© 2023 Sophie Malicot
© 2023 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Sophie Malicot
A recurring concern torments readers of The Urantia Book, namely how to disseminate the 5th revelation. Although it is impossible to know the real number of readers, a difficult - even painful - gap is felt between the colossal wealth given by the book and the little actual support.
The paradox is this: The Urantia Book will be read more when its innovative concepts are previously acquired. To understand this paradox, several points must be addressed, including that of the mechanism of the brain.
1 — Human intelligence likes to understand. If the body needs earthly nourishment, intelligence needs mental nourishment. Thus since the dawn of humanity, intelligence observes, searches, classifies, sorts the world in which it evolves and the experience that unfolds there. Under this appetite for classification are hidden two fundamental aspects: on the one hand, faced with the visible, understanding the world offers a considerable gain in preservation and security; understanding allows us to predict, to master the world and humans. The visible world can be explained and its mastery is useful. On the other hand, faced with the invisible, understanding limits fears and increases knowledge that responds to an inner thirst to which the visible does not respond.
However, this ordering of the unknown costs the human brain and requires progressive adaptation. Jamie Uys’ film “The Gods Must Have Fallen on Their Heads”, or J.M Poiré’s “The Visitors” illustrated in comedy the difficulty of mentally integrating knowledge that is very far removed from that already acquired. We function by model and when the gap is too great, the brain neither selects nor retains the new model proposed. Since this cannot refer to anything known, it has no meaning or value; so it is given in vain.
Many artists play on this gap, whether in science fiction, painting, music, calligraphy. However; although playing on the gap, they also respect a limit, without which their works would not be retained by the viewer. Thus extraterrestrials have a form relatively similar to ours; animal monsters are often vertebrates, fantastic characters have powers meeting our criteria of good and evil. Children’s cartoons conform to this relative dysmorphia of reality.
Thus the brain can project itself into what it does not know, provided that it first recognizes what it already knows. There is therefore a process of prior and necessary recognition for opening up to ignorance.
The Urantia Book does not deviate from this human mechanism; the fundamental laws are respected. On 2098 pages, let’s not go further than the 11th line: “In our effort to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception…”. The revelation is based on our already acquired cosmic consciousness, and proposes to expand it; in the same way it is based on the spiritual perception that humanity has conquered over the millennia, only to “enhance” it further. In the same line of support for our knowledge, three lines further (14 and 15), the language used will make maximum use of the “verbal symbols of the English language”. The new terms introduced will only have a place if the terminology already in place had “no expression capable of illustrating these new concepts, even partially or even by more or less distorting their meaning”. Jesus enters into the same dynamic by saying:
“When he had entered the garden, he gathered the apostles around him and taught them further, saying: “You find it difficult to receive my message because you would build the new teaching directly upon the old, but I declare that you must be reborn. You must start out afresh as little children and be willing to trust my teaching and believe in God. The new gospel of the kingdom cannot be made to conform to that which is. You have wrong ideas of the Son of Man and his mission on earth. But do not make the mistake of thinking that I have come to set aside the law and the prophets; I have not come to destroy but to fulfill, to enlarge and illuminate. I come not to transgress the law but rather to write these new commandments on the tablets of your hearts.” (UB 140:6.2)
2 — Furthermore, we are warned that the 5th revelation is given in advance, “in accordance with this new and better era…, an era which will immediately follow the ideological combat - the day when men will truly seek righteousness and truth” (advice from invisible supervisors for the dissemination of the Book). We therefore know that the world of today is still in this ideological combat, and we can deduce our participatory role in preparing for the time of tomorrow. The legitimate question is: why is it given if there is no time for its dissemination? At this point the paradox stated above intervenes: it is given to prepare for its later dissemination.
We know that it would be suicidal to modify too quickly and violently the concepts on which a civilization, a world is built. These must follow a course of slow evolution - nothing is more difficult than modifying beliefs, even when they are moving towards the better. Not to sweep everything away to implant something else; not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to patiently follow the growth of the baby towards childhood, adolescence and maturity. The diffusion of the Book is therefore progressive, part of this dynamic: “Progress is the password of the universe” UB 4:1.2. For this modification of beliefs and knowledge to be effective, on a planetary scale, several generations are undoubtedly necessary. The first copies of the Book date from October 1955, we are already at 2 generations. Truly seeking righteousness and truth can only appear after a certain maturity of humanity, which we have not yet reached.
3 — Like any book of spiritual teaching, it must speak internally to those who receive it, to the point of changing their existence, otherwise it is reduced to a manual to which one can refer intellectually but not spiritually. It is therefore up to those to whom it speaks, to whom it makes live, to advance in these modifications, not by shouting them in our new deserts — of atheism and scientism — but by integrating them to the marrow of the soul so that the whole being radiates beyond words. Thus for the one modified by these teachings, the new concepts are inscribed in memory and “enhance” life more than previous concepts do. It exudes a novelty, an increased freedom, a stable assurance in the face of the societal swells that shake our world. And through verbal exchanges, without often being able to go as far as in situ discussions of spirituality, he exhales in spite of himself a widening of certain concepts, provoking questioning, proposing another reading of life and the world which will make the interlocutor leave like the rich young man, not in immediate adhesion but touched in his previous balance, requiring a step forward to recover a new balance through this new contribution. Let us remain humble; we are only intermediary tools, God alone changes the heart of the human.
What are these innovative revelations, having great power of change and at the same time facing the most individual and societal resistance? These concepts interact with each other. For the presentation, an arbitrary denunciation is required but in experience, they are totally interdependent. And consequently, interinfluential.
A. The divine presence in humans. A fragment of the Father is placed in each being, without forgetting any. It speaks of the presence, the intimacy and the accompaniment of the divinity in our lives. Loving presence whose love prevails over all justice. Helping presence whose goal is, by requiring our full adhesion, to survive death and live eternally.
No distant gods, indifferent to the fate of humans. No jealous, angry and vengeful gods if human actions are not to their liking. Civilizations were built on images of divinity where love does not predominate. Hence the need to coax this invisible, to castigate oneself to deserve the good celestial favors and not sink into nothingness. Jesus completely disjointed this erroneous conception by proposing a loving Father and by removing the notion of merit. Unfortunately, for the aforementioned mental reasons, the crucifixion was reintegrated into the previous concepts of punishment and redemption, considerably destroying the Christian message. Revelation completely undoes this antithetical vision of the divine world, by the divine will to spread the essential nature of the Father: love.
B. This results in the direct relationship between man and God. This direct divine presence in humans gives immediate contact without the need for external conditions to be in relationship with the divinity. This removes the distance between the visible world and the invisible world. One is with the other, one in the other. The call and dependence on intermediaries to be in relationship with the divine are obsolete. The constant attentive presence of God towards humans is assured, felt in inner certainty.
C. This results in the creation of the soul. The concept of the soul is not new but the new comes from the precision of its origin, its development and its function: from the direct relationship with the fragment of God in oneself, the soul is born, the child of this relationship. This second birth, this inner child is the one who will allow us to continue the eternal adventure when the temporal body has “given up the soul”… to the supramaterial world to which it belongs. We are one of the two shareholders in the creation of the soul, which poses our full responsibility in the establishment and continuation of this relationship. This definition overturns the concepts of the soul existing before conception, as well as its reincarnation after death. The soul is fundamentally unique, individual and personal. Its successive metamorphoses take place, no longer on the level of matter, but in a higher nature, morontia then spiritual.
D. Personality. The term is identical to that used in psychology, but only has the terminology in common. It cannot be defined precisely because, being a gift from God, it carries a mystery — it is mystery. Without claiming to define it, we can however put forward these points of reference:
E. Concomitance of creation and evolution. Conceive the perfect and creative primordial divine will with an imperfect and evolving creation. Neither creationism nor evolutionism, exclusive of each other, but creation containing evolution. Humans are integrated into this process of evolutionary creation. They intervene in the development of the chain of life just after the animals, from which they come and are distinguished by the appearance of will. Consequently, perfection is far ahead, and is not found the day after the gates of Hades are crossed. The divine plan conceives an interlacing where creators and creatures constantly embrace, one referring to the other and weaving with the other, until the wedding. Creation is not there to make humans evolve but on the contrary to accompany them over the ages, towards the full deployment of their capacities and potentials.
F. This results in the absence of human fault. The aforementioned process implies that creative development is underway. Humans appear at a moment in evolution — a voluntary appearance on the part of the divinity. Jumping on the bandwagon, humans also progress, without a previous paradisiacal state. There is no fall, fault or original sin justifying redemption. Humans are only on the path to perfection.
G. Good and evil. This evolutionary creation is the progression chosen by the divinity to move towards perfection. Progression starting from the relative imperfect to reach the absolute perfect. What we call evil is the progression of this imperfection towards perfection. Creation is not a battleground where the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness confront each other. Good is in the making, in gradual formation. “Evil is good in formation, but not yet ready” Dialogues with the Angel.
H. The absoluteness of free will. Jesus guarantees the impossibility for anyone to possess a mind against its will. A totally innovative idea, ensuring that divinity is the guarantor of the absolute maintenance of human freedom. And its corollary of responsibility: this same free mind is totally responsible for the choices of its destiny.
I. Unveiling of the structure of the Trinity. Original Love only knows how to give itself. Consequently, the Deity is distributive of itself and requires, to carry out its projects, numerous celestial hierarchies, each having a precise function. In this movement, the divine plan also needs humans to realize itself. The gravity of individual function implies that each being - including each of us - has a particular function which is revealed and accomplished in connection with the realization of the divine plan. In other words, the full realization of the individual self can only occur by integrating and giving oneself to the service of God’s plan.
J. Participation of physical matter. Creation is the support for the development of the divine plan; it is a collaborative and benevolent part of it. Like all the first Deities, it has always existed, beyond time, which implies that there was no zero starting point for creation.
Many other innovative points are subsidiary to the main concepts stated above, developing them.
With this background, let us return to the difficulties of distributing the Book.
The world is as it is, for some in great decadence, for others in full growth of promising mutations of an innovative future. If we consider ourselves lucky to be able to read the UB, this is linked in parallel with an increased responsibility for the sowing of the new concepts that it opens. We would like a youth full of passion to come and join us, guarantors of the transmitted torch. But Jesus did not wait under a fig tree for people to come to him; on the contrary, how many kilometers on foot did he walk to go to them? How much mental energy did he deploy to know how to address people and crowds according to their level of knowledge and spirituality, enhancing their spiritual perception but not going beyond what was understandable at the time?
No doubt we have to do the same. Spread new concepts from old concepts. Not fight the achievements of civilizations - religious, institutional, philosophical, scientific - because on the one hand they had structuring roles in the development of civilizations over the millennia, and on the other hand many divine concepts have been anticipated despite an affirmed deformation. Then continue the adventure and open up to an astonishment that “I had not thought of”, we will perhaps hear. Or these silences, often interpreted as closures; welcome them without estimation of opposition but in space-time necessary for the integration of the new into the mental puzzle in place. Evolving internally is done in the silence of our intimate room.
An inner revolution is necessary to adopt these new concepts and harmonize them with each other. Let’s imagine being able to couple them and present them jointly to a person. What new inner map would she construct? What could she say to herself about the interference of these new concepts? For example…
Whoever I am, I am loved by God. This love is original and extends to all creations without them having to deserve this love. Creation being a progressive phenomenon of perfection, of which I am a part, perfection is to come, without a past from which it was lost. Consequently, my actions are in progress, like everything that constitutes the living in which I live. I can participate freely and voluntarily in this advent of perfection if that is my choice, because nothing and no one can oppose it. My actions and those of the world are imperfect, since imperfection is inevitable in this process in accomplishment; but we are allies in this unimaginable adventure. Whether it is to give thanks or to accompany me in the discernment necessary in this progression towards good, I can be in direct contact with God, whatever I do and wherever I am. If by chance I fall, divine mercy will always prevail if I accept it.
And when at night I admire the magnificence of the celestial vault, I consider the future in incessant discoveries before this infinite and eternal creation, without beginning or end, that we will never cease to explore and better understand. I am incapable of realizing the value of my participation in this eternal divine adventure; but I can say yes. Behind this unfathomable mystery hides an infinity of unsuspected beings and divinities of grandeur, of goodness, whose functioning is totally beyond me.
This metamorphosis requires courage to change beliefs and faith, because this path goes against the current of the world. At least on the surface. “My Kingdom is not of this world” said Jesus. His teaching either, no more than the 5th Revelation is in tune with the times. Heart is necessary to embody the teaching without sharing it as much as the abundance of the heart and mind would desire. Understand the issues of profound divergence with the Christian path and overturn false freedoms into frank truth.
It is certain that these new spiritual concepts - and their spiritual and mental consequences - modify the being, and by modifying the being, they totally modify the structure of societies. This cannot and must not be done too quickly.
The teaching of the Book does not have to be disembodied from human experience; it must speak in our current — active — lives, in order to offer constructive responses to a malaise, a profound destabilization, a non-adherence to the currents that carry us away in spite of ourselves. Like these for example:
These questions, and so many others, are subjects that we encounter daily, opening the possibility of “expanding cosmic consciousness and enhancing spiritual perception…” Study groups are made for study but the dissemination of the concepts of the Book does not happen at that time.
Gradually, these new concepts will spread, and will be recognized in the Book when they have been buried, prepared, disseminated beforehand, in a more tenuous, light, sensitive way.
The seed planted in winter waits for summer to bear fruit.