The Urantia Book
Encyclopedia
The Urantia Book is a spiritual
and philosophical
book that discusses God
, Jesus
, science
, cosmology
, religion
, history
, and destiny
. It originated in Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1924 and 1955. Its authorship remains a matter of speculation.
The authors introduce the word "Urantia" as the name of the planet Earth
and state that their intent is to "present enlarged concepts and advanced truth" in an "endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception." Among other topics, the book expounds on the origin and meaning of life
, humankind's place in the universe
, the relationship between God
and people, and the life of Jesus
.
The Urantia Foundation
, a U.S.-based non-profit group, first published The Urantia Book in 1955 in English and has since translated it into 14 of other languages. In 2001, a jury found that the English book's copyright was no longer valid after 1983. The English text is a public domain
work in the United States, and in 2006, the international copyright on the English text also expired.
The Foreword is presented as a guide to the terminology developed in greater detail in Part I, and provides an explanation for words and phrases that are "in designation of Deity and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of universal reality."
Part I consists of 31 papers that address what are considered the highest levels of creation, beginning with the eternal
and infinite
"Universal Father", his Trinity associates, and the "Isle of Paradise".
Part II is composed of 25 papers pertaining to the origin, administration and personalities of "local universes," in particular the local universe of "Nebadon" that is said to contain Urantia. It presents narratives on the inhabitants of local universes and their work as it is coordinated with a scheme of spiritual ascension and progression of different orders of beings, including humans.
Part III includes 48 papers that compile a broad history of the Earth, presenting a purported explanation of the origin, purpose, evolution, and destiny
of our world and its inhabitants. An additional 15 papers cover various topics such as "Religion in Human Experience", the concept of the Thought Adjuster, "Personality Survival", and "The Bestowals of Christ Michael".
Part IV is presented in 77 papers and narrates "The Life and Teachings of Jesus". Included are papers about his childhood, teenage years, family life, public ministry, and the events that led to his crucifixion
, death, and resurrection. It continues with papers about appearances after he rose, Pentecost
, and finally, "The Faith of Jesus". Part IV illustrates many of the concepts presented in the first three parts through the story of Jesus' life.
The exact circumstances of the origin of The Urantia Book are unknown. The book and its publishers do not name a human author. Instead, it is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an "epochal" religious revelation. For each paper, either a named celestial being, an order of being, or a group of beings is credited as its author.
As early as 1911, William S. Sadler
and his wife Lena Sadler, physicians in Chicago and well known in the community, are said to have been approached by a neighbor who was concerned because she would occasionally find her husband in a deep sleep and breathing abnormally. She reported that she was unable to wake him at these times. The Sadlers came to observe the episodes, and over time, the individual produced verbal communications that claimed to be from "student visitor" spiritual beings. This changed in early 1925 with a "voluminous handwritten document", which from then on became the regular method of purported communication. The Sadlers were both respected physicians, and William Sadler was a debunker of paranormal claims, who is portrayed as not believing in the supernatural. In 1929, he published a book called The Mind at Mischief, in which he explained the fraudulent methods of mediums
and how self-deception leads to psychic claims. He wrote in an appendix that there were two cases that he had not explained to his satisfaction.
In 1924, a group of Sadler's friends, former patients, and colleagues began meeting for Sunday intellectual discussions, but became interested in the strange communications when Sadler mentioned the case and read samples at their request. Shortly afterwards, a communication reportedly was received that this group would be allowed to devise questions and that answers would be given by celestial beings through the "contact personality".
Sadler presented this development to the group, and they generated hundreds of questions without full seriousness, but their claim is that it resulted in the appearance of answers in the form of fully written papers. They became more impressed with the quality of the answers and continued to ask questions, until all papers now collected together as The Urantia Book were obtained. The group was known as the Forum. A smaller group of five individuals called the Contact Commission, including the Sadlers, was responsible for gathering the questions from the Forum, acting as the custodians of the handwritten manuscripts that were presented as answers, and arranging for proofreading and typing of the material.
The Sadlers and others involved, now all deceased, claimed that the papers of the book were physically materialized from 1925 until 1935 in a way that was not understood even by them, with the first three parts being completed in 1934 and the fourth in 1935. The last Forum gathering was in 1942. Also documented are methods of reception that Sadler denied as the way the papers were received.
After the last of Part IV was obtained in 1935, an additional period of time supposedly took place where requests for clarifications resulted in revisions. Sadler and his son William (Bill) Sadler, Jr. at one point wrote a draft introduction and were told that they could not add their introduction because "A city can not be lit by a candle." The Foreword was then "received." Bill Sadler is noted to have composed the table of contents that is published with the book.
The communications purportedly continued for another two decades while members of the Forum studied the book in depth, and according to Sadler and others, permission to publish it was given to them in 1955. The Urantia Foundation
was formed in 1950 as a tax-exempt educational society in Illinois, and through privately raised funds, the book was published under international copyright on October 12, 1955.
Only the members of the Contact Commission witnessed the activities of the sleeping subject, and only they knew his identity. The individual is claimed to have been kept anonymous in order to prevent undesirable future veneration or reverence for him. Martin Gardner states that an explanation concerning the origin of the book more plausible than celestial beings is that the Contact Commission, particularly William Sadler, was responsible. Gardner's conclusion is that a man named Wilfred Kellogg was the sleeping subject and authored the work from his subconscious mind, with William Sadler subsequently editing and authoring parts. A statistical analysis using the Mosteller and Wallace methods of stylometry
indicates at least nine authors were involved, and by comparatively analyzing the book against Sadler's The Mind at Mischief, does not indicate authorship or extensive editing by Sadler, without ruling out the possibility of limited edits.
, omnipresent
, omnipotent
, infinite
, and eternal
spirit personality. The most fundamental teaching about God in the book is that he is a Father. "The face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love." Even during the development of numerous other themes in The Urantia Book, God as a loving Father is emphasized as the central, unifying attitude of God toward the universe.
God is said to be a mystery
though because of the infinite scope of his perfection and his attributes.
God, according to the book, is one Deity who functions on a range of different levels of reality, both personal and impersonal. God is taught to exist in a Trinity
of three perfectly individualized persons who are co-equal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. These persons are referred to by additional titles in the book, primarily as the "Universal Father", "Eternal Son", and "Infinite Spirit". While stating that the concept of one God in three persons is difficult to fully understand, the book says that the idea "in no manner violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one".
The Father, Son, and Spirit are considered "existential" persons of Deity, those in existence from the eternal past to the eternal future. In addition, three persons of Deity are described who are "experiential", or incomplete and in the process of actualizing: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. Of these three, God the Supreme, or "the Supreme Being", is given the most explanation, as the person of Deity evolving in time and space to unify finite reality and the infinite. The persons of God the Ultimate and God the Absolute are considered to be remote from the possibility of comprehension and are covered on a limited basis.
Many types of celestial beings are enumerated in the book, and one of particular note is a joint "offspring" of the Universal Father and Eternal Son called a "Creator Son". A divine Creator Son is considered the full representation of the Universal Father and Eternal Son that is possible to people. Jesus
of Nazareth
is identified as a Creator Son who incarnated
on Earth and whose life and teachings are portrayed as the fullest revelation of the personality and attitude of God ever given to humanity.
The final paper states:
atman
, the ancient Egyptian
ka
, and the Quaker inner light
. In relation to biblical traditions, the Thought Adjuster is described by the book as the meaning behind the phrases "being made in God's image" and the "kingdom of God is within you":
Each person is said to receive one such fragment at the time of his or her first independent moral
decision, on average around the age of five years and ten months. The Adjuster then serves noncoercively as a divine partner in the mind of the individual for the rest of life, and to the extent that a person consents with their free will
to want to find God, it leads the person toward more mature, spiritualized thinking. Through the practice of learning how to follow the inner leadings of the Adjuster—choose "God's will"—the individual progresses to greater God consciousness and spiritual growth.
A person's Thought Adjuster is described as distinct from either the soul or the conscience
. In The Urantia Book' s teachings, the degree to which a human mind chooses to accept its Adjuster's guidance becomes the degree to which a person's soul "grows" and becomes a reality that can then survive death. The soul is in essence an embryonic spiritual development, one parental factor being the divine Adjuster and the other being the human will.
The book many times links the biblical New Testament
teachings of becoming like a little child in attitude of trust and sincerity as being the stance each person should have toward God. It says the attitude of open-minded teachability facilitates spiritual growth in liaison with the work of the Thought Adjuster and invariably leads a person to love and serve other people. It also says, "But you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster". The book is strongly fideistic
and teaches that neither science nor logic will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, arguing that faith is necessary to become conscious of God's presence in human experience, the Thought Adjuster.
Persistently embracing sin
is considered the same as rejecting the leadings of the Adjuster, rejecting the will
of God. Constant selfishness and sinful choosing lead eventually to iniquity and full identification with unrighteousness, and since unrighteousness is unreal, it results in the eventual annihilation of the individual's identity. Personalities like this become "as if they never were". The book says that "in the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity". The concepts of Hell
and reincarnation
are not taught.
From Paper 5, "God's Relation to the Individual":
The book says that a person ultimately is destined to fuse with his or her divine fragment and become one inseparable entity with it, if the person chooses to accept the Adjuster's leadings and become self-identified with it. The act of fusion is the moment when a human personality has successfully and unalterably won eternal life, described as typically taking place in the afterlife, but also a possibility during earthly life. The result during human life is a "fusion flash", with the material body consumed in a fiery light and the soul "translated" to the afterlife. The Hebrew prophet Elijah being taken to heaven without death in "chariots of fire" is said to be a rare example in recorded history of a person who attained fusion.
Once fused with his or her fragment of God, a person continues as an ascending citizen in the universe and travels through numerous worlds on a long, adventurous pilgrimage of growth and learning that eventually leads to God and residence on Paradise. Mortals who reach this stage are called "finaliters." The book goes on to discuss the potential destinies of these "glorified mortals".
The Urantia Book places much emphasis on the idea that all individuals have the same opportunity to know God, and it says nothing can hinder a human being's spiritual progression if he or she is motivated to be spirit led. The book regards human life on earth as a "short and intense test", and the afterlife as a continuation of training that begins in material life. The "religion of Jesus" is considered to be practiced by way of loving God the Father with a person's whole being, thereby learning to love each person the way Jesus loves people; that is, recognizing others as brothers and sisters and being of unselfish service to them.
The book uses the term "universe" to denote a number of different scales of organization, possibly because the book was written at a time when galaxies
outside of the Milky Way
were still called "island universes". In the book, a "superuniverse" is roughly the size of a galaxy or group of galaxies. A "local universe" is a sub-unit comprising approximately 10 million inhabited worlds when fully developed and accounts for 0.001% of the size of a "superuniverse". The book uses the term "master universe" to refer to what in modern usage would be the universe
— all existing matter
and space
taken as a whole. When the term "universe" is used alone, the type usually can be inferred from the context.
The book teaches that the universe is vastly older than current scientific theories state, and that the universe is the product of intelligent and purposeful organization. The visualization of the cosmos presented from the center outward is:
The book describes alternative explanations regarding the universe's origin, and suggests sources of error in astronomical observations made by scientists. For example, the concept of "space respiration"—that all of space itself undergoes "two-billion-year expansion-contraction cycles"—is claimed to be part of the explanation for astronomic redshift
. The Urantia Book says we are currently almost half way through an expansion cycle.
s originating from a lemur
ancestor.
The Urantia Book says "this story is graphically told within the fossil pages of the vast 'stone book' of world record ... the pages of this gigantic biogeologic record unfailingly tell the truth if you but acquire skill in their interpretation". Unlike current scientific views, evolution is said to be orderly and controlled. Primordial life is taught to have been intelligently planned, implanted, and monitored by "Life Carriers", instead of arising spontaneously. The book says that "mortal man is not an evolutionary accident", and that the purpose of evolution on a planet such as Urantia is to produce creatures of "will dignity" that can develop spiritual natures and survive material existence, going on to have eternal spiritual careers.
The Urantia Book teaches not only biological evolution, but that human society and spiritual understandings evolve by slow progression, subject both to periods of rapid improvement and the possibility of retrogression. Progress is said to follow a divine plan that includes periodic gifts of revelation and ministry by heavenly teachers, which eventually will lead to an ideal world status of "light and life" in the far distant future.
Though there is the ideal and divine plan, it is said to be fostered and administered by various orders of celestial beings who are not always perfect. Through mistakes or deliberate rebellion, the plan can be wrecked, requiring long spans of time to recoup lost progress. Urantia is said to be a markedly "dark and confused" planet that is "greatly retarded in all phases of intellectual progress and spiritual attainment" compared to more typical inhabited worlds, due to an unusually severe history of rebellion and default by its spiritual supervisors.
The Urantia Book describes the successive eras of biologic, intellectual, and spiritual uplifting as “epochal revelations” of God and his ministering agents to man. According to The Urantia Book the Lucifer Rebellion was a disruption of God’s divine plan in the history of Urantia. In the book, Lucifer is classified as a “Primary Lanonandek Son” and head administrator of his attending system. He proposed the concepts of personal liberty, self-autonomy, and self-assertion. These concepts were adopted on Urantia first by the head of its human affairs, Caligastia. By joining Lucifer, Caligastia caused the eventual collapse of the same fragile civilization he had come to guide as “Planetary Prince” of the realm. The Urantia Book emphasizes that despite its dark history, Urantia has been the beneficiary of much good. The life of Jesus
, designated in The Urantia Book as the “fourth epochal revelation,” is said to have redeemed the planet of the blunders of rebellion. “And when Jesus came down from his sojourn on Mount Hermon, the Lucifer rebellion in Satania and the Caligastia secession on Urantia were virtually settled.”
' s teachings are most similar to those of Christianity
. However, there are numerous and significant differences between it and commonly accepted Christian beliefs.
Jesus
is held in high regard by The Urantia Book, as he is in the New Testament of the Bible
. More than one third of the content of the book (Part IV) is devoted to a narrative about him. Part IV is said to be a restatement of his life and teachings based on a gathering of "superior concepts" from over two thousand individuals who have lived since his times, as well as from "superhuman" and "superplanetary sources of information".
The following are attributed to Jesus, as in the Bible:
Some differences with Christianity include:
one of the "great international, interracial faiths" and says it "has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity."
Gautama Siddhartha is called a real prophet
whose doctrines were "revolutionary and amazing" for their time. He is credited with being one of the seven outstanding teachers in human history in the matter of combining contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, a group that includes Moses
, Laozi
, and the Apostle Paul.
The teaching that a divine nature—the Buddha-nature
—resides in all people, and that through their own endeavors people can attain a realization of this inner divinity, is cited as one of the clearest presentations of the concept of the Thought Adjuster to be found in non-revelatory religion.
The book says Gautama's experience was tragic, however, in that he was an "orphan prophet" whose philosophy failed early on to envision the reality of a spiritual God.
Despite this, the book states: "Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes calmness and self-control, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better lives than many who do not."
, historical fiction
, or fantasy
. The Urantia Book is noted for its high level of internal consistency and an advanced writing style. Skeptic Martin Gardner
, in a book otherwise highly critical of The Urantia Book, writes that it is "highly imaginative" and that the "cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me".
Parts I, II, and III are chiefly written in expository language. The papers are informational, matter-of-fact, and instructional. Part IV of the book is written as a biography of Jesus' life, and some feel it is a rich narrative with well-developed characters, high attention to detail, woven sub-plots, and realistic dialogue. Considered as literature, Part IV is favorably compared to other retellings of Jesus' life, such as The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
by José Saramago
and Behold the Man
by Michael Moorcock
. Martin Gardner considers Part IV to be an especially "well-written, impressive work", and says, "Either it is accurate in its history, coming directly from higher beings in position to know, or it is a work of fertile imagination by someone who knew the New Testament by heart and who was also steeped in knowledge of the times when Jesus lived."
The claim of revelation in The Urantia Book has been criticized for various reasons. Skeptics such as Martin Gardner
say it is a product of human efforts rather than a revelation because some of its science is flawed. Because the book does not support certain tenets of Christianity, such as for example the atonement doctrine, while at the same time presenting an account of parts of Jesus' life absent in the Bible, others with a Christian viewpoint have argued it cannot be genuine.
Other critics have felt that at over 2,000 pages, nearly twice the length of the King James Bible, it is too long, complex, and bureaucratic.
Skeptics like Martin Gardner
see the science in The Urantia Book as clear reflections of the views that prevailed at the time the book is said to have originated. The claim by the authors that no unknown scientific discoveries could be imparted is seen as a ruse to allow mistakes to be dismissed later. That presentation of post-1955 scientific knowledge is avoided is taken to be evidence it was written by humans and not by celestial beings with superior knowledge.
Examples of criticisms regarding the science in The Urantia Book include:
While some adherents of the book believe that all of the information in The Urantia Book including its science is literally true, others accept the book's caveats and do not believe that the science is fully accurate.
Meredith Sprunger, a liberal
believer in The Urantia Book and retired minister in the United Church of Christ
, writes, "research has revealed that virtually all of the scientific material found in The Urantia Book was the accepted scientific knowledge of the period in which the book was written, was held by some scientists of that time, or was about to be discovered or recognized." He argues against its literal infallibility and that fundamentalism over the book is "just as untenable as Biblical fundamentalism".
Other believers maintain that the book has prophetically anticipated scientific advances already. They believe more of its science — if not all of it — will be proven correct in the future. Gardner evaluated many of these claims as of 1995 and found them unconvincing. Some arise because the book is said to have been indited by the revelators by 1935, but then was not published until 1955. Science discovered during the two intervening decades can be perceived as prophetic by believers, while skeptics think such facts were added prior to publication. For instance, the catalytic role that carbon
plays in the sun's nuclear reactions is described in the book, though Hans Bethe
's announcement of the discovery was not made until 1938.
The only apparent anticipation of science the book has made, in Gardner's opinion, is that it says the magnetic sense that homing pigeon
s possess is "not wholly wanting as a conscious possession by mankind". In 1980, a British zoologist, Robin Baker, published evidence that humans have a limited magnetic sense.
Mark McMenamin
, a professor of geology
, quotes a section of the book describing a billion-year-old supercontinent that subsequently split apart, forming ocean basins where early marine life developed. He says, "This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually appear in the scientific literature until many decades later." McMenamin also states, "Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book."
In recent years, students of the papers have found that the free use of other sources appears to be true. None of the material allegedly used from other sources is directly cited or referenced within the book.
In 1992, a reader of The Urantia Book, Matthew Block, self-published a paper that showed nineteen possible examples of The Urantia Book utilizing material published earlier. All of the source authors identified in Block's paper were published in English between 1905 and 1943 by U.S. publishers and are typically scholarly or academic works that contain concepts and wording similar to what is found in The Urantia Book. Block has since claimed to have discovered over 125 source books and articles, written by over 90 authors, which were incorporated into the papers.
The use of outside source materials was studied separately by Gardner and Gooch, and they concluded that the book did use many of the sources noted by Block. Gardner found that at least one of the source book authors was quoted in earlier works by Sadler, and most of the books purportedly would have been available to Sadler or Forum members in Chicago prior to 1955.
For instance, Gardner and Block note that Paper 85 appears to have been taken from the first eight chapters of Origin and Evolution of Religion by Edward Washburn Hopkins
, published by Yale University Press
in 1923. Each section of the paper corresponds to a chapter in the book, with several passages possibly used as direct material. Likewise, much of The Urantia Book material relating to the evolution of mankind appears to have been directly taken from Henry Fairfield Osborn
, Man Rises to Parnassus: Critical Epochs in the Prehistory of Man published by Princeton University Press
in 1928.
In one example cited by Block, the original author discusses the periodicity of the chemical elements and concludes that the harmony in the construction of the atom suggests some unspecified plan of organization. The authors of The Urantia Book assert that this harmony is evidence of the intelligent design
of the universe. W. F. G. Swann writes on page 64 of The Architecture of the Universe (italics indicate edits as compared to The Urantia Book, bolding indicates deletions):
Contrast with The Urantia Book' s version:
Block and many believers do not see the use of human source materials as plagiarism. Block writes:
The book has been in print since 1955, but as compared to other religious or holy books that have a recent origin and revelatory claims, such as the Book of Mormon
, popularity of The Urantia Book has not grown as fast. The small movement inspired by The Urantia Book has not developed clergy or institutions such as churches, reading rooms, or temples. As of 2006, the Urantia Foundation
had one office in Chicago and five people on staff.
Sarah Lewis notes that, "The Urantia Revelation is not securing legitimacy through historically known and accepted means to any great degree, nor is it even using common language that would increase the likelihood of understanding and therefore acceptance. It introduces new concepts and a new language, and this does not make acceptance any easier." She assesses that the movement is uncontroversial compared to other ones, "lacking the zealous proselytizing found within many other groups", and that it is therefore likely to remain small and unaffected by opposing views.
Urantia Foundation advocated a "slow growth" policy in the past and had not significantly marketed the book. Sales by Urantia Foundation went from 7,000 in 1990 to 24,700 in 1997, and steadily increased to nearly 38,000 in 2000, an "upturn that seems to represent a genuine trend rather than just some spike on a sales chart", however by 2006 the foundation reported worldwide annual sales of 13,380 copies. Approximately half of the books distributed by Urantia Foundation are in languages other than English, particularly Spanish and Russian. Since the book was determined to be in the public domain
in 2001, other organizations, such as The Urantia Book Fellowship under the publishing name Uversa Press, have also published the book. Copies of The Urantia Book are on the Internet in various formats and it has been adapted to more recent platforms such as the Kindle
and the iPhone / iPod Touch App Store. Several audio books of the text are also on the Internet.
The International Urantia Association had twenty-six reader associations worldwide as of 2002, and the Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly the Urantia Brotherhood, founded in 1955 with Urantia Foundation as the original social fraternal organization of believers) claimed roughly twelve hundred official members, with the highest concentrations in the West of the United States and the Sun Belt
, especially California, Colorado, Florida, and Texas. It appears an increasing number of people are forming study groups, participating in Internet discussion groups, and hosting or visiting websites about it. Reader conferences take place around the world.
One symbol described in The Urantia Book consists of three concentric azure
circles on a white background. The circles are said to have symbolized several trinity associations in the history of humankind. The authors of The Urantia Book indicate its revealed meaning as being "the infinity, eternity, and universality of the Paradise Trinity of divine maintenance and direction."
Urantia Foundation, the original publisher, placed the concentric circles on the cover of The Urantia Book and has a United States trademark. The circles are used to indicate other organizations affiliated with the foundation.
The Urantia Association International, one of the main readership organizations in the movement, has been licensed by Urantia Foundation to use the three azure concentric circles on a white background.
Some other groups use the symbol in various altered forms. The Urantia Book Fellowship, an independent reader organization established in 1955, uses a similar symbol.
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
and philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
book that discusses God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
, religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and destiny
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
. It originated in Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1924 and 1955. Its authorship remains a matter of speculation.
The authors introduce the word "Urantia" as the name of the planet Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and state that their intent is to "present enlarged concepts and advanced truth" in an "endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception." Among other topics, the book expounds on the origin and meaning of life
Meaning of life
The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general. This concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", and "What is the meaning of it all?" It has...
, humankind's place in the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, the relationship between God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
and people, and the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
.
The Urantia Foundation
Urantia Foundation
The Urantia Foundation is a Chicago-based non-profit that provides materials, promotes events, and provides guidance associated with The Urantia Book...
, a U.S.-based non-profit group, first published The Urantia Book in 1955 in English and has since translated it into 14 of other languages. In 2001, a jury found that the English book's copyright was no longer valid after 1983. The English text is a public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
work in the United States, and in 2006, the international copyright on the English text also expired.
Overview of the book
The Urantia Book is 2,097 pages long, and consists of an introductory statement followed by 196 "papers" divided into four parts:- Foreword
- Part I: The Central and Superuniverses
- Part II: The Local Universe
- Part III: The History of Urantia
- Part IV: The Life and Teachings of Jesus
The Foreword is presented as a guide to the terminology developed in greater detail in Part I, and provides an explanation for words and phrases that are "in designation of Deity and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of universal reality."
Part I consists of 31 papers that address what are considered the highest levels of creation, beginning with the eternal
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
and infinite
Infinity
Infinity is a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity...
"Universal Father", his Trinity associates, and the "Isle of Paradise".
Part II is composed of 25 papers pertaining to the origin, administration and personalities of "local universes," in particular the local universe of "Nebadon" that is said to contain Urantia. It presents narratives on the inhabitants of local universes and their work as it is coordinated with a scheme of spiritual ascension and progression of different orders of beings, including humans.
Part III includes 48 papers that compile a broad history of the Earth, presenting a purported explanation of the origin, purpose, evolution, and destiny
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
of our world and its inhabitants. An additional 15 papers cover various topics such as "Religion in Human Experience", the concept of the Thought Adjuster, "Personality Survival", and "The Bestowals of Christ Michael".
Part IV is presented in 77 papers and narrates "The Life and Teachings of Jesus". Included are papers about his childhood, teenage years, family life, public ministry, and the events that led to his crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
, death, and resurrection. It continues with papers about appearances after he rose, Pentecost
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
, and finally, "The Faith of Jesus". Part IV illustrates many of the concepts presented in the first three parts through the story of Jesus' life.
Authorship
As early as 1911, William S. Sadler
William S. Sadler
William Samuel Sadler was a well-known American psychiatrist and professor at McCormick Theological Seminary. For over sixty years he practiced medicine in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Lena Kellogg....
and his wife Lena Sadler, physicians in Chicago and well known in the community, are said to have been approached by a neighbor who was concerned because she would occasionally find her husband in a deep sleep and breathing abnormally. She reported that she was unable to wake him at these times. The Sadlers came to observe the episodes, and over time, the individual produced verbal communications that claimed to be from "student visitor" spiritual beings. This changed in early 1925 with a "voluminous handwritten document", which from then on became the regular method of purported communication. The Sadlers were both respected physicians, and William Sadler was a debunker of paranormal claims, who is portrayed as not believing in the supernatural. In 1929, he published a book called The Mind at Mischief, in which he explained the fraudulent methods of mediums
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
and how self-deception leads to psychic claims. He wrote in an appendix that there were two cases that he had not explained to his satisfaction.
In 1924, a group of Sadler's friends, former patients, and colleagues began meeting for Sunday intellectual discussions, but became interested in the strange communications when Sadler mentioned the case and read samples at their request. Shortly afterwards, a communication reportedly was received that this group would be allowed to devise questions and that answers would be given by celestial beings through the "contact personality".
Sadler presented this development to the group, and they generated hundreds of questions without full seriousness, but their claim is that it resulted in the appearance of answers in the form of fully written papers. They became more impressed with the quality of the answers and continued to ask questions, until all papers now collected together as The Urantia Book were obtained. The group was known as the Forum. A smaller group of five individuals called the Contact Commission, including the Sadlers, was responsible for gathering the questions from the Forum, acting as the custodians of the handwritten manuscripts that were presented as answers, and arranging for proofreading and typing of the material.
The Sadlers and others involved, now all deceased, claimed that the papers of the book were physically materialized from 1925 until 1935 in a way that was not understood even by them, with the first three parts being completed in 1934 and the fourth in 1935. The last Forum gathering was in 1942. Also documented are methods of reception that Sadler denied as the way the papers were received.
After the last of Part IV was obtained in 1935, an additional period of time supposedly took place where requests for clarifications resulted in revisions. Sadler and his son William (Bill) Sadler, Jr. at one point wrote a draft introduction and were told that they could not add their introduction because "A city can not be lit by a candle." The Foreword was then "received." Bill Sadler is noted to have composed the table of contents that is published with the book.
The communications purportedly continued for another two decades while members of the Forum studied the book in depth, and according to Sadler and others, permission to publish it was given to them in 1955. The Urantia Foundation
Urantia Foundation
The Urantia Foundation is a Chicago-based non-profit that provides materials, promotes events, and provides guidance associated with The Urantia Book...
was formed in 1950 as a tax-exempt educational society in Illinois, and through privately raised funds, the book was published under international copyright on October 12, 1955.
Only the members of the Contact Commission witnessed the activities of the sleeping subject, and only they knew his identity. The individual is claimed to have been kept anonymous in order to prevent undesirable future veneration or reverence for him. Martin Gardner states that an explanation concerning the origin of the book more plausible than celestial beings is that the Contact Commission, particularly William Sadler, was responsible. Gardner's conclusion is that a man named Wilfred Kellogg was the sleeping subject and authored the work from his subconscious mind, with William Sadler subsequently editing and authoring parts. A statistical analysis using the Mosteller and Wallace methods of stylometry
Stylometry
Stylometry is the application of the study of linguistic style, usually to written language, but it has successfully been applied to music and to fine-art paintings as well.Stylometry is often used to attribute authorship to anonymous or disputed documents...
indicates at least nine authors were involved, and by comparatively analyzing the book against Sadler's The Mind at Mischief, does not indicate authorship or extensive editing by Sadler, without ruling out the possibility of limited edits.
Nature of God
According to The Urantia Book, God is the creator and upholder of all reality—an omniscientOmniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
, omnipresent
Omnipresence
Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present everywhere. According to eastern theism, God is present everywhere. Divine omnipresence is thus one of the divine attributes, although in western theism it has attracted less philosophical attention than such attributes as omnipotence,...
, omnipotent
Omnipotence
Omnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...
, infinite
Infinity
Infinity is a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity...
, and eternal
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
spirit personality. The most fundamental teaching about God in the book is that he is a Father. "The face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love." Even during the development of numerous other themes in The Urantia Book, God as a loving Father is emphasized as the central, unifying attitude of God toward the universe.
God is said to be a mystery
Sacred Mysteries
The term sacred mysteries generally denotes the area of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious ideology.-Pre-Christian religious mysteries:...
though because of the infinite scope of his perfection and his attributes.
God, according to the book, is one Deity who functions on a range of different levels of reality, both personal and impersonal. God is taught to exist in a Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
of three perfectly individualized persons who are co-equal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. These persons are referred to by additional titles in the book, primarily as the "Universal Father", "Eternal Son", and "Infinite Spirit". While stating that the concept of one God in three persons is difficult to fully understand, the book says that the idea "in no manner violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one".
The Father, Son, and Spirit are considered "existential" persons of Deity, those in existence from the eternal past to the eternal future. In addition, three persons of Deity are described who are "experiential", or incomplete and in the process of actualizing: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. Of these three, God the Supreme, or "the Supreme Being", is given the most explanation, as the person of Deity evolving in time and space to unify finite reality and the infinite. The persons of God the Ultimate and God the Absolute are considered to be remote from the possibility of comprehension and are covered on a limited basis.
Many types of celestial beings are enumerated in the book, and one of particular note is a joint "offspring" of the Universal Father and Eternal Son called a "Creator Son". A divine Creator Son is considered the full representation of the Universal Father and Eternal Son that is possible to people. Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
of Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
is identified as a Creator Son who incarnated
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
on Earth and whose life and teachings are portrayed as the fullest revelation of the personality and attitude of God ever given to humanity.
The final paper states:
God and the individual
God is described as the Father of each individual, and through the direct gift of a fragment of his eternal spirit, called a Thought Adjuster, is said to be able to guide the individual toward an increased understanding of him. The Thought Adjuster is also called a "Mystery Monitor," "inner voice," "divine spark," and "pilot light". The concept is in ways comparable to the HinduHindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
atman
Atman (Hinduism)
Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means 'self'. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism it refers to one's true self beyond identification with phenomena...
, the ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ka
Egyptian soul
The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts: the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body...
, and the Quaker inner light
Inner light
Inner Light is a concept which many Quakers, members of the Religious Society of Friends, use to express their conscience, faith and beliefs. Each Quaker has a different idea of what they mean by "inner light", and this also varies internationally between Yearly Meetings, but the idea is often...
. In relation to biblical traditions, the Thought Adjuster is described by the book as the meaning behind the phrases "being made in God's image" and the "kingdom of God is within you":
Each person is said to receive one such fragment at the time of his or her first independent moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
decision, on average around the age of five years and ten months. The Adjuster then serves noncoercively as a divine partner in the mind of the individual for the rest of life, and to the extent that a person consents with their free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
to want to find God, it leads the person toward more mature, spiritualized thinking. Through the practice of learning how to follow the inner leadings of the Adjuster—choose "God's will"—the individual progresses to greater God consciousness and spiritual growth.
A person's Thought Adjuster is described as distinct from either the soul or the conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
. In The Urantia Book
The book many times links the biblical New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
teachings of becoming like a little child in attitude of trust and sincerity as being the stance each person should have toward God. It says the attitude of open-minded teachability facilitates spiritual growth in liaison with the work of the Thought Adjuster and invariably leads a person to love and serve other people. It also says, "But you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster". The book is strongly fideistic
Fideism
Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...
and teaches that neither science nor logic will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, arguing that faith is necessary to become conscious of God's presence in human experience, the Thought Adjuster.
Persistently embracing sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
is considered the same as rejecting the leadings of the Adjuster, rejecting the will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
of God. Constant selfishness and sinful choosing lead eventually to iniquity and full identification with unrighteousness, and since unrighteousness is unreal, it results in the eventual annihilation of the individual's identity. Personalities like this become "as if they never were". The book says that "in the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity". The concepts of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
and reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
are not taught.
From Paper 5, "God's Relation to the Individual":
The book says that a person ultimately is destined to fuse with his or her divine fragment and become one inseparable entity with it, if the person chooses to accept the Adjuster's leadings and become self-identified with it. The act of fusion is the moment when a human personality has successfully and unalterably won eternal life, described as typically taking place in the afterlife, but also a possibility during earthly life. The result during human life is a "fusion flash", with the material body consumed in a fiery light and the soul "translated" to the afterlife. The Hebrew prophet Elijah being taken to heaven without death in "chariots of fire" is said to be a rare example in recorded history of a person who attained fusion.
Once fused with his or her fragment of God, a person continues as an ascending citizen in the universe and travels through numerous worlds on a long, adventurous pilgrimage of growth and learning that eventually leads to God and residence on Paradise. Mortals who reach this stage are called "finaliters." The book goes on to discuss the potential destinies of these "glorified mortals".
The Urantia Book places much emphasis on the idea that all individuals have the same opportunity to know God, and it says nothing can hinder a human being's spiritual progression if he or she is motivated to be spirit led. The book regards human life on earth as a "short and intense test", and the afterlife as a continuation of training that begins in material life. The "religion of Jesus" is considered to be practiced by way of loving God the Father with a person's whole being, thereby learning to love each person the way Jesus loves people; that is, recognizing others as brothers and sisters and being of unselfish service to them.
Cosmology
The Urantia Book presents a detailed cosmological perspective on the universe and humankind's relation to it, while also stating that its cosmology will be in need of revision as new discoveries emerge in science, claiming its presentations are not meant to be a substitute for science.The book uses the term "universe" to denote a number of different scales of organization, possibly because the book was written at a time when galaxies
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
outside of the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
were still called "island universes". In the book, a "superuniverse" is roughly the size of a galaxy or group of galaxies. A "local universe" is a sub-unit comprising approximately 10 million inhabited worlds when fully developed and accounts for 0.001% of the size of a "superuniverse". The book uses the term "master universe" to refer to what in modern usage would be the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
— all existing matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
taken as a whole. When the term "universe" is used alone, the type usually can be inferred from the context.
The book teaches that the universe is vastly older than current scientific theories state, and that the universe is the product of intelligent and purposeful organization. The visualization of the cosmos presented from the center outward is:
- The eternal "central universe" called the "Paradise-Havona system", with the "Isle of Paradise" at its core, surrounded by twenty-one enormous worlds termed "the Sacred Spheres of Paradise", and then one billion additional perfect worlds known as "Havona".
- "Dark gravity bodies" that "completely encircle and enshroud Havona", followed by a "relatively quiet midspace zone".
- Seven superuniverses beyond this midspace zone, which swing counter-clockwise around the central universe. These contain all the evolutionary worlds of time and space, including the Earth, and have an approximate diameter of 400,000–500,000 light-years. A detailed organization of superuniverses is provided in the book. Briefly, the levels of organization are:
- Individual inhabited worlds such as Earth
- Local system (1,000 inhabited worlds)
- Constellation (100 local systems)
- Local universe (100 constellations)
- Minor sector (100 local universes)
- Major sector (100 minor sectors)
- Superuniverse (10 major sectors)
- Beyond the seven superuniverses, enormous uninhabited "outer space levels" are described. The first outer space level is claimed to be over twenty-five million light-years wide and surrounded by a midspace zone over fifty million light years wide. Second, third, and fourth outer space levels then surround each previous level with greater and greater magnitude.
The book describes alternative explanations regarding the universe's origin, and suggests sources of error in astronomical observations made by scientists. For example, the concept of "space respiration"—that all of space itself undergoes "two-billion-year expansion-contraction cycles"—is claimed to be part of the explanation for astronomic redshift
Hubble's law
Hubble's law is the name for the astronomical observation in physical cosmology that: all objects observed in deep space are found to have a doppler shift observable relative velocity to Earth, and to each other; and that this doppler-shift-measured velocity, of various galaxies receding from...
. The Urantia Book says we are currently almost half way through an expansion cycle.
History and future of the world
Urantia is considered one inhabited sphere among trillions of others in the universe. The book's extensive teachings about the history of the world include its physical development about 4.5 billion years ago, the gradual changes in conditions that allowed life to develop, and long ages of organic evolution that started with microscopic marine life and led to plant and animal life in the oceans, later on land. The emergence of humans is presented as having occurred about a million years ago from a branch of superior primatePrimate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
s originating from a lemur
Lemur
Lemurs are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. They are named after the lemures of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species...
ancestor.
The Urantia Book says "this story is graphically told within the fossil pages of the vast 'stone book' of world record ... the pages of this gigantic biogeologic record unfailingly tell the truth if you but acquire skill in their interpretation". Unlike current scientific views, evolution is said to be orderly and controlled. Primordial life is taught to have been intelligently planned, implanted, and monitored by "Life Carriers", instead of arising spontaneously. The book says that "mortal man is not an evolutionary accident", and that the purpose of evolution on a planet such as Urantia is to produce creatures of "will dignity" that can develop spiritual natures and survive material existence, going on to have eternal spiritual careers.
The Urantia Book teaches not only biological evolution, but that human society and spiritual understandings evolve by slow progression, subject both to periods of rapid improvement and the possibility of retrogression. Progress is said to follow a divine plan that includes periodic gifts of revelation and ministry by heavenly teachers, which eventually will lead to an ideal world status of "light and life" in the far distant future.
Though there is the ideal and divine plan, it is said to be fostered and administered by various orders of celestial beings who are not always perfect. Through mistakes or deliberate rebellion, the plan can be wrecked, requiring long spans of time to recoup lost progress. Urantia is said to be a markedly "dark and confused" planet that is "greatly retarded in all phases of intellectual progress and spiritual attainment" compared to more typical inhabited worlds, due to an unusually severe history of rebellion and default by its spiritual supervisors.
The Urantia Book describes the successive eras of biologic, intellectual, and spiritual uplifting as “epochal revelations” of God and his ministering agents to man. According to The Urantia Book the Lucifer Rebellion was a disruption of God’s divine plan in the history of Urantia. In the book, Lucifer is classified as a “Primary Lanonandek Son” and head administrator of his attending system. He proposed the concepts of personal liberty, self-autonomy, and self-assertion. These concepts were adopted on Urantia first by the head of its human affairs, Caligastia. By joining Lucifer, Caligastia caused the eventual collapse of the same fragile civilization he had come to guide as “Planetary Prince” of the realm. The Urantia Book emphasizes that despite its dark history, Urantia has been the beneficiary of much good. The life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, designated in The Urantia Book as the “fourth epochal revelation,” is said to have redeemed the planet of the blunders of rebellion. “And when Jesus came down from his sojourn on Mount Hermon, the Lucifer rebellion in Satania and the Caligastia secession on Urantia were virtually settled.”
Comparison to Christianity
Of all current major world religions, The Urantia BookChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. However, there are numerous and significant differences between it and commonly accepted Christian beliefs.
Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
is held in high regard by The Urantia Book, as he is in the New Testament of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. More than one third of the content of the book (Part IV) is devoted to a narrative about him. Part IV is said to be a restatement of his life and teachings based on a gathering of "superior concepts" from over two thousand individuals who have lived since his times, as well as from "superhuman" and "superplanetary sources of information".
The following are attributed to Jesus, as in the Bible:
- He was both human and divine, a Son of God incarnate who was born to MaryMary (mother of Jesus)Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
and Joseph. - He lived a perfect life.
- He performed many of the miracles described in the Bible, such as the resurrection of LazarusLazarus of BethanyLazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...
, the turning of water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand, and numerous healings of the blind, diseased, and infirm. - He taught twelve apostles, most of whom went on to spread his teachings.
- He was crucified, and on the third day after his death, rose from the dead.
- He will return to the world again some day.
Some differences with Christianity include:
- Jesus' crucifixion is not considered an atonement for the sins of humanity. The crucifixion is taught to be an outcome of the fears of religious leaders of the day, who regarded his teachings as a threat to their positions of authority.
- Jesus is the human incarnation of "Michael of Nebadon", one of more than 700,000 "Paradise Sons" of God, or "Creator Sons". Jesus is not considered the second person of the TrinityTrinityThe Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
as he is in Christianity. The book refers to the Eternal Son as the second person of the Trinity. - Jesus was born on earth through natural means of conception instead of a virgin birth.
- Jesus did not walk on water or perform some of the miracles that are attributed to him in the Bible.
- Jesus commissioned twelve women (and later more) as religious teachers, who traveled about with him and his apostles on their preaching missions.
- The book states that Jesus may return to the world many times. This contrasts with traditional Christian eschatologyChristian eschatologyChristian eschatology is a major branch of study within Christian theology. Eschatology, from two Greek words meaning last and study , is the study of the end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world...
, in which Jesus returns only once.
Comparison to Buddhism
The Urantia Book considers BuddhismBuddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
one of the "great international, interracial faiths" and says it "has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity."
Gautama Siddhartha is called a real prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
whose doctrines were "revolutionary and amazing" for their time. He is credited with being one of the seven outstanding teachers in human history in the matter of combining contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, a group that includes Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, Laozi
Laozi
Laozi was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching . His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism...
, and the Apostle Paul.
The teaching that a divine nature—the Buddha-nature
Buddha-nature
Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...
—resides in all people, and that through their own endeavors people can attain a realization of this inner divinity, is cited as one of the clearest presentations of the concept of the Thought Adjuster to be found in non-revelatory religion.
The book says Gautama's experience was tragic, however, in that he was an "orphan prophet" whose philosophy failed early on to envision the reality of a spiritual God.
Despite this, the book states: "Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes calmness and self-control, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better lives than many who do not."
Comparison to other world religions
Facets of other world religions are incorporated in the book, including from Islam, Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, Shinto, and Confucianism. For example, Paper 131, "The World's Religions", discusses in more depth those aspects of different religions that have commonalities with what the book claims is the "religion of Jesus". There are also numerous other references to the world's major religions throughout Part III, "The History of Urantia", beginning with Paper 86, "Early Evolution of Religion". The perspective of The Urantia Book is that all religions should be studied to take "the best" from each.Consideration as literature
The Urantia Book has been enjoyed by some as a form of science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, historical fiction
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
, or fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
. The Urantia Book is noted for its high level of internal consistency and an advanced writing style. Skeptic Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
, in a book otherwise highly critical of The Urantia Book, writes that it is "highly imaginative" and that the "cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me".
Parts I, II, and III are chiefly written in expository language. The papers are informational, matter-of-fact, and instructional. Part IV of the book is written as a biography of Jesus' life, and some feel it is a rich narrative with well-developed characters, high attention to detail, woven sub-plots, and realistic dialogue. Considered as literature, Part IV is favorably compared to other retellings of Jesus' life, such as The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ is a novel by the Portuguese author José Saramago. A fictional re-telling of Jesus Christ's life, it depicts him as a flawed, humanised character with passions and doubts...
by José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...
and Behold the Man
Behold the Man
Behold the Man is a science fiction novel by Michael Moorcock. It originally appeared as a novella in a 1966 issue of New Worlds; later, Moorcock produced an expanded version which was first published in 1969 by Allison & Busby.. The title derives from the Gospel of John, Chapter 19, Verse 5:...
by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
. Martin Gardner considers Part IV to be an especially "well-written, impressive work", and says, "Either it is accurate in its history, coming directly from higher beings in position to know, or it is a work of fertile imagination by someone who knew the New Testament by heart and who was also steeped in knowledge of the times when Jesus lived."
Criticisms of claims as a revelation
In Paper 92, "The Later Evolution of Religion", the authors refer to the papers as the fifth revelation of "epochal significance" to humankind, the fourth epochal revelation having been the life of Jesus.The claim of revelation in The Urantia Book has been criticized for various reasons. Skeptics such as Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
say it is a product of human efforts rather than a revelation because some of its science is flawed. Because the book does not support certain tenets of Christianity, such as for example the atonement doctrine, while at the same time presenting an account of parts of Jesus' life absent in the Bible, others with a Christian viewpoint have argued it cannot be genuine.
Other critics have felt that at over 2,000 pages, nearly twice the length of the King James Bible, it is too long, complex, and bureaucratic.
Criticism of science
In Paper 101, "The Real Nature of Religion," the authors write: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. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired.
Skeptics like Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
see the science in The Urantia Book as clear reflections of the views that prevailed at the time the book is said to have originated. The claim by the authors that no unknown scientific discoveries could be imparted is seen as a ruse to allow mistakes to be dismissed later. That presentation of post-1955 scientific knowledge is avoided is taken to be evidence it was written by humans and not by celestial beings with superior knowledge.
Examples of criticisms regarding the science in The Urantia Book include:
- The described formation of the solar systemSolar SystemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
is consistent with the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal hypothesis.http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/CMplanhypoth.html Though popular in the early part of the 20th century, by the early 1940s it was discarded by Henry RussellHenry Norris RussellHenry Norris Russell was an American astronomer who, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, developed the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram . In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he developed Russell–Saunders coupling which is also known as LS coupling.-Biography:Russell was born in 1877 in Oyster Bay, New...
's argument that it was incompatible with the angular momentumAngular momentumIn physics, angular momentum, moment of momentum, or rotational momentum is a conserved vector quantity that can be used to describe the overall state of a physical system...
of planets such as JupiterJupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
.http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/catashypoth.html The currently accepted scientific explanation for the origin of the solar system is based on the nebular hypothesisSolar nebulaIn cosmogony, the nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model explaining the formation and evolution of the Solar System. There is evidence that it was first proposed in 1734 by Emanuel Swedenborg. Originally applied only to our own Solar System, this method of planetary system formation...
. - The age of our universe is stated to be more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) years old and the universe is said to periodically expand and contract—respire—at 2-billion-year intervals. Current observations, however, suggest that the true age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years. The big bangBig BangThe Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
theory is not supported. - A fundamental particle called an "ultimaton" is proposed, with an electronElectronThe electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
being composed of 100 ultimatons. The particle is not known to be described anywhere else and the concept is not supported by modern particle physicsParticle physicsParticle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
. - Some speciesSpeciesIn biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
are said to have evolved suddenly from single mutationMutationIn molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
s without transitional species. The theory originated with DutchDutch peopleThe Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
botanist Hugo De VriesHugo de VriesHugo Marie de Vries ForMemRS was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while unaware of Gregor Mendel's work, for introducing the term "mutation", and for developing a mutation...
, but was short-lived and is not now supported. - The book repeats the scientific understanding at the time of its publication that one side of the planet MercuryMercury (planet)Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
always is turned to the sun due to tidal lockingTidal lockingTidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, the same side of the Earth's Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner...
. In 1965, radio astronomersRadio astronomyRadio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The initial detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was made in the 1930s, when Karl Jansky observed radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observations have identified a number of...
discovered that Mercury actually rotates fast enough for all sides to see exposure to the sun. - The book says that a solar eclipse was predicted in 1808 by the Native AmericanNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
prophet TenskwatawaTenskwatawaTenskwatawa, was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee tribe, known as The Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was the brother of Tecumseh, leader of the Shawnee...
. The eclipse was actually predicted in late April 1806 and occurred on June 16, 1806. - Controversial statements about human races can be found in the book. Supporters state that criticism has arisen mainly due to reading passages out of context. Gardner believes that William S. SadlerWilliam S. SadlerWilliam Samuel Sadler was a well-known American psychiatrist and professor at McCormick Theological Seminary. For over sixty years he practiced medicine in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Lena Kellogg....
, who wrote some eugenicistEugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
works, had a hand in editing or writing the book, and that this is how the ideas were included.
While some adherents of the book believe that all of the information in The Urantia Book including its science is literally true, others accept the book's caveats and do not believe that the science is fully accurate.
Meredith Sprunger, a liberal
Liberal religion
Liberal religion is a religious tradition which embraces the theological diversity of a congregation rather than a single creed, authority, or writing...
believer in The Urantia Book and retired minister in the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
, writes, "research has revealed that virtually all of the scientific material found in The Urantia Book was the accepted scientific knowledge of the period in which the book was written, was held by some scientists of that time, or was about to be discovered or recognized." He argues against its literal infallibility and that fundamentalism over the book is "just as untenable as Biblical fundamentalism".
Other believers maintain that the book has prophetically anticipated scientific advances already. They believe more of its science — if not all of it — will be proven correct in the future. Gardner evaluated many of these claims as of 1995 and found them unconvincing. Some arise because the book is said to have been indited by the revelators by 1935, but then was not published until 1955. Science discovered during the two intervening decades can be perceived as prophetic by believers, while skeptics think such facts were added prior to publication. For instance, the catalytic role that carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
plays in the sun's nuclear reactions is described in the book, though Hans Bethe
Hans Bethe
Hans Albrecht Bethe was a German-American nuclear physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. A versatile theoretical physicist, Bethe also made important contributions to quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, solid-state physics and...
's announcement of the discovery was not made until 1938.
The only apparent anticipation of science the book has made, in Gardner's opinion, is that it says the magnetic sense that homing pigeon
Homing pigeon
The homing pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeon derived from the Rock Pigeon selectively bred to find its way home over extremely long distances. The wild rock pigeon has an innate homing ability, meaning that it will generally return to its own nest and its own mate...
s possess is "not wholly wanting as a conscious possession by mankind". In 1980, a British zoologist, Robin Baker, published evidence that humans have a limited magnetic sense.
Mark McMenamin
Mark McMenamin
Mark McMenamin is a tenured professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College. His research is primarily focused on paleontology, particularly the Ediacaran biota....
, a professor of geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, quotes a section of the book describing a billion-year-old supercontinent that subsequently split apart, forming ocean basins where early marine life developed. He says, "This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually appear in the scientific literature until many decades later." McMenamin also states, "Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book."
Plagiarism allegations
The Urantia Book states in its Foreword that more than one thousand "human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings" were selected in preparing the papers. The authors say that they were required to "give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented" and would "resort to pure revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind."In recent years, students of the papers have found that the free use of other sources appears to be true. None of the material allegedly used from other sources is directly cited or referenced within the book.
In 1992, a reader of The Urantia Book, Matthew Block, self-published a paper that showed nineteen possible examples of The Urantia Book utilizing material published earlier. All of the source authors identified in Block's paper were published in English between 1905 and 1943 by U.S. publishers and are typically scholarly or academic works that contain concepts and wording similar to what is found in The Urantia Book. Block has since claimed to have discovered over 125 source books and articles, written by over 90 authors, which were incorporated into the papers.
The use of outside source materials was studied separately by Gardner and Gooch, and they concluded that the book did use many of the sources noted by Block. Gardner found that at least one of the source book authors was quoted in earlier works by Sadler, and most of the books purportedly would have been available to Sadler or Forum members in Chicago prior to 1955.
For instance, Gardner and Block note that Paper 85 appears to have been taken from the first eight chapters of Origin and Evolution of Religion by Edward Washburn Hopkins
Edward Washburn Hopkins
Edward Washburn Hopkins, Ph.D., LL.D. , American Sanskrit scholar, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts.He graduated at Columbia University in 1878, studied at Leipzig, where he received the degree of Ph.D...
, published by Yale University Press
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
in 1923. Each section of the paper corresponds to a chapter in the book, with several passages possibly used as direct material. Likewise, much of The Urantia Book material relating to the evolution of mankind appears to have been directly taken from Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. ForMemRS was an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenicist.-Early life and career:...
, Man Rises to Parnassus: Critical Epochs in the Prehistory of Man published by Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press
-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
in 1928.
In one example cited by Block, the original author discusses the periodicity of the chemical elements and concludes that the harmony in the construction of the atom suggests some unspecified plan of organization. The authors of The Urantia Book assert that this harmony is evidence of the intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
of the universe. W. F. G. Swann writes on page 64 of The Architecture of the Universe (italics indicate edits as compared to The Urantia Book, bolding indicates deletions):
Contrast with The Urantia Book
Block and many believers do not see the use of human source materials as plagiarism. Block writes:
Adherents
There is no way to gauge how many adherents there may be as there is no central organization to census. Informal study groups "tend to sprout, ripen, then vanish or splinter" and have not been counted reliably. Readers sometimes join study groups after reading on their own for years or decades, others join them soon after developing an interest in the book, while "for most, worship remains as individual as the act of reading." Disagreements over the legal ownership of the book, its interpretation, and the reception of new revelations have led to some splintering, though these disagreements appear to have been settled to the satisfaction of most adherents. The movement generally incorporates a nonsectarian view, contending that individuals with different religious backgrounds can receive the book's teachings as an enrichment rather than as a contradiction of their faiths.The book has been in print since 1955, but as compared to other religious or holy books that have a recent origin and revelatory claims, such as the Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement that adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2600 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr...
, popularity of The Urantia Book has not grown as fast. The small movement inspired by The Urantia Book has not developed clergy or institutions such as churches, reading rooms, or temples. As of 2006, the Urantia Foundation
Urantia Foundation
The Urantia Foundation is a Chicago-based non-profit that provides materials, promotes events, and provides guidance associated with The Urantia Book...
had one office in Chicago and five people on staff.
Sarah Lewis notes that, "The Urantia Revelation is not securing legitimacy through historically known and accepted means to any great degree, nor is it even using common language that would increase the likelihood of understanding and therefore acceptance. It introduces new concepts and a new language, and this does not make acceptance any easier." She assesses that the movement is uncontroversial compared to other ones, "lacking the zealous proselytizing found within many other groups", and that it is therefore likely to remain small and unaffected by opposing views.
Urantia Foundation advocated a "slow growth" policy in the past and had not significantly marketed the book. Sales by Urantia Foundation went from 7,000 in 1990 to 24,700 in 1997, and steadily increased to nearly 38,000 in 2000, an "upturn that seems to represent a genuine trend rather than just some spike on a sales chart", however by 2006 the foundation reported worldwide annual sales of 13,380 copies. Approximately half of the books distributed by Urantia Foundation are in languages other than English, particularly Spanish and Russian. Since the book was determined to be in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in 2001, other organizations, such as The Urantia Book Fellowship under the publishing name Uversa Press, have also published the book. Copies of The Urantia Book are on the Internet in various formats and it has been adapted to more recent platforms such as the Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
and the iPhone / iPod Touch App Store. Several audio books of the text are also on the Internet.
The International Urantia Association had twenty-six reader associations worldwide as of 2002, and the Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly the Urantia Brotherhood, founded in 1955 with Urantia Foundation as the original social fraternal organization of believers) claimed roughly twelve hundred official members, with the highest concentrations in the West of the United States and the Sun Belt
Sun Belt
The Sun Belt or Spanish Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest . Another rough boundary of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel, north latitude. It is the largest region which the U.S government does not recognize officially...
, especially California, Colorado, Florida, and Texas. It appears an increasing number of people are forming study groups, participating in Internet discussion groups, and hosting or visiting websites about it. Reader conferences take place around the world.
Symbols
Azure (color)
The color bleu de France is displayed at right.Bleu de France is a color that has been associated in heraldry with the Kings of France since the 12th century.-Brandeis blue:...
circles on a white background. The circles are said to have symbolized several trinity associations in the history of humankind. The authors of The Urantia Book indicate its revealed meaning as being "the infinity, eternity, and universality of the Paradise Trinity of divine maintenance and direction."
The Urantia Association International, one of the main readership organizations in the movement, has been licensed by Urantia Foundation to use the three azure concentric circles on a white background.
Popular culture
- Stevie Ray VaughanStevie Ray VaughanStephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
(1954–1990), American blues-rock guitarist: "Stevie often brought along the book of Urantia and read Lindi passages from the strange publication." - Robert VenosaRobert VenosaRobert Venosa was an American artist residing in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He studied with what are termed the New Masters. His artworks reside in collections around the world. -Life and works:...
, American artist-exhibited worldwide, represented in major collections, including noted museums, rock stars and European aristocracy: "As is obvious in my work, The Urantia Book is very present as a main source of inspiration. After my first reading of the book in 1968, I had a number of visions that, being an artist, I could only make manifest through painting." - Kerry LivgrenKerry LivgrenKerry Allen Livgren is an American musician and songwriter, best known as one of the founding members and primary songwriters for the 1970s progressive rock band, Kansas.-Biography:...
: The influence of the teachings of The Urantia Book can be felt in the lyrics of Kansas' 1979 album Monolith. - In the book Six Feet Under: Better Living through Death, an in-universe companion piece to the television series Six Feet Under, The Urantia Book is highlighted in a past correspondence held by one of the main characters.
- In the 1983 book Angels by Denis JohnsonDenis JohnsonDenis Hale Johnson is an American author who is known for his short-story collection Jesus' Son and his novel Tree of Smoke , which won the National Book Award. He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction.- Biography :...
, one character carries around The Urantia Book and prosyletizes to drug addicts. - Karlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
based his seven-opera cycle LichtLichtLicht , subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003. In total, the cycle contains over 29 hours of music.-Origin:...
on the cosmology of The Urantia Book.
External links
- Urantia Foundation the original publisher but now one of several
- The Urantia Book Historical Society