in the spirit of the Son? … Oh how the questions and doubts roll off my mind.'s tongue! Within another split second I am realizing that my side of the story has next to nothing to do with this woman’s need, nor with the Father’s poised will. I baptize her.
I fill a small rice bowl with water and I cone to her where she sits. I am a complete novice. I have no idea what I am about to do. I only know that this is the will of my Father and we three, my Father, the young woman and myself, are involved in the eternal spiritual invitation … baptism of the spirit … and as this ritual begins we three have absolute certainty toward it. Getting it ‘right’ is of little importance, doing it is paramount.
I briefly speak to her about how baptism is her volunteering to enter into a spiritual life with Jesus, living in him as he lives in her. I say that within her dwells the spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Truth, and also the spirit of the Father, her Thought Adjuster, and that these two accompany her in her spiritual growth and eternal destiny. I dip my finger into the water and making a cross sign on her forehead I tell her: “I baptise you in the presence of God the Father.” I again dip my finger and make another cross sign on her forehead saying: “I baptise you in the presence of God the Son.” I dip my finger a third time and make a third cross sign on her forehead saying: “I baptise you in the presence of God the Holy Spirit … all this in the presence of Jesus.” I then place my hand on the top of her head for a few seconds and then empty the remaining water from the rice bow1 into the sink. It is done.
This young woman has been baptized. She sits quietly, absorbed in her own deliberations. I feel further moved to act out the will of my Father and I divide some bread and fill a cup with wine. Now again, close by her side, I tell her of The URANTIA Book’s meaning of the remembrance supper: “As often as you do this … recall that I once was with you … take this bread … and eat it … I an the bread of life … take this cup … and drink of it … the emblem of the bestowal and ministry of the divine Spirit of Truth … when you become thus spirit-conscious, the Son is actually present, and his spirit fraternizes with the indwelling fragment of his Father.” (UB 179:5.6-9) And we both partake of this bread and wine. Then I put away the wine and gather the crumbs for the birds.
I return to my seat opposite her. She has been weeping and is visibly moved. She looks at me saying: “I don’t need to keep my ugliness! My ugliness has gone!” She feels for her pain and tells me: “My throat is well … and my chest has no pain.”
Through the baptism she is healed, she is made whole, she is restored and h:s returned to her unspoiled self — and only the unspoiled self does the will of God, only the unspoiled is capable of knowing the absolute unspoiled, the Father. “Even so, the child of God comes into grace and the new life of the spirit by the will of the Father in heaven. Therefore must the kingdom of heaven — divine sonship — be received as by a little child. You earn righteousness — progressive character development — but you rẹceive sonship by grace and through faith.” (UB 144:4.3) Through the baptism she receives the kingdom of heaven. Through the baptism she has thrown off the shackles of her beliefs and orphanhood which kept her separate from God by their design of a path to God … she ever trod the path but the baptism plunged her directly and immediately into the very presence of the Father and the Son; the path, any path, is made redundant in the baptism of the spirit.
I spend some time sharing her joy … joy I suspect she’s never known before. The joy of the spirit. The joy which arises independent of all the stimulus the world can provide. I mention to her the benefits of continued fellowship with other URANTIA Book readers who are equally bathed in the spirit, and of the presence of study groups in Melbourne. At length, obviously a changed woman, a woman God has revolutionized to her foundations, she leaves and goes home. I am left pondering, as it has concerned the both of us, “… and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and the Adjuster’s will has achieved personality expression.” (UB 110:2.5)
The day goes on and I am numbed. I cannot think rationally about what has occurred in this baptism. I had always thought baptism with water and in ritual to be an orthodox Church thing. It somehow had never sat comfortably in me to associate it with the possible spiritual movement one experiences with The URANTIA Book teachings. I had always associated baptism with acceptance of Jesus as one’s saviour, as Christianity depicts his role in our lives. I have experienced the conversion in terms of Jesus being my saviour, in Pentecostal church terms, in “born again” terms, and after a flood of biblical truths pervaded every cell of my body … as if the Spirit of Truth had been unleashed and was confirming every detail from Genesis to Revelation as being literally true … I reflected upon the greater reality I have come to know through The URANTIA Book. The two stood in conflict. On the one hand there was an extraordinary vitality and overwhelming physical compulsion to evangelize the world in terms of Biblical fundamentalism, and on the other hand there was the liberation of the kingdom as revealed in The URANTIA Book, a liberation from the evolved and traditional, the dogmatic and the fear-driven. The latter was without the “go-for-it” of the former, yet I chose the latter … trusting that somehow I would grow to be able to pull down into my reality the new up to date version of Michael’s sonship charisma. Joy in Christ is love amplified a million-fold. I am now recognizing through this baptism experience that this new charisma is making itself real on the planet in URANTIA Book terms. And that’s fabulous!
I have an overwhelming need to share the day’s events with the group of readers’ meeting tonight, to discuss it, to saviour it, to explore the possibility of it being a taste of greater things to came. The group seem equally enthused and inspired. We drink deeply from Paper 194:2 “The Significance of Pentecost” (UB 194:2.1) with all the enthusiasm of the apostles on that great day of the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth. I taste the sweetness of fellowship in this spirit with the readers and oh how wonderful and satisfying it is to be in a group now moved from the intellectuality of study and discussion … “the Son is actually present.” (UB 179:5.6)
We bring to light the fact that sharing The URANTIA Book with newcomers has been a little onesided. Just as the apostles had introduced newcomers to Jesus and they in turn founded a religion about him, we introduce newcomers to The URANTIA Book … but God knows we desperately look for alternatives to setting up a religion about it! Now it seems more appropriate to introduce newcomers in a living way to the living spirit, living sonship, the living kingdom — and The URANTIA Book is merely this spiritual banquet’s menu. Today’s baptism evidenced tremendous Father and Son reinforcement, will, design and purpose … deeply affecting both the young woman who received the grace, and myself who had the grace given opportunity to act in faith in this way. Perhaps more readers will find themselves in the position of baptizing newcomers as time goes on. Perhaps it’s God’s will being realized here on Urantia now, that the act of receiving sonship and daughtership can be facilitated not so much by struggling page after page through The URANTIA Book, a process which for us who survived it revealed itself to be the necessary spiritualization and upliftment in our thinking such that we could receive the kingdom — necessary because, just like the apostles were the first of their line, we are the trail blazers of this new revelation and spiritual reality for future generations of believers — but rather by drawing directly on the Spirit of the book and transmitting this spirit via a baptism to newcomers. Then, when the newcomer is baptized by the spirit, s /he receives the means to embody the teachings, and receives the spirit within the Son’s fellowship gravity which unites and attracts believers together. Then the newcomer finds in the reader, the baptizer, the vehicle for God’s grace bestowal which returns the person to their unspoiled self; and the unspoiled self is the alpha and omega of The URANTIA Book and practical spiritual life.
The Paper we drink so richly from tells us about this spirit and its role in our sonship: “The term ‘baptism of the spirit’ … merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgement of this new spiritual power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously experienced by God-knowing souls … The first mission of this spirit is … to foster and personalize truth … to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood … The spirit … creates a consciousness of Michael, the Son … your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth … is found in your experiences of enhanced fellowship with Michael … The spirit helps men to recall and understand the words of the Master … to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth … to help the believer to witness the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life … as he now again lives it anew … in the individual believer… In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of personal and loving association with the Master … the gospel of the kingdom… truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization of all mankind.” (UB 194:2.8)
Today this young woman experienced all of this. What an introduction to the kingdom! “The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus’ brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh.” (UB 195:10.6) “Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings.” (UB 195:9.4) “ … dare to espouse the Master’s program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure.” (UB 195:10.10) “Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood.” (UB 196:2.6) “Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now needed most is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men.” (UB 195:10.1)
Jesus IS the Spirit of Truth. Jesus IS the baptism of the Spirit. How often we merely pass The URANTIA Book on to newcomers hungry for such dynamic spirituality as is Jesus. How easily we fob off The URANTIA Book as an intellectual study, and an alternative to Christianity, and in doing so pass up the Father’s grace-gift experience of participating in His baptism with the newcomer. Father make us your spiritual harvesters, not merely librarians. “ … believe me for the sake of the very life I have lived — for the work’s sake.” (UB 180:3.9)
Perhaps the Father might say of this: “Lay down your reservations. Move among the people. With the spirit of one who preserves goodness and truth and beauty, bring before me those I choose. Let them voice their earnest desire to enter the fellowship of believers. Do not be hasty for I am still slow to show the fullness of the new pedigree. And, making a sign of the spirit, baptize their will into a new covenant with me.”
Robert Crickett, Melbourne
| The Second Remarkable Prediction | Vol 9 No 4 July 1988 — Index | Computer Analysis Of Dates In The Urantia Book |