© 2011 Halbert Katzen J.D.
Determining the significance of the shape and size of human skulls and skeletons is one of the great challenges in archaeology and one of the historic controversies regarding eugenics, particularly with regard to skull shape.[1] The historic controversy as it relates to The Urantia Book is notable because Dr. William S. Sadler, the person most closely associated with the sequence of events leading up to the publication of The Urantia Book, wrote a book on the subject of skull shapes. It was published in 1918 and explicitly stated its political motivations.[2].
The focus of this paper, however, is to take The Urantia Book on its own terms. Whatever legitimate scholarly purposes such comparisons may yield, “guilt by association” aught not to be one of them. In assessing The Urantia Book, however, its own assertions about its purpose and limitations are relevant. The Limitations of Revelation section states:
We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. [3]
An important distinction is made between providing “historic facts” and providing information about “the physical sciences.” This tells us that when it comes to historic facts, the authors claim the history they provide will have an enduring significance, but with respect to the physical sciences, information was provided within the context of mid 1900’s science.
Regarding the purpose, the authors state:
[S]uch revelations [as this] are of immense value in that they at least transiently clarify knowledge by:
The reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of error.
The co-ordination of known or about-to-be-known facts and observations.
The restoration of important bits of lost knowledge concerning epochal transactions in the distant past.
The supplying of information which will fill in vital missing gaps in otherwise earned knowledge.
Presenting cosmic data in such a manner as to illuminate the spiritual teachings contained in the accompanying revelation. [4]
Providing “cosmic data”—information that reveals the harmony of the universe—is one of the primary purposes of this book. From a Urantia Book perspective, because our celestial administrators (Lucifer and Satan) rebelled and our genetic uplifters (Adam and Eve) defaulted in their mission, we are owed an explanation as part of the process of righting such wrongs. The Urantia Book claims to be part of the process of setting things right, and this includes information about our genetics and the history of our progressive, but troubled, evolution.
The Urantia Book, therefore, directly addresses anthropological issues that are essential to understanding our history, issues that have been confounding and dividing humanity for some time now. Keeping these stated purposes in mind provides the necessary context for appreciating this subject matter.
Regarding skull shape, The Urantia Book teaches:
Each of the Urantia races was identified by certain distinguishing physical characteristics. The Adamites [H. sapiens ultrasapiens] and Nodites [H. sapiens transerectus] were long-headed; the Andonites [H. erectus prosapiens] were broad-headed. The Sangik races [H. sapiens (primarius or secundarius)] were medium-headed, with the yellow and blue men tending to broad-headedness. The blue races, when mixed with the Andonite stock, were decidedly broad-headed. The secondary Sangiks were medium- to long-headed.[5]
This paragraph could help explain why anthropologists have been having such a difficult time interpreting their data with respect to skull shape. The second sentence, comparing the Adamites and Nodites with the Andonites, establishes one of the primary distinctions. The Adamites and Nodites—the most advanced races—are a more recent phenomenon (40,000 and 200,000 years ago, respectively) and were long-headed. They are contrasted with the broad-headed Andonites, the first human beings to evolve approximately 1,000,000 years ago.
The Adamites and Nodites started in Mesopotamia and then primarily migrated north; they tended to only mate with those who exhibited superior genetic qualities. The Andonites, on the other hand, spread out in all directions and mingled all too freely with the more debased stocks [H. erectus subsapiens]. The Urantia Book teaches that, during the early phases of human evolution, there was a natural tendency for less intelligent individuals to migrate to warmer climates where life is easier.
From a Urantia Book perspective, one of the reasons there is considerable difficulty in deciphering the fossil records and making sense of genetic research is that the Sangik races emerged around 500,000 years ago, right between the Adamites and Andonites. The Sangik races exhibit just the opposite tendency with respect to skull shape, though it is not quite as pronounced. The primary Sangiks, particularly the yellow and blue, tended toward broad- headedness and primarily occupied the Eurasian continent. The secondary Sangiks stayed more to the south and were “medium- to long-headed.”
If The Urantia Book is correct, anthropologists could never be expected to figure out all our lost human history.
The Urantia Book presents an integrated picture of the most significant genetic and cultural developments in human history. It provides numerous details that can help take us forward into the future. In addition to providing this general information about skull shapes and skeletal types, the authors make comments about where fossil evidence can be found to support what is being said, and they comment on how we can better use terminology. For example:
To the east of the Badonan peoples [H. erectus prosapiens], in the Siwalik Hills of northern India may be found fossils that approach nearer to transition types between man and the various prehuman groups than any others on earth.
850,000 years ago the superior Badonan tribes began a warfare of extermination directed against their inferior and animalistic neighbors. In less than one thousand years most of the borderland animal groups of these regions had been either destroyed or driven back to the southern forests. This campaign for the extermination of inferiors brought about a slight improvement in the hill tribes of that age. And the mixed descendants of this improved Badonite stock appeared on the stage of action as an apparently new people—the Neanderthal race. [H. neanderthalensis prosapiens] [6]
The reference in the next quote to the “Foxhall peoples” is apparently a designation coined by the authors to refer to excavations carried out in the early 1900’s by Nina Francis Layard on Foxhall Road in Suffolk, England.[7].
Though the remains of the Foxhall peoples were the last to be discovered in England, these Andonites were really the first human beings to live in those regions. At that time the land bridge still connected France with England; and since most of the early settlements of the Andon descendants were located along the rivers and seashores of that early day, they are now under the waters of the English Channel and the North Sea. but some three or four are still above water on the English coast. [8]
As well as giving us specific clues to follow up on, the authors also offer corrective suggestions, regarding discoveries that have been misclassified, by referring to them as “so-called.”
950,000 years ago the descendants of Andon and Fonta had migrated far to the east and to the west. To the west they passed over Europe to France and England. In later times they penetrated eastward as far as Java, where their bones were so recently found—the so-called Java man—and then journeyed on to Tasmania. [9]
Similarly, the authors refer to the Heidelberg fossils as the “so-called Heidelberg race.”[10].
One of the anthropological mysteries that the authors try to clear up for us concerns height irregularities. The Urantia Book says, “They [Adam and Eve] . . . were a little more than eight feet in height.[11] Other statements in The Urantia Book about the Adamites indicate that the stature of this race declined with successive generations and, of course, with intermixing. Ancient art and religious traditions provide a certain degree of support for this “epochal transaction in the distant past.”
With respect to the height of the Sangik races, The Urantia Book explains:
Even mortal stature tends to decrease from the red man down to the indigo race, although on Urantia unexpected strains of giantism appeared among the green and orange peoples. [12]
The last of the Sangik peoples to migrate from their center of race origin [the region of Afghanistan] was the indigo man. About the time the green man was killing off the orange race in Egypt and greatly weakening himself in so doing, the great black exodus started south through Palestine along the coast; and later, when these physically strong indigo peoples overran Egypt, they wiped the green man out of existence by sheer force of numbers. These indigo races absorbed the remnants of the orange man and much of the stock of the green man, and certain of the indigo tribes were considerably improved by this racial amalgamation. [13]
In many ways both groups [the orange and green races] were evenly matched in this struggle since each carried strains of the giant order, many of their leaders being eight and nine feet in height. These giant strains of the green man were mostly confined to this southern or Egyptian nation. [14]
The description of the Adamites, coupled with the assertion that strains of giantism were resent in the orange and green race, provides a working theory to help explain some of the peculiarities in the (incomplete) fossil records. And it is noteworthy, of course, that advances in anthropology, especially as this field is now becoming better understood through genetics research, are increasingly lending support to the model of human evolution described in The Urantia Book.
The authors of The Urantia Book make no bones about the fact that they are instructing us in how to start out our anthropological studies with a better set of initial assumptions:
Although these skull dimensions are serviceable in deciphering racial origins, the skeleton as a whole is far more dependable. In the early development of the Urantia races there were originally five distinct types of skeletal structure:
Andonic, Urantia aborigines. [H. erectus prosapiens]
Primary Sangik, red, yellow, and blue. [H. sapiens primarius]
Secondary Sangik, orange, green, and indigo. [H. sapiens secundarius]
Nodites, descendants of the Dalamatians.[15] [H. sapiens transerectus]
Adamites, the violet race. [H. sapiens ultrasapiens]
As these five great racial groups extensively intermingled, continual mixture tended to obscure the Andonite type by Sangik hereditary dominance. The Lapps and the Eskimos are blends of Andonite and Sangik-blue races. Their skeletal structures come the nearest to preserving the aboriginal Andonic type. But the Adamites and the Nodites have become so admixed with the other races that they can be detected only as a generalized Caucasoid order.
In general, therefore, as the human remains of the last twenty thousand years are unearthed, it will be impossible clearly to distinguish the five original types. Study of such skeletal structures will disclose that mankind is now divided into approximately three classes:
The Caucasoid —the Andite blend of the Nodite and Adamic stocks, further modified by primary and (some) secondary Sangik admixture and by considerable Andonic crossing. The Occidental white races, together with some Indian and Turanian peoples, are included in this group. The unifying factor in this division is the greater or lesser proportion of Andite inheritance.
The Mongoloid—the primary Sangik type, including the original red, yellow, and blue races. The Chinese and Amerinds belong to this group. In Europe the Mongoloid type has been modified by secondary Sangik and Andonic mixture; still more by Andite infusion. The Malayan and other Indonesian peoples are included in this classification, though they contain a high percentage of secondary Sangik blood.
The Negroid—the secondary Sangik type, which originally included the orange, green, and indigo races. This is the type best illustrated by the Negro, and it will be found through Africa, India, and Indonesia wherever the secondary Sangik races located.
In North China there is a certain blending of Caucasoid and Mongoloid types; in the Levant the Caucasoid and Negroid have intermingled; in India, as in South America, all three types are represented. And the skeletal characteristics of the three surviving types still persist and help to identify the later ancestry of presentday human races. [16]
As with the paragraph covering the skull shapes of the various races, the quote above also provides an organized set of initial assumptions. And consistent with their stated purposes, the authors bring us out from the past up to modern times, explaining mysteries along the way.
The Nordics continued the trade in amber from the Baltic coast, building up a great commerce with the broadheads of the Danube valley via the Brenner Pass. This extended contact with the Danubians led these northerners into mother worship, and for several thousands of years cremation of the dead was almost universal throughout Scandinavia. This explains why remains of the earlier white races, although buried all over Europe, are not to be found—only their ashes in stone and clay urns. These white men also built dwellings; they never lived in caves. And again this explains why there are so few evidences of the white man’s early culture, although the preceding Cro-Magnon type is well preserved where it has been securely sealed up in caves and grottoes. As it were, one day in northern Europe there is a primitive culture of the retrogressing Danubians and the blue man and the next that of a suddenly appearing and vastly superior white man. [17]
The Cro-Magnoid blue man constituted the biologic foundation for the modern European races, but they have survived only as absorbed by the later and virile conquerors of their homelands. The blue strain contributed many sturdy traits and much physical vigor to the white races of Europe, but the humor and imagination of the blended European peoples were derived from the Andites. This Andite-blue union, resulting in the northern white races, produced an immediate lapse of Andite civilization, a retardation of a transient nature. Eventually, the latent superiority of these northern barbarians manifested itself and culminated in present-day European civilization. [18]
The Andite peoples of the Euphrates valley migrated north to Europe to mingle with the blue men and west into the Mediterranean regions to mix with the remnants of the commingled Saharans and the southern blue men. And these two branches of the white race were, and now are, widely separated by the broadheaded mountain survivors of the earlier Andonite tribes which had long inhabited these central regions. [19]
While the blue man had been absorbed in the north and eventually succumbed to the white cavalry raiders who penetrated the south, the advancing tribes of the mixed white race met with stubborn and protracted resistance from the CroMagnons, but superior intelligence and ever-augmenting biologic reserves enabled them to wipe the older race out of existence. [20]
The early expansion of the violet race into Europe was cut short by certain rather sudden climatic and geologic changes. With the retreat of the northern ice fields the water-laden winds from the west shifted to the north, gradually turning the great open pasture regions of Sahara into a barren desert. This drought dispersed the smaller-statured brunets, dark-eyed but long-headed dwellers of the great Sahara plateau.
The purer indigo elements moved southward to the forests of central Africa, where they have ever since remained. The more mixed groups spread out in three directions: The superior tribes to the west migrated to Spain and thence to adjacent parts of Europe, forming the nucleus of the later Mediterranean longheaded brunet races. The least progressive division to the east of the Sahara plateau migrated to Arabia and thence through northern Mesopotamia and India to faraway Ceylon. The central group moved north and east to the Nile valley and into Palestine.
It is this secondary Sangik substratum that suggests a certain degree of kinship among the modern peoples scattered from the Deccan through Iran, Mesopotamia, and along both shores of the Mediterranean Sea. [21]
These racial mixtures laid the foundations for the southern European race, the most highly mixed of all. And since these days this race has undergone still further admixture, notably with the blue-yellow-Andite peoples of Arabia. This Mediterranean race is, in fact, so freely admixed with the surrounding peoples as to be virtually indiscernible as a separate type, but in general its members are short, long-headed, and brunet. [22]
During the following interglacial period this new Neanderthal race extended from England to India. The remnant of the blue race left in the old Persian peninsula later amalgamated with certain others, primarily the yellow; and the resultant blend, subsequently somewhat upstepped by the violet race of Adam, has persisted as the swarthy nomadic tribes of modern Arabs. [23]
Along with its discussion of skull shape and skeletal structure, of course, is the interweaving of the qualitative differences associated with these various physical traits. The final division of humanity into approximately three groups—Caucasoid, Mongaloid, and Negroid—directly relates to statements made about varying genetic qualities. No matter how many subdivisions Caucasoid gets divided into, the defining characteristic is the superior Andite genetic strain. The Mongoloid classification is weighted toward primary Sangiks and the Negroid is secondary Sangik.
A matter of fact discussion about physical anthropology does not address how these physical traits relate to other more qualitative issues. However, before reviewing The Urantia Book’s statements regarding the qualitative differences associated with racial heritage, the next chapter reviews the specific manner in which the authors frame the discussion about the Aryans and the white races. This will not only reveal The Urantia Book’s position on these two groups, it will also suggests more useful ways of using terminology.
¶ Links
- Heidelberg race
- Neanderthalers
- Cro-Magnon
- Races
- Colored races
- Evolutionary races
- Blue race
- Yellow race
- White race
- Alpine race
- Nordic race
- Green race
- Black race
- Indigo race
- Orange race
- Red race
- Violet race
- Brown race
- Eugenics
- Genetics
- Index of races, tribes or peoples
¶ External links
¶ Footnotes & References
In preparing this chapter, the value of having a Urantia Book-based taxonomy became apparent. This is included as Appendix 1. This chapter is not written with the presumption that the taxonomy will be read first and the taxonomy is not written with the presumption that this section will be read first. Taxonomical references appearing in brackets correspond with the Urantia Book-based taxonomy found in Appendix 1. They are not intended to be consistent with current commonly accepted taxonomical designations. ↩︎
Dr. Sadler (1875–1969) was a prominent physician and psychiatrist from Chicago, IL. He had a reputation for debunking claims of supernatural occurrences and wrote books on that subject, including The Mind at Mischief. Sadler’s professional practice spanned World War I and World War II. In 1918 he published a book called Long Heads and Round Heads or What’s the Matter With Germany. The promotional literature on the front of the dust jacket states, “Long Heads and Round Heads is the most interesting side light yet thrown up on the psychology of the war.” Comparing the material in The Urantia Book to Dr. Sadler’s life and work is, of course, one direction to go in with respect to scholarly research about the book. The focus of this paper is to simply take the book on its own terms. For this reason, whatever Dr. Sadler wrote, believed, or did, while meaningful and important for other discussions, is not relevant to this type of review. ↩︎
See Early migration to Britain report from same author. ↩︎
This is a reference to an aspect of The Urantia Book’s discussion about our racial history that does not directly relate to issues regarding eugenics and race. The Nodites mixed with the Adamites to create the Andite race. Therefore, any issues that would relate to the Nodites are reasonably covered through discussion about the Adamites and Andites. Additionally, the topic of the Nodites would require introducing cosmological aspects of The Urantia Book that would be a needless distraction from the primary purposes of this paper. However, the Urantia Book-based taxonomy in Appendix one has more information on this race. ↩︎