© 1993 Robert L. Blackstock
© 1993 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
Robert L. Blackstock, Concord, California, USA
The channelling activity in the Urantia movement, called the ‘Teaching Mission’ by its supporters, poses an interesting question for those who cannot accept the activity for what it purports to be. Of course, the activity purports to be the opening of the circuits of communication between mortals here on Urantia and the unseen spiritual and morontial personalities involved in the guidance of Urantia. The interesting question is: If not actual personalities, then what? What plausible explanation is there for these manifestations, other than they are what they purport to be? To merely give the activity a label explains little. Statements such as ‘it is all in the mind’, ‘split personality’, ‘alter ego’, etc., without the underlying argument and details, leaves a thinking person cold, or even disposes him or her to consider the contrary position more seriously.
What I am doing in this brief article, is referring the person who is asking the above question to an essay by psychologist Carl Jung, entitled ‘On the Nature of the Psyche’ (1954), which is published in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 8, pages 159-234. (The Collected Works consists of about twenty volumes and each is now available in paperback.) The essay, which deals with the structure, and dynamics of what we know, as students of The URANTIA Book, to be the material mind, goes a long way in providing a model for understanding how channelled material manifests in the material mind. Such an understanding is important whether the manifestation is spiritual in nature or ‘merely’ psychological. It should be kept in mind that everything we experience is, in the most fundamental sense, psychological, whether inner experience or external stimulus.
For us, with our material minds, spiritual experience and psychological experience are always a mix, and trying to prove whether a manifestation is one or the other will almost always be an exercise in futility. However, it is essential to have a satisfactory model for interpreting such manifestations, and to gain a psychological understanding if we are to end the confusion and divisiveness in the Urantia movement regarding such phenomena, for until we have gained an adequate understanding, we are likely to see such message and channelling phenomena continue, or repeat itself in different forms.
It is fairly well known that Jung postulates two areas of the unconscious, a personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. (His hypothesis or model of the collective unconscious has aspects in common with The URANTIA Book’s “functional existence of the superconscious” (UB 100:1.9) and the “cosmic mind”, in the sense expressed at UB 111:1.2, “Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space.”) As implied by the term “collective unconscious”, one of its main characteristics is that it is common to us all, like the air we breathe; all of our minds are connected with or in this collective unconscious and thereby share common material.
This idea of a common substratum underlying our individual consciousnesses is the key to understanding how something like “the Teaching Mission” can occur. As discussed below, the concept of a limited collective unconscious which is unique to the Urantia movement subculture can account for the otherwise perplexing phenomena of manifestations of similar or related material by channellers in different geographical locations.
In Jung’s model, the collective unconscious has different levels e.g. the human race has a common level, Western man and the Orient each have theirs, European man and America, the nations, clans, even families have their common unconscious. This model is well established by the evidence acquired through study of legends, myths, art, etc., and it is an essential tool for understanding the functioning of the human mind.
The constituent elements of the collective unconscious are archetypes, basic patterns or inclinations underlying thought. These archetypes are common to all humanity at the broader or deeper levels of the collective unconscious, and become less extensive (less universal) in the newer or less broad levels (e.g., nations, clans). As inner experiences they often appear as a subject with apparent perception, thinking, feeling, volition and intention, in short, they appear as personalities. We ourselves being personalities, tend to experience inner mindal urges or patterns (archetypes) as personalities.
…the concept of a limited collective
unconscious which is unique to the Urantia movement subculture can account for the otherwise perplexing phenomena of manifestations of similar or related material by channellers in different geographical locations.
Whatever the archetypal material may be in itself, it is real, or represents reality. Just as our evolutionary experiences have set down archetypes in the collective unconscious, so are there archetypes residing in the collective unconscious the source of which is spiritual reality, from the Adjutant Mind Spirits, information from the superconscious. Archetypes generally have a significant energy component; the more archaic or distant, long established but still unconscious archetypes are, the greater their energy, and if conditions are propitious, then such material can manifest or erupt into consciousness.
Over the past several decades, starting with Dr Sadler and the early forum, there has developed a subculture or ‘clan’ of readers of The URANTIA Book (and others who accept the book but who may not read it that much). If various races, nations and even families have their own collective unconscious, it follows that in the Urantia movement subculture, there is developing a collective unconscious around the concepts and information in The URANTIA Book. This (limited) collective unconscious is unique to the Urantia movement, and is not found in the general culture.
Much of the material (concepts, images) found in The URANTIA Book exists in the older, broader levels of the collective unconscious (of mind), but generally does not erupt into consciousness, because the general culture has no reality sense in its consciousness of such material e.g. an invisible celestial government guiding us and our planet. However, in the Urantia movement, in addition to its collective unconscious (described in the previous paragraph), there has also developed a collective consciousness, consisting of these ideas in The URANTIA Book, which also correspond to a great extent with the oldest, most energy laden archetypes (e.g. the hero and teacher archetypes). A pathway or bridge has been established between this collective consciousness in the Urantia movement, and the older, more distant archetypes (actually established in large part by the Adjutant Mind Spirits over millions of years).
So we have the archetypes from the collective unconscious attaching and infusing energy into images and concepts in the Urantia movement’s collective consciousness; the gulf which ordinarily keeps these two distinct levels apart is bridged by the Urantia movement’s collective unconscious, the intermediate level which is not far distant, relatively, from each of the others.
One dramatic result of these developments is that, just knowing about the book, and maybe having read it only a little, or merely hearing of the concepts and information in it, can hook a person into the reality sense of the Urantia movement’s collective consciousness, and create an identification between the person and the Urantia movement on the unconscious level and thereby people with little knowledge of the contents of the book, new readers, etc. may be channellers, and material pours forth which they cannot possibly know consciously.
In the spiritualistic/parapsychological literature, as reported by William James, Jung, and a number of lesser known students of such phenomena, many cases of group manifestations can be found wherein individuals in different geographical locations independently produce related material e.g. different parts of a single message. Under certain conditions, identical or similar material will manifest in people in different geographical locations, independent of cause and effect.
What conditions? Usually an energy-charged condition, such as impending disaster, or tense expectation, will be found in connection with such group manifestations. The collapse of the Urantia Foundation and Brotherhood relationship, and the removal of the book from normal distribution channels, among other developments in the Urantia movement, may have been the precipitating events for the unconscious group phenomena we are now witnessing.
I have heard arguments in support of the “Teaching Mission” to the effect that we should be willing to recognize and accept truth regardless of the source, and that our inner guidance is sufficient to tell us whether or not something is true. In response to that position I would say that the human mind has been evolving with the guidance of the Adjutant Mind Spirits and a host of other spiritual influences for millions of years. We now have consciousness, will and reason. Inner experience should be pursued, but these hard-gained rigorous human attributes of will and reason should be kept close by.
The URANTIA Book mentions at UB 34:4.13 that:
“The four points of the compass are universal and inherent in the life of Nebadon. All living creatures (including mankind on Urantia) possess bodily units which are sensitive and responsive to these directional currents.” UB 34:4.13
As we do not hesitate, when we are traveling unfamiliar roads, to get out the roadmap to supplement our inherent magnetic compass, we should likewise not fail to utilize the psychological viewpoint as a supplement to our personal inner experience.
The foregoing is an effort to address the question, “Channeling, if not actual personalities, then what?” It is difficult material and impossible to write anything very meaningful in such short space, and my intention was to refer the reader to Jung’s essay mentioned above. This psychological viewpoint is not inconsistent with the teachings of The URANTIA Book. On the contrary, they have much in common and to a great extent are mutually confirming, and the study of each in light of the other proves very interesting. Such an approach can be a fascinating undertaking, and at the same time provide that necessary grounding, without which the material in The URANTIA Book can be disruptive to the human psyche, in both the individual and the group.